Dragonfly Partners: How many more years for crypto VC? The industry may be nearing its end

Compiled by** | **Wu Says Blockchain

In an interview with MAD Society on July 15, 2026, Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner of Dragonfly, discussed crypto venture capital, founder judgment, and long-term industry trends. He believes that the key to venture capital is to seize a few non-consensus opportunities, and outstanding founders should possess exceptional "peak abilities," but a lack of integrity and inconsistency between words and actions are clear danger signals. Haseeb also stated that certain structured products and single-asset tokenization are difficult to form into long-term businesses, while DeFi, stablecoins, payments, and prediction markets will continue to exist; in the long run, crypto technology will ultimately be integrated into various financial and tech products, and the label "crypto company" may gradually disappear.

The audio transcription was completed by GPT and may contain errors; please watch the original video on YT.

Poker and Venture Capital: How to Establish Judgment Discipline in Long Feedback Cycles

Haseeb Qureshi: There isn't much overlap between poker and venture capital. Poker is very similar to trading because both have very fast feedback loops that allow for tight and rapid iterations. You play a hand, and you immediately know whether you won or lost and whether your decision was correct.

But in venture capital, the feedback loop is very slow. You invest in a founder, and it may take many years to know whether your initial judgment was correct. In the first year, you might see some early signs, like the company is growing and seems to be gaining some market recognition. Even if a company has completed Series A or even Series B funding, it can still suddenly run into problems. It may appear to be progressing smoothly for several years, but there could be a fatal flaw in the founder that ultimately leads them to fumble the ball in the last play of the season.

So the reality is, it's hard to quickly judge whether you, as a venture capitalist, are doing well enough. Many funds raise money based on early paper valuations of their portfolios, only to find out later that there are no real winners in the entire portfolio. Suppose you invested early in Axie Infinity or OpenSea; at the time, you might think, "Wow, I'm an amazing investor; I'm doing so well."

Several funds also invested early in FTX. At that time, people would say, "Oh my God, this person is the chosen one in the investment world; can you believe they participated in FTX's seed round?" But just a few years later, the situation changed to, "Well, this fund doesn't seem that special anymore." Because its most dazzling star project has collapsed.

Venture capital is unique in this regard. This means, first, you must actively establish feedback mechanisms for yourself and not expect the world to give you feedback directly. As a venture capitalist, you must continually learn and improve, but whether an investment is successful or not often takes many years to determine. Therefore, feedback must come more from your judgment of your own performance rather than from external results. This is very difficult for many people.

Another difference between venture capital and poker is that venture capital is a team sport, while poker is a solo game. You are certainly playing cards with others, but essentially, you are facing the entire table alone. Venture capital is not like that. You can only succeed if the founders you invest in succeed; you can only truly win if your fund succeeds and the projects of the other partners in the fund also succeed. Therefore, venture capital heavily relies on collaboration and interpersonal relationships.

But if you are a poker player, you generally don't need to care about others in the world. As long as you can sit at the table, perform normally, and continue to profit, you can still be a successful poker player even if you don't have a single friend. This is also a significant difference between the two. Most truly excellent venture capitalists are very good at handling interpersonal relationships. I don't think I'm particularly good at this, but I've definitely improved a lot compared to the past and am better at building relationships than most traders I know.

Most traders don't need to do this. Like poker players, they don't need to be friendly, don't need to be good at handling interpersonal relationships, and don't need to have a vast network. Therefore, the ability in poker that can truly help you do well in venture capital is mainly the ability to think clearly about risks and the ability to control emotions well. I find that many venture capitalists are not particularly good at these. They may be very emotional and have difficulty handling conflicts.

These two aspects happen to be areas where I excel. But frankly, compared to other core abilities required in venture capital, I believe the importance of these abilities is not that high.

Who is the "GOAT" of Crypto VC?

Haseeb Qureshi: Who is the best at hitting the ball? I would say it might be the most controversial investor in our industry, Kyle Samani. Of course, he has now passed the stage of personally getting in the game, just like Babe Ruth retired. But if measured by the internal rate of return and profit and loss generated per dollar invested, he might be better than anyone else in the industry. Therefore, if there is a "GOAT" in venture capital, it can only be Kyle Samani, the founder of Multicoin Capital.

He is someone who does not follow consensus. Wherever he goes, he often sparks a lot of controversy. But he is a true contrarian investor, and the best venture capitalists usually possess this contrarian thinking: they do not simply replicate what others are doing.

As for how to hit that ball, I think that is precisely where venture capital is most difficult. It is very easy to convince yourself to believe in a project, such as: "a16z Crypto is also investing in this deal," "Paradigm is also investing in this deal," or "this company is particularly hot right now, exploding on Twitter, and everyone is talking about it." Especially in the crypto industry, many investments are made before a project has achieved product-market fit.

