According to PANews, renowned US startup incubator Y Combinator (YC) has highlighted several innovative fields they wish to see more people engage in through their latest Request for Startups (RFS). These areas include applying machine learning to robotics, using machine learning to simulate the physical world, new defense technologies, bringing manufacturing back to the US, new space companies, climate tech, commercial open-source companies, spatial computing, new enterprise resource planning software, developer tools inspired by existing internal tools, explainable artificial intelligence, large language models (LLMs) for traditional enterprise backend manual processes, building enterprise software using AI, stablecoin finance, methods to end cancer, foundational models of biological systems, management service organization models for healthcare, eliminating middlemen in healthcare, better enterprise software 'glue,' and small fine-tuned models as alternatives to giant general models.
Regarding stablecoin finance, YC states that while there is much debate about the practicality of blockchain technology, stablecoins are evidently becoming an essential component of the future of currency. Currently, there are $136 billion worth of stablecoins issued in the market, but the opportunities seem far from fully exploited. So far, only about seven million people have engaged in stablecoin transactions, while over 500 million people live in countries with annual inflation rates exceeding 30%. The total amount of customer deposits held by US banks is $17 trillion, all of which are potential conversion targets. However, there are only a handful of major stablecoin issuers and even fewer major liquidity providers. Y Combinator hopes to fund outstanding teams working on building B2B and consumer products, tools, and platforms on top of stablecoins, as well as more stablecoin protocols themselves.