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HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS |
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“Thought creates character.” ― Annie Besant |
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Terra Becomes Second-Largest DeFi Protocol (Coindesk): In the red-hot DeFi market, the vast majority of products are built on Ethereum, the #1 blockchain platform. In a distant second place is Binance Smart Chain.
These two platform leaders are like the Windows and macOS of blockchain: they're the platforms that most people are building on. This is why they're the bedrock investments of our Future Winners Portfolio.
This week, competing blockchain Terra just overtook Binance Smart Chain to claim the #2 spot, in terms of Total Valued Locked. So, is it worth investing in Terra?
Investor takeaway: Our view is no. Just 13 DeFi products are built on Terra, compared with 361 on Ethereum. It's not just money in the system, it's products built on top of it. (See charts below.) |
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Instead of getting caught up in the hype around Terra (as CoinDesk did), let's look at the numbers. |
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If you look at it by Total Value Locked (the amount of money invested), Terra looks like it's in #2. But money doesn't matter; people do.
If we look at DeFi platforms by the products people are building and using, it's not even close: |
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Investor takeaways: Terra may become something interesting in the future, but it's a tiny minnow compared to the big fish of Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain. Total Value Locked is a vanity metric. |
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Hi Everyone,
One of the defining traits of human beings is our ability to rationalize, but what really makes our species special is that each of us does this in a different way, leading to differences of opinions, arguments, and sometimes even war, but it also pushes us forward, as discourse tends to spur innovation.
On the phone with the bank today, they seemed to have a difference of opinion when they wanted to charge one of our new ventures a $500-a-month compliance fee just because we're dealing with crypto.
They also noted that that this fee may go up later on. Their request inspired us to simply hang up and go to the next bank.
It's not like they're doing us any favors by taking our business. Dinosaurs will soon be extinct.
Pretty sure that by now, you all know how much I love banks. Today, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, dropped a bombshell on the platform, calling web3 a centralized entity that is controlled by venture capitalists.
At the time of this writing, the tweet has more than 5,000 replies and over 2,000 quote tweets, from many people who, like myself, agree to disagree. |
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Are CBDCs good?
One of the reasons opinions can be so diverse is that things aren't always cut and dried. Take the above question, for example.
As you may have seen, analyst Evamarie Augustine recently wrote a research piece that is a full-on explainer about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), including what they are and what to expect going forward.
Two people, on the same team, took quite different approaches to the same asset category. To make things even more spicy, Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance, just published this opinion piece on CBDCs, pointing out both the pros and cons of this new technology.
Ultimately, all three publications are 100% accurate, and though each author chooses to see things from a different angle, CBDCs aren't inherently good or bad. They're simply a tool.
Like the internet or a hammer, they have the potential to do good or bad at the behest of those who create and control them. We can think of them as an extension of the government.
Personally, I'm not a fan of most governments, so I don't hold very high hopes for how this might play out.
You may agree or disagree, in this case time will likely provide the answer. Either way, the technology isn't to blame.
We're gonna leave it there for today, but I'll definitely catch you tomorrow.
See you soon, |
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Mati Greenspan Analysis, Advisory, Money Management |
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More banks should do this! |
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Everything old is new again. |
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Bitcoin Market Journal is a daily newsletter focusing on blockchain and crypto investments. It is written and edited by Evamarie Augustine, Charles Bovaird, Mati Greenspan, and John Hargrave.
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