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https://preview.redd.it/b0apbcb7etw51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=7c5fa4f0c8563291224b7e4df72908fe274baaeb
Coin98 Wallet which is one of the simplest and most secure non-custodial crypto wallets has now partnered with NEM, a significant contributor to the evolution of blockchain by ensuring mainstream adoption and use of its solutions.
Coin98 Wallet is integrating NIS1 and Symbol, two blockchain platforms built by NEM. NISI is NEM’s original blockchain platform, offering flexible and customizable solutions through simple, yet powerful, built-in features. Also, Symbol is a public blockchain that provides a platform for new business models and innovation, bringing together developers, projects, and enterprises to create mutual benefit and value together. Symbol is scheduled to be launched in December.
With this integration, Coin98 Wallet has extended its list of available supported cryptocurrencies with two new items - XEM and XYM, native currencies of NISI, and Symbol. The changes in the system of Coin98 Wallet will be updated in the next versions so that users will be able to store, send and receive XEM and XYM, along with thousands of tokens issued on main chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Tron, Solana, Celo…
Coin98 Wallet believes that bringing NEM’s products to a promising developing area like Asia can mean exponential growth both in transaction volume & users, not to mention a booming branding effect within Asia’s cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Joining a shared vision for bringing the best crypto experience into Asia and beyond, Coin98 Wallet keeps exploring cooperation opportunities and collaborates closely with NEM in the near future.
Source

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https://preview.redd.it/gnp9pg64dtw51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=2080c8bdd00103039845e31cca49870c5efc72fa
Coin98 Wallet which is one of the simplest and most secure non-custodial crypto wallets has now partnered with NEM, a significant contributor to the evolution of blockchain by ensuring mainstream adoption and use of its solutions.
Coin98 Wallet is integrating NIS1 and Symbol, two blockchain platforms built by NEM. NISI is NEM’s original blockchain platform, offering flexible and customizable solutions through simple, yet powerful, built-in features. Also, Symbol is a public blockchain that provides a platform for new business models and innovation, bringing together developers, projects, and enterprises to create mutual benefit and value together. Symbol is scheduled to be launched in December.
With this integration, Coin98 Wallet has extended its list of available supported cryptocurrencies with two new items - XEM and XYM, native currencies of NISI, and Symbol. The changes in the system of Coin98 Wallet will be updated in the next versions so that users will be able to store, send and receive XEM and XYM, along with thousands of tokens issued on main chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Tron, Solana, Celo…
Coin98 Wallet believes that bringing NEM’s products to a promising developing area like Asia can mean exponential growth both in transaction volume & users, not to mention a booming branding effect within Asia’s cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Joining a shared vision for bringing the best crypto experience into Asia and beyond, Coin98 Wallet keeps exploring cooperation opportunities and collaborates closely with NEM in the near future.
Source

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https://preview.redd.it/qfuq9z7hdtw51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=c3aeca05875eade3386a1bce59f7bc4f23a75209
Coin98 Wallet which is one of the simplest and most secure non-custodial crypto wallets has now partnered with NEM, a significant contributor to the evolution of blockchain by ensuring mainstream adoption and use of its solutions.
Coin98 Wallet is integrating NIS1 and Symbol, two blockchain platforms built by NEM. NISI is NEM’s original blockchain platform, offering flexible and customizable solutions through simple, yet powerful, built-in features. Also, Symbol is a public blockchain that provides a platform for new business models and innovation, bringing together developers, projects, and enterprises to create mutual benefit and value together. Symbol is scheduled to be launched in December.
With this integration, Coin98 Wallet has extended its list of available supported cryptocurrencies with two new items - XEM and XYM, native currencies of NISI, and Symbol. The changes in the system of Coin98 Wallet will be updated in the next versions so that users will be able to store, send and receive XEM and XYM, along with thousands of tokens issued on main chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Tron, Solana, Celo…
Coin98 Wallet believes that bringing NEM’s products to a promising developing area like Asia can mean exponential growth both in transaction volume & users, not to mention a booming branding effect within Asia’s cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Joining a shared vision for bringing the best crypto experience into Asia and beyond, Coin98 Wallet keeps exploring cooperation opportunities and collaborates closely with NEM in the near future.
Source

​
https://preview.redd.it/7f24ka10etw51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=bd8515143197d481cdd8a86d19995410bd693e68
Coin98 Wallet which is one of the simplest and most secure non-custodial crypto wallets has now partnered with NEM, a significant contributor to the evolution of blockchain by ensuring mainstream adoption and use of its solutions.
Coin98 Wallet is integrating NIS1 and Symbol, two blockchain platforms built by NEM. NISI is NEM’s original blockchain platform, offering flexible and customizable solutions through simple, yet powerful, built-in features. Also, Symbol is a public blockchain that provides a platform for new business models and innovation, bringing together developers, projects, and enterprises to create mutual benefit and value together. Symbol is scheduled to be launched in December.
With this integration, Coin98 Wallet has extended its list of available supported cryptocurrencies with two new items - XEM and XYM, native currencies of NISI, and Symbol. The changes in the system of Coin98 Wallet will be updated in the next versions so that users will be able to store, send and receive XEM and XYM, along with thousands of tokens issued on main chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Tron, Solana, Celo…
Coin98 Wallet believes that bringing NEM’s products to a promising developing area like Asia can mean exponential growth both in transaction volume & users, not to mention a booming branding effect within Asia’s cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Joining a shared vision for bringing the best crypto experience into Asia and beyond, Coin98 Wallet keeps exploring cooperation opportunities and collaborates closely with NEM in the near future.
Source

