The Evolving Investor in the Decentralized World

all right we're pulling in the next panel one by one we got t-ball in here hey nice to meet you nice to meet you we got uh etienne hey chen hey chin hey we got you guys nice to meet you nice nice to see you dan uh does that let's see who are we missing then we got okay we got men hello and tao um how's it going good wait forgive as well bye but her videos up there we go great yep there okay and then i think era might be the last one and yours so we'll see about that um oh uh background backstage voice of mystery uh what was the what was the status on yours uh i don't know yet we'll add in whoever's in late uh if you guys just want to get started hey joyce is sick unfortunately like uh he asked me like he said he apologizes but uh he's in bed right now so he apologized so it was he the moderator oh no it wasn't yep this is clubhouse style so i think we can turn off this you guys yep all right well you all go right ahead then and as more people come in they'll join thank you all so much for coming here you go awesome should we maybe start with some intros guys people do you want to go first yeah sure um so hi i'm kibo seo co-founder of ferment um so ferment we help companies and founders like use their equity and turn it into the most powerful tool they have for community engagement and so that means that we enable stakeholders to become investors in the company that they love i can go on and go on if you want but like i i want to dive in the in the discussion so [Laughter] yeah nice to meet you guys uh my name is hm i'm the founder and ceo of plg venture capital firm based out of amsterdam europe uh happy to be here um we aim to back founders uh from the earliest stage possible uh all the way up to taking a dream to manifest in their dreams happy to be here okay i'll jump in since it looks like you have is frozen uh i'm dan i'm with uh nascent which is a multi-strategy crypto fund uh we do both early stage investments and also uh participate with liquid investments yield farming trading uh all sorts of activities and uh used to work work with tara over at ideo maybe maybe kick it to you thanks dad good to see you you too yeah i'm just back from parental uh just uh just that's why um hi i'm tara nice to meet you all uh i'm with yes hello hello drawers i know t bald nice to meet you um i'm tara with ido ventures we are an early stage crypto fund that invest in blockchain crypto we started off as an r d lab you know about five years ago and really have um really enjoyed just working with founders from day one and from ground up so we take a design driven approach ideo is really much very much the pioneer of human-centered design which is the art of understanding your user um and building products around that so nice to meet y'all great i think we might have lost yeah for a bit while she's restarting her router so i'll go next hi everyone mintio i'm based in london um i lead adventure investments for consensus mesh which is the investment arm of consensus the global blockchain software company uh you know we've been investing for in the space for the last you know four or five years i've been consensus for the last three years i had the privilege of like backing many great projects working with a lot of great founders at the very early stages and it's been incredible to see them grow up and you know develop with the rest of space so really looking forward to the conversation and you know just seeing how the space has evolved over the last couple years um maybe like kicking it over a day and like any thoughts on it like you know you've been doing this for a while now and like you know i think with that sort of different narratives over the last few years how do you think they've changed yeah i think this is uh it's a crazy time i think this is the the third market cycle that i've i've been through in crypto and i i don't want to say like this time is real because i think it's always been real but right now it feels like um as opposed to previous cycles like we saw in 2017 kind of like ico boom and that felt like that was driving everything uh and people were convinced we were all going to the moon but like it was a lot of white papers this time it feels like we're being driven by this more macro environment around bitcoin uh and really seeing adoption we're seeing large public companies buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin to have on their balance sheets and that's different that's not oh we're starting up a blockchain r d lab that's not we're accepting bitcoin as payments um it's it's real meaningful adoption and i think that is having an effect at the same time we have a lot of stuff happening especially in the defy ecosystem where there's now real usable applications and so this just feels a lot more real on many levels um and while i do think there are some signals that feel a little bit frothy uh it's also the case that there just feels like there's so much more traction on every level than we've seen in previous cycles i mean elon musk is involved now so that makes a difference i think to add to that from a macro perspective it's [Music] the fact that especially here in europe most people are still in lockdown so 90 of my activities are online so i'm either shopping and there's finance going back and forth so uh i think everything that i experience online is almost crunched and it's like i'm joining all these ways and trying to capture what's happening globally um so there's a lot more times being spent online from that micro perspective there's a lot more shopping happening e-commerce in europe is of several hundred percentages um so as far as bitcoin leading the wave the narrative obviously like like you said elon is being kind of the poster showboy for uh for crypto um i would say if you look at these d5 applications like compound