I was very lucky to have become obsessed with Bitcoin early… because all signs pointed to “this is a bad decision.” I chose to invest in interesting people, and they mostly happened to be in the Bitcoin market.

Bitcoin was conventionally wrong in venture capital from 2011-2016 in early stage venture. Now in 2021 - Web3/Crypto is the most conventional VC investment you can make. The market has come a long way.

I’m very bullish on Crypto/Web3, however it is no longer the conventionally wrong decision that it once was. NFTs, Tokens, Bitcoin are in the bullseye of what early stage investors are looking for.

So I wanted to spend some time thinking about where I believe are conventionally wrong early stage communities happening today:

Nostalgia as an asset class
- Comic books, trading cards, board games, magic the gathering type games: communities naturally build around these things and historically have been looked at as smaller markets. I think people will find that this markets are enormous.
Oceans
- Oceans have always been a “Non-Profit” type business model, so the social context around investing in the ocean is a huge social shift. Yet if you are investing towards climate change solutions, the ocean is the most logical answer, we need more capital deployed here.
Artists
- Artists have never been in control of their business, the market has primarily been driven by the buyers. The new tools being created provide artists the tools to be Billionaires. I think the wealthiest person on the planet in the coming years will be an artist.
Government
1. Talk about the highest cost market for the lowest service. Governments are not tech forward, and honestly it’s boring. They are out of date and out of touch, but mostly they are expensive. There will be a new breed of politician who accepts new tools, to deliver a better service.
Science
- I believe science itself is being innovated on. Science, today, is a fairly political process. The goal with research is to be published, and being published only happens if it’s interesting and correct, however true breakthroughs don’t come from things that seem interesting, and the often start with a lot of failure.

Runner Up:

Space
- It seems obvious, but as an investment there are still so few Space companies that have been backed. Private companies have proven to be better at innovating here, yet still it’s a small club - Over the next 10 years this club will grow very large. Only 5 companies have ever made it to orbit on a launch… Still a lot of history to be made.

*Originally published on Adam’s Substack -https://www.adamdraper.vc/p/conventionally-wrong-investments

Conventionally Wrong Investments