What bear market? Investors throw record cash behind blockchain firms in 2021
VC investments into crypto over the first six months of 2021 have already more than doubled those witnessed in all previous years combined.
Despite the recent slight recovery of the cryptocurrency market, there is no denying the fact.
VC investments into crypto over the first six months of 2021 have already more than doubled those witnessed in all previous years combined.
Despite the recent slight recovery of the cryptocurrency market, there is no denying the fact that the crypto industry has been faced with a great deal of volatility over the last few months, made evident by the total market capitalization of the sector that dipped from $2.5 trillion to $1.18 trillion over a 45-day span earlier this year.
Through all these ups and downs, however, 2021 has continued to see an increasing amount of capital enter this fast-evolving space. For example, reports indicate that over the first half of the year alone, venture capital (VC) funds poured in $17 billion into various crypto-related startups and companies.
To put things into perspective, the above-stated figure is by far the most witnessed in any single year and is nearly equal to the total amount raised in all previous years combined. Johnny Lyu, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, told Cointelegraph: “Early-stage investors of cryptocurrency have already achieved profitability and have a deep understanding of the development rules of the market. This is the key reason why they are willing to invest despite market fluctuations.”
Lyu further opined that for traditional investors, the crypto industry allows them to obtain higher returns in a shorter cycle, citing the volatility of Bitcoin (BTC) as an example of the same. “When the market experiences volatility, it is the best time for investing, and investors will profit from it.”
A closer look at the numbers
A hefty chunk of the aforementioned $17 billion figure comes from a single deal that saw a new cryptocurrency exchange called Bullish draw $10 billion in cash and digital assets following an initial injection by Block.one of $100 million, 164,000 BTC, and 20 million EOS tokens. Block.one led the capital raise alongside Peter Thiel, Alan Howard, Galaxy Digital and other investors.
In fact, just this one deal would have been enough to make 2021 the biggest year for venture capital investment in the crypto space, but if that wasn’t enough, the remaining $7.2 billion dollars would have equaled 2021 with 2018’s record of $7.4 billion raised, which is even more impressive considering that there are still five more months to go before the end of the year.
On the subject, Igneus Terrenus, head of communications for cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, told Cointelegraph that these numbers are not really startling since VCs are known for their voracious appetite for risk: “VCs are leveraging a relatively abundant and fungible resource — i.e., capita — to tap into something that is far scarcer and unique, which is partners and talents with whom they can build long-term value together.”
More notable VC activities
A little over a month ago, Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz announced the launch of its $2.2 billion crypto fund, with a spokesperson claiming that the company was “radically optimistic” about this space despite the price fluctuations. “We believe that the next wave of computing innovation will be driven by crypto,” partners Katie Haun and Chris Dixon were quoted as saying.
Furthermore, it should be pointed out that Andreessen’s first crypto-focused fund went live nearly three years ago, a time when the market was at its lowest levels historically, thereby showcasing the firm’s long-term belief in relation to this yet-nascent industry.
Similarly, Fireblocks, an infrastructure provider for digital assets, revealed that it had been successful in raising $310 million in a Series D round of funding, thus bringing the company’s total valuation to a whopping $2 billion in a period of less than six months. The fundraiser was co-led by institutional giants including Sequoia Capital, Stripes and the venture arm of Thailand’s oldest bank, Siam Commercial Bank.
Solana, a project that seeks to deliver a high level of scalability and transaction speed, also recently announced that it had completed a $314.15 million private token sale, making the nine-figure total the fourth largest fundraising event in the history of the crypto industry. Some of the company’s investors include Polychain Capital, Alameda Research and Blockchange Ventures, among others.
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX too recently closed a $900 million funding round, which saw a total of 60 participants, including Softbank, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin, VanEck and the Paul Tudor Jones family. As a result, the trading platform’s valuation has grown to $18 billion from $1.2 billion just a year ago, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency companies in the world.
Lastly, Dapper Labs, the team behind CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, secured about $305 million in new funding this March from a number of past and present NBA stars including the likes of Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant and Alex Caruso, and other investors including The Chernin Group and Will Smith’s venture capital outfit Dreamers VC. Following the closure of this latest funding round, Dapper Labs now reportedly holds a $2.6 billion valuation.
