Tbh Initia is one of the rare teams I'd back without seeing a deck
It helps I'm also bullish af on what they're building. As @SmokeyTheBera put it: "Betting on these dudes to facilitate the appchain future that Cosmos fumbled"
Thread on Cosmos, what it got right and wrong, and how Initia fixes this 👇
Cosmos had the right core idea: sovereignty and customisability matter
Developers want to control the ground they build on, and I continue to believe that most successful dApps will end up migrating to their own chains/L2s
Jun 25 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Narrator: FDV was indeed not a meme
Since this post, I've been speaking to OTC brokers to try and understand secondary market structure for the assets I'm shorting. The findings were pretty revealing so thought I'd share
Many of these assets have active sellers but very few have bids even at ~70% below market price (we're talking standard SAFTs with a 1yr cliff + 2/3yr vest )
In terms of volume, my very rough estimate based on speaking to various brokers is that there's been ~$100m in combined SAFT volume. Considering these are assets with cumulatively tens of billions of dollars of unrealised gains unlocking over the next few years, this is basically dust
Apr 2 • 73 tweets • 16 min read
$ENA is live! @ethena_labs is one of our highest conviction bets this cycle both @delphi_ventures and personally
I believe:
- sUSDe will offer the highest dollar yield in crypto at scale
- USDe will become the largest stablecoin outside of USDC/USDT in 2024
- Ethena will become the highest revenue generating project in all of crypto
Thread on what Ethena is, why I'm excited, and the risks as I see them
@ethena_labs @Delphi_Ventures This turned out pretty long, so if you want to read it in a cleaner format I published it on my Medium here:
I’m back! Took longer than expected, but retreat was followed by a near-death experience while surfing my local break last weekend
Spent the weekend in hospital and the rest of the week recovering at home. Feeling very privileged to be here
Story below for those interested
To celebrate being back home, I went surfing at Guincho beach with a friend - a break I've probably surfed over 200x since I was a young kid
It was pretty big and stormy and after the first set wave kept us under for 15+ seconds, my friend wisely decided to get out right away
Feb 11 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
FDV is not a meme - many of you will learn this the hard way this cycle as unlocks hit the market
However, not all FDVs are created equal. The single most important factor in comparing FDVs is figuring out what % of a token's FDV is unrealised profits for investors/team. The higher the % the worse for you as a tokenholder
Very simple example to illustrate this:
Token A and Token B both trade at $10b FDV. Token A raised $200m at $1b and has a 30% team allocation. Token B raised $5m at $100m and has a 20% team allocation
Token A has $1.8b in unrealised profits from investors + $3b from team. Almost 50% of the FDV is unrealised profits
Token B has $500m in unrealised profits from investors + $2b from team. 25% of the FDV is unrealised profits
Token A is a much "heavier" FDV than Token B and you should proceed with care
Oct 9, 2023 • 35 tweets • 5 min read
In the past I’ve stayed out of Cosmos politics. But, given where I perceive the ecosystem to be and some of the stuff I found out at Cosmoverse, I feel it important to share some thoughts and spur some discussion amongst the community
Thread 👇
At Cosmoverse, I learned that the Interchain Foundation (ICF) spent $50m in 2022. For reference, this is more than the Ethereum foundation (EF) spent during the same time period
Given the state of Cosmos rn, it seems to me this was an ineffective use of capital
Aug 15, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Pumped to see @SeiNetwork come to market
Sei is a highly scalable L1 competing with the likes of Solana, Sui, and Aptos
Unlike its more generalised competitors, Sei seeks to build a chain that's entirely optimised for trading
A lot of ppl have been asking me for an update on my thoughts on @astroport_fi. Finally had some time to put it together
As a reminder, these are just my opinions as one of many Astroport contributors. They may and probably will change as new facts present themselves
@astroport_fi 1/ On builders' $ASTRO tokens
The ~27% builder ASTRO allocation began unlocking on July 1, 2023 after 1.5 years of total lockup, with 1/3rd unlocking on that date and the remainder scheduled for linear daily unlocks over the following 2 years.
Jul 17, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Eth L2s are clearly dominating the adoption wars. Why is this and how could it change?
Short thread on why I believe L2s are winning, and why the launch of @dYdX chain will be a good test of just how strong the Eth/L2 network effect actually is
Why are L2s seeing such massive adoption?
