Hi all, Julie here.

I’m off to San Francisco in the morning for a special Fintech Today salon style dinner. Excited to hang out with a few of you! More of these to come.

In the meantime, check out the latest Tux Time Podcast with Dave CEO Jason Wilk. And don’t forget to take a guess at what shares of Robinhood will price at the night before it lists. Winner will get FTT swag :)

Today's Partner Masterworks

Founded by serial tech entrepreneurs, this little-known fintech startup has become the premiere platform for art investing. Demand is up and it’s no surprise why: contemporary art prices outgained S&P 500 returns by 174% from 1995 through 2020, while besting gold and real estate returns by nearly 2x. Over 185,000 people have signed up and when we see that much demand, oury ears perk up. Unlock this $1.7 trillion asset class today and skip the waitlist with this FTT link today.*

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Company News

Central Bank Kumbaya

We’ve talked about Central Bank Digital Currencies here before, and it seems like there are new developments on a daily basis - especially out of China. Top financial institutions are now calling for global cooperation as China leaps ahead. A report from The Bank for International Settlements said central banks should work to achieve “interoperability” between their digital currency projects. I haven’t followed this trend as closely as others, but it feels like Central Banks are going to have a hard time agreeing on everything in today’s political climate.

Circle SPAC

More SPACs! Digital currency startup Circle is planning to go public later this year through a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp that will value the company at $4.5B. Best known for helping create the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin USD Coin, the 8 year-old company’s announcement comes after Visa settled a USDC transaction on its payment network earlier this year.

Funding/M&A

Tide’s New $$

UK-based Tide announced a $100M funding round and $650M valuation. The fintech, which has 350,000 SMEs and opened over 410,000 business accounts since its launch in 2017, says the funding will be used to expand globally (it recently announced an India expansion). As FTT Expert Michael Jenkins pointed out recently, the UK has seen a surge in investment recently as the region hits its stride and some startups enter later stages where rounds tend to be larger.

Crypto Watch

Square Wallet

Square, one of the first fintech companies to wade into Bitcoin, says it’s making a hardware wallet for Bitcoin. Crypto wallets can be stored offline or online at exchanges. As interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has grown, so has the need for custodial services to keep crypto safe and secure. Jesse Dorogusker, head of hardware at Square, tweeted that Square decided to make this move in order to make custody more mainstream. This is also something that regulators appear to be keeping a close eye on as they try to figure out how to regulate the sector.

Crypto + Regulators

Not necessarily news, but an interesting read here on how some of the large crypto exchanges are trying to play nice with regulators in order to get ahead.

Together With LendIt Fintech Nexus

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Then you need to be there. Learn more and apply to join here!