📖 Fiat Currency - VS - Cryptocurrency, Centralised - VS - Decentralised
How to develop a solid expertise on Fiat Currency versus Cryptocurrency
Dear all,
today a 2nd Educational type of post, a new section within Maverick Equity Research!
I was asked for educational resources sounding like: ‘how could one get his or her head around and have a solid ground on the Fiat Currency versus Cryptocurrency development?’. Naturally, blockchain is part of the package behind the cryptocurrency technology.
Report structure and table of contents as a logical and smooth preview:
📊 My blockchain in banking real-world experience and use case
📊 Educational resources for a solid expertise
📊 My blockchain in banking real-world experience and use case
On the blockchain technology and use cases, I’ve been professionally involved with and worked from the banking side on this blockchain based solution for trade finance in banking. Specifically, the ‘Batavia’ project was a consortium of banks together with IBM designed as a platform to track good and release payments as they move around the world in a very paper-heavy business.
Trade finance as a banking financial service involves a big number of document exchanges between a large number of entities, such as exporters and importers, banks, insurers, transportation and logistics companies, and government authorities.
Given the novelty, reach and goal, the project was featured in the Financial Times:
Financial Times: Banks team up with IBM in trade finance blockchain
3 more key resources:
Global Trade Review: we.trade & Batavia merge blockchain platforms for trade finance
Commerzbank: Blockchain-based Trade Finance Platform Batavia
Overall, my short opinion on the topic overall is simple:
fiat currency is definitely here to stay
on crypto I am 50/50 for now
blockchain technology positive and real uses case are feasible, but more is needed until the efficiency, governance & big use cases are making tangible contributions
📊 Educational resources for a solid expertise
Education and immersion are the only way to have a comprehensive take on any topic. On this hot topic, the key words as preview are:
the economics and history of money & banking
the blockchain revolution and its use cases
the digital transformation of financial services and
fintech (financial technology) companies with its applications & use cases
Specifically, the serious educational path I did, and that I recommend is like last time, my top online educational platform, Coursera! On top of using it for my professional development for many years, I did also partner and am an affiliate since this year.
So, 4 big educational endeavors via 4 different great universities / business schools:
I would definitely internalise the "The Natural Hierarchy of Money" framework, which is also a kind of high-level overview of the entire course and is part of the introduction module, so don't expect to fully understand it until you look back after completing the rest of the course. Nevertheless, it provides essential orientation for what comes after which acts as an essential roadmap
you can get it done + certificate in about 30-35 hours - if you do not have formal banking/economics education, training, experience this will be a bit difficult, but difficult is what makes you stand out … headlines, various ramblings, executive summaries everybody can read and talk about (some say, all can ‘parrot’ them)
Learn the fundamentals of blockchain technology:
Seven design principles for the ‘Blockchain Revolution’
Terms such as miner, hash, nonce, consensus mechanism, public key cryptography, cryptoasset, smart contract, DApp, and self-sovereign identity
Top 10 challenges for implementing blockchain technology
Blockchain use-cases within your industry, and business model decisions to assess feasibility
The key of this specialisation is the last course, Blockchain Opportunity Analysis. It is essentially the applied study case where you identify new ideas or opportunities for blockchain within your chosen industry, and where you make it happen by bringing your idea to fruition
You can get it done + certificate in about 80-100 hours, quite a workload but worth it!
the Specialization explores the evolving world of finance, focusing on the changing dynamics caused by the conversion of products and services into digital goods, new customer demands and changing regulation to govern the competitive landscape - the overall digital transformation of finance
throughout the course, the instructors will use state of art examples and share their own research from the European and North American finance industries, as well as expose practices from leading digital financial services and companies, such as MobilePay, Saxo Bank and PayPal
The key is the last course, the Applied Learning Project / Capstone project. You will will use the acquired knowledge to analyse problems and propose actions in real world situations. In the capstone project, the learners will be asked to develop a digital transformation strategy for a real-world financial service company.
You can get it done + certificate in about 40-50 hours, quite a workload but worth it!
designed to introduce you to the fundamental building blocks of financial technologies and real-world applications through case studies of Wharton-led companies in the field. You'll learn the the essential components of technology-driven financial strategies, from complex regulations to cryptocurrency to portfolio optimization.
you'll also learn how modern investment strategies deploy technology to produce optimal results, explore the disruptive force of changing payment methods, analyze the changing regulatory landscape, and gain a deeper understanding of robo-advising, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, and blockchain
You can get it done + certificate in just 15-20 hours, definitely worth it!
Below you can find the verified certificates I got as a sense how yours would look like. Like last time, I did scribble my name in blue, and for why I prefer to be anonymous you can read more in the ‘About’ section … and yes, I do have a long name 😉:
From 2019: Blockchain Revolution, a specialization via 4 courses from INSEAD
From 2014: Economics of Money and Banking, Columbia University
Many Coursera courses and lectures are free, while for the full experience, meaning quizzes, assignments, exams and certificates, fees are by individual course ($29 – $99 range), specialisation (US$39-79 per month) or degree (varies by institution, length etc).
A popular learning package is via Coursera Plus where one has unlimited access to 7,000+ world-class courses, hands-on projects, and job-ready certificate programs - all included in the yearly subscription:
for 399/year with 14-day money-back guarantee
the monthly version is $59/month and starts with a 7-day free trial
Hope you found this interesting and useful. The lifelong learning and professional development is on ! It’s yours to embark on! Enjoy!
There is NO paywall here and NO pesky ads here unlike most other places! What would be highly appreciated from your side? Just sharing it around (restack, email, forward, re-tweet) with like-minded people and hitting the ❤️ button.
Your support will also make possible more & more independent investment research: from a single individual … not a fund, bank, or click-baity media company or so … !
Thank you! Have a great week!
Mav 👋 🤝
Your profesional experience featured in the Financial Times, interesting … not bad not bad bro’ 🤘.
Thank a lot for the insights given that they come from both the traditional banking side and also the crypto and blockchain one. Usually people are very one sided on it!
Why will fiat stay?