For example, a new Layer 1 is about to launch; or Bitcoin Layer 2 suddenly becomes very popular, Babylon is hot, and other similar projects are also hot. These concepts may not have proven themselves at that stage, but they have already gained significant attention and are rapidly spreading in everyone's minds and collective discussions. In this case, it is hard to firmly tell yourself, "No, I am right; I don't believe in it." Or conversely, to firmly believe, "I believe in this project. Even though no one is discussing it now and no one cares, everyone will care in the future."

Doing this is very difficult. As for how to quiet your mind and focus on hitting the ball, I think the answer lies in the discipline established by the investment committee. This is also why venture capital firms usually operate as teams rather than having investors act alone. When you make judgments alone, it is very easy to be influenced by group pressure. There are too many voices from the outside and too many forces that can affect your thinking.

But when you are in an investment firm that has formed an institutional culture, such as "we will not believe anything without verification," the situation becomes different. Even if you have been influenced, your partners may not have been. Your partners might say, "I will never approve this investment just because of these claims."

You must prove to me that if Bitcoin Layer 2 is really that good, then bring out the data, bring out the evidence. What is your argument? Let's really sort out the logic and go through it step by step. If you can't do that, I won't believe it. This kind of discipline has been gradually established by Dragonfly over the years and is part of the culture we have formed as an investment firm. But if a firm lacks this discipline, I think it is very difficult to become a truly excellent investor.

What is the Biggest Blind Spot for Crypto VCs?

Haseeb Qureshi: I think if you are a crypto venture capitalist, you are essentially a product shaped by the crypto cycle. Anyone who has been in this industry long enough has experienced the ups and downs of the market and has gone through a sentiment like, "Well, none of this matters; everything is meaningless."

Not long ago, "financial nihilism" was the dominant cultural trend on Crypto Twitter. People believed these things didn't matter, had no real value, and everything was just a meme.

The situation is different now. I wouldn't say today is still financial nihilism, but more like, "Not everything is unimportant; only a few things are important, and only things that generate revenue are important. Projects without revenue are unimportant." If you are a crypto venture capitalist, it is easy to fall into the viewpoint that there is some Hegelian dialectical cycle in the market, where things come and go, and there will always be endless booms and busts waiting for us.

The longer you stay in the crypto industry, the more cycles you will experience, and it seems like everything is a cycle, with cycles beneath cycles. But if you are hypnotized by this viewpoint, believing that things will inevitably develop in this way, I think you could make very serious mistakes as an investor because you haven't thought deeply enough about what changes will actually happen in the future.

Another issue that I think people don't think enough about is that crypto venture capital could genuinely come to an end at some point. There may be a last year worth investing in a fund, after which there won't be many new opportunities in this field. For example, social media was one of the most important tech trends of the 2010s. You can look at publicly traded companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, which entered the space by acquiring LinkedIn. The largest social media networks have continued to grow since then.

But venture capital for social media companies basically ended around 2009. After 2009, almost no new social media companies were created. ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, is almost the only one that successfully established a truly meaningful business afterward. Although the products themselves continue to evolve, the platform landscape has hardly changed. It is still primarily Meta, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc., which existed back in 2009.

So, the crypto industry may also follow a similar development path. Even if the crypto industry continues to grow, stablecoins continue to grow, Bitcoin continues to grow, Ethereum continues to grow, and all these indicators continue to trend upward, if by 2030, almost all important companies have been established, and existing platforms have become very large and continue to grow, then the space for new players to enter the market and disrupt them may be very limited.

I don't know if this situation will necessarily happen. Even if it does, I don't know exactly when it will happen. But it will almost certainly occur at some point. Almost every industry eventually develops in this way, especially in those industries with economies of scale and network effects, and the crypto industry happens to have both characteristics.

But I think most crypto venture capitalists haven't seriously thought about this issue. This could be a potential blind spot: because we have been doing this in the past, we think we can continue to do it in the future. In the consumer sector, new consumer companies may always emerge. But whether new crypto companies will continuously appear is uncertain. They might, or they might not.

Which Hot Tracks in the Crypto Industry Are Difficult to Sustain Long-Term?

Haseeb Qureshi: In fact, many tracks have basically died or are heading toward extinction. We occasionally still receive funding pitches for some of these projects, such as someone saying, "I'm working on a Bitcoin Layer 2 with lending features." We still see such projects occasionally, but they are quite rare now. Currently, I often see a type of project that is structured products built on Hyperliquid. For example, someone might say, "This is a CLO built on Hyperliquid. CLO itself is a very large market, so there will definitely be a huge CLO market on Hyperliquid."

