Why are people from Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and Stripe rushing in now?

Written by: Paul Veradittakit

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Summary

The alignment between founders and the market is the most resilient signal in venture capital. Markets, regulations, and products are constantly changing, but the alignment of specific founders with specific markets is the only thing that remains unchanged.

We have never seen such a high degree of alignment between founders and the market in the blockchain space. The truly interesting questions have converged around AI and fintech, and the most serious operators are pouring in from Citadel, Stripe, Block, Nvidia, and Goldman Sachs—because the truly challenging issue—institutional-grade financial infrastructure—has finally become an interesting question.

We look for four traits: deep domain expertise, high proactivity, an unfair network of connections, and obsession. Every project we've backed that defines a category in this bear market, from Offchain Labs to Ondo, possesses all four.

Every founder initially asks the wrong questions. They first ask, "Is this the right market?" The real question that can predict who will win is: Are you naturally suited to win in the market you have chosen?

Markets will change, products will change, regulations will change. The founder-market fit is the only thing that can span all this and continues to compound, and it is also the only thing that can continue to compound when prices stop rising.

This is easy to say in a bull market, but in the current market, it’s necessary to face this head-on. Let’s lay out the real background: Bitcoin has fallen to about half of last October's peak of $126,000; market sentiment is fear, and capital and attention have largely turned to AI—last year, AI absorbed about $211 billion, nearly half of all venture capital, while blockchain only attracted about $20 billion. Artemis data shows that the number of code submissions in blockchain has decreased by about 75% since early 2025, and a number of the industry’s most prominent players have announced their shift to AI. These are facts, but what they truly mean requires further examination.

The developers leaving are mostly those who entered during the last bull market; the majority of code being written now is by more experienced contributors. Artemis interprets this as consolidation rather than collapse. Talent has not disappeared—GitHub added about 36 million developers last year, with overall submission growth of about 25%, mostly directed towards AI.

The crypto winter is a moment of clarity. It allows you to see which builders are anchored by mission and which are only anchored by the potential for price increases.

So the question is never whether the market will return, but when it does, who will still be standing and who will be stronger. The answers to every cycle boil down to the fit between specific founders and specific markets. This is the founder-market fit, and it is the most enduring signal.

We have never seen so many founders aligned with the crypto market

This is where your view on "talent outflow" should truly change. In past cycles, talent was diluted across hundreds of speculative narratives, with most people merely chasing prices. Now, the truly interesting questions have converged into two verticals: AI and fintech, and the founders who choose to solve these problems with blockchain have the highest caliber I have seen across four cycles.

The market has matured enough for serious operators to treat it as a career, with data being global. Specifically:

By 2025, the value settled on stablecoin chains will exceed the total of Visa and Mastercard, approximately $33 trillion, with about 60% already being business-to-business. This includes real economic activities like corporate treasury, cross-border settlements, and vendor payments, and is no longer just speculation.

Nearly 90% of surveyed financial institutions are using or piloting stablecoins; the scale of U.S. Treasury bonds held by stablecoin issuers has surpassed that of Germany or Saudi Arabia; Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and BNY Mellon have all launched tokenized products.

Tokenized real-world assets on public chains have surpassed $30 billion, growing over 400% since early 2025. Tracks are being laid globally: the GENIUS Act provides a federal framework for U.S. stablecoins, the European MiCA creates a license usable throughout the EU, and Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UAE are taking proactive stances politically and regulatorily.

BCG predicts that by 2030, the scale of tokenized assets will reach $16 trillion. When a serious version of a problem arises, serious founders will follow.

The clearest evidence is who is showing up. The truly challenging issue in blockchain now is institutional-grade financial infrastructure, which has always been the problem that the best operators in traditional finance have been addressing throughout their careers. Nathan Allman left Goldman Sachs' digital asset team to found Ondo, now managing a product matrix of about $2.6 billion, bringing government bonds and other assets on-chain. Ed Felten transitioned from a Princeton professor and White House position to co-founding Offchain Labs and building Arbitrum. In our own company, my partner Franklin Bi also comes from JPMorgan's Onyx blockchain team. Founders stepping into our meeting room are those leaving Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Stripe, and Block—they are not here to speculate on narratives, but because the real challenging issue has finally become an interesting question.

The four dimensions we insure

When meeting founders in such a market, I look for four things.

