RERUN: How to Figure Out Whether a Crypto Token Is Worth Its Trading Price - Ep. 756
Low float and high fully diluted valuation (FDV) coins have been a hot topic in crypto this year. Yet, understanding these coins' unrealized gains is critical for truly grasping their pricing.
In this episode, Jose Macedo of Delphi Digital and Ari Paul of BlockTower Capital dive deep into metrics that help assess a coin’s true value. They discuss why upcoming token unlocks may put downward pressure on the market, how token unlocks could be better structured for long-term success, and whether VCs are extracting more value than they contribute.
Show highlights:
Why upcoming token unlock events are creating anxiety in the crypto market
The role unrealized gains play in token price volatility
How certain projects manipulate circulating supply metrics to influence perceptions
Tips for everyday investors to uncover accurate token information
The impact of secondary market trading on anticipated token unlock events
Why short-term token strategies often prevail over those focused on sustained success
Jose’s insights into why simple, time-based unlock models may outperform complex systems
Ari’s thoughts on the SEC’s investigations into VCs and their parallels to pump-and-dump schemes
Why many crypto projects face a bearish outlook due to pending token unlocks
How the intersection of memecoins and VC involvement could shape the next market cycle
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Thank you to our sponsors!
Polkadot
Guests:
Jose Macedo, founder at Delphi Labs
Ari Paul, CIO of BlockTower Capital
Previous appearances on Unchained:
Ari Paul on Why Bitcoin Is a Good Value Buy
Ari Paul of BlockTower Capital on the Crypto Downturn and Why It Could Change Direction
Links
High FDV and unlocks:
Unchained:
How ‘Fully Diluted Valuation’ Can Be a Very Dangerous Metric for Crypto Markets to Rely On
Who’s to Blame for the Underperformance of Low Float, High FDV Tokens?
80% of Tokens on Binance Are Down Since Listing Date: SwissBorg Researcher
Cobie newsletter: New launches (part 1) - private capture, phantom pricing
Rocknblock: Token vesting explainer
CoinDesk: 'Liquid Vesting' Is Oxymoronic Blockchain Feature That Lets Early Investors Sell Without Waiting
Jose’s thread that inspired the episode
Ari’s post responding to Jose’s thread
Token.unlocks.app: Token vesting tracker
Solutions:
Hack VC: Potential Solutions to Crypto's Unlock Problem
Colony Lab: Early-Stage Program & Liquid Vesting
Imran Khan’s tweet on Blast https://x.com/lmrankhan/status/1806040646433522149
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:46 Token unlocks creating market concerns
11:06 Unrealized gains to market cap ratio impact
13:06 Token supply manipulation tactics
21:11 How investors can verify token projects
24:21 Secondary market trading and unlock impacts
35:36 Current token launch strategy persistence
41:46 Short-term vs long-term project decisions
47:21 Time-based vs metric-based token unlocks
53:51 SEC investigations into VC practices
59:56 Bearish outlook for upcoming token unlocks
1:06:36 Investor risks in current cycle
1:13:11 Future of VCs in crypto and memecoins
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How to Figure Out Whether a Crypto Token Is Worth Its Trading Price - Ep. 667
The problem of low float, high fully diluted valuation (FDV) coins is one that is frequently discussed in crypto. But there’s another wrinkle: investors need to understand the unrealized gains of these coins to really understand the price.
In this episode, Jose Macedo of Delphi Digital and Ari Paul of Blocktower Capital explain the various metrics that reveal what a coin is really worth, why a wave of token unlocks that will be hitting the crypto markets in the next few years are not bullish, and whether there is a better way to design token unlocks for teams and insiders.
Plus, they cover whether venture capitalists are extractive to crypto, whether these games with circulating supply and FDV have caused investors to turn to memecoins, and why they believe the ICO era was better for retail investors.
Show highlights:
00:00 Intro
01:58 Why upcoming token unlocks are creating market jitters
10:22 How the ratio of unrealized gains to market cap influences token price movements
12:22 How some token projects manipulate their reported circulating supply
20:24 Whether and how everyday investors can uncover the truth about token projects
23:37 What secondary market trading says about the potential impact of upcoming token unlocks
34:50 Why Jose believes that the current token launch strategy, despite its flaws, is still favored by insiders and unlikely to change soon
41:02 Why some projects favor decisions that are more likely to result in short-term gains over long-term success
46:36 Why Jose believes that simple time-based token unlocks often work better than complex metrics, and how projects can balance funding with realistic success metrics
53:04 Why Ari believes the SEC's investigations into VCs for acting as securities dealers might be justified, and how these practices resemble pump-and-dump schemes
59:11 With numerous token unlocks looming, why the outlook is bearish for many projects, and what challenges they face in mitigating potential sell-offs
1:05:52 Why many crypto investors might end up holding the bag in the current cycle, despite plans to sell early and avoid losses
1:12:27 What the future role of VCs is in crypto, and how the influx of token unlocks and the rise of memecoins could shape the bull cycle
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Thank you to our sponsors!
