James Ho @jamesjho_ Twitter profile | Pikagi

Pikagi

James Ho

@jamesjho_

17,144

Followers

980

Following

310

Media

985

Statuses

Co-founder @Modular_Capital

https://t.co/sOslleGFZo

Joined December 2018

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

Pinned Tweet

@jamesjho_

James Ho

1 year

Lots of fun w this episode and sharing our investment frameworks, research process and fundamental / data driven approach to crypto Thanks to @tokenterminal @Oskari_0x for hosting us!

@tokenterminal

Token Terminal

1 year

🎙️A new episode of the Fundamentals podcast is out! This time, we had the pleasure of hosting @jamesjho_ and @vincentjow_ from @Modular_Capital , a fundamental & thesis-driven crypto investment firm. Tune in below!

Tweet media one

3

9

22

5

7

52

Last Seen Profiles

@kbeezayy

@dhruvbajaj184

@KamdenDusatko

@freakyxxxsmooth

@Bardon22371916

@drbarzhimself

@Alaska_Jam

@officialharv

@LorenzTaki

@SciPubAdelaide

@Newentrefound

@LuxubuVBS

@BTesimale

@DougBoosts

@FaMalawi

@ImMadnessTV

@AliceLefvr48193

@M1kaV

@suu_ch00

@oto_niko_gita

@itsjolieray

@koudai_unmask

@inclusivecap

@comeonbilly

@realwajidkhan

@JeffreyBMiller4

@temiswift_

@CraftyMissB

@EvansYasmine1

@CPGBML

@DanielLacour4

@SbondyNBA

@Ruelen9

@NeuroDx

@rwensk16

@TRCalderone

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Within 18 months of launch - Shopee / $SE is now the #1 shopping app in Brazil by monthly users. MercadoLibre has been in the region for 20+ years... ...and Latam is just as big a market as Southeast Asia. Stunning execution / still trying to learn how they did this! 😮😱

Tweet media one

34

144

966

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Been long awaited, but Ethereum is rapidly scaling Arbitrum/Optimism now at ~30% of ETH daily txns L2 szn is just beginning

Tweet media one

16

142

875

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

In venture capital — everyone doubles down on their winners (pro-rata, follow-ons). In public growth investing — most investors trim their winners to manage exposure. Curious on why this difference exists? + how do ppl think of applying the venture approach to public markets?

99

61

765

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

EVM blockspace increasingly abundant with L2s scaling Optimism and Arbitrum each flipping Avalanche in daily txns Sept 2022 txns: 5.7M Arbitrum 5.2M Optimism 4.8M Avalanche C-Chain Slowly but steadily

Tweet media one

38

127

599

@jamesjho_

James Ho

1 year

1/ Arbitrum doing $100m+ in annualized revenue, which net 30-40% margins today (after calldata costs) Will expand to 90-95% margins after eip-4844 / proto-danksharding For perspective ETH is doing $3-5bn annualized fees L2s on path to being incredibly profitable

Tweet media one

41

135

614

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Thoughts on common misconceptions about “value” vs “growth” investing. Learnings from letters over the years by Buffett, Oaktree, and Third Point - and my own investing career. Thread below 👇

14

74

582

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

$15B+ in crypto funds raised. Dizzying pace. Bull/bear mkt - will give space far more durability vs past cycles. No better time to buildd A16Z ($2.2B + $4.5B) Paradigm ($2.5B) FTX ($2B) Electric ($1B) Pantera ($1B) Katie Haun ($900M) Bain ($560M) Sequoia ($500M) Bessemer ($250M)

17

64

495

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

One of the (many) great things from the Marqeta S-1, is the visibility into transaction economics 🥰 80bp for the issuer (e.g. Square, DoorDash) 25bp for the card network 20bp for Marqeta 3bp for the partner bank 😂 Tells you all you need to know :)

Tweet media one

18

62

494

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Many investors believe they need some type of highly differentiated insight to generate great returns in the market. This can be a source of returns, but in my view doesn’t have to be. More below 👇

