March 20, 2023

Key Takeaways
How the relationship between bitcoin and equities develops will likely have huge implications for the role crypto will come to serve in institutional portfolios. Early correlations between bitcoin and equities were often negative, prompting many to think of long bitcoin exposure as an alternative. Using Venn analysis, we find that over recent 6-month periods as much as 66.29% of bitcoin’s risk can be explained by our Equity Factor, prompting reconsideration of bitcoin’s role as an alternative. As more institutional investors consider incorporating crypto sleeves into their portfolios, we have seen a meaningful change in bitcoin behavior and its relationship with equities. How this relationship develops, in our view, will likely have huge implications for the role of crypto in institutional portfolios. Going back to 2010, bitcoin’s rolling 1-year correlation with broad equities has often been negative. This led many capital allocators to think of long bitcoin exposure as an alternative. However, recently the relationship has changed. The chart below shows how the correlation between bitcoin and equities is among all-time highs, sitting just south of 0.65! But is this just temporary? Will bitcoin once again return to being a strong equity diversifier? Perhaps this is just noise. After all, spurious correlations are nothing new.1
While we don’t know the future of bitcoin, we can provide some conviction that movements in our equity  factor  have been predictive for this cryptocurrency. The mystery of what is driving bitcoin
Utilizing Venn’s  Two Sigma Factor Lens  and  bitcoin reference rates , we can attempt to explain bitcoin’s risk going back to 2010. It turns out, 95.84% of bitcoin’s risk cannot be explained by our factor lens (residual). An  uncommon  result, to say the least.2
The fact that over this full period Venn identifies almost none of what was driving bitcoin’s risk highlights its uniqueness. This is one reason we are  actively researching  whether there exists a crypto market factor, and whether or not we should include it in our factor lens. But didn’t we just say “movements in our equity factor have been predictive for bitcoin”? Analyzing the crypto trend
One of Venn’s core competencies is helping provide transparency into what is driving risk and return over time. This very often uncovers important narratives that full-period analysis misses. In addition, we can adjust these time periods to be as short as 6 months, allowing us to analyze smaller windows of risk. For example, in pink we show the percent of bitcoin’s risk that we can’t link back to movements in our factors (residual) over rolling 6-month periods. In green, we show what percent of bitcoin’s risk is being explained by Venn’s equity factor specifically.3
Towards the end of the chart, Venn suggests a steep decline in bitcoin’s unexplainable risk (pink), and a steep rise in the explainable risk due to movements in our Equity Factor (green). This reached as high as 66.29% as recently as August 2022, meaning that Venn is demonstrating that the majority of bitcoin’s risk was explainable by movements in equities over that 6-month period. Why does this matter? Up until the last few years, many investors believed bitcoin belonged in the alternative sleeve and was differentiated from equity exposure. While it is too early to completely disprove this theory, it's fair to begin asking questions. For example, what are realistic expectations for bitcoin in various market regimes? Is this rise in correlation with equities temporary due to rising interest rates? As crypto matures, will it continue to look, feel, and be explained by equity movements? At Venn, no matter the path of bitcoin or crypto in general, we believe that monitoring and understanding crypto risk and return characteristics will be key to incorporating it in well-diversified portfolios. REFERENCES

