By Bitcoin Magasin - 1 år sedan - Lästid: 5 minuter
Framtiden för riskkapital investerar i Bitcoin-Endast företag
Among the plethora of investors in the crypto world, there is a niche that shares common visions and strategies. They are the Bitcoin-only venture capitalists.
“The smartest people in the world are working on Bitcoin, they’re not working on some other project,” Mike Jarmuz berättade Bitcoin Magazine. “They’re not working on altcoins or selling real estate in a metaverse fantasy land. Your medical records are not going onto some other thing masquerading as a blockchain. We view these as ridiculous and completely uninvestable ideas.”
Jarmuz är managing partner för en investeringsfond som kallas Lightning Ventures, whose peculiarity is that it focuses its investments solely on companies that develop products and services on bitcoin and no other cryptocurrency.
“The 21st century digital economy is being built on Bitcoin-native companies,” added mcshane, a venture partner at Lightning Ventures and employee at BTC Inc, which operates Bitcoin Magazine. “We invest in best-in-class Bitcoin founders who deliver focused, and differentiated, value to humanity. We are determined to return a multiple to our investors through Bitcoin companies that strive to make a positive impact on the world.”
And Lightning Ventures is not alone, but rather part of a growing niche, that of Bitcoin-only venture capitalists (VCs).
Nedgången av krypto-hedgefonder
Förra året, på tjurmarknadens höjdpunkt, var det crypto VCs som dominerade rubrikerna och strömmade över $ 33 miljarder into crypto/blockchain/Web3 projects and startups. This golden age was very short-lived, as this year's market crash also claimed illustrious victims in the world of hedge funds: one in particular was Tre pilar huvudstad, som gick i konkurs i juni förra året efter att inte kunnat betala tillbaka ett lån på över 670 miljoner dollar.
Sådana plötsliga vinster och kollapser är inte särskilt vanliga för en riskkapitalfond, som traditionellt närmar sig investeringar med en 10-årig tidshorisont, inte horisonter på bara några månader. Men när vadet är i projekt som ger ut tokens ur tomma intet, i det ögonblick som dessa uppskattas på vågen av entusiasm, är frestelsen att förvandla investeringsaktivitet till spekulation mycket stark – med risken att bränna sig när marknaderna vänder på sina kurs.
Låg tidsinställning
The crypto hedge funds demonstrated the mentality of the short term — the opposite of that shared by VCs who believe in Bitcoin's long-term success, investing in those companies that, without issuing useless tokens invented on the spot, try to develop services that bring real value to the market.
“Early-stage Bitcoin startup or angel investing is definitely a low time preference choice,” Jarmuz specified. “Many ‘crypto’ projects choose to issue unlicensed, unregistered securities, in exchange for equity but you don’t end up with quality investors. What happens is that investors dump those ‘tokens’ or equity the minute they can. With our Lightning Ventures’ thesis and Bitcoin-only investments, we are committed for the life of the company and are not concerned with selling ‘tokens’ the moment we can. When we invest in a company, we back it and support it throughout its entire life cycle.”
På samma sida finns Christopher Calicott of Trammell Venture Partners, eller TVP, som sa att idén om att finansiera projekt som lockar kunder genom att generera tokens inte bara är symptomatisk för ett kortsiktigt perspektiv, utan är också oförenligt med de typiska incitamenten för en riskkapitalfond.
"Att investera i dessa tokens, sa Calicott, är en grundläggande felinställning av intresse för att verkligen växa företaget och uppnå maximal framgång. Investerare blir faktiskt spekulanter som försöker ta sig ur sin position med bästa timing.”
Moreover, while there used to be a feeling that it was difficult to build on Bitcoin — and so many moved to other cryptocurrencies — today things are changing:
"Bitcoin is becoming a platform and entrepreneurs are starting to realize that,” Calicott continued. “There’s blood in the streets being brought by the crypto industry, but despite this, there are now more entrepreneurs willing to build services on Bitcoin than ever before. We see ourselves as long-term investors. We are trying to make smart bets on companies that we think can usher a whole new global monetary order on a solid standard: Bitcoin. "
Att övervinna ett föråldrat system
A new monetary standard, a global store of value, a peer-to-peer payment method that renders the big traditional players obsolete. Whichever way you look at it, Bitcoin offers a vision of the future that completely overturns the paradigms to which we are accustomed: the idea of inflation necessary for growth, that of macro-economic control by states and central banks, that of having to entrust the management of savings and digital payments to intermediaries.
Is the old way of seeing things compatible with the Bitcoin future? According to Ego Death Capitals hemsida, det är det inte.
"För att ett nytt system ska blomstra, för att ge överflöd, möjligheter och tillgänglighet måste det gamla systemet självförstöra", enligt webbplatsen för VC-företaget, vars VD är Jeff Booth, författare till "The Price of Tomorrow." "För att detta ska hända kommer det att krävas en fas av 'självöverlämnande och övergång'."
Bekräftar vyn är Nico Lechuga och Andi Pitt, båda generalpartners på Ego Death.
"The traditional system is already self destructing," they explained. “Banking systems fail billions of people around the world — it is very evident in emerging markets but even in Western countries. Meanwhile, the Visa and Mastercard duopoly holds back innovation and opportunity so as competition arises — including through the Lightning Network, providing very fast and low-cost transactions — they are already in the process of self-destructing.”
Lightning Network ses också som en spelväxlare för betalningar Oleg Mikhalsky of Fulgur Ventures, eftersom, som han sa, "nästan omedelbar avveckling med mycket begränsad motpartsrisk är en egenskap hos Lightning som är väl positionerad för att minska traditionella betalningskostnader och lägre motpartsrisk som finns i fiat rails."
"For the digital economy to grow,” added Mikhalsky, “we need a native digital currency that has two features: velocity and the ability to make micro-transactions. We believe Bitcoin and Lightning will become the global monetary and payment standards. Some aspects of the Lightning Network adoption spectrum are yet to be explored: we see some adoption in video games, digital content monetisation, but there are other use cases such as machine-to-machine payments and micro-transactions for energy."
Mer och mer Bitcoin-Only Startups
Contrary to what one might think, in a year when the market collapsed dramatically, the world of Bitcoin-only startups has experienced very indicative growth. As confirmed by all VCs surveyed for this article, the number of companies focused exclusively on Bitcoin has grown significantly over the past year. It is plausible to think that when the Pandora's box of the crypto world was discovered, at that point, entrepreneurs realized that it was wiser to focus on the one technology whose fundamentals have never stopped strengthening since the beginning.
Julian Liniger, VD för relä — a Swiss startup which allows users to buy and sell bitcoin in a non-custodial way — emphasized that future growth.
“In the long run, it is less risky to invest in Bitcoin-only startups than in crypto startups: investors see Bitcoin-focused companies as more profitable and a more sustainable business model,” he explained. “With Bitcoin-only VCs, we are 100% aligned. They see the future in 10 years, they understand where we are going, they understand that all the experiments that are happening on other blockchains will end up on Bitcoin. "
Detta är ett gästinlägg av Federico Rivi. Åsikter som uttrycks är helt deras egna och återspeglar inte nödvändigtvis de från BTC Inc Bitcoin Tidskrift.
Ursprunglig källa: Bitcoin magazine