What projects have the cryptocurrency leaders appointed by Trump invested in?

Author: shushu, Zhouzhou, BlockBeats

On December 6, following Trump's announcement of Paul Atkins as the SEC chairman, Trump appointed PayPal co-founder David Sacks as the "White House Head of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Affairs."

In his letter, Trump wrote, "In this important role, David will help the government formulate policies in the fields of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, both of which are crucial for America's future competitiveness. His goal is to make the United States the undisputed global leader in these two areas.

David will be committed to protecting free speech online, avoiding the influence of bias and censorship from big tech companies. He will also advocate for the establishment of a clear legal framework that provides the long-needed clarity for the cryptocurrency industry, allowing it to thrive in the U.S. Additionally, he will lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology."

This decision has been widely praised by the crypto community, as David Sacks has extensive experience in cryptocurrency. Matthew Dibb, Chief Investment Officer of the crypto asset management firm Astronaut Capital, described the news as extremely optimistic, stating, "For years, David has had practical experience with cryptocurrencies, holding tokens like SOL. His technical and business acumen in the cryptocurrency space seems to be much stronger than most people imagine."

David Sacks speaking at the 2016 TechCrunch Disrupt conference

Trump introduced David Sacks by saying, "He has been an extremely successful entrepreneur and investor over the past 25 years, involved in building and investing in some of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies. He was the Chief Operating Officer during PayPal's founding period and is one of the legendary 'PayPal Mafia' members. After that, he founded the enterprise software company Yammer, which was later acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion. He then founded the venture capital firm Craft Ventures based in San Francisco. David is also a co-host of the well-known tech podcast 'All-In Podcast,' where he discusses economic, political, and social issues with his friends."

Although Sacks is not as well-known as Musk, he has become a loyal supporter during Trump's campaign cycle and is a frequent presence in conservative media and on Twitter, exerting increasing influence in the political struggles of the tech industry.

From "PayPal Mafia" to "Political and Business Tycoon": The First Half of David Sacks' Life

David Sacks was born into a Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa, and moved to Tennessee, USA, with his family at the age of 5. Although Sacks did not explicitly aim to become an entrepreneur at that time, he did not want to pursue a career like his father's—his father was an endocrinologist.

Sacks earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University in 1994 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998. In 1999, Sacks left his job at McKinsey to join the e-commerce startup Confinity, founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek. That same year, Sacks became the first product manager of Confinity's flagship product and its corporate successor, PayPal.

Sacks was later promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO) of PayPal, responsible for building the company's core team and overseeing multiple functions, including product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international operations, customer service, anti-fraud operations, and human resources.

Sacks is one of the members of the so-called "PayPal Mafia," a group composed of PayPal's founders and early employees who later founded a series of successful tech companies, considered a driving force behind the rise of Web 2.0 and the revival of consumer-oriented internet companies after the 2001 dot-com bubble burst.

After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002, Sacks ventured into Hollywood, producing the satirical film "Thank You for Smoking" in 2005, which tells the story of how political lobbyists work to make unpleasant things acceptable.

In 2006, Sacks and Musk attended a party for "Thank You for Smoking" in New York

In 2006, Sacks founded the website Geni.com, and in 2008, he and co-founder Adam Pisoni spun off this internal communication tool into an independent company called Yammer. In 2008, Yammer launched the first enterprise social network for internal communication and collaboration. In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion as a core part of its cloud/social strategy.

In December 2014, David Sacks made a "significant investment" in the recruitment platform Zenefits. By January 2016, when Zenefits faced a "regulatory crisis" regarding licensing compliance, the board asked Sacks to serve as interim CEO and ousted the original CEO, Parker Conrad.

In the following year, Sacks negotiated with insurance regulators across the U.S., successfully reaching a settlement agreement and earning praise for "turning the tide." He also overhauled Zenefits' product line, launching a plan called "Z2" and introducing a SaaS (Software as a Service) business model. Subsequently, PC Magazine called Zenefits "the best HR software on the market," but at the same time, Buzzfeed reported that the company was losing over $200 million annually. After serving as interim CEO for just 10 months, Sacks handed the position over to former Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher.

By the end of 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures with Bill Lee, primarily investing in the B2B software sector. They raised $350 million in initial funding, announced a second fund of $500 million in October 2019, raised $1.1 billion in 2021, and in November 2023, Craft Ventures raised $1.3 billion through Craft Ventures IV and Craft Ventures Growth II funds.

In March 2020, Sacks launched a business and tech commentary podcast called "All In Podcast," co-hosted by David Sacks and three other venture capitalists, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, covering current events, market trends, political issues, and industry insights.

In 2021, Sacks co-founded the workspace chat company Glue with his former Craft colleague Evan Owen. The company launched an AI tool that can be used in specific chats on platforms like Google Meet and Zoom, providing AI support for employees during conversations, with the product set to be publicly released in May 2024.

In 2021, David Sacks also co-founded a social audio and podcasting app called Callin with Axel Ericsson, which raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia, Goldcrest, and Craft Ventures. In 2023, Callin was acquired by the video-sharing platform Rumble.

