Paradigm has appointed two new general partners. What impact will this have on their investment strategy?

Author: Runsheng, ChainCatcher

During the bear market, amidst the layoffs and salary cuts of many crypto companies, the personnel changes at the top crypto VC fund Paradigm have drawn attention. According to The Block, Paradigm recently promoted venture partner Charlie Noyes and research partner Dan Robinson to general partners, with Dan Robinson also serving as the head of research.

Prior to this, Paradigm did not have the title of general partner, and aside from founders Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang, the other members were either investment partners or partners. A general partner (GP) refers to the management entity or individual of an equity investment fund, who has full management and control over fund affairs and enjoys special rights in profit sharing and annual management fees, but also bears unlimited joint liability for the partnership's debts.

Those familiar with Paradigm know that this venture capital fund, born out of the 2018 bear market, has, over five years, led by founders Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang, invested in dozens of top crypto products such as Uniswap, FTX, and dYdX, yielding substantial returns.

What changes will the promotions of Dan Robinson and Charlie Noyes bring to Paradigm? Time will tell. However, at least we can glean some insights from their backgrounds.

Dan Robinson: The Lawyer-Turned-Programmer

Dan Robinson joined Paradigm in January 2019. Before being promoted to general partner, he was a research partner and head of research at Paradigm. His LinkedIn profile shows that Dan has a strong educational background and work experience. He earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard University in 2010 and 2013, respectively.

After graduating with his doctorate, Dan first worked as a quasi-partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a well-known lawyer specializing in securities litigation. In 2016, Dan began to enter the blockchain industry, transitioning from lawyer to programmer. He served as a product and protocol architect at companies like Chain and Interstellar, focusing on blockchain protocols and smart contract languages.

Dan's joining Paradigm was partly due to his personal friendship with Matt Huang. As Dan revealed in his blog, Matt Huang is his closest friend of over twenty years, and it was Matt who first introduced him to Bitcoin. On the other hand, it also relates to Paradigm's investment style, which emphasizes research.

It is rumored in the industry that Paradigm's investment philosophy is to seek new paradigms that disrupt the industry, and capturing paradigm shifts requires talents with deep insights and research into the industry. Matt Huang not only recognized Dan's talent but also foresightedly embedded a research institution within the investment company, which together ultimately achieved Paradigm's research-centric investment style and outstanding investment results. As a representative figure in research at Paradigm, where does Dan's personal capability lie? Perhaps it can be glimpsed in the case of investing in Uniswap. According to an article titled "Paradigm's Investment Strategy and Path to Success" published by CoinVoice last year:

After completing a key investment in Uniswap, the research team led by Dan continued to participate in the development of the Uniswap protocol. Dan himself is almost daily immersed in the Uniswap Discord, helping to solve liquidity and smart contract issues. Noah, the head of Uniswap development, once stated on Twitter, "Dan is a core contributor to the mechanism design of Uniswap v3; without him, none of this would have been possible."

Additionally, Paradigm's official website shows that Dan and his team have published research reports on Ethereum, Cosmos, ZK, DeFi, Dutch auctions, NFTs, and other fields. These cases are sufficient to demonstrate that Dan's brilliance lies in his technical style of researching blockchain protocols and his continuous contributions to the crypto community.

When Dan first joined Paradigm, he wrote in his onboarding remarks, "One reason that attracted me to join is Paradigm's long-term vision and its commitment to advancing the entire industry through investments in fundamental research. In addition to providing advice on investments, one of my explicit responsibilities is to contribute to the research and development of open-source protocols and projects."

Employee No. 3: Charlie Noyes

Charlie Noyes joined Paradigm in July 2018. Before being promoted to general partner, he was a venture partner at Paradigm. Records show that Charlie dropped out after studying computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year. It is reported that he received honors such as the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and the U.S. National Security Agency Research Council Award for his research on blockchain technology while in high school, and participated in several projects based on blockchain protocols.

After dropping out, Charlie joined the crypto venture capital fund Pantera Capital as an investment manager (Principal) in early 2017. The crypto data platform RootData indicates that Pantera focuses on investing in blockchain technology and digital assets, having participated in investments in 172 crypto projects including Coinbase, Circle, and FTX.

Records show that under Charlie's leadership, Paradigm has achieved impressive investment results. RootData indicates that Paradigm has invested in 74 crypto projects, including Uniswap and FTX, most of which are well-known projects. In just the past year, Paradigm has invested in 25 projects, including Magic Eden and Jambo. Charlie is also a personal seed investor in crypto brokerage service Tagomi and Uniswap, and has invested in the lightweight blockchain Mina.

It is reported that Charlie was introduced to Paradigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam through MIT alumni channels and joined Paradigm as employee No. 3. Charlie focuses on quantitative research such as analysis and algorithmic trading, with an emphasis on market microstructure and blockchain tokens. Paradigm's official website shows that Charlie and his team have published papers on Uniswap, MEV, Cosmos, and other fields, demonstrating exceptional research capabilities.

Both Charlie and Dan are research-driven figures in the crypto tech space and have co-authored several research papers. They are both long-serving employees with over four years of tenure who have made outstanding contributions to Paradigm's development.

The promotions of Charlie and Dan to general partners mean they will gain greater steering power in Paradigm's development. In addition to recognizing their achievements and contributions, it also reflects Paradigm's continued adherence to a research-centric investment philosophy and active involvement in project development.