Morning Minute: a16z Drops 'Crypto' From Its Fund

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our daily news show 'FOMO HOUR' covering all of the top stories and market action.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors chop as oil goes higher; BTC at $81.8k
• BTC ETFs see $635M in net outflows in big reversal
• a16z drops “crypto” from its fund name, though will continue investing
• Pump launched EVM limit orders in its app
• Decrypt announces onsite trading via Jupiter partnership

BitcoinBTC · USD

$81,718−0.32%

Oct 16Oct 18Oct 20Oct 21Oct 23

$84.8k$83.5k$82.2k$80.9k

24h HighHigh$81,912

24h LowLow$80,989

VolVol$1.1B

Market projectionsOdds by Myriad

Today$80,000 to $82,000$80k–$82k67% chanceThis weekBelow $82,000Below $82k57% chance

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a16z Drops 'Crypto' From Its Fund

Andreessen Horowitz is renaming its crypto fund “a16z Frontier” and widening the mandate to cover AI, autonomous machines and biology. Chris Dixon, who has run the crypto team since 2018, leads the new fund alongside Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet.

Although “crypto” is removed from the name, the firm calls it “an expansion” and says it will keep investing in crypto. The most recent fund size on record is $2.2 billion, announced in May.

Dixon’s argument is that blockchains have faded into the background of products shipped by Wall Street and fintech firms—so companies should be judged by what they do, not by the plumbing underneath. Which, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for the past month, is hard to argue with. JPMorgan put deposit tokens on Ethereum. Mastercard built agent payments on Base with Coinbase wallets. BNY tested tokenized Treasuries with Citadel. None of those were pitched as crypto products. They just use crypto.

That’s what winning looks like for infrastructure. Nobody calls Stripe a “TCP/IP company.”

Dixon points to Oculus, Skydio and Zipline as the model: long-horizon bets that looked silly before they didn’t. In 2022, with the market down two-thirds from its peak, he said he judges the sector by developer and entrepreneur activity rather than price. He’s also explicit that crypto has a job in the new mandate: letting AI agents pay each other.

Still, the timing is the timing. This lands with bitcoin down on the year, ETFs bleeding through October, and capital inside every multi-strategy firm competing against an AI trade that has sucked up everything. A fund that was crypto-only now has to pitch crypto deals against autonomous machines and biology at the same partner meeting. That’s a real change, whatever you call it. And an uphill battle. But that’s crypto’s new reality. Game on…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are mostly even after yesterday’s selloff; BTC even at $81.8k; ETH even at $2,400; SOL even at $104; HYPE -1% at $78; ZEC -2% at $1,230
• Top alt movers include PEPE (+13%), DOT (+2%) and DASH (+8%)
• Oil +2% at $101; Gold -0.4% at $4,040
• Stock futures are red again as oil grinds higher; DOW -0.6%, Nasdaq -0.1%
• Senator Richard Blumenthal opened an inquiry into payments Tether made to Nxum Group, the consulting firm co-founded by Bo Hines, sending letters to both after the Wall Street Journal reported Nxum was paid for Tether work while Hines was still advising Trump on stablecoin policy
• Crypto is showing up in the midterms mostly as an attack line against the industry, with Fairshake confirming its heavy general-election spending doesn’t mention crypto at all
• SoFi launched SoFi Earn, which it calls the first national bank-issued tokenized deposit for consumers, paying 4.40% APY on tokens each representing $1 held at SoFi Bank
• New York’s attorney general is seeking $1.37 billion from NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion over an alleged crypto Ponzi scheme that took in $1.16 billion between 2019 and 2023 while actually trading just $25.99 million of it
• A Circle shareholder sued Trump, World Liberty Financial and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in federal court, alleging laws were violated when an Abu Dhabi firm tied to the UAE royal family put $2 billion into Binance using the USD1 stablecoin, and arguing the arrangement left Circle “unable to compete”

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $635M in net outflows on Thursday in a nasty reversal; the ETH ETFs saw $110M in net outflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were green led by PEPE; DOGE +1%, SHIB +2%, PEPE +13%, PENGU +4%, TRUMP +1%, SPX even, BONK +8%
• Robinhood chain leaders were mostly flat; Pons -2% to $170M; AI +3% at $80M; Cashcat even at $103M; Torch +50%, Microduck +53% an GF +75x led top movers
• Solana top movers included Nagi +650%, Birb +40% an Monerochan +130%; Kimchi -50%

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Decrypt added onsite token trading through a partnership with Jupiter, letting readers with Decrypt Money Accounts swap tokens without leaving the site or connecting an external wallet
• Pump launched EVM limit orders spanning ETH, RH Chain, Base, BSC and more
• Hyperliquid led onchain protocols in revenue with $2.78M, followed by Pump with $1.94M and Papertrade with $1.11M

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks even at 31.3 ETH, BAYC -5% at 5.67 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 2.46 ETH
• Invisible Friends (+16%) and Azuki (+8%) led top movers
• OpenSea introduced referral fees on its mobile app, with users earning 25% of their referrals’ swap fees