Kathleen Breitman: Why Crypto is Shifting to Hacker Culture

Founders News is our bi-weekly roundup of the latest stories and insights from the global founder community. 🚀

This week, Tezos Founder, Kathleen Breitman, explains how FTX’s collapse is sparking huge change in the crypto market. For more tech trends to watch in 2023, download our free CEO Forecast.

When Kathleen Breitman started the open-source blockchain, Tezos, her budget was $600k. Now, the network’s patron, Tezos Foundation, has $1b. 

Kathleen’s still got an early founder mindset; ditch the losers, double down on the winners, and if something’s not working, get rid of it and find something that does. Today’s crypto market, she says, is returning to that hacker culture. 

Since the cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, went bust, billions of dollars have evaporated from the crypto ecosystem – the crypto market as a whole fell below a $1t valuation following the collapse.

“What’s bad is that’s killed a lot of momentum,” Kathleen explains. “FTX attracted well-funded projects to it, but when it turned out to be a house of cards, they had their treasuries exposed and that made VCs look bad.

“What’s good is now we have to actually build something useful to get venture funding. We’re going to get more hacker culture and sustainable business models that aren’t predicated on trying to get that 10x return on venture dollars.”

Forget the crypto winter, Kathleen says. For now, it’s a K-T extinction...

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Also in this week's Founders News...

Download our CEO Forecast 2023

What are the biggest trends shaping the future of tech in 2023?

In our Founders Forum CEO Forecast 2023, 10 founder-CEOs from 10 different industries predict which trends will shape their industries in the year ahead. 💡

From crypto to climate tech, read cutting-edge insights from top founders including Ali Parsa (Babylon Health) Jeremy O’Brien (PsiQuantum), Kathleen Breitman (Tezos), Markus Villig (Bolt), Poppy Gustafsson (Darktrace), and more.

Plus, discover the tech startups to watch in 2023!

Click here to download our free CEO Forecast.

Opportunities for your Business

🎓 Framework Launches Invite-Only Learning Platform

FF Group's Framework has launched its new lifelong learning app to empower startup teams to upskill across functions, and attracted a waitlist of over 4,000 people this month!

Members can bag front-row seats to weekly Q&A sessions with leading startup operators and connect daily with other professionals across the globe.

They also have access to an expertly curated library of easy-to-digest Frameworks — tools, strategies, and methodologies used by the world's top tech companies — each of which can be completed in 15 minutes or less.

🚀 Recruit Digital-Native Talent for your Startup

The working world is changing quickly—and so are the skills needed to build disruptive and impactful startups.

Enter Polygo: the UK’s first talent accelerator launched by FF Group, which handpicks qualified, digitally native graduates, and gives them accelerated training before placing them in your startup teams. Their one-month bootcamp offers training in no-code automation, content marketing, data processing, and more!

Polygo is now on the hunt for startups who are looking to hire high impact, cost-efficient interns this year, starting in March. 

Click here to find out more.

🔒 Protect your Brand

What do BrewDog / Elvis Presley and the WWE / WWF all have in common? They all had legal disputes and some had to change their names due to a lack of trade mark protection. 

Founders Law has now launched a specialist trade mark team to help you protect yours. 

Click here to book an initial chat with the trade mark team.

🇮🇹 Build your New Venture in Italy

Founders Factory has announced its expansion into Italy, launching a new Venture Studio and Accelerator in partnership with leading Italian telecoms provider Fastweb. 

Over the next five years, Founders Factory plans to build, fund, and launch 30 new startups across themes including smart homes, cybersecurity, healthtech, edtech, and Industry 4.0.

Click here to find out more.

FF Community Wrap:

David Rosenberg’s AeroFarms signed a joint venture agreement with the Saudi PIF to build and operate indoor vertical farms in the MENA region.

Dan Vahdat’s Huma partnered with Bayer to develop an online tool that assesses the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease.

Carl Pei’s Nothing announced plans to launch its next flagship Android phone, the Phone (2), in the US later this year.

Nicholas Hawker’s First Light Fusion announced the construction of a new facility for its net energy gain demonstrator at the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Stephanie Eltz’s Doctify raised $10m in a growth funding round led by Beringea.

Nick Taylor’s Unmind acquired employee mental healthcare platform, Frankie Health.

Afeef Zaman’s ShopUp secured $30m in debt funding. 

Tim Hwang’s FiscalNote acquired security intelligence provider, Dragonfly.

Talent Garden’s Davide Dattoli invested in a €15m Series A funding round for compensation management platform, Coverflex.

Jose Marin’s FJ Labs raised $260m in capital commitments across a pre-Seed and Series B+ fund.

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