Catrina

How I Source & How We Invest I get asked these questions a lot and figure putting this out in the open can help save everyone's time. 1. We only lead/co-lead and exclusively focus on the first round/pre-seed 2. I read all deal-related DM on here on X & LinkedIn. You don't need to get an intro through a mutual to reach me. Yes cold DM here works: some of my favorite portfolio companies were actually from cold DM on X/LinkedIn. I don't read cold emails as much. 3. I (ofc) will respond if it could be a fit for us. 4. The best format to DM is: blurb on what you are building + why + who you are (add LinkedIn/X) Nothing is too early: it's okay if you don't have a deck or website. What we look for is the right founder with the right insights in net-new sectors. 5. One per category: once we invest, we are all in to support the company for their entire lifecycle — the main reason we don't back competitors. 6. What we look for: weird stuff that I haven't heard of or thought of before. Or, to put it more bookishly, "disruptive" versus "sustaining" innovation per The Innovator's Dilemma. 7. I don't take calls lightly because founders' time is as valuable as my own. I rarely get on calls just out of curiosity—that's a waste of everyone's energy. Hope this helps clarify things. Will add to this thread as more come up

Is a generalizable L1 still investable in 2026? Moderated a debate at the @SeliniCapital Summit on one of the most contentious topics in crypto. Proposition for “L1s are still investable” are @PrimordialAA of @L1Fxyz and @zaheerebtikar of @Plasma; opposition are @santiagoroel and @YanLiberman of @Delphi_Digital. The opposition team won by just a smidge - but the topic prob deserves much deeper mindshare. If I were to architect a longer session, it’d be to answer each of the questions 1. Do L1s deserve a different valuation rubric from DeFi (mostly on financials) to capture “qualitative” fundamentals such as security, culture/community, privacy, censorship resistance, etc.? 2. Does a chain have value if it’s widely used but practically free? Sure, TCP/IP never had a value accrual mechanism — but if there were a TCP/IP token, would it trade at 0? 3. Do we still have a revenue hockey-stick story for L1s? Are we still early or at this point it's hopium 4. Is the “crypto premium” here to stay, or valuation converging with public equities? If so, let alone L1s, what else are investable in crypto outside of high-velocity defi? 5. Will generalizable L1s survive the increasing app-chain / verticalized-chain meta? 6. Who and where are the net-new buyers of L1 tokens? And of course, a phenomenal summit as usual ⚡️

@Web3Marmot Yup

🚨 STRC IS NEXT BLACK SWAN FOR BITCOIN Saylor's STRC just crashed to record low $82. 18% drop in days. But almost nobody sees what's coming next. Now Saylor's Ponzi could destroy Bitcoin. Here's why: He promised investors 11.5% dividends. Now the structure is breaking. On June 30 he faces a critical deadline. To defend STRC's $100 peg, he'll be forced to raise dividends or borrow more. Both options require massive cash. And the only quick source left is selling Bitcoin. Last time he sold $2M worth, Bitcoin dropped 20%. Now imagine what happens when he needs to sell billions. Saylor says his $55B Bitcoin stash can cover it for 32 years. But the market simply doesn't believe him. That’s why $STRC is trading at such a deep discount. And this is the real irony: Saylor admitted he built this entire complex debt structure with ChatGPT. A multi-billion dollar leveraged pyramid, designed by AI. And we all know the kind of garbage AI can produce. This is no longer “HODL”. MicroStrategy is turning from Bitcoin’s biggest buyer into one of its biggest risks. When it collapses, it won’t just take down $STRC. It will drag Bitcoin with it. Remember, I've called every major turn for the last 10 years, including short BTC from $111K in October and Saylor's sell-off before they happened. The next call will be bigger. Watch closely. Turn on notifications. Most people will follow too late. Don't be one of them.

Ouch

@QinRuixian 👀

Basic body language reading is perhaps one of the highest-leverage skills in biz for conversion - or at the very minimum, make sure your arent annoying your investor/customer/partner. It amazes me how oblivious people are to the most obvious signs from their audience that they're talking TOO MUCH. Some of the easiest tells on zoom calls: /They get it — move on to your next point -> A short "yup" before you finish your sentence. -> Fast nods. Not slow nods—fast ones usually mean you're belaboring the point. /They want you to stop talking -> Fast blinking. You are boring them. They want to get out but cant. When people are focused, their blink slow way down -> Lip compression / pressed lips. They want to react to what you just said but you're not giving them the chance. -> The gasp "O" — mouth slightly open, ready to speak means they want the floor now. You're welcome.

The biggest mistake first-time founders make is wasting first impressions too early. What do I mean by that? I had a pre-seed portfolio company ask for an intro to QED during their pre-seed round because they thought it'd be helpful to have them as a potential Series A lead. This is just wrong. You are wasting your first impression and it's very hard to reverse. The expectations of a Series A investor are night and day from where you are at pre-seed, with far less tolerance for "we're still figuring it out" compared to 1st-check writer like myself. You're raising a pre-seed round for a reason: you need time, reps, and trial-and-error to grow into a more mature company. Sure, you can argue that you can follow up later and show your growth. But why start from a deficit? Here are your two options: Option A (I always advise against): -> Meet your headline-name/mega VC (think Ribbit a16z) too early -> They're underwhelmed because they're used to the quality and maturity of founders at Series A+ -> You are now stuck with a mediocre impression that you need to reverse -> It's an uphill battle—you may not even get a follow-up call because 1. They are no longer as curious because they've met you (prematurely) and werent impressed. 2. There are infinite other founders they could be "first-time curious" to give time to instead. I've just seen too many "oh ya I've met this founder before - will pass" Option B: Just wait. Grow into your Series A maturity. Then meet them for the first time. You pick.

