TD₿: Bitcoin, Not Crypto by Preston Pysh with Cory Klippsten
TL;DR "Crypto" is not Bitcoin despite Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists trying to conflate the two as being equal.
Hey Bitcoiners,
Yesterday, the Financial Times released the details about the $5.3 billion Alameda Research VC portfolio, and it did not disappoint.
From the document, we can see that Alameda made 500 illiquid investments across 10 holding companies.
It seems to me that Alameda took billions of dollars of user funds and basically lit it all on fire by investing in anything and everything they could throw money at.
Alameda threw millions at random stupid token projects at peak prices. A lot of the investments were spread across the Solana ecosystem, the platform where SBF now famously created his own tokens to inflate FTX’s balance sheet.
Also in the document are investments in VC-giant Sequoia Capital and Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital.
Sequoia is especially interesting because the investment in Sequoia was almost identical to the amount Sequoia invested in FTX. This has raised a few questions…
It appears there was a lot of (stolen) money just sloshing around these venture capital firms, token projects, and Ponzi scheme exchanges. Everyone was just patting each other on the back, making boatloads of money, as retail investors got fleeced.
This is the main difference between Bitcoin and crypto. Bitcoin has no early VCs or founding developer teams that create a token out of thin air and then take a share of the token’s supply in an exclusive pre-mine, only to manipulate the price upwards to their benefit.
Bitcoin is leaderless. Bitcoin is decentralized. Bitcoin has no pre-mine.
Cory Klippsten went on Preston Pysh’s podcast and laid out many of the differences between Bitcoin and “Crypto” in this great conversation. (11/23/2022)
If there is one positive takeaway from this crypto credit contagion, it’s that people are starting to ask questions about the differences between Bitcoin and the rest of the broader cryptocurrency industry.
Over time, with every new crypto blowup or scandal that’s exposed, more and more individuals will understand what makes Bitcoin special.
Tick tock next block,
Sam Callahan
PS - Here is the spreadsheet containing all of Alameda’s garbage investments for your viewing pleasure.
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Meme of the Day
Great article!
Oh and I will also make use of the "Meme of the Day" in an upcoming article.