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💫Matthew Buxton
32.8K posts
💫Matthew Buxton
@BuxtonMatthew
Founder @WarpGameCHAIN 💫 built games you definitely played.
Stockholm, Sweden Katılım Ocak 2021
2.4K Takip Edilen8.2K Takipçiler
I have a proposal that will positively put you to sleep.
I will explain the intricacies of UA funding for games in laborious detail and how my team of ancient storied games execs laboriously built three pillars of a business that will completely sidestep it with regulatory compliant revenue sharing to end users of the products being marketed so we can scale up carefully over 5 years and make billions in the process.
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Honestly I don’t think we need net new things…. We need to do more boring things.
Most things needed for consumers and business have been built in crypto but not adapted to where the value moves today
Stop nerdsniping, pick something boring to revolutionize and build a massive sales org
Innovation has been created, now do the boring side of sales, regulation and adoption.
Richard Chen@richardchen39
Hot take: There isn’t lack of VC money in crypto. In fact I’d argue there’s still oversupply of capital. What’s lacking is courage. Courage to build something that defines a new unproven category. Right now I’m mostly seeing copycats chasing what’s already working. But no one cares about the 69th prediction market, 69th yield vault, 69th stablecoin neobank, etc. Polymarket, Morpho, Redotpay, etc. won because they were early to new categories before they became obvious.
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Who has time to write full on decks and get them arted up whilst running a startup?
Tbh I’m just tempted to let Claude go at it for 15 mins from the numbers.
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@jbrukh It’s like being a farmer. But with money.
Lots of waiting,
Apply pesticides/ restructure a board
Continue waiting.
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@mizzysworld - Millennials, grew up while privacy existed
- Gen Z, grew up while independent thought existed.
We’re cooked 😂
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When we launched our 1st fund it was a similar time as now.
FTX just declared bankruptcy, prices were horrendously down, and everyone thought our industry was dead.
The founders with the most grit and conviction were forged and we are proud to back them, a just a few from those days.
@gdog97_ from @ethena
@keoneHD from @monad
@Teknium from @NousResearch
@Nick_van_Eck from @withAUSD
@ZachBruch from @myprizeus
@joshua_j_lim from @Arbelosxyz
@alexocheema from @exolabs
@santiagoroel from @inversion_cap
and so many more from our portfolio.
We currently have more dry powder than we've ever had and we're excited to partner with founders that are here building now while its hard.
@breed_vc is ready for the next wave.
Tom Dunleavy@dunleavy89
The shift in the crypto fundraising landscape the past 6 months has been insane. Crypto VCs used to have to constantly be networking/writing/podcasting/going on spaces/promoting your thesis/getting on 10 deal flow calls a week, to get into good deals...now it's literally enough to just have capital to write checks. Deals are being pushed rather than dug out. Inbound if people know you have money is at an all-time high. Most firms are either 1) Out of money 2) Moved to Series A and beyond or 3) Fundraising (with no success). Deals that used to close in 2-3 weeks now close in 2-3 months. Firms with questionable business models or copy pasta of the latest trend are getting zero primary or follow-on funding (Good news!). There are now realistically <20 firms writing checks in pre-seed/seed. VCs basically have the pick of any deal they want, with more time to do DD. IMHO 25/26 are going to be historic vintages for those who stick around.
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@CryptoPulse9 @MikeZajko I just ask Claude to make a deck from our data room and send that.
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@BuxtonMatthew @MikeZajko I have two slides that say:
THIS SLIDE WAS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
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@0xNexi It’s all about weighing the founders jewelry.
If it weighs above like 5g your investment is gone.
