Paul Schulte, Advisor, Banking and Financial Services
August 22nd, 2019
Paul Schulte is the Founder and Managing Editor of Shulte Research based in Singapore. Paul's roles[...]
Tencent launches new blockchain game merging concepts behind Pokémon Go and CryptoKitties
South China Morning Post | Zheping Huang | Apr 13, 2019
The world’s biggest gaming market is finally getting a taste of Pokémon Go and CryptoKitties.
Not the original versions but a new title that merges concepts underlying the two games into one, produced by Chinese gaming giant Tencent.
The Shenzhen-based company on Thursday launched its long anticipated augmented reality (AR) game called Let’s Hunt Monsters, where users can cruise around streets and catch hundreds of virtual monsters, while rearing and trading millions of digital kittens stored on a blockchain. That essentially combines what Pokémon Go and CryptoKitties are known for.
Launched about three years ago, Pokémon Go is the most successful mobile title in the Pokémon franchise, with an estimated US$2.5 billion in total revenue, according to data from Sensor Tower. CryptoKitties, meanwhile, is the first viral blockchain game, which upon its release in late 2017 jammed up the ethereum network where it is based with players spending millions of US dollars trading cartoon kittens.
See:
SLT Launch New Blockchain eSports Platform
Ep27-Mar 1: Blockchain Gaming and Esports with Shidan Gouran
Both titles have had little or no exposure in China. Pokémon Go’s location-based gameplay is dependent on Google Maps, which is banned in the country. As for CryptoKitties, players essentially need to get ether – the world’s second biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin – to trade those digital cats, and there is no easy way to do that in China after the government banned cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017.
As of Friday, Let’s Hunt Monsters ranked as the most downloaded free game on China’s iOS App Store, beating in-demand titles like PUBG Mobile and Honour of Kings.
Much like in Pokémon Go, players of Tencent’s new game can flick a ball on their screens to capture virtual creatures while exploring real-world locations – only the monsters in this case are not Pikachus but mythological beasts like dragons and phoenixes. In a separate feature, players will get to summon digital kittens that they can trade with other players on Tencent’s own blockchain platform – in return for in-game credits rather than real money.
Tencent could use Let’s Hunt Monsters as a much needed helping hand to boost its gaming revenue while the company is still waiting for government approvals to monetise two smash-hit shooter games, PUBG and Fortnite.
Continue to the full article --> here
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Bitcoin Market Journal | Evan Karnoupakis | Aug 19, 2019 Satoshi Nakamoto—A Japanese name conveying “wisdom” and being of “central origin.” What if that name was meant to conceal the true origins of bitcoin and blockchain technology? After all, Americans are notorious for confusing differences amongst Asian cultures. If you take the first and last letters of both the first and last names, you get S-I-N-O, meaning “of or related to China.” This may seem like quite a stretch until you recognize the dominant position of China in the Blockchain World. Consider that China: Controls 72 percent of bitcoin mining power. Owns two-thirds of blockchain patents, while having applied for 48 percent of blockchain patents compared to only 21 percent by the United States. Has a national policy that supports blockchain initiatives and has included blockchain in its current 5-year plan. Is the home of 25 percent of all new blockchain projects (according to Blockdata). Is the largest fintech market in the world, accounting for 46 percent of all fintech, and is home to four of the world’s ten largest fintechs. How could China have invented blockchain? After all, China doesn’t innovate; all they do is copy. Right? Wrong. First, ...