We still see many similar complex financial products trying to launch on Hyperliquid or some relatively independent trading venues. I think these types of projects may soon decrease because they are not real businesses. Doing just one financial product makes it hard to constitute a company. Historically, very few companies have been able to build a real business solely by selling a single financial product.

Especially when you do not control the distribution channels. If the distribution channel is in the hands of Hyperliquid, then you are essentially just a reseller; or conversely, Hyperliquid is just a resale channel for your product. Either way, it is not a particularly attractive business model.

What other tracks might disappear? Many people are currently tokenizing single assets, such as "I want to tokenize a gold mine," or "I want to tokenize these cars." But this is also not a business; at most, it can only be considered a product. The existence of such products might be a good thing. But unless you are tokenizing large-scale assets like U.S. Treasury bonds or stocks and can scale them up sufficiently while truly solving the distribution problem, those projects that merely say, "I want to tokenize this asset I hold; please invest in me, venture capitalists," I believe will gradually disappear, or may have already begun to disappear.

There is a classic joke in traditional venture capital: there are some "lowland" directions where founders always fall into repeatedly. When founders consider pivoting, they often coincidentally think of the same ideas and keep doing them over and over, even though venture capitalists always tell them not to.

One typical direction is dating apps. Every time founders consider pivoting, they seem to think about whether to create a dating app. This is usually because most founders are young and single, so they spend a lot of time thinking about dating issues. Another common direction is "co-founder matching." Founders often think of this idea because they are looking for co-founders themselves, so they feel they should develop an app to help others find co-founders.

There are also many productivity tools, like "I want to make a better to-do list app" or "I want to make a better Asana." These all belong to the "lowland" of bad ideas. People always keep returning to these directions. The crypto industry certainly has similar phenomena.

The one I see the most is "the Bloomberg of the crypto industry." This is interesting because about ten years ago, when I first started in venture capital, "the Bloomberg of the crypto industry" was already a not-so-good idea. People were pitching me such projects back then, and almost every year someone continues to pitch it. But they usually don't really understand what they are talking about. What exactly does "the Bloomberg Terminal of the crypto industry" mean? What specific functions should it provide? What problems does it solve? These questions often have no clear answers.

Now it is 2026, and you need a more explicit and precise entry point, rather than relying on a slogan like "the Bloomberg of the crypto industry." I don't know if this counts as a trend; it feels more like an interesting little phenomenon: many such ideas always float around the industry and never really disappear.

How Can Young Investors Maintain Objective and Clear Judgment Amid Market Hype and Noise?

Haseeb Qureshi: Frankly, my advice is to communicate less with certain people. I think many new venture capitalists make a mistake by communicating with too many people, ultimately turning their viewpoints into an average of the opinions of a group around them. As a venture capitalist, it is very important to force yourself to think independently. It is easy for people to tell themselves, "Of course, I am thinking independently; I have my own ideas, I have written blogs, and I organize notes after communicating with others." But the easiest way to lose your independent thinking ability is to communicate with too many strong-minded people.

I'm not saying you shouldn't communicate with anyone. But most venture capitalists I know are essentially just a collage of the viewpoints of the seven people they communicate with most frequently. The more time you spend alone, thinking, reading, and learning, the more likely you are to form truly unique viewpoints that belong to you. These viewpoints may not be correct or accurate, but at least they differ from the viewpoints of others around you.

And the way you are most likely to achieve excess returns is by thinking differently from others. Of course, there is a risk of making judgment errors in doing so, but it is also possible that you are correct about something that everyone else is wrong about.

As a venture capitalist, it is this ability that earns you returns. You actually won't be heavily penalized for making judgment errors. Suppose your portfolio has 50 projects, and you made incorrect judgments on 15 of them; who would care? What really matters is whether you captured that project that everyone else got wrong, and only you judged correctly. And this comes from the ability to think differently from others.

This also requires a certain degree of confidence. Communicating with many people is a very easy and safe approach. You can say, "Well, this is my view on new banks because I talked to five people, and they all have these views on new banks, so I averaged their opinions and then talked about it in the next podcast."

But not doing this raises the bar much higher for you. You need to re-examine these viewpoints, judge from scratch, and truly think independently about what you believe. And as I said earlier, the cost of making judgment errors is not that high. I think most people are really optimizing how to make themselves look smart or skilled at this job, rather than how to actually do the job well.

This is also why I always say Kyle Samani is the greatest of all time in venture capital history. He is crazy, right? He clearly lives in his own world and has very strange views on many things. He has also missed many trends and often confidently says, "I think something will definitely happen next." And the result is completely wrong. But that doesn't matter at all. As long as you have one correct judgment, that one is enough to cover all the other mistakes; who would care?

