Author: Vin Narayanan
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New Pick: A Robust Ethereum Scaling Solution With VC Backing
Sometimes — and especially in bear markets — investors need to be opportunistic. That’s why Andreessen Horowitz just launched a $4.5 billion fund for crypto projects. A16z is going bargain hunting. And with good reason. “Bear markets are often when the best opportunities come about, when people are actually able to focus on building technology rather than getting distracted by short-term price activity,” a16z general…
New Pick: A Popular DeFi Coin With Promising Traction
By Vin Narayanan on May 20, 2022
The public markets are a mess. The private markets are a mess. The precious metals markets are a mess. And the crypto markets are a mess. Those are the facts. I fully expect the crypto markets to be highly volatile and continue to bottom out over…
Crypto Needs to Solve the Stablecoin Problem
By Vin Narayanan on May 20, 2022
Demo Day Alert Before we get to the crypto markets, we wanted to alert you to a really cool demo day opportunity. One of the things I love the most about being a startup investor is meeting founders and having them demonstrate their products to me. It’s a…
Track Startup Investments With This Free Portfolio Tool
By Vin Narayanan on May 18, 2022
A member reached out to us earlier this month wondering if there was a good way to track all of the startup investments they had made. This particular investor had made several startup investments across multiple investment platforms and had also done some private placement deals. They also…
Crypto Is No Longer a Non-Correlated Asset
By Vin Narayanan on May 13, 2022
Market Musings Crypto is in official bear market mode. Bitcoin briefly fell below $27,000 on Thursday. As of this writing, it’s down around 43% on the year and down about 60% from its all-time high of $67,802 last November. Ethereum dropped to close to $1,748 on Thursday. That’s…
Our Five Criteria for Evaluating Startups
By Vin Narayanan on May 10, 2022
Hopefully you’ve noticed the changes at Pre-IPO Profits recently. We emailed you an interesting startup investment opportunity last month. This month, we’re bringing you an exclusive webinar about investing in the KingsCrowd Capital Fund. In June, we’ll…
Crypto Sell Alert and Other Important Portfolio Updates
By Vin Narayanan on May 6, 2022
We received an email from a member recently that asked the following questions (and I’m paraphrasing): Why are underperforming coins still in the Crypto Asset Strategies portfolio? Why aren’t coins like ethereum, solana and others that have performed well in…
Fidelity Is Changing the Bitcoin Market
By Vin Narayanan on May 6, 2022
Market Musings The 30-day trendline for bitcoin isn’t pretty. And Thursday was particularly ugly, with bitcoin dropping to $35,871. The broader stock market was routed on Thursday as well. And as of this writing, spot gold and silver prices are down. Investors are skittish. French regulators…
The Fun and Profitable World of Collectibles
By Vin Narayanan on April 29, 2022
Before crypto, before startups, before I even knew what the stock market was, I was into collectibles. Baseball cards. Garbage Pail Kids cards. Cabbage Patch Kids. Action figures (especially “Star Wars”). I loved them all. And I collected them all. I didn’t know the…
New Pick: The De-Risked Ethereum Competitor Your Crypto Portfolio Needs
By Vin Narayanan on April 28, 2022
Most of you know that I’m an Ethereum bull. I believe that Ethereum is one of the most important networks in the crypto space. It’s the backbone for much of crypto’s decentralized finance (DeFi) system. Most NFTs trade on the Ethereum network. And trading volume for NFTs alone…
Why Musk (Probably) Didn’t Buy Twitter as a Free Speech Play
By Vin Narayanan on April 27, 2022
Elon Musk finalized his deal to buy Twitter this week for $44 billion. If you’ve been following me on Twitter (@vinistic), you know that I’ve been obsessed with Musk’s efforts to buy Twitter and…
Washington Contemplates a Digital Dollar
By Vin Narayanan on April 22, 2022
Editor’s note: We’re trying a new format for our Friday crypto updates. We hope you enjoy the new look. And don’t forget that once a month, Vin will be writing about collectibles instead of crypto. Market Musings As of this writing, bitcoin is up around 2%…
New Pick: A De-Risked Pick-and-Shovel Coin With Stellar Potential
By Vin Narayanan on April 22, 2022
I’ve always been a fan of pick-and-shovel plays — especially in emerging technologies. Picking winners as the dynamics of the industry are constantly shifting is incredibly difficult. But if investors can identify the technology that any new technology can’t be built without, they’ve found a way to de-risk…
Watch for Red Flags Around Boards of Investors
By Vin Narayanan on April 19, 2022
Those of you who follow me on Twitter (you can follow me @vinistic) know that I’m obsessed with Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter and take it private. In case you missed this story, here’s a quick timeline: April…
Instagram Embraces NFTs
By Vin Narayanan on April 15, 2022
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are having a moment. These tokens typically represent some sort of collectible — often a digital collectible. But NFTs can also be used to represent wine, sneakers and other physical goods. Like bitcoin, NFTs are based on blockchain technology. Each NFT…
Now Is the Best Time to Be a Startup Investor
By Vin Narayanan on April 13, 2022
Andy Gordon and I recommend a startup for our First Stage Investor members to invest in every two weeks (click here to sign up). When Andy and I first started working on startups together in 2018, we couldn’t do…