Written by: Zen, PANews
In early February 2026, Kyle Samani, regarded by many as the most steadfast evangelist of Solana, announced that he would step back from the daily management of Multicoin, stating that he would shift his focus to new technology fields such as AI, robotics, and life sciences, while still retaining personal investments in cryptocurrency.
What further stung the industry's sentiment was a statement he made shortly before the official announcement, which he quickly deleted: "Cryptocurrency is not as interesting as many people (including myself) once imagined. I used to believe in the vision of Web3 and dApps, but I no longer do."
This "semi-exit" can easily be interpreted as a verdict; when the industry's most powerful crypto investor chooses to abandon the narrative of the "next generation internet," does it mean that the vision of non-financial killer applications in the industry can be declared bankrupt?
However, looking back at Samani's career, you will find that this is not so much a collapse of faith, but rather a risk shift driven by his character. In this "bittersweet moment," it is not a clear-cut exit, just as his past choices may not have been wrong, but they were not necessarily right either.
The Decentralization Enlightenment of the "Best Ever" Crypto Venture Capitalist
When discussing the decentralized philosophy of blockchain, the story of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin being "forced" to quit gaming is often recounted. As a teenager, Vitalik became aware of the need to combat centralized platforms after Blizzard deleted the skills of his favorite warlock in World of Warcraft. Similarly, before entering the crypto industry, Samani had his own experience of being "betrayed" by centralized companies.
Growing up in a wealthy community in Austin, Texas, Samani's father was the owner of a local electronic medical records system development company called VersaSuite. At the age of 11, Samani began learning programming, but he found the job of a programmer to be not cool enough. Therefore, after being admitted to New York University, Samani chose to study finance, intending to become a stylish Wall Street elite.
In college, the strong-willed and energetic Samani became friends with the introverted classmate Tushar Jain. At that time, Bitcoin had already begun to operate quietly, and the two young men, who would later co-found Multicoin Capital, had no idea where their future paths would lead. Samani only knew that after two years of studying in college, he felt he was not suited to be a banker, so he returned to studying programming.
Tushar Jain (left) and Kyle Samani (right)
After graduating in 2012, both Samani and Jain briefly worked at Samani's father's medical records company. Subsequently, the two ventured into medical technology startups; Jain founded a data company to help doctors find patients for clinical trials, while Samani was attracted by Google's newly released Glass and co-founded a company called "Pristine" to develop software for surgeons using Google Glass.
Although Samani raised over $5 million in venture capital and expanded the team to nearly 30 employees, two years after Pristine was established, Google announced in 2015 that it would stop selling Google Glass to consumers, effectively pausing the "consumer-level popularization narrative." Samani realized he had to adjust his personal direction and left Pristine at the end of that year.
This entrepreneurial experience made Samani acutely aware of the "pain of platform risk." Therefore, the idea of having an open platform that would not encounter such events was highly attractive to him. In March 2016, Samani stumbled upon Ethereum, marking the beginning of a new chapter in his life and ultimately leading him into the field of cryptocurrency investment.
Samani, Ethereum, and Solana
In August 2017, Multicoin Capital was officially established in Austin.
"In the early days of our startup, we were really just a group of people trying to make money." Samani stated that when Multicoin was raising funds, they had no brand, no track record, and no operational infrastructure. They reached out to everyone in their network—friends, family, friends of friends, and other entrepreneurial networks.
"The secret to getting through tough times is to focus on what you truly love." In an early interview with Business Insider, Samani expressed that passion was the thread that ran through his entrepreneurial journey and the motivation for him to work 15 to 20 hours a day.
In a vibrant and competitive industry cycle, Samani led Multicoin to rapid success. According to public documents, by May 2025, Multicoin managed assets worth $5.9 billion. Samani also became a candidate for the title of "GOAT" (Greatest of All Time) among many entrepreneurs and investors in the cryptocurrency industry.
During Multicoin's rapid growth, Samani established a distinct viewpoint and investment style. Notably, although Ethereum was his "guiding light" in the blockchain space, he later became one of its most outspoken critics. He expressed extreme disappointment that Ethereum failed to address scalability issues after its early prosperity, labeling Vitalik and his team as "not knowing what they were doing."
The DevCon developer conference held in November 2017 marked Samani's formal shift from being a supporter to a critic of Ethereum. He eagerly awaited Vitalik's keynote speech, but the latter spent the entire time reviewing Ethereum's history without discussing the future. Samani felt that Ethereum was even unwilling to acknowledge the problems it faced, and at that moment, the dream that "Ethereum would be the future of finance" shattered. He began searching for alternatives to Ethereum and quickly found his answer in the emerging high-performance public chain, Solana.
Overall, Samani's big direction was "speed first," and Solana's advantages of fast transaction speeds and low costs perfectly aligned with market demands. Thus, Samani led Multicoin to invest heavily in Solana early on. This significant bet would later bring them fame and mark an important chapter in the history of crypto venture capital.
Of course, these investments also brought Samani substantial returns. In December 2021, during an appearance on the podcast "The Wolf Of All Streets," Samani revealed that Multicoin purchased SOL tokens at prices of $0.04, $0.20, and $0.23 in three rounds of private placements.
The Radical and Provocative Flagbearer of Solana
Throughout his years of investment, Samani has been known for his willingness to express sharp opinions and has become the most vigorous and radical flagbearer of the Solana ecosystem.
In 2021, he even made a controversial statement on Twitter: "Why must security be the top priority? To be honest, I value speed more."