Venture capital is not a business that requires you to appear impeccable, nor is it about making a certain audience or focus group think you are smart and respectable. The real way to win in venture capital is to be the only one who is right about something that everyone else got wrong.

What Are the Experiences of Raising $1 Billion?

Haseeb Qureshi: During the fundraising process, you will realize that there are completely different ways to raise funds, and each method can succeed. One way is to truly build trust with someone, understand them on a personal level, and get them to recognize you and be willing to invest in you because they believe in who you are and your vision.

I'm not good at this method at all; not at all. I am quite socially inept. It may not seem like it, but it is true. I find it difficult to establish deep relationships with many investors and capital allocators. There are many successful strategies for fundraising, and there is no single path. The area where I find it easier to succeed, and where I am relatively better at fundraising, is dealing with institutional investors. What institutional investors value most is whether you can demonstrate a very high level of capability, knowledge, and a comprehensive grasp of your field.

But if the other party is a family office or individual investor, relationships and trust often become much more important. They usually want to know you for a long time, truly understand who you are and how you operate. They want to be able to pick up the phone and contact you at any time, or even occasionally have a beer with you. What institutional investors are looking for is something different: they want to confirm that you are the best person in this industry. You are the best at doing this compared to everyone they have interacted with or heard about.

You need to present the most rigorous and reliable arguments explaining why you will win and others will lose, and provide facts and performance as evidence. This type of fundraising is usually where I excel. But the reality is, if you are raising a large amount of money for a fund, it is still a team effort. You need to have people who are good at different fundraising methods to cover different parts of the fundraising market.

If you are an entrepreneur, you typically primarily raise funds from venture capital firms, and you may also reach out to some corporate investors or individual investors, but mainly it is still venture capital firms. And venture capital firms are quite similar to each other. If you are a fund that needs to raise money from different pools of capital, the differences between these pools are significant and far from how similar venture capital firms are to each other. Raising funds from university endowments, hospital foundations, insurance companies, public pensions, and family offices is a completely different experience.

When facing these different groups, you need to use different skills, different entry points, and different narratives to make fundraising truly effective. Therefore, fundraising itself is an independent capability. Truly excellent venture capitalists are good at both investing and fundraising. Over the years, I have made progress in fundraising, but I still wouldn't consider myself a world-class fundraiser.

What Traits Do Successful Founders Generally Have?

Haseeb Qureshi: Based on my observations, a high degree of cognitive flexibility may be the best predictive indicator. People often think that being a founder requires certain entrepreneurial skills or CEO skills. But the reality is, if you have founded a successful company, your job will change every two to three years. Leading a company of 3 people, 15 people, 100 people, and 1,000 people actually requires completely different abilities.

It's a bit like going from being the head of the parent-teacher association to being the mayor of a small town, and then to being the President of the United States. These are actually three completely different jobs that require completely different skills. Just because someone can be a good President of the United States doesn't mean they would be an excellent member of the parent-teacher association, nor does it mean they would be a good mayor of a small town.

Founders who are truly good at adapting usually maintain a strong curiosity for learning, are willing to change their minds, abandon old frameworks, and adopt new ones. Those who are not very good at scaling often say, "When we were only 7 people, I always did it this way; why is no one listening to me now? Why has the product development speed slowed down? Why are there suddenly so many political issues in the company?"

They may think these are problems that must be completely solved. They might say, "There is too much waste in the company now; we have a lot of bureaucratic issues in our management; I must fire them all to bring the company back to its basics." I'm not saying these problems don't exist; they often do. As companies scale, it is almost inevitable to experience growing pains.

But the best founders actively explore how their work should change as the company grows to a certain scale. They also adjust their abilities to meet new job requirements. Managing a company with 1,000 employees is more like governing a small town. You need political skills and diplomatic abilities to manage such a large organization.

In contrast, managing a company with only 7 people mainly relies on execution ability. A 7-person team doesn't need much management because everyone is in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. You don't even need to communicate much; just look at what others are doing and move forward together.

But when a company has 50, 100, or even 1,000 people, everything revolves around communication. In a company with 1,000 employees, you personally can hardly make a substantial impact on the company by completing a task yourself. Everything you do is about mobilizing the entire team through the directives you issue as a leader, clarifying direction for them, and motivating them to put in extra effort and truly focus on every detail in the product to create excellent products. So I would say that for most founders who have grown their companies to a certain scale, the most challenging thing is adapting to these changes in their work content. Not everyone can do this well.

When we judge whether a founder is likely to succeed, we usually look for their particularly outstanding "peak abilities." Our philosophy is to invest in a person's strengths rather than invest in someone without obvious weaknesses. Almost every great founder has weaknesses. For example, Mark Zuckerberg was clearly not an excellent leader in the early days of founding Facebook and had very obvious shortcomings in leading a team. But in the areas he excels in, he has reached a world-class level.

