The crypto world VC is still here, but the golden age has long gone.

An article titled “The VC in the Crypto World is Almost Gone” has triggered a bunch of VCs to show their report cards, claiming they are still doing well. However, looking at the Portfolio they displayed, I can't help but laugh. These uplifting words seem more like the final struggle of a drowning person:

1) The mainstream investment form of VC has shifted from equity investment to coin-equity parity, then to complete coin rights, and now unfortunately back to the equity stage.

The equity investment cycle is too long, and LPs can't wait; tokenization also faces the risk of a sell-off upon unlocking, and the market is not convinced; returning to equity is in line with Wall Street's narrative of compliance, but the way forward is unknown.

It's been four years, and the VCs haven't found a single sustainable investment model.

2. Top VCs like a16z, Paradigm, YZI, and others are just golden brands.

They can get the best terms, the lowest prices, and earlier exit opportunities. Most small and medium-sized VCs rely on follow-up investments and are treated as exit buyers by large institutions.

So, the decentralized VC organizations have instead evolved into a relatively centralized power structure, resulting in the emergence of a so-called game manifestation of the rigid hierarchy where Eastern and Western VCs do not take over from each other.

The emergence of issues such as collective gathering, high FDV, and peak opening leading to the helpless “exit” problem, praise and criticism, destruction…

3) Most VC are just “big leeks”; the saying is rough but the reasoning is sound, basically relying on the diversity of the Portfolio to gamble on probabilities.

If 1-2 projects can succeed out of 10, is that considered successful? This is not an investment strategy, this is just gambling.

Even if it hits, the long unlocking time almost erodes the profits, so it is necessary to combine and act as a market maker, relying on secondary market operations to survive.

But is this still “investment”?

4) VC should help projects complete the cold start from 0 to 1, providing funding, resources, and endorsement.

But now, the internalization of exchanges, the industrial assembly line of on-chain launchpads, and the marginalization of technical narratives are all diluting the value of VC.

The trend is already very clear, the market is looking for a possibility that does not require VC. The question is, without the cold start support provided by VCs, how much real value, iterability, and high growth can a frenzied community hot start bring to blue-chip projects.

In the short term, VC cannot leave the historical stage.

5. In the past, VCs provided funding to accompany project teams, only to find them too slow and inexperienced; later, VCs started planning narratives and providing post-investment services to help project teams, but were criticized for forming cliques; yet even so, the result was still that a portion of the portfolio ran (rug) away, turning towards the AI trenches, claiming that the crypto bubble was too large. Is this a valid reason?

There’s no way around it, lacking mature and viable business models, with no positive externalities, the existence of VC in the crypto world is perhaps just that of a backstop, which retail investors are also happy to see.

The game rules of this market are undergoing tremendous changes, and the VC that pushed the industry to its peak during the last cycle is the original sin of this cycle.

Above.

Is there no more VC in the crypto world?

There is still, but that golden age of making money while lying down and getting rich just by casually investing is indeed gone forever.