The Fintech Blueprint

Latest Episodes:

Building a sovereign, privacy-first, programmable, economic infrastructure, with Anoma CEO Christopher Goes Mar 31, 2023

Show notes

Lex chats with Christopher Goes, co-founder of Anoma and Cryptium Labs. Initially, they explore the current centralized monetary system, how it disconnects from physical changes, and the need for technology to evolve with the complexity of our financial systems. Following this, they deep dive into the differences between privacy-preserving and data-obscuring technology, and how privacy is important for citizens, governments, and communities. Ethereum, Cosmos, and Anoma have a shared vision, but their approaches to blockchains and assets differ.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Anoma's website: https://bit.ly/3K26vOJ

Christopher's Twitter profile: https://bit.ly/3nzD8vK

Topics: Blockchain, crypto, security, privacy, protocol, zero knowledge proofs, control theory

Companies: Anoma, Cryptium Labs, Heliax, Tendermint, Zchain, Namada, Ethereum, Bitcoin

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’15”: Christopher’s foundational experiences & an in-depth into the background he needed to participate into some of his early experiences

9’11”: Control Theory: what a thermostat, the Fed funds rate and EIP-1559's gas price adjustment mechanism have in common

12’06”: Christopher’s early startup and founder experiences & identifying what is good or valuable about privacy

25’02”: The multichain vision between Ethereum, Cosmos, and Anoma, & their community’s differing opinions on the role of blockchains

32’12”: Expanding Eliezer Yudkowsky’s analogy of a map vs reality to the various ways culture influences technology and vice versa

39’25”: Introducing Anoma: What it is, the problem it is trying to solve, and the potential outcomes derived from its success

42’26”: Integrating into the Anoma ecosystem: what is the process for developers and projects, and what are the incentives driving them to so do?

44’00”: The role of zero-knowledge proofs in the protocol

44'40”: The steps Anoma are taking to grow the ecosystem, and the channels used to connect with Christopher & learn more about Anoma

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Predicting the market using a machine learning competition built on a decentralized science platform, with CrunchDAO CEO Arnaud Castillo Mar 24, 2023

Show notes

Lex chats with Arno Castillo, founder and CEO of CrunchDAO. CrunchDAO is a research team of data scientists and quants that leverage the power of collective intelligence and Web3 to produce and sell next-generation predictive financial insights. In the discussion, Lex and Arnaud touch on decentralized asset management, data science, building portfolios, and web3 organizations. Arnaud shares his background in finance, including his experience working at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank, as well as his work in consulting and entrepreneurship. Arnaud explaines how CrunchDAO has developed a framework called the design framework to address the challenges of using machine learning in financial markets. The framework is designed to share their research and data sets with others in the industry, allowing for collaboration and feedback.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

CrunchDAO's website: https://bit.ly/3z60sDU

Arnaud's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/40cWrJS

Topics: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, DAO, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Blockchain, Web3

Companies: CrunchDAO, Numerai, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’25”: Arnaud’s background in finance & experience working at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank

5’06”: Learning the concept of Economic Value Add (EVA) and its connection to DAOs & DAO Networks

9’15”: What it means to be a DAO stakeholder & the agency issues around management in a corporation versus the public goods inside of a DAO

15’17”: The role of a CEO/Business Leader & how this changes when applied to a DAO

18’35”: Identifying business opportunities in fairly technical, difficult, innovative markets & immersion into the machine learning fintech space

23’42”: CrunchDAO: What it does, the problem it solves for, and the architecture of the technology involved relating to the user experience

28’40”: Comparison of CrunchDAO to Numerai (developer competition-based hedge fund) & the evolution of decentralized asset management in capital markets

36’22”: Machine learning challenges in financial markets & CrunchDAO’s framework for sharing their research and datasets

38'26”: Channels to use to connect with Arnaud & learn more about CrunchDAO

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Diving into Ethereum Restaking and DeFi, with Calvin Liu Chief Strategy Officer of EigenLayer Mar 17, 2023

Show notes

Lex chats with Calvin Liu, the Chief Strategy Officer at EigenLayer, about his journey in investment banking, working for a financial regulations consulting firm, and transitioning to entrepreneurship. Calvin delves deep into the inner workings of EigenLayer, a restaking protocol for Ethereum, and the importance of focus, incentives, and integration in the crypto industry. Additionally, they discuss the early days of crypto lending protocol, Compound and working for Robert Leshner (Compound's founder), as well as, how this inspired working with purpose and immense focus. Calvin even touches on some exciting upcoming launches for EigenLayer.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