Read More
Fortunly | Biljana Nikolovski | Aug 23, 2019 The figure of home-ownership in Canada is one of the highest in the world, even though the number of people who own residential property in the country slightly dipped from 69% in 2011 to 67.8% in 2016. But, the portion of the Great White North’s population with debt repayment woes has been increasing at an alarming rate. In fact, a 2018 report revealed that 19% of seniors still have an unpaid mortgage. As a result, 20% of Canadians continue to work well into their golden years. Certainly, a basket of solutions is necessary to help ensure that mortgages in Canada run their course, allowing homeowners to be free and clear come retirement. Fortunately, fintech solutions are here to the rescue. According to Fortunly, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and decentralized finance (DeFi) are some of the newest innovative models with great potential to help more Canadians, including seniors, reduce their overall cost of borrowing and to better manage debt repayment. P2P lending enables an individual to borrow money from another individual and it allows both parties to seamlessly interact with one another through a digital platform. This is beginning to invade the mortgage space ...
Read More
NCFA Canada | Aug 9, 2019 JOIN US ON A STORYTELLING JOURNEY EVERY FRIDAY. Aug 23: Techfins with Michael R. King, PhD CFA EP36 GUEST: MICHAEL R. KING, PhD CFA, Lansdowne Chair in Finance, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, (Linkedin) HOST: Manseeb Khan, Fintech Friday's show host BIO: Professor Michael R. King is the Lansdowne Chair in Finance at University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business. Prior to joining UVic, he held the Tangerine Chair in Finance at Western University’s Ivey Business School (2011-2019), where he co-founded Canada’s first FinTech research centre (the Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab). Before joining academia, he worked in investment banking in Zurich, New York and London from 1990-1998 (Credit Suisse, RBC Dominion Securities) and central banking in Ottawa and Basel from 2001-2011 (Bank of Canada, Bank for International Settlements). Michael completed his PhD at the London School of Economics in 2001 and his CFA designation in 1999. He has taught finance to undergraduates, MBAs and executives. His research focuses on FinTech, banking, international financial markets, and corporate finance. About this episode: On this episode of NCFA's Fintech Friday's Podcast, our host Manseeb Khan sits down with Prof. Michael R. King PhD CFA, Lansdowne Chair ...
Read More
About NCFA Canada | C. Asano | August 23, 2019 TORONTO, Aug 23, 2019 – The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA) today announced that Paul Schulte, Founder and Managing Editor of Shulte Research in Singapore, has joined the Association`s international Advisory Board to advise in the areas of Banking and Financial Services (profile). Paul's roles in banking & financial services in the past 30 years include equity & fixed income research (buy & sell sides) in emerging markets. In recent years, technology has evolved rapidly to challenge all facets of financial services his core belief is: Liquidity & credit are everything; get bank liquidity & solvency right and the rest follows. Aside from being the founder & editor of Schulte Research, he has taught for 18 years IN MBA programs: Tufts, HK UST, HKU, LMU Hilton School in LA & SUSS in Singapore. He has also worked for the Number 1 investment bank from Switzerland, US, UK, Japan, PRC & Holland starting in 1990. Paul has been a source for the WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, Nikkei, FT, Economist, Barron’s & Forbes. His clients include some of the largest sovereign, pension, mutual and hedge funds globally. He served as ...
Read More
Schulte Research | Paul Shulte | Aug 21, 2019 China is barreling forward on reforms and rolling out the crypto currency. It will be the first central bank to do so. This will give added momentum to Libra. Libra could become a new anchor market for global IPOs. Take this seriously. Join if you can. I’m pretty sure I’m right that it has backing from the very top of the US govt. 1. Cryptocurrency — The China coin is due to be rolled out in November. I hear that the distribution of the coin will be limited to 7 players: The big banks: CCB, ICBC, BOC, ABC. Alibaba and Tencent. Positive momentum,,, Union Pay. Interesting — to keep this alive. All others will be secondary. The PBOC head did on SUnday make an explicit reference to Libra. As I suspected, China rightly sees Libra as a challenge to China’s early commanding lead in e commerce and payments in all of Asia and through the Silk Road. It clearly is. Interestingly, HSBC and Stan Chart are cut out. No foreign banks in the consortium. No foreign firms in Libra (except, weirdly, Mercato Libra from Arge). 2. China ...
