Pantera's former Chief Investment Officer Joey: Why did you choose to join Founders Fund?
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Pantera's former Chief Investment Officer Joey: Why did you choose to join Founders Fund?
Why did Joey Krug, former Co-CIO of Pantera, choose to join Founders Fund, and what will be Founders Fund's strategy in the crypto space going forward?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Joey Krug
Translated by: TechFlow
On April 18, Joey Krug, former Co-CIO at Pantera Capital, was appointed Partner at Founders Fund, where he will “focus on shaping the crypto strategy that defines Founders Fund’s next decade, while identifying the next generation of crypto startups and founders to support.”
What is Founders Fund?
When discussing Founders Fund, one cannot overlook Peter Thiel, a legendary figure in Silicon Valley. In 2005, Peter Thiel co-founded Founders Fund with a group of like-minded individuals who believed that the success or failure of a company ultimately depends on its founders—hence the name "Founders Fund."
Founders Fund is renowned for investing in cutting-edge technology companies across industries such as aerospace, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and materials science. The fund has provided early-stage capital to dozens of exceptional tech startups including Facebook, Airbnb, LinkedIn, DeepMind, OculusVR, SpaceX, Palantir, and Stemcentrx. Most of these companies later became unicorns, with several evolving into industry giants.
Why did Joey Krug, former Co-CIO of Pantera, choose to join Founders Fund? And what might be Founders Fund's future moves in the crypto space? Let Joey Krug explain it himself.
Below is the original article:
I’m excited to announce that, starting today, I’m joining Founders Fund as a Partner. I’ll be focusing on a few key things:
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Shaping the next ten years of Founders Fund’s crypto strategy;
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Identifying and supporting the next wave of revolutionary founders and crypto companies;
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Engaging in general investing alongside other Founders Fund partners, while maintaining a strong focus on cryptocurrency.
I’d like to share why I chose to join Founders Fund, why I believe it’s the best place for founders to raise capital for crypto projects, and offer some of my current thoughts on the state of crypto.
Why Founders Fund?
Peter has been thinking about decentralized money and exploring digital currencies since the 1990s. Across crypto and many other industries, he saw transformative shifts coming far earlier than almost anyone else.
Founders Fund has grown into one of the world’s premier venture firms, and in my view, it’s the firm most aligned with crypto’s spirit and culture. Its mission has always been to back unconventional founders with bold visions—exactly what crypto needs. The firm was built on the principle of being founder-first and founder-friendly (as the name suggests). In crypto, where there's inherent skepticism toward VCs, this genuine partnership ethos is especially critical to success.
For these and many other reasons, when given the opportunity to work with what I consider the smartest people in venture capital, I jumped at the chance. I want to dedicate my time to investing in and supporting the best companies and founders in crypto, and I believe Founders Fund is the perfect platform to achieve that.
Why is Founders Fund the top choice to lead the next wave of crypto investing?
At Founders Fund, we only invest in companies we believe are among the very best of the year—not just within crypto, but across all sectors. We don’t have a mandate to deploy billions of dollars into crypto specifically; instead, we evaluate founders across industries and stages. This means that if Founders Fund invests in your company, we’re sending a signal to the market—and to the talent you want to attract—that we believe your project is one of the most promising startups in the world.
Historically, crypto founders felt compelled to seek out specialized crypto-focused funds rather than traditional VCs. However, by combining my deep crypto expertise with Founders Fund’s brand and broad experience, I believe no other firm is better positioned to lead the financing and development of crypto protocols and companies over the next decade.
Now, you no longer have to choose between traditional VC backing and native crypto expertise and support. With Founders Fund, you can have both.
How do I see the crypto landscape?
My vision is simple: crypto will become the infrastructure for transferring and storing value, just as the internet created new infrastructure for creating and consuming information. At a high level, crypto enables natively digital financial transactions on the internet without relying on gatekeeping institutions.
Because crypto transactions are executed by code rather than bank tellers or white-collar professionals in Manhattan, they can operate globally 24/7—without bank holidays, market hours, or any of the friction and restrictions inherent in traditional finance.
This implies that crypto markets will foster a significant software ecosystem underpinning societal and economic activity. Having a separate crypto fund makes no more sense to us than having a standalone internet fund or an independent AI fund. Moving forward, crypto will be an integral part of our overall investment strategy.
To those skeptics who claim crypto lacks real-world use cases, I often point to USDC payments—an early, simple, yet highly practical example. USDC allows you to send digital dollars anywhere in the world, receivable within seconds on the Ethereum blockchain. I won’t even dive into the benefits of decentralized money/gold, DeFi innovations, zero-knowledge proofs, gaming, or NFTs—but suffice it to say, I’ve never been more optimistic.
There has been a major paradigm shift in recent years compared to past cycles. When I first started writing smart contracts, developer infrastructure barely existed. Now, thanks to companies like Alchemy (which I led the Series A round for), building systems based on smart contracts is much easier. In previous cycles, high transaction fees made non-trading applications nearly impossible. But with scalability solutions like Arbitrum and StarkWare (both of which I invested in at the seed stage), platforms like Ethereum have become more scalable, faster, and cheaper—enabling a far broader range of future applications.
We’re also witnessing the emergence of the first decentralized consumer-grade applications in crypto. These primarily focus on trading and enhancing trader experience—such as decentralized exchange aggregators like 0x (Matcha) and 1inch Network, and decentralized insurance protocols like Risk Harbor—all of which I’ve invested in. I believe in the next cycle, we’ll see many more consumer-facing applications built atop this latest wave of infrastructure.
Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of discovering and funding incredible founders, then watching them make transformative contributions to our field. I’m incredibly proud and inspired by them—they are among the best builders in crypto, and they’re what get me out of bed each morning. I look forward to continuing to identify the next generation of outstanding founders, and I’m grateful to Founders Fund for giving me this opportunity.
Historically, the best time to invest in crypto has been when people have lost faith in it. I believe now is one of those times.
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Joey Krug
