EDIT: CD Team back at the wheel. Thank you, Haseeb, for a very engaging AMA!
We’re looking forward to having him next month at Consensus 2023! If you enjoyed this AMA, come hear him speak in Austin, April 26-28. **Here’s your 15% discount:** [**
u/Ok-Violinist5718 **and** u/DanteCrypto1**, you are our C23 pass giveaway winners for the most popular questions.** Please DM us your name and email. If you can’t DM us, send your name, email and proof that you’re the owner of your Reddit account to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
See you at Consensus!
\—
***Haseeb Qureshi is taking over CoinDesk’s user handle today at 5 p.m. ET to answer your questions.***
**PROOF:** [**
Hey Reddit. I’m Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly, a global crypto-focused investment fund.
Apart from being a crypto investor, I’m also a software engineer, writer, educator, public speaker and a dedicated Effective Altruist.
As an ex-professional poker player, I’ve always been captivated by strategic decision-making.
Naturally, my passion for crypto investing evolved from that interest.
I’ve worked with leading tech giants such as Airbnb, Uber and Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase), and have advised startups across various sectors. In recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to invest in and advise some of the most thrilling crypto projects out there, including Avalanche, NEAR, Dune, MatterLabs, Compound, MakerDAO, 1inch and more.
Right now, the state of crypto is a mix of excitement and uncertainty.
On one hand, we’ve seen incredible growth and adoption of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin reaching all-time highs and Ethereum becoming the go-to platform for DeFi.
On the other hand, there are still challenges facing the crypto industry, from global regulation uncertainty to high-profile hacks and scams (see FTX) that have damaged public trust.
But crypto is not a story about today – it’s a story about the future. The tenacity I see among today’s builders gives me great confidence that this future is a bright one. As an investor, I’m fortunate to have a front-row seat in watching today’s ideas become tomorrow’s great products.
Ask me anything!
[
**Note: As part of the Q&A I will be giving away two two-day passes for Consensus 2023 (**[**where I’ll be speaking**]( to the most popular questions asked during the AMA. These are \*in person\* tickets, each at a $1,599 value. If you want to be considered, place the phrase “(can make it)” after your question.**
Disclaimer:
This Ask Me Anything (“AMA”) includes the personal views of Haseeb Qureshi, and does not represent the views of Dragonfly or its affiliates (collectively “Dragonfly”). Statements are expressed as of the event date, based on information available at that time, and may change based on market conditions. This information will not be updated. While the statements made in this AMA are based on publicly available information and are believed to be accurate as of the event date, no representation is made with regard to their accuracy or completeness.
Opinions, statements, or views posted are communications by the persons posting them, and they are not adopted or endorsed by Dragonfly and do not represent the views of Dragonfly. Posts by others that describe opinions, views or experiences may not be representative or indicative of another’s personal experience. This information is intended to be educational and is not tailored to the investment needs of any specific investor.
No part of this AMA is intended to make a recommendation or state a testimonial for or about any particular cryptocurrency, digital asset, security, service, product or any other investment, or to provide investment, tax, or any other advice. This information makes no implied or expressed recommendations concerning the way an account or fund should or would be handled.
This AMA is for information purposes only and is not, shall not be construed as, and does not constitute an offer, invitation or recommendation by Dragonfly to sell or a solicitation to subscribe for or buy an interest in a fund managed by Dragonfly. No person should rely on any information in this AMA as the basis for any investment decision.
Funds managed by Dragonfly may hold or plan to hold positions in certain digital assets, protocols, DAOs or companies mentioned in the AMA. No investment decisions should be based on the discussion of certain individual investments as one’s overall investment portfolio and individual objectives should be considered when making such a decision.
Digital asset markets are volatile and can fluctuate significantly in response to market, political, regulatory, economic or other developments. All investing involves risks, including the complete loss of principal. As with all investments, investors should consult with their investment, legal and tax professionals before investing, as you may lose money. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
That’s it for now, thanks for having me! I enjoyed chatting with all of you and appreciated the great questions. Hope to see you all at Consensus!
If you have anything more you want to ask me, you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/hosseeb/
-Haseeb, signing out
Hi Haseeb,
Thank you for taking out time.
I think in one of the podcast you said that no chain will be able to handle billion users
If that is the case then how will ETH become the leader. Doesn’t that implies that there will be multiple winners and no single chain will be monolithic winner ?