15

48

453

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Excited to announce the launch of @Modular_Capital with my good friend and co-founder @vincentjow_ We are a fundamental, thesis-driven crypto hedge fund - backed by @multicoincap @paraficapital @altcap @roadcapitalmgmt @ledgerprime & others

77

22

431

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Having followed PayPal for 5 years as a public investor - such an underrated example of biz transformation. IPO at $40B in 2015, today worth $300B+ Just had their fastest growth quarter as a public company. Some of what's happened 👇

Tweet media one

11

56

424

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Shopify is 7% of US ecom - but takes disproportionate share during Black Friday. Grew 60% y/y in 2019, 75% y/y in 2020. The creation & discovery of D2C brands has been democratized by Shopify and FB/IG. + strong execution has enabled Shopify to *accelerate* growth at scale.

Tweet media one

6

34

416

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Didn't see this one coming on a Sunday... @square acquiring Afterpay for $29 B (all stock deal) Combined reach of 85M+ consumers. Will tightly integrate w/ both Cash App and Merchants. Tons of implications for fintech - large cap m&a, consumer super app, embedded lending etc.

Tweet media one

13

43

335

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

1/ Pretty impressive # of protocols building around / stacking on GMX Delta neutral vaults - @rage_trade @UmamiFinance Auto compounder - @PlutusDAO_io Options hedge - @dopex_io @DAOJonesOptions Risk tranches - @GMDprotocol Social trading - @STFX_IO Many more / list goes on

12

64

311

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Lost in all this square / afterpay surprise...seems to be that $sq just put up a >30% EBITDA margin quarter. All the while growing gross profit 38% on a 2Y CAGR basis (to normalize for covid) $SQ will be a $150 B company w/ $5B+ revs growing topline ~40% and HIGHLY profitable.

Tweet media one

6

26

307

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

1/ Impressive to see @GainsNetwork_io reach ATHs in volumes after their Arbitrum expansion (dec 31st) $2B in two weeks is a new record. 1.5x volume on arbitrum vs polygon ($1.2b vs 800m) Increasingly see dapps embrace multi-chain deployments. Many ecosystem here to stay 🤝

Tweet media one

15

63

276

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

1/ Back in 2014, eBay was the 2nd largest ecom player in the US, with over 10% share. But that has slowly eroded over the years... Read more below on my takeaways 👇 And read throughs to the rise of Shopify, DoorDash, and Shopee vs incumbent marketplaces.

Tweet media one

17

43

301

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Plaid has one of the most incredible growth trajectories in fintech history. >50x over 6 years, likely 500M+ accounts by year end. And this is only the beginning... Big dreams in 1) credit underwriting, 2) income data, 3) money movement. Their future couldn't be brighter 🔥🚀

Tweet media one

8

26

297

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Coatue slides on 2000-02 bear market looking increasingly prescient This earnings cycle: MSFT -8% GOOG -10% META -25% AMZN -20%

Tweet media one

16

22

276

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Crypto / blockchain is such a controversial topic - I have been thinking about how to explain to the non technical and in layman terms. Here is my attempt :)

8

37

263

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Last 3mo of crypto VC. $5B raised across 20 rounds. $$ into exchanges, custodians, wallets, web3 infra, NFTs, gaming, scaling solutions etc Talent continues to pour in from the best of tradfi / web2. What bear market?? Builders gonna build. The revolution will go on 🔥🔥 (1/3)

Tweet media one

5

41

256

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Some pretty wild scale - @nubank approaching 50M customers and $1.7B+ revenue run rate (!) Still <20% of adult population of core mkts (Brazil, Mexico, Columbia). Unique combo of huge underserved market, weak incumbents, mkt w/ high net interest margin, and talented management.

