Application-centric Web3 VC, with a keen focus on fostering practical use cases that build upon Web3's infrastructure.
The Hidden Holes in Standard SAFEs: Three Real Cases and How to Fix Them
IntroductionThe SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) was introduced by Y Combinator in 2013 to simplify early-stage funding. Its premise is straightforward: an investor provides capital today in exchange for the right to receive shares in the future when the company raises its next equity round. SAFEs became the default instrument for pre-seed and seed rounds due to their simplicity and low legal overhead. In Web3, the situation is unique: SAFEs are often used not just at the earliest st...
The Hidden Holes in Standard SAFEs: Three Real Cases and How to Fix Them
IntroductionThe SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) was introduced by Y Combinator in 2013 to simplify early-stage funding. Its premise is straightforward: an investor provides capital today in exchange for the right to receive shares in the future when the company raises its next equity round. SAFEs became the default instrument for pre-seed and seed rounds due to their simplicity and low legal overhead. In Web3, the situation is unique: SAFEs are often used not just at the earliest st...
Fully Homomorphic Encryption: Looking Forward
Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) is a form of encryption that enables computations to be run directly on encrypted data, meaning third parties can leverage private data without any trust assumptions. Please find a general motivation and introduction of the topic here. Today, FHE is rarely discussed without an accompanying lament of its downsides: painfully slow and unwieldy. That being said, we wish to share some interesting developments we’ve come across to mitigate these pains and broaden...
Fully Homomorphic Encryption: Looking Forward
Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) is a form of encryption that enables computations to be run directly on encrypted data, meaning third parties can leverage private data without any trust assumptions. Please find a general motivation and introduction of the topic here. Today, FHE is rarely discussed without an accompanying lament of its downsides: painfully slow and unwieldy. That being said, we wish to share some interesting developments we’ve come across to mitigate these pains and broaden...
A Soft Introduction to Fully Homomorphic Encryption
There has always been a contentious trade-off between extracting utility from a user’s data and preserving their privacy— what if you could do both? This article gives an introduction to Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a family of encryption schemes that allows users to perform computations on encrypted data, upending the utility-privacy trade-offs. The theory was first floated around in the late 70s (notably, by R and A of the RSA encryption team) but the first functional scheme was only...
A Soft Introduction to Fully Homomorphic Encryption
There has always been a contentious trade-off between extracting utility from a user’s data and preserving their privacy— what if you could do both? This article gives an introduction to Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a family of encryption schemes that allows users to perform computations on encrypted data, upending the utility-privacy trade-offs. The theory was first floated around in the late 70s (notably, by R and A of the RSA encryption team) but the first functional scheme was only...