EigenLayer's website: https://bit.ly/3LxwS1x

Calvin's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/40aGSSm

Topics: staking, restaking, defi, cryptocurrency, blockchain, crypto lending, validators

Companies: EigenLayer, Ethereum, Compound, Rocketpool, Lido, MakerDAO

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’29”: Calvin’s foundational experiences, how he got pulled into investment banking, and how he integrates philosophy into economics

7’21”: The journey of moving from investment banking to consulting and finally entrepreneurship

14’30”: Becoming a crypto enthusiast - joining DeFi lender Compound and how the company has evolved from its genesis value proposition

21’25”: Some of the “forks in the road” for Compound over these periods of evolution and how they were addressed

28’14”: EigenLayer - what it is, how does it work, what makes it unique, and what it means to stake and restake crypto

34’10”: What it is about Ethereum that makes staking so powerful in this network in particular

36’17”: The future evolution of EigenLayer and the influences of network upgrades like Ethereum’s Shanghai, as well as any other influential variables

38’53”: The tension between building the best and most secure protocol security vs creating speculative assets that generate quick returns

42’57”: Understanding the systemic risk in crypto networks and the possibility of cascading effects from network attacks

44'50”: Channels to use to connect with Calvin & learn more about EigenLayer

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Reinventing the credit card as a Fintech super app Mar 10, 2023

Show notes

Lex chats with Siddharth Batra, Co-founder at X1 Card, about his experience in technology and software development. X1 is a FinTech company that has created a smart credit card and has become one of the top 100 credit cards in the US with a waitlist of 600,000 people. Together, they discuss how Sid has articulated his consumer product building learnings from his experience as head of engineering at Twitter to revolutionise the traditional credit card into a B2C financial super app. Touching on X1's growth strategy and how it is focused on a consumer product approach rather than traditional marketing techniques. This has allowed them to have a 10x better referral rate than traditional credit cards.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

X1's website: https://bit.ly/3J9w404

Sid's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ywr6Wh

Topics: Fintech, paytech, artificial intelligence, consumer, credit, b2c, pfm

Companies: X1, Twitter, Venmo, Apple, Robinhood

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’36”: Sid’s foundational experiences in technology & what laid the groundwork for his career

8’49”: Using Stanford and network thereof as the launchpad to becoming a startup founder

11’52”: Joining Twitter and learning about consumer behaviour and consumer’s relationship with social media content

15’43”: How building consumer products at Twitter formed the basis for the articulation towards Fintech

17’13”: X1 - what it is, how it started, what is a smart card, what is the software that differentiates it from competitors and the volume growth since its inception

25’38”: X1’s feature set, issuing bank, its underlying regulatory structure, and the underwriting credit policy for users

29’02”: X1’s economics and the crucial component to X1’s success vs the likes of Apple Card

33’21”: The winning formula - creating a step function better product for X1’s prime audience and then offering rich feature sets

37’10”: X1’s long term ambitions and why they are positioned better relative to other Fintechs in the market

42’13”: Channels to use to connect with Sid & learn more about X1

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Modern spend management systems for CFOs and employees, with Payhawk CEO Hristo Borisov Mar 03, 2023

Show notes

Lex interviews Hristo Borisov, CEO and co-founder of Payhawk, a leader in B2B payments and expense management. Together, they discuss the evolution of product development, from mobile apps to platforms that solve customer problems. Touching on the 2017 trend of chatbots and the practical uses of this technology today via ChatGPT. Additionally, Hristo expands on the company he founded in 2018 - Payhawk, a Fintech company that automates financial functions for businesses, highlighting the importance of understanding customer problems and iterating solutions to validate and prototype them.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Payhawk's website: https://bit.ly/3ZjfCRM

Hristo's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ETjWiv

Topics: fintech, payments, credit, ERP, SaaS, cloud, AI, platform, API, financial ecosystem, chatbots

Companies: Payhawk, Telerik, Progress Software, DarwinAI, Progress NativeChat, Brex, Ramp, ChatGPT

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’28”: Hristo’s foundational experiences in technology & how he became a founder

4’03”: Telerik - A successful launchpad for entrepreneurs & startups

7’47”: Building a platform vs building a point solution & building for developers (customer segment)

