On December 6, following Trump's appointment of Paul Atkins as SEC Chairman, Trump appointed PayPal co-founder David Sacks as "White House Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Czar."

In his letter, Trump wrote, "In this key role, David will oversee government policymaking in the fields of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, which are crucial for America's future competitiveness. His goal is to establish the United States as the undisputed global leader in these two areas.

David will focus on protecting freedom of speech online, avoiding the influence of bias and censorship by big tech companies. He will also work towards establishing a clear legal framework to provide the long-awaited clarity the cryptocurrency industry needs to thrive in the United States. Additionally, he will lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology."

This decision has been widely praised by the crypto community as David Sacks' crypto experience is highly seasoned. Matthew Dibb, Chief Investment Officer of the crypto asset management firm Astronaut Capital, described this news as extremely optimistic, stating, "Over the years, David has had some practical experience with cryptocurrencies, holding tokens such as SOL. His technical and business acumen in cryptocurrency seems to be much stronger than most people imagine."

David Sacks speaking at the 2016 TechCrunch Disrupt conference

Trump introduced David Sacks as follows, "He has been a highly successful entrepreneur and investor over the past 25 years, participating in the creation and investment of some of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies. He was the early COO of PayPal and one of the legendary 'PayPal Mafia' members. He later founded the enterprise software company Yammer, which was acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion. He then founded Craft Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. David is also a co-host of the popular tech podcast 'All-In Podcast,' where he and his friends discuss economic, political, and social issues."

While Sacks may not be as well-known as Musk, he has been a loyal supporter of Trump during the election cycle, is a regular presence on conservative media and Twitter, and is increasingly influential in the political battles of the tech industry.

From the "PayPal Mafia" to a "Tech and Politics Bigwig": David Sacks' Early Life

David Sacks was born into a Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa, and moved to Tennessee, USA with his family at the age of 5. Although Sacks did not explicitly aspire to be an entrepreneur at the time, he did not want to pursue a career like his father's – his father was an endocrinologist.

In 1994, Sacks earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from Stanford University, and in 1998, he received a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. In 1999, Sacks left his job at McKinsey to join Confinity, an e-commerce startup founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek. That same year, Sacks became the inaugural Vice President of Product for Confinity, the flagship product and corporate predecessor to PayPal.

Subsequently, Sacks was promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO) of PayPal, where he was responsible for building the company's core teams and overseeing various functional departments such as product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international business, customer service, anti-fraud operations, and human resources.

Sacks is a member of the so-called "PayPal Mafia," a group consisting of PayPal's founders and early employees who went on to create a series of successful tech companies. They are considered a driving force behind the rise of Web 2.0 and the revival of consumer-focused internet companies after the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001.

After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002, Sacks ventured into Hollywood and produced the satirical film "Thank You for Smoking" in 2005, which depicted how lobbyists work to make unpleasant things acceptable.

In 2006, Sacks and Musk attended a party for "Thank You for Smoking" in New York.

In 2006, Sacks founded the website Geni.com. In 2008, Sacks and co-founder Adam Pisoni spun off this internal communication tool into a standalone company called Yammer. In 2008, Yammer launched the first enterprise social network for internal communication and collaboration. In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion, as a core part of its cloud/social strategy.

In December 2014, David Sacks made a "large investment" in the recruiting platform Zenefits. By January 2016, amidst a "regulatory crisis" around licensing compliance, the Zenefits board asked Sacks to serve as interim CEO, ousting then-CEO Parker Conrad.

Over the next year, Sacks negotiated with insurance regulators across the U.S., reaching a settlement agreement and earning praise for "turning the tide." He also overhauled Zenefits' product line, launching a plan called "Z2" and introducing a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) business model. Subsequently, PC Magazine hailed Zenefits as the "best HR software on the market," but simultaneously, a BuzzFeed report noted the company's annual losses exceeding $200 million. After serving as interim CEO for just 10 months, Sacks handed over the role to former Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher.

By the end of 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures with Bill Lee, focusing primarily on investments in the B2B software space. They raised an initial $350 million fund, announced a second $500 million fund in October 2019, raised $1.1 billion in 2021, and in November 2023, Craft Ventures secured $1.3 billion through the Craft Ventures IV and Craft Ventures Growth II funds.

In March 2020, Sacks launched a business technology commentary podcast, "All In Podcast," supported by David Sacks and three other venture capitalists, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, covering current events, market trends, political issues, and industry insights.

In 2021, Sacks co-founded the workspace chat company Glue with his former Craft colleague Evan Owen, which released an AI tool that can be used in specific chats on platforms like Google Meet and Zoom to provide AI support for employees during conversations. The product was officially launched to the public in May 2024.

In 2021, David Sacks co-founded a social audio and podcast integration app called Callin with Axel Ericsson, securing a $12 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia, Goldcrest, and Craft Ventures. In 2023, Callin was acquired by the video-sharing platform Rumble.

