The Merkle

From Carl Icahn to Bill Ackman, and Elliott Management LLC, activist investing has been one of the most alpha generating strategies of all time. Few know that many such opportunities still exist in the digital assets space, with securitised tokens (equity/debt-like claims) trading far below net asset value. In a recent liquidation of a project, some tokenholders redeemed for a 10x multiple on money. 

I speak with Dio of Patagon Management, who walks us through some opportunities he is involved in. 

00:40 Introduction

03:19 How to negotiate and communicate with projects

05:51 Dealing with legal

08:52 Are there still opportunities for $ in RFV? 

11:24 Other investing strategies: Macro

14:07 Where does Crypto fit in a multi-polar world? 

19:30 Arbitrage Opportunities in Crypto

25:16 Aragon team and investors are communicating

30:14 Dio’s Crystal Ball Ask 

Patagon Management LLC: https://twitter.com/patagonllc

Diogenes' Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiogenesCasares

Diogenes' Medium: https://diogenescasares.medium.com/

Heard of Dewi/Proof of physical work? I'm kickstarting the merkle series again with Sal from EV3, forerunner in the decentralized physical infra space.

Sal's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DAnconia_Crypto

EV3 Ventures: https://ev3.xyz/

Today we have Sam Bronstein and Jordan Stastny of Alastor, the ex-Qatalyst duo, talk about their experience in Mergers and Acquisitions and how the Web3 M&A landscape might evolve. We discuss Uniswap’s fee switch, NFT marketplaces, DAO accounting.

0:50 Introduction to Alastor

06:30 Overfunding precedes consolidation?

07:38 Sectors to look for M&A

11:45 The accounting and financial reporting problem in Web3

13:20 Directional trends and theses for M&A

20:23 Uniswap V3’s business strategy

29:19 NFT marketplace strategy

31:15 Will M&A in Web3 be like traditional markets?

35:12 Reaching out to Alastor

Lauren Stephanian is Partner at Pantera Capital, a 4.5 billion AUM fund that has been focused on digital assets since 2013. As one of the earliest institutional asset managers to establish a venture arm, Pantera has made over 100s of venture investments, including Alchemy, 1inch, Amber Group, Balancer, and more. Lauren is also the co-founder of TLC collective investment network. We discuss the dos and don’ts of tokenomics design, venture investing as a skillset, and the web3 gender gap.

0:34 Lauren’s crypto journey

2:20 Focus areas

2:45 Getting token distribution right

7:55 Investor’s take: token or equity deals?

9:10 Is venture capital a commoditized business?

10:43 What sort of founder Lauren looks out for

11:55 How can someone be a better venture investor?

14:33 Outlook for data sector in Web3

17:13 Encouraging female participation in Web3

20:07 What Lauren is excited about in Web3

21:06 Lauren’s crystal ball

22:30 Trading vs Venture Capital investing

Darryl Wang is the co-founder of tangent.xyz, the premiere Web3 Angel Collective. Darryl was previously a Principal at DeFiance Capital and has personally backed several notable crypto projects. If you’re curious about his journey from traditional Investment Banking into Crypto and how he evaluates his venture investments today, don’t miss this one out. 

00:19 Introduction

02:24 Darryl’s Investing Framework

07:38 Determing when to sell

13:26 Assessing crypto narratives today

17:41 Transitioning to Tangent.xyz 

21:52 What Tangent looks out for in projects

25:33 Assessing founder capability

30:43 White spaces in crypto

36:29 Darryl’s Crystal ball ask

The smartest people live on Crypto Twitter. Ever wondered how the anons do it? DCF talks about metrics based investing, finding value on discounted assets, trading narratives and more. He also walks us through specific examples of projects he’s invested in. Lots of alpha dropping on this one.

My goal for @themerkle is to have in-depth conversations to learn from the people at the forefront of investing and building. If you like what you’re hearing, give us a sub. 

00:35 DCF’s background

07:00 What’s interesting in the market

09:25 Investing in book value/ The RFV meme

14:20 Do your communities and network give you an edge?

17:02 Catching and trading narratives

22:52 DCF’s long term theses for Web3

27:42 How to pick winners/metrics-based investing

38:07 Evaluating teams

40:33 DCF’s crystal ball ask

Today we’re speaking with Kevin Zhou from Galois Capital, previously head of trading for Kraken Digital Asset Exchange. Kevin has been running Galois for over 5 years and has made inciting views over the possibility of an Ethereum fork during the merge, and was one of the few investors who called the LUNA collapse. In this episode, we dive deeper into his experiences and how he formulated his framework for trading and investing

00:21 Introduction

02:20 Kevin’s experience in Kraken

04:30 Starting Galois

09:38 Kevin on schooling

11:16 Kevin’s model for assessing crypto projects

17:53 Innovation cycles in crypto

20:12 Macro cycles in crypto

24:40 Learning from greco-roman history

32:51 Assessing incentives to forecast the future

37:12 What would Kevin want to know from a Crystal ball?