Is more institutional money incoming?
To gain a better understanding of whether more capital will continue to enter the crypto space, Cointelegraph reached out to Antoni Trenchev, managing partner at Nexo, a digital asset service provider. In his view, the crypto-finance sector possesses enormous untapped potential, especially with digital currencies allowing for an unprecedented level of inclusion for the under-banked. He added:
“The deals we are seeing right now — like Fireblocks snapping up $310M, SoftBank investing $200M in Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin — are being made by billion-dollar money managers after months of boardroom discussions and a result from long-term strategic decisions rather than momentary judgment.”
Not only that, fintech firms currently seem to have an unprecedented opportunity to build upon their existing client bases by offering modern products and services that users and companies really need, especially those that can serve as hedges against inflation — fears of which are looming large on the horizon all over the world.
Simon Kim, CEO at Hashed, an early-stage venture fund, believes that VCs are just now starting to understand the intrinsic value of crypto projects as it was difficult to justify the price of tokens that most blockchain projects had created in the past years:
“Ethereum is facilitating millions of transactions through numerous DeFi services, metaverse games and NFT services built on top of the network. There are now more than 20 million monthly active user accounts using Ethereum. The intrinsic value of DeFi tokens is even more apparent than Ethereum or Bitcoin.”
He further highlighted that much like how the IT industry leaders such as Amazon and Google grew amid the dot-com bubble, many crypto projects today have a solid foundation with a suitable business model and data. “This is why VCs are now pouring their money into crypto projects. They now believe that the next Google, Amazon and Facebook could be found in the space”, said Kim, closing out.
Related: COIN price fails to impress as more crypto firms are eager to go public
On a more technical note, Lyu highlighted that the increasing VC investments can, in large part, be attributed to the growing number of users that have seemingly flooded into various centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in recent months, adding: “Some popular DEXs such as Uniswap and PancakeSwap have exceeded traffic numbers related to some leading CEXs.”
What lies ahead?
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that has had the global economy in a sort of standstill over the last year and a half, reports suggest that global venture capital funding over the first half of 2021 has shattered all previous records, with the figure now standing at $288 billion. That’s more than $100 billion when compared with the last six-month cycle record that was set during the second half of last year.
Jehan Chu, Managing Partner for Kenetic, a venture capital firm investing in blockchain companies, told Cointelegraph that the ongoing glut of capital sloshing around the world is forcing investors to take greater and greater risk in search of alpha, and despite ongoing institutional uncertainty about the future of crypto, they have no choice but to invest in the space:
“Fortunately, blockchain technology and crypto have graduated from a carnival freakshow to an inevitable future, so confidence in the underlying companies is at an all-time high. Additionally, a generation of cheap money flowing from the U.S. printing press has concentrated into the hands of investors. There has never been so much capital and the traditional gates have been eroded by partisan politics and poor financial management.”
Founding managing partner at Borderless Capital Arul Murugan believes that as more applications go live, greater infrastructure will be required to be built and as more infrastructure is built, it will attract even more applications, creating a virtuous cycle that started happening this year.
Not only that, he is of the opinion that the gap between traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) is closing up with more people steering towards the crypto spectrum. Murugan opined: “Right now, crypto is less than 1% of traditional finance and people are seeing huge growth opportunities.”
Therefore, as an increasingly digitized future draws closer, the use of crypto tech will likely continue to grow, so it stands to reason that more players from the traditional finance space will continue to make their way into this burgeoning market, helping it to grow even further.
cryptocurrency bitcoin ethereum blockchain crypto btc eos pandemic covid-19 currencies cryptoGovernment
Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19
Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19
A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat"…
A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat" to the health of the US population - a sharp decline from a high of 67% in July 2020.
What's more, the Pew Research Center survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that just 10% of Americans are concerned that they will catch the disease and require hospitalization.
"This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health," reads the report, which was published March 7.
According to the survey, half of the participants understand the significance of researchers and healthcare providers in understanding and treating long COVID - however 27% of participants consider this issue less important, while 22% of Americans are unaware of long COVID.
