During Vsho’s fundraising phase, it was a peak for crypto and crypto investment, and as a result a lot of feedback we received was around pivoting into web3. We were very reticent to pivot to web3, since it wasn’t necessary for the problem we were trying to solve and we had many engineering qualms with crypto in particular. I read a recent blog post that does a great job of detailing the technical issues in particular, but I wanted to expand on why we weren’t so bullish on web3 during our fundraising. We weren’t convinced that it provided a competitive advantage to solving our user needs, and we had a deep skepticism of current crypto markets.

Providing a competitive advantage to solving our user needs

With Vsho, we were focused on creating vibrant communities around video product reviews and empowering creators to sell on our platform and receive a cut of what they sold. Although our product was web3 in spirit, we didn’t need a cryptocurrency to power our engine. In fact, our creators were super happy with being paid in dollars.

Skepticism of crypto markets

Secondly, my cofounder and I shared a deep skepticism of the future of crpyto markets. We both love the underlying technology and the original solution for decentralization that the Bitcoin paper provided. However, cryptocurrency has become more centralized, destroying the initial value proposition of cryptocurrency. We were unsure of what the future held and didn’t believe there was a fundamental need for another centralized currency, even if it was fully digital, and so we rode out the hype.