The Catalysts for This Crypto Bull Market: AI, DeFi, Real World Assets?

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In this episode of Unchained, Alex Pack, managing partner at Hack VC discusses the firm’s recent $150 million fundraise, the challenges of raising capital in a bear market, and the firm’s focus on early-stage Web3 infrastructure. He also shares his thoughts on the intersection of crypto and AI, the future of DeFi, and the importance of security in the crypto space. Pack believes that the current infrastructure of crypto is still in its early stages and needs significant improvement before it can reach mainstream adoption. He also sees potential in the development of more secure smart contracts and the integration of AI into decentralized applications.

Show highlights:

• How Hack VC was able to raise $150 million in a bear market, especially after the blowups of FTX, 3AC, and Terra
• Alex’s interaction with SBF, whom he calls a “sociopath,” and why he didn’t invest in FTX
• Hack VC’s philosophy to “back hackers” in crypto
• The goals behind Zuzalu, the new community that resembles Balaji Srinivasan’s idea of a network state
• What the main focus of Hack VC’s investments are, including scalability, AI, and DeFi
• Why Alex believes that “we are still so early”
• How Alex believes crypto and artificial intelligence will intersect
• The role of AI agents and how to use them in decentralized applications
• Why he thinks that EigenLayer is a great solution for middleware applications
• Alex’s opinion on the modular vs. monolithic approach for scaling blockchains
• How DeFi survived the last bear market, contrasted with the collapses of CeFi companies like Celsius, BlockFi and FTX
• Whether algorithmic stablecoins can ever work and what Alex thinks of Ethena’s USDe
• How to improve security in crypto, according to Alex
• Why the outcome of the Bitcoin ETFs exceeded Alex’s expectations
• What he believes the catalysts are for the next bull market

Thank you to our sponsors!

• Polkadot

EPISODE Transcript

Guest:

• Alex Pack, Managing partner at Hack VC
  • Previous appearances on Unchained:
    • Dragonfly Capital on Why Ethereum Is So Far in the Lead
    • ‘The Last Big Whale’: Why the Crypto Contagion of 2022 Eventually Hit Genesis

Links

New fund

• Bloomberg: Hack VC Raises $150 Million for Bets on Battered Crypto Industry
• Hack VC Closes $150M Venture Fund I, Bringing AUM to $425M

Stablecoins:

• Unchained:
  • What Is Ethena’s USDe Synethic Dollar? A Beginner’s Guide
  • What Is Terra and Why Did It Fail?
  • Why It’s so Hard to Keep Stablecoins Stable 
  • What Is Depegging in Crypto and Why Does It Occur?
  • What Is Real-World Asset (RWA) Tokenization? A Beginner’s Guide

EigenLayer ecosystem

• Unchained: What Is EigenLayer? A Guide to the Decentralized ETH Restaking Protocol

• The Block: AltLayer closes $14.4 million strategic round co-led by Polychain and Hack VC

Modular vs. monolithic approach

• Unchained:
  • What Are Modular Blockchains? A Beginner’s Guide
  • Three Crypto Pioneers on Crypto’s Monolithic vs. Modular Debate

Crypto x AI crossover

• io.net and Ritual Collaborate to Boost Global AI Compute Landscape
• Ritual x EigenLayer: Restaking for AI
• Unchained: 5 Use Cases of AI in Blockchain

Zuzalu

Decrypt: I Spent a Month Inside Vitalik Buterin’s Social Experiment—Here’s What It Was Really Like