Why Balaji Srinivasan Became Crypto's Most Prolific Backer: The Man Behind 85 Investments

If you’re in crypto long enough, you’ve probably heard the term “BUIDL”—well, that came from Balaji Srinivasan. The guy is impossible to ignore in this space: former a16z general partner, Coinbase’s first CTO, and according to Rootdata, the #1 ranked angel investor in crypto with 85 projects under his belt by end of 2022.

But who is this person really, and what makes his investment thesis so different from other Silicon Valley VCs? Let’s dig in.

From Stanford PhD to Crypto’s Top Venture Backer

Srinivasan’s origin story reads like a startup manifesto. Born in 1980 to immigrant parents from India, he pursued multiple degrees at Stanford—bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD in electrical engineering, plus a master’s in chemical engineering. He taught computer science at Stanford until 2018, then made the leap that many academics dream about but few execute: leaving the ivory tower to build tech that matters.

His first major play was Counsyl (2007), a genetic testing company that Myriad Genetics acquired for $375 million in 2018. Not bad for someone who started in a Stanford dorm. That exit proved one thing: Srinivasan doesn’t just talk about technology improving human welfare—he actually builds for it.

The parallel is interesting here: Srinivasan’s childhood was shaped by admiration for Indian mathematician Ramanujan, who rose from poverty to Cambridge fame purely through brilliance. That ethos of using technical genius to transcend circumstances clearly stuck with him.

How He Became Crypto’s Most Active Venture Backer

By 2013, Srinivasan was already experimenting with blockchain. He co-founded 21e6 (later 21Inc, then Earn.com), which tried to embed Bitcoin into everyday devices. The vision was ahead of its time: blockchain in IoT, paid information networks, earned rewards in crypto. When Coinbase bought Earn.com for $100 million in 2018, it was basically Coinbase saying “we want Srinivasan” (and they got him as CTO, though he left after just one year).

But the real story starts after 2019. That’s when Srinivasan pivoted to pure venture backing mode—and went nuclear. In 2022 alone, he backed 49 crypto projects. Five of those raised over $20 million: Celestia ($50M), Nxyz ($40M), Farcaster ($30M), and Hashflow ($26M). His portfolio includes the best-known names in Web3: Opensea, Avalanche, NEAR Protocol, Aleo, Solend, Sovryn, and dozens more.

His investment pattern reveals someone thinking 10 years ahead. He’s betting on infrastructure (L1/L2 blockchains), DeFi primitives, DAOs, and decentralized social networks. These aren’t sexy consumer bets—they’re the plumbing.

The India Thesis Nobody Else Saw Coming

Here’s where Srinivasan gets interesting beyond just picking winners.

He’s obsessed with India as a crypto powerhouse. While the Indian government moved toward 30% crypto trading taxes and regulatory bans, Srinivasan publicly argued this could cost India trillions in foregone GDP. He said he’s “moderately optimistic about India, extremely optimistic about Indians”—and his portfolio proves it.

He’s backed 12+ Indian-founded crypto projects: Lighthouse Storage, Socket (privacy), Samudai (DAO tools), Timeswap (DeFi), Nxyz (data indexing), Arcana (Web3 infrastructure), Push Protocol, Farcaster, and others. Co-investing alongside fellow Indian-descent angels like Sandeep Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani, and Gokul Rajaram, four of the top 10 crypto angel investors are now Indian-descended—a striking contrast to India’s own government stance.

This reveals something: Srinivasan bets on people and ecosystems with global potential, not just on individual tokens or hype cycles.

The Two Contrarian Bets That Define His Philosophy

Decentralized Social Media: In 2020, after Twitter’s security disasters, Srinivasan called for an “exit”—users should own domains, build personal newsletters, use decentralized protocols like Farcaster, XMTP, Blogchain. He’s backed 15+ projects in this space. The irony? He’s still one of Twitter’s most active users with 740K followers. He admits the transition will take years and isn’t guaranteed to succeed. But he’s placing his chips anyway.

Network States: His 2022 book laid out a vision: use blockchain to create decentralized, geographically-distributed communities that eventually gain sovereign recognition. He’s funding Praxis, Cabin, Afropolitan, and other “city of the future” experiments. This isn’t a random hobby—it’s a 10-year thesis going back to his 2013 Y Combinator talk on “Silicon Valley’s Ultimate Exit.”

What Makes Him Different

Most VCs follow markets. Srinivasan seems to lead them. He doesn’t just invest for returns; he invests to build the world he wants to see. His background as an educator, social entrepreneur, and political thinker informs every bet. He’s willing to back early-stage experiments that might fail (like decentralized social networks have mostly failed so far) because the vision matters to him more than the immediate exit.

Is he right about everything? No. But in crypto’s history, the people who moved the needle weren’t the ones chasing yesterday’s winners—they were the ones with a thesis strong enough to weather doubt. Balaji Srinivasan is betting on India, decentralized coordination, and network states when those bets looked crazy to most.

That’s probably why he’s already backed 85 projects, and why people keep paying attention to what he does next.