Former Binance VC Head Aims to Raise $100M for Web3-Focused Crypto Fund
The former head of venture capital investments and acquisitions at Binance Holdings Ltd. is launching a new crypto venture capital fund called Cypher Capital.
Bill Qian plans to raise over $100 million through the fund, focusing on backing startups focused on web3 and the decentralized internet powered by blockchain technology.
Cypher Capital has hired Elaine Liu, a former executive at Tencent, to bolster its expansion efforts in the UAE.
Qian believes that one of the biggest challenges facing the crypto industry is limited user growth, which he attributes to the predominant use of cryptocurrency for trading or gambling.
To address this issue, Cypher Capital is focusing its investments on projects that can attract more of the approximately 5 billion internet and social media users to the web3 ecosystem. Qian believes this investment thesis can add to the macro adoption of cryptocurrencies worldwide.
READ MORE: Future of Crypto: Why Embedded Finance Matters
The UAE is emerging as a hub for the cryptocurrency industry as jurisdictions such as the US tighten regulations in the wake of last year’s scandals, including the collapse of FTX and the legal action against founder Sam Bankman-Fried as well as the troubles with most crypto lenders.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
