Upcoming Fireside Chat with Ali Partovi — Founder of Neo and investor in Airbnb, Facebook, Uber, Lumos, & more 🚀
Download Honesti on App Store + Bitcoin Breakdown!
Hey! Hope everyone's hanging in there as this semester comes to an end. Finals may be stressful but there is light at the end of the tunnel with two phenomenal May events! Read on to learn more :)
Upcoming Events
Block off your calendars on Thursday, May 6th as we have two very exciting events!
Fireside Chat w/ Ali Partovi, Founder of Neo at 8 PM EST on Thursday, May 6th!
Ali Partovi, Founder of Neo, a VC fund and mentorship community for engineering students and recent grads is looking to connect with the best entrepreneurially minded Michigan students (that's YOU)!
He'll be giving a talk on “How to Prepare to Start a Company One Day” followed by audience Q&A so don't miss out if you want to hear from a seasoned start up veteran who's invested in Dropbox, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Ramp, Lumos, Scale, Vanta, and more!
Plus, Sean & Yash from V1 will help host the event!
Fireside Chat with Vanta CEO Christina Cacioppo, hosted by Contrary
Vanta automates security and compliance, starting with SOC 2, to protect customer data and build trust in internet businesses. Join a fireside chat with CEO Christina Cacioppo to learn about starting and growing Vanta. Hosted by Contrary Capital.
You’ll receive calendar invites for both events soon!
Download Honesti 😊
A fellow Wolverine, V1 member, and all around amazing person, Stephanie Shoo recently launched Honesti on the App Store. Honesti aims to be the ultimate safe space for all things Michigan related!
Make sure to show your support by downloading it here!
Beneath The Hype
With the recent Coinbase listing and cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Dogecoin hitting record highs, it is safe to assume that blockchain-powered digital currency is here to stay. Today we’ll dive deeper into what Bitcoin is, explore some of its history, and eye its future.
In August of 2008, an anonymous programmer who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamota published a white paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” This publication detailed an electronic payment system that would eliminate the need for a central authority while conducting money transactions over the Internet, thereby making these payments more secure and verifiable.
When someone says “Bitcoin”, there are two different possible interpretations to the word. On one hand, Bitcoin is a token that facilitates ownership and trading between users, and on the other hand Bitcoin could refer to the protocol (distributed ledger) that maintains the record-keeping of the transactions.
When you buy Bitcoin, you are essentially buying a "slot" into the ledger and you can sell out of your ledger at any time with minimal fees. There are several ways to purchase Bitcoin, from cash to wire transfers to credit cards.
Currently only 15% of Americans own some form of digital currency, however, Bitcoin could become a viable form of payment in years to come. Mainstream adoption of Bitcoin has become a reality, especially after Tesla’s recent $1.5 billion investment as well as Fidelity Investments, PayPal, Visa and Mastercard offering products that appeal to Bitcoin enthusiasts.
Cryptocurrency is a part of a growing asset class that investors are using to diversify their portfolios. However it is important to be mindful that crypto is quite volatile and you should never put in more than you can afford to lose.
Check out the original whitepaper that gave birth to Bitcoin here:
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Note: This article is for educational purposes only. Buy or sell Bitcoin only at your own discretion.
What We're Reading 🧠
this week's best reads sourced directly from the V1 Community
Digitally Native Solutions - check out Samay's recent post!
Payments FAQ - If you're curious how payments work behind the scenes or have ever wanted to start something in the payments space, this is a great doc written by a former Venmo employee!
Best of luck for finals! 📚
That’s all for today’s newsletter but if you have any specific requests of what you’d like to see in future editions, any ideas for the V1 Community, want to contribute to the newsletter, or any thoughts at all please reach out to us via email or DM us on Twitter!
And if you’ve read all this and still aren’t in the Discord community, what’s holding you back? Join here!
— The V1 Team