Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.
Articles by Sean Murray
What’s Lending Got to do With Cryptocurrency?
January 10, 2018
Facebook and Snapchat might be the last things that employees are being distracted by these days. Instead it’s Coinbase and Blockfolio, two cryptocurrency apps, that are quickly stealing the attention of young finance professionals. And the interest in Bitcoin, Ethereum and alt coins is causing some in the industry to wonder if the phenomenon can somehow be connected to online lending and merchant cash advance.
A meetup hosted by partners of Central Diligence Group (CDG) on Tuesday night in NYC, for example, was geared towards cryptocurrency enthusiasts. CDG is a merchant cash advance and business lending consulting firm. Those that attended, talked candidly about Ripple, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the hot topic of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). And it did seem all connected. Companies successfully raised more than $3 billion through ICOs in 2017, for example, some of them online lending companies.
ETHLend and SALT, blockchain-based p2p lenders, each raised $16.2 million and $48.5 million respectively through ICOs. What’s more, their crypto market caps currently stand at $325 million and $754 million respectively. The latter is nearly twice as valuable as online lender OnDeck. The founder of Ripple, meanwhile, briefly became one of the richest men in the entire world.
Whether these valuations are overdone is besides the point. A smart phone is all that’s required to get in on the action and trade thousands of cryptocurrencies online, many of which move up and down by astronomical percentages over the course of a day. Becoming a millionaire overnight by hitting on the right one is a dream sought after by many. And young people, especially millennials, are become unconsciously comfortable transacting in non-government-backed currencies through technology that completely shuts out banks.
And that may be the shift in all of this to pay attention to. It isn’t that a local restaurant is going to collateralize their Bitcoin to get a loan and outcompete an MCA company, but that a portion of the monetary system eventually starts to sidestep banks.
Trying to collect on that judgment? Good luck tracing the money in cryptos.
Need to freeze funds? You can’t freeze someone’s Bitcoins if they’ve got them stored on their own hardware.
Evaluating a business’s bank statements? The transactions can only be verified on a blockchain.
You might not believe me, but it’s incredibly likely that you’ve encountered a client that has defaulted on an MCA or loan whose stash of money has been obscured in cryptos all the while their bank statements appear to show insolvency.
It’s also likely that you’ve encountered a client that has used the proceeds of their MCA or loan to buy a crypto. Maybe not the whole amount, but with some of it. One study, for example, revealed that 18% of people have purchased Bitcoin using credit. Bloomberg reported that the phrase “buy bitcoin with credit card,” just recently spiked to an all-time high.
People are even taking out mortgages to buy Bitcoin, according to CNBC.
If you think cryptocurrency is an industry completely independent of your business, consider that the market cap of cryptocurrencies is currently valued at more than $700 billion. That’s nearly twice the market cap of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, COMBINED. The #3 cryptocurrency by market cap, Ripple, is being pitched almost entirely to traditional financial institutions.
Bet all you want on the prediction that this bubble will burst. Maybe it will. But the underlying technology, transacting without banks in non-government backed currencies that may be difficult to trace and recover, is a genie that’s not returning to its bottle anytime soon.
In the meantime, now might be a good time to poll your employees or colleagues about their knowledge or use of cryptocurrency. You may be surprised by what you find, especially among the younger crowd.
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Disclaimer: I currently hold a material amount of Ether, the currency of the Ethereum blockchain.
In 2018, Sell More and Make More Money
January 4, 2018Did you hear about the MCA sales rep that made a $160,000 commission this week on a single deal? It was a monster deal, the largest ever approved by the company that funded it. Numbers like that are proof that facilitating commercial finance deals is still red hot.
That’s me in that photo above, wearing that shirt back in 2009 when the industry was not even a fraction of the size it is today. Hat tip to the friend who found this. I used to joke about putting on your funding pants but perhaps in 2018 it’s time to put on a selling shirt too.
In 2018, will you sell more and make more money?
If you want to operate at the top of your game, I highly suggest you register to attend Broker Fair 2018. With 24 major sponsors already signed on, Broker Fair will be the place to learn, get inspired, and connect with the right people to do even more business.
May the next big commission check belong to you.
Will 2018 Be a Special Year?
December 29, 2017
2018 is going to be different, in a good way. That’s word on the street in the alternative finance industry, many of whom have told me that it’s just something they feel.
