We still did this as a joke, a few hours later we really looked like this when Bybit was robbed of $1.46 billion Source: NFA Podcast Episode 4
But first, perhaps the biggest financial heist in history except for the Dutch government's indiscriminate adjustment of VAT rates: crypto exchange Bybit was robbed of $1.46 billion worth of Ethereum, and it seems the perpetrators, the infamous Lazarus Group, are from North Korea.
At least, that's what blockchain analysis company Arkham Intelligence says based on data provided by blockchain researcher ZachXBT. The attack immediately led to a sharp drop in crypto prices, but after adequate crisis communications from Bybit, the market quickly recovered. Over the week, Bitcoin fell only 1%, and billions are flowing into crypto-ETFs from institutional investors. For example, Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, announced a $436 million investment in the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF.
The attack on Bybit was carried out through a technique called "Blind Signing," in which transactions were approved by Bybit employees without full knowledge of the content. This is best explanation I could find of the method used on X and this is an excellent video that explains it all. At its core, it boils down to the need for several Bybit employees to approve such transactions through so-called multisig wallets, which at first suspected that the thieves had simply changed the receiving address or amount.
Taking over entire vault
This would be similar to how Pathé executives in the Netherlands transferred nineteen million Euros to an unknown account number a few years ago, thinking it was an account of the parent company. However, the North Koreans' method was even more sophisticated: according to Bybit chief Ben Zhouh,the hackers hadmanaged to change the message approved by Bybit employees into an upgrade of the entire vault(safe smart contract logic), taking control of the entire vault, including all assets.
For those of you who remember Lucky Luke and the Dalton brothers, it brings to mind the moment when the brothers tried to stop taking bank employees at gunpoint or using dynamite to blow up the safe, and "just" lift the safe out of the bank. Unfortunately, the North Koreans were a lot more savvy than the Daltons.
Centralization remains a systemic risk
The attack on Bybit once again raises questions about the security of crypto exchanges and the risks associated with holding large amounts of assets on centralized platforms. Industry experts stress that advanced hacking methods, as used by the Lazarus Group, are an ongoing threat affecting the entire crypto industry.
As a result, reactions, even from competitors, were moderate to even supportive. Former Binance CEO CZ had a nuanced analysis to which Zhou in turn responded well. Bybit says losses will be covered by their insurance fund and that the cold wallet attack will not lead to further liquidity problems. The prompt and forthright communication from ByBit and especially CEO Ben Zhou was widely praised, although it was a flex to prove with his Whoop score that he remained extremely calm during the incident and subsequent sleepless night.
The European Union announced this week at the AI Action Summit in Paris that it will invest two hundred billion Euros in the development of AI. Curious clicking on the link leads directly to a deleted YouTube video: 'Video removed by the uploader'. These brainiacs are going to invest two hundred billion Euros of taxpayer money in AI?
One striking aspect of the story, because serious plans are as yet unobtainable, is the creation of 'AI Gigafactories', or large-scale data centers to serve as the backbone for European AI development. When politicians start spouting texts about "hundreds of billions of investments" and empty phrases like "AI Gigafactories," because data centers are apparently not sexy enough anymore, it is advisable to be vigilant.
Of course, the European rhetoric is a reaction to the ambitious American Stargate project. That too is weighed down by a Boy Scout objective like "to build and develop AI - and specifically AGI - for the benefit of all humanity."
The communique states that priorities include “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”. It is as if miss World and Buzz Lightyear were handing in a homework assignment together.
The Guardian wrote up a clear summary of the AI summit, with three things standing out: first, the global recognition that AI is having a huge impact on society and the economy; second, that developments in AI are accelerating; and, unfortunately, third, that there is no consensus on how to regulate developments internationally.
The fear among entrepreneurs in Europe is that bureaucrats without substantive expertise will distribute the planned budget, which will result in wasted money and slow implementation.
Smarter European approach: embrace open source AI
A better approach would be to not simply spend these funds on infrastructure or vague programs, but to invest in AI companies working with open-source technologies, not based on but inspired by China's DeepSeek. By starting with a fully open-source codebase, including transparent training data, the EU can build an AI ecosystem that is widely accessible to large companies, startups, researchers, businesses and hopefully even individual developers.
The most practical approach would be the creation of a fund to invest in AI applications that build on this open-source base. This would ideally be done in partnership with existing investment funds in the market to avoid wasting taxpayer money, rather than a top-down model in which the EU itself tries to drive innovation.
The current trend within AI shows that most investment is going to large language models (LLMs), with companies like Meta and Microsoft spending tens of billions a year on AI development. This means that if Europe is not more strategic with its investment, it risks remaining behind.
Focus on open-source AI and a smart investment model rather than a purely infrastructure-driven approach could yet help Europe achieve a competitive and sustainable AI ecosystem. But if the strategy is not sharply translated into tactical and operational decisions soon, this historic opportunity will get bogged down in inefficiency and political rhetoric.
Elon Musk's OpenAI bid not for real
Elon Musk has announced his intention to make a nearly $100 billion bid for OpenAI, but the question is whether this is a serious acquisition proposal or a strategic move to thwart his archenemy Sam Altman. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but later left acrimoniously, vehemently opposes OpenAI's transition from a nonprofit to a commercial company. A bid of this size would make it more difficult for OpenAI to move the shares held by the non profit organization to regular commercial shareholders.
A major complication is that Microsoft owns 49% of the shares in OpenAI, meaning Satya Nadella's company has a decisive vote in any acquisition. For Microsoft, a sale would raise nearly $50 billion, but the company also has a strategic stake in OpenAI because most of its AI infrastructure runs on Microsoft Azure. This makes it unlikely that Microsoft will stand and cheer when OpenAI is acquired, unless a deal is struck in which Musk's AI company XAI along with OpenAI becomes a major customer of Microsoft.
Remarkably, Sam Altman himself owns no shares in OpenAI, giving him little direct influence over an acquisition. This highlights OpenAI's unusual governance model, with control largely in the hands of the foundation that founded the company. Musk's bid therefore seems less a serious attempt to acquire OpenAI and more a tactical move to disrupt Altman's plans and make OpenAI's future uncertain. Surely investors will be scratching their heads before they will fork over the forty billion sought by Altman on a valuation of three hundred billion in this situation.
You need a search engine to make sense of Google Gemini's choices.
