Umedjon Ikromov

About

I help crypto founders turn raw ideas into fundable, high-growth protocols. (And I post daily about the messy reality of crypto venture capital.) My story starts with 130 rejections. In 2020, I was a broke student teaching math for $5/hour while my CUHK peers flaunted Goldman Sachs internships. After 130 ignored internship applications, I finally landed an unpaid role at a Hong Kong crypto fund—only to be told I was “not ready for crypto.” Today: I lead research at YTWO Ventures, where I’ve: ↳ Turned 7 startups into $150M+ FDV rockets (1 hit 1B 🦄) ↳ Scaled Startup to $50M TVL via a Telegram pivot you’d call “crazy” ↳ Stress-tested 14 stablecoin models for 99.9% stability Here’s what I’ve learned about crypto startups: Most fail because they: ↳ Prioritize hype over execution grit (ideas ≠ shipped products) ↳ Burn cash on broken tokenomics (RIP 2022 “APY farms”) ↳ Can’t prove scalability to institutional investors How I Fix This: ↳ My team’s framework combines cold technical audits (“Is the code bulletproof?”) and founder execution grilling (“Show me your last pivot—and why it failed”). ↳ I’ve redesigned mechanisms for protocols like Vanilla Finance (2x FDV growth) and Master Protoco

Experience

Education