Knowledge Vaults are your curated edge across five high-impact themes: AI, banking, CBDC/tokenization/payments, stablecoins, and Asia.

Every resource inside is hand-picked with only the highest-quality, most valuable material I uncover, no filler.

With just five articles per week in the newsletter, I can’t cover everything, so the rest of the best stuff lands here.

These vaults are living documents, updated weekly and growing fast (already over 1600 pages and counting).

Why a vault? One single, always-accessible place to find exactly what you need — no more endless searching or lost links.

Whether you’re a banker, fintech, service provider, or a simple bank customer who wants to know what’s going on, this vault will fast-track your understanding, cut through the hype, and deliver a serious competitive advantage.

What’s inside the Banking 2026 Vault:

• The payments revolution is happening now, instant payment systems, CBDCs, and tokenized bank deposits are live, scaling, and eating legacy rails for breakfast. This vault tracks what’s actually being deployed or coming in the next 5 years. I keep it very practical!

• The hottest trends impacting payments, all in one place. CBDC, tokenization, blockchain, quantum-resistant infrastructure, programmable money, superapps, credit cards, and even AI payment fraud.

• The broadest vault in this series, deliberately. Payments touch everything: retail, wholesale, cross-border, institutional, and the consumer. This collection reflects that scope without sacrificing depth.

• Stablecoins have their own vault. Post-GENIUS Act, the volume of serious stablecoin research exploded, earning a separate home.

• Over 1600 pages of high-quality material at launch — and growing throughout 2026 with fresh additions.

• Why a vault? Saves you hours of scattered searching — centralizes the best insights so you stay ahead.

• I do the digging — you get the gold. Need a specific report, chart, graph, or passage? It’s probably already here.

• One-click access to the exact resource, stat, or insight you need — no more endless tabs or handing over your corporate email.

If you want to start out 2026 on the path to success, this collection of resources you can’t find by yourself is required reading.

Dear premium subscriber,

This is a live document that will be updated throughout Q1 2026 to provide value to you.

My goal with this trends report vault is to provide you with thought-provoking reads, to ensure that you’re turned onto the top trends in 2026

Payments are going instant:

New this week:

Payments Ai First Companies Win The Future

1.16MB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you run a payments business and think layering AI onto your existing stack counts as a strategy. BCG's new report drops a number that should stop you cold: AI leaders in payments are already delivering 2x revenue growth, 3x ROIC, and 1.4x EBIT margins over laggards. The gap is structural, not cyclical, because payments sits at 3% physical assets as a share of total assets, making it pure technology business where AI rewrites everything. Your competitors are not experimenting anymore. Are you still running pilots?

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Money 20:20 Europe's Cross Border Payments Crossroads

24MB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think Europe has cross-border payments figured out. Money20/20 and FXC Intelligence analyzed 1,033 industry articles across 14 European countries and found a region that controls 48% of global retail cross-border payment flows but is paralyzed by an identity crisis: fortress Europe or open global network? With $30.8 trillion on the line by 2033 and only 16% of the conversation even touching interoperability, the clock is ticking. Pick a lane.

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Knowledge Vaults are your curated edge across five high-impact themes: AI, banking, CBDC/tokenization/payments, stablecoins, and Asia.

Every resource inside is hand-picked with only the highest-quality, most valuable material I uncover, no filler.

With just five articles per week in the newsletter, I can’t cover everything, so the rest of the best stuff lands here.

These vaults are living documents, updated weekly and growing fast (already over 600 pages and counting).

Why a vault? One single, always-accessible place to find exactly what you need — no more endless searching or lost links.

Whether you’re a fintech founder, investor, policymaker, or simply stablecoin-curious, these vaults fast-track your understanding, cut through the hype, and deliver a serious competitive advantage.

What’s inside this Asia Vault:

• The definitive Asia vault — curated, data-rich resources, institutional reports, and no-hype analyses that show how “tomorrow in the West is today in Asia.”

• Resources that cut through the noise — reports written in Asia highlighting how technology is key to the region’s incredible growth.

• Asia and China aren’t copying the West but showing the West what the future will look like.

• Over 600 pages of high-quality material as of early 2026 — and growing by leaps and bounds each week because this is “tech at the speed of Asia.”

• Why a vault? Saves you hours of scattered searching — centralizes the best insights so you stay ahead.

