Bitcoin....who's gotten into it?

[Stu Gotz]

A failed biotech firm that is now a publicly traded Bitcoin VC? Do you know how absolutely insane this is?

The crypto currency blow off is the Saudi elite getting the f@ck out of dodge any way they can.

[basinbeater]

I may start buying some bitcoin and trying to use it like money. Long term fuck the big banks. I am really tired of all the data collection en every transaction that happens, where people are the product.

I can see a bubble busting around stocks like riot and Mara, but why would bitcoin drop? Guess I should read the article.

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[JimmyCarter]

Damn dude, that just sounds way too good to be true. A 5-10k investment in one coin in 2018 could become 1,000,000 in 2 years.

21 million coins at 1 million = 21 trillion
So...1/4 of the gross world product or 15x the us currency in circulation?


Sounds.... optimistic

[basinbeater]

Unless hnwi decide they want them. As the article points out, I bet Saudi prince's wish they had some stashed away right now.

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[basinbeater]

Interesting article, this is what I am looking for. People who are chasing the new disrupts, and companies that will grow in the new blockchain economy/currency world.
More research to be done on IPOA.

from seeking alpha
Stock Market Option For Bitcoin And Blockchain Investors

Nov. 1, 2017 1:56 PM

Bitcoin and the larger blockchain/cryptocurrency space is on fire right now. Well known investors such as Thomas Lee, Michael Novogratz, Peter Theil, and Ronnie Moas have recently placed bitcoin price targets ranging from $25,000 to $50,000. Moas also predicts the market cap for all digital assets will soar from the current $170 billion to $2 trillion in ten years. However, putting money to work and investing in cryptocurrencies creates some challenges. Although direct investment in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency or ICO is open to anyone, such an investment requires the use of an exchange and/or some technical knowledge about cryptocurrencies and general computer security. Investor’s must trust a start-up exchange and learn how to secure accounts (strong passwords, 2-factor authentication) and coins (cold storage, multi-sig). For the non-tech savvy, direct investments in crypto can be overwhelming. Additionally, direct investments in crypto do not allow much exposure to blockchain technologies that are not tied to specific tokens or currencies.
Recently, the market is starting to take notice of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) due to Overstock’s crypto arm Medici Ventures. For an investment in crypto in the stock market, OSTK is about as good as it gets right now. So, are there any other options? Enter Social Capital Hedosophia IPOA and IPOA/U.

IPOA is a “blank check” company or Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). At first glance, it doesn’t appear to be directly related to bitcoin or crypto. Crypto is not mentioned in the prospectus, neither is bitcoin, blockchain or any other digital asset. The prospectus states that IPOA is formed for “the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses, which we refer to throughout this prospectus as our initial business combination. We have not identified any business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, initiated any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target. We intend to focus our search for a target business operating in the technology industries.”

IPOA is managed by Chamath Palihapitiya. Palihapitiya is a venture capitalist, CEO of Social Capital, and part of the ownership group for the Golden State Warriors. Most notably, Palihapitiya is also “massively long bitcoin”. At the Delivering Alpha Conference in September, Palihapitiya explained his view on bitcoin and blockchain technologies. In short, he doesn’t like central bank quantitative easing and he believes bitcoin is the only current option for a distributed, secure, store of value. He recently predicted that bitcoin would surpass the value of gold. With this prediction, he does not mean 1 BTC will be worth more than 1 ounce of gold (it already is worth significantly more), he means that all BTC will be more valuable than all gold (BTC currently worth about $100 billion compared to gold’s $7.5 trillion).

Palihapitiya’s core investment strategy for both his venture capital fund and for IPOA is to buy technology disruptors. In today’s investment landscape, nothing has more disruptive potential than bitcoin, digital assets, and blockchain tech. Blockchain and crypto based companies have the potential to disrupt banks, credit cards, remittance, logistics/supply chain, cybersecurity, cloud storage, and voting. Eventually, blockchain based tech could even disrupt government’s (through the loss of ability to control the currency supply), the legal system (through smart contracts), and artificial intelligence and robotics research.

