Trusted by over 100,000 blockchain investors.

HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS

July 27, 2021

Read our investor's guide to crypto unicorns: Click here.

Hey Everyone,

The senior VP of business development of Wix.com, Dror Shaked, was not an easy act to follow, but I'm glad to report that my attorney and I managed to bring an entire room full of bankers to life at the Israel Investment Summit at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange today.

To be perfectly honest, the room was mostly empty by the time we took the stage.

There were only a few dozen people, and we were told there were another hundred or so in the livestream, but what I can say is that apparently, this was the well-anticipated cherry on the top of a very long day of investment talks.

The interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies was through the roof.

Even though we were only scheduled to speak for 15 minutes, they ended up letting us talk for nearly an hour, and then we fielded several questions from the audience.

What's become clear to me over the last few months, and this perception was sturdily reinforced today, is that institutions and money managers are dying to get into this space, but they simply don't know how.

Let's face it, crypto isn't the wild west, it's a virtual minefield.

We need to have better tools to help people traverse these treacherous yet lucrative lands.

I wish there were someone out there building such tools.

Shortest bubble ever

It wasn't that long ago that the financial media was rife with articles about a housing boom.

No doubt fueled by Federal Reserve money printing and a serious shortage of reasonably priced asset classes, hedge funds were jumping in left and right.

For some reason though, it seems to have come to a very abrupt ending. ...

Analysts who were expecting a surge in home sales were caught completely off guard, but what's worse is that the supply of new homes on the market also jumped higher.

Obviously, there's a very limited amount of insight we can gain from a single month's worth of data, but what this clearly indicates is that the U.S. housing market has just gone from hot to lukewarm in a day.

Not to be too overly dramatic or anything, but the last time a U.S. housing bubble popped, things didn't end too well for global markets, not that there is any particular reason to harbor such fears today.

As we can see in the graph below, which displays new home sales over the last 25 years, today's crash simply brings us back to pre-pandemic levels and not to any sort of multi-decade low.

If anything, the graph makes it seem more like the market is correcting itself and cleaning out some excess more than anything else, but it is certainly worthwhile keeping an eye on it.

African currencies

It's one of the magical wonders of technology that stigmas regarding locations and jurisdictions can literally change overnight.

We hear a lot about the African continent potentially leapfrogging progressive technologies like fax machines and personal computers and landing straight in the midst of the digital and mobile age.

In some cases, they're even ahead of the developed world. New research from analyst Wonder Godzo seems to indicate that African central banks are way ahead of the curve when it comes to digital fiat currencies.

As we can see, there is a plethora of central bank digital currency pilots in various stages of implementation. Don't take my word for it though, read the full report at this link.

Many thanks for enjoying today's BMJ Newsletter. Have a fantastic afternoon, evening, or morning.

Fine regards,

Mati Greenspan

Analysis, Advisory, Money Management