and ave providing that front facing application interface for users to uh or communities to manage uh their finance i think that's where in my opinion this cycle is different than 17 instead of these fluffy white papers we've seen in 17 now is more pitch decks but actually pitch decks from teams that are slightly more mature and they're raising less money they're actually telling you we don't need more money which is wrong whoa this is amazing this is mature right they have some balance sheet right um so i think from that perspective i'm definitely uh it's a different this cycle is different uh but i still feel like uh there's a lot more work needed to be done from a ground level obviously i don't need to go into the gas fee uh debate but uh i'll leave that for uh for another conversation yeah okay yeah i think sorry that that has changed i think a lot is also like the regulatory environment because in 2017 i remember we were all trying to figure out like people were okay like we don't want to issue equity tokens and so this is a youtube token everybody was saying that we're issuing an etudity token and i remember a lot of vcs and investors are trying to scratch their heads like okay where's the value like where's the value how can i make my head wrap around my head about like where's the value going to be created and and that was a time where like the regulator was not yet like deeply in the space and uh involved so people could do like some crazy stuff and i think like between this time and today like uh we've really progressed into understanding like what type of value model could be created using tokens and because in 17 everybody basically were saying okay we're doing an utt token but what they really wanted is raise money to develop that project so it was equity right like 90 of the tokens that were issued in 2017 were equity disguised as a utility token and i think we've made tons of progress right now so so it's still very early but it was like the governance tokel with the the governance tokens the fair launch um and and it's it's been fascinating to see like these models uh evolve and become something that uh having narratives that that catched on on in the market and at the same time obviously like equity is now coming to the blockchain like equity is coming to ethereum and so so obviously i'm biased here but i'm excited about seeing like the huge amount of equity already existing in the market coming and using like uh ethereum as a single system of record so i have a thanks for that uh people and i'm sure you i'm i'm curious is here what you want to say are you going to say to uh to my next point so i'm curious uh you know let's cut to the chase of it right this is very much the the rise of the retail investor everyone and their mother is an investor in the space i mean you can see it you know you know whether it's in the um traditional stock equity market to crypto so what what makes you stand out you know what is the role of an investor today is everyone an investor if you are a user are you an investor um you know what so what's your um what's your take on that how's it changing so it the main thing i think what is absolutely cool is that in crypto there's access everywhere right so this is the main difference with with the traditional markets where like you can even if you say i'm an investor like in technic technically you can't be an investor because like you need access you need to be an insider to get into the rounds of companies and the only way to then the normal market to be an investor is to go on a crowdfunding platform which is like not that you don't have the best deals right and in crypto this is amazing because in crypto you have access to all these opportunities and and like alfa league but if you want to make money in crypto you pick like investors that you like respect and that you think they're doing a great job and you just tag along and you just invest like a oh they invested here like they are good investors then you can co-invest with them like uh and and i think the main thing that's changed is that crypto has made access to everything so it's like oh in crypto everything is public companies so this is why like it's if you take the comparison with like robin hood and the retail investor so so it's very similar in the sense that um yeah like vcs now like they need to be first they don't need they cannot build value on access like they can this is not a narrative that's gonna work like they they need to to say well i'm so deep into the ecosystem that people come see me before they even like start like engaging publicly and so and so i can be first and that's that's going to be the the the advantage of vcs moving forward to touch upon your uh to answer your question tara um everyone an investor i think two things drive here also right even if you have your money in a savings account you're an investor because you're looking to grow your your wealth essentially right um if you're at home without a job without income you open up a restaurant or some public space um two months before the lockdowns began last year you're you're forced to look for solutions to feed your family right so if crypto offers you that access which is a great point you make people that access that story about access is definitely something that's driving more users um um to to this industry right if you again guys like elon musk rappers like meek mill talking about guys um if you're not getting access over there set up a wallet and uh made a mass will and uniswap will do the rest right solving that access issue right i think um from economically i think more families uh more individuals are almost uh forced um to look for solutions uh to put food on the table yeah definitely definitely especially when the yield is so low in today's market and uh yeah yeah definitely yeah i think it's also worth