Reciprocal Ventures

We’re diving deep into Crypto x AI at Reciprocal Ventures and are actively looking to back founders in this space. Please reach out if you’re building something in any of the areas below!

I published some research I've been working on! TLDR below, you can read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/dHbKuB2d. Cautious Optimist’s Thoughts on Hyperliquid: Against the backdrop of an encroaching feeling of weariness in most of the crypto space over the last ~6 months, Hyperliquid has emerged as a consistent source of excitement in my conversations with other people in the industry. I share that excitement and want to consolidate some of my thoughts to encourage discussion about Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid is a perpetual (perps) decentralized exchange (DEX) built on its own layer-1 (L1) to support that and other offerings, including a spot market and native vaults. Hyperliquid has become the largest perps dex in the last year with ~40% market share by perpetual trading volumes as of October ‘24 (data here (https://lnkd.in/dC6TEVQG)). Hyperliquid recently announced that it established a foundation entity and is moving towards TGE, potentially before end-of-year. My thesis is that Hyperliquid will continue to eat market share and solidify its competitive moat in the landscape for perps dexs leading up to and following its TGE. I also think that by not raising outside capital, Hyperliquid has created a new paradigm for massively scaling crypto products by tapping into industry disillusionment with VC-backed projects. I acknowledge that Hyperliquid faces some serious headwinds, namely the centralization of its validator set today and how it will sustain its market share post-points program. While both of these concerns are valid, I think that the Hyperliquid team has shown sufficient efforts so far on the path to decentralizing its validator set and that concerns about what percentage of Hyperliquid traders are only points farming are overblown.

Meet Vishal K. Gupta CEO of True Markets. He recently launched TrueX, the flagship product of True Markets. TrueX is a non-custodial crypto exchange featuring stablecoin settlement and represents the next evolution in crypto markets. Reciprocal Ventures is proud to back Vishal.

Jet-lagged reflections on Breakpoint v4 This version of Breakpoint was the best yet. It struck the right balance of scale and duration. It was professional and well-produced while maintaining an authentic feel that was genuine to Solana’s builder and product-centric culture. It had all the professionalism of a major industry conference but the vibes and cultural tenor of the Solana ecosystem. Seriously, hats off to Akshay and the team for pulling this off, as I can’t imagine it was an easy balance to strike. But you did it. My favorite part was the clear focus on ecosystem founders and their products. At least one founder would take the stage between each debate and give a five-minute "product keynote.” I enjoyed these and felt the crowd did as well. The quick pitches kept things high energy and many founders were great at engaging the audience. The Basecamp area had dozens of booths at the center of the venue, and the Gamer Village had another dozen live video games you could play. I walked through this area 20+ times throughout the conference, and it seemed that 70-80% of the booths represented applications. I was surprised at how consistently packed this area was throughout the two days. Everywhere I went at the venue, I could try a new application. I could purchase coffee with Solana Pay, play various new games, place a bet on a PhotoFinish horse race, and even claim a bottle of tokenized champagne. Solana made all of it possible, but the founders and the results of their hard work received the spotlight. They should receive the spotlight; they made it legitimately fun to use this tech! Solana’s strategy and flywheel are playing out in real-time. More Devs ? More Applications ? More Users ? More Devs…and the virtuous cycle continues. It’s important to note that although the vibes were positive, they were not euphoric or wild. The founders I spoke with felt remarkably grounded. People weren’t getting too caught up in the moment and were not using Breakpoint as a victory lap. It was a small step in everyone’s roadmap. We’re here to do a job; once this job is done, we can refocus on achieving the following key objective or milestone. Accelerate was the unofficial motto echoing around the conference (and the title of our event, lol) — shoutout to Helius, Foundation Cap, and Colosseum for co-hosting. Until next year in Abu Dhabi — Onward and upward, and accelerate!

New Insight // Satoshi’s Dream: Unlocking Crypto Payments Currently, the global payments system is replete with institutions extracting fees from their own users. In 2022, the global payments industry revenue was $2.2T and is estimated to grow to $3.2T by 2027! Their margin is crypto’s opportunity. In this piece, we discuss the opportunity crypto has to disrupt the payments system, the institutions taking notice and the builders creating the infrastructure to make it all a reality. Read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/geMREHDe

Meet Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius, crypto's No. 1 developer platform. Reciprocal Ventures proudly backs gritty, charismatic founders like Mert.

Attention Plume Goons?? We're thrilled to announce our $10M seed round led by Haun Ventures, with support from Galaxy, Superscrypt, Selini, Reciprocal Ventures,Portal Ventures, SV Angel, a_capital and more! Plume is the first RWA chain for crypto natives, with over 80+ projects on our network. From collectibles to real estate, we make it easy to tokenize and transact any asset on-chain. Thanks to our rockstar team from Coinbase, Binance, Robinhood, dYdX, J.P. Morgan, Google, Galaxy, and LayerZero Labs. More details in the CoinDesk article below https://lnkd.in/gxCkf8Qp

"We put tremendous energy into our research and diligence processes. We focus on doing deep, primary data-driven research and understanding these ecosystems inside and out. Our view is that research drives alpha and diligence protects it." ? Reciprocal Ventures Founder and Managing Partner?Michael Steinberg?recently sat down with?Alternatives Watch’s?Hugh Leask?to discuss the firm’s evolution over the last eight years, its differentiated multi-thesis approach to sourcing and evaluating protocols, and why the outlook of the blockchain industry is as exciting as it’s ever been. ? Read the full Q&A here:?https://lnkd.in/gHddZjTz

New Insight // Pt. 1: Design Space for Parallel Blockchains In this research piece, Ali Sheikh provides an overview of parallel design architectures for blockchains, using three relevant examples: Solana, Sei, and Monad. He highlights the differences between optimistic and deterministic parallelization and examines the nuances of state and memory access across these chains. Read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/dWq9FsGA

In thinking about our investment strategies over the last eight years, we tried to identify a consistent theme or driving force behind what we do. We were able to boil it down to one word: diffusion. Our partner, Craig Burel, gives a closer look into how we invest at Reciprocal Ventures in his newest insight here: https://lnkd.in/gu4nP2tK