$7T Vanguard Doesn't Want Bitcoin

📢 Sponsor | 💡 Telegram | 📰 Past Editions

Good Morning.

It’s day two of spot Bitcoin ETFs debut before everybody is off for the weekend. I thought this is a 24/7, decentralized, and permissionless market?

Maybe true decentralization means allowing BlackRock army of salespeople to contact our grandparents to buy magic internet money, but I digress.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: $5B Bitcoin ETF Volume 📈

• Founders Highlight: Scroll Co-Founders 📜

• Deal Flows: TuneFM $20M Raise 🎵

We are now publishing airdrop alphas and updates, subscribe to our telegram!

WHAT MATTERS

$5B Spot Bitcoin ETFs Trading Volume

State of play: The first day launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs is arguably a successful one. BitMEX reported over $5B in trading volume, with $3.3B of volume in the new US spot ETFs.

• Grayscale leads the trading volume thanks to its AUM size.

• Many predicts that most of the Grayscale’s volume is selling and outflow.

• As of 6:47 AM EST, January 12th, BitMEX reported $695M in total inflow for spot Bitcoin ETF products, with Bitwise leading the way.

Why it matters: It remains to be seen what’s TradFi’s appetite for Bitcoin is, but the volume and flow will be extremely important in the next few days.

• Vanguard reportedly prevents its customers from trading any spot Bitcoin ETFs because its volatile and goes against the firm’s philosophy. What a bunch of … sigh.

For builders and investors: With the spot Ethereum ETF potentially coming in May 2024, we might be seeing more capital rotate into altcoins — rejoice!

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

Raremints

Bear markets are the best time to find your next 10x crypto opportunity.

Subscribe to RAREMINTS to get daily Web3 insights straight to your inbox and stay ahead of the curve, for free.

Join 10,000+ investors and builders from Binance, KuCoin, Animoca Brands, and more 👇

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Ye, Haichen and Sandy of Scroll

Ye Zhang, Haichen Shen, and Sandy Peng are the Co-Founders of Scroll, an Ethereum L2 network that leverages ZK tech while sustaining EVM compatibility.

Previous backgrounds: Founded in 2021, the three Co-Founders of Scroll had a vision of an infinite and inclusive ecosystem for Ethereum.

• Ye is a mathematician that trained for his PhD in Computer Science at NYU, before embarking on a bunch of research positions at UIUC, Peking University, and Conflux.

• Haichen is a systems engineer with a PhD in CS from the University of Washington, before embarking on multiple roles at big tech including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

• Sandy is an experienced operator and investor having spent time in the Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, before becoming a Partner at Fission Capital.

The big idea: Scroll aims to become the native zkEVM L2 for Ethereum. The goal is marry Ethereum’s network security with lower fees and latency, contributing towards improving scalability for Ethereum.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

INSIGHTS

2024 Crypto Startup Ideas

Credits to Qiao Wang for the original article.

Qiao Want is the Co-Founder of Alliance, a crypto-native accelerator. Alliance recently released its 2024 list of crypto startup ideas. If you’re interested in building the following startups, apply to Alliance and let them know that we sent you!

Here are quick summary:

Real-World” Financial Applications

• Crypto Payment, “Binance P2P” or “Local Bitcoin” for Developing Nations, Crypto Neobanks for Developing Nations, Real-World Asset (RWA), RWA Collateral Lending

Crypto-Native Financial Applications

• Continuous Prediction Markets, Under-Collateralized Lending, Privacy DeFi, Rari Reboot, M&A Investment Banking for DAOs, NFT Derivatives, Prime Brokerage

Non-Financial or Semi-Financial Applications

• Fully Onchain Games, Onchain Social Networks, Anonymous Social Networks, Personal Tokens, Creators and Luxury Brands, 10k PFPs, Habit Formation Apps, DAOs as Digital Nations, Decentralized Scientific Crowdfunding, Decentralized 23andMe, Open and Market-Based Scientific Publications, Decentralized GLG

Infrastructure

• DePIN, Battling AI Deepfakes, ZKP Hardware Accelerators, Specialized ZK Compute Networks, Bitcoin L2s and MEV, Solana Infra

DEAL FLOWS

TuneFM $20M Raise

Deal flows returned to normal level this week, we saw $79M in deals 💼

Tune Media Inc. has received a $20M commitment of capital from LDA Capital. Other investors in the round include Animoca Brands, Mindfund, the HBAR Foundation, Broad Street Angels, and many more.

• TuneFM is a decentralized music streaming platform with an integrated music NFT marketplace.

• It’s powered by the JAM token built on Hedera Hashgraph.

• TuneFM plans to offer artists 90% of their streaming revenue and provide the ability to monetize their superfans via NFT-based exclusive perks.

Deal flows in the past week:

• Entangle, $4M Seed & Private Round

• Eesee, $2.85M Private Round

• Saros, $3.75M Private Round

• Ai Arena, $6M Private Round

• Bracket Labs, $2M Pre-Seed Round

• Particle, Undisclosed $ Seed Round

• Ringfence, $1.5M Seed Round

• Kasu, $3M Seed Round

• Altitude, $6.1M Seed Round

• Polyhedra, Undisclosed $ Series A

• Convergence, $1.8M Unknown Round

• Pontem, $6M Unknown Round

• Bitfinity, $7M Unknown Round

• TuneFM, $20M Unknown Round

• Finoa, $15M Strategic Round

QUICK BITES

• SEC approves spot Bitcoin ETFs.

• Circle files confidentially for US IPO.

• Do Kwon asks court to delay SEC trial.

• Vanguard won’t offer spot Bitcoin ETFs.

• US Bitcoin ETFs may violate South Korean law.

• Senator Warren criticizes spot Bitcoin ETFs approval.

• Brevan Howard backs new tokenization platform, Libre.

• Coinbase partners with stablecoin exchange Yellow Card.

• ECB shows its serious about enabling offline Digital Euro use.

• Ripple initiates $285M share buyback, valuing the firm at $11B.

• CoinGecko’s X account hacked, posted fraudulent token airdrop.

NOTEWORTHY READS

• Balaji’s read on the Bitcoin ETF.

• Yuga.eth’s read on a new chapter in financial history.

• Blockchain Capital’s read on the lackluster pace of innovation in FinTech.

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time but it would mean the world to us 🙇

Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.