Thank you
Can make it.
What are your thoughts on crypto gaming? It feels like we really need a solid AAA game to turbocharge mainstream interest. what are yor thoughts on what crypto gaming will look like and why it hasnt really taken off the way a lot of people expected it to?
If the CFTC & potentially DOJ actions against Binance damage its liquidity, affect its licenses & access to payment providers and Binance turns into a much smaller exchange like Bitmex what effect will that have on DeFi?
What do you think will happen to BNB chain in such a scenario?
Do you think blockchain interoperability will get dominated by a single provider the way oracle services are dominated by ChainLink?
What are the major issues you see in interoperability protocols like token bridges (Staargate, Synaapse, Hop) and generic message-passing protocols (Worhole, LayerZero, Axelar)
Hi Haseeb. Hope you are well. Thank you for taking out time and sharing your views. We will have AGI within our life time and probably by 2030-2033. What are your suggestions to people going to college. If we get AGI within 10 years. Shouldn’t coding get obsolete? I personally want to work at crypto fund as a analyst/Junior partner but i am having second thoughts because of AGI.
Btw congratulations to Dragonfly on leading funding for Econia labs.
I love your views on unchained podcast and on Twitter.
Thanks you in advance!
My Best
Ankush
(Can make it)
What are potential “killer apps” for crypto and why do you think we haven’t seen any yet? Big barriers like cost and scalability are essentially solved but this remains unclear.
A simple question that many crypto people struggle to provide compelling answers to…especially in contrast to something like AI, where it’s immediately obvious how this tech is going to change everything
Do you think DEX protocols will have to stop relying on idle liquidity providers and lean more into orderbook based designs in order to scale?
Do you see a future in which Uniswap and Curve are not smart contracts on 12 different chains, but each of them is a separaate app-chain that uses professional market makers and connects to L1 and L2 blockchains via interoperability bridges?
We are building fully compliant W3C DIDs protocol powered by MPC technology. Building a decentralised internet as per Tim Berners-Lee vision.
Can we talk? (Can make it)
Haseeb –
Do MPC wallets have a place in crypto with account abstraction coming into play?
How do you anticipate growing inflationary pressures on traditional currencies like the US dollar to influence the global adoption of Bitcoin as an alternative currency and store of value.
Do you think more countries will follow El Salvador, especially considering the potential for the dollar to lose its dominant status as the world’s reserve currency? (can make it)
In a world where Bitcoin/crypto become the dominant form of currency, how might the principles of macroeconomics, such as fiscal and monetary policy, be redefined or adapted to ensure economic stability and equitable distribution of wealth?
Hi Haseeb, first of all, I want to say that I’m a huge admirer of your work in the space, and I appreciate you taking the time to do this AMA. Long time twitter follower.
As a question for the AMA, I’d like to ask: How do you think the space should address the problem of projects reinventing the wheel over and over again?
My team and I have been working on an innovative product that utilizes all valuable and cutting edge DeFi primitives to address the UX issues currently present in the DeFi landscape. We believe that our solution has the potential to revolutionize the user experience in the space and get over the hurdles we face to onboard the next billion users.
We have had numerous conversations with several high profile VCs, but we feel that a strategic partner like Dragonfly would provide invaluable insight on the project. Given your expertise and experience in the industry, we would be honored to have the opportunity to discuss our product with you in more detail. I really connected with your featured article and believe what we are working on addresses all of these problems directly or indirectly.
Would you be open to scheduling a call with us to explore potential synergies and share your thoughts on our project? We are confident that your input could greatly enhance our efforts to make DeFi more accessible and user-friendly.
Thanks for considering our request, and we look forward to potentially connecting with you. Please let us know how to reach you directly, where to drop our Calendly, send our Data Room, or any way to get in touch!
Sincerely,
Sebastian (Can make it)
What do you think are the biggest growth opportunities for DeFi lending protocols like AAVE, Compound?
In your opinion, where will the crypto industry be in the next five years? Still stuck in regulatory limbo? Or do you see it more adopted by governments and the general public?
What will be the most important changes in DeFi in 2023?
What are the challenges that DeFi must overcome to reach the next 1 million users?
Is there a pathway for VC investment in “decentralized” projects without dumping a token on retail?
Do you think it’s possible for an Ethereum liquid staking protocol to dethrone Lido?
Do you see liquid staking as a winner-takes-all market in which the economies of scale for the #1 and #2 protocols make it much harder for newer liquid staking protocol to gain traction
Hi Haseeb,
(Can make it) Thank you doing this AMA, can you talk us through your investment process on how you evaluate potential startups to allocate capital towards?
​
What makes a great startup founder? How do you know when to invest in a certain start (what tick boxes do you look out for that makes you want to invest)?
Hi Haseeb,
Do you think we will have network states within the next 10 – 15 years, if so how do you see these network states working on a practical basis using DeFi, DAOs, and other web3 technologies? (Can make it)
Can you talk about L1s vs L2s, monolithic vs modular blockchains and how things will work in let’s say 10 years time.
Is it the case that the winner takes it all (ETH and L2) or will it be the case that we will have a multichain future (DOT, APTOS, Hedera) exist? (can make it)
Bitcoin has been boring for the last few years, but now suddenly we have Bitcoin NFTs with Ordinals, and some interesting designs for tokens on Bitcoin or on the Bitcoin Lightning network via Taproot.
Do you see DeFi on Bitcoin (BiFi lol) becoming a thing via the lightning network? Or is it just too complicated are hard to use to gain adoption?
What are the biggest issues you see in DeFi from a UX point of view?
Let’s talk about tokenized **real-world assets**. Who do you think will be the biggest players in the space in 2 years?
It seems like KYC is a must, so could the biggest issuers of tokenized assets be centralized exchanges that are already connected too Crypto (Coinbase, Binance, Gemini)?
On the other hand CEX already are in hot water with regulators, could stablecoin issuers become the major players in the tokenized assets space? We already have tokenized gold that sees some use.
Finally, what are the killer uses for tokenized RWA? In my view that’s the near-instant settlement and use as collateral, am I missing something?
How can emerging web3 fashion companies obtain capital, how best to pitch the vcs
In what ways will CBDCs change DeFi & Crypto as a whole?
Arbitrum, Optimism, ZkSync and StarkWare are all building their own rollups but they’re also working on frameworks that will make the development of rollups much easier. Even Reddit is trying to use that through the Arbitrum Nova rollup.
How do you think that will change crypto / defi and the way companies and exchanges interact with it.
What DeFi sectors will see the most growth in the next bull cycle in your opinion & why?
How do you ensure that the projects Dragonfly invest in align with the values of decentralisation and privacy that web3 aims to promote? Most of crypto today isn’t decentralised per say as most of runs on AWS.
(can make it)
What challenges must the next generation of DeFi protocols overcome in terms of tokenomics?
Do you think that DeFi protocols that distribute yield to holder without those holders performing specializes services (like operating a validator node) are in danger of becoming the next target of the SEC?
What issues do you see in token governance and how can they be improved upon?
Do you think airdrops are a good idea?
What other ways do you see for new DeFi protocols to decentralize their governance and attract more brain-power to their decision making and more users to their contracts?
Crypto insurance protocols saw a lot of action with Luna, Anchor, USDC depeg and most recently Euler. Do you think the current structure or premium set by the protocol and backing provided by liquidity providers works well? What changes would you like to see in the smart-contract and stablecoin peg insurance space?
What is your opinion on stablecoin wrappers like the upcoming GHO from AAVE, crvUSD from Curve? They be somewhat dependent on USDC and other stablecoins as they’re partially collateralized by them and they’re heavilly reliant on USDC for their peg due to DEX pairs.
What do these wrappers achieve in your opinion?
Do you think that derivatives protocols that follow the GMX / SNX model and pay out of their insurance fund are doomed to fail in the long run?
Are you a DLT maximalist – and would you invest in a proprietary DLT that is about to launch with multiple partnerships to upgrade Fiat payments off of the shitty rails that were built in the 1980s and have held our economic systems back because of their poor performance, high fraud, huge fees, and inability to scale (domestic and international cross-currency payments)?
Or do you only prefer DeFi projects?
What’s your opinion on how crypto people today mistook transparency as verifiability? Do you think we will have more and more transparent blockchains for the next decade? Do you think it’s okay for both retail and institutions to transact on-chain with immutable and unencrypted data?
What do you think are the most promising sectors within the crypto industry right now and why? Are there any specific projects or innovations that you’re particularly excited about?