It’s been more over a decade since I first started beating Bitcoin, and I feel like I’ve seen the ups and downs of crypto. From the Mt. Gox days through the ICO boom and the later NFT cycle, it’s been a fascinating ride. The web3 world that launched Bitcoin in 2009 was a tumultuous and captivating financial and technology story.
My optimism for blockchain-based technology has also had its ups and downs. Just as I’ve worried about the viability of my index funds every time crypto prices went vertical, I’ve also wondered if this was the last straw for Bitcoin and friends every time the web3 hype cycle imploded. But no matter how high the high, how low the low, or how fast the transition between the two, crypto has managed to come back in one form or another.
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At some point you give up trying to predict what will happen and when, and just have to watch.
Investors are not playing the same game. The venture market is by nature a betting activity. VCs come up with a thesis, find what they consider excellent startups that fit their market hypothesis, fund them, and then try to help those startups make it big. As long as some of the companies they choose do well, they can recoup all the capital invested and share in the profits.
The thesis portion of the venture game is sometimes difficult to parse from the outside. Many investors are hesitant when it comes to public speaking, so we need to watch their deal flow to get a taste of where they see the future going. Some investors, on the other hand, like to make a little more noise.
It is often useful. Bessemer’s regular cloud reports discuss some of that company’s investment thesis. Since the Bessemer Papers are packed with useful data and are often not sparing in their market diagnosis, they are worth a read. It was with that vibe that I dug into the most recent a16z crypto market update.