Newtown Partners Blog

PRESS RELEASE, Johannesburg - March 09, 2020 - Major international logistics industry player, Imperial, has partnered with venture capital firm Newtown Partners to launch a corporate venture capital (CVC) fund focused on investing in disruptive startups in the logistics industry, [...]

This post was a team effort, special thanks to James Kilroe & Justin Swart for their contributions. On to the post! Technology has never been as prevalent in daily life as it is today, with the trend of the [...]

H/t to Qiao Wang from Messari whose writing on the theory of The Firm sparked this thought process. Since its inception, the internet has structurally reorganized many industries, such as the newspaper industry. The internet has empowered aggregators and [...]

I believe that regulatory frameworks that adequately answer the questions posed in this article will be the catalyst to exponentially increase liquidity in the Digital Securities market. This is the single most important segment of regulation development that investors must follow.

Security Token Offerings (STOs) are a novel fundraising mechanism birthed from increased regulatory oversight on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), given that the certainty provided by regulated instruments and their associated rights is a large short-term attraction for investors, Newtown Partners believes STOs will be the preferred capital raising avenue for startups in the blockchain space within the next 12 - 18 months.

So, let's start off by imagining this scenario. You have to go to some government department to renew your licence or change your son's middle name to Hodl, they will make you complete copious amounts of complicated, burdensome paperwork to [...]

Ever wondered how thousands of birds manage to coordinate and fly together in massive flocks? I certainly have. I had even more specific questions come to think of it. Does some leader bird choose the direction in which they all [...]

Newtown Partners has launched its first Crypto Trader Benchmarking Study. The study is a quantitative study of the composition and behaviors of the traders who provide the essential liquidity to the cryptocurrency industry and who are key to its [...]

In my previous article, we explored the concept of anonymity in blockchains and why it is generally a difficult problem. If you haven’t yet read it, then I suggest you do before continuing.  But, if you’re too lazy to refer [...]

It has been said that Token Curated Registries (TCRs) could become the lists of the future. The topic is becoming increasingly popular, and it’s no wonder - we love lists. Top restaurants, top universities, the best cars - we [...]

EOS is about to release its mainnet this week after a year of anticipation and a $4 billion+ raise. It is the first of many new smart contract platforms that will launch in the next 12 months. Second generation [...]

In this day and age, transactions are perhaps one of the most plentiful interactions in existence. Whether people are buying their morning coffee, airtime, insurance, fuel or almost anything else, transactions underpin our way of life. Each transaction signifies [...]

Authors: Kyle Levin & James Kilroe. As we move towards a more decentralized world, it has become apparent that tokens are critical in enabling true decentralization. DApp builders must design platforms that are both technically decentralized (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) and [...]

If you haven’t already heard of CryptoKitties, welcome to the amazing world where ‘digital cats’ have sold for over $100 000. The interesting question I’m hoping to answer today: How do the genes of these peculiar cryptokitties combine to form new offspring? Can we visualize this in a simple manner? I'll briefly discuss the background of Cryptokitties, I'll then touch on the 'birth' of a Cryptokitty and then we dive into the wonderful of genome mapping!

Bitcoin is worth over $137 billion, while Coinbase, the most valuable Bitcoin company is only worth $1.6 billion. In fact, in 2015, had DFJ and others invested their $75 million equity investment directly into Bitcoin instead of Coinbase, it would have been worth $2.5 billion, much more than their undisclosed share of $1.6 billion. The Fat Protocol theory has caused many investors to believe ‘the lower the better’ and thus prioritise investing into ‘base protocol’ layer coins (Ethereum, EOS, Tezos, etc.) because this is where they believe major value will be captured. However, protocols have evolved, this thesis is now outdated. Application Tokens are the Value Trap. This post will show why.

Traditional network effects have helped Web 2.0 companies dominate because they create a ‘winner-takes-all’ market, and they are fiendishly difficult to create and easy to defend. Most feel that protocols will have the same dynamic (in a hype-drive), but will they? In their current form, I believe protocols are not going to result in the winner-takes-all dynamic. Simply put, this is because economic incentives of controlled supply coins (i.e. Bitcoin) drive forks and competition (read ICO’s). Why? Because the economic incentives of these coins are skewed. To explain this point further, I'll use Bitcoin as an example.