This is true for almost all founders. Uber founder Travis Kalanick is also a very famous example. He has extremely prominent strengths but also very obvious weaknesses. This is almost a universal rule in the entrepreneurial field: the best founders are usually not well-rounded individuals. Generalists are more suitable for executive roles after a company has already scaled. They almost never really mess things up, don’t easily say the wrong thing, and are less likely to cause strong dissatisfaction among others. Such people can be excellent managers in mature large companies.

But they usually are not good at going from 0 to 1 and are not good at leading startups through the transitional changes that constantly arise during growth. Therefore, we can accept founders with serious flaws. To invest in truly great companies, I believe you must accept this. But what we cannot accept is a founder who does not have any particularly outstanding abilities in any area.

Host Mia: Then let me reverse the question. What signs indicate that a founder may not be able to succeed? Let me set a scenario: the project idea is great, has scaling potential, the team is excellent, everything on paper looks fine, and they have even successfully attracted many excellent funds to invest, but you still feel that something is off. What would typically be the problem?

Haseeb Qureshi: One of the most obvious problems is integrity. If this founder is not completely honest or transparent, it becomes very dangerous. Of course, every company exaggerates to some extent during fundraising, saying things like, "We will dominate the world," "We will reach an incredible scale," "We will do this and that," "We will partner with a certain company tomorrow." But when you continue to ask, "What specific partnership?" things may become vague.

Confidence is one thing, but when confidence gradually slips into dishonesty, that is another matter. This is a very strong danger signal because such behavior only intensifies. I have never seen it improve as a company grows; I have only seen it become more severe.

So this is almost a question that can directly terminate the investment process. If we find that a founder has a pattern of repeated dishonesty, we will say, "Forget it, we won't invest." Another issue is whether their words and actions are consistent. Many investors make a very common mistake: they really like the story, like the founder, like the team, and like the market, but something just doesn't add up.

For example, the founder says they are very eager to complete this round of funding, but their actual actions are very delayed, and the progress is not fast. Or, for instance, the founder states they are very optimistic about the company and there is a lot of investment demand in the market, but they are willing to concede on all funding terms, even accepting less-than-ideal valuations. These inconsistent behaviors make the whole story unable to fully cohere.

Inexperienced investors often overlook these issues. They might think, "Maybe it's just because I'm too good that they are willing to give me such terms." Or they look for some seemingly harmless explanation for these inconsistencies. But almost every time the actual behavior of a startup company does not align with the story it tells, it means you have missed some information. And when you don't know what you have missed, it usually isn't something that will benefit you. In fact, that is the answer: if you don't know what the problem is, then it is likely not something that will benefit you. If you truly understood the truth, you might not want to invest anymore.

So, I'm not talking about a specific problem but rather a type of phenomenon. As your investment experience increases, you will gradually learn to recognize them. You will develop an intuition: "Wait, my alarm is going off. Let's hit the brakes; there are some inconsistencies here, but we don't know what they are yet." When you don't know what the problem is, it is likely not an answer you want to see.

Host Mia: How often do you encounter founders lying? Is this a common situation?

Haseeb Qureshi: Most projects actually never progress to the point where this level of investigation is needed. Whether a founder has lied is not important because we may decide not to invest from the start and won't even check further. Once we truly enter the deep due diligence phase, discovering that a founder has lied is relatively rare, but it is not so rare that we never encounter it.

What is more common is exaggeration. For example, they might say, "We are about to partner with NVIDIA," or "ByteDance is very eager to participate in this round of funding." But when you actually communicate with ByteDance or NVIDIA, they might say, "We are just still considering." This situation is very common. I usually don't directly view it as lying. The founders are clearly trying to persuade us to invest, and they are indeed very excited about their company. They may not even have accurately assessed the situation and genuinely believe that the other party will definitely participate; they just don't know the final outcome yet.

After all, this is their own startup, and these founders may be young and inexperienced. So I generally wouldn't conclude, "This person is untrustworthy; they are deceiving me," just because of such exaggerations. But if someone is truly lying about an important fact, that is very rare. However, this situation does happen, and once it does, it basically leads to a direct termination of the investment process.

Host Mia: In the past, solo founders were usually not well-recognized, but now in the AI era, solo entrepreneurship seems to be gaining respect. Did you ever have a framework for judging solo founders? Why do you think there was such a bias in the past? Can one person really run an entire company alone now?

