building something new | prev. investing @A100x_Ventures
New York, NY
Joined June 2020
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Why a16z Frontier Is Good for Crypto
By now you’ve seen that a16z Crypto is rebranding to a16z Frontier and widening its mandate beyond crypto. You’ve also seen the backlash. I take the view that this is net positive for the industry:
1. The groundwork is largely done: Nobody needs another Layer 1 and the surviving middleware infrastructure (such as DEXs) has gone multi-chain. The opportunity moved up the stack to applications and the capital should follow.
2. Crypto investing is now equity investing: With infrastructure settled, deals are increasingly equity in companies rather than tokens in protocols. Equity requires fundamentals and domain expertise that extends beyond pure crypto investing.
3. Refocusing on the App Layer: As the Layer 1 and middleware problems get resolved, the application of decentralized networks and cryptography naturally ascends the stack. So far the killer apps are few: stablecoins (proven), prediction markets (proven), tokenization (ehh), and memes (for better or worse, yes). Beyond those we’ve struggled to find use cases, and my view is that the next ones will have to come from outside the insular periscope of crypto. Many have dismissed intersections like crypto x AI, compute markets and distributed spatial computing as snake-oil slop, but beneath the surface sits enormous opportunity.
4. More Intersections: AI has done a great job broadening LLMs into other industries, including law (Harvey, Legora) and healthcare (Abridge). Crypto has struggled to do the same. In those AI companies, the model is internal plumbing and the application focuses on solving a problem with a beautiful interface. Crypto must do the same, where stablecoins, cryptography and public blockchains are the feature and not the product.
5. Expanding the investment scope and the co-investor base: I’ve spent the past two years investing in both AI and crypto. For 90% of AI investors and crypto investors there is an odd dissonance and almost no collaboration, and founders at the intersection pay for it. Crypto funds ask where the token is, AI funds won’t touch chains, and the best companies I see sit in that gap. The two networks are far apart today and I expect them to meld.
This looks harsh from the outside, but it may be exactly the signal the industry needed.
i share interests with the most insufferable people ever:
rufus du sol, golf, 49ers football, watches, illenium, craft beer, beli, hiking, christopher nolan movies
cooked
normies - @RobinhoodApp
degens - @fomo
anarchists - @NEARProtocol
in a world of a million super apps, we are seeing a few begin to emerge
SF Tech Week Highlights!!
- Dinner at Oracle Park w @M___Morgenstern + @airwallex team
- @silicondata happy hour w @ani_pai
- @near_ai happy hour w @Cameron_Dennis_
- meeting up with friends! @thechangj
This weekend: “How AI degenerate are you, Brian?”
“I vibe coded a website to help me navigate all of the events and venues for SF Tech Week. Everyone is going to Tech Week this year and it’s going to be so much fun”
In another life I’m coming back as a Bear 89 Backpack so I could feast on King Salmon in the beautiful wilderness and then sleep all of winter
We have a CHONKION!
The #FatBearWeek crown goes to:
🐻 Bear 89 Backpack 👑
Heavy is the bear that wears the crown. Like really heavy.
ALT Large brown bear seen in side profile looking like a giant lightbulb in the water.
You are a struggling second tier competitor that is more unethical and lying just because you have no decency or sense of proper behavior and shows your desperation. Straight out lying about if Chris being fired I thought would be below even you.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Khosla is an investor in both Cognition and Factory. khoslaventures.com/category/enter…
We are really seeing the convergence of fintech x crypto
Cards: @RedotPay @raincards
FX: @openfx_ @OfficialXFX
Trading: @fomo @NEARProtocol
If you’re excited about some of these, you should see some that are even earlier stage…
SoftBank is going all-in with their car keys in the middle of the poker table
Let’s hope it’s not a house of cards!
BREAKING: SoftBank is set to raise more than $11 billion, in what will be one of the biggest junk bond deals ever, to fund a follow-on investment in OpenAI, per Bloomberg.
As part of its funding campaign this year, SoftBank has sold ~$15 billion worth of notes, making it the biggest junk-rated borrower in bond markets so far in 2026.
We are seeing unprecedented debt market activity to fund AI.