portfolio

Jan 25 2021

Overstock Converts Blockchain Subsidiary Medici Ventures to a Fund, Enlists VC Firm Pelion Venture Partners to Manage

Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK) has migrated Medici Ventures to a limited partnership while enlisting Pelion Venture Partners to act as the general partner of the fund. Medici oversees a number of blockchain-focused ventures including tZero. Overstock will be a limited partner in the fund.

Shares in Overstock jumped in after-hours trading following the news. Investors may be encouraged that Overstock will now be able to focus on its core mission of excelling in the eCommerce sector.

Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock, issued the following statement:

“Blockchain technology represents a leap forward in fundamentally changing the way we interact and transact with each other. Since 2014, we have made investments in and advocated on behalf of companies advancing blockchain technology. We remain bullish on blockchain technology but are changing the way we interact with these assets. As we evaluated how to create the highest return for our shareholders, we determined it is time to partner with a seasoned venture capital firm to oversee the portfolio and make follow-on investment decisions. Pelion is the perfect firm to do this. It has blockchain and technology expertise with early-stage companies and has helped guide many companies to economic success.”

Pelion Ventures founder and general partner Blake Modersitzki stated:

“We are honored Overstock selected us to maximize the value of its blockchain assets. Many of these companies have real potential. We believe our team knows how to help them reach that potential.”

After closing, the Pelion entity will have sole authority and responsibility regarding investing decisions, appointing board members of the portfolio companies, and exercising all shareholder rights for assets Medici Ventures currently holds. The Fund is expected to have an eight-year life and a total capital commitment of $45 million. The Fund will return invested capital to Overstock first and then split profits on successful exits as set forth in the Fund’s Limited Partnership Agreement. The Fund will hold a significant minority ownership stake in tZERO Group, Inc. and Overstock will retain a direct minority equity interest in tZERO.

Johnson said they have been looking for a way to maximize the value of these assets for shareholders.

Medici Ventures will discontinue providing software development and design services to its portfolio companies. Overstock said it will continue to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for products purchased on its website.

To further discuss the impact of this decision, a conference call and webcast has been scheduled for 8:30am ET on Tuesday, January 26, 2021.

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Jan 22 2021

YIELD App, Created by Fintech and Cybersecurity Experts, to Expand its DeFi focused Digital Banking Solution to Avalanche

YIELD App is getting ready to expand its decentralized finance (DeFi) banking solution to Avalanche.

According to a blog post published on January 22, 2021 by Ava Labs, which supports the ongoing development of Avalanche, a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-focused platform and project, this new integration will allow YIELD users to more easily gain access to new opportunities within Avalanche’s evolving DeFi ecosystem so they can “maximize their crypto returns.”

As confirmed in the update, the YIELD App will be expanding to Avalanche following the completion of the integration during the second quarter of this year. The initiative will aim to take advantage of the “rapid growth of opportunities” in Avalanche’s DeFi ecosystem.

As noted in the announcement:

“YIELD App is led by an experienced team of capital markets, Fintech, cybersecurity, and crypto professionals, and adheres to internationally recognized standards under global financial, regulatory, and licensing best practices.”

The YIELD App’s main product combines two major components its team believes were not found in the majority of DeFi apps. They include a “proprietary” portfolio management engine on the back-end and a digital banking and wealth management app on the front-end.

By leveraging all these capabilities, the app can regularly monitor and assess/evaluate the overall profitability of strategies across the DeFi space, such as liquidity mining, arbitrage, liquidations, margin and collateralized lending, and various other income-generating methods.

It employs an advanced risk management solution, allowing consumers to “achieve their optimal risk/reward ratio.”

YIELD App users are able to generate a “minimum of 12% APY and up to 20% APY–returns are maximized by eliminating gas fees and paying interest daily,” the announcement noted.

