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Hi all, Julie here.

Writing this in between a lot of meetings today. Thanks again to Public.com for having me on your live event to talk about BNPL! Was fun having a clubhouse-like product built right into the app. We’ll have to do it again soon ;)

Speaking of BNPL, don’t miss my podcast with Matt Harris of Bloom coming out tomorrow morning. We talked alllll about the behind the scenes aspect of this type of loan and how it may or may not impact credit scores in the future.

Today's Partner, Masterworks

“Who let the doge out?”

Shares of our favorite canine-themed coin lept 11% last week once Elon (aka the Dogefather) showed his support—or so we thought.

But watch out. Doge has its kryptonite. Most financial experts can agree on one thing: Doge is too volatile to be money.

That’s why elite investors bet on tangible REAL assets, like art to diversify their portfolio:

• Massive, untapped asset class, estimated over $6 trillion
• Contemporary art prices outperformed S&P returns by 174% from 1995-2020
• Some of the lowest correlation to public equities of any major asset

The catch? You usually need millions to build a proper portfolio of art. No longer.

​One exciting startup is disrupting the $60B a year art market by securitizing multimillion-dollar paintings, allowing you to invest at a fraction of the purchase price.

Use this special FTT link to skip their waitlist*

*See important disclosures​

Company News

Robinhood Becomes A Meme

I mean, it was only a matter of time before this happened. I think most of us are just surprised this isn’t how the first day of trading in Robinhood looked like. $HOOD shares have soared the last two days, hitting $85 at one point (a gain of more than 80% on the day). Trading was even halted for volatility several times (though it was not halted on RH itself). Congrats to all of our readers that bought and held ;) I don’t own it directly but I do own the Cathie Wood fund that bought shares.

Affirm and Apple Partner

Big news for Affirm in the midst of a lot of BNPL news apparently. Bloomberg had the scoop that Apple products bought in Canada will soon have the option of being purchased via installments with Affirm. Apple already does something similar in the US, but it does so through Goldman Sachs. My main takeaway is simply that consumers have a growing preference to pay for large purchases via installments vs on a credit card, and merchants are reacting.

Funding and Deals

Figure Gets Acquired

Not a bad few months for the former Co-Founder of SoFi. Mike Cagney’s newer startup, Figure, announced an agreement to merge with Homebridge Financial Services. The company, which is in the blockchain and lending space, has more than $5B in loans and securities originated, serviced, financed and traded on Provenance (its tech platform).

Rapyd Raises Again

It’s been a few days since we last talked about banking-as-a-service, so I guess it’s about time we had news here. Rapyd -whose API provides a range of financial services like payments, mobile wallets, money transfers, card issuing, fraud protection and more- has raised $300M. The company said that its total payment volume is on target to pass $20B this year, a 4x of 2020’s $5B in volume. This is a mere seven months after its last raise, so the interest and growth in the space doesn’t seem to be fading anytime soon.

Crypto Watch

Gensler On Crypto

There’ve been a lot of questions on where the new SEC Chair, Gary Gensler, will come down on crypto. This piece from Bloomberg tries to answer a number of those questions. TLDR: it could be more bullish, but it could also be less bullish. Here’s an excerpt:

“Policymakers have struggled with how to respond to the mostly unregulated $1.6T market, which has seen explosive growth and wild price swings. Gensler is contemplating a robust oversight regime, centered on establishing safeguards for the millions of investors who’ve been stocking their portfolios with tokens. “While I’m neutral on the technology, even intrigued—I spent three years teaching it, leaning into it—I’m not neutral about investor protection,” says Gensler, who on Tuesday gave a speech about crypto at the Aspen Security Forum. “If somebody wants to speculate, that’s their choice, but we have a role as a nation to protect those investors against fraud.”

Grayscale Builds Out ETF Team

While we’re still over here waiting for a crypto ETF, Grayscale is building out its ETF team in hopes that it can convert the $25B Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF. It’s grabbing some big names for the team too. David LaValle, former chief executive officer of custom index provider Alerian, has been named its global head of exchange-traded funds. There appear to be roughly 10 openings being advertised for the team as well. If it succeeds, GBTC would immediately become the third-largest commodity ETF. Safe to say this would be a big deal, with only the $60B SPDR Gold Shares and $29B iShares Gold Trust commanding more assets.

​Business Development Lead (Fintech) at Truework (San Francisco / Remote): Truework is seeking an accomplished Business Development professional to own and drive the strategy and execution of portions of its holistic partnerships approach and broader company approach. You will be responsible for formulating, sourcing, negotiating, and launching important strategic partnerships to support and accelerate the company’s growth. This is a key hire that would have broad latitude on defining and executing on Truework’s strategy for the verifier customer base (lenders, background check companies and others who may need access to our supply of data). In this high impact role, you will work with cross functional internal stakeholders on multi-quarter strategies and reports directly into the VP of Partnerships. This is a "full stack" role, meaning you will own the full deal process from ideation to post-launch success and will work collaboratively across product, go-to-market, strategy, and operations. This is an amazing opportunity if you are a self-starter with a demonstrated ability to think strategically and analytically about business, product, and technical challenges, while conveying compelling value propositions internally and externally.

Meant to put this here on Monday but totally forgot! I blame moving. Must read paper out from my friends Jackie Reses, Michael Gilroy and Saanya Ojha!

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Julie VerHage-Greenberg is the co-founder of Fintech Today, where she focuses on editorial content and brand. Prior to joining, she was Bloomberg’s first fintech reporter, covering Robinhood from before it was a billion dollar company, breaking the news that Plaid was acquiring Quovo, and interviewing executives on Bloomberg TV and at several large conferences.

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