As part of our effort to increase transparency and share our thinking more broadly, we will begin sharing the introduction to our quarterly Scenius Ventures investor updates with our Substack audience. While the full update remains confidential to investors, we hope the themes and perspectives we highlight in the introduction are valuable to a broader set of readers.
Dear Partner,
A few weeks ago Ben posted on X about “Crypto VC Mandate Creep“ The post landed because it gave language to something many investors feel, but few have been saying out loud. Crypto investors are watching AI, deep-tech, quantum, and robotics capture attention and capital while crypto, despite increasingly impressive fundamentals, gets pushed to the backburner of the zeitgeist. That’s the view from inside the crypto snowglobe looking out.
Within the crypto microcosm, consensus has formed around a few beliefs. The broader web3 user-owned networks and businesses dream feels dormant. Infrastructure is built out and does not need much additional funding. Fintech and DeFi remain the clearest areas of product-market fit. Venture dollars are consolidating into the categories with known business fundamentals and exit optionality: 1,225 companies have been founded thus far in 2026 focused on stablecoin and crypto-fintech infrastructure, up from 663 in all of 2025. Our view is that this train won’t stop until every consumer, enterprise, and agent uses blockchains for payments and various financial services.
There will be huge winners in these established domains, but the savviest investors know what the penguin running for the mountains knows: outsized returns come from going against the crowd. So they begin to look elsewhere and press their faces up against the glass in search of ideas and energy. Rockets, drones, datacenters, nuclear, AI companions. Who isn’t invigorated by these vectors of innovation? The harder question is what comes next for crypto VCs. Should these crypto investors evolve to a broader mandate in search of greener pastures, or remain disciplined in the market they know best and have edge in?
Buried in this dilemma are difficult questions. Below is a sample of the debates circulating in the crypto VC GP and LP community:
Does the intersection of crypto x AI, crypto x robotics, crypto x deep-tech, etc. have real teeth? In these technical and capital-intensive categories, does adding crypto to a business unlock anything that is value accretive? Or is the bolt-on of crypto a distraction and marketing fluff?
What does “sufficiently crypto” actually mean for a company to qualify for investment from a crypto only VC? Using stablecoins for payments should not be enough. Where is the line?
Do crypto VCs that broaden beyond pure crypto have a real edge in competitive frontier tech deals? Or does the move expose them to adverse selection, where they see the deals traditional specialist investors have already passed on?
None of these have clean answers.
From Scenius’ perspective, we believe that crypto VCs are some of the most talented and agile investors on earth. Discovering blockchain before it was obvious, then building venture firms capable of underwriting and supporting an entirely new category of companies, was extraordinarily hard. Staking assets, supplying liquidity, participating in on-chain governance, advising on token design, supporting exchange listings and market maker discussions, and evaluating token/equity value capture and regulatory dynamics are not issues most traditional $30 million early-stage venture managers are required to navigate. Handling the complexity of this nascent asset class amid extreme volatility in price, sentiment, and regulatory posture is not for the faint of heart. We commend both our portfolio funds and the broader crypto venture manager universe for building the plane while flying it.
So back to the question of adaptation vs. discipline. Perhaps it’s a false dichotomy and the answer lies somewhere in the gray. Building networks and knowledge at the frontier of adjacent technologies matters, because cross-pollination is often where the magic happens. But before reaching for a broader mandate, the more honest question is whether crypto VCs are being ambitious enough within the one they have, and whether they’re willing to inspire and push founders toward big, difficult ideas rather than the path of least resistance. The scarcity of exciting, sufficiently-crypto ideas may say less about the category and more about a field that has grown risk-averse after a bruising few years. The next big non-consensus bet is more likely to come from a GP who reimagines what crypto can do than from one who abandons the category and follows generalists into a defense start-up.
At Scenius, we have settled somewhere in that gray space ourselves. Crypto remains our conviction and our edge, but we haven’t stopped learning about where else innovation is moving. More often than not, it brings us back to crypto with better questions and hunger for bigger ideas.
Sincerely,
Ben & Greg