Details
Mason is an Investment Partner at Variant. Prior to joining Variant, Mason was a Sr. Research Analyst at Messari focused on Web3 protocols and cryptoassets. Before Messari, Mason worked at ConsenSys as a Content Marketer focused on marketing strategy for ConsenSys and its portfolio companies. Mason first entered the crypto industry as an Analyst at Gatecoin, the first cryptocurrency exchange to list ether, Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency. Mason obtained his Master’s in Business Management at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Work Experience
Education Experience
Investments
- 1
Relevance Person
Terry Rossi
Terry Rossi is the Co-Founder & CEO at Woah. Previously, he was the investment director of Blockchange Ventures, a founding team member of Tachyon Accelerator, and an investment analyst at ConsenSys. He holds a BA in Computer Science from Princeton University.
Namik Muduroglu
Namik was an investor at Hypersphere Ventures, an early-stage venture fund leveraging on-chain treasuries, decentralized organizations, and governance to increase the utility of blockchain networks in which they invest.
Sami Kassab
Sami Kassab is a partner at OSS Capital and was previously a Senior Research Analyst at Messari. He graduated from Arizona State University.
John Mardlin
John Mardlin, Jon Maurelian is Security engineer at Optimism PBC, and a founding member of ConsenSys Diligence. He is a regular writer and speaker on smart contract security. Prior to joining ConsenSys, John worked at Coinbase.
Praneeth Srikanti
Praneeth Srikanti is the Investment Partner & Co-founder at Ethereal Ventures and former Investment Principal at ConsenSys Ventures.
Ken Yip
Ken Yip is Director of product at Messari. He graduated from Cardiff University in England.
Geoff Hamilton
Geoff is an Investment Research Partner at Variant, where he focuses primarily on DeFi. Prior to joining Variant, Geoff spent 15 years investing in private and public companies. During that time, helped start and grow five investment firms, including Askesis Capital, Dayah Capital, Sachem Head Capital Management, and Conatus Capital. Before that, Geoff worked at Bain Capital and Bain & Company and studied Economics at Harvard.
Alana Levin
Alana is an Investment Partner at Variant Fund. Her initial interest in crypto stemmed from a broader interest in public goods and financial regulatory policy– she spent a summer at the SEC and graduated summa cum laude with degrees in Finance & Public Policy from Wharton. Alana’s interest in crypto has since evolved to focus primarily on token design, governance structures, scaling costs, and privacy mechanics. She often writes about these concepts on her Substack, Back-of-the-Envelope, and on her Mirror profile. Prior to Variant, Alana worked as a consultant at BCG. In her free time, Alana enjoys running, writing, kayaking, and exploring old bookstores and cafés.
Li Jin
Li Jin is the co-founder of Variant Fund and the founder of Atelier Ventures. Prior to that, Li Jin was a partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
Derek Walkush
Derek is an Investment Research Partner at Variant. He got interested in crypto in late 2020 around DeFi summer after conducting high level research on blockchain as an analyst in Georgetown’s student-run hedge fund. Looking to learn more about the space, Derek interned at Accolade Partners, which launched one of the first institutional crypto fund of funds. His interest and conviction only seemed to grow; he soon dove into the on-chain world and became a part-time contributor at Index Coop and AladdinDAO; he was recently elected to Aladdin’s research council where he pitches stable farming strategies. After teaching himself SQL and working as an analyst for a project finance startup, Derek began writing for Spencer’s newsletter, OurNetwork, applying his interest in data querying and fundamentals analysis. Realizing the generational opportunity in front of him, Derek left Georgetown to join the team full-time in June 2022. His primary research interests are on-chain data analytics and token distribution. In his free time, Derek enjoys working out (former D1 rower), 90s movies, cooking, and traveling.