• I do the digging — you get the gold. Need a specific report, chart, graph, or passage? It’s probably already here.

• One-click access to the exact resource, stat, or insight you need — no more endless tabs or handing over your corporate email to advertisers.

If you care about Asia and China’s rapid adoption of fintech and AI, this is required reading with a collection of resources you can’t find by yourself.

Dear premium subscriber,

Look to Asia today to see tomorrow’s West.

Once dismissed as lagging in tech, Asia now leads the world in the implementation of many technologies, from instant payments, including India’s famed digital public infrastructure, to AI innovation.

My Asia AI Vault curates the latest, hardest-to-find papers on how the region is using AI, stablecoins, CBDCs, and emerging tech in its own unique, forward-looking way — not copying, but pioneering.

This living document is continuously updated to provide value to you and is already packed with high-signal insights and growing weekly.

It’s smaller than some of my other vaults, because Asia-specific papers are so hard to find, but arguably the most important.

Why? Because it is your crystal ball for understanding the technologies and trends that will shape 2026 and beyond.

The future isn’t coming from Silicon Valley anymore. It’s already here in Asia.🚀

Two reports to put Asia in perspective

The WEF Chief Economist Report is not designed to put you to sleep! I included it for its summaries on Asia’s economic health, and to show how it is driving the world’s GDP growth:

“Growth expectations among chief economists surveyed were the second-highest overall for East Asia and the Pacific, with 45% of respondents anticipating strong growth and 55% expecting moderate growth in the year ahead.”

And India in the lead:

South Asia returns to the top of the regional growth outlook. Two-thirds of chief economists surveyed expect strong (60%) or very strong (6%) growth, a substantial improvement compared to 31% in the September edition. South Asia remains the brightest growth spot among emerging regions.

See also the AI adoption outlook on page 20.

Wef Chief Economist's Outlook 2026

4MB ∙ PDF file

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What about China? China’s 5% GDP growth is nothing to sneeze at, even if way down from peak numbers. China is still the single largest driver of global growth. This McKinsey report does a great job of showing where China is in 2026 and why tariffs and decoupling aside, it remains critical to global growth.

Mckinsey China Brief 4 Questions Ceos Are Asking About China

1.11MB ∙ PDF file

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Note China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam in the top 10 contributors to global real GDP growth below:

The latest Asia insights you can’t afford to miss this week:

JP Morgan Research: Beyond Benchmarks: A Systemic View Of The Us China AI Competition

1.02MB ∙ PDF file

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🔥Read this.🔥 JPMorganChase's Center for Geopolitics just dropped the most comprehensive, rigorously framed analysis of the U.S.-China AI competition you will find anywhere, and if you read one report this year, make it this one. China's total electricity generation hit 10,707 TWh in 2025, more than double the U.S. at 4,670 TWh, and Beijing is on track to add 3.4 terawatts of new generation capacity by 2030, nearly six times what the U.S. will build. Meanwhile, U.S. firms spent $490 billion on AI in 2025 against China's $98 billion, yet Chinese models reached download parity with U.S. models globally that same year. The U.S. leads at the frontier. China is winning on diffusion, energy, and ecosystem embedment across the developing world. This is not a technology race anymore. It is a systemic contest across seven dimensions including hardware, models, energy, finance, socioeconomics, and military security, and the dimensions where China is gaining ground are precisely the ones hardest to reverse. Stop benchmarking. Start reading.

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The Trusted Ai Financial Hub

5.28MB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think capital and raw AI horsepower still determine which financial centres win.Read this if you think capital and raw AI horsepower still determine which financial centres win. DBS Group Research scores 15 global hubs on a new AI Financial Hub Index, and given DBS is Singapore's flagship bank, take the rankings with a grain of salt: Singapore lands third globally while Hong Kong sits 13th, a gap that strains credibility given Hong Kong's actual financial depth. The report's core argument is sound regardless: governance quality and trust infrastructure are now the decisive competitive variables, and both cities are racing to own that positioning. Who's grading whom matters here.

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Knowledge Vaults are your curated edge across five high-impact themes: AI, banking, CBDC/tokenization/payments, stablecoins, and Asia.

Every resource inside is hand-picked with only the highest-quality, most valuable material I uncover, no filler.

With just five articles per week in the newsletter, I can’t cover everything, so the rest of the best stuff lands here.

These vaults are living documents, updated weekly and growing fast (already over 650 pages and counting).

