tom meister

debt x fintech x law | @ThawDigital @GrizzlyPeakVC @CreditPacifica @Brightpoint_Law | opinions mine | let's go Oakland & roll on you Bears

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@puniaviision @grahamfergs 👋

[Jack Doherty @CM_JackDoherty]

Tuesday/Wednesday night in April or not- this is a tough watch in Sacramento. Not the players’ fault. The product is fine. It’s just hard seeing Oakland and the East Bay lose something that’s been part of the community for 55+ years.

This didn’t just happen - it was a choice.

No disrespect to Vegas, but ask folks in Henderson or Summerlin if they’re heading to the Strip on a weeknight to catch a game. Oakland had that - a deeply devoted, generational fan base built over decades.

And spare me the “fans didn’t support the team” take. Fans show up when ownership invests. Years of neglect, stripped-down rosters, and zero commitment will drain any market. That’s not on Oakland - that’s on John Fisher.

This isn’t just about fans today - it’s the history, the kids, and the future that came with it. Feel sad for my 11 year old son who loves baseball in the east bay.

A lot of that feels lost for generations, driven by decisions about money.

@MLB @JohnFisherAs @Athletics @JeffPassan @LastDiveBar @KNBR @BrodieBz
#Athletics #Oakland

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

re: 5, I would highlight the importance of collateral and portfolio monitoring in particular. there's a lot of room for abuse in legacy private credit - plenty has been written about how BDC managers mark their books. testing and marking the underlying assets with fidelity is key in all markets, especially when tokenizing these assets and making them composable in DeFi

[Valinor @ValinorDigital]

Valinor announces a $25M seed round led by @CastleIslandVC to reshape credit for the digital era.

Read more about what this means for the future of credit markets in Fortune.

https://t.co/JEFYXj2wyq

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@richardchen39 think in many instances, the underlying offerings are either undersubscribed or the onchain capital is looser and cheaper than sponsors or issuers would otherwise get in market

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@GhostofGarbers @AGuyNamedNam Congrats bud!

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@ZeusRWA I have a company that builds RWA collateral management and reporting, and I manage a fund that deploys into private credit and structured credit, including onchain. Not a prolific poster here, to say the least, but I've read a lot of your content and get a lot out of it

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@DanteReminick would be interested in any leads here, too, for emerging markets credit facilities

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@jasonbadeaux am working on this & would love to connect on it

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@ashxyz great use case. the need is very pronounced in cross border lending, in case you guys decide to explore applications in that space

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@johncanzanobft Effective way station

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

For all the trends to eliminate/reduce verification and noticing in factoring, this is a stark example of why those practices remain vitally important. Even if the factor here has a security interest in other assets, it's almost certainly junior to the other creditors' claims on them. Perfecting on or owning nonexistent receivables is of course going to be of virtually zero use in terms of recovery.

Don't know the story here, obviously, but on the surface it looks like the paradigmatic example of factoring fraud and abuse. Receivables continue to pay, factor starts to slacken on the usual trust but verify measures with the client and customers, and then an event like this happens...

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

I remember being told to "stay the f**k in my lane" when a client, who I got to know through volunteer (non-legal) work in my free time, invited me to a dinner for an org they were on the Board of. The relationship partner, who I never worked with, found out from the client and came into my office the afternoon of the event (Friday) and literally had me stay til midnight to print and collate physical closing binders for a bunch of deals I never worked on, supposedly for them to be able to pick up Saturday morning. Lateral recruiters didn't have to do too much convincing to get me on the phone after that

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@MattRMoreno @CalBearsOn3 Rolo has been great for the program and the Cal community this year. Tip of the cap to him, the rest of the coaching staff, and especially the team, on a great performance after an emotional week

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@GhostofGarbers On it 🫡

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@AviFelman conference room "willing buyers at current fair market price" scene in margin call 👌

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@investing_law Word version, please!

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

@RexVolcano Kind of assumed he just cut it himself 🤷‍♂️

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

When I’m on the client side, yes. It’s only been long tail events when I’ve felt I’ve needed to actually look, but it’s helped head off issues early in my prior life as a COO/GC. I once got a large bill from a BigLaw firm on a warehouse credit facility where the senior associate didn’t even update the legal names, let alone the deal terms (basically just sent me an execution version of someone else’s deal), and we just took over drafting internally from then on. At the other end of the spectrum, I once engaged a mutual friend’s boutique firm to update an MSA and got a 10+ hour bill for them to research our industry without ever turning the document back on time. The time entries were obviously symptomatic of underlying issues, but helped facilitate a more objective conversation about where expectations and performance were misaligned. So I think it’s a healthy check on billing abuse for outside counsel, or at least the billing or relationship partner, to look at the time entries before they go out to make sure they stand behind the value that’s been delivered.

[tom meister @eastbaytom]

Maybe I missed it, but I thought that only addressed users who already hold stables. The challenge I csee for merchant acquiring is twofold:
1. Accessing balances that aren't already onchain: crypto users with sufficient stablecoin balances who are familiar with wallets, can spend with merchants. My understanding was that this was what the Phantom/Stripe integration helped make possible. But I thought that effort left unaddressed fiat spending capacity or how to onramp it into the purchase flow. At least in my experience, users can still only onramp via ACH or wire (credit card processing still seems elusive), with the associated fees and potential processing limits. So, the available spend balance is still limited, I guess by definition, to the amount of funds a user already holds in stables vs. what I would posit for most users is a larger notional amount in fiat deposits and revolving credit card availability.
2. Onramping experience: this goes a little bit to (1) as well and is probably obvious, but for the majority of retail spenders who aren't actively holding stables to spend at the point of sale, the fees and interruption of onramping interacting with a wallet as part of the purchase flow should be minimized as much as possible. Merchants historically have been willing to pay slightly higher processing fees to facilitate better spending experiences, which I expect to continue.

No question, stablecoins can and should produce efficiencies in merchant acquiring, especially when you take into account the friction many merchants and processors are experiencing as a result of VAMP. But I think there's still a lot of work to be done before stablecoin payment acquiring is ready for mainstream adoption.