Haseeb Qureshi: Yes, and solo entrepreneurship has always been possible. The issue is not how difficult it is for one person to start a business, but rather that there tends to be some reverse selection among those who choose to start a business alone. If you are truly exceptional, there will usually be people willing to work with you and co-found a company with you, and you have the ability to find very strong co-founders. If no one wants to start a business with you, it may mean you have not realized that your abilities are not sufficient to work alongside those you want to collaborate with; it may also mean you think you are better than everyone else, but that is not the case. Perhaps they just cannot get along with others. And this is not a good signal for starting a company because you need to win allies and customers, do a good job recruiting, and retain employees, etc.

However, if we believe that this person has no issues but simply chooses to start a business alone, then we don't mind; we can fully accept that. So, solo founders are not necessarily a negative signal; it is just that, probabilistically, solo founders are more likely to become inadequate founders.

Another issue is that founders often have some fatal shortcomings. Suppose a founder has extremely strong technical abilities but lacks any business acumen, business experience, or sales experience. If they co-found a company with someone who possesses these abilities, then this team can form a complementary relationship to fill each other's gaps. In this case, we wouldn't be as worried about the downside risk of this founder and CEO. But if they are a solo founder, we would be more concerned: who can stop them from making mistakes?

Even if they later hire a Chief Business Officer or Chief Operating Officer, the reality is that the founder always holds a special status within the company. Whether this founder is aware of their weaknesses or whether they have hired a COO does not change this fact. Professional managers like Chief Operating Officers, Chief Business Officers, or sales leaders will always hold back to some extent because they do not truly have control over the company. When someone lacks control, it means the founder will create a "power distortion field" within the company, regardless of whether the founder is aware of it.

If there is another co-founder who is also within this "distortion field," sitting in this bubble with the founder, they can play a very strong corrective role, helping the company avoid failure due to the founder's weaknesses. This is why venture capital firms pay attention to the issue of co-founders. But if a founder does not have these obvious shortcomings, then solo entrepreneurship is completely fine.

In an Industry Downturn, How Should Crypto Entrepreneurs Persevere?

Haseeb Qureshi: I am very reluctant to give advice without understanding a person and their specific situation. It's a bit like giving life advice to a young person. You know they are in college, and you tell them, "You should do this, choose this major, and then do those things." But in reality, you don't know this person, nor do you understand their environment, specific circumstances, and personal abilities.

I think giving general advice without understanding the specifics is not only difficult but can even be irresponsible. The only advice I think might be generally useful is that often, what truly hinders people from making the right decisions is a sense of shame. People feel a very strong sense of shame because of the time, energy, and money they have already invested, the funds they have raised, and their reliance on their employees. These emotions can prevent them from making the ultimately right decision.

And the right decision might be to shut down the company, accept an acquisition, pivot to do something else, or continue to persevere. But for many founders, the most destructive factor is that they feel ashamed of making a certain decision or deviating from the current established path. So the only advice I can give is: do your best to let go of that sense of shame. Try to imagine that the person in this situation is not you but someone else. What advice would you give them in exactly the same situation?

Host Mia: I think this largely depends on whether they have the confidence to believe their judgment is correct. So this question can also be rephrased: how should we view the current state of the industry? Perhaps people can gain some insights from it and then make their own decisions.

Haseeb Qureshi: I think it is clear that some things in this industry will never come back. If you are still sitting there holding NFTs, hoping for another NFT cycle to emerge someday, I would say you might want to let that go and move on to seek other directions that are more worthy of your time, capital, and talent. But on the other hand, there are some areas in the industry that will indeed come back because they have very strong cyclicality. DeFi is a very typical example. Many DeFi projects are in a very bad situation right now, but I believe DeFi will never disappear. It will become a foundational component of how the future world operates and how the crypto industry operates.

So I would say it is difficult to discuss these issues in general. Tolstoy has a very famous line in "Anna Karenina": "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I think this saying also applies very well to startups.

NFTs Won't Come Back, But DeFi, Stablecoins, and Payments Will Exist Long-Term?

Haseeb Qureshi: I believe prediction markets will exist long-term, Layer 1 will exist long-term, and DeFi will also exist long-term. The connecting layer between the on-chain and off-chain worlds will clearly exist long-term, including fiat withdrawal and deposit channels and various capital flow channels. Cross-border remittances will exist, payments will exist, and stablecoins will clearly exist, including stablecoin issuers, payment orchestration service providers, etc.

In my view, these areas are almost certain to continue to hold significance. As for most other areas, it is difficult to judge.

Host Mia: You predicted that this year a large tech giant would integrate or launch a crypto wallet. Which Web2 company is currently closest to truly achieving this? And which company completely missed this train?

Haseeb Qureshi: First, I need to clarify that my prediction has already been correct. I made this prediction in January of this year. Then, around March, news broke that Meta would launch its own stablecoin wallet. So I have hit this prediction. Meta has announced that it will provide stablecoin settlements for content creators in emerging markets. I remember this feature was launched on Instagram. Next, they will continue to expand this business and may launch the wallet soon.

