Blockchain assets\u2014bitcoin, altcoins, and tokens\u2014are a new investment class. It\u2019s like the early days of the stock market, with tons of golden opportunities. But understanding how to navigate the world of blockchain investments is like possessing a superpower.<\/p>\n
Over the last year, we\u2019ve worked tirelessly to build a framework for blockchain investors<\/strong>\u2014a way to think about these new altcoins and tokens, within the context of their IRA and 401(k). And in the process, we have acquired knowledge that is incredibly rare and valuable.<\/p>\n In building a framework for blockchain investors, here are five superpowers that we\u2019ve acquired\u2014and passed on to others. Call it a billion dollars\u2019 worth of superpowers.<\/p>\n One year ago, we started a meetup for Boston blockchain investors<\/a>. The first meeting, maybe a dozen people showed up. The next month it was a few dozen. The next month, we had to move to a bigger space. By March we had over a hundred investors.<\/p>\n The demand for investor education<\/strong> was insatiable. People wanted to know how this stuff works.<\/p>\n And in return for providing all this free education, we got something in return: information<\/em>. We got to hear how investors made decisions, and what they were investing in. We learned their average blockchain investment ($11,000), and how much they had in non-blockchain holdings ($150,000).<\/p>\n By helping investors understand blockchain, we greatly accelerated our own knowledge. So much of my blockchain education has come from talking with other smart investors, thinking about their questions, and figuring it out together. And there\u2019s still so much to learn!<\/p>\n It became obvious that investors needed a framework to evaluate the thousands of tokens and altcoins that were flooding the market. How do you decide if a new blockchain project is worth your money?<\/p>\n We developed the Blockchain Investor Scorecard<\/a>, an academically-published, peer-reviewed framework for evaluating new blockchain projects. Answer a few simple questions in five important categories, and it gives you a 1-5 star rating on whether to consider investing.<\/p>\n This provides a way for investors to compare wildly different blockchain projects. Whether it\u2019s a supply chain project, a prediction market, or an energy token, you can use the Blockchain Investor Scorecard to compare \u201capples to apples.\u201d<\/p>\n We built out a team of outstanding analysts and journalists, who use the Blockchain Investor Scorecard to rate and review new opportunities each week, serving up the best to our Pro Newsletter subscribers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our hope is the Blockchain Investor Scorecard becomes the industry standard. Feel free to use it and improve it: it\u2019s open source.<\/p>\n We needed better numbers.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re considering investing in a stock, you have all kinds of metrics: Earnings Per Share, P\/E Ratio, and so on.<\/p>\n Blockchain investors had one metric: price.<\/p>\n If bitcoin is trading at $4,000, is that overpriced or underpriced? Should it really be worth $1, or $1,000,000? Who knows?<\/p>\n When you\u2019re only looking at price, it becomes a \u201chall of mirrors\u201d where the only thing you can refer back to is price. It\u2019s an infinite loop.<\/p>\n We developed new quantitative metrics for valuing blockchain investments, including Value Per User (which I wrote about last week<\/a>), and others (that we\u2019ve made available to our Pro Newsletter subscribers<\/a>).<\/p>\n Our hope is these metrics become industry standards, just like stock valuation metrics. Use them and improve them: they\u2019re also open source, for the good of the community.<\/p>\n We saw that many blockchain investors were in it to get rich quick. Our goal was to convert these \u201ccrypto bros.\u201d into \u201cblockchain pros\u201d<\/a> by helping them think long-term, like more sophisticated investors.<\/p>\n At the same time, we needed a way for ordinary investors\u2014the 99% who\u2019ve never heard of blockchain\u2014to get on board. This is essential for this asset class to grow.<\/p>\n So we created our Blockchain Investor\u2019s Manifesto<\/a>, which outlined a philosophy of investing. It was based on \u201cvalue investing\u201d\u2014the same philosophy that built Warren Buffett\u2019s fortune\u2014updated with blockchain.<\/p>\n We haven\u2019t been able to print enough of these manifestos. We go through them by the suitcase. Investors are hungry for a sensible strategy.<\/p>\n We also began explaining how blockchain can be viewed within an overall investment portfolio. Just as you\u2019d diversify your 401(k) with stocks and bonds, you can diversify your investments further by adding just a little bit of bitcoin (between 2-10%).<\/p>\n These are three sample portfolios that would have returned a whopping 81%, 326%, and 823% in just three years. What\u2019s more, since bitcoin does not behave like stocks and bonds, these portfolios actually diversify risk.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve outlined these portfolios in detail to Pro Newsletter subscribers<\/a>, who have also acquired these superpowers.<\/p>\n What will we do with all the wealth that\u2019s being created? We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fundamentally reprogram some of our biggest human institutions with blockchain. This work is happening now:<\/p>\n Government<\/strong>: Boston startup Voatz<\/a> is putting elections on the blockchain, so we all have transparency into our electoral process.<\/p>\n Investing<\/strong>: Blockchain is making investment opportunities open to everyone\u2014not just the 1%\u2014through\u00a0 projects like our open-source Equity Token Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n Law<\/strong>: Consensys-backed OpenLaw<\/a> is mashing up smart contracts with legal contracts, greatly simplifying legal help, and making it more accessible.<\/p>\n Energy<\/strong>: Boston startup Swytch<\/a> is making blockchain-based energy markets for solar power\u2014helping us switch the entire world onto solar.<\/p>\n Poverty<\/strong>: By making it instant and free for people to send money overseas, projects like Boston\u2019s Tunnel<\/a> are opening the flow of capital to developing nations, and helping lift the world out of poverty<\/p>\n We\u2019ve developed these superpowers so that smart investors like you will also be able to acquire them\u2014today,<\/em> before the rest of the world has caught on. Not just one superpower, but all five: the superpower stack A future is coming when blockchain will be part of everyone’s portfolio. It\u2019ll be offered through Fidelity, and you\u2019ll add it to your 401(k). It\u2019ll just be the way things are done. Together, we\u2019ve developed the framework for how we\u2019ll get there.<\/p>\n And we\u2019ve done this in a year!<\/p>\n Imagine what we\u2019ll do together in the next two to three years. It\u2019s incredible to think about the wealth that will be created, and how we\u2019ll use it to change the world.<\/p>\n When you look at it that way, a billion dollars seems like a bargain.<\/p>\n Want to acquire these superpowers? Get our weekly investor briefing delivered for free<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How much is a superpower worth? How much would you pay to be able to fly, or to become invisible? Let\u2019s say $200 million. You could easily make that $200 million back with a superpower. Shrink to the size of an ant, cure cancer, boom. $200 million, easy. Now, how much would you pay for… Read More…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[459],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13718"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13733,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13718\/revisions\/13733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Superpower 1: Understanding How It Works<\/h2>\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/are-we-worth2.png\" "\\"are-we-worth2\\"")
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\n<\/center><\/p>\nSuperpower 2: Qualitative Analysis<\/h2>\n
Superpower 3: Quantitative Analysis<\/h2>\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/are-we-worth4.png\" "\\"are-we-worth4\\"")
\n<\/center><\/p>\nSuperpower 4: Portfolio Construction<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/center><\/p>\nSuperpower 5: Changing the World<\/h2>\n
The Superpower Stack<\/h2>\n