Tweet media one

7

22

255

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

We all know $msft has had an epic run. What many don't know is multiple expansion (10x -> 30x) almost entirely driven by topline accel from 4-5% to 15%+. What an incredible transformation under Satya. Few saw coming. Estimate revisions + multiple expansion = hall of fame returns

Tweet media one

6

24

248

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Over the last 5 years, Robinhood has grown from 10% to 60% share of MAUs. Another part of consumer fintech with "winner take most" dynamics - like @Chime in challenger banking. Not all users created equal - but 80% organic and >50% share is serious scale and a powerful combo...

Tweet media one

13

18

231

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Hedge funds investing in crypto (publicly known): Bridgewater ($150B) Millennium ($50B) Matrix ($10B) Point72 ($20B) Tiger ($90B) Coatue ($50B) Third Point ($17B) GoldenTree ($45B) Brevan Howard ($20B) Tudor Investments ($40B) + many others I can't say yet 🙃

10

34

229

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 months

Investing in L2s vs ETH Layer 2s on Ethereum have made significant progress over the last few years Today there is $40b+ of TVL across ETH L2s which is up from $10b a year ago On @l2beat you will find a list of 50+ L2s, although the top 5-10 account for 90%+ of TVL Txns fees

Tweet media one

Tweet media two

Tweet media three

Tweet media four

15

42

230

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Amazon still gaining share But the others slowly catching up. Real question is where did the 500bp+ of combined share come from? And no it's not eBay I already included them 😛😅

Tweet media one

7

34

232

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

GMX is a great example of what can be achieved through the bear From 1% -> 40% of dYdX volumes over last yr This is all while: - $DYDX trading emissions kept constant (3.8M every 4 weeks) - $GMX trading emissions reduced (250k/mo in May to 100k/mo in Sept) Builders gonna build

Tweet media one

22

29

217

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Cash app now has 4 revenues lines - that each contribute $100M+ of run-rate revenue: - Bitcoin - Cash For Business - Cash Card - Instant Deposit Biz still growing triple digits this month and product velocity / team is just 🔥🔥 What will the next $100M+ revenue line be??

Tweet media one

12

19

229

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Just completely blown away. Where's the decel from covid?! When u have a kick ass product / world class team - nothing can stop you. The best companies innovate, adapt, grow through. New products for online stores, pick up, pay at table... Welcome to the big leagues :) 🚀🚀

Tweet media one

15

5

224

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Growth software, internet, fintech, BTC, ETH all down 40-50% last 3mo. For the most part, appears growth / risk assets broadly moving together. Crypto sell off less idiosyncratic than headlines suggest. Who knew growth fintech down more than crypto! Multiples normalizing.

Tweet media one

4

41

212

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

$120B market cap in crypto gaming / creator economy. $50B alone from @AxieInfinity and @YieldGuild . Thx to @Jihoz_Axie @gabusch for being trailblazers in building this rich community. It's a question of when and not if this ecosystem reaches the next 100M+ consumers.

Tweet media one

10

29

205

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

1/ Stablecoins have been one of the killer use cases for crypto ($150B+ issued) 24/7 instant settlement on a shared global ledger that is credibly neutral This will become a core part of global payments infrastructure over the coming decade 🧵

Tweet card media

$40 billion payments giant Checkout.com leaps into crypto with stablecoin payments feature

Checkout.com said it will let settle payments in the stablecoin USDC through a partnership with crypto security firm Fireblocks.

5

49

206

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

The $100B+ headline valuation looked like a big number... But then you realize it's 22x runrate EBITDA and 14x revenue. 👀👀🥲

Tweet media one

7

9

206

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Cash app overtook Venmo despite starting 4 years later. Used social media to reach 2M+ followers vs Venmo at <100k. Was first to launch debit card, bitcoin trading, rewards. Now $1.5B revenue vs Venmo $600M. They were hungrier, scrappier, more resourceful. Still true today.

Tweet media one

4

18

194

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

One of the impressive things w/ the giant fintech outcomes - is the # of years they durably compound and gradually gain scale. $PYPL $200B+ (22 years) $SHOP $160B+ (15 years) Stripe $95B+ (12 years) @SQ $80B+ (12 years) Decades of 30-70% annual growth. Few 100%+. And that's ok.

