Insight
Samani: Fundamental long-term crypto investors should reject mean reversion on principle
“I reject kind of the notion of mean reversion as a point of principle, given our mandate to be long-term fundamental investors.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Samani: Long-term technical and social gravity trends toward one single chain
“Given both the explicit technical costs and then the softer, squishier social developer experience costs, I think gravity trends towards one chain.”
Insight
Samani: Global retail risk tolerance for software exceeds traditional investor beliefs
“Risk tolerance specifically for early stage software things among the global retail populace is much higher than I think traditional capital markets investors acknowledge or recognize because everyone wants to be a VC, especially for consumer products.”
Assertion Supported
Samani: Multi-chain architectures inherently increase total computation and latency
“There's at a minimum two explicit costs and secondary and tertiary costs as well, but the two explicit costs are you are increasing the total amount of computation to be done because you're having to verify signatures on at least two chains or two places as op…”
Opinion
Samani: The concept of network effects is overused and misunderstood
“I find that network effects, the term on the internet is like way overused. And even when it is used, the implications of how it's being used are mostly incorrect.”
Disclosure
Samani: Multicoin deliberately operates at an 'underwater' pace to move fast
“It's much less common to see that, I'd say, among investors. It's certainly been very helpful for us in just making sure we move fast, keeping the pace of the firm moving, as people who work here will tell you. A lot of things are going on when it kind of feel…”
Insight
Samani: Market timing is the hardest risk for venture investors
“The one that I would say we consistently struggle with the most, and I think most other VCs also probably struggle with the most is timing. Being too early is always painful. It sucks being too late. It's usually easier to tell if you're too late than it is to…”
Insight
Samani: In-kind distributions maximize tax efficiency for venture LPs
“The other really amazing benefit of that is that it's also the most tax efficient way to invest because you don't incur taxable hits. And we also then, at least in our venture funds can make in-kind distributions as well. And so that passes through all the way…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Samani: General education remains crypto's hardest challenge over five years
“Arguably the hardest thing to do in the space over the last five years and probably over the next five is just general education.”
Disclosure
Samani: Multicoin requires a 10-to-20-year macro compounding thesis
“I have a kind of a rule with anything we invest in that the time horizon, again, it should be able to compound indefinitely. Not that it necessarily has to, but at the time of entry, we need to believe that 10 to 20 years from now, there are still broad based …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Samani: Crypto projects effectively go public at the Series A stage
“If you look at capital markets in the last 10 years, excluding crypto, probably the most important Thing, or one of the most important things has been the private companies are staying private a lot longer before going public. And all of that wealth creation i…”
Prediction Held up
Samani: Crypto markets will inevitably experience 50% to 85% drawdowns again
“Stuff in crypto Has over the last 10 years gone down 50 to 85%. It's happened many times. I think it will happen again.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Samani: The vast majority of crypto token founders are first-time launchers
“Almost no one has launched a second token. The number of people who have already launched a single token and gone through that cycle is extremely low. And therefore the vast majority of people who launch tokens, it's their first time to launch one.”
Disclosure
Samani: Multicoin underwrote its Helium investment assuming the corporate entity disappears
“We underwrote the investment assuming that Helium Inc. Goes away. Not to say that they will, but the entire system is open source. The hardware, the software, the antennas, the specs for integrating the SDK into Third-party hardware, the blockchain, everything…”
Assertion Partly supported
Samani: The 2017 Gnosis ICO raised $12 million in 30 seconds
“Actually, no, I think it was the Gnosis ICO, which was in like May fifth or May 10th or something of 2017, but it was in early May. And that was at that point, probably a 10th legit ICO. At that point, I remember I was tagging with Tushar, and they brought twe…”
Disclosure
Samani: Multicoin Capital has guided founders through 30 to 50 token launches
“We have gone through that process and that experience, 30, 40, 50 times.”
What-if
Samani: He would not have built Pristine if he studied hardware history
“I was way over indexing on the iPhone and the iPad, which were the two most recent ones and what turned out to be two of the most exceptional ones. And not appreciating how difficult it is to do new form factors and not looking at the Newton and a bunch of oth…”
