YC published a list of topics they want to invest in. The closest to us and therefore unexpected is Commercial Open Source. Just need to remember that the key performance indicator for a startup is not popularity, as for most open source software, but revenue.
https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#commercial-open-source-companies
The second unexpected topic there is Stablecoins. One would wonder, PayPal has already issued its coin, the problem is solved, but it’s not! You don’t understand the use for the crypto? Smart people explain:
more than half a billion live in countries with 30%+ inflation
For many years, one of the countries where crypto was widely used, was Ukraine. From this year on a lot of new people in Russia will adopt stablecoins. They have no other options, in fact, government is killing banking sector, and I don’t mean sanctions. Russia is steadily degrading its financial model towards the middle-age with restrictions for exchanges, currencies, and banks, as well as the announced “digital ruble”, meaning accounts and transactions are to be served with a single central government bank. This means a very simple thing - 20 millions of people will be withdrawing money somewhere, and foreign banks are closed for them.
And then there’s Germany. The first “cryptocurrency” appeared in Austria 100 years ago. Europe knows this business and disallows it, but Germans traditionally like paper cash, and in many places they do not accept cards at all. It’s a complicated market, but it’s very big. Seems like it is possible to make another Revolut somewhere in Britain.