Read More
NCFA Canada | Craig Asano | Aug 20, 2019 TORONTO, ON Aug 20, 2019 The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA) is pleased to announce that the Exponential Group (Exponential Ventures, Exponential Capital and Exponential Markets) has joined NCFA as an industry partner. NCFA's industry partners are builders, investors and innovators who have provided a significant level of service and/or contribution towards the sustainability and growth of NCFA and related fintech sectors globally. We encourage the fintech ecosystem to support and collaborate with NCFA's global network of industry partners by engaging directly with their ventures of mutual interest. "Since founding NCFA in the summer of 2012, one of it's core missions has been working with communities of change that are passionate about enabling inclusive opportunities for 'big vision' companies seeking to change the world but need access to capital and resources to innovate competitive products and services that otherwise may not exist. These companies often focus on new economies of scale that look beyond 'for profit' models alone. Supporting and leading this change by developing new infrastructure and partnerships while leveraging new technologies can be a beacon of light resulting in massive transformation and change." - Craig Asano, ...
Read More
MIT Technology Review | Mike Orcutt | Aug 15, 2019 Complying with regulators could mean the difference between going mainstream and remaining forever on the margins of the global financial system. One of the biggest knocks against cryptocurrency has always been its status as a refuge for tech-savvy criminals. Even as some bigger players—particularly exchanges that handle many billions of dollars in crypto-wealth each day—have gone out of their way to play nice with regulators, the image persists, in part because some crypto firms have evaded regulators by moving to jurisdictions that are less strict. But the end of the lawless era may be nigh. A new set of global anti-money-laundering rules aimed at cryptocurrency exchanges has been handed down by the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental organization that sets standards for policing money laundering and terrorist financing. The rules, which call on exchanges to share personal information about their users with each other, are controversial. Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts think the privacy that drew them to the technology could evaporate. On the other hand, complying with the rules is likely to make the industry more attractive to mainstream financial institutions and users. In other words, cha-ching. See: A Global ...
Read More
Pryor Cashman | Jeffrey Alberts and Dustin N. Nofziger | Aug 13, 2019 The Federal Reserve Board has announced plans to develop a real-time payment service that should appeal to FinTech companies and community banks. The Board announced last Monday that it will develop a new round-the-clock real time payment and settlement service to support faster payments in the United States. This new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service, which will be known as the "FedNow Service," is anticipated to be available in 2023 or 2024. The Board is currently soliciting comments on all aspects of the proposed service in order to finalize its design and features. The Board's intention to operate a RTGS service is a win for community banks and FinTech companies, although it may threaten those FinTechs with business models centered around providing real time payments. The Board's plans were not developed in a vacuum. The Clearing House (TCH), which is owned by 30 of the world's largest commercial banks, previously rolled out a RTGS system known as the "RTP network" in November 2017 – some six years before the Board anticipates that its FedNow Service may first become available. The RTP network reportedly cost over $1 billion ...
Read More
Forbes | Ron Shevlin | July 1, 2019 OBSERVATIONS FROM THE FINTECH SNARK TANK A Seeking Alpha article titled Why Fintech May Not Be Fit For Public Consumption states: The year 2019 seems set to be a record-setting one for venture capitalist exit value capture by means of tech IPOs. But fintech doesn't seem to be a part of this picture. VCs are certainly putting money into fintech startups. There were 170 financings in the US in the first quarter of 2019. But, as Pitchbook says, 'not one of the most valuable fintech companies in the world seems particularly close to an offering.' " The article chalks this up to three primary causes: 1. Poor IPO performance in 2018. According to the article, "One reason nobody is in a hurry to go public is that the results of the last crop of fintech concerns that did go public have been unimpressive. Adyen and IntegraFin are prospering, but neither GreenSky nor EverQuote is "lighting up the heavens" according to Seeking Alpha. See: OurCrowd Double IPO Success Provides Crowdfunding Validation 2. Mega-round financing. Seeking Alpha postulates that investor interest in mega-rounds--e.g., Qatar Investment Authority's investment of $500 million in SoFi and Tiger Capital leading a round that raised $300 ...
