Posts in supply chain / trade
The links between tech, commerce, and finance behind Klarna's $45B valuation and Pinduoduo's $150B marketcap
The links between tech, commerce, and finance behind Klarna's $45B valuation and Pinduoduo's $150B marketcap

This week, we cover these ideas:

  • Klarna’s $640 million raise and its $45 billion valuation, and how its business model arbitrages the payments revenue pool to build a lending business

  • Pinduoduo’s growth path to a $150B marketcap, and the links between shopping, media, and financial mechanisms that help it compete with Alibaba

  • A comparison of approaches to growth and economics

  • Implications for crypto assets for capturing “the real economy”

Klarna is raising $640 million on a $45 billion private valuation, with over $1 billion in net operating income. The buy-now-pay-later company has over 90 million active customers and 250,000 merchants. It was founded in Sweden in 2005.

On the other side of the ocean, Chinese ecommerce company Pinduoduo is beating Alibaba with 820 million active buyers, generates over $3 billion in revenue per quarter, connects buyers to 12 million farmers, and has a market capitalization of $150 billion. It was founded in China in 2015.

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small business, supply chain / trade, eCommerce, digital lending, neobank, super app, China, metaverse, social & communityLex SokolinKlarna, Pinduoduo, Alibaba, Square
How a moment on the NYC 6 train turned into using NFTs in the $74T supply chain industry before NFTs were cool, with Tyler Mulvihill of EulerBeats
How a moment on the NYC 6 train turned into using NFTs in the $74T supply chain industry before NFTs were cool, with Tyler Mulvihill of EulerBeats

In this conversation, we talk with Tyler Mulvihill of Treum and EulerBeats, about how he became involved in the very first non-financial production grade blockchain use case, tracking & tracing tuna from Fiji to New York using Treum. Additionally, we explore the nuances of NFTs and how EulerBeats is using bonding curve economics to price the future of NFT use rather than mere collection.

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visual art, music industry, NFTs and digital objects, supply chain / tradeLex SokolinTreum, EulerBeats, Sacramento Kings
Non-fungible tokens and crypto art (like Hashmasks) will create multi-billion markets for digital objects with financial features
Non-fungible tokens and crypto art (like Hashmasks) will create multi-billion markets for digital objects with financial features

This week, we look at:

  • Hashmasks, CryptoPunks, and other large NFT / crypto art projects generating tens of millions of USD trading volume

  • Perceptions of financial value, as well as whether it matters to have an “original” digital art piece relative to its digital copy

    The intersection of collectibles with decentralized finance, and its collateralization, tranching, lending, and trading, as well as a view on 2021

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visual art, NFTs and digital objects, decentralized finance, philosophy, supply chain / tradeLex SokolinHashmasks, Crypto Punks
Blockchain progress through the lens of Binance's $180MM profit and Greensill's $1.5B SoftBank raise
Blockchain progress through the lens of Binance's $180MM profit and Greensill's $1.5B SoftBank raise

Look at the difference between (1) building out the crypto asset class, and (2) operating infrastruture for a blockchain-based digital economy. There are so many little logic pot holes into which you could fall! There are so many things one could believe that make the whole thing make no sense at all! I am anchoring around two primary data points -- a Multicoin report about Binance's financial progress and its massive (though unaudited) $180 million profit in Q3 of 2019, and a post by supply chain company Centrifuge about marrying cashflow financing with the decentralized web.

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crypto, exchanges / cap mkts, enterprise blockchain, supply chain / trade, regulation & complianceLex SokolinBinance, Greenshill, MakerDAO, Centrifuge, Debitum Network, SoftBank, Vauban, Pirate Bay, BitTorrent, Netflix, komgo