I’m not an investor in @coinbase. I totally missed it. That said, I also got really lucky because many years earlier, I invested as an LP with an investor who owns a large stake.
They were investors in BTC with me but I didn’t get his incremental decision. I remember them talking to me about it and I was skeptical. My logic was that there was better convexity in Bitcoin itself.
“Why own the exchange when you can own the currency itself?”
As it turned out, there was an important secret hiding in plain sight:
Bitcoin was the first asset where you could own the protocol AND the companies built on top of it.
This unique feature is still poorly understood in crypto-land.
A quick recap of what's happened since early March highs in tech markets:
1. Fears of inflation have driven many institutional investors to the hills. They are unwinding trades that have worked for DECADES.
2. Factor rotation out of tech and into more defensive/cyclical stocks that tend to do better during times of inflation.
3. Commodities have spiked which tend to do better during inflation
4. Bonds have puked as yields have risen as they forecast inflation.
5. $1.9T stimulus bill; potential for $3T infrastructure bill and another several trillion stimulus bill in the offing will give inflation fears more juice.
6. Pensions and others are going through a big rebalancing through Q1 which isn't done.
It’s been a super tough week for me and I’m sure a super tough week for some of you as well. Here is how I’m doing after Friday and what I’ve learned...
1. The first thing I tried to do yesterday was take a step back and try to see the bigger picture:
i) I looked at March-2020 as a guide and saw that by the end of March-2020, the markets were down 20% but still found a way to fight back. What’s the same? Different?
ii) I looked at my relative performance vs the S&P500 - 3.6% vs 2.3% = 56% above the benchmark. I’m no huge fan of being up 3.6% but right now I need to find confidence in this.
iii) I looked at my portfolio and remodeled everything I’m invested in. I’m still proud of it all.
A children's book explanation of what's happening:
1. If you are "smart money" you are allowed to take your $1 and leverage it up to $15+
2. You can now buy $15 of stock AND if you promise to short companies, you can short $15 of stock as well
3. In finance language, this means that you are $30 "gross" ($15 of longs + $15 of shorts) but $0 net (+$15 of longs -$15 of shorts). This makes everyone feel good because it feels like you are taking zero risk...but in reality, your $1 is exposed to $30 of risk.
4. Now you go around and tell your friends about both your longs and your shorts and when you do it at a restaurant vs on Reddit, its called an "ideas dinner".
5. You also publish your longs on a quarterly lag via an SEC rule. You don't have to tell anyone about your shorts.