What investment type received $1.4 BILLION in the past three years, boosts fintech growth, and alters your perception of money?
- Wireless DogCoins for geolocating your pets
- CryptoBricks, tiny, affordable gold bricks
- SMSChains, a revolutionary mobile texting service like chain letters…or
- Blockchain technologies.
If you guessed blockchain technologies, you just won .00000000001 in bitcoin. Blockchain, required for generating, sharing and maintaining digital “ledgers” of currency transactions received 50% of all FinTech VC funding in 2015.
I provide examples of fintech growth funding among large and smaller players later in the article. First, let’s define blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
According to Investopedia:
A blockchain is a public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions that have ever been executed. It is constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks are added to it… Each node (computer connected to the Bitcoin network…gets a copy of the blockchain, which gets downloaded automatically…[and] has complete information about the addresses and their balances….”
A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. A cryptocurrency is difficult to counterfeit because of this security feature…it is not issued by any central authority, rendering it theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.”
Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009…[It] offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority…There are no physical Bitcoins, only balances associated with public and private keys. These balances are kept on a public ledger, along with all Bitcoin transactions….”
You purchase Bitcoins on the Internet, set up a digital wallet, and buy things online, at retail, or keep them for investing. New uses for Bitcoins emerge daily. Watch the video for an informative, short explanation of consumer applications.
Fintech Growth Expansion
Despite the 2Q 2016 downturn in overall fintech investing, blockchain and bitcoin growth continues unabated in several sectors. Here are examples worth further study:
- Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Santander, per a BI Intelligence report, see blockchain technology investments leading to better risk management, cost control, compliance and new revenue generation. Goldman Sachs, in particular, invested $50M in Circle Internet Financial.
- African Banks will benefit from blockchain “transparency” through its distributed ledger
- Six Hong Kong firms represent multiple blockchain services from investment to remittance
- Coinify, a Danish-based Blockchain European company, recently received additional funding for its expansion
Resources
“The Fintech 2.0 Paper: Rebooting Financial Services” (Santander PDF)
Bitcoin Glossary
