The most successful founders in this next era are going to be the ones that are much more product-focused, much more go-to-market focused, and also more pragmatic rather than ideological.

There's a strong sense that in order for crypto to succeed, it has to work with the system as opposed to trying to overthrow it.

What we found in crypto is that finances, for a bunch of reasons, kind of all hanging fruit.

One kind of mental model that I have is we should try to get a billion people into sort of being almost daily users of blockchains through stocks and bonds and stable coins and payments and remittances and so forth. Once you have people onboarded, they've used the infrastructure, the wallets, and so forth, it's natural at that point to offer adjacent services. There's a big difference between the theoretical, the intellectual, and the practical.

And it's a wonderful time to be a pragmatist building on Shem.

What does it take for a new technology to move from ideology to infrastructure?

For years, crypto was framed as a revolution, a way to rebuild financial systems from the ground up.

But today, the trajectory looks different.

The most meaningful progress is happening where crypto meets the real world, payments, markets,

and financial infrastructure that people will actually use.

At the same time, new forces are emerging. Regulatory clarity is

opening the door for builders, while AI is reshaping how software, and even economic activity

itself, gets created and executed. The question now is not whether crypto can replace the system,

but how it integrates with it, and what that unlocks. Here, the A16-Z crypto can replace the system, but how it integrates with it and what that unlocks.

Here, the A16C crypto partners discuss the launch of Fun5 and what comes next.

All right, so hey everybody. I'm here with all of the GPs at A16C Crypto.

I think this is our first all-GP episode. We've got some familiar faces,

founder and managing partner Chris Dixon, Ali, Yaya, General Partner, who's been here since the start,

as well as Eddie Lazaran, Chief Technology Officer, recently promoted to General Partner, and Guy Willett,

also elevated to the position of General Partner.

So we've got all the GPs here, and we are announcing a new fundraise.

CryptoFund 5, that is the premise for today's talk, and I'd love to get into it.

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