Fintech

Artem Zhiganov is CEO at Geobeat, an app that lets users hear different tracks that change with how they are moving, where, and under what weather. Users can tell the app how they are moving, either walking or by car or bike, and any time they cross from an area to another, represented by hexagons, music will change.

«We have a few layers, at the moment, and we launched a landing page for producers who’d like to take part in the project. Many producers have already contacted us and some are willing to do something for free. We want to have at least 15 or 20 soundtracks in every city with a strong electronic music scene, we have a road map for Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and maybe Tokyo before the end of the year».

Price predictions in the Bitcoin world are always rather interesting. Especially considering how the price turned very bearish over the weekend. Cybersecurity guru John McAfee feels one Bitcoin can become worth as much as half a million Dollars in three years. However, he is quite confident his prediction will come true. He has avidly followed the recent price momentum and shared his opinions on the price dip. In fact, he was one of the first to acknowledge this was a mere technical correction.

And McAfee is very sure that tweeted to one of his followers today that if his predictions fail to materialize, he will dine on his own penis in front of everyone. McAfee made the comment after saying bitcoin will move above $500,000 within three years.

U.K.-based fintech startup Curve has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round. The funding comes from a wide range of global banks, venture capitalists and industry veterans, including Santander InnoVentures, Investec and Henry Ritchotte, former COO of Deutsche Bank.

"In the last 12 months, we’ve established a loyal base of customers who love the way Curve complements and improves their existing financial lives," said Shachar Bialick, founder and CEO.

Robots are moving on to the trading floors of investment banks. Many of the world’s biggest banks have for years been automating manual, repetitive tasks done by support staff to save money. But now they are putting the latest forms of artificial intelligence to work at the heart of operations among their star traders, allocating funds and analysing data to develop strategies.

According to a report by the Financial Times, UBS is about to take robots to trading floors. The company has shown how two AI solutions can assist traders in enhancing their performance.

Technology and the solutions it can offer to the world of finance were among the hottest topics at FinDating. The event, which took place in Geneva on June 22nd, introduced a few new concepts with the keynote speakers who were invited. Among them, Kim-Andrée Potvin opened with a recounting of the experience of BNP Paribas in tackling technological and digital new challenges.

Pavlos Christoforou, cofounder and partner at PointNine, explained «The regulatory challenge: Lessons learned after one billion trades processed», and regulation was again the topic touched by Yana Afanasieva, of Swiss Finance + Technology Association. Giacomo Zucco – BlockchainLab – went then in depth talking about blockchain technology.

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), is working on a prototype of a cryptocurrency that it could end up in circulation in the near future. Hovewer, there is currently no timetable for this, and the bank seems to be proceeding cautiously. It would be introduced alongside the China’s primary currency the renminbi. China will be simulating possible scenarios and running mock transactions using the cryptocurrency with some commercial Chinese banks.

One event this week shows why digital currency markets still have a long way to go before they’re safe enough for large-scale trading. The digital currency Ethereum experienced a "flash crash" on Wednesday, with the price falling from about $296 to a low of 10 cents in a matter of minutes.

The most widely-used exchange, Coinbase-owned GDAX, operates like a traditional stock exchange, and lets traders buy stock on margin and place so-called "stop loss" orders-an automated instruction to sell if the price falls below a certain point. Adam White, the vice president of GDAX, wrote in a blog post on the company’s site that an unusually large sell order caused the crash.

Relative to Bitcoin, Ethereum was an unknown cryptocurrency. Now, it’s reaching record highs after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with its founder. A new cryptocurrency called Ethereum reached another record high, driven by the potentials of the blockchain technology and supports from Russia, Singapore, and Japan.

Ethereum is now up over 5,000 percent since the beginning of this year. On Monday, its price hit $407.10, this was a record level which marked a more than 5,001 per cent rise in price since 1 January when ethereum was trading at $7.98.