Do the Best Crypto Deals Happen at After Parties?

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  February 28, 2026 at 16:01  |  7:45  |  CoinDesk

Summary

  • Deal Flow via Social Alpha: TBV (raising a $30M fund) utilizes "The Best Event" (side events at major conferences like Consensus) not just for entertainment, but as a proprietary "deal hub" to aggregate data and conduct informal background checks on founders.
  • Founder Filtering: The fund explicitly filters for "resilience" and long-term vision, actively weeding out founders looking to "launch a token and get out."
  • Investment Criteria: Focus is on Seed-stage projects ($250k–$500k checks) that have moved beyond pure tech/whitepapers to demonstrate early product-market fit and scalability.
  • Networking Fatigue: The industry is experiencing "side event fatigue," shifting value to consolidated, high-production events that merge networking with entertainment (e.g., partnerships with Untold Music Festival).
Trade Ideas
Brent Fuller Co-founder & General Partner, TBV / The Best Event
Fuller explicitly states they weed out founders who signal, "I'm raising money to launch a token and then I'm out," identifying this as a red flag for short-term "scam projects." Venture capital due diligence is tightening to filter out "pump and dump" schemes. As institutional money (like TBV's $30M fund) concentrates on vetted builders, capital will likely rotate away from low-effort, anonymous token launches that lack long-term roadmaps. Avoid assets where the primary value proposition is a quick token generation event (TGE) without underlying product resilience. In high-liquidity environments, speculative assets can outperform utility assets purely on retail mania despite poor fundamentals.
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This CoinDesk video, published February 28, 2026, features Brent Fuller discussing MEMECOINS. 1 trade idea extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Brent Fuller  · Tickers: MEMECOINS