Saturday, April 09, 2022

News: April 9



BITCOIN TO $10 MILLION BY 2030 It might seem hyper-bullish, but there is real reason to believe such an ascension in price could occur. .
THE DIP BEFORE THE RUN: WHY WE’RE HEADED FOR $250,000 BITCOIN Investment funds holding bitcoin, Powell admitting inflation may be higher than expected, and more in this edition of Last Week In Bitcoin. .
विद्यालय शिक्षामा ‘केजरीवाल मोडेल’ : नेपालमा पनि अत्यावश्यक
With cases rising, Mayor Eric Adams is keeping New York City’s preschool mask mandate.
U.S. immigration agency moves to cut 9.5 million-case backlog and speed up processing
A chief economist who called the 2008 housing crisis warns that the US housing market is in the 'early stages of a substantial downshift' as demand subsides — and says surging home prices and rents are due to cool off in a big way
What's next for the US housing bubble? Industry experts break down the bull and bear cases for home prices in the months ahead. Worries about the fate of the market are especially pertinent given the tear that home prices have been on since the start of the pandemic. Median home prices have risen as much as 27% since spring 2020 ...... "The housing market is in the early stages of a substantial downshift in activity, which will trigger a steep decline in the rate of increase of home prices, starting perhaps as soon as the spring" ..... current market dynamics were "irrational" and recommended waiting to buy homes. ..... A heightened appetite for flipping may be a sign of a bubble in the market ...... rising mortgage rates were the driving factor behind why home prices would fall. ..... bearish because of issues stemming from potential supply increases. ...... "Prices are going to continue to grow. I think they're gonna grow faster than we can get a handle on them," he told Insider in March. "I think this spring is going to be one of the busiest and hardest homebuying seasons that we've seen in my lifetime."

Pentagon announces $300M in aerial systems, military weapons for Ukraine
Pope blasts Russia’s ‘infantile’ war
Chinese President Xi Jinping warns it could take decades to repair economic damage caused by Ukraine crisis . Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged the EU not to "tie the whole world" to the crisis in Ukraine and warned it could take decades to repair the economic damage. ....... "The more critical the situation, the more sobriety and calm is needed," the Chinese leader said.