BItcoin and Equities: A Developing Relationship With Serious Implications

March 13 2023
EXCLUSIVE: “Wake-up calls” – Peter-Jan Van de Venn, Mobiquity and Brett King in ‘The Fintech Magazine’
We asked Mobiquity ’s VP of global digital banking Peter-Jan Van de Venn and the fintech futurist and author Brett King where banks should focus their IT investment in an uncertain year
A mildly upbeat Davos summit, a forecast 0.1 per cent economic growth in 2023 (well, at least it’s not a recession) and one of the warmest Januarys on record provided a better-than-expected start to the year in Europe. Energy prices eased back slightly, too, and China finally began to open up its economy following COVID. Relief indeed. Across the Pond, fourth-quarter output data from the US also modestly topped forecasts with 2.9 per cent y-o-y growth. But that’s where the good news ends for banks; make no mistake, incumbents face a rough ride in 2023, despite the sector’s profitability hitting a 14-year high in 2022 when margins took off as interest rates finally climbed from historic lows in an attempt to calm rampant inflation. However, this year consulting giant McKinsey foresees a period of belt tightening because at least half the world’s banks ‘continue to have a return on equity that is below the cost of equity. According to its annual Global Banking Annual Review, 2022’s margin rises only delivered returns above that waterline for 35 per cent of banks. Add to that a war on European soil with no end in sight, continued supply chain aftershocks from the pandemic and a cryptocurrency collapse, and it must be tempting to stop all investment until the fog clears. Fintech futurist Brett King and Mobiquity’s digital banking VP Peter-Jan Van de Venn would caution banks not to lose digital ground now, though. The cornerstone of future resilience is no let-up in tech modernisation, says Van de Venn. And he points to three tech trends – hyper-personalisation, open banking acceleration and core banking replacement – when choosing how to spend budgets wisely. “Due to the economic uncertainty, banks will use data to improve the financial lives of their customers. That’s still a big friction. There is so much data, but it is used to push products,” he says.“As for open banking, in the UK more than five million customers have adopted its services but there is still a lot of unlocked potential in open banking. Client-centric uses are required to significantly speed up adoption. “Meanwhile, many chief information officers are pushing for core banking replacement because, to be truly digital, you need digital technologies on all architectural layers. We are building a complete new Cloud-based technology stack for one of our UK customers because, with their current mainframe, they can’t compete any more on the product level. So it’s inevitable that core banking replacement will continue.”
The urgency around tech stack modernisation is echoed by King, who asserts that, in 10 to 15 years, all banks will have adopted Cloud-based systems due to the demands of security, fintech partnerships and lower energy use. He says: “You never hear a fintech talk about a core system because they don’t really have that; Cloud gives them the agility they want. That’s one driver of digital transformation, but the other is sustainable computing – you can have much better energy management. That’s why banks like ICBC [the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China] have shifted 90 per cent of their mainframe traffic to the Cloud. You can put it closer to the generation source in terms of renewables. “There’s also the emergence of quantum computing, which can break all of the conventional encryption we have today, and will mean that if you’re not in the Cloud, your on-premises solution will be completely open. “My other trend of 2023, taking a global view versus a Western view, is wallet integration – more people use mobile wallets for day-to-day banking than any plastic card. And where there’s been big progress, such as Paytm in India, Alipay and WeChat Pay in China, MTN and M-Pesa in Africa, there’ll be a lot of pressure on banks to develop embedded finance through the wallet ecosystem.”
Mobiquity builds digital banking value propositions and architectures, typically using components from modern third-party software-as-a-service vendors, so it’s no surprise that Van de Venn urges banks to break the chains of any remaining legacy hardware. But his main message to incumbents is that they are not as unique, nor as special as they might like to believe – which could be a good thing for their IT budget. Having worked with around 80 digital banks across the world, he says 80 per cent of the functionality provided by IT systems is common to all of them; the best strategy, therefore, is to replicate commonalities, which allows a bank to focus its budget on the 20 per cent that makes them stand out from the crowd. Van de Venn says: “We build the commonalities in a very efficient way by leveraging out-of-the-box capabilities of existing vendors. There are many that we work with, such as Backbase and Mambu, that have already built architectures. That allows us to have more budget for the differentiation, the other 20 per cent. “We ensure we have a deep understanding of our customer so we can provide an additional layer on top of those commonalities that are in line with their brand promise and crucial to their success. “We also fully embrace the concept of composable architectures, setting up the architecture so components can be easily interchanged. If there is better technology for a particular area, you can replace it.”
