Before Ethereum Had a Market Cap, It Was Just an Idea in a College Dropout's Head

This isn't a coincidence. It's a repeat of a pattern we've seen before: bold ideas, early action, and zero regard for institutional timelines.

If you're reading this, chances are you're interested in the future of crypto. But if the future of crypto is being planned in boardrooms by executives in starched shirts, then count me out. I'm not interested in that kind of crypto.

I'm interested in the crypto that's being planned in dorm rooms and group chats by founders who don't wait for permission and many of whom don't finish college at all.

This isn't an accident. It's a pattern we've seen before with bold ideas, early action and no regard for institutional timelines.

In 2014, a group of students launched the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) to connect students exploring bitcoin and blockchain across college campuses. Within a year, BEN had more than 160 chapters in over 35 countries.

What started as grassroots education quickly became a launchpad for builders.

BEN became a catalyst for its core members and for a global cohort of students who saw crypto as a blank canvas. Some dropped out. Others stayed in. Nearly all started building before the rest of the world caught on.

Projects fostered by that ecosystem have gone on to collectively peak at over $20 billion in valuations including IOTA, Optimism, Bitso, Augur, Wanchain, Notional and Roll.

That same spirit of early action led me and Erick Pinos, former president of MIT's Bitcoin Club, to co-found Dropout Capital, backing technical founders who move before the world notices.

Pinos will speak at Consensus 2025 on May 16 in a panel titled "The Talent Pipeline: How to Find a Job in Crypto."

As Pinos puts it:

"Over the past seven years we've met with countless student founders and at least half a dozen have become unicorns...we're excited to give others the opportunity to be a part of funding the next generation of blockchain innovation."

This urgency isn't 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) all left college behind to build companies that redefined their industries.

Web3 founders are following the same path

Some of crypto's biggest names started the same way:

• Vitalik Buterin dropped out of the University of Waterloo to launch Ethereum (peaked at $500 billion+)

• Charles Hoskinson left the University of Colorado before founding Cardano (peaked at $70 billion)

• Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple and Stellar, dropped out of UC Berkeley (Ripple peaked 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 (peaked at $1 billion)

• Jeremy Gardner, who co-founded Augur with Krug, dropped out of the University of Michigan (peaked at $1 billion)

• Jinglan Wang left Wellesley to build Eximchain and later helped lead Optimism (peaked at $11 billion+)

• Noah Tweedale, co-founder of Pump.fun, never enrolled (estimated at $1 billion+)

At Dropout Capital, we've backed early-stage companies including:

• Vana, founded at MIT, 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

• Algebra.Finance, founded by a Ph.D. in Computer Science with a background in mobile operating systems, rethinking on-chain prediction infrastructure

One place where these stories, and the stories of the next generation are already 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, tradeoffs, and risks that happen long before anyone notices.

The future of crypto isn't being theorized at conferences or slow-walked through corporate committees.

It's being built by people who move early, take risks, and start building before the world even realizes what's happening. And, if history is any guide, the companies that matter most won't be the ones that waited.