This month, Henry Ang visited EthCC in Brussels - Europe’s flagship blockchain meetup. We spoke with Henry for the download and you’ll pick up not-so-subtle hints about our soon-to-be-published #blockchain investment thesis!
Day 1 - 8th July: Blockchain Infra
💠 Kicked off with an event delving into blockchain as an infrastructure tool, enabling builders to achieve outcomes unattainable with existing infrastructure. The onboarding process has improved through native account abstraction that can help facilitate non-custodial value attribution.
💠 At an “intents” event, it was observed that many smart individuals are working on this, but its market scalability remains uncertain.
💠 It was awesome to see new BACKED portfolio founder Amadeo B., Co-Founder and CEO of YieldNest, speak on EpicWeb3 ’s panel about how #Restaking can enhance #Ethereum's scalability.
Day 2 - 9th July: Expanding Horizons
🔹 Highlights included meeting another exceptional founders, Sean Yu and an insightful event on AI by our friends at Fabric VC.
🔹 A crucial insight was that while founders are quick to move from 0-1, they often need substantial support to execute their broader vision. BACKED's focus on founder support is invaluable as many crypto projects excel at achieving local maxima but struggle to scale globally. This underscores the need for robust support systems to help founders navigate the complexities of scaling.
Day 3 - 10th July: Strategic Insights
🔷 Started with Henry Duckworth from AgriDexPlatform who are addressing agricultural supply chain friction using blockchain and USDC.
🔷 Later, rich discussions with Simão Cruz from Lightshift, and Yaroslav Writtle from Faculty Group about market dynamics and future predictions. Notably how attention to detail in identifying, iterating, and rewarding power users contributes to project success (e.g. Pendle, Morpho). The day ended with a watch party for England vs Netherlands ⚽ .
💡 Henry reaffirmed his short-term bearish outlook on existing capital allocators, despite being long-term bullish on the industry. He feels capital allocators are responsible for shaping the industry, yet there is herd mentality, with investment piling into infrastructure despite lofty valuations. This can lead to poor incentives for builders, for fear of being unable to raise a future round. At BACKED we focus on backing founders who deeply understand and actively leverage blockchain and #crypto economics to deliver better applications.
Days 4-5 - 11-12th July: Reflections
Modular Summit provided a broader view of the community. A recurring theme was the lack of a unified community behind Ethereum, with competing infrastructures complicating application development. Despite these challenges, the summit highlighted the sector's resilience and innovation.
The week reinforced our belief in blockchain technology's transformative potential, and underscores BACKED’s mission to support visionary founders in #frontiertech.
