Crowd Funding, Micro-funding, New Approach for Investors - Alternatives to Wall Street

While blockchain enthusiasts project the technology will account for 10% of global GDP by 2025, skeptics and supporters alike lack the tools to assess the political, security and environmental implications of the technology and digital currencies. When is blockchain right for business?

Robert Shiller, the Nobel-winning author who predicted the two biggest speculative markets in recent history, is repeating that bitcoin is in a bubble.The cryptocurrency is "the best example right now," Shiller told Quartz's John Detrixhe in an interview published Tuesday. In January 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he called the cryptocurrency "an amazing example of a bubble," adding that there was "no question about it."  Bitcoin has exploded in price and popularity since then. Bitcoin was at $4,337 on Tuesday, or about 442% over its price in January 2014 of about $800 a coin.

Leon Saunders Calvert, Global Head of M&A and Capital Raising at Thomson Reuters explores to what an extent Fintech is now changing the Investment Banking industry.(very short video)

We’ve entered the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.  No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world: The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.