Learning from and adopting the technical strengths of fintechs is another crucial tactic for incumbents, says King: “Buy now, pay later, salary advances, all these innovations are not coming from incumbents, they’re coming from people with more agile tech stacks.“And we know fintechs are much better at cash utilisation. They can innovate faster and more cheaply than incumbents. From an acquisition or a scaling perspective, this becomes very important. “A lot of the benefits that we’ve seen from successful fintechs – Wise, Nubank, WeBank, etc – in terms of their utilisation of cash, have set a benchmark. Incumbents are under pressure to have the sort of cash efficiency that comes from digital transformation. “Nubank has just crossed 70 million customers in eight years. There’s no bank in Latin America with branches that could have ever done that. So, you know, you have to assume that Nubank’s going to continue to do that, and, in that environment, if you can’t scale in the same way they can, you are going to be giving up market share to them. “You hear banks talking about profitability, but investors really don’t care about that if they’re grabbing market share.”
Investors, though, are fickle and there are already signs that they’re paying closer attention to the bottom line: pressure on banks to spend wisely is also evident within the financial sector’s innovation programmes, which are seeking more practical outcomes, says Van de Venn.This shift from wider strategic goals to tangible shorter-term gains – what he calls ‘horizon 3 to horizon 1’ – has resulted in products such as the digital identity wallet Datakeeper by Dutch bank Rabobank, which keeps personal data on a smartphone. “We see a shift to innovation with shorter-term value that is directly in line with, or adjacent to, the business of the bank,” he says.“A digital identity wallet is, of course, something close to the initial value that banks brought to their customers, i.e. protecting valuable assets, and identity is a valuable asset these days. The focus on shorter-term, closer-to-the-business innovation definitely needs to continue.”
Another area of concern for banks in a higher inflation environment is the prospect of worsening levels of loan defaults – and both King and Van de Venn agree data will hold the key to mitigating those increasingly likely losses. “But if you look at this as a behavioural problem, there are numerous solutions. If I know, based on current cashflow, that you won’t meet your loan commitments in three months, I can ask you if you want to extend the life of the loan to reduce monthly repayments. Ultimately, customers will self-select services that are more flexible for them. “As a banking sector, we’ve got sidetracked into looking at things like cashback and rewards to stimulate spending because that’s how we make a fee. But if we get wallets that are focussed on financial wellness of customers, then the likelihood of credit problems declines.”A further cultural change that both King and Van de Venn foresee is one that has already begun – environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG. Though Van de Venn points out that 90 per cent of banks say ESG is part of their business but only 50 per cent measure their efforts, both men agree environmental credentials will become central to a bank’s brand. Van de Venn says: “We are running a carbon bank initiative for one of our customers and out of this we help their clients improve their awareness of their carbon footprint, based on their transactions. Some banks are still trying to buy carbon credits to offset what they should do, but it’s a start. For the reputation of banks, it will be important to keep investing in ESG, and, if you can monetise it that will have an accelerating effect.”
King adds: “I don’t think we’re going to get back to a ‘normal’ in the way we thought about it in the 1980s and 1990s. Economic uncertainty is just going to be a feature due to the impact of artificial intelligence, techno unemployment and the impact of climate change. “By the mid-2030s I think every corporation is going to have a social mission as a side-effect of climate change and so on – they will have to be seen to be doing something helpful and productive for society, rather than just producing profitability.“This won’t be about doing press releases and buying carbon credits. Our children will be asking ‘what has capitalism brought us?’ It’s brought climate change, massive inequality, pollution – 10 million people die a year from air pollution issues and we had 65 million eco refugees last year. “Corporations are going to have to contribute in a very different way. ESG is just the start of that cultural shift in terms of corporations’ missions to do broader good.” So, while maybe not the ideal metaphor for our climate-challenged time, the message is clear to banks and incumbents when it comes to innovation. We’ll let Brett King sum it up: “You can’t take your foot off the gas pedal yet.”
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS BANKS CAN’T IGNORE IN 2023 – PETER-JAN VAN DE VENN’S TOP 3
Hyper-personalisation: “With the help of AI, banks will use data to truly improve the financial lives of customers. That’s still a big friction; there’s so much data but it’s used to push products.”
Open banking acceleration: “There’s still a lot of unlocked potential in open banking. Client-centric uses are required to significantly speed up adoption.”
Core banking replacement: “To be truly digital, you need digital technologies on all architectural layers.”
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS BANKS CAN’T IGNORE IN 2023 – BRETT KING’S TOP 3
Wallet integration: “It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at crypto, digital assets, the metaverse or embedded finance solutions. Mobile wallets are it.”
Tech competency at organisational level: “For execution capability in a low-latency world, you need different skillsets from the top down. So look at someone like Ant Group as a basis of how you should be thinking about organisational design. That’s a massive leap for many banks to take.”
Credit innovation: “Banks have to think about transitioning off credit cards, as a product line, to contextual ways to deliver credit in real time.”

