The Pomp Letter

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 175,000 other investors today.

To investors,

Elon Musk couldn’t contain himself over the weekend. He doubled and tripled down on his chaos-inducing perspective from last week. The story is getting rather complex, but simplistically here is where we were going into the weekend:

* Elon Musk held no bitcoin for the first 10+ years of the digital currency’s existence.

* Tesla announced they had purchased about $1.5 billion of bitcoin in Q1 2021 for their balance sheet. The company also began to accept bitcoin as payment for Tesla cars.

* Rumors later surfaced that Elon Musk personally bought bitcoin, along with SpaceX as well. 

* Tesla announces that it had sold approximately 10% of its bitcoin to test market liquidity in the latest earnings call. 

* Last week, Elon Musk posted a statement saying that Tesla would not be accepting bitcoin for payments anymore amid energy consumption concerns.

* Tesla also made it clear that they had not sold their bitcoin and did not plan to do that either.

Now it is important to understand a few things before we go any further. The bitcoin community accepted Elon Musk with open arms when he announced that he was purchasing the digital currency for Tesla’s balance sheet. “Accepted” is probably too conservative of a term, frankly. Bitcoiners were jumping up and down. Another meme lord had finally capitulated and realized that they must join us on our path to global dominance. What was not to like about this new development?

Well, it turns out quite a bit. 

All hell broke loose this weekend on Twitter. Elon Musk started Saturday off with suggestions on how to improve the technical efficiency of Dogecoin.

For those who have been around for a while, this type of proposal immediately triggered numerous red flags. It could have been Musk’s obvious lack of understanding in the popularity of Dogecoin. His suggestion that there were any technical issues with the crypto asset is an immediate sign that he didn’t realize that most blocks weren’t even close to being full of transactions. It also could have been the common, yet inaccurate, suggestion from newcomers that the block size (how many transactions can be processed in a single block on a blockchain) should be improved.

The community already had a heated block size debate years ago. The winning strategy ended up being keeping smaller block sizes and pursing scaling solutions on layer 2 of a blockchain. But as if these ridiculous issues weren’t enough, Musk had to kick the hornet’s nest one more time. 

On Sunday, he responded to a rather thoughtful and rational Twitter thread from my friend Peter McCormick with this comment:

It is one thing to say dumb things. It is another thing to say those dumb things to someone like Peter who is well respected and liked in the bitcoin community. The difference here is that Elon Musk wasn’t just kicking any hornets nest. He was kicking the hornets nest of the most engaged, passionate audience in the world. And the bitcoin community didn’t disappoint. 

As they began to berate one of the richest men in the world with tweets and memes, Elon dug his heels in. He couldn’t help himself. He had to show that as a billionaire, he had the answers. The plebs couldn’t possibly understand more than him. This insecurity from Musk led to his attempt at credentialism:

Obviously, the plebs of bitcoin were not only unimpressed, but this kicked up the online battle even further. One of the world’s elites being absolutely torched online by pseudonymous accounts, meme’d to death by amateur meme lords, and my personal favorite “double doge dare” from yours truly:

That should give you enough of the play-by-play on what happened. As this was all playing out, the price of bitcoin was falling off a cliff. First it went sub-$50,000. Then it went sub-$47,000. Then sub-$45,000. Eventually it seemed to bottom out around $42,000. While this was happening, one thought kept going through my head:

This entire event was the equivalent of one of the world’s wealthiest people waging a direct attack on bitcoin. Last week, he went after the security of the network by challenging the validity of proof-of-work mining. This weekend, he went after the utility of the asset, along with taking elementary shots at the community surrounding the asset. These weren’t sophisticated attacks, nor well coordinated ones. They were just public narrative attacks that had serious ramifications.

Ultimately, this will all be futile though. Elon Musk was quickly accepted into the bitcoin community with open arms weeks ago. He will be encouraged to leave just as quickly if he keeps acting foolish. The thing that people don’t realize is that true bitcoiners don’t care who you are, what school you went to, how much money you have, or who your parents were. Either you understand bitcoin and are here to further the assets’ ascension to global adoption….or you don’t.

If you’re here to participate in the community, you’re welcomed. Mi casa, su casa. If you don’t get it and are here to be adversarial, bitcoiners will destroy your ability to mess with the network and the asset. This is what we are seeing with Elon Musk. He kicked the hornet’s nest and the “cyber hornets” stung back. The thing is that Elon is likely too prideful to continue to hold bitcoin if he is going to be constantly berated by the community. 

Here was his response to a question along these lines:

Many people have been texting and calling me to ask what I think about this entire situation. While I have no inside knowledge, my general take is that bitcoin is bigger than any one person or organization. It was great to have Elon Musk, one of the world’s greatest innovators, along for the ride with us. But the second that he hinted at being anti-bitcoin, it was apparent that he would be chewed up and spit out. That is what we are watching in real-time. 

Now Musk did take the time to clarify this morning that Tesla has not sold any of their bitcoin after last week’s announcement.

Don’t listen to what they say. Just watch what they do with their money. Elon Musk and Tesla understand that they are going to be dependent on bitcoin moving forward. It wouldn’t surprise me if they are actually buying more bitcoin now at depressed prices or at least plan to purchase more in the future.

With that said, here is my big takeaway — this is the perfect reminder to all of us in the bitcoin community. The celebrities, the athletes, the musicians, the billionaires, and the entrepreneurs don’t matter nearly as much as we all like to think. There are no gods among us. This journey requires billions of people to come together and protect their wealth with the soundest money the world has ever seen. No one is worth worshipping in that mission. I’m just as guilty as anyone else. But we must remember this lesson as we continue moving forward.

Bitcoin was never about Elon Musk. It won’t be about Elon Musk moving forward either. He will ultimately be a mere distraction on the path to the inevitable. Don’t get distracted. Simply, there is nowhere else to go if you understand how the world works right now. The dollar and other fiat currencies are being absolutely destroyed. Wall Street legends like Stanley Druckenmiller are going on national television saying they don’t believe the U.S. dollar will be the global reserve currency in 15 years and that the Federal Reserve is the greatest cause of wealth inequality in the last decade.

If you can’t hold the dollar, what else can you hold? Real estate? Stocks? Bonds? Commodities? They are all underperforming bitcoin. Bitcoin remains the apex predator of financial markets. It is continuing to gain adoption, which can be seen by wallet addresses, trading volumes, on-chain transactions, hash rate, and registered users at various platforms. Bitcoin is winning. It is winning despite the billionaires and Wall Street bankers. 

The bitcoin community remains our strongest asset. Ferociously protecting and defending the strongest computing network in the world. It doesn’t matter if the attack is coming from a shitcoiner, a nation state, or a billionaire. They are all on the wrong side of history. Remind yourself today why we are here. It isn’t for some unimportant mission. It is for one thing — to see bitcoin become the global store of value. We are well on our way to that end state, but this weekend was a quick reminder that even the wealthiest people in the world still don’t understand exactly how important this technology is.

What a time to be alive. There is nothing else I’d rather be working on. Appreciating each and every one of you more than usual this morning. Hope you have a great start to your week. Talk tomorrow. 

-Pomp

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THE RUNDOWN:

Jack Dorsey Says Bitcoin Changes Everything ‘For the Better’: Square Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said Friday that the payment processing company would “forever work” to make Bitcoin better. Bitcoin changes everything “for the better,” Dorsey said in a tweet in an apparent response to Square Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja who said the company’s strategy with the cryptocurrency hasn’t changed.Read more.

Scaramucci Calls Bitcoin Crypto’s ‘Apex Predator,’ Defends Drop: Bitcoin is still the cryptocurrency to own even as it struggles in recent weeks while altcoins surge, said Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital. It’s still nearly impossible to convince investors to own Bitcoin, Scaramucci said, but he advises people to hold at least a bit since it’s the only cryptocurrency that’s achieved “escape velocity.” Read more.

Dapper Labs Sued on Allegations NBA Top Shot Moments Are Unregistered Securities: Dapper Labs, the developer of NBA Top Shot, is being sued for allegedly selling the non-fungible tokens as unregistered securities. NBA Top Shot is a blockchain-based digital collectibles platform that allows users to buy, sell and trade video highlights, called moments, as NFTs. Demand for the product has exploded this year, and Dapper is reportedly raising new funding at a $7.5 billion valuation. Read more.

Ethereum Founder’s $1 Billion Gift Rocks Shiba Coin Traders: A memecoin invaded the world of philanthropy this week, bringing with it extreme price volatility and bewildering questions about whether $1 billion worth of a joke cryptocurrency can hold its value. Sandeep Nailwal, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur from New Delhi, set up the India Covid Crypto Relief Fund about three weeks ago after witnessing firsthand deaths caused by a lack of oxygen at the hospitals he volunteered in, as the country battled a devastating health crisis. At first, donations came trickling in, raising roughly $7.5 million up until the middle of this week. Read more.

Ransomware Attacks Growing More Profitable: Chainalysis: Ransomware attackers are growing more dangerous, more sophisticated and sharply more profitable in extracting crypto from their victims, according to on-chain data reviewed by Chainalysis. In a new report, the blockchain analytics firm said ransomware-linked addresses have banked at least $81 million in crypto this year after amassing a record $406 million in 2020. Chainalysis suspects the true toll is far higher. New addresses frequently pop up, and victim corporations often keep their ransomware run-ins under wraps. Read more.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Joshua Browder is the co-founder and CEO of DoNotPay, the world's first robot lawyer. He fundamentally believes in using the internet to empower the average consumer to defend their rights.

