The Fintech Blueprint

Lex chats with Arno Castillo, founder and CEO of CrunchDAO. CrunchDAO is a research team of data scientists and quants that leverage the power of collective intelligence and Web3 to produce and sell next-generation predictive financial insights. In the discussion, Lex and Arnaud touch on decentralized asset management, data science, building portfolios, and web3 organizations. Arnaud shares his background in finance, including his experience working at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank, as well as his work in consulting and entrepreneurship. Arnaud explaines how CrunchDAO has developed a framework called the design framework to address the challenges of using machine learning in financial markets. The framework is designed to share their research and data sets with others in the industry, allowing for collaboration and feedback. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION CrunchDAO's website: https://bit.ly/3z60sDUArnaud's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/40cWrJS Topics: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, DAO, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Blockchain, Web3 Companies: CrunchDAO, Numerai, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’25”: Arnaud’s background in finance & experience working at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank 5’06”: Learning the concept of Economic Value Add (EVA) and its connection to DAOs & DAO Networks 9’15”: What it means to be a DAO stakeholder & the agency issues around management in a corporation versus the public goods inside of a DAO 15’17”: The role of a CEO/Business Leader & how this changes when applied to a DAO   18’35”: Identifying business opportunities in fairly technical, difficult, innovative markets & immersion into the machine learning fintech space 23’42”: CrunchDAO: What it does, the problem it solves for, and the architecture of the technology involved relating to the user experience 28’40”: Comparison of CrunchDAO to Numerai (developer competition-based hedge fund) & the evolution of decentralized asset management in capital markets 36’22”: Machine learning challenges in financial markets & CrunchDAO’s framework for sharing their research and datasets 38'26”: Channels to use to connect with Arnaud & learn more about CrunchDAO Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Calvin Liu, the Chief Strategy Officer at EigenLayer, about his journey in investment banking, working for a financial regulations consulting firm, and transitioning to entrepreneurship. Calvin delves deep into the inner workings of EigenLayer, a restaking protocol for Ethereum, and the importance of focus, incentives, and integration in the crypto industry. Additionally, they discuss the early days of crypto lending protocol, Compound and working for Robert Leshner (Compound's founder), as well as, how this inspired working with purpose and immense focus. Calvin even touches on some exciting upcoming launches for EigenLayer. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION EigenLayer's website: https://bit.ly/3LxwS1xCalvin's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/40aGSSm Topics: staking, restaking, defi, cryptocurrency, blockchain, crypto lending, validators Companies: EigenLayer, Ethereum, Compound, Rocketpool, Lido, MakerDAO ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’29”: Calvin’s foundational experiences, how he got pulled into investment banking, and how he integrates philosophy into economics 7’21”: The journey of moving from investment banking to consulting and finally entrepreneurship 14’30”: Becoming a crypto enthusiast - joining DeFi lender Compound and how the company has evolved from its genesis value proposition 21’25”: Some of the “forks in the road” for Compound over these periods of evolution and how they were addressed 28’14”: EigenLayer - what it is, how does it work, what makes it unique, and what it means to stake and restake crypto 34’10”: What it is about Ethereum that makes staking so powerful in this network in particular 36’17”: The future evolution of EigenLayer and the influences of network upgrades like Ethereum’s Shanghai, as well as any other influential variables 38’53”: The tension between building the best and most secure protocol security vs creating speculative assets that generate quick returns 42’57”: Understanding the systemic risk in crypto networks and the possibility of cascading effects from network attacks 44'50”: Channels to use to connect with Calvin & learn more about EigenLayer Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Siddharth Batra, Co-founder at X1 Card, about his experience in technology and software development. X1 is a FinTech company that has created a smart credit card and has become one of the top 100 credit cards in the US with a waitlist of 600,000 people. Together, they discuss how Sid has articulated his consumer product building learnings from his experience as head of engineering at Twitter to revolutionise the traditional credit card into a B2C financial super app. Touching on X1's growth strategy and how it is focused on a consumer product approach rather than traditional marketing techniques. This has allowed them to have a 10x better referral rate than traditional credit cards. