The future of finance with open source and AI
This post will talk about my (very) u̶n̶biased opinion about the future of finance built on top of open source and AI.
Open Source platform
1. Data licensing vs Marketplace
Current monopolies spend an enormous amount of cash on financial data licensing. There are dozens of different asset classes (stocks, options, crypto, NFTs, currencies, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, …) and these often vary based on geography. That makes the overall investment research industry a very tough market to compete. Startups cannot disrupt the space without a massive capital injection. This is also why startups usually focus on a certain asset class in a certain geography.
In my opinion, the only shot we have to disrupt incumbents is by not owning the data but becoming the infra layer between data sources and users. This is no different than Uber not owning cars, Airbnb not owning apartments or Deliveroo not owning restaurants.
This also has a great advantage which is being able to integrate new data sources very fast and easily. Plus, owing to open source, anyone can add it. On the other hand, it’s very unlikely that an incumbent will add data that you require. Plus, if they do, they will need to license the data and therefore decrease their margins —…
