Razvan-David Dumitrascu ◱ ◱ (@razdavid) • Hey
FA at heart | crypto e(n)th | Investment Manager in PE | ex-investment banker | ex-Portfolio investments @Stakeborg
Publications
- I just voted on "Stargate V2" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0x1c55529c8df43cc97591696a135a7b82af27fb8c58a09cf0bdc80aa29310d27d #SnapshotVote
- Howard Marks - Mastering the Market Cycle.
- highly recommend for learning how to judge cycle positioning and asset allocation
- these moments create characters of steel
- In case you missed the CTG eclipse 😎
- yes, all the collects today are from orb only
- Upon reaching early growth investing stage (post-VC) a start-up would have achieved some level of profitablity and would benefit from guidance on (1) maintaining and growing profitability; (2) turning profitability to cash flows; (3) corporate governance mechanisms; (4) expanded operational and BD team. To be expanded
- I just voted on "Record and Publish Stargate Community Calls" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0x11e9daab4e806cba220d5d6eae6be76f799f27ad20723d0aabedf0263ca2a28f #Snapshot
- Digital assets funds flow --- w/e March, 18th
* Record weekly inflows totalling $ 2.9bn, beating the prior week’s all-time record of $ 2.7bn
* This week’s inflows have pushed year-to-date inflows to $ 13.2bn, smashing the full 2021 inflows of $ 10.6bn.
* Slightly different sentiment around smart contract funds, with Ethereum, Solana and Polygon seeing outflows totalling $ 14m and $ 2.7m and U$ 6.8m respectively.
https://etp.coinshares.com/knowledge/market-activity/fund-flows-18-03-24
- Digital asset investment products saw record weekly inflows totalling $ 2.7bn, bringing total inflow year-to-date to $ 10.3bn, just shy of the record $ 10.6bn inflows for the whole of 2021.
Bitcoin remained the focus of investors, seeing $ 2.6bn inflows with year-to-date inflows now representing 14% of total AuM. Solana saw $ 24m inflows last week.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-173-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-d3b5fd18d417
- Interesting take on the digital ghost of the IoT world (cc TheVerge)
- The most valuable asset is your individual reputation, more and more of it will be in various forms and abstraction captured on chain. Collecting, is one of the key mechanics, to "add skin to the game". *Showing you were early, showing conviction, showing you knew, showing you where there, showing support, etc...*
- I just voted on "Record and Publish Stargate Community Calls" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0x11e9daab4e806cba220d5d6eae6be76f799f27ad20723d0aabedf0263ca2a28f #Snapshot
- Digital asset investment products saw large inflows totalling $ 708m last week, bringing year-to-date inflows to $ 1.6bn and total global assets under management to $ 53bn.
Solana saw $ 13m inflows last week, outpacing Ethereum and Avalanche, which saw $ 6.4m and $ 1.3m outflows respectively last week.
Trading volumes in ETPs fell to $ 8.2bn compared to the prior week total of $ 10.6bn, although remain well above the $ 1.5bn week average in 2023. These volumes comprise 29% of Bitcoin’s total trading on trusted exchanges -- absolutely, a blast.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-168-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-16427d7d3235
- relatively good news
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-02/steve-christie-returns-to-binance-as-deputy-compliance-officer?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2
- I just voted on "Integrate Stargate with NEAR via Aurora" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0xe21e8d82840271de57e3a04aa8ab6a083d7e1c08fe198ed3a08d7901f8e4cde6 #Snapshot
- I just voted on "PancakeSwap veCAKE Proposal" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0xa84cf96d0fca68f5c2e4e603d7faed9eb6f1fe0d54d86552545a035bb09a3736 #Snapshot
- Digital asset investment products ("ETPs") saw outflows totalling $54m (as of week ending Sep 15th). Volumes saw a small bump to nullbn for the week, up 42% compared to the prior week.
Bitcoin comprised 85% of the outflows, seeing $45m last week.
Ethereum saw $4.8m outflows, while Solana, Cardano and XRP also saw outflows of $0.7m, $0.43m and $0.13m respectively.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-149-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-52c42c5fa2d4
- I just minted Base Wars, celebrating the start of @BuildOnBase bringing billions of people onchain.
It’s been an awesome Onchain Summer.
https://onchainsummer.xyz/fini
- I just minted Sango: The Orisas
https://onchainsummer.xyz/
- * Digital asset investment products ("ETPs") saw outflows totalling $55m, in reaction to recent media highlighting that a decision by the US Securities & Exchange Commission in allowing a US spot-based ETF is not imminent.
* Bitcoin saw outflows totalling $42m, reversing the inflows seen the prior week, while short-bitcoin saw outflows for almost the 17th consecutive week.
* Ethereum saw $9m outflows, while Polygon, Litecoin and Polkadot also saw outflows of $0.9m, $0.6m and $0.5m respectively.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-145-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-370b18faa268
- I just minted Summer Kevin, celebrating the start of @BuildOnBase bringing billions of people onchain.
It’s Onchain Summer.
https://onchainsummer.xyz/kevin
- I just minted Van Gogh, "Bedroom in Arles", celebrating the start of @BuildOnBase bringing billions of people onchain.
It’s Onchain Summer.
https://onchainsummer.xyz/Coca-Cola
- I just voted on "Deprecate the WOO liquidity pool on Fantom" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0xc18c4911e19adf4bd54c6ad142bb08bc81fd44dee723e520c511c2a9414d5920 #Snapshot
- Digital asset investment products (ETPs) saw outflows last week, totalling $107m with profit taking gathering pace in recent weeks.
Bitcoin was again the primary focus, seeing outflows totalling $111m, the largest weekly outflows since March.
Solana saw the largest inflows amongst altcoins, totalling $9.5m, the largest single week of inflows since March 2022.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-143-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-6d46f78754c
- In the week up to July 28th 2023, digital assets ETPs have seen minor outflows totalling $21m, o/w $19m out of Bitcoin investment products.
Investors are favouring altcoins (less Ethereum), with inflows last week totalling $3m, and for the last 8 weeks seeing inflows totalling $19m.
Trading volumes for digital asset investment products were low at $915m for the week, compared to the null.5bn weekly average this year so far. This was reflected in the broader Bitcoin market, which saw a total of $16bn traded last week on trusted exchanges, compared to the weekly average this year of $52bn
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-142-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-4e5e1ce458b2
- Prior to the ongoing lawsuit, SEC asked Coinbase to halt trading in all assets except bitcoin, CEO Brian Armstrong said.
https://www.ft.com/content/1f873dd5-df8f-4cfc-bb21-ef83ed11fb4d
- if interested, attorneys for Binance and Zhao submitted a motion on Thursday to dismiss CFTC's lawsuit.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.431767/gov.uscourts.ilnd.431767.59.0.pdf
- Digital asset investment products saw minor outflows totalling $6.5m, following 4 prior weeks of inflows that totalled $742m.
Bitcoin was the primary focus, seeing $13m of outflows, while short bitcoin investment products saw outflows for the 13th consecutive week totalling $5.5m.
Ethereum topped the leaderboard last week, seeing $6.6m inflows, suggesting sentiment, which has been poor this year, is slowly beginning to turn around.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-141-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-38255b443eae
- The SEC asked a federal judge to ignore parts of a recent ruling in the regulator’s litigation with Ripple, saying the decision doesn’t square with existing securities laws and that it may appeal.
The SEC, in its lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon, said that the ruling “creates an artificial distinction between the expectations of sophisticated institutional and retail investors.” It “improperly transforms” a decades-old test for determining when assets are securities, known as the Howey Test, into a subjective standard. The agency asked the court to reject that part of the decision and signaled that it was considering an appeal in the Ripple case.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-21/sec-signals-appeal-to-crypto-ripple-ruling-in-terra-response?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2
- Great article on the "Real price of Success"
https://www.sahilbloom.com/newsletter/the-real-price-of-success
- I just voted on "Add Metis Chain support for MAI Bridging" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0xf1274081c9f4db1db77f30f21b53f61dde8716f8d3f2aac7367709bd4af369b2 #Snapshot
- Standard Chartered is forecasting Bitcoin could reach $120,000 by end of 2024.
“Increased miner profitability per BTC mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and pushing BTC prices higher,” Geoff Kendrick at Standard Chartered wrote Monday.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-10/standard-chartered-ups-bitcoin-forecast-to-120-000-by-end-2024?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2
- Digital asset investment products saw $136m of inflows last week bringing the last 3 consecutive weeks inflows to $470m, fully correcting the prior 9 weeks of outflows.
Bitcoin remains the focus amongst investors, with inflows totalling $133m last week, while short-bitcoin saw outflows of null.8m.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-139-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-33b877f6baee
- I just voted on "Stargate Deployment On Kava" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0xed5fe9d40c9e82a53c548d4458fdca91d6d26c12cc34303c205906b5e1854e29 #Snapshot
- Digital asset investment products saw a second week of inflows totalling $125m, bringing the last two weeks of inflows to $334m, representing almost 1% of total assets under management (AuM).
Bitcoin remained the primary focus of investors, seeing inflows of $123m, with the last 2 weeks inflows representing 98% of all digital asset flows.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-138-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-e3fcb270729
- Some details related to the Kraken / IRS data turn over:
* **which information it needs to provide**: users’ names, birth dates, taxpayer identification numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, some documents and transactional ledgers; From whom? from Kraken accounts that did at least $20,000 of cryptocurrency trading in any single year, from 2016 to 2020
* **which additional information Kraken does not need to provide, but IRS demanded it as well** (could have made an extended list knowing that the judge would narrow it down to the essentials): information in due diligence Kraken questionnaires, including users’ employment, net worth and source of wealth
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-30/kraken-ordered-to-turn-over-its-users-information-to-the-irs?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2
- crvUSD price and supply over time
- **Latest MicroStrategy BTC acquisition and how was it financed**
MicroStrategy announced that, during the period between April 29, 2023 and June 27, 2023, it acquired approximately 12,333 BTC for approximately $347.0 million in cash, at an average price of approximately $28,136 per bitcoin. As of June 27, 2023, MicroStrategy, together with its subsidiaries, held an aggregate of approximately 152,333 bitcoins, which were acquired at an aggregate purchase price of approximately $4.52 billion.
This acquisition was financed through the issuance of shares through an Open Sales Agreement that MicroStrategy has. On May 1, 2023 MicroStrategy entered into a Sales Agreement (the “Sales Agreement”) with Cowen and Company and Canaccord Genuity, as sales agents (the “Agents”), pursuant to which MicroStrategy may issue and sell shares of its class A common stock, par value $0.001 per share (“Shares”), having an aggregate offering price of up to $625.0 million from time to time through the Agents. On June 28, 2023, MicroStrategy announced that, as of June 27, 2023, MicroStrategy had issued and sold an aggregate of 1,079,170 Shares under the Sales Agreement for aggregate net proceeds to MicroStrategy (less sales commissions and expenses) of approximately $333.7 million.
https://www.microstrategy.com/content/dam/website-assets/collateral/financial-documents/financial-document-archive/form-8-k_6-28-2023.pdf
- Digital asset investment products saw the largest single weekly inflows since July 2022, totalling $199m, correcting almost half of the prior 9 consecutive weeks of outflows.
Bitcoin was the primary beneficiary, seeing $187m inflows last week, representing 94% of the total flows. Short-bitcoin saw outflows for the 9th consecutive week totalling $4.9m.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-137-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-a6eaca3b9dd9
- MUFG, Japan's largest bank, is prospecting the option to issue global stablecoins
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-23/japan-s-biggest-bank-mufg-is-in-talks-to-issue-global-stablecoins?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2
- London is trying to persuade pension funds to invest in the local market. The UK has the largest pile of pension assets in the world outside the U.S., with $3.57 trillion in assets at the end of 2021.
The standoff reflects a growing dilemma facing aging societies, including the US: how to fulfill promises made long ago to baby boomers while also making investments to expand the economy and help younger workers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-beat-back-new-york-london-seeks-to-tap-pension-pot-b14b82b7?mod=markets_lead_pos4
- zkSync Era is a Layer 2 zkEVM created by Matter Labs to scale Ethereum. It retains EVM compatibility while introducing additional features such as native account abstraction to greatly enhance user experience. Since its mainnet launch in March 2023, zkSync Era has been on a robust growth path, reaching one million transactions in just four days, a rate quicker than any other Layer 2 according to L2Beat. It has averaged over 400k transactions per day post-launch and reached a peak load of ~36 transactions per second (TPS) on May 17th. (Source: OurNetwork)
https://l2beat.com/scaling/projects/zksync-era
- I just voted on "$ARB Token Allocation" https://snapshot.org/#/stgdao.eth/proposal/0x108a9e597560c4f249cd8be23acd409059fcd17bb2290d69a550ac2232676e7d #Snapshot
- Digital asset investment products saw outflows totalling $88m, bringing the 8-week run of outflows to $417m. The team at CoinShares considers this string of outflows to be monetary policy related, with currently no clear end in sight to interest rate rises, leaving investors cautious.
Majority of outflows ($77m) came from the 3iQ Corp ETF in Canada.
https://a.storyblok.com/f/155294/x/b6805527de/digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-12-06-23.pdf
- a16z will open up its first international office in the UK later this year. UK is continuing to make inroads in the digital assets space, with its Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stating that: "While there’s still work to do, I’m determined to unlock opportunities for this technology and turn the UK into the world’s web3 centre"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-11/andreessen-horowitz-picks-crypto-friendly-london-as-international-base?srnd=cryptocurrencies-v2
- “Crypto is here to stay,” but the recent tumult provides an opportunity for traditional finance to “take the lead,” said Dawn Fitzpatrick, CEO of Soros Fund Management.
https://www.theblock.co/post/233561/soros-fund-management-ceo-crypto
- Digital asset investment products saw outflows totalling $62m, marking the 7th consecutive week of outflows that now totals $329m.
Tron, the smart contracting platform, was the primary focus, seeing outflows totalling $51m last week. CoinShares considers this was a single investment product provider removing seed capital rather than anything more ominous.
The recent outflows are off the back of low trading activity, with volumes remaining 60% below the year’s average. This is mirrored in the broader crypto market which has seen a 55% decline in volumes over the last 7 weeks.
https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-134-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-d80a58e287eb
- Probably everybody heard or read about the SEC's lawsuit against Binance, Binance.US and CZ. One thing I was interested in from the filing was how it motivated the securities designation to a list of tokens (SOL, ADA, ATOM, SAND, MANA, MATIC, FIL, ALGO, etc.). You can read from the link below, p.88 onwards.
While the commission has come a long way to substantiate its claims, on a second read I find that in the past 1-2 years it was harder to garner evidence that (some) "parent" entities were contributing to the protocol growth and as such it would make the bill endorsed by the two Republican chairs even more interesting.
https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2023/comp-pr2023-101.pdf