For a while, Shopify, Canada’s retail giant and answer to Amazon, has enabled the merchants using its FinTech platform to accept cryptocurrencies. Shopify has even devised a simple guide for merchants to follow, explaining the advantages of using cryptos and how to get started so that it can offer cryptos as a payment option for their customers. The most valuable FinTech firm in Europe, Klarna (with over 90million customers), is rumoured to be preparing for an IPO in 2022 and has been a veritable leader when it comes to Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). However, for now, it’s chief marketing officer, David Sandström, has said that Klarna “has no plans offer customers the option to pay using cryptocurrencies”. Sandström has gone on to say “Credit card companies have made an astounding amount of money by essentially cheating and taking advantage of people with bad terms and conditions, high rates and extremely disadvantageous interests. Roughly 70% of American millennials don’t have a credit card because they fear them more than they dread death, according to some reports.”

Furthermore, the main credit card providers such as Visa and Mastercard have shown a much more positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies. In an interview with Barron’s, Vasant Prabhu, Visa’s vice chairman and chief financial officer, said: “What we can do is be the bridge between the crypto economy and the fiat economy.” Indeed, both Mastercard and Visa now offer a wide range of debit cards that deal in crypto and can use their respective network of merchants globally. This is helping to onboard more people with digital wallets, currently reported to number almost 300 million people, with potentially 1 billion digital wallet holders by the end of 2022. Presumably, this excludes 20% of the population of China who have access to the Chinese CBDC have a digital wallet.

As we see more jurisdictions issuing their own CBDC payment platforms, there will potentially be the need for banks and FinTech firms worldwide to upgrade their processes and systems in order to accept digital currencies. Awareness of crypto and digital currencies is certainly growing and being fuelled by marketing and advertising campaigns, such as the 2022 Superbowl which attracted 112 million viewers. A 30-second advert cost $7m, a 27% increase on last year with the adverts being run by eToro, Coinbase and Crypto.com to promote their various crypto and digital assets products and services. During the Superbowl itself, FTX gave away $1million of Bitcoin as part of its marketing mix!

Source: Twitter

Certain jurisdictions are looking to overhaul their legislation and regulations, as was highlighted last November by Australia’s Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg: “For consumers, these changes will establish a regulatory framework to underpin their growing use of crypto assets and clarify the treatment of new payment methods.”  A common trait is that FinTech firms are making it simpler for users to buy and sell goods and services digitally, often bypassing the bank’s existing payments infrastructure. It is worth remembering the basic technology behind cryptocurrencies is likely to be the preferred choice for many CBDCs, and also for cash-backed stablecoins. Interestingly, such cash-backed stablecoins could prove to be popular for global corporations as a way to improve their ESG credentials and reduce the potential risk of leaving money on deposit at a bank as well as being exposed to the systemic risks of fractional banking. 

But this is an article for another day!

Almost two years later, such travel bans still exist in the second and third largest economies of the world (China and Japan) as their boarders remain closed to the majority of foreign visitors. Meanwhile, in the world’s largest economy (thanks, in part, to huge handouts) the US government has spent $3.5trillion to keep the economy running. With the worst of the covid restrictions now having been lifted, we have seen a new phenomenon, ‘the great resignation’, whereby over 33 million Americans have handed in their resignation since 2021 as they look for better pay, conditions, work-life balance and more working from home. The reasons are varied, but the phenomenon is very real.

The percentage of workers looking to quit their job in the next 12 months

Source: JobsList

Labour markets are tight as employees struggle to retain staff, let alone attract new ones. This can be seen by global recruiters such as Robert Walters which has reported a surge in profits as employees demand higher wages. Furthermore, there has been a shortage in the number of applicants. Page Group, another quoted recruitment company, has also seen its profits rise as companies struggle to compete to attract the right staff. However, there is another trend that has emerged - workers at some of the most iconic and successful tech firms globally, such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, are struggling to find staff and, indeed, staff are leaving in search of the next new exciting sectors. The world’s most valuable quoted company - Apple - which earlier this year became the first company to be valued at more than $3 trillion is finding it hard to retain staff. 

9to5Mac, the publication which closely follows Apple, has reported: “Companies like Apple, Amazon, and more take time deliberating if or how to jump in, fast-moving startups in the crypto space are attracting executives and engineers from the tech giants”. 9to5Mac has also quoted Sandy Carter, who quit as a vice president of Amazon’s cloud computing: “…she posted on LinkedIn she was joining a crypto technology company. She included a link for open positions at the start-up. Within two days, she said, more than 350 people — many from the biggest internet companies — had clicked the link to apply for jobs at the firm, Unstoppable Domains”. The start-up sells website addresses that has created a blockchain-powered platform and is also engaged with NFTs. Of note: “Ms. Carter, said people were interested in working at crypto firms for more than just money. Some were drawn to the ethos of web3, which strives to decentralize power and decision making. It’s an alternative to how Google and Facebook came to dominate the internet by sucking up personal data from users to sell targeted ads”. It is difficult for some of the older tech firms to simply offer more money or fringe benefits when staff are leaving based on fundamental beliefs such as these. This interest in those decentralised organisational structures trying to give people back control over their data together with a more community-based, more inclusive ethos-promoted sectors such as by Decentralised Finance (DeFi), does indeed appear to be gathering momentum.

Sriram Krishnan used to work for Twitter but when he left to join a new tech start up, tweeted:

Source. Twitter

Krishnan was also reported saying: “As we have had the same central companies dominate the tech landscape for over a decade. There is strong motivation to find a new playbook/space which can help overturn that or where the existing companies don’t have a presence in. I must have personally had at least a dozen conversations over the last week with FAANG/web2 talent at all levels looking to move. This is just the beginning IMO”. 

David Marcus, who was head of Facebook’s failed digital currency (and left Facebook) seems to be equally enthused about Web3 on Twitter:

Source: Twitter

Another example of the attraction of Web3 and staff leaving highly successful existing firms to join or, indeed, set up tech start-ups is the recent announcement of the departure of Alan Chang, Revolut’s chief revenue officer. Chang is quitting Revolut, where he was its fifth employee, to set up a new Web3-focused firm reportedly to be looking to raise $100million. Chang will clearly command a following as, having been at Revolut since 2015, potential investors will be hoping this new venture can emulate the success of Revolut which has seen its value rise to over $33billion currently making it the third most valuable European fintech firm after Klarna and Checkout.com.