WEBVTT - Paradigm’s Matt Huang on the Biggest Crypto Fund Ever Raised 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:14.520 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.919 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Halloway. We haven't talked 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.439 about it in a few weeks, but crypto crisis side, 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.320 there's always volatility. It's clearly not slowing down at all. 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:28.760 I feel like we have been talking about crypto over 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:30.560 the past few weeks, but I guess I guess we 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.599 haven't on the podcast, We've written about it on the 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.760 Odd Lots site. There's still a lot going on. I mean, 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.559 like every day it seems there's a new investment in 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.120 the space. People are getting more and more excited about defy. Uh. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:48.720 These random tokens keep taking off at the same time, Um, 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.919 everyone's talking about n f t s. The list goes on, right. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.440 You know what I feel like with crypto, and it's funny, 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:57.760 like a joke, you know, it's kind of half true. 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.320 We haven't been talking about it lately. I think guess 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.600 the issue is if you I feel like, if you 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.920 go three weeks without having a crypto episode of the podcast, 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:08.840 or if I sort of tune out of crypto for 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.120 a few weeks because say I'm interested in supply chains 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.600 or lumber or inflation or something. Then when I try 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.600 to tune back in, I'm like, what the heck just happened? 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.280 Because everything the stand has changed so fast, and the 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.039 news story of the new coin that people are to 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.760 exchange so fast that I feel like I'm totally behind. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.120 So three weeks of the crypto space feels like three 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.760 months or a year. Yeah, it's sort of like a 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.120 dog years type phenomenon, right, Like crypto just seems to 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.960 be moving faster than everyone else. Yeah, So anyway, let's 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.600 I want to just get right into it. I'm very excited. Um. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.800 There's a long time by crypto standards VC firm or 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.720 investment firm called Paradigm. If you say the name Paradigm 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.360 to people like in crypto circles, it's like this like 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:57.160 hushed tone, because like there's such reverence for this firm. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.720 Everyone respects this firm, and they've recently raised the biggest 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.640 crypto I think VC is the right word term, but 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.560 the biggest crypto investment fund as of now and today 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.919 we're recording this November. Who knows, the record is probably 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.320 gonna be broken in about three days, but they have 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.560 raised the biggest fund ever to invest in in the 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.840 space of two point five billion dollars and we are 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.320 going to uh talk to one of their co founders 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.000 about what they planned to do. Great, can't wait. I'm 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.040 very excited. I want to bring in Matt Wong. He 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.919 is the co founder and managing partner at Paradigm. Matt, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.679 thank you so much for coming on odd lots, Hi Joe, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.560 Hi Tracy, thanks for having me. Absolutely so. Like I 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.399 said in the intro, I feel like when I've been 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.079 in crypto circles, are hanging out with crypto people, and 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.840 like you bring up Paradigm, people are like, oh, yeah, 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:50.800 they're legit. Like there's a lot of like kind of 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.480 fakers in the space. We all sort of know that, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:55.080 and there's a lot of people that just arrived on 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.920 the scene five minutes ago. But before we talk about 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.600 this new fund, what do you talk about, Uh, where 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.040 did Paradigm come from? What is its background and history 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.519 and what's its sort of basic story. Yeah? Sure, well 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.360 you very grateful that that's what people are saying about us. Look, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.960 I think Paradigm started from a pretty simple place. My 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.600 co founder, whose name is Fred Arison, who had previously 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:24.560 co founded coin Base, and I were longtime acquaintances and friends. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.120 Back in two thousand seventeen, when I was I like 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.160 to say, a boring venture capitalist at Sequoia focused on 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.320 all kinds of different technology investing and started to spend 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.280 a lot more time in the crypto space. We would 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.440 you know, meet up often and consider new investments. And 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.560 one of our observations at the time, actually there were two. 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.080 The first was, and you know, Fred gained this early 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:57.080 but a very very deep conviction that what was enabled 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.280 by crypto was likely to be one of the most 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.000 impactful sort of spaces to be spending time and over 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.000 the next ten years. And we had already seen bitcoin 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:14.840 as a digital monetary asset grow from effectively zero two 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.119 hundreds of billions. We started to see the early days 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.320 of defied take off on top of the theory um 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.120 and so it was just very clear to us that 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.120 this was the future. And yet when you looked at 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.480 the traditional tech investing establishment, I think it was very underrated. