REV Acquires RadioShack Brand And Pivots It To DeFi

For those who remember the original "Tech store - RadioShack", it's a brand that came to existence in the early 1900's and served as the go-to for DIY techies. Due to multitude of financial and operational missteps, RadioShack had to file for bankruptcy protection (Chapter 11) in early 2015. In late 2020, Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV), announced that it had purchased the iconic brand and its related assets.

“The RadioShack brands have resonated with consumers for nearly 100 years, and we are confident RadioShack’s relaunch as a cutting-edge ecommerce company will amplify the awareness of this iconic brand internationally,” said Alex Mehr, CEO of REV. 

Tai Lopez, Executive Chairman of REV added, “We were impressed with both the strong existing sales and sales potential of the Radioshack.com and related websites across the globe, including the U.S., Canada, India, Australia, Europe and China. Our approach builds off the existing strength of extraordinary brands such as RadioShack and supports our mission of transforming these beloved entities into Internet-first companies.”

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REV's vision for the brand? 

Re-purpose RadioShack for decentralized finance, or DeFi. The idea is to create a decentralized exchange (DEX) [1], allowing a way for users to more easily move in and out of different tokens, à la Uniswap and Sushiswap. This is different than likes of Coinbase, which are more of a centralized exchange.

Whilst in early stages, according to RadioShack web site, here's how they envision reaching the end-game (excerpts are taken directly from RadioShack.com as of Jan 14th 2021).

What is RadioShack DeFi:

RadioShack is a 100 year old brand embedded into the global consciousness… and we are going to lead the way for blockchain tech to reach mainstream adoption by other large brands.

The problem to solve (The Challenge):

There is a real generational gap between the average crypto buyer and the average business decision maker.

This demographic difference creates a substantial psychological barrier to crypto adoption.

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We will be the bridge between the CEO’s who lead the world’s corporations and the new world of cryptocurrencies.

How to solve this problem (Partnering with Atlas USV):

RadioShack DeFi will start with a token swap. We believe this is the lowest hanging fruit among the many defi opportunities.

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Our symbiosis with Atlas USV will allow us to offer the most efficient and competitive swap on the market.

Why does REV think the pivot will be a success?

For those not familiar with REV - it was founded by Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez in 2019, as a means to transform brands that have struggled to succeed in the age of ecommerce. Responsible for brands and products that have generated more than $1 billion in sales, including a $258 million exit for Mehr's Zoosk, REV has set their sights on acquiring distressed retail brands with global renown. 

Between NFTs, DeFi, DAO the metaverse, and crypto payments, firms worldwide have been dabbling in digital assets. REV predict that executives, who increasingly see crypto as legitimate, will dive headfirst into it by having their firms issue their own tokens. And to do that, they'll want a trusted partner, which Lopez and Mehr hope will be RadioShack.

Lopez says some parts of RadioShack's crypto ambitions will only be available initially to people outside of the U.S. to steer clear of any U.S. regulatory issues, though he did not go into specifics.

"If this becomes a little bit more of a trustworthy, well-understood process, the demand for it is going to be super high," Mehr has suggested. "That's the bet." 

[1] DEX:  Decentralized exchanges, are a set of smart contracts that enable trade cryptocurrency tokens for other cryptocurrency tokens.

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PayPal Confirms its Own Crypto Currency, Backed By the US Dollar

PayPal has been steadily increasing its foray into crypto currency. According to press release in 2020, PayPal suggested that it will enable cryptocurrency as a funding source for digital commerce at its 26 million merchant. The press release also pointed out that PayPal has also been granted a first-of-its-kind conditional Bitlicense by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

"NYDFS' approval today follows our June 2020 announcement for a new framework for a conditional Bitlicense to encourage, promote, and assist interested institutions to have a well-regulated way to access the New York virtual currency marketplace in a way that is both timely and protective of New York consumers, through partnerships with New York authorized virtual currency firms," said Linda A. Lacewell, superintendent, NYDFS. "NYDFS will continue to encourage and support financial service providers to operate, grow, remain and expand in New York and work with innovators to enable them to germinate and test their ideas, for a dynamic and forward looking financial services sector, especially as we work to build New York back better in the midst of this pandemic."

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How will PayPal accomplish this:

PayPal has added  the ability for its users to buy, hold and sell select cryptocurrencies, initially featuring Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, directly within the PayPal digital wallet. The company plans to expand the features to Venmo and select international markets in the first half of 2021. The service is enabled in the U.S. through a partnership with Paxos Trust Company, a regulated provider of cryptocurrency products and services.

How is this different than any other provider:

To gain a competitive advantage and mainly alleviate the fluid valuations of crypto, PayPal is exploring it's own Stablecoin [1].

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, SVP of crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, has confirmed to Bloomberg that the online payment provider is "exploring a stablecoin." He also said that the company will work closely with relevant regulators "if and when [it] seek[s] to move forward."

The Bloomberg piece has also identified that a software developer Steve Moser, found hidden code and images for a "PayPal Coin" in the company's iPhone app. Based on Moser's discovery, the PayPal Coin will be backed by the US dollar. It may also feature the PayPal logo with two horizontal slashes across it, though that may change upon the coin's launch, if this were to materialize.