In about a month, Coindesk is hosting the first annual Consensus Invest conference. Consensus Invest is billed as the world’s first digital asset investor outlook event. Geared towards institutional investors, hedge funds, money managers, banks, and family offices, Consensus Invest follows the wildly successful Consensus conference held earlier this year in May. It’s worth noting that during the first Consensus conference early this year, bitcoin and other digital assets surged about 15%. Consensus Invest promises to be an influential and market moving event for all digital assets. Taking a closer look at the agenda, the keynote speaker is none other than Chamath Palihapitiya. This is the perfect venue for Palihapitiya to announce that IPOA is taking a crypto company public.

The larger companies in the crypto space are essentially in a race to get to the stock market first. The lack of current investable crypto options in the stock market combined with the surge of investor interest in digital assets has created the perfect storm for crypto company IPO’s. IPOA is perfectly positioned to help facilitate one or more of these IPO’s and create big profits in the process. The digital asset cycle is still early. IPOA has the potential to be the first mover in the crypto IPO space. Traditional investment banks will want in on the action soon, but given banks reluctance to accept bitcoin and other digital assets, they are losing the opportunity to profit from early cycle IPO’s that will likely trade at extremely high multiples. IPOA also has the advantage of what they consider a more efficient price discovery process pre-IPO. The net result of this process should result in more profit for the company going public. IPOA’s streamlined IPO process will also drastically reduce the time to market for a crypto IPO. While the traditional cycle takes over a year, IPOA thinks in can bring a company public in 90 days after reaching business combination terms with IPOA. Given this landscape, IPOA could help one or more crypto companies go public well before the first traditional investment bank crypto related IPO hits the street.

Social Capital was an early investor in Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG was an early investor is almost every promising early bitcoin or blockchain start up including Bitpay, Blockstream, Bloq, Chain, C ircle, Coinbase, Kraken, Ledger, Purse, Rippl e, Shapeshift, Tradeblock, Xapo, Yours, and Zcash. In short, the Digital Currency Group’s portfolio could be used as a who’s who list in the blockchain universe. Given the unmatched portfolio of crypto related startups, DCG would be the perfect company for IPOA to help reach the public markets. Through subsidiaries (Grayscale and Genesis Global Trading), DCG currently operates GBTC and the Ethereum Classic Investment Trust. The Ethereum Classic Trust will likely follow the same path as GBTC and create an OTC listing as soon as possible. Social Capital already has a relationship with DGC, and given the premium to NAV DCG sees for GBTC, DCG is fully aware of the lack of investment options and the premium investors are currently willing to pay for digital assets on the stock market. An expedited DCG IPO with the help of IPOA would be a great fit for both companies.

Coinbase would also be a great fit for IPOA. The most recent funding round for Coinbase valued the company at $1.6 billion and user growth is exploding. In just one day, earlier this year, Coinbase added 40,000 new users. As the most trusted US based exchange, with the best integration to the legacy banking system, Coinbase is reaping the benefits of this year’s surge in bitcoin and digital assets. Coinbase is large and growing at an unrivaled pace, but they could still benefit from the streamlined IPO process IPOA is offering.

Ripple would also be an interesting choice for IPOA. Although the crypto community is mixed on Ripple due to the quasi-distributed nature of the Ripple network and the non-equitable distribution of XRP token’s (the native currency of the Ripple protocol), Ripple has arguably accomplished more than any other crypto start up. The Ripple protocol is scalable (greater throughput and transaction capability than Visa according to Ripple), and Ripple has signed up an impressive number of banks to test their network. Additionally, Ripple is sitting on billions of $ worth of XRP. Due to Ripple’s innovative funding structure (selling XRP to institutional investors in addition to traditional equity raises), Ripple has zero debt and a massive asset base (in XRP).

While there is no guarantee that IPOA will bring a crypto related company public, the timing of the fund is perfect, investor interest is soaring, and options for crypto related stock market investments are severely limited. Put yourself in Palihapitiya’s shoes. You are massively long bitcoin. You have a blank check for $600 million. You know that the stock market is desperate for crypto related investment options. Your investment strategy is to invest in technology disrupters. What would you invest in? Seems obvious that this fund will go all in on crypto IPO’s.

Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings is in the right place at the right time to bring one or more blockchain related companies public. Although the prospectus leads one to believe IPOA is focused on a merger with one technology start up, IPOA also leaves the door open to a combination with multiple businesses. Given the first mover advantage still available for crypto IPO’s and the size of IPOA, it stands to reason that IPOA may choose multiple companies. With shares (IPOA) and units (IPOA/U) trading at a small premium to dollars raised in the IPO process, these shares have a lot of room to run.

Disclosure: I am/we are long IPOA and IPOA/u



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[Kinnikinnick]

Well it looks like get into bitcoin or lose all wealth since everything will be bitcoin


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[Stu Gotz]

Royal wedding news should help push bitcoin across the $10K mark todat.

[ICantLogIn]

Wow what great Monday. Sold half my stack $$$. Looking for a good dip to get back in.

[Bobby Stainless]

21 million coins at 1 million = 21 trillion
So...1/4 of the gross world product or 15x the us currency in circulation?


Sounds.... optimistic

[ICantLogIn]

Haha live fight over bcc and btc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJT2CbfHTpo

[SKIP IN7RO]

Haha live fight over bcc and btc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJT2CbfHTpo

Ha, the first 2 minutes are funny. It's a total "did you call my fraternity a frat" college shit. Saving the rest for later.

[ICantLogIn]

Hmm I wounder if people are just trying to jump in before 10K? At any price.

[DJSapp]

This morning it's testing 10k...

[fantastic_damage]

Gentlemen, you had my curiosity but now you have my attention.

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[SkiCougar]

seemed an appropriate post: "Visualizing the Journey to $10,000 Bitcoin" - (by infographic)

http://www.visualcapitalist.com/visu...10000-bitcoin/

and for the record, i'm in it too.

my opinion is at some point, they'll add more bitcoin and dilute it and also the value, but you almost can't not put some money in if this is the future of money, too soon to tell if bitcoin is for real or a gambling table.

[shroom]

so scarce

much value

[basinbeater]

seemed an appropriate post: "Visualizing the Journey to $10,000 Bitcoin" - (by infographic)

http://www.visualcapitalist.com/visu...10000-bitcoin/

and for the record, i'm in it too.

my opinion is at some point, they'll add more bitcoin and dilute it and also the value, but you almost can't not put some money in if this is the future of money, too soon to tell if bitcoin is for real or a gambling table.

It gets slowly diluted through mining, but more can't be created out of thin air, there is a finite limit to the number of bitcoin that will be available. It also gets progressively more difficult to mine as the limit is approached.

[DBdude]

you will soon be able to buy bitcoin futures. being able to short bitcoin may take the froth of the market and depress the bitcoin price

it sure looks like a bubble to me. Anything that can lose 80% of it's market value is an asset in a bubble market. I don't think an 80% reduction of the bitcoin price is far fetched

[digitaldeath]

so scarce

much value

scarce due to cost barrier to enter


the wealth distro of BTC is enough to say no




newest theory is that elon musk invented BTC


i think it was created by nation state

[ICantLogIn]

500 coin sell wall at 10k. So close, I'll never forget this.

[Kinnikinnick]

They should have just called it bullshit coin. Because it is a great asset as long as everyone believes in the bullshit. Who knows maybe it goes on forever with everyone believing in it or maybe it’s a house of cards that will fall tomorrow.

And yeah fiat currencies could be said to be the same on some level.


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[digitaldeath]

They should have just called it bullshit coin. Because it is a great asset as long as everyone believes in the bullshit. Who knows maybe it goes on forever with everyone believing in it or maybe it’s a house of cards that will fall tomorrow.

And yeah fiat currencies could be said to be the same on some level.


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fiat currencies propped up by nation states and military might

[ICantLogIn]

Congrats to all of you early adopters. Hookers and blow all around.

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Woohoo!!

[ICantLogIn]

Nasdaq Plans to Launch Bitcoin Futures in First Half 2018
Separately, broker plans derivatives based on the cryptocurrency on its exchange
By Stephanie Yang and Alexander Osipovich
Nov. 29, 2017 10:11 a.m. ET
Nasdaq Inc. and broker Cantor Fitzgerald LP are looking to join the rush on Wall Street to trade bitcoin, which powered above $11,000 on Wednesday.

Here they come.