SkyBridge Bitcoin Review

When Elon Musk tweeted environmental concerns about Bitcoin in June, sparking the crypto market correction, it was his friend Dorsey who slid into the comments to push back. The playful exchange culminated in today's "The B Word" event, where Elon, Jack and Cathie Wood will engage in dialogue on Bitcoin. Dorsey's Square and Wood's ARK Invest previously collaborated on a white paper about Bitcoin's potential to catalyze a green energy revolution. They'll be joined today by someone who can help with that cause.

The Twitter co-founder's profile on the social media platform is one word: #Bitcoin. At the recent Bitcoin 2021 conference, he said "Bitcoin changes absolutely everything. I don’t think there’s anything more important in my lifetime to work on.” This week Dorsey announced Square will launch an entirely new Bitcoin business focused on creating an "open developer platform" to make it easer to provide non-custodial, decentralized financial services. The initiative will feature “open roadmap, open development and open source.”

Square's CashApp was the first mainstream fintech app to enable Bitcoin trading (in January 2018). Square became the second publicly traded company to buy Bitcoin on its corporate balance sheet, when it purchased $50 million BTC in October 2020, which it followed with a $170 million add-on investment in February 2021. Bitcoin has been big business for Square. In its Q1 earnings report, Square reported $3.5 billion in Bitcoin revenue, up 11 times year over year, although profit from that business was only $75 million. Dorsey, however, doesn't appear keen on centralizing operations or profiting further on Square's Bitcoin business. In fact, he is actively working to push Bitcoin back to its open-source roots. Last week, we reported on Square's decision to make a hardware wallet for Bitcoin, in hopes of making self-custody easier for users of the network.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

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Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing. Developed, created and produced by SALT Venture Group, LLC. 

Cryptocurrency firm Circle announced last week it plans to become a public company by merging with a SPAC, Concord Acquisition Corp, backed by former Barclays executive Bob Diamond. The deal values the company at $4.5 billion and includes $415 in PIPE financing. In its prior round, Circle had raised $440 million, bringing its total its war chest to $1.1 billion.

Circle is the entity behind USDC, the fast-growing stablecoin. While concerns about the reserves and transparency of Tether persist, USDC has grown by 3,400% in 2021 alone. There are now $25 billion USDC in circulation, up from $1 billion a year ago, and according to recent disclosures, Circle projects circulation of nearly $200 billion by the end of 2023. The company sees its total long-term addressable market is the entire global money supply, or $130 trillion.

Right now, USDC is only Circle's second-highest grossing business line behind treasury and transaction services, where it counts Dapper Labs and FTX among its biggest customers. But CEO Jeremy Allaire sees the stablecoin as its defining franchise. In addition to using the fresh capital to scale the business, he sought a public listing in order to increase the level of transparency around USDC. As opposed to Tether, which still has yet to be fully audited, USDC will provide a transparent look into the composition of its reserves with every SEC public filing, offering the same level of scrutiny of any bank or payments company.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

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Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing. Developed, created and produced by SALT Venture Group, LLC. 

In this week's episode of SALT's Bitcoin Review, SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci and president Brett Messing discuss how NYDIG continues to lead the way in enabling Bitcoin adoption through a series of strategic partnerships. NYDIG previously struck a deal with digital banking services provider Q2 to bring Bitcoin buying capabilities to more than 18 million consumers. Prior to that, NYDIG partnered with global payments company Fiserv, digital banking service provider Alkami and fintech company FIS to enable native Bitcoin buying in integrated accounts.

NYDIG was back at it last week, announcing a deal to with enterprise payments behemoth NCR to enable Bitcoin services for 650 banks and credit unions in the U.S. The partnership will open Bitcoin buying capabilities to another 24 million customers. NCR is also reportedly contemplating integration of Bitcoin payment services for its nearly 200,000 retail clients. This week, NYDIG announced another partnership, with digital payments service provider Allied Payment Network, to allow its customers to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin. As part of the partnership, Allied is making an allocation to Bitcoin in its corporate treasury. Now with its own custody solution, NYDIG provides end-to-end Bitcoin services.

Large asset management firms also continue to dive into crypto. Soros Fund Management, with assets-under-management of around $27 billion, is now actively trading digital assets after studying the space for several years. The firm had previously participated in a $200 million funding round for NYDIG. Steve Cohen's Point72 Asset Management, with AUM exceeding $22 billion, is now also actively looking to hire a "head of crypto" after previously saying in a May client letter that "it's too early to say what paths we will ultimately pursue and when" but that "we would be remiss to ignore a now $2 trillion cryptocurrency market."

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hqBetBKRUfM

Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing. Developed, created and produced by SALT Venture Group, LLC. 

In this week's episode of SkyBridge Bitcoin Review, SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci, president Brett Messing, and guest William Clemente discuss the recent correction in Bitcoin’s hash power due to China's crypto crackdown.

Bitcoin's hash rate refers to the magnitude of computer processing power contributed to the network through mining. Historically, Bitcoin's price and hash power have correlated, without strong evidence of which is the leading indicator. As price grows, mining rewards become greater, but as hash power grows, the difficulty of obtaining mining rewards also grows. After Bitcoin's recent price drawdown, we are now seeing an even more dramatic correction in hash power, stemming largely from China's crypto crackdown.

The Bitcoin network is currently going through an important transition. Only last month, an estimated 70% of global hash power emanated from Chinese miners. However, following China's recent aggressive crackdown on all things crypto, more than 90% of Chinese Bitcoin mining has already gone offline. Mining equipment is quickly being shipped to foreign locales, ranging from North America to Kazakhstan, but the short-term effect on hash power has been dramatic.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

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Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing.

SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci and president Brett Messing discuss why China’s recent crypto ban is different than their last attempt in 2017 and what it means for Bitcoin’s hash rate.

On Monday, The People's Bank of China (PBoC) issued a statement saying it summoned a meeting of leading domestic banks and mobile payment providers, asking them to more closely monitor whether their services are being using for illegal peer-to-peer crypto transactions. The PBoC said the growth of crypto unbalanced the Chinese financial system, boosting illegal capital flight and money laundering. Since the shutdown orders in late May, Bitcoin hash rate has fallen by around 30%, while Bitcoin's price is down around 20%. Mining companies operating in China have already began relocating operations, including to the United States.

In 2017, China "banned" crypto, decreeing that no financial institution should provide banking or settlement services for crypto trading or transactions, but crypto trading continued to take place on over-the-counter (OTC) exchanges and Bitcoin mining proliferated to the point that nearly 70% of global hash rate emanated from China.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-47Kt6jG8xg

Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing.

SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci and president Brett Messing discuss El Salvador's proposal to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, MicroStrategy borrowing another $500 million to buy BTC, Square’s $5 million investment into solar-powered Bitcoin mining facility.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ezu_n5UT5v8

Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing.

SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci and president Brett Messing will discuss Carl Icahn's change of heart of crypto, Apple's move into alternative payments, global regulation of crypto and the specter of rising inflation.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xTZnppeIiFY

Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing.

SkyBridge managing director John Darsie and former China Investment Corporation (CIC) executive Winston Ma discuss what China's crypto crackdown means for Bitcoin.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dVFeaZEc7ag

Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing.

SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci and president Brett Messing will discuss their views on the recent Elon Musk-Bitcoin drama.

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Registration for SALT New York is now open! Join us September 13-15, 2021 and sign up at https://register.salt.org/event/411f76d9-c215-4719-9bc4-8dfac6cfacdd/summary

Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yJg3WHhmyLE

Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci, John Darsie and Brett Messing.