Da Shan on “Blockchain 100”: AI in the Left Hand, Crypto in the Right

币安广场特邀专栏作者
2026-09-03 06:20
This article is about 9960 words, reading the full article takes about 15 minutes
He first encountered Bitcoin in 2011, and in 2013, while pursuing his PhD, he built his own mining rigs. In 2017, he resigned from Huawei HiSilicon to enter the industry full-time and founded Waterdrip Capital, which has since invested in over 200 projects and managed multiple funds. Over the past two years, he has also served as chairman of an AI company, applying the computing power expertise he accumulated from early Bitcoin mining to AI data centers. From miner to VC to AI, his sustained bet has been on the underlying productivity of the next-generation digital world.
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• Core Insights: Da Shan has continuously backed both the crypto and AI sectors since first encountering Bitcoin in 2011 and founding Waterdrip Capital in 2017. He believes high-quality projects should choose between listing or issuing tokens based on market liquidity, that heavily positioning in BTC Layer 2 was the right decision during the bear market, and has been pushing portfolio companies toward AI transformation. He emphasizes that token issuance should be grounded in real business fundamentals and a prudent approach, is optimistic about the industry growth brought by RWA and Pre-IPO tokenization, and cautions that AI computing power may face oversupply risks after 2028.
• Key Elements:
  1. Waterdrip Capital was founded in 2017, with all partners already having personal investment experience. The Chinese name “以太坊” for Ethereum was co-determined by partner Ju Xia; the fund has invested in over 200 projects, with only three — Ethereum, Cosmos, and Polkadot — achieving complete exits with 100x returns.
  2. Four sub-funds were issued in partnership with CPIC Asset Management: an early-stage VC fund (invested in approximately 40 projects), a secondary-market altcoin fund (already liquidated), a pure Bitcoin fund (best performer, buying in bear markets and selling in bull markets), and an RWA fund; this collaboration was advanced in a timely manner following Hong Kong’s 2022 policy supporting cryptocurrency.
  3. In 2024, the firm heavily positioned in the Bitcoin ecosystem rather than inscriptions, believing inscriptions lack real value backing; the dozen-plus projects it invested in — including River, Lorenzo, Particle, Merlin, and Bsquare — have developed well, supporting the net asset value performance of the latest fund.
  4. Da Shan advocates that “truly high-quality projects should not issue tokens but go public directly,” arguing that token issuance carries responsibility and should have thresholds to prevent bad money from driving out good (citing the 2017 ICO bubble); his listing recommendations have pushed at least five projects to queue for or advance toward Nasdaq listings.
  5. His crossover from Crypto VC to AI represents a two-sided layout of “crypto in the left hand, AI in the right,” with the core logic being the conversion of Bitcoin mining farms/computing power into AI data centers (AIDC), supporting a “dual-mining” strategy to reduce risk; he has been gradually building his personal Bitcoin position in the $80,000–$60,000 range, with current holdings larger than the previous cycle.
  6. He believes AI demand is currently real (computing power is a seller’s market, with US AI infrastructure investment exceeding $500 billion in 2025), but warns of potential expectation reversals after major AI companies go public, as well as possible computing power oversupply after autumn 2028 due to concentrated production launches (supply growth could be tenfold or more, depending on whether AI Agent application consumption grows in tandem).
  7. He remains bullish on crypto long-term but cautions that while opportunities may still exist before the US midterm elections, the closer the date, the more careful one should be; he believes retail participants in Pre-IPO rounds should seek allocations as close to institutional cost as possible, and is optimistic about tokenizing equity of quality companies in Pre-IPO stages to lower participation barriers and risks.

Welcome to “Blockchain 100 People.” This is a livestream program initiated by Binance Square. We hope to find people in the industry who have truly done things and driven industry development, and listen to their stories. Today, we don’t just want to know what our guest has done — we want to know why they did it at the time.

Today’s guest is Mr. Dashan. He started getting involved with Bitcoin in 2011, and in 2013, during his PhD studies, he built his own mining rigs. In 2017, he resigned from HiSilicon (Huawei) to enter the industry full-time and founded Waterdrip Capital. Since then, he has invested in over 200 projects and managed multiple funds. In the past two years, he has also served as Chairman of an AI company, applying the computing power expertise he accumulated from early Bitcoin mining to AI data centers.

From miner to VC to AI, what he continues to bet on is the foundational productivity of the next generation of the digital world. Today, we want to discuss: Which choices were right, and where did he step on landmines? How is the BTC Layer 2 ecosystem he heavily invested in performing now? Is the crypto industry still worth staying in? Is AI a better place to go? And if using his own money, how would he view Bitcoin at this moment?

