Posts from crypto

Dune.xyz

Dune.xyz is a community of crypto enthusiasts, analysts, and investors who use the open data available to all via public blockchains to create charts and other analyses to understand what is going on in these systems.

One of the most important differences between blockchain-based systems and traditional web-based systems is that the blockchain has an open data layer. That means that we all control our data when we use a blockchain-based system. But it also means that this shared data layer is available to all to observe, measure, and analyze.

Here are some examples of community-built charts:

The P&L of the Maker lending system:

A time-based comparison of trading volume on the leading AMMs:

What is interesting and different about Dune vs traditional analytics services is that everything is built on open data. There is no proprietary data involved. And this is as much a community (like Reddit or Wikipedia) as an analytics service.

USV recently participated in a financing for Dune.xyz and we plan to start using it to observe and analyze blockchain-based systems that we are involved in and interested in.

It makes sense to me that analytics tools for blockchain-based systems will be open, community-driven, and composable. And that describes Dune.xyz.

#blockchain#crypto

The Opening

I like to think of investing in new things a bit like a football running play. Imagine you are the running back. You’ve been handed the football and you are looking for a hole to open up and run through. What you really want is some running room beyond the opening.

We’ve known for a while that crypto is the next big tech architecture. We’ve known that once the wave breaks on the shore, there will be enormous opportunities unleashed. Like the web. Like mobile. Like the PC.

But what has been hard to see is the opening. It wasn’t trading/speculating, although that has been huge. Coinbase announced yesterday that 68 million verified users. It wasn’t DeFi, although that has also been huge.

What we have been looking for is the consumer opportunity to emerge. Until you have billions of consumers around the world using a technology, you don’t have a new wave to ride. So like the running back, you wait and hope you don’t get hit.

But in the last few months, the opening is emerging. In slow motion. I can see the left tackle move his man off the line. I can see the left guard move his man off the line. And there is running room. The defensive backs are on the other side of the field.

I’ve always thought the opening would be at the intersection of gaming, online communities, and social networks. Why? Because those are the mainstream consumer experiences where geeks tend to be the first adopters.

But it is hard to take on the existing gaming companies with a new architecture. The user experience around new stuff always sucks and who wants to play a game with a shitty UI? It is also hard to take on the existing social nets. Why would someone with a million followers on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter leave those behind for a new social net? So the existing incumbents are the defensive line. They look impenetrable. Until they aren’t. That’s when the opening emerges.

The opening is emerging around NFT experiences, something we’ve been excited about for quite a while now. But not the NFTs that Sothebys sells for $69mm. Not even the CryptoPunk that sells for $7.5mm. But when a party emerges online that anyone is invited to attend and the 500 person group picks up a punk with a party hat and they all change their social network avatar to this, well that got my attention.

PartyBid is cool. That’s why I wrote about it on Friday. TopShot is cool. And so is Axie. And so is the Bored Ape Yacht Club. But what is cooler is that these NFT experiences are operating at the interaction of gaming, communities, and social nets. And they are not taking on any of the incumbents directly. They are building on top of them all.

I am not saying NFTs are the next big thing. I am saying that consumer experiences built on a crypto stack are the next big thing. I am saying that NFT experiences are showing the way. They are the left tackle that you can run behind into the opening. Where enormous opportunity exists.

#blockchain#crypto

Crypto and the Infrastructure Bill

I mentioned the infrastructure bill here last week. I continue to be impressed by the way Senators and the White House are working across the aisle to get a very big piece of legislation across the finish line. It is not done, but it sure looks like it will get done.

As I mentioned in the post last week, there is language in the initial draft of the bill requiring crypto “brokers” to report gains and losses to the IRS. The Treasury expects this provision to produce upwards of $30bn in new tax revenues over the next ten years.

I personally have no issue with crypto gains and losses being treated the same as stock gains and losses and we have been doing that at USV for quite a while now. But I do have concerns that the way “brokers” are defined in the context of crypto is very different than how it is defined in the traditional financial sector. The language in the initial draft is overly broad, infringing on privacy, and technically unworkable. Crypto industry participants like miners, wallets, smart contracts, and other kinds of hardware and software cannot carry the same obligations as “brokers” like Coinbase and Square Cash.

