Fintech Focus For September 21, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: “Everything in the crypto world is still very much an experiment — with a high probability of failure.”

Source: Avi Felman

One Big Thing In Fintech: A notice published last week by the Internal Revenue Service indicates that the U.S. tax agency wants to beef up its capacity to track cross-chain transactions.

Source: The Block

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Open Mineral adds $33M for tech.
• Lithic launches a partner program.
• Canada’s Neo raises $64M round.
• Betterment teamed up with JOON.
• Treasury preps crypto framework.
• Bakkt will go public SEC approval.
• Freetrade hires on Revolut leader.
• FTX is adding new crypto licenses.
• Sushiswap lead is stepping down.
• Synctera adds card, fraud service.
• Ripio secures $50M for expansion.
• OpenSea launches a mobile app.
• Airwallex adds $200M at $4B value.
• eToro adds to its leadership team.
• Salesforce backs Razorpay fintech.
• Deutsche bought Better Payment.
• Euronext has linked with Qomply.
• Goldman debuted ESG accounts.
• Checkout.com adds a new report.
• Toast has raised IPO price range.
• Zego, CheckAlt team on payments.
• Kernolab has added $1M for BaaS.
• Stripe opens London fintech office.
• LA Clippers struck deal with Intuit.
• Coinbase abandons lend products.

Watch Out For This: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky will argue this week that the world is undergoing a "travel revolution," in which some parts of the industry stay shrunk but the sector ultimately comes back "bigger than ever."

Source: Axios

Interesting Reads:

• Memestocks and Reddit redesigns.
• Low rate in favor of quality growth.
• Proof economic data is inaccurate.
• Recap: China nightmare scenarios.

Market Moving Headline: Is Evergrande a Lehman event? We sincerely doubt it. It is (way) easier to contain Evergrande than Lehman, but it doesn’t mean that the Evergrande blow-up doesn’t come with repercussions. Markets will likely stay in “stagflation mode”.

Source: Nordea