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.799 In fact, most very smart and well meaning people often 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.960 when they take a first look at crypto, especially back then, 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.080 you know, they couldn't help but come away with a 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.640 sense that maybe there wasn't so much substance, it was 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.000 you know, there were dog coins and cat coins, and 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:52.599 it was sort of what what is the point of 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.960 all this? And and yet when we spent time on 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.840 the front lines with some of the protocol developers and 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.680 the team's building real you know, hard technology in the space, 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.719 we just haven't had a totally different view. So so 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.599 sort of born out of that conviction in crypto. And then, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:15.000 you know, somewhat separately, we looked around and you know, 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.640 I would talk to Fred he had co founded coin 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.560 based in two thousand and twelve. So if you were 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:25.039 starting another crypto project today, is there another investor that 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.520 you would be really excited to work with? And I 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:30.600 think the answer for both of us at that point 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:36.440 in time was no. And so Paradigm really came from 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.320 us kind of building the investment firm that we would 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:44.840 have wanted as entrepreneurs. And to us, one of the 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:51.200 biggest parts of that is how native we are and 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.240 our team is to the technology. And I think this 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.039 is a general pattern you see across technology waves where 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.880 some new platform exists, whether it's mobile phones or the 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:07.440 Internet or crypto, and it's very easy to apply kind 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.720 of old analogies to the new medium, and yet it 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.560 turns out that some of the most important companies are 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.920 innovations that come out of a particular wave end up 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.479 being deeply native to it. And so that was kind 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.880 of our aspiration around paradigm is sort of getting very 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.720 close to the metal technically and being able to help 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:35.040 support and guide the people building this future. So I 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.560 want to go back to something you said, what exactly 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.480 in your opinion does crypto enable And this kind of 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.480 gets to the tension that you were describing with some 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.480 other vcs they don't see that much value in it. 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.880 You know, critics have described blockchain at various points in 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.400 time as a solution in search of a problem. We've 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.320 talked on the show about how a lot of DeFi 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:03.280 technology seems to be focused on more defied So it's 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.440 sort of, you know, trading coins or tokens all the 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.040 way down, But what is it that you see give 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.320 us the elevator pitch? Sure. I think at the very 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:20.800 highest level we're seeing crypto disrupt in several stages. The 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.640 first was this idea of bitcoin as digital money, and 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.800 you know, looking into the history of bitcoin, I think 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:35.840 a similar dynamic was always present, which was is bitcoin 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.320 distinguishable from two lips? Is it tulips or is it 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:47.080 you know, the next digital monetary standard. And one observation 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.880 would be like when you talk to people in developed countries, 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.880 they often don't see the point of bitcoin, and when 0:07:54.920 --> 0:08:00.000 you talk to people in developing countries, it almost clicks immediately, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.680 whether it's countries in Latin or countries like China and 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:10.040 Russia where perhaps the rule of law or currency stability 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.520 is less taken for granted, and so there's a form 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.280 of dollar privilege in a lot of ways around bitcoin. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.440 So I think that is the first category and not 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.720 to be underrated. I think that could be tremendously powerful 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.920 for the world as it progresses. The second is, which 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.040 is quite a natural extension of digital money, is this 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.480 idea of to centralized finance. Now that you have digitally 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.760 native assets, beyond just sending them back and forth or 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:43.000 holding them, you can now do much more complex things 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.559 with them and program them. And I think one thing 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:51.600 that's unique about defies the protocol can encode certain rules 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.880 that you can trust will continue to be the case 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.760 several years from now. In a lot of ways, It's 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.080 much like you know in the in the country governance context. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.960 The idea of strong property rights. Strong property rights enables 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.680 an economy to form in a way that's truly long term. 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:16.280 People can build businesses and make decisions knowing that there 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.640 will be stability over many years or decades. And similarly, 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:24.040 around DEFY, the idea that say a decentralized exchange protocol 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:28.160 like unit swap might continue operating exactly the way it's 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.040 operating today ten years from now or twenty years from now, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.120 really enables other people who might want to plug into 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.400 that protocol are build on top of it to do so. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.200 So I think that digital commitment is sort of a 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.880 key part of what these blockchains enable. And then finally, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:50.000 I think now that defy has really scaled. I think 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:54.679 we're seeing, especially over the past year, cryptocurrencies and crypto 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.720 protocols broaden in the sort of types of industries that 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.760 they a can touch. And you know, this year we've 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.480 seen the rise of n f t s and the 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:10.120 notions of digital art. Crypto gaming has been become really popular, 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.480 and so I think we'll see crypto brought into touch many, 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.280 many different parts of the modern Internet. So let's talk 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.080 about this fund As I mentioned, I think it was 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.280 just a couple of weeks ago you announced it a 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.200 two and a half billion dollar fund, which as of 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.760 now is the biggest crypto fund that's been raised. What 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:30.720 do you see as the big opportunities I mean you 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.880 talked to sort of broad categories defy that's very broad now. 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.199 It means a lot of things, n f T, the 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.599 sort of n f T S, gaming, sort of like 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.240 certain culture of things. What specifically do you see as 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.360 the big opportunities that they're going to go after with 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.320 this fund, with this money. You know, back to when 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.959 we started Paradigm in two thousand and eighteen, we had 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.400 a lot of conviction about the progression of crypto over 0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:01.000 the coming decade, and we spent a lot of the 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:06.439 early years investing across defy, UM, you know, various other areas. 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.920 I think one thing that's become very notable over the 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:13.120 past year is this the rise of what I think 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:18.160 the industry is terming Web three. This notion of blockchains 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.359 is a way to build for many different other categories 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.559 of the Internet, you know, stepping back from the specific opportunities, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.840 one thing that's particularly notable to us, and we pay 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.240 a lot of attention to is kind of the talent 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.960 flows into the industry. When we started in two thousand eighteen, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.760 it was Crypto was mostly a ghost town. It was 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.720 people who were present in two thousand six, two thousand 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:48.000 seventeen who despite the bear market, we're continuing to build. 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:55.199 Today it's become much more consensus almost that Web three 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.280 and Crypto might present part of the future for the Internet. 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.280 So we're seeing a lot of interesting engineering and entrepreneurial 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.480 talent come into the space. And you know, I'm not 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.400 trying to avoid the question. I do think what we're 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.160 focused on is sort of the long term potential that's possible, 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:16.520 and also kind of the short term signs of quality 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:22.040 and innovation and following that because I think ultimately, for 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.480 any new innovation that's you know, happening at such a 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:30.160 primitive level, I think it's always hard to fully predict 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:34.640 exactly what's going to happen, whether it's like the Internet itself, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.600 for you know, the advent of electricity or something. I 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:43.200 think the applications eventually surprise us, and so we're more 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.800 focused on keeping our ear to the ground, understanding the 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.840 tech deeply, and spending time where the builders are spending. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:10.040 So how do you actually go about investing in a 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.720 crypto business if you find one that you like, Because 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.600 I mean, there are multiple ways to do this, but 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.440 I guess the two big ones would be, you know, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.280 you just buy a stake in a crypto business sort 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.320 of the old fashioned venture capitalist way, or you could 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.360 buy the project's token and maybe that comes with some 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.040 sort of governance, say via a dow or something like that. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.640 How do how do you sort of weigh those options? Yes, 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:44.160 it's a very fascinating question, and I think it's you know, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.640 as a whole somewhat an open one for the industry, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.760 which is, you know, for hundreds of years even we've 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.680 had this very well established and evolved form of kind 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:02.280 of coordinating human activity around corporations or elcs and having 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:07.360 sort of investors and outside folks participate in that. And 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.840 now all of a sudden, we have the ability to 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:14.800 kind of store the cap table or the you know, 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.720 record of value on the blockchain in a sort of trustless, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:25.400 immutable way that is equivalently good in various ways. And 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.520 so there's sort of a question which is a better 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.280 fit for the crypto startup of today, And I think 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.440 depending on the startup, the answer could be different. Sort 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.640 of In practice, we're often investing at the earliest stages 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:44.920 before any digital token might exist, and we do that 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:49.320 through corporate entities as a way to kind of preserve 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.840 optionality for the way that the project might ultimately want 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:58.720 to distribute the record of participation. You sort of anticipated 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.080 a question that I was go to ask, but I 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.400 want to talk about there's something interesting And I think 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.080 one of the reasons that people do have this reverence 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.640 for Paradigm specifically is because it's clear that you have 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.880 a lot of like technical talent, and I think like 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.160 vcs always like they love to blog and they love 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:18.880 to opine. They do these like big tweet threads about 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:20.840 how like you know, the future of work is going 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:22.760 to change and stuff like that, and you know, they 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.000 all sort of like I want to be writers or something. