2/ In traditional markets, public announcements are often made only after material results and impact are delivered, whereas in the crypto markets, public announcements have been used as a means to raise money (to start to build, execute, and deliver)
3/ Crypto markets and investors have become so desensitized to public announcements and press releases about the intent to deliver future products and code, that announcements (even ones as significant as this one today) are bucketed into the "huh, that will be cool" category
4/ Think about how many promises have been made about retailer adoption-x, custody solution-y, ETF-z, and how many of those to date are still in process or a perpetual 9-12 months away
5/ This may be evidence that we are now entering a new maturity phase in the crypto markets, where actions, execution, and delivery are valued more than words. This may be akin to the harder days in Silicon Valley (if you remember) when VCs started valuing traction over ideas
6/ Long term, this is a good and healthy thing for crypto. "Buy the rumor, sell the news" is the classic adage in the equity markets, while "buy the news, #HODL or dump the local maximum" seems to have been the adage for crypto of late. That is not the way it should be.
7/ I have no doubt Bakkt will make a huge impact in general (and also on the price of Bitcoin) if/when it executes and delivers.
8/ Until then, keep executing. I'm humbled to be working @ideocolab with several amazing teams shipping working products, including @zeppelin_os@MessariCrypto@rarebits_io@HNS and many others. Would love to hear what others think and how you are balancing talk vs execution.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1/ For years, people have been waiting and hoping for crypto's "Netscape" moment. The gateway to the web that brought the internet to the main stream.
IMHO, looking for the Netscape for the #crypto space is not a relevant or applicable analogy. Here's why...
2/ The way people imagine crypto's "Netscape moment" is very literal: as a window, gateway, or browser (just like Netscape) to easily acquire, save, and use crypto and access the decentralized web.
3/ But that sounds a lot like a wallet and exchange, which already exists. And yet, even with these onramps and "browsers" into crypto, we haven't had that "Netscape moment" people are hoping for in terms of mass adoption.
1/ In the early 2000s, @ideo pioneered a process for venture development referred to as the "3 Circles" of Desirability, Viability & Feasibility (ideou.com/blogs/inspirat…). #crypto has a long way to go across all, but right now it is really struggling with the first: Desirability.
2/ Desirability is the question of "Do people want it?" and asks, what is the unique value proposition? How do people hear about, learn, try, buy, use, love, and share it? What are its functional but also emotional benefits? How is it 10x better than the current user experience?
3/ Iterating to product-market fit requires testing & ultimately proving at each stage of development that all three are true (it's desirable, feasible & viable) and work together. In the early stages of a venture, this means building evidence that they will be true in the future
1/ Should we be that surprised with what's going on right now with #ETH and ICOs generally? This is what happens when you have $10B+ raised via ICOs in the last 12 months, no treasury management, no product (or users), and liquid/publicly traded market caps and "shares" (tokens).
2/ #crypto is great for the digital world, but for now (and some time), teams and their employees need fiat to pay for real, non-digital things like rent, food, services, transportation, etc.
3/ I expect this decline to last for another 3-6 months as a growing pipeline of teams both (A) have their non-fiat runways cut by 60-80%, which, if they raised enough for 2 years, is now only 4-9 months, and (B) need to extend their fiat runways by another 12-24 months to ship.
There is a lot of excitement in “money tokens” and “privacy coins”, and while I agree that those are useful and valuable (to a point), my question is: how many different money and privacy coins does the world *actually* want and need? It’s greater than 1, but less than thousands.
2/ By comparison, today there are ~180 fiat currencies recognized by the U.N. representing ~$90 trillion, ~92% of which is digital.
3/ I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts, but I only see a few scenarios where we have more than 180 money tokens...
1/ Protocols, funds, and large #crypto companies are either thinking about or are in the process of launching their own incubators and startup accelerators. Some will be protocol specific; others will be agnostic. Here's the case for why and when this will/won't make sense.
2/ First off, while this is a new trend, history rhymes, and we may have seen this movie (or at least a similar one) before: the rise, fall, and refactoring of corporate innovation labs and corporate accelerator programs over the last 10 years.
3/ While #crypto is certainly different and its properties as a open platform will enable new types of opportunities, specifically around collaboration, interoperability, and cross-chain asset exchange, there are still many learnings we can draw from corporate labs/accelerators.