“WHAT’S THE KILLER APP OF BITCOIN?”
I hear that line a lot.
The answer has three layers or perhaps phases — like the Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, and Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
My first answer is:
“Yeah, bitcoin is the killer app of bitcoin.”
It’s already storing $125bm of wealth — for tens of millions of people. It’s the only financial system I’m aware of which has had 24×7 uptime for nine years. You find me apps with more value, users, equal uptime.
Unicorn, decacorn…whatever…bitcoin is a hectocorn. That’s a pretty killer app.
This brings me to another popular way to slag off bitcoin. “It’s just digital gold.”
We can have a fascinating discussion of whether bitcoin can be more than “just digital gold” — but, for now, let’s take that as all it’s ever going to be. Gold is “just” a $7 trillion…with a “t”…market to take share from.
In the 1920’s, John Maynard Keynes famously wrote “In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.” Had he lived long enough to see fiat money he might take that back.
He was lucky enough to be a citizen of the country with the world’s oldest currency — the pound sterling. Even that title belt holder is an illustration of the debasement of paper money.
As the name implies, a pound sterling used to represent — and be exchangeable for — a pound of silver. That lasted for 800 years.
How’s that worked out in the fiat era? Let’s do the math. The current price of silver is £10.89 per ounce. That’s our first ominous sign — it’s quoted in smaller units now, ounces. It takes 16 of those to make a pound — so the price of silver is £174.24 per pound. It takes 174.24 pounds sterling to buy a pound of sterling (sliver). 174.24 pieces of paper money to buy one pound of old school money.
The reciprocal of 174.24 is 0.0057. Paper money has lost 99.43% of its value. Ouch!
I watched it lose 25% of its value in one day — “Black Wednesday”, September 16, 1992. On that day a collapse in the pound sterling forced Britain to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). (Now we have withdrawal from the European Union — Brexit.)
Had Keynes lived in the shoes/bank account of a citizen Argentina, Zimbabwe, Venezuela he might understand the desire for non-debasable currency.
The principal problem with paper money is that one-third of Earth’s landmass is covered with trees. All paper currencies lose value — and many collapse catastrophically. Paper money is no bueno.
Who would be surprised to find that Satoshi referenced the current manager of the pound sterling − the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the head of Her Majesty’s Treasury — talking about further debasement in the very first block, the Genesis Block.
“On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network came into existence with Satoshi Nakamoto mining the genesis block of bitcoin (block number 0), which had a reward of 50 bitcoins. Embedded in the coinbase transaction of this block was the text:
“ ‘The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.’
“The text refers to a headline in The Times published on 3 January 2009. This note has been interpreted as both a timestamp of the genesis date and a derisive comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.”
I digress…
Bitcoin might become the barbarous relic of crypto, but man — even that is a huge asymmetric trade. 10% of gold’s market share would imply bitcoin rallying 700%.
The past use case that bitcoin has proven over nine years — wealth storage/speculation. It’s averaged 169.4% annual growth rate in price since Bitstamp went live on September 13, 2011.
Ghost of Blockchain Present
A present use case is cross-border money transfer. We feature several important examples, Veem and Abra, below.
Ghost of Blockchains Yet to Come
It took twenty years to go from TCP/IP to the browser — and then another two decades for the Ubers, the Snaps that we now take for granted to evolve. Blockchains yet to come will bring unimaginable things. Squinting into the future we see:
Thunder
The first investment we made in an Ethereum competitor protocol that’s a more scalable blockchain. Team includes founder of Playtom (got his PhD in CS at Carnegie Mellon at 22) and Elaine Shi (taught the first class on smart contracts in 2014, prof. of CS @ Cornell). We don’t invest in many of these and there are a hundred “our blockchain does 1M TPS” BS projects out there. Elaine’s the real deal and is targeting much more practical, within the laws of physics, numbers. Think the speed of Ripple with the decentralization of Ethereum. Live testnet this summer;”
Celer
In mid-May, Celer Network was launched, emerging after several months in stealth mode. Celer is the first off-chain operating network with coherent technology to bring internet-level scalability to blockchain. They are developing a horizontally scalable protocol that is predicted to have a throughput of billions of transactions per second. The network is also trust-free, decentralized, and private.