Musk's Close Friend, Thiel's Classmate, and Trump's Behind-the-Scenes Man

In recent years, as a long-time partner of Musk and Peter Thiel, Sacks has transformed from a well-known executive in Silicon Valley to a celebrity in alternative media, attracting a large number of right-leaning entrepreneurs to listen to his "All-In" podcast.

Sacks and Thiel met at Stanford University, where they co-wrote the Stanford Review founded by Thiel. Since then, the two have supported each other in the business and political worlds. Under Peter Thiel's guidance, David Sacks built his own political donation network PAC. Last December, he hosted a fundraising event for J.D. Vance. In April of this year, Sacks donated $1 million to the political organization "Protect Ohio Values PAC" supporting Vance. Around the same time, Donald Trump announced his support for Vance as a vice-presidential candidate.

In September of this year, Sacks co-hosted a Republican fundraising event with PayPal Mafia member Keith Rabois. Although Sacks provided strong support for Vance, he hardly tweeted or wrote articles promoting the event on social media. His $1 million donation also received little media attention. However, in March of this year, Sacks publicly praised Vance for calling for military restraint from the U.S. regarding Ukraine. He tweeted, "This is why I'm proud to support Vance." The tweet also referenced MAGA-related content, adding, "It's time to put America's interests first."

As one of the most influential entrepreneurial teams in Silicon Valley history, the story of the PayPal Mafia is always intertwined with the names of David Sacks and Elon Musk. This pair of business partners who once fought together at PayPal, despite diverging career paths, continue to have intertwined influences in the tech and entrepreneurial fields.

David Sacks also indirectly participated in Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. According to insiders, when Musk sought to raise funds for the acquisition, Sacks leveraged his connections in Silicon Valley and Wall Street to help Musk attract investments from top firms, including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

These investments not only filled the funding gap for Musk but also strengthened market confidence in the deal. Additionally, Sacks has defended Musk multiple times on his podcast, discussing the significance of acquiring Twitter and linking it to the value of free speech, calling the deal "a crucial step for the tech industry to resist censorship."

Sacks claims that his political stance has "evolved" from liberalism to "populism." In an interview on the podcast of well-known Bitcoin figure Anthony Pompliano, he mentioned that his "working-class perspective" aligns with the transforming Republican Party.

At the Axios tech conference earlier this year, Sacks stated that he has "greater disagreements with Biden than with Trump," shortly after inviting Trump to participate in the well-known podcast "All In Podcast," which ultimately sowed the seeds of victory for Trump in the subsequent election campaign.

In June of this year, Trump held a fundraising event at Sacks' home in San Francisco's wealthy district, during which Trump portrayed himself as the "crypto president," fiercely criticizing the Democratic Party's regulatory hostility toward the industry and stating that he would stop Gensler's crackdown on the crypto industry "within an hour of taking office." At the event, Sacks and the Winklevoss twins (Tyler & Cameron Winklevoss) discussed their cryptocurrency investments with Trump, ultimately raising $12 million for Trump from this event.

Now, as Trump is set to return to the White House, Sacks has been nominated as the "White House Head of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Affairs," and the crypto market is most concerned about how Sacks will lead the U.S. in its future crypto direction.

SOL Maxi: David Sacks' Crypto Kingdom

In 2017, David Sacks, in an interview with CNBC, discussed the "coordination issues between ICOs and future SEC regulations," expressing his hope that the SEC could distinguish between "protocol tokens" and "asset tokens." Protocol tokens have practical uses in software ecosystems and should not be considered securities, while asset tokens fall under the category of securities.

In 2018, David Sacks announced an investment in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin, which was one of the early investors in Solana, leading a $20 million financing round for Solana in July 2019.

That year, he also joined the advisory board of the decentralized trading protocol 0x, while promoting a partnership between 0x and the digital securities platform Harbor. Notably, Harbor is a project invested in and incubated by Sacks' venture capital firm Craft Ventures, focusing on providing a blockchain-based digital securities platform covering compliance fundraising, investor management, and liquidity services. Subsequently, in February 2020, Harbor was acquired by digital asset custody giant BitGo.

In December 2023, Sacks stated that he did not sell SOL after the FTX collapse, saying, "One of the dumbest attacks against me this year was saying I sold SOL tokens to retail investors. If that were true, they should have made a fortune by now; congratulations to all SOL holders."

David Sacks' highlight moment in the crypto world should be his recent appointment by Trump as the "White House Head of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Affairs." According to Bloomberg, David's entry into the White House does not require him to divest or publicly disclose his assets. Like Elon Musk, he will become a special government employee, serving a maximum of 130 days per year.

David Sacks' Investment Portfolio

According to RootData statistics, Craft Ventures' crypto investments involve a total of 12 projects, with infrastructure being the main focus. BlockBeats has summarized and introduced them for readers' reference.

dYdX

dYdX is a decentralized trading platform that provides users with key financial tools such as perpetual contracts, margin trading, spot trading, and lending. It offers traders an off-chain order book and on-chain settlement, enabling them to short tokens, increase long position risk exposure through leverage, and earn interest by depositing tokens for faster trading.