AI UI is horrible
You'd almost forget in all the fuss to take a good look at OpenAI's products. MG Siegler did not hold back about ChatGPT's sadly tuneful interface:
"Well, now we're up to eight options – six in the main drop-down and still those same two "left-overs" in the sub-menu. And technically it's nine options if you include the "Temporary chat" toggle."
At Google, the user interface (UI) is just as horrible. The makers of the most Spartan, and thus most successful, search engine ever, have managed to turn their ChatGPT competitor Gemini into an incomprehensible AI menu. It is downright woeful, because there are extraordinary capabilities hidden beneath this wretched interface. See, for example, how Google AI Studio phenomenally explains how Photoshop works.
So I asked Google Pro 1.5 Deep Research, what a name, to produce an investment strategy for the European Union based on literature research. A few minutes later, Deep Research produced this Google Doc. Far from perfect, but better than anything produced so far by the EU.
Ethereum under fire
Ethereum, for years the leader in the world of smart contracts and after Bitcoin the crypto currency with the highest market cap, is at a crossroads. Despite the rising Bitcoin price and optimism in the crypto market, especially since Trump's election victory, Ethereum remains far behind and is trading even lower than a year ago.
Ethereum's share price is suffering from the rise of competitors such as Solana and Sui
What are the causes?
Lack of major updates: after "The Merge" (the switch from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake), there has been no new breakthrough.
Increasing competition: Solana, Sui and Aptos are gaining ground with faster and cheaper transactions.
Negative publicity: Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin's recent tweet about communism and decentralization was taken out of context and caused unnecessary uproar.
Ethereum is still seen as a fundamentally strong blockchain, but it may lose more and more market share to newer platforms that are more responsive to users' current needs.
The crypto world is known for its unpredictable market reactions, but what happened next was exceptional even for crypto: the price of NEAR rose 5.6% to $3.50. While it cannot be proven that the livestream incident is directly responsible for the price increase, it again raises the question of how much influence, if any, "fundamentals" have on the crypto market?
If a blunder like this can drive up the price, it means the market is guided more by hype than by the true value of a project. Even the Tinder Swindler, infamous since the Netflix documentary, is launching his own token. It is leading to increasing frustration among professional developers and investors in the blockchain world.
Nish explains the Near livestream incident
GameStop considers buying crypto
GameStop, the company that was bailed out by retail investors in 2021 during the WallStreetBets revolt, is now considering investing in Bitcoin and other crypto-assets. By the way, the movie about GameStop is particularly worth seeing, with splendid roles by Pete Davidson and Seth Rogen, among others.
The cost of university education in the U.S. has risen so much that despite the low success rate, entrepreneurship is a legitimate option. Outside the U.S., university education often remains a more logical route because the cost of a university education is much lower and the funding and exit opportunities for startups are not as great than in Silicon Valley.
That and much more in the third episode of the NFA Podcast, in which I also share how my experiment with investing one hundred dollars last February went down, exclusively in tech stocks.
Once upon a time, the acronym FANG (for Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google) was the symbol for tech stocks. But almost unnoticed, Broadcom snuck into the club of trillion-dollar companies, and now there is a new acronym: BATMMAAN (Broadcom, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia). Barron's came out with an excellent analysis including a price comparison. What does it show? Nvidia is the cheapest stock of the bunch.
BATMMAAN stock performance in the last year: up 66% on average.
Forget FANG, here's BATMMAAN
This is especially noteworthy since Nvidia was already by far the best-performing stock among the tech giants over the last year. Propelled by the AI hype, Broadcom (symbol AVGO) is also coming on strong, while Tesla is mostly driven by members of Elon Musk's cult.
The entire BATMMAAN club made an average return of 66% last year. In fact, Apple and especially Microsoft are doing substantially worse than the S&P 500, which has proven to be a solid investment at 25%. Both icons are suffering from the AI hype: Apple because it derives no identifiable revenue or profit benefit from AI and Microsoft because it is making tens of billions in additional investments in AI, the long-term returns of which investors doubt.
Return of top cryptocurrencies: 174%
Investors with a strong stomach have had a wonderful year in the crypto world, where the average rise of the largest crypto currencies measured by market cap, has been a whopping 174%.
The most frequently asked question in crypto remains: which coin should I buy? But the largest crypto currencies were already doing 174% year-to-date.
In addition to the rise of memecoin Dogecoin, carried in part by Doge fan Elon Musk, it is particularly notable that XRP, a Stone Age token by crypto standards, rose over 450%. Trump's upcoming presidency ensures that a new SEC boss will be appointed, following notorious cryptohater Gensler. The hope of XRP holders is that under the new administration, the SEC will end the ongoing legal proceedings against XRP.
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This week I'm asking for your help via a survey about this newsletter. Also: a look at Bitcoin's jump above the $100,000 mark, Ethereum and the start of altcoin season, Hawk Tuah girl is in trouble, AI applications to watch out for and crypto gifts for the holidays.
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Bitcoin over the $100,000 mark and back again
It is always enjoyable when something huge happens in an area that the BBC heartily dislikes but has to report on. Think of Max Verstappen winning the world title and thwarting Briton Lewis Hamilton's record.
With the face of a spoiled child being served Brussels sprouts and chicory, the reporter filed this report, about the moment Bitcoin became worth more than $100,000 this week. Most media only report the investment risks, but have been completely overlooking some crucial elements of Bitcoin for years.
What is unique about Bitcoin is that it is a completely decentralized network with no central party controlling the number of coins in circulation, so unlike a system with a central bank. As a result, there is also no "crypto-bank account", but you have complete control over your own assets.
How important that is, Netscape founder and investor Marc Andreessen explained in Joe Rogan's podcast through a detailed explanation of the concept of being "debanked;" what happens when you lose your bank accounts and credit cards as a person or company without any explanation. This has happened to many entrepreneurs in the fintech and crypto world in recent years. More and more people worldwide, and not just in undemocratic countries, therefore value self custody of their assets.
Big difference between 2018 and 2024
The often-quoted brilliant Jennifer Zhu Scott recalled last week a panel she participated in at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, when Bitcoin first took its place on the main stage. Zhu Scott debated with Nobel prize winner Robert Shiller and a top executive from Sweden's central bank:
"At the time, coming out openly for Bitcoin was a career risk. But I believed in the ideal. I understood its powerful implications for the world and chose to champion it. Many of the ideas I shared six years ago have become reality.
Bitcoin has disrupted gold more than the dollar.
Smaller countries have begun to include Bitcoin in their national reserves.
