Fintech Enroute: This Week’s Industry News
Global Finclusion: M-Pesa’s Deal with Western Union
Fintech’s favorite buzzword “finclusion” has been put to the test this week in Kenya, where M-Pesa, the country’s incredibly successful mobile money transferring and microfinancing service, signed a deal with Western Union.
Critical to the deal is M-Pesa’s ambition to penetrate the Indian market, an effort which has previously been unsuccessful due to the tricky regulatory landscape in India. While the exact amount of the deal has remained undisclosed, the driving force behind it has been M-Pesa’s desire to offer cross-continental mobile money transfers.
Why does this matter? Not only does this serve as evidence that a wave of African corporations and ventures are going to start dominating the global market, as predicted by many scholars, but it also paints a hopeful future for microfinance and its positive implications in Africa and Asia.
Read more here:
The Hard Fork: A Bad Week for Bitcoin
This week was certainly not a great one for crypto owners, especially those who have Bitcoins in their wallets. For the first time in a year, the currency plummeted below its $100 billion market cap and $6000 price level. Not only did this upset Bitcoin owners, but owners of other currencies, namely Cardano, Litecoin, and Ripple, were also adversely affected by the crash.
One theory for the crash has been Bitcoin Cash’s recent announcement to split the currency into two different chains. This “hard fork” splits the currency onto two different blockchains, differing in protocol. Many have cited the fork as the cause for market uncertainty.
What does this mean for crypto owners? Is the market simply exhibiting volatility, or has the crypto wave really outridden its wave? Only time will tell.
Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/15/bitcoin-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/
DIY Crypto Mining
Ever wondered what it’s like to mine a cryptocurrency? Tinder’s chief product officer Brian Norgard certainly has. Upon his announcement to leave Tinder, Norgard revealed his investment in Coinmine, the cryptocurrency startup bringing mining to the market as an “everyman device”.
The Coinmine One will sell for $799 and will have the capacity to generate Ether, Monero, and Zcash. Using the same amount of power as a Playstation 3, Coinmine One prides itself on its high degree of user-friendliness and its accompanying Android and iOS apps, through which users can easily monitor their earnings.
One threat that could arise out of widespread adoption of mining devices such as Coinmine One is that the more people mine a coin, the less lucrative each subsequent mine will be. Nevertheless, miners — specifically those in the Coinmine team — believe that “more miners mean more value for what miners do earn”. A hopeful future for Coinmine, then!
Read more here:
https://www.coindesk.com/the-799-coinmine-one-will-look-like-an-xbox-and-mint-crypto-money
Crypto Woes Make Trouble For A Formerly Hot Stock
Chipmaker Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) shares fell by 18% to a 52-week low today. Executives at the well-known chipmaker cited a steep drop in demand for their gaming cards or GPUs that have recently been used almost exclusively by individuals to mine cryptocurrencies for a profit. Recent drops in the value of major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether have made mining unprofitable for many individual miners and, as a result, made demand for Nvidia’s gaming cards plummet.
This price move is particularly interesting because Nvidia is not readily associated with blockchain technology. Most investors see the chipmaker as a way to speculate on autonomous vehicles or artificial intelligence, not the value of cryptocurrencies. Most see the company as a broad tech play, but that view might change after this week.
However, some outlooks on the company’s future growth have not been dimmed by the exposure of this vulnerability. Citi is maintaining a bullish view of the company, citing strong underlying growth in the company’s gaming, data center, and automobile businesses.
Read more here : https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/16/nvidia-nurses-crypto-hangover-as-demand-for-mining-chips-evaporates.html