Tweet media one

4

42

188

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Honored to bring Grab public w/ @altcap @Chris_Conforti on the Altimeter Capital Markets platform. This is an iconic ~$40B company and we're so excited to be partners to @AnthonyPY_Tan in their journey!

Tweet card media

Grab, the Leading Superapp for Deliveries, Mobility and Financial Services in Southeast Asia, Plans...

Grab Holdings Inc. (“Grab”), Southeast Asia’s leading superapp, today announced it intends to go public in the U.S. in partnership with Altimeter Growth Corp. (Nasdaq: “AGC”) in what is expected to...

4

23

192

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

$pypl has quickly built a Buy Now Pay Later business 2/3 the size of $afrm in just 3 quarters. Admittedly different use cases and ticket sizes (Pay in 4 vs installment lending) But does show the power of scale, reach, distribution + ability to bundle in global payments.

Tweet media one

5

18

187

@jamesjho_

James Ho

1 year

Base earning 70%+ margins and 5x higher profit (per txn) vs $OP / $ARB Charging users 2x in fees. Meanwhile cost of posting calldata relatively similar (10-13c range) As we see more rollup deployments at scale - can better deconstruct their p&l / economics

Tweet media one

10

22

167

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

This @Coinbase must be one of the most profitable & high-growth companies going public in a long time... $2B+ revenue and nearly 50% margins😮😱 Extremely curious to see the Q1 2021 numbers - how high can these margins go??

Tweet media one

13

17

174

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Finally got around to this podcast by @honam and @altosvc this weekend. Brilliant lessons applicable to both public & private markets. Some of my favorites lessons below! Grateful to Ho Nam for generously sharing his insights w/ the community.

Tweet card media

Special: Ho Nam from Altos Ventures — A Different Approach to VC | Acquired Podcast

www.acquired.fm

2

19

176

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

You can tell $SQ is a well run company when they give up 20% equity for their first transformative $30B deal, blow out Q2 numbers and trade up 7-8%... Shareholders voting w/ their feet. $170B pro forma market cap and still just getting started. Welcome to the big leagues! 🔥🔥

1

3

172

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Really fascinating to see crypto bear mkt dialogue / conversations. Lots of focus on price, % from peaks. Much less around fundamentals, users, txns, gas fees etc. Maybe just continued evolution of the market over time. Crypto gradually turning into productive asset class.

3

36

168

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Honored to lead this round with @altcap , and serve as long-term partners to @Plaid @zachperret in their important journey. Plaid is the backbone powering the fintech revolution - re-wiring / modernizing the system as we know it.

Tweet card media

Plaid raises $425M Series D from Altimeter as it charts a post-Visa future | TechCrunch

Plaid, a unicorn that helps connect consumers' bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $425 million Series D, it announced this morning.

6

7

165

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

@stripe is building the @amazon of payments. Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture 🧐

6

19

165

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

The top 10 US neobanks continue to see explosive growth. 20M+ monthly actives growing >75% y/y. They are tackling a 100M customer opportunity in the US which large banks like Chase, Citi, BofA poorly serve. Still early innings of this enormous shift over the coming decade.

Tweet media one

4

22

163

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

3/ Eth did $10bn in fees last year. After EIP-1599 and proof of stake transition (q2'22) these fees go to eth holders (buybacks) and validators (tip + inflation). Ofc not all revenue is created equal. Eth fees are volatile from market based auction. But to put in perspective.

Tweet media one

4

29

161

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Reminder for those curious why $afrm up 30-50% on the $amzn partnership announcement :D Ninja move to pull on a friday afternoon... Clearly square/afterpay and affirm enjoy keeping us fintech analysts busy over the weekend 😂😂

Tweet media one

6

12

161

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

US neobanks not a winner take all market - but certainly appears winner take most. 40-50% of net new monthly users going to @Chime alone, and top 5 taking >90% 🤪 I'm surprised by $gdot holding ~20% incr share... But also where's Dave, Varo and MoneyLion? 🥲

Tweet media one

19

15

162

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Nubank is one of those few fintechs globally that has 20M+ customer scale and still acquiring vast majority of users organically. Nubank 80-90% Robinhood >80% Coinbase >90% Few build these types of defining brands and products. It is a league of its own.