I feel it too. The S&P 500 is at an all-time high, Bitcoin is up more than 1,400% for the year, lenders are lending in full force, and on top of it all, Donald Trump is president. The world is changing and from a one thousand foot view, it’s an exciting time for finance.
2018 will welcome Broker Fair, the inaugural conference for MCA and business loan brokers.
2018 will transform alternative finance into just finance. For example, a mailer I received from PayPal advertising a small business loan up to $500,000 in as quick as 1 business day, included a letter signed by a top manager of Swift Capital. PayPal acquired Swift in 2017. Yesterday’s alternative loan is simply today’s loan. The one-day small business loan is becoming normalized and being offered by widely recognized financial companies.
Ripple surpassed Ethereum this morning to become the 2nd largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Cryptocurrency, once the domain of Bitcoin-obsessed internet anarchists, is quickly being adopted by the world’s largest banks.
It’s one thing to just talk about innovations in finance and another to realize that you now rely on those innovations. My company got a loan from Square, I got insurance through CoverWallet, I have funds in Lending Club, Prosper, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. Coinbase is the new etrade. MCA and online business loans are the new community banks. Payments can be made instantly and cost effectively.
2018 will be special because the world that we predicted would come, has come. That means it will be time to think about what will come even next. Online lending has come, instant payments has come, cryptocurrency is fast approaching. What will be the cool edgy hip thing in the ’20s that we may once again refer to as alternative? Mull that one over for a bit and consider that in the next decade the sexy fintech companies of the 20-teens will be stodgy financial institutions in the 2020s. This decade’s innovation will become part of the boring normal manner in which finance is transacted. That’s a fact.
Enjoy 2018. I know I will.
Happy new year,
– Sean
Letter From The Editor
December 23, 2017
It was a year to remember, our sources declare
‘Twas the Jan/Feb issue I wrote about my loan from Square
Through March into April salespeople closed deals via text
As banks looked to fintech as their plan for what’s next
We went to Texas a nexus for finance and lending
It was May, maybe June when Bizfi’s final days were pending
Merchants talked, banks adjusted, it was a summer of learnings
For the pressure was on to produce solid quarterly earnings
September, October, liens and judgements were removed
But the world hardly noticed and deals still got approved
Winter coats and furry hats meant the year would end soon
But by golly 10k, no 19k! Bitcoin went straight to the moon!
And so boys and girls the story of ‘17 has been told
What a time for finance, for money, and a world to behold
See you in ‘18, in ‘19, and the roaring twenties my friend
We’ll be right there, whether you deal in receivables or lend
– Sean Murray
How I Failed to Become a Bitcoin Millionaire
December 18, 2017
This past Fall, an industry colleague congratulated me on my newfound wealth. “What newfound wealth?” I reply. “What are you talking about?”
“Aren’t you a bitcoin millionaire now?” he says, smiling brightly, with a look in my direction that suggests he can see through my deceptively coy demeanor. “You were talking about it for years. You were right about it!”
“Oh, yeah… Bitcoin,” I say back while looking at the ground, embarrassed by what I am about to tell him. “I spent nearly all my Bitcoins well before the price jump,” I reveal.
He didn’t believe me, but it didn’t matter. I had no regrets up until that moment when I decided to look back and see how much my Bitcoins would’ve been worth had I just held on to them. Doing the math ultimately turned out to be a bad idea.
$500,000.
That’s the rise in value I missed out on by spending the Bitcoins I had been acquiring in 2014-2016. It’s not a million dollars, but it’s enough to sit back and think, what if. [Editor’s note. The market value of those Bitcoins since the time this issue went to print reached about a million dollars after all. DAMN.]
Bummer
But why spend or sell them if I was a supposed true believer? I never cared much for speculating. I liked and still like Bitcoin because it’s a payment methodology that exists outside the purview and control of banks and government. It is the ultimate way to de-bank. And hey, that’s what all the fuss of this publication is about.
I started reporting on Bitcoin here in deBanked as early as 2014, mainly to an audience that didn’t know what they were and didn’t care to know. I couldn’t blame you all. Talk of digital currency, mining, and block sizes doesn’t exactly go hand-in-hand with things like online lending, merchant cash advance, and brokering deals.
A handful of diehard Bitcoin fans at the time told me they were happy to see Bitcoin legitimized through our coverage. Others told me it was complete garbage, a ponzi scheme even, that didn’t deserve any attention whatsoever.