Read More
CNBC | Kate Rooney | Aug 12, 2019 Money spent in venture capital and other alternative investments is surging as investors look for riskier, but higher-yielding investments. The trend coincides with relatively low returns from more conventional Wall Street investments such as stocks and bonds, and a drop in the number of publicly traded companies. “In a world where big institutional investors find themselves starved for returns, it’s not surprising that they have steadily increased allocations to private markets and you’ve seen capital continuing to flow into the asset class,” says McKinsey Partner Bryce Klempner. Many global investors are turning toward Silicon Valley instead of Wall Street in search of returns. The total invested in private markets hit all-time highs last year and continues to break multi-decade records this year. In the first half of the year, total investments in venture capital hit a 19-year high of $53.3 billion, according to data from Refinitiv published last week. That marked a 21% increase by total dollar amount compared to the first half of 2018. See: $5 million Equity crowdfunding extended to private companies The steady stream of funding comes alongside a drop in the number of publicly listed companies, rock-bottom global ...
Read More
Bitcoin Market Journal | Evan Karnoupakis | Aug 19, 2019 Satoshi Nakamoto—A Japanese name conveying “wisdom” and being of “central origin.” What if that name was meant to conceal the true origins of bitcoin and blockchain technology? After all, Americans are notorious for confusing differences amongst Asian cultures. If you take the first and last letters of both the first and last names, you get S-I-N-O, meaning “of or related to China.” This may seem like quite a stretch until you recognize the dominant position of China in the Blockchain World. Consider that China: Controls 72 percent of bitcoin mining power. Owns two-thirds of blockchain patents, while having applied for 48 percent of blockchain patents compared to only 21 percent by the United States. Has a national policy that supports blockchain initiatives and has included blockchain in its current 5-year plan. Is the home of 25 percent of all new blockchain projects (according to Blockdata). Is the largest fintech market in the world, accounting for 46 percent of all fintech, and is home to four of the world’s ten largest fintechs. How could China have invented blockchain? After all, China doesn’t innovate; all they do is copy. Right? Wrong. First, ...
Read More
Read More
Fortunly | Biljana Nikolovski | Aug 23, 2019 The figure of home-ownership in Canada is one of the highest in the world, even though the number of people who own residential property in the country slightly dipped from 69% in 2011 to 67.8% in 2016. But, the portion of the Great White North’s population with debt repayment woes has been increasing at an alarming rate. In fact, a 2018 report revealed that 19% of seniors still have an unpaid mortgage. As a result, 20% of Canadians continue to work well into their golden years. Certainly, a basket of solutions is necessary to help ensure that mortgages in Canada run their course, allowing homeowners to be free and clear come retirement. Fortunately, fintech solutions are here to the rescue. According to Fortunly, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and decentralized finance (DeFi) are some of the newest innovative models with great potential to help more Canadians, including seniors, reduce their overall cost of borrowing and to better manage debt repayment. P2P lending enables an individual to borrow money from another individual and it allows both parties to seamlessly interact with one another through a digital platform. This is beginning to invade the mortgage space ...
Read More
Read More
NCFA Canada | Aug 9, 2019 JOIN US ON A STORYTELLING JOURNEY EVERY FRIDAY. Aug 23: Techfins with Michael R. King, PhD CFA EP36 GUEST: MICHAEL R. KING, PhD CFA, Lansdowne Chair in Finance, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, (Linkedin) HOST: Manseeb Khan, Fintech Friday's show host BIO: Professor Michael R. King is the Lansdowne Chair in Finance at University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business. Prior to joining UVic, he held the Tangerine Chair in Finance at Western University’s Ivey Business School (2011-2019), where he co-founded Canada’s first FinTech research centre (the Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab). Before joining academia, he worked in investment banking in Zurich, New York and London from 1990-1998 (Credit Suisse, RBC Dominion Securities) and central banking in Ottawa and Basel from 2001-2011 (Bank of Canada, Bank for International Settlements). Michael completed his PhD at the London School of Economics in 2001 and his CFA designation in 1999. He has taught finance to undergraduates, MBAs and executives. His research focuses on FinTech, banking, international financial markets, and corporate finance. About this episode: On this episode of NCFA's Fintech Friday's Podcast, our host Manseeb Khan sits down with Prof. Michael R. King PhD CFA, Lansdowne Chair ...