In this conversation, Joshua and I discuss:

* DoNotPay’s product development

* Company growth

* Robinhood of the Internet

* Regulatory pushback

* Credit dispute letters

* HOA products

* Photo ninja

* Angel investing

I really enjoyed this conversation with Joshua. Hopefully you enjoy it too.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

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* Cosmos is building the Internet of Blockchains, marking a new era of interoperability, scalability, and usability. The free flow of assets and data between blockchains with bridges to Ethereum and Bitcoin will unleash the potential of DeFi, NFTs, and much more. Dive into Cosmos at cosmos.network/pomp

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

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You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

Will Clemente breaks down the volatility from this week using on-chain metrics to separate the signal from the noise. You can follow Will on Twitter or sign up for his email by clicking here. Here is Will’s analysis:

Hope you are all doing well and had a great week. At the time of writing, BTC sits at $50,312 after hitting a weekly high of $59,592 on Monday and low of $46,000 on Wednesday. Previous letters described a bullish setup, which still holds true based on fundamental investor activity. However, Wednesday’s events may have put a damper on how immediate the end of this consolidation may come.  We have a lot to discuss so let’s get straight into it. 

Let us first cover the elephant in the room: the Elon dump. Firstly, there were 19,259 BTC moved onto exchanges before Elon’s tweet and ensuing price dump. I do not think this is coincidence and was likely someone with insider information.

Elon’s tweet regarding the energy use of Bitcoin at 6:06PM EST initiated a cascade of long liquidations, including $208M within a 10-minute period. This cascade of liquidations is why the price dump down to $46,000 was so aggressive. 

It’s very interesting to see inflows to exchanges (presumed selling) spike in the time before the tweet, followed by net outflows ramping up after the event. This data makes a strong case for someone having insider information. Would be quite a coincidence to say the least.

Speaking of exchange flows, one of the largest exchange outflows of the year took place amidst all the panic. OTC outflows also spiked during the dip; it appears big money bought the fear.

Roughly $460,000,000 of Tether was printed following the sell off. In the chart below showing net transfer volume, over $650,000,000 of Tether was moved onto exchanges Thursday. Tether does not always signal instant buys, but capital is on exchanges waiting to be deployed.

Short term holder SOPR reset to the lowest it has been this entire bull run. This means the market was taking losses on aggregate. This metric has timed each major bottom throughout the bull run. This metric along with funding rates going negative signals to me that we are very close to the bottom, if we have not reached one already. 

As just mentioned, funding rates went negative Wednesday night for the first time in almost a month. This means traders were seeking to go short on aggregate and shorts began funding longs. Funding rates are a good way to gage sentiment of traders. Negative funding rates show they were scared to go long on aggregate. However, funding rates came back rather quickly, unlike anything I have seen in previous corrections.  

Some silver lining of the event is that leveraged traders getting wiped out. Roughly $1.8B of futures open interest was wiped out. This is always healthy for the market as price is then more influenced by organic spot buying and not speculation.

Despite the short-term price action, this still does not change broader on-chain trends for this cycle. One that we have not discussed yet in previous letters is NVT. NVT is a ratio of market cap to on-chain transactional volume. When market cap is growing faster than underlying investor activity, NVT goes up. When market cap growth is not keeping up with underlying investor activity, NVT goes down. Since January, NVT has steadily trended down. This means that this bull run is becoming less overheated as underlying investor activity continues to outpace market cap. This also is a sign of consolidation.

The number of whales (entities with balances over 1,000 BTC) is still trending down. This is not abnormal or anything to be concerned about, as whales usually begin to scale out of their positions mid-way through the bull run. In fact, in 2017 the growth of whales peaked around $675, which of course was far from the top. 

Despite the sell off from the whale cohort, entities with 100-1,000 BTC continues to trend upward, actually offsetting the decrease in the 1k-10k cohort by 86,160 BTC.

Miners still do not seem phased by short term price action and continue to accumulate as they have throughout this entire consolidation. This can be illustrated by two metrics: the first of which is miner net position change. This measures the trailing 30-day average of miner balance movements. This metric has been in the green for well over a month now.

Miner unspent supply is also still trending up and saw a spike during the sell off. 

Supply held by long-term holders seems to be ticking back up after bottoming out in late March/early April. This sign of re-accumulation is good to see after this cohort trimmed their holdings throughout October to March.

Long-term net position change illustrates a similar picture, with these entities selling off after all time highs, but now steadily accumulating throughout this consolidation for over a month now.

In conclusion, Wednesday’s event was unfortunate for short term price action, but changes nothing in the longer-term bull structure. This does not change the fact that on-chain shows BTC is still consolidating. We continue to build up a large zone of on-chain volume at these levels, shown by URPD. I remain bullish for the coming weeks.

That is it for today’s analysis. Hopefully you found this helpful. I highly suggest you subscribe to Will Clemente’s email where he breaks down on-chain metrics multiple times per week: Click here

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 160,000 other investors today.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 160,000 other investors today.

To investors,

Elon Musk posted a tweet last night that stated Tesla would be ceasing acceptance of bitcoin for any purchases. All hell broke loose almost immediately. Bitcoin was already down about 8% for the day, but the price dropped even further to under $50,000.

The reasoning for Tesla’s decision is that the company has concerns around the energy consumption needed to run the digital currency. There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s dig into it.

First, Elon Musk and Tesla did not sell any bitcoin because of these energy concerns. They explicitly stated that they are holding their bitcoin. As I always say, don’t listen to what people say. Simply watch what they do with their money. Elon Musk owns billions of dollars of bitcoin across his personal holdings, Tesla, and SpaceX. He isn’t selling that bitcoin because of this inaccurate narrative. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Next, the entire narrative of “bitcoin is bad for the environment!” is inaccurate. There is study after study that concludes bitcoin is one of the single greatest financial incentives for the world to develop and adopt renewable energy. You can read fintech firm Square’s white paper titled “Bitcoin is key to an abundant, clean energy future.”

The logic behind this claim is that bitcoin mining as a business requires an operator to find the cheapest power possible. The cost of electricity is the largest input in the business model. So in order to attain the highest levels of profitability, bitcoin miners have been running around the world to find cheap power. That usually results in the miners consuming renewable power, which is historically the lowest cost power available.

An additional point is that bitcoin miners are persistent consumers of power. This is important because a material amount of energy production around the world is wasted because there is no one to consume it in real-time and the storage of energy is still facing too many obstacles. Because of this challenge, bitcoin miners have become a preferred method for power grids to ensure that they can have a balanced grid at all times. When they have a surplus of power, they can monetize it by sending it to the bitcoin miners. In an interesting, nuanced way, the bitcoin network serves as one of the most effective batteries in the world.

When we start talking about energy consumption and bitcoin, many people will claim that miners in China predominantly use coal to mine the digital currency. That is not necessarily true either. According to Nic Carter and the team over at Coin Metrics, here are some interesting facts about power consumption and mining in China:

* Inner Mongolia was the 2nd biggest coal-powered province in china for mining, but they recently banned mining. This reduced a big portion of coal miners.

* Xinjiang, which is the last remaining mining-heavy province in China with lots of coal power, is still approximately 40-50% renewables.

* Sichuan and Yunnan, which accounts for about 50% of total hash rate during the wet season (starting this month), are almost 100% hydro-powered miners.

* There was a blackout in Xinjiang that only reduced bitcoin hash rate by 25% in the dry season. This suggests that China has lost significant market share when looking at global hash rate.

I highly suggest you follow Nic or pay attention to the research that the team puts out around this topic.

So if China’s miners are becoming more green, while also losing market share, what is happening in the rest of the world? The United States and Canada are quickly gaining market share. These countries tend to have much more renewable energy focused power grids. This leads to more renewable energy mining facilities as well.

One of my favorite examples is Great American Mining, an early stage company that is partnering with oil and gas companies to capture flare gas for use as the power source in bitcoin mining rigs. Flare gas is one of the worst things that humans do for the environment, so the fact that bitcoin miners are able to capture that waste before it harms the environment is quite interesting. Not only are they refraining from the use of coal, but they are actually preventing other industries from creating environmental destruction.

Next up in the debunking of this nonsense is the comparison of bitcoin and US dollar energy consumption. This is frankly the easiest part of the conversation. Michael Arrington posted this image on Twitter:

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the banking system has higher energy expenditure. The banking system is bigger (for now). But as Mark Cuban said yesterday, the disruption of both gold and physical coins will be a big environmentally friendly development in the world.

So now we have two billionaires that are both trying to improve the environment, yet they are viewing the role of bitcoin differently.

Another argument that you’ll hear is that the bitcoin network uses more energy than some small countries. While true, this is not some big revelation. To put it in comparison, the amount of energy used every year by Americans to run their Christmas lights is also greater than the total energy consumption of some small countries. Should we end Christmas? Maybe outlaw Christmas lights?

That is what the anti-bitcoin crowd sounds like — completely ridiculous. The truth is that small countries simply don’t use that much energy compared to many other things. That is okay. Somehow this fact never makes it into the salacious headlines used to attack bitcoin.

This leads us to what exactly could potentially be going on here in regards to Tesla’s announcement to stop accepting bitcoin because of energy concerns. My guess is that we are watching the first step in a master stroke of marketing from Elon Musk and the team. Here is what I think is about to happen:

* The company announces that they have energy concerns. (done!)

* The company creates a bitcoin mining hardware that is based on renewable power and launches it to the mass retailer.

* The company claims they are helping to push the world to a more renewable energy future, including making bitcoin more environmentally friendly.

