Billionaire investor Tim Draper has introduced Draper Goren Blockchain (DGB), a new venture studio focused on cryptocurrencies, to overcome the odds of a protracted bear market. It has a very specific goal: to quicken “DeFi innovations,” layer-2 network scaling techniques, and consumer apps like social and gaming ones.
Draper, a well-known figure in the blockchain community, has been making significant investments in numerous projects related to cryptocurrencies for years. The vocal Bitcoin bull has also not shied away from price forecasts, predicting many times that the top cryptocurrency will cost $250,000 (it has so far peaked at roughly $69,000 in 2021).
Alon Goren and David Bleznak, two of his early partners, are also native cryptographers. In addition to serving as a board member for the institutional-grade network for digital securities Ownera and the social analytics platform LunarCrush, the latter has invested alongside Draper in their former business, Draper Goren Holm.
In the meantime, Bleznak oversaw institutional products at Coinbase and developed the DeFi aggregation and trading platform Totle. He also participated in joint ventures with Draper Goren Holm.
Alon Goren explained that Draper Goren Blockchain does not want to operate it similarly to Y Combinator or Techstars an interview about the intricacies of their strategy. With any business, they have a long game.
“We plan on spending the next 10 years working with each company,” he stated. He made investments in pre-seed firms ranging from $25,000 to $100,000. Goren said there will be an added emphasis on working with chosen entrepreneurs to create businesses “from scratch.”
Despite the United States’ dominant economic position around the globe, Draper Goren Blockchain has a particular hurdle due to the lack of regulatory certainty around cryptocurrencies and the rising frequency of enforcement proceedings by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Goren of the United States observed, “Our current regulatory landscape is a shitshow. The regulatory environment, he continued, is making it “sad” to watch more and more American crypto entrepreneurs relocate abroad, while those who remain must deal with a great deal of doubt and uncertainty.
The investor is nonetheless enthusiastic. According to Goren, the nature of technology would ultimately render the “whims of regulators” outdated, and he asserts, “We will all be OK.”
Goren Draper Blockchain’s primary goal, which encompasses its interests in DeFi, scalability options, and user-centric apps, is to promote widespread cryptocurrency adoption.
“The bridge to the masses is still lacking,” declared Goren. The longtime partner of Draper and Bleznak noted that while he sees “amazing, novel technical innovations” backing the core crypto community, the overarching objective is to enhance the crypto user experience and general appeal.
He claimed that the adoption process was “changing daily” and that it would “likely happen in a whirlwind overnight like it did with the adoption of the web.”
As stated by Goren, the accelerator would explore and test ideas as they emerge rather than working with schedules or cohorts. Soon, he noted, Draper Goren Blockchain would reveal its initial round of deals and incubate businesses.