4

10

161

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

As the business is on fire - Square is investing more aggressively than ever in their future. They will grow opex more in the last 2 years - than they did in the 4 years prior (2016-19). Music to ears for those playing the long game 😉🥰

Tweet media one

4

10

156

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

High growth card fintechs back to pre-covid multiples (~30x EV/GP) Down 40% from a few months ago and 2021 average of ~50x. Nothing fundamentally changed abt the massive oppy in global fintech/ payments. Just a normalization is all.

Tweet media one

4

18

155

@jamesjho_

James Ho

9 months

1/ Bridging is one of the most important crypto primitives, particularly as Ethereum continues down its rollup centric scaling roadmap We're excited to share our investment thesis in @AcrossProtocol having followed this team closely for the past year

Tweet card media

Our Across Thesis — Modular Capital

Publish Date: Nov 20, 2023 Author: James Ho , Vincent Jow Executive Summary Layer 2’s (L2s) are the primary way in which Ethereum will scale, and there will likely be both a proliferation and...

www.modularcapital.xyz

6

25

152

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

1/ Increasingly negative on DAO governance (in its current form) as effective means of decision making. There is good reason why govts / corporations do not have voters involved in *every* key decision. Think longer term model will shift to electing oversight committees et al 🧵

20

18

143

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Ramp was founded just 3 yrs ago (2019). Among the fastest fintechs to scale to $100m+ rev run rate. 10x YoY growth. Saving customers time and money w incredible delight (i'm also a happy user!) Congrats @eglyman @karimatiyeh @alexsongis for this incredible feat 🔥🔥

1

8

149

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Been investing in tech for almost 6 yrs now. While that is still a relatively short span of time (esp thru mkt cycles) - have been grateful to learn from incredible mentors. Some reflections below on what has stuck out most to me (public focused):

2

10

149

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

$750B+ of market cap wiped out from China internet in the last month. $500B from $baba, tencent, meituan, $pdd, $jd. Some of this is fundamentals (estimate cuts) But a big part will be lower multiples going forward w/ weakening moats and higher risk of govt intervention...

Tweet media one

4

22

150

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Finally getting multiple examples for how challengers trade 😊 Seems like we're shaking out in the ~10x 2022 revenue range. Helpful for Chime, Robinhood as they IPO, and the new rising stars like Current, Step and Public!

Tweet media one

7

19

151

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Challenger banks in the US are slowly but steadily reaching scale. In 2019, Chase BofA and Wells added 5-6M digital accounts total. The challengers are adding 10-15M annually. Yet the big banks still charge $100+ in "services fees" to their average customer🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Tweet media one

6

22

147

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Both DoorDash and Uber Eats added ~$30B of GMV in the last 3 years. Cumulative EBITDA burn since Jan 1, 2018 -$538M DoorDash -$2.7B Uber Eats Sometimes less is more. DoorDash focused on suburban markets which have higher basket size, less competition, and better economics.

Tweet media one

7

14

148

@jamesjho_

James Ho

9 months

1/ The Cosmos ecosystem has had a resurgence over this past year We're excited to share our thesis in @stride_zone which is the largest liquid staking protocol in the Cosmos ecosystem by TVL

Tweet card media

Our Stride Thesis — Modular Capital

Publish Date: Dec 4, 2023 Author: James Ho Executive Summary Stride is a liquid staking protocol on the Cosmos ecosystem with significant market share (90%+) and >$60M TVL (total valued locked). They...

www.modularcapital.xyz

9

25

144

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Seeing signs of uncollateralized lending take off in DeFi. $20B+ in outstanding collateralized loans vs ~$600M uncollateralized w/ @TrustToken @maplefinance - lent to reputable firms like Alameda, Wintermute. No defaults yet & still lots to prove at scale - but exciting start!

