What prospects will Trump bring to cryptocurrencies? Here’s what more than a dozen venture capitalists say

Author: Yogita Khatri, The Block; Translator: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

The crypto world has been in a whirlwind over the past few days, with the price of Bitcoin breaking the $93,000 mark right after Donald Trump won the election. It was crazy to think back to 2018 when I first started writing about cryptocurrencies and saw Bitcoin's price was only around $3,000. But here we are, witnessing the future unfold.

I spoke to a dozen cryptocurrency venture capital investors, and while the excitement around Trump's win and Bitcoin's rise is undeniable, most are sticking to their long-term plans. That said, some are adjusting their approach to pay closer attention to new trends and changes in the political and market landscape.

"I think the industry is right to be ecstatic," Lasse Clausen, founding partner of 1kx, told me. “You have to be an industry insider to really understand the scale of the destruction of innovation by the previous administration. As a result, outsiders still underestimate how many exciting products will be created in the industry now that founders are free to try again.”

a16z crypto general partner Arianna Simpson echoed Clausen’s sentiments, noting that “The past few years have been challenging for the crypto industry.” However, she expects a “significant shift in policy” that will greatly benefit web3 builders and companies.

Given the expected clarity on cryptocurrency regulation from the Trump administration, investors expect more founders to begin dabbling in the web3 space. Earlier this week, Portal Ventures, founded by former Insight Partners investor Evan Fisher, raised $75 million for its second fund, which has more than $80 billion in assets under management (AUM), and will invest exclusively in pre-seed cryptocurrency startups. Fisher told me that he expects repeat founders who previously sold their businesses and are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, but were hesitant to enter crypto due to legal and regulatory risks, to start entering the space now that the regulatory environment has de-risked it. “We’re going to see senior founders start to move more into crypto,” Fisher said. CoinFund founder, managing partner, and CEO Jake Brukhman told me his firm is preparing for what he calls a “super cycle” in the crypto market. CoinFund is well capitalized across its seed, venture, and liquidity investment programs, Brukhman said, adding that the firm has expanded its investment team with six new hires this year, five of whom joined in the past two to three months.

Bet on Crypto AI, DeFi, and More

Looking ahead, cryptocurrency venture capital firms are eyeing high-potential areas such as crypto AI, DeFi, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, infrastructure, stablecoins, payments, and more.

Many investors see the intersection of cryptocurrency and AI as the next transformative trend. Hack VC co-founder and managing partner Ed Roman described crypto AI as “the undisputed sexiest category in crypto right now” and envisioned a multi-layered web3 AI stack that leverages the cost efficiency of decentralized computing networks. “This is a multi-trillion dollar market when serving web2 clients,” Roman said. “AI is not a fad (like NFTs were). AI is creating real business value and is perhaps the most important technology innovation since mobile phones and the internet.”

However, Roman said the health of the crypto AI category depends largely on the health of the web2 AI category, which is inspired by NVIDIA. As a result, Hack VC is keeping a close eye on NVIDIA as a “loose proxy” for crypto AI.

Maven 11 Capital CIO and managing partner Balder Bomans also sees growth in crypto AI startups and is particularly fond of the AI-powered DePIN protocol, which provides compute for AI model training. CoinFund’s Brukhman added that most retail investors looking to gain exposure to AI next year will likely do so through cryptocurrencies. “AI coins are scarce but in high demand. The summer of 2025 is the summer of decentralized AI (deAI).”

Another key focus for investors is the resurgence of DeFi as institutional adoption increases.Hack VC’s Roman noted that DeFi has suffered recently due to high interest rates, which made U.S. Treasuries more attractive. However, Roman added that Trump’s expected rate cuts could make DeFi more competitive against traditional finance (TradFi) instruments such as Treasuries. He sees DeFi as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to simplify finance.

1kx’s Clausen noted that TradFi institutions may now work on bringing RWAs on-chain and using DeFi infrastructure at scale. “Think about how terrible trading, clearing, and settlement are in TradFi, whereas decentralized exchange (DEX) trading is three-in-one instant trading with no counterparty risk and no publicly verifiable exchange operator fraud,” Clausen said. “It’s like fishing with dynamite; it’s not even fair.”

