Author: Wintermute Ventures
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Deep Tide Introduction: Wintermute Ventures investment manager Joscha Kupferberg attended the EthCC conference in Cannes and brought back firsthand observations: VCs are more cautious but still investing, founders generally are not rushing to issue tokens but focus on building products first, DeFi builders are collectively flocking to the Vault track, neobanking features are becoming standard rather than a differentiator, and AI Agent applications in the crypto space have almost entirely retreated to trading bots.
@wmt_ventures tweet:
What are crypto builders actually doing now?
"Vaults are the new Perps." This was a phrase heard repeatedly at the EthCC conference in Cannes. The conference reflected a broader industry shift: less noise, more institutional presence, founders working quietly rather than chasing release schedules. Our investment manager @joschakup spent a full week immersed in these conversations. Here are his observations.
EthCC Atmosphere
Contrary to some pessimistic views, the overall atmosphere was positive. A healthy mix of early builders, VCs, and active family offices was present. The only obvious shadow was layoffs—still happening widely and realistically across the industry.
How Crypto VCs Are Investing Now
VCs are more cautious but still active. The focus has shifted to later seed rounds and beyond, where there is traction and product-market fit to evaluate. The era of placing moonshot bets purely on vibes appears to be over.
Founders No Longer Chase Token Issuance
The vast majority of early founders Joscha spoke with did not prioritize token issuance. The focus is on building an economically viable product first. Token optionality is a topic for later—if at all.
Themes Worth Tracking
Several heating trends:
- On-chain foreign exchange is quietly becoming a serious topic
- Privacy-oriented DeFi is emerging as a legitimate track, with more projects exploring institutional-grade use cases
- Prediction markets are gaining substantial traction, with increasing competition in liquidity infrastructure and incentive design
Vaults Are the New Perps
DeFi builders are working hard, increasingly focusing on institutional use cases and RWA. If there is one unavoidable theme, it's Vaults. From Vault infrastructure and yield products to rehypothecation, strategy discoverers, and ratings, the entire track has highly converged on this category, closely followed by stablecoins and neobanking.
Neobanking Is No Longer a Differentiator
Many DeFi projects with significant TVL are integrating third-party services to provide neobanking features: on/off ramps, cards, yield vaults. This is a reasonable approach for user retention, but the logical conclusion is: neobanking alone is no longer a differentiator.
AI Agents Have Almost Entirely Retreated to Trading Bots
Most AI Agent use cases in crypto seem to have made a 180-degree turn back to trading bots. Joscha had hoped to bring back some new ideas, but did not. This is currently the only area that hasn't surprised him.