Other cool blockchains we’ve invested in include: Polkadot, ICON, and Oasis.
Venture fund II :: VEEM ROUND LED BY GOLDMAN SACHS
Goldman Sachs led the strategic investment round in Veem, the cross-border payments company. Other notable investors in this $25mm round include Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Silicon Valley Bank. Veem, formerly known as Align Commerce, combines blockchain technology and legacy money transfer infrastructure into a multi-rail platform for optimized business payments. The company aims to offer fast, secure, and low cost transactions for SMBs by determining the most efficient route for domestic and cross-border money transfers. In addition, Veem offers its customers greater transparency of payment movement, a significant pain point felt by SMBs using the legacy payments system, and one that’s easily assuaged due to the nature of the blockchain.
Pantera first met the founder and CEO of Veem, Marwan Forzley, in 2015. After evaluating the company and its founders, our investment team began experimenting with the product — initiating a series of transfers on Veem’s blockchain-enabled platform. We created a race — sending similar payments through traditional bank wire transfer process. Veem’s transfers were faster, less expensive, and much more transparent.
Pantera led Veem’s Seed Round in the spring of 2015. Pantera was amongst investors in Veem’s Series A, led by Kleiner Perkins. In March 2017, the company announced its new name and the close of its Series B, which included notable investors Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Silicon Valley Bank, and Softbank’s SBI. Since the Pantera-led Seed round in 2015, Veem has partnered and integrated with well-known online accounting services such as QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite, and their customer-base has grown from 590 to 80,000 customers. As Forbes’ journalist, Michael del Castillo put it:
“Central to the investors’ interest in Veem is the built-in stickiness of the model, which has proved to be adept at turning recipients of Veem payments into Veem users.”
Veem’s CEO, Marwan Forzley, emphasized the significance of this round beyond the injection of capital:
“What’s important about this round is the acknowledgement of the size of the opportunity, the size of the market, the size of the pain point that we’re solving for…And it’s an endorsement of the growth that we’re experiencing.”
To read more about Veem and this strategic investment round, check out Michael del Castillo’s article in Forbes.
“WILL BITCOIN FINALLY BRING DOWN THE HOUSE OF MEDICI”
In our April 2015 Letter, we announced Veem’s Pantera-led Seed Round with an accompanying brief on the history of cross-border payments. Since the Medicis built their empire using what was then bleeding-edge technology — double-entry accounting — little has changed. We believe Veem and other blockchain-enabled companies will disrupt the correspondent banking model. Below is the brief from our April 2015 Investor Letter, an excerpt of which was later published in an article for TechCrunch.
The correspondent banking industry today is exactly the way the Medicis set it up in the 14th century.
The Medicis used the power of the newly-invented double-entry accounting system to build a cross-border banking empire. The Medicis invented nostro and vostro accounts. Banks still use this double-entry system to keep track of who owns what. The words in English illustrate how direct it is: Nostro means “ours” in Italian and Vostro “ÿours”. The Bitcoin ledger is the 21st century version. A two-column spreadsheet with who owns what. 12 million rows — one for each person who owns bitcoin. The second column has how many they own. That column totals 14 million bitcoins today. Very clear public record of who owns what which does not require paying a third-party to keep those accounts.
Domestic banks are forced to use a small group of correspondent banks to move money across. Borders. Correspondent banks are used by domestic banks to service transaction requests outgoing to foreign countries, acting as a domestic bank’s agent abroad. A typical domestic bank used by an SMB has limited access to foreign financial markets, hence the use of bank that does have access to such markets.
In 2014, cross-border payments totaled $22 trillion, the largest of the cross-border money flow markets and approximately 50x the size of the second-largest cross-border money flow market, remittances. Other cross-border money flow markets include eCommerce payments, dividend payouts, and pension/benefit payments.
