web3 with a16z crypto

with @milesjennings @brianquintenz @colinmccune @smc90We provide an overview of policy and regulation in the crypto industry right now -- from a lay of the land to pulse checks on sentiment -- as well as share helpful frameworks for policymakers, and quick guidance on how things work (and how to navigate and participate) for builders.  We also dig into the mindsets, myths, debates, nuances; and quickly discuss what to expect for regulation in a few specific domains -- from DeFi to DAOs, to briefly touching on CEX vs DEX, stablecoins, banks custodying crypto, unhosted wallets, etc.Our expert guests include: Miles Jennings, general counsel at a16z crypto; he was also previously at Latham & Watkins, where he co-chaired its global blockchain and cryptocurrency task force -- Jennings has written a lot for us here, including developing frameworks for regulating crypto while preserving both innovation and protecting consumers; developing and evolving legal frameworks for DAOs; releasing "can't be evil" licensing for NFTs; and sharing detailed guides to decentralization for builders.Brian Quintenz, now head of policy at a16z crypto; previously, he was a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where he had led the agency’s Technology Advisory Committee -- during his service, the CFTC oversaw the listing of the first U.S. regulated Bitcoin and Ether futures contracts on derivatives exchanges, and the rapid expansion of DeFi.Collin McCune, who joined as head of government affairs at a16z crypto a few months ago; he has spent a decade on Capitol Hill, and most recently was Deputy Staff Director of the House Financial Services Committee. I asked McCune to jump in on this episode for where we cover navigating Congress and the legislative process....all in conversation with editor in chief Sonal Chokshi.To stay up to date on our ongoing efforts, regular regulatory recaps, and other resources or educational materials that you can use or point others to, please also subscribe to our newsletter for the latest dispatches.As a reminder: none of the discussion is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information -- including a link to a list of our investments. 

with @b1ackd0g @noahcitron @eddylazzarin @smc90This episode is all about programming languages and crypto -- and it’s for both existing blockchain & smart contract programmers, and also other non-web3 developers seeking to enter the space... and, for anyone who is just curious about how programming languages evolve and come into existence (as well as interested in the intersection of language, code, and expression!)It's a fun and fascinating ride, because we cover everything from differences (and similarities) in conventional programming languages vs. smart contract programming; discuss and debate the unique constraints (and opportunities) of blockchains; and also touch on topics such as formal verification, governance & community, tooling, cross-platform adaptation, and much much more... But we also dig into with the history, ebbs, and flows of traditional programming to today. Our guests in this episode, in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, include: Sam Blackshear -- co-founder and CTO of Mysten Labs (which is building foundations for the decentralized future of web3); Sam has a long history in programming languages from his PhD to working at Facebook (and Libra/Diem) to creating and being one of the authors of Move, an open-source programming language for building smart contracts;Noah Citron, smart contract & research engineer here at a16z crypto (who also recently authored a light client for Ethereum called Helios, and, won a challenging gas-optimization challenge with another partner here); andEddy Lazzarin, head of engineering for a16z crypto; before that, Eddy was in software engineering at Netflix, as well as data engineering and data science at Facebook.As a reminder, none of this is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information – including, a link to a list of our investments. 

with @robertiger @cdixon @smc90In this intimate chat with Bob Iger (now-again CEO of Disney, although this conversation was recorded a few months ago), a16z crypto host Sonal Chokshi and  founding general partner Chris Dixon discuss the interplay between technology, content, and distribution... Bob shares his journey (as captured in his book The Ride of a Lifetime and beyond) -- and the journey of various creators! -- especially as the industry has evolved from TV and cable to the advent of the internet/ web 1.0; to web 2.0 and distribution models like streaming, to business models like advertising; to web3 and emerging technologies like VR and AR. We also touch briefly on related top of mind topics like IP, decentralization, remote work, and more. As well as other themes top of mind for company (and community) builders of all sizes -- from the innovator's dilemma and whether to build vs. buy, to managing creatives and much more. ---As a reminder, none of the discussion should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a list of our investments.

with @brian_armstrong @bhorowitzAn all-new, guest-hosted episode based on a chat that took place just this week between: CEO and co-founder of Coinbase Brian Armstrong;interviewed by a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz, who authored the bestselling business books The Hard Things About the Hard Things and What You Do is Who You Are on how to create your business culture.Their conversation — which took place just this week (November 29, 2022) at our inaugural a16z crypto Founder Summit — goes into management, company culture, and much more on building and overcoming the hard things while innovating…  as well as commentary on recent events and news (FTX etc.) in the crypto industry and beyond. You can also watch this on our YouTube channel at: https://youtu.be/_YqQGs4QxDM---As a reminder, none of the discussion should be taken as business, legal, tax, or investment advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments. 

A  hallway-style conversation between a16z crypto's Chris Dixon, Eddy Lazzarin, and Sonal Chokshi about market conditions, cycles of innovation, and mental models for navigating crypto and web3 -- as well as the longer arc and evolution of technology; methods & metrics for measuring price-innovation cycle ebbs and flows; some key trends; and more. This episode originally ran in May 2022, as episode #1 in our new show 'web3 with a16z'. The 2022 State of Crypto report referenced can be found at a16zcrypto.com/stateofcrypto -- please sign up for our newsletter to be notified about the next report and other resources + updates: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/As a reminder, none of this discussion should be taken as business, legal, tax, or investment advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

with @punk6529 @cdixon @smc90Chris Dixon and Sonal Chokshi chat with Punk6529 about NFT use cases; NFT art (and generative art!); VR, AR, metaverse; more. As well as about regulatory mindsets, moves, and news -- such as Apple's in-app purchasing guidelines for NFTs, and Reddit NFTs. links:https://twitter.com/punk6529https://web3-with-a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/metaverse-crypto-vr-games-virtual-societyhttps://web3-with-a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/web2-to-web3-nfts-art-ai-hot-topics-trends-cycles-in-computing-u_kA5xPhhttps://future.com/podcasts/crypto-creators-art-galleries-tokenized-collectibles/https://cdixon.org/2019/01/08/strong-and-weak-technologieshttps://tylerxhobbs.com/essays/2021/the-rise-of-long-form-generative-art---web3 with a16z is a show about building the next generation of the internet, from the team at a16z crypto. As a reminder, none of the content is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