Why do I think this? Frankly, it is intuition. I don’t have any inside information or special knowledge. Tesla is a renewable energy company that ultimately serves as a battery technology. The Powerwall is described by the company as “a home battery designed to store energy from solar or the grid, so you can use it anytime you want—at night or during an outage.”

Guess what one of the best uses for that stored power is going to be? Mining bitcoin. It can provide income for the owner of the Powerwall, including potentially paying off the purchase of the device in a relatively short period of time (under 1 year). This also would allow for Tesla to tap into a brand new segment of customers — bitcoiners — with a product that is already developed in a significant way.

It is unclear to me exactly how they would launch the product. Would it be a version of the current Powerwall that connects to an at-home miner? Would it be a new type of device? Maybe a refurbished Powerwall that is vertically integrated? No one knows. But it feels like this is all a big ploy to get into the renewable power mining business.

Long term this is smart for Tesla and Elon if that is what they are doing. Short term it causes chaos in markets. I’ve spent all morning running from CNBC to CNN to Twitter to email to text messages. Everyone asking the same questions over and over again. While it is annoying that we have to keep debunking this FUD, we do know one thing is certain – bitcoin is anti-fragile.

It has been attacked over and over again for 12 years. The digital currency continues to survive each attack. In fact, it continues to thrive despite the attacks. The $1 trillion asset can’t be stopped by any one person or group. The energy conversation will once again be a small blip on the historical radar when we look back in 20 years. The end game here is inevitable in my opinion. The hardest, soundest money will win.

Hope you have a great day today. I’m having a blast learning from each of you and couldn’t imagine working on anything else. Talk tomorrow.

-Pomp

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 160,000 other investors today.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Amanda Cassatt is the CEO of Serotonin, a marketing firm and product studio for transformative technologies. She is the former Chief Marketing Officer of Consensys.

In this conversation, Amanda and I discuss:

* Brand positioning

* Public relations

* Marketing

* What most teams get wrong

* How to talk about your product

* The positive impact of marketing

I really enjoyed this conversation with Amanda. Hopefully you enjoy it too.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space. With over 100 assets supported, one-click built-in exchange, Trezor hardware wallet integration and 24/7 customer support, this is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights. Download Exodus on desktop, iOS, and Android using my code http://get.exodus.com/pomp

* Cosmos is building the Internet of Blockchains, marking a new era of interoperability, scalability, and usability. The free flow of assets and data between blockchains with bridges to Ethereum and Bitcoin will unleash the potential of DeFi, NFTs, and much more. Dive into Cosmos at cosmos.network/pomp

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

* Revolut is a finance app in the US and UK, that say they're the simplest way to access crypto. Sign up today at Revolut.com/pomp and make 3 card transactions to get $15, which you can exchange for any tokens Revolut supports. As usual, when you move your money from fiat to crypto your capital is at risk. See T&C's for details. Revolut is a financial technology company. Banking services provided by Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Member FDIC. Cryptocurrency services provided directly by Paxos Trust Company, LLC.

* Did you know nearly 338 million dollars worth of NFTs were sent last year? And in 2021 that number is growing faster than ever. Looking to make your first NFT? Check out NEAR’s fast, scalable, low-cost, open-source platform. Learn why NEAR is the infrastructure for innovation at near.org

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

Today I am announcing that I have led a $5 million Series A investment in Synthesis, which is the education spin-out from the school that Elon Musk custom built for his own children.

If you remember, I previously led the seed round of the company about two and a half months ago. Here is what I wrote about the business at the time:

“The traditional school system teaches our children rote memorization and measures success based on end of year test results. This is not the best way to prepare young children for the real world. The system leaves children lacking critical thinking skills, along with problem solving, independent thought, creativity, and teamwork experience.

Elon Musk realized this years ago and decided to build a school on the SpaceX campus for his own children. Musk partnered with Josh Dahn to create Ad Astra, which became the educational experience that he believed would be best for the children that he wanted to raise. Ad Astra (now known as Astra Nova) uses simulations, case studies, fabrication and design projects, labs, and corporate collaboratives to develop students that are enthralled by complexity and solving for the unknown.

The only problem is that the Astra Nova experience was only available to a select few families who could get into the program. But Josh Dahn, the co-creator of Astra Nova, wanted to bring this game-changing educational program to the masses.

Enter Synthesis.

Josh Dahn has teamed up with Chrisman Frank, an early employee at ClassDojo, to create a software based solution that puts children ages 7-14 through the one-of-a-kind program. These children are taught critical thinking, problem solving, leadership, creativity, independent thought, and teamwork. Simply, Synthesis prepares children for the real world in a way that the traditional education system does not.”

At the time of the seed round, Synthesis had gone from $0 to $1 million in annualized recurring revenue in approximately 3 months. Fast forward to today and the company is now doing more than $3 million in annualized recurring revenue. So why are thousands of parents signing their children up for this enhanced educational experience?

Easy…it actually works. 

The lack of critical thinking and problem solving skills being taught in our education system should be a national emergency. Rather than complain about it, the team at Synthesis is doing something about it. Josh and Chrisman have put together an incredible team, including former teachers like Ana Lorena Fabrega and others.

If you want your child to be more proficient and better prepared for the real world, you should consider signing up here: https://www.synthesis.is/

The company has been growing incredibly fast. They have seen 50% monthly compounded growth since the start of November and are now doing over $3 million in annual run rate. More than 85% of all students stay in the program after 90 days.

I’m joined in this round by a list of other incredible investors, including Sahil Lavingia, Bobby Goodlatte, Shane Parrish, Austin Rief, Polina Pompliano, Brianne Kimmel, Julian Shapiro, Steven Galanis, Kat Cole, Sam Parr, Zac Prince, Ryan Denehy, Shaan Puri, Andrew Wilkinson, Melanie Shapiro, Ryan Shea, Matt James, Matteo Franceschetti, Jack Butcher, Matthew Delladova, Jeff Richards, Andrew Spellman, Jayni Shah, John Danner, and Alan Rutledge.

We have assembled an incredible team of operators and investors with one simple mission — educate your child with the problem solving and critical thinking skills that will prepare them for success in life. If that sounds compelling to you, you really should consider giving it a try.

Sign up your child for Synthesis: https://www.synthesis.is/

The world deserves to have a society filled with innovators, entrepreneurs, and creatives. Help us, help your child. Have a great day and I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

-Pomp

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 160,000 other investors today.

THE RUNDOWN:

Coinbase Boosts Compensation, Will No Longer Negotiate During Hiring: In a series of changes affecting compensation and incentives at the cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase said it’s eliminating negotiations on salary and equity from its recruiting process. In a blog post, Coinbase also said it's increased cash and equity compensation – from the 50th percentile amongst the company's peers to the 75th – across the entire firm. Read more.

Ark Investment’s Cathie Wood Joins Board of 21Shares Parent: Ark Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood has joined the board of cryptocurrency platform Amun Holdings, the parent company of 21Shares, which specializes in exchange-traded products. Wood announced Monday she has joined Amun’s board after personally investing in the operator of 21Shares AG, according to a Bloomberg report. She met the Amun team at a conference in 2019. Read more.

Cboe Kicks Fidelity-Linked Bitcoin ETF Application to SEC: Another would-be bitcoin exchange-traded fund has taken a step toward regulatory review. Cboe BZX Exchange has filed a 19b-4 form, acknowledging its support of Wise Origin’s bitcoin ETF application and kicking the process to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Wise Origin, a fund affiliated with investment giant Fidelity, first filed for the ETF with the SEC in March. However, the SEC needs an exchange partner like Cboe or NYSE Arca to file a corresponding 19b-4 form before it will begin considering the application. Read more.

Sean Culkin, Latest NFL Player to Announce Bitcoin Salary, Cut From Chiefs: Sean Culkin, the NFL tight end who made headlines last month by planning to convert all of his salary to bitcoin, has been cut from the Kansas City Chiefs, a team spokesman confirmed to CoinDesk. Culkin was seeking to one-up Russell Okung, the NFL offensive tackle who started converting half his salary into bitcoin starting late last year. That said, Okung’s contract was for $13 million; Culkin’s was set for $920,000. Read more.

Babel Finance Raises $40M From Zoo Capital, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global: Three years after its inception, crypto financial service provider Babel Finance is racking up fundings and partnerships from major institutional investors. The startup said Monday that it has closed a $40 million Series A round, with lead investors including Zoo Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Dragonfly Capital, Bertelsmann and its Asian fund BAI Capital, and Tiger Global Management. Read more.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Chrisman Frank is the co-founder and CEO of Synthesis, a new educational experience for children aged 8-14 that focuses on teaching problem solving and critical thinking skills.

In this conversation, Chrisman and I discuss:

* Industrial education complex

* Why students are suffering

* How teachers fit into the system

* Why the old model doesn’t work

* How Synthesis works

* The current traction of the business

* What parents are saying

I really enjoyed this conversation with Chrisman. Hopefully you enjoy it too.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space. With over 100 assets supported, one-click built-in exchange, Trezor hardware wallet integration and 24/7 customer support, this is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights. Download Exodus on desktop, iOS, and Android using my code http://get.exodus.com/pomp

* Cosmos is building the Internet of Blockchains, marking a new era of interoperability, scalability, and usability. The free flow of assets and data between blockchains with bridges to Ethereum and Bitcoin will unleash the potential of DeFi, NFTs, and much more. Dive into Cosmos at cosmos.network/pomp

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

* Revolut is a finance app in the US and UK, that say they're the simplest way to access crypto. Sign up today at Revolut.com/pomp and make 3 card transactions to get $15, which you can exchange for any tokens Revolut supports. As usual, when you move your money from fiat to crypto your capital is at risk. See T&C's for details. Revolut is a financial technology company. Banking services provided by Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Member FDIC. Cryptocurrency services provided directly by Paxos Trust Company, LLC.

* Did you know nearly 338 million dollars worth of NFTs were sent last year? And in 2021 that number is growing faster than ever. Looking to make your first NFT? Check out NEAR’s fast, scalable, low-cost, open-source platform. Learn why NEAR is the infrastructure for innovation at near.org

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

The letter today is from Will Clemente, who has become one of the best bitcoin analysts in the industry in my opinion. He recently started his own, free email that I highly suggest you subscribe to receive: Click here to get Will’s work each week

He will also be joining me each week for a new Saturday podcast episode that will review the weekly on-chain metrics as well. Will is a smart, hard working guy who has a bright future. Your support of his work would mean the world to me.

Hope you are all having a great week. At the time of writing, (7:30EST 5/6) Bitcoin sits just above $56,000 after a choppy week of trading. Price is up 5.28% on the week, with the high being $58,986 and low being $52,913. Let us dive into some of the on-chain trends that are developing.

Broader Cycle Trends Worth Noting

Firstly, we will take a look at some of the broader macro trends that are still pointing to this cycle being far from overheated. One of the most accurate metrics that can be used to estimate tops is MVRV Z-Score. MVRV was created by David Puell and Murad Mahmudov, but the idea of z-scoring it came from analyst on-wonder. This metric takes a ratio of Bitcoin’s market cap and its realized cap. Realized cap can be thought of as market cap based on the time coins were last moved. For example, if someone bought $100,000 of BTC at $1 and never moved them, $100,000 would be added to realized cap, rather than $5.6B of market cap (100,000 x 56,000). Remember, price trades on the margin. After taking this ratio of market cap to realized cap, the metric is z-scored, a term meaning that it is adjusted for volatility. This gives it a more precise signal.

As you can see in the chart, the metric shows distinct cycle peaks (red zone), in addition to highlighting great buy zones during the bear market. (green zone) Contrary to a spike that would be seen during a cycle top, the metric has actually been declining over the last few weeks, thus giving it a lot of room to run. This is partially to do with market cap declining, but more importantly realized cap being up $43,545,000 since the beginning of April. This is bullish, meaning coins are moving at these higher sustained price levels, thus validating Bitcoin at these price levels. This is also supported by on-chain volume, with over 15.63% of BTC’s money supply having moved over the 1 trillion-dollar market cap threshold. 

The second macro metric I wanted to touch on this week is market cap-thermocap. This metric takes a ratio of market cap to thermocap, which is the total of all revenue generated by the network and rewarded to miners over time. In Glassnode’s words, the metric “can be used to assess if the asset's price is currently trading at a premium with respect to total security spend by miners.” Similar to MVRV, this metric gives distinct spikes at cycle tops, as well as good zones to accumulate in the bear market. We can also see this metric cooling off, another indication that this bull run has a while to go before becoming overheated.

Developments this week

One of the first things that has been attention grabbing this week is stable coin prints. In the last 10 days alone, $6,688,804,340 of Tether & USDC have been printed. Roughly $30B of stable coins have now been printed above $50,000. This is showing a lot of new demand from investors entering the crypto space. Although it is unknown exactly how much of this capital is going to buy BTC, it is at least a substantial portion.

On a side note, it cannot be denied that some of this capital is going into other cryptocurrencies. Although most exchanges’ balances are trending down, Binance’s continues to go up. In my opinion this is a good way to visualize the capital that is flowing into highly speculative altcoins. Binance is minimally regulated compared to most other exchanges like Coinbase, therefore giving them the ability to offer so many coins and having derivatives built off them. This increase could also potentially be showing higher amounts of selling coming from the East as well, although I would suspect it’s a combination of both of these factors. Over the last week, it can be assumed that at least a portion of the recent selling has been derived from traders swapping their BTC holdings into speculative altcoins to capture those gains.

So after showing the increase in stablecoin printing, I’m sure you’re asking, “this sounds great, but who in the world is selling??” In addition to traders swapping coins to speculate on altcoins, the answer is younger coins; AKA inexperienced market participants. One way to determine this is by looking at Average Spent Output Lifespan. Since February, this metric has been trending downward, meaning older coins have decreased selling pressure. This lines up with when Tesla announced their $1.5B buy, is there causation there? That’s up for you to decide, but I suspect yes. 

In regard to newer participants selling, we actually saw a cycle high in selling coming from coins that were 1 week to 1 month old recently. 

There was also a huge spike in selling that came from coins aged 1 month to 3 months on Tuesday. This is interesting because it aligns with the weekly low of $52,913 on Tuesday. 

The spike in selling of 1-3 month old coins also aligns with a large batch of 3,774 BTC ($211M at the time) that was moved onto exchanges around 8AM EST Tuesday. Perhaps this was a related event. Nonetheless, I suspect this large batch played a role in the sell-off, as price declined $3,000 after the inflow.

However, one thing is for sure. Miners are not selling, illustrated by this metric that tracks balance of all miner’s wallets. 

Not only are miners not selling, but they are actually accumulating. The miner net position change metric has now been in the green for over a month. 

In conclusion, Bitcoin continues to consolidate, coiling up like a spring. Weak-hands continue to sell to older market participants. The phenomenon of coins moving to entities that statistically have very low likelihood of selling continues to persist. 

In addition, the macro indicators show we are at a mid-way consolidation, building up a huge base of capital at these price levels. No signs of a market top are even close to flashing. HODL on. Talk to you all Monday, have a great weekend!

Cheers,

- Will

Do you want to work in the Bitcoin and crypto industry? Do you run a business that has open roles to fill? I recently launched the industry-leading job board focused on our industry. We have hundreds of open roles at companies like Coinbase, Gemini, BlockFi, and many others.

Get a Job or Post a Job here: http://www.pompcryptojobs.com

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support! Exodus, Cosmos, OKEx, Choice, Unstoppable Domains, BlockFi, Crypto.com, Public Rec, Circle, Gemini, Revolut, NEAR

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

Below is the weekly write-up from bitcoin analyst Will Clemente, where he uses on-chain metrics to explain what is happening in the bitcoin ecosystem. Hope you enjoy it.

Happy Friday, hope you all had a great week. At the time of writing, Bitcoin currently sits just above $53,600. Last week we described how price was either at a bottom or within days of reaching one based on the metrics that we looked at. Two days after the newsletter was sent out, price reached a local bottom on Sunday, retesting the key on-chain volume support zone of $47,000 before aggressively shooting back up. Let us take a look at the latest developments in on-chain data structure to develop an understanding of market participants’ behavior. 

Leverage Wipeout/Price Correction Recap

Throughout the last week we have seen a total wipeout of leverage from the Bitcoin derivatives markets. (Something also discussed in the podcast Pomp and I recently put out on Wednesday) Since all-time highs two weeks ago, futures open interest has declined by $8,912,806,107 across all major exchanges. 

In addition, we have seen a huge decline in funding rates. Funding rates are used to peg the perpetual swap to Bitcoin spot price. The perpetual swap is unique to Bitcoin, as it is a non-expiring future’s contract. The ease of access to leverage for these contracts make them very attractive to speculative traders. The way these contracts are pegged to Bitcoin price is through funding rates. When the majority of traders go long, funding rates rise, meaning longs are paying shorts to take the other side of the trade. This works the other way around as well, meaning when funding rates go negative, shorts are paying longs. In last week’s newsletter we discussed how funding rates going negative was a buy signal. Interestingly, throughout the recent price rally since Sunday’s bottom, funding rates have remained low. This means that the rally is likely driven from spot markets and not by speculators. In other words, this price rally has come from organic spot buying, making it very healthy. This is also supported by massive stable-coin flows seen on-chain.

The sell-off was also healthy for the market for another reason aside from the leverage wipeout; coins were washed from weak-hands to strong-hands. This can be illustrated by looking at metrics that describe the age of the coins being sold. These metrics showed a pattern of young-coins, AKA new market participants selling, as older market participants held strong throughout the dip and continued to accumulate. 

One metric to illustrate this is dormancy. Simplified, older coins hold more dormancy and as they are sold, dormancy rises. Throughout the drop in price, we actually saw dormancy go down, meaning old coins were not being sold and more experienced market participants held tight as they are accustomed to these huge price corrections in Bitcoin bull markets. 

Another metric to visualize this is Glassnode’s Spent Output Age Band metric. This clusters coins together by age and stacks these cohorts together to understand which types of market participants are driving selling. Throughout the drop in price, we saw a sharp spike from younger cohorts, with minimal movement in older cohorts. In this regard, the sell off was bullish, as coins were moved to stronger hands.

Throughout the sell-off we also saw miners accumulate very heavily, scooping up cheap coins and taking advantage of the dip.

On a final note regarding the sell-off, we have seen hash rate rebound dramatically, showing the resiliency of the Bitcoin network.

Broader Metrics:

More and more of Bitcoin’s supply is being locked up every day in the hands of investors that have no history of selling. This can be illustrated by Glassnode’s liquid supply metric. Glassnode clusters together addresses through blockchain forensics to determine different entities. They are then able to evaluate the selling behavior of these entities and separate them into 3 cohorts: highly liquid, liquid, and illiquid. Since the March liquidity crisis last year, there has been a strong trend of coins becoming illiquid, AKA being scooped up by strong-hands with no history of selling. 

