1/ despite btc near all time highs, a crypto-friendly admin, and institutional flows, crypto sentiment is horrible and vcs are exhausted

why is this cycle different?
how does protocol viability change going forward?
how do you as a founder win?

let's kick off 2025 2/ there are two major differences between this cycle and prior ones:

1. late stage crypto capital has created low float/high fdv dynamic w immense sell pressure from insiders
2. the velocity of asset movement has accelerated through cex/dex/wallet/stablecoin infra improvements

1/ i’m on a 16hr flight home from devcon and went through my notes to share some random takeaways from my convos in bkk

let’s kick it off with the fun stuff 2/ memecoins were pretty much a topic at every interaction

conversations ranged in intelligence from ‘fartcoin just hit aths’ to ‘will memecoins replace vc coins’

imo if you’re a founder, this is a huge distraction and founder distraction is one signal of a rising bull market

1/ right now private crypto vc sentiment is currently the worst its been since q4 2022

as we enter the final fundraising sprint of the year, some thoughts on what led us here and what to look fwd to 2/ over the past quarter, average protocol valuations have meaningfully dropped. pre-seed is now consistently at $10-20m fdv and seed is at $20-30m fdv

these levels are considerably different than q1 2024, when vals were roughly double