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In a wide-ranging interview infused with humor and candid revelations, iconic VC “fortune teller” Tim Draper discloses not only his investment philosophy but also his predictions for the future of blockchain and real estate.
“I like digging deep then pulling back and looking at the big picture,” says Tim. An early investor in internet companies like Hotmail, Tesla, and SpaceX, Tim was also an early proponent of Bitcoin.
When he was interviewed by BlockSolid podcast host Yael Tamar, Tim spoke openly about how fulfilling it was to work with his dad and children on the multi-generational show they’ve created, “Meet the Drapers.”
“We’re expecting up to 30 million viewers next season, in what I call our entrepreneur olympics,” he says. “I’ve been wowed by some of the startups we’ve hosted.”
A man of vision, Tim believes that “our future has a lot to do with how we accept crypto, Bitcoin, smart contracts, and the decentralized world. I think they’re going to have a big impact on us.”
With a number of global trends on the rise, including inflationary pressures, political tension, wars, and supply-chain disruptions, the global economic landscape is filled with uncertainty and challenges as never before, but also, according to Tim, great opportunities in emerging sectors such as crypto and blockchain.
Tim is one of the most successful venture capital investors, spotting interesting opportunities and acting on intuition with what he calls his “what if” statement: “Whenever I invest, I like to think, what if it works? And is that bringing us closer to a world that I want to live in?”
A founding partner of Draper Associates and DFJ Venture Capital (now Threshold Ventures), Tim gained extensive media attention after purchasing Bitcoin from the Silk Road marketplace website at a US Marshals Service auction in July 2014.
As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies create a truly global economy, Tim says he’s envious of countries like El Salvador that are wholeheartedly adopting crypto. “The US is about five years behind El Salvador in its adoption,” Tim explained. “As government becomes a service, the creation of a currency that is outside of government [control], like Bitcoin, will help us [create] a global economy that is borderless.”
Tim supports the idea of allowing all individuals to invest, regardless of their wealth or accreditation. He cites Robinhood Markets, Inc. an American financial services company that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies that has opened itself to all individuals and even minimum investments. Robinhood is one of the companies that he has supported.
As to what’s to come in the financial sector, when the bear market ends, Tim predicts that Bitcoin will be among the first investments to rise. Once retailers realize that they can save money by embracing crypto and bypassing the banks’ steep percentage rates, a widespread acceptance among additional retailers of food, clothing and shelter will be triggered. “And there’ll be a run on the fiat bank,” he says.
When it comes to the world’s biggest market, real estate, Tim says he would like to live in a world where everybody is able to invest in real estate. To that end, Draper Goren Holm, one of Tim’s VC interests, has invested in SolidBlock. With its trademark TokenSuiteTM platform, Solidblock, he says, is one company that is pushing the envelope of accessibility to tokenized real estate.
Listen to the full interview with BlockSolid podcast host Yael Tamar on Episode 43.
