0xSmac

Partner at compound-ventures

Reviewed Updated Apr 30, 2026

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Location New York, NY
Check Size $400K-$1.5M
Last Verified Investment Plural Energy (Pre-seed (co-led)) — May 30, 2024
Social @0xsmac LinkedIn
Stage Focus
pre-seed seed series-a
Sector Focus
crypto web3 DePIN decentralized-AI DeFi DeSci infrastructure decentralized-physical-infrastructure tokenization tokens

Background

0xSmac is a Partner at Compound, the New York–based thesis-driven, research-centric investment firm focused on early-stage AI/ML, robotics, biology and healthcare, crypto, and frontier technology 12. He is the partner most focused on crypto and web3 within the Compound team, working alongside Managing Partner Michael Dempsey, General Partner David Hirsch, Partner Shelby Newsad (bio/health), and venture partner John Palmer (crypto) 123.

0xSmac operates pseudonymously; his public identity across Compound’s website, his Substack (“Semi-Lucid Thoughts”), Twitter/X (@0xsmac), and his investor profile is the handle “0xSmac” or “Smac” rather than a legal name 145. He announced joining Compound in a February 16, 2023 post titled “joining compound,” timed to coincide with what he described as his “unofficial 8th anniversary in crypto” — placing his entry into the space around 2015 3. In that post he describes his focus as “building investment theses on the space alongside Michael Dempsey, David Hirsch, John Palmer and the rest of the team at Compound” 3.

In an interview with Marco Manoppo’s “Chain Venturer” series, 0xSmac described his pre-Compound career as a structured credit trader at an investment bank; he attempted to leave the bank for crypto in 2017 and ultimately did so during 2018–2019, before briefly enrolling in business school and leaving to focus on crypto full-time 6. He describes himself on his Compound team page tagline as “your favorite alts favorite alt” 1.

Signal by NFX lists 0xSmac’s check size range at $400K–$1.5M with a $1M sweet spot, consistent with Compound’s published cadence at the seed stage, and lists his active stages as Seed, Series A, and Series B in Web3/Crypto 4.

Stated Thesis

Compound publicly describes itself as “a Thesis-Driven, Research-Centric Investment Firm” focused on “Helping accelerate the futures that our founders believe in” 2. Compound’s separate Compound Crypto practice describes itself as “a crypto-native firm that publishes private and public research” and lists The Graph, Compound, Arbitrum, Dapper Labs, Blockstack, Livepeer, and Kadena among its earliest-stage backings since 2016 7.

0xSmac has articulated an unusually explicit set of investment criteria for what Compound looks for in a crypto company. In his August 29, 2024 essay “What is a Compound Crypto Company?”, he writes that Compound seeks “n-of-1 or step-function improvement” rather than incremental progress, “real problem-solving through crypto” (capital formation, coordination, automation), category-creating companies in the mold of Uniswap or The Graph, “purposeful token models” (tokens are a “powerful mechanism for incentivizing behavior & coordinating action” but should not be “shoehorned” purely for liquidity), and 5+ year time horizons 8.

He has stated this time-horizon preference bluntly: “We are not especially interested in founding teams who prioritize 12-24 month, short-term liquidity for investors” and aims to back “founding teams thinking on 5+ year time horizons” 8. He has further stated that Compound is “neither a hedge fund, nor an opportunistic fund, nor one that flips SAFTs or hedges portfolio exposure on exchanges” 8.

His specific named focus areas at the time of joining Compound were “dynamic yield optimization, distributed compute networks, account abstraction, state proofs, undercollateralized lending, DAO tooling, on-chain asset management, tax optimization, and security infrastructure” 3. His subsequent published research has emphasized DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks), the intersection of DePIN with healthcare and biology, distributed compute and decentralized AI, and the ICO/TGE lifecycle versus traditional IPO-style capital formation 9810.

