After three years at Multicoin, this is how I feel about "call king" Kyle announcing his retirement from the scene

Author: mable.sol （Former Multicoin Capital Partner Mable Jiang）

Compiled by: Ken, Chaincatcher

Everyone can only excel at one game. You should spend half your time figuring out what game you excel at, and the other half fully focused on playing it well.

Kyle Samani knows exactly what his game is.

His strategy is to first conceive a theory, then look for suitable projects—and persistently wait for the theory to be validated (while occasionally reassessing whether the theory still holds). In building "on-chain Nasdaq" using Solana, he saw this argument from the very beginning (even though Solana is still far from this vision, that is not the point), and executed this strategy by leading multiple rounds of financing—even participating in discounted OTC rounds long after the SOL mainnet testnet went live. He has done everything he can to facilitate the development of Solana.

His core game lies in finding asymmetric opportunities, that is, non-consensus bets. Haseeb is right: no one may be better at this than Kyle.

People question why Multicoin has not captured any leading projects or related infrastructure for decentralized exchanges of perpetual contracts in this cycle. No one knows better than I do that Multicoin was a staunch bull on decentralized exchanges of perpetual contracts long before anything existed in this cycle. Even before many in the industry understood how central limit order books worked—you would be surprised, but this is indeed the case, as many of us were initially cypherpunks before adapting to become trading experts (laughs). Multicoin has studied basically every decentralized exchange for perpetual contracts and analyzed the trade-offs involved. There have been many relevant blog posts about the design space and why certain designs are better—you can find them at multicoin.capital.

So why did they "miss" it? Because decentralized exchanges of perpetual contracts and on-chain liquidity—these are no longer non-consensus bets. Of course, they still have tremendous growth potential. But consensus bets hold no appeal for Kyle. That was never his game.

Moreover, for a fund, the goal is to make money for limited partners. Therefore, managing a fund in a conventional manner is no longer the game Kyle wants to focus on. Running a data-driven company might be of interest to him—something that no one has ever successfully done before (if you're interested, you might want to listen to the podcast episode I did with him on FWRD). There are still many asymmetric opportunities in the world waiting to be discovered. Kyle knows what his game is, so he has decided to focus on playing the game he excels at and is interested in.

No one needs to worry about who will turn to other fields. When you know what your game is, you should focus on playing it well and aiming to win. Winning itself is not the entire purpose, but devising a winning strategy is part of the game experience.

Many people worry about what Multicoin would be like without Kyle. But I am not worried because I know the opportunities in front of all of us are precisely where Tushar, Brian, Spencer, Shayon, Vishal, Matt, Greg, and the rest of the team excel: on-chain trading, artificial intelligence, and compliance. As long as the team focuses on playing this game correctly, it remains at the top of the industry.

For me, I have been a doer for almost four years. Looking back, my time at Multicoin was unique—having intense debates with Kyle in investment committee meetings, exchanging strategic ideas with Tushar, and exploring the design space of many things with every member of the investment committee. I know I cannot be as excellent as any of them, but I have also found my passion and my own area of expertise.

For Kyle, the dream of Web3 has turned into a cold ledger. For me, in this highly commoditized world, these ledgers embody real value transfer. When all other filtering mechanisms fail completely, money becomes the only relatively scarce resource in the world that can express opinions—and in the near future, even money itself may not count as such. That is why I am building an asset generation protocol (@trendsdotfun).

He and I never needed to agree on what game to play. But we sincerely wish each other well and will cheer for each other from the sidelines.

Life is only lived once, so focus on the game you excel at.

I may just be playing a game, but I play to win.

Relax, but don’t slack off.