Does 5ire, ‘India’s 105th unicorn,’ stand up to scrutiny?

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Hi there,

Back in 2018 when I was still podcasting, I correctly predicted the Bitcoin – which was crashing at the time – would land somewhere around US$3,000. It was not a popular opinion. One of my fellow podcasters believed that Bitcoin would rebound to US$50,000.

I’ll tell you no lies: it was a guess on my part. But looking back, I realized that at the time Bitcoin was crashing, the US Federal Reserve had started raising interest rates after keeping them at or near 0% for almost a decade. The correlation isn’t exact, but it is pretty close.

Then in April 2020, the Fed reversed course and dropped rates back to 0% and kept them there for almost two years. The cryptoverse boomed during that time.

Hmm.

Now that rates are climbing again, we’re going back into a crypto winter. This isn’t a coincidence.

It’s time for another unpopular opinion: The explosive growth of crypto may have been a bubble caused by the Fed, just like the subprime bonds.

No, I’m not saying this is the end of crypto, but the days of the Fed’s easy money lending policies are almost certainly over. Bonds and other derivatives will rebound and compete directly with crypto, so the heyday of wild token speculation and easy yields is probably over.

Platforms and protocols that hope to survive the crypto winter will need well-thought-out applications and solid business plans.

And that brings us to today’s two-part Big Story. 5ire, a blockchain company that few had ever heard of a year ago, rocketed to unicorn status in July. On closer inspection, the deal seems doubtful, given it hasn’t yet launched a product or gotten significant traction.

Meanwhile, 5ire’s advisors have also been raising questions about some of its actions. There are also many ambiguities about the sole investor for its series A, Sram & Mram Group, and 5ire even appears to be now pulling away from it.

For any startup looking to survive the crypto winter, this two-parter is a must-read.

– Scott

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THE BIG STORIES

1️⃣Part One: Scrutinizing the $1.5b valuation of 5ire, ‘India’s 105th unicorn’

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⭐ TO THE STARS

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🌙 TO THE MOON

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🌏 BACK TO EARTH

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STILL A PONZI SCHEME

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