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION X1's website: https://bit.ly/3J9w404Sid's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ywr6Wh Topics: Fintech, paytech, artificial intelligence, consumer, credit, b2c, pfm Companies: X1, Twitter,  Venmo, Apple, Robinhood ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’36”: Sid’s foundational experiences in technology & what laid the groundwork for his career 8’49”: Using Stanford and network thereof as the launchpad to becoming a startup founder   11’52”: Joining Twitter and learning about consumer behaviour and consumer’s relationship with social media content 15’43”: How building consumer products at Twitter formed the basis for the articulation towards Fintech 17’13”: X1 - what it is, how it started, what is a smart card, what is the software that differentiates it from competitors and the volume growth since its inception 25’38”: X1’s feature set, issuing bank, its underlying regulatory structure, and the underwriting credit policy for users 29’02”: X1’s economics and the crucial component to X1’s success vs the likes of Apple Card   33’21”: The winning formula - creating a step function better product for X1’s prime audience and then offering rich feature sets   37’10”: X1’s long term ambitions and why they are positioned better relative to other Fintechs in the market 42’13”: Channels to use to connect with Sid & learn more about X1 Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Hristo Borisov, CEO and co-founder of Payhawk, a leader in B2B payments and expense management. Together, they discuss the evolution of product development, from mobile apps to platforms that solve customer problems. Touching on the 2017 trend of chatbots and the practical uses of this technology today via ChatGPT. Additionally, Hristo expands on the company he founded in 2018 - Payhawk, a Fintech company that automates financial functions for businesses, highlighting the importance of understanding customer problems and iterating solutions to validate and prototype them. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Payhawk's website: https://bit.ly/3ZjfCRMHristo's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ETjWiv Topics: fintech, payments, credit, ERP, SaaS, cloud, AI, platform, API, financial ecosystem, chatbots Companies: Payhawk, Telerik, Progress Software, DarwinAI, Progress NativeChat, Brex, Ramp, ChatGPT ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’28”: Hristo’s foundational experiences in technology  & how he became a founder 4’03”: Telerik - A successful launchpad for entrepreneurs & startups 7’47”: Building a platform vs building a point solution & building for developers (customer segment) 12’35”: Building a system that generates chatbots - the experience, the motivations, and the outcome 19’10”: Payhawk - the idea, the execution, the main functions, how much money they have raised and what it is used for 24’44”: Payhawk’s customers - the types of customer, the engagement strategy, the go-to-market strategy, and your evolved approach to developers 29’12”: The journey of evolving the product/feature set to becoming the financial ecosystem for the CFO 34’04”: The adjacency of the software product and the underlying financial product & thinking about growth from a global vs regional perspective 39’04”: Channels to use to connect with Hristo & Payhawk Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Kaito Cunningham, Co-founder and CEO of Utopia Labs, the modern system for managing contributor payments, expenses, and more for your DAO, supported by communities such as FWB, Sushiswap, and PleasrDao. Together, they touch on what a DAO really is and how the theoretical concept has evolved over time. The true benefits of transparency and verification have not been brought to fruition, and its Kaito's mission to do that with Utopia Labs, bringing true DAO tooling to the next generation of online labour. Lex and Kaito talk about the philosophy behind governance, voting, and community capitalism, as well as, how Utopia Labs have nurtured the journey of fundraising and leveraging the best value from their investors. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Utopia Labs' website: https://bit.ly/3lYVfdHKaito's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ItjhFo Topics: Web3, Defi, blockchain, DAO, decentralized autonomous organizations, voting, governance Companies: Utopia Labs, Lido.fi, Metropolis, MakerDAO ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’18”: Kaito’s founder journey - entering the Web3 space and his learnings from failed startups and content creation on social media 6’07”: Finding Utopia Labs’ CTO on LinkedIn & how an interest in Web3 evolved to a focus in DAOs 9’38”: An intro to DAOs - What they are? How they differ? What they are for? and some compelling examples 17’19”: The concept of Liquid Labor in the context of DAOs & characterizing the last six months of governance structure evolution 26’51”: The future of governance - Breaking down the idea of voting driven by identity and the individual human and democracy rather than by financial holding 29’47”: Utopia Labs - The evolution of its purpose, Kaito’s journey to date, and who the main clients are that are utilizing Utopia Labs’ tools? 34’43”: The process of fundraising and financing the company to date & building relationships with investors 38’42”: Channels to use to connect with Kaito & learn more about Utopia Labs Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Michele Tucci, the Managing Director in North and Latin America and Chief Strategy Officer of CredoLab, the largest developer of bank-grade digital credit risk scorecards based on mobile device data. Together, they touch on digital banking, digital credit, as well as the intersection between financial services, telecoms, and technology more.   MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Credolab's website: https://bit.ly/2XBhDgkMichele's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3KfeHwU Topics: Fintech, payments, alternative data, AI, artificial intelligence, behavioural modelling, credit risk, fraud, GDPR Companies: Credolab, Capital One, Mastercard, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, Trans Union ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’32”: Michele’s foundational experiences & the core proponent to his entrepreneurship 2’43”: The behavioural influences between credit cards in America vs Europe & the data landscape in the early 2000s 8’51”: The role of Mastercard in Michele’s journey & how issuers thought about the role of payment rails on the customer journey 16’19”: How data spoke to the human nuances around financial behaviour 20’48”: The evolution of how different players created financial networks in different geographies 24’09”: Credolab - the core problem it solves for & where it is today 32’50”: How Credolab uses pattern-recognition to develop user personas to inevitably inform risk profiles 36’53”: The development of extracting insights from digital footprints of users & how this results in sophisticated AI algorithms that banks compete for 39’54”: Channels to use to connect with Michele & learn more about Credolab Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex Sokolin continues his Build It Series, focusing on the differences between B2C and B2B strategies, and on the implementations of some foundational marketing principles. He discusses branding and the two ways of doing it right. Then he dives into the various programs that can be implemented to generate demand, from content, to social media, to paid acquisition. Finally, he touches on the importance of CAC and LTV, in particular during a year like 2023. