Reflections on Token2049: V3V Ventures’ Take

A couple of weeks have passed since Token2049, and now that the dust has settled, we can reflect on it more objectively. 😄

Our core team at V3V Ventures engaged with numerous startups—some through scheduled meetings, others in spontaneous hallway chats.

We also attended a mix of pre-parties and after-parties, some open, some private. While it was fun meeting people in person (many of whom we had only known online), the quality of projects we came across was… well, questionable at best. Great conversations, weak pitches—pure cognitive dissonance! 😆

One of the highlights was The Secret Room, where experienced degens mixed with clubgoers & go-go dancers, simultaneously discussing forks & staking. 🚀

We also met Telegram team and community members, including channel owners & gaming projects. The Telegram ecosystem is growing fast, but a key question remains—can it break out beyond the ex-Soviet bubble?

50+ Projects Later: Our Key Takeaways

After analyzing 50+ crypto projects and meeting founders face-to-face, we identified three main categories:

1️⃣ 80% - 🚮 Low-Effort Projects

💩 Built on the cheap, but pitched as the next big thing.
😂 Especially amusing when a 4-year-old project claims to be open-source, yet has no GitHub, no users, and no traction—just promises.
💰 And, of course, they expect multi-million-dollar investments.

2️⃣ 15% - 💡 Solid Ideas, Bad Valuations

🧐 Some had promising concepts but serious execution risks.
📜 For example, a team with zero startup or crypto experience pitched a cool ETH restaking idea…
💰 …but valued their whitepaper-stage project at $40M, asking for $2M funding.
😬 VC risk: Astronomical. We passed.

3️⃣ 5% - 🏆 Real Winners

⭐️ The truly exceptional projects had strong founders & traction.
💸 Funny thing? They didn’t even need funding—the smartest VCs had already backed them.
🤝 That said, we believe we offer more than just money—our expertise in crypto marketing & scaling is a game-changer for projects that want to go big.

Next Steps

Despite the overwhelming amount of noise, we found a few gems worth exploring. 🔍

We’ll probably share more details soon on why we think these projects will succeed. Stay tuned!