The crypto space has matured so much in so little time, but even amid a blockbuster year, it’s still facing down the existential risk of aggressive regulation from U.S. agencies.
All the while, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has been tirelessly building out a major crypto arm dedicated to ensuring that the firm will be an institutional powerhouse in the world of cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance and broader “Web3” technologies for years to come. Its early network of investments power much of the crypto world’s earliest success stories, but the firm has bigger ambitions yet. The firm’s efforts here are co-led by General Partner Katie Haun — who was once a federal prosecutor tackling fraud and cyber crime alongside top government agencies.
We’re excited to have Haun join us at TechCrunch Disrupt this year (September 21-23), where we’ll be asking her about all things crypto regulation and what the firm hopes to accomplish with its new, massive $2.2 billion crypto fund. Beyond the firm’s aggressive fund sizes and rapid deal-making in the crypto space, the firm’s partners — including Haun — have been among the most vocal about the potentially transformative nature of the blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
This has gotten more attention in 2021 when currencies have surged, fallen and surged again, minting more and more crypto millionaires while sucking in retail investors clamoring to get a piece of the hot space. It’s also been a year where the crypto space’s diversity has emerged with decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) gaining attention, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) catching global attention and decentralized finance (DeFi) threatening to upend financial institutions.
Haun serves on the boards of Coinbase and OpenSea. Coinbase went public this year and delivered one of the firm’s biggest payouts ever, while OpenSea is the dominant platform in the ever-shifting and ever-surging world of NFTs. Both companies are facing controversies on their quest toward crypto greatness. This month, Coinbase detailed that the SEC plans to sue it over the company’s upcoming lending feature. Meanwhile, OpenSea is grappling with the resignation of a highly visible executive who was discovered to be abusing company information to trade NFTs.
It’s a controversial space with plenty of money to be had, and Andreesen Horowitz has made a lot of it.
We look forward to chatting with Haun, alongside a whole host of amazing speakers at Disrupt, including Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, actor-entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The show is coming up fast. Get your ticket now for less than $100 before the price increases tonight — and we’ll see you soon.