differentiating that there's between sort of crypto teams and crypto coins right like the kind of private versus public markets um you know a lot of people like ask me like hey min what are your predictions for 2021 and now i'm not smart enough to have them but like you know we're pretty good at being talent investors and backing super smart people who have a very clear vision of the future that they want to build and that's really our area of expertise it's not to say that we can't sort of analyze like you know what's going on in the public markets but i do think it's like you know a little bit of a different journey for in a different kind of investment case and different expectations of returns um but certainly i think like you know there there's a lot more like um entrance into like the um the public markets and it's so different from even like a year ago right like i have a lot of my trad five friends who are i'm so excited about the space because they come in and they look at these like price of sales ratios and they're like everything looks super undervalued i'm like i'm not sure i really agree with that um but you know i'm always like pleasantly surprised by like how deep down the rabbit hole they've gone and like you know waxing a poetic about sushi swap to me and how it's super cheap relative to unison like you even know what they do and then like doesn't matter like maybe not to you but you know because we have all these amazing tooling like token terminal like nansen doing analytics like you can actually get pretty like good data transparently like we didn't have this before like it used to be a lot more going to the team trying to piece together like little bits of information so i think in that sense i a lot of the tooling that hopefully you know some of us here have also invested in that tooling um has democratized a lot of like information and access to retail investors and that's part of the journey so yeah i think that in some ways like the the professional versus retail investor distinction isn't as relevant like there is still the the access has been flattened a lot what's different is about how you add value and and uh i think professional investors used to or vcs used to add value by in some ways being king makers or like having access to like capital deploy now capital is very much a commodity but the same thing that we're seeing outside the crypto markets in terms of um angel list syndicates and rolling funds and this kind of rise of solo capitalists is very much the case here some of the most value-added investors that we all invest with here and see in the ecosystem are individuals like they're not necessarily with funds uh they may have some external capital they may not it may be personal capital it's all over the place um and so uh quality teams and quality projects that have been public generally don't have a capital problem right right now the market is great they're able to raise capital and so then they're forced to ask the question of who do i want to work with who's going to bring value who's going to be long-term aligned and that becomes more the calculus rather than where can i raise the most amount of capital or where can i raise at the best relative valuation it's really making sure people are going to be participants and builders and valuable members of your community and being aligned with the community just getting a bunch of retail to pour in doesn't really necessarily help you build a long-term advantage like certainly it can drive narrative and memes and momentum and it can be great um i think even the tesla is a fantastic example of that in the traditional markets but assuming that those will be cyclical and you really want people who are bought in long term it's about more than just democratizing the cap table so to speak and that's dan i think you hit it the nail on the head right there just from uh from an alignment perspective right it's not about shareholder maximization anymore it's really you know company and investor alignment for the long term and finding those investors that are understanding to get it right so in the companies that i advise um as their legal counsel it's not only kind of that pathway to access to capital but it's also you know we're not just coming in there to to flawed the company and then exit or you know find that liquidity that the traditional liquidity means through an ipo or an acquisition so um i think that's that's fought on hey there's a question in the in the chat about like i'm having trouble keeping up with all the d5 opportunities i would love to hear how the panel stays in the loop to understand what he's worth investing in so unfortunately i have a company to run so i i don't have time to to to try to talk to everyone so so honestly what i do is i i do what i say before like when i hear like there's a vc i uh that invests in something that i that i think might have legs i just i don't think and i i go with them like okay they're smart so i'll just tag along but i think like the dirty little secret right now in crypto is like everybody has a nansen ai account right like where you can have all the information and what the whales are doing like what everybody is doing so i think if you're serious and you want to really play in crypto in investing like i don't i'm not an investor in nansen but i think it's a tremendous tool yeah i think you gotta be really careful with that though right like yeah alex yeah yeah but like but like watch out for that too right somebody uh posted uh like a manson screenshot like tagged like our one of one of our nascent addresses um uh on twitter the other day and was like saying that like to position this project i'm like yeah we did they're right uh but it it forces you to think differently like as you know hopefully one of the investors that people then start to look at there's all these like