Inferred Thesis

This analysis is based on Compound Crypto’s publicly listed crypto portfolio 7, 0xSmac’s published research output 9810111213, and the verified rounds where Compound participation is independently confirmed by primary or contemporaneous press 1415161718. Compound rarely discloses which partner sourced or led a specific deal; 0xSmac’s publicly stated focus on crypto and web3, his role description on Compound’s team page as the firm’s crypto-focused partner, and his own framing in “joining compound” make the firm’s crypto portfolio the strongest available proxy for his individual footprint, though per-deal sourcing attribution is not always public.

Sector distribution within Compound Crypto’s named portfolio (~30 companies): Compound Crypto publicly lists 30+ portfolio companies including Agoric, Alliance DAO, Arbitrum, Bio Protocol, Blockstack, Casa, Compound Finance, Dapper Labs, Defined, Engi, The Graph, HairDAO, Hedgey Finance, Helium, ISO, Kadena, Keep, Livepeer, Molecule, Multicoin Capital, NuCypher, Orchid, Parcel, PartyDAO, Pear, Plural, Prime Intellect, Sarcophagus, Threshold, Violet, and 1Confirmation 7. Major sub-sectors visible in this list: protocol infrastructure / L1s and L2s (Agoric, Arbitrum, Kadena, Blockstack/Stacks); DePIN and infrastructure data (Helium, Livepeer, The Graph); DeSci and on-chain bio/health (Bio Protocol, Molecule, HairDAO); custody/security/privacy (Casa, NuCypher, Keep, Threshold, Orchid, Sarcophagus); DeFi primitives and tooling (Compound Finance, Hedgey, Defined, Violet, Parcel); DAO infrastructure (PartyDAO, Alliance DAO); and decentralized AI / compute (Prime Intellect, Plural). DePIN and decentralized AI/compute are the most consistent through-line across both his published writing and the most recent confirmed Compound Crypto checks.

Differentiation from his Compound co-partners: In Michael Dempsey’s verified portfolio, crypto/blockchain is ~31% of confirmed rounds (4 of 13: The Graph, Livepeer, Stacks, Plural Energy) [Dempsey profile]. In Shelby Newsad’s verified bio/health-focused portfolio, decentralized-science companies are notably underrepresented despite Compound’s broader DeSci footprint, and the decentralized-science checks have historically been “crypto-team led (Compound’s separate Compound Crypto practice)” rather than bio-team led [Newsad profile]. The clearest delta for 0xSmac is the opposite of Newsad’s: 100% of his individually-attributable focus areas are crypto or crypto-adjacent, including the bio/health-x-crypto crossover (DeSci, on-chain healthcare data) which he explicitly identifies as a thesis area 78.

Stage distribution: Signal by NFX lists 0xSmac as active at Seed, Series A, and Series B with a $400K–$1.5M check range and a $1M sweet spot, on a $50M fund 4. The verified rounds for Compound Crypto in this profile are pre-seed and seed (Plural Energy pre-seed 14; Prime Intellect seed 15; Casa seed and Series A follow-on 1718). This is consistent with Compound’s broader “Seed through Series B follow-on” published cadence as articulated by Dempsey [Dempsey profile].

Geographic focus: Compound is New York-based 2. Compound Crypto’s verified portfolio is internationally distributed: Prime Intellect is European (decentralized AI, originally based in Europe) 15; Plural Energy is US-based 14; The Graph and Livepeer are New York-based [Dempsey profile]; Stacks/Blockstack is US-based; Casa is US-based 17. Consistent with Compound’s other partners, the firm is willing to back founders globally.

Founder profile patterns: Where 0xSmac has described his criteria publicly, he emphasizes “obsessed founders” with “deep contextual awareness of competitors, adjacent markets, and evolving industry fundamentals” who can “navigate crypto’s noise through conviction” 8. He has stated that Compound seeks founders “thinking on 5+ year time horizons” rather than founders prioritizing “12-24 month, short-term liquidity” 8. The verified Compound Crypto portfolio over-indexes on technically deep founders building protocols rather than consumer crypto apps or trading desks (The Graph, Livepeer, Helium, Prime Intellect, Plural).

