The Merkle: Recent Episodes
Ling Young Loon
From Carl Icahn to Bill Ackman, and Elliott Management LLC, activist investing has been one of the most alpha generating strategies of all time. Few know that many such opportunities still exist in the digital assets space, with securitised tokens (equity/debt-like claims) trading far below net asset value. In a recent liquidation of a project, some tokenholders redeemed for a 10x multiple on money.
I speak with Dio of Patagon Management, who walks us through some opportunities he is involved in.
00:40 Introduction
03:19 How to negotiate and communicate with projects
05:51 Dealing with legal
08:52 Are there still opportunities for $ in RFV?
11:24 Other investing strategies: Macro
14:07 Where does Crypto fit in a multi-polar world?
19:30 Arbitrage Opportunities in Crypto
25:16 Aragon team and investors are communicating
30:14 Dio’s Crystal Ball Ask
Patagon Management LLC: https://twitter.com/patagonllc
Diogenes' Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiogenesCasares
Diogenes' Medium: https://diogenescasares.medium.com/
Heard of Dewi/Proof of physical work? I'm kickstarting the merkle series again with Sal from EV3, forerunner in the decentralized physical infra space. We talk: Why DePIN, DePIN markets + strategies, advice specific to DePIN founders, what it takes to succeed. And aliens! 👽0:24 Sal’s journey into Web34:03 Escape Velocity’s core theses: Physical Infra Networks7:13 Hard asset tokenisation is the real trillion dollar opportunity9:29 How DePIN can take off, catalysts12:15 DePIN market segmentation/sectors/strategies16:24 What EV3 looks for in founders18:45 Advice to founders20:48 Sal’s Crystal Ball ask
Sal's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DAnconia_Crypto
EV3 Ventures: https://ev3.xyz/
Today we have Sam Bronstein and Jordan Stastny of Alastor, the ex-Qatalyst duo, talk about their experience in Mergers and Acquisitions and how the Web3 M&A landscape might evolve. We discuss Uniswap’s fee switch, NFT marketplaces, DAO accounting.
0:50 Introduction to Alastor
06:30 Overfunding precedes consolidation?
07:38 Sectors to look for M&A
11:45 The accounting and financial reporting problem in Web3
13:20 Directional trends and theses for M&A
20:23 Uniswap V3’s business strategy
29:19 NFT marketplace strategy
31:15 Will M&A in Web3 be like traditional markets?
35:12 Reaching out to Alastor
Lauren Stephanian is Partner at Pantera Capital, a 4.5 billion AUM fund that has been focused on digital assets since 2013. As one of the earliest institutional asset managers to establish a venture arm, Pantera has made over 100s of venture investments, including Alchemy, 1inch, Amber Group, Balancer, and more. Lauren is also the co-founder of TLC collective investment network. We discuss the dos and don’ts of tokenomics design, venture investing as a skillset, and the web3 gender gap.
0:34 Lauren’s crypto journey
2:20 Focus areas
2:45 Getting token distribution right
7:55 Investor’s take: token or equity deals?
9:10 Is venture capital a commoditized business?
10:43 What sort of founder Lauren looks out for
11:55 How can someone be a better venture investor?
14:33 Outlook for data sector in Web3
17:13 Encouraging female participation in Web3
20:07 What Lauren is excited about in Web3
21:06 Lauren’s crystal ball
22:30 Trading vs Venture Capital investing
Darryl Wang is the co-founder of tangent.xyz, the premiere Web3 Angel Collective. Darryl was previously a Principal at DeFiance Capital and has personally backed several notable crypto projects. If you’re curious about his journey from traditional Investment Banking into Crypto and how he evaluates his venture investments today, don’t miss this one out.Â
00:19 Introduction
02:24 Darryl’s Investing Framework
07:38 Determing when to sell
13:26 Assessing crypto narratives today
17:41 Transitioning to Tangent.xyzÂ
21:52 What Tangent looks out for in projects
25:33 Assessing founder capability
30:43 White spaces in crypto
36:29 Darryl’s Crystal ball ask
The smartest people live on Crypto Twitter. Ever wondered how the anons do it? DCF talks about metrics based investing, finding value on discounted assets, trading narratives and more. He also walks us through specific examples of projects he’s invested in. Lots of alpha dropping on this one.
My goal for @themerkle is to have in-depth conversations to learn from the people at the forefront of investing and building. If you like what you’re hearing, give us a sub.Â
00:35 DCF’s background
07:00 What’s interesting in the market
09:25 Investing in book value/ The RFV meme
14:20 Do your communities and network give you an edge?
17:02 Catching and trading narratives
22:52 DCF’s long term theses for Web3
27:42 How to pick winners/metrics-based investing
38:07 Evaluating teams
40:33 DCF’s crystal ball ask
Today we’re speaking with Kevin Zhou from Galois Capital, previously head of trading for Kraken Digital Asset Exchange. Kevin has been running Galois for over 5 years and has made inciting views over the possibility of an Ethereum fork during the merge, and was one of the few investors who called the LUNA collapse. In this episode, we dive deeper into his experiences and how he formulated his framework for trading and investing
00:21 Introduction
02:20 Kevin’s experience in Kraken
04:30 Starting Galois
09:38 Kevin on schooling
11:16 Kevin’s model for assessing crypto projects
17:53 Innovation cycles in crypto
20:12 Macro cycles in crypto
24:40 Learning from greco-roman history
32:51 Assessing incentives to forecast the future
37:12 What would Kevin want to know from a Crystal ball?