Why a vault? One single, always-accessible place to find exactly what you need — no more endless searching or lost links.

Whether you’re a banker, fintech, service provider, or a simple bank customer who wants to know what’s going on, this vault will fast-track your understanding, cut through the hype, and deliver a serious competitive advantage.

What’s inside the Banking 2026 Vault:

• This vault is designed to prove that “this is the year banking disruption gets real.” A curated collection of the most cutting-edge, bank-specific trends shaping finance in 2026.

• Institutional reports, data-rich analyses, and no-hype insights covering AI, stablecoins, quantum, blockchain, fraud, and non-technical trends that are hitting banking hard.

• No limits — banking is under pressure from every angle in 2026, so expect the broadest range of topics across all my vaults, including geopolitics.

• Every resource here is tailored to banks and finserv, or has immediate, practical relevance to your world.

• Over 650 pages of high-quality material — and growing throughout 2026 with fresh additions.

• Why a vault? Saves you hours of scattered searching — centralizes the best insights so you stay ahead.

• I do the digging — you get the gold. Need a specific report, chart, graph, or passage? It’s probably already here.

• One-click access to the exact resource, stat, or insight you need — no more endless tabs or handing over your corporate email.

If you want to start out 2026 on the path to success, these are all required reading with a collection of resources you can’t find by yourself.

Dear premium subscriber,

This is a live document that will be updated throughout Q1 2026 to provide value to you.

Note that I will concentrate reports for AI and Banking in this vault, with general AI placed in the AI vault.

New this week:

You’ll never look at your credit card the same way after this

Over $30 billion in interchange is baked into the retail prices everyone pays in the US. Merchants can’t charge different prices by payment method, so they raise prices for all and let Visa sort it out.

The math is brutal, and the direction is clear: poor people use cash and debit, rich people use premium rewards cards. Every time someone counts out exact change at a grocery register, they’re subsidizing the business-class seat the guy behind them just booked on points.

Hbr Who Pays For Payments

2.53MB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think your rewards points are free money — they're not, someone else is paying for them. Harvard Business School researchers crunched data from 1 million U.S. merchants and found interchange fees quietly transfer $30 billion every year from cash and debit users to credit card holders — a $9.2 billion annual shakedown of households earning under $150K. Cash users effectively pay a 26% higher sales tax than the Chase Sapphire crowd. Still think the payment system is neutral?

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Quantum is in the news every week now!

Coinbase Quantum Computing And Blockchain

304KB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think quantum computing is a distant problem that doesn't require action today. Coinbase's Independent Advisory Board drops a bombshell: 6.9 million BTC are sitting in wallets with exposed public keys — wide open to a sufficiently powerful quantum attack — and Bitcoin's transition alone will take months at minimum just to process the switchover transactions. The post-quantum cryptographic replacements exist, but they come with brutal tradeoffs: signatures up to 38x larger, throughput that could crater 5-7x, and no plug-and-play fix for the aggregate signature schemes that Ethereum, Sui, and Aptos depend on for consensus. Stop debating timelines and start building your migration roadmap — NIST says 2035, and recent research suggests that deadline might already be optimistic.

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Knowledge Vaults are your curated edge across five high-impact themes: AI, banking, CBDC/tokenization/payments, stablecoins, and Asia.

Every resource inside is hand-picked with only the highest-quality, most valuable material I uncover, no filler.

With just five articles per week in the newsletter, I can’t cover everything, so the rest of the best stuff lands here.

These vaults are living documents, updated weekly and growing fast (already over 1000 pages and counting).

Why a vault? One single, always-accessible place to find exactly what you need — no more endless searching or lost links.

Whether you’re a fintech founder, investor, policymaker, or simply stablecoin-curious, these vaults fast-track your understanding, cut through the hype, and deliver a serious competitive advantage.

What’s inside this AI Vault:

• The definitive AI vault — curated, data-rich resources, institutional reports, and no-hype analyses all in one place.

• Resources that cut through the noise — highlighting tech, geopolitics, and the massive societal changes AI will bring.

• Over 1000 pages of high-quality material as of early 2026 — and growing by leaps and bounds each week because it’s such a hot and diverse topic.

• Why a vault? Saves you hours of scattered searching — centralizes the best insights so you stay ahead.

• I do the digging — you get the gold. Need a specific report, chart, graph, or passage? It’s probably already here.