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EXCLUSIVE: “Wake-up calls” – Peter-Jan Van de Venn, Mobiquity and Brett King in ‘The Fintech Magazine’

Peter-Jan van de Venn from Mobiquity, offers advice on how to differentiate your banking app […]
The post EXCLUSIVE: “Lighting up the Radar” – Peter-Jan van de Venn, Mobiquity in ‘The Fintech Magazine’ appeared first on Fintech Finance.

EXCLUSIVE: “Lighting up the Radar” – Peter-Jan van de Venn, Mobiquity in ‘The Fintech Magazine’

Photo: Getty Images
I'm acquainted with a lawyer who is arguably the country's leading authority on estate planning. Legal theory, scholarship, practice... she's who the experts call for advice. She's also extremely fit, often finishing triathlons near the top of her age group. And for good measure, she's a gifted pianist. Yet she's often frustrated; while she's one of the top handful of people in her area of legal expertise, the time and effort spent acquiring those skills has failed to pay off in what she considers to be a commensurate financial return. Why? Now consider  Troy Aikman , the Hall of Fame quarterback who won three Super Bowls. In the universe of all people with some degree of football knowledge, Aikman is in the top .001 (or however many zeros you want to add) percent. He then worked to add another circle. After significant time and effort, Aikman developed elite skills as an analyst and television broadcaster. As a result, two of the circles in his Venn diagram of success intersected. The result isn't addition; it's multiplication. A subset of people have elite-level football knowledge. A subset of people are elite broadcasters. People with both skills make up an extremely small subset; there are only four lead NFL football analysts, all of whom, unsurprisingly, are former players. Their financial success is commensurate to that rarity not just because the intersection of their set of skills is rare, but also because -- unlike my lawyer friend -- the market places significant value on that intersection. But Aikman didn't stop there. He also worked to acquire business skills. He's owned car dealerships. He's co-owned a NASCAR team. He's invested in startups. He recently launched Eight , a beer for health-conscious people who don't want to consume empty calories. As a result, his Venn diagram of skills looks like this. Notice I didn't rate Aikman's business skills. In part that's because in spite of his obvious success, assigning an objective rating is difficult. Yet that's also because where business is concerned, Aikman downplays his skills. "I don't feel like I have great strengths," Aikman says. "When I objectively evaluate myself, I don't think I'm great at many things." And here's the thing: Because three of the circles in his Venn diagram of skills intersect, he doesn't need to be a .001-percenter as a businessperson. My lawyer friend? She has multiple skills, but they don't intersect. They're unrelated. They don't compound. Aikman's football knowledge, broadcasting skill, and business skills compound. Think of his Venn diagram of skills as his version of the Amazon flywheel , where feeding one area helps fuel and accelerate other areas. His business skills help him take advantage of opportunities created by his financial success and public profile. His years spent as a formal and informal leader, both on and off the field, help him better build relationships, better manage people, better assess and evaluate skills, have a keen sense of when to lead and when to follow....
That intersection means Aikman doesn't need to be a .001-percentile businessperson, because his extremely rare intersection of skills and experiences more than offsets any perceived lack of skill. ("Perceived" because he's extremely business savvy. ) 
And that's the beauty of working to build your own Venn diagram of related skills. You don't have to be the best in any one area. In fact, time spent working to be in the top 1 percent, rather than "just" the top 5 or 10 percent, is arguably a waste of time. You can become the best coder in the world, but if you aren't at least somewhat skilled at leading and managing people, your company is much less likely to be as successful as you hope. You can become a truly world-class chef, but if you aren't at least somewhat skilled at the business of running a restaurant, your venture is much less likely to be as successful as you hope. A skilled coder or chef who has solid leadership skills, solid financial knowledge, and a decent sense of of how to market and sell, is much more likely to be successful. (Think Bill Gates, for example.) The premise applies to nearly every pursuit. The best surgeons in the world will always trade their time for money. Unless they gain leadership skills, and business skills, and leverage that intersection to build a practice group with multiple physicians. While exceptions exist, working to gain three or four solid, interconnected, and self-reinforcing skills will almost always be more likely to pay off -- at least financially -- than focusing solely on achieving one exceptional skill. And if you do manage to acquire two or three world-class skills that interconnect? Like Aikman, or like  Adam Grant , whose intersection of outstanding teaching, research, writing, speaking, and coaching skills puts him in a category of one? So much the better. But you don't have to, as long as you make sure the skills you seek to acquire relate to and reinforce each other. And as long as you make sure those skills set you apart in a meaningful way. And, most importantly, that you make sure that intersection of skills sets you up to achieve success in whatever way you choose to define "success." Because that's what really matters. Oct 4, 2022

Want to Be Remarkably Successful? Focus on Creating Your Own Million Dollar Venn Diagram of Success

Interactions Among Non-Coding RNAs and mRNAs in the Trigeminal Ganglion Associated with Neuropathic Pain

The University of California, founded in 1869, is the largest public university in the United States. The University's constituents number more than 244,000 students, over 138,000 faculty and staff, 10 campuses, three national labs, five medical centers, and a collection of agricultural and natural resource centers. The Office of the Chief Investment Officer manages $93 billion in endowment, retirement, and working capital assets on behalf of the University.

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By February 2021 , Venn and Corbus Pharmaceuticals were purportedly in the midst of finalizing the terms of a transaction agreement .

When Nondisclosure Agreements and Pharmaceutical Trade Secrets Intersect

Mac Properties is a real estate company. The company builds, renovates, and manages apartments. It is based in Chicago, Illinois.

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Curentt develops the mobile matchmaking app, Venn.

Date	Round	Amount	Investors	Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model.	Revenue	Sources
11/1/2017	Dead		Dead		0 FY undefined
12/15/2015	Debt	$99M	Subscribe to see more		0 FY undefined	10

Date	11/1/2017	12/15/2015
Round	Dead	Debt
Amount		$99M
Investors	Dead	Subscribe to see more
Valuation
Revenue	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined
Sources		10

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