A quick overview of the growth history of the crypto fund Paradigm, with a preference for airdrops in its invested projects

Author: Splin Teron, Crypto KOL

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Although there is currently little detailed information about the Paradigm fund, it is well known that the range of projects the fund invests in spans from $1 million to over $100 million, and is solely within the crypto space. So how did Paradigm, with just over 60 employees, gain the trust of investors and attract attention in the crypto community?

Paradigm was co-founded by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang. The emergence of Paradigm was not a coincidence; it originated during the peak of the Bitcoin frenzy in 2017, when Fred Ehrsam decided to resign from his position as president of Coinbase.

The Paradigm fund was launched in the summer of 2018 during a challenging bear market phase. The two founders of Paradigm decided to leave their previous jobs to pursue what they considered more interesting endeavors.

Paradigm's initial funding came from some of the most conservative investors: universities. This includes endowments from Yale University, Harvard University, and Stanford University.

In October 2018, Paradigm raised $400 million from investors (Note: * All funds came from Yale University's endowment *). By December 2018, Paradigm primarily invested in Bitcoin and Ethereum, perfectly timing the market when Bitcoin's price was below $4,000 *(Note: As shown in the above image, after bottoming out on Bitcoin, the price has generally been on the rise *). This news reached investors, leading institutional investors (universities) to increase their subscriptions by $350 million.

In addition to securing startup funding, Paradigm also worked in the university sector and made significant progress:

• Promoting cryptocurrency
• Enhancing discussions on necessary cryptocurrency regulation
• Supporting Gary Gensler (current chair of the SEC, formerly taught at MIT) in educating about blockchain and cryptocurrency technology

Does this mean Paradigm has a connection with the "market leader" (Note: * Gary Gensler * )? It is unknown.

One of Paradigm's latest investments is Friend.tech, which marks another launch of the SocialFi narrative. Interestingly, Friend.tech was launched on the new Base network.

It is worth mentioning that before the Arbitrum airdrop, Paradigm was listed as one of the three most important investors in crypto industry airdrops: Uniswap, Ribbon Finance, and dYdX. This may also be why Paradigm is favored by the crypto community during the era of airdrops. A crypto KOL summarized which popular funds invested in which projects and how many of them conducted airdrops, with Paradigm leading the pack.

Here is the complete list of Paradigm's investments:

Although Paradigm has changed its website description to include a focus on "cutting-edge" technologies such as artificial intelligence in addition to cryptocurrencies, Fred and Matt later stated that they firmly believe they will remain in the crypto space for the long term. "While some may find it controversial, we firmly believe that cryptocurrency will become an important trend. In fact, we believe it is the most significant technological trend of the next 20 years."