But here is the good news. The crypto sector has come together to get the language changed in a way that I have never seen before. Everyone in crypto is working together, staying on message, working all of the avenues, and creating the appropriate amount of pressure on the process. And while we do not yet have the language we need, we are getting there and I am hopeful that we will land in a good place.

It is also the case that when a government decides that a sector is an important producer of revenues, that is a sign that it has arrived. Many out there think these new regulations are bad for crypto but I think they are a bullish sign. Crypto is here to stay and is a mainstream industry now.

For these reasons, I think this is a watershed moment for crypto in the US. The industry has come together like never before and is acting in concert, professionally and productively. It is on message and effective. And the government is getting in business with the crypto sector to finance it’s own needs. That sounds like a win to me.

#blockchain#crypto#policy#Politics#Uncategorized

Stablecoins vs CBDCs

I have written about stablecoins in the past. I think they are a very important part of the crypto asset landscape. Two of the top ten crypto assets by market cap are stablecoins, Tether ($62bn) and USDC ($27bn). You don’t buy these assets to generate gains because they are price stabilized. You hold them like cash, to be able to move in and out of trades, purchase things, etc.

Countries around the world are looking at stablecoins and thinking “we should issue these assets via our central banks.” That is called a “central bank digital currency” or CBDC for short. China is the farthest along on a CBDC but many other countries around the world are thinking about CBDCs or building them.

Yesterday, SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce suggested that stablecoins are preferable to CBDCs.

Hester focused on the privacy concerns around CBDCs, and I agree with her that I would rather hold USDC than a Fed issued digital dollar.

But there is another more important reason to want stablecoins to win over CBDCs – competition.

When you have competition, you get innovation, new features, composability, and a host of other important benefits. When you have a monopoly, like the US Government or any government, pushing out the alternatives and forcing us to use their digital dollar, you lose all the value of competition. And that would be a terrible thing.

I am all for central banks issuing digital currencies. But they should compete for our usage with market-based stablecoins. Then we get the best of both worlds. I hope policymakers in the US and around the world understand the importance of competition and allow stablecoins to co-exist with CBDCs.

#crypto#policy

Funding Friday: Ethereum: The Infinite Garden

ETHEREUM: THE INFINITE GARDEN is a “feature-length documentary film that explores the innovative real-world applications of the Ethereum blockchain, the die-hard community of enthusiasts and developers, and its creator, Vitalik Buterin, whose vision for the internet has the potential to change the world.”

The film is being crowdfunded on the Ethereum blockchain and the campaign ends at 6pm eastern time today.

When you choose to back the project, you will have a choice to pledge one ETH and get an NFT from the film or pledge less and get a token recognizing your contribution.

I backed the film earlier this week and as of this morning, the film has raised 500 ETH of the 750 ETH goal.

You can back the film here.

#crowdfunding#crypto

Anti-fragile Systems

The Internet was developed by the US Defense Department to create a network that was capable of surviving a military attack. They accomplished that with a design where no part of the system was central to its operation. You can take out any part of the Internet and it will still operate.

When I read the Bitcoin White Paper for the first time, I was struck by the similarity of its design to the Internet.

And we are watching an “attack” on the Bitcoin system right now, in the form of a purge in China.

Over the last three months, the government in China has moved to rid the country of Bitcoin mining. You can see the effect of the purge on the chart of Bitcoin Hashrate:

This is a significant reduction in the processing power of the Bitcoin network and the result has been slower transaction clearing times:

It will take time for miners outside of China to pick up the slack and get the hashrate and transaction times back to where they were, but that will happen. There are economic incentives for that to happen. What would be even better, and could happen, is for this new mining capacity to get built on clean/renewable energy.

I believe the Chinese purge of Bitcoin mining is short term bearish but long term bullish for Bitcoin and crypto more broadly. It shows that a powerful government can take its best shot at a cryptonetwork and the only thing that will happen is capacity will move elsewhere.

Anti-fragility is a beautiful thing to behold.

#blockchain#crypto

Regulating Software

I understand that regulators and elected officials need to raise concerns about new technologies and their impact on society. It is their job or at least part of their job. But I am also dismayed regularly by how poorly many elected officials and regulators understand the technologies they are talking about.