PZMCash became the 17th cryptocurrency to be integrated into the ivendPay payment system
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The ivendPay company (Ivendpay OÜ, Estonia), the developer of the cryptocurrency payment service of the same name, announced the integration of PZM Cash. Our coin (PZMC) became the 17th coin that will be available in the payment service around the world. PZMC holders will be able to use a coin to pay for goods and services after they install the issuer's online wallet.
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The key difference between our PZMCash concept and the “classic” PoS lies in the mechanism of ensuring the network with monetary supply. Our team refrained from a full emission approach when generating the first block. Only 1% of the total number of coins will be distributed when the network is launched using pre-mining. The remaining coins will be issued during PoS mining as incentive payments to loyal PZM Cash holders for supporting the network.
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ivendPay is now the only payment solution that does not require users to add additional cryptocurrency terminals or purchase system tokens. Activating and using ivendPay is very simple: the seller needs to add a cryptocurrency payment system, and the buyer just needs to put his smartphone with a crypto wallet on the terminal. The ivendPay system integrates BTC, BCH, ETH, BNB, and others. The seller can make all of them or any of them available for payment.
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Our team considers East Asia one of the priority regions for promoting the coin. In the same region, the commercial use of the ivendPay payment system began in 2019. Hong Kong vending networks were the first to connect to ivendPay. All vending machines and payment terminals connected to ivendPay are added to the world map, which is available on the company's website. The ivendPay payment service is one of the partners of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, supporting BNB as a means of payment, and is the official Wordline partner in the development of payment applications.
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PZM-Cash-110756273882091/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PZMCash
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/42930620/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/PZMCash/
BitcoinTalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5235724.0
Telegram: https://t.me/pzmc_en
Medium: https://medium.com/@pzm_cash/
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These crypto lending & borrowing services found early traction. Are they capable of bundling more financial services and winning the broader consumer finance market?
https://reddit.com/link/icps9l/video/98kl1y596zh51/player
This is the third part of Crypto Banking Wars — a new series that examines what crypto-native company is most likely to become the bank of the future. Who is best positioned to reach mainstream adoption in consumer finance?
While crypto allows the world to get rid of banks, a bank will still very much be necessary for this very powerful technology to reach the masses. As we laid out in our previous series, Crypto-Powered, we believe a crypto-native company will ultimately become the bank of the future. We’re confident Genesis Block will have a seat at that table, but we aren’t the only game in town.
In the first post of this series, we did an analysis of big crypto exchanges like Coinbase & Binance. In our second episode, we looked at the world of non-custodial wallets.
Today we’re analyzing crypto lending & borrowing services. The Earn and Borrow use-case covers a lot of what traditional banks deliver today. This category of companies is a threat worth analyzing. As we look at this market, we’ll mostly be focused on custodial, centralized products like BlockFi, Nexo, and Celsius.
Many of these companies found early traction among crypto users. Are they capable of bundling more financial services and winning the broader consumer finance market? Let’s find out.

Institutional Borrowers

Because speculation and trading remains one of the most popular use-cases of crypto, a new crypto sub-industry around credit has emerged. Much of the borrowing demand has been driven by institutional needs.
For example, a Bitcoin mining company might need to borrow fiat to pay for operational costs (salaries, electricity). Or a crypto company might need to borrow USD to pay for engineering salaries. Or a crypto hedge fund needs to borrow for leverage or to take a specific market position. While all of these companies have sufficient crypto to cover the costs, they might not want to sell it — either for tax or speculative reasons (they may believe these crypto assets will appreciate, as with most in the industry).
Instead of selling their crypto, these companies can use their crypto as collateral for loans. For example, they can provide $1.5M in Bitcoin as collateral, and borrow $1M. Given the collateralization happening, the underwriting process becomes straightforward. Companies all around the world can participate — language and cultural barriers are removed.
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The leader (and one of our partners) in this space is Genesis Capital. While they are always the counterparty for both lenders and borrowers, they are effectively a broker. They are at the center of the institutional crypto lending & borrowing markets. Their total active loans as of March 2020 was $649M. That number shot up to $1.42B in active loans as of June 2020. The growth of this entire market segment is impressive and it’s what is driving this opportunity for consumers downstream.

Consumer Products

While most of the borrowing demand comes from institutional players, there is a growing desire from consumers to participate on the lend/supply side of the market. Crypto consumers would love to be able to deposit their assets with a service and watch it grow. Why let crypto assets sit on an exchange or in cold storage when it can be earning interest?
A number of consumer-facing products have emerged in the last few years to make this happen. While they also allow users to borrow (always with collateral), most of the consumer attraction is around growing their crypto, even while they sleep. Earning interest. These products usually partner with institutional players like Genesis Capital to match the deposits with borrowing demand. And it’s exactly part of our strategy as well, beyond leveraging DeFi (decentralized finance protocols).
A few of the most popular consumer services in this category include BlockFi, Nexo, and Celsius.
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https://preview.redd.it/vptig5mg6zh51.png?width=1051&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5fdc241cb9b6f5b495173667619f8d2c93371ca