Polkadot
Guests:
Jose Macedo, founder at Delphi Labs
Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower Capital
Previous appearances on Unchained:
Ari Paul on Why Bitcoin Is a Good Value Buy
Ari Paul of BlockTower Capital on the Crypto Downturn and Why It Could Change Direction
Links
High FDV and unlocks:
Unchained:
How ‘Fully Diluted Valuation’ Can Be a Very Dangerous Metric for Crypto Markets to Rely On
Who’s to Blame for the Underperformance of Low Float, High FDV Tokens?
80% of Tokens on Binance Are Down Since Listing Date: SwissBorg Researcher
Cobie newsletter: New launches (part 1) - private capture, phantom pricing
Rocknblock: Token vesting explainer
CoinDesk: 'Liquid Vesting' Is Oxymoronic Blockchain Feature That Lets Early Investors Sell Without Waiting
Jose’s thread that inspired the episode
Ari’s post responding to Jose’s thread
Token.unlocks.app: Token vesting tracker
Solutions:
Hack VC: Potential Solutions to Crypto's Unlock Problem
Colony Lab: Early-Stage Program & Liquid Vesting
Imran Khan’s tweet on Blast https://x.com/lmrankhan/status/1806040646433522149
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ari Paul on Why Bitcoin Is a Good Value Buy Today - Ep.95
Ari Paul, CIO of BlockTower Capital, explains why he likes how short-term trades concentrate risk in investment, why, "no matter what," he thinks Bitcoin is a good-value buy today, and how big university endowments investing in crypto now could eventually lead institutions to go from having a fear-of-loss attitude about crypto to having FOMO. He also dives into why he's not as excited about generalized mining as some of BlockTower's crypto fund peers and who he thinks is really well-poised in that space. We also discuss why Bitcoin futures didn't have a positive impact on the price and what effect Bakkt and Fidelity launching their crypto products could have. Plus, he responds to people who accused him of insider trading when a private conversation in which he mentioned Stellar was acquiring enterprise blockchain startup Chain was released.
Thank you to our sponsors!
CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained
Altlending: https://altlending.com
Episode links:
Ari Paul: https://twitter.com/AriDavidPaul
BlockTower Capital: https://www.blocktower.com
Harvard, Stanford, MIT endowments invest in crypto: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/harvard-stanford-mit-endowments-invest-in-crypto-funds
Yale endowment invests in a16z and Paradigm: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/05/yale-investment-chief-david-swensen-jumps-into-crypto-with-bets-on-two-silicon-valley-funds.html
Bitcoin Cash hard fork recap: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/week-2-how-bitcoin-cash-hash-war-came-and-went-and-not-much-happened/
Unconfirmed episode on Bitcoin Cash hard fork with Aaron Van Wirdum: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/the-bitcoin-cash-hard-fork-bitcoin-abc-vs-bitcoin-sv-ep046
Unchained episode with Riccardo Spagni of Monero: http://unchainedpodcast.co/coinfunds-jake-brukhman-and-multicoins-tushar-jain-on-generalized-mining-ep92
Unchained episode with Jake Brukhman and Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital: http://unchainedpodcast.co/coinfunds-jake-brukhman-and-multicoins-tushar-jain-on-generalized-mining-ep92
Unconfirmed episode with Fidelity's Tom Jessop: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/fidelity-digital-asset-services-tom-jessop-on-why-its-serving-institutional-clients-first-ep043
Ari's private conversation in which he mentioned Stellar was acquiring Chain: https://hackernoon.com/ten-questions-for-ari-david-paul-of-blocktower-capital-dcd8d81ef27e
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde's talk on the case for central bank digital currencies:
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/11/13/sp111418-winds-of-change-the-case-for-new-digital-currency
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Hash Power – Ep. 2 - Investing in Cryptocurrencies
In episode 1 of Hash Power, we explored blockchains as a technology—how they work, why tokens (also known as cryptocurrencies) are an integral part of any blockchain, and how these new networks might change the world. In episode two, we spend time with the leading investors in the field. Like any frenzied asset class, there are countless cryptocurrency hedge funds popping up everywhere. But founders from three of the original firms—Polychain, Metastable, and Blocktower Capital—are our primary guides this week.
As I speak, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies is $136B. There are hundreds of tokens currently available, but bitcoin and Ethereum represent 75% of the total market cap. $136B sounds like a big number, but its tiny relative to any other asset class—and I use that term with hesitation. To put it in perspective, that’s exactly the same size as the market cap of IBM. But IBM had more than $10B of earnings in 2016. Tokens have none. As you will hear, valuing tokens is a very hard exercise.