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.680 But I feel like Paradigm is unique. Like if you 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:29.560 look on your blog, like there's a lot of like 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.720 technical stuff and you have colleagues who are literally inventing 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.680 new financial products all the time, Like I'm looking at 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.200 your blog and one of your colleagues, Dave White, like 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.120 introduced a new type of like futures idea that could 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:43.840 be connected to n f T S. And you have 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.440 another like another colleague who I think is Tudonymous, who 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.520 like frequently like writes about like finding hacks and stuff 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.880 like that, or like sort of finding exploits in a 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.680 token before they're discovered. And so I'm curious, Like it 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:02.560 sounds like the strategy is having your ears close to 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.640 the ground, knowing the tech deeply because you don't necessarily 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.080 know where it's going, like nobody really does, but you 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.040 know where the talent is going. Talk about this, like 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.840 how much of a mote you see that for paradigm, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:17.520 the idea of like having like deep technical people working 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.760 for the fund itself as opposed to just being like 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.960 money people. So first of all, I would sort of 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.560 acknowledge that I don't think this is what most investment 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.160 firms look like. And certainly when we were starting out, 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:36.120 there's always this temptation you know, what have other people done? 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.840 And you know what have successful investment firms throughout history done. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.480 There's always wisdom and lessons to be gleaned there, but 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.400 we were very focused on just trying to think from 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.000 first principles, like if we were an entrepreneur building a 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.840 new crypto startup, who would we want around the table? 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.840 Is it possible for an investment firms such as ours 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.400 to be able to add value in a way that 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:03.320 was really meaningful? You know, investors can always write tweet threads, 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.800 but we thought we should go further and you know, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:11.320 be able to code alongside the companies and you know, 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.040 audit their code, etcetera. I think, you know, that's clearly 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.520 very valuable and our practical level, and we're continuing to 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.520 explore other ways to lean into that. I think also 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.680 at an abstract level, you know, one of the potential 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:32.159 promises of cryptos this notion of digitizing more and more 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:37.600 of our institutions and our companies and our infrastructure into 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.119 these sort of protocolized forms. And if you envision sort 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.280 of a future state in which more and more of 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.880 our economy is running on crypto rails, then it seems 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:54.840 almost inevitable that you know, having deeply technical people is 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.960 a really important part of participating in that. And so 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.439 just generally in philosoph ethically, we feel like technical expertise 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.000 must be one of the core parts of what we 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.520 do at PARA. So in addition to technical expertise, there 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.760 was something that you tweeted recently where you asked people, Um, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.199 you know, if if they're good at memes and they 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.040 want to work at Paradigm, could they get in touch? Like, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:25.280 is that is that Tracy is good at memes, so 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.199 she's sort of she's thinking about going from the media 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.160 the media the crypto pipeline here is this a job 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.040 requirement for the crypto space now? Like you have to 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.320 be able to deal in memes and ideas given that, 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:42.400 you know, Joe kind of touched on this in the intro, 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.560 but like, given that a lot of what's happening in 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.639 the space seems to be driven by different narratives and 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.080 those are shifting all the time. Yeah, there's again both 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:56.240 this practical element of I think a lot of modern marketing, 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.720 whether it is for investment firms or come Benese, occurs 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.800 through sort of the medium of Twitter and memes and 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.479 memes drive culture in a lot of ways, and so 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.200 I think that skill is is very useful. I think 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.800 it you know, there's a whole world that operates on 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.720 crypto twitter is because you both know from following it, 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.439 it's almost a parallel universe to what's happening in the 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.159 real world, and if you aren't on crypto Twitter and 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.360 aren't sort of one of these very online people who 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:31.480 is following what's happening, you're sort of not up to 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.840 date on the latest in the culture or the substance 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.639 of what's happening in crypto. So I think there's another 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.840 element there that's really important. And then finally, I think 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.560 if you think about, you know, the hardest problem for 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.760 every upstart, whether it's us at Paradigm or one of 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.400 the companies or projects we're backing, it's sort of assembling 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.439 a really talented group of people to work on a 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.000 single problem for a long period of time. And I 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.600 think that's ultimately what it teks to build something really 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.320 great and special. And in a lot of ways, someone 