Damn it! I feel like after this bear market, all encrypted VCs are dead! Recently, many people have been saying that encrypted VC is no longer effective. The bear market has lasted too long. Too few projects. Exiting is too difficult. But if you carefully read the recent news, you will find one thing: The encrypted VC is not dead. Just forked. And the division is very clear. Now there are only three paths left in the entire industry. a16z、Dragonfly、Paradigm It happens to represent three completely different answers. 1. A16z: I'm betting on time The latest news: A16z is currently raising its fifth cryptocurrency fund. Scale: 2 billion US dollars. Many people's first reaction is: Can you still raise money in a bear market? But this is exactly the way a16z plays. They are telling a very simple story: Encryption is not a cycle, it is infrastructure. Like the early days of the Internet. Just like AI now. A16z partner Chris Dixon even said a classic sentence: At the current stage of blockchain, Just like when the neural network paper was first published in 1943. The meaning is simple: It's still very early now. So they do one thing: Long term holding. The data for a16z is very exaggerated: The assets they have invested in historically 95% of them are not sold. This is their logic: Crossing the cycle. I bet on 10 or 20 years. 2. Dragonfly: betting on financialization Dragonfly took a completely different path. Their core judgment is actually very realistic: Encryption is becoming increasingly like a financial market. So they did something that many VCs wouldn't do. Make your own transactions. The current structure of Dragonfly is: VC investment Trading team hedge fund Three systems run together. What's the benefit of doing this? When there are too few primary market projects. You can go to the secondary market to make money. Many VCs can only wait in a bear market. Dragonfly is not needed. They can: Do hedging Arbitrage Make derivatives Use trading ability to supplement primary investment. 3. Paradigm: Gambling on boundaries Paradigm has also been raising new funds recently. Goal: 1.5 billion US dollars. But the most interesting thing is that: They started investing in AI. Many people think this is a 'turn'. Actually, it's not. This is the Paradigm gene. They have always been more like: Research institutions+incubators. Paradigm made early bets: Uniswap Coinbase These are all very early technological projects. But the problem is: Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer good projects in the early stages of encryption. So they chose a new path: Encryption+AI. We have even developed a tool together with OpenAI: EVMbench。 Specially testing whether AI can detect vulnerabilities in smart contracts. 4. In fact, the VC industry has changed If you look at the three together. You will find a clear fork: a16z： Scale+Long term Belief Dragonfly： Trading ability+financialization Paradigm： Technology narrative+AI integration Three completely different routes. in a word The previous encrypted VC. Everyone is doing the same thing: Find a project. Invest in tokens. Waiting for a bull market. But now it's different. The bear market sifted through the industry. Every fund must answer a question: If there were no bull market, Why can you survive? The answer to a16z is: scale. Dragonfly's answer is: trading. Paradigm's answer is: technology. The encrypted VC is not dead. Just evolved.