Following the announcement that David Sacks had invested in dYdX after the Trump administration announced its crypto head, DYDX24 surged by 24.53%.

Lightning Labs

Lightning Labs develops software that supports the Lightning Network. Its open-source, secure, and scalable system allows users to send and receive funds more efficiently than ever before. Lightning Labs also offers a range of verifiable, non-custodial Lightning-based financial services, connecting the world of open-source software with next-generation Bitcoin financial software.

Lightning Labs completed its latest round of funding on April 5, 2022, raising $70 million in Series B funding led by Valor Equity Partners, NYDIG, Goldcrest Capital, Baillie Gifford, and Vlad Tenev, with other notable investors including CMT Digital, Electric Capital, and Digital Currency Group.

River Financial

River Financial is a financial institution focused on Bitcoin financial services. It enables clients to manage Bitcoin brokerage accounts and Bitcoin mining accounts on a single platform. The company's flagship product—Bitcoin brokerage services—provides a platform for mature retail investors to buy and sell Bitcoin. Additionally, River Mining allows clients to mine Bitcoin using their own funds.

The company completed a $35 million Series B funding round on May 16, 2023, led by Kingsway Capital, Alarko Ventures, with other notable investors including Polychain and Peter Thiel.

Kresus

Kresus is a Web3 mobile super app that allows users to create, manage, and store all digital assets.

Kresus completed a $25 million Series A funding round on March 7, 2023, led by Liberty City Ventures, Craft Ventures, with other notable investors including Franklin Templeton and Winklevoss Capital.

Set Protocol

Set Protocol is an asset management platform for creating, managing, and acquiring tokenized asset baskets. The main application scenario of Set Protocol is to build "structured products," which are customizable, fully collateralized baskets of crypto assets represented as on-chain ERC20 tokens, such as DeFi Pulse Index ($DPI) and ETH 2x Flexible Leverage Index.

The company completed a $14 million Series A funding round on May 28, 2021, led by 1kx, Hashed, Craft Ventures, with other notable investors including 6th Man Ventures, The Spartan Group, and DeFiance Capital.

FOLD

Fold is the best way to earn Bitcoin, allowing you to earn Bitcoin on everyday purchases. By using the Fold Visa debit card and purchasing gift cards from the Fold store, you can earn Bitcoin on every transaction.

The company completed a $13 million Series A funding round on May 27, 2021, led by Craft Ventures, with other investors including Slow Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, M13, and CoinFund.

Harbor

Harbor is a digital securities platform designed to be a one-stop service platform for secure token issuers. Its digital platform automates the manual processes of alternative investment subscriptions, investor management, and secondary transfers. In November 2019, Harbor received a transfer agent license from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), becoming the first blockchain company to hold both a broker-dealer license and a transfer agent license, and was acquired by BitGo on February 18, 2020.

Led by Founders Fund, other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Pantera Capital, Blockchain Capital, 1confirmation, as well as Multicoin co-founders Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain.

Handshake

Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol in which each node is responsible for verifying and managing root DNS naming zones. Its goal is to create an alternative to the existing certificate authorities and naming systems.

The company completed a $10.2 million funding round on August 2, 2018, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Pantera Capital, Sequoia Capital, Polychain, Digital Currency Group, Hashed, Founders Fund, Greylock, Craft Ventures, Solana Foundation Chair Lily Liu, Dovey Wan, and others.

Voltage

Voltage is an enterprise-grade Lightning Network infrastructure that bridges the gap between fast, convenient cloud infrastructure and the security and privacy required by Bitcoin. It provides hosting services for users interested in running Bitcoin or Lightning nodes in the cloud.

The company completed a $6 million seed funding round on January 20, 2022, with investors including Craft Ventures, Stillmark, Fulgur Ventures, Strategic Cyber Ventures, Cavalry Asset Management, and Tenzing.vc.

Galoy

Galoy is a Bitcoin-native banking infrastructure designed to enable any community or institution to easily access payment, wallet, and banking services. The open-source Galoy Bitcoin banking platform includes secure backend APIs, mobile wallets, point-of-sale applications, compliance tools, and management control features.

The company completed a $3 million seed funding round on December 16, 2021, led by Craft Ventures, with other investors including Kingsway Capital, Bitcoiner Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, and Lightning Ventures.

Lumina

Lumina is a crypto-native financial platform that provides a full suite of institutional-grade tools, including portfolio management, accounting, and tax services. Lumina automatically imports and reconciles users' current and historical transactions, helping users gain a comprehensive view of investment performance, holdings, and tax information.

The company completed a $4 million seed funding round on October 2, 2018, led by Craft Ventures, with other investors including Dragonfly and Bain Capital Ventures.

Rare Bits

Rare Bits is a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto goods, where users can discover, buy, and sell over 500,000 unique items, all verifiable for their uniqueness on the blockchain. However, according to the project's official account, the project is currently inactive.