Co-investor patterns: Across the verified Compound Crypto portfolio, frequent co-investors include Multicoin Capital and CoinFund (The Graph) [Dempsey profile]; Distributed Global, CoinFund, Collab+Currency, and Protocol Labs (Prime Intellect) 15; Necessary Ventures, Volt Capital, and Maven11 (Plural Energy) 14; Avon Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Castle Island Ventures, and Precursor Ventures (Casa) 17. Compound Crypto’s published “investments” page lists Multicoin Capital and 1Confirmation as portfolio entries themselves, suggesting LP/firm-level relationships beyond co-investment alone 7.

Notable patterns vs. stated thesis: 0xSmac’s stated focus areas at the time of joining (yield optimization, distributed compute, account abstraction, DAO tooling, undercollateralized lending, on-chain asset management, security infrastructure) map closely onto Compound Crypto’s portfolio (Agoric, Prime Intellect, PartyDAO, Hedgey, Casa, Threshold/Keep). The most visible new emphasis in his post-joining writing is DePIN — including the explicit DePIN x healthcare/biology crossover — culminating in the September 12, 2024 deep-dive co-authored with Knower 98.

Notable gap: Compound Crypto’s portfolio page lists 30+ companies 7, but contemporaneous funding-round citations linking Compound to a specific round were locatable for only a subset (Plural Energy 14, Prime Intellect 15, Casa 17, plus Compound’s pre-0xSmac crypto investments — The Graph, Livepeer, Stacks — already verified in the Dempsey profile). Many Compound Crypto holdings (Agoric, Engi, HairDAO, Molecule, PartyDAO, Sarcophagus, Threshold, Violet) appear on the firm’s site but lacked the public funding announcements needed to cite a specific Compound check to a specific round in the time budget for this profile.

Portfolio

Company Year Stage Source
The Graph 2019 Seed 16
Livepeer 2019 Series A [Dempsey profile]
Stacks (Blockstack) 2017–2018 Token sale / early [Dempsey profile]
Casa 2021-02-03 Seed (existing investor, follow-on) 17
Casa 2022-05-10 Series A 18
Prime Intellect 2024-04-23 Seed 15
Plural Energy 2024-05-30 Pre-seed (co-led) 14

This table represents 7 verified rounds out of 30+ companies listed on Compound Crypto’s portfolio page 7. Three of these rounds (The Graph, Livepeer, Stacks) predate 0xSmac’s February 2023 arrival at Compound but represent Compound Crypto’s anchor portfolio and are part of the broader thesis context within which he operates 37. The four post-2023 rounds (Casa Series A, Prime Intellect, Plural Energy) are the rounds occurring during 0xSmac’s tenure with primary or contemporaneous press citations confirming Compound’s participation. Per-deal lead-partner attribution at Compound is rarely public; the table reflects firm-level Compound Crypto participation in crypto/web3 rounds rather than 0xSmac’s individual deal sourcing. The Plural Energy and Prime Intellect rounds are the strongest candidates for 0xSmac-led activity given (a) their alignment with his published DePIN and decentralized-AI theses, and (b) the timing relative to his joining announcement 39.

In Their Own Words

“I’ve joined the team at Compound, a deeply thesis-driven firm committed to investing in founders at the earliest stage.” — 0xSmac, “joining compound,” Semi-Lucid Thoughts, February 16, 2023 3

“The original ethos of the internet was rooted in open networks, transparent information, and weird, novel technology experiments.” — 0xSmac, “joining compound,” February 16, 2023 3

“Conviction is developed through independent thinking and long-term thesis-building.” — 0xSmac, “joining compound,” February 16, 2023 3

“We are not especially interested in founding teams who prioritize 12-24 month, short-term liquidity for investors.” — 0xSmac, “What is a Compound Crypto Company?”, August 29, 2024 8

