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Deep Learning: The Future of Finance?

· Deep Learning,Cryptocurrency,Future of Finance,Matteo Testi,Deep Learning Italia

Deep Learning: The Future of Finance?

A Conversation with Italian Ai Celebrity & Deep Learning Italia Founder Matteo Testi

Deep learning, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency—many people throw around these high-tech buzzwords, but don’t have a truly solid grasp on them. I recently had an opportunity to speak to an expert on all of these subjects. Matteo Testi holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree computational engineering, both from Sapienza University of Rome, one of the most prestigious universities in southern Europe. He also recently completed a master’s degree in data science at the University of Dundee in Scotland. In the last few years, Testi has traveled to numerous conferences sharing his expertise and discussing the two companies he has founded. Testi explained to me the niche that each of these companies fills.

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In May 2017, Matteo Testi founded Deep Learning Italia. Testi realized that there weren’t a lot of online tools available for assisting the Italian deep learning community. Deep Learning Italia is the now the largest such community in Italy. It shares tutorials, articles, and lessons about machine learning with its members. It has also hosted two meetups in Milan to explain how deep learning can improve business operations. Testi described Deep Learning Italia to me as a training and consulting center, and so far, it has successfully performed each of these roles.

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Less than a year after founding Deep Learning Italia, Matteo Testi created Icaro Artificial Intelligence. The idea for Icaro AI came from a conference in Madrid in December 2017. Testi realized that there was not enough knowledge available pertaining to AI’s applications in cryptocurrency. This is where Icaro came in. Testi created a deep learning algorithm to analyze historical cryptocurrency trends and use those results to make predictions about the future. Icaro officially launched in June, and the company is working with cryptocurrency traders to validate and improve their models. At the moment, the initial results show as much as 1% profitability each day for the traders using this tool. Essentially, Icaro is a back-end developer for cryptocurrency trading firms. Icaro has a different model for each cryptocurrency that a firm may trade, and currently has 10 models with hopes of expanding.

I closed my interview with Matteo Testi by asking him what he thought about the future of cryptocurrency. He believes that the use of cryptocurrencies as financial securities will become more widespread among investment managers, which is why many banks are already investing in them. Blockchain, he predicts, will see nearly limitless uses for privacy and security. He also added that AI has the power to transform the finance industry, but there is currently not enough knowledge on how to mesh the two together. However, with the expertise of people like Matteo Testi, the intertwining of AI, finance, and cryptocurrency is likely not far down the road.

Written by Jack Vasquez & Edited by Alexander Fleiss