Matthew Najar or the climb of a crypto technology leader? Governments in major economies are encouraging financial technology (fintech) innovation with regulatory and advisory initiatives designed to accelerate the availability of online payment solutions and other financial services for businesses. The initiatives generally aim to attract innovative fintech companies and help them operate in the regulated financial sector, while ensuring adequate financial protection for customers.

Matthew Najar believes without new FinTech initiatives, we will stall: “FinTech, blockchain certainly included, is critical for our generation to solve inherent financial system issues and progress forward”.

The U.K., traditionally a major financial-services centre, has actively encouraged new competition in banking, reducing barriers to entry such as banks’ capital requirements. As a result, several new digital banks are already offering Internet-based banking services, including online payment solutions, without establishing brick-and-mortar locations. Another ongoing U.K. initiative designed to enable competition and fintech innovation is the implementation of an open banking standard by 2018, including an open application programming interface (API) that enables development of new applications to access information in customers’ existing accounts at one or more banks. For example, customers might be able to manage all their bank accounts from a single app.

National banking licenses would increase fintechs’ ability to operate across the U.S. without requiring state-by-state permission or partnerships with established banks. This could increase competition in banking and also make it easier for technology firms to offer new online payments solutions or other services. In a speech, Thomas J. Curry, the OCC’s chief officer, listed three reasons for moving forward with the long-discussed plan to issue a national charter for fintechs. First, it’s in the public interest to make new innovative services available. Second, fintechs should have the opportunity to become national banks if they wish to do so. And third, it helps ensure that all financial institutions operate on a level, nationally regulated playing field. As Curry pointed out, the reality today is that many fintechs are already competing with national and state banks — but “without regard to any of the national bank responsibilities and under a patchwork of supervision.” The agency said it would collect public comment before moving farther.

Paper: wallets are easy to use and provide a very high level of security. While the term paper wallet can simply refer to a physical copy or printout of your public and private keys, it can also refer to a piece of software that is used to securely generate a pair of keys which are then printed. Using a paper wallet is relatively straightforward. Transferring Bitcoin or any other currency to your paper wallet is accomplished by the transfer of funds from your software wallet to the public address shown on your paper wallet. Alternatively, if you want to withdraw or spend currency, all you need to do is transfer funds from your paper wallet to your software wallet. This process, often referred to as ‘sweeping,’ can either be done manually by entering your private keys or by scanning the QR code on the paper wallet.

The U.S., which is home to some of the world’s biggest fintech companies, is also kicking off innovation initiatives similar in concept to those already up and running in other countries. The OCC plans to establish an Office of Innovation in 2017 to help the agency ensure that financial institutions operate in a regulatory framework that is responsive to financial innovation; its roles will include an outreach and technical assistance program for banks and nonbanks developing financial services. In addition, a bill to introduce a regulatory sandbox was introduced in the U.S. Congress in 2016, with the goal of passing enabling legislation in 2017.

The cryptocurrencies work like this: They are generated by the network in most cases to encourage peers, also known as nodes and miners, to work to secure the network and verify entries or transactions. Each network has a unique way of generating and distributing them among its peers. Bitcoin, for example, rewards its peers (miners) for “solving the next block”. A block is a group or entries with all transactions. The solution is to find a hash that connects the new block with the old one. From here comes the term chain of blocks. The block is the group of entries and the string is the hash. Hashes are a type of cryptographic puzzle. Think of them as Sudoku puzzles that the classmates compete to connect the blocks.

There’s a need for one to be more than cautious when looking to invest in any ICO. Knowing when to or not to invest in an ICO is not about science; rather, it’s about paying close attention to those details that most people seem to overlook while only focusing on the promised returns. Conduct a background check on the team behind the project and analyze their ability to deliver on their promise. In addition, you should also look at the viability of the idea behind the ICO, poke holes in the project’s white paper and seek answers where necessary. That will ensure that no stone is left unturned and, if by the end of it you still have doubts about the project, you’re better of passing than chance it investing in that ICO.

FOMO is an abbreviation for the fear of missing out. This is one of the most notorious reasons as to why many traders fail in the art. From an outside point of view, it is never a good scene seeing people make massive profits within minutes from pumped-up coins. Honestly, I never like such situations any more than you do. But I’ll tell you one thing that’s for sure, Beware of that moment when the green candles seem to be screaming at you and telling to you to jump in. It is at this point that the whales I mentioned earlier will be smiling and watching you buy the coins they bought earlier at very low prices. Guess what normally follows? These coins usually end up in the hands of small traders and the next thing that happens is for the red candles to start popping up due to an oversupply and, voila, losses start trickling in.

Learn the Difference Between a Bear Market and Bull Market. General wisdom says “Buy support in a bull, sell resistance in a bear.” Regardless of what type of investor or trader you are… you should learn to spot the difference between a bear and bull market and shift your tactics appropriately. From 2015 – 2017, during a long bull run, you could essentially buy every Bitcoin dip and come out ahead. In 2014 and 2017 buying dips was mostly rewarded with heavy losses. In 2014 and 2018, two bearish years, shorts could short every resistance and profit. In 2015 – 2017, it was rarely safe to short Bitcoin. Knowing the difference between a bull and a bear can be a big deal in any asset, but with the brutal market cycles of crypto, it is especially important to learn the difference.