“We like tokens… a powerful mechanism for incentivizing behavior & coordinating action.” — 0xSmac, “What is a Compound Crypto Company?”, August 29, 2024 8

“DePIN is widely viewed as an area uniquely suited for crypto networks but we still believe there’s a lack of appreciation for the true breadth of impact it can have.” — 0xSmac, “DePIN’s Imperfect Present & Promising Future,” Semi-Lucid Thoughts, September 13, 2024 9

“DePIN specifically excels when scaling infrastructure is costly, efficiency matching improves, or cheaper end-states materialize.” — 0xSmac & Knower, “DePIN’s Imperfect Present & Promising Future: A Deep Dive,” Compound Writing, September 12, 2024 19

“You can’t generalize tokenomics and make assumptions about one project based on failures of another.” — 0xSmac & Knower, “DePIN’s Imperfect Present & Promising Future: A Deep Dive,” September 12, 2024 19

“IPO’s reflect a mature company’s decision to raise capital and tap into additional financing markets after years of proven operational success. TGE’s are at-best more akin to SPACs.” — 0xSmac, “TGE’s Are Not IPO’s,” Semi-Lucid Thoughts, December 16, 2024 10

“While we continue to celebrate TGE’s as if they are IPO’s, this parallel is woefully lacking.” — 0xSmac, “TGE’s Are Not IPO’s,” December 16, 2024 10

“Rather than building real utility or focusing on the product, teams are allocating resources to market-making gimmicks that simply create the illusion of activity.” — 0xSmac, “From Backrooms to Builder Codes,” Semi-Lucid Thoughts, September 3, 2025 11

“If ICOs can be structured to give real and early users of protocols/products the capacity to get skin in the game… this seems like a strict benefit over paying tithes to CEXs.” — 0xSmac, “From Backrooms to Builder Codes,” September 3, 2025 11

“The structural change to crypto markets cannot be overstated.” — 0xSmac, “Volatility Is Back On The Menu,” Semi-Lucid Thoughts, January 1, 2025 12

“Wealth has meaningfully shifted from an earnings-based model toward an investment-based one.” — 0xSmac, “The Children Yearn For The Fiat Mines,” Semi-Lucid Thoughts, October 9, 2025 13

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Public sources confirm Compound Crypto’s participation in rounds for Casa, Prime Intellect, and Plural Energy during 0xSmac’s tenure, and 0xSmac is publicly described as a thesis-driven thought partner 167. However, first-person founder quotes specifically describing what it is like to work with 0xSmac (rather than Compound at the firm level) were not located in the time budget for this profile. Standard searches surfaced press releases that name Compound at the firm level but rarely attribute a specific Compound partner to a given deal. The firm-level Compound investor quote in Plural Energy’s launch press release was attributed to Managing Partner Michael Dempsey rather than 0xSmac 14.

Connections

  • Compound team partner — works with Managing Partner Michael Dempsey, General Partner David Hirsch, Partner Shelby Newsad (Biology and Healthcare), and venture partner John Palmer (Crypto) 123
  • Compound Crypto practice — leads or co-leads the firm’s crypto investment activity alongside John Palmer; the firm has been “active in cryptocurrency since 2016” with anchor investments in The Graph, Compound Finance, Arbitrum, Dapper Labs, Blockstack, Livepeer, and Kadena 7
  • 0xResearch (Blockworks) podcast — featured guest, “Hyperliquid, Crypto AI, Cycle Dynamics, and Optimal Exits” episode (November 14, 2024), alongside hosts Tervo and Tolks 20
  • Marco Manoppo “Chain Venturer” interview series — featured subject 6
  • BuidlersTribe / “What does the crypto future look like?” — featured speaker, August 2023 21
  • Frequent Compound Crypto co-investors — Multicoin Capital and CoinFund (The Graph), Distributed Global, CoinFund, Collab+Currency, and Protocol Labs (Prime Intellect), Necessary Ventures, Volt Capital, and Maven11 (Plural Energy), Avon Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Castle Island Ventures, and Precursor Ventures (Casa) 141517