Bitcoin wasn't going anywhere-it embodied the ideal of decentralization, and that ideal remains incredibly powerful.
While the rise of Bitcoin has been extraordinary, the ecosystem has evolved in ways I had not fully anticipated:
Decentralization vs. Centralization: Bitcoin was born from the ideal of decentralization. Today, however, the ecosystem is becoming increasingly centralized, with figures like Michael Saylor exerting excessive influence.
The Obsession with Price: Six years ago, I argued that price was the least important aspect of Bitcoin; its real strength lay in decentralization. Yet Bitcoin is now seen as an asset and the conversation is almost entirely about price movements.
I am proud to have been one of the early pioneers in this field. Thanks to Satoshi Nakamoto's revolutionary vision, we have witnessed the birth of countless breathtaking projects aimed at enabling scalable decentralization. In an era where AI is consuming our data, creating deepfakes and undermining trust, I am grateful for the emergence of Web3 technologies-those offering solutions such as data sovereignty, immutability and authentication. These tools provide a counterbalance in a world increasingly defined by unchecked digital power.
To those who rejected the picture I painted eight years ago: I smile today. Bitcoin's journey is far from over, and this milestone is just the beginning of what is possible."
From Davos to Hong Kong
The debate, in which things got especially feisty between Zhu Scott and Schiller, can be seen here. In retrospect, it is downright scandalous to see how crypto was portrayed in a certain light at this conference, where supposedly free exchange of ideas takes place.
First of all, the panel was called "The Crypto Asset Bubble." That is especially hilarious when you consider that the price of Bitcoin at that time was $11,000; so anyone who had bought Bitcoin at that time would have seen that investment increase in value nearly tenfold within seven years. Do me a bubble like that more often!
But the text with which the moderator introduces Bitcoin really defies all standards of decency: "Bitcoin emerges from the world of nerds and criminals." As a half nerd, I then always think, "what if you replace the word 'nerd' here with Jews or Asians?" Suddenly the same sentence is a lot less acceptable.
By the way, 2018 was the last time I attended the World Economic Forum. Next month, the media will again report in full on the party in the mountains, which I wrote about earlier:
"Participants reported that the number of women they encountered in Davos was as high as the number of MMA fighters at the annual Women's Hairdressing Day. Women are almost as rare during WEF as dark-skinned people. Like motorcyclists on a Sunday ride or penguins in a zoo, I caught myself in Davos politely waving back or nodding to other fellow pigmented people.
A week later, no WEF participant can remember what else was discussed or agreed upon, because unlike the COP climate conferences, for example, Davos is not about jointly formulating measurable goals. There is old-fashioned networking and job hunting.
Because I am sorry to disappoint the conspiracy thinkers, but there is no talk at WEF of world domination by a small, ruling elite at the expense of the common people; there is not much thought about the future at all. WEF excels mainly in zizagging into the future, looking in the rearview mirror - with glasses dipped in the cheese fondue."
In fairness, the "Swiss network effect" was very useful to me personally. I got to know Zhu Scott just before WEF at a crypto conference in St. Moritz, after which I concluded through her appearance on the panel with Schiller that she has a special gift of being able to position her immense knowledge of even the most intricate technical details, within global trends and developments.
Zhu Scott was kind enough to spend a few hours in Hong Kong a few months later to tutor this rather useless Dutchman on decentralization and blockchain. In my experience, this accessibility and willingness to share knowledge is more often seen in the crypto world than in the traditional IT sector, not to mention the financial world.
By investors worldwide, including those from the traditional financial industry, Bitcoin has been accepted this year as an investment product that is best compared to investing in gold: it is not used as a means of payment, but as a long-term investment. That is why it remains striking that if you look at the market with a view over five years instead of five minutes, Ethereum has appreciated more than twice as much as Bitcoin.
Indeed, if we compare the performance of the two largest crypto currencies with that of the three most valuable companies in the world, it appears that Ethereum has even outperformed stock market darling Nvidia. That's not saying it will be the case again in the next five years, but it's still interesting to keep in mind.
Christmas season? It's altcoin season
When Bitcoin's price rise has been very rapid, as it has been in recent months, it is usually a matter of time until some profit taking happens and the proceeds from that sale of Bitcoin are invested in other cryptocurrencies: altcoins.
That happened last week, when many altcoins peaked, including BNB, Dogecoin (DOGE), XRP and Chainlink (LINK). In the previous cycle, in 2021, altcoins outperformed Bitcoin for nearly five consecutive months.
In the crypto world, it's not Christmas, but altcoin season. Source: Coinmarketcap.
The question, of course, is which sectors within cryptocurrencies will benefit the most from the upcoming altcoin season. To the frustration of all sincere blockchain developers, at the moment it seems especially all meme coins, all crazy coins without any underlying value, will benefit the most.
Hawk Tuah Girl goes crypto
She was world famous for a few days this summer: Haliey Welch, better known as hawk tuah girl. Last week she was accused of involvement in large-scale scams by releasing a coin called HAWK that became worth nearly half a billion dollars in a short period of time, after which it collapsed completely(91% drop).
Now, few will have expected the same stringency of monetary policy from Ms. Welch as from Alan Greenspan, but this was pretty ugly. Stephen Findeisen, better known as YouTuber Coffeezilla, was quick toexpose the so-called rug pull. But also completely unknown or random people can issue tokens, even kids.
Teenager makes meme coins
"On the evening of November 19, art adviser Adam Biesk was finishing work at his California home when he overheard a conversation between his wife and son, who had just come downstairs. The son, a kid in his early teens, was saying he had made a ton of money on a cryptocurrency that he himself had created.
At first, Biesk paid little attention to it. He knew his son was experimenting with crypto, but the thought that he had made a small fortune before bedtime seemed far too unlikely. "We didn't actually believe it," Biesk says. But when the phone started ringing incessantly and his wife was inundated with angry messages on Instagram, Biesk realized that his son was telling the truth-albeit not quite the full story."
In an excellent article, Ars Technica explains how and why Pump.Fun appears to be a new home for anyone looking to quickly release their own meme coin. The method is simple: the potential profits with meme coins are always coupled with immeasurable risks. Only suitable for the gambler with a strong stomach.
Interesting crypto categories
As every week, I want to emphasize that I am not providing investment advice, but these appear to be interesting categories of cryptocurrencies:
Real world assets (RWA): These are cryptoprojects that represent tangible, physical objects, such as gold, real estate, art or commodities that are "tokenized." By converting these into digital tokens, they can be more easily traded and managed, while ownership is transparent and verifiable in the blockchain.
