?? Boomers are starting to tango with Crypto

Hey everyone, welcome back to my crunch. ??????

Today, like every other day, we’ll take a look at some of the interesting news-bites (we like to refer to them as 'crunches' in the world of Fintech, Crypto, and beyond. Trust me there will something related to the 'Metaverse' and I’ll also share some of the latest investment rounds for Fintech companies from around the world.

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Let’s get into today’s edition! ??

Today's news headlines are full of stories that are exciting, weird, as well as worrying. Boomers getting into cryptocurrency? MailChimp suspending crypto agencies? The payment funding falling?

Read on to stay up to date with the latest industry news.

Yesterday’s Market Moves

Some Familiar Fintech Stocks

Note: The variance captures DoD movement in the price

What’s new in Fintech?

Revolut has partnered with social enterprise Beam to let users donate to Beam through the app and help the homeless raise funds for work, training, travel, and more.

Arab Financial Services , a leading payments processor in the Middle East and Africa Region, has introduced a new digital wallet — BPay. This app is part of a nationwide initiative to make the Kingdom of Bahrain cashless and supports the government's efforts to encourage digital transformation.

Electronic payments in Saudi Arabia have surpassed those made in cash for the first time. The percentage increased significantly to 57% of all transactions made in the country in 2021, compared to 36% in 2019.

Boomers are starting to tango with Crypto; why are boomers dabbling in crypto?

When you think of bitcoins and cryptocurrency, you probably think of a 20 something year old enthusiast and/or a 30-year-old billionaire with an appetite for risk. It’s been predominantly seen as a young person’s game, and there’s no shame in admitting that. Studies show that 94% of crypto buyers are, in fact, Gen Z or Millennials.?

However, a recent survey by the global payment platform Mercuryo shows that “boomers” are starting to take interest in crypto. Cryptocurrency users aged 55+ have become a progressively larger percentage of the total crypto community, with an increase of two-thirds since the start of the year.

The survey of 1,500 people in the UK and US found that 27% of customers above 65 years old held crypto (wow!). Among that group, two-thirds reported having no crypto holdings but were planning on adding them to portfolios in the future (wow, again!).

And more than 50% of the people surveyed wanted to see mainstream crypto adoption (yet another wow!).

According to Petr Kozyakov, the CEO at Mercuryo, crypto regulations will become increasingly important in the next few years due to mounting public calls for regulation. Two-thirds of Merucryo’s British customers agree with this assessment, with many wishing to see crypto “become more regulated.”

The regulation is particularly important to older people, according to Kozyakov. With an effective regulatory system, the potential associated with crypto will get “unleashed” which will drive greater adoption - across Individuals and Institutions. BlackRocks recent move is yet another sign that large asset managers are getting ready for the wave which is soon going to come post regulation.

If you'd like to see how the older generation is coming around to its younger counterpart's way of thinking, check out the full article here.

? Quick Investment Rounds

The winter is here and Q3' 2022 funding looks down big time, when compared to the previous 4 quarters but we still have Fintechs (with sound business plan et al) raising significant amount of investments

Pomelo , a Fintech startup that aims to streamline money transfers, has reportedly raised $20 million in seed funding alongside a $50 million warehouse facility.?

Social trading network eToro has acquired Gatsby (Acquired by eToro) , a Robinhood competitor that aims to help the masses invest in stocks with no commission or fees. The deal is worth about $50 million in cash and common stock.

YES BANK has invested in Venture Catalysts++ | India's 1st Multi-Stage VC , an integrated incubator. The bank did not disclose the amount of its investment, but it has invested in two platforms: Beams Fintech Fund and 100Unicorns Accelerator.

Super Payments , a Fintech that provides free online payments to businesses and rewards shopping to customers, has raised ￡22.5 million in funding.

Arc , a startup that aims to be the one-stop shop for SaaS companies’ financial products, has raised $20 million in a Series A round of funding. The raise comes seven months after Arc emerged from stealth with a debt financing of $150 million and a seed funding of $11 million.

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?? Report of the Day

State of Payments Q2’22 Report

Things are tough right now. If you haven't heard, funding to the payments space has hit its lowest level since Q4 ‘20 — hang on a sec while I pass out…?

Let's talk numbers.

Do you know how much funding went into the payments space in Q2’22? It was $5.1B; that's a 43% decrease from the year's first quarter!

The funding market has seen a decline in the past year, and it's likely to continue. But don't lose hope. This is just another opportunity for payment companies to focus on profitability, efficiency and consolidation

If you want to read more about what's happening and check the statistics, check out the full report here.

? Before you go…

I promised you a few crunches on the 'Metaverse' and related areas

Metaverse: The whole point of buying land is that it’s scarce—but the same rule doesn’t really apply in the virtual world, does it? Billionaire cryptocurrency enthusiast Mark Cuban rips apart the idea of throwing cash on virtual land.

Amazon: TikTok is taking over the internet with all its hilarious trends. And now 亚马逊 is following suit, testing a TikTok-like feature within its app.

Crypto: Intuit Mailchimp strikes again, suspending the accounts of several crypto-related people and firms for no apparent reason. This isn't the first time the email services provider has banned an account for making transactions via digital assets.

DeFi: DeFi service users are growing by the day. A survey by Visa and YouGov shows that 21% of APAC consumers have used DeFi services before, a proportion expected to grow 17% points this year.

?? The Latest on Couchonomics

In my latest episode, I have Nameer Khan, Chairman of MFTA join me on the couch. We covered a wide number of topics. Please tune in and enjoy the show

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Deezer

?? And that brings us to the end of today’s Couchonomics Crunch.

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