Clearly, since Libra, Zuckerberg has been very optimistic about the crypto industry. He clearly believes in this field. So I think Meta may be the first company to take action in this race. However, if you pay attention to Open USD, which was announced a few days ago, you will see another possibility. OUSD is launched by a stablecoin alliance that includes many different companies. Google is also on the list and is one of the members of the Open Standard alliance.

Therefore, there may be a gUSD, which is the so-called "Google USD." It could be launched as a packaged version built on OUSD. OUSD is expected to go live later this year. However, I have some doubts about OUSD. I have also been discussing this on Twitter recently. I should have mentioned it in this week's "Chopping Block" show as well; I think the chances of OUSD succeeding may not be high.

The reason is that this alliance includes about 140 companies. It is somewhat like a United Nations-style organizational model: there are too many participants, everyone wants to be involved in decision-making, and responsibility is dispersed among different members. This type of model usually does not yield good results. Just this morning, we have already seen some signs. I was also tweeting about this. Some Korean companies listed, like Samsung and Dunamu, publicly stated, "We don't know why we are on this announcement. We are not aware of it, and we have not signed any formal agreements; we don't understand why we are included."

There may be more companies responding similarly, saying, "I thought I was only signing a letter of intent; I did not agree to you announcing to the world that I would participate in issuing a stablecoin." By the way, something similar happened about five years ago when Libra was launched. So, the old story is playing out again.

Host Mia: I'm not sure. Meta often says it will do something, and after the product launches, it lasts for a while but ultimately does not achieve real success. So when I hear that Meta is going to launch a wallet, my first thought is: how long can this product last? Three months?

Haseeb Qureshi: I certainly don't know how long it will ultimately last, but how can that not count? Meta is one of the top ten companies in the world by market capitalization. When it comes to coverage in emerging markets, no company can compare to Meta. Just look at regions like India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America; many people's daily lives are almost inseparable from WhatsApp. Instagram is clearly also ubiquitous globally.

These are extremely large platforms with very broad coverage. Therefore, I would not underestimate the significance of Meta launching a stablecoin wallet. Among the companies that can reach a large number of users' wallets, the only one that might have stronger coverage than Meta is Binance.

Why Might the Best Technology Not Win?

Haseeb Qureshi: I used to believe that the best technology would ultimately win. I was firmly convinced of this in the early days, but I gradually abandoned this view and no longer believe it. Instead, it is a combination of various factors, including market entry strategies, distribution channels, partnerships, product quality, and user experience, all of which are those obvious factors. I think the idea that "the best technology may not win" should not surprise anyone.

But I may have held a somewhat idealistic view in the past: the crypto industry was initially created by technologists, and those who truly delved into the underlying code and algorithms were also the taste-makers of the industry. They would ultimately act as gatekeepers for others, judging which technologies are good enough, which systems are robust and trustworthy, and can be used with confidence. But we have now entered a world where many people no longer care about these issues as much. Perhaps this is normal, or perhaps it is inevitable. However, it is still somewhat regrettable to see the industry potentially converge on some solutions that are not the best technologies we can offer.

Host Mia: Have you ever believed in other ideas in the past but no longer agree with them now?

Haseeb Qureshi: I once believed that cryptocurrencies were essentially opposed to state power, and as they grew larger, they would ultimately be banned almost everywhere. Cryptocurrencies would have to continue to develop in this underground, anti-authoritarian asset state and prove their value.

But the world we are in now is completely different. Bitcoin has become the underlying asset for ETFs in the U.S., Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe, and stablecoins have now been legalized. You can instantly send $100 million to someone in North Korea, and before the transfer occurs, no one will stop you, and the stablecoin system itself can operate legally. Of course, transferring to North Korea would clearly violate sanctions and is illegal. But technically preventing stablecoins from reaching the recipient's address is not how the current stablecoin system operates. This system itself operates entirely within a legal framework.

The world that has emerged today surprises me greatly. Ten years ago, I would never have predicted this. This fundamentally changed my understanding of the essence of cryptocurrencies and the role they will play in the entire financial system. In the past, cryptocurrencies were a rebellion. The current situation is somewhat like the United States. The United States itself was established in a rebellion. A group of people thought taxes were too high, so they took up arms, overthrew the original government, and then established a nation from scratch.

But now, the United States has become the institution itself. It is now one of the longest-running independent governments in the world. If you live long enough, you will eventually see yourself become like your ancestors. This is probably the moral of the story. Bitcoin was born out of a rebellion against the banking system, but now we are starting to negotiate with banks. In fact, this is exactly what is happening around the CLARITY Act. So, things do change.

What is the Biggest Mistake the Crypto Industry Has Made?

