Ali Hamed, founder of CoVenture: A VC's Take on Crypto

— CoVenture's multi-disciplinary model across venture capital, credit, and crypto investing allows them to identify opportunities at the intersection of technology and finance where competitors lack cross-asset expertise.

— Alternative lending and direct lending strategies, particularly asset-backed lending (especially against Bitcoin), offer superior risk-adjusted returns because traditional firms cannot pitch such strategies to their investment committees.

— Most cryptocurrency and blockchain projects fail because founders prioritize technology over the actual network dynamics, market adoption, and user acquisition required to create liquidity and value.

— Security tokens will likely emerge as a secondary liquidity mechanism for private company equity holders seeking exits, rather than as a primary fundraising tool for startups.

— The venture capital and crypto investment communities overestimate their contrarianism; most early-stage investors operate on consensus-driven strategies and face pressure to demonstrate traction within 12–24 months rather than pursue truly differentiated theses.

— Bitcoin functions as a store of value and inflation hedge within a diversified portfolio, offering portability and currency optionality for individuals in uncertain geopolitical environments.

— Avoid investing in crypto projects that focus solely on making existing services cheaper or faster (remittances, payments) without solving underlying network and customer acquisition challenges; instead, seek opportunities that create entirely new asset classes or solve problems that couldn't exist before tokenization.

— When evaluating emerging asset managers or crypto funds, scrutinize whether their theses are truly contrarian or merely consensus-driven; many early-stage managers will struggle because they lack the LP relationships and conviction to hold unpopular positions through market downturns.

— Consider security tokens and blockchain-based assets not as primary investment vehicles but as future secondary market liquidity solutions for private equity, once companies mature and founders need exits without dilution.