Former Partner's Perspective on Multicoin: Kyle's Exit, But the Game He Left Behind Just Getting Started
Original Title: The game is still on, it's just not the one that Kyle likes to play
Original Author: Mable, former Partner at Multicoin Capital, now Founder of Trends
Translation: Ken, Chaincatcher
Everyone can only excel at one game. You should spend half of your time figuring out what game you excel at, and the other half fully immersed in playing it well.
Kyle Samani knows very well what his game is.
His strategy is to first conceptualize theory and then find the right project—and stick to waiting for theory validation (while occasionally assessing if the theory still holds). In terms of building the "on-chain Nasdaq" using Solana, he saw this thesis from the beginning (even though Solana is still a ways off from this vision at the moment, but that's not the point), and executed this strategy through leading multiple funding rounds—even participating in discounted off-market rounds long after SOL had launched on the mainnet. He did everything in his power to drive Solana's development.
His core game is to find asymmetric opportunities, specifically non-consensus bets. As Haseeb put it: in this regard, perhaps no one is better than Kyle.
People question why Multicoin did not capture any of the head DeFi perpetual exchange projects or related infrastructure in this cycle. No one is more aware than I am that Multicoin was already a staunch DeFi perpetual exchange bull long before anything in this cycle existed. Even before many in the industry understood how a central limit order book worked—you'd be surprised, but this is indeed true, after all, many of us were originally cypherpunks who later adapted to become trading experts (laughs). Multicoin carefully studied practically every perpetual exchange DEX and analyzed the trade-offs within them. There were many related blog posts about the design space, and why certain designs were better—you can find them on multicoin.capital.
So why did they "miss out"? Because DeFi perpetual exchange projects and on-chain liquidity—these are no longer non-consensus bets. Of course, they still have tremendous growth potential. But consensus bets are of no interest to Kyle. That was never his game.
And for a fund, the goal is to make money for limited partners. Therefore, managing a fund conservatively is no longer the game Kyle wants to focus on playing. Running a data-focused company might be what interests him — something that has never been successfully done before (if you're interested, you can probably go listen to the podcast 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 decides to focus on playing the game he excels at and is interested in.
No one needs to worry about who will pivot to another field. When you are clear about what your game is, you should focus on playing it well and aim to win. Winning itself is not the sole purpose, but devising a winning strategy is part of the gaming experience.
Many people are worried about what Multicoin would look like without Kyle. But I am not worried because I know the opportunity in front of all of us plays to the strengths of Tushar, Brian, Spencer, Shayon, Vishal, Matt, Greg, and the rest of the team: on-chain transactions, artificial intelligence, and compliance. As long as the team focuses on playing this game correctly, it will remain at the top of the industry.
For me, I have been a practitioner for almost four years now. Looking back, my time at Multicoin is unique — engaging in fierce debates with Kyle at investment committee meetings, strategic ideation sessions with Tushar, and exploring the design space of many things with every investment committee member. I know I cannot be as excellent as any of them, but I have also found my passion and my game domain.
For Kyle, the dream of Web3 has turned into a cold ledger. For me, in this highly commodified world, these ledgers embody true value transfer. When all other filtering mechanisms have completely failed, money becomes the only relatively scarce resource in the world that can be used to express a viewpoint — and in the near future, money itself may not even qualify. That's why I am building an asset generation protocol (@trendsdotfun).
He and I never needed to agree on what game to play. But we genuinely wish each other all the best and will cheer each other on from the sidelines.
You only live once, focus on the game you excel at the most.
While I am just playing the game, I play to win.
Stay relaxed, but don't slack off.
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