Today marks issue number 100 of this newsletter.
I don’t keep a running tally in my head or a spreadsheet or anything like that. But before I published last week’s piece, I thought to count all the posts in my archive, for some reason. And that’s when I discovered that this one is number 100.
Instead of writing some verbose, effusive piece about how grateful I am that all of you are here (which I am, of course), I’m going to write about some numbers in a hopefully non-boring way.
Here goes.
Up Only
It’s oddly comforting that no matter what, each time I publish, the number of posts I’ve written ticks up by one more. It’s a small reminder that I’m creating a catalog of my life experiences through the stories I share each week. And that’s a pretty cool and special thing I already look back on fondly—even if some of my past writing makes me cringe sometimes.
Mostly Up
Substack turned on this recommendations feature a few months ago. Since then, a mind-blowing 29 other newsletter writers have recommended my little corner of the internet. It’s hard to express how that makes me feel. That simple feature has been one of the main reasons my subscriber numbers have been steadily climbing and recently surpassed 1,400. Many of you probably found me that way.
Mostly Down
Back in mid-June, I wrote a piece about how I’ve been writing another newsletter called The Syllabus as part of my work at Invisible College. I thought if some of you were curious about crypto you might be interested in reading a different type of writing from me. And that’s great and thank you to those who subscribed over there.
But what I failed to mention in that piece was how challenging the crypto space has been this year. The last I had written about my work before then was a brief mention in April and a quick note on how well our NFT mint went way back in February.
Meanwhile, many of the top cryptocurrencies have lost almost 40% of their value since I published that February piece. And not too long ago, before a recent rally, they were down as much as 67%. It has been a brutal drawdown.
I know you’ve all felt it too, even if you’re not invested in crypto. All markets are down, including the stuff that’s supposed to be safer like bonds and whatnot. The so-called experts can’t seem to agree if we’re in a recession, but it sure feels recessiony to me.
Trending Up
Despite the extreme downward trend in the market, our NFT prices have held up remarkably well. They also enjoyed a recent uptick, primarily driven by one person who bought 38 of them in one go the other day:
Thank you to whomever that anonymous whale is.
When we did our mint, the price of SOL (the currency used for our NFTs) was about $90. Now it’s just over $40. Yet our NFTs have gone from a 1.5 SOL mint price (~$135 at the time) to a current floor price of just over 7 SOL (~$285). Not many crypto projects can say they’ve increased their market cap during that same time period.
This entire post is not financial advice and only entertainment, of course. But let’s just say I’m feeling good about where the price is headed in the future too.
We have our biggest announcement yet coming up on Twitter Spaces next Tuesday. It’s about a partnership we’ve been working on—and teasing to our community—for months. It’s probably why that person decided to spend ~$8,500 on our NFTs. If you’re curious about investing and building in crypto, this is a great time to learn. And we’re all about learning at Invisible College. It’s kind of our thing. I mean, the word college is right there in our name.
If you’re ready to dive in and become a member, follow the instructions on this page: https://www.invisiblecollege.xyz/membership
And I’d love to see you in the crowd for our announcement event. Click the big blue button below to RSVP 👇
Otherwise, I’ll be back next week with my next Hey Lyle advice column piece. I think. I don’t know, I don’t usually plan that far in advance.
If you liked this piece of financial advice, could you please let me know by giving the heart button below a tap?
Nice work Lyle
Congratulations on 100. It is a real accomplishment.