The 12 Months of Crypto: June
Andreessen Horowitz Created a $300M Crypto Fund
This is part of a 12 part highlight reel by BlockWorks Group where we review the biggest crypto and blockchain story from each month of 2018.
The Story
In June of this year, Andreessen Horowitz debuted a $300 million, crypto-focused investment fund.
The fund would be co-chaired by GP Chris Dixon and Kathryn Huan (Andreessen’s first female GP) and specialize in crypto assets and projects built on blockchains.
Andreessen Horowitz is perhaps the most prolific investor in the crypto space, having already invested over $100 million into high profile projects including Coinbase, Ripple, Polychain Capital, and Earn.com.
The fund was created to be a more flexible and focused investment vehicle dedicated to the crypto space.
Said Chris Dixon:
“There are some regulatory constraints we were running into that limit how many times we could do different investments in our main fund. The new fund will be classified as a registered investment advisor, a legal regime for hedge funds (versus the traditional venture capital legal regime, Exempt Reporting Advisers or “ERA”).”
Huan indicated that the new classification should give the fund “maximum flexibility” for deal-making.
She noted that the fund would plan to hold on to investments for the long term, rather than flipping digital coins on online exchanges as a hedge fund might.
6 Months Later
The creation of a16z was good news when the community really needed it.
Six months into a violent downturn, it was a powerful sign of hope for entrepreneurs and investors to know that one of the most prolific VCs on the planet believed in crypto enough to deploy another $300 million into the space.
The creation of a separate fund was significant as well.
The signaling from Andreessen was that crypto is an official sector now, deserving of its own dedicated team and pool of capital just like AI, Consumer Products, Biotech, etc.
We’re only 6 months in, so it’s hard to track the progress of an investment vehicle that (by design) won’t be a success or failure for about 10 years.
So, rather than speculate, let’s take a look at some of the investments they’ve made so far courtesy of our friend at The Block.
For now we’ll just have to wait and see what becomes of a16z and be thankful that we’ve got investors like Chris Dixon and Kathryn Huan moving the space in the right direction.
a16z Podcast
Crypto and the Evolution of Open Source
Why does decentralization matter? This episode of the a16z Podcast — based on a discussion that first took as part of an “Intro to Crypto” event that Andreessen Horowitz and #Angels put on in April 2018 — explores the whys and the hows, from the history of the internet to the culture of crypto communities today. Chris Dixon (now of a16z crypto) and Elizabeth Stark (CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs) share their thoughts with moderator Jessica Verrilli (a founding partner of #Angels, former vice president of corp dev and strategy at Twitter, and now general partner at Google Ventures).
Decentralization and Crypto, the Big Picture
with Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Elizabeth Stark (@starkness), and Jessica Verrilli (@jess)
Why does decentralization matter? This episode of the a16z Podcast — based on a discussion that first took as part of an “Intro to Crypto” event that Andreessen Horowitz and #Angels put on in April 2018 — explores the whys and the hows, from the history of the internet to the culture of crypto communities today. Chris Dixon (now of a16z crypto) and Elizabeth Stark (CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs) share their thoughts with moderator Jessica Verrilli (a founding partner of #Angels, former vice president of corp dev and strategy at Twitter, and now general partner at Google Ventures).
Building Crypto, from Vision to Reality
with Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90)
Where are we, really, right now — in terms of what we can/ can’t do with crypto today? And what will it take to get from vision to mainstream reality? This episode of the a16z Podcast covers all this and more. It’s based on a conversation that took place between Coinbase CEO and cofounder Brian Armstrong and a16z crypto general partner Chris Dixon, interviewed by a16z editor in chief Sonal Chokshi, at our at our annual Summit in November 2018 — following a series of presentations that covered everything from early adoption, myths, and the global need for crypto; to crypto as seen through the lens of trust; to key terms and concepts that enable entirely new use cases on top of crypto.
But what are the missing pieces needed to get us there? Is crypto is too much like a religion… and if so, how does one build a company, culture, community in such an intense environment? Where does the history of open source come in? And finally, what are some of the most interesting applications and trends in the space?
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