Build With Squads
Today, we are proud to announce our investment in Squads Labs, a core contributor to the Squads Protocol, the leading multisig solution on Solana. Their latest $5.7M round brings Squad’s total funding to date to $12.5M. We first invested in Squads in late 2021, and since then they have grown to become a powerhouse in the Solana ecosystem and, we believe, a best-in-class multisig solution on Solana for institutional traders, crypto-prosumers, and builders.
Discussions from the 2023 Multicoin Summit
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On September 27-28, we held our annual summit in Austin, Texas, which brings together some of the brightest and most influential minds in crypto to explore the latest trends and issues shaping the industry. This event is primarily for our Limited Partners, so thank you, again, to all of you who came down to see us this year. We appreciate your continued support.
The Dawn of On-Chain FHE
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The two most challenging technical problems in crypto have been clear for a decade: scaling and confidentiality. Most of the discourse in the industry is around scaling; meanwhile, a handful of teams continue to quietly build a variety of advanced cryptographic techniques to enable confidentiality. Today, I’m excited to announce that Multicoin has led a $7.5M investment into Fhenix, which is pioneering a fundamentally new approach to on-chain confidentiality.
Exploring The Design Space Of DePIN Networks
In April 2022, we published our thesis on Proof of Physical Work (PoPW) networks (now, more colloquially referred to as “Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks,” or “DePIN” for short). In that essay, we wrote: “[PoPW networks] incentivize people to do verifiable work that builds real-world infrastructure. Relative to traditional forms of capital formation for building physical infrastructure, these permissionless and credibly-neutral protocols:"
Exploring Long-Term Staking in PoS Networks
Today, nearly every proof-of-stake (PoS) network offers rewards through protocol staking and inflation; however, none have yet to offer a killer feature: long-term staking. Term structures[1] allow investors to strategically lock up capital for distinct periods of time in exchange for generally greater returns on investment. In finance, term rates make up a yield curve, which is an essential ingredient into well-functioning financial markets.
The Hidden Costs of Modular Systems
Over the past two years, the scaling debate has narrowed and fixated on the central question of modularity vs integration. (Note that discourse in crypto often conflates “monolithic” and “integrated” systems. There is a rich history of debate in technology over the last 40 years about integrated vs. modular systems at every layer of the stack. The crypto incarnation of this dialogue should be framed through the same lens; this is far from a new debate).
The Convergence of Crypto and AI: Four Key Intersections
The worlds of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI) have been evolving in parallel, with each domain pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation. As we continue to make strides in both fields, it is becoming increasingly clear that their futures are inextricably linked. In this post, we will explore four important intersections at the crossroads of crypto and AI.
From UGC to UGP: Consumer Brands & Co-Creation
Many have argued how co-creation will ultimately lead to the democratization of the creator class, re-imagine fandom, and turn fans into creators; however, this discussion stops short of the implications of co-creation on brands, which could be larger than the impact on co-creators themselves. In the past, brands created products and, more generally, culture, and proliferated this top-down via centralized, top-down media (Toby Shorin).
Web3-Native SQL
In the first wave of crypto innovation after Bitcoin, many developers forked the Bitcoin codebase to try to build other decentralized infrastructure and applications beyond digital gold. Some of the earliest forks included attempts at building decentralized databases that could be used for general purpose application development. In the wave of crypto innovation that followed Ethereum’s launch, teams began building BFT database engines.
Multiplayer Mode
Today, we are proud to announce our investment in Lore, the first co-ownership platform for web3 collectives. We led a $4M round alongside North Island Ventures, Seed Club Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Zeneca, Mischief Ventures, Sfermion, CMT Digital, Patricio Worthalter, Spice Capital, Sublime Ventures, and others.
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