BlockFi

BlockFi (Crunchbase) is the leader in this category (at least in the West). They are well-capitalized. In August 2019, they raised $18.3M in their Series A. In Feb 2020, they raised $30M in their Series B. In that same time period, they went from $250M in assets under management to $650M. In a recent blog post, they announced that they saw a 100% revenue increase in Q2 and that they were on track to do $50M in revenue this year. Their growth is impressive.
BlockFi did not do an ICO, unlike Celsius, Nexo, Salt, and Cred. BlockFi has a lot of institutional backing so it is perceived as the most reputable in the space. BlockFi started with borrowing — allowing users to leverage their crypto as collateral and taking out a loan against it. They later got into Earning — allowing users to deposit assets and earn interest on it. They recently expanded their service to “exchange” functionality and say they are coming out with a credit card later this year.
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https://preview.redd.it/byv2tbui6zh51.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=bac080dcfc85e89574c30dfb396db0b537d46706
Security Woes
It’s incredible that BlockFi has been able to see such strong growth despite their numerous product and security woes. A few months ago, their systems were compromised. A hacker was able to access confidential data, such as names, dates of birth, postal addresses, and activity histories. While no funds were lost, this was a massive embarrassment and caused reputational damage.
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Unrelated to that massive security breach and earlier in the year, a user discovered a major bug that allowed him to send the same funds to himself over and over again, ultimately accumulating more than a million dollars in his BlockFi account. BlockFi fortunately caught him just before withdrawal.
Poor Product Execution
Beyond their poor security — which they are now trying to get serious about — their products are notoriously buggy and hard-to-use. I borrowed from them a year ago and used their interest account product until very recently. I have first-hand experience of how painful it is. But don’t take my word for it… here are just a few tweets from customers just recently.
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For a while, their interest-earning product had a completely different authentication system than their loan product (users had two sets of usernames/passwords). Many people have had issues with withdrawals. The app is constantly logging people out, blank screens, ugly error messages. Emails with verification codes are sometimes delayed by hours (or days). I do wonder if their entire app has been outsourced. The sloppiness shines through.
Not only is their product buggy and UX confusing, but their branding & design is quite weak. To the left is a t-shirt they once sent me. It looks like they just found a bunch of quirky fonts, added their name, and slapped it on a t-shirt.
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https://preview.redd.it/mi6yeppp6zh51.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd4cd8201ad0d5bc667498096388377895b72953
Culture
To the innocent bystander, many of these issues seem totally fixable. They could hire an amazing design agency to completely revamp their product or brand. They could hire a mercenary group of engineers to fix their bugs, etc. While it could stop the bleeding for a time, it may not solve the underlying issues. Years of sloppy product execution represents something much more destructive. It represents a top-down mentality that shipping anything other than excellence is okay: product experience doesn’t matter; design doesn’t matter; craftsmanship doesn’t matter; strong execution doesn’t matter; precision doesn’t matter. That’s very different from our culture at Genesis Block.
This cancerous mentality rarely stays contained within product & engineering — this leaks to all parts of the organization. No design agency or consulting firm will fix some of the pernicious values of a company’s soul. These are deeper issues that only leadership can course-correct.
If BlockFi’s sloppiness were due to constant experimentation, iteration, shipping, or some “move fast and break things” hacker culture… like Binance… I would probably cut them more slack. But there is zero evidence of that. “Move fast and break things” is always scary when dealing with financial products. But in BlockFi’s case, when it’s more like “move slow and break things,” they are really playing with fire. Next time a massive security breach occurs, like what happened earlier this year, they may not be so lucky.
Institutional Focus
Based on who is on their team, their poor product execution shouldn’t be a surprise. Their team comes mostly from Wall Street, not the blockchain community (where our roots are). Most of BlockFi’s blockchain/crypto integration is very superficial. They take crypto assets as deposits, but they aren’t leveraging any of the exciting, low-level DeFi protocols like we are.
While their Wall Street heritage isn’t doing them any favors on the product/tech side, it’s served them very well on winning institutional clients. This is perhaps their greatest strength. BlockFi has a strong institutional business. They recently brought on Three Arrows Capital as a strategic investor — a crypto hedge fund who does a lot of borrowing. In that announcement, BlockFi’s founder said that bringing them on “aligns well with our focus on international expansion of our institutional services offering.” They also recently brought someone on who will lead business development in Asia among institutional clients.
BlockFi Wrap Up
There are certainly BlockFi features that overlap with Genesis Block’s offering. It’s possible that they are angling to become the bank of the future. However, they simply have not proven they are capable of designing, building, and launching world-class consumer products. They’ve constantly had issues around security and poor product execution. Their company account and their founder’s account seem to only tweet about Bitcoin. I don’t think they understand, appreciate, or value the power of DeFi. It’s unlikely they’ll be leveraging it any time soon. All of these reasons are why I don’t see them as a serious threat to Genesis Block.
However, because of their strong institutional offering, I hope that Genesis Block will ultimately have a very collaborative and productive partnership with them. Assuming they figure out their security woes, we could park some of our funds with BlockFi (just as we will with Genesis Capital and others). I think what’s likely to happen is that we’ll corner the consumer market and we’ll work closely with BlockFi on the institutional side.
I’ve been hard on BlockFi because I care. I think they have a great opportunity at helping elevate the entire industry in a positive way. But they have a lot of issues they need to work through. I really don’t want to see users lose millions of dollars in a security breach. It could set back the entire industry. But if they do things well… a rising tide lifts all boats.

Honorable Mentions

Celsius (ICO Drops) raised $50M in an ICO, and is led by serial entrepreneur Alex Mashinsky. I’ve met him, he’s a nice guy. Similar to Binance, their biggest Achilles heel could be their own token. There are also a lot of unanswered questions about where their deposits go. They don’t have a record of great transparency. They recently did a public crowdraise which is a little odd given their large ICO as well as their supposed $1B in deposits. Are they running out of money, as some suggest? Unclear. One of their biggest blindspots right now is that Mashinsky does not understand the power of DeFi. He is frequently openly criticizing it.
Nexo (ICO Drops) is another similar service. They are European-based, trying to launch their own card (though they’ve been saying this forever and they still haven’t shipped it), and have a history in the payments/fintech space. Because they haven’t penetrated the US — which is a much harder regulatory nut to crack — they are unlikely to be as competitive as BlockFi. There were also allegations that Nexo was spreading FUD about Chainlink while simultaneously partnering with them. Did Nexo take out a short position and start spreading rumors? Never a dull moment in crypto.
Other players in the lending & borrowing space include Unchained Capital, Cred (ICO Drops), and Salt (ICO Drops).
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Wrap Up

