In Today’s Email:
- 🏦 Crypto companies buying banks!
- 🎮 Microsoft spends $69B on Activision
- 🍁 Nelk Boys NFT
Bitmex (a crypto exchange) is Acquiring a 270-year old German Bank
In crypto, they always said the "flippening" was ethereum surpassing bitcoin in market cap.
What if it’s actually crypto exchanges buying banks and other financial institutions?
Bitmex just announced that they’re buying a 270+ year old German Bank, Bankhaus von der Heydt, one of the oldest banks in Europe.
After the 2008 financial crisis, the government basically stopped giving out new banking charters… look at this chart:
The irony of course is that banks fucked up so bad in 2008…that the government stopped handing out licenses (aka made it harder to compete with legacy banks)
So - what’s the workaround? Buy a bank!
It’s like a crusty old bar that has a liquor license that sells to a modern restaurant who doesn’t want to spend 2 years and tons of money trying to get a new liquor license.
Two predictions:
1/ This is the first, not the last. More banks are going to get bought by crypto companies.
2/ Customers are going to start getting magical yields (4%! 6%! And even 10% interest on your savings account!)
Because their normal bank account will plug into defi and get bigger yields.
We call this the defi mullet (meme courtesy of Sacra):
Microsoft Buys Activision for $69B
Three things:
1/ Holy shit, it’s all cash
2/ Microsoft just paid ~3x more for a gaming company than they paid for LinkedIn in 2016
3/ Every company is now building their “metaverse” narrative
source: financial times
On the surface, Microsoft is buying a suite of really valuable IP and gaming brands: World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk Pro Skater (one of my faves)
But I don’t think this is about gaming.
Remember, Microsoft almost missed out on the internet wave (then bill gates wrote that epic memo about the internet, and they got on board)
And they fully missed out on mobile (Google got android, Apple has iphone, and microsoft got left out).
They can’t miss out on the next platform shift.
That’s why every big company is looking at Facebook renaming itself Meta, and the crypto craze and telling themselves they need a “metaverse” strategy.
Games are the closest thing to the metaverse today.
You go into a virtual world, buy virtual items for your virtual character, and play with your virtual friends.
If you haven’t seen it, I wrote a thread about my theory of the Metaverse (it’s now been read over 25M times!) and games/currencies are a big part of it.
I don’t believe any one company will “own” the metaverse (just like nobody “owns” the internet).
But many companies can be a part of it. Bold move by microsoft.
The Nelk Boys NFT
A year ago, I had never heard of “the Nelk Boys.”
Ben kept telling me about them, and finally I caved. “Fine, tell me about your favorite boyband, ben”
Turns out the Nelk Boys are like Jackass for the new generation.
They’re a Youtube group that pranks people and has built a cult following at colleges across north america.
And, they’ve executed the “creator playbook" perfectly, by launching their own hard seltzer (happy dad), merch that sells $2m+ in seconds every day, and a modern day version of “Girls Gone Wild” called Full Send Girls.
Rough estimates put their existing biz units at $100m+ a year in revenue. If you know em, make an intro. I wanna invest.
Now, they’re entering the NFT space and practically broke discord - with 271,000 community members in 24 hours.
Their NFT project, Metacard, is effectively a membership to get access to everything they drop down the line.
Access to everything from Full Send physical gyms, Physical lounges and bars and restaurants, Full Send Apparel, Virtual Stores, Virtual Festivals, Metaverse Casinos, and Full Send NFT drops.
This is a great example of what a brand with a cult community can do with NFTs.
I’m gonna snag one today just for kicks & giggles
Good move by the Nelk Boys… but just wait till you see what we’re cooking up for our readers.
Milk Road NFT drop…I like the sound of that..
- Shaan aka Mr. Buy The Dip