In particular, I am deeply concerned with how poorly many elected officials and regulators understand blockchains, smart contracts, and decentralized applications and organizations. They assume that these things are run by companies and people and can be regulated with traditional corporate regulatory activities.

What people need to understand is that blockchains, smart contracts, and decentralized applications and organizations are not companies. They are software. And they can and do run without any company operating them.

Let’s look at Bitcoin. There is no Bitcoin Inc. There is no company to sue. The founder is unkown and may not exist. So she can’t be sued either. There is nobody to call before Congress. There is no entity to make regulatory filings.

AMMs are smart contracts. These smart contracts operate liquidity pools that allow for decentralized trading of assets without any company operating them, controlling them, or managing them. Once these software programs are published on a decentralized blockchain, they just keep running without any intervention by anyone.

I could go on and on, but I expect you get the point.

So when someone says that one or many of these decentralized software applications needs to be regulated or, god forbid, shut down, I wonder the heck they are talking about. I don’t even know what that means.

Of course, using this decentralized technology could be deemed illegal in places and I fully expect that we will see that happen. But we won’t see it happen everywhere. And the places that embrace these new technologies will benefit immensely from them. So, like the criminalization of alcohol and gold, those approaches will eventually fail and will harm those regions that try it relative to the regions that embrace it.

I believe the more productive path for regulators and elected officials is to take the time to understand how this stuff actually works and think about new ways that society can mitigate the risks while gaining the benefits. That’s a harder path but a better path.

#blockchain#crypto

ENS

ENS stands for Ethereum Name Service and it is a decentralized domain name system built on the Ethereum blockchain. You can get domains with the .eth extension by going here, connecting a wallet, and searching and purchasing a domain.

I have purchased fredwilson.eth and avc.eth and a bunch of other .eth domains for my family. It does not cost a lot of ETH to register a domain, but you need to remember to go back and renew it as there is no company/registrar operating a business to do that for you.

An interesting angle on ENS is that the .xyz extensions are interoperable with ENS and that is explained here.

So if you own .xyz domains, you can participate in the ENS system. I also bought fredwilson.xyz and avc.xyz and a bunch of other .xyz domains for my family.

It is interesting to me to see blockchains and smart contracts being used to replicate many of the things we use to build applications on the Internet. Slowly but surely a decentralized infrastructure that mirrors the centralized infrastructure is getting built out.

While there aren’t a lot of things you can do with a ENS domain today, I expect that there will be a lot of things you can do with one in the future. And that is why I think it is a good idea to purchase ENS domains for the ones you own in the .com world.

#blockchain#crypto

Meme Investing

I remember when a friend of mine told me five or six years ago that he had bought some Dogecoin. I thought “what is he doing?” and dismissed it as something silly and or crazy.

Dogecoin was initially introduced in late 2013 and 7 1/2 years later it has amassed a market cap of $43bn and is one of the most popular crypto assets in the world. It may be silly and crazy, but it has also been a good investment for my friend and anyone who bought it in the early years.

For those that don’t know, Doge is an internet meme that became popular around that same time. The combination of memes and investing is a powerful cocktail that I have been ignoring for a long time, probably incorrectly.

More recently we have seen meme investing move into public market stocks like Gamestop, AMC Theaters, Wendy’s, and more. The community that drives these “meme stocks” is based in Reddit and the combined purchasing power of this community is substantial, particularly in illquid stocks (and crypto assets).

It is easy to dismiss meme investing. The market capitalizations that these meme assets trade at make no sense on any fundamental analysis. But, as I’ve come to understand, that is not the point.

Memes are fun and memes are also something to come together around. Speculating on the popularity of memes and their staying power is no different than any other form of speculation.

But more than that, and this is where my head has been going on this topic, the market caps of these memes are also economically powerful. If the board and management teams of the companies with meme stocks choose to issue more shares at these prices, they can raise a lot of capital to transform these companies. Similar opportunities could exist with meme tokens. AMC recently did this with their “meme stock.”

I’ve decided that I am going to stop ignoring and dismissing meme investing and start trying to understand it better. I think it is not something that is going away anytime soon and may turn into something even more interesting.

That said, I am not suggesting that anyone invest their retirement money or their savings for their kids’ eduction into memes. I believe it is more appropriate for speculating right now. That may change. Or it may not. That is yet to be determined.

#crypto#stocks