Sources

  1. Compound, “0xSmac” team page, accessed April 2026. https://www.compound.vc/team/smac↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Compound, “About us” page, accessed April 2026. https://www.compound.vc/about↩↩↩↩↩

  3. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “joining compound,” February 16, 2023. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/joining-compound↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  4. Signal by NFX, “0xsmac’s Investing Profile — Compound Investor,” accessed April 2026. https://signal.nfx.com/investors/0xsmac↩↩↩

  5. 0xSmac on X (Twitter), accessed April 2026. https://x.com/0xsmac↩

  6. Marco Manoppo (LinkedIn), “Chain Venturer: 0xSmac of Compound VC,” accessed April 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marcomanoppo_chain-venturer-0xsmac-of-compound-vc-activity-7091190659402928128-eTxu↩↩↩

  7. Compound Crypto, “About” and “Investments” pages, accessed April 2026. https://crypto.compound.vc/about and https://crypto.compound.vc/investments↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  8. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “What is a Compound Crypto Company?”, August 29, 2024. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/what-is-a-compound-crypto-company↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  9. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “DePIN’s Imperfect Present & Promising Future: A Deep Dive,” September 13, 2024. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/depins-imperfect-present-and-promising↩↩↩↩↩

  10. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “TGE’s Are Not IPO’s,” December 16, 2024. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/tges-are-not-ipos↩↩↩↩

  11. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “From Backrooms to Builder Codes,” September 3, 2025. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/from-backrooms-to-builder-codes↩↩↩

  12. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “Volatility Is Back On The Menu,” January 1, 2025. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/volatility-is-back-on-the-menu↩↩

  13. 0xSmac (Semi-Lucid Thoughts Substack), “The Children Yearn For The Fiat Mines,” October 9, 2025. https://0xsmac.substack.com/p/the-children-yearn-for-the-fiat-mines↩↩

  14. PRNewswire, “Plural Energy Raises $2.33M to Pioneer On-chain Investing for Renewable Energy Projects,” May 30, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plural-energy-raises-2-33m-to-pioneer-on-chain-investing-for-renewable-energy-projects-secures-solaris-as-first-investment-opportunity-302159694.html↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  15. PRNewswire, “Prime Intellect Secures $5.5M in Seed Funding Co-Led By Distributed Global and CoinFund to Advance Its Decentralized and Collaborative AI Ecosystem,” April 23, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/prime-intellect-secures-5-5m-in-seed-funding-co-led-by-distributed-global-and-coinfund-to-advance-its-decentralized-and-collaborative-ai-ecosystem-302124585.html↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  16. FinSMEs, “Graph Protocol Raises $2.4M in Seed Funding,” February 2019. https://www.finsmes.com/2019/02/graph-protocol-raises-2-4m-in-seed-funding.html↩↩

  17. Bitcoin Magazine, “Bitcoin Custody Provider Casa Announces $4 Million Raised In Seed Funding,” February 3, 2021. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/bitcoin-custody-provider-casa-announces-4-million-raised-in-seed-funding↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  18. CoinDesk, “Bitcoin Self-Custody Company Casa Raises $21M,” May 10, 2022. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/10/bitcoin-self-custody-company-casa-raises-21m-series-a↩↩↩

  19. 0xSmac & Knower (Compound Writing), “DePIN’s Imperfect Present & Promising Future: A Deep Dive,” September 12, 2024. https://www.compound.vc/writing/depin↩↩

  20. Blockworks, “0xResearch Podcast: Hyperliquid, Crypto AI, Cycle Dynamics, and Optimal Exits | 0xSmac, Tervo & Tolks,” November 14, 2024. https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/f06d4fae-a1fc-11ef-9beb-d3e2e561773↩

  21. BuidlersTribe (LinkedIn), “What does the crypto future look like? | 0xSmac, CompoundVC,” August 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/buidlerstribe_what-does-the-crypto-future-look-like-activity-7094250242304348161-zvCU↩