His X profile bio says “Your doubt is my alpha.”

The motto rings true in Joel Monegro’s approach to investment in the crypto industry. During Ethereum’s struggles in 2018 and 2019, for example, the partner at Placeholder played the contrarian game and invested heavily in the ecosystem. 

“It’s hard to imagine that Ethereum would be an outcast today because now it has this sort of dominant position,” he says, “but Ethereum went through a really tough time in ‘18 and ‘19.”

The venture capital firm “doubled down” on the struggling network — and it paid off. Monegro says that some of the firm’s best investments were made “at the bottom in 2019.”

On the…

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