Week in Review - The culture of assets

Saturday, April 17, 2021 • By Lucas Matney

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review!

Last week, I talked about the Cult of CryptoPunks. This week, I’m talking about how financial assets are turning community-driven, transforming currencies into celebrities.

If you're reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny.

The big thing

There’s been more talk of crypto in Week in Review of late, and part of that is that is because it’s interesting, but let’s be real, blockchain developers have found it interesting for the past few years of crypto winter and haven’t gotten much love from skeptics.

What makes it especially interesting now to a wide audience is the money. This week, we saw much much more money flow into Dogecoin, a technically unremarkable cryptocurrency that has seen record gains in recent weeks and months thanks to nothing but the culture surrounding it.

The rise of Dogecoin makes no sense. It’s largely just a generic brand of cryptocurrency. And yet, the value has grown 40X this year so far, minting meme millionaires.

Dogecoin is the embodiment of a trend that finds clear parallels in GameStop and other meme finance driven largely by retail investors on Robinhood. In 2021, financial assets have cultures that are entirely community driven and divorced from fundamentals or anything related to a central entity. Visions of the future of the asset become memes just like everything else about it.

Compared to the 2017 wave, it feels like there’s much, much less fear that everything could come crashing down to zero across the board, most of that is due to the substantial institutional buy-in of Bitcoin. A more stable (yet still highly volatile) crypto core makes more room for offshoots like Dogecoin that can be plenty stupid in their own right but still enjoy sustained support from a community that understands the value of waiting something out and pushing a community of growing fans to join the financial movement.

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Other things

Here are the TechCrunch news stories that especially caught my eye this week:

Coinbase opens with $100 billion public debut
The big deal this week was the direct listing of crypto exchange Coinbase which entered public markets trading at $381 per share giving the company a market cap of $99 billion, though by the end of the week it was trading about 20% lower.

Dell is spinning out VMware
In enterprise software news, Dell announced this week that they are spinning out VMware in a move that could generate nearly $10 billion for the company (depending on investor appetite) while leaving Dell with majority control. This comes 6 years after the company’s $58 billion acquisition of EMC.

Microsoft acquires Nuance for nearly $20 billion
The biggest acquisition announcement of the week was a doozy, with Microsoft announcing a $19.7 billion deal to buy Nuance Communications, a conversational AI company that has been building products for the healthcare space.

Republicans introduce bill to block all Big Tech M&A
Antitrust has been the talk of the town in Congress, and while the Democrats grow concerned by the concentration of wealth, Republicans are more concerned with the concentration of power over speech. This week, a new bill titled the “Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act" emerged, and while it has little chance in a Democrat-controlled Senate, it’s a sign that goals are aligning among parties even if the reasoning isn’t.

Fortnite-maker raises $1 billion
In the past, the maker of a hit-game may dump the millions of profits they made into a sequel or follow-up hit, but in 2021 ambition has a different form and can require billions. Epic Games announced this week that they had raised a whopping $1 billion to power their presence in the world of games and game development.

Spotify announces its first hardware device
Spotify has taken aims to expand the ambitions of their business in the past couple years, particularly through a focus on podcasting and original content. This week, they debuted another effort called Car Thing which is the company’s first-ever piece of hardware.

Image Credits: Steve Jennings / Getty Images

Extra things

Some of my favorite reads from our Extra Crunch subscription service this week:

Coinbase’s direct listing alters the landscape for fintech and crypto startups
“In the buildup to Coinbase's flotation — and we'd argue especially after it released its blockbuster Q1 2021 results — there was a general expectation that the unicorn's direct listing would provide a halo effect for other startups in the space. Anthemis' Ruth Foxe Blader told The Exchange, for example, that "the Coinbase listing shows this great inflection point for crypto," with another "wave" of startup work in the space coming up. The widely held perspective raised two questions: Will the success of Coinbase's direct listing bolster private investment in crypto-focused startups, and will that success help other areas of financially focused startup work garner more investor attention?”

Inside the US’ epic first-quarter venture capital results
“In broad strokes, the United States had a crushing venture capital start to the new year, pandemic be damned. That is especially true when we consider 2020's full-year figures. Last year, venture capitalists deployed some $166 billion into U.S.-based startups across 12,546 rounds. In contrast, if the first quarter's pace was maintained during the rest of 2021, the United States would see around 16,000 rounds worth around $280 billion.“

How can I get and H-1B without the lottery?
“For the past few years, our company has put very promising candidates into the annual H-1B lottery. None of them have been selected — and none of them meet the requirements for other work visas like an O-1A. We lost out again in this year's H-1B lottery. Are there any other ways we can obtain H-1Bs for our team members?”