EthCap Year in Review

🎇 We did it! 🎆

We’re hoping you heard the news by now… we staked $50 million of Ether! 🥳

In fact, we started by staking 10,240 of our ETH balance and plan to stake an additional 20,000 ETH in the new year.

This makes us the first public company in the world 🌎 to stake such a meaningful amount of Ether and we couldn’t have done it without our partners at Figment Inc. who will be running our validator infrastructure. 👨‍💻

Staking is a fundamental part of Ethereum as the network transitions from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). By locking up our Ether, we turn it into a productive asset that generates an attractive yield of more than 5% (currently staked Ether is a 5.2% ROI).

How does it work? It’s simple. Holders like us who opt to stake are rewarded more Ether by locking up 🔒 assets to approve network transactions, which is also known as validating. This is great news for our shareholders who get direct exposure to Ethereum 2.0.

Staking sharpens our focus on The Merge that is expected to occur in mid-2022 and will make Ethereum a more secure, scalable and carbon-neutral blockchain.

We’re excited that you can be part of this journey with us! 🚀

It has been quite the year! COVID-19 narrative aside, the digital asset industry saw many incredible developments – some of which we were fortunate to be a part of. Since we live and breathe the crypto space every day, we are in the weeds watching narratives evolve and have a sense of where things are going as we ring in the new year. 🥂

Here are a few achievements from 2021 that we at Ether Capital are most proud of:

1.    We brought the world’s first Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to market alongside our partners at Purpose Investments earlier this year. This was a task that took many months to come to fruition, as we worked with Canadian regulators and industry partners alike to solve complex problems around custody and daily liquidity. These are things that seem easily achievable on paper but are complex in practice when you’re dealing with the new paradigms and innovations brought to bear by blockchain technology.

2.    In the second half of the year, we welcomed Shayan Eskandari to the company as Chief Technical Officer, responsible for overseeing our developments in the space and who is an integral part of our staking strategy. Shayan’s first order of business was to help us with the custody issues surrounding Ethereum 2.0, something that globally recognized custodians are still grappling with. We’ll have more details to share in a blog post early next week.

3.    Of course, the biggest achievement for us was the deployment of $50 million (10,000+ Ether) onto Ethereum 2.0 staking. We are now generating an attractive yield of more than 5% annually, while helping secure the Ethereum network. We’ve announced our plan to deploy an additional 20,000 Ether to staking in the early part of 2022.

This marks an important and exciting transition for Ether Capital as a company. Our commitment to the Ethereum ecosystem has never been stronger, and we continue to believe in Ether as a core asset with tremendous upside. Now, with staking, we have begun to move beyond passive asset ownership and towards an operating business model with meaningful revenue.

Ether Capital 2.0, as we like to call it, will benefit from having positive cash flow and a core strategy of being a net accumulator of Ether. We plan to begin building unique IP that will benefit the company and the wider ecosystem.

As for the digital asset space in aggregate, institutional adoption has never been stronger. The inflows of capital show tremendous support for this emerging technology, and the intellectual capital flocking to crypto startups has been unlike any other bull run we’ve experienced to date.

Most surprising has been the new use-cases – NFTs and DAOs, for example, which existed in years prior, but hadn’t yet captured mainstream attention or scale. Of course, these two things and their involvement in the metaverse will be things to watch in 2022, alongside the success of Ethereum ‘layer 2’ solutions for scalability that will bring smaller value activity back to Ethereum from competing ‘layer 1’ blockchains. Of course, there’s always the ongoing conversation around regulation that I usually welcome, but at time I may roll my eyes at…

While I don’t know where the digital asset prices will go in the short-term, it’s never been clearer that the asset class is here to stay and that it has a bright future – one that I certainly want to be a part of, and I hope you do as well. If I’m right, crypto will touch all our lives at some point in the future, and there has never been a better time to jump in to learn and engage.

I look forward to the year ahead. Here’s hoping that “number go up” but also that the “building” continues! Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday. 🕎🎄✨

Brian Mosoff,

CEO

Katie Haun, one of the most influential crypto venture capitalists, announced she’s leaving Andreessen Horowitz to start her own firm that will focus on crypto and Web 3 startups.  

Former U.S. SEC Chair Jay Clayton tipped his hat to blockchain and told CNBC earlier this week that he’s “a huge believer” in crypto technology. He also praised tokenization saying it creates an enormous amount of efficiency for the financial system.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says he doesn’t view cryptocurrencies as a “financial stability concern,” but does consider them speculative assets that could be problematic for consumers who might not know what they’re getting into. His remarks come one week after crypto executives descended upon Washington to speak with lawmakers about how to properly regulate the industry. While it’s nice to see there’s room for everyone at the table, we wouldn’t tell you to hold your breath for a decision from this bunch.

Ethereum’s leading software provider ConsenSys announced it’s teaming up with Mastercard to make Ethereum’s mainnet and private chains more scalable with a focus on privacy-enhancing solutions. Use cases include central bank digital currencies, decentralized exchanges, micropayments as well as private transfers and taxes.

As always, feel free to contact us at info@ethcap.co with any comments, questions, or just to say hello!

Ether Capital (NEO:ETHC) is a leading technology company focused on participating in the development of the Ethereum and Web 3 ecosystem. For more information, visit www.ethcap.co.

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