Tweet media one

4

15

142

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

1/ current neobank/broker landscape 🧵 (both public & private)

5

11

145

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Valuations for big public payment companies + Stripe 🤑 Makes the $96B stripe raised at look cheap... ...and clearly massive appetite by public markets for digitization of payments 😙 Anything else that stands out?

Tweet media one

9

13

140

@jamesjho_

James Ho

1 month

Over the last several years, we met many teams that launched tokens at fair valuations, and continued building in the open market Examples include @stride_zone (~$100M FDV), @GEODNET_ ($30-50M FDV), @metaplex ($50-60M FDV), @AcrossProtocol ($40-60M FDV) and several others. We're

@aidan0x

Aidan | Stride

1 month

Where are all the crypto liquid funds? Typical crypto fund is VC -- focused on pre TGE, low valuation But great businesses/institutions take 5-10 years to build, and lack of competition in the 2-10 year range would imply higher returns

35

6

116

13

8

144

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Been fascinating to see crypto projects effectively "IPO" their biz at the Series A/B with a token listing - and build very large outcomes (e.g. Uniswap $25B, Axie Infinity $30B cap). Meanwhile tech co's have stayed private for much longer in last 10 yrs. A few musings :)

3

5

141

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

A few implications of $sq $apt tie up 🔥🔥 1) New large cap buyer = higher valn support for venture fintech 2) Cash app going GLOBAL (Europe, Australia) 3) ++ BNPL competition from $sq w/ $5 CAC 4) Integrated lending at merchant POS 5) $sq expansion of their 2-sided network

Tweet media one

3

15

135

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Both @tryramp and @mercury are such a joy to use. Products that were built with user delight in mind Have saved a lot of time and $$ using them and would recommend to any founder / startup

5

5

133

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

After a mega year of fintech IPOs - public mkts have spoken. Not all consumer fintechs created equal. Huge range of outcomes - driven by end market, unit economics, durability of growth, revenue predictability, among others. Some are still very recent and still gestating 😉

Tweet media one

10

21

133

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

We are in the early innings of internet and software businesses learning to monetize payments. Makes up ~50% of Shopify and Bill revenue And nearly ~10% even for eBay...😅 Infrastructure from @finix @stripe @Checkout (and many others) will all enable this in a massive way.

Tweet media one

4

10

131

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Excellent work by the NYT - big picture view is fascinating 1. Wages -0.5% vs employment -6% due to mix 2. Total income +8% from stimulus & benefits 3. Spending down from less going out 4. Savings up A LOT ($1.5T) 5. Dollars invested in the market

Tweet card media

Why Markets Boomed in a Year of Human Misery (Published 2021)

It wasn’t just the Fed or the stimulus. The rise in savings among white-collar workers created a tide lifting nearly all financial assets.

www.nytimes.com

2

25

130

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Spent 10 hours this weekend playing @AxieInfinity thanks to @packyM 's work Fascinating to see crypto / NFTs continue to move mainstream as part of everyday consumer experiences. Huge implications for games, crypto, tech broadly & more 👇

9

16

131

@jamesjho_

James Ho

9 months

1/ We are huge believers in real-world assets (RWAs), and the power of tokenizing traditional assets on-chain Excited to share our investments in @superstatefunds and @KintoXYZ which are building the next generation products & infra in this space

Tokenization Firm Superstate Gets $14M Investment to Bring Traditional Funds On-Chain

The company has earmarked the funds for team expansion, creating private funds for institutional investors and crafting a framework for tokenized public funds that U.S. clients can access.

www.coindesk.com

6

12

124

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Volumes on decentralized exchanges spiking - as trust in centralized venues at all time lows Uniswap on track for ~80% of volumes vs its best month during the bull Not your keys, not your coins

Tweet media one

13

21

115

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

A lot of buying oppy in the public markets - for assets that will durably compound over next 2-5yrs. Proven tam, unit economics, low burn, excellent mgmt. Problem is funds down too much ytd and can’t play offense. Permanent capital an advantage vs those w/o same duration.

