Joel Monegro
Founding Partner, Placeholder. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investoranalystauthor@jmonegro ↗monegro.org ↗
Joel Monegro is a Founding Partner at Placeholder, a venture capital firm investing in decentralized networks and blockchain protocols. Prior to co-founding Placeholder, he developed the early blockchain investment thesis at Union Square Ventures and authored the essay "Fat Protocols".
2shows
2appearances
21statements
2resolved
1supported
0contradicted
50%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Joel Monegro said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Monegro: Most value in crypto will accrue to network governance
“I believe that governance is where most of the value is going to accrue in crypto at the end of the day, precisely because of what Kyle pointed out, features, functionality can be copied, and the thing that you can't copy is a community, and the thing that Kee…”
Monegro: Dual-token crypto models lead to wealth concentration among early holders
“And the risk of separating the access token or the work token from the currency token is that the people who accumulated the access tokens early on, that group becomes increasingly concentrated over time. As the economy grows or as the crypto network grows.”
Monegro: Single-token designs force capital distribution to enable network usage
“The value of combining the two, if you have a single token that is both a supply side token and a payment token, in order for the supply side to provide its service, it has to take payment in that token. So the token has to be in the user's hands in order for …”
Monegro: Bitcoin will not become a currency for buying coffee
“But I also don't think we're heading to a world where you buy your coffee with Bitcoin.”
Monegro: Crypto value accrues where service costs are highest
“Value will accrue to where there is the highest cost. And it doesn't really matter where in the layer that is. It matters more what is the kind of service that's being provided and what is the cost of that service.”
Monegro: Buying Bitcoin directly outperformed USV's early-stage crypto equity investments
“I calculated how much better or worse an investment it would have been to just buy Bitcoin and buy the same amount of dollars worth of Bitcoin, and found that Bitcoin would have been a much better investment”
Monegro: Crypto will commoditize major web incumbents over the long term
“And so now the value in crypto is no longer in the data itself, and ultimately that's for the long term, that's what's going to commoditize the web incumbents that we have today.”
Monegro: Liquid fund structures force crypto managers to sell during market downturns
“A frenzy where there will be massive rises and massive falls, and when you have a more liquid fund structure, that can end up screwing you in interesting ways. If you're now bound by the whips of the market, if your investors can pull out of the fund because i…”
Monegro: Crypto networks cannot win long-term on software features alone
“Features can be copied, and you can't win in this market solely on the basis of features.”
Monegro: Governance power increases in value as crypto networks grow larger
“And my belief is that as the game becomes more valuable, then the power to change the rules becomes more valuable as well.”
Monegro: Rough consensus governance only works well for small stakeholder groups
“And my take on it is rough consensus works well when you're small and when the number of stakeholders is fairly small.”
Monegro: On-Chain Governance Criticisms Rely on Primitive Linear Voting Assumptions
“I think a lot of arguments against on-chain governance are kind of primitive in their thinking around how is that governance applied. One common element of a lot of the counter arguments is the assumption that governance power is linear and one token equals on…”
Monegro: Investing directly in crypto assets beats traditional startup equity
“We bonded over our shared belief that the most interesting place to invest in was in the assets themselves and the crypto assets that were being created with blockchains as opposed to companies.”
Monegro: Traditional VCs must hire crypto specialists or fall behind
“And so for existing VCs that are moving into a space, they either have to recruit people that are going to spend all of their time in this market learning about this market, or they're going to have a tough time catching up.”
Monegro: ICO fever diminished in 2018 due to regulatory interest
“I think we've seen ICOs or ICO fever really diminish as the year has gone by. I think we're getting to a healthier place, and largely due to the increased interest from regulators in the space. I think that's been very positive.”
Monegro: Layer 1 executes machine work while Layer 2 handles human work
“Layer one is more machine work and layer two is more human work.”
Monegro: Blockchains challenge tech's proprietary data model like Linux disrupted software
“Right on schedule we get the arrival of a new open technology, which are blockchains that directly challenge The proprietary data business model, just as the internet and Linux challenged the proprietary software and distribution business model.”
Monegro: Big Tech will not be affected by crypto in short term
“So the companies that I mentioned, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, they're incredible. And will continue to be for quite some time. It's not like they're going to be affected by the rise of crypto in the short term.”
Monegro: Regulatory clarity is required before institutional capital enters crypto
“I think we're going to see more of those this year, but ultimately, I think that before Before institutional capital can really rush in, we're going to need more clarity from the regulatory side.”
Monegro: Placeholder is prioritizing crypto infrastructure investments over application layers
“We focus on our thesis, so we believe that we're at a stage now where infrastructure is particularly important because there's a lot of building blocks for Crypto applications that don't exist yet, and so things like file storage and networking and things like…”
The other half of the tape: Joel Monegro's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Jonathan Libov 1
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tap a year for its mentions
20VC 1
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Joel's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founding Partner, Placeholder | 1 | 12 | 50% 1/2 | full record on 20VC → |
 a16zLEDGER | Founding Partner, Placeholder | 1 | 9 | — | full record on the a16z Podcast → |