In this episode, Jason sits down with Jake Brukhman and Seth Ginns, co-founders and managing partners at CoinFund. They dive deep into CoinFund's origin story, investment philosophy, and how the firm navigates the complex landscape of liquid and venture investing in the crypto space. Jake and Seth share their insights on the current crypto market cycle, drawing comparisons to previous cycles and discussing potential scenarios for how this one may unfold differently. They explore the intersection of AI and crypto, with Jake highlighting the importance of decentralization and democratization in the development of AI to avoid dangerous centralized control by a few big tech companies. Stay tuned for all of this and much more! - - Follow Jake: https://twitter.com/jbrukh Follow Seth: https://twitter.com/sethginns Follow Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Santiago: https://twitter.com/santiagoroel Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod Subscribe on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/4fdhhb2j Subscribe on Apple: https://tinyurl.com/mv4frfv7 Subscribe on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/wbaypprw Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Monad is a fully EVM compatible Layer 1 blockchain that can support 10,000 real transactions per second. Monad aims to open up the design space for the EVM to support high fidelity defi, consumer facing applications, and more generally allow crypto to scale to the masses. If you are interested in participating in Monad's journey, follow: https://twitter.com/monad_xyz and join: https://discord.gg/monad - - Marinade is the leading Solana staking service that spreads your stake across 100+ top validators, distributes MEV rewards, and provides automatic downside protection with new Protected Staking Rewards. Choose to liquid stake for mSOL for use in DeFi, or delegate your stake through Marinade Native, which gives you full custody of your SOL and no smart contract risk. Max performance for you, max performance for Solana. https://blckwrks.co/Marinade - - Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (01:50) CoinFund Origin Story (12:53) Web2 vs Crypto Venture (27:28) Liquid Investing (36:00) Determining Valuations (44:54) Monad Ad (45:53) Marinade Ad (47:00) Opportunity in Interop (55:32) Market Cycles (01:11:16) Crypto & AI Thesis - - Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.