SEA Spring 2022

VeradiVerdict - Issue #189

Mar 24, 2022

As we are heading into the final fundraising close of our latest venture capital fund, I decided to make trip out to Southeast Asia to visit Singapore and Thailand, two countries that recently opened up to visitors without quarantine.

Some insights from Singapore:

Family offices and sovereign wealth funds have progressed quite a bit in terms of fund and direct investments
Quite a bit of our portfolio companies have a Singapore HQ or presence and it was great to see them
- Bybit/BitDAO - futures/spot exchange, dao-directed treasury
- Amber - retail super app, trading execution
- Instadapp - defi infrastructure
- Vauld - yield and swaps
- SynFutures - decentralized derivatives
- StaDer - liquid staking and structured products
- Kyber - decentralized exchange
- Acala - Polkadot DeFi Hub
- Rangers Protocol - virtual world blockchain infrastructure
- Celer - blockchain interoperability protocol
Crypto companies in Singapore tend to be in the categories of centralized infrastructure for fiat-on ramps or decentralized finance
Potential path to regulatory clarity as the MAS (monetary authority of Singapore) has started to grant crypto licenses to crypto companies, luring entrepreneurs to re-locate to the country and setting up a crypto hub for Asia

Some insights from Thailand:

Fairly large crypto trading community in the country with some crypto funds that are starting to reach significant AUM
The biggest crypto startup news in the country was the acquisition of the largest exchange in the country, Bitkub, by Siam Commercial Bank that values the company as a unicorn. The company is one of 4 exchanges that have a crypto license in the country
GuildFi, the largest gaming guild in the country and a Pantera portfolio company, is primed to support crypto p2e games in the country and region
Some of the other more prominent crypto startups in the country include Alpha Finance and Band Protocol.
Enterprise use cases of blockchain are being explored in the country including digital identity, energy, healthcare, etc.

- Paul Veradittakit

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NEWS

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IN THE TWEETS

Ripple @Ripple

After experiencing the financial system crash of 2008, our VP of Corporate Strategy and Operations @emy_wng saw the potential for crypto to fill the cracks in that system. And she wants to ensure more women are part of the journey. Read more:

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Binance Labs Fund @BinanceLabs

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REGULATION

Regulatory Uncertainty a Recurring Theme at London’s Token2049

The crypto community needs to do a better job of lobbying and educating politicians, said Galaxy Digital chief Mike Novogratz.

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NEW PRODUCTS AND HOT DEALS

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LETS MEET UP

Los Angeles, April 20-22

Crypto Bahamas, Bahamas, April 26-29

Miami, May 2

Walks and coffee meetings in San Francisco throughout the year!

ABOUT ME

Hi, I’m Paul Veradittakit, a Partner at Pantera Capital, one of the oldest and largest institutional investors focused on investing in blockchain companies and cryptocurrencies. I’ve been in the industry since 2014, and the firm invests in equity, early stage token projects, and liquid cryptocurrencies on exchanges. I focus on early-stage investments and share my thoughts on what’s going on in the industry in this weekly newsletter.