MoneyNeverSleeps: Dalio vs Druckenmiller on Bitcoin, Fundraising from Angels and AirBnB vs Ant Financial IPOs

In this week’s Money Talks segment, Pete Townsend and Eoin Fitzgerald take a look at Druckenmiller vs. Dalio on Bitcoin, how angels invest in startups, Tinkoff Bank and the Rundle, and AirBnB vs. Ant Financial in the Battle of IPOs.

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

THIS WEEK’S STORIES:

What We’re Getting Wrong About Druckenmiller and Bitcoin (Noelle Acheson, Coindesk, 15-Nov-20)

• Pete on how economics are changing: “Decisions to use bitcoin rather than a traditional currency to pay for something weren’t really decisions that consumers went through 10-15 years ago, but it’s becoming more acceptable. I think this will be impacting the textbooks that my kids are reading in the next 10-15 years on how the economy works.”
• Eoin on how accessibility makes a difference, “If I have some disposable cash in my Revolut wallet, I can put it into a fraction of a stock, or a fraction of a bitcoin, and I can invest in gold as well. Crypto has just become another asset class.”
• Pete on all of the bitcoin chatter: “The opinions expressed on bitcoin by big names in finance, whether they’re well informed or not, are just another notch in bitcoin’s belt holding up its growing trousers of societal acceptance.”
• Link to Fidelity Digital Assets’ response to Ray Dalio’s musings on bitcoin: Addressing Persisting Bitcoin Criticisms (13-Nov-20)
• Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano explaining bitcoin to Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy in episode #392 of the Pomp Podcast.

How to Raise Funds with a Super Angel: An interview with Fabrice Grinda (Gwen Salley, Head of Investment and Services at STATION F, curated by Sifted.eu)

• Pete (to Eoin) on realizing how granular that Fabrice gets on unit economics when deciding on his angel investments in startups: “Have you seen founders and investors go that deep on unit economics when a pre-seed or seed-stage startup is pre-product and/or pre-revenue?”
• Eoin’s response: “Whatever your calculations are, I want to know what your assumptions are, and what your framework is for considering X, Y and Z. At least it shows that you’ve thought about customer acquisition and growth, knowing that the actual numbers can be irrelevant to a degree at such an early stage.”
• Primer on Unit Economics for SaaS companies: SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters (For Entrepreneurs, David Skok)

Tinkoff Launches Tinkoff Pro ‘Rundle’ (shared by Simon Taylor from 11:FS on Twitter on 15-Nov-20, reported by Tinkoff News)

• Eoin on why Rundles (driving revenue through bunding services) have taken so long to become a thing: “The banks won’t package other services like Netflix and Amazon Prime with their bank account products. Banks typically haven’t been able to sell non-financial products, so they don’t have the depths of relationships that a tech company would have.”

AirBnB Files to Go Public (TechCrunch, 16-Nov-20)
China postpones Ant’s colossal IPO after closed-door talk with Jack Ma (TechCrunch, 3-Nov-20)

• Pete’s view of the world: “I just feel like the world has changed immeasurably in the last couple of years, and maybe I’m just getting older. I’m not pushing back, I’m embracing it saying let’s go forward with whatever happens, but I think the textbooks are gone. It seems like there are no more rules to how commerce, international diplomacy and domestic policy all work.”

Come Fly(Wheel) With Me – this week’s edition of the MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter featuring the story of Disney’s Flywheel Effect.

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