Will Ogden Moore: Analyst of the Month

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Welcome to the 15th edition of Analyst of the Month.

For September 2024, we highlight Will Ogden Moore, Research and Product at Grayscale Investments, a leading asset manager in the digital asset space.

Read on to learn more about Will's journey into crypto, his key learnings from working at Grayscale, and his most contrarian opinions!

What is your story? What was your journey into investing and crypto?  

I grew up in San Francisco, where I gained exposure to the startup and the tech industry and spent 8 years in DC during high school and college, where I became interested in how innovative technologies could impact national security. In my junior year of college, I started exploring specific emerging technologies as I did an independent study on AI and blockchain and helped start the undergraduate version of the Georgetown Fintech Club. 

Upon graduation, I joined a startup in an operating role through a fellowship program with an early-stage VC firm called Soma Capital. I later joined a later stage consumer VC firm called The Chernin Group where I worked on several deals, including a few crypto companies. It was at this point that I knew I needed to go into crypto full time. I later connected with Grayscale and have been on the Research and Product team for a year and a half now. At Grayscale, I focus on writing reports on themes within the industry and supporting our product development efforts.

Why did you decide to join Grayscale after spending time in venture / growth equity at TCG?  

At TCG, I worked on a number of crypto deals including Dapper Labs and Zed Run, where I started to understand the power of true digital ownership and applications beyond Bitcoin. We looked into hundreds of new projects and saw new applications ranging from social investing communities, NFT platforms with artist royalties programmed into perpetuity, and a variety of other compelling use cases. 

Still, I was spending the majority of my workday sourcing traditional consumer venture companies in categories like coffee and non-alcoholic beverages. I quickly noticed that in my off time I would spend it reading more about crypto protocols. Ultimately, I knew I had to go full time into crypto and so I started writing about different protocols and connecting with members of the industry. I was lucky enough to get an opportunity with Grayscale, a leading asset manager in the crypto space, and knew it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. 

What frameworks do you use to think about crypto fundamental investing?

I will admit that in part because of my venture background I tend to be more of a value investor than a day trader. But that’s one of the reasons I was able to originally connect with the Artemis team given our shared interest in fundamentals! I think crypto can actually learn a lot from traditional finance in terms of frameworks—some of which I believe will become more and more relevant as the asset class matures and as institutional money and decision making enters this industry.

In terms of frameworks, I would start by asking, “what is the value of a blockchain”? Answers could include: the number of transactions it processes, the economic value it holds in smart contracts, the economic value it generates for those supporting the network (validators and tokenholders). 

There are a number of different important metrics worth considering across all crypto assets: DAUs, Transactions, Fees, and certainly TVL and stablecoin volume with Smart Contract Platforms and DeFi. And of course there are nuances in terms of the value and gameability of certain metrics. Though one individual metric may not tell the full story, all these metrics tell a story and can indicate strengths and weaknesses. They can also be used to compare across a peer set of similar assets to drive asset valuation. Our analysis at Grayscale shows that there is a positive correlation between assets and fundamentals. Grayscale Research also found that network fee revenue (“fees”) has been most closely correlated with market cap over time. We believe when all these metrics are collectively taken into consideration along with growth rates and emissions (supply matters a lot), they can provide a stronger picture of relative valuation in the context of a peer set.

Part of the beauty of crypto is the fact that public blockchains are radically transparent and open 24/7/365. This could potentially help make crypto more efficient and accessible at maturity than many public markets, as investors can price-in a wide variety of information—from flows to fundamentals—in real time around the globe, rather than four times a year. If this asset class is able to adopt some of these valuation frameworks, grow in adoption, and add the radical transparency intrinsic to blockchain technology I think that represents a better financial system.

What secular tailwinds and areas of crypto are you excited about?

I continue to be excited about the institutional adoption of Bitcoin and the increasing number of institutions building on Ethereum. I’m excited about healthy competition for network fee revenue in the Smart Contract Platform sector, highlighted by growing adoption of BASE as an Ethereum L2, Solana’s breakthrough in generating meaningful fee revenue for the first time earlier this year, and the progress of smaller competitors like NEAR onboarding through non-speculative use cases or Sui with its recent technical advances. I’m also excited about examples of real-world adoption of blockchain tech, from stablecoins (recently highlighted by usage of Celo in Africa) to Polymarket becoming this election cycle’s killer crypto app. Grayscale Research has written about Polymarket and I think it represents a legitimate use case of blockchain technology, particularly in light of record low levels of trust in the media. Hopefully adoption stories like this not only onboard new users but serve as a rising tide for the rest of the industry.

And I’m going to contradict myself by straying from fundamentals now...I do think the crypto and AI intersection is too important to ignore. 95%+ will be failed projects as is the case generally in startups and the rest of this industry. But this industry better materially make itself relevant to AI or at least harness its tools to help with user experience and onboarding as well as automated trading strategies with DeFi protocols and prediction markets.

I also think blockchain can assist in the development of AI. I think too much attention here is placed on price action and not enough on projects that don’t have tokens yet. I would keep an eye on data scraping protocols. I strongly believe individuals should ideally have ownership rights over their personal data; blockchain can uniquely enable this and potentially allow users to be rewarded anytime their data is used to train a model. In addition, other themes I’m paying attention to include verifiable compute, infra-level players using economic incentives for AI development, GPU marketplaces for inference, and recent advances in distributed training.

Grayscale has been a leader in creating crypto taxonomy and sectors, how does that inform Grayscale's long-term view of how crypto develops?

The Grayscale Crypto Sectors is our framework for the crypto asset class; we like to refer to it as “the GICS of crypto” as we attempt to bridge crypto and traditional finance. This framework was developed in collaboration with FTSE, our index provider, and currently has five sectors: Currencies, Smart Contract Platforms, Financials, Consumer and Culture, and Utilities and Services. We categorized over 200 crypto assets by primary use case and technical function. 

We attempt to make it comprehensive towards the crypto asset investible universe (no stablecoins or wrapped assets). However, we also update this taxonomy every quarter, with additions and deletions of assets and changes to sectors and subsectors. Looking ahead, we could foresee a scenario where sectors are added or changed. For example, the Utilities and Services sector is the most diverse with use cases ranging from oracles to bridges to staking services and AI. Perhaps this warrants an additional sector in the future. We aim to make these changes quarterly to reflect the rapidly evolving nature of this asset class.

What do you think are some of the challenges to widespread institutional adoption of digital assets?

The largest challenge to widespread institutional adoption is education. Of course, there are other barriers, and barriers that contribute to this gap such as regulatory hurdles and public perception post-FTX. Grayscale’s Research team has been on the road talking to financial advisors and while most people generally are aware of Bitcoin, only some understand its potential role in a portfolio. As soon as we get down to the second largest asset, Ethereum, the gap in education becomes very clear. And that’s way before we get in the weeds of stablecoins, tokenization, DeFi, DePIN, and other use cases. We created our Grayscale Crypto Sectors framework in this vein to help bridge this education gap between crypto and traditional finance and help investors navigate this asset class beyond Bitcoin.

What will blockchain usage will look like 10 years from now and what applications do you think will drive most of blockchain activity in 2034?

10 years from now is tough because there is so much uncertainty and I think the rate of change of technology in this next decade may accelerate significantly. That being said, I think that Bitcoin will become more prevalent in institutional portfolios. At the very least I’d hope that the industry is well integrated with the traditional financial ecosystem, helping settle trades and potentially make stablecoins a primary form of payment. Perhaps public blockchains will serve as the primary rails for AI agents. 

Right now, by market cap, the two infrastructure sectors (Currencies including Bitcoin and Smart Contract Platforms including Ethereum) account for $1.7 trillion in market cap. In contrast, the three application sectors (Financials, Consumer, and Utilities) account for just $187 billion.¹ I’d expect the fat protocol thesis to fall apart and this dynamic to somewhat even out as applications mature in adoption.

How have you been able to use Artemis in your fundamental research?

I use Artemis practically every day. If you do not know their “=ART()” function, you should. The Artemis sheets plug-in tool, in my opinion, is probably the most helpful tool for productivity and fundamental research in this industry. I use it for checking historical pricing data and a wide range of fundamental metrics to explore activity and adoption ranging from DAUs, addresses, transactions, fees, stablecoin market cap and DEX volumes. Of course, this tool also assisted in our study on the correlation between market cap and different fundamental metrics over time. It’s also been extremely helpful in supporting our top 20 tokens piece that we recently released, both in terms of the infra and application-level activity metrics.

I also think the content arm of Artemis is highly useful. Whether it’s an in-depth report on Toncoin, a Twitter thread on Celo, or a fundamentals table in the Artemis weekly wrap up email, I’m always seeing useful analysis coming from my feed or inbox. 

In addition, I use the Artemis "Chain Compare” feature on its webpage on a regular basis as a visual reference for change in activity. This was particularly helpful earlier this year as it pointed out the increase in fee revenue for Solana, leading to our research report on the topic. I also believe that the Artemis team itself is an asset – top-notch people and an amazing partner – the team is always willing to work with us and build out functionality around our needs. 

How to get in contact with Will?

You can find or reach out to Will on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Important Information

This information should not be relied upon as research, investment advice, or a recommendation regarding any products, strategies, or any security in particular. This material is strictly for illustrative, educational, or informational purposes and is subject to change. 

Investments in digital assets involve a high degree of risk and heightened volatility. Digital assets are not suitable for an investor that cannot afford the loss of the entire investment.  

¹ Artemis, Grayscale Investments. Data as of 9/20/24

Artemis Disclaimer: The authors, affiliates, or stakeholders of Artemis may hold interests in the tokens or protocols mentioned in this content. This disclosure highlights potential conflicts of interest and is not an endorsement to buy or invest in any specific token or protocol. The content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice in any form.

Readers should approach this information cautiously and consider their unique circumstances before making investment decisions. The views and opinions expressed are subject to change without notice, and Artemis bears no liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of this information.