Alternative Investing Report - April 23, 2025

*as of 4/22; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

Bitcoin’s price surpassed $90,000 for the first time since March and is now up 12% in the past week. Other major coins such as Ethereum, Solana, Cardano and Dogecoin have also seen double-digit gains. Bitcoin ETFs had $381 million of net inflows on Monday, as investor demand increased dramatically.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Bitcoin is now above its pre-tariff announcement price, a milestone that indicates that investors are no longer worried about the effects the trade war might have on the crypto market. In fact, the weakening dollar and volatile stock market could be driving investors into “digital gold” just as it has been driving investors into actual gold. Bitcoin has become increasingly correlated to the equities market, but this recent price movement could indicate a decoupling, at least temporarily. Often, significant crypto price gains can trigger even more FOMO from investors, pushing demand and prices even higher, so this could be the beginning of another bull run.

In this episode of Smart Humans, Vincent founder Slava Rubin and Sacra co-founder Jan-Erik Asplund looked at Neuralink, the Elon Musk-founded neurotechnology company. They talked about the company’s growth, strengths, challenges, IPO prospects, and much more.

Global VC funding hit $113 billion in Q1, a 17% quarterly gain and 54% year-over-year rise, though those numbers are skewed by OpenAI’s record $40 billion raise. Taking that out, and funding would have actually fallen quarterly and stayed flat year-over-year. Early-stage funding fell to $24 billion, the lowest level in more than a year, and seed funding declined by 14% yearly to $7.2 billion.

➨ TAKEAWAY: These numbers may represent the calm before the storm, as the VC world is still bracing for the impact of Trump’s tariffs, which could decrease funding as investors look to manage risk. Early and seed stage funding in particular could see further declines, though late stage companies could be hurt by a slowdown in exit activity. AI has been propping up the industry the past year, but if the trade war ends up affecting chip providers, it could spell trouble for the sector.

🏈 NFL Draft prospects: With the draft kicking off tomorrow, cllct offers a look at the top five most collectible players coming into the league, led by quarterbacks Shedeur Sanders (son of Deion), and presumed #1 overall pick Cam Ward.

📉 China ditching U.S. PE: As a response to President Trump’s tariffs and the ongoing trade war, Chinese state-backed funds are no longer investing in US private equity firms, and are backing out of allocations that had not yet been finalized.

💵 Private credit offering: Yet another asset manager is opening up private credit offerings to individual investors, as Invesco and Mass Mutual are partnering to create funds targeting high net-worth investors in the coming months.

🏡 Home price growth: According to the Redfin home price index, U.S. home prices rose by 0.2% in March, the slowest rate of growth since 2022, with a year-over-year gain of 4.6%.

🚀 a16z buys podcast network: The VC giant acquired Turpentine, a tech podcast network, and made its founder, Erik Torenberg, a general partner, as it expands its communication efforts.

🎨 Frank Lloyd Wright lamp: One of only two of Wright’s Double-Pedestal lamps is being auctioned at Sotheby’s next month with an estimate of $3 million - $5 million, after last selling for $2 million in 2002.

The native token of Movement Labs was launched to great fanfare in December at $0.70 per token. It immediately doubled in price, but has been dropping steadily ever since and had the largest fall of any coin in the top-100 by market cap last week. This comes on the heels of its co-founder taking a leave of absence and Binance removing a market maker for irregularities surrounding the MOVE token, both of which has shaken investors’ confidence in the project.