weird incentives to like be guarding certain activities more or like knowing that this is like an advertisement and almost going to be viewed as an endorsement of a project whether you want it to be or not um and just remember that what you see on chain uh for a lot of investors is just a small piece of what they're doing and so they they may actually have a very different position on an asset than what you see in like a publicly tagged address and so um you know i i do i think that what tv's doing is great it's like you know you can crib from people who are focused more full-time on this but also be careful because i guarantee uh there are folks who are known investors who are using that um to their advantage in ways that may not be advantageous to people who are just following their public trades okay i must say like like my portfolio is like almost more than three-quarter just ethan bitcoin right so yeah any other thing is like like small little bets it's never like i can lose the money how do you do guys actually i'm curious for permit i know you do a lot overseas like you guys have been doing a lot of stuff in india and throughout asia i'm curious um you know what are you seeing in terms of narratives i think a lot of us tend to be very kind of u.s centric in in some of the narratives are you seeing different narratives in the other countries where you're active well like coming from london i think there's palpable excitement for d5 for sure and um you know there's a the natural transition of from like financial services to fintech to d5 i think you really see it in like you know eu and uk especially where you have a very favorable uh regulation for fintech let's hope it extends to crypto eventually i think in asia like you know they've kind of been ahead of the nft and gaming game for a while right i think that's always been exciting to a lot of like asian teams asian consumers and investors so i actually think that you know we have a little bit of catch up to do in terms of the openness that we're seeing towards oakland nfts there and um you know in terms of just like you know ascribing value to say like uh and i know you play magic and like you know a physical magic the gathering card to a digital one to like an nba top shot or so rare like you know football card like how does that actually trend i mean i think in terms of like how like especially you know there were a few comments made about like remote and um you know how to sort of find alpha i think we have to kind of go deeper and go earlier like you know the beauty is a lot of it um happens on twitter but the thing is the next step beyond twitter is like private telegram chats discords like you know how far do you really want to go and be early in the project and like do the work you know actually be thoughtful and helpful we try our best to like you know build relationships with founders before they're raising and just like you know just develop a real interest in what they're doing and show that we're going you know extend the olive branch to show that we're going to be good partners um because a lot of times i think you know we're thankfully like sort of in a healthier market than we were in the last three years but you know investing through a bear market i think certainly has taught us a lot about how things maybe can take a bit longer or not go as well as they have so you know i think that still remains true like it despite market conditions could change like none of us know where they will go but we need to make sure that we're good partners for the long run and help founders throughout so one last question i had before closing uh for everyone um it's the main question that's been troubling me lately is um how is that fair launch model uh if at all going to change the the pc game as we know it right now what are you guys thoughts on that i have some pretty strong thoughts [Laughter] i'm ready my body is ready for that one throw it out here drop the bomb dan drop the bomb now before we i think i think the fair launch thing is terrible for teams terrible for uh for the ecosystem i mean the idea of just giving it away to like people who are kind of dropping capital in the protocol and just giving away most of the tokens that way i think is is not a good thing for anybody you really want long-term aligned incentives and while it is nice and kind of democratizing that anybody can access it the end result is that you've got funds that are dumping tens of millions of dollars into these protocols and scooping up all the tokens and all they're paying is opportunity cost and now there are no resources uh controlled by the team or even that much by the dao itself um as a way of sustainably building out the protocol and it i don't i think it the the meme has been that it's uh it's great for the little guy and the retail investor it's still professional investors who are ending up with majority ownership here it just leaves the project in a weaker position going forward and i'm talking to more and more teams that did fair launches or close to fair launches who are like yeah that was a mistake um and some of the some of the best ones are able to get back on track as a result um i'm not at all against thoughtfully distributing a huge portion of the token supply um out to users of the protocol but i don't think just dumping it all out there based on capital provision alone is a good model all right that's it and uh with that bomb dropped i think we're out of time here ah i [Laughter] sorry sorry the time is up though but um where can we keep following this i guess just um get on get on twitter get on clubhouse is that where y'all hang out yep you're forced almost right yeah pretty much we're yeah myspace i guess get on zanga again all right well thanks everybody for uh this panel and uh we're gonna get on to the next speaker now you'll have a great day