Hola,

Bitcoin has bounced back from its March low of $3.8K, surging 66% since January 1. In comparison, the S&P 500 is up 4.8% YTD (though it recently had a historic 100-day bull run). 
 

On top of global economic factors like plunging interest rates and the weakened economy, one potential reason for bitcoin’s recent surge stems from within the crypto sector itself: the emergence of “DeFi,” i.e. specialized apps, mostly built on the Ethereum blockchain, that allow investors to trade/sell/lend crypto and make riskier bets.

But let’s back up a little — what is bitcoin? What was “the halvening” and how did that affect bitcoin’s prices? What is the difference between bitcoin and ether, ether and Ethereum? What is DeFi? 

We tackle all of these questions in our What Is Blockchain? explainer. Check it out here.

Fashionably late

Airbnb finally filed paperwork for its long-awaited IPO yesterday. 

It was one of our picks for the Tech IPO pipeline — our list of 280+ companies that may file to go public in 2020. See the rest of the contenders here. 

DeFinitely not a scam

DeFi is the latest craze in crypto. About $570M worth of BTC is locked up in these “decentralized finance” applications, which aim to broaden access to financial products without the need for intermediaries like banks.

We break down what DeFi is and how blockchain tech works in this explainer.

Things are working out
 

Fitness tech funding activity has cooled off after a record high in 2018. 

But startups catering to digital fitness and health and wellness tracking are warming up amid the pandemic. Clients can read more about it here.

• Market Research Analyst, Benefytt — Location flexible
• Business Strategy Analyst, Benefytt — Location flexible
• National Security Tech Analyst, Second Front Systems — Arlington, VA

Another one of our 50 future unicorn picks — which we published in June in partnership with Fast Company — broke through the $1B valuation line.

Revenue intelligence startup Gong joined the unicorn club last week when it raised a $200M Series D round at a $2.2B valuation — nearly 3x its valuation from just 9 months ago.

For many sales teams, Covid-19 forced face-to-face client meetings to move to phone and video conferencing, in turn opening a new opportunity to mine data. Gong uses natural language processing (NLP) to transcribe, analyze, and annotate meetings and calls to identify opportunities and obstacles.

Take a look at 60+ startups like Gong that are using AI to  enhance sales and support operations.

But Gong wasn’t our only future unicorn prediction to come true. 2019 pick Blend, which partners with banks to digitize the mortgage lending process, recently raised a Series F round at a $1.7B valuation.

Have a great rest of the week.

Marcelo