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.880 like Elon Musk is a huge part of his success 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.800 is his ability to attract sort of all the best 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.640 people who want to work on rockets at at this 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.359 one rocket company. If you think about the role of 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.000 memes and marketing in that effort, I think, you know, 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.200 memes are sort of the new way in which one 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:32.639 can build a narrative around division. It could be something silly, 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.399 like you know, a dog coin, or it could be 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.879 something you know, serious and important like rockets and everything 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.400 in between. And so I think, you know, memes are 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:44.199 all good and fun, and we have you know, a 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.600 great internal channel where everyone's sharing memes. But I think 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:52.960 there's also something deeply powerful about, you know, their role 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.200 in the way they're sort of shaping attention and directing 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:02.080 energy towards certain projects that people get about. So I 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.560 want to ask you. You mentioned that sort of like 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:08.520 one of the interesting properties of crypto is this sort 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.760 of predictability. And you mentioned that there's you know, unit swap, 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.760 and I think that's a paradigm investment. You're an investor 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.719 in unit swap. You know that code may live on 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:20.680 in its current form for ten or maybe a hundred years, 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.159 and so someone could build on top of that code 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.800 and build something new and have some expectation that that 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.200 is not going to change. When you think about investing, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.520 to what extent do you think about different portfolio investments 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:36.879 or different tokens or different taos that you invest in 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.240 as somewhat being like like, uh, the network effects within 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.439 your own companies, within paradigm companies, or within paradigm investments. 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.119 I mean people in traditional tech. But I always talk 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.440 about network effects, but it's sort of uh confined. There's 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.080 like Facebook's network effect or Twitter, etcetera. To what extent 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.239 do you think about sort of compounding network effects of 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.280 different tokens you invest in that in some way old 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.800 or enhance another company or token within your family. It's 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.800 a great question, and I think it's present in the 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.959 dynamics of the portfolio, which is, if we invest in 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.880 protocols that are providing a great value to the ecosystem 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.159 and its users, then it often makes a lot of 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.560 sense for those protocols to start interoperating or building on 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:26.359 top of each other. And so that's definitely a dynamic 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.280 that we'd love to encourage and do think about. I 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.480 think there is actually a nice sort of pre existing 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:36.160 analogy to that effect, where if you look at a 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:40.280 incubator like y Combinator, it's sort of a very common 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:45.800 element that new hy Combinator startups often their first customers 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.680 or first hundred customers are actually like other y combinator startups, 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:53.760 and I think that's been a powerful flywheel for that 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:58.280 community overall. And certainly we do hope that if we're 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.000 doing our jobs right, which is, you know, finding and 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.400 supporting some of the most ambitious and special crypto entrepreneurs 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:08.960 around the world, that there will be a lot of 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.680 benefits to them being in that same community and being 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:16.920 able to work together. I have a slightly theoretical question, 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:20.439 but you know, one of the benefits, or one of 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.760 the sort of selling points for crypto has at various 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:29.639 times been described as the manufacturing of artificial scarcity. So 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:33.800 something like bitcoin, there is a limited amount, only a 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.159 certain number of coins are ever going to be mined, 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:39.680 and so there's something valuable about them. The same thing 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.439 sort of for and f t s. You know, if 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:46.680 you collect a certain type of arts or pieces from 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:51.560 one artist in particular, there's a limited amount. But one 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.080 of the things I sometimes wonder about is, with all 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.040 the attention on crypto at the moment, and all the 0:23:57.119 --> 0:24:03.760 money flooding into the space, does the artificial scarcity benefit 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:07.880 or case get sort of eroded because you just see 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:12.320 more and more projects, you know, more tokens, more coins, 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:15.840 more n f t s, and people are just sort 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.440 of flitting from one thing to the next, such that 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:23.040 a market, never actually an individual market might get scarce, 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:31.000 but crypto as a total is just multiplying perhaps the 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:35.560 the core underlying question is this one of with an 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:40.359 oversupply of capital, is that kind of efficient in terms 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:44.600 of driving towards the innovation that you know, crypto has 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:47.639 the potential to achieve, and at least we think about 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.520 it in these terms in which you know, I think 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:54.720 when markets get overheated, you think of investing as a 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:59.320 sort of a capital allocation and function for sort of 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:02.359 which experiment mints are worthy of running and once they 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:05.800