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This Week’s Top 3 Must-Reads
The Bitcoin Trade, How Big Is Crypto Lending? And A Token Deep Dive
Nomatic
April 18, 2025
A few of our favorite reads that people might have missed this past week.
“Bitcoin - The Trade After The Trade”
What Is It?
Fejau aka Felix Jauvin, examines how Bitcoin might react in a macro regime shift that its never experienced.
Why We Liked It?
I came into the space as a Bitcoiner in 2016/2017. It will always be my first love as it was the beginning of that familiar journey down the rabbit hole (that many of us have had).
A lot of the early bitcoin prophesizing almost resembled fan fiction or just pie in the sky hopium. It was fun to read about and talk about, but there wasn’t always a strong belief that any of this would play out (at least for me personally).
Fast forward 8 years and its entirely reasonable (and even practical) to be discussing Bitcoin becoming a neutral global reserve asset.
In this piece Felix outlines a case where Bitcoin finally decouples from US tech equities and a forthcoming trade set up.
I don’t know whether or not I fully agree with Felix here yet, but a lot of his thinking tracks for me (and that’s even trying to decouple my own bias for wanting some of this to happen).
And so, for me, a risk seeking macro trader, Bitcoin feels like the cleanest trade after the trade here. You can't tariff bitcoin, it doesn't care about what border it resides in, it provides high beta to a portfolio without the current tail risks associated with US tech, I don't have to take a view on the European Union getting their shit together, and provides a clean exposure to global liquidity, not just american liquidity. This market regime is what Bitcoin was built for. One the degrossing dust settles, it will be the fastest horse out of the gate. Accelerate.
Click on the post below to read the full article:
x.com/i/article/1912…
— fejau (@fejau_inc)
6:39 PM • Apr 16, 2025
“How big is the crypto lending market? No one has ever really known”
What Is It?
Alex Thorn shares an incredible data thread breaking down the size of the crypto lending market with some incredible charts.
Why We Liked It?
I’m doubtful the CeFi numbers are 100% correct, but its at least nice to get a rough idea of the size of that market relative to DeFi. There is an opaqueness to CeFi and we saw all the downsides of that with BlockFi/Celsius. For me, its inspiring to see DeFi taking up the mantle and filling the void of those CeFi operators. More transparency is welcomed!
DeFi eating CeFi
Click on the tweet below to read the full article:
how big is the crypto lending market? no one has ever really known
now we do
based on reviews of public filings, bankruptcy documents, and voluntary disclosures from active lenders, the combined CeFi loan book size at YE 2024 was $11.2bn, down 68% from the 2022 ATH of $34.8bn
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins)
5:50 PM • Apr 14, 2025
“Tokens aren’t just CAC: they are instruments for underwriting user behavior”
What Is It?
Lauris brings a unique take on tokens and their role in a protocol.
Why We Liked It?
I find tokenomics can be fascinating, yet I often feel like there’s a lot to be explored/discovered for fully harnessing their usefulness. I’m always on the lookout for unique viewpoints or mechanism designs when it comes to tokens.
They embed optionality into user behavior, transforming growth spend from a sunk cost into a portfolio of contingent claims on future participation. When you emit a token, you’re not “rewarding” a user: you’re effectively writing a behavioral derivative.
Click on the tweet below to read the full article:
x.com/i/article/1912…
— 🟨🟨 Lauris (@lzminsky)
12:39 PM • Apr 15, 2025
That’s all for now, thanks for checking it out!
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