Is There More to Kyle Samani's Exit from the Crypto Industry?

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Azuma (@azuma_eth)

Just days after Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani announced his departure from the crypto industry, the goodwill he had accumulated over the years has been rapidly eroded.

"Burning Bridges" is Truly Disgusting

Objectively speaking, Kyle Samani has made positive contributions to the cryptocurrency industry over the years. Whether it's the continuous financial support for early-stage projects (regardless of motive, focusing on impact) or the narrative guidance and ideological evangelism at the conceptual level, he has directly or indirectly influenced the industry's direction.

From a results-oriented perspective, Kyle Samani indeed achieved "massive results" in the crypto industry that are unimaginable to most. Based on this alone, it's quite reasonable for Hasseb Qureshi to call him the "best investor in the industry" or for Mable to label him a "top player."

• Odaily Note: Hasseb Qureshi is a partner at Dragonfly Capital. He once stated, "Investing is like a sport, and Kyle Samani is the highest scorer of all time, unmatched." For details, see "The Man Who Shilled SOL the Best, Exits the Crypto World". Mable is a former partner at Multicoin Capital and co-founder of Trends. After Kyle Samani's departure, she wrote a viral article titled "The Game Continues, But Kyle's Version is Over".

But precisely because of this, the "ugly face" Kyle Samani has frequently shown in the days since his departure is even more detestable.

First, on the day he announced his departure, Kyle Samani replied to Taran, founder of Stix, saying: "Crypto is just not as interesting as many people (including myself) once thought it would be. I used to believe in the Web3 vision, in DApps, but I don't anymore. Blockchains are essentially asset ledgers. They will reshape finance, but that's about it. Not much else."

This post was deleted by Kyle Samani seconds after being published... Well, this is clearly his genuine, previously unexpressed thought. But the fact that he deleted it at least means he knows that "burning bridges" is not a good look.

Unfortunately, he didn't stop there. On February 8th, Kyle Samani took another shot at the industry that made him: "Hyperliquid embodies almost everything wrong with crypto. The founders fled their home country to start it, openly facilitating crime and terrorism, the system is closed source, and still requires permission."

While being outspoken has always been a controversial label attached to Kyle Samani, this illogical and factually baseless "mindless rant" clearly doesn't hold water. Coupled with his self-proclaimed status as an outsider, the statement feels even more jarring. In the past, Kyle Samani's outrageous remarks could at least garner some group support based on stance (e.g., siding with Solana, long-term criticism of Ethereum). This time, however, he stands outside the industry, thoroughly negating the entire crypto space.

The direction of the fallout was predictable: Kyle Samani successfully provoked widespread anger within the industry.

It's understandable for those who lost money in crypto to criticize it; people always need an outlet for their emotions. But Kyle Samani, a beneficiary who amassed immense wealth and achieved class mobility through crypto, eagerly turning around to stomp on the industry immediately after announcing his departure, inevitably comes across as hypocritical and disgusting.

To put it bluntly, this is a classic case of "biting the hand that feeds you" — Kyle Samani wants to take away the profits bestowed by the industry while urgently cutting ties with it. Where in the world is there such a great bargain?

Bizarre Incongruity: Hidden Reasons for Departure?

Another very incongruous point is that Kyle Samani chose Hyperliquid as his attack target this time; meanwhile, Multicoin Capital continues to increase its bets on Hyperliquid.

In the same week Kyle Samani announced his departure, on-chain analyst MLM detected multiple large purchases of HYPE by an address suspected to belong to Multicoin Capital (https://hypurrscan.io/address/0xd4d56a30a4a745f8ba732e8b453b7066260fbc10#txs).

Crypto Banter founder Ran Neuner discovered that in the five-year investment themes recently outlined by Multicoin Capital's other co-founder, Tushar Jain, Hyperliquid was prominently listed as a representative project under the third theme, "Financial Globalization." Notably, DePIN, which Kyle Samani has long been extremely bullish on, was completely absent.

Based on this, Ran Neuner offered a hypothesis: Kyle Samani did not leave voluntarily but had conflicts with Tushar Jain, ultimately forcing him out. Due to non-compete clause restrictions, Kyle Samani had to exit the crypto industry entirely...

While this speculation lacks any factual evidence, it seems to better explain the aforementioned incongruities and Kyle Samani's sudden attitude shift — Would you rather believe that a top mind who has long cultivated the crypto industry suddenly realized its emptiness? Or is it more plausible that Kyle Samani, harboring resentment and unable to profit from the industry anymore, chose to turn his back on it?

Whether out of faith in the industry's future or residual recognition for Kyle Samani's past achievements, I am emotionally inclined towards the second possibility. As for the truth, it might only be revealed someday in the future when no one cares about this matter anymore.

No Future for the Crypto Industry?

Over the past few years, we have seen numerous instances of talent flowing from the crypto world to the AI world. However, the departure of a figure as iconic as Kyle Samani has dealt a heavy blow to confidence in the entire crypto industry.

So, does the industry really have no future? This is clearly not a question that can be answered by personal opinion. After Kyle Samani chose to leave, several true opinion leaders of comparable stature used their own logic to explain why they remain optimistic about the industry's future.

Tushar Jain's conviction remains strong. The eight major investment themes he announced for Multicoin Capital still focus on the crypto world.

Haseeb Qureshi believes that Kyle Samani's departure is the truest sign of the industry maturing. Pioneers and settlers are often not the same group of people, a pattern dictated by human nature — "I remain very bullish on crypto. I know it's weird to say this when the market is turbulent, because people have little patience left for dreams that may take a decade to realize. The era of dreamers is over, but the era of builders is arriving. This in itself is neither good nor bad."

Chris Dixon, a partner at a16z Crypto and a pioneer of the Web3 concept, drew an analogy with the development of the internet to refute Kyle Samani's view that crypto can only reshape finance — "Infrastructure and distribution networks often precede new application categories. The internet didn't start with social media, streaming, or online communities. It started with packet switching, TCP/IP, and basic connectivity. It was only after hundreds of millions of people came online that entirely new cultural and economic categories emerged. Crypto is likely similar. A reasonable speculation is that we need to get hundreds of millions of people on-chain first through financial applications like payments, stablecoins, savings, and DeFi, before we see meaningful adoption in media, gaming, AI, or other areas that might be further out."

The future is created by people. As long as more people share the same consensus, the flame of the crypto narrative can be rekindled.