New launches (part 1) - private capture, phantom pricing
 New launches (part 1) - private capture, phantom pricing by timdaub.eth12379 🥝 • 2y • 0 views • 0 clicks | |
AI summary of the linked articleThe author argues that most new token launches are now effectively uninvestable at market, because price discovery has shifted to private rounds before a token trades. Using figures from the article, Ethereum's 2014 ICO at about $26m valuation ($0.31 per ETH) returned roughly 10,000x in USD, and Solana's 2018 seed round at about $20m returned roughly 4,000x, while the cheapest open-market buys returned about 7,500x for Ethereum and 300x for Solana. For more recent projects, Optimism's seed round at about $60m FDV returned 183x against 6x from market, and Starknet's seed at about $80m FDV returned 138x, with market buyers at its lowest ever valuation, $11 billion FDV, seeing no return yet. | |
Recommended by 3 curators | |
 Excellent post; I missed Cobie's long reads. The chart with the "public market begins" line hit particularly hard. It reminds me of an anecdotal story — a few months ago, I was at a party with some crypto friends. I met one guy who was maybe 25 years old but had already made a lot in the last cycle. I asked him what his approach to investing was, and he told me that now he only invests in private rounds - as early as possible. He argued that even if the project is mid and goes down after listing, you still make about 10X. Seems like it was very close to the truth.  Yeah. They (VCs) are pieces of shit and if you accuse then of wrong doing, all you‘ll get is some financial nihilism take on how you‘re a loser and „why don‘t you do it yourself.“ I hope this post and the spreading of this information brings more sanity to investors who are currently being dumped on due to information asymmetry. Sometimes I hate this greedy fucking industry. Not everything is about money | |
Characters remaining: 10,000 comment guidelines | |
More from cobie.substack.com on Kiwi News | |
