Building the Money Registry and Other Projects
My quest to build something that’s been on my mind for years.
Building the World’s Largest Database of Financial Companies: The Journey Begins
How do you set out to build the world’s largest database of companies in banking, money, payments, economics, crypto, blockchain, and beyond? As the famous Chinese saying goes, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” I’ve taken that first step, and while the road ahead is long — perhaps a year or even a year and a half — the vision is clear: to create a comprehensive registry of 30,000, 50,000, or even 75,000 companies in this space.
Laying the Foundation: Gathering Company Names
At this stage, the focus is on compiling names from every possible source. Whether it’s conference attendee lists, sponsor rosters, or scraping LinkedIn, we’re collecting company names wherever we can find them. Each name goes through a human review to determine if it belongs in our database. Once approved, it’s added to the growing list.
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This initial phase is all about building the foundation. With a robust list of names, we’ll be able to develop specialized tools — robots that can fetch more detailed information about each company, from their social channels and news coverage to product offerings and user sentiment. But for now, the priority is clear: build the list.
Introducing moneyregistry.app: A Global Registry
This effort is part of my latest project, moneyregistry.app. The goal is ambitious: to document every company in the world related to money, banking, payments, crypto, and economics in a single, unified registry. Why is a single registry important? There are many reasons, which I’ll share as the project progresses. For now, the focus is on getting the registry up and running.
Expanding the Ecosystem: Money Wiki and Ask Mint
Alongside the registry, I’m also working on Money Wiki — a Wikipedia-style resource for money, banking, payments, crypto, and economics. We’re currently in the first phase, adding key terms. As the wiki grows, we’ll move through multiple versions, each expanding and refining the content. There are exciting features in the pipeline, but I’ll keep those under wraps for now to protect the roadmap and roll them out as milestones are reached.
Additionally, the question-and-answer website Ask Mint is already live. We’ve surpassed 2,800+ answers and expect to reach 6,000 to 8,000 in the coming months. The plan is to open it to the public, hopefully in the first quarter of next year.
Looking Ahead: Your Ideas Welcome
These are exciting times. If you have ideas or suggestions for the Money Registry, I’d love to hear them and am happy to consider incorporating them. The journey has just begun, and there’s much more to come.
