Before Ethereum had a market capitalization, it was just an idea in the head of an abandonment of a college.
The largest crypto companies are not planned in conference rooms. They are built in dormitories, group cats and hackathons by founders who do not wait for permission (many of them do not finish the university at all). It is not a coincidence. It is a repetition of a scheme that we have seen before: daring ideas, early action and zero respect for institutional deadlines.
In 2014, a group of students launched the Blockchain Education Network (Ben) to connect students exploring Bitcoin and Blockchain on university campuses. In one year, Ben had increased to more than 160 chapters in more than 35 countries.
What started as a local education quickly became a launch for manufacturers.
Ben has become a catalyst for its main members and for a global cohort of students who considered crypto as a virgin canvas. Some have abandoned. Others have stayed. Almost all began to build before the rest of the world. The projects favored by this ecosystem have continued to collectively reach more than $ 20 billion in cutting -edge assessments, notably Iota, Optimism, Bitso, Augur, Wanchain, notional and roll.
This same spirit of early action led me and Erick Pinos, former president of the Bitcoin Club MIT, to co-found Dropout Capital, supporting the young technical founders who move before the opinions of the world.
Erick Pinos will speak to consensus 2025 on May 16 in a panel entitled “The talent pipeline: how to find a job in crypto”.
As Pinos says:
“In the past seven years, we have met countless founding students and at least half a dozen have become unicorns … We are delighted to give others the possibility of being part of the funding of the next generation of blockchain innovation.”
This emergency is not new. It is the same disc that shaped the first giants of technology. Steve Jobs (Apple), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square) and Patrick & John Collison (Stripe) all left the college to build companies that have redefined their industries.
The founders of web3 follow the same path
Some of the most influential Crypto founders started in the same way:
• Vitalik Buterin abandoned the University of Waterloo to launch Ethereum (culminated at $ 500 billion +)
• Charles Hoskinson left the University of Colorado before founding Cardano (culminated at $ 70 billion)
• Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple and Stellar, abandoned UC Berkeley (Ripple culminated at $ 130 billion)
• Jesse Powell left Cal State to build Kraken (worth $ 10 billion)
• Shayne Coplan abandoned Nyu in her first half to start Polymarket (estimated at $ 1 billion)
• Joey Krug left Pomona to co-found Augur (culminated at $ 1 billion)
• Jeremy Gardner, who co -founded Augur with Krug, abandoned the University of Michigan (culminated at $ 1 billion)
• Jinglan Wang left Wellesley to build Eximchain and later helped direct optimism (culminated at 11 billion dollars +)
• Noah Tweedale, co-founder of Pump.fun, never registered (estimated at $ 1 billion +)
At Dropout Capital, we supported start -up companies, in particular:
• Vana, founded at MIT, building a decentralized data market
• Satlayer, launched by the MIT Elders and the Ancients VC, creating a Bitcoin native calculation for AI
• Wait, launched by students from Marquette University, by building a liquid development market
• Algebra.finance, founded by a doctorate. In computer science with training in mobile operating systems, rethink the chain prediction infrastructure
A place where these stories and the stories of the next generation are already shared is chainstories, a podcast that I host with Erick.
CHAINTORIES TO BEAKS AUDITORS SUR LITHERS IN THE STOP OF THE SCREENS OF SUCKS OF SOME OF THE MOST SUCKED CRYPTO projects, including Plume Network, YESNOERROR, Algebra.Finance, Virtuals.io, Ton, Horizon Labs and many others, by decomposing the way real businesses are constructed from the idea that occurs well, and helping the founders and VCS to understand decisions, compromise and the risks that occur long before remarks.
The future of the crypto is not theorized during conferences or slowly nearby through works councils.
It is built by people who move early, take risks and begin to build even before the world realizes what is happening. And, if history is a guide, the companies that count most will not be the ones who have waited.
