Ragnarok Crypto Q4 2020 Summary
Dear valued investors and friends,
With a slight delay, we would like to take this opportunity and wish all of you a prosperous 2021.
A lot has changed in the markets since our last update, so let us try to cover all bases.
Q4 2020 took us all on a wild ride, as it did in 2013 and of course, 2017 to early 2018. After two years of mostly consolidation and a lot of development, this time indeed feels different. This time around, despite Bitcoin more than doubling its previous ATH, there was no media frenzy, no talks about a bubble and mostly, there are now great numbers of institutional investors actively, and openly entering the market.
Goldman Sachs named a new head of digital assets, Matthew McDermott, who reportedly plans to double the headcount of Goldman’s crypto team. The largest crypto investment firm, Grayscale, topped $13 billion in AUM at the end of Q4. Canadian cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital reports 75% Revenue Rise in Q4 alone. Notable mention goes to Microstrategy as well, a US publicly traded company that invested $1.2 billion into Bitcoin, holdings worth over $2.4 billion at the time of writing. These are just few of many examples that display mainstream acceptance and institutional interest.
While a sizeable portion of the attention is given to Bitcoin, it is not the only asset breaking records in value and trading volume.
It is however not all positive news for crypto, with the increase in trading volume and token valuations, the number of hacks is also on the rise. From Twitter account hacks to fraudulent YouTube giveaways, ransomware attacks targeting institutions are often far more damaging. A hack of CWT, a major travel management firm reportedly left attackers with USD 4.6m worth of bitcoin. Ethereum Classic (ETC) suffered several 51% attacks, prompting Vitalik to suggest ETC switches to proof of stake, saying “at this point making the jump seems lower-risk than not making it.”
We expect 2021 to be yet another important year for DeFi projects, as this sector draws the most attention and adoption, and is currently valued at $14 Billion. DeFi follows the idea of rebuilding the infrastructure of financial services and moving it into a fully decentralized structure, removing the need for third parties such as companies and governments. We need DeFi because it has the unique opportunity to revolutionize the global financial landscape.
According to crypto market data aggregator Dune Analytics, we can see that cumulatively, the total number of unique DeFi user addresses has grown to 926,600, an increase of roughly 11 times over the past year.
At Ragnarok Crypto, we have ended the quarter with a 9.95% increase which brought our share price up to $1.071. Moving forward we closely follow development in the DeFi sector and the adoption of Polkadot. Due to its potential and rise in popularity among developers and users, Polkadot currently represents a significant part of our portfolio, and we might increase its position. At the heart of Polkadot is the concept of “parachains,” which are blockchains that can run higher transaction throughput than Ethereum because of more sophisticated design. According to Peter Mauric, head of public affairs at Parity Technologies, the term is short for “parallel blockchains.”
“Parachains can process more transactions than a single blockchain because the transactions are spread across multiple computers, similar to parallel processing,” Mauric told CoinDesk in an email. It is also one of the most popular blockchain projects among developers on GitHub.
The rest of our positions is being adjusted following technical indicators and the price action of Bitcoin. We anticipate more developments with some of our dark horse assets, which alongside with the Bitcoin rally may translate into some of our best performing quarters to date.
If you would like to reach out to us via email or Zoom call or to have a look at our performance, please visit our website RagnarokCrypto.com
Thank you for your ongoing support and trust, we would also like to use this opportunity to welcome all new investors who joined Ragnarok Crypto in the recent months.