While many companies in this category seem to be slowly adding more financial services, I don’t believe any of them are focused on the broader consumer market like we are. To use services like BlockFi, Nexo, or Celsius, users need to be onboarded and educated on how crypto works. At Genesis Block, we don’t believe that’s the winning approach. We think blockchain complexity should be abstracted away from the end-user. We did an entire series about this, Spreading Crypto.
For many of these services, there is additional friction due to ICO tokens that are forcefully integrated into the product (see NEXO token or CEL Token). None of these services have true banking functionality or integration with traditional finance —for example, easy offramp or spending methods like debit cards. None of them are taking DeFi seriously — they are leveraging crypto for only the asset class, not the underlying technology around financial protocols.
So are these companies potential competitors to Genesis Block? For the crypto crowd, yes. For the mass market, no. None of these companies are capable of reaching the billions of people around the world that we hope to reach at Genesis Block.
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Other Ways to Consume Today's Episode:

• Read on Medium: https://medium.com/genesisblock/crypto-banking-wars-can-blockfi-celsius-disrupt-banking-cf33d452ae53
• Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zf9zA-doHhw
• Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/genesisblock/15-crypto-banking-wars-can-blockfi-celsius-disrupt-banking
• Listen via Podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc): https://anchor.fm/genesis-block/episodes/15-Crypto-Banking-Wars---Can-BlockFi--Celsius-Disrupt-Banking-eibj9j

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Can the early success of major crypto exchanges propel them to winning the broader consumer finance market?
https://reddit.com/link/i48t4q/video/v4eo10gom7f51/player
This is the first part of Crypto Banking Wars — a new series that examines what crypto-native company is most likely to become the bank of the future. Who is best positioned to reach mainstream adoption in consumer finance?
While crypto allows the world to get rid of banks, a bank will still very much be necessary for this powerful technology to reach the masses. We believe a crypto-native company, like Genesis Block, will become the bank of the future.
In an earlier series, Crypto-Powered, we laid out arguments for why crypto-native companies have a huge edge in the market. When you consider both the broad spectrum of financial use-cases and the enormous value unlocked through these DeFi protocols, you can see just how big of an unfair advantage blockchain tech becomes for companies who truly understand and leverage it. Traditional banks and fintech unicorns simply won’t be able to keep up.

The power players of consumer finance in the 21st century will be crypto-native companies who build with blockchain technology at their core.

The crypto landscape is still nascent. We’re still very much in the fragmented, unbundled phase of the industry lifecycle. Beyond what Genesis Block is doing, there are signs of other companies slowly starting to bundle financial services into what could be an all-in-one bank replacement.
So the key question that this series hopes to answer:

Which crypto-native company will successfully become the bank of the future?

We obviously think Genesis Block is well-positioned to win. But we certainly aren’t the only game in town. In this series, we’ll be doing an analysis of who is most capable of thwarting our efforts. We’ll look at categories like crypto exchanges, crypto wallets, centralized lending & borrowing services, and crypto debit card companies. Each category will have its own dedicated post.
Today we’re analyzing big crypto exchanges. The two companies we’ll focus on today are Coinbase (biggest American exchange) and Binance (biggest global exchange). They are the top two exchanges in terms of Bitcoin trading volume. They are in pole position to winning this market — they have a huge existing userbase and strong financial resources.
Will Coinbase or Binance become the bank of the future? Can their early success propel them to winning the broader consumer finance market? Is their growth too far ahead for anyone else to catch up? Let’s dive in.
https://preview.redd.it/lau4hevpm7f51.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c5de1ba497199f36aa194e5809bd86e5ab533d8

Binance

The most formidable exchange on the global stage is Binance (Crunchbase). All signs suggest they have significantly more users and a stronger balance sheet than Coinbase. No other exchange is executing as aggressively and relentlessly as Binance is. The cadence at which they are shipping and launching new products is nothing short of impressive. As Tushar Jain from Multicoin argues, Binance is Blitzscaling.
Here are some of the products that they’ve launched in the last 18 months. Only a few are announced but still pre-launch.

• Lending: earn interest on your deposits
• Debit Card: users can spend their crypto with a card (via Swipe acquisition)
• Fiat onramps: 300+ payment methods and supported in 170+ countries
• Options Trading: starting with mobile-only and Bitcoin
• Futures Trading: became top 2 in volume within 6 months
• Margin Trading: can get up to 5x leverage
• BUSD stablecoin: similar to USDC, PAX, and other USD-backed stablecoins
• Staking: easily earn interest on assets that have Proof of Stake chain
• Mining pool: allowing miners to easily transfer funds between various Binance services
• OTC Portal: over-the-counter trading desk for those who want to make bigger trades
• Peer-to-Peer trading: for onramps/offramps (i.e. user buying crypto with fiat)
• Launchpad: crypto startups can launch their tokens via IEO (Initial Exchange Offering)
• Binance Charity: recently donated a lot to covid19-related efforts
• Binance Chain: a new blockchain that powers their Binance Dex.
• Binance DEX: a decentralized exchange
• Binance Labs: the venture arm of Binance
• Smart Contracts on Binance Chain: could this be an Ethereum killer?

Binance is well-positioned to become the crypto-powered, all-in-one, bundled solution for financial services. They already have so many of the pieces. But the key question is:

Can they create a cohesive & united product experience?