Haseeb Qureshi: The biggest mistake we made was idolizing Sam Bankman-Fried. I believe this is the biggest mistake this industry has made.

Host Mia: Is this the most serious thing that has happened in this industry?

Haseeb Qureshi: Yes, I would say so.

Host Mia: Do you think we will encounter similar events in the future?

Haseeb Qureshi: Probably not. It is a bit like the global financial crisis. At that time, it was a crisis triggered by real estate, but the next crisis usually does not appear in exactly the same form because people will establish a lot of defensive mechanisms and rules to detect similar problems earlier.

Now we have proof of reserves, and there are many detectives and analysts continuously monitoring on-chain data, marking the flow of funds in and out of different exchanges, and checking the solvency of platforms. The various regulatory measures that have been introduced, including the rules Binance needs to comply with in the EU, are essentially aimed at preventing the next FTX from occurring.

This means we may not see another FTX in exactly the same way. But other problems will still occur. This will definitely not be the last failure in the industry, nor will it be the last public scandal. However, it is likely the last crisis to occur in this form.

Host Mia: This industry has undergone some significant turning points, and FTX should be one of them. Of course, these turning points do not always make the industry worse; there have also been moments that have led to huge positive changes in the entire industry.

Do you think such significant moments will continue to occur in the future? As the industry matures, the likelihood of such events seems to be decreasing. For example, Trump's token issuance is a very significant event. I feel like almost every year something big happens, but I wonder if as the industry matures, we will gradually lose these significant turning points. Do you think such moments will still occur in the future?

Haseeb Qureshi: I believe significant moments will definitely continue to occur in the future. Just look at Open Standard. Open Standard was just announced two days ago; it is an alliance formed by some of the largest companies globally. Companies like BNY Mellon, large banks, Google, and Samsung are involved and have stated, "We want to jointly launch a stablecoin to compete with Circle and Tether." This is very crazy.

If the stablecoin market can grow to $3 trillion by the end of this century, the path to achieving that goal will likely take a similar shape. I don't know if Open USD will ultimately succeed. Clearly, I have my doubts. But at least this indicates that history is not over. We are still in the early stages of this industry's development.

Even though I previously talked about what things will not come back and mentioned that people cannot complacently think everything will automatically rewind and replay in the past way, the crypto industry is clearly still very early, and the story is far from over. In terms of the overall market size of financial assets, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is currently about $315 billion. If you are BlackRock or a large financial institution, this number is not that large.

Compared to the flow of dollar funds in reality, the scale of U.S. Treasury issuance, etc., the stablecoin market is still small. It is growing rapidly and is gradually gaining systemic importance, but it has not yet reached the level of being systemically important. Its proportion in the total supply of dollars is still only a few basis points. However, this situation will change. When it truly changes, we will see more crazy things happening in this industry.

These things will manifest differently and will not completely replicate past events. But this story is definitely not over. I expect many things to happen in the next decade.

Will Crypto VCs Ultimately Be Replaced by Generalist Funds?

Haseeb Qureshi: That’s a great question. It is clear that when cryptocurrencies truly succeed and cross the chasm, the way they succeed will be by becoming ubiquitous, integrating into everything like entering the water supply system.

Social networks were once an independent investment category. In the era of the rise of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snap, people viewed "social" as an independent track. But ultimately, social will only become a function. Now, when you develop an application, you might add social features to it, but that does not mean you are founding a social network company. Social features have gradually become part of all products.

Cryptocurrencies will develop in the same way. In the future, "crypto" will no longer be the identity of the entire company but just a function within the company's products. The company might say, "We have a stablecoin settlement layer," "We use on-chain analysis," "We also provide some related functions," but cryptocurrencies themselves will no longer be the entire reason for the company's existence.

I believe this is the direction we are heading toward. In fact, this shift may have already begun. In such a world, if a company is not centered around crypto business but just has some crypto functions, then investors no longer need to possess extremely unique crypto expertise. This is similar to investing in a company with social functions but not a social media company. You do not need to have a unique social media expertise to judge whether this company is worth investing in.

So I think this is the direction of the future. In this case, the answer is: to be an excellent venture capitalist, you must truly excel at venture capital itself and possess all the abilities required of excellent venture capitalists. At that point, generalist investment firms will enter your track, fintech investors will also enter your track. If this is a project that combines crypto and AI, AI investors will similarly enter your track.

You must become a better partner, a better venture capitalist, providing better help and advice to founders, and you must be more capable of supporting the founders you collaborate with. If you cannot do this, you are not qualified to continue managing funds. It is that simple. This answer may seem blunt, but the answer is actually very obvious: if cryptocurrencies ultimately win, the way they win will be by becoming ubiquitous. And those companies that use crypto technology will no longer be called crypto companies. They will just be companies.