Four LP conversations in five days. One existing investor doing their annual catch-up. Then two prospective LPs (one US family office, one Swiss multi-family). And a sovereign-adjacent allocator running a small Web3 sleeve as part of a much larger digital-asset mandate. None of the four asked me the questions they were asking a year ago. I want to write down what's shifted, because the shift tells you more about how Web3 capital is being underwritten in 2026 than any market report.
What They're Not Asking Anymore
Two questions have basically disappeared from LP calls in Q2 2026.
The first is "what's your token-allocation policy?" In 2024 this was the first or second question on every single LP call. By 2026 it's a footnote — they've all seen enough fund structures, the SAFT-vs-equity-vs-token-warrant mechanics are well understood, and the LPs who needed to be educated have already been educated. The remaining questions are mostly housekeeping.
The second is "what's your view on the cycle?" That was the standing macro question through 2023 and most of 2024. Now nobody asks it. Allocators have stopped trying to time the cycle and started underwriting GPs they trust to do something specific. The shift away from cycle-timing is, I think, the single biggest underappreciated change in how Web3 LPs underwrite in 2026.
What They Are Asking
Three new questions, all of them harder than the questions they replaced.
Question one: "Show me your loss ratio on pre-product checks." This came up in three of the four calls. Not the IRR, not the headline winners. The loss ratio specifically on pre-product or pre-TGE early-stage checks. The question behind the question is: are you actually disciplined about pre-product checks, or are you spraying capital into pre-launch tokens and praying for points-era exit dynamics? The discipline-LPs are the ones I want, and I'd been underweighting how often they ask this in writing. I'm now answering it in writing first, before the call. It saves an hour.
Question two: "How are you sourcing in the Middle East specifically?" This one surprised me. Two of the four LPs asked some version of this, not generally "how are you sourcing," but specifically the MEA cohort. The pattern, when I dug in: their other GP relationships were Bay Area, NYC, London, Tel Aviv, Singapore. The Dubai and Riyadh and Abu Dhabi cohort was a hole in their portfolio coverage, and they were specifically looking for GPs with credible local presence to fill it. I'll write a separate Bridge Note on the Middle East cohort thesis specifically. For LPs reading this in the meantime: yes, we at PRIM3 are spending more of our time there, and the dealflow is increasingly worth the time.
Question three: "What's the one thing you got wrong in 2024–2025 and how did you adjust?" This was the question that took the longest to answer well. The temptation is to give the polished version. The version that lands with serious LPs is the honest one. My version, when I gave it: I'd been overweighting tokenomics-design quality on early-stage checks at the expense of distribution-readiness. I was wrong about how much that weighting mattered. I adjusted in late 2024 and the 2025 portfolio reflects the new framing. The LPs who heard that answer engaged more, not less, after I'd said it. The lesson on my side: stop dressing up the lessons.
What's Underneath The Shift
The three new questions all share a structure. They're asking about discipline, not about thesis. Last spring, the conversations were thesis-heavy — what's your AI x Web3 view, what's your RWA view, what's your DePIN view. In Q2 2026, the LPs assume the thesis. They've read the Forbes columns, they've read the Cointelegraph pieces, they've seen the portfolio. They're now diligencing whether the GP actually acts on the thesis with discipline, or whether the thesis is mostly performative.
That's a healthier conversation. It's also a harder one. And the GPs who get this kind of LP relationship in 2026 are the ones who can answer the discipline questions cleanly, with real numbers and real adjustments. The GPs who keep wanting to relitigate the thesis are losing time.
A Specific Thing I'm Now Doing
After last week's four calls, I've added a one-page "discipline summary" to our standard LP packet. Loss ratio on pre-product checks. Sourcing-geography distribution. Reserve-deployment cadence per check size. Top three mistakes from the 2024 vintage and the adjustment in the 2025 vintage. It's a page. It takes thirty minutes to keep current. It has cut about an hour off every subsequent LP call, and, more importantly, the LPs who care about the right questions are reading the page first and starting the conversation a level deeper.
I'll keep doing this. I'm also going to start posting a redacted version of the discipline summary in next quarter's investor letter — I think the LPs who'd be most useful to me are the ones who'd notice and engage with it. If you're an allocator reading this and any of the framings land, my LinkedIn and Telegram are open.
The next Field Notes is going to be even shorter — a specific conversation about a portfolio company's product pivot that taught me something about positioning. The next Bridge Note will be on tokenized money-market funds, which is the RWA story I think is being most badly underpriced by the financial press in 2026.