Author|BruceLLBlue
Recently, Twitter has been buzzing with a wave of Chinese KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) sharing posts about how much money they've made in the past year: millions, tens of millions, even 10.24 billion (don't run away, it's just a meme)... After reading these, I can only say, "Wow, impressive!" But as a former VC investment head (GP, General Partner), I just want to vent a bit: I've been a crypto VC for a few years now and have lost tens of millions of dollars. This isn't just hot air; it's a real, painful story. In three years, I made 55+ investments, 27 of which were losses (including rug pulls), 15 of which completely went to zero. At the same time, I also invested in 9 relatively top-tier VC funds.
Among them, all NFT-related projects were completely wiped out, and GameFi pulled a rug, losing 33%,Infra This is a heavily hit area, with many projects now valued at only 10%-20% of their previous estimates. KOLs who boast about their income and esteemed crypto traders, congratulations on catching the secondary market wave. What about VCs who focus on early-stage (primary market) investments? They're constantly flattering project teams. They lock up funds for 3-4 years, yet often end up in a situation where they "invested early and correctly, but can't exit." Why are people now voluntarily sharing their losses? It's not about complaining about poverty, but rather a wake-up call. Crypto VC has always been tough—bears markets are grueling, and bull markets often see project teams "harvesting" from investors. However, I believe that this new cycle may not necessarily be an excellent time to continue as a VC (or to evolve the model), even though institutional capital is now entering the space, regulations are becoming clearer, and AI plus on-chain tools are reshaping exit paths. I think there are better ways and paths to realize one's self-worth. I'll share my hard-earned lessons with you all, so we can learn and grow together.
Lesson 1: Statistics are stark, 55 orders' "win rate" "Please enter a valid Truth
From August 2022, when I joined a crypto venture capital firm, until July 2025, when I left, I personally led 55 direct investment deals and invested in 9 funds.
Rug pull accounts for 14/55 (25.45%): The worst-hit areas are NFT projects, all of which have completely failed. One "star project" backed by a major IP was initially popular during the NFT boom, but the team had little Web3 experience. The founder, a top-tier celebrity, showed little interest in token issuance, and after key members left, the project pulled a soft rug. Another "music + Web3" project, led by people who left a major company and spent years developing, failed to deliver anything tangible and quietly faded away. There's also the "executive's entrepreneurial dream" in a Dex project: the founder had the team work for free while he pocketed the money, leading to the departure of core staff. A "promising project" from a university lab also mostly failed.
Loss ratio 28/55 (50.1%): one of them GameFi refers to the integration of gaming and decentralized Project A, after a 5x listing, ended up in a mess (now at 20% of cost, down 99% silently); another GameFi project from a "team with a North American big tech background," which peaked at 12x, is now at just 10% of its cost; there's also a GameFi project that was heavily dumped due to a large token pressure from a certain CEX's launchpad, and it failed to gain traction, ultimately crashing. The situation is even worse in the infrastructure (Infra) sector: no breakthroughs in the ecosystem, no technological innovation, and after the hype faded, projects remaining at 10% of their cost are everywhere; if you didn't hedge in time, it's practically a total loss. And there's also another... MOVE EcosystemThe socialfi project collapsed just before the bull market of 2024.
What about fund investments (FoF, fund of funds)? We've invested in 9 top-tier Western funds, including @hack_vc, @Maven11Capital, @FigmentCapital, @IOSGVC, and @BanklessVC. These funds have largely participated in the early-stage investments of very well-known projects in this cycle, such as @eigenlayer, @babylonlabs_io, @MorphoLabs, @movementlabsxyz, @ionet, @alt_layer, @MYX_Finance, @solayer_labs, @ethsign, @0G_labs, @berachain, @initia, @stable, @monad, @ether_fi, @brevis_zk, and @SentientAGI. On paper, the returns look decent, with 2–3x, which seems respectable at first glance, but in reality... DPI(Already realized returns) The estimated return may only be 1–1.5x. Why is this the expectation? The main reason is the slow vesting of project tokens and poor market liquidity. If a bear market occurs or something like the FTX collapse happens, positions held could instantly plummet in value.