Nomad Capital managing partner and former Binance executive Erick Zhang also sees DeFi poised for growth, especially with renewed activity in altcoins and ongoing challenges facing centralized exchanges.  

Galaxy Ventures general partner Will Nuelle and BlockTower Capital general partner and head of venture capital Thomas Klocanas also foresee expansion of DeFi, RWA tokenization, stablecoins, and payment categories.

“After Trump took office, it became clear that one of the biggest barriers to stablecoin adoption in the payments space — banking relationships to interface with fiat systems — became much easier,” Nuelle said. “We hope/expect that banks offering legal cryptocurrency services will not worry about retaliation from the FDIC or other agencies, which should ease banks’ ability to integrate with the clearly growing use cases.”

The consumer-facing applications and infrastructure categories are also gaining traction. “I’m particularly excited about consumer applications of crypto taking off, as the category has been particularly adversely impacted by the policies of the outgoing administration,” a16z crypto’s Simpson said. “We remain very interested in DeFi and ongoing infrastructure projects.”

Borderless Capital partner Alvaro Gracia also highlighted the potential growth in the DeFi and DeFi sectors as Bitcoin dominance shifts toward altcoins. Gracia, who manages a $100 million DeFi fund, remains particularly bullish on the category, noting that the fund still has approximately $70 million available to deploy over the next two to three years.

1kx’s Clausen added that infrastructure, middleware, and consumer applications are focus categories for his firm, particularly consumer applications that require bank integrations, which were previously hampered by regulatory restrictions.

Finality Capital Partners’ managing director Adam Winnick expressed optimism about the infrastructure vertical, highlighting restaking and zero-knowledge technology startups as key areas of focus. Gumi Cryptos Capital managing partner Miko Matsumura said he is focused on “middleware” infrastructure projects that aim to solve “normal people’s normal problems” rather than solving “crypto problems for crypto people.”

Meanwhile, infrastructure isn’t as exciting for some investors. Maven 11’s Bomans noted that the firm has shifted its focus to application-level investments over the past 12 months as the rise of strong monolithic chains and continued improvements to modular stacks have removed massive scaling bottlenecks.

Portal Ventures’ Fisher said his firm has been lacking infrastructure projects, instead favoring business startups with clear distribution advantages and strong user demand.

Nomad Capital’s Zhang also mentioned that the firm has been more cautious in the way it deploys capital in infrastructure projects, particularly first and second layer networks. “Most infrastructure projects are essentially ‘infrastructure memes,’ and their success often depends on the founding team’s ability to effectively manage narrative and brand,” he said. “However, the number of teams that can excel in this unique dynamic remains limited.”

Trump Administration Risks

While Trump’s presidency has brought new optimism to the cryptocurrency space, several venture capitalists have warned of potential risks that could affect the industry’s trajectory.

1kx’s Clausen expressed concerns about Trump’s immigration policies,arguing that a reduced labor supply could lead to higher wages, which could be bad for risky assets like cryptocurrencies.

Galaxy Ventures’ Nuelle noted that if “Trump becomes too laissez-faire about the crypto industry,” it could repeat the failure of FTX. He said balanced bipartisan legislation and overall clarity about the status of digital assets would create the most stable long-term value.

Nomad Capital’s Zhang stressed that the “Trump effect” could lose steam if bold proposals such as Bitcoin becoming U.S. currency are made. Strategic reserve assets have failed to materialize quickly. Unfulfilled expectations could dampen market enthusiasm, he said.

Hack VC's Roman also said that one of the most important unanswered questions is: Will the U.S. actively reserve new Bitcoin, or simply hold existing seized Bitcoin? Either outcome could be a win for cryptocurrency. Actively building up Bitcoin inventory, which could become a new standard that influences other countries and affects their policies, would be an even bigger win for cryptocurrency.