RING THE ALARM, BECAUSE SH*#T JUST GOT REAL. Christmas is less than one week away. It's time to gather all of your gifts, thoughtfulness, holiday cheer, and mental preparation for extended time with family… Don't worry, it's ok, you can do this and I believe in you! *Kevin Garnett's "Anything is possible" scream in the distant background*
Remember, turn up for Christmas before it is actually Christmas!
Favorite content from the week:
🎶 Music to work to [Progressive house]: Korolova - Live @ Radio Intense Miami
A big shout out to Miami and a big shout out to Korolova. She and her team have an awesome YouTube channel with great progressive house sets in beautiful settings. They film sets in front of lakes, castles and all over the world. This is a great one for getting work done, and has no sounds outside of the music like in my first letter.
🎥 Medium-form video to learn from [15 minutes]: Luxembourg leads space mining and economy in general
Has web3, NFTs, COVID, market volatility, and life in general been too much to keep up with this year? Same... So, how about we learn about space economics!? Basically, this video breaks down the capitalistic market of space in its current existence, and as it plans to exist in the future. The argument that companies and countries make, is that humans will live and work on other planets in the future. Therefore, building in space will require space materials and methods of construction--and they want to be the early adopters in this futuristic industry.
Previously, I'd heard of a company doing similar stuff in the past, called Varda Space Industries. However, their claim is to be building space factories for Earth-bound products. I thought it would be interesting to mention them since they show an alternative way to look at this opportunity above the clouds.
🐦 Tweeta from @RTFKTstudios, RTFKT (Digital and NFT studio):
The Nike acquisition of RTFKT was probably the most exciting news of the week for me, by far. RTFKT is a huge studio in the NFT space and was one of the biggest innovators and gainers at the beginning of the 2021 boom. Back in March (which is like decades ago in metaverse time), they did a collaboration with FEWOCiOUS, in which they sold digital sneakers which brought in over $3 million in sales.
The adidas move into the NFT space was cool (about two weeks ago), as it started really grassroots and inside the community–but this Nike move really just smashes it all out of the park.
It’s a perfect combination of brands coming together. RTFKT launched their CloneX project right when the Nike announcement was going on; So, of course that project has rocketed. CloneX is currently sitting at a 4 ETH floor (the cheapest NFT to buy from the project is 4 ETH) on the secondary market. Many prominent NFT folks have changed their profile pictures over to the CloneX avatars, but do not fear or FOMO--there will be much more to come.
Nike has positioned itself wonderfully for the metaverse. Think about the things they could do with RTFTK studios designing NFT content, mixed with their fitness tracking apps, fitness clothes, and SHOES. The best athletic brand in the world just got one of the best metaverse studios under their umbrella. I love it–makes me wanna go out and buy Nike stock lol (I’m not going to though–at least right now).
💻 Cool web3 investment marketplace, Fractional.art
Fractional.art was competing for the #1 spot of coolest things I saw this week. The website acts as an investment marketplace or secondary market. It allows people to decentralize their ownership of NFTs, and invite others to own shares of it.
For example, I can take one of my NFTs worth 10 ETH, and offer 20% of it to Fractional.art investors (2 ETH worth). Now, speculators can come in and buy shares up to 20% of my NFT's listed value (10 ETH). 5,000 shares at 20% of 10 ETH would = 0.0004 ETH per share.
This was super interesting to me, because I have been very involved with Reg-A platforms outside of the NFT space (Rally, Masterworks, Groundfloor). These websites decentralize and spread ownership in traditional items like art and loans. It's beautiful to see this type of regulatory framework come into the NFT and web3 space as it should.
Check it out and let me know what you think! However, before you invest in anything, make sure you are cross-checking the "Implied Valuation" of the NFT. Every piece I saw on the website that ended up selling, sold for EXPONENTIALLY less than its implied value--which means the investors lost pretty much everything. Be diligent.
📸 IGz from @earnyourleisure, Matthew Garland (Mortgage broker)
This video really lit a fire under my ass. It taught me a very simple equation which completely went against my 2022 real estate thesis.
If you are buying a house right now at $500,000 with 10% down and a 2.5% interest on a 30 year mortgage, it will be about $50,000 cheaper than a $400,000 house with the same 10% down but with a 5% interest on a 30 year mortgage.
This is concerning because many people (including me), were waiting for a housing "crash" to potentially buy into the market next year. Well, if the housing market declines, you can guarantee that interest rates will rise--and the fed already admitted that they plan to increase rates 2-3 times in 2022.
So, unless the housing market has greater than a 20% decline in price, we are going to hurt in the long-term as a buyer at ~5% interest rates.
Market adjustments:
🖼 NFTz:
I have not done anything special in this past week with NFTs. Mainly just observing the happenings with Nike and Adidas movement in the space. I probably won't be buying much of anything NFT related in the next few weeks, unless something really awesome pops up--which can happen tomorrow.
📊TradFi [Purchase]:
For the week of December 13th, 2021 thru December 18th, 2021. The percentage buy will be out of the total amount I've invested for the month of December. For example, if I invested $1000 in between December 1st and 12th, a $100 investment in Google would = "10% buy into GOOGLE @ $40".
- 59.32% buy into KO @ $58.06 (Dividend reinvestment)
- 40.68% buy into WE @ $7.88
Really didn’t have much of anything go on in this past week. Just watching and observing the moment–and mainly trying to figure out what I’m doing with taxes. That’s another thing everyone should really be making decisions about: Are you optimized for your 2021 tax year? Should you loss-harvest something? Should you take more gains? Not financial advice, but I think holding long-term and keeping it steady is always the best option. Just make sure you have enough money put aside to pay your taxes lol. Now is also probably a good time to mention that I am a Warren Buffett faithful, and all of my beliefs and thoughts on investing include his philosophies.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
You won't get another letter until after Christmas, so I hope you all have a lovely time and make some great memories. Cherish the moment and live in the present (with lots of presents)!
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Finally, reply to this email and let me know what you think! Tell me about your Christmas gifts you received or bought for friends and family. I wanna hear from you!
Cheers