The Briefing Memo

September 2024 - If you’re new here, welcome to The Briefing Memo, which features our latest insights and updates.

We’re looking for a student intern to join our team. This is an excellent opportunity to learn what it's like to be an early stage VC and work directly with the general partner of a fund. More information here.

Why we invested in Bridge

Our very first portfolio company, Bridge, recently unveiled what they have been building and announced recent fundraising. Check out the company’s blog post here and our write-up below.

3 questions for Department Advisor Amanda Wick

For this month’s Briefing Memo we spoke with Department Advisor Amanda Wick, Founder & CEO of the Association for Women In Cryptocurrency and Principal at Incite Consulting LLC. Amanda previously worked for Chainalysis, DOJ, and FinCEN. She shares her advice for founders and her perspective on how blockchain technology can make regulation and supervision more effective.

Portfolio news

• Bridge: Featured in a Fortune exclusive. Announced they have been added to the Conduit Marketplace and integrations with Worldcoin and Grey.

• Etherfuse: Announced the addition of US stablebonds to their platform, introduced independent reserve audits for tokenized assets, and integrated with Credible.

• Mountain Protocol: Announced integrations with JOJO Exchange, Karak Network, Velodrome, Nekodex, and Angle Protocol.

• Opacity Network: Announced they will be participating in A16Z’s Crypto Startup Accelerator.

• RWA.xyz: Soft-launched a news aggregation site and announced integrations with NEAR Protocol and Ondo Finance. The company now tracks over 100 asset issuers on their platform.

• Squid Router: Announced an integration with Immutable.

• Swaye: Announced over 10 ETH in TVL since launching in open beta.

Department updates

• Advisor Ashley Ebersole was interviewed by the Block about the US Presidential Election and recent SEC activity.

• Advisor Sean Lee’s new venture, IDA, announced a seed funding round. Congrats, Sean!

What we’re reading and listening to

• Tokenized Podcast: Stablecoin Payments — Bridge Co-Founder Zach Abrams discusses the competitive and innovative landscape of stablecoins.

• Gemini: 2024 Global State of Crypto — Report on the state of the industry, featuring survey data from the US, UK, France, Singapore, and Turkey. Three out of four crypto owners in the US report that crypto will play a role in how they vote.

• WSJ: Are You Ready to Bet on U.S. Elections? A Judge’s Ruling Opens the Door — Reporting on a federal judge’s ruling opening the door for prediction market company Kalshi to offer election contracts in the US.

• Medium: Prediction Markets of the Future: Challenges and Innovations — Primer on the state of prediction markets.

• DLNews: Interest rates are about to fall. Should the $2bn tokenised Treasuries market worry? — Co-Founder of portfolio company Superstate, Jim Hiltner, shared his views on the changing interest rate environment.

On the horizon

We’ll be in Denver, Dallas, and San Francisco over the coming weeks. Reach out if you’d like to meet up!