Before Ethereum had a market capital, it was just an idea in the head of a college –
Crypto’s largest companies are not planned in boardrooms. They are built in dormitory, group cats and hackathons of founders who do not wait for permission (many of them do not end college at all). This is not a coincidence. It is a repetition of a pattern we have seen before: bold ideas, early action and zero consideration of institutional timelines.
In 2014, a group of students launched Blockchain Education Network (Ben) to connect students who explore Bitcoin and Blockchain across university campuses. Within a year, Ben had grown to over 160 chapters in more than 35 countries.
What started as a grassroots training quickly became a starting plate for builders.
Ben became a catalyst for his core members and for a global cohort of students who saw crypto as an empty canvas. Some fell out. Others stayed in. Almost everyone began to build before the rest of the world was caught. Projects promoted by this ecosystem have continued to reach over $ 20 billion in the highest valuation, including IOTA, Optimism, Bitso, Augur, Wanchain, Noternal and Roll.
The same spirit of early action led to me and Erick Pinos, former president of Mits Bitcoin Club, to the co-found dropout capital, supporting young technical founders moving before the world noticing.
Erick Pinos will talk on Consensus 2025 on May 16 in a panel entitled “The Talent Pipeline: How To Find a Job in Crypto.”
As Pinos puts it:
“Over the past seven years we have met with countless students, and at least half a dozen have become unicorns … We are happy to give others the opportunity to be part of the financing of the next generation of Blockchain Innovation.”
This urgent is not new. It’s the same drive that shaped early tech giants. Steve Jobs (Apple), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square) and Patrick & John Collison (Stripe) left all college to build companies that redefined their industries.
Web3 founders follow the same way
Some of Crypto’s most influential founders started in the same way:
• Vitalik Butterin fell out of the University of Waterloo to launch Ethereum (topped at $ 500 billion+)
• Charles Hoskinson left the University of Colorado before the founding of Cardano (topped with $ 70 billion)
• Jed McCaleb, co -founder of Ripple and Stellar, fell out of UC Berkeley (Ripple topped with $ 130 billion)
• Jesse Powell left Cal State to build Kraken (appreciated for $ 10 billion)
• Shayne Coplan fell out of NYU in its first semester to start the polymemark (estimated at $ 1 billion)
• Joey Krug left Pomona to co -found Augur (Topped to $ 1 Billion)
• Jeremy Gardner, who co -founded Augur with Krug, fell out of the University of Michigan (topped to $ 1 billion)
• Jinglan Wang left Wellesley to build eximchain and later helped to lead optimism (topped with $ 11 billion+)
• Noah Tweedale, co -founder of pump.fun, never signed up (estimated at $ 1 billion+)
At dropout capital, we have supported companies in the early stages, including:
• Vana, founded on MIT, builds a decentral data market space
• Satlayer, started by MIT-alumner and previous VCs, creating Bitcoin-Naten Calculation for AI
• Tenderize, launched by students at Marquette University who builds a Liquid Staking Marketplace
• Algebra.Finance, founded by a PhD. In computer science with a background in mobile operating systems, reconsidering on-chain prediction infrastructure
A place where these stories and the stories of the next generation are already shared is Chainstories, a podcast I host with Erick.
Chainstories take listeners behind the scenes of some of the most successful crypto projects, including plumen networks, Janoerror, algebra.Finansing, virtuals.io, ton, horizon labs and many others, breaking down how real companies are built from the idea of launching and helping sterns and
The future of crypto is not theorized at conferences or slowly passing through business committees.
It builds from people moving early, taking risks and begins to build before the world even realizes what happens. And if the story is any guide, the companies that mean the most are not the ones who waited.
