As investors and professionals in the growing decentralized tech space conduct their due diligence, the team behind any given project should be one of the most important considerations. More often than not, the strength, perseverance, and ingenuity of a team is the best indicator of whether or not a project will succeed — especially in a climate as turbulent as crypto.
So what does an ideal crypto team look like?
It’s a difficult question to answer in any professional context, but there are some added difficulties in assessing teams in an industry as new as crypto. For instance, how can investors separate promising projects from those most convincingly adept at startup fundraising? How might previous experience or education inform a crypto team differently than it might inform any other new tech project? In this piece, we outline a number of key observations and markers of success for this early-stage industry.
THE EXECUTIVES
Two of the biggest names in blockchain technology have no real resume outside of their current work in the crypto space.
Vitalik Buterin was only 19 years old when he developed the concept for Ethereum, and he did so at a time when he had only been reading and writing about Bitcoin for two years prior. Similarly, Satoshi Nakamoto offers a similarly blank resume. By electing to remain anonymous, he belongs entirely to the crypto universe, allowing the world of blockchain to exist entirely apart from the influences of other industries or intellectual space such as banks, early internet endeavors, or academics.
While it is near impossible for projects to fashion themselves in the shape Satoshi or Vitalik, there are several valuable lessons that these models impart:
- Avoid cults of personality. The founder of