Tim Frost, CEO of YIELD App, stated:

“DeFi’s growth has been undeniable, but in order to bring it into the mainstream, hybrid crypto financial services providers, DeFi project owners, and innovators must collaborate to build better, more accessible products and services. This collaboration with Avalanche provides an opportunity for YIELD App to work with a best-in-class DeFi protocol developer and blockchain pioneer to make it easier for all investors to acquire digital assets and participate in DeFi services.”

YIELD App’s user-friendly application and web platform allow users across the globe to generate fairly high returns from various DeFi products “without having to go through a lengthy, complex, and often costly learning process.”

YIELD provides an investment fund that’s managed by a team with considerable experience in the Fintech and cybersecurity space.

As noted in the update, at “the core of its strategy is the YLD token, which rewards community members and allows them to boost their APY from 12% to 20%.”

As previously reported, Avalanche is an open-source platform for creating DeFi apps and enterprise-grade blockchain or DLT deployments in “one interoperable, highly scalable ecosystem.” Software engineers who create solutions on Avalanche are reportedly able to develop robust, reliable, and highly-secure software and customized DLT networks with “complex rulesets” or build on various private or public subnets (sub-networks).

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Jan 15 2021

Bitcoin vs. Altcoins: A Lopsided Battle

Investors often ask me why I focus so much on bitcoin instead of altcoins.

I get why people ask this question. Bitcoin is already huge. And many investors assume they’ve already missed the boat, so they want to find the next bitcoin.

Here’s the thing. Most people still don’t realize just how far ahead bitcoin is in this race. Bitcoin was built to serve as an alternative financial system. It is already fulfilling this purpose.

People around the world buy bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and reckless monetary policy. In Venezuela, where hyperinflation runs rampant, bitcoin has become a major part of the economy. Many citizens choose to store their savings in bitcoin rather than the bolivar. And they only convert bitcoin to bolivars when they need to buy something.

The map below, which is part of an excellent piece of research by Coindesk, shows volume on peer-to-peer bitcoin trading platform LocalBitcoins compared to GDP (the larger the bubble, the more peer-to-peer trading volume, adjusted for size of the overall economy).

As you can see, Venezuela leads the world in peer-to-peer bitcoin trading volume (adjusted for GDP). It’s no coincidence that the country also has the highest inflation rate.

And if you haven’t read the 2019 New York Times article “Bitcoin Has Saved My Family” yet, I recommend it. Here’s an excerpt:

I keep all of my money in Bitcoin. Keeping it in bolívars would be financial suicide: The last time I checked, the rate of daily inflation was around 3.5 percent.

So bitcoin’s usefulness is not hypothetical. It’s very real.

Now let’s briefly talk about liquidity. Bitcoin is by far the most liquid cryptocurrency around the world. In almost every country, you can convert bitcoin into local currency through either official exchanges or peer-to-peer platforms. Its impressive trading volume is what makes institutional buying possible (more on that here).

And when it comes to security, the bitcoin network also stands apart. No other coin has nearly as much computing power securing it. Some estimate that the Bitcoin network currently uses around .21% of the world’s electricity. Yes, that’s a lot. But securing a decentralized financial system is no small task.

Bitcoin is also far more decentralized than 99% of altcoin projects. There are hundreds of thousands of mining machines and nodes operating around the world. There’s no central authority controlling the supply. I believe this will become increasingly important as the market digests the SEC’s recent actions against Ripple (XRP).

Altcoins: (Mostly) Unrealized Potential, For Now

Altcoins, meanwhile, are still speculative investments without much real world utility. There’s nothing wrong with that — but we should recognize it. None comes close to bitcoin in terms of fulfilling their stated purpose.

Ethereum — the second largest crypto — does have a fair amount of real world utility. The Ethereum network has serious potential to provide decentralized finance (DeFi) applications in the future. But today, it’s still mostly used to facilitate the creation of and investment in other coins/tokens.

Eventually, whether it’s in five years or 30, it’s likely that some new coin will come and give bitcoin a real run for its money. But I don’t expect it to happen any time soon. I see bitcoin continuing to build on its lead in liquidity, utility, security and infrastructure for years to come.

