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How America Can Maintain the Dollar Hegemony
Dollar dominance has been a recurring topic in macro circles lately. De-dollarization narratives circulate every few years, usually tied to geopolitical shifts or emerging market alliances. Yet the actual behavior of markets tends to look very different. Capital continues to move through dollar rails, commodities still price in dollars, and digital markets increasingly settle in…
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Stablecoins: The Race for Network Dominance
The consensus is clear – traditional financial payments remain fragmented and inefficient, placing the burden of delays and high costs on consumers and businesses. Stablecoins have become a novel complement to the existing payment system, addressing inefficiencies and achieving evident product-market fit in crypto with adoption growing across both retail and institutional markets and a…
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Stablecoin Adoption, Where Will Value Accrue?
Tether made $13B in 2024—yet 300+ stablecoin players are floundering. Outside of stablecoin issuers, where’s the value headed? My take on the future winners. The topography of payments, like card networks and the SWIFT network, have remained largely unchanged for the past 70 years. Traditional systems are burdened by multiple rent-seeking intermediaries and antiquated infrastructure…
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PACT: Unlocking The Future of On-Chain Private Credit
A Deep Dive into PACT’s Valuation and Market Potential PACT, a cornerstone investment in Verda Ventures Series 1, is redefining private credit through on-chain innovation. This valuation analysis explores the two primary drivers of value accrual for PACT: (1) Loan Origination and (2) Securitization & Secondary Markets—both crucial to its long-term growth and market impact.…
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The MiniPay Opportunity: Build, Scale, and Innovate in Emerging Markets
The Fastest Growing Non-Custodial Wallet in the Global South MiniPay is rapidly becoming the go-to non-custodial wallet in the Global South. With over 5 million activations and accounting for 25% of new USDT addresses in Q4 2024, MiniPay is revolutionizing financial access in emerging markets. At Verda Ventures, we’re doubling down on this momentum with…
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Emerging VCs and Crypto: The Next Big Opportunity for Savvy Investors
Venture Capital’s Big Shift In the golden days of zero interest rates, venture capital thrived. Titans like Apple and Google reshaped tech, cloud computing boomed, and years of easy money fueled massive growth. Funds that started right after the 2008 crash delivered incredible returns. By 2021, VC funding hit a record $363 billion as everyone…
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A Bold New Look For A Bold Mission
What does it mean to redefine a mission? For us at Verda Ventures, it’s a recommitment to the north star that has guided us from day 1: expanding financial access. This core principle remains unchanged. However, our rebrand reflects a sharpened focus—on stablecoins, mobile wallets, and other financial products as the essential building blocks of…
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MiniPay: Crypto’s iPhone Moment for Emerging Markets
Crypto today is booming in niches like stablecoins, DEXs (memecoin trading), gaming, and social apps according to TokenTerminal. But for crypto to go truly mainstream, it needs to break out of these silos and offer value to people beyond the crypto/web3 world. Instead of pushing users to “get on-chain,” why not meet them where they…
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Verda Ventures Launches $40 Million MiniPay Fund
Emerging markets represent a $1 trillion opportunity, and Verda Ventures is leading the charge to close the financial access gap. With the launch of the $40 million MiniPay Fund in partnership with Opera, Verda Ventures is fueling a new generation of fintech startups designed to revolutionize financial services in underserved regions. By focusing on scalable,…
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Unlocking Africa’s Financial Future: How Crypto Is Breaking Down Barriers
When we think about blockchain technology and its impact, other nations and economies are not really top of mind. In the western world we have many economic luxuries like developed financial markets, tools, and access. Even though countries like Venezuela, Brazil, and Russia have gotten a lot of attention these past few years for developing…
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Framework for Assessing Teams
While industry and market analysis is critical to understanding the opportunity and Verda relies heavily on data and financials to support investment decisions, it’s ultimately teams that execute on the opportunity at every stage. Assessing a team is not an exact science and requires a qualitative assessment, but there are three areas Verda uses to systematically review…
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Framework for Markets and Industries
Verda has received inbound inquiries from partners on how we look at markets. Fundamentally, we believe that for a project to reach maximum positive impact, it must first have a sustainable (profitable) business model. Thus, before measuring the impact of a ReFi project (defined here), we are looking at the attractiveness of the respective markets and…