Spencer Applebaum is an Investment Partner at Multicoin Capital, a crypto-focused investment firm. His work and public analysis focus on crypto market structure, decentralized finance (DeFi), capital efficiency, derivatives markets, and the evolution of financial technology business models. ^[1]​

Career

Applebaum began his career in 2017 as an intern at Bitspark in Hong Kong. In early 2018, he worked as a Multistate Tax Intern at Deloitte in the Cincinnati area, focusing on tax-related projects. In March 2018, Applebaum joined Multicoin Capital as an Analyst in Austin, Texas. He was promoted to Associate in 2020 and to Principal in 2022. In March 2023, he became an Investment Partner at the firm, where he continues to work. ^[2]

Presentations

Specialized Stablecoin

In a December 2025 presentation at the Multicoin Summit, Applebaum outlined the evolution of fintech through four phases—digital distribution, neobanks, embedded finance, and the current era of stablecoins and permissionless finance. He argued that earlier waves improved user experience and access but failed to modernize core financial infrastructure, resulting in thin margins, regulatory bottlenecks, and dependence on legacy banking and payment networks, particularly evident in the industry slowdown around 2022. Applebaum positioned stablecoins as a foundational shift, describing them as programmable, globally interoperable money with structural advantages such as instant settlement, transparency, composability, and reduced operating costs. He suggested that this infrastructure enables more specialized fintech models—serving niche communities and vertical markets more efficiently—marking a transition from frontend innovation to rebuilding the financial stack itself. ^[4]

Capital Efficiency

In a December 2024 presentation at the Multicoin Summit, Applebaum examined structural capital inefficiencies in DeFi derivatives markets and why decentralized venues continue to lag centralized exchanges in volume. He argued that DeFi derivatives capture only a small fraction of centralized activity due to latency constraints, fragmented liquidity, and poor capital efficiency, with market makers forced to over-collateralize positions across platforms rather than deploy capital dynamically. Applebaum outlined how DeFi’s transparency—particularly the visibility of collateralization, liquidation thresholds, and on-chain risk engines—creates an opportunity to build more efficient systems through cross-margining, portfolio netting, and integrated “super protocols.” He also introduced the concept of a DeFi prime brokerage layer that could sit beneath user-facing applications, enabling under-collateralized lending, liquidity routing, and unified margin management across protocols, ultimately positioning DeFi to compete more effectively with centralized finance through improved capital efficiency and risk coordination. ^[5]

​