Keeping Up

Jun 13, 2023

A Practitioner’s Roundup of Thought Leaders in Crypto Investing

Curating an intake of reliable learning resources for crypto investing can feel prohibitively daunting. As the digital asset landscape matures, though, so have the thought leaders advancing investing concepts and market commentary.

To help curious investors keep apprised of crypto’s brisk developments, we’ve rounded up a starter list of thought leaders and media outlets that span all expertise levels. Whether you’re looking for general market color to educate your clients or sophisticated analytical insights to help inform asset allocation decisions, plug into these sources as a starting point for consistent information and market commentary on digital assets investing:

For Advisors

Crypto for Advisors by CoinDesk

  • Technical level: lower

  • Example use case: advisors seeking client perspectives and industry trends

CoinDesk has emerged as a “Bloomberg of Crypto,” leading the pack on breaking news and pushing further into institution-friendly content. CoinDesk understands institutional audiences well, particularly advisors, and publishes two institutional newsletters: Crypto for Advisors (aimed primarily at U.S.-based RIAs) and Crypto Long & Short (aimed at more technical investors and asset managers globally). By bifurcating these audiences, CoinDesk more effectively delivers its content to the right readers. With Crypto for Advisors, advisors can pick up crypto education and points-of-view specific to their industry. This newsletter is suitable for advisors looking to get a wholistic view of crypto as it relates to client demand, regulatory ongoings, basic investing concepts, and general industry trends.

Truvius Blog

  • Technical level: medium

  • Example use case: investors of all kinds wanting to learn about portfolio construction, digital asset allocation, and passive and active products

At Truvius we aim to demystify digital assets with a systematic framework for investing. The roadmap for our blog includes thought pieces, analyses, and research that support our systematic investment approach and illustrate that – when managed thoughtfully – we think digital assets deserve to be a part of investors’ asset allocations. Our blog is a useful way to start understanding multi-asset, theme-driven products managed in both passive and active capacities.

Markets and Macro

Alex Thorn @ Galaxy

  • Technical level: medium to high

  • Example use case: investment analyst using macro commentary to think through portfolio management decisions

Few possess the industry reach and investment expertise of Galaxy Digital, whose various institutional business lines are renowned throughout crypto. Alex Thorn leads the firm’s research efforts, which have grown to include publicly consumable content spanning blogs, website material, and a very enjoyable podcast called Galaxy Brains. While Thorn’s written content also traverses technical blockchain news, he keeps an eye on the macro – summarizing broader market dynamics into digestible analyses and tying them back to overall economic events like Federal Reserve actions and international policy decisions. Thorn’s weekly research brief is the perfect way to stay on top of industry-leading macro market updates.

The Big Picture @ RWM

  • Technical level: lower to medium

  • Example use case: family office PM staying up to date with general industry perspectives and market insights

A notable investor, financial writer, and fixture of the “TradFi” investment community, Barry Ritholtz has produced a long-running daily roundup of “Morning Reads” – an email containing 10 or so links to various important investment-related news pushed to your inbox daily. Ritholtz also manages a wealth management firm (Ritholtz Wealth Management) known within the crypto space as an early leader in providing thoughtful crypto exposure to clients. Since RWM began providing digital asset solutions, crypto-related stories seem to appear more prominently in Ritholtz’s daily Morning Reads email. Subscribe to this email for a well-curated blend of both crypto and non-crypto headline news and increase your visibility on the intersections of traditional and crypto market commentary.

Technical

Gary Gensler @ SEC

  • Technical level: high

  • Example use case: policymaker studying the legal counterpoints and nuances of crypto regulation

The U.S. crypto regulatory landscape is locked in a tussle between hawkish regulators and business-forward digital asset practitioners. As with any debate, it is critical to evaluate counterpoints, particularly current SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s. Not everyone knows that Gensler, a former MIT professor, possesses a uniquely deep knowledge of blockchain technology, having taught about digital currencies and blockchain concepts at the Sloan School of Management. We recommend watching Gensler’s entire MIT course on blockchain technology to not only understand digital assets better, but to also get a glimpse of Gensler’s regulatory perspective and how his research and teaching experiences inform his current public views.

Ryan Selkis @ Messari

  • Technical level: high

  • Example use case: a sell-side research analyst sourcing deeper color on market, regulatory, and technological events

Ryan Selkis runs Messari, a significant crypto news and blockchain data conglomerate that provides both broad analytical insights on market dynamics as well as crisp editorial viewpoints on the state of crypto markets. As regulatory updates unfold in real-time, Selkis’ opinionated content provides an industry-expert counterpoint to that of Gensler’s SEC, while Messari’s data-driven analytics provide the numbers behind the views. Explore Messari for a deeper level of both empirical, data-driven news as well as industry-leaning perspectives from Selkis and others.

Vitalik Buterin @ Ethereum

  • Technical level: very high

  • Example use case: technical Web3 founder or crypto software developer pondering the direction of blockchain developments and dreaming up new innovations

Vitalik Buterin founded Ethereum, the most widely used decentralized blockchain ecosystem that exists today. Buterin’s writings sit somewhere between white papers and the esoteric musings of a blockchain genius. Like most technical blogs, think of his posts as diary-meets-dissertation: they lack the formality of academic papers but plunge into the depths of highly technical, beautifully logical, and incredibly forward-thinking blockchain ideas and technology. For anyone who still questions the blockchain’s fundamental value and its promise of rewiring financial, economic, and even behavioral systems as we know them, give this analytical trove a go.

Connor Farley