Matt Odell: Building Bitcoin's Freedom-First Investment Revolution

In the landscape of modern Bitcoin development, few figures have shaped both the technical and ideological direction of the industry quite like Matt Odell. A Bitcoin entrepreneur, influential podcaster, and venture capitalist with a distinct philosophical approach, Odell represents a new breed of investor who challenges the traditional Silicon Valley playbook. His decision to abandon mainstream social platforms—deleting a Twitter account with over 250,000 followers to focus on Nostr, the open-source Bitcoin-powered social network—exemplifies his commitment to user freedom and decentralization, principles that now define his entire investment thesis.

The Philosophy Behind a Different Kind of Venture Capital

Matt Odell’s approach to Bitcoin venture capital fundamentally diverges from traditional investment models. Rather than chasing growth at any cost, his investment strategy emphasizes profitability, open protocols, and user empowerment. This philosophical shift emerged from his critique of how major venture firms have historically operated—deploying hundreds of millions into speculative cryptocurrency projects while legitimate Bitcoin infrastructure builders struggle for funding.

The traditional venture capital model, forged during decades of low interest rates, prioritized user acquisition and data extraction above all else. Companies would burn massive capital for years, building “moats” by locking users into proprietary systems and monetizing their attention. However, the economic environment has shifted. Rising interest rates and the end of cheap capital have exposed the fragility of this growth-at-all-costs model, making room for alternative investment theses that prioritize sustainable profitability—exactly the approach Odell champions.

At his firm Ten31, Odell articulates a dual mandate: generate returns for investors while helping Bitcoin flourish as “freedom money” that empowers individuals rather than extracting value from them. This means investing exclusively in companies building on open protocols, maintaining transparent operational structures, and achieving profitability quickly. The thesis assumes that Bitcoin will remain valuable for decades, making it essential to measure all revenue in sats and build sustainable Bitcoin treasuries rather than chase speculative exits.

Portfolio Strategy: Profitability Meets Open Source

The Ten31 portfolio demonstrates this philosophy in practice. With over thirty companies backed by the fund, each represents a different angle on making Bitcoin more accessible, robust, and user-friendly—all while maintaining the open-source ethos that defines Bitcoin’s culture.

Start9 exemplifies this approach. The company builds Bitcoin-native software that remains open source throughout its entire stack, operating on most hardware without the restrictions Apple pioneered. Users can access all Start9 products without paying a cent, yet the company monetizes through optional pre-built hardware and premium value-added services. It’s the kind of business model that traditional venture firms would dismiss outright, yet it demonstrates the viability of profitability through openness rather than lock-in.

Mempool.Space, widely recognized as Bitcoin’s most popular block explorer, shows how open-source infrastructure can scale globally while remaining accessible. Integrated into nearly every Bitcoin wallet, the platform monetizes through transaction accelerators and B2B enterprise agreements—generating revenue while maintaining free access to core functionality. Similarly, Strike, the Bitcoin payment application founded by Jack Mallers in 2019, has become Ten31’s flagship investment. Operating globally with significant product-market fit, Strike has achieved profitability while accumulating over 1,500 bitcoin in its corporate treasury—a tangible demonstration that profitable Bitcoin companies can simultaneously strengthen the network through capital accumulation.

AnchorWatch tackles the complex challenge of insuring self-custody bitcoin holdings, bridging Bitcoin’s technical certainty with the insurance market’s risk mitigation expertise. Each portfolio company validates Odell’s core thesis: open protocols and sustainable economics aren’t incompatible with venture-scale returns.

OpenSats: Funding the Unfundable

Before launching Ten31, Matt Odell co-founded OpenSats in 2021, a nonprofit entirely dedicated to funding open-source Bitcoin developers and infrastructure projects that struggle in the competitive funding landscape. The organization operates with radical transparency—100% pass-through funding with no management fees—and maintains an all-bitcoin treasury strategy. Every dollar entering OpenSats automatically converts to bitcoin, a principle that has yielded a remarkable outcome: the organization’s treasury has grown larger than all donations it has ever received, simply through bitcoin’s appreciation.

The initiative received transformative support from Jack Dorsey’s Start Small Foundation, which contributed 31 million dollars to OpenSats’ mission. This generosity hasn’t solved the fundamental challenge Odell identified: despite Bitcoin being “the best money ever invented,” many early adopters remain reluctant to deploy their sats to support builders. The tension between Bitcoin’s technical superiority and capital’s scarcity among believers continues to shape how the ecosystem funds its own development.

Bitcoin Policy Institute: Taking Bitcoin to Washington

Matt Odell’s influence extends beyond venture capital into political infrastructure. As a founding member of the Bitcoin Policy Institute, he represents a significant evolution in Bitcoin’s strategy—moving from libertarian resistance toward Washington engagement and education. This pivot reflects Bitcoin’s maturation: policymakers need technical literacy about how Bitcoin works and why decentralized money serves the public interest.

The inspiration draws directly from the Cypherpunk movement of the 1990s, which fought encryption restrictions on two fronts simultaneously: by building accessible tools that made cryptography cheap and available, and by contending in courts and political forums for the right to use those tools. The Bitcoin Policy Institute extends this dual-front approach to the modern era, educating legislators while supporting the technical infrastructure that makes Bitcoin viable as a monetary alternative.

Bitcoin Park: Building the Social Layer

Community infrastructure represents another dimension of Odell’s vision. Bitcoin Park, which he co-founded in Nashville, Tennessee, grew from casual brewery meetups to a dedicated community hub that attracts hundreds of Bitcoin developers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts monthly. The expansion to Austin, Texas through the acquisition of Bitcoin Commons signals a strategy to establish Bitcoin hubs in America’s most Bitcoin-friendly cities.

Odell emphasizes that Bitcoin remains fundamentally a movement of individuals rather than merely a technology. Community spaces like Bitcoin Park create the social infrastructure necessary for these individuals to connect, collaborate, and accelerate Bitcoin adoption at the grassroots level. This mirrors Bitcoin’s origins, where technical development and human community evolved together through forums, meetups, and collaborative projects.

The Loan Market Warning: Preserving Self-Custody

Despite his optimism about Bitcoin’s potential, Matt Odell offers clear-eyed warnings about emerging financial products. Bitcoin-backed loans present genuine utility—particularly for holders managing significant unrealized capital gains and seeking to avoid tax implications of selling—yet they also introduce systemic risks.

The fundamental danger lies in re-hypothecation: borrowers must verify that their Bitcoin collateral genuinely remains segregated and auditable, not secretly lent out multiple times. This risk intensifies as traditional finance extends Bitcoin lending products, creating perverse incentives where custodial arrangements become more profitable than self-custody. Odell emphasizes the critical importance of companies like Strike maintaining competitive loan products backed by genuine Bitcoin reserves, preserving user incentives to hold actual bitcoin rather than corporate substitutes. Only through robust competition in the lending market can users maintain meaningful alternatives to centralized custody—a concern that defines the boundary between Bitcoin’s promise and its co-option.

This multifaceted approach—venture capital strategy, nonprofit infrastructure, policy engagement, community building, and market risk assessment—reflects Matt Odell’s comprehensive vision for Bitcoin’s future as a money system that ultimately serves individual freedom rather than institutional consolidation.