Musk's Good Brother, Peter Thiel's Classmate, The Man Behind Trump

In recent years, as a long-time partner of Musk and Peter Thiel, Sacks transitioned from a well-known Silicon Valley executive to a figure in alternative media, attracting a large following of right-leaning entrepreneurs to listen to his "All-In" podcast.

Sacks and Thiel met at Stanford University, where they co-authored The Stanford Review founded by Thiel. Subsequently, the two supported each other in the business and political worlds. Under Peter Thiel's guidance, David Sacks built his own political contribution network PAC. In December of last year, he held a fundraising event for J.D. Vance. In April of this year, Sacks donated $1 million to the "Protect Ohio Values PAC" supporting Vance. Around the same time, Donald Trump announced his support for Vance as Vice President.

In September of this year, Sacks co-hosted a Republican fundraising event with PayPal Mafia member Keith Rabois. Despite providing strong support for Vance, Sacks made little effort to promote this event on social media through tweets or articles. His $1 million donation also received little media attention. However, in March of this year, Sacks publicly praised Vance's call for the U.S. to exercise military restraint in Ukraine. He tweeted: "This is why I am proud to support Vance." The tweet also referenced MAGA-related content, adding, "It's time to put America's interests first."

As one of the most influential entrepreneurial teams in Silicon Valley history, the story of the PayPal Mafia is inseparable from the names of David Sacks and Elon Musk. These two, who once fought together at PayPal, have continued to have intertwined effects in the fields of technology and entrepreneurship despite diverging career paths.

David Sacks also indirectly participated in Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. According to insiders, when Musk was seeking acquisition funding, Sacks used his connections in Silicon Valley and Wall Street to help Musk attract investment from top institutions, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.

This investment not only filled Musk's funding gap but also strengthened market confidence in the deal. Additionally, Sacks has defended Musk multiple times on his own podcast, discussing the significance of acquiring Twitter and linking it to the value of free speech, stating that the transaction is "a critical step for the tech industry to resist censorship."

Sacks claims that his political stance has evolved from liberalism to "populism." In an interview on Bitcoin personality Anthony Pompliano's podcast, he mentioned his "working-class perspective" aligning with the shifting Republican Party.

At this year's Axios technology conference, Sacks stated that he has "more disagreements with Biden than with Trump," and shortly after, he invited Trump to appear on the well-known podcast "All In Podcast" co-hosted by him, planting the seeds of victory for Trump's subsequent election campaign.

In June of this year, Trump held a fundraising event at Sacks' mansion in the affluent San Francisco area, where he portrayed himself as the "Cryptocurrency President," fiercely criticizing the Democratic Party's regulatory hostility towards the industry and stating that he would stop Gensler's crackdown on the crypto industry "within one hour of taking office." During the event, Sacks, the Winklevoss brothers, and others discussed their cryptocurrency investments with Trump, ultimately raising $12 million from the gathering.

Now, as Trump is set to return to the White House, Sacks has been nominated as the "White House AI and Cryptocurrency Czar," and the crypto market is most concerned about how Sacks will lead the U.S. in its future crypto direction.

SOL Maxi, David Sacks's Crypto Kingdom

In 2017, David Sacks, in an interview with CNBC, discussed the "ICO Coordination with Future SEC Regulation" and expressed his hope that the SEC could differentiate between "Protocol Coins" and "Asset Coins." Protocol Coins have practical use within a software ecosystem and should not be considered securities; while Asset Coins fall under the category of securities.

In 2018, David Sacks announced an investment in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin. Multicoin was an early investor in Solana, leading a $20 million funding round for Solana in July 2019.

During that year, he also joined the advisory board of the decentralized exchange protocol 0x, while also driving a partnership between 0x and the digital securities platform Harbor. It is worth noting that Harbor was a project invested in and incubated by Sacks' venture capital firm Craft Ventures, focusing on providing a blockchain-based digital securities platform covering compliant fundraising, investor management, and liquidity services. Subsequently, in February 2020, Harbor was acquired by the digital asset custodian giant BitGo.

In December 2023, Sacks stated that after the FTX scandal, he did not sell SOL, "One of the stupidest attacks against me this year was the claim that I sold SOL tokens to retail investors. If that were true, they should be swimming in profits by now. Congratulations to all SOL holders."

And perhaps David Sacks' crowning moment in the crypto world was when he was appointed by Trump as the "White House AI and Cryptocurrency Czar." According to Bloomberg, David's entry into the White House did not require him to divest or disclose his assets. Similar to Elon Musk, he became a special government employee and could serve a maximum of 130 days per year.

David Sacks' Investment Portfolio

According to RootData statistics, Craft Ventures' crypto investments involve a total of 12 projects, with infrastructure taking the major portion. BlockBeats has compiled and introduced them for readers' reference.

dYdX

dYdX is a decentralized trading platform that offers users key financial tools such as perpetual contracts, margin trading, spot trading, lending, and more. It provides traders with an off-chain order book and on-chain settlement, allowing them to short tokens, increase long positions through leverage, and earn interest by depositing tokens for faster trades.

After the Trump administration today announced that VC David Sacks, a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency world, had invested in dYdX, the DYDX24 token saw a 24.53% surge following the news.