How Legacy Cross-Border Payments Work
Cross-border payments are essential to conducting international business, but how those payments are processed behind the scenes is not generally understood. The following is the general process by which international cross-border payments for a small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) are conducted (for SMBs, payments are typically on the order of $1,000 to $10,000):
· Before a business can make a large purchase from a supplier, it is convention that the buyer provide a letter of credit from a financial institution to the supplier, which acts as a guarantee of payment. There is a non-trivial fee for acquiring this insurance and it may take several days for a bank or other institution to produce.
· Once a letter of credit has been provided by, for example, a U.S. business looking to buy from a Brazilian supplier, the supplier sends an invoice for an amount due.
· The U.S. business initiates a money transfer at its primary bank for an amount greater than what is due on the invoice. This is in order to cover the many fees required along the payment’s journey.
· Over the course of several business days, the buyer’s bank first charges a money transfer initiation fee and eventually moves the money along to its U.S. correspondent bank.
· Once the payment hits the first correspondent bank, it grants the buyer’s primary bank a rebate — a finder’s fee of a sort to incentivize the perpetuation of the 600 year old process. This correspondent bank deducts yet another fee for processing the buyer’s payment and moves the buyer’s payment along to a second correspondent bank in Brazil. This relay takes another couple of business days to complete.
· Upon receiving the payment, the second correspondent bank converts the buyer’s USD-denominated payment into Brazilian reals with a foreign-exchange spread. While able to exchange currencies at a wholesale rate, savings from doing so are not passed on to the customer but withheld as additional profit for the correspondent bank. Another processing fee for the payment is taken by the second correspondent bank before the payment moves on to the supplier’s primary business bank. The currency exchange and subsequent relay of the payment take an additional couple of days to complete.
· Depending on the supplier’s primary bank, there may be another fee or additional processing time required upon receipt of payment.
SMB Pain Points
The movement of the payment is also subject to each of the four institutions’ own set of rules, fee schedules, and priorities. Although we’ve outlined a general cross-border payments scheme above, the time it takes for payments to reach their destination or the fees required along their way can vary based on these individual rules, schedules, and priorities. More often than not, this means even longer times and higher fees in reality.
The fees, transaction times, and opacity that is considered business-as-usual for the legacy cross-border payments system is stifling for SMBs, especially for fast-paced Internet-age commerce.
For a typical $4,000 payment, an SMB interviewed by Align Commerce mentioned that:
· Fees are as high as $200, or 5% of the payment amount,
· Payments take up to two weeks to reach their destination,
· The payee is not given any sort of estimated time of receipt nor any information about the locations of their payments or the obstacles preventing their payments from reaching their destination. For many SMBs, the transparency of the payment process is of equal, if not more, concern than the fees or processing times. This uncertainty is not only stressful for the business owners, mentally, but also additional stress upon the business’ operation. Scare revenue may be tied up in bank bureaucracy indefinitely and the supplies to be purchased cannot be shipped until payment has been received.
BLOCKCHAIN :: ‘THE SHIPPING CONTAINER OF MONEY’
On September 5, Ripple Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Chris Larsen gave a great presentation at the Crypto Finance Conference at the Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay, entitled “Enabling The Internet of Value”.
“Data and goods, we didn’t always have a global system of data and goods. And think about how … I love talking about shipping containers so let me talk about shipping containers. Think about how shipping goods was before the invention of the shipping container.
“Incredibly inefficient, incredibly labor intensive, huge bottleneck for the world. The dock workers could go on strike, everything shuts down, goods would have to come into a port, they’d have to be unpacked and repacked, shipped out a completely different way. It was a mess and this was clearly holding back the world.
“And then along comes this super simple technology, the shipping container, just a metal box, and boom. Suddenly every port in the world, every city is interoperable with every other city, every ship interoperates with every train and every truck, every warehouse. Totally changed the way the world works. By the way, it costs now four cents to move a shirt all the way across the world from say, Vietnam, China, to the US. Four cents. That’s incredible.