What's more, while Democrats were far more worried than Republicans in the past, that gap has narrowed significantly.
"In the pandemic’s first year, Democrats were routinely about 40 points more likely than Republicans to view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population. This gap has waned as overall levels of concern have fallen," reads the report.
More via the Epoch Times;
The survey found that three in ten Democrats under 50 have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older.
Moreover, 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while only 24 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older have done so.
“This 42-point partisan gap is much wider now than at other points since the start of the outbreak. For instance, in August 2021, 93 percent of older Democrats and 78 percent of older Republicans said they had received all the shots needed to be fully vaccinated (a 15-point gap),” it noted.
COVID-19 No Longer an Emergency
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued its updated recommendations for the virus, which no longer require people to stay home for five days after testing positive for COVID-19.
The updated guidance recommends that people who contracted a respiratory virus stay home, and they can resume normal activities when their symptoms improve overall and their fever subsides for 24 hours without medication.
“We still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses, this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.
The CDC said that while the virus remains a threat, it is now less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease.
“Importantly, states and countries that have already adjusted recommended isolation times have not seen increased hospitalizations or deaths related to COVID-19,” it stated.
The federal government suspended its free at-home COVID-19 test program on March 8, according to a website set up by the government, following a decrease in COVID-19-related hospitalizations.
According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 and influenza diseases remain “elevated” but are decreasing in some parts of the United States.
International
Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says “I Would Support”
Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says "I Would Support"
Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump…
Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump into the race to become the next Senate GOP leader, and Elon Musk was quick to support the idea. Republicans must find a successor for periodically malfunctioning Mitch McConnell, who recently announced he'll step down in November, though intending to keep his Senate seat until his term ends in January 2027, when he'd be within weeks of turning 86.
So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota. While John Barrasso's name had been thrown around as one of "The Three Johns" considered top contenders, the Wyoming senator on Tuesday said he'll instead seek the number two slot as party whip.
Paul used X to tease his potential bid for the position which -- if the GOP takes back the upper chamber in November -- could graduate from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. He started by telling his 5.1 million followers he'd had lots of people asking him about his interest in running...
Thousands of people have been asking if I'd run for Senate leadership...
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 8, 2024
...then followed up with a poll in which he predictably annihilated Cornyn and Thune, taking a 96% share as of Friday night, with the other two below 2% each.
????????️VOTE NOW ????️ ???? Who would you like to be the next Senate leader?
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 8, 2024
Elon Musk was quick to back the idea of Paul as GOP leader, while daring Cornyn and Thune to follow Paul's lead by throwing their names out for consideration by the Twitter-verse X-verse.
I would support Rand Paul and suspect that other candidates will not actually run polls out of concern for the results, but let’s see if they will!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2024
Paul has been a stalwart opponent of security-state mass surveillance, foreign interventionism -- to include shoveling billions of dollars into the proxy war in Ukraine -- and out-of-control spending in general. He demonstrated the latter passion on the Senate floor this week as he ridiculed the latest kick-the-can spending package:
This bill is an insult to the American people. The earmarks are all the wasteful spending that you could ever hope to see, and it should be defeated. Read more: https://t.co/Jt8K5iucA4 pic.twitter.com/I5okd4QgDg
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) March 8, 2024
In February, Paul used Senate rules to force his colleagues into a grueling Super Bowl weekend of votes, as he worked to derail a $95 billion foreign aid bill. "I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” said Paul. “If it takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”
Don't expect a Majority Leader Paul to ditch the filibuster -- he's been a hardy user of the legislative delay tactic. In 2013, he spoke for 13 hours to fight the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. In 2015, he orated for 10-and-a-half-hours to oppose extension of the Patriot Act.
Among the general public, Paul is probably best known as Capitol Hill's chief tormentor of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Paul says the evidence indicates the virus emerged from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. He's accused Fauci and other members of the US government public health apparatus of evading questions about their funding of the Chinese lab's "gain of function" research, which takes natural viruses and morphs them into something more dangerous. Paul has pointedly said that Fauci committed perjury in congressional hearings and that he belongs in jail "without question."
