Tapiero's 50T Funds passed on FTX three times and caps entry at 10x revenue

Dan Tapiero, CEO and CIO of 50T Funds, said his firm has rejected more than 400 crypto deals over six years, declined FTX investment opportunities three times, and passed on both Celsius and BlockFi. He set out the discipline in a November 12 interview with The Rollup: reasonable revenue multiples and rigorous diligence, not sector enthusiasm, determine crypto growth equity returns.

Tapiero said the fund prefers entry valuations of three to five times revenue and will not pay more than ten times. He described valuations of 50 times revenue as an automatic rejection. The point is arithmetic rather than sentiment: at 50 to 80 times revenue, he argued, profitable exits become structurally difficult even if the underlying business performs.

What kind of companies does the fund buy?

The strategy targets mature private crypto companies that have already emerged from venture funding and generate at least $50 million to $100 million in annual revenue. That is roughly the revenue scale of an established mid-market payments firm, not a seed-stage protocol. Tapiero cited a recent $40 million investment in MoonPay as an example of the approach.

He framed the fund's positioning as deliberate concentration in developed businesses rather than diversification across early-stage ventures. Early-stage companies, he said, are difficult to assess thoroughly, and spreading capital across them introduces risks his institutional investors will not accept.

Why did the fund reject FTX, Celsius and BlockFi?

Tapiero attributed the rejections to the same discipline rather than hindsight. The diligence process he developed over 20 years as a macro hedge fund portfolio manager weighs business prospects, leadership and price alongside estimated future returns. When any of those fail the test, the fund walks away — as it did more than 400 times in six years, including three times with FTX.

Artificial intelligence has compressed that diligence work. Work that previously took two to three months, Tapiero said, now finishes in a few weeks. He still stressed patience and resisting the fear of missing out, noting that speed alone does not substitute for judgment.

What return target justifies a 10-year lock-up?

The fund targets four to five times invested capital across its 10-year life, during which investor money is locked. Tapiero called that target reasonable given the industry's growth potential — a claim that rests on continued crypto adoption rather than multiple expansion.

His caveat on volatility is unusually blunt. He said he expects crypto bear markets with declines of 70% to 80% every three to four years. That frequency frames the entire strategy: a venture position that rises 20 times before falling 90%, he argued, is an unacceptable outcome pattern for his institutional investors.

Entry price is therefore the fund's primary risk control, not a secondary consideration. Diligence and valuation discipline, in Tapiero's telling, are what allow equity holders to survive drawdowns that recur on a multi-year cycle.

Whether a three-to-five-times revenue entry standard remains achievable, however, depends on how quickly the pool of crypto firms clearing $50 million in revenue grows — a figure Tapiero did not quantify. The market will test that thesis at the next bear cycle, which he places within the next three to four years.