Part 1 Introduction to the idea of First the Rest then the West

West is short for wealthy developed economies, historically mostly America and Europe but now also many in Asia ie East; it denotes mindset and wealth more than geography.

Rest is short for Rest of the world.

First the Rest then the West is a bit of fun rhyming with a serious idea that the flow of innovation is reversing from West to Rest in the past to Rest to West in the future.

Like any quadrant you want to be in top right, bottom left is worst. About that overused word – disruption. The West does not like disruption as it has too much to lose. The Rest is comfortable with disruption as it is NOT invested in the status quo.   

Historically we built technology in the West and sold it to the Rest. The reason behind such a contrarian idea as First the Rest then the West is that it is the use/adoption of technology that drives the value-creating innovation – not the creation of that technology.

This is particularly true of Bitcoin which in the West is a solution looking for a problem vs addressing real problems in the Rest.

Part 3 describes why we are so focused on Bitcoin not other Fintech innovation. Before that, in next week’s Part 2 we do a round up of recent news about Fintech innovation from the Rest.

Some subjects are too complex for our short attention spans, so we do 4-5 posts one week apart, each one short enough not to lose your attention but in aggregate doing justice to the complexity of the subject. Stay tuned by subscribing.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

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