Forget Overhyped Billion-Dollar Tech Unicorns, Bitcoin Is the Best Startup Ever

As reported by CCN, “By CCN: 2019 has been the year of the hot tech IPO. Already, Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, and Beyond Meat have headlined the group of new companies coming to market. That’s not all. WeWork, AirBnb, and Slack are among other hot tech companies that are rumored to be listing their shares later this year. Some of the world’s most innovative tech companies were finally an investible proposition for young investors.

“But there’s a dark side to this tech bonanza. Insiders are cashing out with huge profits while dumping risky, high-priced stock to average joes. In many cases, these insiders include filthy rich venture capital investors and private fund managers. Bitcoin, by contrast, wasn’t an exercise in making the rich even richer…

“…There’s nothing wrong with the traditional startup model. But each step dilutes the eventual benefit to an outside investor. Once a startup has to raise money and hire lots of employees, a great deal of the potential upside goes away. As Naval alludes to, the cap table – a listing of each investor’s ownership stake – quickly gets crowded by wealthy early investors.

“The government makes it difficult for people to invest in startups unless they are accredited (aka wealthy) investors. This means that in many successful startups, most of the money will be made by already rich people, leaving just crumbs for everyone else.

“Uber is a great example. It had many famous people, including Jeff Bezos, invest in it early. Bezos reportedly turned a $3 million Uber investment into nearly $700 million by the time the stock IPOed. Chris Sacca, the celebrity Shark Tank judge, turned his stake into $2 billion.

“The startup game favors the elites. Bezos helps demonstrate this. While regulation keeps little folks out, the wealthy and connected get to invest in tomorrow’s hottest companies at huge discounts to their eventual IPO prices. Just look at some of Bezos’ early investments, including in Google…

“…Bitcoin, however, was open to everyone. You could be unemployed, a teenager, or living in a developing country and bitcoin was still happy to have you. No bankers, government folks, or lawyers could keep investors out of bitcoin. And bitcoin’s founder gave away all the equity in the project. That’s unlike most startups and even other crypto projects like Ripple whose founders got filthy rich.”

Continue to read the full story at CCN.

Track the current price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and altcoins here.