AI tokens(which may or may not actually have anything to do with AI): This refers to crypto projects that capitalize on the theme of artificial intelligence, but do not always actually incorporate substantial AI technology. Some projects attempt to actually integrate AI applications, such as "smart contracts" with machine learning functionality, while others simply use the term "AI" from a marketing standpoint.
DePin or DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network): This is a blockchain-based model for decentralized management of physical infrastructure. This could include networks for Internet access, energy or mobility, in which the infrastructure is not controlled by one central body. Imagine: Uber with only drivers and customers, with no central organization taking 20-30% of revenue.
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz published a nice overview yesterday of what it believes to be promising sectors in 2025.
Short news
Tesla is buoyed by Musk's bromance with President Trump, but Ethereum also rose strongly this week.
Tesla, Ethereum, Amazon and Meta are the winners of the stock market week, which actually had no losers. Yes, the S&P500 lagged behind tech stocks and crypto stocks, but the risk profile is also lower. At 28% up, the S&P500 is having a phenomenal year. Especially compared to savings accounts...
"It can be helpful to agree on a 'proof of humanity' word that your trusted contacts can ask you," Near wrote. "Should a strange and urgent voice or video call from you come in, this can help them confirm that they are really talking to you and not a deepfake/deepcloned version of you."
When someone suggested this on X last year it may have seemed far-fetched, but now the FBI advises families to put together their own secret password, or security phrase. When scammers and criminals then try to impersonate a member of the family over the phone, for example a supposedly lost child asking her parents to send her money quickly, the family password or security phrase can be used to verify who is on the line. My guess is that many families will choose to use phrases from popular movies as security phrases, such as from Harry Potter or Home Alone.
As many as 87% of all startups that participated in Y Combinator's program, which ends with a pitch to investors, were AI-related in some way. But while the focus is mostly on consumer applications, the greatest use of AI is actually taking place within enterprise environments. Techcrunch advises companies to look closely at CTGT, Galini, Raycaster and HumanLayer.
Most analysts overestimate energy demand and underestimate technological advances. That is the gist of an argument by The Economist, which has looked at estimates of the global cost of an energy transition to a carbon-free world made by various economists, consultants and other researchers-the kind of estimates that are routinely used as the basis for policy.
These estimates range from about $3 trillion a year to nearly $12 trillion a year, huge sums. But these figures are grossly exaggerated. The good news, according to The Economist, is that the energy transition is going to be many times cheaper.
I don't claim to put all of the suggested products on my wish list myself, but you'll agree that this description of a Christmas gift does grab attention: "the Chipped Social Nail Set includes NFC-equipped nails that can connect to blockchain experiences and crypto wallets, creating an interactive way to show off your crypto style. It's the perfect gift for the bold, stylish crypto fanatic in your life." How did we ever live without NFC nails connecting to your crypto wallet?
There are currently three major trends in technology driven by technological, as well as sociological and political currents: AI, crypto and carbon removal. These groundbreaking developments, like any major innovation, are received with skepticism, a pattern that has been evident for decades.
PC: "too expensive and useless"
In the 1980s, when the personal computer emerged, personal computers were mostly seen as too expensive for a device without many relevant applications. That quickly changed thanks to price reductions and standardization of software, after MS-DOS became the world standard thanks to a sophisticated licensing model by Microsoft. The word processor and spreadsheet quickly made the PC indispensable in the office.
Internet: "too difficult and dangerous"
In the 1990s, this pattern repeated itself with the Internet. The personal computer was seen as a work tool, not a potential mass medium. Bill Gates even declared that the Internet suffered from lack of standards, it was insecure and far too complicated, which is why he did not use the word Internet even ten times in his book The Road Ahead.
Bill preferred to talk about the information super highway, which he was going to build himself with the closed MSN, which we never heard anything more about. Yet within a few years, email, the Web browser and applications such as eBay, Amazon and Google made the Internet accessible to consumers.
In the Netherlands, it took until late 1996 for the NOS Journaal to understand that the Internet was about to become a serious mass medium, although Joop van Zijl still compared computer penetration to that of the microwave oven.
Smartphones: "only for representatives"
When the iPhone hit the market in 2007, the Blackberry reigned supreme in the business market. Although most of the population in developed countries already had a cell phone, often a Nokia, criticism of the iPhone was not muted. "Too expensive, only useful for sales representatives," was the verdict of a friend from the world of IT. Incidentally, the same chap who ten years earlier judged the cell phone as "only useful for drug dealers," a common sentiment.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laughed off the iPhone in a video in which, as he was taught by PR people, he quickly switched to promoting the company's own Windows Mobile which we also never heard anything more about. It makes CEO Satya Nadella's feat of completely revitalizing Microsoft after Ballmer all the more galling, but about that another time.
AI, crypto and carbon removal on the turn
Right now we are seeing the exact same patterns as before, but now about AI, crypto and carbon removal:
AI is often dismissed as useful for work, but without useful applications for consumers.
Crypto is criticized with comments like, "Name an application." Meanwhile, the first application lies in something as basic as redesigning the banking system, with each user managing their own account and making banks obsolete. Apparently, the significance of this is missed by many. Tip: Never get into an argument with people who were too lazy to read the Bitcoin white paper but have an opinion.
Carbon removal is often characterized as a fraud, referring to familiar examples such as inefficient cooking ovens, without knowing or understanding the complexity and potential of projects that do actually remove carbon from the atmosphere, such as ocean fertilization. This kind of removal of carbon from the atmosphere is the biggest task facing the world in the coming decades. Tip: Never engage in climate change discussions with people who were too lazy to read the summary of recent IPCC reports.
Admittedly, I have a personal fascination with how innovations break through or fail. That's why both my 1993 graduate thesis and my 2001 book were both called "In Search of the Holy Grail," although some weirdo photoshopped the cover of my book which, by the way, is still on sale in large numbers. And not because of its great success.
I learned more from Megamistakes than Megatrends. Everyone knows Rodgers' adoption curve, but it remains mysterious why one innovation catches on and another flops mercilessly. For carbon removal, crypto and AI, there are several key success factors, some of which I want to highlight.
CO2 success was not during COP29
Breakthroughs in carbon removal require political will. All media were focused on the COP29 climate summit in Baku, but in the meantime, successes were being made in Brussels and Washington in the fight against climate change.
