Sidechains in general are an interesting concept to enhance bitcoin functionality without introducing changes on the base layers. If there would be real use cases for sidechains with significant adoption, it could also contribute to bitcoin security budget. We have not been following developments on sidechains originally, only recently we started to follow some projects trying out different sidechain concepts including liquid. In my point of view there are some key considerations about sidechains such as the implementation of peg, the consensus mechanism and the role of token (or absence of such) in fees and governance. But most importantly of course how these considerations support a specific use case. Liquid use case for tokenization of securities and settlement of securities trading is definitely interesting. Before funding a new technology area we try to understand it as much as we can and we are still learning about sidechains now.

Personally I would pay for this because it solves a ton of logistic problems if done the right way, can improve personal data protection for an ordinary person and it can save a decent amount of time and mental overhead. Time and mental capacity are precious for almost everybody, I believe. So I imagine an app that charges a fixed fee or a subscription (with backup restore via multisig for example)

Replacement of authentication in all consumer apps is probably a huge challenge. Unless there is a way to recreate a new identity ecosystem that will overgrow MSFT/APPL/GOOG.

One of the most interesting areas to learn about is how to apply VC capital to grow the company, especially in an ecosystem like bitcoin that does not much rely on marketing to attract new users. It is not exactly a misconception but rather a black spot typically overlooked.

A misconception however might be that users will find the product themselves. This can rarely happen, mostly for very unique products with super strong wow, network effect and stickiness. Most products are not like this. But for example a P2P messenger with LN payments could be such.

Another misconception is that a valuation is very important to negotiate about, Valuation is rather a product (a consequence, derivative) of value to be created in partnership between VCs and founders. It can be more productive to talk about how to create value together, over a long term.

Agree 100%. Incremental improvement in existing industries can be a very promising path for adoption, especially in industries that are more open for experimentation like gaming or have pressing problems like slow and inefficient payment settlement (utility bills). Digital content monetisation is also an attractive space for experimentation. Podcasts, music, streaming. We already have good examples of how lightning projects there improve economics of the participants in those markets. Cross-border settlment and P2P economies based on microtransactions are also potentially good areas to apply lightning.

Founders that come from such industries can have great insights about how to penetrate them.

Thank you for the question. Meeting new startups is mostly about meeting people - the team and founders and getting to know their drivers, motivations, strong sides and weak spots. Knowing the limits of own knowledge is a useful asset in the early stage. And pre-revenue ideally should not last long. So high speed of iteration and learning can be very helpful. And as we invest across the lightning ecosystem we also try to find synergies across teams and projects.

Metrics for earlier rounds can be less formal and about the team performance in general, speed of learning and execution. Metrics for later rounds can be more about scaling and value

Metrics can vary based on individual investor lenses but in general user engagement, monetisation and evidence of opportunity to scale may be a few metrics that highlight how sustainable is the enterprise and how much value it delivers and as well captures

It is a bit more difficult with bitcoin as there is a monetary system and internal economics that impact how value is produced, accumulated and distributed. And there are also metrics that are simply a derivative of the scale of adoption. And there may be new metrics fundamental to how bitcoin economy works (especially metrics related to the lightning network, but also onchain and mining) But in theory a startup should be able to produce metrics that resonate with both bitcoin and non-bitcoin VCs

Metrics are a means to making business decisions so they should be relevant for the dimension about which decision is being made

Yes. I cannot commit on behalf of Bolt.Fun but I believe in what they are doing and they are doing a great job. We can create more awareness about what can be built and how to built and where to get support that all together is a unique opportunity for building on bitcoin. I wish next year every bitcoin tech conference runs an in real life track with submission on Bolt.Fun and year after next many non-bitcoin hackathons that attract talent have such tracks and integrate with bitcoin and lightning ecosystem

Personally I follow the changes in how education can be delivered at college/university level and how it can impact the life path of students and their contribution to society. I do not know yet how exactly it can be addressed with a specific technology, but education space in general has a lot of areas for improvement. I am also excited about Formula 1)

we believe it is important to understand the technical design of the proposed solution and the engineering principles that it is built on to the extent it predefines the possible set of features. in addition understanding economic and social impact is important too

I wish I knew, but if I knew i would pitch to someone and help them build. True convergence between decentralized finance and decentralized internet. True no-custodial P2P micropayments in applications with high frequency sub-dollar transactions. Replacement of login/password ecosystems with bitcoin keys derived authentication More consumer friendly home devices that actively participate in the network (meter readers, content distribution networks) I just can't imagine!

Thank you for a great question that resonates with me personally. Investor liquidity is a pressing issue for traditional VC because this is how VC industry is measured in general. However recent changes in macro, finance and liquidity markets including crypto, have exaggerated pursuit for liquidity to enormous scale leading to significant decoupling between the amount of accrued enterprise value and the liquidity obtained by investors. Personally, I want to believe that this disproportion is temporary and will go away.

In bitcoin and lightning ecosystem, neither VCs nor founders that we have been meeting seem to be overfocused on obtaining liquidity. The ecosystem follows the low time preference ethos. It does not remove the question of liquidity from its existence. And also to have more traditional VCs invest in this space, they need to understand their liquidity options. So we encourage startups to think through how they sustainably accumulate enterprise value over time while they keep building the entire ecosystem.

If VCs and founders are aligned on how enterprise value accumulates, liquidity opportunities will follow. Usually industries go through midterm consolidation phases that provide for MnA opportunities. In the long run, we hope to see more bitcoin enterprises reach public markets too, or markets of secondary stock transfers. Maybe these types of markets will be powered by bitcoin native financial solutions. Some companies could still generate investor returns while remaining private.

Many applications in the space are aimed at novel payment solutions. Payments are one of the most natural ways to capture business value, so there is a lot of opportunity to accumulate enough enterprise value that will find liquidity.

Also bitcoin is possibly a new type of monetary system, so maybe there will be totally new ways of generating liquidity in the ecosystem.

We see more and more projects that can help advance the ecosystem to the next level in terms of technology, infrastructure maturity and also adoption. Examples are games, content platforms, liquidity solutions, payment systems. But also projects that explore previously underexplored areas such as settlement for energy payments or micropayments between automated systems.

This year had a lot of distracting factors that affect deal flow and dynamics, such as end of bull run, other crypto crashes. So it is probably not the most indicative year to assess.

What holds true this year and before, is that we mostly see reasonable valuations and very committed thoughtful founder teams, as compared to maybe average VC dealflow. Recently we also see inflow of business-focused founders with prior experience from other industries, as well as non-bitcoin VCs showing interest in lightning deal.