From Discovering Bitcoin While Studying Abroad to Mining It Himself

Host Beca: You started mining Bitcoin in 2013. For many people entering the industry today, that’s already over a decade ago. How did you first get into the space at that time? How did you handle the equipment and electricity costs? And what happened to the coins you mined early on?

Dashan: During my PhD, I focused on circuit simulation. A single simulation often required waiting ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes, leaving me with plenty of idle time. I would browse various websites and magazines during those periods, which is also when I came across Bitcoin.

I was studying abroad at the time. For international students, a practical pain point is how to transfer money from China to abroad without relying entirely on channels like Western Union. Back then, I thought Bitcoin was an excellent cross-border payment vehicle, so I started learning about it.

At the time, mining with an ordinary computer was already challenging, but the computers the school provided to each student were very powerful because we needed them for circuit simulation. I downloaded mining software and did mine a bit of Bitcoin; however, it severely impacted my daily usage, so I didn’t continue. Later, I mined through friends in China by purchasing and hosting mining machines.

Actually, I first saw Bitcoin in 2012, treating it merely as a novelty without doing much research. It wasn’t until late 2012 and early 2013, when Bitcoin started to rise, that I truly began buying. So the first batch of Bitcoin I held wasn’t entirely mined — most of it was actually purchased.

Why Did You Resign from HiSilicon (Huawei) to Enter the Industry Full-Time?

Host Beca: At the time, resigning from your job at HiSilicon to go all-in on Bitcoin seemed almost like “not having a real job” to many. How did you make that decision?

Dashan: This process was quite circuitous — it wasn’t a case of seeing Bitcoin once and deciding to go all in.

I first encountered Bitcoin online, and later attended offline events, but ironically, I hesitated to truly enter the circle then. At that time, I was in Montreal, Canada, and considered Changpeng Zhao a half-alumnus. One night, while wandering through the city center, I spotted a small shop with dim lighting, flashing red and green lights, and a sign reading “Bitcoin Embassy.”

I wanted to go inside, but the doorman said I needed a “Passport” to enter — meaning I had to have a Bitcoin wallet. Whether it contained coins didn’t matter; the wallet itself was the ticket. I downloaded a wallet on the spot, transferred a bit of Bitcoin into it, and was then allowed in. The atmosphere inside was very punk and wild — tattoos, nose rings, belly piercings — completely different from my vibe. I took a look and left.

Strictly speaking, during my PhD, I wasn’t officially in the circle yet — I was just an enthusiast. After graduating and returning to Shanghai, the industry was still small, with some meetups already happening, but the state of the people in the circle didn’t seem very “respectable” to me at the time. So I still treated it as a niche hobby.

The real decision to go full-time came at the end of 2016. Bitcoin had experienced another rally, and I realized that the Bitcoin I had mined and bought in my early days had become quite valuable, meaning I might no longer need to rely entirely on a job. Even so, I didn’t jump in all at once; I gradually explored what I should do.

It wasn’t until the ICO craze in 2017, when I saw Sequoia, IDG, and many talented people from Tsinghua and Peking University entering the space, that I thought: if these people are coming in, then entering this industry might not be a wrong move. That’s when I truly committed full-time. Before that, I had been involved in the industry as an amateur for a few years.

At the time, I hadn’t even disclosed to my family or my former social circle that I was working on blockchain. It wasn’t until national-level attention on blockchain noticeably increased that I formally “came out.” So this wasn’t a legendary, impulsive decision, but rather a process of gradual understanding and confirmation.

How Was Waterdrip Capital Founded? What Did You Invest in Early On?

Host Beca: Waterdrip Capital was founded in 2017. Where did the initial capital come from? What was the first investment?

Dashan: Before Waterdrip was officially established in 2017, several partners had already made numerous personal investments, including Ethereum, Cosmos, Polkadot, VeChain, and others. When Ethereum first came to Shanghai for its roadshow, two of our partners bought in when the price was very low. The Chinese name “以太坊” (Yǐ Tài Fáng) was also determined through the efforts of another partner, Cancer, who participated in naming it and translating the whitepaper.

In 2017, with the ICO market heating up, several or even dozens of new projects emerged daily. We realized that relying solely on individual efforts, we could no longer compete in this industry, so we decided to form a team. The initial funds came from the partners pooling their own money, with everyone contributing the same amount and holding equal shares. Since I was the youngest at the time, everyone felt the young guy should do more work, so they made me CEO. That’s how a very grassroots Token Fund was born.

