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Kyle Samani

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Multicoin Capital · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderexecutiveanalyst@KyleSamani ↗LinkedIn ↗multicoin.capital ↗

In 2017, Samani co-founded Multicoin Capital, an investment firm managing hedge and venture funds focused on blockchain networks, tokens, and Web3 infrastructure. He is known for publishing thesis-driven research and making early bets on projects like Solana, having previously founded enterprise smartglasses software company Pristine.

48statements → 16claims → 5claims resolved → 40%fully supported → 4.1/5average certainty → 2.96/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources → 6said about them ↓

2 supported 3 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not yet assessed 8 not checkable as stated how the 16 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

8 predictions · 8 assertions · 9 opinions · 12 insights · 11 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 16 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, 3 are not yet assessed, and 8 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Kyle argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Samani: Only four insiders knew about the database manipulations at FTX
“There, we know now there were four people who knew. Sam, Caroline, Nishad, and Gary. No one else knew. When you keep the circle small, like, you can keep information hidden, and explicitly, in this case, the information was, go make arbitrary changes in the da…”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 34:03 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
50% certainty 4
75% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.3 / 5 directness 4.5 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.9

answered every one of 21 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

275 words/min while actually speaking · 35.6 um and uh per 1k words · 17.8 false starts per 1k · 26.1% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 10,964 words across 2 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 3.5/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 4.5/10
setup questions received 40%

Everything Kyle Samani said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Samani: Bitcoin is nonsense and not an inflation hedge
“No. Bitcoin is nonsense. It does not, there are so many ways to, you can choose to have a productive asset or a nonproductive asset. And then there are many assets that are naturally good hedges against inflation. The obvious of which is like Walmart and Amazo…”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 47:35 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Samani: Bitcoin has no productive value and produces no economic utility
“Bitcoin is a strictly financial construct. Bitcoin has no economic value. It has, it is no, it's not productive. Excuse me. Bitcoin is no productive value because it doesn't do anything. It's an asset. There are some interesting properties of that asset, but i…”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 22:51 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Samani: XRP, Cardano, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash are garbage lacking substance
“I mean, look, there's a lot of assets in the top 10 that most people who are sophisticated retail market participants view as, you know, garbage, XRP, Cardano, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, etc. I cannot explain to you how those assets are trading nine, 10 figures a…”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 48:27 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Samani: Solana poses a credible threat to Ethereum's dominance
“Solana is a credible threat to Ethereum and people, they don't like it when they think that they're, you know, their investments they hold have faced a credible threat.”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 10:42 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2024
Samani: Donald Trump will be in jail before the 2024 election
“My assumption is he will be in jail before the election, so I don't know if you can.”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 44:50 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Samani: In crypto venture deals, equity will be worth nothing
“Mechanically speaking, with a lot of the private round market deals that get done these days they're legally structured as SAFs, excuse me, as SAFs with token warrants or equity rounds with token warrants, but the primary asset that we believe will have value …”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 8:41 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Samani: Tokens help distribute wealth rather than concentrate it
“Without question, tokens help distribute wealth.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 15:58 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Samani: Investment teams larger than 10 people are net value-destructive
“I believe that the core unit of an investment firm is the investment team. And I am of the view that if investment team is larger than 10, you are now net value destructive to the overall investment team process and culture.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 41:29 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Samani: Ethereum will not have a scaling plan in 12 months
“Ethereum does not have a scaling plan seven years later. It still does not have one today. I do not think they will have one in the next 12 months.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 48:12 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Samani: Hivemapper mapped 10% of global roads, growing 10x faster than Google
“Hive Mapper has mapped over 10% of the world's roads in one year, and Hive Mapper is now, they have signed multiple customers who are buying this mapping data. They have not publicly disclosed who those customers are, but like, Hive Mapper has built a mapping …”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 24:09 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Samani: Only four insiders knew about the database manipulations at FTX
“There, we know now there were four people who knew. Sam, Caroline, Nishad, and Gary. No one else knew. When you keep the circle small, like, you can keep information hidden, and explicitly, in this case, the information was, go make arbitrary changes in the da…”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 34:03 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Samani: Multicoin absolutely believes in concentration over portfolio diversification
“I definitely don't believe in diversification. I absolutely believe in concentration”
Kyle Samani Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 51:47 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Samani: Value accrual to both tokens and equity creates conflicting incentives
“In almost all cases, there should not be value accrual to tokens and equity. There are a couple of exceptions to that. But as a general rule, that is true. For teams that try and pitch you value accrual to both, it is almost certain that those two things are i…”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 7:33 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Samani: Tokens only make sense for coordinating permissionless public behavior
“Tokens only make sense if you need to incentivize behavior in a permissionless fashion among the public at large. To have them all coordinate on, on some sort of broader shared objective.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 9:18 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Samani: Helium cuts 99% of traditional wireless telecom costs
“And the goal of this model is, or what's great about this model is you physically remove 99% of the cost from the system. So labor cost goes to zero. Land cost goes to zero. Backhaul cost goes to zero. You just physically remove like all of the costs.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 10:49 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Samani: Excluding customers from equity will be viewed as a regulatory bug
“The fact that norms today around business are those parties typically have no equity ownership. I think we'll be looked upon, I think in 20 years we'll be looked back as a bug of capital markets regulation, not as a feature.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 16:34 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Samani: Multicoin only invests if intended hold horizon is forever
“It doesn't for us and the reason it doesn't is we have some basic thresholds for making investments, and one of those thresholds is we will only make an investment if our intended hold horizon at the time of investment is forever. That doesn't mean we can't se…”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 18:59 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Multicoin Capital operates without reserves or formal portfolio construction rules
“We have basically no formal rules of any form of portfolio construction nature. We don't do any notion of reserves and multi coin. We just deploy and raise our next fund.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 27:41 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Samani: Sector-based portfolio targets in venture capital are value-destructive
“I think it's extremely value destructive to do so because you can't know ahead of time what you, like, we could not forecast helium. It would not, if we had any constraints on what is in strike zone or not, then helium would have been out of strike zone.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 28:33 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Samani: Multicoin spends 93% of investment evaluation time analyzing markets
“Multicoin prioritizes I'd say 93% of our discussion time is on market. I would like glance at a couple screenshots of the product, but I don't really care. And founders, I only care that the founder market fit is like, makes sense.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 30:18 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Samani: Multicoin avoids SaaS investments due to weak network effects
“We basically don't do SaaS businesses for this reason. Not like, and I say this as someone who used to be very enthralled by SaaS. But very few SaaS businesses have meaningful network effects.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 35:00 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Samani: Three Arrows Capital blowup is minor relative to entire crypto market
“This three AC blow up is like bad, but like, again, there, the total cost of blow up here is two, three billion. I don't know, against the total market cap of whatever Eight hundred billion. It's still not, like, a huge number. So yeah, not, not that bad in th…”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 39:04 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Samani: Capital formation innovations, not leverage, drive crypto bull markets
“That's not what creates the bull markets. What's created the bull markets is, yeah, I think actually I should say the last two bull markets has been novel formations, novel breakthroughs in capital formation.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 39:50 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Samani: Crypto venture loss rates are much lower than traditional VC
“No, they're much lower.”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 45:41 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Show 24statements(24 left)

The other half of the tape: Kyle Samani's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 6 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4Joel Monegro 1Ian Lee 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · Jan 8, 2024 17m
Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry St Jul 22, 2022 34m
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