My thoughts on the rise of fintech giants and payment infrastructure, a thread 👇
1/ Many investors look at the $1Tn+ of value created by fintech giants – @Visa ($400B), @Mastercard ($300B), @PayPal ($200B), @Square ($65B), @stripe ($60B) and @Adyen ($55B) – and think they’ve missed the boat. In fact, the best decade is yet ahead.
2/ There are few other industries tackling at $30Tn+ global TAM with the scale, ecosystem, and network effects these businesses have. Card payments remain <50% penetrated globally, and ecom is only ~15% of spend (even post-covid).
4/ There is more opportunity than ever as a founder, operator, and investor in this space. Let’s build towards a more financially inclusive future @altcap@kevinjwang
5/ Follow for more thoughts on the fintech ecosystem
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1/ Thrilled to announce our investment in @GammaSwapLabs! They are building a new core primitive in the defi space – monetizing IL/vol and allowing AMM DEX trading to scale by an order of magnitude
2/ DEX AMMs have been one of the killer use cases in crypto - with 10% penetration vs spot on centralized venues, and $1Tn+ volume in both 2021/22
Unfortunately their potential is limited due to the significant amount of IL (impermanent loss) that LPs suffer
3/ Estimates put the annual IL suffered by Uniswap LPs in the ~$500M range - resulting in losses on most markout time scales, even when accounting for fees charged
This has limited the amount of liquidity that can exist and be attracted to LP in AMM dex'es
2/ Composability has been one of the super powers of defi
Highly liquid spot DEX markets (Uniswap Sushi Curve) allowed on-chain lending protocol to scale much larger - by allowing for orderly, reliable liquidations
Which further spun the on-chain trading flywheel
3/ GMX has been a real star of the Arbitrum ecosystem. $12B volumes in month of Nov alone, returning $5m in Nov fees to GMX holders (~4bp) via ETH staking yields, and $30m year to date
~$500M liquidity to trade against
Yet the composability flywheel has only just begun to spin