In early 2018, Mars Finance held a blockchain conference in Chongqing and recognized the Top 40 Token Funds, and we were among them. At that time, there was barely room to stand on stage. In 2017, perhaps two to three hundred similar funds like ours emerged, but I estimate fewer than ten from that wave have survived to this day.

As for the first official investment after the company was founded, I can’t recall exactly who it went to. Since the partners already had several projects on hand before Waterdrip was established, we would often add to positions or transfer allocations into the fund, making it difficult to pinpoint which project received the first check.

However, I do remember that only three projects truly delivered 100x returns upon full exit: Ethereum, Cosmos, and Polkadot. This doesn’t include Bitcoin, as it was a personal investment rather than a VC investment. There were plenty of projects with 10x+ returns, and many with paper gains of 100x or even 1,000x, but once unlock schedules and actual exits were complete, 100x returns were extremely rare.

Where Do the Funds Invested in Partnership with CPIC Asset Management Go?

Host Beca: The Pacific Waterdrip Fund, established in partnership with CPIC Asset Management, has four sub-funds by 2025. What does each of them invest in? Is Waterdrip’s capital still flowing into crypto, or has it shifted toward AI, US equities, and Pre-IPO opportunities?

Dashan: Our cooperation with CPIC began in 2022. From 2017 to 2021, Waterdrip was essentially based in Shanghai. In 2021, as the regulatory environment tightened, engaging in crypto-related businesses — including investment — on the mainland faced significant compliance restrictions. So we relocated the company to Hong Kong and established the LPF compliance structure that was available at the time.

Around late 2022, some Hong Kong companies, particularly those with state-owned enterprise backgrounds, may have anticipated earlier that Hong Kong would introduce new policies supporting the crypto industry. Friends from CPIC approached us, hoping to collaborate on entering the industry. Initially, I didn’t quite believe it: they’re a large institution with SOE roots, while we’re a small, very grassroots team. Why would they seriously want to work with us? At our first meeting, I suggested a local dai pai dong (open-air food stall), showing up in flip-flops and shorts, while they arrived in suits with a whole entourage — quite a scene.

Later, I realized they were genuinely serious. After attending Token2049, news broke that Hong Kong was signaling supportive policies for the crypto industry. I immediately flew to Hong Kong to advance the cooperation and signed a letter of intent that same day. By 2023, the relevant funds were gradually established.

• One is an early-stage VC fund for projects, which has already been fully deployed, investing in approximately 40 projects;
• One is a secondary market fund focused primarily on altcoins, which has already been liquidated;
• One is a pure Bitcoin fund, which has actually been the best performer. It follows a macro-cycle strategy: buying Bitcoin in bear markets and selling in bull markets, with no more than two trades per year;
• Another is an RWA fund, dedicated specifically to RWA-related assets.

We also attempted a quantitative fund but stopped halfway through. Overall, the digital asset funds in partnership with CPIC remain focused on crypto and do not invest in other sectors.

However, Waterdrip’s own proprietary capital has indeed started paying attention to opportunities beyond crypto over the past two years. At the end of 2024, we observed that besides Bitcoin, many altcoin sectors that relied on narratives without real implementation were struggling to maintain liquidity. So we wrote a report titled “New High-Grounds for Liquidity Beyond Crypto,” which centered on a discussion of US equities.

At the time, we had many projects in our portfolio that hadn’t exited yet, so we began advising them: if a company has revenue and profits, it doesn’t have to insist on issuing a token — going public is also a viable option. As a native crypto institution, we still believe tokens offer many advantages, but that doesn’t mean every project must issue a token. In unregulated markets, when a founder issues a token, they are essentially tying their long-term reputation to that coin. Issuing a token isn’t always the better choice.

Starting from late 2024, we began focusing on crypto-related stocks and seized the subsequent DAT opportunity. Meanwhile, we pushed some of our portfolio companies to pivot toward AI. At least two are progressing well, with one currently advancing toward a NASDAQ listing. These are all results of our strategic positioning in 2024.

Why Did You Heavily Invest in BTC Layer 2 in 2024?

Host Beca: The BTC ecosystem was very hot in 2024, and Waterdrip was one of the most active institutions. Some also consider you a major driver behind that round of BTC Layer 2 momentum. What opportunity did you see at the time?

Dashan: My views on X at the time were very clear: I was very bullish on the Bitcoin ecosystem, but not so much on inscriptions. Early inscriptions, like many Meme coins today, lack genuine value support and rely primarily on hype and community. They can be played with as a cultural phenomenon, but they shouldn’t be treated as serious investments.

