(A thread with the simple answer + examples with pictures)
Note: Guessing the examples will be most helpful.
First, why you're hearing so much about NFTs...
B/c the prices are so eye-popping and because different NFTs seem to be popping up every day, even in the mainstream.
Christie's auction house just sold a piece of digital art as an NFT for $69 million!!! (it's an example below)
NFT = Non-fungible token
Non-fungible means the items are unique and can’t be equally exchanged for another (e.g. digital art)…vs. fungible like Bitcoin.
An NFT is just about anything digital that has been put on a blockchain. You can trace authors, owners, and buy/sell them.
Since we're so used to the physical world, it can be hard to understand what "owning" means.
But the fundamental human concepts of status and bragging rights still apply.
Think of "conversation pieces"..."Elon Musk used this spoon!"
Here's how the platform selling Jack Dorsey's first tweet as an NFT explains ownership: "The tweet itself will continue to live on Twitter. What you are purchasing is a digital certificate of the tweet, unique because it has been signed and verified by the creator."
Example 1: NBA Top Shot
Think digital trading cards...they feature highlights from players.
Example 2: Digital Art
Christie's sold the jpeg for Beeple's "Everydays - The First 5000 Days" sold for $69 million.
"10,000 uniquely generated characters"...given away for free originally but now a huge secondary market...average sale price has been $25k over the past year (converted from ether).
Example 5: Kings of Leon album (NFT version)
Per NME: "you’ll own a token on the blockchain from which you can download the record, exclusive moving artwork and access to limited edition vinyl, but then no more will be made and existing tokens can’t be reproduced."
My 8 key takeaways from Buffett's annual $BRK shareholder letter...
Including the best line and the best number...
1) “A Berkshire Number that May Surprise You”:
Berkshire owns the most American-based property, plant, and equipment of any US company: $154B
#2 is $T with $127B
2) Buffett’s “my bad”
The $11 billion write-down of his 2016 purchase of Precision Castparts.
As usual, he praised management even as he badmouths himself about overpaying: "No one misled me in any way – I was simply too optimistic about PCC’s normalized profit potential."
Bonus baskets:
$ARKG
A basket of the @chamath alphabet SPACS ( $SPCE, $OPEN, $IPOC, $IPOD, $IPOE, $IPOF)
iRobot ($IRBT) – Ceiling: So much optionality in home robotics + AI to boost growth. Floor: Premium brand, profitable, good balance sheet.
Upwork ($UPWK) and Fiverr ($FVRR) – Marketplaces that win as freelancing and the gig economy take off. Upwork has more sales now, but Fiverr has more recent growth.
81. (cont.) The digital equivalent today is turning off real-time news and Internet feeds and reading more thoughtful analysis.
82. Any of the most successful investors you can think of, no matter how different in style (Graham, Fisher, Buffett, Lynch, Davis, Simons, Soros, David Gardner, Klarman, Sequoia Capital, etc.), have a resilient framework that fits their mentality and stays stable for decades.
83. It's not the rewards you don't understand that'll burn you, but the risks you don't understand.
Here are the 100 things I’ve learned in investing.
I’ve updated this over the years to 1) Share 2) Reduce my own unforced errors 3) Reinforce the good habits, like #47.
(THREAD)
1. Most of this list is dedicated to insight on stock picking, but know this: It's darn hard to beat the market. 99% of people are best served steadily buying and holding low-cost index funds at the core of their portfolios -- and I may be understating that 99% figure.
2. Looking for a diversified, low-cost index-fund core? Vanguard is what I recommend to anyone who asks. Three flavors: 1) Stocks and bonds: Target date funds. 2) Entire world stock market: $VT. 3) Entire world stock market, split up between U.S. and foreign: $VTI + $VXUS.
August 30th is @WarrenBuffett’s 90th birthday. Each year, I celebrate the Babe Ruth of Investing's birthday by adding another reason we love our hero.
Here we go…
1. Intricate, occasionally contradictory complexity hides beneath the "Aw, shucks" folksy charm. As an @Forbes writer once put it, "Buffett is not a simple person, but he has simple tastes."
2. Many people talk about avoiding the madding crowd, but Buffett actually does it by living 1,250 miles away from Wall Street.