With Tier 1 exchanges raising the bar for token listings, VC-backed tokens will stay private longer, seeking to build out fundamentals that justify exposure to a wider retail audience

There are now very few incentives to launch vaporware. You can have a token sure, but CEX listings will only be for the best of the best Many of these tokens will never get to the fundamentals to launch to a wider retail audience on a CEX, and that is ok. Crypto VCs should have higher loss ratios across the board, and be more cognizant that they are not in a heads I win tails you lose scenario with retail.

Truly have never been bothered less about unlocks

We had L1s printing $100BN FDVs last cycle Sure people will make money shorting high fdv low float tokens, but even more will be blown out

Continue to believe the real money will be made buying these things when they are bottoming in liquid markets

While BTC and ETH are now through their bear market supply overhang (FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, 3AC, GBTC) and into a panacea of new ETF demand

The hottest alts of 22'/23' are hitting the meat of their VC/team unlocks, and the darlings of last cycle look like value with no overhang Unlocks are neither bullish nor bearish, just context, but there is a real sense of financial gravity when billions are to be sold in a single token

Important to remember we didn't have meaningful unlocks during the last bull outside of DeFi

Most coins unlocked during the bear, or with SOL, SBF bought most of the vesting portion in 2020

Its all new this cycle. Everything seems backwards. ETFs come first vs. last, majors clear overhang early, alts digest post BTC/ETH ATHs

looking back through the fog of war, the data points that are revealed today uncover pieces of the puzzle from last year

if FTX was selling client BTC/ETH to buy SOL/FTT/SRM - this has large implications about what organic ETH/BTC price action looks like going forward the absence of a fraudulent seller of BTC/ETH - on the order of billions/tens of billions

the absence of a fraudulent buyer of SOL - again on the order of billions/tens of billions

implies very different things about these ecosystems going forward

watching GBTC liquidity and lenders exposure to said product for contagion risk

seems someone is selling a lot of GBTC

discount is now >40% and widening, implied BTC price is $9K, and a lot of GBTC is sitting in toxic places atm my main concern is the underlying liquidity of the product if selling continues to happen

Comparing ImmuteableX and Polygon is a fascinating thought experiment from a L2 value accrual perspective

A. ImmuteableX: Charges no TX fees, makes 1-2% on all NFT volume (~$10-15M run rate?)

B. Polygon charges very low fees ($10-15M fees rr), takes no cut on NFT sales/volume A. ImmuteableX has no DeFi ecosystem because that is where it accruals value from (% of primary, secondary sales)

IMX is a bet on a fast NFT chain with a native token and high take rate, that accrues value based on its sales, and has a revenue split with Starkware (weird)

other than the canonical global settlement layer, whatever the best scaling solution is will simply be copied and/or bought by existing L2s/L1s and rolled out as X by Y

it really will come down to brand, BD, marketing on who wins the scaling wars

the best tech won't win the best scaling solutions will be tech businesses that you can DCF and apply a multiple to

little/no monetary premium unfortunately as these protocols become mature

canonical global settlement layer and internet money is still the largest market, $10T mcap prize

have seen a common take from VC investors that the era of low interest rates is over

maybe for a few months, maybe a year, probably is right

but long term it doesn't seem like we can put the genie back in the bottle and reverse a 40 year decline in interest rates imo we have been set on a monetary path that is now impossible to deviate from

the economy simply can't function with higher interest rates and we are already starting to break things 2 hikes in

more money printing, YCC, fiat debasement, lower interest rates is the only answer

framing the two large rallies in crypto assets over the past two years, based on conviction: the first real rally was 2020 DeFi summer leading into BTC as a SoV run

this was a high-conviction rally based on active DeFi use cases on-chain and BTC getting adopted by companies/countries as a SoV

this was a fairly orderly run, chasing a newly validated tech paradigm

1/ As the largest $ILV holders outside the team we've gotten some questions on what we plan to do with our tokens when unlock happens

We're not selling, we've agreed to extend our lockup voluntarily, and the tokens are held within a 10 year lockup fund 2/ For those in the gaming community who don't know us yet, we have a reputation for diamond handing and thats what we will do here

We have held multiple positions over years of parabolic ascents and declines, without selling a token

$ILV tokens are SAFU

web3 music startups doing 1 of 3 things imo

1. packaging up royalties - catalogs as a new asset class

2. artist nfts + token communities - web3 fan clubs, expanding price elasticity of fan continuum

3. reinventing labels via a DAO structure - crowd sourcing the next big thing 1. reinventing royalties doesn't seem like the biggest opp here

too many stakeholders in the label/streaming complex, reg issues with song cash flow ownership, most songs make no $

generally spotify isn't broken/hugely extractive, but the label deals artists sign are just awful

1/ had an idea this weekend

public transportation for bridging blockchains - aka a "bus"

right now people are taking ubers from one chain to the next - this is cost-inneffective, especially with surge pricing in times of congestion

what if we could ride share? 2/ the idea is a "bus" leaves to new chains in arbitrary epochs, maybe every hour to start

these busses are bundled bridging txs

each epoch the contract checks for participants who have signaled they want to bridge to the same destination - those who are waiting for the bus

I could tell you all the war stories from '18-'20 bear

Playing Tronbet to make money to pay rent, moving into Michael's parents basement for a summer, selling the 401k at the depth of the bear to buy more ETH and make tax payments, bank overdrafts

But none of that matters Post '17 - we didn't know what blockchains were useful for - DeFi hadn't been invented yet

VC dried up - ideas weren't getting funded

Founders left the space - sheer embarrassment from the ICO boom

No users - a feeling that in 6 months, the industry might just evaporate

Lots of people have asked what Yearn might do with the ~$140M potentially coming onto its balance sheet that wont be going to past/future dev compensation

Here are a couple initial ideas: One idea is a yearn strategy where we put YFI on Aave/Cream, draw stables, yield farm on Comp/Curve, and buy YFI back with yield on $140M of assets, building treasury/ reducing supply

If we can get 20-40% yield thats $30-60M in rev. Rev is valued at a 50-100x multiple in DeFi.

1/ Today we are launching endaoment.org with @RobbieHeeger, the first Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) provider built entirely on Ethereum

After 12 months of dev, testing with endowments, and working with regulators to secure non-profit status, we are proud to release this 1/ Market Opportunity

DAFs are the fastest growing charitable vehicle in the US, and are a proven use case for DeFi

There is over $121Bn in DAFs today, YoY AUM growth of ~20%, user growth of 50%. The model for most providers is an AUM fee of 3-4% round trip (!).

1/ @iearnfinance’s conception of “strategies” will be the next big primitive in DeFi

Aggregator gov tokens control what “strategies” capital is allocated to, which protocols the strategy puts capital into, and how strategy creators are compensated

This is something new 2/ Valuation of YFI tokens will ultimately be based on the downstream fees the aggregator controls via capital allocation to strategies

DeFi protocols will need to own YFI gov tokens, and be writing compelling strategies, in order to be competitive/direct capital flow

1/ Often times in a product category, the incumbent launches, proves the market, and leaves space for a second mover to take share through innovation, rapid iteration, and a community driven style of management

Coinbase/Binance, Uber/Lyft, MKR/SNX, and now,

COMP/@AaveAave 2/ Stani and his team embody the best of what DeFi has to offer; incredible product focus, a global team that spans 10 different countries/languages, and a relentless focus on openness and innovation

AAVE is truly The People's Champ of the borrow/lend space