In fact, 78.3% of Bitcoin’s supply is now considered illiquid by Glassnode, a number which has steadily increased throughout the asset’s lifespan.

The final metric I would like to present this week is URPD (UTXO Realized Price Distribution). This metric determines on-chain volume at different price levels. After rallying back above the trillion-dollar market cap threshold, (currently $53,500 but increasing as supply grows) over 14% of Bitcoin’s money supply has now moved at these levels. This shows strong validation of BTC as a legitimate macro asset and that is here to stay. This is also the strongest zone of volume seen on-chain since $11,000 last year. 

Hope this was helpful. Enjoy!

You can follow Will on Twitter: Click here

-Pomp

Do you want to work in the Bitcoin and crypto industry? Do you run a business that has open roles to fill? I recently launched the industry-leading job board focused on our industry. We have hundreds of open roles at companies like Coinbase, Gemini, BlockFi, and many others.

Get a Job or Post a Job here: http://www.pompcryptojobs.com

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes, company stock options, and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com.

* Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space, and we’ve teamed up to offer an exclusive discount for you, as listeners of the podcast. Sign up for Exodus today using my promo code http://get.exodus.com/pomp This is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights - go sign up today.

* Polymarket is the world’s leading information markets platform where you can trade on the most pressing global questions and see unbiased, real-time data on what the market thinks will happen. Will Trump launch a new social media platform? Will NFT trading volume continue to skyrocket? Head over to polymarket.com and make an account today with the referral code “Pomp.” Every Monday until May 10th, you can win $500 by participating in the #PolyWhale Twitter giveaway. Click on the link for more info.

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP10 at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors - I’m personally fascinated by the creation of new asset classes or investment types. Previously, I’ve looked at companies like Pipe, which turn a company’s recurring revenue into a tradable asset. There will be many more creations of new asset classes via technology in the coming years. One of those that appears to be interesting is information markets. Below is a write-up from Sebastian Deri and the team at Polymarket, the largest blockchain-based information markets platform. They explain what information markets are and why they’re long on this new financial asset.

Why Bet on Tokens and Stocks When You Can Bet On Events?

It’s April 2021 and you have 60% of your net worth in crypto. You’re long on BTC. You're long on ETH. But you also have some beliefs about the non-crypto world. And you want to make money off them. After months of lockdowns and masks, you think the pandemic is going to finally wind down over the summer. Travel is going to return, sports events and concerts are going to come back, and no more masks.

What do you do? A traditional strategy is to think about the companies that might benefit from that return to life and put some money on them. Since you expect air travel to return to normal maybe you expect some of the big airlines like United Airlines (UAL) to bounce back and earn higher revenues. So you try to find some mirror asset (there are none), or (worse yet) cash out of your crypto and buy some United stock on a traditional exchange. But even if you do this, your investments are subject to the million other events that affect airline stock prices. Maybe you are totally right, and flights surge upwards, but because of larger than anticipated fuel costs, United misses earnings expectations and the stock price drops further.

How do you just place a simple bet that airline travel will increase? A new asset class coming out of the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space finally lets you tie your money directly to these events rather than stocks, tokens, or other proxy agglomerations: information markets. This is a financial asset that’s tied to the outcome of a specific event. For example, here are just a few of the specific events you can trade on Polymarket:

* Will airline travel increase?

* Will NFT sales increase this month?

* Will Donald Trump launch a social media platform?

* Will the Biden administration meet its vaccination targets?

At Polymarket, we’re long on information markets for 5 reasons.

Prices Reflect Reality

First, even if you’re not invested in them, they’re genuinely informative. Unlike the price of GME or Dogecoin, the price of a share in an information market directly translates to something concrete and useful--the market’s view on the expected probability of an event happening. Since “Yes” shares pay out $1.00 if the event happens (and “No” shares pay out $1.00 if the event doesn’t happen), the shares trade at the expected probability of an event happening. For example, “Yes” shares on the “Will the 2021 Tokyo Olympics take place?” market are currently trading at $0.83, implying an 83% chance of the Tokyo Olympics taking place.

Because these markets force participants to put their money where their mouth is, they’re stunningly accurate. One study comparing an early political information market to 964 political polls found that the information markets outperformed the polls 74% of the time in predicting the winner of the Presidential election, both in the short- and long- term. Information markets have also been used internally by companies like Google and Ford to predict product launch dates, where they’ve improved these deadline forecasts by 25%. And recently, the British government launched their own information market, the Cosmic Bazaar, which has since been used to successfully identify terrorist activity in Mozambique.

This accuracy comes not only from these markets’ ability to price-in relevant information, but also their tendency to price-out bad or irrelevant information. For example, amid the contentious unionization efforts at Amazon’s Alabama fulfillment center, on April 6 at 2:10 PM ET, an account tweeted, “BREAKING: AMAZON WORKERS IN BESSEMER, ALABAMA HAVE VOTED TO UNIONIZE WITH @RWDSU PER SOURCES,” receiving hundreds of likes and retweets. A seemingly breaking tip, amid media narratives that the union drive might “resurrect the labor movement.” How did the markets respond? Absolute silence. “No” share prices, which had solidly been centered around $0.85 for a week (indicating an 85% chance of the unionization drive failing) didn’t budge. The market, unlike the attention economy of Twitter, was able to disregard this low-value information. The market only moved from $0.85 to $0.99 when votes tallies started rolling in publicly on April 8th and 9th, definitively revealing that the workers had indeed voted by almost 2-to-1 not to unionize, and proving the initial market forecast correct.

Radically Transparent

Second, financial transactions on information markets that are built on the blockchain are radically open. While traditional financial institutions like TD Ameritrade and even Robinhood made over $900 million dollars in 2019 by selling their order flows to wealthy and private institutional players, every single transaction on Polymarket is publicly accessible. To everyone. For free. This in turn has spurned more openness and innovation from the community.

Take Jeff Rossiter, a former poker player with over $6 million in winnings turned full-stack developer. In his spare time, he built PolymarketWhales to track and display every trade on every market in Polymarket in real time. Here’s a snippet of the real-time transactions on April 19th, around 5 PM, on one of the COVID-19 vaccination markets. We can see a time stamped record of every buy and sell transaction on the market, many separated by mere seconds.

Credibility > Credentials

Third, information markets reward the thing that matters most in forecasting: being right. Take coronavirus. While institutional players like Imperial College London or the Institute for Health Metrics, which had hundreds of millions in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, fumbled to accurately predict covid cases, scrappy and enterprising data scientists, like Youyang Gu, armed with little more than just some math and programming skills, built models that consistently outperformed these massively-funded institutional players. The forecasting community at Polymarket quickly learned to trust Youyang’s models (housed at https://covid19-projections.com) over these slow, stodgy, and inaccurate institutional players. 

Indeed, many of the most active and successful traders, who are often comparing notes and sharing code in the vibrant Polymarket Discord server, reflect Youyang’s ethos. Among them are: a former neuroscientist turned political trader, a former biologist turned network engineer turned covid forecaster, a ragtag group of former math majors, and news junkies who’ve made over $90K trading on their phones out of their parents’ homes.

Pure Entertainment Value

Fourth, information markets are just fun. It’s fun to follow the odds on events like whether Kanye West and Kim Kardashian will get divorced or how much Edward Snowden’s NFT will go for. Even for serious topics, there can be entertainment. After Egyptian authorities promised on March 25 that the Ever Given would be dislodged from the Suez Canal within 48 to 72 hours, allowing global shipping traffic to commence in one of the world’s most important waterways, we created a market that relied on the ship’s real-time GPS coordinates to let the market judge whether the authorities would be right. For the next few days, the community was consumed with translating breaking news in Arabic and following the GPS coordinates of the ship, generating half a million dollars in trading volume over a weekend.

Product-Market Fit

Finally, we’re long on information markets because a platform has finally arrived to turn vision into reality. Since launching six months ago, Polymarket has become the largest blockchain-based information markets platform with over $100 million dollars in trade volume. We’ve raised funding from the biggest names in crypto like Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, and Polychain Capital. We’ve been shouted out by Vitalik Buterin and covered by Coindesk, the Wall Street Journal, and more. We know the future is bright for Polymarket; we’d bet on it.

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 165,000 other investors today.

THE RUNDOWN:

Golden State Warriors Up NFT Game With Championship Collection: NBA Top Shot was at the forefront of the non-fungible token craze -- and now the Golden State Warriors are seeking to take things up a notch. Golden State is conducting an online auction of an NFT collection that commemorates the team’s six National Basketball Association championships and includes digital collectibles of some of its most memorable games, according to a statement. The sale, which accepts payment only in the cryptocurrency Ether, ends on May 1 for the main collection and May 2 for some unique items, the team said, adding that some of the proceeds will go to the Warriors Community Foundation. Read more.

Crypto Wunderkind’s Tokens Surge to Top of Best-Performing List: Cryptocurrency FOMO is playing out in real time for just about any token associated with Sam Bankman-Fried, head of the trading firm Alameda Research and the FTX derivatives exchange. In the past week, Solana -- or SOL -- has jumped more than 40%, making it the top performing large coin among those tracked by CoinMarketCap.com, and increasing its market value to about $11.6 billion. Serum, a token used on the new decentralized derivatives exchange created by FTX, has seen its market value jump to $494 million from $51 million this year. And the price chart for the FTT coin used on FTX looks like a hockey-stick as well, with its value jumping to $5 billion from $539 million since December. Read more.

