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Wonders & Blunders: Data Overload

11.09.2017
By: Kevin Dinino
Category: Fintech

 
 
 OUR CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE WEEK’S NEWS
Welcome to this week’s Wonders & Blunders! We’re keeping it hopeful and helpful this week with big news in cryptocurrency, a near-future technique for storing passwords in fabric and advice for writing quarterly financial reports that your superiors or investors will appreciate.
 
Check it out!
 
 
The Future of Futures Trading
CME, the world’s biggest exchange group, announced it’s planning a futures contract based on bitcoin which will launch by the end of 2017 if it receives regulatory approval. The Wall Street Journal touts this news as “a big step forward in the evolution of digital currency.” CME’s endorsement could help cryptocurrency move towards mainstream, after officials and big bankers have either spoken against or have shown hesitance to accept digital currency.
 
Futures trading is similar to betting on commodity prices rising or falling. Creating a futures contract based on bitcoin would allow Wall Street to get in on the skyrocketing cryptocurrency action while protecting themselves against the volatile price swings, and it would also give retail investors a more familiar way to trade bitcoin.

Fuzzy Memory: Store a Password in Fabric
 

University researchers are looking at magnetized textiles to store information such as passwords in clothing. The encoded data is read by a magnometer, a device included in many smartphones.
 
MIT Technology Review says the encoded data could be used to label your belongings, as a key card or to store passwords. Connected clothing has been around for a while but this discovery is different because no need batteries or electronics are needed on the fabric itself, so it would be relatively inexpensive compared to current connected fabric options. Durability of the data in the fabric is a concern, but the researchers found that a smartphone could read the data after the clothing was washed, dried and ironed.
 
As more and more methods of encrypting data are created, the days of remembering multiple passwords may soon be gone.
 
 
Emoji Index
Storytelling vs. Data Overload
Data is a good thing…but too much data without context to explain its meaning is not helpful for decision making or tracking progress. Institutional Investor magazine reported on research from 87 investors and consultants detailing how allocators want a few sentences of explanation to accompany the data in a report.
 
These findings do not mean that portfolio managers should spend less time on gathering and analyzing data every quarter. 80% of surveyed respondents said that an excellent performance review described the portfolio’s positioning, detailed performance attribution and performance numbers.
 
Don’t forget about the importance of transparency, since 74% of investors valued transparency and attribution, 44% wanted more frequent discussions and 27% also wanted clarity on lessons learned from the data.
 
 
» IN THE NEWS
Cobinhood speaks to BlockTribune about regulation and official oversight as a way to help grow and stabilize the cryptocurrency marketplace.
ABC 10 News covered CCOE’s Secure San Diego — a look at city preparedness for an infrastructure hack.
ValueWalk spoke to Intrinio chief executive officer Rachel Carpenter about her female-led startup designed for small investors, which has attracted the eye of big institutions.
» BOTTOM LINE: Five Strategies to Successfully Communicate an ICO (Part 1)
ICO initial coin offering cryptocurrency communication marketing PR
According to Coindesk, since the start of 2017 Initial Coin Offerings or “ICO”s have raised over $2.5 billion. So it stands to reason that comprehending what an ICO actually is might be a good idea. So here is our take…The name takes after the capital markets anachronism for Initial Public Offering (IPO) However, the two fund raising processes are very different. During an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), a company offers digital assets called “tokens” which interested parties ‘contribute’ to. These tokens allow the startup to raise funds from a huge range of investor types.
»FEATURED CASE STUDY: CCOE
KCD PR was selected to promote the San Diego Cyber Center of Excellence (CCOE), a nonprofit organization that promotes alignment and collaboration within the cyber community.
 
KCD PR developed a comprehensive public relations strategy by first thoroughly understanding the nonprofit organization space, then establishing a set of measurable objectives and communications guidelines to guide the overall strategy that would help CCOE position San Diego as the hub for all things cyber-focused.
 
 
 

 

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