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This post got pretty much every top crypto VC saying they’re deploying
Imo this cycle isn’t about capital or even the number of projects
It’s natural fewer VCs are active right now, but the capital is still there and accessible
The most important thing rn is execution from these teams
Building something that survives is the hardest part
Tom Dunleavy@dunleavy89
The shift in the crypto fundraising landscape the past 6 months has been insane. Crypto VCs used to have to constantly be networking/writing/podcasting/going on spaces/promoting your thesis/getting on 10 deal flow calls a week, to get into good deals...now it's literally enough to just have capital to write checks. Deals are being pushed rather than dug out. Inbound if people know you have money is at an all-time high. Most firms are either 1) Out of money 2) Moved to Series A and beyond or 3) Fundraising (with no success). Deals that used to close in 2-3 weeks now close in 2-3 months. Firms with questionable business models or copy pasta of the latest trend are getting zero primary or follow-on funding (Good news!). There are now realistically <20 firms writing checks in pre-seed/seed. VCs basically have the pick of any deal they want, with more time to do DD. IMHO 25/26 are going to be historic vintages for those who stick around.
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@brettcalhounn VCs out here now one upping each other with how much danger they’re prepared to invest.
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Most founders pitch their market size.
The best ones pitch a market that doesn't yet exist - AND explain why they're the ones to create it.
Big difference.
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@CrimsonsGirl Hahah that’s genius.
Ngl. This applies to like 95% of the trash talkers in this space.
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@BuxtonMatthew I'm probably gonna fall lower in the algo after last night.
Called some dude who was being a piece of 💩 a "pizza cutter" because he was all edge and no point. 🤣
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MFW absolutely no one sees your posts.
No Japanese people, no crypto people, no games people, it’s like shouting into the void.
Even I don’t see my own replies on my own page..
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@krate27 Not investing in founders who wear chrome hearts would be a start.
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Because this blew up, let's talk to the founders.
Founders, what is it that you think VCs should fix from your experiences?
I'll document the answers and tag every VC to make them hear you.
Tom Dunleavy@dunleavy89
The shift in the crypto fundraising landscape the past 6 months has been insane. Crypto VCs used to have to constantly be networking/writing/podcasting/going on spaces/promoting your thesis/getting on 10 deal flow calls a week, to get into good deals...now it's literally enough to just have capital to write checks. Deals are being pushed rather than dug out. Inbound if people know you have money is at an all-time high. Most firms are either 1) Out of money 2) Moved to Series A and beyond or 3) Fundraising (with no success). Deals that used to close in 2-3 weeks now close in 2-3 months. Firms with questionable business models or copy pasta of the latest trend are getting zero primary or follow-on funding (Good news!). There are now realistically <20 firms writing checks in pre-seed/seed. VCs basically have the pick of any deal they want, with more time to do DD. IMHO 25/26 are going to be historic vintages for those who stick around.
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@SommerChase @0xdasha You now got a lil bro on a 9 month cliff, fully vested.
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@0xdasha Categorically false.
I deployed into your mom a ton of funds last night
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to be clear, not a single crypto vc is deploying any capital right now, and in fact they can't raise any money themselves. a lot of smaller vcs have gone bust or failed to raise another fund. this coordinated public theater is just cheap PR for posterity in case we ever come back
Tom Dunleavy@dunleavy89
The shift in the crypto fundraising landscape the past 6 months has been insane. Crypto VCs used to have to constantly be networking/writing/podcasting/going on spaces/promoting your thesis/getting on 10 deal flow calls a week, to get into good deals...now it's literally enough to just have capital to write checks. Deals are being pushed rather than dug out. Inbound if people know you have money is at an all-time high. Most firms are either 1) Out of money 2) Moved to Series A and beyond or 3) Fundraising (with no success). Deals that used to close in 2-3 weeks now close in 2-3 months. Firms with questionable business models or copy pasta of the latest trend are getting zero primary or follow-on funding (Good news!). There are now realistically <20 firms writing checks in pre-seed/seed. VCs basically have the pick of any deal they want, with more time to do DD. IMHO 25/26 are going to be historic vintages for those who stick around.
