Crypto Bros Want Moon Prices—VCs Want a Bargain Bin: 80x Valuations Scare Off Investors

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Breaking news from the Land of Delusion: Apparently, if you want venture capital for your crypto startup, asking for valuations somewhere between “small country GDP” and “Elon Musk’s car budget” isn’t the golden ticket you might think. Who knew?

Dan Tapeiro, the long-suffering head honcho at 10T Holdings, a VC firm that tries to take crypto seriously (bless), let slip at the ever-glamorous Consensus conference in Toronto that founders are now just plucking numbers for their valuations out of their wildest dreams. “Ah yes, we’re worth 80x our revenue because… well, just look at this pitch deck and my power stance!”

“For some reason, founders and CEOs think that they should be raising capital at 50 to 80 times revenue. So that makes it very hard for us to make a return for our liquidity providers,” Tapeiro said, presumably while trying to hide enormous eyeroll.

Moral of the story: if you stroll into 10T Holdings asking for unicorn status before you even have a functioning app, they’ll escort you to the “Thanks, but No Thanks” pile. Just ask FTX, BlockFi, and Celsius—rumor has it, Tapeiro practically invented the “Nope!” button after them. Over 200 companies ghosted in such a fashion. RIP, valuations.

Word to the wise: If your crypto project comes prancing in with a worth above $400 million but your revenue is, you know, actual revenue and your ratio stays below 10x—then, and only then, will 10T peek at your LinkedIn.

VCs, it turns out, prefer their bets with a side of logic. Lower valuations = more room for happy dances (profit) and less chance of sobbing into cold pizza (risk). Realistic numbers also make it easier to slither out, so no one gets stuck holding the mystical bag on exit. 🙄

Tapeiro, ever the party pooper, repeated “Valuation is very important.” Yes, Dan. We get it. No, you still can’t have 80x, not even if you promise to go to Burning Man together.

Yet, the plot thickens—turns out, VCs are still absolutely flinging money at crypto startups like confetti at a blockchain wedding. PitchBook, wielders of the calculator, say Q1 2025 saw $6 billion in deals (double last quarter!) but only a tiny jump in the number of happy recipients. Which means: Someone’s doing something right or everyone’s in on the same inside joke.

VCs should diversify their bags

Enter Dan Morehead of Pantera Capital, who—unlike instantly-terrified Tapeiro—has been collecting success stories like rare NFTs. According to Morehead, VCs shouldn’t put all their (crypto) eggs in one Bitcoin basket. Instead, collect a charming pack of both private equity and tokens, and sit back as the valuations swing wildly like a rollercoaster designed by someone with questionable sanity. 🎢

“Each one has their pros and cons, and then they go in these wild pendulum swings where sometimes tokens are really expensive and ventures cheap. Sometimes it’s the opposite.” Much like choosing between avocado toast and crypto coins—I mean, how does one decide these days?

Pantera’s wild ride? 86% of their startups made it out alive (for now), and 22 are unicorns. Yes, actual, billion-dollar unicorns, minus the horn. 🦄

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2025-05-15 03:52