Rapture: Mattison Asher's Crypto Takes

Rapture #282: Real Institutional Adoption, HK Becoming a Crypto Hub, and Pendle Moons

Been a minute. I just got back from a long trip across the Dakotas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and more. If you have not yet been out to the classic west of the USA (California does not count), I highly recommend it. Yellowstone is a national treasure and I have never

Rapture #281: LSDfi is the new Narrative

With regulatory action taking the main headlines of the market, as the SEC filed cases against both CZ/Binance and Coinbase, many participants are missing the budding stages of a new narrative spurring adoption: LSDfi (liquid staking derivatives decentralized finance). By far, the projects with the fastest growing TVL recently

Rapture #280: HK Trading Begins, CCP Further Embraces Crypto, TVL of Select Projects Increasing

There have been many big news items coming out of the far East this past week. Hong Kong is indeed officially opening up crypto trading for retail and Beijing released a white paper for Web 3 innovation. Separately, despite prices being materially down, the TVL of my altcoins are starting

Rapture #279: Market Commentary

Well, all of the reasons to be extremely bullish in the short term have largely disappeared. Volumes have completely dried up. Furthermore, the situation will likely worsen in the near term the two of the largest market makers (Jump and Jane Street) are dramatically decreasing their US activity. Democrats are

Rapture #278: The East is the Immediate Future of Crypto

I just got back from ETHTokyo and ETHTaipei, which were amazing events. I waa blown away by the amount of talented technical professionals I met during this time. As someone who likes to get into the weeds of the technical changes crypto seeks to advance, without a doubt the conversations

Rapture #277: Brazilian Bank to Issue Stablecoin, Warmer Embrace of Crypto in Japan, and Thai Political Party Promises Crypto to Citizens

While I just got back from visiting family in Dallas, I am now gearing up to go to ETHGlobal Tokyo in the coming weeks and then ETHTaipei. Let me know if you will be there, as I would love to connect in person. This past week, the market lost all

Rapture #276: Market commentary, Coinbase wells notice, CFTC sues Binance and Chinese banks embrace crypto

Looks like I might have gotten too bulled up too quickly. While funding rates are largely negative right now, a positive sign for bearish sentiment potentially being overblown, volumes have plummeted in the last week, which is not what you want to see for supporting the thesis that we are

Rapture #275: All in

Over the past couple weeks, I decided to redeploy all of my cash back into crypto. My largest position by far is ETH, though I did pick a handful of altcoins that I think will dramatically outperform once the crypto bull picks up steam. I could always be wrong, but

Rapture #274: Macro Commentary and How USDC was Affected by SVB Failing

Before I get into the meat of why USDC price was affected by the failure of SVB, want to quickly comment on market price action. The past week of price action has truly been wild. After the fed decided to come in and backstop depositors of SVB, BTC and risk

Rapture #273: Bigly Banking Issues

The market significantly broke down over the past few days, with BTC currently standing at approximately $20,500 (around 20% down from local highs) and ETH priced at around $1,470. BTC for a brief moment fell below $20,000 while ETH dropped to below $1,400. Long liquidations hit

Rapture #272: EigenLayer White Paper Release

No major update on market activity in terms of breaking out one way or another. That being said, LIT has been doing exceptionally recently, even in this rangebound market. While I am not extremely confident in this stance, I am leaning more towards the market breaking upwards. Still, I remain

Rapture #271: More Geopolitical Action in Crypto

Market wise, we are looking good in my opinion. Inflation came in right around expectations. While terminal rate forecasts are increasing, so far traditional equity markets have not reacted adversely, which is interesting. Additionally, the dollar started rising again, which usually indicates in the short term risk assets are about

Rapture #270: Market Commentary and New Data Product in Crypto

This past week has been an interesting one for sure. This rally seems to really be sputtering out right before January inflation numbers are to be reported next week. Volumes are dropping substantially and narrative rotations of different themes within crypto are accelerating. Furthermore, the SEC is aggresively targeting centralized

Rapture #269: It's Lit Part 2

Seems like upwards momentum has stalled out for the moment. At least the market is not downside correlated with US equities...for now. The market overall is not pricing in the potential for no rate cuts this year and even more significant rate hikes if inflation picks up. We are

Rapture #268: It's Lit Part 1

Another crazy couple days for the markets. Fed Chairman Powell came in more dovish than previously though stating that there is only a couple more rate hikes to go. Markets overall have reacted extremely positively. The looming threats that could shake this bullish momentum would be an earnings recession or

Rapture #267: Yield Speculation with Pendle

As I mentioned in Rapture #265, now that I am far less confident that the bear market continues, I have deployed a bit of capital into select altcoins in addition to ETH, which I am staking. I already discussed my rationale behind investing in DESO, but today I wanted to

Rapture #266: Crypto is a Geopolitical Battlefield

While I will get back to discussing why I like LIT and PENDLE, which I mentioned I allocated to in Rapture #265, there has been some major geopolitical movements within crypto during the past week that I feel deserve attention. In Rapture #254 and Rapture #263, which I published on

Rapture #265: Initial Deployment Engaged

Welcome to Rapture premium. Overtime, and at a slow pace, I intend to build the Rapture community. Current members include top crypto fund managers, leading DAO specialists, and stellar crypto executives. The content and community that is being built does not cater to a mass audience just interested in crypto,

Rapture #264: Move to Premium and Market Commentary

As I alluded to in Rapture #263, I will be moving this newsletter to a paid subscription modal. This newsletter will be the last one of the free versions. If you are interested in continuing to receive these newsletters, you can click "account" in the top right corner

Rapture #263: China Opening up to Crypto and Binance Faces Scrutiny

Before I get into the meat of this newsletter, I would like to give a quick update on Rapture. I will be moving Rapture to a paid subscription modal and will be charging subscribers $100/month or $1,000/year for access. In addition to continuing to receive these newsletters,

Rapture #262: Market Commentary and Increased DOJ Involvement

Finally, we had some real market action. Today, the market effectively broke out to the upside of the range we have been in since December 16th. BTC now sits above $17,200 and ETH is around $1,300. While not a huge breakout for the entire market, there are some

Rapture #261: Barry vs. the Winkelvii

Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season and new years. I personally was traveling a bit and got to enjoy some amazing hospitality in Austin, TX. If you have not gone, I highly recommend going. Amazing BBQ, terrific southern culture, and Whataburgers as far as the eye can see. Regarding markets,

Rapture #260: Polygon is Killing the Game

While most L1s/sidechains have been struggling to gain traction, Polygon has continued to see increased adoption even during this bear market. Furthermore, their BD team has been on fire in terms of getting splashy headline partnerships done and their tech team is gearing up to likely launch their zkEVM

Rapture #259: The Donald Does it Again

While markets have quite frankly been depressing of late, the hot trend of the day in crypto definitely brings some comic relief. In the past few days, President Donald Trump has been pre-hyping a big announcement. Many speculated that President Trump would proclaim his running mate or some bombastic new

Rapture #258: Heat Continues to Rise for Offshore Crypto

The heat continues getting turned up in crypto, especially for the players who opted to primarily operate offshore. There has been major news items to come out regarding FTX, Binance, and Do Kwon in the past 48 hours. Do Kwon hiding in Serbia Do Kwon, the infamous leader of Terra