दिप्रुङ गाउँपालिका अध्यक्ष भूपेन्द्रः जसले जिल्लामै उदाहरणीय काम गरे



मोरङमा कांग्रेस एक्लै अघि बढेपछि माओवादी र अरु दलको छुट्टै गठबन्धन



How 100X.VC takes startups from zero to one and beyond The Mumbai-based investment firm has created a new model for funding and nurturing early-stage startups. The $3 million it has put into 70 companies so far has snowballed into $43 million of follow-on funding from marque angels, family offices and big name VCs ......... 100X has been able to achieve this feat because it doesn’t rely on traditional, 50 –to-60-page long shareholder agreements that typically take 3-4 months to close. Instead, it uses what it calls “iSAFE” notes. Popularised by Y Combinator, the famed Silicon Valley startup incubator, in 2013, SAFE notes - short for Simple Agreement for Future Equity – are instruments that promise a stake in a startup at a future date. The open-source document was tweaked by the 100X team for India, hence the “i” prefix, which stands for India. ........ 100X hands over Rs25 lakh to each startup it picks in return for a seven percent equity stake in the startup during its next financing round. The simple five-page document is fuss-free, founder-friendly, and ensures fast deal closures. ........... “We worked with our lawyers to eliminate clauses that early-stage founders don’t really need like having a board of directors, liquidation rights and all the other jargon which is not important in the initial stages of a startup. What is important is the survival of the startup and hence early capital is critical. ......... Along with the Rs25 lakh entrepreneurs receive as seed capital, they are given 100+ hours of mentoring, guidance, and networking support over a one to three-month period. ....... The period culminates in a ‘VC Pitch Day’ where entrepreneurs give a three-four minute pitch to an invite-only gathering of marque angels, HNIs, family offices, micro-VCs and larger ones. So far, of the 70 startups 100X has funded from the 20,000-plus pitch decks it has received over the last 2.5 years, 80 percent have gone on to raise follow on funds. The $3 million that 100X has invested has led to $43 million (Rs318 crore) in follow-on funding from 600 investors ........... “Other investors are more likely to invest in you once you have been a 100X company, because they’ve done the work of bringing you up to a certain level” ........ Others like Smiles.ai—a Benguluru-based startup that leverages proprietary technology and a network of health care professionals to provide low-cost yet high quality dental care services and products through online consultations, at-home services and a physical clinic network—was part of 100X’s Class 01 portfolio in December 2019. It went on to raise $1 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital India and Chiratae Ventures in January 2021 after a 100X Pitch Day. More recently it raised $23 million in Series-A funding from Alpha Wave Incubation and its existing investors. .......... Presently 100X gets its capital from Mehta’s family office, Mehta Ventures. Going forward it will look for outside investment ......... “Think of 100x.VC as a discovery fund,” says Brendan Rogers, co-founder of at 2AM VC. The early-stage, Indian-only, sector agnostic fund has invested in ten 100X portfolio companies so far. “100X has helped us dramatically in getting access to high quality founders and deals. They’ve done all the due diligence and hard work of getting startups to a level where they are investable and can take off in terms of growth,” he says. ............... Dravya Dholakia, founder and director at Dholakia Ventures, who has invested in 10-12 100X startups as a follow-on investor, concurs: “We can blindly back a 100X company. The due diligence we need to do is a fraction of that we would do for a non-100X company.” .......... So what does 100X do to take startups from zero to one and make them attractive to follow-on investors? “We provide a combination of smart capital—which is capital and education—and network,” says Randev, who looks after investor relations. It helps that the five co-founders of 100X come from various vantage points, he says. “We’ve been builders, jump starters, growth hackers and we’ve spent a lot of time scaling companies from the scratch.” .......... Mehta, 51, for example, is a two-time entrepreneur—one venture, a steel trading exchange, went bust during the dotcom crash and another—a software solutions company—he exited with handsome returns. He has since been an angel investor betting on companies like Oyo Rooms in its early days and exiting at a cool 280x. ........ “We position ourselves more as a finishing school rather than a purely capital giving VC. It’s literally like transforming diamonds in the rough by giving them the polish they need,” says Mehta. ......... As he talks, he pulls out a pitch video that Kerala Banana Chips, a Class 03 100X portfolio company, sent to the team when applying to 100X in December 2020. In it, the founder Manas Madhu rambles on about ‘Beyond Snack’, the parent company of Kerala Banana Chips without highlighting the key aspects of, say, the taste and texture of the chips that are made in a hygienic, no-human touch factory as opposed to the unclean, unorganised fashion in which chips are usually made across India. ....... Mehta then pulls out another, slicker, 3.5-minute pitch complete with data and visuals where Madhu highlights the superior quality and taste of the chips, the market size and growth trajectory. The difference is stark – a product of one month of mentoring on the positioning and branding .........

“There is a big gap of a platform / community along with the first cheque in any startup. Y Combinator has been sub-par in India. Angel money is rarely high quality. 100X is filling a huge gap here, particularly in Mumbai and also pan-India.”





Will The Housing Market Crash? Experts Give 5-Year Predictions. Predictions indicate that home prices will continue to rise and new home construction will continue to lag behind, putting buyers in tight housing situations for the foreseeable future........ On the other hand, snagging a house now, even if it means sacrificing other purchases, could mean saving money down the road if home prices and equity continue to rise. There’s a chance they could also save by getting a house and locking in a rate before both rates and home prices increase. ........ If home prices drop suddenly, buyers could be stuck with underwater mortgages, which means they have to stay in the house until the market rebounds, or they sell and lose money. While housing experts predict this scenario is unlikely, still, it should not be ignored. .

