It is hard to stay fashionable when you are a Goldman Sachs veteran. Current chief executive David Solomon is sometimes cruelly mocked for his performances as DJ D-Sol in the Hamptons, east of New York, where his peers and clients gather in the summer.
Former Goldman partner Michael Novogratz puts as much effort as Solomon into staying in with the in-crowd while promoting his crypto-trading and investment firm, Galaxy Digital.
Novogratz is another Hamptons perennial, and hired Miley Cyrus to perform at a party there last summer.
Novogratz took the battle for attention even further when he decided to get down with at least some of the crypto kids by placing a tattoo of Luna and a related symbol of a wolf howling at the moon on one of his biceps. It was a statement of enduring confidence in a digital coin that proved to be less than stable when the TerraUSD/Luna system collapsed in May.
Novogratz had posted a photo of his Luna tattoo on Twitter in January. This proved to be an awkwardly timed endorsement of what was billed as an algorithmic system that would maintain its value at the equivalent of $1 because Luna tokens were generated or retired whenever the price of the related TerraUSD diverged from $1.
Instead, a stablecoin system that seemed to be worth well over $40 billion at its peak evaporated in value in a few days in May.
Big idea
Novogratz had invested in Luna well before getting his tattoo and decided to “own” what looked like a mistake in a public letter released on May 18, soon after the token’s collapse.
“What’s important to understand about Terra/Luna is that the mechanism that was intended to keep UST (the widely used symbol for TerraUSD) stable was public, transparent, and hotly debated in many forums,” Novogratz said. “UST was an attempt at creating an algorithmic stable coin that would live in a digital world. It was a big idea that failed.”
He also tackled the fraught issue of his tattoo.
“With hindsight things always look clearer. My tattoo will be a constant reminder that venture investing requires humility,” he said.
This is a commendable approach, but Novogratz could perhaps start to be more creative about his tattoo by trying to blend the wisdom of actor Johnny Depp with some financial engineering.
Novogratz could combine a similar tattoo abridgement with a merger to rebrand his own arm ink
Depp came up with an ingenious solution to the problem posed by having a tattoo that read ‘Winona Forever’ in the aftermath of his 1990s break-up with fellow actor Winona Ryder.
He simply removed two letters from the tattoo to leave it reading ‘Wino Forever’, as students of body art were reminded in the recent defamation trial pitting Depp against his former wife Amber Heard.
Novogratz could combine a similar tattoo abridgement with a merger to rebrand his own arm ink.
Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s TSX Venture Exchange, which it joined via an existing shell company in 2018.
Novogratz is still based in New York – which is much more convenient for the Hamptons than Toronto – and Canada does not boast one of the eight locations for Galaxy Digital offices.
Canada is the home base for Lundin Mining Corporation, however. This diversified metals mining firm is also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and has the stock ticker LUN.
A business case could be made for a Galaxy Digital merger with a miner that produces actual gold, (along with copper, nickel and zinc) in a move to diversify exposure to the energetic search for digital gold by Novogratz and his team.
And a partnership that adopted Lundin’s stock ticker would also allow Novogratz to remove a letter from his Luna tattoo and explain that it now reflects the latest compelling opportunity he has identified.
