a16z Crypto Raises Another $2.2 Billion, Betting on “Real-World Use” of Crypto Amid Market Downturn

Authors: Chris Dixon & Ali Yahya

Translated and edited by TechFlow

TechFlow Intro: a16z has announced the raising of a $2.2 billion crypto fund—but this time, it’s not betting on market cycles. Instead, it’s betting on “the things people will still use once the noise fades.” Stablecoins continue growing through bear markets; onchain finance is beginning to handle real-world assets; and the regulatory environment is warming. These signals indicate that cryptocurrency is evolving from a speculative instrument into infrastructure.

Crypto cycles often follow a pattern. A wave of speculation draws attention and capital. Some of that capital is wasted. Some funds infrastructure that otherwise would never have been built. When the noise subsides, what remains is often more useful than it appeared at the peak—and more durable than it seemed at the trough.

You can see this pattern clearly if you ignore price and instead focus on what was actually built during each cycle—and what people continued using after the hype faded. We’re now in one of those relatively quiet moments. And the signals coming through are among the most encouraging we’ve seen in years.

The clearest evidence is stablecoins. Trading volumes rise and fall with the market—but stablecoin usage continues climbing even during downturns. People use them for savings, cross-border remittances, and payments—often revealing just how slow, expensive, and unreliable the alternatives are. Their growth looks less like speculation and more like network adoption: compound usage growth driven by utility, not by expectations of price movement.

Blockchains are also proving their value in capital markets. Since the last cycle, we’ve seen significant growth in the use of perpetual futures for price discovery, prediction markets for truth discovery, and onchain lending for stablecoin credit markets. Traditional assets are beginning to go onchain, and onchain finance is being applied to assets beyond network tokens. A new financial system is taking shape—one that runs continuously, settles nearly instantly, costs almost nothing, and is open to anyone with internet access.

Regulation is also moving in the right direction. The GENIUS Act is a strong example of thoughtful policy: clear definitions, robust protections, and room left for builders. We expect further regulatory progress across the rest of the crypto market through legislation and rulemaking. This provides consumer protections, gives builders certainty, and creates pathways for mainstream institutions to participate.

It’s worth stepping back to ask: why is this especially important right now?

Software is becoming more complex—and harder to trust. AI systems are powerful but fundamentally opaque. The infrastructure underpinning the internet is more centralized than ever. In this environment, the properties crypto networks were designed to deliver become more valuable—not less:

• Transparent and verifiable systems
• Networks global from day one
• Economic models that align incentives among users, creators, developers, and operators
• Infrastructure that doesn’t rely on a small set of intermediaries

These properties are appearing in real products: payments, financial services, creator platforms, decentralized infrastructure, and new ways for humans and machines to collaborate. Much of this is being built by startups—and increasingly adopted by financial institutions, tech companies, and others to deliver faster, cheaper, and more reliable services.

In practice, this means instant global remittances; holding dollars without a bank; tokenizing assets so they can flow frictionlessly anywhere; accessing composable networks others can build upon; and embedding these capabilities into applications everywhere. It also includes entirely new models previously impossible: users directly owning their assets and identities, with immutable digital property rights; software agents acting on users’ behalf—making decisions, executing actions, and transacting while acquiring compute, data, and services; and increasingly autonomous networks that can fund, govern, and evolve themselves via code.

This is why we’re announcing Crypto Fund V—it was built for this moment. The founders we’ll support with this $2.2 billion fund are working on the less-hyped, but more enduring, parts of the cycle: turning new infrastructure into products people use every day. This is how every major computing platform ultimately delivers impact—and crypto will be no different.

—cdixon, Ali Yahya, Guy & Eddy Lazzarin