first time i met kyle samani i argued for non-speculative use cases, he looked like he wanted to punch me in the face. a few months later, i had dinner with several VCs and argued that early stage crypto startups aren’t given the same shot at success as early stage web2 startups from the mobile era. VCs never invest in non-speculative, consumer crypto because they’re operating in a world where the expectation is profit **before** launch, not even upon launch. and the casinos are the only thing that have liquidity or cash flow built in. but the most valuable tech companies throughout the internet’s history went years/decades before monetizing, fueled by VC. i can count on one hand the number of consumer crypto startups funded on the premise of grow now, monetize later. we might not ever know how successful non-speculative can be as a result. anyway, i tweeted this thought a while back and kyle samani replied in a way that made it feel like he still wants to punch me in the face.