Disclaimer: Everything we write in "The Crypto Insider Report" is an x-ray of the industry as we see it, through the lens of publicly available information. We are not financial advisors.
Messari Crypto Theses 2023
What better way to start the new year than going through Messari’s Crypto Theses 2023 report, written by none other than founder & CEO Ryan Selkis. Started in 2018, this is now a yearly report that gathers 200ish pages of thoughts and opinions curated by Ryan and supported by Messari’s enormous research. It’s a great read, insightful and funny, that serves as a great recap of what happened in the past year and what “the experts” think will happen in the year ahead. I really recommend you read it yourself, but to get a taste, I’ll use the thread version as a starting point to whet your appetite.
First of all, despite all of the issues happening and the market being significantly down, interest for Crypto did not diminish. Big and small players are getting involved, infrastructure is being built, mistakes are made and lessons are learned. As Ryan put it, we are winning on talent and capital.
Second, in terms of price and value, there are bullish thoughts on both Bitcoin and Ethereum, Crypto’s main actors. Bitcoin is in “a historic buy range” in terms of Market Value to Realised Value, something that only happened 3 times in the past 10 years. Ethereum cemented itself as the main smart contacts platform and with the Merge behind, ETH has become a yield generating asset (while being deflationary long term!), something that critics have long asked for.
Finally, Ryan argues that areas such as DeFi and NFTs will explode over the next 5 years, outperforming their equivalent traditional counterparts (e.g. banking sector for DeFi). This will also be supported by strong fundamentals for projects that have actual users and generate revenue. Messari already offers this kind of reporting for big projects, and I’m happy to say that Stakeborg DAO has started work on a similar project allowing any DAO’s financials to be tracked.
All in all, I hope I convinced you to read through the report and keep an eye on developments in Crypto in 2023. It’s bound to be a great year!
Mihnea
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Solana’s future
Everyone can agree that we ended 2022 on pretty bad terms with the crypto space, valuation-wise. Due to economic data, political conflicts, wars and fraud, we didn’t have a great year. And Solana even more so, considering that “Sam coin” was heavily supported by SBF and Alameda - who fell in the last 2 months.
But crypto as we know it, there’s always more to it than what runs in the news. Solana couldn’t have had that massive impact without actually being a decent product with sustained effort (regardless of the money invested). So where’s Solana now and what’s left in the aftermath?
That drop you see is right around the time FTX started having problems and today, the TVL fell ~80% (in USD) since then. Frankly, the majority of DeFi on Solana can be called dead compared to its height ($10b, a loss of -97,7% in USD terms) but let’s not be extreme - in the midst of a severe bear market sprinkled with Black Swan Events, anything can happen.
On-chain metrics are still mostly trending down (3M view) but it looks like they might have found a local bottom since the start of December. After the implosion, several Solana-based projects started pivoting toward chains like Matic (for example the Phantom Wallet, NFT projects DeGods and Y00ts) so people are incentivized to find alternatives.
Could this be the beginning of a redemption arc? Can the tech stand its own and overcome bad publicity and the association with SBF and everything that he stood for? Can the projects that held their treasuries on FTX come back from it and continue building?
Definitely hard to say, but we’re keeping an eye out for updates and keeping an open mind. We value chains the same way we do with investments - based on fundamentals - and as long as Solana developers find it worthwhile to spend their time in the ecosystem, I doubt their work will be in vain. What’s more, Austin Federa, Solana Foundation’s Head of Strategy and Communication also mentioned an increase in activity in the last month in an interview for Coindesk. And Vitalik feels the same way we do:
Until further notice, we’re here to encourage development in all things blockchain and Solana has a track record for its achievements. It would be sad seeing all of that go to waste.
Matei
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Major brand adopts blockchain gaming
Late last year i wrote an article focused on blockchain gaming, exploring possible advantages and what the future could hold for it. In it, i quoted Square Enix’s president and representative director Yosuke Matsuda saying:
The value is shifting toward the user community. Any companies offering consumer services may need to think about accommodating such changes by introducing mechanisms to involve and reward the customer community. The metaverse and blockchain could be great tools to realize this goal.
And earlier this week, we found out that in Square Enix’s New Year’s letter, Matsuda mentioned that focusing on blockchain entertainment via investments and business development is part of 2023’s strategy. Unfortunately, besides the fact that they are going to introduce blockchain in their original titles, we know little of their plans. They are, however, the creators of games like Life is Strange, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Tomb Rider, Deus Ex and Thief so they have the necessary know-how and enough room to play around with various titles.
Certainly, Matsuda also recognizes that 2022 wasn’t a great year for crypto but he is hopeful and confident about what Web3 stands for. For blockchain gaming to take off, we need A+ gaming companies to adopt it and bring it into the world of gamers who aren’t so keen on the concept.
Japan could be a great place to kickstart this revolution as it’s a place of innovation and very familiar with video games and huge household names. And the Japanese government is promoting digital technology and all efforts for expanding Web3 efforts (with a specific focus on DAOs and NFTs).
I’m happy to see further investments and efforts into blockchain gaming as it can be literally life-changing for some communities (like Axie Infinity was at its peak). It doesn’t have to suck the fun out of every game and introduce microtransactions everywhere. It can be fun, bring advantages to traditional gaming (such as decentralization and true ownership) without making everything about money. But we have 2 more hurdles ahead: innovation is still required for AAA games to use blockchain and we need to explain and overcome the current social opinion of gamers.
Matei
For more educational crypto content, check out the links below:
The Stakeborg DAO Talks on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOrFZZifNn4Nx4nSQL3WS52ALPXgrTSVG
Discord channel: https://discord.com/channels/901898461568442458/903006233584341052
StakeborgDAO Quarterly Reports: https://docs.stakeborgdao.com/reports/dao-quarterly-reports
Stakeborg Academy: https://academy.stakeborg.com/
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