Global Macro Trading Journal

Cryptokitties just got a $12M Series A round from two very respected VC firms, Andressen Horrowitz and UVC (Fred Wilson's firm). This suggests I was onto something when I said that crypto collectibles were an interesting investment (And Trump "crypto celebrity" asset went from $30k to $150K last time I checked, although investors kept only part of the rally)
In this case, they are buying the shares, which is a smart move. Its more established investment vehicle (which has been around for centuries) as compared tokens, digital cats, etc. The guys behind the kitties are minting money given that their cost of production is barely above $0 and they keep all the proceeds from the sales (effectively they are a central bank). I wish I got in that round.... thats the tough part about this VC game, if you are not in SF and not in the top firms, you just dont get in the great deals
 
DB_sezwhat said:
Cut out the middleman? Thought's?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/19/kev...-launch-400-million-dollar-coin-offering.html
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Looks very interesting. Novogratz is also very interested in security tokens. They look like the future. No need to pay Goldman Sachs 5% fees or none of that nonsense, they will also trade with instant settlements (or 30 min settlements or something). Security tokens make me bullish on tZero (OSTK exchange). The SEC needs to stop fooling around and say what security tokens need to do to be legal. About half of the regulators in the world will just copy whatever the SEC says (this is very true in my country, the equity crowfunding laws were very much copied from the US), so they need to say something instead of keeping the market in a limbo
 
Buffett, Munger, Tudor Jones, Dalio all guys that are great at what they do but that are absolutely terrible at tech investing. They have missed pretty much every big tech trend over the last 30 years. Meanwhile Thiel, Andressen, Wilson and a few others were the ones that have consistently made good/smart bets in the tech space. One is bearish bitcoin and cryptos and the other one is bullish. I know which group I'm siding with on this one
 
Daal said:
Looks very interesting. Novogratz is also very interested in security tokens. They look like the future. No need to pay Goldman Sachs 5% fees or none of that nonsense, they will also trade with instant settlements (or 30 min settlements or something). Security tokens make me bullish on tZero (OSTK exchange). The SEC needs to stop fooling around and say what security tokens need to do to be legal. About half of the regulators in the world will just copy whatever the SEC says (this is very true in my country, the equity crowfunding laws were very much copied from the US), so they need to say something instead of keeping the market in a limbo
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Public offerings should get cheaper but there is still some branding involved in a major fund raising exercise. It's like getting GS to put their stamp on an offering vs a no name regional bank. People like to crowd and herd without doing due diligence. Not sure who will be the ones branding such offerings, O Leary? haha, his name is not exactly synonymous with trust.
 
I was reading the Spotify F1 filling and these 2 sections stood out

"
The music industry has a high level of concentration, which means that one or a small number of entities may, on their own, take actions that adversely affect our business. For example, with respect to sound recordings, the music licensed to us under our agreements with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Merlin, makes up the majority of music consumed on our Service. For the year ended December 31, 2017, this content accounted for approximately 87% of streams.
"

"
We are a party to many license agreements which are complex and impose numerous obligations upon us which may make it difficult to operate our business, and a breach of such agreements could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

Many of our license agreements are complex and impose numerous obligations on us, including obligations to, among other things:



• meet certain User and conversion targets in order to secure certain licenses and royalty rates;


• calculate and make payments based on complex royalty structures, which requires tracking usage of content on our Service that may have inaccurate or incomplete metadata necessary for such calculation;


• provide periodic reports on the exploitation of the content in specified formats;


• represent that we will obtain all necessary publishing licenses and consents and pay all associated fees, royalties, and other amounts due for the licensing of musical compositions;


• provide advertising inventory;


• comply with certain marketing and advertising restrictions; and


• comply with certain security and technical specifications."

Spotify is basically a slave of its suppliers. Netflix found a way around this by becoming a content creator but i think Spotify wont be a great investment until it finds a way to do the same. The Music Magnats will quickly to come down hard on Spotify if their profit margins get out of line demanding their cut out of the pie, in the meantime they are competing with Apple and Google for streaming market share. The moat around Spotify seems very flimsy at best, I think I will pass on this one
 
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"Rights holders also may attempt to take advantage of their market power to seek onerous financial terms from us, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Even if we are able to secure rights to sound recordings from record labels and other copyright owners, artists and/or artist groups may object and may exert public or private pressure on third parties to discontinue licensing rights to us, hold back content from us, or increase royalty rates. As a result, our ability to continue to license rights to sound recordings is subject to convincing a broad range of stakeholders of the value and quality of our Service.

To the extent that we are unable to license a large amount of content or the content of certain popular artists, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially harmed."

Spotify basically wont ever be able to run a Facebook/Apple/Tesla like business where they got nice fat margins and no one can do anything about it. The music magnats can force their margins down, the Taylor Swifts of the world can force their margins down (and artists can influence public opinion and hence user growth a great deal. a #deletespotify trend would quickly lead to concessions by spotifys team). This looks like the kind of stock that is only buyable when it goes into a crisis, tanks a lot and everbody is pessimistic. Essentially a Ben Granham `cigar butt` type stock, it doesnt look like the kind of stock you can buy and think it will be the next GOOG or FB
 
Only bull case I can see is to buy it as a takeover play. Perhaps Amazon would be interested in buying it (an Apple or Google buyout would probably be denied on anti-competition grounds) but they are thrift as shit, or maybe a big music studio. So maybe, thats the play that would work here, as a buyout candidate. They do have great software and happy customers
 
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