12’35”: Building a system that generates chatbots - the experience, the motivations, and the outcome

19’10”: Payhawk - the idea, the execution, the main functions, how much money they have raised and what it is used for

24’44”: Payhawk’s customers - the types of customer, the engagement strategy, the go-to-market strategy, and your evolved approach to developers

29’12”: The journey of evolving the product/feature set to becoming the financial ecosystem for the CFO

34’04”: The adjacency of the software product and the underlying financial product & thinking about growth from a global vs regional perspective

39’04”: Channels to use to connect with Hristo & Payhawk

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

How DAOs and Web3 organizations scale financial operations, with Utopia Labs CEO Kaito Cunningham Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

Lex interviews Kaito Cunningham, Co-founder and CEO of Utopia Labs, the modern system for managing contributor payments, expenses, and more for your DAO, supported by communities such as FWB, Sushiswap, and PleasrDao. Together, they touch on what a DAO really is and how the theoretical concept has evolved over time. The true benefits of transparency and verification have not been brought to fruition, and its Kaito's mission to do that with Utopia Labs, bringing true DAO tooling to the next generation of online labour. Lex and Kaito talk about the philosophy behind governance, voting, and community capitalism, as well as, how Utopia Labs have nurtured the journey of fundraising and leveraging the best value from their investors.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Utopia Labs' website: https://bit.ly/3lYVfdH

Kaito's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ItjhFo

Topics: Web3, Defi, blockchain, DAO, decentralized autonomous organizations, voting, governance

Companies: Utopia Labs, Lido.fi, Metropolis, MakerDAO

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’18”: Kaito’s founder journey - entering the Web3 space and his learnings from failed startups and content creation on social media

6’07”: Finding Utopia Labs’ CTO on LinkedIn & how an interest in Web3 evolved to a focus in DAOs

9’38”: An intro to DAOs - What they are? How they differ? What they are for? and some compelling examples

17’19”: The concept of Liquid Labor in the context of DAOs & characterizing the last six months of governance structure evolution

26’51”: The future of governance - Breaking down the idea of voting driven by identity and the individual human and democracy rather than by financial holding

29’47”: Utopia Labs - The evolution of its purpose, Kaito’s journey to date, and who the main clients are that are utilizing Utopia Labs’ tools?

34’43”: The process of fundraising and financing the company to date & building relationships with investors

38’42”: Channels to use to connect with Kaito & learn more about Utopia Labs

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Integrating smartphone behavioural data to manage credit risk and fraud, with Credolab CSO Michele Tucci Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

Lex interviews Michele Tucci, the Managing Director in North and Latin America and Chief Strategy Officer of CredoLab, the largest developer of bank-grade digital credit risk scorecards based on mobile device data. Together, they touch on digital banking, digital credit, as well as the intersection between financial services, telecoms, and technology more.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Credolab's website: https://bit.ly/2XBhDgk

Michele's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3KfeHwU

Topics: Fintech, payments, alternative data, AI, artificial intelligence, behavioural modelling, credit risk, fraud, GDPR

Companies: Credolab, Capital One, Mastercard, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, Trans Union

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’32”: Michele’s foundational experiences & the core proponent to his entrepreneurship

2’43”: The behavioural influences between credit cards in America vs Europe & the data landscape in the early 2000s

8’51”: The role of Mastercard in Michele’s journey & how issuers thought about the role of payment rails on the customer journey

16’19”: How data spoke to the human nuances around financial behaviour

20’48”: The evolution of how different players created financial networks in different geographies

24’09”: Credolab - the core problem it solves for & where it is today

32’50”: How Credolab uses pattern-recognition to develop user personas to inevitably inform risk profiles

36’53”: The development of extracting insights from digital footprints of users & how this results in sophisticated AI algorithms that banks compete for

39’54”: Channels to use to connect with Michele & learn more about Credolab

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Creating a B2C fintech marketing strategy Feb 10, 2023

Show notes

Lex Sokolin continues his Build It Series, focusing on the differences between B2C and B2B strategies, and on the implementations of some foundational marketing principles. He discusses branding and the two ways of doing it right. Then he dives into the various programs that can be implemented to generate demand, from content, to social media, to paid acquisition. Finally, he touches on the importance of CAC and LTV, in particular during a year like 2023.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Fintech Blueprint's Website: https://bit.ly/3IcO9eq

