Venture Capitalist Draper tells Miami web3 crowd to 'Keep your heads down, keep working'

Tim Draper, founding partner of VC firm Draper Associates, sounded an optimistic tone at a Wednesday conference in Miami despite ongoing turmoil across crypto markets and his prediction of a looming recession.

“We’re going through a fundamental change, and there’s going to be a lot of friction,” he said at the MiamiWeb3 conference. “Keep your heads down, keep working.”

Draper praised countries like Switzerland and Malta that he said had embraced web3 decentralization, while he said China had taken a turn back into the “dark ages.”

“It’s sort of a critical time for the world, and you see the weak leaders trying to control everybody, and you see the strong leaders setting people free and trusting people,” he said, calling Chinese president Xi Jinping a “weak leader.”

He drew widespread applause when he said that “all the best entrepreneurs are leaving China and coming here to Florida.”

While Draper said he thought a recession was on the horizon, he said that there could be a silver lining, noting that 30 of the top 31 most valuable companies had been formed in the aftermath of bear markets.

“When things are bad, there’s a flight to quality,” he said, predicting that bitcoin would emerge as a winner among more centralized cryptocurrencies such as FTX’s failed FTT token.