Weekend FinTech Reading, January 25 – 26, 2014

It’s the weekend which means its time to catch up on recent FinTech news and reading:

Tech startups: A Cambrian moment (The Economist)

FinTech Startups:

Paypal competitor and FinTech darling Stripe joins the billion dollar valuation club. (Wall Street Journal)

Silicon Valley Banking: Wells Fargo creates new unit catering exclusively to start-ups. (Bank Innovation)

Banking & Mobile:

Next Generation of ATMs: Will new ATMs make your bank branch obsolete? (Market Watch)

Mobile Money: Wireless carrier T-mobile launches services for the underbanked - are banks failing to keep up? (Business Insider and American Banker)

Off the Big Banking Grid: One consumers’ experiment with mobile-banking. (Slate)

Bitcoin:

Maybe: Milton Friedman Predicted The Rise Of Bitcoin In 1999 (Forbes)

Disrupting the World Order: How Bitcoin is poised to change the global economy as we know it. (VentureBeat)

Bitcoin Eh?: Canada officially renounces Bitcoin as legal tender, despite growing presence of Bitcoin ATM’s in the country. (WSJ and MarketWatch)

Bitcoin Does Vegas: Select Vegas casinos now accepting Bitcoin. (Wired)

Coin Competition: LMAX-listed Ven giving Bitcoin a run for their digital currency. (FinExtra and BankingTech)

Because Robots Need To Make it In:

Corporal But Not Corporeal: U.S. Army studying possibility of replacing troops with robots. (Business Insider)