In those days, I took a tour through the whole ecosystem by mining Bitcoin, buying it, selling it, paying people with it, and accepting payment with it. I read books about it, attended seminars on it, and watched documentaries about it. I even experimented with turning my computer into a node in the Bitcoin network to keep the ecosystem itself running smooth. I repeatedly heard critics argue that it was all a scam and I walked away every time remaining unconvinced.
Bitcoin allows users to carry their money across borders without hassle and to retain possession of their funds even if a bank or government agency wants to seize it. Perhaps these benefits appeal to criminals, but surely they also do to law-abiding citizens.
I didn’t like the volatility of it so much back when I was acquiring them. It wasn’t a very good store of value and it still isn’t. The fact that a Bitcoin I acquired for $300 is now worth $10,000 [market value at the time it went to print] is amusing but also terribly unnerving. What good is Bitcoin to legitimately use as money if the value can swing massively in an hour? And what to do if I bought 1 Bitcoin now at $10,000 and it retreated back to $300?
In a way, I may have been more excited to have held all those Bitcoins for another year without them experiencing any increase in value, rather than to have accidentally profited handsomely thanks to speculators who do not care about the underlying utility of Bitcoin.
Maybe I’m an idealist. Or maybe I’m just rationalizing why I shouldn’t cry myself to sleep over having missed out on 500k in profit. I personally believe Bitcoin will be at its most valuable when its price is stable. If we can get to that point and the world economy becomes more accepting of it as a form of payment, well then I’d be very interested in holding on to Bitcoin indeed.
I wondered, of course, if the me of three years ago would’ve agreed with my philosophy now. A blog post I wrote in November 2014 answers that question.
Below are some of the points I made then:
“Bitcoin is more than a currency. It’s not the Euro, the Yen, or the Peso. It’s a detachment from governments and banking. It’s self-control. Without the private key, your bitcoins can’t be seized.”
“I’m not necessarily speculating though. I spent almost half my bitcoins shopping on Overstock on Black Friday.”
“A 5% swing might be acceptable for an investment but it’s quite ugly for a currency.”
“Your money is not really yours. You have rights to it, but only to an extent. It can be garnished, frozen or confiscated. That’s the price of liquidity and relative stability. If you can afford to color outside the lines, where you can remove [bankers] and their control, why not experiment? There’s something pure about [Bitcoin], liberating. And when you add in the fact that it’s governed by math, it’s more than that, it’s beautiful.”
“There are indeed those holding [Bitcoin] and not spending. Rampant speculation is both a cause of volatility and an argument for its long term unsustainability. Speculators are hoping the digital currency will appreciate and make them filthy rich. If that day never comes, a big sell off will cause its value to drop.”
And so it was in 2014, I was interested in the utility of Bitcoin while concerned about the volatility of it. The value has since shot up to the moon, largely due to speculation. Along the way my views caused me to miss out on becoming a Bitcoin millionaire.
And I couldn’t care less. Wake me up when the price stabilizes.
Editor’s Note: Between the time this story was sent off to print and now (when it’s being published online), the market value of those Bitcoins had increased from $500,000 to nearly $1 million. Incredibly, I legitimately would’ve been a Bitcoin millionaire.
Editor’s Note 2: It’s been a long time since I have played around with being a Bitcoin node. More recently, I have become a node on Ethereum, a blockchain for decentralized applications that also serves as the backbone platform for things like Initial Coin Offerings.
deBanked Connect: Miami — SOLD OUT
December 12, 2017deBanked’s cocktail networking event on January 25th in South Beach is now SOLD OUT!
If you missed out on your chance to RSVP, you can still register for our much bigger, better, and more comprehensive event on May 14, 2018 in Brooklyn; Broker Fair 2018.
With 20 sponsors already signed on, Broker Fair is sizing up to be the biggest event in the MCA and small business lending industry of the entire year! During this exclusive full-day conference, brokers, lenders, funders and service providers alike can expect education, inspiration and opportunities to connect and grow their business. You can view our preliminary agenda here.
