Paul Veradittakit
- Pantera Capital | Blockchain and cryptocurrency technology
- Twitter @veradittakit | 5300 followers
- LinkedIN | Personal Webpage | Substack Blog
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I was really excited to speak to Paul as it’s been some time since we connected from way back in 2017 (when we asked Pantera Capital for funding on our cryptocurrency startup)! He’s doing well and Bitcoin is stronger than ever. As a partner at Pantera, Paul focuses on the firm’s venture capital and hedge fund investments. Since joining in 2014, he has helped launch Pantera Venture Fund II and the firm’s currency funds, executing over sixty investments. Paul also sits on the board of OpenToken and BitOasis, is a mentor at The House Fund, Boost VC, and Alchemist, and is an advisor to Orchid, Origin, and Icon.
It was great to hear of his journey into venture capital, a story that I hadn’t heard before. I thought that he was into crypto before he joined Pantera Capital, but apparently Dan Morehead convinced him that this was the future, and I believe it too. I’m really glad he quit working for a law firm to join the venture world, specifically crypto!
Getting into startups was a natural fit for Paul as he’s living in the center of the startup world! From watching his friends create startups, to getting interested in helping them build companies, he found a job posting in 2010 to be an analyst for a venture capital firm. From there, the rest is history. He joined Pantera Capital one year after Dan Morehead migrated his macro hedge fund to cryptocurrency and dove headfirst into the world of blockchain and built out the early-stage investment strategy.
“I thought I was late to the cryptocurrency game in 2014. The more I read about cryptocurrency, I found that there needed to be a lot of things built out for the crypto space to get it going. The store of value business case was so compelling as well as financial services for the unbanked. The third compelling piece was remittances. These three use cases are trillions of dollars! That’s massive and nobody is looking at them!”
Paul Veradittakit | VCHunting S3E9
I wanted to know if Paul still felt if Bitcoin was truly a store of value, considering it’s been tested so many times even amongst the froth of the market. To Paul, Bitcoin is still the king and Pantera Capital is still ridiculously bullish on crypto as a whole.
“People said that Bitcoin is going to get hacked, it’s never going to work, nobody is going to buy into it. Year over year Bitcoin continues to grow in value and every single time there is a financial crisis or a macro event, people flee to Bitcoin.”
Paul Veradittakit | VCHunting S3E9
When it comes to the Corona Virus, Paul thinks people selling for cash is really just a black swan event and others are probably overleveraged and panic selling. But once things start stabilizing as they have in the past, people will begin to buy back in as a safe haven and a store of value. Paul believes everyone should diversify some of their investments into Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I agree. Bitcoin has died a thousand deaths and will continue to survive. I like to call Bitcoin a zombie coin :).
When it comes to the cryptocurrency game, people love projections of the future, especially big projections like the ones Tim Draper makes or John McAfee. I wanted to know what Paul thought is needed to grow the adoption curve of cryptocurrency in 2020 and beyond. To Paul, he sees growth in lots of areas, such as:
- Tons of new talent who got into crypto during the boom of 2017 and are still hyped about the future of blockchain as a tech stack
- Regulators are getting on board and understanding the value of cryptocurrencies from not only a financial standpoint, but as a useful technology.
- Consumer applications in crypto are on the up and up. Even better applications will emerge as more talented engineers jump in.
- Even more entry points will grow as options for new retail investors increases as well as better usability of applications.
- Better infrastructure for scale are being developed, especially for custody and wallets.
- A lot of developers will have better tools and software development kits are being built to help developers build applications quickly.
- Interoperability will increase between cryptocurrencies and retail investor choice will only increase over time
“The number one thing we’re hearing about scalability platforms or tool platforms is the need for talent. What’s great about crypto being in a bear market is that the engineers who are coming in are doing it for the right reasons. Even with that, there still is a need for lots of education. A lot of great talent aren’t believers just yet. That’s the gap right now. We have to continue to our part to get the widest audience excited about cryptocurrency.”
Paul Veradittakit | VCHunting S3E9
From covering the crypto world for 3.5 years fulltime as well as being a venture-funded founder of a cryptocurrency application, I know the potential of crypto long term. Paul certainly got me re-excited about the future of Bitcoin. Oh, and btw, his favorite crypto app is Blockfolio! 🙂
Finally, what is crypto going to be in the future? To Paul, crypto will be hand in hand with fiat currencies, but he believes that the strongest pull for many people will be the philosophical underpinnings of why Bitcoin is important: to disintermediate the banks and regain control of your own value. Clearly, Paul isn’t just an investor in crypto startups, he understands why financial sovereignty is a powerful motivator for why crypto will survive any long winter the world wants to throw at it.
It was my pleasure hosting Paul Veradittakit on the VCHunting show. I look forward to more conversations with him as crypto grows and evolves!
Enjoy my retrospective!
Best,
ps
Paul Veradittakit Twitter Quote
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