partner @DraperDragon @OrionFund | re/tweets are not endorsements. | this is my only account | NFA
California, United States
Joined October 2024
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Cardano, you did it.
Welcome home @OrionFund
Next steps and updates to follow shortly. Time to execute.
We're excited to announce the Draper Dragon @OrionFund, an Ecosystem Fund focused on scaling Cardano-native and Cardano-integrated companies.
Three pillars of ecosystem growth will activate to derisk, scale, and grow the space:
- Direct Investments, led by Draper Dragon, intended to back builders driving measurable growth across Bitcoin DeFi, RWA, institutional DeFi, payments, privacy, and more.
- Venture Studio, our in-house team incubating and accelerating Cardano projects with product development, technical integration, and go-to-market support.
- Startup Acceleration & Talent Pipeline, powered by @draper_u, building and mentoring a new generation of Cardano founders through hands-on residency and accelerator programs. Together, we aim to create a measurable impact on Cardano's adoption and drive institutional growth within the ecosystem.
We are excited to lead the next chapter of @Cardano
Samiz Bayan retweeted
Earlier this year, the SEC classified $ADA as a digital commodity, not a security.
However, this classification only appears in the explanation of the new crypto rules, not in the rules themselves.
Six blockchain organizations have asked the SEC to write it into the rules. We co-signed the letter, alongside @StellarOrg, @Hedera, @AptosLabs, @AvaLabs and @Chainlink.
Samiz Bayan retweeted
@ether_fi about to hit $1B in card spend. Pretty amazing moment.
ether.fi/one-billion
Leverage on stocks has always been priced for traders. Interest adds up every day, so a margin loan works for a position you hold a few weeks and gets expensive fast for anything longer. Someone who wants to hold for ten years and still cover tuition or a tax bill from their portfolio has mostly had to sell.
That's why @SpoutFi was an easy conversation for us. It takes the borrowing cost to zero, paid for by covered calls on the collateral, which makes it a product for long-term holders who never had one. And as more stocks move on-chain, borrowing against them is one of the first things holders will want.
Glad @DraperDragon could back Marc Ryan, Paul Van Mierlo and the Spout team, and looking forward to private beta going live.
Borrowing against your stocks without selling them has mostly been a private banking perk, and Draper Dragon has invested in @SpoutFi to open it up to everyone at 0% interest. We joined Spout's strategic round alongside a strong group of co-investors, with strategic backing from @Solana.
It works like this: you post tokenized assets as collateral and borrow USDC at up to 50% of their value, with no interest for as long as the loan is open. Lenders are paid from weekly covered calls written on the collateral, so the income comes from the shares themselves and the borrower doesn't pay.
Congrats to the Spout team, private beta is coming soon.
Great week at @token2049 in Singapore, and thank you to everyone who made time to meet. One of the main highlights was Rooftop UTXO Pitch Night, which we hosted with @Cardano_CF. I sat down with @MikeSilagadze, CEO of our portfolio company @Ether_fi, to talk about the ecosystem’s maturation and building through cycles. Their thesis from the start, making DeFi accessible to everyone, hasn’t changed one bit. @AndyTang also had a great conversation with Hareesh Nair, TPC’s CIO, about private market opportunities and family businesses.
Then the pitches. 49+ teams applied, 9 made it on stage, and each had 3 minutes to pitch across identity, payments, AI agents, Bitcoin yield and tokenized assets. Congrats to every team that pitched, and thanks to my fellow judges @AndyTang, @F_Gregaard, @aalicbarker and @maxime_bucaille, and to the Cardano Foundation team for making the night happen.
Crypto VC is catching up to the rest of venture. The focus has moved to equity and fundamentals: where the revenue comes from, how long it lasts, and whether a token is needed at all.
I shared this and a few more thoughts with @EBlockchainCon at EBC12 in Barcelona, including why the winners will be the products people use without realizing there's a blockchain underneath.
Samiz Bayan retweeted
Draper Dragon invested in @mogul__club, the AI-driven real estate investing platform, in its $15.5M Series A led by @DraperVC @TimDraper. Founded by former @GoldmanSachs real estate investors, Mogul lets everyday investors own a share of individual rental homes and earn monthly rent.
Congrats to @blackwoodtweets, Joey Gumataotao and the team.
Most talk about real-world assets is about access. Access only matters if the asset is good, and in real estate, picking and managing the property is where returns are made. @mogul__club brings Goldman Sachs real estate discipline to individual rental homes and uses AI to do it with a small team.
Glad @DraperDragon could join the Series A led by @DraperVC. Congrats to @blackwoodtweets and the team!
Why we invested: draperdragon.com/insights/mo…
A $2M seed round can now get a deep tech company to a working prototype that used to take $20M. Customer adoption still takes just as long. You can build a bridge faster, but people still need to trust it before they cross.
That was one of the threads on our panel at Global Startup EXPO 2026 in Osaka this week with @christine_tsai, Adit Swarup (@generalcatalyst) and Ken Yoshida. My advice to Japanese founders was to dominate Japan first and recoup the R&D, while keeping a ten-year roadmap for going global. A national champion can live well for many years, but eventually an international champion may come onto your turf. The best defense is offense.
Thank you @JETRO_jgc for hosting us. Between Tokyo, where I taught sessions for Japanese VCs with @500GlobalVC, and Osaka, I met a lot of Japan's biggest investors, and everyone is working on the same questions: how to bring the next generation of unicorns into Japan, and how to strengthen the bridge between the US and Japan.
Most bitcoin just sits there. Long-term holders have had two options: keep it in their own wallet doing nothing, or hand it to an exchange to earn on it or borrow against it. @Xverse puts holding, earning, borrowing and spending in one app, and the keys never leave your own device. Glad @DraperDragon & @orionfund could join this round led by @DraperAssociates. Congrats to @YukanL and the team.
Draper Dragon and @OrionFund have invested in @xverse, the self-custodial Bitcoin neobank, in a strategic round led by @DraperVC @TimDraper alongside @trustmachinesco. Xverse lets holders earn on their bitcoin, borrow against it without selling and pay over Lightning, all from one app where the keys stay with the user. Congrats to @YukanL and the team.
Samiz Bayan retweeted
Talent is uniformly distributed in society. Opportunities are not. America's Startup is one way we're doing our part about it.
A warm welcome to the new @America250 Investor Council members: @CathieDWood, @PratherARK, @christine_tsai, @skg_accel, @billreichert, @SungerBiggs, @BiedermanRob, @Robert_Katz and others. We're all inspired by @RosieRios's original vision: support our nation's youth and democratize entrepreneurship in America.
I judged round one... those teams weren't waiting for permission to build. They were already building. Round two: over $1M in cash and prizes, up to $50K non-dilutive per team, finale in DC this December.
Undergrad founders: applications close Thursday, Oct 8, 7:59pm EDT. Link in first reply.
We're here to help founders fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams. Your part is to apply :)
Why is a VC at a blockchain foundation's booth? For us it's the @OrionFund, where the Cardano treasury backs startups through a regulated venture fund we run at @DraperDragon. Join us at the @Cardano_CF booth (PB5-60) on Thursday at 10:15 AM to learn how we believe an ecosystem can grow with productive capital, turning its treasury into a passive growth engine. If you're a builder, come stop by.
UTXO Pitch Night on Wednesday: luma.com/utxopitchnight / Booth agenda: token2049.cardano.org/agenda
Samiz Bayan retweeted
Rooftop UTXO Pitch Night, 7 October, LAVO, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.
Presented with the @Cardano_CF during @token2049 week. Early and growth-stage teams across Cardano, Bitcoin, and the wider UTXO ecosystem pitching live, up to $500K on the table, allocated at the participating investors' discretion.
Speaking: @Andytang, @samizb and @maxime_bucaille from the Draper ecosystem, @F_Gregaard from the Cardano Foundation, and other speakers yet to be announced.
Registration to attend is still open; see the link below.
Samiz Bayan retweeted
We're proud to share today that Xverse has closed a strategic funding round led by the legendary @DraperVC.
Both @trustmachinesco and @DraperDragon also joined in the round.
The next deep tech unicorns will come from founders building fundamentally strong companies, whatever the market is doing.
Talking about what sets them apart Tuesday in Osaka with @christine_tsai (@500GlobalVC), Adit Swarup (@generalcatalyst) and Ken Yoshida (@JETRO_jgc).
Global VC Perspectives on Deep Tech Investment: What Sets the Next Unicorns Apart.
Oct 6, 10:50 to 11:35 JST, Congrès Square Grand Green Osaka.
More here: global-startup-expo.com/en/t…
One of the quickest ways to tell if a founder is ready to raise: ask them about a KPI and see if they know it on the spot. If they do, they eat, sleep and breathe what they're building.
That came up on the Founders & Funding panel at @blockchainwk last month, along with a question I'm asking more and more at seed: does this business need a token at all? Strip out the incentives and airdrops and look at what's left. If it's a strong business that needs a token, great.
Either way, token warrants keep founders and investors aligned.
Full panel: youtube.com/watch?v=uTzl7GXo…