Okay, Here Are 2022’s Most Futuristic April Fools’ Jokes
Weaponisation of finance: how the west unleashed ‘shock and awe’ on Russia The central bank sanctions could prompt a backlash against the dollar’s dominance in global finance. In the five weeks since the measures were first imposed, the Russian rouble has recovered much of the ground it initially lost and officials in Moscow claim they will find ways around the sanctions....... Like so much else in American life, the new era of financial warfare began on 9/11. In the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan, moved on to Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein and used drones to kill alleged terrorists on three continents. But with much less scrutiny and fanfare, it also developed the powers to act as the global financial police......... Within weeks of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, George W Bush pledged to “starve the terrorists of funding”. The Patriot Act, the controversial law that provided the basis for the Bush administration’s use of surveillance and indefinite detention, also gave the Treasury department the power to effectively cut off any financial institution involved in money laundering from the US financial system......... By coincidence, the first country to be threatened under this law was Ukraine, which the Treasury warned in 2002 risked having its banks compromised by Russian organised crime. ....... The financial toolkit used to go after al-Qaeda’s money was soon applied to a much bigger target — Iran and its nuclear programme. ......... “Going after the central bank of a country like Russia is about as powerful a step as you can take in the category of financial sector sanctions.” ........ There is an irony behind a joint package of American and EU financial sanctions: European leaders have spent much of the past five decades criticising the outsized influence of the US currency. ......... In Washington, the sanctions plans were led by Daleep Singh, a former New York Fed official who is now deputy national security adviser for international economics at the White House ...... Germany’s decision to scrap the Nord Stream 2 pipeline after the invasion was crucial in bringing hesitant Europeans along. It was “a very important signal to other Europeans that sacred cows would have to be sacrificed” ....... The other central figure was Canada’s finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent and has been in close contact with officials in Kyiv. ....... Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/5b397d6b-bde4-4a8c-b9a4-080485d6c64a The threat of economic pain may not have deterred Putin from invading, but western leaders believe the financial sanctions that have been put in place since the invasion are evidence of a revitalised transatlantic alliance — and a rebuke to the idea that democracies are too slow and hesitant. “We have never had in the history of the European Union such close contacts with the Americans on a security issue as we have now — it’s really unprecedented,” says one senior EU official. ........ Chancellor Rishi Sunak communicated by WhatsApp with officials through the night, with the work only concluding at 4am. ....... Even when they work, sanctions take a long time to have an impact. However, the economic pain from the crisis is being unevenly felt, with Europe suffering a much bigger blow than the US. ........ To China, India, Brazil and the other countries which might potentially help him evade the western sanctions, Putin will pose a deeper question about the role of the US dollar in the global economy: can you still trust America? .



U.S. Tells India There Will Be 'Consequences' for Dodging Russia Sanctions Daleep Singh, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, warned India on Thursday, ahead of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting in the Asian country, that there will be "consequences" if India tries to evade Western sanctions on Moscow imposed over the Ukraine war. ....... India, one of Russia's main Cold War partners, is working with Moscow on a payment solution to work around Western sanctions. Refiners in India have been purchasing Russian oil through spot tenders since the war began on February 24, taking advantage of cheap discounts while other buyers pull out. ........ India has purchased at least 13 million barrels of Russian oil since February 24, according to Reuters, compared with nearly 16 million barrels for all of 2021. The Asian country is the world's third biggest oil importer, importing 80 percent of its oil needs. The newswire reported on February 25 that India was exploring setting up rupee trade accounts with Russia to be able to continue trading with the country and avert Western sanctions. ....... Russia is offering India huge discounts to directly purchase oil at pre-war prices. Moscow is willing to sell oil up to $35 per barrel—which could increase to $45 per barrel as fossil fuel prices continue to skyrocket—and wants India to buy 15 million barrels in the first deal. ....... Singh, seen as one of the key architects behind the U.S. sanctions on Russia, met with Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi on Thursday, where they discussed economic co-operation and strategic partnership ....... "We are very keen for all countries, especially our allies and partners, not to create mechanisms that prop up the ruble and that attempt to undermine the dollar-based financial system," he said. ........ Singh said there is a shared recognition in the Quad that "China is a strategic threat to a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific." ....... "No one should kid themselves—Russia is going to be the junior partner in this relationship with China. And the more leverage that China gains over Russia, the less favorable that is for India. I don't think anyone would believe that if China once again breached the Line of [Actual] Control, that Russia would come running to India's defense."

Mortgage rates rise above 5%



A borrower who took on a $500,000 mortgage at a 3.11% rate would get a monthly mortgage payment of $2,138. At a 4.67% rate, that monthly payment soars to $2,584. Over the course of the 30-year loan, that's an additional $160,698. That is a huge delta for the average American......... Year on year, house prices increase 15% on average and in certain markets like Phoenix and Las Vegas the increase surpassed 30%. ....... Higher mortgage rates will cool down the housing market but I don't expect any hard landing.