Deep domain expertise. You have lived in the market, not just looked at the map. In a bear market, buyers only schedule truly important meetings, and technical depth can crush a pretty pitch every time. Ed Felten spent a lifetime on the hardest problems in systems and security before co-founding Offchain Labs and building Arbitrum. We led their seed round precisely because this depth allowed the team to see the scalability issue clearly while the market was still arguing.

High proactivity. Clearly demonstrate your market judgment to mature, skeptical individuals until they want to build on top of you. Paul Frambot founded Morpho in Paris at age twenty based on a counter-consensus judgment: DeFi will win in the form of infrastructure, not as another application — it’s a layer where brands and institutions embed directly rather than building themselves. As a result, Coinbase’s crypto lending runs on Morpho, Robinhood’s on-chain yield product is built on it, and Apollo's credit uses the same set of tracks. He didn’t win anyone over through marketing; he simply saw the shape of the market earlier.

An unfair network of connections. The right relationships allow you to act faster than anyone else; a warm introduction is worth more than any cold start. Jeremy Allaire launched USDC at the bottom of the previous bear market in September 2018, binding it to Coinbase from day one, which became its distribution engine. The market did not turn for nearly two years, yet Circle continued building, making USDC one of the two dollar stablecoins on which the on-chain economy now relies for settlement. What unfair networks buy you is the space to keep delivering through the winter; by the time the market catches up, the track is already yours. We have always been investors in Circle.

Obsession. People leave when things get tough; those who are obsessed stay across cycles, holding on long before it pays off — that kind of belief that kept Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, and Adam Back dedicated to digital cash for decades with neither market nor money. A grounded version of this is Alchemy. Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau shut down a viral consumer application to build a blockchain data product, realizing that the underlying infrastructure was the real jackpot, turning Alchemy into the industry default developer platform in every cycle since 2017. We support them because they never stop. This is a trait that’s not visible on resumes but is the most important.

To the founders already present

Belief is the fuel of the winter

In a bull market, price equals product, and momentum does the work for founders. Capital is cheaper, hiring is easier, and every release gets attention—regardless of its worth. In a bear market, products are truly products; those chasing prices get washed out, leaving behind the truly resilient builders. The bear market strips away all comforting momentum; the only thing that can push founders forward is belief.

The true founder-market fit is essentially belief, and belief is an observable output. A founder who understands their market to that depth will continue building when the token has dropped 50% and headlines have all turned to AI, because they can see the endpoint not yet priced by the market. This is also the least crowded time. When capital and attention leave, the noise also departs: there are fewer teams chasing the same idea, less competition among engineers, and the market you truly want to have is no longer being artificially inflated. The winter gives you what a bull market can never provide—the time to build quietly when no one is watching.

Moreover, capital is actually present, which surprises many. Most blockchain funds raised in the bull market, so the promised money at the top will be invested throughout the winter. The strategy moving forward is straightforward: use this belief to attract and retain talent, pivot toward the true product-market fit in your field, and complete the next round of financing as the market accelerates into the next cycle. The only thing worth adjusting is the runway—aim to raise close to three years rather than the usual 18 to 24 months, because the winter is longer than anyone expects, and those who plan ahead will be the ones still standing when the pivot happens. This benefits us too. With valuations down and ownership up, it’s the best time to enter.

If you are still at Goldman Sachs, Citadel, or Stripe

This paragraph is specifically for you. The truly challenging problems of digital assets are no longer about clever consumer applications. They are about institutional-grade financial infrastructure: settlement, credit, custody, compliance—those underlying machines that you are already working on every day, albeit less glamorously. For years, this skill set was misaligned with digital assets. Now, it is the whole game.

This is a noteworthy shift. You don’t need to have been here for a few years, nor do you need to time the bottom. You need to understand a market that traditional finance understands better than crypto natives, and start building in this space while it’s quiet enough to create. The winter is not a risk; it is a proving ground; tourists have left, and the noise has gone too, making it more convenient. Founder-market fit is what can still compound when prices stop rising, and the fit between operators like you and this specific problem may be the strongest in the current market.

To the founders already in the space: stay grounded, keep building. The founder-market fit is what can still compound when prices stop rising, and this season is the time to test it. Alignment allows it to stand firm.

Defining the next cycle's founders is not about waiting for it to arrive. They are being quietly activated by those who know their market too well and will not be scared off by token prices. Every truly important category in blockchain has been built this way—by those naturally suited to build it in a winter that has sent everyone else home.

So the real question is never whether the market will return. It is whether, when it does come back, you will still be standing in the market you are naturally suited to win. If that’s you, we hope to see you before the rest of the market remembers you exist.