$7T Vanguard Doesn't Want Bitcoin

$5B Bitcoin ETF Volume | 2024 Crypto Startup Ideas

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
January 12, 2024

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Good Morning.

It’s day two of spot Bitcoin ETFs debut before everybody is off for the weekend. I thought this is a 24/7, decentralized, and permissionless market?

Maybe true decentralization means allowing BlackRock army of salespeople to contact our grandparents to buy magic internet money, but I digress.

In Today's Email:

What Matters: $5B Bitcoin ETF Volume 📈
Founders Highlight: Scroll Co-Founders 📜
Deal Flows: TuneFM $20M Raise 🎵

We are now publishing airdrop alphas and updates, subscribe to our telegram!

Narratives: Ethereum beta rally continues.

WHAT MATTERS

$5B Spot Bitcoin ETFs Trading Volume

State of play: The first day launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs is arguably a successful one. BitMEX reported over $5B in trading volume, with $3.3B of volume in the new US spot ETFs.

Grayscale leads the trading volume thanks to its AUM size.
Many predicts that most of the Grayscale’s volume is selling and outflow.
As of 6:47 AM EST, January 12th, BitMEX reported $695M in total inflow for spot Bitcoin ETF products, with Bitwise leading the way.

Why it matters: It remains to be seen what’s TradFi’s appetite for Bitcoin is, but the volume and flow will be extremely important in the next few days.

Vanguard reportedly prevents its customers from trading any spot Bitcoin ETFs because its volatile and goes against the firm’s philosophy. What a bunch of … sigh.

For builders and investors: With the spot Ethereum ETF potentially coming in May 2024, we might be seeing more capital rotate into altcoins — rejoice!

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BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Ye, Haichen and Sandy of Scroll

Scroll

Ye Zhang, Haichen Shen, and Sandy Peng are the Co-Founders of Scroll, an Ethereum L2 network that leverages ZK tech while sustaining EVM compatibility.

Previous backgrounds: Founded in 2021, the three Co-Founders of Scroll had a vision of an infinite and inclusive ecosystem for Ethereum.

Ye is a mathematician that trained for his PhD in Computer Science at NYU, before embarking on a bunch of research positions at UIUC, Peking University, and Conflux.
Haichen is a systems engineer with a PhD in CS from the University of Washington, before embarking on multiple roles at big tech including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.
Sandy is an experienced operator and investor having spent time in the Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, before becoming a Partner at Fission Capital.

The big idea: Scroll aims to become the native zkEVM L2 for Ethereum. The goal is marry Ethereum’s network security with lower fees and latency, contributing towards improving scalability for Ethereum.

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INSIGHTS

2024 Crypto Startup Ideas

Alliance

Credits to Qiao Wang for the original article.

Qiao Want is the Co-Founder of Alliance, a crypto-native accelerator. Alliance recently released its 2024 list of crypto startup ideas. If you’re interested in building the following startups, apply to Alliance and let them know that we sent you!

Here are quick summary:

Real-World” Financial Applications

Crypto Payment, “Binance P2P” or “Local Bitcoin” for Developing Nations, Crypto Neobanks for Developing Nations, Real-World Asset (RWA), RWA Collateral Lending

Crypto-Native Financial Applications

Continuous Prediction Markets, Under-Collateralized Lending, Privacy DeFi, Rari Reboot, M&A Investment Banking for DAOs, NFT Derivatives, Prime Brokerage

Non-Financial or Semi-Financial Applications

Fully Onchain Games, Onchain Social Networks, Anonymous Social Networks, Personal Tokens, Creators and Luxury Brands, 10k PFPs, Habit Formation Apps, DAOs as Digital Nations, Decentralized Scientific Crowdfunding, Decentralized 23andMe, Open and Market-Based Scientific Publications, Decentralized GLG

Infrastructure

DePIN, Battling AI Deepfakes, ZKP Hardware Accelerators, Specialized ZK Compute Networks, Bitcoin L2s and MEV, Solana Infra

DEAL FLOWS

TuneFM $20M Raise

Decrypt

Deal flows returned to normal level this week, we saw $79M in deals 💼

Tune Media Inc. has received a $20M commitment of capital from LDA Capital. Other investors in the round include Animoca Brands, Mindfund, the HBAR Foundation, Broad Street Angels, and many more.

TuneFM is a decentralized music streaming platform with an integrated music NFT marketplace.
It’s powered by the JAM token built on Hedera Hashgraph.
TuneFM plans to offer artists 90% of their streaming revenue and provide the ability to monetize their superfans via NFT-based exclusive perks.

Deal flows in the past week:

Entangle, $4M Seed & Private Round
Eesee, $2.85M Private Round
Saros, $3.75M Private Round
Ai Arena, $6M Private Round
Bracket Labs, $2M Pre-Seed Round
Particle, Undisclosed $ Seed Round
Ringfence, $1.5M Seed Round
Kasu, $3M Seed Round
Altitude, $6.1M Seed Round
Polyhedra, Undisclosed $ Series A
Convergence, $1.8M Unknown Round
Pontem, $6M Unknown Round
Bitfinity, $7M Unknown Round
TuneFM, $20M Unknown Round
Finoa, $15M Strategic Round

QUICK BITES

SEC approves spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Circle files confidentially for US IPO.
Do Kwon asks court to delay SEC trial.
Vanguard won’t offer spot Bitcoin ETFs.
US Bitcoin ETFs may violate South Korean law.
Senator Warren criticizes spot Bitcoin ETFs approval.
Brevan Howard backs new tokenization platform, Libre.
Coinbase partners with stablecoin exchange Yellow Card.
ECB shows its serious about enabling offline Digital Euro use.
Ripple initiates $285M share buyback, valuing the firm at $11B.
CoinGecko’s X account hacked, posted fraudulent token airdrop.

NOTEWORTHY READS

Balaji’s read on the Bitcoin ETF.
Yuga.eth’s read on a new chapter in financial history.
Blockchain Capital’s read on the lackluster pace of innovation in FinTech.

ethereum pumping is usually indicative that we are in the last inning of the cycle. happens every single time. its never cool to convert into stables until after the market makes you shit your pants.
— hentai avenger (@hentaiavenger66)
12:25 AM • Jan 11, 2024

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