Speaker 1: Hey, folks, I have Juli Tajwani, who's the head of
Speaker 1: Coinbase Ventures joining me.
Speaker 2: Hooley, great to have you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do
Speaker 1: at Coinbase.
Speaker 3: Sure, So, I've been at Coinbase coming up on seven years,
Speaker 3: and I look after Coinbase Ventures, which is our early
Speaker 3: stage and strategic investing arm. We have now become one
Speaker 3: of the most active investors in the crypto space. We've
Speaker 3: made over five hundred investments across the world, continue to
Speaker 3: actively invested in crypto based startups.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of investments. Tell us about the difference
Speaker 1: between the ventures and M and A, because there's obviously
Speaker 1: been acquisitions that coinbase has made, but the ventures may
Speaker 1: be a bit different, right.
Speaker 3: Sure yeah. Separate, separate team, separate focused, separate mandates. So
Speaker 3: when we started Coinbase Ventures, the philosophy the mandate was broadly,
Speaker 3: we want to seed this ecosystem and help back accept
Speaker 3: optional founders who are pushing the space forward. So we
Speaker 3: invest very broadly. We'll invest in things that could be
Speaker 3: considered competitive a coinbased from percerin perspective, things that are
Speaker 3: tangential could be completely orthogonal. Some of our investments in
Speaker 3: the portfolio naturally organically turn it to em andate conversations,
Speaker 3: but it's not our primary focus when we're making the investment.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: So it could be token projects, it could be infrastructure companies,
Speaker 1: and potentially they could be put into the coinbase ecosystem
Speaker 1: as part of the business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, it could be all types of all the above,
Speaker 3: and sometimes there are like commercial relationships or business development
Speaker 3: partnerships that we do, but we also invest in a
Speaker 3: bunch of stuff that's outside of that platform.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about some of the most recent
Speaker 1: investments you've made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were very active.
Speaker 3: Like I said, We've made over five hundred investments and
Speaker 3: continue to deploy. Some recent ones that are notable of mind.
Speaker 3: We were investors in Privy, which was acquired by Announced
Speaker 3: It has been acquired by Stripe yesterday. We're large investors
Speaker 3: in BBNK, which is another stable coin provider. We have
Speaker 3: a bunch of founders for here today at State of Crypto,
Speaker 3: Shane from Polymarket, U T y T y b uh,
Speaker 3: and a whole bunch more Morpho. We could list a
Speaker 3: model mon Our website's a great place to them.
Speaker 1: See like the business side of me would say coinbase
Speaker 1: should integrate poly market, like that'll be a natural segue,
Speaker 1: so to speak, as part of the platform. Let me
Speaker 1: go take some bets and things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're definitely excited about prediction markets. There's uh, I
Speaker 3: think it's it's still early on kind of the final
Speaker 3: form factor, but a lot of credit to Shane and
Speaker 3: the team there for putting putting it on the map.
Speaker 1: Sure, are there any AI agent slash AI blockchain technology
Speaker 1: companies that you're invested in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a big focus for us right now, the
Speaker 3: intersection of crypto and AI. We're candidly not as excited
Speaker 3: about some of the kind of like decentralized GPU type
Speaker 3: compute models. We just don't know that technically things have
Speaker 3: been figured out yet. But we're very excited about this
Speaker 3: idea of we're moving to agent based commerce system and
Speaker 3: that crypto and non chain rails should should play a
Speaker 3: big part in how that new economy works. So a
Speaker 3: bunch of investments we've made there that we can't disclose yet,
Speaker 3: but it's we try to follow where like the best
Speaker 3: and brightest hackers are spending their nights and weekends, and
Speaker 3: that intersection points definitely where a lot of a lot
Speaker 3: of that activity is happening right now.
Speaker 1: So are there any specific sectors that you focus on
Speaker 1: or you pretty much open so whether it be stable coins, AI,
Speaker 1: r W, a tokenization, DeFi or you know, you guys
Speaker 1: looking at all those sectors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so our mandate is very broad.
Speaker 3: If there's some component of blockchain technology, it will cons
Speaker 3: will evaluate it. The space moves really fast, so the
Speaker 3: specific themes that we're focused on every any given time
Speaker 3: kind of refreshes every every couple quarters, every every six months.
Speaker 2: Right now, there is where we're spending a lot of time.
Speaker 2: Are stable coins.
Speaker 3: Stable coin related infrastructure, DeFi, all types of defied protocols,
Speaker 3: on chain consumer applications, So i'd put like prediction markets
Speaker 3: and poly market in that category, and the intersection of
Speaker 3: crypto AI. Those are kind of like the four areas
Speaker 3: we're spending a lot of time right now. But we
Speaker 3: have the humility to know, like we're not the smartest
Speaker 3: people in the room, and where where the builders are
Speaker 3: going is where we're going to spend time.
