During the months of March and April of 2016 we released a series of proprietary research reports indicating signficant weakneses that we found in the European banking system and released it for sale through the blockchain (reference The First Bank Likely to Fall in the Great European Banking Crisis). This was performed by the same macro forensic and fundamental analysis team that first warned about the pan-European sovereign debt crisis in 2009 and 2010 (reference Pan-European sovereign debt crisis) as well as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers (Is this the Breaking of the Bear? January 2008). 
Today, Reuters released news vindicating our position in spades, leading any institution that took a position via our blockchain-based Veritaseum trading platform or today’s legacy system with 14% cash gains or 50% to 100+% leveraged gains in the short time period in question, to wit: Tumbling Banco Popolare leads Italian bank shares lower

Banco Popolare shares fall 14 pct to record low
Bank booked writedowns ahead of merger with Popolare Milano
Italian banking shares dogged by concerns over bad loans (Recasts with details)

MILAN, May 11 Shares in Banco Popolare plunged 14 percent on Wednesday after a surprise first-quarter loss driven by loan writedowns — the main focus of investor concerns over Italian banks.

The Bank of Japan and the ECB are assisting me in teaching the world’s savers, banking clients and corporations about the benefits of blockchain-based finance for the masses. How? Today, the Wall Street Journal published “Negative Rates: How One Swiss Bank Learned to Live in a Subzero World“:
Alternative Bank Schweiz AG late last year became Switzerland’s first bank to comprehensively pass along negative rates to all of its customers. Violating an almost religious precept in the financial world, ABS informed its clients that they would have to pay a charge of at least 0.125% to maintain their accounts at the bank starting in 2016.
This is the first time that I know of that a retail commercial bank is charging its customers to borrow their money. Wait, it gets better…
In the first two full months after ABS’s October negative-rate announcement, 1,797 clients had left the bank, but 1,830 new accounts had been opened—for a net gain of 33. Fresher data for January and February, the most recent available, showed that ABS was still net positive on accounts, with its gain expanded to 59.
That’s right, thus far the bank has had a slight net gain in depositors – or people that are willing to pay a bank to lend the bank their hard earned cash.

The Bank of Japan and the ECB are assisting me in teaching the world’s savers, banking clients and corporations about the benefits of blockchain-based finance for the masses. How? Today, the Wall Street Journal published "Negative Rates: How One Swiss Bank Learned to Live in a Subzero World":
Alternative Bank Schweiz AG late last year became Switzerland’s first bank to comprehensively pass along negative rates to all of its customers. Violating an almost religious precept in the financial world, ABS informed its clients that they would have to pay a charge of at least 0.125% to maintain their accounts at the bank starting in 2016.
This is the first time that I know of that a retail commercial bank is charging its customers to borrow their money. Wait, it gets better…
In the first two full months after ABS’s October negative-rate announcement, 1,797 clients had left the bank, but 1,830 new accounts had been opened—for a net gain of 33. Fresher data for January and February, the most recent available, showed that ABS was still net positive on accounts, with its gain expanded to 59.
That’s right, thus far the bank has had a slight net gain in depositors – or people that are willing to pay a bank to lend the bank their hard earned cash.

It’s official, I’m calling a banking crisis in Europe. Things didn’t go well the last time I did this. Of course, many will say, “But the rating agencies have learned their collective lessons. They would most assuredely warn us if the European banks are close to going bust, right?!!!”. Yeah, right! Reference our past research note on so-called trusted parties in private blockchains for banks. Those interested in purchasing the 22 page report on what is likely the first major bank to fall victim to the coming Pan-European Banking Crisis can do so here. All others, feel free to read on…

Here are some key points:
 The distress in Europe is being caused by large as well as small banks. Slowdown in global growth, negative interest rates being pursued by central banks that will impact bank’s profits, and deteriorating asset quality are the main reasons.
 Some of the big European banks have fared very badly in recent performance. Credit Suisse, for instance, announced a fourth quarter (2015) loss of $5.

It’s official, I’m calling a banking crisis in Europe. Things didn’t go well the last time I did this. Of course, many will say, "But the rating agencies have learned their collective lessons. They would most assuredely warn us if the European banks are close to going bust, right?!!!". Yeah, right! Reference our past research note on so-called trusted parties in private blockchains for banks. Those interested in purchasing the 22 page report on what is likely the first major bank to fall victim to the coming Pan-European Banking Crisis can do so here. All others, feel free to read on…

 
Here are some key points:

 The distress in Europe is being caused by large as well as small banks. Slowdown in global growth, negative interest rates being pursued by central banks that will impact bank’s profits, and deteriorating asset quality are the main reasons.
 Some of the big European banks have fared very badly in recent performance. Credit Suisse, for instance, announced a fourth quarter (2015) loss of $5.

I attended a panel discussion on private blockchains in banking at UBS in NYC last night. There were two overarching misconceptions that appeared to permeate the discussions:

Counterparties can be trusted, hence you can build reliable systems with trusted parties, and;

Capital markets are, and always will be predicated upon the legacy, highly centralized hub and spoke model that we know today. Basically, the influential gatekeepers that control access to a centralized, authoritative exchange.

Referring to the picture above, there’s a group of lawyers on the right and technologists and bankers on the left. It’s interesting in that the technologists (an executive from R3C3V) said that blockchain tech will NOT be disruptive to the financial industry, but instead will be gradual in nature, and the representative from the banking industry agreed. The lawyers (Sullivan & Cromwell, the ex-general counsel of the Swiss National Bank, etc.) said that blockchain technology lowers the cost and increases the transparency of intermediation, thereby allowing more people to participate in the transfer of value.
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This is interesting for if the guy(s) on the right are correct, then the guys on the left are wrong.