Authors: Chris Dixon & Ali Yahya

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: a16z announces the raising of a $2.2 billion crypto fund, but this time they are not betting on the market, they are betting on "things that people still use after the noise dissipates." Stablecoins continue to grow during the bear market, on-chain finance begins to bear real assets, and the regulatory environment is warming up—these signals indicate that cryptocurrencies are transitioning from speculative tools to infrastructure.

The cryptocurrency cycle often follows a pattern. A wave of speculation brings attention and capital. Some of that is wasted. Some funds infrastructure that would not have been built otherwise. When the noise fades, what remains often looks more useful than it did at its peak and more enduring than it did at its trough.

If you look at what has actually been built in each cycle, rather than focusing on the price, and at what people are still using after the hype fades, you can find this pattern. We are currently in such a relatively quiet moment. The signals coming through are among the most encouraging we've seen in years.

The clearest evidence is stablecoins. Transaction volumes fluctuate with market ups and downs, but stablecoin usage has continued to rise even during downturns. People use them for savings, cross-border remittances, and payments, which often exposes how slow, costly, and unreliable alternatives can be. Their growth does not look like speculation; it looks more like network adoption: the increase in usage is due to the technology being useful rather than expectations about price movements.

Blockchain has also proven its value in capital markets. Since the last cycle, we have seen perpetual futures used for price discovery, prediction markets for truth discovery, and significant growth in on-chain lending for stablecoin credit markets. Traditional assets have begun to go on-chain, and on-chain finance is being used for assets outside of network tokens. A new financial system is taking shape that runs continuously, settles almost instantly, costs nearly nothing, and is open to anyone with internet access.

Regulation is also moving in the right direction. The GENIUS Act is a good example of thoughtful policy: clear definitions, strong protections, and room for builders. We expect more regulatory progress in the rest of the crypto market through legislation and rule-making. This provides protections for consumers, certainty for builders, and a pathway for mainstream institutions to participate.

It's worth taking a step back to ask: why is this especially important right now.

Software is becoming more complex and harder to trust. AI systems are powerful but fundamentally opaque. The infrastructure that runs the internet has become more centralized than ever before. In this environment, the characteristics that crypto networks were designed to provide are becoming more valuable, not weaker:

• Transparent and verifiable systems
• Globally networked from day one
• Economic models that align the interests of users, creators, developers, and operators
• Infrastructure that does not rely on a few intermediaries

These characteristics are manifesting in real products: payments, financial services, creator platforms, decentralized infrastructures, new ways for humans and machines to collaborate. Many of these are being built by startups and increasingly adopted by financial institutions, tech companies, and others to provide faster, cheaper, and more reliable services.

In fact, this means instant global remittances, holding dollars without banks, tokenizing assets so they can flow frictionlessly anywhere, accessing composable networks that others can build upon, and embedding these capabilities in applications everywhere. It also includes new models that were previously impossible: users can directly own their assets and identities, holding inviolable digital property; software agents can make decisions, act, and trade on behalf of users, acquiring computing power, data, and services in the process; and increasingly autonomous networks can fund, govern, and evolve themselves through code.

This is why we are announcing the new crypto fund 5; it was created for this moment. The founders we are supporting with this $2.2 billion fund are focusing on the less noticed parts of the cycle, but we believe they will generate more enduring value: turning new infrastructures into products that people use every day. This is the way every significant computing platform ultimately makes an impact, and cryptocurrencies will too.

——cdixon, Ali Yahya, Guy & Eddy Lazzarin