Musk is neither the only nor the first noteworthy figure to back Paul for party leader. Just hours after McConnell announced his upcoming step-down from leadership, independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr voiced his support:
Mitch McConnell, who has served in the Senate for almost 40 years, announced he'll step down this November.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 28, 2024
Part of public service is about knowing when to usher in a new generation. It’s time to promote leaders in Washington, DC who won’t kowtow to the military contractors or…
In a testament to the extent to which the establishment recoils at the libertarian-minded Paul, mainstream media outlets -- which have been quick to report on other developments in the majority leader race -- pretended not to notice that Paul had signaled his interest in the job. More than 24 hours after Paul's test-the-waters tweet-fest began, not a single major outlet had brought it to the attention of their audience.
That may be his strongest endorsement yet.
Government
The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While “Waiting” For Deporation, Asylum
The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum
Over the past several…
Over the past several months we've pointed out that there has been zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018...
... and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born (read immigrants, mostly illegal ones) workers.
And while the left might find this data almost as verboten as FBI crime statistics - as it directly supports the so-called "great replacement theory" we're not supposed to discuss - it also coincides with record numbers of illegal crossings into the United States under Biden.
In short, the Biden administration opened the floodgates, 10 million illegal immigrants poured into the country, and most of the post-pandemic "jobs recovery" went to foreign-born workers, of which illegal immigrants represent the largest chunk.
'But Tyler, illegal immigrants can't possibly work in the United States whilst awaiting their asylum hearings,' one might hear from the peanut gallery. On the contrary: ever since Biden reversed a key aspect of Trump's labor policies, all illegal immigrants - even those awaiting deportation proceedings - have been given carte blanche to work while awaiting said proceedings for up to five years...
... something which even Elon Musk was shocked to learn.
Wow, learn something new every day https://t.co/8MDtEEZGam
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2024
Which leads us to another question: recall that the primary concern for the Biden admin for much of 2022 and 2023 was soaring prices, i.e., relentless inflation in general, and rising wages in particular, which in turn prompted even Goldman to admit two years ago that the diabolical wage-price spiral had been unleashed in the US (diabolical, because nothing absent a major economic shock, read recession or depression, can short-circuit it once it is in place).
Well, there is one other thing that can break the wage-price spiral loop: a flood of ultra-cheap illegal immigrant workers. But don't take our word for it: here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself during his February 60 Minutes interview:
PELLEY: Why was immigration important?
POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.
PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?
POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that's none of our business. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it.
I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.
PELLEY: The country needed the workers.
POWELL: It did. And so, that's what's been happening.
Translation: Immigrants work hard, and Americans are lazy. But much more importantly, since illegal immigrants will work for any pay, and since Biden's Department of Homeland Security, via its Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency, has made it so illegal immigrants can work in the US perfectly legally for up to 5 years (if not more), one can argue that the flood of illegals through the southern border has been the primary reason why inflation - or rather mostly wage inflation, that all too critical component of the wage-price spiral - has moderated in in the past year, when the US labor market suddenly found itself flooded with millions of perfectly eligible workers, who just also happen to be illegal immigrants and thus have zero wage bargaining options.
None of this is to suggest that the relentless flood of immigrants into the US is not also driven by voting and census concerns - something Elon Musk has been pounding the table on in recent weeks, and has gone so far to call it "the biggest corruption of American democracy in the 21st century", but in retrospect, one can also argue that the only modest success the Biden admin has had in the past year - namely bringing inflation down from a torrid 9% annual rate to "only" 3% - has also been due to the millions of illegals he's imported into the country.
We would be remiss if we didn't also note that this so often carries catastrophic short-term consequences for the social fabric of the country (the Laken Riley fiasco being only the latest example), not to mention the far more dire long-term consequences for the future of the US - chief among them the trillions of dollars in debt the US will need to incur to pay for all those new illegal immigrants Democrat voters and low-paid workers. This is on top of the labor revolution that will kick in once AI leads to mass layoffs among high-paying, white-collar jobs, after which all those newly laid off native-born workers hoping to trade down to lower paying (if available) jobs will discover that hardened criminals from Honduras or Guatemala have already taken them, all thanks to Joe Biden.
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