David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - General

    Grayscale Wins Case Against SEC. It's a Huge Victory for Bitcoin and Coinbase

    This article from Barron’s may be of interest. Here is a section:

    GBTC had been trading at a significant discount to the value of the Bitcoin it holds. That gap is likely to close as traders anticipate an ETF approval.

    The judges' decision won't allow GBTC to convert into an ETF automatically. The federal government can appeal the decision to the Supreme Court or the SEC could attempt to deny the application to convert to an ETF for another reason.

    Still, the decision makes it an uphill battle for the SEC to keep spot Bitcoin ETFs from coming to market. In addition to Grayscale, BlackRock (BLK), Fidelity and other companies have also applied to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF.

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    London's Emissions Zone Has Changed Air Pollution Policy Forever

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section:

    The drivers most likely to be stung by the ULEZ expansion are commercial van owners. Unlike cars, the van market is still dominated by diesel —  more than 90% of vans are diesel-fueled. Data suggests that just under half of vans registered to addresses in the outer boroughs of the city are not ULEZ compliant, though the mayor’s office disputes the relevance of this data, arguing that many of those vehicles are not actually driven in London. It uses data collected from road-monitoring cameras, which suggests 80% of vans are ULEZ compliant.

    Some small business groups have raised opposition to an extra charge on vans, citing the financial burdens this can create for their business. In response to concerns, Khan expanded a vehicle scrappage scheme, once only available to a limited number of recipients, to all drivers of non-compliant vehicles. Still, this only covers those people living in London and not those on the borders who may need to commute into the capital daily.

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    Email of the day on silver's contango

    I am asking why the next expiry in Silver futures is so much higher than it seems to me than in the past, is it simply because rates are higher?

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    Markets Show China Needs a Stimulus 'Bazooka' to Woo Investors

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    “The measures over the past weekend are not enough to stem the downward spiral” and their impact will be short lived if not followed by measures for supporting the real economy, Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc., wrote in a note. “Without additional and more aggressive policy stimulus, these stock-markets-focused policies alone have little sustainable positive impact.”

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    Startup extinction season is going to kick into high gear - and there's likely going to be a bloodbath soon for some of the 50,000 VC-backed startups

    This article from Business Insider may be of interest. Here is a section:

    Venture capital funding was overly abundant in the latter half of 2020 and all of 2021. There were nearly 19,000 deals done that year, according to PitchBook, until things started to taper off in 2022.

    Stanford points out that the average time between funding rounds is now around 1.5 years. – basically what it was before the pandemic boom times. So, hypothetically, if a company last raised capital in the first quarter of 2022 (one of the most active in terms of deal count, PitchBook data shows), many startups will be on the hunt for new capital in the fourth quarter of 2023.

    Every company's situation is a little different based on their operating expenses and whether they've gotten fresh funding already. Though, unless you're an AI startup, the chance of a VC check has been slim to none. So what are their options? Likely a sale or shutting down.

    But it's not just VCs who are being stingy. All those crossover firms that wanted to get in on the action like Tiger Global (which by the way, did 335 deals in 2021, according to Crunchbase) and Coatue, aren't doing the kind of deals that they used to. Participation has dropped from more than 550 deals and a quarterly peak of nearly $50 billion in 2021 to fewer than 200 deals and a quarterly peak of around $15 billion in 2023, Stanford wrote.

    "We believe that a large portion of the supply-side deficit is derived from the crossover and other nontraditional investors that have pulled back from VC to more traditional strategies," he wrote.

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    Florida Faces Major Hurricane Threat as Idalia Strengthens

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    The exact spot Idalia will come ashore isn’t certain. “It cannot be emphasized enough that only a small deviation in the track could cause a significant change in Idalia’s landfall location,” Brown wrote. 

    If it reaches forecast strength, Idalia would be the first major hurricane to hit Florida since last September when Hurricane Ian struck the western part of the state as a Category 4 storm, killing at least 150 people and causing more than $112 billion in damage, the hurricane center said. 

    Idalia is expected to stay in the eastern Gulf, away from offshore oil and natural gas production. Most of the key citrus areas in central Florida would not be seriously impacted, World Weather Inc. President Drew Lerner said.

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