I am quite surprised that nobody is talking about VCs (Sequoia) that happily poured money into this.
What was their plan? Were they blind? Were they hoping to cash out before it crashed?
Major investors usually get full visibility into the company.
What was their plan? Were they blind? Were they hoping to cash out before it crashed?
Major investors usually get full visibility into the company.
I somehow feel firms like Sequoia gave these crypto stuff some credibility and positive exposure. It was like, "don't worry, their business is legit and booming.'
I thought the rationale was already widely known by now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
Or in more charitable terms: if an investment has a positive expected return according to their model (meaning that they think they can sell their shares / tokens in the case of some VCs), they do it.
Seriously though, a lot of influencers promoting this stuff have been getting paid in cold hard US dollars to promote these scams.
How do I know? I spoke to influencers to talk about my portfolio companies and many of them told me the crazy amount of cash they were getting paid from these scammers. Think 25,000 for a channel with hardly 100k followers.
That's why I feel like Sequoia partners should be investigated thoroughly. If a terrorist organization gets investments, don't we investigate those investors as well?
If you drop morals, like a16z did, by supporting another scammer and gritting on crypto, it's a very lucrative business.
Likewise there's tons of crypto money sloshing around the esports world. FTX paid TSM 200 million for naming rights.
In an environment like this its really hard for legit sponsors to pitch influences unless the influencer is personally interested or ethically refuses to work with the crypto sponsor whales.
Can't exactly blame the guy either. I would give up a whole lot and a year of my life for half of what he made.
https://twitter.com/philbak1/status/1591409852957732864?s=20...