In Brussels, the European Council approved the creation of the first EU-wide certification framework for permanent carbon removal, carbon farming and carbon storage in products. This voluntary framework is intended to create a certification system that can quantify, monitor and verify carbon removals and counteract greenwashing; carbon farming. The EU's adoption of the new rules marks the last major legislative step to give the green light to the creation of the new certification framework for carbon removal.
Now in Dutch: standards are being introduced that will allow companies and citizens to actually offset their carbon emissions, and not by planting or preserving flimsy forests, but by measurably reducing CO2 emissions or even better, removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Democrats and Republicans together for carbon removal
In the United States, a bill was introduced by Senators Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) and Michael Bennet (Democrat, Colorado) seeking to expand carbon removal subsidies for a wide range of technologies intended to permanently remove carbon dioxide from the air and seas.
The bill is unlikely to be passed by the current Congress yet due to time constraints, but its introduction indicates that subsidies for carbon removal will be expanded even under President Trump. The fact that the bill was introduced by senators from both parties, a rarity these days, is hopeful.
AMCs for CO2
In coming years, watch for the term Advanced Market Commitment (AMC), explained here by the Economist: no matter how the political winds blow, the pressure from society for decarbonization is so great that smarter companies are independently seeking to remove or minimally offset their own carbon footprint, by funding techniques that remove carbon for the long term; preferably forever. Salesforce, Google, Meta and Microsoft are just the first from a long list of companies that will fund AMCs.
As another example, it was announced last week that Planetary Technologies has removed 138 tons of CO2 through "Ocean Alkalanity Enhancement (OAE)," which, by adding minerals or substances, increases alkalinity, the ocean's capacity to absorb CO2e, with the goal of sequestering CO₂ and combating climate change. Buyers of the associated carbon removal credits were Shopify (96 tons) and Stripe (42 tons) under a "pre-purchase agreement. In Scrabble, you don't put it easily, but it really exists and will be used a lot.
Old school tech compared to AI and crypto
Stock market valuations are a reflection of market expectations, and the enthusiasm around AI and crypto shows that investors have confidence in their longer-term potential. I have created four virtual "baskets" that I have posted about before:
'MANAAM': the old school tech companies
Spotlight 9: the nine I believe to be leading tech investments
AI Spotlight 9: nine companies benefiting from AI
Crypto Spotlight 9: the biggest nine cryptos measured by market value
Old school tech MANAAM: +36%
In the broader tech sector, established players continue to dominate. At one time investors were fans of the term FANG (for Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google, as if Microsoft meant nothing), but let's take the "MANAAM" group consisting of Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (formerly Google) and Netflix. The average increase in shares of this now classic little club this year is a whopping 35.9%. That's phenomenal from an investment perspective, until you consider that the S&P 500 is also up 27.19% this year.
Spotlight 9: +63%
Microsoft(14%), Alphabet(22.28%) and Apple(27.84%) are not even outperforming the index. While investors buy tech stocks for the higher price appreciation, compensating for the higher risk.
Not a buy recommendation, but indicative: the Spotlight 9 is +63%
However, those who had bought the Spotlight 9, which consists of the major tech companies and the two largest crypto currencies Bitcoin (+119%) and Ethereum (+57%), would have already seen their investment portfolio rise 63.37% this year. Compared to the MANAAM, Netflix is missing from the Spotlight 9, while Nvidia (+187%) has obviously been added as the world's most valuable technology company.
AI Spotlight 9: +76%
The valuation of AI-driven companies such as Nvidia, which play a key role in the development of AI infrastructure, has reached record highs. This shows that the market recognizes the speed at which these AI-powered companies are seeing their results soar.
Despite AMD, Gigabyte and Super Micro, the AI Spotlight 9 does as much as + 76%
Since Nvidia is already included in the Spotlight 9, I left out the market leader in my also completely arbitrary "AI Spotlight 9," consisting of nine companies that I suspect AI will allow them to grow faster than the leading large tech companies (the MANAAM group) and perhaps even faster than the Spotlight 9.
With 76.11% growth, that is certainly the case this year, with it being entirely remarkable that this increase came about despite Super Micro (which saw the auditor go the distance), AMD (-1%) and Gigabyte, hardware parties that did not keep up with the growth of the rest. Software company Palantir (+305%), which I wrote about in early November, more than makes up the difference.
Crypto Spotlight 9: +191%
Since the approval earlier this year of Bitcoin ETFs, tens of billions have already flowed from the traditional investment world toward crypto. The wait was for the moment when the "alt rotation" would begin, the moment when more money flows into other cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin, which counts as the unofficial kickoff of "altcoin season.That moment occurred yesterday, when the Ethereum Spot ETF net inflows, outpaced those to Bitcoin.
Crypto Spotlight 9: +191% and this does not include memecoin.
So the real daredevil is now stepping big into the craziest coins that often have no underlying value at all, but that is as risky as putting everything on red or black in a casino. A less risky strategy, insofar as that is possible in crypto, is to spread out in the biggest cryptocurrencies and take advantage of overall sentiment.
The "Crypto Spotlight 9" consists of the largest crypto currencies measured by market value, excluding stable coins, memecoins (crypto giblets) and tokens linked to crypto exchanges such as BNB.
That group, listed alphabetically as Avalanche, Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, Toncoin, TRON and XRP, achieved a 191% increase so far this year. So is this a buy recommendation? Absolutely not.
What I do recommend to anyone active in technology and innovation is to look into AI, carbon removal technology, blockchain and crypto-currencies. Just like in the 1980s with the personal computer, the Internet in the 1990s and the smartphone 15 years ago, these are developments that are unstoppable worldwide.
A practical way to stay informed is to then invest a bit in those sectors, with my advice being to do so only with money you don't need for rent, mortgage or other daily concerns. Even within technology and crypto, it certainly pays to look closely at what the intended investments actually involve; what does Palantir actually do, is Ethereum threatened by Solana and SUI; and isn't it funny to take a small gamble on memecoins after all?
Anyone who puts in some money will start to inform themselves. The alternative is to write a weekly newsletter about tech and innovations, but that also requires a huge ego.
Warm regards, thanks for your interest and see you next week!
Of the largest tokens, Dogecoin stands out with over 20% rise, but Shiba Inu is the winner with 34% rise in a week.
Again (and I can repeat this almost weekly): I don't give financial advice, but the public markets determine the financing of innovations that startups develop, the core of this newsletter. That's why I try to follow the public markets for stocks and crypto.
