Friday, July 03, 2015

Digitizing Money For The Poor

I have an enormous interest in finance for the people at the very bottom. I think magical advances are possible. And there is also a lot of money to be made.


Exponential Finance: Who Will Be the Instagram or Uber of Finance?
Instagram was acquired for a billion dollars the same year Kodak went bankrupt. Though Kodak invented the digital camera behind Instagram’s business model—they failed to fully embrace it and paid the price. Uber is a five-year-old transportation company worth $40 billion, and they don't own a single car or bus. ....... relatively small organizations are rapidly rising up to take on big traditional players with little more than an app on a smartphone. So, what models are leading contenders to become the Instagram or Uber of finance? ..... As smartphones become ubiquitous in the developing world, it's possible many of the world’s unbanked billions in developing countries will skip traditional finance, a little like how they leapfrogged landlines for cell phones. ....... bank-free, digital cash will be a force to be reckoned with. ........ blockchain’s potential is massive—not just for cryptocurrencies, but anything of value. The same technology that records and confirms Bitcoin transactions can, in theory, do the same thing for “a will, a deed, a title, a license, intellectual property, an invention, or any type of financial instrument.” ...... Machines doing what machines do best, and humans doing what humans do best. Better together than either one alone. ...... By more fully digitizing finance (parts of it are, of course, already digitized), we can supercharge commerce and reduce the cost of doing business. ...... Even now, the digital camera market is shrinking as point-and-shoot cameras are replaced by smartphones. ...... Reality has surpassed science fiction.

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