An idea whos time has come
An idea whose time has come
“Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come”.
I recently spent a few hours as a guest in one of the most beautiful homes in Naples, Florida , enjoying a conversation with my new friend (and hopefully future advisor) — let’s call him Jake. Jake has an exceptional track record in closed-end funds and is quite savvy. During our conversation, I was quite carried away by my natural urge to analyse things people take for granted.
When Jake said “I own this estate” I asked myself .. “does he really own it?”
Although of course he owns his estate, maybe the reality is a bit different when studied with a more nuanced lens. A beautiful house worth four to five million dollars in Naples, Florida comes with an average of 120K in taxes.
But 120K of yearly rent in a country like Greece gets you access to the most beautiful, luxurious and private waterfront residence of Athens.
At the same time , besides the property tax, these homes are usually financed with a loan. The total cost of “owning” the property can be significantly higher.
Ultimately, I believe that not one of the property owners in Naples, and everywhere else in the western world for that matter, are really the owners of any real estate — in the true sense of the word. This “ownership” is merely a partnership between three parties — the perceived owner who pays for everything, the government and the banks who just get paid.
How is this ownership?
However… having your tokens in your own ledger on a public chain that’s unbreakable and immutable — now that is ownership, or “It is yours only if it’s in your blockchain wallet” as one of my close friends and son of my business mentor would put it.
Back to the beautiful Naples hacienda — my friend Jake just 20 or 50 years ago would have had to work in Naples if he wanted to live there. Post COVID this idea seems quaint and passee. You can work just as effectively in Naples Florida, Athens Greece or even Nouadhbiou, Mauritania with just an internet connection and cloud access for most jobs.
While the whole world reevaluates the whole concept of ownership, financial titans like Credit Suisse collapse and two of my most preferred U.S banks , Signature NY and Silicon Valley Bank go belly up, creating an extremely negative economic climate
What is happening?
Is the banking system falling into chaos?
Is the banking crisis paving the way for a huge crypto rally?
Is ownership finally being conceptualized as only true and valid when attested to on a public, decentralized, permissionless, censorship resistant blockchain?
Is Bitcoin a lifetime investing opportunity for someone who can handle the volatility as Cathy Wood says?
Is this the end of the world as we know it?
Well , I am not quite the expert to answer some of these questions but I can definitely say that this is neither the end of the world as we know it nor the end of the banking system. But maybe a big change is coming…
Having lived through many financial crises and having had the experience of closely monitoring the Greek bond crisis and economic mess that followed the default of Greek bonds I feel very confident in saying that there absolutely is a case for a bankruptcy of any big institution or even sovereign country leading to chaos or even a change in the banking or the financial system.
But if one spends some time reflecting on the financial systems designed by humans then one can easily understand what leads to a real change in status quo.
This is very simple and it is technology.
Back in school, I remember watching Max Goff, one of the first Java Evangelists, proclaiming that” if there is hope in humanity then it is in software” and I can’t but almost agree , two and a half decades after my first school degrees.
But I would be more specific — if there is hope in the financial and banking world then it is in the blockchain.
Just like the internet changed the way banks operated the last 30 years, the blockchain in the years to come will change the way the banking system operates.
And this is why Nexum is such a great idea. Because it takes decentralized industries like shipping and oil , with huge volumes of financial activity, and adopts them to the blockchain with all its benefits of efficiency, transparency and auditability of ownership — a model for the way business will be conducted in the years to come.
And it does so, with full respect and in line with any regulatory framework and any existing financing institutions in the space — focusing only on adding value into the ecosystem.
But this is neither one man’s mission nor one season’s deliverable. It takes teamwork and time to develop this.
But I can now confidently say that this idea, whose time has come, is being executed by great people and an expanding ecosystem. Expanding in every possible way with the right people and partnerships not only in the shipping and technology world but also in the trading and cryptocurrency world.
Many distinguished family offices, would like to commit funds on NEXUM USDC staking mechanism that’s coming up soon but don’t know how to trade USD for USDC or USDT or other stable coins.
Many bunker traders or ecosystem participants or just blockchain visionary people want to get NEXM but don’t know how, or don’t know the best way possible to do it.
These, and many more needs related to trading and liquidity of the utility token of NEXM and other tokens that would be useful within the Nexum ecosystem like USDT, or USDC or even maybe later like BTC led the NEXUM foundation to introduce to the public today the NEXUM Trading and OTC Desk.
And this Trading and OTC desk is operated by a great partnership.
The operators of the NEXUM Trading Desk, Fintellis — a crypto fund and fintech out of BVI — join the NEXUM Ecosystem aligning with the same business principles and ideas and bringing on board not just over 50 years of experience trading both spot and derivatives professionally on the CME and US and foreign equity markets, not just the experience in building the first Wall Street ETF arbitrage system , not just expertise in automated high frequency trading and quantitative algorithmic strategies, not just years market making on the trading floor of the CME, managing hundreds of millions of dollars in risk…
They bring with them a team of high quality software engineers experienced in building mission critical systems, blockchain developers well versed in the intricacies of blockchain software development , data scientists with patents used today by Google and Facebook and top notch liquidity management and automated trading software tools.
And many more great people will follow in the months to come , making up the stellar Nexum team.
It seems now is not the time to wait for the end of the world to come, but rather preparing for an idea whose time has come. The right people, with aligned values and focus are now turning an idea whos time has come into a reality.
And nothing is more powerful than that