8

6

115

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

8/ Exceptional investors recognize being overly focused on 1 year forward multiples is short sighted. Instead you must take into account current growth rate, durability of that growth, business quality, long-term structural margins, management quality, and adjacent TAMs.

1

14

117

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Stoked to join @CNBC today to discuss why Altimeter is so excited about the next decade in crypto. New pillars of compute / fintech infra being built - in one of the most disruptive sectors. Proud to support @chainalysis @falconxnetwork @FTX_Official !

Tweet media one

2

1

118

@jamesjho_

James Ho

1 year

4/ Arbitrum is already doing half of ETH mainnet's spot dex volumes ($16B/mo vs $32B) Parity in daily txns / active wallets Matter of time before a L2 fully flips ETH in economic activity $1B+ in fees from a single L2 sooner than many think

Tweet media one

6

15

114

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 months

Vincent and I started @Modular_Capital 2 years ago on the belief that we’d see expansion of use cases in crypto. Last cycle was heavily focused around defi, nfts – we viewed these as powerful primitives (whether speculative or not) but believed crypto could serve so much more A

Tweet media one

Tweet media two

Tweet media three

Tweet media four

4

9

116

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Robinhood monetizing options at 7x the rate vs equities. Options account for ~15% of transaction count, but ~50% of transaction revenues. Unfortunately can't find trading $$ volume to do a % calculation tho 😞😭

Tweet media one

6

10

113

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

As the world ignites up again - no signs of delivery biz from Uber slowing. $50B+ in bookings and still growing triple digits. Covid forced many new habits / experiments - this is one that's not going back.

Tweet media one

5

13

109

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

say what you want about metamask. but 1M to 30M+ monthly actives over last 18mo is nonetheless very impressive feat. yes Infura is not as reliable vs Alchemy. UI is confusing/buggy. More competition to come from Avax Core wallet, Argent, Phantom etc. rising tide lifts all boats

Tweet media one

4

3

109

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 months

Metaplex - trip down memory lane We first invested in @metaplex in November 2022, shortly after FTX collapsed, directly buying in the open market. At the time, the market believed a few things to be true - the end of crypto, the end of Solana, the end of NFTs, etc Through much

Tweet media one

Tweet media two

Tweet media three

Tweet media four

9

11

107

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Cash app now doing $2b annualized gross profit. Merchant biz is doing $1.9b annualized. When will people starting referring to Cash app as Square's core business 😉

Tweet media one

5

4

107

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Shopify just had one of its most impressive years...with ~100% GMV growth. And launching Shop Pay on FB/IG will massively grow distribution and onboard new merchants. Shopify is competing vs Amazon not by battling head on - but by building something different altogether.

Tweet media one

2

13

105

@jamesjho_

James Ho

11 months

1/ Gm and excited to be back on twitter. Been heads down grinding over the last year since launching @Modular_Capital and will begin to publish our work regularly Today we are excited share our thesis on @Metaplex

Tweet card media

Our Metaplex Thesis — Modular Capital

Publish Date: Oct 13, 2023 Author: James Ho Executive Summary Metaplex is an established NFT infrastructure protocol in the Solana ecosystem . They facilitate over 99.9% of the NFT mints. They have...

www.modularcapital.xyz

7

3

106

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

@CashApp has been one of the most remarkable companies in fintech and often underfollowed. Currently worth $30B+ in value, with $1.5B+ run-rate revenue. Read more below 👇

3

17

105

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Third Point going from ~70% net exposure to ~20%. Huge deal. Not sure how many other L/S equity funds have made big moves. Timing markets are hard but tells u a lot about fund mentality - in face of economic uncertainty, huge industry drawdowns, and focus on capital preservation.

