Big Tech in Finance – How To Prevail In the Age of Blockchain, Digital Currencies and Web3

Igor Pejic is a leading expert on tech-driven shifts in banking and finance. He is the author of Blockchain Babel, finalist of the 2016 Bracken Bower Prize, and winner of the Independent Press Award 2020 (technology category). Blockchain Babel was also a Financial Times book of the month. Igor Pejic is the publisher of the valued industry newsletter The New Frontier. His articles and interviews regularly appear in media such as the New York Times, the American Banker, Bloomberg, and PwC's strategy+business. A worldwide keynote speaker and expert-panelist, he talks at large conferences, just as well as at private industry events and academic lectures. He has created online-courses, whitepapers and bespoke analytic research about the long-term strategic impact of new tech. He has held different management positions in banking and payments, currently at one of the largest banking groups in Europe. Before that, he worked as a management consultant advising Fortune 100 companies, as a business journalist, and as a lecturer at the University of Vienna.

Chapter - 01: Introduction; Chapter - 02: Finance as big tech's El Dorado; Chapter - 03: Railroads for a new age - birth of the blockchain; Chapter - 04: Lure of the wild - redefining the idea of money; Chapter - 05: Two roads ahead - centralization; Chapter - 06: Land rush-crypto economics; Chapter - 07: DeFi unicorn stampede; Chapter - 08: The decentralisation delusion; Chapter - 09: Robber barons feel assured. and overshoot; Chapter - 10: The sheriffs come to town - regulation bends the trajectory; Chapter - 11: Dawn of a new era - central bank digital currencies vs. private stablecoins; Chapter - 12: Commercial banks and the frontier experience; Chapter - 13: Setting out for the next frontier: the metaverse and web3; Chapter - 14: Final remarks

With Big Tech's breakthrough into finance with blockchain, it is imperative that finance players understand the ramifications and how they can defend their competitive advantage. Big Tech in Finance provides a cutting edge look at Big Tech's play for domination of the crypto economy, its ramifications and how finance is fighting back. The book analyses the motives behind Big Tech's break into banking and unpicks the strategies behind the use of blockchain, technology interfaces, infrastructure and investments into blockchain unicorns.

The book then goes onto review how organizations in finance are countering these threats, with governments and banks driving their own strategies and use of centralized blockchains. Delving into the fight between Big Tech, Big Banking, start-ups, and regulators, Big Tech in Finance analyzes which actors have the best shot at succeeding. It explores the key tools in play, such as smart contracts, digital central bank currencies, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and the metaverse.

The book also divulges the geopolitical dimensions underpinning the power struggle and its implications for the industry. Written by an internationally recognized expert on blockchain, the book draws on in-depth interviews with founders, investors, regulators, bankers and blockchain experts to provide valuable insider insights. This will be an essential read for finance and fintech professionals, bankers and investors and anyone else interested in the developments of fintech.