Binance Weaknesses

Binance is strong, but they do have a few major weaknesses that could slow them down.

1. Traders & Speculators Binance is currently very geared for speculators, traders, and financial professionals. Their bread-and-butter is trading (spot, margin, options, futures). Their UI is littered with depth charts, order books, candlesticks, and other financial concepts that are beyond the reach of most normal consumers. Their product today is not at all tailored for the broader consumer market. Given Binance’s popularity and strength among the pro audience, it’s unlikely that they will dumb down or simplify their product any time soon. That would jeopardize their core business. Binance will likely need an entirely new product/brand to go beyond the pro user crowd. That will take time (or an acquisition). So the question remains, is Binance even interested in the broader consumer market? Or will they continue to focus on their core product, the one-stop-shop for pro crypto traders?
2. Controversies & Hot Water Binance has had a number of controversies. No one seems to know where they are based — so what regulatory agencies can hold them accountable? Last year, some sensitive, private user data got leaked. When they announced their debit card program, they had to remove mentions of Visa quickly after. And though the “police raid” story proved to be untrue, there are still a lot of questions about what happened with their Shanghai office shut down (where there is smoke, there is fire). If any company has had a “move fast and break things” attitude, it is Binance. That attitude has served them well so far but as they try to do business in more regulated countries like America, this will make their road much more difficult — especially in the consumer market where trust takes a long time to earn, but can be destroyed in an instant. This is perhaps why the Binance US product is an empty shell when compared to their main global product.
3. Disjointed Product Experience Because Binance has so many different teams launching so many different services, their core product is increasingly feeling disjointed and disconnected. Many of the new features are sloppily integrated with each other. There’s no cohesive product experience. This is one of the downsides of executing and shipping at their relentless pace. For example, users don’t have a single wallet that shows their balances. Depending on if the user wants to do spot trading, margin, futures, or savings… the user needs to constantly be transferring their assets from one wallet to another. It’s not a unified, frictionless, simple user experience. This is one major downside of the “move fast and break things” approach.
4. BNB token Binance raised $15M in a 2017 ICO by selling their $BNB token. The current market cap of $BNB is worth more than $2.6B. Financially this token has served them well. However, given how BNB works (for example, their token burn), there are a lot of open questions as to how BNB will be treated with US security laws. Their Binance US product so far is treading very lightly with its use of BNB. Their token could become a liability for Binance as it enters more regulated markets. Whether the crypto community likes it or not, until regulators get caught up and understand the power of decentralized technology, tokens will still be a regulatory burden — especially for anything that touches consumers.
5. Binance Chain & Smart Contract Platform Binance is launching its own smart contract platform soon. Based on compatibility choices, they have their sights aimed at the Ethereum developer community. It’s unclear how easy it’ll be to convince developers to move to Binance chain. Most of the current developer energy and momentum around smart contracts is with Ethereum. Because Binance now has their own horse in the race, it’s unlikely they will ever decide to leverage Ethereum’s DeFi protocols. This could likely be a major strategic mistake — and hubris that goes a step too far. Binance will be pushing and promoting protocols on their own platform. The major risk of being all-in on their own platform is that they miss having a seat on the Ethereum rocket ship — specifically the growth of DeFi use-cases and the enormous value that can be unlocked. Integrating with Ethereum’s protocols would be either admitting defeat of their own platform or competing directly against themselves.

Binance Wrap Up

I don’t believe Binance is likely to succeed with a homegrown product aimed at the consumer finance market. Their current product — which is focused heavily on professional traders and speculators — is unlikely to become the bank of the future. If they wanted to enter the broader consumer market, I believe it’s much more likely that they will acquire a company that is getting early traction. They are not afraid to make acquisitions (Trust, JEX, WazirX, DappReview, BxB, CoinMarketCap, Swipe).
However, never count CZ out. He is a hustler. Binance is executing so aggressively and relentlessly that they will always be on the shortlist of major contenders.
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Coinbase

The crypto-native company that I believe is more likely to become the bank of the future is Coinbase (crunchbase). Their dominance in America could serve as a springboard to winning the West (Binance has a stronger foothold in Asia). Coinbase has more than 30M users. Their exchange business is a money-printing machine. They have a solid reputation as it relates to compliance and working with regulators. Their CEO is a longtime member of the crypto community. They are rumored to be going public soon.

Coinbase Strengths

Let’s look at what makes them strong and a likely contender for winning the broader consumer finance market.

1. Different Audience, Different Experience Coinbase has been smart to create a unique product experience for each audience — the pro speculator crowd and the common retail user. Their simple consumer version is at Coinbase.com. That’s the default. Their product for the more sophisticated traders and speculators is at Coinbase Pro (formerly GDAX). Unlike Binance, Coinbase can slowly build out the bank of the future for the broad consumer market while still having a home for their hardcore crypto traders. They aren’t afraid to have different experiences for different audiences.
2. Brand & Design Coinbase has a strong product design team. Their brand is capable of going beyond the male-dominated crypto audience. Their product is clean and simple — much more consumer-friendly than Binance. It’s clear they spend a lot of time thinking about their user experience. Interacting directly with crypto can sometimes be rough and raw (especially for n00bs). When I was at Mainframe we hosted a panel about Crypto UX challenges at the DevCon4 Dapp Awards. Connie Yang (Head of Design at Coinbase) was on the panel. She was impressive. Some of their design philosophies will bode well as they push to reach the broader consumer finance market.
3. USDC Stablecoin Coinbase (along with Circle) launched USDC. We’ve shared some stats about its impressive growth when we discussed DeFi use-cases. USDC is quickly becoming integrated with most DeFi protocols. As a result, Coinbase is getting a front-row seat at some of the most exciting things happening in decentralized finance. As Coinbase builds its knowledge and networks around these protocols, it could put them in a favorable position to unlock incredible value for their users.
4. Early Signs of Bundling Though Coinbase has nowhere near as many products & services as Binance, they are slowly starting to add more financial services that may appeal to the broader market. They are now letting depositors earn interest on USDC (also DAI & Tezos). In the UK they are piloting a debit card. Users can now invest in crypto with dollar-cost-averaging. It’s not much, but it’s a start. You can start to see hints of a more bundled solution around financial services.