Looking back, I still stand by that judgment: the Bitcoin ecosystem has developed better and better, while not many inscriptions have survived. Bitcoin is the largest and most stable class of asset in the industry, and its gap with other coins continues to widen. Whether it’s Ethereum or any other coin, looking at their price performance relative to Bitcoin, most underperform Bitcoin over the long term. In every bull market, of course, a few assets will outperform, but repeatedly catching them is not easy.

For institutions, heavily positioning in the Bitcoin ecosystem was also the right choice. Over the past few years, many crypto VCs have struggled — many peers have become inactive or even disappeared. If Waterdrip had invested in the same themes as everyone else, we might have been in danger too. It’s precisely because we heavily positioned in the Bitcoin ecosystem that we achieved relatively decent returns.

In bear markets, altcoins generally perform poorly, and not every project in the BTC ecosystem performs well either. But when compared horizontally with narratives like Metaverse, NFT, ZK, and GameFi, the Bitcoin ecosystem has still been relatively solid. Among the projects we invested in — River, Lorenzo, Particle, Merlin, Bsquare, and others — at least a dozen are still developing well. They support the NAV of our latest fund and allow us to deliver results to our LPs.

That said, I don’t believe BTC Layer 2 itself is particularly “great” or irreplaceable. The context driving this direction at the time was: Ethereum once saw a proliferation of highly homogeneous Layer 2s, numbering perhaps in the hundreds or even thousands, very few of which survived. Bitcoin Layer 2, in total, has only a dozen to twenty-plus projects, and the survival rate of projects within that ecosystem is actually relatively higher. They still need to navigate through this bear market and, as Bitcoin’s market cap grows, find capabilities that are difficult to achieve in other ecosystems — including Ethereum Layer 2 — to build their own moats.

“Truly High-Quality Projects Should Skip Token Issuance and Go Public Directly”

Host Beca: You once said, “Truly high-quality projects shouldn’t issue tokens; they should go public directly.” This statement went viral and was interpreted by some as throwing cold water on the crypto industry. Over a year has passed — how many projects have you successfully persuaded?

Dashan: That statement was incomplete on its own. What I meant was: Truly high-quality projects have the option to go public; if a project can only issue a token, it’s likely not high-quality enough. But some projects can both go public and issue tokens — in that case, it depends on which market offers better liquidity. When the crypto market has better liquidity, they can issue tokens; when the stock market has better liquidity, they can go public. It’s a corporate choice.

If a company has no room to choose, then going through the regulated capital market is usually more compliant and safer. But this doesn’t mean the crypto industry has no high-quality projects. BNB, Uniswap, and others are all high-quality, with profits and business capabilities that rival many listed companies. They could absolutely have both options available.

We have indeed persuaded quite a few projects. In our portfolio, there are more than five projects currently queued up for listing. Besides the DAT-related companies, there are at least five projects that are genuinely going public based on their actual business.

Take Good Vision AI as an example. It was originally a small company that had considered issuing a token. We saw that it had real revenue, so we advised against forcing a token issuance during an altcoin bear market. Instead, we suggested investing additional capital, expanding the AI business line, growing the revenue, and then pursuing the IPO path. Its revenue grew from $2-3 million in 2024 to approximately $7 million in 2025, and is expected to reach around $70 million this year. Under narratives like AI and computing infrastructure, going public becomes a more rational choice, while issuing a token might introduce new regulatory issues.

Of course, the regulatory landscape for token issuance and ICOs is dynamically evolving. The US is also discussing new ICO regulatory frameworks, where different fundraising scales may correspond to different requirements. If such rules come into effect, ICOs or token issuance might see new opportunities. Tokens are financial instruments that emerged later than stocks — they aren’t necessarily inherently inferior; they could even be more advanced tools. The key is the prevailing market and regulatory environment at the time.

Does Steering Projects Toward IPOs Raise the Barrier to Entrepreneurship?

Host Beca: After all, only a minority of tech teams can actually go public. Does your advice raise the barrier to entrepreneurship? Is going public much harder than issuing a token?

Dashan: You make a fair point, but entrepreneurship shouldn’t have a low barrier to entry in the first place. In traditional industries, entrepreneurship is fraught with risk — nine out of ten fail. If you’re starting a business with your own money, you’re losing your own savings or your parents’ money. But once you raise funds externally — especially from unqualified investors or community retail — you’re harming more families.

We lived through the ICO bubble of 2017-2018. Those who dared to do ICOs early on were pioneers willing to take risks, and most of their projects were decent — many are still alive today, or at least didn’t rug pull. But by late 2017 and early 2018, many realized they could raise money just by telling a story, so they started raising funds and disappearing. This appeared to lower the barrier to entrepreneurship, but in reality, it attracted all sorts of bad actors, ultimately driving out the good with the bad.

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