ELON MUSK JOINS BOARD OF TWITTER, PROMISES “SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS” HIS FIRST IDEA WON'T SURPRISE YOU. ........ Other Twitter users wasted no time in tearing that idea apart, of course — because at the end of the day, regardless of who’s on the board, it’s still Twitter.



ELON MUSK IS ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS AT THE TWITTER ALGORITHM AND WHERE'S HE COMPLAINING? ON TWITTER, OF COURSE. ...... But he may have no greater and more longstanding infatuation than the microblogging service Twitter, which he joined in 2009 and has consistently used as a megaphone to grow his personal brand, issue proclamations and predictions about the future, and occasionally nurse feuds with a staggeringly broad selection of other famous people and institutions. ....... yes, he’s using Twitter to complain about Twitter — the mercurial CEO griped over the past day that the site’s algorithm isn’t fair, and that there should be more transparency around how it works. .......

“The algorithm needs to be open source”

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The top companies of 2022



WHAT ELON MUSK COULD MEAN FOR TWITTER Depends: What kind of activist investor does Musk want to be? ...... Musk — who has more than 80 million Twitter followers and sometimes tweets a dozen or more times a day ......... Musk’s surprise stake in Twitter has been the biggest story in tech this week. In part, that’s an artifact of the public’s near-total fascination with all things Musk. It also illustrates how Twitter’s status as the heartbeat of the global news cycle means that any Twitter-related stories can dominate the news: no matter what happens on Twitter, you can be assured that every Twitter user has an opinion about it. ..... Musk is so chaotic that it feels like a fool’s errand to predict what sort of tasks he will take on as Twitter board member. But I can’t be the only person who wonders whether, intentionally or not, he’ll undermine the CEO. .



Will The Housing Market Crash? Experts Give 5-Year Predictions. . The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas identified signs of a “brewing U.S. housing bubble” in a blog post March 29. Though the sharp increase in home prices in itself does not indicate a bubble, the report said, there are other fundamental factors to consider, including “shifts in disposable income, the cost of credit and access to it, supply disruptions, and rising labor and raw construction materials costs are among the economic reasons for sustained real house-price gains.” ........ What causes the housing market to be “unhinged” from those fundamentals, is when “there is widespread belief that today’s robust price increases will continue,” the Dallas Fed report said. “If many buyers share this belief, purchases arising from a ‘fear of missing out’ can drive up prices and heighten expectations of strong house-price gains.” ........ Even though the report called the current housing market “abnormal,” the authors concluded that “there is no expectation that fallout from a housing correction would be comparable to the 2007–09” crisis in terms of its magnitude. ........ If you were hoping for a major downturn to snag a cheaper home, think again. Most housing experts are predicting the market to remain strong for a while for several reasons. ....... first-time homebuyers represent the largest share (31%) of people purchasing homes ....... most first-time buyers are younger than 40, which means the buyer pool is deep–a good indication that demand will remain strong, especially since housing inventory is at historical lows ........ “We won’t see a downturn because the housing market saw little increase in inventory for the past ten years. In a few years, Gen Z will be turning 30, and more financially ready to become homeowners than Millenials were at their age” ....... “This means that the demand for homes will be as high, if not higher, while inventory will still be behind in the demand.” ........ the market will remain strong for years to come. ....... “And after not building nearly enough houses for the last decade, homebuilders will take several years at least to add enough new supply to balance the market.” ......... It is a helpful sign that new home construction climbed at an annual rate of 6.8% in February, the fastest growth since 2006. But the nearly 1.8 million new homes starts are unlikely to put a dent in home prices. ...... Among the differences between today’s housing market and that of the 2008 housing crash is that lending standards are tighter due to lessons learned and new regulations enacted after the last crisis. Essentially, that means those approved for a mortgage nowadays are less likely to default than those who were approved in the pre-crisis lending period. .......... “What’s much more likely is a gradual slowdown in the pace of price appreciation where home prices continue growing, just not as fast as they are now.” ....... .



No One Wants to Go Back to the Office As Much As White Men .

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