“And importantly, this was not because of the invention of a new shipping company, it was the invention of a simple standard, a simple box, a simple technology that everybody could use that was endlessly scalable and that was simple enough for people to agree on. It lead to completely different shipping companies that the world has never seen before, and it led to a complete transformation of ports in the way cities operated, mostly run by robots, not by people.
“So it changed everything, about a 700 percent increase since the 1950s and global trade because of it. That’s a huge win.
We all know what happened with data. Sometime after the shipping container, along comes another standard IP. Before that, of course, we had a world of different networks that didn’t interoperate with each other. It was hard to communicate, it was expensive to communicate. A lot of people were cut out. And then of course, along comes a IP, a very simple standard that the whole world could get together around and boom, now 3 billion plus people are communicating basically for free to anybody with a single address.
“So totally a game changer. About, what, 20 percent increase in GDP over the last five years because of it. Again, this was not because of a new communications company, this was because of a simple standard IP that everybody could get around, but of course lead to, fantastically, new communication companies, we now know trillion dollar communication companies and completely changed the way the world works.
“Okay. So two of those are complete, but of course money is not. Money has not had its shipping container moment.”
For those interested, Chris Larsen’s keynote speech can be viewed here
“CRYPTO HEDGE FUND PANTERA ON TRACK TO RAISE $175 MILLION”
When an SEC filing relating to Venture Fund III went public recently, it prompted a lot of press. Much of the discussion was about the strong interest in venture despite the crypto market being down. CNBC’s Kate Rooney interviewed Pantera partner Paul Veradittakit the day the filing went public.
“The firm is seeing interest from some first-time investors who see the crypto slump as a buying opportunity,” Paul explained. “We’re seeing a shift in momentum. We’re seeing a lot more interesting VC deals, and more equity deals this year than ICO deals.…”
We’ve always said blockchain is a multi-decade trade. It seems smart to be focused on the long-term — rather than each intra-year cycle. Of course this is mandatory when investing in a private equity or venture fund with 10-year lock ups. We’re grateful that investors are focused on that time horizon.
A few thoughts:
Even some seasoned venture investors have asked, “Hey, why is the size of Fund III so much larger than Fund II? That’s atypical.” Our industry is growing at such a rapid rate that even raising the size of the fund is actually shrinking market share. Since we completed investing our first venture fund in early 2014, total venture capital investment in blockchain companies has increased by 28x. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization has grown similarly — 24x.
As a consequence, the deals are that much bigger. For example, when we first invested in Ripple it was at a $17 million market cap — now it’s something like $5 billion. Circle was in the two-digit millions — now four digits.
Here is a snapshot of market growth since the announcement of our second venture fund.
In addition, this graph illustrates market size back then as a percentage of today’s market.
A 7x growth in fund size for Venture Fund III is one quarter of the proportional growth rate in the industry.
The entire article about our SEC filing and the interest in Venture can be read on CNBC
We raised two-thirds of the $175 million target in the first close. That is already invested in three deals — Bakkt and two deals yet to be announced. The final close will be at year-end.
VFIII Limited Partners that invest $5 million or more in the first close will have the opportunity to increase their exposure to these deals by investing additional capital in the Fund’s co-investment class. Those with co-investment rights are limited to a total of $75 million of committed capital. The VFIII Co-Investment Class is likely to be fully subscribed in the next month or two. If you have interest, please let us know soon.
VENTURE FUND II RECENT INVESTMENT :: ERISX
Deal Overview
Pantera was amongst the latest investors in ErisX’s latest investment round. Other notable investors include TD Ameritrade, DRW Holdings, Valor Equity Partners, Cboe Global Markets, and Virtu Financial.
Company Overview
With in-depth experience delivering and operating a fully regulated market place, ErisX has entered into the digital asset space with a broad offering of both spot and futures contracts on one platform. ErisX has integrated digital asset products and technology into reliable, compliant and robust capital markets workflows. With a regulated, liquid and accessible offering, ErisX enhances the digital asset space for institutional and individual traders.