In such a nascent world, we are seeing investing strategies take hold. Olaf Carlson-Wee, Josh Seims, and Ari Paul walk us through different takes on cryptocurrency investing, be it early stage, long term buy and hold, or more hedge fund style strategies.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Links Referenced
Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro)
Show Notes
0:05 – Recap of part 1 and introduction to part 2 of Hash Power
2:58 – Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower explains how he got involved in cryptocurrencies
5:23 – Why do we need bitcoin
7:23 – Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee on why the value of tokens accrue
9:23 – How main stream money is getting into this space
12:26- Useful comparisons when talking about ICOs when compared to IPOs
15:01 - Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, is asked to explain the protocols of cryptocurrencies to platform businesses like Uber or Airbnb
17:43 – Naval’s interest in investing in cryptocurrencies
23:07 - Olaf Carlson Wee on the lifecycle of a token
24:02 – SAFT note, Simple Agreement for Future Tokens
25:31 – What is the earliest stage that edge is most present for investors in cryptocurrency protocols
28:12 – How do you mitigate the volatility that is present in blockchain
31:18 - Jeremiah Lowin, a risk and statistics expert, who runs risk management for a large private family office, talks about why he no longer owns cryptocurrencies
34:19 - Jordan Cooper, a venture capital investor, is optimistic about blockchains in general, but thinks there may be some overvaluations in current currencies
37:02 – How Jordan would value a single cryptocurrency
42:10 – Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro)
43:52 - Josh Seims, of Metastable, the value investor in blockchain?
51:15 - Ari Paul on the equivalent of listed stocks in the crypto currency world
52:33 – Understanding the concept of a coin in blockchain and how people are getting access to them
55:07 – The fairground analogy to understand cryptocurrencies
57:57 – What lessons from traditional markets can you apply to investing in cryptocurrencies
1:06:51 – Ari is asked to discuss some of the alternative cryptocurrencies outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum. He starts with Ripple
1:10:27 – What would help firms or traders create edge in investing in cryptocurrencies
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Hash Power – Ep. 1 - Understanding Blockchains
Welcome to the first episode of Hash Power, an audio documentary that explores the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with leaders in the field like Naval Ravikant, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Fred Ehrsam, & Ari Paul. Hash Power is meant to be an introduction, but really, it is an invitation to explore this emerging world on your own.
In the coming weeks, we will cover the technology, the power of decentralization, bitcoin, Ethereum, ICOs, cryptography and hashing. We will spend time with the leading active hedge fund managers in the field, and with outside investors who are both optimistic and skeptical. Episode one covers the big picture, and answers the question: what is blockchain and why might it significantly affect our world?
If you enjoy what follows, you’ll still be very early in understanding this field. Most don’t. So help me spread it like wildfire, because the more people that understand blockchain, the better its impact might become. Please enjoy episode one, and stay tuned next week for episode 2, which explores investing in cryptocurrencies.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Books Referenced
The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
Nostalgia for the Absolute
Links Referenced
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Reddit User jav_rddt
SHA-256 Calculator
The BitCoin Model for Crowdfunding
Fat Protocols
#cryptotwitter
Show Notes
CHAPTER 1 – Understanding the Concept of Blockchain (3:25)
4:30 – Jeremiah Lowin explains how blockchain is like a database
5:14 – Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
5:46 – Owning a digital asset
7:14 – Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angelist on how blockchains can help to create personal networks and organize humans
13:33 – New coins popping up around data storage and utility needs like solar panels
14:57 – Permission vs permissionless networks
18:13 – Keeping track of scarcity and the introduction of tokens
18:51 – The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
21:55 – The role of blockchains in the informational age and the rise of more individual sovereignty
23:29 - Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, on the increasing shift to digital worlds led by incentive structures
CHAPTER 2 – Blockchain Technology (27:48)
29:09 - Reddit User jav_rddt
30:43 - SHA-256 Calculator
31:53 - Charlie Noyes, Pantera Capital, explains how SHA-256 was developed and what make its so special
35:48 – How miners create new blocks and the incentives to do so
46:54 – Ethereum, the “spiritual successor” to bitcoin
48:36 – How the Ether network is an ecosystem in which other tokens can sit
50:51 - Naval Ravikant on alternative coins or tokens
50:50 - The BitCoin Model for Crowdfunding
52:35 – Fat Protocols
53:22 – Blockchain as an experiment in distributed government
54:47 – How cryptocurrency is more than just technology, it’s a movement
54:50 – Nostalgia for the Absolute
57:27 - #cryptotwitter
1:00:58 - Peter Jubber, of Fidelity, on how huge institutions, like theirs, are getting into the cryptocurrency game
1:05:21- Olaf Carlson-Wee, first employee at Coinbase and the founder of Polychain, on the early excitement for cryptocurrency
1:06:56– Closing thoughts from Patrick
Looking to work in this space - hashpowerdeveloper@gmail.com
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
