Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)
Just days after Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani announced his exit from the crypto industry, the goodwill he had accumulated over the years has rapidly eroded.
"Burning Bridges" Is Truly Disgusting
Objectively speaking, Kyle Samani has made positive contributions to the cryptocurrency industry over the years. Whether it's the continuous financial support for early-stage projects (regardless of motive, focusing on the effect) or the narrative guidance and ideological evangelism at the conceptual level, he has directly or indirectly influenced the industry's direction.
From a purely results-oriented perspective, Kyle Samani indeed achieved unimaginable "major results" in the crypto industry. For this reason alone, it's quite reasonable for Hasseb Qureshi to call him the "best investor in the industry" or for Mable to refer to him as a "top player."
- Odaily Note: Hasseb Qureshi is a partner at Dragonfly Capital. He once stated that "investing is like a sport, and Kyle Samani is the highest scorer of all time, unmatched," details in 《The Man Who Best Shilled SOL Exits the Crypto World》; Mable is a former partner at Multicoin Capital and co-founder of Trends. After Kyle Samani's exit, she wrote a viral article 《The Game Continues, But Kyle's Version Is Over》.
But precisely because of this, the "ugly face" Kyle Samani has frequently shown in the days since his exit is even more repulsive.
First, on the day of his exit, while replying to Stix founder Taran, Kyle Samani stated: "Crypto just isn't as interesting as many people (including myself) once thought. I used to believe in the Web3 vision, believe in DApps, but now I don't. Blockchains are fundamentally asset ledgers. They will reshape finance, but that's about it, not much more."
This post was quickly deleted by Kyle Samani... Well, clearly this was his true feeling never revealed before, but the fact that he deleted it at least means he knew "burning bridges" wasn't a good look.
But unfortunately, he didn't stop there. On February 8th, Kyle Samani once again lashed out at the industry that made him: "Hyperliquid embodies almost every negative aspect of cryptocurrency. The founders fled their home country to start it, openly facilitating crime and terrorism, the system is closed-source, and it still requires permission."
Although being outspoken has always been a controversial label attached to Kyle Samani, this illogical and clearly factually incorrect "mindless rant" was untenable. Coupled with his new identity as an outsider, the statement seemed even more突兀. In the past, Kyle Samani's outrageous remarks could at least gain some group support based on stance (e.g., siding with Solana, long-term criticism of Ethereum). This time, however, he was standing outside the industry, completely negating the entire crypto sector.
The direction of the fallout was predictable: Kyle Samani successfully provoked widespread anger.
It's understandable for someone who lost money in crypto to criticize it; people always need an emotional outlet. But Kyle Samani, a beneficiary who gained immense wealth and achieved class transition in crypto, couldn't wait to turn around and stomp on it immediately after announcing his exit. This inevitably feels hypocritical and disgusting.
To put it bluntly, this is a classic case of "biting the hand that feeds you" — Kyle Samani wants to take away the benefits bestowed by the industry while eagerly cutting ties with it. How can such a huge便宜 exist?
An Eerie Sense of Incongruity: Is There More to the Exit?
Another very incongruous point is that Kyle Samani chose Hyperliquid as his attack target; on the other hand, Multicoin Capital continues to increase its bet on Hyperliquid.
In the same week Kyle Samani announced his exit, on-chain analyst MLM detected multiple large purchases of HYPE by an address suspected to belong to Multicoin Capital (https://hypurrscan.io/address/0xd4d56a30a4a745f8ba732e8b453b7066260fbc10#txs).
Crypto Banter founder Ran Neuner discovered that in the five-year investment theses published the weekend prior by Multicoin's other co-founder, Tushar Jain, Hyperliquid was prominently listed as a representative project for the third thesis, "Financial Globalization," while DePIN, which Kyle Samani had long been extremely bullish on, was completely absent.
Ran Neuner offered a hypothesis based on this: that Kyle Samani did not leave voluntarily but had conflicts with Tushar Jain, was eventually forced out, and due to non-compete clause restrictions, Kyle Samani had to exit the crypto industry entirely...
Although this speculation lacks any factual evidence, it seems to better explain the aforementioned incongruities and Kyle Samani's sudden attitude shift — Would you rather believe that a top mind long dedicated to the crypto industry suddenly realized its emptiness? Or would you rather believe that Kyle Samani turned his back only because he harbored resentment and could no longer profit from the industry?
Whether out of faith in the industry's future or residual recognition of Kyle Samani's past achievements, emotionally, I lean towards the second possibility. As for the truth, it might only be revealed someday in the future when no one cares about this matter anymore.
No Future for the Crypto Industry?
Over the past few years, we have seen many instances of talent flowing from the crypto world to the AI world, but the exit of a标志性 figure like Kyle Samani has dealt a heavy blow to confidence in the entire crypto industry.
So, does the industry really have no future? This is clearly not a question that can be answered by personal opinion. After Kyle Samani chose to leave, several true thought leaders of comparable stature used their own logic to explain why they remain bullish on the industry's future.
Tushar Jain's信念 remains firm. The eight investment theses he published for Multicoin Capital still focus on the crypto world.
Haseeb Qureshi believes that Kyle Samani's departure is the truest sign of the industry maturing. Pioneers and settlers are often not the same people, this is driven by the laws of human nature — "I remain very bullish on crypto. I know it's strange to say this amidst market turmoil, as people have little patience for dreams that will take a decade to realize. The era of dreamers is over, but the era of builders is coming. This in itself is neither good nor bad."
a16z Crypto partner and Web3 concept pioneer Chris Dixon, drew an analogy with the development规律 of the internet to refute Kyle Samani's view that cryptocurrency can only reshape finance — "Infrastructure and distribution networks often precede new application categories. The internet didn't start with social media, streaming, or online communities, but with packet switching, TCP/IP, and basic connectivity. It was only after hundreds of millions of people came online that entirely new cultural and economic categories emerged. Crypto is likely similar. A reasonable guess is that we need to get hundreds of millions of people on-chain first through financial applications like payments, stablecoins, savings, and DeFi, before we see meaningful adoption in media, gaming, AI, or other areas that might be further out."
The future is created by people. As long as more people share the same consensus, the flame of the crypto narrative can be rekindled.
