Oddbean

I hear Matt @odell claims people think his VC firm, Ten31, is closely tied to Swan and that some people may be influenced to use Swan or invest in Swan because of Ten31's involvement. Let me state very clearly that Ten31 has no influence on Swan, and no information rights. Ten31's biggest investment by far is in Strike, they sit on the Unchained board, and Matt and Marty's podcast is sponsored by River. Matt was a very early advisor to Swan, specifically focused on privacy, and we very much appreciate his contributions. He owns some advisor shares in Swan, but has never been asked to invest. Jonathan and Grant from Ten31 each cut angel checks into Swan very early on, and rolled them into their first fund. They also cut a small check into our A round from Ten31, which was a party round (lots of small checks) in Fall 2021. I don't think we ever received an investor referral from Ten31, nor do I remember ever hearing someone mention Ten31 when getting in touch about a Swan investment. In summary, as @Odell himself said, Ten31 invested a tiny amount in Swan, long ago, and has no information rights. All large investors in Swan do extensive diligence, and they are not concerned with the names of seed funds from early rounds. Regarding Swan's small hedge fund that we created for a couple of our institutional investors, which seems to have triggered the latest outburst from Mr. Odell: We needed a head of trading for institutional clients to execute trades with VWAP / TWAP etc and tight spreads from multiple OTC desks. He happened to have a great track record of asset management, and a strong desire to continue managing money. A couple of our investors wanted a lower-vol Bitcoin strategy (sit in cash during drawdowns, ok with losing a little upside by missing part of some pumps), and decided to seed him in a Swan-managed fund. The fund is already at capacity and we are not marketing it. My advice to retail investors remains the same as it's always been: DON'T TRADE UNLESS YOU WERE ALREADY A PROFESSIONAL TRADER. 99% get rekt, and it's even worse in "crypto" because that game is rigged even worse than tradfi. Much better to stay humble and stack sats, ideally with a Bitcoin-only company like Swan (we don't even have a sell button! and we have still have FREE automatic withdrawals).

This doesn't answer all the questions or skepticisms brought up. Do better. nostr:nevent1qqsd4gyknuc3uza29xpl0a5pnjxvjsyp377m2d5z3t79m9rdk4ksflgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyqu82xw2l5e9v68vllje2alnwgux8rdyeukeskuzlye0eqwn8ks7sqcyqqqqqqgh4u9r9

If you are putting out media releases claiming to have deployed capital into the Bitcoin ecosystem but then refuse to be transparent about where those investments have landed then at best you look like a fucking moron and at worst....well... I think Cory should operate under a principle of good faith. If you want to claim to be a key investor in the industry then show it. Otherwise if you need commercial in confidence then stop putting out media releases inviting obvious questions.

Odell is calling out Swan based on… what evidence, exactly? He doesn’t even hint at some smoking gun other than “feels.” Cory’s response is appropriate. I suspect there will be a strategic release of information when the time is right, as determined by Swan leadership. I’m not an investor in Swan or Ten31, but if I was invested in the latter, I’d be a bit concerned that Odell is spending some of his reputation by trying to take Cory down a peg. Hell, I’m concerned about it simply as a longtime Odell fan.

No one is trying to "take down" anyone. If you are in the business of putting out press releases claiming x capital deployed into projects then it's only natural that the market will seek to verify that. I would understand if 50% of that capital couldn't be disclosed due to founders yet to come to market and therefor commercial in confidence is critical. But 100% of 2023 investments have no known publicly announced associations? Anyway let's hope Swan have some nice public announcements to come to improve transparency. For the record I like Swan and the people there and I also have a lot of respect for Odell.

This has nothing to do with River, strike or Unchained. It has to do with the ridiculous claims of "Swan Bitcoin Launches Institutional Division, Deploys $205M Across Equity, Credit, and Hedge Funds" as well as "In 2023 Swan raised $205M of equity and credit funding, and currently generates $125M annualized revenue. The company expects to cross $200M annualized revenue in Q1 2024 and plans to raise an additional $150M to fund expansion. "

Last post march 15 no nip 05 and mistagged @ODELL 😂😂😂 nostr:nevent1qqsd4gyknuc3uza29xpl0a5pnjxvjsyp377m2d5z3t79m9rdk4ksflgpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzyqu82xw2l5e9v68vllje2alnwgux8rdyeukeskuzlye0eqwn8ks7sqcyqqqqqqgfphwdu

Swan made a public announcement that Swan Ventures deployed $150 million across the bitcoin ecosystem and has a target of allocating $1 billion by 2025. I think it’s a legitimate question to ask where that was contributed if nobody in the ecosystem has heard of it.