• One-click access to the exact resource, stat, or insight you need — no more endless tabs or handing over your corporate email to advertisers.

If you care about AI, this is required reading with a collection of resources you can’t find by yourself.

Dear premium subscriber,

This is a live document that is continuously updated to provide value to you.

My primary goal is to keep you up to date with the latest papers that explain how to use and successfully implement AI to give you an edge.

While AI is great tech, it is proving far harder to implement than advertised, and the ROI promised by consultants is still far off for many.

AI is more than just code, chips, and LLMs. The AI vault will provide you with thought-provoking reads that cover a broader remit than just tech.

One area that will be huge in 2026 is AI’s geopolitical impact. We can’t ignore the AI divide between the US and China and how AI sovereignty is now a major concern in the EU.

The big question for AI in 2026 isn’t just the technology — it’s the jobs.

Society must face how a powerful tool that clearly leaves many people and countries behind will reshape work, and those challenges will only intensify over every passing year of the AI revolution.

This isn’t just another AI roundup — it’s your shortcut to the insights that actually matter, from real-world AI wins on the job to the geopolitical power plays shaping 2026.

New this week:

The latest AI insights you can’t afford to miss

How AI is transforming your company and society

The Ai Transformation Manifesto

301KB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if your board still thinks buying AI tools is a strategy. McKinsey Quarterly studied 20 AI leaders across industries and found they're generating $3 of EBITDA for every $1 invested — with 20% EBITDA uplift — not from better tech, but from rewiring how fast their organizations move from insight to action. The tools are identical; the execution gap is brutal. Stop piloting, start rebuilding your operating model or watch faster companies eat your lunch.

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Eu The Impact Of Ai On Our Societies

1.18MB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think the EU has AI figured out. European Commission's own independent expert report drops a damning stat: industry produces 96% of large AI models — up from just 11% in 2010 — while AI search engines hallucinate correct news sources 60% of the time, and by 2028 AI will have consumed all available public text on the internet. Europe is regulating the room while Big Tech owns the building, the furniture, and the data. Stop drafting principles and start funding sovereign infrastructure.

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Knowledge Vaults are your curated edge across five high-impact themes: AI, banking, CBDC/tokenization/payments, stablecoins, and Asia.

Every resource inside is hand-picked with only the highest-quality, most valuable material I uncover, no filler.

With just five articles per week in the newsletter, I can’t cover everything, so the rest of the best stuff lands here.

These vaults are living documents, updated weekly and growing fast (already over 500 pages and counting).

Why a vault? One single, always-accessible place to find exactly what you need — no more endless searching or lost links.

Whether you’re a fintech founder, investor, policymaker, or simply stablecoin-curious, these vaults fast-track your understanding, cut through the hype, and deliver a serious competitive advantage.

What’s inside the Macro Trends and Geopolitics Vault:

• This vault is dedicated to predictions and insights for the year to come and beyond — curated, data-rich resources, institutional reports, and no-hype analyses all in one place.

• These reports show how payments and AI are more than just technologies, they are now geopolitical tools in a multipolar world.

• My Top 6 fintech & AI trends for 2026 in one place and bound to fascinate! The most important shifts, predictions, and opportunities coming next year in fintech.

• Over 500 pages of high-quality material — and growing with fresh additions.

• Why a vault? Saves you hours of scattered searching — centralizes the best insights so you stay ahead.

• I do the digging — you get the gold. Need a specific report, chart, graph, or passage? It’s probably already here.

• One-click access to the exact resource, stat, or insight you need — no more endless tabs or handing over your corporate email.

If you want to start out 2026 on the path to success, these are all required reading with a collection of resources you can’t find by yourself.

Dear premium subscriber,

This is a live document that will be updated throughout Q1 2026 to provide value to you.

My goal with this trends report vault is to provide you with thought-provoking reads, to ensure that you’re turned onto the top trends in 2026

New this week!

Deutsche Bank with macro views on digital payments and the US dollar

The best three macro reports on digital currency I have ever read. Deutsche Bank goes far beyond explaining stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and CBDCs — this series connects the plumbing of payments to a much larger geopolitical picture. For those tracking de-dollarization, Deutsche Bank delivers a provocateur’s gift: one report argues it’s real, another argues it’s not. Read all three and decide for yourself.