DON’T GET LEFT OUT. REGISTER FOR BROKER FAIR 2018 TODAY!. Got questions? E-mail: info@brokerfair.org
Originations Since Inception
December 8, 2017After several company announcements recently, we’ve compiled a milestone chart to plot where they rank. Originations may indicate business loans or MCAs funded on balance sheet, brokered, or placed through a marketplace. These rankings are a work in progress. This chart may not include companies for which public data is not available. If you’d like your figures to be listed here, e-mail sean@debanked.com.
| Company | Origination Volume Since Inception | Year Founded |
| OnDeck | $8 Billion | 2007 |
| Kabbage | $4 Billion | 2009 |
| Yellowstone Capital | $2 Billion | 2009 |
| BFS Capital | $1.7 Billion | 2002 |
| Funding Circle | $1 Billion (US only) | 2010 |
| IOU Financial | $500 Million | |
| Lending Club | $500 Million (SMB loans only) | 2006 |
| SmartBiz Loans | > $500 Million (SBA loans) | 2009 |
| Lendio | > $500 Milllion | |
| Forward Financing | $275 Million | 2012 |
| Blue Bridge Financial | $200 Million | 2009 |
Law Firm or Law Fail? Debt Settlement Company’s Legal Footing Called into Question
December 6, 2017The first major volley in the lawsuit filed by plaintiffs Yellowstone Capital and EBF Partners (“Everest Business Funding”) against a debt settlement company and their alleged ISO partners has been exchanged. And it’s a doozy.
Three of the eight defendants, Mark D. Guidubaldi & Associates, LLC (d/b/a Protection Legal Group) aka PLG, Corporate Bailout, LLC, and PLG Servicing, LLC have sought to collectively dismiss the complaint on the grounds that they are attorneys “engaged in the practice of law with the Merchants as their clients.”
PLG, a self-described “multi-jurisdictional law firm that practices law in various jurisdictions nationwide,” argues in their motion papers that those employed by Corporate Bailout and PLG Servicing carry out certain administrative and support tasks for PLG. And it’s okay that no one at either of those companies are attorneys, they claim, because PLG supervises it all. That enables them to be covered as attorneys in an attorney-client relationship, they assert.
If true, they might want to try harder at supervising. As you might remember, Corporate Bailout, a telemarketing debt settlement firm, was featured on the cover of the New York Post earlier this year after being sued for running an operation “so sexually aggressive, morally repulsive, and unlawfully hostile that it is rivaled only by the businesses portrayed in the films ‘Boiler Room’ and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street.’”
Corporate Bailout’s principal office is in New Jersey. PLG, the law firm, is based in Illinois. Can it really be that the former is considered a law firm through a relationship with the latter?
Whoa, not so fast, says an amended complaint filed by the plaintiffs on Tuesday, which argues that not even PLG is a legitimate law firm. “In fact, none of the Debt Relief Defendants is a law firm engaged in the provision of legitimate legal service,” they contend. “PLG is not even registered as a law firm in Illinois, as required by the rules of the Illinois courts,” they add.
If true, then this case could potentially have far-reaching consequences beyond simple tortious interference.
Some excerpts from this bombshell allegation:
PLG has one employee who is a lawyer, but does not as a rule advise or represent its customers. The advice those merchant customers receive is given by non-lawyers at Corporate Bailout and PLG Servicing, who approach and recruit merchants in ways no lawyer subject to the Rule of Professional Conduct 7.3 would ever be permitted to solicit clients. The non-lawyer personnel at Corporate Bailout and PLG Servicing are not supervised by the solitary lawyer at PLG, but by [Mark] Mancino and [Michael] Hamill, who are not lawyers – an arrangement that, if PLG were a law firm engaged in the provision of legitimate legal services, would violate Rule of Professional Conduct 5.3. To the extent that any of the advice the non-lawyers at Corporate Bailout and PLG Servicing give to merchants in furtherance of the Debt Relief Defendants’ tortious activity is legal advice at all, giving it violates the prohibition on the unauthorized practice of law. PLG orchestrates this activity, which damages the merchants as well as their Merchant Cash Advance Providers, in flagrant and deliberate disregard of the law.
[…]
Although the merchants are told that they are paying the funds into an “escrow account,” in reality PLG does not treat the funds like client escrow funds; it pays itself from them from the beginning, regardless of whether it is providing any services, and with no differentiation between client funds and funds payable to PLG. If PLG really were a law firm engaged in the provision of legitimate legal services, its practices with respect to client funds would be barred by the Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15.
– plaintiffs in the Amended Complaint (<-- click to download a copy)
Plaintiffs have also added Michael Hamill as an individual defendant. Fellow co-defendants Mark Mancino, American Funding Group, Coast to Coast Funding, LLC, ROC Funding Group, LLC, and ROC South, LLC did not file a response to the original complaint.