Lesson Two: The Pit Is Deep, But Human Nature Is Even Deeper — A Few That Moved Me "Please enter a valid 's massacre
The most heartbreaking is the "investment bait" turning into a disaster: a DEX project, whose founder appeared to have a CEX executive background, actually outsourced the team to do black-hat work and pocketed the project's revenue. In GameFi, the "North American big company dream" saw the price surge 12x on launch, but then continuously dropped, never looking back. A founder from @0xPolygon launched an infrastructure project, but the ecosystem development remains distant, and the valuation is now only 15% of the initial investment. Several hot infrastructure projects made their debut on the two major Korean exchanges (Upbit and Bithumb), but their prices have plummeted ever since, never recovering. Even a "music NFT" project with a founder from Tencent Music ended up as a soft rug pull after a few years, achieving nothing.
VCs in Chinese-speaking regions are in more pain: language, mindset, and resources are inherently at a disadvantage. The playbooks of Western funds are fundamentally different—they focus on scale and management fees, while we're stuck with short-term quick flips and paper hands. For well-known projects that raise huge amounts of capital, they outsource the execution of their roadmap globally (I've dealt with several such cases, and as long as the money is sufficient, it's all good). Founders only need to build the community and raise funds. What about the VCs? They are the most vulnerable group. Some project teams dump tokens through airdrops and use USB drives and Korean exchanges to trade (they pump the price to a target level at the opening and then split the profits, which is why Korean exchanges often see opening premiums). Investors have no way to verify these activities. Every VC thinks they're great, but if you check the IRR and DPI of these funds, they're not even as good as a fixed deposit in USDT or USDC.
Lesson 3: Having lost so much, I learned "Exiting is the key." "Please enter a valid The theory of evolution
Being a VC in the crypto space is really tough. You have to endure bear markets, bet on people's psychology, see through human nature, and if you don't hold tokens, you have to wait for unlocks. The cycle lasts 3–4 years. If you don't hedge or manage liquidity in the secondary market, earning excess returns is almost impossible. From my observations, most projects that generated excess returns were invested in during 2022–2023 after the FTX collapse. The core reason is: project valuations were low, founders had strong conviction, and the timing of the investment was right (giving the project enough time to explore and launch a TGE early when the bull market arrived). Why do other projects underperform or even lose money? The main reasons are simple: either they were too expensive, too early, or the token unlock schedule was misaligned.
Looking back carefully, these are all valuable experiences! Moreover, $BTC has been hitting new highs continuously, and traditional big institutions/Wall Street are rushing into the market. In fact, the window of opportunity for ordinary people to get rich quickly is gradually closing. Institutional investment returns are moving closer to those of Web2 venture capital (it's hard to return to the era of wild growth before 2021).
The new generation of investors: he or she is not necessarily a VC, but more likely to be individual angel investors or super KOLs (key opinion leaders). Through their influence and resources, they often secure better unlocking plans and more favorable token allocations than traditional VCs. Moreover, it's not just about investing early and investing in the right projects; they also need to capture the entire value chain, including pre-IPO (primary market), secondary market, options / convertible bonds, airdrops, market-making hedging, and DeFi arbitrage. In fact, there is a significant cognitive misalignment and difference between the East and the West, and this gap itself is a golden opportunity for arbitrage.
Turn around, type on the keyboard, and forge a path of dignity through content creation.
After losing tens of millions in the crypto VC world, I've come to one clear realization: day after day, licking project teams, waiting anxiously for token unlocks, and gambling on human nature and psychology only brings the humiliating label of a "VC dog" and the resentment of the capital providers behind me. Project teams can quietly dump their tokens through airdrops, while investors can only watch helplessly. Enough is enough! Now, I've decided to turn my back on that and start writing articles: by typing away every day, sharing my industry insights and alpha ideas, I no longer have to agonize over waiting for project unlocks. Instead, I can directly and proactively position myself to capture project opportunities. Compared to the passive waiting of VC, this path is more dignified, allowing me to freely deliver value. The compounding returns here are the trust and shares from my readers.
In the end, through these experiences in recent years, I finally realized: patience > opportunity, luck > expertise.FOMO= Suicide.