Speaker 1: That absolutely makes sense. Yeah, it's and there's so many
Speaker 1: sectors that are coming up in this industry, Like one
Speaker 1: I'm really fastened by, fascinated by is deep In and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe over the next four years debt sectors
Speaker 1: are some mature even more so it's just exciting to
Speaker 1: see all the building that's happening.
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, we're we're also excited about deep In.
Speaker 3: I was my helium when you know, when that first
Speaker 3: came out, and that's that that's definitely an exciting category.
Speaker 3: We've we've made a bunch of investments there as well.
Speaker 1: As far as you know from a venture standpoint, do
Speaker 1: you I don't know if you can share this information,
Speaker 1: do you have like a number you your team works
Speaker 1: on as far as investing capital that you can put towards.
Speaker 2: These Yeah, we're we're investing off the coinbase balance sheet.
Speaker 3: We do set we do set a kind of a
Speaker 3: guardrail for capital capital deployment, and so we manage it
Speaker 3: similar to how you know a series seed or Series
Speaker 3: A centric fund would manage it. And so yeah, but
Speaker 3: we're also adaptive with the market and we kind of
Speaker 3: let the opportunities drive us. So there's no like fixed
Speaker 3: number of dollars that have to go out the door
Speaker 3: every year. There's also like there's just flexibility on it.
Speaker 1: So what's on your road map? I know you touched
Speaker 1: a bit on some things that you're looking at, but
Speaker 1: what can you share with us on your roadmap?
Speaker 3: On the roadmap, so we've got it. We have like
Speaker 3: a core kind of early stage venture investing activity, which
Speaker 3: is kind of our our bread and butter wheelhouse. We're
Speaker 3: excited about. We recently stood up like a base Ecosystem
Speaker 3: group on Echo, which is a crowdfunding complying crowndfunding platform.
Speaker 3: So we're excited about finding ways that we can fulfill
Speaker 3: Coinbas's broader mission around economic freedom, where we can expand
Speaker 3: access to folks in the market who want to invest
Speaker 3: behind the companies that we're investing in, and also bring
Speaker 3: that capital availability to founders and startups.
Speaker 2: So that's like.
Speaker 3: One initiative and we're kind of thinking through working through
Speaker 3: other other examples like that where we can basically match
Speaker 3: great founders and sources of capital where their inefficiencies.
Speaker 1: Final the question herefore, I let you go, what are
Speaker 1: you most excited about for the crypto market this year?
Speaker 3: And yeah, you know, like zooming out, it's it's it
Speaker 3: is kind of just been a wild wild ride over
Speaker 3: the past like years of ups and downs. I think
Speaker 3: if I was just talking a few folks that it
Speaker 3: feels really weird to kind of be in the mainstream
Speaker 3: right now, like the crypto people were kind of the
Speaker 3: edgy off to the side, like not the favored, favored
Speaker 3: group of founders. I think what I'm scited about it
Speaker 3: is how just how much the conviction around crypto is
Speaker 3: going to eat the traditional financial system is proving out
Speaker 3: like you see it with stable coins right now. You
Speaker 3: see if you look at the numbers, payment volumes, and
Speaker 3: like penetration stable coins are happening. Bitcoin has crossed this
Speaker 3: chasm where it's we now have black rock here, you know,
Speaker 3: with a Bitcoin ETF. So it's it's kind of cool
Speaker 3: to be here in New York and Wall Street and
Speaker 3: see how this, you know, this edgy cipherpunk thing has
Speaker 3: now really kind of integrated itself into the financial system
Speaker 3: and is going to continue to penetrate. And also excited
Speaker 3: about the tone of where things are progressing from a
Speaker 3: regulatory front in the United States, So hopeful and optimistic
Speaker 3: that during this administration we get some clear rules of
Speaker 3: the road for founders and builders, and that's only just
Speaker 3: going to keep compounding the innovation of the space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exciting and boy, you know I heard well
Speaker 1: this was reported this morning that black Rock said they
Speaker 1: want to be the leader in the digital asset space,
Speaker 1: you know, by twenty thirty and holding the most assets.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of surreal. You kind of have to
Speaker 1: pinch yourself, like how did this happen? But it's exciting.
Speaker 1: This this technology is going to power the economy, the markets,
Speaker 1: and much more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and increase economic freedom in the world, which is
Speaker 2: our mission.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, holy great stuff for joining me.
Speaker 2: Thank you,