@klimonchain AB testing 2.0

@dotcuriouscat meanwhile Im still tryna figure out A and B info overload on my end

Here's a question I get a lot: how I filter signal from the noise as an investor in crypto. This clip covers my mental model - TLDR: think about why anyone uses anything in CRYPTO. A. Because it makes them money B. Because it's useful Of course, A and B are not mutually exclusive and will become intertwined as a company grows. To HYPE's credit, it actually is a quintessential example of a company that makes users money AND is better than the alternatives. My personal preference is always to back type B businesses - they just have so much more "internal" locus of control over their success - hear me out. When you are building in A, you'd be benchmarked against very QUANTITATIVE measures like: - Who generates the highest yield (what happened to USDe) - Who offers the widest array of assets (these "trade everything" apps) - Who can give the highest notional airdrop (how Lighter poached users) - Who has the deepest liquidity (Jupiter vs. other DEX on SOL) Inevitably, your users will be mercenary and will pull their liquidity once you fall short on the above quantitative measures. A classic Bertrand-style market. Of course there are still sustainable moats to be had, like trust, lindyness, culture/cultship, and UX to help retain users. But ultimately, no matter how sleek your UI is or how over-the-top your branding is, your TVL will fall off a cliff if you fail to meet the high-yield expectations of your users (think USDe). When you are building in B, there are two paths: 1. Make it new: create a new market/product by using crypto as a technological catalyst. Example here are - @Polymarket @Kalshi as new categories - What we call "latent market play" like @uraniumdigital_ building a tokenized spot market and enabling derivatives for uranium that just didn't exist before - Perps as a financial product that wasn't possible before 2. Make it better: build an alternative to what's dysfunctional today. Think stablecoins (a better alternative to fiat), DePIN (a cheaper alternative to centralized providers), etc. Instead of A businesses spending their time begging whales to supply TVL and worrying about competitors vampire attacking them, B businesses tend to have much higher pricing power and durability because they compete on superior functionality and product merit. Their success drivers are much more QUALITATIVE (functionality, novelty, GTM & distribution, and user experience) than QUANTITATIVE (yield, incentives, and economic optimization for much more mercenary customers). To know if you are building in A vs. B, just ask yourself this question: If financial incentives disappeared tomorrow, would users still show up?

@milesgr_ Maybe it’s just me but whether someone follow up has little to zero bearing on how much I like a deal But speed matters in DD process

@dotcuriouscat the 'founders that haunt you' rule has selection bias tho. strong follow-up and brand-building keep founders in your head whether or not the underlying quality is there honestly

A trap for investors after a deal call is getting sucked into a founder’s projection. Intuition is an unspoken gift of some of the most goated early-stage VCs in history. But that same gift also makes them susceptible to mistaking a founder’s infectious earnestness for their own conviction. The cure is forcing at least a 24–48 hour cooldown period and letting the analytical mind step in. Often, the calm mind talks you out of the deal. But the best founders haunt you. For days, weeks, months — sometimes even after you initially passed. When you can’t stop thinking about it, just do it.

@liquidated_hl Only all the time

@dotcuriouscat Have you had any regrets before? Like 3 am self reflection? 😂or whatever that sort of thing entails

@liquidated_hl Nothing - and no regret either

@dotcuriouscat And what do you do when it fails

@ATH1001 @Saram_ath Not 80 yet 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Saram_ath @dotcuriouscat update?

Look Catrina - it aged like milk in a Dubai summer. $HYPE won't do 2x? Correct, more like 10x. Your sell pressure math assumes team behavior = VC behavior. No VCs. No dump pressure. 99% of all trading fees flow into the Assistance Fund - bought back +$1.16B already. The unlock you are worried about has a $1B natural buyer built into the protocol.

@StealthQE4 x.com/dotcuriouscat/…

This is awesome. PTJ is a legend. Beware of all of these IPO’s that are coming. Exit liquidity. Unprecedented times

@liquidated_hl To first know what you want.

@dotcuriouscat How do you start

The key to achieving anything you want in life is to increase your own gravity. Like a black hole — when you are dense enough in knowledge, confidence, self-belief, and kindness, your gravity draws everything effortlessly. Do the hard work. Do the inner work. Let the universe bend to you.

@CurtisCrimmins love this!

My mom was fired from her hotel housekeeping job in 1998, and we ended up living in her car. What did she do wrong? Missed work due to my grandmother’s untimely death at 54. Brutal. I was 10 years old and I told her I was going to own hotels of my own someday and that I’d never treat my people like that. That I was going to get back at those people who mistreated her by exposing them. Then, in the back of her leaky, rusty, Toyota I promised her a new car in the same breath. Delusional. Today Roomza.com tracks hotel room quality data for more than 6,000 hotels. My mom has stayed in hotels I owned, and here’s the new car I bought her for Mother’s Day. Like I said… delusional, but possible.

The alpha in venture is an investor’s ability to spot a founder on a revenge arc Explosive success comes from accumulation in discomfort, extreme life imbalance, and “beast in a cage” energy Then sprinkle some delusions on top - you got my favorite founder type

@degenrsc "chip on shoulder put chips in pocket"

@dotcuriouscat Is that so? All of them have chips on their shoulders?

@mjzellinger Even better! Soft is mid

@dotcuriouscat A revenge arc? How about a destruction arc??? You guys are way too soft for the harsh coldness of reality!

@MaksimXBT Hence you gotta sprinkle not pour