Marc Andreessen, co-founder and common associate at enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z), made a case for crypto and blockchain as essentially the most vital new structure change within the tech business.
In a Bloomberg Wealth interview with David Rubenstein, Andreessen reframed the phrases of the talk and shifted away from the speak as as to if Bitcoin (BTC) — and crypto extra broadly — is or is just not an endurable funding proposition.
“Crypto is a bit just like the parable of the blind males and the elephant. Individuals contact it from totally different sides. They get distracted and carried away and energized about these totally different matters,” Andreessen quipped. For a16z, nonetheless, essentially the most essential facet of the cryptocurrency is that the agency sees it as a basic structure change within the tech business, drawing in lots of the smartest minds in pc science.
“We view it [crypto] as a technological transformation. There’s a basic technological breakthrough that has occurred. It’s an space of pc science known as distributed consensus […] Cash is one software […], nevertheless it’s solely one in every of many.”
Reasonably than specializing in Bitcoin as an asset, Andreessen underscored the blockchain’s capability to allow interactions between actors and software program on the web to kind belief relationships in an untrusted surroundings:
“These are new sorts of computer systems. That is the place it will get very refined. Bitcoin is an web pc that’s unfold out throughout a whole lot of hundreds bodily computer systems around the globe. It’s a transaction processing system that runs with none central location. […] It’s a brand new form of monetary system.”
For all these causes, the VC agency is taking crypto very critically, Andreessen stated. A16z has certainly doubled down on its dedication to blockchain improvement in 2021, saying Crypto Fund III — a $2.2-billion enterprise fund co-led by Andreessen Horowitz common companions Chris Dixon and Katie Haun — in late June of this yr. The fund will put money into blockchain tasks at any improvement section, “from early seed-stage tasks to completely developed later-stage networks.”
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A16z has led quite a few essential raises within the blockchain house, together with the $314-million personal token gross sales for Solana Labs this June. Within the months prior, it led the $23-million elevate for nonfungible token market OpenSea in March, a $28-million funding spherical in Aleo in April, and a $40-million elevate for Talos in Could. Again in 2018, a16z was behind Dfinity’s $105-million funding spherical.
Main United States-based crypto alternate Coinbase counts a16z as its largest backer. The VC agency owns shares within the alternate price about $9.7 billion.
