When the cryptocurrency evangelist Anthony Pompliano wanted cash to buy more bitcoin, he turned to a centuries old financial practice that has suddenly found a new audience in Silicon Valley.
In a few hours, Pompliano sold the rights to some of the future subscription revenues from his email newsletter, The Pomp Letter. The middleman was a two-year-old company called Pipe that connects businesses with investors offering to purchase their future revenues at discounted prices.
“This was me. I sold my recurring revenue to get cash upfront,” Pompliano wrote on Twitter, after Pipe’s chief executive revealed anonymised details about the transaction. “Then I bought more Bitcoin.”