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How I Built a $3.3B Blockchain Business Against All OddsㅣKonstantin Richter, Blockdaemon

EO12:25Added Aug 31, 2026

"As a founder, there's a kind of psychological fallacy where at some point you need to switch off your logical brain. This is because you're clearly working on a problem that nobody else sees."

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00There is this sort of psychological
  3. 00:01fallacy as a founder where at one point
  4. 00:04your logical brain needs to be switched
  5. 00:07off because obviously you're working on
  6. 00:09a problem that nobody else sees. I was
  7. 00:11working on the proof of existence
  8. 00:14protocol where we worked with an
  9. 00:16Ethereum node and I told people that I
  10. 00:18believe in a world where there will be
  11. 00:20100,000 nodes that will be run by
  12. 00:23institutions by 2020. That's what I
  13. 00:26said. And people were laughing at me. I
  14. 00:28knew one thing for certain that if I
  15. 00:30hold on and deliver this, it'll be a
  16. 00:32massive win. And when I told other
  17. 00:34people about it, they didn't believe it
  18. 00:36at all. They were telling me we won't do
  19. 00:39that. And then Block Demon itself now
  20. 00:41runs 250,000 nodes, you know, and so you
  21. 00:44need to be stupid enough to also hold on
  22. 00:47to an idea that most smart people around
  23. 00:49you will tell you is a very bad idea.
  24. 00:57I'm Constantine Richtor. I'm the founder
  25. 00:59and CEO of Blog Demon. Blockdemon is the
  26. 01:02leading institutional gateway for
  27. 01:04institutions to connect to really
  28. 01:06blockchains and the web 3 ecosystem. And
  29. 01:08so we're one of the market leaders and
  30. 01:11staples of the crypto industry that it
  31. 01:13has JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and City
  32. 01:16Bank as investors and customers. Out of
  33. 01:18the top 500 companies active in crypto,
  34. 01:2170% are customers of block demon for
  35. 01:24infrastructure. Ultimately, what we do
  36. 01:26is the purest form of infrastructure we
  37. 01:29run in a decentralized network. One easy

  38. What is node?

  39. 01:32way to think about it is that the
  40. 01:34internet ultimately functions via
  41. 01:36different gateways and so do
  42. 01:37blockchains. And so one way I used to
  43. 01:39describe blockchains to people was you
  44. 01:42have ultimately nodes. A node are the
  45. 01:45different members of the network that
  46. 01:47contain a copy of the ledger. Nodes are
  47. 01:50actually like cell towers. It's these
  48. 01:52groupings of individual ledgers that
  49. 01:54make a blockchain. And Block Demon
  50. 01:56manages the individual ledgers. We
  51. 01:59basically run these cell towers for
  52. 02:03blockchains for institutions. We assume
  53. 02:05that we run around 10% of the global
  54. 02:07institutional volume of nodes around the
  55. 02:10world. Block Demon has raised around
  56. 02:12$430 million. The last valuation we've
  57. 02:15had was $3.3
  58. 02:19billion. One memory I always have is

  59. From Cold War Walls to Crypto Belief

  60. 02:22when the wall came down in Germany. I
  61. 02:25was a teenager at the time. I remember
  62. 02:27the cold war ending when the world
  63. 02:30somehow got a lot closer and also in the
  64. 02:33context of the history of Germany from
  65. 02:35the second world war being very aware
  66. 02:38that it's important to have systems that
  67. 02:40are uncorruptible in order to establish
  68. 02:43truth. And so I remember that time as a
  69. 02:47really important moment to think about
  70. 02:49how do we become closer as humanity? How
  71. 02:51do we communicate and then how do we
  72. 02:52ensure that the forms of communications
  73. 02:55are uncorruptible. What I found really
  74. 02:58exciting about Bitcoin specifically was
  75. 03:00one the immaculate conception story of
  76. 03:03Satoshi ultimately a value system that
  77. 03:06basically gets birthed by itself and
  78. 03:08then the people who can control it
  79. 03:10vanish in the background and leave it
  80. 03:12for the community. And I like the
  81. 03:14encryption and a little bit the sort of
  82. 03:16hackery nature of it. I did like that it
  83. 03:19was a currency of the underdog. Bitcoin
  84. 03:21was started as a result to the financial
  85. 03:23crisis in 2008. And the whole idea was
  86. 03:26to basically take control of money away
  87. 03:29from banks into a system that's
  88. 03:32transparent and fair and accessible to
  89. 03:34anyone. And um that excited me and I
  90. 03:37felt I can actually contribute to it
  91. 03:39because I know how to build and scale
  92. 03:41software companies and I know how to
  93. 03:43corral capital together to work on
  94. 03:45succinct problems and belief is
  95. 03:47important. I believed Bitcoin is one way
  96. 03:50to make the world better, but you also
  97. 03:52have to be an active part in creating
  98. 03:53that world. I didn't just want to make
  99. 03:56money. I also wanted to change the world
  100. 03:58a little bit. And I understand there's
  101. 03:59also lots of concerns and some of it
  102. 04:01might be bad, some of it might be good,
  103. 04:03but the system in itself I really hold
  104. 04:05very dearly. And so I was thinking what
  105. 04:07company in cryptocurrency can you build
  106. 04:09that is part of it but not so
  107. 04:11susceptible to the short-term velocity
  108. 04:14of tokens. And so that's why we started
  109. 04:16with

