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a16z partner and a16z crypto leader Chris Dixon published an article on social media titled "The Long Game of Cryptocurrency," stating: There is a popular saying that the non-financial use cases of cryptocurrency are dead. Some also claim that the "read-write-own" model has failed. These conclusions misunderstand the core concepts and misjudge the stage of development we are in.We are currently in the financial era of blockchain. But the core idea has never been that all crypto applications will emerge simultaneously, nor that finance will not lead the way. The core thought has always been that blockchain introduces a new primitive—capable of coordinating human and capital at internet scale, embedding ownership directly into the system. Finance is the domain where this primitive can most naturally prove its value, which is why we often cite finance as the primary example of productive use cases for tokens.Finance is not separate from a larger vision; it is part of it. It serves as the foundation and testing ground for all other applications. At a16z and a16z crypto, we are looking long-term: our fund structure is designed for a cycle of over 10 years because building new industries takes time—operational sequence is crucial. Infrastructure and distribution networks often emerge before new categories of applications.The internet did not begin with social media, streaming, or online communities; it began with packet switching, TCP/IP, and basic connectivity. Only after hundreds of millions of people went online did entirely new cultural and economic categories emerge. Cryptocurrency is likely to be similar. A reasonable speculation is that we need to onboard hundreds of millions of people through financial applications like payments, stablecoins, savings, and DeFi before we can see meaningful adoption in media, gaming, AI, or other potentially more distant fields.Many applications rely on ready wallets, identities, liquidity, and trust mechanisms. This is why a16z has spent over five years working to establish a clear regulatory framework for tokens. Great endeavors take time. The breakthroughs we see today in the AI field are the result of decades of hard work by outstanding talents. Building a new technological system is a marathon, and this is what a marathon looks like in practice: a long period of groundwork followed by a sharp turning point. It is those chaotic years that make the clarity of the future possible.

The a16z crypto team pointed out that as AI systems scale, the internet lacks a native way to distinguish between humans and machines, and the trust system faces challenges. Blockchain technology can provide solutions. The article summarizes the following five key roles:Increase the cost of AI impersonation: By using decentralized human verification systems (such as World ID), the scale of false identity generation is limited, raising the cost of attacks.Decentralized identity verification: Blockchain gives users control over their own identities, avoiding single points of failure in centralized identity systems while protecting privacy and resisting censorship.Create a universal "passport": A blockchain-based identity layer allows AI agents to operate across platforms, carrying permissions and payment information, enhancing interoperability and preventing lock-in effects.Support machine-scale payments: Utilizing blockchain micropayments and smart contracts enables low-cost, granular payment distribution, supporting economic activities between machines.Enhance privacy protection: Through zero-knowledge proofs, users can verify their identity without exposing specific data, preventing AI from misusing information for impersonation.a16z believes that blockchain is a necessary infrastructure for building an AI-native internet, capable of restoring trust and supporting the healthy development of AI systems.

The prediction market professional trading terminal Kairos announced the completion of a $2.5 million financing round, led by a16z crypto, with follow-on investments from Geneva Trading, the University of Illinois, and angel investors.Kairos was co-founded by Jay Malavia (CEO) and Zayd Alzein (CTO), both of whom previously worked at the traditional financial company Cboe Global Markets. They founded the project after noticing the fragmented information and disjointed experience in the prediction market industry. Their platform aims to integrate the market data and trading of leading prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket, providing a fast, customizable dashboard that synchronously displays relevant news and trading data. The company plans to launch a private beta version in the coming weeks, and currently, the team consists of only the two co-founders, with plans to start hiring after the financing.

