Dragonfly Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi: The Top 3 Crypto Investors in My Eyes

Author: Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

Compiled by: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

LPs sometimes ask me who I think the best venture capitalist in the cryptocurrency space is.

I often ponder this question.

Since I started in cryptocurrency venture capital, I have aspired to be the best. I am driven by competition, and investing is a pure competition in itself. Ultimately, only one person can win a deal, and only one person can predict the winners of a cycle.

But when you take a serious look and analyze, you will find that three individuals have proven themselves to be the GOATs (Greatest of All Time) in cryptocurrency venture capital.

This may sound a bit off-topic (it is), and it may not be appealing to non-cryptocurrency venture capitalists. But I am one of them. So, this article is for everyone who has dedicated their life to investing in cryptocurrency.

Third Place: Dan Robinson (General Partner and Research Lead at Paradigm)

Mike Speiser, Managing Partner at Sutter Hill Ventures, incubated Snowflake and grew it into a $75 billion company, which is nothing short of legendary. It is unheard of for a venture capitalist to create such immense value for their portfolio companies.

Dan Robinson is the Mike Speiser of the cryptocurrency world.

Dan has been involved in the development of several groundbreaking companies in the cryptocurrency space time and again. He was involved from the very inception of Uniswap, co-authoring and being one of the founding members of Uniswap V3, which later became the cornerstone of on-chain spot trading. He was also an early key contributor to Flashbots, which birthed modern MEV auctions. Additionally, he was an early research contributor to Plasma (the predecessor of Rollups) and led the seed round financing for Optimism.

Dan is a true polymath. He breaks the mold of traditional venture capitalists. He started as a securities lawyer, later self-taught himself to become a protocol architect and mathematician, and now is a self-taught investor. Perhaps the smartest investment Matt Huang made was hiring Dan. We often miss out on deals because of Paradigm, as people frequently say: "Yeah, you guys are great, but sorry, I have to work with Dan."

The most formidable investors are those who do more than just invest. Dan sees the direction of the entire industry and has rolled up his sleeves multiple times to help realize it. This makes him one of the greatest investors of all time and earns him a place on the "Mount Rushmore" of cryptocurrency.

Second Place: Chris Dixon (Partner at a16z)

Chris Dixon is a veteran in the cryptocurrency space. He saw the potential of cryptocurrency earlier than anyone else. Before Chris, cryptocurrency venture capital was still a niche field.

He was the first mainstream venture capitalist to publicly enter the cryptocurrency space and bet his career on it. He was the first to bring the language of venture capital into cryptocurrency and web investing. He was also the first to introduce these concepts to Silicon Valley and its institutional LP circles. Many of the concepts we discuss internally every day are directly borrowed from Chris. It is no exaggeration to say that I am following the path that Chris originally paved for himself.

I believe Chris Dixon facilitated two of the most important deals. The first, of course, is Coinbase. In 2013, when the cryptocurrency industry was still in its infancy and everything was uncertain, Chris led the Series B funding for Coinbase. This deal perfectly exemplifies the "Dixonism"—"The smartest people do things on the weekend that everyone else will do ten years later." He foresaw the significance of this deal and then doubled down, fully committing to the entire industry. It was much harder to do what we are doing now when Chris was initially doing these things.

The second deal is Uniswap. Almost everyone who saw Uniswap's Series A funding passed on the investment (at that time, Uniswap's final valuation was only $100 million—Uniswap was still very small). At that time, we were intensely debating whether the capital efficiency of AMMs was high enough, whether there would be too much adverse selection, and whether it was easy to fork. Paradigm passed (even though they led the seed round), we passed, and as far as I know, other members of the a16z investment committee also did not want to participate in this deal.

But what about Chris? It is said that Chris said, "A smart contract that can buy and sell anything? That sounds too cool. Who knows what will happen—let's give it a try." He was right. It was indeed cool. With the advent of permissionless AMMs, all sorts of unexpected things will happen. Passing on the Series A funding taught me a profound lesson.

I disagree with a16z on many fronts. But everyone in the industry should pay genuine respect to Chris. He has single-handedly pushed the cryptocurrency industry to its current cultural status more effectively than any other venture capitalist. He has dedicated his life to promoting and legitimizing cryptocurrency in Washington, ultimately winning cultural recognition as a positive frontier technology. Much of the language we use about cryptocurrency today directly stems from Chris.

Without Chris's early strong support, cryptocurrency venture capital would not have achieved what it has today. For this, we are sincerely grateful to him.

And this leads us to the number one venture capitalist of all time…

First Place: Kyle Samani (Co-founder and Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital)

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.

I often complain about Kyle. He always annoys a lot of people—including me. It has always been this way.

But investing is like a sport. In the end, you either score or you don’t score at all.

And Kyle's score is the highest among everyone. The massive profits he gained from his seed investment in Solana, along with the effort he put into that deal, will one day be written into a book, and I will surely frown the entire time I read it.

You see, the best investors are contrarian investors. And Kyle is a true contrarian investor. Being a contrarian investor doesn’t mean you write a hot article that makes a bunch of people say, "Wow, that's smart." If everyone wants to retweet your tweet, then by definition, you are not a contrarian investor. When you annoy others, you know you are a true contrarian investor. When people think you are a fool. When they think you are burning money.

Kyle is one of the few true contrarian investors in the cryptocurrency space. I disagree with almost all of his views. But his initial investment, and his steadfast belief in holding Solana through the downturn after the FTX collapse, undoubtedly makes him one of the greatest venture capitalists in cryptocurrency history.

We often say that venture capital follows a power law. Kyle and his legendary Solana investment are the perfect illustration of this law. Sometimes, it really only takes one deal to succeed.

And that is why Kyle is the greatest cryptocurrency venture capitalist of all time.

That concludes my top three.

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LPs sometimes ask me who should be placed at the top of this list.

Although I hold myself in high regard—and I am indeed very arrogant—I do not think I belong in the top three. I am sure I can make it into the top ten, and possibly even the top five, but I certainly do not measure up to any of these three. I hope that one day, before my career ends, I can surpass them. If comparing by seasons, I do have some seasons where I performed better than each of them.

But overall? These three are the greatest of all time.

Praising competitors does not help Dragonfly. But there is a deeper meaning behind the game. You see, being an investor in this industry is very tough—most of my peers I have encountered along the way have not been able to stick it out. The competition in the cryptocurrency industry is brutal.

Even though I compete with them every day, I have great respect for them. I have witnessed their growth through the ups and downs over the past nearly ten years. We have weathered the storms of cryptocurrency together, supporting founders, supporting the industry, and helping it stand shoulder to shoulder with any other technology. As the year comes to a close, I feel it is necessary to pay tribute to them, as venture capitalists in this industry are often rarely praised.

Whether they realize it or not, each of them has done a lot for me. I have learned a great deal from each of them. I sincerely hope they feel proud of their achievements.

Dan Robinson has insight.

Chris Dixon foresaw the future.

Kyle Samani persevered.

Cheers to all of you. Here’s to an even more competitive new year.