Importance
A lack of fully regulated exchanges with prior experience operating in traditional capital markets has been an impediment to many institutional investors seeking cryptocurrency exposure. Inflows of institutional capital will help drive adoption of digital assets and further legitimize crypto as a new asset class.
ErisX will provide the transparent, compliant, and robust infrastructure that institutional investors have been waiting for.
Investment Thesis
ErisX brings a unique heritage and experience in exchange infrastructure that sets it apart from other competitors. Eris Exchange has been operating futures markets since 2010 as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) registered with the CFTC.
Applying Eris Exchange’s tried and tested infrastructure to offerings of cryptocurrency spot and futures contracts is a logical step forward in the development of institutional grade products for cryptocurrency exposure.
For further details, please read the Wall Street Journal article.
VENTURE FUND II PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT :: LIGHTYEAR BUYS CHAIN
On September 10, Lightyear announced its purchase of Pantera portfolio company, Chain. Lightyear and Chain will come together as the newly formed company, Interstellar. Lightyear was founded in partnership by IBM and Stellar, a public blockchain ledger co-founded in 2014 by Ripple Co-Creator, Jed McCaleb. Jed will be CTO of Interstellar and Chain Co-Founder Adam Ludwin will be CEO.
“Interstellar will migrate Chain’s customer base and products onto Stellar’s global public ledger, creating a platform that will enable organizations to issue, exchange, and manage assets,” according to Ludwin, “all of the clients that we have now have effectively shifted from using a traditional database model to using a tokens model, issuing assets on a local environment.” Ludwin continued, “By partnering with Stellar, you can fire an asset to another institution.”
Pantera is proud of its role in Chain’s development. As one of our first Venture Fund II deals in 2014, Pantera took part in a $9.5 million investment in Chain led by Kholsa Ventures. At the time, Chain was building an application programming interface (API) that could make it easier for financial institutions and enterprise developers to build applications on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. Chain’s API indexed the entire blockchain to make accessing it fast, reliable, and useful to developers, ultimately reducing the amount of data engineering that companies would normally have to do themselves. In 2015, Nasdaq partnered with Chain to launch a blockchain-enabled digital ledger technology for Nasdaq’s Private Market platform. Visa, Capital One and Citigroup also partnered with Chain prior to the acquisition.
For more details on Chain’s acquisition and Interstellar, please read the official press release here.
VENTURE FUND II PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT :: 0x and HARBOR PARTNERSHIP
On September 6, Pantera portfolio companies Harbor and 0x announced a new partnership. 0x is a fully decentralized exchange for the Ethereum blockchain which allows secure, trustless transactions of any Ethereum blockchain asset. We think combining 0x’s secure, decentralized exchange protocol with Harbor’s compliance platform for tokens is a promising step in the use of blockchain as a trusted, secure property transaction solution. In addition, Harbor founder and former PayPal COO, David Sacks, will be joining 0x’s advisory board. For more details of the partnership, read the article in Fortune.
VENTURE FUND II PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT :: ABRA’s CRYPTO INDEX TOKEN
In partnership with Bitwise Asset Management, Abra has developed the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Token (BIT10), providing an easy way for investors to get exposure to the ten largest assets, which together make up 80% of crypto market. The cryptos are vetted using Bitwise’s “rigorous and transparent index methodology, which ensures assets meet liquidity, security, and robustness requirements”. The BIT10 Crypto Index Token will be listed exclusively on ABRA. More on this announcement can be read here.
ICO FUND RECENT INVESTMENT :: ANKR
Asia-based Ankr is looking to build a resource-efficient blockchain framework that truly enables Distributed Cloud Computing and provides user-friendly infrastructure for business applications.
Ankr’s unique innovations include:
· Proof of Useful Work (PoUW) Consensus Protocol
· Distributed Cloud Computing (DCC) Platform
· Seamless interface of oracle service
· Mult-chain structure supporting consortiums
ICO FUND RECENT INVESTMENT :: BGOGO
Bgogo is a cryptocurrency exchange that utilizes transaction mining, a new feature whereby a portion of commission revenue is distributed back to token holders.
