The three most powerful individuals in the history of crypto VC, even making Dragonfly partners feel inferior

Author: Haseeb ＞|＜, Dragonfly Partner

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

LPs sometimes ask me who I consider the most outstanding venture capitalists in the crypto space.

I have thought about this a lot.

Since I started engaging in crypto venture investing, I’ve always aspired to be the best. I am passionate about competition, and investing is the purest form of competition. Only one person can win a deal, only one can pick the winner of this cycle.

But when you honestly examine and carefully calculate, you’ll find that three people have already proven themselves as the “Greatest of All Time” (GOAT) in crypto VC.

This might sound a bit like bragging (it is), and may not be appealing to those outside the crypto VC world. But I am a crypto VC. This article is dedicated to those of us who have made this our lifelong career.

Below are my top three crypto venture capitalists in history.

#3.@danrobinson(@paradigm)

There’s a legendary story about Mike Speiser, managing partner at Sutter Hill Ventures. He incubated Snowflake, which later grew into a company valued at $75 billion. It’s almost unheard of for a VC to create such enormous value for their portfolio companies.

Dan Robinson is the Mike Speiser of crypto.

Time and again, Dan has been at the starting point of generation after generation of great companies in crypto. He was involved from the early days of Uniswap, actually as a co-author and foundational contributor to Uniswap V3, which became a core pillar of on-chain spot trading. He also played a key role in the early startup phase of Flashbots, which pioneered the modern MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) auction model. He was also an early contributor to Plasma (the precursor to modern Rollups), which ultimately led him to lead the seed round for Optimism.

Dan is a truly versatile person. He broke the mold of traditional VC. He started as a securities lawyer, then self-taught himself as an protocol architect and mathematician, and now is a self-made investor. Perhaps the greatest investment @matthuang (co-founder of Paradigm) ever made was hiring Dan. Whenever we lose to Paradigm in a deal, people often say, “You guys are great, but I’m sorry, I have to work with Dan.”

The most awe-inspiring investors are those who do more than just invest. Dan always sees the direction of things’ development and has often personally helped push things forward. That’s why he’s become one of the greatest investors in crypto and holds a place on the “Crypto Mount Rushmore.”

#2.@cdixon(@a16zcrypto)

Chris Dixon is the “OG of OGs” in crypto (OG: Original Gangster, meaning pioneer). He saw the potential of crypto earlier than anyone else. Before Chris, crypto VC was still in its “small league” stage.

He was the first mainstream VC to openly dive into crypto and bet his career on it. He was the first to bring VC language into crypto and web investments, and to promote these concepts to Silicon Valley and its behind-the-scenes LP (Limited Partners) community. Many of the concepts we discuss daily in investment committees (IC) are directly inspired by Chris. It’s no exaggeration to say that the path I’m on now was originally laid out by Chris.

Two deals led by Chris Dixon are milestones in crypto VC history. The first is Coinbase. In 2013, Chris led Coinbase’s Series B funding when the industry was still in its infancy and prospects were uncertain. This deal perfectly exemplifies Dixon’s investment philosophy — “The things the smartest people do on weekends are the things everyone will do in ten years.” He foresaw this and pushed the deal forward, then doubled down and committed himself fully to the industry. When Chris did this for the first time, it was much harder than what we do today.

The second deal is Uniswap. At that time, almost everyone who saw Uniswap’s Series A funding chose to pass (Uniswap’s fully diluted valuation was just $100 million — it was still very small). There was heated debate in the industry about whether AMMs (Automated Market Makers) were capital-efficient enough, whether they would face too much adverse selection, and whether they could be easily copied. Paradigm (despite leading the seed round) decided to pass, and we did too. It’s said that others on a16z’s investment committee also didn’t want to participate.

But Chris? Rumor has it he said, “A smart contract that can buy and sell anything? Sounds too cool. Who knows what will happen — let’s do it.” And he was right. It is indeed very cool. The possibilities brought by permissionless AMMs sparked many non-obvious innovations. After missing out on that Series A, I learned an important lesson.

Although I don’t agree with a16z’s worldview in many ways, everyone in this industry should deeply respect Chris. He is one of the biggest contributors to pushing crypto into its current cultural status. He fought against resistance from Washington with his career, helping legitimize crypto technology and giving it cultural recognition as a frontier technology. Much of our language and expressions about crypto come directly from Chris.

Without Chris Dixon’s early push, crypto VC wouldn’t have developed to today’s level. For that, we owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

#1.@KyleSamani(@multicoin)

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.

I often argue with Kyle. He makes many people — including me — feel uncomfortable, and this happens almost constantly.

But investing is like a competitive sport. In the end, you either score on the scoreboard or you don’t.

And Kyle is the one who scores the most. The incredible returns he made from Solana’s seed round investment, and the effort he put into that deal, will surely be the subject of a book someday, and I might be frowning the whole time I read it.

You see, the best investors are contrarians, and Kyle is a true contrarian. Being a contrarian doesn’t mean you just make a provocative statement that makes a group of people say “Wow, that’s clever.” If everyone wants to retweet your opinion, then by definition, you’re not a contrarian. You know you’re a true contrarian when you make people angry, make them think you’re a fool, or even make them think you’re just burning money.

Kyle is one of the few true contrarians in crypto. I almost always disagree with his views. But his initial investment in Solana, and his unwavering belief in holding Solana even after the FTX collapse, undoubtedly make him one of the greatest VC investors in crypto history.

We often say that venture capital is a power-law industry. And Kyle and his legendary Solana investment are perfect examples of this. Sometimes, it really just takes one deal.

That’s why Kyle is the greatest crypto VC of all time.

So, these are my top three.

LPs sometimes ask me where I think I rank on this list.

Although I hold myself in high regard — yes, I think very highly of myself — I don’t believe I can crack the top three. I’m definitely in the top ten, even fighting for the top five, but I’m not yet on their level. I hope that one day, before I end my career, I can surpass them. If we look at quarterly performance, I’ve had some quarters that outperformed each of them.

But overall? These three are the greatest of all time.

For Dragonfly, praising competitors might not help much. But there’s a greater significance than competition. You see, being an investor in this industry is very difficult — most of my peers haven’t been able to stick with it. Crypto is a brutal field.

Although I compete with these individuals every day, I hold great respect for them. I have witnessed their growth through nearly a decade of ups and downs. We’ve all experienced the rollercoaster of crypto, supported our founders, supported this industry, and helped it reach heights comparable to other tech sectors. During year-end reflections, I think it’s worth paying tribute to them in this industry that rarely praises venture capitalists.

Whether they realize it or not, everyone has contributed a lot to me. I’ve learned a lot from each of them. I sincerely hope they are proud of their achievements.

Dan Robinson sees the clearest.

Chris Dixon saw it earliest.

And Kyle Samani saw it last.

Salute, gentlemen. May we continue this exciting competition.