I’m incredibly proud to announce the launch of our oversubscribed $75M @PortalVentures Fund 2. We exclusively lead crypto pre-seeds with the first check in. Across our two funds we’ve now raised $115M. ~~~ Crypto is an industry that requires real conviction. Prior to launching Portal, I was an investor at Insight Partners. Insight was founded in 1995 to back software founders in what was, at the time, a cottage industry. Since then, they’ve raised $90B+ and had 50+ IPOs across the portfolio. Leaving that seat was not an easy decision, but I saw a similar opportunity. Build a firm that is purpose-built to back the emerging protocol economy. ~~~ When launching Fund 1, I was fortunate to have a great investor base for support and mentorship. Our investors include Midas list investors, decacorn founders, and Managing Partners of large funds across asset classes like @djparekh of Insight Partners, @KyleSamani of Multicoin, and Henry Kravis of KKR. There are so many people that helped me get here, but I’ll never forget Deven, Jeff, Ian, Nikhil, and David from Insight for being my first-ever investors and supporters. ~~~ Launching in early 2022 presented a slew of challenges. While crypto rallied to ATHs and mentions of the supercycle peaked, we grounded ourselves in the age-old Buffett quote “be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” As the year went on, exuberance evaporated with the crash of Luna and FTX. Fear filled the markets, it was go-time. We wired for one of our most exciting early lead investments within weeks of the FTX crash. From Q4 2022 through all of 2023, we were aggressive. As some told us to pivot to AI or ‘slow our deployment,’ we ran faster… We grounded in our conviction and ran into what looked like a burning market. It was the right decision. ~~~ When we started raising for Fund 2 earlier this year, BTC was still ~40% down from its ATH and many still questioned the viability of the industry. We’re super thankful to the teams at Accolade, Theta, and CrossLayer for betting big on us early on. An investor base that can see through the cycles lets us focus on what we love… ... And there are really two things that I love most about what we’re doing at Portal: 1. Backing founders with high conviction on day zero builds special relationships: We’re the first believers. Building in a volatile, emerging industry is a highly personal experience. It’s incredibly rewarding to see founders grow from an individual with an idea, to the leader of a category-creating product with a large team and scaled business. We’re on the rollercoaster with our founders. We take the late-night calls. We can relate when it feels like the world is ending. And we certainly celebrate the wins. 2. Crypto is a new asset class: New asset classes create new types of investment firms. There is no age-old playbook on being a world-class crypto investor, just as there was no PE playbook in the ‘80s or venture software playbook in the ‘90s. We get to think from first principles and help write the rules on investing in an industry that will create tens of trillions of dollars of market cap. Opportunities like this don’t come along often. ~~~ With our new $75M Fund 2, we’re excited to double down on what we do best: leading first-check investments into category-creating protocol businesses.

Plume has joined The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) Digital Assets Solutions Industry Working Group, joining industry leaders such as @CharlesSchwab, @AlpacaHQ, and @Nasdaq, who are also members. The group was created to provide feedback on the DTCC Tokenization Service and facilitate ongoing, robust dialogue that drives widespread digital assets adoption and advances innovation. @The_DTCC provides custody and asset servicing for over $114 trillion in assets and is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry. We look forward to contributing to this initiative and leveraging our expertise in compliance standards to the work the Digital Assets Solutions Industry Working Group is doing. We work with world-class security partners to scan every transaction at the sequencer level, before it's ever included onchain. Through Kimber Transfer Agency, a SEC-registered transfer agent, Plume maintains an official record of ownership for tokenized securities.

Never Compete. I was on with someone from our team at slow talking about competition recently… ‘how do you compete in venture capital’, etc… win deals. My honest philosophy? I hate competition professionally (love it in sport, but not business)…. And I think competition is especially stupid in early stage venture capital, where you are competing over / crawling over each other for out of the money call options on things that almost certainly will not work. Early stage VC competition on deals almost by definition leads to over-pricing / overpaying … and it also demonstrates a fundamental lack of creativity. Egotistically, if you want your money to matter / to make a difference, you want to be funding otherwise unfunded opportunities — where you see something others don’t… where money is most expensive, commands the highest return AND - to put a nice spin on it - where the money matters the most. So if you find yourself in a competition over a seed deal, IMHO you are a bad capitalist / limiting your returns, an un-creative person / a mere ‘market participant’ (yuck), and also misusing the incredible mandate and license you have to find things and make them happen in the world. You have to be careful about seeing mirages, because some things / most things are not funded because they are actually bad.. you can’t like things just because they are unliked… BUT your job is to have discipline in the wilderness / in the wander, and as the game evolves … both as a capitalist, and egotistically as someone who realizes how awful it is for your tombstone to say ‘market participant’

Studying crypto market structure as a microcosm for broader financial markets has been really informative

1. Consciousness is pre-verbal 2. LLMs are trained on something post-verbal 3. How can something post-verbal be conscious?

What would you do if you hacked satoshi's wallet? 1.⁠ ⁠Taking a large levered short on BTC. 2.⁠ ⁠⁠Move tokens from Satoshi's wallet. 3.⁠ ⁠⁠Close short. Open long. 4.⁠ ⁠⁠Announce you have the wallet and for the purposes of making BTC PQ, you will be burning all tokens. Alternatively, you might: 1.⁠ ⁠Accumulate BTC and lobby privately to make BTC PQ 2.⁠ ⁠⁠Or, focus attacks on lost private key wallets not satoshi's wallet You would not, however, immediately sell and / or try to break the network. Your issues would be: 1. The price of BTC will crater once any of Satoshi's coins move (lowering your EV) 2.⁠ ⁠⁠Liquidity at that scale will be challenging 3.⁠ ⁠⁠Off-ramping at that scale will be challenging

Portal Talent Network — 3.11.26 Role #1: @utexocom Title: Head of Exchange Relationships Description: Be the face of Utexo to exchanges. Manage existing partnerships, secure new listings and integration opportunities, and drive strategic alignment between the product roadmap and the needs of major trading venues. This is a senior, high-visibility role at the intersection of business development, product strategy, and ecosystem growth. Role #2: @JoinHorizon Title: Growth Marketing (Contractor) Description: Own paid social, lifecycle, and influencer-driven acquisition across TikTok, Meta, and referral channels. Produce high-performing video content and manage paid campaigns to drive brand awareness and customer acquisition. ***This role has the potential to convert into a full-time position if the engagement is successful. If you're interested in either opportunity, DM @evanzsolomon or send your LinkedIn and resume to esolomon@portal.vc

In 2001 people thought the internet was dead & overhyped. Today it's $10T+ in mkt cap Blockchain is entering the commercialization phase. Large market. Real value props. Proven biz models. Don't miss Amazon bc you're appalled by Pets dot com

Moats for the next decade: Capital intensivity Trust Network effects

When LPs ask who I most respect, my answer is usually "I'd give Kyle my money." I once made a joke that Kyle's love language is debate. He's truth seeking and incredible at standing behind his views even when contrarian. I've learned a lot from him and he's gone out of his way to help us as we build our firm. Excited to see what's next 🫡🙏🏼

We got 2 pitches today that didn't include any info on founder background Founders - you are the most important piece of a startup, at least tell me your name!

We've seen @chriseyin and @teddyP_xyz execute from day 1. They're ambitious, insanely fast-moving, and committed to building the best tokenization solutions 2025 was filled with insane ups and downs I've never seen them hungrier than they are now

Lots of VCs missed early payments deals bc they dramatically underestimated TAM I think the same is true with tokenization. It won't happen all at once, but there are truly trillions of $ of assets to come on-chain This is a market that will support many massive outcomes