3

6

102

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

No signs of doordash growth slowing even as the world re opens... In fact, average order frequency grew q/q and reached all time highs. More evidence of covid patterns turning into post covid habits...!

Tweet media one

6

7

103

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

dLocal will IPO next week and is described as "Adyen for emerging markets" Started in Latam, and expanded into India, Nigeria, Indonesia etc. Real scale w/ ~$4B volume. Much higher yields vs other payment giants. Anyone know why this might be the case? Anything latam specific?

Tweet media one

8

9

102

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

With fees running in the pennies - user experience on Arbitrum, Optimism is indistinguishable vs other cheap EVM chains Users flock to where the best dapps / ecosystems are built And that follows talented / smart devs Future is bright for Ethereum

Tweet media one

8

13

98

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Didi is a $40b company today vs raised at $50-56b back in 2017 (much from Softbank). Even more surprising - investors who got in at ~$3b round only made 16% IRR. Had lots of headwinds w/ safety regulation, covid - but going IPO without govt permission certainly did not help...

Tweet media one

6

7

98

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

More than 25% of online retail in Australia happens through Afterpay. Even more impressive they achieved this in just 4 years since launch (2015 -> 2019). Any other payment methods globally, that have scaled to this much share this quickly?

Tweet media one

10

7

92

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

From no fintech IPOs in 2018 to ~10% share of tech IPOs in 2020/21. And we are still just getting started 😜 Can’t wait to see what all the VC $$ going into fintech/crypto these last 2 years means for the next 3-5…

@Chris_Conforti

Chris Conforti

@Chris_Conforti

3 years

2021 Software IPOs may eclipse ALL tech IPOs from last year (a near record year!). Just an incredible level of issuance and appetite from investors to back this sector. Expect this pace to continue

Tweet media one

4

7

58

5

9

97

@jamesjho_

James Ho

4 years

Grub Q3'19 Letter - "we didn’t then, and still don't believe now, that a company can generate significant profits on just the logistics component of the business. It is a commodity" Fast forward 1 year to Q3'20... Grubhub: $2.4B GMV, $44M EBITDA DoorDash: $7.3B GMV, $86M EBITDA

Tweet media one

2

6

95

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Read the @MessariCrypto 2022 report. It's truly incredible how far crypto industry has come - and the diversity of activity flourishing. Bitcoin, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, DAOs, multi-chain, bridging, file storage, IoT networks... Feels like a new era. Big Cambrian explosion.

4

16

93

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

1/ Have had many friends ask (in eng, product, finance etc). Any $1B+ startup I tell them to ask for heavier cash comp or 2-3X typical equity, to account for 50-80% public mkt corrections Otherwise just go hang out at mega cap until cycle fully resets (or start ur own company)

@jasoncwarner

Jason Warner

2 years

People don’t leave jobs, they leave 1000x forward revenue companies where their options are underwater for the next 4 years

11

8

395

4

5

95

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

Was listening to the @BanklessHQ podcast w/ @dfinzer on my drive this morning... And it was pointed out @opensea does more GMV than many top marketplaces - with just 200k users!! We are still so early in the adoption of NFTs. And yes I am ~$1k of that $27 B - thx to @altcap :)

Tweet media one

2

5

96

@jamesjho_

James Ho

2 years

Best way for me to learn (e.g. how a biz works, build an investment thesis) - has been having a written output as the key deliverable. This tends to force clarity of thought, succinct synthesis, and reveal gaps in understanding. Verbal deliverable does not yield nearly the same

3

6

89

@jamesjho_

James Ho

3 years

1/ Thrilled to back @FireblocksHQ in their Series E! $45B assets under custody. 600% revenue growth. 8x client growth. Securing 15% of daily crypto volumes. Shaulov & team are building a global crypto infrastructure juggernaut @altcap

Tweet card media

Fireblocks raises $550 million in Series E funding, now valued at $8 billion

Fireblocks, an institutional crypto custody provider, has raised $550 million in a mega Series E round and is now valued at $8 billion.

www.theblock.co

1

5

93