dragonfly

Former Dragonfly investor and Delphi Digital researcher Robbie Petersen announced on the X platform that he will soon join a16z Crypto as an investment partner. Petersen stated that his core belief in cryptocurrency has always remained unchanged: if one believes in the arc of technology adoption trending towards efficiency, market forces will inevitably reveal that blockchain is the most efficient technology for global coordination. This trend has already been reflected in stablecoins, perpetual contracts, prediction markets, and tokenized assets. He believes that the only bottleneck preventing blockchain from engulfing other global markets and creating entirely new markets is time. Petersen pointed out that the gap between sentiment and fundamentals in the cryptocurrency market has never been so wide, which makes him more bullish than ever.

Dragonfly Managing Partner Haseeb published a statement regarding the recently patched Zcash vulnerability, indicating that there are many misunderstandings in the market about this event. He pointed out that even if the vulnerability had been exploited before it was fixed, attackers could only profit by faking ZEC in the privacy pool, and these tokens must first be converted from a privacy address to a transparent address to enter mainstream trading platforms.Since the supply of ZEC in transparent addresses can be publicly verified, any abnormal transfers exceeding the maximum supply will be detected and blocked, so the vast majority of investors holding transparent ZEC and exchange users will not be affected.Haseeb stated that the Zcash team plans to introduce a new "Turnstile" mechanism and a brand new privacy pool in future upgrades to verify that there is no inflation issue in the current privacy pool. He also mentioned that formally verified cryptographic systems can reduce implementation errors from a design perspective. Haseeb finally disclosed that Dragonfly still holds ZEC, and he is also a ZODL investor.

Dragonfly partner Haseeb tweeted to clarify the recently fixed vulnerability in Zcash. He stated that if the vulnerability had been exploited before the fix (although the probability is extremely low), it would manifest as the privacy pool minting false ZEC. Attackers would need to sell quickly, but since the market primarily trades transparent ZEC, they cannot directly sell the unmasked privacy ZEC on mainstream exchanges. Therefore, the losses would mainly be borne by users holding privacy ZEC, with almost no impact on holders of transparent ZEC and price discovery.Haseeb emphasized that the Zcash team will introduce a new turnstile mechanism and a brand new privacy pool in the next upgrade to verify that the privacy pool has not been inflated. He also has high hopes for formal verification technology, believing it is an important path for enhancing software security across the industry in the future, especially crucial for privacy protocols.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, an address suspected to belong to Dragonfly transferred 137 million SKY (9.05 million USD) into Coinbase. This SKY was likely withdrawn from Binance about 5 years ago (August 2021) when it was still MKR, valued at 20.45 million USD, having shrunk by more than half.

According to Fortune, the decentralized derivatives trading platform Variational announced the completion of a $50 million Series A funding round, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures.The company is headquartered in the Cayman Islands and is dedicated to building an on-chain derivatives protocol for institutional and traditional financial traders. By aggregating liquidity from traditional finance and the crypto market, it aims to provide an on-chain market for real assets such as oil and commodities that can be traded instantly. Its core product, the Omni platform, adopts a zero-fee model and combines a liquidity pool mechanism to enhance market depth and execution efficiency.Variational stated that its goal is not to compete directly with centralized exchanges but to connect multi-source liquidity through a "brokerage-style" model, including traditional financial market makers and mainstream crypto trading platforms, to address the "liquidity cold start" problem in on-chain markets.

Dragonfly partner Omar commented on Coinbase's layoff of about 14% (approximately 700 people), stating that this move aims to save about $225 million in annual salary costs and drive the company's restructuring towards an "AI-native" organization.He pointed out that AI has significantly changed production methods, greatly improving engineering efficiency, and non-technical teams can also participate in production-level code development, with most workflows being replaced by automation.Omar cited internal thoughts indicating that Coinbase is reshaping itself into an organization that is "intelligence-centric, with humans collaborating at the edges," while promoting flat management (compressed to within 5 layers), eliminating pure management positions, and focusing on bringing in AI-native talent capable of managing large-scale AI agents to achieve higher output efficiency.

Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi stated that retail investors have significantly exited the current crypto market, and institutions are becoming the market bottom and supporting Bitcoin prices. He pointed out that Bitcoin is being viewed as a mature asset with sustained growth potential over the next 15 to 20 years, while altcoins need to have a clear narrative to attract retail attention again.He also mentioned that the core of the crypto industry still revolves around money and financial scenarios, with areas such as DeFi, stablecoins, exchanges, and RWA having strong user stickiness. With the involvement of AI technology, future agents may take on intermediary roles in trading, thereby enhancing overall adoption, and low-risk preference users may become the main source of incremental growth.

Dragonfly Capital partner Haseeb tweeted that despite recent issues such as bad debts with AAVE, he remains optimistic about the long-term development of DeFi.Haseeb pointed out that the DeFi industry learns and progresses through repeated failures. Whether it was the collapse of Terra, the failed auction on Black Friday in 2020, or the stETH de-pegging incident in 2022, DeFi has repeatedly faced setbacks, but it becomes stronger after each failure. This is no different from TradFi—traditional finance has also experienced multiple failures, such as the 2008 banking crisis, the lending crisis, and the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.The core of DeFi is risk aversion and resilience. Even with some bad debts like those of AAVE, the protocol has enough equity to cover the losses, and these failures are not fatal. He emphasized that DeFi will not disappear, and the intense discussions around how to improve DeFi are part of its ongoing progress. He is bullish on DeFi and on this community.

According to Arkham monitoring, Dragonfly received 55.8 million LIT from Lighter. Analysis indicates that this may be the investor token share of Dragonfly, which will be locked for 1 year and will be unlocked in phases after the TGE. It is expected that these tokens will not be liquid again before December 30, 2026.

According to Arkham monitoring, Dragonfly transferred $2.12 million worth of MNT to Bybit. This is the first time in two months that funds have been transferred out from known cryptocurrency wallets, and it is the largest holding aside from BGB. Dragonfly currently holds only $107.29 million worth of BGB and $1.92 million worth of other cryptocurrencies.

The blockchain lottery platform Megapot announced the completion of a $5 million financing round, led by Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Bankless Ventures, and angel investors.The project operates on the Base network and uses stablecoins to achieve global fund settlement. Megapot plans to use this round of financing to further expand into more national markets and develop a mobile on-chain lottery platform for global users.

Dragonfly Capital founder Feng Bo posted on X: "I rarely speak on X, but this time I want to clarify some facts. When I initially founded Dragonfly, it was a fund of funds. Through this business, I met many very talented venture capitalists, among whom Haseeb Qureshi is undoubtedly the brightest star, which is why I invited him to join me in co-founding our venture capital business.I have been a VC for many years, and in my 30-year venture capital career, Haseeb has built one of the best partner teams I have ever experienced, and he is the backbone of the team. Being able to co-found our venture capital business with Haseeb has been an extremely valuable journey. I also look forward to many more years of working together in the future."According to previous news from ChainCatcher, Dragonfly partners and former co-founders are publicly disputing, with both sides holding differing views on early history and investment leadership.

Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi recently engaged in a public debate on social media with former co-founder Alexander Pack (now co-founder of Hack VC).Haseeb posted a reflection on his experience building the venture capital firm, stating that Dragonfly's early brand and system were not yet established, and that development and scaling only began after his arrival. In response, Alexander Pack countered that Dragonfly had already been co-founded by him and Feng Bo for over a year before Haseeb joined, and had committed to leading investments in projects such as Bybit, Amber Group, and Crusoe, with the relevant fund announcements made prior to Haseeb's employment.Haseeb then responded, claiming that some of the other party's statements were inconsistent with the facts, and clarified the specific roles and decision-making processes regarding project investments, leading to an ongoing debate between the two about the company's founding phase and investment contributions.

Prepayment and digital asset practitioner Aaron announced that his company Rhythmic has completed a $4 million seed round financing, led by Dragonfly, with participation from Mirana, The Fintech Fund, and others.Rhythmic is building a financial infrastructure platform for consumer internet companies, embedding accounts, stored value, cards, and reward systems in a "native" form within products, with stablecoins facilitating fund flows and settlements at the core. The user interface only reflects "holding balances, earning rewards, and spending freely," without the need to directly interact with wallets or the concept of "using stablecoins." This round of financing will be used to enhance the core platform, connect with the first batch of partners, and expand the engineering and compliance teams.