It is particularly notable that Bitcoin passed through the $65,000 mark again this week, leading many analysts and experts (of which I am certainly not one) to suspect that the altcoin season has begun.
The strange thing is that the huge increases in Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, the big memecoins, were not accompanied by a good week for Ethereum, which remained flat. That leads to a dilemma:
"Recently, Glassnode founders Jan Happel and Yann Allemann, also known as Negentropic on X, revived hopes of an approaching altseason. According to them, the crucial moment could occur when Bitcoin surpasses its previous all-time high (ATH) of $74,000. For now, altcoins are merely hitching a ride on the leading crypto's upward trend, but a shift could be near.
They believe that once this threshold is crossed, the crypto market could experience a general surge. The usual cycle would then begin: “Bitcoin in the lead, followed by Ethereum, then large caps before mid and small caps,” Negentropic specifies. But since May, Bitcoin has made three surges without triggering this famous altcoin season."
In other words, no one understands what is going on, but things are looking good.
Crypto is no longer a fad
From the comments, I understand that crypto is a very polarizing topic. Returns (or losses!) of 20% to 35% per week are only for the investors with strong stomachs. Next month marks the 16th anniversary of Bitcoin's white paper, so we can conclude that it is not a short-lived fad.
If you are reading this newsletter, I assume you are interested in innovation and not too conservative to try new things. My main arguments for at least starting to experiment with crypto with a limited amount are, first, financial sovereignty, the fact that you have complete control over your own assets without the intervention of a bank or broker; and second, protection against inflation, especially with crypto currencies with a guaranteed maximum supply like Bitcoin.
I hate to end this newsletter as some sort of quote from Wikipedia, but I don't want to leave unmentioned that smart contracts in blockchain are similar to Lego bricks in that, as building blocks, they offer infinite possibilities to automate services and processes. Compared to Amazon's AWS, for example, smart contracts offer the same flexibility and scalability within the blockchain, but without a centralized service provider. And instead of users then just lining the pockets of Jeff Bezos and Amazon shareholders, participants in crypto ecosystems share in the profits.
Of course, governments must protect consumers from fraud and money laundering, as I wrote about the problems at Binance in 2022. But it will be interesting in the coming weeks and months to see how Kamala Harris, if elected president, will strike the balance between ensuring investor safety and encouraging innovation.
I am sending this newsletter from Singapore, where the area around Marina Bay has been dominated for the past week by over twenty thousand visitors to Token2049, the largest Web3 event in the world. Although the conference officially ended on Thursday, some of the more than 800(!) side events are still going on. Solana even held its own event Solana Breakpoint on Friday and Saturday, when the Formula 1 weekend was already in full swing.
'Hate the game, don't hate the players.' Some pre-war marketing tactics are still current in the Web3 world
Vitalik Buterin star of Token2049
Amid the usual self-promotional talk and non-discussion, one speaker stood out: Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. Buterin emphasized that Ethereum, once plagued by slow and expensive transactions that prevented mass adoption, can now perform large numbers of transactions quickly and cheaply.
Buterin then overshadowed the content of his own speech by breaking into a song. Still, it was an engaging and rare human moment at an otherwise marketing-dominated event.
It remains painful to see top athletes such as Lando Norris and Max Verstappen sit on panels with their crypto sponsors. McLaren is sponsored by crypto exchange OKX while rival exchange Bybit is a major contributor to Red Bull Racing's immense budget.
Verstappen and Norris had to answer hard hitting questions such as "is teamwork in Formula 1 as important as in business". It would be nice if for once Verstappen would answer: 'how nice that you asked, those other 900 employees of the team are just goofing around and I actually do everything myself; I put the stickers on the car myself the night before a race, pump up the tires in the morning and refuel the car neatly after the race as well'.
It remains unclear whether, apart from the ego of the proud sponsor parading next to "his" driver on the podium, anyone is any the wiser from such a kind of obligatory freestyle. Other crypto-sponsors in Formula One such as Stake (Alfa Romeo), Tezos (Red Bull), Kraken (Williams) and Fantom (Alpine) were less visible.
Buterin's presentation made one curious about the film that has been released about him. Investor Fred Wilson said:
"This film is about the Ethereum blockchain and the developer ecosystem. But in reality, it's a chance to spend just under ninety minutes with Vitalik, where you learn more about him, how he lives, thinks and how he became who he is today. I've been in the blockchain business for almost 15 years. I am a fan and holder of Bitcoin. I am a fan and holder of Solana. I am a fan and holder of Ethereum. I am a fan and holder of many other protocols, tokens and communities. I am fully into all of these. But I must say that Vitalik has a special place in my mind and heart. He doesn't just talk pretty words; he lives by his beliefs and leads from those principles. He is a very special human being. And this film manages to show that in a great way."
Hopefully the film will soon be available to the general public, as at the moment it can only be seen through a complicated streaming service - which is onchain, of course.
Solana with its own phone
Token2049 covered four floors of booths and stages in the immense Marina Bay Sands convention center, but the main networking took place during the side events. For days, it was virtually impossible to eat or drink anything in the dozens of restaurants around Marina Bay, as all the hospitality venues had been rented out by companies for private events.
Although Token2049 officially ended on Thursday, Solana took over with the Solana Breakpoint conference on Friday and Saturday. Here it introduced the Seeker, a cell phone integrated with the Solana ecosystem. Linking a proprietary hardware device like a phone to a crypto ecosystem offers a new dimension to the growing diversity of Web3 applications, and in a market dominated by Apple, Samsung and Chinese phone makers, it is a very brave move. Whether it becomes successful is a question for another day.
Another theme that kept popping up during Token2049 was the increasing integration of the Web3 industry with the traditional financial sector, or TradFi. Still, the future of this arranged marriage remains unclear for now, at least until after the U.S. presidential election.
The Web3 world is openly hoping for a victory for Trump, who is more crypto-friendly than Harris. Or as one Indian-American Web3 insider said, ''I am brown and I know Trump doesn't like brown people; but he is pro-business and pro-crypto. So if he wins and helps our business grow, I'll make sure I help myself. Then we won't need Kamala." This rather cynical sentiment was quite prevalent this week.
Spotlight 9: Nvidia remains in the lead
Following the interest rate cut announced by the Fed, the stock market closed at record highs and the U.S. jobs market also did extremely well. It is interesting to end the third quarter by looking back at the performance of tech stocks in this calendar year so far.