  110. Keep Believeing, Even When No One Else Does

  111. 04:19infrastructure when I was working on the
  112. 04:23proof of existence protocol where we
  113. 04:25worked with an Ethereum node and saw
  114. 04:27that the physical node and
  115. 04:29infrastructure was very unstable and
  116. 04:31there weren't any tools available. When
  117. 04:33I started researching that subject and
  118. 04:36talking to my friends about it, I saw an
  119. 04:38opportunity and I got really excited
  120. 04:40about it. You know, it feels so great
  121. 04:42when you see a gap in the current
  122. 04:46product landscape. What was very
  123. 04:48apparent was like you couldn't go
  124. 04:49anywhere online and say, "Hey, is there
  125. 04:52a tool that helps me to run an Ethereum
  126. 04:54node really efficiently? Okay, if this
  127. 04:56is hard for us people who are really
  128. 04:58passionate about crypto and blockchain,
  129. 05:00how are institutions and banks going to
  130. 05:02engage in this if there's no tooling,
  131. 05:05nothing available?" What I saw is a
  132. 05:07world in which institutions would want
  133. 05:09to run these Ethereum nodes. And when I
  134. 05:12told other people about it, they didn't
  135. 05:14believe it at all. They were telling me
  136. 05:16we won't do that. But the more I learned
  137. 05:19about the structure of transactions, the
  138. 05:21cost of transactions, the more I saw the
  139. 05:24future in which blockchains become an
  140. 05:27integral part at this, I knew one thing
  141. 05:29for certain that if I hold on and
  142. 05:31deliver this, it'll be a massive win. I
  143. 05:34believed in the vision of the company to
  144. 05:36a point where nobody else believed it
  145. 05:38because obviously you're working on a
  146. 05:40problem that nobody else sees. I think
  147. 05:42that's the resilient part is then to
  148. 05:44continue to work on it while people are
  149. 05:46telling you this is not a problem. Why
  150. 05:49are you working on this? I remember
  151. 05:51raising money in 2017 2018. I told
  152. 05:53people that I believe in a world where
  153. 05:56there will be 100,000 nodes that will be
  154. 05:59run by institutions by 2020. That's what
  155. 06:02I said. and people were laughing at me.
  156. 06:04And then Block Demon itself now runs
  157. 06:06250,000 nodes. Uh you need to be stupid
  158. 06:10enough to also hold on to an idea that
  159. 06:13most smart people around you will tell
  160. 06:15you is a very bad idea.

  161. The Mindset That Survived Two Crypto Winters

  162. 06:20Within 6 months of starting the company,
  163. 06:22the markets of crypto fell down a cliff
  164. 06:25which we call the crypto winter which is
  165. 06:27like when the tokens that drive a lot of
  166. 06:29the momentum in blockchain suddenly
  167. 06:31devalue by like 80 90%. Everybody
  168. 06:34stopped investing. Banks started
  169. 06:36exploding. We had two banks at the time.
  170. 06:39One bank went bankrupt and so a lot of
  171. 06:41the inherent growth for the business
  172. 06:43dried up right when I started the
  173. 06:45company. You know, quite frankly, at
  174. 06:48that point in time, everything was so
  175. 06:49bad. We ran out of money a few times.
  176. 06:52Uh, I had to subsidize payroll, for
  177. 06:54example. The only way for Block Demon to
  178. 06:57survive is if I put in everything I have
  179. 07:00without a clear promise of a better
  180. 07:02market environment, and I just have to
  181. 07:04make it last as long as I can with as
  182. 07:06much output as I can. And so there were
  183. 07:08a lot of moments where it felt like wow
  184. 07:10I don't really have a believable path
  185. 07:12forward but still I have to convince
  186. 07:15people that there is one. As an
  187. 07:17entrepreneur that's your job ultimately
  188. 07:19you have to find resources where other
  189. 07:20people can't. You have to keep people
  190. 07:22motivated and inspired when uh it looks
  191. 07:24very bleak and uh you just have to keep
  192. 07:26on leading by example.
  193. 07:32[Music]
  194. 07:34The first one was block demon was very
  195. 07:36small. I think the second time around
  196. 07:38was unique because at that point we
  197. 07:40raised a lot of money. So we had a lot
  198. 07:42of capital. What was difficult is that
  199. 07:44we started 2022 by raising a lot of
  200. 07:47money buying companies to build a sort
  201. 07:49of really cohesive product suite that we
  202. 07:52thought we could sell within the year to
  203. 07:54institutions. And what happened is that
  204. 07:57market just died. There was suddenly a
  205. 08:00lot of pressure on ultimately scaling
  206. 08:02down the projects we worked on that
  207. 08:05created operational pressure on the
  208. 08:07company to how do we rightsize the
  209. 08:09company? How do we losing money in
  210. 08:12developing products that currently have
  211. 08:14no market? It was a lot harder because
  212. 08:16we had to make the hard choice to also
  213. 08:19let go of a lot of block demons and
  214. 08:21people that worked with us in order to
  215. 08:23um ultimately be operational efficient.
  216. 08:25changing strategies and letting go of
  217. 08:28people in order to adjust for a longer
  218. 08:31period of time without any growth of a
  219. 08:34more mature company. And so I'd say that
  220. 08:37crypto winter felt harder to me because
  221. 08:40obviously um losing people from your
  222. 08:43team because of that is really really
  223. 08:45hard. The way I describe it to people,
  224. 08:48it actually just felt like another
  225. 08:50Wednesday. You just take it on the chin
  226. 08:52and are like, "Okay, now I need to solve
  227. 08:53this problem." So you have to maintain
  228. 08:55an illusion of um competence and vision
  229. 08:59where like hey this is not a problem.
  230. 09:01This is just a little bump on the road.
  231. 09:03I know exactly how we're going to solve
  232. 09:04it. It's challenging because as a
  233. 09:06founder you know that a lot of the plans
  234. 09:09and thoughts I had very early on are
  235. 09:11assumptions. I don't know if they're
  236. 09:13right or wrong but I have to pretend I
  237. 09:15do. But you know I mean like anything
  238. 09:17else you just try to not tell yourself
  239. 09:20it's so bad and you just keep moving.
  240. 09:22and we found solutions for it. You know,
  241. 09:25um having a really strong team and
  242. 09:27people who uh have good integrity is
  243. 09:30really important in moments like that.
  244. 09:32And I'm very lucky that I do have a
  245. 09:34great team and people who stuck it out
  246. 09:36with me
  247. 09:40basically in a world where it's so hard