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Fintech Blueprint's Website: https://bit.ly/3IcO9eqFintech Blueprint's Archive: https://bit.ly/3XlSGiX Topics: marketing, strategy, economics, fintech Companies: Betterment, Mint, FutureAdvisor, LendingClub, Coinbase, Softbank ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 2’04”: Recap of first edition - looking at markets and figuring out the shape of demand 3’12”: Why B2C Fintechs are one of the brightest signals of the transformation of the distribution of financial products 10’03”: Brand - why Brand matters in Fintech more so than ever before 20’04”: Marketing Programs - Building brands vs. quantitative marketing funnels 28’04”: Cost of Customer Acquisition and Lifetime Value - Blitzscaling vs organic growth 27’45”: Automation of the CFO stack vs Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) 37’50”: Conclusion - closing remarks & overview Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Dean Tribble, co-founder and CEO of Agoric. Agoric is a Proof-of-Stake chain utilizing secure JavaScript smart contracts to rapidly build and deploy DeFi, comprised of a team who are experts in smart contracts. Agoric was founded on open-source principles which look to build a public economy. Dean is considered a technical genius and a long-time developer around blockchain, smart contracts, as well as a number of other technology initiatives MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Agoric's website: https://bit.ly/3DGKuTwCEO's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3judFCd Topics: DeFi, artificial intelligence, blockchain, web3, smart contract, javascript, dapps Companies: Agoric, Xanadu, ARPANET, Ethereum, Cosmos, Agorics, Inter.trade ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’28”: Dean’s professional DNA - his motivations, profound experiences, and the journey 3’49”: Early distributed systems - what they are, their evolution, and how they inspired the foundations for the internet/Web that we know today 8’10”: Witnessing the evolution of the internet and how the vision, futurism, and ideals warped over time 16’12”: The relationship between the legal symptoms of society trying to figure out what to do vs what’s actually going on 19’34”: Early forms of smart contracts, designing large scale e-commerce infrastructure, and distributed systems 24’07”: Addressing the idea of building an abstraction/pattern/framework embedded in software and layers in neural networks/AI models 28’07”: Agoric: What it is, what it does, and where it is positioned relative to other Web3 ecosystems   34’02”: The Cosmos ecosystem, what it means to be “multichain”, and the protocol Agoric are in the process of building 38’14”: What composable DeFi means and what the hardened DeFi primitives are that Agoric is providing 43’30”: Channels to use to connect with Dean & learn more about Agoric Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Stephen Balaban, CEO of Lambda Labs and expert in AI infrastructure, dives deep into the evolution of AI technologies. He shares how reading 'Neuromancer' ignited his passion for AI and discusses the history of facial recognition and neural networks. The conversation highlights the breakthroughs in deep learning from 2012-2014, particularly in image recognition, and how these advancements have revolutionized creative industries. Balaban also touches on the influence of sci-fi on public perception and the future fusion of emerging technologies with everyday life.

Lex interviews Sean Bennett, the co-founder and CTO of Stronghold, a Fintech company. Sean started out as an independent software developer, building software for clients. This experience led him to entrepreneurship and he used his skills to tackle the problem of remittance. He created Coinex, a stable coin issuer on the Ripple network, which allowed people to send money cheaply and quickly. However, early regulatory challenges and user adoption issues meant that the project was not successful. Sean eventually left the project and moved on to his next venture, Stella, a fork of Ripple. Setting the foundations for eventually starting his own company, Stronghold – a DeFi-enabled financial services company for institutional clients. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Stronghold's website: https://bit.ly/3iRB8NkCEO's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3D4sJNr Topics: fintech, DeFi, remittance, payments, ACH, blockchain, stablecoins, e-commerce Companies: Coinex, Ripple, Stellar Network, IBM, Stronghold ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’52”: Sean’s early experiences building software and the path to entrepreneurship 8’56”: How a remittance-based family use-case led to a career building stablecoins 11’33”: The on and off-ramp mechanics involved in early-stage stablecoins & the reality-check of being to early to market 16’01”: Partnering with IBM to build their blockchain network & ideating a US Dollar settlement stablecoin integration using the Stellar Network 24’03”: Stronghold - the journey to its inception, its vision, and its unique positioning to the customer vs blockchain enablement 30’23”: The global nature of Stronghold’s merchant footprint & the data used to understand merchant risk and the associated rates thereof 33’58”: Stronghold’s preferred blockchain and protocols & the returns generated by the relative assets class 38’24”: Stronghold’s current focus given the state of the market & the trends informing its strategy going forward 39’44”: Channels to use to connect with Sean & learn more about Stronghold Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.