Rapture: Mattison Asher's Crypto Takes

One of the largest news items of the week was undoubtedly the coverage that BlackRock plans to offer [https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/02/09/blackrock-planning-to-offer-crypto-trading-sources-say/] crytpo trading for their clients. The market did not really respond the news at all, which is interesting because it is undoubtedly a

I got very little sleep last night. I dreamt that inflation came in dramatically lower than expected and Bitcoin immediately rallied to $60,000. Being predominantly out of the crypto market is more nauseating to me than being fully in and seeing my holdings drop substantially. I know this asset

Recently, there was an announcement on my most anticipated product launch for 2022. Stani Kulechov, the chilliest founder in crypto (founded Aave), announced [https://twitter.com/StaniKulechov/status/1490783354245066753?s=20&t=kMArF8ds21ZaDQ9FcFmvOg] the launch of Lens Protocol, the social crypto native platform meant to eventually compete with Twitter.

For the past week it seems, everyone has been obsessed with reactions to some old Tweets that a couple members of the Ethereum community posted years ago. One of the main leaders of ENS was removed from his position because of an old tweet claiming homosexuality is evil and transgenderism

Back in December, I wrote about how Axie Infinity would have to change its SLP policies [https://rapture.ghost.io/rapture-93-axie-infinitys-pending-problem/] in order jump start user growth again. DAUs continued to sink in January, from approximately 2.5 million at the beginning of the month to 2.18 million on

I read 50 pages of books a day, and recently, I have been alternating each non-crypto book with a crypto book to try and get through more of the literature that is out there on our industry. Most of the literature has to do with what I call the early

Markets are always humbling. While AXS is just a bit higher (currently $56.95) than where I sold my last lot (approximately $55.5 per AXS), BTC and ETH have skyrocketed off their bottoms despite my thinking (which so far hasn’t changed) that there is more downside to come.

While I have not been shy about my bearish sentiment, there are always sectors and coins that buck the market trend. The most famous outperformer during the 2018 – 2019 bear market was undoubtedly LINK. In February 2018, LINK was 40 cents. By July 2019, LINK reached $3.08 despite the

Just as the crypto market was reacting to the earnings miss by FB in after hours, which led to a 22.8% drop in FB so far [https://www.google.com/search?q=fb+stock&rlz=1C1UEAD_enUS980US980&oq=fb+stock&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i131i433i512l3j0i433i512j0i512j0i131i433i512j0i512l3.2330j1j15&sourceid=

In part 1 of this series, I discussed the two market leaders, MetaMask and Phantom. While I was going to discuss MyCrypto today, it was just announced that MetaMask is acquiring MyCrypto [https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/02/01/consensys-acquires-ethereum-wallet-mycrypto-plans-to-merge-it-with-metamask/] , bringing Ethereum OG Taylor Monahan [https://twitter.com/tayvano_

With Phantom raising $109 million in a Series B recently [https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/31/solana-wallet-phantom-raises-109m-to-rival-metamask/] , I thought it might be interesting to cover the wallet market in crypto today. In my opinion, wallets are the most important crypto applications because they own the user relationship. Since

Crypto is undeniably driven by the whims of retail. Yet over the past 6 months, there are clear indications that retail has been leaving the crypto markets. Considering retail buying is one of the largest drivers of crypto price, understanding the trends of retail is essential to understanding where we

First, I don’t want to present myself in any way as being able to consistently predict the market. Because quite frankly, I cannot. I do my best to position myself appropriately regarding what market regime I believe we are in and self-correct where needed. As of a week ago,

Earlier this week, the SEC proposed 654 pages [https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2022/34-94062.pdf] worth of new rules regarding alternative trading systems for securities, also known as ATS. In this proposal, the SEC looks to dramatically increase the scope of what is viewed as a securities exchange

I love crypto. I have been here since 2016. I love the memes, I love the irreverent culture, and I love the values of decentralization it was founded upon. While I deeply love this industry, I do aknowledge there are serious issues with some of the cultural norms we have.

Since I am in the conference mood, I thought I would cover some of the most compelling upcoming events for those interested in rubbing shoulders with crypto industry leaders. Generally, I bucket conferences into 3 categories: developer oriented, institution oriented, and degen oriented. All are important to attend in order

In part one [https://rapture.ghost.io/rapture-119-the-companies-that-will-bridge-wall-street-and-crypto-part-1/] of this series, I covered the value proposition for Fireblocks and Copper. For part two [https://rapture.ghost.io/rapture-121/], I discussed Anchorage and Galaxy Digital. The last couple companies that are positioned to be the bridge between Wallstreet/Fintech and crypto

In part 1 [https://rapture.ghost.io/rapture-119-the-companies-that-will-bridge-wall-street-and-crypto-part-1/] of this series, we examined the success of Fireblocks and Copper. For this post, we will dive into how Anchorage and Galaxy Digital (who happens to be an investor in Fireblocks) are positioning themselves to capitalize on being the bridge between Wall

Since I will be down in Miami for the renowned Context Investment Summit this week, I thought it would be interesting to cover the most impactful players in the market currently in position to bridge wall street with cyrpto. The way I envision the bridging playing out is that Fintech

As the market went through turmoil these past few days, there was a significant demand to utilize any L1 blockchain. Many traders needed to trade int to stablecoins, unwind their debt positions, or even have to be liquidated by a lending protocol for the market to remain efficient and functional.

Since I know everyone is focused on the crypto markets being in goblin town [http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Clap!_Snap!_The_black_crack!], you might want to check out some of my thoughts just over a week ago on the crypto market facing significant downside risk [https://rapture.ghost.io/

First, it was El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Now, it is Turkey’s Erdogen [https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkeys-erdogan-meets-el-salvadors-bitcoin-boosting-leader-amid-economic-crisis-11642678083#:~:text=ISTANBUL%E2%80%94Turkish%20President%20Recep%20Tayyip,arrest%20the%20country's%20currency%20crisis.] . Dictators around the world who no longer want to be reliant on a dollar system

Since so many of you liked Rapture #115: Effects of EIP 1559, I thought it would make sense to cover Josh Stark’s and Evan Van Ness’ The Year in Ethereum 2021 [https://stark.mirror.xyz/q3OnsK7mvfGtTQ72nfoxLyEV5lfYOqUfJIoKBx7BG1I] report. So, let’s dive in! Fees, fees, and more fees In 2021

Now that it has been more than six months since EIP-1559 was implemented, I thought it would be a good idea to dive into some of the effects the change has had on Etheruem. Note that if you need a refresher on what EIP-1559 did for Ethereum, you can check

Never a dull day in crypto. This past week, Irene Zhao [https://twitter.com/Irenezhao_], a popular Twitter account, released a new NFT collection [https://opensea.io/collection/irenedao] for a DAO called IreneDAO. The NFTs comprise of common crypto slang with provocative photos of Irene. If you buy one