Coinbase Weaknesses

Let’s now look at some things that could hold them back.

1. Slow Cadence In the fast-paced world of crypto, and especially when compared to Binance, Coinbase does not ship very many new products very often. This is perhaps their greatest weakness. Smaller, more nimble startups may run circles around them. They were smart to launch Coinbase Ventures where tey invest in early-stage startups. They can now keep an ear to the ground on innovation. Perhaps their cadence is normal for a company of their size — but the Binance pace creates quite the contrast.
2. Lack of Innovation When you consider the previous point (slow cadence), it’s unclear if Coinbase is capable of building and launching new products that are built internally. Most of their new products have come through acquisitions. Their Earn.com acquisition is what led to their Earn educational product. Their acquisition of Xapo helped bolster their institutional custody offering. They acqui-hired a team to help launch their staking infrastructure. Their acquisition of Cipher Browser became an important part of Coinbase Wallet. And recently, they acquired Tagomi — a crypto prime brokerage. Perhaps most of Coinbase’s team is just focused on improving their golden goose, their exchange business. It’s unclear. But the jury is still out on if they can successfully innovate internally and launch any homegrown products.
3. Talent Exodus There have been numerous reports of executive turmoil at Coinbase. It raises a lot of questions about company culture and vision. Some of the executives who departed include COO Asiff Hirji, CTO Balaji Srinivasan, VP & GM Adam White, VP Eng Tim Wagner, VP Product Jeremy Henrickson, Sr Dir of Eng Namrata Ganatra, VP of Intl Biz Dan Romero, Dir of Inst Sales Christine Sandler, Head of Trading Hunter Merghart, Dir Data Science Soups Ranjan, Policy Lead Mike Lempres, Sr Compliance Vaishali Mehta. Many of these folks didn’t stay with Coinbase very long. We don’t know exactly why it’s happening —but when you consider a few of my first points (slow cadence, lack of innovation), you have to wonder if it’s all related.
4. Institutional Focus As a company, we are a Coinbase client. We love their institutional offering. It’s clear they’ve been investing a lot in this area. A recent Coinbase blog post made it clear that this has been a focus: “Over the past 12 months, Coinbase has been laser-focused on building out the types of features and services that our institutional customers need.” Their Tagomi acquisition only re-enforced this focus. Perhaps this is why their consumer product has felt so neglected. They’ve been heavily investing in their institutional services since May 2018. For a company that’s getting very close to an IPO, it makes sense that they’d focus on areas that present strong revenue opportunities — as they do with institutional clients. Even for big companies like Coinbase, it’s hard to have a split focus. If they are “laser-focused” on the institutional audience, it’s unlikely they’ll be launching any major consumer products anytime soon.

Coinbase Wrap Up

At Genesis Block, we‘re proud to be working with Coinbase. They are a fantastic company. However, I don’t believe that they’ll succeed in building their own product for the broader consumer finance market. While they have incredible design, there are no signs that they are focused on or capable of internally building this type of product.
Similar to Binance, I think it’s far more likely that Coinbase acquires a promising young startup with strong growth.

Honorable Mentions

Other US-based exchanges worth mentioning are Kraken, Gemini, and Bittrex. So far we’ve seen very few signs that any of them will aggressively attack broader consumer finance. Most are going in the way of Binance — listing more assets and adding more pro tools like margin and futures trading. And many, like Coinbase, are trying to attract more institutional customers. For example, Gemini with their custody product.

Wrap Up

Coinbase and Binance have huge war chests and massive reach. For that alone, they should always be considered threats to Genesis Block. However, their products are very, very different than the product we’re building. And their approach is very different as well. They are trying to educate and onboard people into crypto. At Genesis Block, we believe the masses shouldn’t need to know or care about it. We did an entire series about this, Spreading Crypto.
Most everyone needs banking — whether it be to borrow, spend, invest, earn interest, etc. Not everyone needs a crypto exchange. For non-crypto consumers (the mass market), the differences between a bank and a crypto exchange are immense. Companies like Binance and Coinbase make a lot of money on their crypto exchange business. It would be really difficult, gutsy, and risky for any of them to completely change their narrative, messaging, and product to focus on the broader consumer market. I don’t believe they would ever risk biting the hand that feeds them.
In summary, as it relates to a digital bank aimed at the mass market, I believe both Coinbase and Binance are much more likely to acquire a startup in this space than they are to build it themselves. And I think they would want to keep the brand/product distinct and separate from their core crypto exchange business.
So back to the original question, is Coinbase and Binance a threat to Genesis Block? Not really. Not today. But they could be, and for that, we want to stay close to them.
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Other Ways to Consume Today's Episode:

• Read on Medium: https://medium.com/genesisblock/crypto-banking-wars-will-coinbase-or-binance-become-the-bank-of-the-future-eb31bcf02b02
• Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0csY1j0FuEk
• Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/genesisblock/13-crypto-banking-wars-will-coinbase-or-binance-become-the-bank-of-the-future/
• Listen via Podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc): https://anchor.fm/genesis-block/episodes/13-Crypto-Banking-Wars---Will-Coinbase-or-Binance-Become-the-Bank-of-the-Future-ehmrmo