According to GMGN market data, the Base ecosystem meme coin MOLT has reached a market capitalization of $25 million, setting a new historical high. The current market cap is reported at $23.85 million, with a 24-hour increase of 1800%.According to X data, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen's X account followed moltbook about 20 minutes ago, triggering this surge, with MOLT's market cap skyrocketing from approximately $8.5 million to a peak of $25 million, a 200% increase. It is understood that Moltbook (MOLT) is closely related to the Moltbook project. Moltbook is a social networking platform led by AI agents (Molty or Moltbot, derived from the previous Clawdbot project), positioned as "Reddit for AI agents" or "the homepage of agent internet." On the platform, AI agents autonomously post, comment, like, and interact, forming a self-governing community, while humans mainly act as observers.ChainCatcher reminds users that most meme coins have no real use cases and are highly volatile, so please pay attention to asset protection and avoid FOMO.

Story Protocol has postponed the unlocking of early investor and team tokens originally scheduled for February 2026 by 6 months to August of this year, in order to reduce short-term selling pressure and market volatility.This plan has been agreed upon by major investment firms such as a16z and Polychain Capital. The board stated that this move aims to avoid anticipated sell-offs before the unlocking and will use the next 6 months to promote revenue growth, validate PMF, and collaborate with a large AI company. After the adjustment, investors will unlock 25% of their tokens 18 months after the TGE, with the remaining portion released monthly in a linear fashion before the 42nd month.

According to CoinDesk, Robinhood participated in the Series B funding extension of the crypto trading platform Talos, which is valued at approximately $1.5 billion. This round of financing totaled $45 million, with new strategic investors including Sony Innovation Fund, IMC, QCP, and Karatage, while returning investors such as a16z crypto, BNY, and Fidelity Investments also participated.Johann Kerbrat, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Robinhood's crypto business, stated that Talos's flexibility and rapid adaptability will help Robinhood deepen liquidity and provide more advanced features for crypto clients.

The address supported by a16z purchased 243,000 HYPE through Anchorage early this morning. As of the time of writing, the related address has accumulated a total of 1.53 million HYPE, valued at approximately 50.49 million USD.In September last year, a similar operation was also identified as a suspected a16z address. At that time, the suspected a16z address purchased 210,000 HYPE.

The decentralized hosting startup Entropy, supported by a16z, announced that it will shut down and return the remaining funds to investors.Entropy's founder and CEO Tux Pacific stated that after four years of operation, multiple business pivots, and two rounds of layoffs, the company failed to find a business model that matched the scale of venture capital. After initial market feedback indicated that its business model was not suitable for venture capital scale, the decision was made to cease operations. It is reported that Entropy completed a $25 million seed round of financing led by a16z crypto in June 2022, with a total funding amount of approximately $27 million. The company was initially positioned as a decentralized alternative to centralized custodians like Fireblocks and Coinbase, but later pivoted to develop a crypto automation platform.

The decentralized custody startup Entropy, led by a16z, announced its shutdown and the return of remaining funds to investors.Tux Pacific, founder and CEO of Entropy, stated on the X platform that the decision was made after four years of product development, multiple business adjustments, and two rounds of layoffs. Entropy was positioned as an alternative to centralized crypto custody institutions, utilizing technologies such as multi-party computation, threshold cryptography, and trusted execution environments to provide users with cross-chain asset management and automated signing services.According to the crypto data platform RootData, the company completed a $25 million seed round financing led by a16z in 2022, with participation from Dragonfly, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, and others, raising a total of approximately $27 million. Pacific mentioned that after recent research, it was found that the business model could not support venture capital-level growth, leading to the decision to cease operations and return capital. This event also reflects the tightening survival environment for crypto startups since 2025.