US Bank Selects Cryptocurrency Custodian, Wins Admin Role for NYDIG’s Bitcoin ETF: Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank is taking a big step into the bitcoin business. In addition to its recent strategic investment in crypto infrastructure firm Securrency, U.S. Bank, part of U.S. Bancorp, the fifth-largest bank in America, said Tuesday it will offer a new cryptocurrency custody product in partnership with an unnamed sub-custodian. Read more.

Square Adds Bitcoin Policy Lead From US Chamber of Commerce: Julie Stitzel, the former vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, has joined payments startup Square as a bitcoin policy expert. Stitzel will be the bitcoin policy lead at Square’s Cash App, a spokesperson said Tuesday, having begun her role yesterday. She has also been part of the U.S. Chamber’s Technology Engagement Center, where she represented the trade organization in front of lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and Etsy. Read more.

Inflation Worry Spreads Beyond Bitcoiners to Wall Street Stock Analysts: The inflation scare looks to be spreading to stock markets from the bond and bitcoin markets. Suddenly, it’s a top-of-the-mind concern for Wall Street analysts peppering CEOs with questions during quarterly earnings conference calls. According to a new report from Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. bank, the number of mentions of “inflation” in earnings calls of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies has more than tripled year on year, the most significant jump in 17 years. The bank published the note Monday, according to MarketWatch. Read more.

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes, company stock options, and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com.

* Polymarket is the world’s leading information markets platform where you can trade on the most pressing global questions and see unbiased, real-time data on what the market thinks will happen. Will Trump launch a new social media platform? Will NFT trading volume continue to skyrocket? Head over to polymarket.com and make an account today with the referral code “Pomp.” Every Monday until May 10th, you can win $500 by participating in the #PolyWhale Twitter giveaway. Click on the link for more info.

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP10 at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 160,000 other investors today.

To investors,

Below is the weekly on-chain metric analysis from Will Clemente of Bitcoin Magazine Research.

Hope all is well, and happy Friday! At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price sits at $52,200 after a choppy week, price is currently down 18.63% in the last 7 days. This letter will recap the events of last weekend’s rapid price drop, try to estimate where we are in the current price correction, and some other interesting on-chain metrics. Let’s dive into some of the latest developments seen on-chain.

Last Weekend 

Over the weekend Bitcoin saw one of its largest days of long liquidations in history, with data provider Glassnode reporting $1,847,700,724 of longs being liquidated throughout the event. The catalyst/cause of these liquidations can’t be known for certain, but several on-chain analysts such as Willy Woo suspect the catalyst was 9,000 BTC that were moved onto Binance, an exchange used primarily in Asia. Nonetheless, the massive leverage that been in the Bitcoin derivates markets was wiped out and caused the rapid price decline.

On Binance quarterly futures contracts, price fell as far as $35,000 during the event. 

To put the event into perspective, this number of liquidations dwarfed that of the March price crash last year, when price fell roughly 50% in a single day. Over 1 million trader accounts were liquidated in total.

There was some silver lining to this event, greed and leverage was flushed out. In addition to the liquidations, this can be illustrated by funding rates. To peg the perpetual swap contract to Bitcoin spot price, funding rates are used. When majority of traders go long, it becomes profitable to go short, and vice versa. During the event, funding rates flipped negative, meaning it became profitable for traders to take the long side of the trade. This has shown to be a buy signal in the previous two times this happened during this bull market. 

Another indicator suggesting we have either reached, or are very close to reaching, the bottom of this correction is SOPR. SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) measures the net profit/loss of the market, it is relatively rare to see the aggregate of market participants to take losses in a bull market except during significant corrections. During these corrections, you will see the metric reset to 1(black line), indicating that participants are neither in profit/loss, but rarely reset below 1, indicating that participants have realized a net loss in aggregate. However, as the bull market goes on, it is increasingly likely that SOPR dips fully below 1, especially as unconvicted retail arrives who have tendency to panic sell. Any dips below 1 have historically been great buy opportunties. In January’s correction SOPR reset to just above 1 and in February’s correction SOPR did a full reset below 1. Currently, SOPR is approaching the full reset mark, meaning price has either reached, or is very closing to reaching, the bottom of the current correction.

Price action aside, another interesting development on-chain is the continuation of miners accumulating. This can be illustrated by Glassnode’s “Miner Net Position Change” metric. Accumulation from miners has clearly become a trend over the last few weeks. This indicates two things: miners are expecting higher prices to come and are reluctant to sell their stack now, and also the fact that they are able to cover their CAPEX without having to dump coins onto the market. Throughout the 2016/2017 bull market, miners consistently sold. This is a key differentiating factor between that cycle and the current one, possibly made possible by newly matured Bitcon borrowing/lending platforms. This allows miners to borrow against their holdings while generating fiat to cover their cost to maintain operations. 

Another interesting trend is Canada’s Purpose Bitcoin ETF. This ETF has already reached over 1 billion dollars in assets under management in just two months. Not only that, but they have only had two days of outflow total, both of which were insignificant. This is great to see as there is clearly demand for new on-ramps to take on Bitcoin exposure via ETF and leads one to think the magnitude of the flows a US-based fund would generate. With several major ETF applications on the SEC’s desk, it’s only a matter of time.

Finally, I’d like to introduce entities net growth. Anyone bearish on Bitcoin is not taking this into account. There are currently over 50,000 new entities a day coming onto the blockchain, we are in the “hockey stick” adoption curve phase of the cycle. This is great for the Bitcoin network as there is a tremendous amount of new individuals, corporate treasuries, investment funds, etc. that are all onboarding to the Bitcoin monetary network.

To support this, let’s take a look at the chart below visualizing wallets with different size of Bitcoin holdings. The pink line, addresses with 0.1-1 BTC, have accumulated steadily throughout the last few years. However, the green line, addresses with balances of 100-1,000 BTC, have gone parabolic throughout 2021. These wallets are indicative of high-net-worth individuals and new institutions coming onto the blockchain and taking significant positions. 

In conclusion, we are approaching a bottom in the short-mid-term for this current correction and are just waiting for profit taking to reset and a general shift of coins from weak to strong hands. The exact timeline for this is never predictable, but we as macro cycle indicators show, we are far from the top. Many indicators are resetting currently, therefore whenever this period of consolidation is over, there is a lot of room for price to run upwards. As always, these on-chain trends can change quickly, and will be monitored throughout the coming week until next Friday. Hope you enjoyed this week’s letter, looking forward to being in touch next week. HODL on, cheers!

You can follow Will Clemente on Twitter by clicking here.

Do you want to work in the Bitcoin and crypto industry? Do you run a business that has open roles to fill? I recently launched the industry-leading job board focused on our industry. We have hundreds of open roles at companies like Coinbase, Gemini, BlockFi, and many others.

Get a Job or Post a Job here: http://www.pompcryptojobs.com

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes, company stock options, and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com.

* Polymarket is the world’s leading information markets platform where you can trade on the most pressing global questions and see unbiased, real-time data on what the market thinks will happen. Will Trump launch a new social media platform? Will NFT trading volume continue to skyrocket? Head over to polymarket.com and make an account today with the referral code “Pomp.” Every Monday until May 10th, you can win $500 by participating in the #PolyWhale Twitter giveaway. Click on the link for more info.

* If you own crypto in a lot of places like me you know how difficult it can be to keep track of it all. Whether you keep your crypto on hardware wallets, mobile wallets, exchanges, liquidity pools, or somewhere else, CoinStats lets you track it all in one place on your iPhone, Android, Apple Watch, or computer. Try it for free or go to coinstats.app/pomp and get 40% off your premium subscription.

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP10 at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

Today we have a guest post from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who have been investors in Bitcoin and Ethereum for quite awhile. They are also the founders of Gemini, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States.

Summary

Bitcoin has grown from a small movement of computer scientists, Cypherpunks, and cryptographers into an increasingly mainstream phenomenon. It has started to force a redesign of the world’s financial system and its philosophical, technological, and economic ramifications continue to expand. This article provides an overview of Bitcoin’s historical and cultural significance. If you’d like to read up on other aspects of Bitcoin, be sure to check out our other articles, including Bitcoin: Fundamental Technical Structure and Bitcoin: Network Security.

Bitcoin’s Predecessors 

Bitcoin is the world’s first cryptocurrency and blockchain as we have come to now know these terms. Bitcoin (capital "B") refers to the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network that maintains a decentralized public ledger called the “blockchain,” which records the ownership of all bitcoin (lowercase "b"), the native digital asset token of the Bitcoin network. In addition to creating trustless, digital money, Bitcoin has ushered in a movement to decentralize existing, centralized financial services. Bitcoin was not, however, the first attempt at creating digital money. It was built upon the shoulders of giants that came before it and it’s hard to imagine that it would have been successful if not for the lessons learned and ideas proposed in these earlier attempts. 

The notion of scarcity with respect to digital money was famously envisioned by Nick Szabo when he proposed Bit Gold in 1998, which he later wrote about in his blog. Szabo is a computer scientist and early member of the Cypherpunks, a group of technologists dedicated to promoting privacy through encryption and electronic money. The Cypherpunks formed in the 1980s and communicated regularly on the Cypherpunks mailing list on a range of topics related to cryptography, economics, and censorship. Eric Hughes, a mathematician and one of the founders of the Cypherpunk movement along with Timothy C. May and John Gilmore, published A Cypherpunk's Manifesto in 1993 that captures its ethos.

