Big M&A News 🚨 + We Wrote an Op-Ed ✍️ + $1M in Staking Rewards 🎉

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We often reference big M&A deals in the crypto space, but this one gives us all the feels! 🤗

On Thursday, we were proud to announce our portfolio company, Wyre, has entered into an agreement to be acquired by ⚡ Bolt, a leading fintech company that provides a seamless online shopping and checkout 🛒 experience for major retailers worldwide. 🌎

This proposed transaction is a huge vote of confidence ✅ for the crypto industry that will help fuel mainstream adoption and streamline payment processes. 💳

Barriers to entry in the crypto space have always been high, which has deterred many people from dabbling in the sector. Now, with the talented teams behind Wyre and Bolt ⚡ combining forces (pending approvals and closing conditions are met), they will be able to meet growing demand from consumers who want to use cryptocurrency to purchase goods and services in both the physical-world and Web3.

Developers 👨‍💻 can also design protocols to introduce new financial products that can scale quickly and securely to reach millions of users across the globe.

Wyre, on its own, has on-ramped more than 15 million end users to their crypto partners and has processed US$10+ billion in payments 👀 since its inception in 2013. Its API is highly sought after by many developers in the space as the company is run by crypto natives who know how to innovate. 💡 🚀

We recognized Wyre’s potential from day one as a leading 💵 fiat-to-crypto payment provider with a focus on helping Web3 developers service their customers. 🥇

Our minority stake in the company dates back to 2019 and was part of our investment thesis to support projects that are building 🧱 key infrastructure, particularly those that make on and off ramps more efficient.

Overall, we believe this is an excellent outcome for our shareholders and are proud to have supported the team at Wyre on its journey over the past few years. 💯

With new use cases emerging almost everyday for crypto and Web3 (i.e., NFTs, DeFi, the metaverse, to name a few) the future for the industry is looking bright! 😎

If we had a nickel 🪙 for every time someone likened the crypto industry to the “Wild West,” we would have traded them for one ETH by now! 😜

The Financial Post asked us to respond to some of crypto’s harshest critics, including those who believe the technology is a lightning rod for criminal activity. 😈

The industry has evolved from the early days and is constantly being stress-tested to protect end users. Transactions are very much on display for the world to see, and now there’s software companies like Chainalysis, that work with agencies to monitor on-chain activity. 🕵️ Unfortunately, due to the prevalent knowledge gap, those who are highly skeptical don’t always recognize the industry’s potential and are quick to judge based on what they think they know.

We hope that will change in time as more companies, governments and organizations lean into the sector. But until then, all we can do is stay open-minded and continue supporting the innovation 💡 in every way possible.

Who said money doesn’t grow on trees? 🌳 Over the weekend, we surpassed $1 million in staking rewards. 💰 📈

You’ve probably gathered by now that we’re very bullish on staking, but it is a major theme to watch out for this year considering the upcoming Merge. This open-source explorer shows there’s already close to 11 million ETH — worth a whopping $44 billion — staked on the Beacon Chain. 😲

While there’s much to look forward to in the months ahead, Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently published a reflection piece 🪞 titled “The roads not taken” that shares his musings of how the network got to where it is today.

It’s an open and honest perspective of Vitalik balancing two visions for Ethereum. In others words, “a pure and simple blockchain that values safety and simplicity, and a highly performant and functional platform for building advanced applications.” His ultimate goal? Achieving both at the same time. 🏆

The industry is quickly evolving and there’s a lot of information to keep up with. That’s why we want to help! 🦸

Email us your questions and we’ll respond to as many as we can. While we can’t provide investment advice, we do want to steer you in the right direction so you can be informed.

Thank you for subscribing to our weekly newsletter! We’d love to hear from you, so please don’t hesitate to reach out. 😎 🚀