Only accredited investors, as defined by applicable laws, may participate in Altea investment opportunities.Welcome to the WC, where you’re trapped in my mind for eight to twelve minutes weekly.
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Table of Contents
SPACS are…BAC
I thought we’d learned our lesson with SPACs. I really did.
But because humans are stupid monkeys, we forget the stupid monkey things we’ve done and insist on throwing our money away in the same stupid monkey ways over and over again.
If you’ve blocked out the Chamath-led SPAC boom and bust of 2020–21, let me refresh your memory.
Back then, hundreds of blank-check companies hit the tape, promising access to the hottest startups before they went public. Sponsors strutted around as visionaries; retail traders piled in like it was free money; and the financial press called it “a democratization of capital.”
The outcome was predictable.
SPACs start life with a $10 baseline. That’s the cash per share parked in trust. Fast forward a few years and here’s where some of the more celebrated deals ended up:
- Humacyte (HUMA) — one of the higher-profile biotech SPACs, pitched as a leader in bioengineered blood vessels. Today it trades around $1.75, an 82 percent loss from the $10 baseline.
- Apexigen via BCAC — once promoted as an immuno-oncology innovator. By the time Pyxis Oncology acquired it in August 2023, Apexigen shareholders were left with paper worth about $0.64 per original SPAC share, a 94 percent drawdown.
- Carmell Therapeutics (CTCX → Longevity Health Holdings, XAGE) — the Alpha III SPAC deal closed in July 2023. The stock was rebranded XAGE in 2025. It now trades well below a dollar, a 90–95 percent wipeout relative to trust value.
Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital Hedosophia vehicles—once marketed as “IPO 2.0”—did little better. Virgin Galactic, Clover Health, Opendoor, SoFi: each initially spiked, then cratered. By 2022–23, the Chamath SPAC brand was synonymous with disappointment.
That wasn’t an aberration. On average, de-SPAC equities lost more than half their value within 12–18 months of closing. By 2023, over 190 SPACs liquidated outright and handed investors back their $10, minus opportunity cost. The “democratization” looked more like a wealth transfer from retail buyers to sponsors, bankers, and PIPE investors.
So I note with some great chagrin that SPACs are, in fact, BAC.
And the same grifters are pulling the same shit.
2025 has seen nearly a hundred new blank-check filings. Issuance is smaller—$50 to $250 million per deal, not the billion-dollar jumbo raises of 2021—but the structure is unchanged: cheap promote for the sponsor, steep dilution for public investors, and vague promises about “AI,” “sustainability,” or “defense tech.”
Worse, some of the very same sponsors whose prior vehicles obliterated shareholder capital are back at it:
- Betsy Cohen is launching BTC Development Corp., a $220 million SPAC targeting Bitcoin and crypto infrastructure. Cohen is no newcomer—she floated a string of fintech SPACs during the last cycle. Some, like Payoneer, are still public but trade far below trust value. Investors who rode those deals down may be forgiven for wondering why they should line up again.
- StoneBridge Acquisition II priced a $50 million vehicle in late September. The sponsor’s first outing, StoneBridge Acquisition, took Indonesian payments company DigiAsia public. That stock collapsed from $10 to pennies, wiping out nearly all public equity value.
- Chamath Palihapitiya has filed for American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp., aiming to raise $250 million for a grab-bag of energy, AI, defense, and crypto targets. This is the same Chamath whose 2020–21 SPACs made him rich while his shareholders lost billions.
- Invest Green Acquisition Corp. is pitching a sustainability and energy-transition remit, despite the market being littered with failed ESG-themed SPACs from just a few years ago.
- Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. and others in the pipeline are leaning on the same playbook: “structural transformation,” “technology ecosystems,” and other buzzwords, without any concrete target lined up.
- Invest Green Acquisition Corp. is pitching a sustainability and energy-transition remit, despite the market being littered with failed ESG-themed SPACs from just a few years ago.
- Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. and others in the pipeline are leaning on the same playbook: “structural transformation,” “technology ecosystems,” and other buzzwords, without any concrete target lined up.
The rhetoric is tighter, the deal sizes smaller, but the incentives are the same: sponsors get their 20 percent promote for pennies; bankers collect fees up front; and the public carries the downside risk if the merger fails.
Meet the new SPACs. Same as the old SPACs.
Off to the races
The Keeneland September Yearling Sale just closed at $531.5 million.
That’s half a billion dollars. For horses. One-year-old horses. That have never raced.
More importantly, that’s a 32% jump over last year and 27% above the previous all-time record from 2022.