This episode is a deep dive on all things metaverse, defining what the metaverse is, and what it isn’t; covering frequent misconceptions (and nuances) around how VR or virtual reality, videogames, and other applications relate (and don't relate) to the metaverse; and discussing how communities, fashion, sports, and more play here.  We also go into where crypto comes in -- including discussing trends in on-chain gaming, DAOs; themes like interoperability, composability; etc.  But we also go well beyond technology -- and into science fiction, the arts, low-fidelity design, narrative, and much, much more -- in this wide-ranging, hallway-style conversation between:Herman Narula, author of the new book Virtual Society: The Metaverse and the New Frontiers of Human Experience; Narula is also the CEO and co-founder of Improbable;Elena Burger, deal partner on a16z crypto (where she focuses on games, NFTs, web3 media, infrastructure, and more); Berger also wrote a thoughtful review of Narula’s book;...and host Sonal Chokshi (who also shares writings on topics such as "narrative collapse" and more as well as past episodes of the a16z Podcast with Narula on distributed systems at scale, gaming, and more).For more on metaverse from the a16z crypto, please see this piece.To order Narula's book, please select from here.---web3 with a16z is a show about building the next generation of the internet, from the team at a16z crypto. As a reminder, none of the content is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

with @kevinrose @cdixon This wide-ranging discussion is a tour through tech trends and hot topics both within and beyond crypto – including art, AI, the evolution of mediums including blockchains; a deep dive on NFTs, artists, communities; debates around cc0, modding and copying on the internet, royalties; plus role of brands, DAOs, wisdom of crowds; and much more. The hallway-style conversation took place this week between Chris Dixon (founding general partner of a16z crypto, former entrepreneur) and Kevin Rose (co-founder of Proof Collective, Digg, more). Their discussion is not just a journey through time (long cycles of computing, web2 to web3) and place (LA, SF, NYC), but into "the age of wonders". Are we at the end of (computing) history, or the beginning? You decide... but only after listening to this conversation. As a reminder, NONE of this is investment, business, legal, or tax advice -- nor is it directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund – also, please note that any a16z investments and portfolio companies mentioned are not representative of all a16z investments; you can see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

with @timbeiko @tim_roughgarden @alive_eth @smc90A deep dive on all things Ethereum, which this week makes the big move to Proof of Stake in The Merge. So in this long and wide-ranging conversation with Tim Beiko -- who runs the core devs calls and Protocol Support for Ethereum Foundation -- a16z crypto head of research (Tim Roughgarden), general partner (Ali Yahya), and editor in chief (Sonal Chokshi) cover:how Ethereum got here today -- and the co-evolution of the protocol and the community;what went into The Merge -- both technical and the social processes behind the outcomes;  what changes, what doesn't;top of mind tech trends such as rollups, data availability, EVMs, and more (as well as hot topics including proposer-builder separation and others);views on token governancethe nature of distributed collaboration especially between R&D...but it's really a conversation about how innovation happens, in a decentralized way.  And what does that mean for community involvement, who participates, and how more people can participate in web3? In case you missed it, check out last week's episode for an overview of proof of stake blockchains.As a reminder, none of the following is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments. "web3 with a16z" is a show about building the next generation of the internet from the team at a16z crypto; this show is for anyone seeking to understand, and go deeper, on all things crypto and web3. 

with @lera_banda @tim_roughgarden @smc90We share an overview of proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains -- from quick background on how blockchains work, differences between PoS & PoW (including the energy question), and approaches to improving both; to digging deeper into Sybill attacks and Sybill resistance... and much more on the design (and some debates) of PoS blockchains overall. We therefore also go into different consensus approaches for PoS blockchains, from Nakamoto to BFT-style consensus and beyond; touch briefly on the question/ debate of centralization vs. decentralization in practice when it comes to PoS blockchains; and cover costless simulation and long-range attacks... plus briefly discuss topics like slashing and more, when issues are "escalated" to the social vs. protocol layer. [We don’t go into too much detail on Ethereum or the Merge i this episode, since we cover that in an upcoming episode.]Our expert guests in this episode (in conversation with host Sonal Chokshi) are:Valeria (Lera) Nikolaenko, a16z crypto research partner -- who was previously on Novi at Meta (formerly Facebook), where she was a research scientist and cryptographer for the Diem blockchain; Lera specializes in modern cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, proof-of-stake blockchain design, and more.Tim Roughgarden, a16z crypto Head of Research -- who, among many other things, is also a computer science professor at Columbia, and before that Stanford (and who joins as co-host in this episode).Be sure to also subscribe to our YouTube channel  for several introductory and deep-dive videos -- including the exact topics discussed in this episode, on an overview of PoS Blockchains & on long-range attacks on PoS blockchains, as presented by Lera -- just search for 'a16z crypto research'.  See also Tim Roughgarden's YouTube channel with several lectures on foundations of blockchains, including on topics mentioned in this episode (Tendermint protocol, longest-range consensus, random leader selection, more). Finally, if you’d also like a more high-level survey of research in web3 -- and a quick tour through tech topics like VDFs, rollups, and more -- be sure to check out episode 8 in this feed, which was also a hallway-style jam with the research team...As a reminder, none of the following investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.