DeFi Headed Toward a ‘Major Resurgence,’ Tribe Capital’s Boris Revsin Says
Decentralized finance (DeFi) saw its heyday in 2020, with venture capital funds piling in and a peak value locked of $248.84 billion. However setbacks including scandals, hacks and wider economic tightenings have seen the sector cool off in 2022. Boris Revsin, managing partner of Tribe Capital, sees a resurgence on the horizon. He believes a focus on infrastructure, particularly outside the U.S., will stimulate new projects and propel the crypto industry towards a $10 trillion valuation, dwarfing its current $1.22 trillion.
Revsin expects DeFi regulation in the U.S. will push projects towards more open regions such as Dubai and Singapore. However, infrastructure projects like layer 1 and 2 blockchains and rollup technology are likely to flourish stateside. He sees the keys to a more expansive crypto market as the infrastructure and the developers who bring these projects to life.
Tribe Capital, where Revsin oversees the $96-million early-stage Tribe Crypto Fund I, uses a data-driven approach to evaluate startups. They aim for as much quantitative data as possible from a company, processing it to produce a comprehensive report featuring key metrics for investors. Tribe Capital focuses on Series A to Series D investments in more established companies, while also running a pre-seed incubator for early-stage startups.
Revsin is most interested in investing in “products and protocols that become part of the developer stack.” He believes successful infrastructure projects will attract more developers and facilitate the migration of Web2 users to Web3. The improved revenue stream from increased developer usage will allow these projects to enhance their products, further encouraging developers to join the space. Revsin sees this as a crucial step towards the crypto industry reaching that $10 trillion valuation
