Back with another #FreeLoveFriday. Last time, we covered how Mastercoin/@Omni_Layer pioneered digital asset issuance on blockchains. Today, let’s discuss @Chainlink and the vital role it plays in connecting blockchains to the real world.

1/  We've reached a critical inflection point in bitcoin's adoption curve.

A moment wholly unique in the history of markets.

Are you ready for what comes next? 👇

#Bitcoin

2/ A perfect storm of demand dynamics is driving #Bitcoin price.

I think something shifted in the market -- and active investors & traders would do well to adjust their mindset.

3/ After years asleep at the wheel, institutional leaders are now jarred awake, en masse.

If they want this asset: they'll have to hustle, compete with the masses and FOMO in above ATH's.

Against a backdrop of scarcity unlike anything they've ever seen.

4/ They will buy *all* dips.

Their bots will not stop buying.

There isn't enough supply for all of them, and they know it.

5/ And the whales who accumulated much lower?

How much appetite will strong hands have to market sell, just to run stops?

In the opening hours of the greatest bull market of their lives.

In a liquidity crisis.

1/ crypto VC is going through an explosive 🧨 phase

there are big funds (>$500M AUM), a lot of small funds (<$50M AUM), and *tons* of prop firms + angels

i’ve done 15 deals in the last 3 months as an angel + small fund @CoinSharesCo VC.

observations + implications... 👇🏾

2/ the big firms need to deploy in size - $5M checks and up

a $250M fund could do a $5-10M deal every month for two years and still be under-allocated

and there aren’t enough companies raising series B / C / D rounds!!!

every deal i’ve done lately is under $50M valuation

3/ so we see firms competing to take down entire rounds.

a recent series A financing had two firms competing to take down the ENTIRE ROUND, and it eventually got upsized, a LOT.

if a company is putting up user acquisition / growth and a revenue story, it’s highly competitive

4/ most projects and co’s don’t need money tho - why would a founder take 20-40% dilution when they’re banking cash and crypto? so they do 5-10%

so the valuations go up, but available allocations go down, resulting in an even bigger squeeze on allocators who *need* to deploy

5/ add in the onslaught of non-crypto M&A that’s coming, which is culling the herd of investable unicorns

add in the wave of SPACs and direct listings taking later stage opportunities out

there just aren’t enough places to put capital in size rn

what’s a fund to do?

Some thoughts on this super inaccurate piece.

tl;dr: this is not a defence of Tether/ iFinex, who I would like nothing more than to see disappear into irrelevance. However, most of the conclusions here show zero understanding of crypto market

1. First up: it’s completely inexcusable that Tether refuse to have a 3rd party audit. I can’t find a single good faith reason for this.

Bitfinex GC recently did a superb job of sidestepping that question on WBD:

2. For better or worse, USDT (tether) started as a way for people to move fiat between exchanges (a major problem) in the absence of the ability to onboard banking partners, none of whom wanted to touch crypto. USDT is now the dominant stablecoin by mkt cap & liquidity.

3. As a result of the difficulty of having a fiat on/off rail, many exchanges, like Binance, chose to be ‘crypto only’, using stablecoins in lieu of fiat. This is why the majority of inflows into BTC (article says 70%) is via USDT

4. Unbanked exchanges are in aggregate larger than banked ones. This is true, but it’s not because of a giant conspiracy to steal your BTC. Being unbanked = real regulatory arbitrages (lower cost + ability to innovate fast), and lower barriers to entry means there’s more of them.

The new age of privacy, and the crypto ecosystem that will enable it.

A Thread.
$XHV $SCRT $RUNE
1/

Throughout my research, @HavenXHV The Haven protocol renewed my faith, that privacy wasn't just a temporary trend, but something with actual, sustainability. The creation of a private bank, exchange, and access to real world assets in completely privacy of my own vault. $XHV
2/

Haven's offering to the world, with it's private assets $xUSD $xEUR $xGOLD and xSilver, made me research what else can be done privately, now that I have private stable coin options. My first question was, if I wanted to sell my private assets, how would I do it? $XHV
3/

It didn't take me long before I discovered $RUNE and @thorchain_org and their cross chain liquidity pools and decentralized exchange capabilities. How anyone can offer liquidity and earn rewards and trading fees for doing so. But also,how all trading pairs,are interchangable.
4/

This made me realize that as Thorchain grows in popularity,they will provide the ability for everyone, across the cryptosphere,to trade any coin for any coin. Kind of like uniswap, but cross chain,and outside, yet including, the erc-20 ecosystem. It's uniswap on steroids. $XHV
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