In the late 1990s Szabo noticed that “precious metals and collectibles have an unforgeable scarcity due to the costliness of their creation.” So he set out to create a protocol “whereby unforgeably costly bits could be created online with minimal dependence on trusted third parties.” Enter Bit Gold. In an effort to impose “cost” around the creation of property on a distributed public registry, a computer (Alice) would have to spend resources solving a proof of work (PoW) puzzle that would generate a PoW chain — the more resources spent, the longer the chain — the longer the chain, the greater the theoretical value of Alice’s newly created property. This was a digital analogy to the work (i.e., energy) required to mine gold in the real world.

If Alice’s PoW chain was verified and accepted by the majority of the computers on the network (i.e., nodes) — a process known as reaching consensus — her non-fungible chain would be added to the distributed public registry and she would be given Bit Gold in exchange for it. The registry solved the double-spending problem — the risk that a user could spend the same Bit Gold twice — since any node could easily confirm cryptographically what Bit Gold Alice owned on the registry. But the Bit Gold consensus mechanism fell short due to the fact that it would be inexpensive for a bad actor to create a large number of nodes (known as “sybills”) and tamper with the property registry (known as a “Sybil attack”). If Bit Gold were to protect against this by limiting the number of nodes that were able to participate in managing the property registry, the network would become more centralized and the permitted nodes would have an inordinate amount of power. 

B-Money was another precursor to Bitcoin that arose around the same time as Bit Gold. It was proposed by Wei Dai, a computer engineer, Cypherpunk, and cryptographer and is referenced in the Bitcoin whitepaper. B-Money conceptualized an "anonymous, distributed electronic cash system.” And while it was never developed beyond the whitepaper stage, it included a number of concepts, such as a distributed ledger, the digital signing of transactions, and the creation of money via PoW (like Bit Gold) that eventually made their way into Bitcoin and the multitude of other cryptocurrencies that Bitcoin has subsequently inspired.

The idea of building cost (or digital scarcity) into a system using proof of work was first conceptualized by Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor in 1993 as a way to protect Internet services from abuse such as spam. In 1997, an English Cypherpunk named Dr. Adam Back implemented this concept into his project Hashcash, a service aimed at limiting spam and denial of service attacks. Sending mass emails to unsuspecting users was (and still is) inexpensive. So Dr. Back set out to increase the cost of sending an email, whereby the cost would be de minimis for honest users, yet prohibitive for abusive users. Hashcash requires a sender to generate a Hashcash token by solving a PoW puzzle. This token (akin to a postage stamp) is sent with an email to its intended recipient. If the token is valid, the email will be delivered; if it’s invalid, the email will bounce. For a regular user, the cost to generate a Hashcash token would be negligible, but for a spammer, generating Hashcash tokens in bulk would be prohibitively expensive. 

Hashcash demonstrated that digital scarcity could be created in the face of abundance, and in doing so, opened the eyes of at least two Cypherpunks. Soon thereafter, Szabo via Bit Gold and Dai via B-money would apply the concept of digital scarcity towards the creation of money. A PoW puzzle represents energy, which, if directed towards minting coins, would confer the energy value of such efforts onto the very coins being minted.

In 2004, Hal Finney, also a Cypherpunk, tried to improve upon Bit Gold and create a cryptocurrency system that he called reusable proof of work (RPoW). Finney’s RPoW system reduced some of the complexity in the Bit Gold proposal and similarly used Hashcash’s PoW to mint new tokens. However, the system traded decentralization for simplicity by relying on a centralized server to protect against the double-spending problem. It would be another five years before Bitcoin would weave all of the various developments of Szabo, Dai, Back, and Finney together into viable, trustless, and fully-decentralized digital money. 

Enter Bitcoin

The Bitcoin white paper was published in 2008 and the network launched in January of 2009 upon the mining of the “Genesis Block” — the first block of the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin successfully created a digital currency that operates in a fully-decentralized, trustless manner that allows users to send monetary value to each other through the Internet without the need for trusted, financial intermediaries. 

This was made possible by a major breakthrough in its consensus mechanism — a solution that used Hashcash PoW to address the concerns that Bit Gold was unable to fully protect against. More specifically, the Bitcoin mining mechanism obviates the need to fix the number of nodes in advance and incentivizes miners to play by the rules. It works like this: Instead of relying on a majority of nodes (known as “miners”) to reach consensus, Bitcoin relies on the majority of hashrate — the network’s processing power — to reach consensus. Acquiring a majority of the network’s hashrate is expensive, making it costly for a miner to tamper with the ledger. Moreover, in doing so, a dishonest miner would forgo the handsome bounties of newly minted bitcoin (known as the “block reward”) that are awarded approximately every 10 minutes to the “winning” miner who correctly solves the PoW puzzle. Therefore, it is assumed that a rational, economically-motivated miner will commit her processing power toward securing the integrity of the blockchain instead of trying to manipulate it and cheat the system.

As such, Hashcash’s PoW concept plays a critical role in both the minting of new bitcoin (digital scarcity) and the securing of the Bitcoin network (expensive to attack, block reward opportunity cost). This simple, yet elegant incentive structure has turned digital money, a movement once made up predominantly of computer scientists and cryptographers, into an increasingly mainstream phenomenon. 

The Mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto

The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s founder, is perhaps the most intriguing mystery of the past decade. Ever since the Bitcoin whitepaper was published, there has been widespread speculation and investigation as to Nakamoto’s true name. Some even speculate that Nakamoto may not be an individual, but rather a group of people acting as a collective. At various points in time, each of the early digital currency pioneers mentioned earlier have been alleged to be Nakamoto, however, each of them emphatically deny this. 

Satoshi went to great lengths to remain anonymous — likely fearing what hostile actions governments might take, at least early on. Nakamoto’s messages on cryptography forums, websites, and development platforms left no clues as to who he, she, or they really are and around mid-2010, Nakamoto’s contributions to Bitcoin Network development stopped. In 2011, Satoshi sent a mysterious message saying, “[I’ve] moved on to other things,” before vanishing from the Internet and never being heard from again. To date, no conclusive evidence has surfaced to properly identify the person or persons behind the pseudonym,or “nym” in the parlance of the Cypherpunks, Satoshi Nakamoto. As of the time of publishing, Nakamoto remains at large. 

While there has been much focus placed on Satoshi’s identity and whereabouts, people in the Bitcoin community (often referred to as “Bitcoiners”) believe that not knowing Satoshi’s true identity is one of Bitcoin’s greatest strengths. There is no Founder or leader — no single point of failure — just math and lines of code that speak for themselves. This fits squarely into the ethos of a trustless, decentralized money. 

Bitcoin’s Cultural Significance

Bitcoin was developed in the backdrop of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, which was brought about by the irresponsible risk-taking and lending practices of banks around the world. Despite their reckless behavior, many banks received government bailouts, which led to widespread protests and overall lack of confidence in the global financial system.

Bitcoin emerged as an alternative to the “inherent weaknesses of the trust based model.” It is no coincidence that Nakamoto inscribed the following message in Bitcoin’s Genesis Block: The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks. This message is widely regarded as not only a timestamp but a call to arms.

Bitcoin makes decentralization possible, which is to say its center of gravity is the empowerment of the individual. Its very nature takes control away from the few and gives it back to the many. Within this decade, Bitcoin’s blueprint and ethos will redesign the Internet, the financial system, and money in a way that fosters greater independence, choice and opportunity for all. Just like the invention of the printing press, the personal computer, and the early Internet before it. And that’s a big deal.

You can follow Cameron and Tyler on Twitter or check out Gemini by clicking here.

Hope everyone has a great day.

-Pomp

Do you want to work in the Bitcoin and crypto industry? Do you run a business that has open roles to fill? I recently launched the industry-leading job board focused on our industry. We have hundreds of open roles at companies like Coinbase, Gemini, BlockFi, and many others.

Get a Job or Post a Job here: http://www.pompcryptojobs.com

THE RUNDOWN:

City Comptroller Candidate Says Blockchain Is in New York’s Future: New York City needs to think creatively about its post-pandemic recovery, says a candidate for city comptroller. This includes investments in the city’s blockchain industry. Reshma Patel, a Democratic candidate for the city’s chief financial officer position, unveiled a “future proof” plan for New York on Monday centered around investments in blockchain businesses and cryptocurrencies. There are 12 candidates for the office, including 10 other Democrats, according to Ballotpedia. Read more.

Bank of England Joins Global Peers Exploring a Digital Currency: Britain’s Treasury and the Bank of England are weighing the potential creation of a central bank digital currency, joining authorities from China to Sweden exploring the next big step in the future of money. The government and central bank on Monday announced the creation of a task force to coordinate on the possibility of BOE-issued digital money for use by households and businesses. They will engage in discussions with stakeholders on the risks and benefits before making a decision. If approved, the digital currency would “exist alongside cash and bank deposits, rather than replacing them,” according to the statement. Read more.

Circle Adds Signature as a Banking Partner: New York-based Signature Bank will become the leading financial institution for Circle’s USDC reserve deposits, the stablecoin issuer announced Monday. As part of the partnership, Circle will be integrated into Signature’s blockchain-based real-time payments platform, Signet, which will allow for future integrations of Circle products and services within the bank. Read more.

Crypto Fund Inflows Accelerated to $233M Last Week, Most Since Early March: Inflows into digital asset investment products nearly tripled to $233 million last week, according to a report Monday by CoinShares, a digital asset management firm. Last week’s inflow of $150 million was the largest since early March, possibly reflecting bitcoin’s brief rally to an all-time high just below $65,000. However, the cryptocurrency has since declined to around $55,600 at press time. Read more.

