Dashan's Blockchain Odyssey: From BTC Miner to VC

Dashan, an experienced investor and entrepreneur in the blockchain space, sat down with Beca from 'Blockchain 100 People' to share his journey. He started getting involved with Bitcoin in 2011 while studying abroad, but it wasn't until late 2012 and early 2013 that he began buying in. At that time, Dashan was a PhD student at Huawei HiSilicon, where he eventually resigned from in 2017 to enter the industry full-time.

After graduating and returning to Shanghai, Dashan continued to learn about Bitcoin and its potential uses. He saw it as a viable medium for cross-border payments, which solved a practical problem many international students faced at the time. In 2013, he started mining on his own using powerful computers provided by the school.

However, Dashan's involvement in blockchain didn't become full-time until 2017, when Bitcoin experienced another round of price increases. He realized that his early investments had become valuable and no longer needed a traditional job to support himself. With the encouragement of prominent figures from Sequoia and Tsinghua University entering the space, Dashan decided to commit fully to blockchain.

In 2017, Dashan co-founded Waterdrop Capital with several partners who had already made personal investments in projects like Ethereum, Cosmos, and Polkadot. The initial funding was pooled together by the partners, with each contributing equally and taking a share of the company. After being recognized as one of the Top 40 Token Funds in 2018, Dashan's Waterdrop Capital has managed multiple funds and invested in over 200 projects.