Global trends suggest this strategic move by PaylPal is viable: 

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis’ 2021 report on global cryptocurrency adoption index, has revelated that, Worldwide Adoption Jumps Over 880% With P2P platforms driving cryptocurrency usage in Emerging Markets.  

It's not a surprise that emerging markets are well ahead in this space. These markets usually face significant currency devaluation, driving residents to buy cryptocurrency in order to preserve their savings. Others use cryptocurrency to carry out international transactions, either for individual remittances or for commercial use cases. 

The report also points out that China and the U.S. have seen a dip in the rankings. Both fell from 4th and 6th place on the index respectively, to 13th and 8th. The primary reason both countries dropped is that their rankings in P2P trade volume weighted for internet-using population declined dramatically — China fell from 53rd in this component to 155th, while the U.S. fell from 16th to 109th.

"The clear takeaway, the report suggests is: Cryptocurrency adoption has skyrocketed in the last twelve months, and the variation in the countries contributing to that show that cryptocurrency is a truly global phenomenon."

[1] Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies backed by fiat currencies and are considered more stable than their decentralized counterparts. 

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From Space Travel to Metaverse, 4 Trends that will shape 2022

As 2021 draws to an end, the tea-leave readers have started foreshadowing the trends that will become prevalent in 2022. Depending on which pundit the industry leaders prescribe to, the outcome may look different. Therefor we've complied a list of our own.

Methodology:

Like others, we could simply leverage artificial intelligence models, but decided to apply a simple methodology. We evaluated the foundational shifts that seemed to materialize in 2021 and applied a forward looking approach to them. From these trends, we've distilled the list down to Top-4, listed below in ascending order:

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Space Travel for the masses:

2021 saw an influx of Billionaires making their mark in space travel. Privately owned space firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, all sent civilians into space in 2021, opening the doors to space tourism.

Private space flights will get bigger in 2022. During this time SpaceX plans to put its Starship reusable rocket and space vehicle into flight for its first missions. 

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said, "This is a profound revolution in access to orbit. There has never been a fully reusable, orbital launch vehicle. This is the holy grail of space technology. It is the fundamental breakthrough that is necessary for humanity to become a space-faring civilization."

Crytpo, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO):

From SEC approved Exchange Traded Funds to universities accepting crypto as payment, cryptocurrencies have started becoming mainstream. In 2021, Cryptocurrency exchange app Coinbase passed TikTok and YouTube to become the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store a few times, highlighting consumer interest in owing crypto as an asset. 

Cryptocurrency, DeFi and DAO's are all tethered together. As crypto becomes mainstream, so will the need to use it as an investment lever. This will where DeFi and DAO's kickin. 

In 2020 the Total Value Locked (TVL) – a measure of DeFi transaction value – grew by 14x. In 2021, TVL has more than quadrupled to a total value of $111.27 billion. This shows a shift from traditional banking to smart contracts driven transactions, using crypto. 

Similar to DeFi, DAOs are organizations that leverage crypto and DeFi to achieve their targets. In a recent run, a DAO tried to purchase one of the 13 remaining copies of the US Constitution by using ether (ETH) balance as its collateral. Whilst this project didn't work out, venture capitalist firms took notice. As reported by CoinDesk:

Syndicate, a community-based investment system that simplifies the creation of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), has raised a $20 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

The Series A funding will go towards building extensive tooling, plus various types of formal and legal structuring that Syndicate needs to take DAOs to the next level, including adding a team of securities lawyers.

“When you reduce the cost of setting up an investment fund by 1,000x, what happens?” said Papper. “The answer is that setting up an investment fund becomes as easy as sending a tweet – not that we recommend setting up investment funds via tweets. But when it becomes as easy as that, the world just looks completely different, because the creativity is just absolutely phenomenal.”

Metaverse:

2021, or the pandemic in general, has influenced the next generations on how they can and will interact, both with technology and each other. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), Nvidia, Google, Valve and many others are building hardware and software to be ready for this new universe. According to Wall Street, this is the next Trillion dollar market. 

U.S Investment bank has reported that, "The Metaverse will likely take many years to develop; however, NFTs and social gaming (e.g., online games and concerts attended by people's avatars) present two nearer-term opportunities for luxury brands."

According to Morgan Stanley, NFTs and social gaming could expand luxury brands' total addressable market (TAM) by more than 10% and result in upside for the industry that could reach $50 billion by 2030. 

According to Reuters one in five Roblox gamers (a Metaverse platform), update their avatars daily. This consumer behavior has led Morgan Stanley to suggest that luxury brands are exploring a number of collaborations with gaming and Metaverse platforms.

Privacy, Transparency, Governance and Accountability:

These 4 nouns may not be considered trends, albeit, they go hand 'n hand with and all technology shifts. By now, consumers are aware that technology giants scrape their data without consent and then sell it to advertisers for a hefty profit.

The European Union (EU) has fined Facebook (Meta) more than $250 million and Amazon nearly $1 billion for violations of its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law. Apple has limited targeted advertising from App developers, and Google is going to remove tracking cookies from its Chrome browser by 2023.

We will continue to monitor the trends and share updates, so stay tuned.

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