Lightning Labs

Lightning Labs has developed software that supports the Lightning Network. Its open-source, secure, and scalable system enables users to send and receive funds more efficiently than ever before. Lightning Labs also provides a suite of verifiable non-custodial Lightning-based financial services, bridging the world of open-source software with the next generation of Bitcoin financial software.

Lightning Labs recently closed its latest funding round on April 5, 2022, with a $70 million Series B led by investors such as Valor Equity Partners, NYDIG, Goldcrest Capital, Baillie Gifford, and Vlad Tenev, with other notable investors in the project including CMT Digital, Electric Capital, Digital Currency Group, among others.

River Financial

River Financial is a financial institution focused on Bitcoin financial services. It allows customers to manage both Bitcoin brokerage accounts and Bitcoin mining accounts on a single platform. The company's flagship product, the Bitcoin brokerage service, provides a platform for sophisticated retail investors to buy and sell Bitcoin. Additionally, River Mining enables customers to mine Bitcoin using their own funds.

The company completed a $35 million Series B funding round on May 16, 2023, led by Kingsway Capital, Alarko Ventures, and other prominent investors such as Polychain and Peter Thiel.

Kresus

Kresus is a Web3 mobile super app that allows users to create, manage, and store all their digital assets.

Kresus completed a $25 million Series A funding round on March 7, 2023, led by Liberty City Ventures, Craft Ventures, and other prominent investors including Franklin Templeton, Winklevoss Captial.

Set Protocol

Set Protocol is an asset management platform used to create, manage, and interact with tokenized asset baskets. The primary use case of Set Protocol is to build "structured products," which are customizable, fully collateralized baskets of crypto assets represented as on-chain ERC20 tokens, such as the DeFi Pulse Index ($DPI) and ETH 2x Flexible Leverage Index.

The company completed a $14 million Series A funding round on May 28, 2021, with lead investors including 1kx, Hashed, Craft Ventures, and other notable investors such as 6th Man Ventures, The Spartan Group, DeFiance Capital.

FOLD

Fold is the best way to earn Bitcoin by allowing you to earn Bitcoin in your everyday spending. Using the Fold Visa debit card and purchasing gift cards from the Fold store, you can earn Bitcoin with every purchase.

The company raised $13 million in a Series A funding round on May 27, 2021, with Craft Ventures as the lead investor, and other participants including Slow Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, M13, coinfund.

Harbor

Harbor is a digital securities platform designed to be an all-in-one service platform for secure token issuers. Its digital platform automates manual processes for alternative investment subscription, investor management, and secondary transfers. In November 2019, Harbor received a transfer agent license from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), becoming the first blockchain company to hold both a broker-dealer license and a transfer agent license, and was acquired by BitGo on February 18, 2020.

Lead by Founders Fund, other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Pantera Capital, Blockchain Capital, 1confirmation, and Multicoin co-founders Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain.

Handshake

Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol where each node is responsible for validating and managing the root DNS naming zone. Its goal is to create an alternative to existing certificate authorities and naming systems.

The company completed a $10.2 million financing on August 2, 2018, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Pantera Capital, Sequoia Capital, Polychain, Digital Currency Group, Hashed, Founders Fund, Greylock, Craft Ventures, Solana Foundation's Chair Lily Liu, and Dovey Wan.

Voltage

Voltage is an enterprise-grade Lightning Network infrastructure that bridges the gap between fast, nimble cloud infrastructure and the security and privacy requirements of Bitcoin. It offers hosting services for users interested in running Bitcoin or Lightning nodes in the cloud.

The company completed a $6 million seed financing on January 20, 2022, with investors including Craft Ventures, Stillmark, Fulgur Ventures, Strategic Cyber Ventures, Cavalry Asset Management, and Tenzing.vc.

Galoy

Galoy is a Bitcoin-native banking infrastructure designed to enable access to payment, wallet, and banking services for any community or institution. The open-source Galoy Bitcoin banking platform includes a secure backend API, mobile wallet, point-of-sale app, compliance tools, and management controls.

The company completed a $3 million seed round of funding on December 16, 2021, led by Craft Ventures, with other investors including Kingsway Capital, Bitcoiner Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Lightning Ventures, etc.

Lumina

Lumina is a crypto-native financial platform that offers a full suite of institutional tools, including portfolio management, accounting, and tax services. Lumina automatically imports and reconciles users' current and historical transactions, helping users gain a comprehensive view of their investment performance, holdings, and tax information.

The company completed a $4 million seed round of funding on October 2, 2018, led by Craft Ventures, with other investors including Dragonfly and Bain Capital Ventures.

Rare Bits

Rare Bits is a decentralized crypto collectibles peer-to-peer marketplace where users can discover, purchase, and sell over 500,000 unique items that can be verified for their uniqueness on the blockchain. However, according to the project's official account information, the project is currently no longer active.

欢迎加入律动 BlockBeats 官方社群：

Telegram 订阅群：https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram 交流群：https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Twitter 官方账号：https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia