Clara Bullrich helps run a $54B investment fund, a women-only DAO and she founded a gaming guild to teach gamers in Latin America play to earn.
Clara Bullrich must have cloned herself or possibly invoked dark forces that shouldnt be meddled with. Somehow, shes managed to cram about four careers into one life.
Her main gig is leading her own financial entity, AlTi, managing a whopping investment fund, which grew to $54 billion under management following a recent merger. Thats a big enough job in itself.
A member of Women in Blockchain, she also runs a women-only DAO, Komorebi, that concentrates on funding female and non-gender-specific projects.
Ive seen in crypto that theres very few women, and I really want to push that as much as I can, she says. For me, its always important to have skin in the game.
And if that wasnt enough, shes also the founder of a gaming guild, Ola Guild Games (OlaGG), that hopes to upskill the quarter of a billion mobile gamers in Latin America so they can boost their incomes using play-to-earn blockchain games.
She tells Magazine she feels lucky to have been involved with cryptocurrencies, DAOs and the metaverse at this early stage.
My sons are nine and 11 and will live through the entire cycle of what blockchain and crypto are creating right now. And I feel super hopeful around that.
Hailing from Argentina, after studying in the United States and Ireland, she worked for a short time for the Spanish Santander bank in the United States. She didnt stay there long. Laboring in the stuffy, conventional world of traditional finance clearly does not float her boat. Her favorite word is disruptive.
Bitcoin is just money supported by math. I came across it about seven years ago. At first, I was very uncomfortable with that, then I thought: The big disruptions are the ones you should walk towards.
After a short stint at Santander, she was headhunted by an Argentine tech company called Collective Mind, which grew rapidly. Then in 2000, she started a family office business for high-net-worth clients under the umbrella of Guggenheim Partners. In those days, family offices werent as prevalent as today.
Over 23 years, she expanded her operations from Latin America to other parts of the world. Three years ago, this fund management business became Alvarium Investment Advisors, managing over $20 billion in investments, then recently merged with two other companies to form Alvarium Tiedemann Holdings, AlTi, with over $54 billion under management.
Bullrich had some challenges persuading her clients to invest in disruptive technology, including Bitcoin, but first, she had to persuade her colleagues of the merits of investing in progress rather than simple money-making schemes.
My discussions with my partners were very much around: We should be investing in tech with tech expertise, not financial expertise.
Her intention was to back technology that would have beneficial effects in the longer term, rather than simply looking at a financial balance sheet.
She set up the Digital Assets Committee at Alvarium Tiedemann in 2019.
What you have to realize is that most people there are traditional investors, so the idea of crypto, blockchain, Web3, digital assets these were really foreign to them.
She continues, And so being able to start that committee has allowed me to educate traditional investors about the potential of digital assets and blockchain technology. She continues, I wanted to create that level of expertise to be able to understand trends, why certain disruptions make more sense than others.
She feels the mindset required is more technological and over a longer time span than in conventional finance. This led, in 2016, to her second company, which is called The Venture City.
The Venture City is an accelerator to nurture innovative projects. Source: Venture City
The Venture City is an accelerator to nurture innovative projects, so it has the financial backing, expertise and support to reach its potential.
A major impetus behind TVC is to improve access to financial products and services. In some Latin American countries, up to 60%70% of people do not have bank accounts, restricting their ability to improve their situation. Bullrich sees TVCs investments as a means of combining technology and financial expertise with a beneficial social product.
We have already 100 companies who passed through the accelerator, and were actually starting Fund 3. So, we did Fund 1 with $52 million, Fund 2 with $75 [million], and were going in 2023 with the launch of Fund 3. It was an amazing experience. Because very early on, we were talking about community and creating a lot of events and educational sessions around the products.
Here are some examples of the many projects The Venture City has invested in:
Sturdy Exchange: Sturdy.Exchange is an NFT-based Web3 token in the Flow ecosystem. It aims to decentralize music distribution. It is a platform for artists, musicians and entertainers to reach their audiences with a new form of ownership and utility using NFTs.
Belo: A wallet app that uses Argentine pesos and crypto with a DeFi yield platform built in so users can receive regular returns. It aims to be an accessible cryptocurrency introduction.
Gamer Safe: This is an app to make online multiplayer gaming safer and more pleasant, by removing cheaters, fake and duplicated accounts, and policing toxicity and dishonesty in games.
Women in Blockchain
She joined Women in Blockchain (WiB) last year and hopes to develop womens skills, opportunities and aspirations in the cryptocurrency sector.
We are providing that platform where women can meet and be part of those conversations and move forward in terms of education, she says. We can become connectors of people needing a certain kind of expertise and people with that expertise can link up with those who need it.
So, WiBs a completely different animal from my Venture City, which is doing that deep dive looking for companies and deciding what companies the fund is going to invest in.
Komorebi is a DAO aimed at improving the representation of female and non-binary crypto folk. Source: Komorebi
Diversity in DAOs
Komorebi is a poetic, almost untranslatable, Japanese expression that describes sunlight filtering through trees. It is also a DAO on the Syndicate Protocol, dedicated to increasing diversity and breaking down barriers to entry in the blockchain space.
The thought process behind this was that women-led startups receive only 2.3% of venture funding but perform 63% better than investments with all-male founding teams, according to Venture Capital firm First Round.
My involvement with Komorebi allows me to support and amplify the voices of women in tech and finance. Im grateful I didnt have as many hurdles of being a woman in finance, but I encountered them more in technology. So, whats crucial for me here is being able to find an opportunity to help women find their voice in blockchain and crypto.
She says adding more diversity to the crypto and blockchain world is a win-win for everyone.
Im not saying womens voices should be dominant over men; its not one or the other. What I truly believe is having diverse perspectives and experiences in decision-making leads to better outcomes, and my role is to provide an additional platform for women to showcase their passion, their vision.
When Bullrich finds a project that interests her team, she brings it to the DAO and everyone votes on whether to back it or not. The DAO is a very interesting angle for allowing people to be part of something bigger, rather than just putting money into it.
Final boss: Making a living in a poor country with P2E
Yield and Ola Guild Games: These are DAOs. Yield Guild Games (YGG) was founded by Gabby Dizon and Beryl Li in 2018 to involve Filipino players in gaming and cryptocurrency. The players can supplement their incomes with P2E winnings. OlaGG is a subDAO, which expands the successful concept geographically to the Hispanic market: Spain, Latin America outside Brazil and Hispanics in the United States.
The idea of Ola Guild Games is to create social and financial inclusion for the Hispanic Community through gaming. Its main platform is Axie Infinity, but there are options to engage with other P2E game systems as well. The concept took off in the Philippines during the pandemic, with users supplementing their tightened budgets or even multiples of the average wage with P2E gaming.
It seems like a good fit as one-third of Hispanic speakers income is $1.90 per day, which the United Nations defines as extreme poverty. Nearly half have no access to banking or financial products. However, more than 58% of the population in Latin America play mobile games, which equates to a user base of over 273 million people.
So, the idea of Ola is how can we engage with people, teach them, educate them on these new tools for Web3 to really create that financial inclusion. It might be through games, and that will be play-to-earn.
The Guild is also creating educational programs learn-to-earn where users receive payment for educational achievements with the intention of having an employment structure, for example, in games development, to move on to when trained.
Conventional western aid purveyors will probably have heart attacks when they find developing countries blockchain-gaming their way up the development ladder, instead of subsisting on aid packages with strings attached.
While it does have a huge and clearly defined audience, the project is still in its early stages.
Co-founding Ola and working with my team in Latin America represents my desire to give back and provide opportunities in a market that does not have access to the same resources as we have here in the U.S., she says. I want to provide all that education Im seeing here on Web3, structuring DAOs, and help them adopt those technologies and bring it to life. Its not just a nice to have, its a must-have for Latin America.
By sharing my experiences and knowledge of Web3 and decentralized organizations, I hope to bring positive change to my home country [Argentina].
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New study unveils direct synthesis of FCMs via solid-state mechanochemical reaction between graphite and PTFE
A research team, led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek and his team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST have achieved a significant breakthrough…
A research team, led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek and his team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST have achieved a significant breakthrough in battery technology. They have developed an innovative method that enables the safe synthesis of fluorinated carbon materials (FCMs) using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and graphite.
Credit: UNIST
A research team, led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek and his team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST have achieved a significant breakthrough in battery technology. They have developed an innovative method that enables the safe synthesis of fluorinated carbon materials (FCMs) using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and graphite.
Fluorinated carbon materials have garnered considerable attention due to their exceptional stability, attributed to the strong C-F bonding—the strongest among carbon single bonds. However, traditional methods of fluorination involve highly toxic reagents such as hydrofluoric acid (HF), making them unsuitable for practical applications.
In this study, the research team introduced a straightforward and relatively safe approach for scalable synthesis of FCMs through mechanochemical depolymerization of PTFE—a commonly used compound found in everyday items—and fragmentation of graphite. By utilizing ball-milling techniques that induce both mechanical and chemical reactions, they successfully produced FCMs with significantly improved performance compared to graphite.
The use of hazardous compounds like fluorine gas or HF in conventional carbon fluoride production raises safety concerns, increasing manufacturing costs associated with stringent safety measures. To address these challenges, Professor Baek’s team devised a solid-phase fluorination method using PTFE—an inert polymer known for its stability under atmospheric conditions and harmlessness when consumed orally.
Through experiments, it was observed that subjecting PTFE to higher energy than it can withstand leads to molecular chain breakage and radical formation—initiating a reaction resulting in the production of carbon fluoride complexes. These complexes then adhere to the surface and edges of graphite particles during subsequent processes.
The resulting FCMs demonstrated superior storage capacity and electrochemical stability compared to traditional graphite anodes. At a low charging rate of 50 mA/g, the FCMs exhibited storage capacities 2.5 times higher (951.6 mAh/g) than graphite, while at a high charging rate of 10,000 mA/g, their storage capacity was tenfold higher (329 mAh/g). Remarkably, even after more than 1,000 charge/discharge cycles at a rate of 2,000 mA/g, the FCMs retained 76.6% of their initial capacity compared to only 43.8% for graphite.
“This study highlights not just safe fluorination methods but also the broader potential of solid-phase reactions,” stated Boo-Jae Jang, a researcher in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST.
“This research prompts us to reconsider materials that are commonly found in our surroundings,” added Professor Baek. He further emphasized the significance of understanding solid-phase reactions as it opens doors to developing novel materials that were previously unexplored.
The study findings have been published ahead of their official publication in the online version of Advanced Functional Materials on July 27, 2023. This work has been supported through the U-K Brand and Carbon Neutrality projects of UNIST, and the Creative Research Initiative program through the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea.
Journal Reference
Boo-Jae Jang, Qiannan Zhao, Jae-Hoon Baek, et al., “Direct Synthesis of Fluorinated Carbon Materials via a Solid-State Mechanochemical Reaction Between Graphite and PTFE,” Adv. Funct. Mater., (2023).
Journal
Advanced Functional Materials
Article Title
Direct Synthesis of Fluorinated Carbon Materials via a Solid-State Mechanochemical Reaction Between Graphite and PTFE
Sustained Bitcoin mempool congestion shows unwavering demand for Ordinals Inscriptions
Earlier this year, the market saw an unprecedented uptake of Ordinals and its associated Inscriptions. Ordinals serve as a unique numbering scheme for…
Earlier this year, the market saw an unprecedented uptake of Ordinals and its associated Inscriptions. Ordinals serve as a unique numbering scheme for satoshis, allowing users to track and transfer individual sats. Inscriptions are a form of NFTs on Bitcoin’s network, enabling users to etch their messages on the Bitcoin blockchain. The introduction of the Ordinals theory marked a significant milestone, heralding Bitcoin’s foray into the NFT space.
When the popularity of Ordinals and Inscriptions surged, some market observers speculated that it was a fad. However, recent on-chain data suggests otherwise. The demand for Ordinals remains robust, and the Inscriptions phenomenon might not be waning for a while.
The Bitcoin mempool, a holding area for unconfirmed transactions, is a critical metric to gauge this demand. An overflowing mempool indicates a high volume of pending transactions, often leading to increased transaction fees and congestion in the Bitcoin network. The mempool hasn’t cleared since April this year, indicating sustained activity and demand.
Graph showing the number of transactions waiting in the Bitcoin mempool by a relative fee in 2023 (Source: Glassnode)
This mempool congestion correlates with a surge in the count of new Inscriptions.
According to data from Glassnode, there was a notable increase in the daily creation of new Inscriptions towards the end of April. By mid-May, 400,000 new Inscriptions were created in just one day. While a dip in June suggested a potential waning interest, the numbers bounced back. September ended with an all-time high of 450,000 new Inscriptions in a single day.
While the early days saw the dominance of image-based Inscriptions, text-based ones have now taken the lead.
Chart showing the number of new Inscriptions created daily in 2023 (Source: Glassnode)
Bitcoin transaction fees spiked in May due to the surge in Inscriptions and the congested mempool. However, despite the continued demand for Ordinals, the fees have since stabilized. This stabilization suggests that the market has adjusted to the Inscriptions phenomenon, and the Bitcoin network has found equilibrium.
Graph showing the total amount of fees paid on the Bitcoin network in 2023 (Source: Glassnode)
The consistent demand for Inscriptions suggests they may have found a niche and a dedicated user base. Their impact on the Bitcoin network, especially transaction fees, and blockspace, cannot be ignored. While the initial surge might have caused some disruptions, the network’s ability to adapt and stabilize showcases its resilience.
Nansen third-party vendor suffers security breach, user data affected
The crypto analytics provider says a security breach of a third-party vendor has affected nearly 7% of users in the system who were promptly informed of…
The crypto analytics provider says a security breach of a third-party vendor has affected nearly 7% of users in the system who were promptly informed of the incident.
Prominent crypto and blockchain analytics company Nansen posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that one of its third-party vendors suffered a security breach affecting 6.8% of its users.
According to Nansen, the breach gave hackers access to admin rights for an account used to “provision customer access” to its platform.
Without directly naming the company affected, it said this vendor is “an established company that is used by many Fortune 500 companies,” along with other companies in the industry, to manage data.
The users affected by the breach reportedly had their email addresses exposed, along with some password hashes, and some had their blockchain addresses compromised.
Nansen said it has identified and informed those affected and asked all to change their passwords. It also clarified that wallet funds were unaffected by the event.
Nansen is a prominent resource in the crypto space and provides on-chain analytics about many of the industry’s major players.
In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik said that he believes in the future, a protocol will exist that creates a balance between blockchain transparency and user privacy and is compliant with regulators.
In May, the company was among many suffering the effects of the ongoing bear market, laying off around 30% of its workforce.
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