a16z Crypto published a long article on platform X stating that the timeline for the emergence of quantum computers capable of breaking cryptocurrencies (CRQC) is often exaggerated, and the likelihood of their appearance before 2030 is extremely low. The risk status of different cryptographic primitives varies.Post-quantum encryption needs to be deployed immediately due to the "harvest now, decrypt later" (HNDL) attack. In contrast, post-quantum signatures and zkSNARKs are less susceptible to HNDL attacks; migrating too early could bring risks such as performance overhead, immature implementation, and code vulnerabilities. Therefore, a cautious rather than hasty migration strategy should be adopted.For blockchains, most non-privacy public chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum primarily use digital signatures for transaction authorization, so there is no HNDL risk. The pressure to migrate mainly comes from non-technical challenges such as slow governance, social coordination, and technical logistics.Bitcoin faces unique issues, including its slow governance speed and the existence of millions of quantum-vulnerable tokens worth hundreds of billions of dollars that may be abandoned. In contrast, privacy chains, due to their encryption or concealment of transaction details, do face HNDL attack risks and should transition as soon as possible.a16z Crypto emphasizes that in the coming years, implementation security issues such as code vulnerabilities, side-channel attacks, and fault injection attacks are more urgent and significant security risks compared to the distant threat of quantum computers. Developers should prioritize investment in code audits, fuzz testing, and formal verification.

The a16z Crypto article "How AI 'Judges' Expand the Scale of Prediction Markets" points out that the biggest challenge facing prediction markets is not "pricing the future," but rather determining what actually happened. Similar issues frequently arise in some small-scale events, where erroneous or opaque settlement mechanisms can undermine market trust, liquidity, and the accuracy of price signals.Industry experts suggest introducing large language models (LLMs) as arbiters in prediction markets, including on-chain rule commitments, resistance to manipulation, enhanced transparency, and increased neutrality. For example, specific LLM models, timestamps, and judgment prompts could be encrypted and recorded on the blockchain at the time of contract creation, allowing traders to understand the complete decision-making mechanism in advance. The model weights would be fixed and not easily tampered with to reduce the risk of cheating, and the settlement mechanism would be publicly auditable with no arbitrary human rulings. The AI judgment mechanism could significantly improve the efficiency and scalability of prediction market settlements while ensuring transparency and fairness.

a16z Crypto partner Arianna Simpson announced on the X platform that she is leaving the renowned crypto investment firm to establish a new fund, aiming to expand her investment scope and cover various verticals. She especially thanked a16z Crypto founder and managing partner Chris Dixon for his long-term guidance, stating that his investment framework will continue to influence her career. In response, Chris Dixon revealed that Arianna Simpson is an early supporter of cryptocurrency, has experience in founding a cryptocurrency fund, and has worked at a16z Crypto for six years, making several successful investments.

a16z Crypto partner Arianna Simpson announced on the X platform that she is leaving the renowned crypto investment firm to establish a new fund, aiming to expand her investment scope and cover various verticals. She especially thanked a16z Crypto founder and managing partner Chris Dixon for his long-term guidance, stating that his investment framework will continue to influence her career.According to Chris Dixon's response, Arianna Simpson is an early supporter of cryptocurrency, has experience founding a cryptocurrency fund, and has worked at a16z Crypto for six years, making several successful investments.

According to Bloomberg, the AI startup Inferact, founded by the team behind the open-source software vLLM, has completed a $150 million seed round financing at a valuation of $800 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Lightspeed, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and ZhenFund.Inferact focuses on the inference stage of artificial intelligence, aiming to address the issues of high operational costs and insufficient stability of existing AI models. The project originated at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently overseen by the PyTorch Foundation.

According to The Block, tokenization startup Cork announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed round financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), CSX, and Road Capital, with participation from 432 Ventures, BitGo Ventures, Cooley, DEPO Ventures, Funfair Ventures, G20 Group, Gate Labs, Hyperithm Gate, IDEO Ventures, PEER VC, Stake Capital, and WAGMI Ventures.Cork is dedicated to building a "programmable risk layer," aimed at making the implicit risks in real-world assets transparent and tradable through tokenization. Its infrastructure allows asset managers, issuers, and others to create customized swap markets to enhance the redemption liquidity, risk transparency, and market confidence of on-chain assets. This tool can also be used to assess the risks of crypto-native products such as stablecoins and staked tokens. The team plans to launch the first production-grade risk markets in the coming months and expand collaborations with treasury and asset issuers.