The Crypto Journey of America’s First Crypto Czar

The illustrious career of "AI and Crypto Czar" David O. Sacks and his story with Crypto.

Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

Cover: Photo by Donovan Reeves on Unsplash

Early this morning Beijing time, President-elect Trump announced that he will appoint David O. Sacks as the White House's AI and Cryptocurrency Czar. Now, let's unveil the illustrious career of "Crypto Czar" David O. Sacks and delve into his story with Crypto.

David O. Sacks' Illustrious Career

Trump stated, "In this position, David O. Sacks will be responsible for guiding the government's policymaking in the areas of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, two fields that are crucial to America's future competitiveness. David will work to ensure that America becomes the undisputed global leader in these two areas. He will defend internet free speech and lead us away from the biases and censorship of Big Tech. He will also work to build a legal framework that provides the clarity the crypto industry has long sought, allowing it to thrive in America. Additionally, David will chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology."

Trump further introduced David O. Sacks' illustrious career: Over the past 25 years, David O. Sacks has been an immensely successful entrepreneur and investor, creating and investing in some of the most iconic companies in Silicon Valley. He was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) during the founding of PayPal, and was a member of the legendary "PayPal Mafia" (a group of former PayPal employees who later developed or founded other tech companies). Subsequently, David O. Sacks founded the enterprise software company Yammer, which was later acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion. He then founded the venture capital firm Craft Ventures in San Francisco. David O. Sacks is also the co-host of the top technology podcast "All-In Podcast", where he frequently discusses economic, political, and social issues. David possesses the deep knowledge, extensive business experience, exceptional intellect, and pragmatic approach needed to lead America to greatness in these two critical technology domains."

Additionally, according to Bloomberg, David O. Sacks played a key role in supporting Trump's fundraising from tech industry donors. He is also closely associated with Vice President-elect JD Vance.

It's worth noting that David O. Sacks served as an executive at PayPal alongside Elon Musk in the early days, and is also an investor in Twitter. Musk and David O. Sacks have also co-hosted a billionaire dinner against Biden in April this year.

David O. Sacks' Early Conviction in Crypto

David O. Sacks' early interviews reveal his deep insights and firm conviction in the cryptocurrency industry.

In 2017, in an interview with CNBC, David O. Sacks stated that as an early participant in PayPal, he had never thought he would be interested in payments again after using PayPal. But Bit coins are realizing PayPal's initial vision of creating a "new world currency". Cryptocurrencies like Bit coin are now realizing this original vision, doing so in a decentralized way (using a decentralized database called Block chain), whereas PayPal tried to do it in a centralized way.

At the time, David O. Sacks pointed out, "It feels like we're witnessing the birth of a new type of network. Some call it a decentralized network or the Internet of Money." Bit coin strengthens its scarcity through a combination of cryptography and economic incentives (crypto-economics).

When responding to the question of "How will ICOs and future SEC regulation coordinate?", David O. Sacks expressed the hope that the SEC would distinguish "protocol tokens" (which have actual utility in a software ecosystem and should not be treated as securities) from "asset tokens" (which are securities). Most ICO activity has been done through protocol tokens. Better projects have already worked to structure their tokens, so they are not securities. However, David O. Sack also stated that he believes we will soon see the emergence of asset tokens (tokenized traditional assets).

Regarding "whether digital assets and tokenization pose a long-term threat to traditional venture capital?", David O. Sacks told CNBC that this will certainly pose a challenge to venture capital, as venture firms wanting to invest pre-ICO will have to compete with angel investors to provide real value-add. Additionally, LP interests may become tokenized like most other illiquid assets.

David O. Sacks also pointed out at the time that cryptocurrency faces three major challenges: scalability, slideware (only at the whitepaper and PPT stage), and regulation. He also listed some of the most promising use cases so far, including value storage, payments, crowdfunding, file storage, identity management and authentication, prediction markets, custody, ownership chains, notary chains, provenance, and supply chains.

What is the connection between David O. Sacks and Crypto?

As early as 2018, David O. Sacks joined the advisory board of the decentralized exchange protocol 0x. At the time, 0x was also partnering with the digital securities platform Harbor, which was part of the Craft Ventures portfolio and helped incubate Harbor. Harbor provided a blockchain-powered digital securities platform for compliant fundraising, investor management, and liquidity. Later, in February 2020, Harbor was acquired by the digital asset custodian BitGo. In an interview with CNBC, David O. Sacks said that Harbor solved the compliance issues of asset tokenization, providing a huge opportunity for blockchain to bring more liquidity and transparency to private securities.

Regarding Craft Ventures, this is a venture capital firm co-founded by David O. Sacks, primarily investing in the B2B software investment field, and has successfully raised multiple funds. Craft Ventures' first fund raised $350 million. In October 2019, Craft Ventures completed the fundraising for its second fund, with a committed capital of $500 million. In November 2023, Craft Ventures raised $1.3 billion through the Craft Ventures IV and Craft Ventures Growth II funds.

It is worth emphasizing that David O. Sacks has also led investments in Airbnb, Meta, Reddit, Slack, X, Uber, and xAI. In the Crypto sector, David O. Sacks has led Craft Ventures' investments in the crypto asset management company Bitwise and the digital securities platform Harbor. In addition, Craft Ventures led the seed round financing of the DeFi protocol Set Protocol in 2018 (in April 2023, Set Protocol announced that it will cease development and the team will relinquish multi-signature owner rights), in April 2022, Craft Ventures and Multicoin invested in the blockchain-based decentralized mapping network Hivemapper, and in February 2023, Craft Ventures participated in the investment in the Web3-friendly entertainment company Superplastic. Craft Ventures is also an early investor in dYdX, and has also invested in Lightning Labs, the financial institution River Financial focused on Bitcoin financial services, the Web3 mobile super app Kresus, the Bitcoin rewards app Fold, the Lightning Network infrastructure Voltage, and the Bitcoin-native banking infrastructure Galoy.

Also in 2018, David O. Sacks, representing Craft Ventures, announced an investment in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin. Multicoin was one of the early investors in Solana, leading a $20 million funding round for Solana in July 2019.

David O. Sacks is also a staunch holder of Solana. In December 2023, David O. Sacks clarified that he did not sell his Solana tokens after the FTX incident, and stated that "one of the stupidest attacks on me this year has been the claim that I dumped my Solana (SOL) tokens on retail. If that were true, they should be rolling in it by now. Congratulations to all the SOL holders."

Rewind to two years ago, David O. Sacks also discussed the prospects of Solana in depth on his podcast "All-In Podcast". He mentioned that many elite figures in Silicon Valley have high hopes for Solana, believing it could ultimately surpass Ethereum. Even if this vision is not fully realized, Solana is fully capable of becoming the third in the Crypto hierarchy.

References:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/david-sacks-cryptocurrency-interview.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/06/ex-paypal-david-sacks-on-craft-fund-and-harbor.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43EvyfJ3Xrw

Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, the articles published on this site only represent the personal views of the authors and guests, and are not related to the position of Web3Caff. The information contained in the articles is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice or offer, and please comply with the relevant laws and regulations of the country or region where you are located.