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@BuxtonMatthew yes good for them, that’s the better route anyway👍💪🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
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I’m also happy to say that i’ve had like 50 founders dm me with their ideas over the past 24 hours
I have only heard ONE good idea
everyone else is an absolute morons and not going anywhere in life
Shill me more, will publicly roast
zam@zamdoteth
I want to be crystal clear If you’re unable to raise capital, you’re a LOSER and NOT trying hard enough It’s bad enough that you’re POOR and need other people money(low T) But you don’t even have enough SWAGGER to make people give you money Power to the builders
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@zamdoteth Absolute losers, Jesus.
Good job they’re fully bootstrapped then and don’t pitch.
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Seeing a wave of tweets claiming crypto VCs aren’t deploying.
From our side, not much has changed. Alliance runs three batches a year and backs ~75–100 teams annually.
What has changed is VC behavior. A small subset of funds remain aggressive, but the majority feel more passive, taking meetings and staying warm without deploying with the same conviction as before.
If I had to guess why, crypto as a VC category generated strong and obvious returns in its early and middle cycles, which drove focused attention on finding fund returners. Today, that attention has shifted to AI, which is capturing a disproportionate share of attention, outcomes, and talent.
Talent begets liquidity and drives capital inflows, and I believe the talent pendulum is slowly swinging back toward crypto with the success of Hyperliquid, Polymarket, Rain, Fomo, Pump, Aave and many others.
My view is that crypto has several broad narratives that make it easier for generalists to understand and invest in, such as prediction markets, stablecoins, tokenization, and fintech infrastructure. This, in my view, means crypto is being absorbed into broader tech, and many previously crypto specific funds will evolve into generalists.
Both crypto and AI are becoming layers within startups rather than standalone categories, so focusing on just one may be limiting for larger funds. However, every time it feels like crypto is over, a startup emerges that returns 100x and becomes the golden child of the next cycle. This is why I continue to believe the best domain focused crypto VCs will capture the outliers and not get swayed by public sentiment.
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enough with the crypto VC "we're deploying" shit
honestly looks pretty retarded ngl
to fellow founders & builders:
remember VCs don't give two f*cks if you're not ready and your product DOESN'T exist
yes, they're deploying but they're also cautious than ever before. their due diligence is atleast 2 months now and your deck is competing with 10x stronger pitches
and if you don't have a live product AND don't have enough traction, there are high chances (>90%) you'll be passed on or worse simply ghosted
Tom Dunleavy@dunleavy89
The shift in the crypto fundraising landscape the past 6 months has been insane. Crypto VCs used to have to constantly be networking/writing/podcasting/going on spaces/promoting your thesis/getting on 10 deal flow calls a week, to get into good deals...now it's literally enough to just have capital to write checks. Deals are being pushed rather than dug out. Inbound if people know you have money is at an all-time high. Most firms are either 1) Out of money 2) Moved to Series A and beyond or 3) Fundraising (with no success). Deals that used to close in 2-3 weeks now close in 2-3 months. Firms with questionable business models or copy pasta of the latest trend are getting zero primary or follow-on funding (Good news!). There are now realistically <20 firms writing checks in pre-seed/seed. VCs basically have the pick of any deal they want, with more time to do DD. IMHO 25/26 are going to be historic vintages for those who stick around.
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@HadickM I think most serious founders should already know these points through deep interaction with VCs over the last cycle or so.
TBH it’s genuinely nice to see that VCs are present still after seeing nothing but bad news about funds since 22,
It’s great. It’s refreshing.
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The discourse this weekend around venture capital, especially in crypto, broadly misses the mark. Venture capital is a marketplace, and venture capitalists sit at the center of it. Most of the conversation has missed how decisions are actually made on both sides.
I have clients — my investors (LPs). They're the ones that keep us in business and let us continue doing this job. The best VCs also have a lot of skin in the game personally, so we are our own clients too. On the other side you have startups. I have real obligations to my founders (and they know how seriously I take them), but the startups I invest in are ultimately downstream of a single premise: can I serve my clients well and make them happy?