When assets at the very top of the luxury pyramid spike 32% in a year, it’s not about horses. It’s about where money flows when there’s too much of it.
From 2015 through 2020, Keeneland September hovered around $280-320M
Then 2022 exploded to $418M. The market caught its breath in 2023-2024, pulling back to $402M.
Then 2025 just blew past everything at $531.5 million to record the highest-grossing thoroughbred auction in history. Worldwide. Ever.
And the auction results were suprisingly deep, including more than just trophy horses.
56 yearlings sold for $1M+ (previous record: 40). That’s a 40% increase in seven-figure transactions.
But check the middle:
- Average price: $175,807 (up 16.78%)
- Median: $80,000 (up 14.29%)
The median matters. This isn’t three billionaires bidding on the same colt. The entire market—from $80K horses to $3.3M horses—is liquid, competitive, and hot.
So what’s driving this?
The S&P 500 was up 23% in 2024. The global multimillionaire population jumped 4.2%. More buyers, more capital, more impulse purchases.
When your portfolio doubles and suddenly you’re 90% equities, you diversify out. Knight Frank reports ultra-HNW individuals now allocate 32%+ to alternatives.
Horses are alternatives. Fun, tangible, prestigious alternatives.
Wealthy investors want assets that deliver experience, not just returns.
You can’t race your index fund in the Kentucky Derby.
And unlike art or cars, racehorses generate cash. Purses are growing:
- Breeders’ Cup: up $2M (now $33M total)
- Dubai World Cup: $30.5M
- Kentucky tracks flush with revenue
Higher purses = better ROI = justifies higher prices. The math actually works.
Supply constraints: You can’t manufacture elite bloodlines. Gun Runner charges $250K per breeding. Flightline’s first crop saw unprecedented demand. Elite stallions cover ~200 mares annually.
Supply is fixed. Demand is global and growing.
Back to the auction, this wasn’t just a U.S. record. It was a global record. International buyers had options—Tattersalls, Arqana, Magic Millions—and chose Kentucky.
An accredited investor workaround?
This week, an Altea member shared this with me in response to Stefan’s excellent piece on the decline and fall of the IPO market:
Thanks for the interesting article! There was a discussion about accredited investor status, so I thought I would share with you a loophole I recently found.
Apparently, even if a person is not an accredited investor, he can form an LLC and make an exempt reporting adviser (ERA) filing with FINRA. This way LLC becomes an accredited investor and gets access to all kinds of private offerings 🙂 Using Texas as an example, he spends $300 to form an LLC (and zero for annual fees) and something like $190/year for the ERA filing.
ERA is in the business of advising private funds, so the compliance is pretty light (you are not forced to advise anyone anyway). This is a much simpler and faster process than registering RIA+IAR, passing the Series 65 exam, and going through painful state audits (which I have done).
Color me skeptical. Even in an era of light SEC enforcement and loosening accredited investor rules, this seems too good to be true.
Has anyone had experience with this? Done it successfully? Done it and gone to prison?
The AI bubble
The interwebs and television screens are full of people predicting the AI boom will burst.
We’re in “taxi drivers talking about it” and “gran at Sunday lunch giving hot tips” stage of AI.
Engagement farm accounts on Twitter are making tens of dollars talking about it.
I get it.
But two very different things are being thrown around as bubbles:
- Company valuations, and
- Model capabilities
I think the economics of AI are absurd and will probably correct.
- Sam Altman is not going to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure.
- AI companies won’t be 99.9% of VC investments forever
- The Pets.com of AI will happen at some point.
But the models don’t actually show any sign of slowing down.
We’re still on track for:
- Models will be able to autonomously work for full days (8 working hours) by mid-2026.
- At least one model will match the performance of human experts across many industries before the end of 2026.
- By the end of 2027, models will frequently outperform experts on many tasks.
I’ll be keeping an eye on AI-2027, and I hope they continue to update it as we progress through the years.
RIP Renato Casaro
You probably haven’t heard of the late great Renato Casaro, but you’ll recognise his work. Seniore Casaro was the man behind many of the 1980s’ most thrilling film posters and movie art, including the Conan poster above, which is coming up at auction on October 12th.
His older posters sell for around $2,000, and Conan pieces go for around $1,000, but that may rise with his passing.
Casaro was 89. A life well lived.
That’s all for this week; I hope you enjoyed it.
Cheers,
Wyatt
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Only accredited investors, as defined by applicable laws, may participate in Altea investment opportunities.