My hypothesis is that most L2 users don’t care about “Eth security” nor do they have any deep philosophical allegiance to Ethereum. They use L2s because they’re cheaper + faster while offering the simplest UX (i.e MetaMask + “trustless”… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
May 8, 2023 • 35 tweets • 67 min read
We’ve been bullish on @cosmos for a while, having chosen it as the home for @delphi_labs incubated projects
The thesis is now starting to play out, with a bunch of exciting launches on the horizon that are likely to catalyze adoption
Native USDC will finally come to Cosmos via @noble_xyz. It's hard to overstate the importance of this
Stablecoins are crypto's killer app and fuel the majority of all on-chain activity
Apr 4, 2023 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
Proud to announce the next phase of our evolution: the Delphi Labs Accelerator
The vision is simple: to be the best place for the smartest founders to build the most impactful projects in crypto
More on this below 👇
coindesk.com/business/2023/…
Over our ~6 years in crypto, we’ve consulted for, invested in, and helped build several multi-billion dollar protocols across every vertical
We know first-hand how hard it is to build a crypto startup and we’ve experienced all the common pitfalls
May 23, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
A lot of people have been asking for my thoughts on Terra v2 and Delphi Labs's plans for the future
The truth is neither I nor Delphi have strong conviction in Terra v2 at this stage. There are simply too many risks/unknowns and for this reason we cannot endorse or encourage people to invest in, build on or use it
Apr 9, 2022 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
I'm all for debating legitimate criticism, but this thread is absolutely terrible
It's so bad that I don't think it warrants spending much time on, but thought I'd together a few quick thoughts outlining a few of the many obvious inaccuracies
Excited to welcome two awesome new devs to the Delphi Labs fam: @grod220 and @a_fsardo
Gabe was previously at Google and Spotify before joining @SushiSwap as a core dev
He's also a talented speaker and I believe he'll be a massive driver of new dev talent for @terra_money
At Labs, he'll be contributing to an exciting new DeFi primitive leveraging @mars_protocol and @astroport_fi. More on this soon 👀
Andre was previously at @Delphi_Digital research but before that he worked w/ me for nearly a decade on various startups
I'm hopeful we've created the go-to resource for those who want to hear the $LUNA thesis and I'm happy to have repped the bull side 🌕
That said, I'm a bit disappointed with the $LUNA-tic response, both in the YT comments and on Twitter
While I massively appreciate all the support, we shouldn't be rude to other communities and especially not to those gracious enough to host us on their podcasts
I believe NFTs are the base layer of digital identity. Thread on this thesis and where I see Avatar fitting in 1/ NFTs will make up the fabric of digital identity
A key aspect of human identity is the need to signal social status and uniqueness. In the real world this is done through things like clothes, watches and cars
In the digital world, it will be done through NFTs
Apr 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Auto-repaying, no-liquidation loans are one of those mind-blowing crypto unlocks with no TradFi equivalent
While it sounds complicated, all it's actually doing is allowing you to spend your future yield now
While the @AlchemixFi OGs pioneered this concept on Ethereum, I believe @anchor_protocol's stable high yield is a better base to build this by allowing higher LTVs + more predictable payback schedules
Mar 17, 2022 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
As $LUNA continues to outperform, its critics also become louder
Most criticism is focused around the possibility of a bank run and $UST de-peg event
A few people have asked me about this, so rather than repeating myself I thought I’d put together a thread with my take 👇
1/ Until the recent @LFG_org reserve $BTC raise, $UST was an “algorithmic stablecoin” meaning it was backed only by endogenous collateral (i.e. $LUNA itself)
This is in contrast to debt-based stablecoins such as @MakerDAO which are overcollateralised by external assets
Mar 1, 2022 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
At Delphi Labs, we have a long list of ideas we'd like to build, but we're limited by time and focus
With this in mind, we've put together a list of 6 ideas we'd like to see built on @terra_money
We'll be organising the second Delphi hackathon soon where we'll encourage builders to explore these and other ideas
In the meantime, if you're a skilled builder with SC experience looking to pursue any of these, reach out as Labs is interested in funding + incubating you
Feb 17, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
During the lockdrop event next week, users will receive $MARS for depositing and locking $UST in the lockdrop
Their locked $UST will also accrue interest while locked as it's loaned out by the Red Bank
But what will this interest rate look like?
This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that the Mars $UST rate will eventually converge on the 20% @anchor_protocol rate. Why?
If it's <20%, users will just borrow $UST on Mars and deposit on Anchor to arbitrage the yield
Feb 16, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Leading up to the @mars_protocol launch, I've seen a lot of questions about how it differs from @anchor_protocol and whether they're competitive
The short answer is no. For the longer answer, check the thread below