That doesn't just mean providing good absolute returns, because that's not how clients think about the world. They care about a bunch of things, some more important than others: risk-adjusted returns, reputational risk, regulatory risk, time to liquidity, who they're invested alongside, being part of the right information flow, having exposure to the asset classes and verticals they want to talk about at parties, and being in business with people they enjoy. There are large funds we all know of that people jump at the chance to allocate to that consistently underperform competitors. That's life in a market where choices are multimodal.
So when you see data like @dunleavy89's post (x.com/dunleavy89/sta…), that doesn't tell you "people aren't deploying" — at least not in a way that's causative on its own. It tells you that clients want either less exposure or want exposure through fewer funds. Either the dollar amount they want to allocate to the space is shrinking, or they just want to allocate to higher-quality managers. In traditional VC, it's the latter. In crypto, it's both less money and fewer managers. The consolidation isn't a sign of dysfunction — it IS the market working. And that can be driven by a lot of things, but risk-adjusted returns and liquidity are the main culprits in crypto, with a side of not wanting to be associated with some of the people and events that have defined the space.
So venture capitalists, if they want to stay in business, have to make sure their strategies align with what clients want (or with what we can convince them they want). You're constantly asking yourself: am I investing in the right founders, the right asset classes, the right verticals? Am I taking the right amount of risk, investing at the right stage? VCs are rewarded for rightsizing those things to make clients happy. (There's a side conversation here about how often what makes LPs happy in the moment is not what will make them happy down the line — but that's also a decision tree for VCs.) It means you had to have exposure to stablecoins, perps, and prediction markets this cycle, even if you weren't early to the winners like some of us were. That doesn't mean you don't also fund high-conviction, low-probability, contrarian bets — but you have to earn the right to do that. A VC who takes huge contrarian swings and is wrong doesn't get to raise another fund. A VC who is boringly right and returns capital does. And contrarianism is a sliding scale - it wasn't consensus when us and FF invested in the Polymarket extension in late 23/early 24, in fact I would say most told me they didn't get it and that I was burning capital in a thing that only had PMF every four years, but it certainly wasn't THAT far out on the risk curve for a VC either. The business of venture rewards consistency more than it does heroics — and the people who get to make the big non-consensus bets are the ones who've already proven they can do that, or everything else, well.
There's also this framing (x.com/no__________en…) that the mark of a great investment is one where you wrote the first check, other funds passed, and the founder would have failed most firms' pattern match. That sounds romantic, and it is when those stories work. But the likelihood is that if a founder doesn't fit any other fund's pattern matching, it's probably not that I'm smarter than 1000 other people and just that i'm missing something. That's not always true, and I and we have invested in founders who have been overlooked by the market because we thought we had an edge, but the data shows that is more of a losing proposition than betting on the founders that are more obvious.
On the other side, you see posts like this (x.com/richardchen39/…) blaming the state of things on a lack of original ideas from founders. This also misses the point. Founders react to incentives, and those incentives are broad and complicated too: do I like working on this idea, can it attract venture capital so I have a shot, do I believe I can make this a big business, is this something I'm proud to talk about? Ambitious founders generally want to tackle big ideas with big potential payoffs, but that doesn't mean ideas need to be new or novel. The "copycat" framing is lazy — most great businesses weren't first to a category, they were best. Google wasn't the first search engine. Facebook wasn't the first social network. Redotpay hasn't built the last unicorn neobank. Morpho hasn't built the last unicorn onchain lending business. I'm sure there will continue to be meaningful innovation in prediction markets (and I say this as a longstanding Polymarket supporter). Novelty is not the only relevant variable.
Ultimately, it's just markets. Venture capitalists don't get rewarded for being contrarian. They get rewarded for being right and for providing a product that clients want, accounting for every branch of their decision tree. That might be achieved by being contrarian, but it often is not. Founders don't get rewarded for taking the biggest swings. They get rewarded for building something people want to use, that makes money, and that creates value — and they raise VC by convincing allocators they can do that.
The ideological grandstanding is just that. But in the end, it all boils down to market forces.
*And, I guess, an obligatory "our doors are always open" for founders that are consensus, contrarian, early stage, late stage, and everywhere in between.
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