At the Iwanai resort at the westernmost point of the Niseko Mountains in Hokkaido, Japan, Multicoin co-founder Kyle Samani stands at the foot of a snow-covered ridge, wearing a helmet and carrying snowboards.
This is Kyle Samani's most recent tweet since announcing his departure from Multicoin.
A few days ago, he deleted a tweet: "Cryptocurrency is not as interesting as many people (including myself) once imagined. I used to believe in the Web3 vision and dApps, but I no longer do. Blockchain is essentially just an asset ledger."
Although it was deleted quickly, many people still saw it.
Later, Kyle offered a more moderate explanation in his open letter: "This has been a bittersweet time. Multicoin has been one of the most important and rewarding experiences of my life. But I also look forward to taking a break to explore new technological frontiers."
In a letter to LPs, Multicoin co-founder Tushar Jain wrote, "Kyle's interests have expanded from cryptocurrencies to emerging technologies such as AI, longevity technology, and robotics. He hopes to systematically explore these areas over time."
Kyle Samani's departure seems to have made the industry realize for the first time that even the earliest advocates of Web3 are beginning to waver.
The Golden Age of FTX and Multicoin
In the crypto VC world, Kyle Samani is one of the investors who loves writing long articles, research reports, open letters, and trend analyses one after another. The "three mega thesis" he and the Multicoin team proposed has influenced a generation of practitioners' understanding of the intrinsic value of crypto.
Many people know that Multicoin is one of the most ardent supporters of the Solana ecosystem, but what many people don't know is that Multicoin was not originally a "Solana-affiliated" organization.
In 2017–2018, Multicoin's core bet was actually on EOS. Back then, EOS was marketed as a "performance killer" and an "Ethereum terminator," emphasizing high TPS, low latency, and suitability for large-scale applications. Multicoin was also one of its most steadfast supporters, heavily investing in it early on and deeply involved in ecosystem development.
But as we all know, the outcome was: governance failure, hollowed-out ecosystem, developer exodus, and de facto Ponzi scheme. EOS has essentially failed.
For Multicoin, this is a near-faith-level defeat. If they continue to bet on the wrong next-generation public blockchain, the organization will essentially be marginalized by the market.
Therefore, after the collapse of EOS, Multicoin began to search extremely cautiously for "the next chain that can truly run a financial system".
FTX developed very rapidly in 2019–2020. However, SBF faced a real problem: Ethereum was too slow and too expensive. Matching, clearing, derivatives, and on-chain settlement were all unable to run smoothly. It needed a public chain with extremely high TPS, extremely low latency, suitable for high-frequency financial systems, and capable of handling exchange-level traffic.
At this time, Kyle was already systematically studying Solana, and Solana's features perfectly matched SBF's needs.
One night, Kyle called SBF in the middle of the night. The two talked for a long time. The core question was: Could Solana handle truly large-scale trading?
This phone call is seen by many in the industry as a turning point in Solana's life.
What happened next was very "Wall Street." SBF didn't completely trust Kyle. He chose to verify it himself, so they launched a large number of spam transactions on Solana as an aggressive stress test to see if Solana would crash.
The result was: Solana held on.
We basically know what happened next: FTX fully entered the market. The FTX/Alameda group bought large amounts of SOL, invested in Solana ecosystem projects, provided liquidity, acted as a market maker, and listed related assets. Multicoin, on the other hand, continued to increase its holdings, endorsed its products, conducted research and promotion, and held institutional roadshows, etc.
In the early core projects of the Solana ecosystem, almost all of them were closely linked to the FTX/Alameda group and the Multicoin group, forming a de facto alliance. They worked together to generate momentum, provide funding, pump the price, and build the ecosystem.
With their help, Solana rose to become a top public chain, FTX gradually secured its position as the number one exchange, and Multicoin became a top VC. Meeting at the top, they mutually benefited each other, and many people still miss that golden age.
Even in the post-FTX era, Multicoin is still clinging to SOL and rebuilding its narrative.
Even now, after leaving his position, Kyle Samani remains committed to Solana, emphasizing his continued bullishness on cryptocurrency, particularly Solana, and plans to maintain his personal involvement. After all, as co-founder of Multicoin, he managed approximately $5.9 billion in assets, but his most successful label remains: the first person to bet on Solana.
He now continues as chairman of Forward Industries, the company that holds the largest SOL treasury in the market. He also wrote on X: "I want to increase my stake in FWDI, which is essentially increasing my SOL exposure. I remain super bullish on SOL and super bullish on cryptocurrency."
Even as he turned to leave, he remained standing on the Solana.
Multicoin is also more like a "narrative factory".
When it was founded in 2017, Multicoin set itself in a very unusual position—a thesis-driven VC, an investment institution driven by academic papers.
This means that Multicoin is more like a "narrative factory".
Identifying structural opportunities early, packaging them as trends with research papers, and then turning those trends into reality with capital. Web3, DePIN, PayFi, data sovereignty, AI+Crypto, privacy... many mainstream narratives we've seen in recent years almost all bear the shadow of Multicoin.
If we were to name the most successful narrative of Multicoin over the years, this BlockBeats believes the answer is DePIN.
Since 2019, Multicoin has been repeatedly discussing a question: Why must blockchain only serve the financial sector? Can it directly transform the infrastructure of the real world? As a result, they proposed the prototype of DePIN: using token incentives to drive the construction of the physical network.
Transform real-world assets into on-chain means of production.
The reason DePIN is so popular is not so much because of technological breakthroughs, but because Multicoin has made it understandable.
In blogs, summits, and research reports, they consistently provided insights into: what constitutes a DePIN project; what constitutes a fake DePIN project; how to assess sustainability; and how to avoid Ponzi schemes. Gradually, the entire industry began to discuss these issues in their own way.
Subsequently, more and more capital began to enter the market.
Helium, Hivemapper, GEODNET… one phenomenal project after another has emerged in the Solana ecosystem. Helium deployed over 600,000 hotspot nodes in 30 months, directly competing with traditional telecommunications networks. Hivemapper reconstructed the mapping system using crowdsourced devices. These projects have become showcases for DePIN.
By 2025–2026, DePIN had become a standard investment track for institutions. Grayscale included it in its research report, estimating its market size to be in the tens of billions of dollars. And the earliest systematic bettor was Multicoin.
Beyond DePIN, Multicoin has repeatedly emphasized a longer-term question: who owns the data? In the Web2 world, data belongs to the platform, users are merely products, and banks, tech giants, and credit institutions control the flow of information. Multicoin's core judgment is that if Web3 is meaningful, it must be reflected in the data layer. Individuals must regain control over their identity, privacy, behavioral data, and credit information. Otherwise, so-called "decentralization" is just changing servers. Around this direction, they have deployed numerous privacy computing, encryption protocols, and data marketplace projects, such as Zama.
Did we fail?
Just as Kyle turned and left, another tweet was being repeatedly shared within the community.
From Vitalik.
When discussing the Ethereum L2 ecosystem, he used an unusually introspective tone: "The progress of L2 into Stage 2 is much slower and more difficult than we expected. At the same time, L1 itself is continuing to expand."
Another possible translation of this passage is: I'm sorry, we failed. Not technically. But narratively.
Multicoin was once one of the best narrative designers in this system. They meticulously, systematically, and rigorously constructed an entire Web3 worldview. But today, even Kyle himself is starting to say: blockchain, in essence, may just be an asset ledger.
What exactly can blockchain do? Ten years have passed, and although we haven't found the right answer yet, fortunately, we've at least ruled out a wrong one.
Kyle's departure marks the end of an era, but we may also be about to usher in a new one.
Because at the same time, there were others, including Vitalik, who were still sticking to this industry.
Over the past decade, Bitcoin has experienced countless moments that "looked like it was over": Mt. Gox, the 94 ban, the ICO crash, the March 12 crash, FTX... Each time, the market pronounced it dead; each time, it slowly climbed back up.
Narratives will fail, cycles will end, and capital will withdraw.
But as long as there are still people willing to invest their time in technology and their reputation in systems, this industry will not truly be wiped out.
