$BTC & $USDT & the criminal cartels that pump the prices of BTC while laundering out real fiat profits through their exchange partners. While tax evasion & general financial malfeasance is problematic enough, one has to wonder what else is occurring with the laundered funds ..1/

1) #Bitcoin $ETH #Defi THE ART OF Contrary Thinking by
HUMPHREY B. NEILL

It Pays To Be Contrary

"What is the Theory of Contrary opinion?"

Primarily, it is a method of ruminating over a broad range of public questions; political, economic, and social.

2) In sum, the purpose is to contest the popular view, because popular opinions are so frequently found to be untimely, misled (by propaganda), or plainly wrong.

3) When everyone thinks alike, "everyone" is likely to be
wrong When writers write alike, readers are prone to
think alike Too many predictions spoil the forecasts;
or, to put it another way, the weight of predictions causes
their own downfall.

4) Caution: The contrary theory is a way of thinking, but
let's not overweigh it. It is more of an antidote to general
forecasting than a system or forecasting.

5) Human traits that make the theory of contrary opinion
workable, include:
Habit
Emotion
Irritability
Custom
Greed
Pride-of-Opinion
Imitation
Hope
Wishful Thinking
Contagion
Impulsiveness
Fear

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?

Big #Altcoin thread for $ALTS: Where are we at in the cycle, how long do we have, is this #ALTSEASON, what are the relationships like, all of that. $BTC #Bitcoin $ETH $LINK #Altcoins

First: What is #Altseason? The true altszn was seen in 2017/2018, where $BTC fell off a cliff and $ALTS were the 'safe haven' from btc dumping. ALTS went literally 1000%+ (many much higher). Since that time we have seen many #Altcoin pumps, starting primarily in late Q4 each year

These Altcoin pumps are usually 20-1000% gains on nearly the ENTIRE #Altcoin market. This is awesome to see and genius season- you can't lose. Dips are bought up quickly and both ALT/USD and ALT/BTC pairs pump HUGE. Are we currently in that environment? I'm not quite sure tbh.

I think that $BTC still has a little more gas in the tank, which would result in ALT/BTC pairs suffering IMO. You can see more of my thoughts on #Bitcoin below, but I think that we could see 1 more shakeout + then we could see a big run starting in December 2020 for $ALTS

As an #Altcoin trader, you need to understand several things for the environment in which to trade $ALTS successfully:
- $BTC PA
- $BTC.D
-Seasonality
- $ETH
- and much more

Someone tosses a coin ten times; it comes up heads every time. What's the probability it comes up heads on the next toss? (Pretty darn high—part of @nntaleb's work is unprogramming you from your high-school rules of thumb.) Now consider the (related) Gambler's fallacy...

In this case, it's a theory about compensation: the worse one's luck is, the more likely it is to see a reversal. On the surface, it's irrational. The more bad luck you have, the more you accumulate evidence that the system is rigged.

But there's also an anthropic component. If the luck is bad enough, it starts to become inconsistent with your survival. You've accumulated evidence for correlations in the environment, but these correlations (may be) inconsistent with (people like you) being in this environment.

An example. You're in a city where everyone takes public transport. You encounter a string of bad delays. It's reasonable to conclude they'll end—otherwise people wouldn't take public transport. It's unlikely that you happened to show up right when the network collapses.

Of course, that's a bad heuristic in a casino, which relies on a constant influx of losers. But in other environments, particularly with persistent populations and no evidence for sudden changes in the underlying laws, it makes sense.

We're in the phase of the market where there's a lot of retail inbounds but not enough education about the Ethereum ecosystem and DeFi.

So, let's break down the basics of some of the top protocols.

First on deck: Aave (@AaveAave), an Ethereum-based money market protocol.

A 🧵

TL;DR: Aave is a protocol through which any user anywhere in the world can take decentralized loans by collateralizing their assets.

Aave also allows those will idle assets to earn a relatively safe return on capital from lenders, whose rates are determined by a curve.

1/ For years, most crypto assets had no indirect or direct utility.

Users would hold BTC, ETH, and other assets (including many ERC-20 tokens) with no expectation of a native yield or dividends.

ETH, for instance, was long just an asset for transaction fees, as was Bitcoin.

2/ If users wanted to borrow against their assets, they were relegated to centralized platforms—which were few and far between years ago.

3/ Aave, formerly ETHLend, is a protocol allowing users the ability to lend and borrow on-chain, without KYC and untransparent fees.

Users can deposit a variety of assets as collateral, then use that collateral as ammo to borrow other assets to be used in DeFi or beyond.