Myth Of Money: My African Journey
Welcome to this week’s edition of Myth of Money, a weekly newsletter on the digital asset markets read by 12,000+ investors.
Disclaimer: The following is not intended as investment advice. Do your own research.
Dear Investors,
Greetings from the Masai Mara in Kenya. 🇰🇪
This week’s update will be on the brief side, as I am currently traveling with limited internet.
On Monday, I arrived in Lagos, Nigeria to visit the new CoinMARA offices and meet some of the team. Out of 20+ companies in my portfolio, all of which are solving incredible problems, it has been amazing to see an idea turn into a team of 45 people with offices in Lagos and Nairobi, within a brief 6 months, all working tirelessly to bring crypto and financial infrastructure to millions of people in Africa.
CoinMARA hosted its first community event in Lagos, and I had the pleasure of interviewing the CEO, Chi Nnadi, on stage about his vision for crypto in Africa.
Next week, I will be continuing my African journey to Nairobi. But first, a stop in the Masai Mara, a wildlife ecosystem that has been classified as one of the seven wonders of the world, and the inspiration for the CoinMARA brand.
This Week By the Numbers 📈
Commodity prices continue to rise while traditional and crypto markets are at a standstill. Liquidity remains incredibly low as investors and traders are waiting for a sign of a correction.
The market is no longer behaving rationally. Even though US Dollar dominance has never been threatened as much as it is now, with high CPI numbers and global powers looking for alternatives in the Yuan and Bitcoin, the dollar index (DXY) continues to make new highs indicating the rising strength of the dollar.
Most of us are turning bearish on both globalization and the traditional financial system, given current world conflicts. There is, however, a scenario where the Fed inputs more stimulus into the system to perpetuate the cycle and ‘pass the buck’ to the next administration. New all-time highs are still possible.
Current market numbers are a departure from real GDP, which is a reflection of demand for real products such as housing, food, entertainment, and consumer items. GDP numbers have been artificially inflated with cheap goods from China and cheap raw materials from Africa, paired with aggressive consumer marketing. Our society is filled with cheap, low-quality goods, that are unrelated to real demand. As we move into an expanded era of sustainable living, demand for those goods goes down, while all ‘real’ needs are still met.
Over the last 30 years, China has thrived in selling cheap goods to the U.S.. Prices for goods and materials have gone up dramatically in the last two years. China is no longer willing to sell goods at cheap prices, as they are further along on the development curve. Chinese wages and the cost of production have gone up significantly, and the Chinese economy is stronger than ever before. China continues to buy U.S. debt with increased profits, while U.S. federal debt continues to grow. The cycle is unsustainable and a new model has to be found.
Additionally, we have both an energy crisis and a potential food crisis incoming as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russia is moving energy sales off the USD, and if the oil trade is no longer done in the petrodollar, it could and will likely mean the end of the American global dominance regime. If the U.S. decides to stop this (which it will), WW3 is very likely. And as I have said all along, the Russia-Ukraine conflict was instigated by the U.S. for its own economic gain all along and is evidence of this global shift.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fed backpedals on rates to buy themselves more time as the global transition unfolds.
The numbers below speak for themselves.
Top Stories 🗞
Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter to Take Company Private
Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla (TSLA), offered to buy social media company Twitter (TWTR) for about $43 billion in cash. The offer of $54.20 a share is a 38% premium over the price of the stock the day before Musk's investment in the company was made public earlier this month. Musk plans to take the company private in order to "go through the changes that need to be made," he wrote in a text to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor replicated in the filing. In late March, Musk criticized the social media platform for failing to adhere to principles of free speech, saying that it serves as "de facto public town square" and this failure therefore undermines democracy. "I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," Musk stated. Following Musk's filing, Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain, tweeted a thread in which he said he would offer $60 a share for the company.
Meta plans to take a nearly 50% cut on virtual asset sales in its metaverse
Facebook-parent Meta is planning to take a cut of up to 47.5% on the sale of digital assets on its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds, which is an an integral part of the company’s plan for creating a so-called “metaverse.” The social media giant announced in a blogpost Monday that it is letting a handful of Horizon Worlds creators sell virtual assets within the worlds they build, which could eventually include NFTs. However, the company failed to mention in the post how much Meta will charge creators to sell their wares. That includes a “hardware platform fee” of 30% for sales made through the Meta Quest Store, where it sells apps and games for its virtual reality headsets. On top of that, Horizon Worlds, will charge a 17.5% fee. The size of the cut has angered some in the NFT community. One Twitter user wrote: “I hate you Facebook.” Another said: “If Meta wants 47.5% of NFT sales they gotta talk to the IRS because I don’t even have that after taxes.” Elsewhere, NFT marketplace OpenSea takes a 2.5% cut of each transaction, while rival LooksRare charges just 2%.
Russians’ EU Crypto Investments Capped at 10K Euros
Russian payments to EU crypto wallets will be capped at €10,000 ($10,900) under sanctions measures published in the European Union's official journal Friday. The limit is intended to stop wealthy Russians from circumventing a cap on investing in the EU introduced in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. The measure was set out in broad terms by the European Commission earlier Friday, and the full details of the legislation have now been disclosed. The law prohibits providing high-value crypto wallet, account or custody services above the limit to Russian people or entities, with an exemption for those who are EU nationals or residents. Sanctions measures introduced Feb. 25, the day after the invasion, forbid Russians transferring more than €100,000 to EU bank accounts. Officials chose a lower limit for crypto transactions.
OlympusDAO Co-Founder Doxxed? Lawsuit Claims to Unmask 'Apollo'
A lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut alleges that co-founders of the OlympusDAO decentralized finance (DeFi) project cheated an early funder out of nearly 4 million in OHM tokens, which are now worth at least $20 million. In what may be an unprecedented case testing the limits of pseudonymity in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), the lawsuit names a Connecticut resident as the supposed identity behind “Apollo,” one of Olympus’s pseudonymous co-founders.
My Portfolio
This week I published my portfolio in one easy-to-track place. This list includes most but not all of my investments are some are currently in stealth.
Like many good things, my investments started small, investing in good people with great visions, and grew to where it is today. I have always invested in founders first, and technology second. If you meet the founders of these companies, they all have in common - integrity, tenacity, and authenticity. Their visions are an extension of who they are, and I am proud to be aligned with them.
Click here for a full list of companies.
Thank you for reading this week’s edition of the Myth of Money.🚀
Until next week,
By Tatiana Koffman
Hi there and thanks for reading. If you stumble upon my newsletter, you will notice that I write about money, economics and technology. I hold a JD/MBA and spent my career in Capital Markets working across Mergers & Acquisitions, Derivatives, Venture Capital and Cryptocurrencies. I believe in empowerment through closing the financial education gap and creating equality of opportunity for the next generation.
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