At three quarters of 2024, the bottom line: Nvidia is not a one-day wonder
The clear winner this year is without a doubt Nvidia, up over 140%. If we look back a little further at what buying Nvidia shares would have yielded exactly one year ago, the chipmaker's success is even more eclatant. A $4,351 investment in 100 shares of Nvidia a year ago would be worth $11,338.71 today, which is an incredible gain of $6,987.71.
Again, I repeat it almost every week, I don't give financial advice, but I also don't want to shy away from what I think is an inescapable conclusion: Nvidia can hardly go wrong in the coming years because the demand for its products will remain high as long as the AI hype among the big players like Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and Oracle continues.
Only when the world's biggest tech companies begin to doubt the return on their investments in AI, will Nvidia have a harder time growing in revenue and profits. Until then, it is an industry leader with no direct competitor.
Meta's more than 60% increase this year should not go unmentioned. Although that is partly explained by the sharp correction last year, the ad-driven network's margins remain as high as ever.
TON fastest riser in crypto
Despite the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, Telegram-affiliated TON has been a phenomenon this year, with 144% increase
Total3, an index that tracks the market capitalization of the top 125 cryptocurrencies, excluding Bitcoin and ether (ETH), was up 5.68% since the announcement of the rate cut. In contrast, Bitcoin's market capitalization rose only 4.4%.
The success of TON, which today stands for The Open Network but evolved from Telegram Open Network, continues to be linked to the growth of Telegram. A whole ecosystem of "Telegram Mini Apps"(TMA) is now emerging around Telegram that enable all sorts of applications, from gaming to fund raising, from which the TONcoin benefits.
Today the exciting week in Singapore concluded with the always spectacular Formula One Grand Prix at the Marina Bay circuit. As an opening act for Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, 30 Seconds to Mars (with multi-talented Jared Leto) and Kylie Minogue performed, while after the race Lenny Kravitz demonstrated how to stay cool in leather pants in 90 degrees and almost 90% humidity. All in all, it was a fantastic week.
The reason this newsletter appears later than ever is due to the fact that I spent hours calculating, because I didn't trust my math. Walked the dog and then calculated everything again. But the result remains the same: those who bought the biggest tech stocks last year did worse in terms of returns (up 34%) than those who focused on AI stocks (up 96%). Yet even AI stocks, even if you pick the best performing ones, lag far behind the big winner over the past year: crypto. And then we didn't even have to choose critically. Anyone who bought the nine largest crypto tokens at the end of May 2023 would now have earned a return of 189%.
My Spotlight 9, consisting of the largest tech stocks and two leading cryptos, Bitcoin and Ethereum: average +71% in the last year
Nvidia: technical marvel and stock market miracle
Exactly one year ago, I first wrote about Nvidia, which then posted 64% revenue growth compared to the same quarter in 2022. This week, Nvidia presented jubilant quarterly results, with a 262% increase in revenue and an eye-popping 462% increase in earnings. It seemed like a good time to compare Nvidia to other tech stocks, AI companies and the biggest cryptos.
Anyone who looks at Nvidia with an even slightly longer lens, for example, at the stock since Nvidia's IPO in early 1999, will be astonished, as I am, that the shares have risen from a split price of $0.25 to over $939, representing an unimaginable gain of 375,500%. Three hundred seventy-five thousand percent. And a half.
Many investors found Nvidia overvalued last year, with price-earnings ratios above sixty. Most tech investors also have little use for crypto. So the presumption is that very few investors followed "my" Spotlight 9. Admittedly, neither have I myself! The 10-for-1 stock split (buy 1, get 10 shares) announced this week makes NVDA stock much more accessible to retail investors.
Remove Nvidia, Bitcoin and Ethereum from my (obviously very arbitrary) Spotlight 9, the returns of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Tesla are only 34%. Many so-called insiders often talk about FAANG (Facebook/Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google/Alphabet), but I really don't understand why Netflix is in that so-called basket of digital market leaders and Microsoft is not? It is the largest company in the world by market value and also a 49% shareholder in OpenAI.
I digress. The 34% price gain of Spotlight 9 shares without Nvidia, Bitcoin and Ethereum is obviously not at all wrong. But those who had simply bought an S&P 500 tracker also made a very fine 26.14% gain. With lower costs and less hassle.
The basket of stocks I compiled as 'AI stocks': 96.33% return in the last year
AI stocks beat Big Tech
Early this year, I tried to create a sort of counterpart to Big Tech with the AI Spotlight 9, to quickly compare their performance. Only: Nvidia and Microsoft are the biggest players in AI and thus belong in the AI Spotlight 9, alongside AMD, Broadcom, Crowdstrike, Gigabyte, Palantir, Snowflake and Super Micro.
It is striking that Super Micro has outperformed Nvidia, with a whopping 303% share price gain, by "only" 173%. Simply because Super Micro was undervalued, more unknown and now probably a touch overvalued.
Just how hot the market is for AI companies is evidenced by the fact that anyone who bought this basket of nine very subjectively chosen by me on January 1, stocks that I believe are benefiting from the AI wave, would have made a whopping 64% return. (I know that at least one reader bought the entire month's basket, but again: it's not me myself).
To put this 64% in perspective, that's a return within five months, compared to 34% in an entire year from the Big Tech stocks in my "old-fashioned" Spotlight 9: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Tesla.
Not AI, but crypto eats the world
For a while, that's why I felt smart, until I started on the third "basket": crypto. It turns out to be the old song. If you're playing poker and you don't know who the fool at the table is, it's you. Note:
The nine largest cryptos measured by market value in the last year: +189% and Solana as the outlier with 750% increase.
These are the performance of the nine largest cryptocurrencies, measured by market value, over the last 365 days. Granted: it helps that this measurement takes place within 48 hours of the unexpected approval of an Ethereum ETF by U.S. monetary watchdogs, after which prices rebounded.
But even without this recent tailwind, the crypto market has skyrocketed in the last year. To be honest, I didn't see it coming. But all that reading of white papers, annual reports, interviews with top people and clients notwithstanding; I should have just bought a basket of the ten biggest cryptos and made 189% price gain without thinking. Pay particular attention to Solana, which rose 750% in one year!
Biden discontinues fight against crypto
The crypto market has the wind in its sails from all sides. Interest rates are not doing anything crazy and Donald Trump has already announced that under his reign the crypto market will not be given a leg up, much to the irritation of the Democratic camp.
