Andreessen Horowitz to Drop ‘Crypto’ From Name of Flagship Blockchain Fund

Andreessen Horowitz, which made one of the boldest bets on blockchain investments in the venture world, is dropping the term crypto from the name of its fund focused on the category.

A16z crypto, which has raised nearly $10 billion across five funds, has informed some of its limited partners that it plans to change its name to a16z frontier and broaden its investment strategy beyond crypto, according to a person briefed on the matter. One of the firm’s general partners, Ali Yahya, also informed some investors that he is exiting the firm to work on his own startup, the person said. Yahya joined a16z in 2017 as the first full-time member of its crypto team.

The decision represents a symbolic shift for one of the most prominent crypto venture operations, which launched its first dedicated fund in 2018. Under general partner Chris Dixon, a16z crypto invested in top blockchain companies including Coinbase, Uniswap and Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis, raising monster funds that included a $4.5 billion vehicle it launched during the crypto bull market of 2022.

Its most recent $2.2 billion fund, announced this May, was less than half the size of the 2022 fund, reflecting a cooldown in enthusiasm around crypto startups. In recent years, a16z crypto has also invested in non-blockchain based startups including Kalshi and Ornn, a financial infrastructure startup focused on AI compute markets.

By broadening its investment mandate beyond blockchain startups, the firm will be following in the path of other top crypto venture firms. In May, Haun Ventures, founded by former a16z crypto general partner Katie Haun, announced that it would be looking at financial services startups beyond crypto with $1 billion in new funds. And in August, Paradigm, started by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia partner Matt Huang, said that its new $1.2 billion fund would also invest in AI, robotics and “other frontiers.”

A16z crypto has been a particularly outspoken booster of blockchain technology. Dixon was one of the main evangelizers of the web3 investing boom of 2021 and 2022, arguing that much of the internet’s infrastructure and applications should be rebuilt on decentralized rails and governed through digital assets called tokens. His 2024 book Read Write Own aimed to popularize the concept, especially as Andreessen Horowitz broadened its lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.

The firm became a top financial backer of crypto-friendly political candidates, putting tens of millions of dollars into the super PAC network Fairshake ahead of the 2024 election. One of a16z’s founders, Marc Andreessen, also became a vocal booster of then-candidate Donald Trump, who began to voice his support for crypto and won over much of the industry after a perceived crackdown by the Biden administration.

Despite a major legislative victory with the Genius Act in mid-2025, which established regulation for dollar-backed cryptocurrencies called stablecoins, the crypto industry has suffered a broad, prolonged downturn in 2026. That includes the recent failure of an a16z-backed bill called the Clarity Act that would have established broader crypto regulation over financial markets, as well as scrutiny into conflicts of interest with the Trump family’s growing crypto business empire.

Dixon, meanwhile, acknowledged in a long thread on X earlier this year that it was “fashionable” to say that “non-financial use cases of crypto are dead.” That came as some of its biggest Web3 bets, such as the Axie Infinity and the decentralized social media platform Farcaster, fell far short of their ambitions. Dixon wrote that crypto instead was now in its “financial era,” pointing to the rise of stablecoins and agentic payments.

“We play the long game at a16z and a16z crypto,” he wrote.

Leo Schwartz is a reporter covering the intersection of tech and politics. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at leomschwartz.24