The Birthplace of the Next Big Crypto Project: College Campuses

Long before Ethereum achieved a substantial market capitalization, it existed solely as an idea in the mind of a college dropout. The most prominent companies in the crypto space are not being conceptualized in corporate boardrooms, but rather in dormitories, group chats, and hackathons by founders who disregard the need for permission - many of whom have not completed their college education. This phenomenon is not coincidental; it represents a repeating pattern characterized by bold ideas, swift action, and a disregard for traditional institutional timelines. In 2014, a group of students established the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) to connect students interested in bitcoin and blockchain across various college campuses. Within a year, BEN had expanded to over 160 chapters in more than 35 countries. What began as a grassroots educational initiative quickly transformed into a launchpad for builders. BEN became a catalyst for its core members and a global cohort of students who viewed crypto as a blank canvas. Some of these individuals dropped out of college, while others chose to stay; nearly all of them started building before the rest of the world caught on. Projects that emerged from this ecosystem have collectively reached peak valuations of over $20 billion, including notable examples such as IOTA, Optimism, Bitso, Augur, Wanchain, Notional, and Roll. This same spirit of early action led me and Erick Pinos, the former president of MIT's Bitcoin Club, to co-found Dropout Capital, which supports young, technically skilled founders who take action before the world notices. As Pinos aptly puts it, 'Over the past seven years, we've met countless student founders, and at least half a dozen have become unicorns... we're excited to provide others with the opportunity to be part of funding the next generation of blockchain innovation.' This sense of urgency is not new; it is the same drive that shaped the early tech giants. Notable examples include Steve Jobs (Apple), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square), and Patrick & John Collison (Stripe), all of whom left college to build companies that redefined their respective industries. Web3 founders are following in the same footsteps. Some of the most influential founders in crypto have similar stories: Vitalik Buterin dropped out of the University of Waterloo to launch Ethereum, which peaked at over $500 billion; Charles Hoskinson left the University of Colorado before founding Cardano, which peaked at $70 billion; Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple and Stellar, dropped out of UC Berkeley, with Ripple peaking at $130 billion; Jesse Powell left Cal State to build Kraken, valued at $10 billion; Shayne Coplan dropped out of NYU in his first semester to start Polymarket, estimated at $1 billion; Joey Krug left Pomona to co-found Augur, which peaked at $1 billion; Jeremy Gardner, who co-founded Augur with Krug, dropped out of the University of Michigan, also peaking at $1 billion; Jinglan Wang left Wellesley to build Eximchain and later helped lead Optimism, which peaked at over $11 billion; and Noah Tweedale, co-founder of Pump.fun, never enrolled, with an estimated valuation of over $1 billion. At Dropout Capital, we have backed early-stage companies, including Vana, founded at MIT, which is building a decentralized data marketplace; SatLayer, started by MIT alumni and former VCs, creating Bitcoin-native compute for AI; Tenderize, launched by students at Marquette University, building a liquid staking marketplace; and Algebra.Finance, founded by a Ph.D. in Computer Science with a background in mobile operating systems, rethinking on-chain prediction infrastructure. One platform where these stories, and the stories of the next generation, are being shared is ChainStories, a podcast I host alongside Erick. ChainStories takes listeners behind the scenes of some of the most successful projects in crypto, including Plume Network, YesNoError, Algebra.Finance, Virtuals.io, TON, Horizon Labs, and many others, breaking down how real companies are built from idea to launch and helping founders and VCs understand the decisions, trade-offs, and risks that occur long before anyone notices. The future of crypto is not being theorized at conferences or slow-walked through corporate committees. It is being built by individuals who move early, take risks, and start building before the world even realizes what is happening. And, if history is any guide, the companies that will matter most will not be the ones that waited.