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... 👇🏾

1/ “Bitcoin is better at being gold than gold” - SkyBridge Capital

@Scaramucci 's SkyBridge Capital released their investment thesis for their new Bitcoin Fund LP. They go a step further than other investors in why they are actively choosing bitcoin over gold

A thread 👇

2/ SkyBridge Capital’s main fund, with $9.3B AUM, had invested ~$182M in BTC. In Dec., they announced they were raising a new, separate Bitcoin only fund and already transferring ~$25M of BTC into it

3/ Today they opened to accredited investors w/ min invstmnt of at $50K. This Bitcoin LP won’t trade BUT you only pay 0.75% annual fee and no premium, the portfolio is priced by Bloomberg’s fixed rate (XBT). In contrast, GBTC trades OTC, a 2% yr fee, and a premium to BTC’s price

4/ Their website is a vast library of info. Not just their Offering Memo, pres. & investment thesis. It also includes:
- FAQ videos (Michael Saylor features and Scaramucci has cited him as a major influence)
- Readings on Bitcoin (@real_vijay The Bullish Case for Bitcoin)

5/ Towards the bottom of the page, they also take a dig at GBTC’s premium and offer to walk through a “GBTC swap” to their fund. They understand the hurdles that many traditional investors face in investing into BTC and lean into it

1. Last week, @robbietilton sold this art piece for about 17305$ on @withFND.
I saw a lot of people asking questions on CryptoArt and NFTs (Non-fungible token) to understand how it works. I'll try to explain the basic concepts on this thread ↓

2. First, you don't directly buy the art piece, you buy a token. This token is what holds the asset that you're buying, it is a unique id that is used to represent what you bought. It can hold information like the name of the asset, an URL, a description, and so on.

3. On most marketplaces, you won't have a classic signup or login form when you'll want to create an NFT or buy one. Instead, it will be asked to connect your crypto wallet.

4. Now, why bother with a crypto wallet? Couldn't we just do an app that works with dollars? This is where things get interesting: when you buy an NFT, the data is not stored on the marketplace servers.

5. When you post a picture on Instagram, it is stored on their servers. If the app is shut down, your data might be deleted. But also, Instagram could delete your content if they want to, NFTs works differently.

1/ If you’ve been listening to @HiddenForcesPod over the last few months, you will know that I’ve been wrestling with many emotions as we’ve moved through the 2020 election, past the inauguration and towards the start of a new presidential administration.

2/ I’ve felt some combination of anxiety, nervousness, distress and sometimes even, anger.

I think these result from the threat I feel emanating from our broken society, as evidenced by not only the assault on the Capitol but by the larger forces that have led us to this moment.

3/ Rather than make an effort to bring our country together, our partisan media and talking heads on cable news outlets find every opportunity to tear it apart.

Likewise, our regulators continue to turn a blind eye to the systemic build-up of risk happening in financial markets.

4/ The celebrated rise of Bitcoin is a symptom of these broken markets.

People have such little faith in government that they'd prefer to hold their money in a database with the carbon footprint of a small nation than in government bonds or in their FDIC insured bank accounts.

5/ And this illuminates a larger observation, which has to do with the generational divide that we are experiencing—a divide which cuts much deeper than any political fissure currently tearing the country apart.

Once again, we can turn to Bitcoin for answers.