Chapter 1 Currency Crypto And Payment Infrastructure (1)

963KB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you still think the dollar is weakening — Deutsche Bank Research Institute says you're looking at the wrong scoreboard. The stablecoin market exploded from $20 billion to $312 billion in five years, and the Fed projects it hits $1–3 trillion by 2030; that's not de-dollarization, that's dollarization without banks. The real war isn't dollar vs. yuan — it's SWIFT vs. CIPS vs. blockchain rails, and whoever controls the settlement layer controls the world. Which side of that bet are you on?

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The Return Of History Gold The Dollar And The Monetary Future

905KB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think the dollar's reserve currency status is a law of nature. Above-ground gold just surpassed the total value of marketable US Treasuries for the first time in 40 years — gold is now a bigger asset class than the world's primary safe asset. The dollar's share of central bank reserves has cratered from 60% to 40% while EM central banks have been quietly stacking physical gold, and Deutsche Bank models $8,000 gold within five years even in a declining reserves scenario. The geopolitical reordering happening right now isn't a theory — it's already in the data. Are you positioned for it?

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Knowledge Vaults are your curated edge across five high-impact themes: AI, banking, CBDC/tokenization/payments, stablecoins, and Asia.

Every resource inside is hand-picked with only the highest-quality, most valuable material I uncover, no filler.

With just five articles per week in the newsletter, I can’t cover everything, so the rest of the best stuff lands here.

These vaults are living documents, updated weekly and growing fast (already over 1100 pages and counting).

Why a vault? One single, always-accessible place to find exactly what you need — no more endless searching or lost links.

Whether you’re a fintech founder, investor, policymaker, or simply stablecoin-curious, these vaults fast-track your understanding, cut through the hype, and deliver a serious competitive advantage.

What’s inside:

• The definitive stablecoin vault — curated, data-rich resources, institutional reports, and no-hype analyses all in one place.

• Resources that cut through the noise — highlighting strengths, gaps, risks, and real improvements needed in stablecoins.

• Over 1100 pages of high-quality material as of early 2026 — and growing weekly with fresh additions.

• Why a vault? Saves you hours of scattered searching — centralizes the best insights so you stay ahead.

• I do the digging — you get the gold. Need a specific report, chart, graph, or passage? It’s probably already here.

• One-click access to the exact resource, stat, or insight you need — no more endless tabs or dead links.

If you care about stablecoins, this is required reading with a collection of resources you can’t find by yourself.

Dear premium subscriber,

This is a live document that is continuously updated to provide value to you.

My goal with this stablecoin vault is to provide you with thought-provoking reads, some of which are contrary to the normal pro-stablecoin press.

Don’t get me wrong, I like stablecoins, but the hype surrounding them is overkill, and they have real drawbacks that I try to highlight in the many reports below.

Start your stablecoin journey here:

If you want to understand stablecoins, the best read as of late 2025, early 2026 is this report by the IMF.

Imf Understanding Stablecoins

2.74MB ∙ PDF file

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Why the ECB is concerned about stablecoins and monetary sovereignty, a driving force for the digital euro.

Stablecoins And Monetary Sovereignty

289KB ∙ PDF file

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New this week!

GENIUS Act

Next Steps For Genius Act Stablecoins

957KB ∙ PDF file

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Brookings Institution. Read this if you think the GENIUS Act solved stablecoins — it didn't. USD stablecoin supply exploded from $25 billion in 2020 to nearly $280 billion by end of 2025, and Treasury Secretary Bessent is projecting $3 trillion by 2030, yet four critical gaps in reserve quality, AML enforcement, interest restrictions, and operational resilience remain wide open. Banks, wake up: 63% of corporates still want their stablecoin issuer to be a bank — that window won't stay open forever.

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Suerf Genius Act And The Quest For Seignorage

365KB ∙ PDF file

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Read this if you think the GENIUS Act is just crypto regulation. SUERF lays out the real play: USD-backed stablecoins are a Trojan horse for "deep dollarization" — with 80% of stablecoins already US-issued, Washington is weaponizing private-sector rails to extract seigniorage from emerging markets at scale never seen before. Every GENIUS stablecoin exported is another dollar of global demand that lets the Fed print more without devaluing. While the ECB won't have a digital euro ready until 2029, the dollar is already eating your currency — what's your central bank actually doing about it?

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The Hottest reads of the week: Worldpay talks stablecoins and stablecoins all want to be bankers!

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