Myth Of Money: Punk-landia
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Myth of Money, a weekly newsletter on all things money, economics and technology read by 10,000+ investors, curated by Tatiana Koffman.
Disclaimer: The following is not intended as investment advice. Do your own research.
Dear Investors,
Bitcoin hits its highest level since mid-May and continues to build momentum. Today was the 11th day of gains (over the last 12), trading up to $42,606, its highest since the May 18 correction. It seems that on-chain investor behavior (and depleting supply) is finally translating into positive price action.
Trends are pointing to strong outflows from exchanges (i.e. investors opting to move their Bitcoins to long-term cold storage) and continued miner accumulation.
CryptoPunks are Taking Over
As NFT mania takes flight, it seems that the hottest commodity are ‘CryptoPunks’, a series of algorithmically generated characters selling for $50k to $90M. The 10,000 unique collectible pixelated characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain were inspired by the modern CryptoArt movement. They include humans, zombies apes and aliens. [TL:DR NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital tokens that can represent images, audio or video content.]
This week, somebody listed a rare CryptoPunk NFT for sale for $90.5 million that, if accepted, would become the biggest CryptoPunk sale ever. The offer for sale was for CryptoPunk 3100, according to Larva Labs (the creators of CryptoPunks). The Punk is an alien — one of nine — with a headband. The NFT was previously sold for $7.6 million.
CryptoPunks fetch some of the highest NFT prices. In July, there were 1,395 sales totaling $135 million (paid in ether), according to NFT tracker CryptoSlam. The average sale was just shy of $100,000 — a much higher average than most NFT projects.
One of the most notable sales was one of an ape which was sold for $3.7 million to entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.
According to new reports, there is a single buyer who has now accumulated more than one percent of the entire CryptoPunks collection. Virtually nothing is known about the buyer, except that a wallet specifically created for those transactions, leaving no trace of prior history behind.
What does this mean for the average investor?
Most NFTs run on the Ethereum blockchain. As the NFT trend strengthens, we can expect continued positive price action for Ethereum.
This Week By the Numbers 📈
Top Stories 🗞
The Third-Largest Company in the World plans to start mining Bitcoin
Saudi Aramco, a Middle East oil giant, currently the third-largest company in the world, valued at $1.8 trillion, could be the next multinational conglomerate to join Bitcoin, this through mining. Bitcoin mining, the process in which new blocks containing transactions are generated, has been the target of a number of concerns from institutional investors due to its supposedly high environmental impact and energy consumption. However, this possible company venture, which would use excess gas from oil production, which would simply be burned into the atmosphere, could be used for mining, providing extra security for Bitcoin while generating carbon credits for the company. Read Full Story.
Robinhood Has the Worst Debut Ever for IPO of Its Size
Robinhood Markets Inc. wanted to make history with its initial public offering, and now it has -- for the wrong reason. Shares in the broker behind the meme-stock revolution fell 8.4% below the IPO price in the company’s first trading session. That’s the worst debut on record among 51 U.S. firms that raised as much cash as Robinhood or more, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Robinhood opened at the $38 initial public offering price. For an IPO of Robinhood’s size and larger, that’s the weakest opening trade since Uber Technologies Inc. in May of 2019 among U.S. firms. Uber finished its debut session down 7.6%. Read Full Story.
U.S. Debt Ceiling Suspension Ends
The U.S. debt ceiling officially became operative again on Sunday after a two-year suspension, with lawmakers in Washington yet to outline how they’ll avoid a potential default later this year. The debt limit -- the total amount that the federal government is authorized to borrow -- was set at $22 trillion in 2019. It will adjust to the current level of debt -- which had risen to $28.5 trillion as of the end of June -- when the suspension ends, putting pressure on Congress to find a solution that will allow the government to keep borrowing. Without action, the U.S. is on a path to default as early as October. That outcome has been avoided in debt-ceiling crises since the 1980s, although the federal government has sometimes been forced to shut down until a deal could be reached. Read Full Story.
Goldman Sachs Applies for DeFi ETF
Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would offer exposure to public companies in decentralized finance and blockchain around the globe. Sparse on details, the filing noted that the fund would invest at least 80% of its assets into companies that advance blockchain technology and the digitization of finance. “The Goldman Sachs Innovate DeFi and Blockchain Equity ETF (the ‘Fund’) seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Solactive Decentralized Finance and Blockchain Index (the ‘Index’),” the filing said. Read Full Story.
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. Check out my articles in Forbes here.
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