SEC Causing ‘Confusion’ Over Digital Currencies in Legal Case With Ripple: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board criticized the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in an editorial for causing “confusion” over its approach to cryptocurrency. Regulators are “creating danger” for retail investors, as exemplified by the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple over its alleged issuance of native currency XRP as an unregistered security, according to the WSJ. Read more.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Duncan Cock Foster is a co-founder of Nifty Gateway, the leading platform and exchange for digital art and NFTs.

In this conversation, Duncan and I discuss:

* current state of NFTs

* successful drops

* sale dynamics

* digital museums

* physical NFT displays

* impact on artists

* response from the legacy market

I really enjoyed this conversation with Duncan. Hopefully you enjoy it too.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes, company stock options, and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com.

* Polymarket is the world’s leading information markets platform where you can trade on the most pressing global questions and see unbiased, real-time data on what the market thinks will happen. Will Trump launch a new social media platform? Will NFT trading volume continue to skyrocket? Head over to polymarket.com and make an account today with the referral code “Pomp.” Every Monday until May 10th, you can win $500 by participating in the #PolyWhale Twitter giveaway. Click on the link for more info.

* If you own crypto in a lot of places like me you know how difficult it can be to keep track of it all. Whether you keep your crypto on hardware wallets, mobile wallets, exchanges, liquidity pools, or somewhere else, CoinStats lets you track it all in one place on your iPhone, Android, Apple Watch, or computer. Try it for free or go to coinstats.app/pomp and get 40% off your premium subscription.

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP10 at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone. I send this email to our investors daily. If you would also like to receive it every morning, join the 155,000 other investors today.

To investors,

The response to Will Clemente’s on-chain analysis last week was great. We are going to turn this into a weekly column that will be published every Friday. Below is this week’s analysis.

Happy Friday everyone! Welcome back to the newsletter’s weekly on-chain update. At the time of writing, Bitcoin sits at $63,500 following a long-awaited breakout above $60,000 on Wednesday, which had served as a major price resistance over the last few weeks. This comes as no surprise, with last week’s letter describing a very bullish setup on-chain and was just a waiting game until price broke out of consolidation. Let us take a look at some of the current on-chain trends worth noting, both short and long term. Let us first start by looking at where we are in the broader macro cycle and then zoom in to current trends towards the end of the newsletter. As always, the data used in this writing is derived from Glassnode, one of the leading data providers in the Bitcoin industry. Hope you enjoy.

Long Term Metrics

One of the most useful ways to analyze where Bitcoin price is in the broader bull/bear cycle is by looking at the behavior of long-term holders. At the end of bull cycles, we see long-term holders (smart money) begin to sell off into strength during the final parabolic pushes of the run. The data shows that we are no where near that stage. One of the best metrics to illustrate this is dormancy. In on-chain terms, older coins (coins that have not moved) hold more dormancy. The dormancy metric illustrates the amount of dormancy in the coins being sold onto the market. In bear markets we see lower dormancy, as long-term investors scoop up cheap coins without selling. However, higher prices incentivize those holders to sell, and as the bull market goes higher, dormancy rises. In the chart below you can see the historical peaks of dormancy that Bitcoin has reached in previous bull cycles. In comparison, the current trend still has a lot of room to run upwards. 

Another metric that can be used to follow holding behavior is HODL Waves, a metric that analyzes the behavior of different “aged” coins. Each colored band shows the percentage of Bitcoin in existence that was last moved within a specific time period. In bear markets, short-term speculators leave, and long-term holders (smart money) take up a larger portion of supply as they accumulate. In bull market, particularly as they come to an end, short-term holders (retail) take up a larger portion of supply as long-term holders sell off. In comparison to Bitcoin’s history, HODL Waves also shows a lot of room upwards for this bull cycle. 

To close out with long-term metrics, let us take a look at illiquid supply. According to Glassnode, illiquid supply is considered supply in wallet addresses that has not been moved for at least 6 months. This means that the huge down draw we are currently seeing is representative of coins purchased back in November/December, as they cross the “illiquid” threshold now. Aside from the current massive down draw, supply has consistently become illiquid throughout the entire bull market. In other words, throughout the entire bull market coins continue to be scooped up by strong hand wallets with no intention of selling for short term gains.  These levels of illiquidity are unprecedented in terms of Bitcoin’s historical data. 

Short-Term Metrics

One metric we touched on last week was long-term holder net position change. Since that time, the metric has actually flipped green, a very bullish sign. This metric uses a 155 day threshold to consider supply “long-term”. According to Glassnode, the metric flips green when more coins mature across the 155-day age threshold than old coins being spent. Although we did see some selling following ATH around $27k-$32k (to be expected), this flip green suggests long-term holders are now expecting more upside to come. 

Another metric that has caught my eye lately is accumulation addresses. This measures the number of Bitcoin addresses that have received at least two transactions but have never spent funds. (filters out major entities such as exchanges) This illustrates a large number of new Bitcoin holders that have emerged through the year, as we saw the metric go parabolic in mid-February. 

In conclusion, a lot of metrics do point to further upside, but here are two to keep in mind: funding rates and SOPR. Funding rates can be used to gage sentiment from traders in the market. Prolonged high funding rates are a bearish sign, as there is excessive leverage in the market and therefore is very fragile and subject to a cascade of liquidations. SOPR measures profit taking and is mostly used to time bottoms of corrections but can also serve as a rough gage of how overheated price rallies are. SOPR shows some more room for price to rally from here but will definitely be something to keep a close eye on in coming weeks along with funding rates.

Will keep an eye on all of these trends and update you guys on market structure next week. I really hope you enjoy and gain some value from these. Till next time, Cheers. 

- Will

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THE RUNDOWN:

Brevan Howard’s Hedge Fund to Start Buying Cryptocurrencies: Brevan Howard Asset Management is preparing to start investing in digital assets, becoming the latest money manager seeking to exploit the cryptocurrency boom. The firm led by Aron Landy will begin by investing up to 1.5% of its $5.6 billion main hedge fund in digital assets, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The initial allocation will be overseen by Johnny Steindorff and Tucker Waterman, co-founders of crypto investment firm Distributed Global, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Read more.

Ark Investment Boosts Coinbase Holdings While Cutting Stake in Square: New York-based Ark Investment Management has upped its holdings in the shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which debuted in Nasdaq trading on April 14. Headed by well-known crypto bull Cathie Wood, ARK Investment purchased 341,186 shares, worth about $110 million on Thursday, having bought 749,205 shares the day before, the firm's daily trade summary shows. Read more.

Bitcoin Price Drops as Turkey Bans Crypto Payments Amid Currency Crisis: Billionaire investor Ray Dalio’s fears of governments outlawing bitcoin to preserve their monopoly over currencies have come partly true in Turkey. The currency crisis-riddled country announced a ban on cryptocurrencies as a means of payment early Friday, souring the mood in the bitcoin market. The ban is to take effect April 30.Read more.

Reddit Forum WallStreetBets Allows Crypto Conversation, Immediately Re-Bans It: The Reddit forum famous for making GameStop’s stock price a household topic has banned all discussion of cryptocurrencies less than 24 hours after tentatively allowing a daily discussion thread, with restrictions. Read more.

Wouter Witvoet is the CEO at DeFi Technologies (NEO.DEFI) and previously founded SecFi. I really enjoyed this conversation with Wouter. Hopefully you enjoy it too.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE POMP PODCAST HERE

Podcast Sponsors

These companies make the podcast possible, so go check them out and thank them for their support!

* Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes, company stock options, and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com.

* Polymarket is the world’s leading information markets platform where you can trade on the most pressing global questions and see unbiased, real-time data on what the market thinks will happen. Will Trump launch a new social media platform? Will NFT trading volume continue to skyrocket? Head over to polymarket.com and make an account today with the referral code “Pomp.” Every Monday until May 10th, you can win $500 by participating in the #PolyWhale Twitter giveaway. Click on the link for more info.

* If you own crypto in a lot of places like me you know how difficult it can be to keep track of it all. Whether you keep your crypto on hardware wallets, mobile wallets, exchanges, liquidity pools, or somewhere else, CoinStats lets you track it all in one place on your iPhone, Android, Apple Watch, or computer. Try it for free or go to coinstats.app/pomp and get 40% off your premium subscription.

* OKEx is a leading crypto exchange known for providing the most options for crypto traders and investors. Whether you want to trade spot, futures, options or swaps, OKEx gives you institutional-grade tools and a best-in-class trading engine. The platform offers credit and debit card funding options and supports 40 different fiat currencies, including EUR, CAD, GBP, TRY, INR and RUB, to name just a few. You can invest, trade, and earn yield, all within one place at okex.com. OKEx is not available to customers in the United States. 

* Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that allows you to buy Bitcoin with tax-advantaged dollars, while still holding your private keys. You can go to retirewithchoice.com/pomp to sign up today.

* Unstoppable Domains makes crypto easier by replacing your address with [AnyName].crypto. They allow you to send and receive over 70 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and LINK with a single blockchain domain. Go to unstoppabledomains.com and get [YourName].crypto to make your crypto life easier.

* BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp

* Crypto.com allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest various cryptocurrencies in an user friendly mobile app. Join over one million users today. You can download and earn $50 USD with my code “pomp2020” when you sign up for one of their metal cards today.

* Public Rec is where indoor comfort meets outdoor style. Their best-selling All Day Every Day Pant is a more stylish alternative to sweatpants, and a more comfortable alternative to jeans. From the couch to the gym to the grocery store, and everywhere in between, Public Rec has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP10 at checkout to get 10% off.

* Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com.

* Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and over 30 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable.

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe