Gigi Levy-Weiss: Betting on Blockchain is a Matter of Personal Risk Preference

There are people with different risk appetites into every ecosystem, and crypto investment is no different, believes the prominent angel investor Gigi Levy-Weiss, speaking at the d10e event in Tel Aviv.

Betting on early blockchain projects is still very risky, and supporting these new ventures is a matter of personal risk taste. Some early adopters who put in money first will understand that supporting a project with no team and product, even in crypto, does not guarantee gains.

Eventually, crypto VC investors will come in, who realize well enough their money could be lost completely. Some will invest at a later stage, and some will only buy assets where the product is already working, explained Gigi Levy-Weiss.

Even now, it is easier to build solution in the traditional way, and the bet is on whether a blockchain can achieve better results and solve problems better. Actually achieving that would be difficult, and take years, and not all projects would make it, said Levy-Weiss.

“If you can create a good company, that has a good market fit with or without blockchain, and the blockchain does not undermine it...work a little bit more, just like you needed to work with traditional VC, or angel investors,” explained Levy-Weiss.

“I think the market’s changing now, and if you can’t explain to yourself... if you can’t answer all the questions, don’t go and raise money,” said Levy-Weiss.

Take money only when you know what you are going to build. This is a short-lived business model, and the window of opportunity for that is closing, he said. One area is infrastructure protocols, and they are in their early days. If you get it right investing in such a protocol, the returns are extremely high, Levy-Weiss said.

Investing in platforms is an early bet on people, but there is no knowing if the projects would work, added Levy.

Right now, Levy-Weiss is looking at infrastructure protocols. “If you get it right, then the gains are phenomenal,” he said. Bancor was one of the early bets for Levy-Weiss.

But centralized crypto companies are also interesting, despite being traditional and centralized. Levy-Weiss mentioned an investment in Coinbase, as well as other exchanges and crypto-related services.

The third type of investment are companies that already have a team and a project, but are making a bet that adding a blockchain solution would make it better. In that case, the investor knows there is already a good team and a product with a good market fit - and the blockchain is promising.

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“Does this mean we can build a bazillion dollar company on this? No, but the thing we know for sure is that we are taking a risk with the blockchain part, and not on something else”.