The problem for the Democrats is that the continued backlash against the crypto market does not generate votes, but costs votes. Politically, this is a futile strategy. So Biden is bound to cave and the sudden approval of an Ethereum ETF cannot be separated from the new political winds.
Meanwhile, though, the question remains as to which applications are actually innovative and of any use. Web3 games are still getting a lot of attention, but are still in incubation stage.
Those delving into blockchain developments often come across the term RWAs: Real World Assets, which BlackRock seems to have great interest in. Think of tokenizing, for example, bonds, real estate or, as the Tracer project aims to do: carbon removal credits.
Last Thursday, I spoke with Chief Business Officer Gert-Jan Lasterie and Chief Technology Officer Philippe Tarbouriech in an approximately 45-minute webinar, which can be seen here.
"The lines at Apple's flagship store in Union Square and other locations around the world used to be endlessly long, with hordes of eager customers camping out for days to be among the first to get their hands on the latest products. Ten years ago, the Apple hype seemed unstoppable as the company unveiled a steady stream of gadgets.
Today, however, Apple is at a crossroads. As the Cupertino, California-based company struggles to revive consumer enthusiasm for its products from the past decade, Apple reported its biggest quarterly revenue decline in more than a year."
Both Reuters and the Washington Post are wringing their hands to explain how it can be that Apple shares rose, after it was announced at the quarterly earnings call that revenue fell again; by four percent even from a year earlier, to $90.75 billion. Net profit, however, fell only two percent, to $23.64 billion. Analysts inferred that Apple increased profitability is because the company has become more efficient. Still, the question for Apple is, "What's next?
Crypto crawls upright
Bitcoin seems to be missing from the chart above, but the change in price was less than one percent, which is imperceptible to the naked eye. Ethereum fell harder, but over the entire week, crypto enthusiasts will be pleased that Bitcoin climbed back above $60,000 and Ethereum rebounded to above $3,000.
Some technical analysts are convinced that altcoin season is upon us, but less optimistic souls worry about the U.S. SEC's attempt to classify Ethereum as a security, an investment. That's nonsense, but more on that later in the podcast, scheduled for launch in June.
Mammoth in Iceland: an example of direct air capture (DAC) and carbon storage
Decarbonization, the removal of carbon, has become a critical tool in the fight against climate change, but it also seems promising as a means of global economic acceleration.
If that doesn't sound like a phrase I smoothly roll out of my keyboard, that's right: it's a quote from McKinsey's excellent report, "Carbon removals: how to scale a new gigaton industry. I had missed this report from last December, until I listened to this fascinating podcast by McKinsey people last week and searched for more information.
McKinsey focuses on CO2 removal
The ever-critical McKinseyians must think I am selling their research short in my summary, but a few conclusions can be drawn from their report and the podcast:
Carbon credits play a crucial role in achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21). Carbon credits allow companies to offset their emissions and achieve climate neutrality. For every ton of CO2 a company reduces or prevents, a credit can be issued and traded on the carbon market. This encourages innovation and green technologies.
There is considerable doubt about the quality of many of the current carbon credits, especially the old-growth forest type where credits are issued for not cutting down trees that have been there for years.
Technology-based removal methods are becoming more important, and even cheaper, than natural solutions such as reforestation.
The capacity for CO2 removal (called CDR, for carbon dioxide removal) is still far from the gigaton scale needed to achieve a CO2 neutral world by 2050.
There is a need for greater transparency in verifying the authenticity and duration of carbon removal, increasing liquidity for more efficient trading, and standardizing quality and validation processes across markets. Addressing these issues will increase the integrity of carbon credits, reduce skepticism and expand the market.
McKinsey wouldn't be McKinsey, if the report they produce didn't involve a gigantic market: and yes, according to critical McKinsey minds, this CDR market of technology that removes CO2 is going to be a whopping $1.2 trillion: twelve thousand billion. By 2050, admittedly, but I hold them to it.
In all honesty, I am so elated by McKinsey's report and podcast because I support a project that addresses exactly the problems identified and helps develop a market that McKinsey says will thus grow into a new gigaton industry: Tracer.
Tracer is the answer to the question: how do you scale the carbon credit market from small, opaque and without liquidity, to huge, transparent and liquid? This is extraordinary, because so far the solutions have been either liquid or transparent. Either efficient or reliable.
Tracer solves that with the elegance of a single smart contract, within which - it must be said - it does make the most of what is currently possible in terms of smart contracts. For enthusiasts, the "secret sauce" is the combination of a fungible and a non-fungible token in the same smart contract making it possible to offer buyers a single portfolio with multiple projects as the source of the carbon credits.
Compare it to a "basket" of stocks among fund investors. Buying carbon credits this way from different sources was not possible until now, making this market hell for companies buying large amounts of credits.
Persistence is the key
For example, last week at the GenZero Summit in Singapore, Salesforce's Chief Impact Officer Suzanne DiBianca sighed that when she buys carbon credits for millions of dollars, she receives as documentation "a few PDFs and, with any luck, another Excel spreadsheet. Like it's 1998, but in a billion-dollar market!
What I find special about Tracer is that it offers large buyers such as Salesforce a solution that does provide precisely the full transparency required, through a rating model based on "persistence"; by this is meant the length of time the carbon is removed. Choosing that persistence as the key factor - because some projects provide 100-year removals and others 10,000 years - also ensures right away that large amounts of carbon removal credits are easily comparable and thus tradable.
Combine that with an easy-to-understand business model to build out the ecosystem (a percentage of the number of carbon removal credits created when using the smart contract) and reward holders of the TRCR governance token for their contributions, and you have a proposition that I do appreciate.
Call me
I share this not only because it is rare that I agree so wholeheartedly with the McKinsey people, who often excel enormously at predicting the future well in retrospect. I mean: just look up a McKinsey report from say 1994 predicting the breakthrough of the Internet ... exactly. But I digress.
Because I am sharing this information today because Tracer is offering the opportunity to join before May 31 at an early movers fee, which is apparently blockchain speak for "soft-price-as-you-quickly-bent-friend," before the public sale starts this summer.
The first information on how to join Tracer is here in Dutch and here in English. I know the international team, which is led by Chief Business Officer Gert-Jan Lasterie (Flabber, Coolblue, Mediahuis and author of this standard work on crypto currencies) and further includes specialists from the US, France, Singapore and Taiwan.
Don't hesitate to contact me, because although I am not an expert on the matter, I am happy to explain why I support Tracer so fanatically and invite people to do the same.
