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These seem like too many data comps to me. I’ve checked out many of their reports and chatted with their teams - still struggle to understand how ones value prop is different from the other. So maybe this map will shrink in a year or two

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The Block

@TheBlock__

May 14, 2020

Research report: The State of the Digital Asset Data and Infrastructure commissioned by Blockset theblockcrypto.com/post/63689/res

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Yeah a lot of people seem to flock to some sub-industries (e.g. custody) without a real business model or product differentiator

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I think it’s very much a side-effect of what’s hot according to VCs. E.g. after Fidelity entered the market everyone was looking to put money into custody companies, then custody got crowded, so data, rinse and repeat.

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Strictly speaking custody competition is already v intense before Fidelity/Bakkt entered the market latter half of 2019. So it’s more like VCs competing against each other for exposure in the same sector and hence backing different comps of same value prop.

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Yeah it was definitely intense, but it wasn’t quite as... ridiculous I think VCs are pro-cyclical

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It also makes way more sense for Fido which already has a shit ton of customers than the random people who keep starting up custody businesses with no built in customer base.

1:14 AM · May 15, 2020Twitter Web App

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Relatedly we don't talk nearly enough about how little value add there is to some custody: if you have the ability to withdraw from the wallet then it has most of the same attack vectors as not having the custodian in the first place.

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Best of luck competing with a 'prime' brokerage (Fidelity / Coinbase / etc) as they gladly offer your clientbase free custody, bleeding you out. Oh youre still kicking? They toss in low premium insurance. Still not dead? *Boom* Earn yield on your holdings!

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