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About a year ago, I made the decision to join the CoinFund team. I could sit here and tell you that the reason I joined was the portfolio or the reputation, both of which would be very valid reasons, but it wasn’t. What actually sold me was the story Jake Brukhman told me one extremely hot October day in Miami about how the firm and its team came to be.

It went something like this: With nothing but pure intelligence, dedication, grit, and not a small amount of risk-taking, a Russian immigrant from small-town New Jersey had built one of the most successful venture firms in blockchain. His story of discovery was genuine; I read the Ethereum white paper, and then stared at the wall for thirty minutes, he told me. From there, he’d started a Slack channel for people interested in researching and investing in crypto, and it ended up spurring some of those who are today the industry’s top leaders. CoinFund formalized in 2015; Jake likes to say they beat Ethereum to market.

To me, Jake’s passion for this technology was the stuff of literature. He believed in it so much that he risked everything for it, quitting his job and using up all his savings, all to take a massive bet on building a better system. These are the kind of people who aren’t threatened or fazed by bear markets, because they’re not in it for the instant gratification; they’re interested in the long game, and leaving the world better than they found it.

This is doubtless what drew the immense talents with whom he built the firm, and those partners convey the same ethos. David Pakman, an Apple veteran with meticulously honed investing skills developed during his time at Venrock, demonstrates a keen eye for citing shifts in cultural economic behavior, identifying deals that will help bridge the necessary gaps for consumers across generations. Alex Felix, with deep roots in traditional finance, takes a measured eye to an evolving ecosystem, applying a perspective to the investment process that carefully weighs the best outcomes for both partners and builders. The entire investment team feels connected to their founders, and with many of them having been founders themselves, they know what it takes to extend real support that moves the needle.

This is extremely crucial to me, particularly now. I’ve been in crypto for nearly a decade, and I’ve watched the industry make many promises the market wasn’t ready to support. I was at Voyager when it fell through the proverbial floor, at Onramp when it got acquired because it was too early to market for institutional investing, at Securitize through the battle of educating Congress on tokenization; I’ve watched founders persevere and fall victim to circumstance, regulation, or just poor timing. My takeaway from this was that the great minds building in this space require partnership that’s steady, realistic, and grounded in experience, but also from people who share the same level of drive as founders do to change things for the better.

At the time of that meeting, I was (and still am) particularly bulled-up on a thesis that the founder pool is expanding, as well as the potential for new builders to apply decentralized or open-source tech to create better products. I’d been volunteering on a non-crypto project that was in need of an identity verification layer at the time, and the founder was struggling to find a solution that would prioritize data protection. When I mentioned World as an option, he agreed it made sense, but didn’t feel he knew enough to engage our side of the industry. Basically, he needed the right partner with the right network, and the ability to bridge the traditional market with the emerging one.

In a world where blockchain is ubiquitous—the world we’ve been trying to build since day one—it will be used across verticals as seamlessly and quietly as the internet. The blockchain industry is slowly but surely merging into broader tech and finance markets, presenting a dual-sided opportunity for VCs. New founders from the traditional landscape, eager to apply a blockchain layer as a moat or simply because the tech is better, will need help discerning the best path to execution. Venture partners will have to accommodate an evolving cohort to serve that need. The existing cohort of crypto founders will need help bringing their businesses into the mainstream eye. Network and marketing were the key to all of this, I said to Jake, probably somewhat sweaty and frenetically, across the table. I yapped so hard that I didn’t even touch my matcha; I will never forget Jake asking incredulously as we were leaving, So, did you even, like, drink that?

Jake and the CoinFund team did for me what they do for their founders: they heard me and, after carefully considering each part of the thesis, ceaselessly supported me. This trust has made building a marketing function at CoinFund an incredible experience. I’ve had the privilege of working with great investors across my career, and this team has truly changed the way I think about venture as a whole.

Most importantly, I joined CoinFund because its existence confirms the value of this technology. It proves that blockchain does, in fact, have the ability to democratize opportunity, so much so that a mathematician from central Jersey can start a successful venture fund from nothing, and get top talents from Venrock and Bank of America to join him. To me, that’s what this industry is all about, and founders have the same opportunity. I can’t wait to help the coming wave of builders through the next phase with the CoinFund team.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the individual CoinFund Management LLC (“CoinFund”) personnel quoted and are not the views of CoinFund or its affiliates. Certain information contained herein has been obtained from third-party sources, which may include portfolio companies of funds managed by CoinFund. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, CoinFund has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by CoinFund. An offer to invest in a CoinFund fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety. Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by CoinFund, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by CoinFund (excluding investments for which the issuer has not provided permission for CoinFund to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) is available at https://www.coinfund.io/portfolio.