Bgogo uses a unique supernode system where the top 21 holders of BGG tokens will have the ability to list one cryptocurrency for a quarter; 20% of the transaction fees generated by trades of that asset will be returned to the supernode.
Pantera will serve as one of the first supernodes.
ICO FUND PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT :: ORIGIN’S MESSAGING APP
Origin is rolling out a Decentralized Messaging App Built on Ethereum. The open-source messaging function is now up and running on the Origin marketplace demo. The app features an encrypted communication channel between buyers and sellers.
Origin is an open-source platform that enables creation of peer-to-peer marketplaces on the blockchain. The Origin platform will reduce transaction fees, promote free and transparent commerce, and redistribute value from rent-seeking middlemen to individual buyers and sellers.
ICO FUND PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT :: ENIGMA LAUNCH PARTNERS
Enigma recently announced eight launch partners that are working closely with Enigma’s development team to integrate Enigma’s privacy-preserving capabilities into their products. The partners include a number of projects that are using Enigma for important applications such as private voting, auctions, data validation, sybil prevention, and more.
The Enigma team is working on building the first platform for scalable, end-to-end decentralized applications using their groundbreaking privacy technology.
To learn more about Enigma’s new partners, please read the Enigma blog.
AUGUR :: TWO MONTHS POST-LAUNCH
It’s been over two months since Augur launched in early July. Despite a 60% drawdown in ETH price, the number of markets and ETH staked continues to grow each subsequent week. From NFL game outcomes to crypto-price bets, people are learning to use the platform in creative ways — in some cases, perhaps questionably. And yes, without highlighting the details, we have seen an explicit bet on whether a certain anti-virus company founder will keep his word regarding a bet on the future price of Bitcoin (market is set to close in two years). Topics aside, Augur is being used.
Approximately 1,160 unique markets are open with over 4,700 ETH in open interest. The majority of the value at stake is in the category of crypto-price predictions. Over $400,000 is bet on whether or not the price of ETH will exceed $500 at the end of 2018. Multiple markets have successfully settled with little to no issues.
Even amidst a period with declining ETH prices, people are finding an incentive to use the platform. One of the hurdles for the adoption of decentralized applications is price volatility. In Augur’s case, if the value of the token one stakes fluctuates inversely to the outcome of the bet, it is possible to lose money despite winning. Price stable currencies may be the solution to this. A project like DAI is a decentralized stablecoin built on Ethereum that utilizes a unique, collateral-based system to stabilize price. USD-pegged cryptocurrencies like recently-announced Gemini Dollar offer a different type of stability solution. There is much needed development in areas such as stable currencies and scalability before the full utility of dApps is realized. It is promising to see more quality projects in development than ever before. Infrastructure is improving on a weekly basis and we are beginning to see the early stages of application adoption.
WALL STREET NEWS
Morgan Stanley
Bloomberg recently reported that Morgan Stanley will soon begin trading a derivative product tied to bitcoin. With this offering, Morgan Stanley can provide their clients exposure to bitcoin without having to actually purchase the cryptocurrency. Morgan Stanley hired Andrew Peele in June as Head of Digital Assets.
Goldman Sachs
Business Insider’s September 5 report that Goldman Sachs has abandoned plans of a Bitcoin trading desk turns out to be “fake news”.
Earlier this month, Martin Chavez, Goldman’s CFO at the time, responded to the report while speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt event, “I never thought I would hear myself use this term but I really have to describe that news as ‘fake news’.”
Citigroup Bitcoin Security Product
Citigroup is looking to launch a new Bitcoin security product, Digital Asset Receipt (DAR). DAR would offer institutions the ability to gain exposure to Bitcoin without having to hold the assets themselves.
The product would be structured as an American Depository Receipt (ADR), which functions as a foreign security product. Citigroup is trying to use familiar, already accepted infrastructure and apply it to the digital asset space.
‘Crypto Assets Are Here To Stay’
The European Commission will conclude its regulatory assessment for the governance of crypto assets this year.