  248. Survival Belongs to the Trusted

  249. 09:43for us to develop consensus between
  250. 09:45human beings when news and social media
  251. 09:48and everything is so um polarized and
  252. 09:51it's hard to know what's true and what's
  253. 09:53not that systems that are I want to air
  254. 09:56quote infallible and always true are
  255. 09:59really important. When the internet was
  256. 10:02created, people scammed people on the
  257. 10:03internet. I never thought the internet
  258. 10:05shouldn't exist. I thought there should
  259. 10:06be regulation and rules and education to
  260. 10:09protect people from scammers, but that
  261. 10:11the benefit of the technology of open
  262. 10:14access and trade outweighs the downside.
  263. 10:18If done correctly, crypto is the
  264. 10:22antithesis to scamming. It's fully
  265. 10:24transparent. It's traceable. You can see
  266. 10:26every wallet that's active on the
  267. 10:29network. And so it's actually the most
  268. 10:32scam resilient system at its core. I
  269. 10:35think it took us 3 years before
  270. 10:38institutions started engaging with us in
  271. 10:40order to engage with institutions. I
  272. 10:43think we also made the decision at the
  273. 10:44time that the only way institutions are
  274. 10:46going to engage with us is if they also
  275. 10:48own part of blockdemon are part of the
  276. 10:51governance of block demon. And so JP
  277. 10:53Morgan and Goldman Sachs for example
  278. 10:55have uh participate in the board of
  279. 10:57blockdemon. So they're basically also my
  280. 10:59bosses which means that they get to see
  281. 11:01the inside of the company. They get to
  282. 11:03question my choices. They're not just
  283. 11:05outside customers. They also in are
  284. 11:08parts of creating the company. And so I
  285. 11:11think that gave them a lot of
  286. 11:12confidence, right? And so that was an
  287. 11:13important initial step for the first
  288. 11:16customers. And the US has uh started to

  289. Is This the Golden Era of Crypto?

  290. 11:19look very very different than it did in
  291. 11:222024. We see a huge shift that's uh
  292. 11:25materializing very quickly. The
  293. 11:27landscape of crypto will look really
  294. 11:30really different in the US with a lot
  295. 11:32more enterprises and institutions
  296. 11:34actively launching services uh for their
  297. 11:38respective customers around crypto. Uh I
  298. 11:40think in a complicated convoluted world
  299. 11:42that we live in transparency and
  300. 11:44efficiency are really really important.
  301. 11:46They're not a luxury. They're
  302. 11:49requirement for fair governance and
  303. 11:51efficiency. And so I think it is indeed
  304. 11:53a golden age for cryptocurrencies. Yes,
  305. 11:55I've seen it from it being the underdog
  306. 11:59to now becoming basically the not the
  307. 12:02main dog, but the standard, right? And
  308. 12:05so I think we're halfway there. And it's
  309. 12:06so exciting to be a fundamental part of
  310. 12:09something that I want to see it through.
  311. 12:14[Music]
  312. 12:22[Music]