Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) voted against a final proposal to deploy Uniswap V3 on the BNB Chain using the Wormhole bridge, shows the Uniswap DAO forum. The governance proposal to deploy the latest Uniswap iteration on the BNB Chain was submitted on Feb. 2 by 0xPlasma Labs on behalf of the Uniswap Community, after passing a temperature check with 20 million (80.28%) votes for yes, and 4.9 million (19.72%) votes for no. The venture firm used its 15 million UNI holding against the move. At the time of publication, only 3% of votes had been cast, or 23.4 …

2022 was a watershed year for crypto venture capital, as investors poured tens of billions of dollars into blockchain-focused startups despite the overwhelmingly bearish trend in asset prices. Is the VC-dominated crypto funding model good for the industry? Only time will tell. Cointelegraph Research is still in the process of tallying all the funding figures for the year, but 2022 easily outpaced all other years in terms of total capital raised and deals completed. VC inflows were above $14 billion in each of the first two quarters before receding to just under $5 billion in the third quarter — still …

For the uninitiated, the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology can be daunting, confusing and difficult to comprehend. Three industry experts and a skeptical economist explore the past, present and future of the burgeoning technology in a new online learning series. Masterclass is a web-based education platform that offers “classes” from subject matter experts in their respective spheres of influence. You can learn how to cook with Gordon Ramsay, explore the art of acting with Natalie Portman or master the tennis racket with Serena Williams. Its newly launched series on cryptocurrencies, blockchain and Web3 technology follows in the same vein. …

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a hedge fund that manages roughly $28 billion USD, has become one of the major victims of the crypto market crisis that broke out last spring. Despite the downturn, the company said it remains faithful to “the crypto-centric vision of the internet called Web3.” In his commentaries to Wall Street Journal’s review of a16z's crypto involvement, published on Oct. 26, Chris Dixon — a general partner of the fund and a chief decision maker on crypto investments — pledged his intention to continue investing in the market despite the losses. Dixon said he believes there is “a …

Decentralized knowledge protocol Golden has closed a $40 million funding round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, with additional participation from Protocol Labs, OpenSea Ventures and the founders of Solana, Dropbox, Postmates and Twitch, among others. In addition to leading the Series B funding round, Andreessen Horowitz’s general partner Ali Yahya will join Golden’s board alongside a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen. The funding gives Golden additional resources to continue building its protocol, which is designed to standardize the discovery and verification of knowledge in the era of Web3. Specifically, Golden is developing a decentralized interface that incentivizes collecting and …

Billionaire tech entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen says that Web3 and its underlying blockchain technology reminds him of the rise of the early internet. Andreessen, better known today as the co-founder of the blockchain-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), originally found success by developing the first widely used web browser called Mosaic and then founded Netscape Navigator, which dominated the browser market throughout much of the 1990s. Appearing on the Bankless podcast alongside investment partner and colleague Chris Dixon, Andreessen said that increasing adoption and a flurry of development in Web3 appears remarkably similar to the rush of …

Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader cryptocurrency market have provided very little comfort in recent weeks, as macroeconomic headwinds and the implosion of the Terra ecosystem continue to reverberate. But, if we look beyond the immediate price action, we observe an industry that continues to grow and evolve, as well as attract sizable capital investments from major funders. The latest edition of venture capital (VC) Roundup highlights the continued growth of Web3 gaming, metaverse applications and even decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Related: Crypto Biz: Smart Money is betting big on Web3, layer 2, May 19-25 Andreessen Horowitz backs Irreverent Labs Blockchain …

Even though crypto markets appear to be on a long, arduous path ahead based on recent weeks of token turmoil, venture investors looking to get their hands on a Web3 future aren't slowing down. On Wednesday, venture capital giant, a16z, announced closing its fourth cryptocurrency fund at $4.5 billion. This brings the total money invested by Andreessen Horowitz in digital currency and blockchain business to more than $7.6 billion. The new investment vehicle will focus on early-stage ideas as well as projects that are more mature and have already shown some traction. According to the firm, $1.5 billion of the …

Crypto-focused venture firm NGC Ventures has launched a new ecosystem fund dedicated to Web3 projects, underscoring heightened investor demand for startups that are contributing to the development of a decentralized internet. NGC Metaverse Ventures, the company’s third blockchain fund, raised $100 million from investors that included Babel Finance, Huobi Ventures, Nexo Ventures, Altonomy and GBIC. The fund will allocate capital towards “high-potential projects” in the Web3 economy, according to Roger Lim, NGC Ventures’ general partner. The Web3 fund has already invested in three startups, NGC disclosed on Wednesday. Based in Singapore, NGC Ventures was founded in 2017 as a blockchain …

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has launched a $600 million fund dedicated to gaming startups with a focus on Web3, saying it believes “Games infrastructure and technologies will be key building blocks of the Metaverse.” Dubbed Games Fund One, the fund will invest in three main areas: game studios, consumer applications — which support player communities, with Discord used as an example — and gaming infrastructure providers. The a16z team said “The coming Metaverse will be built by games companies, using games technologies” and that the industry has already “solved many of the problems that need to be solved …

Web3 gaming and entertainment company Metatheory founded by Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round on Monday. The round was led by crypto capital venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Pantera Capital, the venture arm of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, FTX Ventures, and other venture firms, according to the announcement. Metatheory was launched in November 2021 around one year after Lin left Twitch, where he wrote in a Medium article at the time that he was creating the gaming company and also a blockchain game called DuskBreakers. Lin was quoted in …

PayPal-backed cryptocurrency firm Talos is becoming the latest unicorn in the industry, reaching a $1.25 billion valuation following new funding. Talos has raised $105 million in Series B funding round led by a major global growth equity firm, General Atlantic, according to an announcement released on May 10. The funding will help Talos extend its institutional-grade digital asset platform as well as accelerate the firm’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. The raise featured major firms in both the traditional finance and the crypto industry, including Ken Fox’s private equity firm Stripes, BNY Mellon, Citi, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, …