Read More
Read More
About NCFA Canada | C. Asano | August 23, 2019 TORONTO, Aug 23, 2019 – The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA) today announced that Paul Schulte, Founder and Managing Editor of Shulte Research in Singapore, has joined the Association`s international Advisory Board to advise in the areas of Banking and Financial Services (profile). Paul's roles in banking & financial services in the past 30 years include equity & fixed income research (buy & sell sides) in emerging markets. In recent years, technology has evolved rapidly to challenge all facets of financial services his core belief is: Liquidity & credit are everything; get bank liquidity & solvency right and the rest follows. Aside from being the founder & editor of Schulte Research, he has taught for 18 years IN MBA programs: Tufts, HK UST, HKU, LMU Hilton School in LA & SUSS in Singapore. He has also worked for the Number 1 investment bank from Switzerland, US, UK, Japan, PRC & Holland starting in 1990. Paul has been a source for the WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, Nikkei, FT, Economist, Barron’s & Forbes. His clients include some of the largest sovereign, pension, mutual and hedge funds globally. He served as ...
Read More
Read More
Schulte Research | Paul Shulte | Aug 21, 2019 China is barreling forward on reforms and rolling out the crypto currency. It will be the first central bank to do so. This will give added momentum to Libra. Libra could become a new anchor market for global IPOs. Take this seriously. Join if you can. I’m pretty sure I’m right that it has backing from the very top of the US govt. 1. Cryptocurrency — The China coin is due to be rolled out in November. I hear that the distribution of the coin will be limited to 7 players: The big banks: CCB, ICBC, BOC, ABC. Alibaba and Tencent. Positive momentum,,, Union Pay. Interesting — to keep this alive. All others will be secondary. The PBOC head did on SUnday make an explicit reference to Libra. As I suspected, China rightly sees Libra as a challenge to China’s early commanding lead in e commerce and payments in all of Asia and through the Silk Road. It clearly is. Interestingly, HSBC and Stan Chart are cut out. No foreign banks in the consortium. No foreign firms in Libra (except, weirdly, Mercato Libra from Arge). 2. China ...
Read More
Read More
NCFA Canada | Craig Asano | Aug 20, 2019 TORONTO, ON Aug 20, 2019 The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA) is pleased to announce that the Exponential Group (Exponential Ventures, Exponential Capital and Exponential Markets) has joined NCFA as an industry partner. NCFA's industry partners are builders, investors and innovators who have provided a significant level of service and/or contribution towards the sustainability and growth of NCFA and related fintech sectors globally. We encourage the fintech ecosystem to support and collaborate with NCFA's global network of industry partners by engaging directly with their ventures of mutual interest. "Since founding NCFA in the summer of 2012, one of it's core missions has been working with communities of change that are passionate about enabling inclusive opportunities for 'big vision' companies seeking to change the world but need access to capital and resources to innovate competitive products and services that otherwise may not exist. These companies often focus on new economies of scale that look beyond 'for profit' models alone. Supporting and leading this change by developing new infrastructure and partnerships while leveraging new technologies can be a beacon of light resulting in massive transformation and change." - Craig Asano, ...