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Hello everyone, thank you for your continued interest and support. In the past two weeks, various tasks of TokenClub have been progressing steadily. The product development and community operation progress this week are as follows:
1. TokenClub Events
1)TokenClub’s 2nd Token Circle Talent Show starts registration
The second 2nd Token Circle Talent Show is coming, providing you with a big stage that you want to show yourself in the coin circle. 500,000 people will watch your performances here. This event takes part in the form of registration, and enters the selection competition after passing the preliminary screening of TokenClub. The trial will be promoted in the form of live PK. Winners will receive key support from TokenClub, self-media matrix, help create personal exclusive boutique columns, get the chance to talk with more heavyweight guests, and there will be TCT awards waiting for you! Friends, sign up now.
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2)June 1 activity ended successfully
On the advent of “June 1”, the TokenClub team opened a new welfare activity for overseas communities. During the event, follow the team’s official Twitter and forward the event poster in real time, or participate in the topic interaction of the Telegram group to receive private red envelope rewards
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3)BTCGrandpa is invited to participate in the live broadcast of Golden Finance
On June 3rd, Grandma Coin was invited to participate in the live broadcast of Golden Finance’s “Mining Double Coins” theme. Review link:
https://m.jinse.com/live/topic?id=14268.
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4)BTCGrandpa was invited to participate in the 499 Block community AMA
On June 11, Grandpa Nina was invited to participate in the 499Block community AMA. The theme is “Coin Circle Big V Coin Grandpa takes you to see the market”, the article review link:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/qCnwuaohiwi4BXcbRSJ1gw
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2.TokenClub Live
1) Summary
Recently, Jianan Technology Senior Vice President Lu Xiaoming, OKEx CEO-Jay Hao, Founder of Litecoin Charlie Lee, Binance Vice President Lu Mai, Bitribe Founder-SKY, Luyin Agreement Founder-Wang Dong, Kubi CEO-Johnny Lyu , Co-Founder of BTW.com-Dylan, MYKEY & Coin Hu founder Guru, suterusu investor & Betterbit founder Richard, CasperLabs CEO-Mrinal Manohar, CasperLabs COO- Cliff Sarkin, DoraHacks partner & business leader-Yue Hanchao, former Silicon Valley Engineer & Early Blockchain User-Wu Weilong, Distributed Capital Partner and General Counsel Sun Ming, Ontology Founder Li Jun, Cardano Project Founder Charles Hoskinson, QuarkChain Founding Partner Anthurine, ARPA Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officials-Nogi, the well-known KOL Ke Haoran of the currency circle, the “Ancient” old leek who loves trading, One.Love, the early investor of Bicc & the founder of CC Capital & the co-founder of the three o’clock blockchain community Wang Xiaobin, Binance Angel Steven, Binance Angel Wu Mi, Binance Angel July, Injective Protocol Co-Founder and CEO-Eric Chen, BN Capital Senior Partner-Wayne Lin, and TokenClub Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Investment Strategy Senior Expert-Zao Shen Chat with everyone Those things of the blockchain~
On June 1, the global blockchain live festival “Stay Live, Stay Young”-Bitribe +499BLOCK hosted by 499Block and Bitribe was childlike and childlike, celebrating June 1st. A total of 18 industry heavyweights, Jay Hao, Charlie Lee, Mai Lu, SKY, etc., and many industry leading exchanges such as Binance, OKEx, Matcha, Kucoin, Bitribe, BTW, etc. were invited to participate in the live broadcast festival Including Luyin agreement, Harmony, Cortex, Beam, Wedifi, etc., the continuous airdrop of up to 6BTC.
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On June 1st, CasperLabs CEO-Mrinal Manohar, CasperLabs COO- Cliff Sarkin, DoraHacks partner & business leader-Yue Hanchao, former Silicon Valley engineer & early blockchain user-Wu Weilong was a guest at the TokenClub live room, sharing the theme: Ethereum 3.0: Casper Labs, a Silicon Valley star project, takes us to interpret Casper Labs together.
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On June 1, Binance Luna talked to Lu Xiaoming, senior vice president of Jianan Technology, and talked to us about the mine. Lu Xiaoming believes that blockchain has played a huge role in breaking the “data island” and other aspects, and he has confidence in the future of the industry. Just like the sentence he gave to everyone: “We still believe firmly, still believe, of course ,we still love you!”
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On June 2nd, Binance Yingge talked to the founder of MYKEY & Coin Hu. Around: “Is Stablecoin a killer application?” Speaking from the beginning of the coin circle to the first pot of gold to the establishment of MYKEY, Guru and shared with us the secrets of grasping so many value projects, investment experience, etc., and stability The key analysis was carried out.
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On June 3, Binance Sis talked with Sun Ming, Partner and General Counsel of Distributed Capital-”Sun Ming, Partner of Distributed Capital: The past of the currency circle of a lawyer.” Sun Ming is more optimistic about Ethereum than Bitcoin. Sun Ming believes that the easiest way to invest is to choose the most important project in the main track.
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On June 4, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cointelegraph Chinese and the Cardano project, gave a live broadcast and shared an in-depth discussion around the topic of “How to Cardano surpass Ethereum after five years of precipitation.” Charles Hoskinson, who was a close working partner with V God and BM, why did he leave Bitshares and Ethereum to create the Cardano project? There is an answer in the live room.
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On June 4, Binance Li Jiayi talked with Ontology founder Li Jun-”Ontology founder’s blockchain entrepreneurial experience”. For the future of the public chain, Li Jun believes that in the past two years of infrastructure construction, the public chain has paid more attention to technology. However, in the process of open source in the blockchain industry, technical homogeneity is gradually emerging. In the next stage, the public chain will pay more attention to the application of landing entities and offline scenarios, and new focus will appear, which is a good thing for the development of the public chain.
