I am blown away by the fintech explosion in 2017. I have been investing in financial startups (and creating a few) the last 11 years dreaming of a year like 2017. I have been trying to soak it all in and ponder what could happen in the coming years.

I don’t think we have seen anything yet.

It’s not just startups. The all-time high list is crawling with financials. Visa, Paypal, Schwab, Goldman, Blackrock…

I get the luxury of looking at the Stocktwits data that CEO Ian Rosen shares with me and while yes Bitcoin and Crypto is in a bananas growth and chatter phase, I am content knowing millennials are not chatting about oil, P/E ratios, gold and utilities.

I talk to Yoni Assia all the time and hear the growth numbers in crypto (deposits and volumes) and just shake my head. Etoro is now in over 150 countries. This is not a US phenomenon.

Today, our portfolio company Robinhood announced free options trading. CEO Baiju Bhatt announced that 200,000 people have requested it in the first 7 hours.

Coinbase is the number 1 app in the app store.

The mental athlete is cool. Compounding and network effects are cool. Investing is cool. Learning the language of the markets is cool.

It is almost impossible that a panic does NOT occur in 2018 and by panic I mean an all out acquisition spree.

Luckily for the leading banks their stocks are up and they have the currency to bid on the new fintech leaders. But they should move quickly because Facebook, Apple, Tencent, Alibaba and Google will be looking to make moves as well.