Read More
Read More
MIT Technology Review | Mike Orcutt | Aug 15, 2019 Complying with regulators could mean the difference between going mainstream and remaining forever on the margins of the global financial system. One of the biggest knocks against cryptocurrency has always been its status as a refuge for tech-savvy criminals. Even as some bigger players—particularly exchanges that handle many billions of dollars in crypto-wealth each day—have gone out of their way to play nice with regulators, the image persists, in part because some crypto firms have evaded regulators by moving to jurisdictions that are less strict. But the end of the lawless era may be nigh. A new set of global anti-money-laundering rules aimed at cryptocurrency exchanges has been handed down by the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental organization that sets standards for policing money laundering and terrorist financing. The rules, which call on exchanges to share personal information about their users with each other, are controversial. Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts think the privacy that drew them to the technology could evaporate. On the other hand, complying with the rules is likely to make the industry more attractive to mainstream financial institutions and users. In other words, cha-ching. See: A Global ...
Read More
Read More
Pryor Cashman | Jeffrey Alberts and Dustin N. Nofziger | Aug 13, 2019 The Federal Reserve Board has announced plans to develop a real-time payment service that should appeal to FinTech companies and community banks. The Board announced last Monday that it will develop a new round-the-clock real time payment and settlement service to support faster payments in the United States. This new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service, which will be known as the "FedNow Service," is anticipated to be available in 2023 or 2024. The Board is currently soliciting comments on all aspects of the proposed service in order to finalize its design and features. The Board's intention to operate a RTGS service is a win for community banks and FinTech companies, although it may threaten those FinTechs with business models centered around providing real time payments. The Board's plans were not developed in a vacuum. The Clearing House (TCH), which is owned by 30 of the world's largest commercial banks, previously rolled out a RTGS system known as the "RTP network" in November 2017 – some six years before the Board anticipates that its FedNow Service may first become available. The RTP network reportedly cost over $1 billion ...
Read More
Read More
Forbes | Ron Shevlin | July 1, 2019 OBSERVATIONS FROM THE FINTECH SNARK TANK A Seeking Alpha article titled Why Fintech May Not Be Fit For Public Consumption states: The year 2019 seems set to be a record-setting one for venture capitalist exit value capture by means of tech IPOs. But fintech doesn't seem to be a part of this picture. VCs are certainly putting money into fintech startups. There were 170 financings in the US in the first quarter of 2019. But, as Pitchbook says, 'not one of the most valuable fintech companies in the world seems particularly close to an offering.' " The article chalks this up to three primary causes: 1. Poor IPO performance in 2018. According to the article, "One reason nobody is in a hurry to go public is that the results of the last crop of fintech concerns that did go public have been unimpressive. Adyen and IntegraFin are prospering, but neither GreenSky nor EverQuote is "lighting up the heavens" according to Seeking Alpha. See: OurCrowd Double IPO Success Provides Crowdfunding Validation 2. Mega-round financing. Seeking Alpha postulates that investor interest in mega-rounds--e.g., Qatar Investment Authority's investment of $500 million in SoFi and Tiger Capital leading a round that raised $300 ...
Read More
Read More
CNBC | Kate Rooney | Aug 12, 2019 Money spent in venture capital and other alternative investments is surging as investors look for riskier, but higher-yielding investments. The trend coincides with relatively low returns from more conventional Wall Street investments such as stocks and bonds, and a drop in the number of publicly traded companies. “In a world where big institutional investors find themselves starved for returns, it’s not surprising that they have steadily increased allocations to private markets and you’ve seen capital continuing to flow into the asset class,” says McKinsey Partner Bryce Klempner. Many global investors are turning toward Silicon Valley instead of Wall Street in search of returns. The total invested in private markets hit all-time highs last year and continues to break multi-decade records this year. In the first half of the year, total investments in venture capital hit a 19-year high of $53.3 billion, according to data from Refinitiv published last week. That marked a 21% increase by total dollar amount compared to the first half of 2018. See: $5 million Equity crowdfunding extended to private companies The steady stream of funding comes alongside a drop in the number of publicly listed companies, rock-bottom global ...
Read More
Read More
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