Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

Welcome to this week’s edition of Tokenised.

Writing about the gold rush in America in the middle of the 19th century, Mark Twain noted that the search for riches also influenced the character of the country. It gave birth to a get-rich-quick mentality that has risen and fallen through bubbly times in the years since—recently visible in the dot-com bubble during the 1990s. And perhaps now, in the surging popularity of crypto-assets. 

What started as a desire to create an asset independent of government influence is now giving way to a venture capital (VC) money making machine. That’s what we’re looking at in this week’s edition—how tokens have become a jargon-heavy way to circumvent regulation, and why VCs can’t get enough of the sweet deals they‘re cracking. 

Let’s jump right in. 

Memes and good feelings

Finance has long been full of grifts, but the ones coming out of the crypto space may just be the most unabashed of them all. 

Crypto is a sector I have covered on and off for about two years now and the deeper I get into it, the less it seems to make sense.