What Drives the Next Bull Market?

Finding signal in the bear market noise

👋 Welcome to the nineteenth issue of The Syllabus from Invisible College – a weekly newsletter that helps you navigate the fast-moving world of web3. To get this newsletter delivered to your inbox, subscribe here:

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Invisible College Updates

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🎟 Upcoming Events – We’ve got a bunch of upcoming events including:

• How Does NFT Data Work? (Weds. 6/1 @ 1 pm PT)*

• Building Decentralized Cities (Weds. 6/8 @ 12 pm PT)

• Investing in Digital Land (Thurs. 6/9 @ 12 pm PT)*

• Breaking Down the NFT Stack (Thurs. 6/16 @ 12 pm PT)

* To access these events, you’ll need to hold at least one Decentralien NFT.

Now onto this week’s post…

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Rising prices have historically generated the narratives that drive people to invest in crypto. For example, last week was the anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, when Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 BTC on two Papa John’s pizzas. The transaction cost Laszlo the equivalent of $41 dollars in 2010. Today, that Bitcoin would be worth over $300M. Unfortunately for our current market, bullish price narratives are in short supply.

That said, the tides of sentiment will eventually turn for the crypto market. Let’s look at some of the narratives that may help drive that shift.

Dry Powder

Despite the sad state of the funding markets, there’s still a lot of dry powder sitting in recently raised crypto funds. For example:

• Framework Ventures raised $400 Million to invest in web3

• Dragonfly Capital raised a $600 Million crypto fund

• Crypto Investor, Katie Haun raised $1.5 billion

• a16z announced their 4th crypto fund and raised $4.5 Billion

As the froth drains from the market, it’s likely that a good deal of this capital will get deployed into projects that will spur the next generation of web3 tools, applications, and use cases.

Gateway NFTs

NFTs have long been the gateway drug into web3. As the NFT market matures, we are seeing more celebrities convert their fans into NFT owners by offering compelling forms of utility. For example:

• Tom Brady cofounded Autograph an NFT platform that has powered NFT drops from iconic brands like the Indianapolis 500 and household names like Tiger Woods.

• Russell Wilson and AJ Vaynerchuk created a new sports drink called Local Weather that they are launching through a utility-driven NFT collection.

• G Money recently minted Admit One, a membership NFT that will give fans access to exclusive experiences.

If these projects make good on their promises to provide fans with compelling experiences, they will help web3 cross the chasm from early believers to the majority of internet users.

Unlocking Liquidity in Blue Chip NFTs

One downside of investing in NFTs is the lack of liquidity among most projects.

To help NFT holders unlock value from their NFTs, a number of lending protocols have recently been launched including Nexo and a peer-to-peer option called AbraNFT. These platforms will allow some of the most historically active web3 users to explore new projects.

Beyond lending, OpenSea also launched Seaport, an open-source protocol that will allow NFT holders to barter and trade their NFTs for other non-fungible tokens (e.g. you could list your Doodles NFT for 2 ETH + 1 Azuki instead of just a flat ETH amount).

As NFT holders are able to unlock a greater amount of utility, the asset class will become more enticing for new investors.

Beyond Speculation

While each of these narratives will likely play a role in getting us out of the current bear market, unexpected narratives will emerge, as well. 

As projects bring their big ideas to fruition, users will begin to see web3 as more than just a place for speculation. It will look gradual at first, then sudden.

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Other Recommended Reads

• Context Disruption
  David Phelps writes about how quickly the narrative around Terra changed and the role that leader Do Kwon played.

• Stop Calling it a Wallet
  Gaby Goldberg argues that the language we use in web3 is important, starting with the word wallet.

• The Future of Crypto Native Consumer Products
  Mercedes Bent breaks down the current state of crypto-native products and where she sees the industry headed in the future.

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Invisible College, is a school that helps people learn to build and invest in web3. To access our courses, events, and learning community, you’ll need to hold at least one Decentralien. You can get yours on Magic Eden.