A sense of urgency doing business is a key trait from founders
They skip the small talk, go into the main business conversation in 1 min or less
They arrange the meetings for the same day/next day
They make stuff happen quick, right after the calls
VC is like any game, there's skill and luck.
The key is having both.
Having skill when it comes to accessing and assessing the best companies
Having luck when it comes to a market mispricing a founder.
This means to buy great crypto businesses, before they are hot. Most good deals will be priced as hot deals, but not all, and that's where one should hunt.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7nazV5nKmYYkzxhmf3G-Ftb3DPAjV5Migokw3u8BsQ/edit?tab=t.0
Sequoia has a page rank for people
Imagine you did a favor to a CTO and then ask: “who are the top 5 other engineers you know?”
Every single investor at @sequoia does this, for all roles, for all the companies they know
They have a talent map of the best talent in tech, and they’ve been doing it for 10 years because an old partner had the idea
Who’s building this for crypto?
We've (@socialgraphvc) seen 22 prediction market companies over 2025, and haven't backed any.
Which and why?
> Broadly, we've seen sports focused PMs, levered PMs, ecosystem focused PMs, defi PMs, aggregators, and PM data companies
> Differentiation is hard, new entrants have little to no liquidity vs. Polymarket
> Ancillary tools are usually small markets at this point, and could easily be built/bought by larger markets
What have we backed?
> Apps that embed markets within their experience, but it's not their main thing, it's and add on that appeals to their users
> In that train of thought, companies that help consumer companies curate and embed prediction markets in their experience is an area of interest
If you want the full list, DM me
My fav quote from Brie Wolfson article on Cursor: “To share what they’re observing and learning, many team members create “brain” channels in Slack where they publish their personal musings; there’s no expectation of a response or engagement, but people with good ideas can command quite a following. For the most popular brain channels, the content has little to do with “proof of work” or “managing up,” but rather ideas and reflections.”
This is talent density, doing it for the fun of learning and building
https://joincolossus.com/article/inside-cursor/
Great article by Audtless on $JESSE, and how @zora / @base are trying to force PMF on a pure speculative asset
The thesis that "attention has value in itself" is a fad
Attention is priced in via Ads, and if those are not integrated at a protocol level, fundamentals are broken
https://research.auditless.com/p/nobody-understands-jesse
It's the small things
An investor in @socialgraphvc told me our internal emails are the most detailed and high signal for consumer crypto he reads, and he's an LP in a bunch of funds
Happy to open source them to those interested, DM me
*prelude: All of these apps could/will launch as Farcaster mini apps too
Need good consumer crypto dealflow?
I was a judge (representing Social Graph Ventures) at World Build Demo Day (hosted by FWB and Worldcoin).
Sixteen teams pitched. These are the ones that made me lean in.
But first, why World?
Anay from Blockchain Capital:
“What makes World so unique is that it provides a net new primitive for developers to build around: proof of personhood. This enables novel types of applications in crypto like undercollateralized lending and new forms of token distributions.”
My personal favorites (not the official winners):
Lucas and Sami
Robinhood-style RWA app on World. Using Backed Finance for stocks today, permissionless tomorrow. This one feels inevitable.
Derik and Henrick – Undercollateralized loans (still in stealth, ex-AWS team)
Upload business documents → AI writes the plan → raise from friends, family, or platform. “An AI company that happens to use crypto rails.” Risk engine is the moat.
Henry – Ground Truth + Skywalk
Skywalk wraps Polymarket/Kalshi bets into tokens for arbitrage and DeFi composability.
Ground Truth runs geo-verified, human-only polls (e.g., “Will X win this zip code?”). Real sentiment data at a fraction of the cost.
Ivan and Ilya – Madson
Watch one ad per day → get paid. Publishers bid for tomorrow’s slot. A simple attention market. I’ve been saying this model was needed for years; talked it through with Nick Grossman from USV and Alok Vasudev from Standard Crypto back in the day.
Jayden – Zero-fee marketplace
Facebook Marketplace but with no cut. Buyer deposits USDC (escrow), chat unlocks, deal closes, seller gets funds.
Revenue comes from yield on idle deposits. Clean.
Ryan – Vaults (official winner)
Vaults already powers yield and PnL data for Gauntlet, Steakhouse, Kraken and others. The earn mini-app brings that infra to World users so they can actually chase the best yields without leaving the app.
Big thanks to Will Smercer, Mateo Sauton, Lay and the whole World and FWB teams for a great event.
Also judges: the Protocol Labs crew, David from Circle Ventures, Leandro from Kalei Ventures, Anay from Blockchain Capital, and Jack Simison from Nascent.
P.S. Jack’s top three were Ryan from Vaults, the Robinhood-style RWA app, and the zero-fee marketplace. Solid taste.
Great talk by @rchen8 at @dune.eth con
Even for consumer apps, onboarding the higher ltv users is more of a b2b sales process rather than a b2c
Would you rather have 1 whale or 1M planktons?
How to find high quality founders?
Ask around: “who’s the smartest person you’ve worked with?” “Who would you invest in without hessitation?” “Which new products are you using on a daily basis?”
You’ll find patterns, and warm intros
After siting across 300+ crypto pitches I have a simple cheat sheet on what I look for:
1/ Long term retention and engagement (or early signs)
2/ Founder who would give their life for the company
Just unlocked a new tool in my investor's belt:
> Referencing
At it's core, it's having a non-public information information advantage on a founder
Happy to share my questions
This week I’ve had two conversations on stablecoin fintech, value accrual, and competitive dynamics
The dilemma: invest at the infra/orchestration layer, or the app layer?
Infra:
The competitive space is larger and moats are hard, incumbents are solidifying. Switching costs is the moat, but I know a team that is switching from Bridge to another new provider who has lower costs and same features
App:
Distribution is key. Finding user acquisition channels at scale is going to be the way to win a localized market, similar to the way there was a Doordash for every country
Our take: Bet on the best founders always, but app layer is our bread and butter
