FT Alphaville

Park says that 2008 has marked only the beginning of a much deeper and more structural paradigm shift in finance. A shift connected to many of the old system's practices becoming outdated and technological advancements opening the door to a completely new way of banking and exchange. He uses the word `paradigm' to explain this transition, a lot. (Note - his personal blog is called The Park Paradigm.)

Understandably, with Anthemis, Park is now steering investments into start-ups which complement this broader vision.

That includes the notion that in the future there will likely be more currencies not less. "Perhaps even billions of currencies," he says, sketching out a world where every individual and every human network boasts its own unit of exchange. He believes that city-states will become more relevant than nations. And that communities and networks will take control over their own units of account. Virtual currencies such as BitCoin or Facebook credits or others not yet invented, meanwhile, could well start to rival established state-issued money both in private exchange and international trade. And community-led Peer2Peer networks will run alongside more established currency systems.