The sentiment towards industry regulation is positive as the EU Commission understands the long-term promise of blockchain technology. According to the Vice President of the EU Commission:
“We also had a good exchange of views on crypto-assets. We see that crypto-assets are here to stay. Despite the recent turbulence, this market continues to grow.”
BITCOIN OUTPERFORMS OTHER CRYPTOS
In July and August, Bitcoin outperformed most other cryptocurrencies. (BTC +9.9%; LTC -24.2%; ETH -37.7%).
“Bitcoin dominance” — as bitcoin’s share of the total crypto-currency market capitalization is called — has come back up to levels first hit in May 2017 and last hit in December 2017.
BITCOIN SHARE OF TOTAL MARKET
Average share from Genesis block January 3, 2009 to December 31, 2016 = 93.47%.
Bitcoin out-performing the rest of the market. At the lows, bitcoin was only 33% of the total market cap. It is now back to 58%.
NYC OFFICE HAS MOVED
Pantera recently relocated its New York offices. We are now in the IBM Building — 590 Madison Avenue at 57th Street. Paul Brodsky will be joined by the newest member of Pantera’s NYC-based team, Gerald Brant — consulting with investors about the blockchain asset space and Pantera funds. Anyone interested in meeting with the team in New York can email [email protected]
UPCOMING TRAVEL
Pantera partners will be traveling over the next months to discuss Venture Fund III and the blockchain disruption. We have organized group lunches in many cities, should you want to meet other investors who share your interest in blockchain. If you are interested in attending one of our group lunches, please fill out the form on this page and we will be in touch regarding availability.
· Chicago, October 8–10
· Fort Lauderdale, October 10
· Miami, October 11 & 12
o October 12, Group Lunch | 12pm
· New York, October 15–19
· Amsterdam, October 17 & 18
· Las Vegas, October 22–24
· New York, October 22–26
· Houston, October 22 | including a Group Lunch at 12pm
· Napa, October 23–26
· Austin, October 23
· Dallas, October 24
· Los Angeles, October 24
· Prague, October 30-November 2
· Washington DC, November 2
· Miami, November 5
· New York, November 12
· Macau, November 12–14
· Toronto, November 13–14
· Los Angeles, November 19–21
· New York, November 26–30
If you are interested in a meeting, please contact Pantera’s Investor Relations team at 650–854–7000 or [email protected].
The future has arrived,
“Put the alternative back in Alternatives”
PORTFOLIO COMPANIES AND PROTOCOL TOKENS
RECENT PRESS
· CNBC, ‘Crypto Hedge Fund Pantera On Track to Raise $175 Million’
· Dan Morehead on CNBC, Fast Money
· Dan Morehead on CNBC, Fast Money
· Dan Morehead on Fox Business, Mornings with Maria
· Dan Morehead on Bloomberg Panel, Bitcoin: The Past, Present and Future
· Dan Morehead on Bloomberg, Pantera’s Morehead Says Bitcoin ‘Is a Screaming Buy’
· Dan Morehead on CNBC, Hedge Fund CEO Says Bitcoin’s Flashing a Rare Buy Signal
· Dan Morehead on CNBC, Early Innings for Cryptocurrency Craze: Pantera Capital CEO
· Dan Morehead on CNN, Bitcoin: Digital gold or Ponzi scheme?
· Dan Morehead on Fox Business, Morning with Maria
· New York Times, A Bitcoin Hedge Fund’s Return: 25,004% (That Wasn’t a Typo)
· Dan Morehead on Fox Business, Mornings with Maria
· Dan Morehead speaks at Money2020 Conference with Kik’s Ted Livingston
· Dan Morehead speaks at Sohn Conference CNBC
· TechCrunch, ICOs, How Do They Work? | Disrupt SF 2017
NOTABLE TWEETS
OPEN POSITIONS
Pantera is actively hiring for the following roles:
· Venture Associates
· Executive Assistant to the CEO
· Executive Assistant
· Data Scientists
· Engineers
If you have a passion for blockchain and want to work in Menlo Park, San Francisco, or New York, please follow this link to apply.