Provocation and criticism are also very distinctive traits of Samani. At the Token2049 conference in 2024, Samani delivered a speech titled "Why SOL Will Disrupt ETH." He harshly criticized Ethereum for its slow progress, stating that after nine years of operation, it still faced numerous issues. He also remarked that people were too lenient towards it, giving it an excessively long grace period. Samani went so far as to assert that Ethereum assets had no room for appreciation.
However, while Samani correctly backed Solana and several leading brands like Binance and Helium, his foresight was not always accurate. For instance, in 2020, Samani predicted that Zcash would be worthless in two years. Yet, this privacy-focused cryptocurrency remains one of the mainstream altcoin projects, with its price even soaring to nearly $700 in the second half of last year. Additionally, Multicoin had also invested in "doomed" projects like EOS.
Moreover, both Multicoin Capital and Solana had close ties to the now-bankrupt exchange FTX. Following FTX's collapse, Samani and Multicoin's aggressive investments faced significant risks.
In November 2022, several anonymous LPs reported to Axios that Multicoin had liquidated a large amount of crypto assets at the end of the 2021 bull market but did not distribute most of the profits to LPs to cover tax liabilities as usual. Instead, they continued to buy SOL tokens. Typically, after a large liquidation, about 40% should be distributed to LPs to cover taxes, but the fund did not execute this operation at that time.
As a result, after SOL's price plummeted in 2022, LPs not only failed to realize profits in a timely manner but also faced hefty tax bills. Sources indicated that the management seemed indifferent to SOL's 90% drawdown. Additionally, when FTX went bankrupt, it was revealed that Multicoin had about 15% of its assets locked in the exchange, further exacerbating investor dissatisfaction.
A Semi-Exit Stance, Yet Abandoning the Web3 Vision?
Despite the controversies surrounding the narrative and actions Samani has put forth, few would question his weight as one of the industry's top investors. Thus, when Samani announced his semi-exit in early 2026, it caused such a significant stir and emotional resonance.
In his open letter, Samani stated that he would step back from his management role at Multicoin to take on an advisory position for a temporary break and would explore new technology fields such as artificial intelligence, life sciences, and robotics. He also expressed that he believes more than ever that crypto technology will fundamentally reshape the financial system and emphasized that although he would be stepping away professionally, he would continue to personally invest in crypto projects, particularly looking forward to the new opportunities brought by U.S. crypto regulations.
However, in a post that Samani published and later deleted just a few hours earlier, he did not appear as composed — he criticized that cryptocurrency is not as interesting as expected and stated that he once believed in the vision of Web3 and decentralized applications (DApps), but no longer does. This somewhat "disillusioned" statement quickly sparked controversy.
In response to some comments, Samani attempted to downplay the situation. He stated that he still holds a significant long position in SOL and cryptocurrencies and will continue to participate in the crypto market both personally and as the chairman of Forward Industries, the treasury company of Solana. Samani will also apply to redeem Multicoin fund shares with Forward stock, indicating that he will increase his holdings in Forward shares. This move also proves that despite "stepping back," Samani's personal financial bet on Solana has not diminished.
Waiting for the Clouds to Part and the Moon to Shine
Many view Samani's exit as the end of an era. When one of the best crypto investors no longer believes in the industry's development, it further catalyzes the current pessimistic sentiment and atmosphere.
We can return to the story of Pristine, Samani's first entrepreneurial "half-finished product." In fact, although Pristine, leveraging Google Glass, faced the collapse of the "consumer-level popularization narrative" and an unclear industry outlook and pace at that time, the company was later acquired and exited.
What disappeared was the company name and capital structure, but the capability lineage and commercialization path remained.
The product capabilities represented by Pristine, such as "first-person video streaming" and "remote expert collaboration," did not fail; rather, they were integrated into a larger platform and continued to iterate. Pristine was acquired by Upskill, a leading AR software company in the U.S., in 2017; the latter was then acquired by the German tech company TeamViewer in 2021, and its AR platform was integrated into TeamViewer's industrial frontline digital product line.
Today, with the significant advancement of AI, although the era of Google Glass has passed, Google announced at the end of 2024 a renewed bet on AI smart glasses under the Android XR system, reopening the commercial blueprint for the track that Pristine once occupied. This return to platformization means that the imagination constrained by hardware conditions back then may unfold again in another way.
Ten years ago, the point at which Samani left Pristine can, in some ways, mirror today's cryptocurrency industry.
In Samani's deleted statement, he did not deny the narrative that blockchain can change finance, but rather questioned whether Web3/consumer-level DApps can still give birth to killer applications. The crypto industry is currently experiencing a contraction of vision, but a contraction of narrative does not equate to the death of narrative.
The "platform risk" that led to Samani's exit ten years ago did not declare the end of the track. It merely pushed the track into a longer dormant period; the fate of Pristine and its technological products is not about "waiting for spring" but about transforming itself into a form that can survive the winter. Until stronger AI capabilities, more mature platforms, and more realistic product forms emerge, thus reopening space.
The same may be true for the crypto industry. Today, the grand narrative of the "next generation internet" is being denied, but that does not mean it can never nurture non-financial killer applications.
It may just need new "platform conditions" to complete its second development, clearer regulatory boundaries, stronger user-level privacy and identity infrastructure, more usable on-chain interaction paradigms, or more innovative AI+Web3 paradigms.
As Chris Dixon, founder of a16z Crypto, said: "The chaotic years pave the way for the glorious years to come."
No one is a prophet who can predict everything, but the experience of waiting for the clouds to part and the moon to shine, and the realization that there is always another village after the dark will often continue to unfold.
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