On Oct 15, 2018, Digital Currency Group hosted its fourth annual Founders Summit - a "Sun Valley style" conference that brought together over 125 of the world's leading blockchain and bitcoin entrepreneurs. Hosted at the Ritz Carlton in Lake Tahoe, attendees participated in three days of exclusive, off-the-record networking, dialogue sessions, presentations and panels. As we have done in previous DCG Summits (before the event was private to the public), we are sharing our opening remarks, which were presented by DCG's founder and CEO, Barry Silbert, our VP of Investments, Travis Scher, and Director of Development, Casey Taylor.
3. Learn, connect, and have fun
Why we’re here
• This is our 4th annual summit!
• It’s an opportunity for you all to take a step back and think about the future
• The goal of this summit is to help our portfolio companies connect the
dots: we want you to get to know the other leading companies building this
industry
• Unlike previous summits, this one is for founders and execs only (no more
of those pesky investors!). No press
4. Who is here
12 DCG (and subsidiary) team members
Representation from 15 countries
4 members of the DCG board and investment committee
A handful of industry VIPs and other interesting people
100+ founders and executives from 70+ DCG portfolio companies
6. DCG and subsidiary representatives
Travis Scher
VP of
Investments
Mark Murphy
VP of Public
Affairs
Casey Taylor
Director of
Development
Barry Silbert
Founder and CEO
Simi Wurtzel,
VP of Finance
Jigar Shah
Assistant Controller
Larry Sukernik
Investment Analyst
Christiane Shaw,
Executive Assistant
Michael Sonnenshein
Managing Director,
Grayscale
Michael Moro,
CEO, Genesis Trading
Martin Garcia,
Managing Director, Genesis
Trading
Kevin Worth,
CEO, CoinDesk
7. Representatives from DCG Board & Investment Committee
Jim Robinson
RRE Ventures
Lawrence Lenihan
Resonance
Matt Turck
FirstMark Capital
Glenn Hutchins
North Island
8. Our mission
It is our mission to accelerate the
development of a better financial system
We do this by building and supporting digital currency
and blockchain companies and leveraging our insights,
network, and access to capital
Digital Currency Projects Blockchain Startups Network, Insights, & Capital
10. We’re not a VC fund
• Flexibility
C-Corp structure provides us with:
• Potential to take DCG public
• Ability to raise money from strategic investors
• Permanent capital
12. Genesis
• Large-block OTC trade execution
across multiple digital currencies
• Institutional digital asset lending
solutions for hedging, speculating
and working capital
• Authorized participant and marketing
agent for all Grayscale products
About Genesis
• Billions of dollars of OTC transaction
volume
• Awarded the 5th BitLicense by the
New York Department of Financial
Services
• Partnership with Square as private
OTC back-end trading channel
• Launched institutional digital asset
lending business in March 2018
• Originated over $500M in new loans
to hedge funds and trading firms
since launch
2018 Accomplishments
• Provide working loans in digital
assets and fiat to help scale
businesses
• OTC liquidity provider across all
assets
• Electronic market-making capabilities
to participate on more exchanges
How We Can Help
13. Grayscale
• World’s largest digital currency asset
management business with $1.5B+ in
assets under management
• Sponsors a family of nine investment
products, allowing investors to gain
exposure to digital currency through
traditional investment structures
• Products include BTC, BCH, ETC,
ETH, LTC, XRP, ZEC, and ZEN, as well
as the Digital Large Cap Fund
About Grayscale
• Raised $330 million in new assets
into the Grayscale family of products
year to date
• Launched four new products this
year
2018 Accomplishments
• Helping companies that need
assistance with liquidity and sourcing
• Assistance with evaluating custody
solutions
• Connections to businesses and
individuals within our network
How We Can Help
14. CoinDesk
• Leading media brand for the
Blockchain tech and crypto sectors.
• Host of Consensus, the annual
gathering for the industry as well as
co-host of Blockchain Week with
NYC. Other Consensus events
include Invest and Singapore.
• Publisher of primary research and
data including State of Blockchain
quarterly report.
About CoinDesk
• Over 8,000 attending Consensus
2018 with representatives from over
70 countries
• Launched Consensus in Singapore to
highlight important tech projects in
Asia
• Launched CoinDesk Korea
• Expanded staff including now over 20
journalists covering the sector
• Launched several media product
extensions including podcasts,
newsletters, videos, and technical
analysis
2018 Accomplishments
• Want to hear about your projects that
are advancing the industry (give us
the news - ideally first!)
• Partnership opportunities for
Consensus/Blockchain Week 2019 -
how can we help you grow?
• Remember to use your DCG family
discount codes to attend all our
events!
How We Can Help
15. DCG…by the numbers
* As of June 30, 2018
Digital asset portfolio value: $260 million
• Also hold (<5% in aggregate): Basis, Bitcoin Cash, CENTRE, Civic, Colu, Dirt, Ethereum,
Filecoin, Handshake, Hedera Hashgraph, Litecoin, Livepeer, Logos, Madhive, Ocean,
Reserve, Stacks, XRP
• Largest holdings (~95% in aggregate): Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, Horizen,
Decentraland
• IRR: ~57%
• Most valuable investments: Bitso, BitPay, Circle, Coinbase, Ripple
• Largest investments: Circle, Coinbase, Ledger, Luno, Ripple
Portfolio value: $90 million (plus $15 million in exits)
Investments made to date: 128 companies
Total assets: $500 million
Revenue from subsidiaries: $65 million (thru 6/30)
Team size: 9
16. Some observations
• It’s happening
• In a major milestone for the industry, Nouriel Roubini brought together the entire
industry in its hatred of him
• …but not so much around the world (India needs our help)
• Fantastic organization on the policy front in the U.S. (Coin Center + Blockchain Association)…
• Enterprise blockchain is still kind of a thing, kind of
• Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, will be an interesting area for product and business model
experimentation – especially in gaming
• Next up, security token offerings. I’m skeptical, but hopeful
• Rescission rights being triggered
• SEC subpoenas going out left and right
• ICOs are dead
• Crypto tribalism at all time high
• 2018 has been great for the industry (less so for the first time crypto buyer)
17. Looking forward to 2019
• IPOs and reverse mergers start
• Acquisitions picking up. Is consolidation next?
• The big, late stage money investors are starting to sniff around
• Monster rounds at healthy valuations
• Battle for stable coins has begun; a USD-backed Tether killer first to emerge
• Rising interest rates, strengthening US Dollar and stock market weakness is setting
the stage for some real economic pain around the world. How will the crypto asset
class react?
• Increased focus (good and bad) – and interest – in privacy coins
• SEC is keeping everybody guessing re ETFs
• Here comes Wall Street…Goldman, Fidelity, TD, ICE leading the charge
• Qualified custody solutions are arriving
• Bottom line -> 2019 is going to be huge for crypto
19. Our investing strategy
• Target 2-5% ownership at seed stage (invest up to $250k)
• Focus on strategic life cycle investments (invest up to another $500k in
Series A, and another $1 mm in Series B)
• Join syndicates with other professional investors
• Minimize conflicts of interest; no board seats
How we invest
20. Portfolio of 109 active companies – breakdown by sector
Portfolio breakdown by sector (excluding exits)
• We’ve invested most heavily into
infrastructure companies (i.e.,
exchanges, new blockchains,
scaling tech, data & analytics,
compliance).
• We have slowed down our pace in
enterprise blockchain and
payments – we’ve already backed
the best ones!
• We’ve backed a bunch of
gaming/NFT and stablecoin
projects – we believe mainstream
adoption may begin there.
20
14
15
12
9
8
6
3
1 1
21
17
15
12
10
9
11
7
4
3
Exchange
Netw
orkInfrastructure
Enterprise
Blockchain
Paym
ents
W
allets/Custody
Identityand
Com
pliance
OtherTradingTools
Gam
ing
Stablecoins
2017 2018
21. Portfolio – breakdown by geography
North America (65%)
v.s. 54% in 2017
Europe (17%)
v.s. 21%
Asia (7%)
v.s. 13%
Africa (2%)
v.s. 3%
South America (5%)
v.s. 7%
Australia (1%)
v.s. 1%
MENA (4%)
v.s. 2%
Portfolio breakdown by continent
• The DCG portfolio
represents businesses
in 24 countries.
• Of the 25 companies
we’ve added since last
year’s summit, 8 are in
the Bay Area and 8 are
in New York.
• U.S.-based companies
now represent 65% of
the portfolio – there
has been a re-
centralization in
Silicon Valley and NY.
22. Portfolio – breakdown by stage
Portfolio breakdown by stage
• The number of seed stage
companies in our portfolio has
remained flat; our investment pace
tracks the speed at which our
portfolio companies are
graduating to later stages.
• Our portfolio companies are
graduating: there are 16 more
Series A or later companies than
last year.
• Still, only ~15% of out portfolio
companies have reached the
Series B stage.
47
29
8
3
51
39
12
5
Seed Series A Series B Series C+
2017 2018
23. Portfolio – fundraising and token sales
Fundraising breakdown (excluding exits)
• Our 109 active portfolio companies
have raised $2.2bn in equity capital
(not counting Coinbase’s reported
$500mm round).
• 24 of our portfolio companies have
completed a token sale and raised
a combined $900mm.
• Only 6 companies in our active
portfolio are planning a future
token sale.
$2,185,770,000
$898,480,000
Equity Token
Average: $22.5mm
Median: $5mm
Average: $44.9mm
Median: $25mm
24. What founders should be focused on
• Regulatory pressures are growing (double-down on compliance, learn politics, and/or diversify
geographically)
• There are tons of recycled ideas…learn lessons from your predecessors
• Consider focusing on the “institutional” market (we expect this to fuel growth in 2019)
• Prepare for inevitable industry consolidation and an uptick in M&A (are you a buyer or seller?)
• Be ready for a long crypto winter…just in case
• Use cases! Without real applications, this incredible movement will stall
Think about…
25. And what founders shouldn’t be focused on
• Treasury management (convert to cash…you’re not a hedge fund!)
• How much money your competition has raised (they’re probably spending it too fast)
• Jealously guarding your plans (transparency correlates with success)
• Personal brand building (twitter followers =/ product-market fit)
• Big ICO’s (the market for new tokens is dead)
• The “consensus”- you’re here because you’re visionaries, ignore the noise and think for
yourselves!
Don’t think too much about…
27. The DCG network
CORPORATES
ACADEMICS
INVESTORS
REGULATORS
ADVOCACY GROUPS
START-UPS
Invested in 130 companies that have
revenue, traction, and institutional
investors
Co-invested alongside over 1,000
investors; pipeline for early company deal
flow
Engage with hundreds of corporates
around the world to provide insights and
exposure
Collaborate with the world’s leading
academic institutions to support research
and development
Work with institutions to educate,
advocate, and drive adoption for social
good
Consulted by regulators and policymakers
DCG is the most prolific and best-networked investor in the blockchain space
28. The DCG development function
What you want What we offer
Press and PR Press dinners, bespoke press platform, reporter intro’s
Industry insights Call us anytime :)
Partnerships & BD Cross-portfolio collaboration (this summit!)
Investor introductions Thousands of investor introductions made to date
Regulatory guidance Blockchain Association and connections to key folks
Hiring DCG jobs board & candidate rec’s