To be clear, I’m not saying altcoins aren’t worth researching and investing in. There’s certainly money to be made in altcoins in this environment. And some altcoins will inevitably outperform BTC for periods. But there’s a heck of a lot more risk with alts. When bitcoin “crashes,” altcoins often go down 2x as much, or more.

Bitcoin should form the core of any crypto portfolio. It’s the most likely, by far, to see continued upward momentum. It’s the only crypto I see as a true inflation hedge. If you want to add in some high quality altcoins, great. Just be careful, do your research and limit your position sizing.

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Jan 12 2021

Lending Data Fintech dv01 Acquires Pragmic Technologies, Closes $6 Million Series B

dv01 has acquired Pragmic Technologies, according to a note from the company. The acquisition follows a $6 million series B3 financing round led by Pivot Investment Partners and joined by new strategic investor, AGNC Ventures, LLC, an affiliate of AGNC Investment Corp. (Nasdaq: AGNC), a residential mortgage REIT with over $97 billion in assets. dv01’s total financing to date stands at $34 million, with past investors including Quantum Strategic Partners Ltd., Jefferies Financial Group Inc., OCA Ventures, Illuminate Financial Management, Ribbit Capital, and Regions Financial Corp.

dvo1 explains that Pragmic’s algorithms will provide investors with intra-month performance insights on agency MBS (mortgage backed securities), helping investors better optimize their portfolio management and hedging processes in a market that trades $65 trillion a year. dv01 will also be able to combine its understanding of loan-level data within securitizations with proprietary analytics to provide ESG ratings for structured products.

dv01 is a top Fintech providing deep data on the online lending sector. Pragmic Technologies is an early-stage company that is “reimagining” data infrastructure of the agency MBS market.

Charlie Oshman and Memo Sanchez, Pragmic Technologies’ founders and co-founders of commercial real estate data analytics company Reonomy, will join dv01.

“Unlocking real-time performance data in agency MBS will be a massive paradigm shift for a market that trades $65 trillion a year,” said dv01 Founder and CEO Perry Rahbar. “With this acquisition, we are at the forefront of building a proprietary data infrastructure that will significantly enhance our offerings across all structured products, in addition to agency MBS.”

dvo1 notes that the market for data-driven ESG investments has surpassed $40 trillion. With the addition of Pragmic Technologies, dv01 will be in a better position to combine its understanding of loan-level data within securitizations, with external data sources and proprietary analytics to work with partners to provide the first true ESG ratings for structured products.

Oshman called dv01 the ideal partner to “revolutionize the agency market.”

“With our combined resources, we will provide unmatched market transparency and quickly develop a dominant agency MBS business line to complement dv01’s non-QM, consumer unsecured and student loan coverage.”

Source

Dec 31 2020

Paybito Announces Plans to Double Workforce During 2021’s First Quarter

U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange PayBito recently announced it plans to double its workforce across multiple locations worldwide, with the hiring to take place throughout the first quarter of 2021. PayBito reported that it is expanding its operations and intending to employ professionals with strong knowledge and background to fit in numerous job roles.

“PayBito focuses on aligning clients with their latest technological innovations to help develop a foundation for smart business, thereby seeking highly knowledgeable professionals to help them achieve the same.”

PayBito also noted that with multiple exclusive features for traders to experience digital assets trading, it has consistently expanded its portfolio and diversified trading options to drive crypto adoption worldwide.

“PayBito has also recently experienced a prompt the rise in its number of franchise owners worldwide in the last quarter of this year. The exchange has plans to add at least 5 emerging coins in the first quarter of 2021. It is this collaborative approach towards promoting emerging crypto assets that adds impetus to the mainstream adoption of crypto.”

Founded in 2017, PayBito reported its platform is designed by a team with rich experience in Banking security systems, Cryptocurrency trading, and Blockchain technology. PayBito notably offers the cryptocurrency exchange interface that functions under the brand name of the company participating in the affiliate program. The exchange order book has all the offers that are visible on the PayBito platform, including offers from other global trading platforms and other PayBito affiliates.

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