Fintech Blueprint's Archive: https://bit.ly/3XlSGiX

Topics: marketing, strategy, economics, fintech

Companies: Betterment, Mint, FutureAdvisor, LendingClub, Coinbase, Softbank

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

2’04”: Recap of first edition - looking at markets and figuring out the shape of demand

3’12”: Why B2C Fintechs are one of the brightest signals of the transformation of the distribution of financial products

10’03”: Brand - why Brand matters in Fintech more so than ever before

20’04”: Marketing Programs - Building brands vs. quantitative marketing funnels

28’04”: Cost of Customer Acquisition and Lifetime Value - Blitzscaling vs organic growth

27’45”: Automation of the CFO stack vs Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)

37’50”: Conclusion - closing remarks & overview

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Software contracts and composability unlocking economic growth, with Agoric CEO Dean Tribble Feb 03, 2023

Show notes

Lex interviews Dean Tribble, co-founder and CEO of Agoric. Agoric is a Proof-of-Stake chain utilizing secure JavaScript smart contracts to rapidly build and deploy DeFi, comprised of a team who are experts in smart contracts. Agoric was founded on open-source principles which look to build a public economy. Dean is considered a technical genius and a long-time developer around blockchain, smart contracts, as well as a number of other technology initiatives

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Agoric's website: https://bit.ly/3DGKuTw

CEO's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3judFCd

Topics: DeFi, artificial intelligence, blockchain, web3, smart contract, javascript, dapps

Companies: Agoric, Xanadu, ARPANET, Ethereum, Cosmos, Agorics, Inter.trade

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’28”: Dean’s professional DNA - his motivations, profound experiences, and the journey

3’49”: Early distributed systems - what they are, their evolution, and how they inspired the foundations for the internet/Web that we know today

8’10”: Witnessing the evolution of the internet and how the vision, futurism, and ideals warped over time

16’12”: The relationship between the legal symptoms of society trying to figure out what to do vs what’s actually going on

19’34”: Early forms of smart contracts, designing large scale e-commerce infrastructure, and distributed systems

24’07”: Addressing the idea of building an abstraction/pattern/framework embedded in software and layers in neural networks/AI models

28’07”: Agoric: What it is, what it does, and where it is positioned relative to other Web3 ecosystems

34’02”: The Cosmos ecosystem, what it means to be “multichain”, and the protocol Agoric are in the process of building

38’14”: What composable DeFi means and what the hardened DeFi primitives are that Agoric is providing

43’30”: Channels to use to connect with Dean & learn more about Agoric

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Powering the AI revolution from DeepDream to Dall-E, with Lambda Labs CEO Stephen Balaban Jan 27, 2023

Show notes

Lex interviews Stephen Balavan, the CEO of Lambda Labs, a company that provides GPU servers, workstations and cloud services for training neural networks. Stephen talks about his background in computer science, economics, and deep learning, and how his interest in AI began with reading Neuromancer by William Gibson. He discusses the history of AI research, the concept of perceptron, and the breakthrough of deep learning in 2012-2014 that enabled machines to recognize and categorize images better than humans. Stephen also talks about working for Perceptio - which started as an API for face recognition, and and later was acquired by Apple.

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

Lambda's website: https://bit.ly/3j6nOVI

CEO's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3HAYhNv

Topics: fintech, artificial intelligence, neural networks, deep learning, generative AI

Companies: Lambda, Perceptio, Prisma, Apple, ChatGPT, Dall-E, Google, DeepDream, Dreamscope

ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2

🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV

👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin

TIMESTAMPS

1’48”: Stephen’s academic training and how it formed a foundation for his career trajectory

7’17”: The history of facial recognition AI, what a perceptron is, how it fails, and the architecture thereof

11’59”: Deep neural networks advancing facial recognition progress and the social credit score dystopia in China

17’45”: Define DeepDream and deep style - Neural network reverse engineering perceptions, visualisations and hallucinations

22’34”: From DeepDream to Dream Scope (web app) to accelerate image accuracy, and addressing the competition: Prisma’s Lensa

27’38”: The advances in the AI math that are responsible for the step-change in progress resulting in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, for example

31’53”: Lambda - how the company started, how the perceptions around consumable AI have changed, and the progress thusfar

36’42”: Lambda’s ability to evolve given the current heightened demand, and the future of the market

39’32”: What the future looks like with AI embedded into our everyday lives

41’38”: Channels to use to connect with Stephen & learn more about Lambda

Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella

Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

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