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/ 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?

The most effective meme I’ve found for Ethereum is “Digital Economy”

From there it’s easy to layout how Ethereum is the foundation for a variety of digital institutions (protocols) built upon the same principles of decentralization as Bitcoin.

1/

With “Bitcoin : Digital Gold :: Ethereum : Digital Economy” as the framing its then much easier to describe what a bet on ETH is.

I first explain DeFi (the new Wall Street), NFTs, Web3, and all the other mind blowing projects built on Ethereum...

...then illuminate how ETH is at the center of all it.

If BTC is like gold - an asset that people store value in but don’t use as money.

Then ETH is like money - the most liquid asset in Ethereum’s on-chain economy that is demanded for a wide range of economic uses.

If I get pressed on the semantics of “money” I explain how ETH is used as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account...

...but also eventually as the ultimate source of security for the Ethereum blockchain, stretching the idea of what money is.

A lot these ideas are what we attempted to express and put numbers behind in our latest ETH 2.0

The global blockchain market is growing fast & it is expected to grow from USD 3.0B in 2020 to USD 39.7B by 2025 at an impressive CAGR of 67.3% during 2020–2025. The global fintech market has also significantly grown over the past 2 years & so is the case in Southeast Asia. (1/n)

2) Thanks to the increased application of blockchain & cryptocurrency in the region.
With a total pop. of 570M, a young demographic & high Internet usage, Southeast Asia (SEA) is promising for companies & investors in blockchain & crypto.

#Blockchain

3) The use of blockchain in SEA has certainly come far ahead from the time when the technology was seen as another speculative commodity or a mere passing fad.

Today, the application of decentralized finance (DeFi) is under the limelight.

4) The region’s fast-growing economies are well-positioned to drive adoption of #blockchain & crypto. As each country competes to stay relevant in today’s digital age & embrace emerging technologies such as blockchain & #cryptocurrency, large-scale adoption is the key to success.

5) Here’s an overview of where the region is headed in terms of blockchain w/ respect to digital financial transactions.

As the financial hub for SEA, Singapore plays a critical role in supporting the region to push it forward technologically & financially.

[BIG THREAD] BitChute is a video-sharing site growing in size after an exodus of upset conservatives from YouTube. Like similar “anti-censorship” platforms, it also is riddled with a disturbing amount of hateful content and blatant disinformation.

Around the time of the Capitol riot, interest in BitChute skyrocketed. It continued to rise as Donald Trump’s channel had videos removed, was suspended, and then finally banned. Although he has yet to arrive on BitChute himself, his followers have moved on from YouTube.

BitChute founder Ray Vahey has called the platform “pro-free expression”, accusing sites that censor their content as building echo chambers that serve only to exacerbate problems. What he fails to recognize is that his own creation has become one itself.

wo massive trends on BitChute are anti-Covid vaccine and pro-Nazi/anti-Semitic propaganda. Both break the site’s Community Guidelines. Below are examples of easily accessible and highly-viewed videos. Bear in mind the medical advice is harmful and the Nazi content is disturbing.

First, the anti-vax disinformation. “Timmy Learns About COVID Vaccines”. Safety precautions are called “enslavement” and “extortion”. Over 5k views.

🚨 @naval @balajis and @shl live on Clubhouse right now🚨

.@naval: I can't imagine working on anything besides crypto. Crypto was the biggest changemaker and biggest wealth maker of 2020.

.@balajis: Crypto is a civilization technology

.@naval: Property rights is one of the hardest problems. That's why we need nation state. Nation states do property rights. #BTC is solving this. #BTC is solving the hardest problem. If we can solve the BTC problem, we can solve everything else (decentralized media, file storage)

.@naval: I think the next big thing we're going to see is decentralize social networks. All the centralized social networks just created the 2008-2009 moment, it's going to change everything.