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On June 5, Binance Seven Seven talked to Binance Captains-Hard Candy, He Rensi, Deer Deer Captain, and three post-90s Binance Captains. Focusing on the topic of “Binan Captain chatting about “Cloud Stall” earning “after-sleep income”, I talked about how the entire currency circle has been following the wind in recent days, to see how the Captain Binance is lying and making money.
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On June 6, the post-modernist economist hard-core punkist master, Zao Shen, went online, with the theme of “street stalls in the city management area, and speculation of coins out of heaven.” “Street economy” has become the most popular word recently. In this issue, Zao Shen takes everyone to analyze: behind the promotion of the land stall economy, what are the trends and choices in national policies? And analyzed the recent stock market, currency circle, and international policies.
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On June 8th, Binance Luna talked to Anthurine, the founding partner of QuarkChain, focusing on the “challenges and opportunities of blockchain in the “new infrastructure””. Anthurine is interested in the development of China’s new infrastructure and the blockchain industry in the new infrastructure In order to play its role, how to participate, and the new infrastructure you think they need the underlying architecture of the blockchain and other issues have been shared in detail.
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On June 9th, Binance Yingge talked with ETC Asia-Pacific community manager Xu Kang Christian, and talked to everyone: the brother story of ETC and ETH. Xu Kang said that after 2016, a hard fork occurred in Ethereum. The newly forked chain is ETH, and the original chain is now ETC. Xu Kang believes that the most suitable native scenario for blockchain implementation is the financial field, followed by the alliance chain that the country has vigorously developed.
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On June 10th, ARPA co-founder & chief growth officer-Noki as a guest TokenClub live broadcast room and Gate brand public relations Yue Yue connection centered on “ARPA DeFi ideas and growth strategy” centered on the discussion. Nogi talked to you about some ARPA things, and shared her views on the future of the entire digital currency and blockchain industry.
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On June 10, Binance Li Jiayi talked to the well-known KOL Ke Haoran of the currency circle and One.Love, the “old” leek who loves trading. Both guests were Binance’s “bosses” (rebate partners). The two guests shared their respective stories in the currency circle and the stories they saw, and shared their own experience in currency speculation.
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On June 11, Wang Xiaobin, an early investor of Bicc, founder of CC Capital, and co-founder of the three o’clock blockchain community made a guest live sharing and shared about the BICC trading platform, recent industry hotspots, and blockchain technology.
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On June 11, Binance Qianjiangyue spoke to Binance Angels Steven, Wu Mi and July. Binance Angel is a volunteer team established at the beginning of Binance. This team exists as a real voice of community users. The three Binance Angels also shared their daily work in the live broadcast room.
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On June 12, Binance Sis talked with Injective Protocol co-founder and CEO-Eric Chen, BN Capital Senior Partner-Wayne Lin, and shared their experiences of speculating on coins around “Defi makes the market value of crypto assets tenfold” , Investment experience and experience, a hot discussion was held on blockchain technology and Defi ecology.
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On June 13th, the currency circle song king Zao Shen went live, and the theme was “Recovery of the Minority, Lost of the Most”. Mainly revolving around this Thursday’s plunge in the currency circle, US stocks have driven the currency market to chat. On the linkage of the US stocks & currency circle, the reasons for the collapse of US stocks, the following market trends and investment strategies were analyzed one by one. For more exciting content, please move to the live room.
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3.TokenClub operation data
-Live data: 17 live broadcasts in the past two weeks, with over 500,000 views. TokenClub hosted a total of 889 live broadcasts with a total of 45.78 million views.
-Binary trade data: In the past two weeks, guess the rise and fall to participate in a total of 5274 times, the amount of participation exceeded 3 million TCT. At present, it is guessed that the rise and fall function has participated in a total of 1.12 million times, with a cumulative participation amount of 501 million TCT.
-Chat data: In the past two weeks, a total of 10124 messages have been generated. A total of 4.88 milliom messages have been launched since the function was launched.
-Mini-game data: The mini-game has participated in a total of 5069 times in the past two weeks. A total of 1,67 million self-functions have been online.
-Cut leeks game data together: Since the game was launched, the total number of user participation in the game was 976086 TCT total consumption was 6.28 million gift certificate total consumption was 16.39 million and TCT mining output was 163812.
-TokenClub KOL data: Over the past two weeks, the total reading volume of the BTCGrandpa article has been viewed by more than 300,000 people.
-Social media data: At present, the number of Weibo official accounts is 18053 and the number of Twitter followers is 1822 and we have opened the official Medium account this week, welcome to follow.
-Telegram official group data: In the past 2 weeks, there were 741 chats in the group, and the total number of Telegram official groups is currently 3113.
-Medium data: Medium official account u/TokenClub has published 3 excellent articles, official announcements and updates are published in English, welcome to follow.
4.Communities
1)Overseas community
On June 1, TokenClub organized an award-winning event for overseas users to participate in live broadcast interaction, retweet Twitter, and telegram group chat. At the same time, with the increase of live broadcast content, the telegram group is becoming more and more active, and the questions raised by overseas users who have just entered the telegram group are also answered in the first time. TokenClub has translated the high-quality live content of the past two weeks into English and released it to the Medium platform. Please pay attention.
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TCT has been listed on Binance、Okex、Gate.io、ZB-M、MXC、Biki、Coinex、BigOne、Coinbene、Cybex、SWFT、Loopring、Rootrex etc.
TokenClub website: www.tokenclub.com
Telegram：https://t.me/token_club
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