How to Tell a Real Web3 Investor from a Bull Run Tourist in 2027

Iaros Belkin sat in the same negotiating room twice: late 2021, then mid-2025. Same format: a founder pitching Web3 infrastructure, investors around the table.

In 2021, a working demo and a credible market narrative were enough. In 2025, the same calibre of founder needed audited revenue, a clear regulatory posture, and a runway plan that did not depend on a token price recovering. The questions had changed completely. What had not changed were the investors asking them.

What the Data Shows About Who Was Really There

Crypto VC deal count fell roughly 60% from its 2021-2022 peak through 2024-2025. Most names that dominated the bull run went quiet or stopped deploying. A smaller group did not.

The investors who kept showing up through 2022-2024, when being publicly engaged with crypto carried real reputational cost, are a meaningfully different group from those who re-emerged once sentiment improved.

One important caveat: a handful of Digital Asset Treasury vehicles, funds holding crypto assets rather than investing in operating companies accounted for a disproportionate share of 2025 headline funding totals. Filter them out and the recovery looks considerably smaller, and the genuine conviction capital is more identifiable.

The Survivor-Credibility Framework

Before pursuing any investor, apply five checks:

1. Deal activity through 2022-2024. Did they deploy during the downturn, or only at the 2021 peak and 2025-2026 recovery? Investors who only moved when momentum was obvious were following the market.
2. Portfolio companies still shipping. Are the companies they backed in 2021-2022 still operating? A quietly delisted portfolio is more honest than any fund's own marketing.
3. Public statements during the hard years. Did they give interviews or write analysis during 2022-2024, or go quiet until sentiment improved? Re-emergence after the fact is identifiable.
4. DAT vs. operating company exposure. Is 2025-2026 activity in treasury vehicles or actual product companies? These represent fundamentally different conviction profiles.
5. Thesis consistency. Has the stated thesis remained substantively the same through the cycle, or shifted with each narrative trend? Genuine conviction adapts tactics. It does not abandon thesis every six months.

What Changed After 2024

Audited revenue and clear unit economics are now baseline, traceable directly to how many 2021-era companies failed without either. Regulatory posture became a primary diligence item post-MiCA, with investors evaluating compliance approaches across multiple jurisdictions rather than relying on regulatory ambiguity.

The narrative-chasing of 2021 has not disappeared. But it has separated more clearly from conviction capital. The 2025 DAT concentration is the clearest example: capital moved toward treasury vehicles echoing 2021 speculation, while the most credible investors kept deploying into operating companies regardless of headline flows.

This bifurcation — speculative capital following trends versus conviction capital maintaining thesis will define 2027 more clearly than any previous cycle. The list of names will change. The framework for evaluating it will not.

 Read the full analysis: Top Web3 and AI Investors to Follow in 2027: The Ones Who Backed Survivors, Not Just Bull Runs

Adapted from the original analysis by Iaros Belkin. For additional insights on AI Investors and Davos WEF visit Belkin Marketing Davos WEF Blog.