FURTHER READING
Some good material to start with on the development of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies as speculative instruments:
· Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System — white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto
· 12 Graphs that Show Just How Early the Cryptocurrency Market Is by Chris McCann
· Blockchain Investments and the New Problem Asset for Conventional VCs by Jake Brukhman
· Cryptoeconomics 101 by Nick Tomaino, and his Tokens, Tokens and More Tokens
· Fat Protocols by Joel Monegro
· What Does $300 Ether Mean? by Vinay Gupta
· Token Economy by Stefano Bernardi and Yannick Roux
· Traditional Asset Tokenization
· The Rise of the Token Sale by Max Mersch
· Making Sense of Cryptoeconomics by Max Mersch
· Why Amazon’s Margin Is Filecoin’s Opportunity Forbes, Aug 28, 2017
· Joey Krug RealVision Interview Excerpts: ICOs, Future of Digital Currency, Ethereum Flash Crash RealVision, Aug 10, 2017
· Pantera Capital to Raise $100 Million in Investment for ICO Hedge Fund Coindesk, Jun 28, 2017
· While Investment Firms Ponder ICOs, This Team is Barreling Ahead with a $100 million ICO Fund TechCrunch, Jun 28, 2017
· Balaji CNBC Interview CNBC
· US Fed Hints at Blockchain Integration Coindesk
· Coindesk State of Blockchain Q2 Report Coindesk
· The Isle of Man Welcomes ICOs Coindesk
· Ethereum Metropolis Release Testnet To Launch Coindesk
· Closure Steps for Chinese Exchanges Coindesk
· China Shmyna, Bitcoin Trading is Way More Distributed Now Anyway Coindesk
· Lawmakers Seek Tax Exemption on BTC Transactions Under $600 Coindesk
· ICO “Rounds” Are Coming TechCrunch
· Crypto Regulation? Not Anytime Soon, Says White House Official Coindesk
· Why Decentralization Matters by Chris Dixon. Outstanding perspective on how we went the open Internet 1.0 to a closed Internet 2.0 — and the promises of a new Internet ecosystem powered by Blockchain.
· Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble The longest read on this list from NY Times Magazine. A great ten-thousand foot view. A must-read.
· Fat Protocols Written over two years ago, an image in this article is one of the most frequently referenced in the industry
· A Letter to Jamie Dimon Famous retort to Mr. Dimon’s flippant remark about bitcoin being a fraud. Concise, even-tempered, a brilliant article.
· Interview with David Sacks Former Pay Pal COO Sacks lists ten use-cases where he anticipates blockchain can disruptive in the not-too-distant future.
· Mapping the Blockchain Project Ecosystem Attempt to categorize the protocol tokens based on use –helpful for newbies.
Two of the best books are Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper for a fun high-level history and an in-depth technically-minded look Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Ethereum by Andreas Antonopoulos.
And some additional information on the ICO model specifically:
· Recommended Primer: Token Mania
· Tokenomics — A Business Guide to Token Usage, Utility, and Value by William Mougayar
· Earn’s CEO on Token Economies
· Basic Attention Token Whitepaper
· Basic Attention Token Webpage
· Nick Szabo and Naval Ravikant on Tokens
Additional information on blockchain regulation:
· SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy Investor Bulletin on ICOs
· SEC Issued Statement on ICOs and the DAO
· FINMA Issues Stricter ICO / AML Regulatory Compliance Requirements
PANTERA PUBLICATIONS
We tweet blockchain news and insights on Twitter and Medium at @PanteraCapital, @Dan_Pantera, @JoeyKrug, and @Veradittakit.
You can subscribe to our publications by visiting Pantera’s website or by e-mailing [email protected]:
· Blockchain Letter: a monthly letter with our thoughts on significant market and ecosystem-related developments. Also, includes our thoughts on blockchain venture capital and news on our portfolio companies for accredited investors.
· Blockchain Investor Letter: Public Letter plus exclusive information for accredited investors.
· White Papers: periodic, original blockchain research and academic papers.
Source: Crypto New Media
