Big news to share: @a16z is expanding to the UK 🇬🇧

We plan to open our first international office in London later this year, and will host the next Crypto Startup School there in 2024.

Why the UK? 👇
a16zcrypto.com/posts/announce… Crypto/web3 is still in the early innings, and needs clear regulations to provide an open pathway for startups to build constructive solutions, while protecting consumers and stamping out the harmful “casino” culture that has developed around crypto.

I’m happy to share that @jasonrosenthal has joined @a16zcrypto as an operating partner. He’ll be helping our founders advance beyond the idea maze and become their best professional selves.
a16zcrypto.com/content/announ… No matter how well a founder maps their idea maze, the road to product-market fit is difficult. Getting there brings new challenges: incumbents put a target on your back, recruiting and hiring needs to accelerate, prioritization becomes more complex, etc. cdixon.org/2013/08/04/the…

I’ve long admired @EveOnline, one of the longest-running and most successful MMO games ever. So I’m thrilled to share that @a16z is leading a $40M investment in @CCPGames’ new AAA gaming project set in the EVE Universe. 🎮🪐
a16z.com/2023/03/21/inv… Initially released 20 years ago, EVE Online has had a huge influence on multiple generations of gamers, and its community-driven approach laid the groundwork for many of web3’s core principles, such as open economies, player-driven social systems, and composability.

It takes a special intellect to stand out among crypto technologists, and we’re fortunate to have one of those people on our team. I’m happy to share that @eddylazzarin has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer for @a16zcrypto.
a16zcrypto.com/eddy-lazzarin Eddy will continue to lead the engineering and data science teams that he built from the ground up, and also now manage our world-class research and security teams.

I sometimes get asked by people starting out for advice on professional development.

Here are a few things I tell them 👇🧵 Optimize for being around people with strong ethics who teach and challenge you.

For example, if you join a startup with great people, regardless of whether the startup works, you’ll learn a lot and develop relationships with people who go on to do interesting things.

We proudly contributed to the $165M Series B financing round that @Uniswap Labs announced today. It’s remarkable what @haydenzadams and the team have accomplished since we led the Series A round in 2020 🧵👇

uniswap.org/blog/bringing-… Uniswap Labs pioneered a new type of crypto exchange, as Coinbase did years before. They created the fully-automated & decentralized Uniswap Protocol, which includes an automated market maker (AMM), to easily trade assets.

There’s a lot of talk lately about the possibility of a prolonged financial downturn, reminiscent of 2008. 2008 was a difficult time for many people. But from a startup perspective, 2008 and the following 3 years turned out to be a golden age. Apple released the iPhone in 2007 and the app store in 2008. By 2009 talented founders were pouring in.

I'm thrilled to announce that we're leading @adimverse's seed round. The all-star creative team, with leadership from @RMcElhenney, is building Adim, a network of storytellers creating characters & IP collectively owned by the communities who develop them

https://twitter.com/Adimverse/status/1534157139522076673

Adim will operate as a scaled-up writers room that creates characters, owned & governed by the community using web3 technology. While the group will start small, over time the rooms will grow, spin out, and reflect the unique perspectives & talents of the people who participate.

Just launched our new web3 podcast

web3-with-a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/ Episode 1: “Method to the madness”

@smc90 @eddylazzarin + me

“A conversation about the markets and recent events affect crypto and web3; mental models for thinking about crypto and web3, and the longer arc and evolution of technology history, open source, etc.“

1/ I’m excited to share that we’re leading @TallyLabsNFT’s Seed round. The team pioneered a new frontier of NFT-based character IP with @JenkinsTheValet. They’re on a mission to tell stories that will define web3 and create tools allowing anyone to decentralize their own content. 2/ Even before NFTs hit the mainstream zeitgeist, @seeapefollowape and @valetjones recognized that NFTs could be much more than PFPs and act as a medium for communal creativity and digital IP.

A lot has changed since we started investing in crypto nearly a decade ago. We are long-term investors and here to support web3 founders regardless of market cycles.

Our initial State of Crypto report provides a broad view on where things stand today

https://twitter.com/eddylazzarin/status/1526525857551880192

This analysis of average creator revenue is my favorite slide in the report. The numbers are even more extraordinary when you consider how many more users web2 has than web3 at this stage.

“Mr. Market”

I’m excited to share today that @a16z crypto is leading the seed round of @usecocreate, a protocol that helps NFT projects decentralize and expand their communities. We believe NFT communities will play a central role in web3 as a way to develop community-controlled media, applications, and experiences.

popular web3 podcast banned by YouTube/Google with no explanation

https://twitter.com/banklesshq/status/1523317593947353089

This is how Google treats the creators who made YouTube popular.

Why would anyone trust them?

Can’t be evil > don’t be evil

The @a16z crypto team helps the projects we invest in, and the advancement of web3 as a whole, however we can.

Protocol design is challenging even for the most crypto-native, so I’m excited to share that one of the best – @sepkamvar – will be an advisor to a16z 🧵 Sep is a brilliant protocol designer, computer scientist, and artist. He is a cofounder of @CeloOrg and @mosaicbuilders and will continue in those roles. In his advisory role to a16z, he’ll be giving technical advice to our team & founders we work with.

Scaling Ethereum is an important near-term challenge, and will dramatically expand the design space for web3 apps.

We’re co-leading @optimismPBC’s series B round to continue supporting one of the most innovative projects in this space 🔥 Demand for Ethereum has continued to climb as NFTs, DAOs, DeFi and other types of apps take off, resulting in high gas fees. This is constraining growth, stifling innovation, and pricing out some users.

Web3’s rapid advancement has created huge opportunities for specialty Layer 1s that can spur new types of apps and help them scale.

We’re thrilled to be leading an investment in one of the most promising new projects: @aptoslabs We think of blockchains as a new class of computers that can make strong guarantees that the code they runs will continue to operate as designed. This in turn enables a new class of applications. cdixon.org/2020/01/26/com…

Some reasons to build your startup in web3 🧵 I recently had the chance to meet some great web2 founders considering moving into web3.

Web3 is trendy now, so it’s important to cut through the noise and highlight the right long-term reasons to start a web3 project.

Here are some good reasons to build a web3 project:

Excited to share that @a16z has invested $70M in @LidoFinance, one of the easiest ways to stake ETH and other PoS assets, and we used Lido to stake a portion of our ETH holdings on the Beacon chain. More from @DarenMatsuoka & @_PorterSmith: a16z.com/2022/03/03/inv… Ethereum’s upcoming transition from PoW to PoS will drastically reduce energy consumption and broaden access to economic opportunities. But staking ETH still has significant barriers, not least the 32-ETH minimum required to operate a node.

A key point missed by many web3 critics:

Token incentives are temporary, used to overcome the hardest part of creating new networks: getting through the “bootstrap” phase. source cdixon.org/2017/05/27/cry…

Excellent @packyM deep dive on web3 marketplaces

“Braintrust: Fighting Capitalism with Capitalism” notboring.co/p/braintrust-f… “That’s what excites me most about Web3: the new business models it enables and the new value chains that emerge when the middleman is removed.”