Happy Monday & greetings from sunny Las Vegas! '' Today's issue is all about crypto as we're going to look into record activity and infrastructure advances that mark the industry's maturity (breaking down the latest state of crypto report from a16z, focusing on key insights & what's next), and Bitstamp which just secured a landmark EU crypto derivatives license (what it means for both Bitstamp & Robinhood, and what can we expect next). Let's just jump straight into the good stuff ''...
These price decreases come at a bad time. As key inputs to energy transitions, military technologies and consumer electronics, demand for various critical minerals is expected to range from doubling to quadruple by 2040, and forecasts indicate a potential supply deficit as soon as 2028. Given the long lead times to develop new supply sources, investments in mining these minerals must begin now. Yet, in the face of low prices, the mining industry is delaying projects, scaling back work and suspending operations. For these minerals, emerging futures and options markets ' collectively known as derivatives ' present a promising avenue to increase pricing transparency and stability by increasing liquidity. Contracts in metals markets traditionally can go three to five years forward. These contracts, therefore, provide visibility on sellers' profits and buyers' costs, enabling them to plan for the future. Although not without some detractors, research has suggested that deep derivatives markets, i.e. those with many active participants and significant trading volume, can reduce pricing volatility due to increased liquidity, enhanced risk management capabilities and improved mechanisms for price discovery....
Gibraltar-based Vega Protocol raised $5 million toward going live with what the company calls the âfirst capital-efficient, decentralized derivatives trading protocol that bridges traditional finance and decentralized finance,â better known as DeFi.
Arrington Capital and Cumberland DRW led the round. Other backers include Coinbase Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Signum Capital, CMT Digital, CMS Holdings, Three Commas, GSR, SevenX Ventures and Zee Prime Capital as well as the DeFi Alliance and a group of individuals.
This round follows Vegaâs $5 million seed round, led by Pantera Capital, in October 2019. This latest funding gives Vega just over $10 million in venture-backed capital raised since being founded in 2018, Vega co-founder Barney Mannerings told Crunchbase News.
Mannerings met his co-founder Ramsey Khoury some years ago, and the two bonded around cryptocurrency, discussing investment in the space and the need for a decentralized protocol that would remove the middleman, thus reducing associated fees....
What happens when there is a mass loss of confidence in the financial system? This very contemporary question was put in unexpected historical context for me this Christmas by a book I was given, A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum. It is based on one [â¦]...
