2018 had its fair share of disruption in the FinTech space, but for the most part, companies and investors sat out the end of the year market fluctuations and are cautiously — and perhaps optimistically — looking to 2019.

The exponential growth of ETFs, especially from younger investors who want to set-it-and-forget-it, means there’s an opportunity for providers to increasingly use Artificial Intelligence in smart alpha and active products.

The appeal of ETFs to investors is diversification. The ETF surge represents a shifting investment ecosystem away from active, toward passive.

While many banks are skeptical of bitcoin, none are skeptical of blockchain. But the marriage of the two is where it gets dicey.

A lot of industries and areas are being disrupted by blockchain technology. We took a deeper dive to see how the new technology specifically affects Asset Management & Investing.

It seems like you can’t take one step these days without bumping into someone talking about cryptocurrencies.

While a lot of investment lies in front user-facing technology, no one has really invested in building the new technology, enabling or infrastructure that incumbents can use. As we head into 2018, what can we expect to see?

In a zero interest environment, which we were between 2008-2016, it’s harder to put AUM to work, but once interest rates rise, those with the most assets win.

For tech companies, the dollar cost of becoming a bank is nothing compared to the drag on their fast-moving culture and product development.

Unlike Amazon, Facebook’s patent applications (425 in the past year alone) have shown no clear intent to become a financial services provider.

With a culture of transparency and unparalleled data management capabilities, Google is positioned to help wealth managers engage clients by delivering the highest level of insight into their investments.

Our “Amazon Wealth” prediction isn’t pure speculation – the company’s Chinese e-commerce counterparts have already become financial titans by embedding payments, loans, and investments into their consumer platforms.

The biggest opportunity for Financial Institutions today is getting their product into Google, Amazon, and Facebook’s customer experiences.

If you’d put your Holiday bonus into Bitcoin, you’d have doubled your money by now. If you’d bought Ethereum instead, you’d be up 3,000%. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the growing number of altcoins in the market have all rallied over 150% since January.

SNAP’s IPO has dominated financial news for the past month. After the stock gained 45% on its first trading day, bloggers called it “dumb money,” and not a single Wall Street analyst gave it a buy rating until today.

Last week, Schwab cut its trading fee from $8.95 to $6.95, kicking off the 3rd Online Brokerage Price War – an occurrence that has happened every five or six years since the dot-com boom.