June 9, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

BlockFi, a crypto lending platform, is finalizing a Series E of around $500 million at a valuation of nearly $5B, as reported by The Information. The new financing will be led by Third Point Management and Hedosophia, along with participation from existing investors (which include Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global, Three Arrows Capital, Paradigm, and more).

BlockFi has seen its valuation grow exponentially this year. The latest funding is nearly a 70% increase in valuation from the lending platform’s Series D in March, which raised $350 million at $3 billion. Just last August, BlockFi had been valued at $435 million.

During a lull in the crypto markets, BlockFi has continued to perform exceptionally well. According to The Information, the company expects to make over $500 million in revenue this year, with monthly revenue flows hitting $50 million back in March.

The influx of capital comes right on the heels of a marketing campaign gone wrong, where, last month, BlockFi accidentally sent some users rewards denominated in Bitcoin rather than cash. CEO Zac Prince, at the time, admitted the company’s exposure to being less than 200 BTC, as some customers went ahead and withdrew the outsized rewards. The Block notes that BlockFi has now updated that number to under $6 million in “loss exposure” and that the firm has brought on KPMG to conduct a full audit on the incident.

Recommended Reads

  • ConsenSys put out a great summary documenting the changes to governance tokens in May:

  • Forbes → “The Future Of Crypto And Blockchain: Fintech 50 2021”

On The Pod…

June 14th is the 5-year anniversary of Unchained. 🎉

On Tuesday, June 15th, we’ll publish a 5-year anniversary episode with questions or messages from you listeners to me.

If you want to have your question or message included:
  • record a video or audio message of 60 seconds or less stating your name, where you’re from and your question or message.
  • email it to hello@unchainedpodcast.com with “anniversary” in the subject line (or just respond to this email)!
You can also email a question, and I will read it on the air. If so, please let me know how you’d like to be identified. (And let me know how to pronounce your name.)

The deadline to get your submissions in is Thursday, June 10 by 5 pm ET/2 pm PT.

Thanks so much for supporting Unchained all these years! 🙏

Check out the latest episode of Unchained:

Will Bitcoin’s Price Go Up Again? Yes, According to On-Chain Analytics

Willy Woo, on-chain Bitcoin analyst and writer of the Bitcoin Forecast, a market intelligence newsletter, and Rafael Schultze-Kraft, co-founder and CTO of Glassnode, discuss Bitcoin and what the on-chain metrics tell us about the price. Here to discuss is. Episode highlights:

  • what factors pushed the price of BTC down in May

  • why Elon’s Twitter account hold so much sway over the market

  • why Willy believes Bitcoin is good for renewable energy

  • who sold during the last month

  • which type of BTC investors stopped purchasing in Feb/March

  • what trends Willy and Rafael have noticed from coins moving to/from exchanges

  • their thoughts on exchange-traded products, like GBTC and Canadian ETFs

  • how derivatives trading has played a role in Bitcoin’s price

  • why stablecoins were trading above their peg in the months leading up to the Coinbase direct listing

  • how Willy values Bitcoin (specifically using NVT ratio)

  • whether the trend of corporate treasuries investing in Bitcoin will continue

  • how they expect Ethereum’s adoption of a deflationary monetary policy to impact the price of Bitcoin

  • when the market could turn bullish once again and predictions for the rest of the year

Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, is now available for pre-order now.

The book, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, comes out Nov. 2nd. Pre-order it today!

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians