Welcome to Chain Response. For these concerned about cryptocurrency, this podcast unpacks, delves into, and breaks down the most recent traits, drama, and information in cryptocurrency with among the greatest names within the business.

On this week’s episode, Jacqueline We interviewed Maria Shen, basic accomplice of the funding staff at Electrical Capital, an early-stage enterprise agency centered on cryptocurrencies, blockchain, fintech and marketplaces.

Previous to becoming a member of Electrical Capital, Shen was CTO and co-founder of Bambiify, serving to small companies construct extra environment friendly provide chains with producers all over the world. Previous to that, she labored at Microsoft.

In March 2022, the corporate introduced it had accomplished a $1 billion funding spherical in two cryptocurrency funds. One is a $400 million fund to make fairness investments in startups, and the opposite is a $600 million fund geared toward investing instantly in cryptocurrency tokens. The corporate’s web site at the moment showcases a portfolio that features about 75 investments with cryptocurrency startups equivalent to Magic Eden, ConsenSys and Bitwise.

Earlier this 12 months, Electrical Capital launched a report displaying that the variety of blockchain builders within the US has been declining yearly since 2017, dropping from 40% in 2017 to 29% final 12 months. We examine the contents of the report intimately. TRUE What which means and the way it impacts the expansion of home and international builders.

“Many founders have already moved out of the US or are contemplating shifting out of the US,” Shen mentioned. “It additionally signifies that we’re wanting outdoors the US for alternatives and attention-grabbing founders when contemplating investments.”

We additionally mentioned which crypto sectors she is eyeing to put money into, why she is betting huge on NFTs, and the general sentiment of the enterprise capital market amid risky crypto markets. rice discipline. She believes the continued bear market “will proceed for a while and can make it more and more troublesome for corporations to boost capital.”

With regards to enterprise capital, the macro atmosphere is “a lot modified” and corporations are “lowering fundraising and capital deployment. Many corporations are nearing the top of their fund life.”

General, the cryptocurrency funding atmosphere is prone to get even worse over the subsequent 12 months, Shen mentioned. Nonetheless, on a constructive observe, she sees the present bear market wanting higher than the final one in 2018, when “worth was falling off a cliff.” This market cycle feels “fully completely different,” she mentioned. “A number of what we have been actually dreaming about or theoretically speaking about is delivery now,” she mentioned.

At present, the cryptocurrency ecosystem has Ethereum-centric scaling options, extra stablecoin choices, decentralized finance, on-chain governance, and NFTs, Shen mentioned. “These issues didn’t exist in 2018 or 2019, so it’s attention-grabbing to see the market mature past tokens and cash exchanges.”

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