On Oct 22 a16z cut one word from the name of the unit behind ~$10B in funds. The word was crypto. Half my feed is already holding a funeral for crypto. Slow down frens. a16z Crypto is now a16z Frontier. Chris Dixon still runs it, Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet stay on as GPs. AI, robotics and networks connecting humans and machines go into the mandate. a16z says in writing that it keeps investing in crypto and keeps lobbying for regulation. So the unit is not shut down and nothing got pulled out. Headlines about a16z quitting crypto just skipped that part. What bugs me is the timeline. In May a16z said its $2.2B fifth fund would stay on crypto and not drift into AI or robotics. Five months later the name is gone. In July Paradigm raised $1.2B that reaches beyond crypto too (both per TheStreet, approximate, one source). Ali Yahya, the first investor on their crypto strategy back in 2017, reportedly left (The Information via TechCrunch, a16z has not confirmed). Dixon argues crypto mostly runs in the background now and companies should be judged by what they do. Fair for a bank putting a product onchain. For us the takeaway is sharper. When the biggest check writer drops the label, a pitch that only says crypto gets weaker. A pitch like agents paying each other onchain gets stronger. My read: money stays, the premium on the word shrinks. Good for builders who ship something people use. Bad for anything that lived on narrative alone. I’m tracking where Frontier writes its first checks after the rename and will post what I find. What do you think they fund first, frens?