Morning Minute is a every day publication written by Tyler Warner. The evaluation and opinions expressed are his personal and don’t essentially replicate these of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
At the moment’s prime information:
- Crypto majors flat over the weekend; BTC at $90,600
- XMR jumps to $600 in a single day and new ATH, up 33% on week
- Jerome Powell releases message claiming fees are on account of his not complying with Trump, gold+silver spike
- a16z raises $15M throughout funds to spend money on America’s future, AI & crypto at forefront
- X pronounces plans for Good Cashtags, exhibiting stay charts together with tickers
💰 a16z Reloads With $15B, Targets AI & Crypto
a16z is again with its greatest fundraise ever.
And crypto is on the forefront.
📌 What Occurred
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) introduced it raised over $15B throughout a number of new funds, one of many largest VC fundraises in years.
Per a16z’s personal breakdown, the increase consists of: Development ($6.75B), Apps ($1.7B), Infrastructure ($1.7B), American Dynamism ($1.176B), Bio + Well being ($700M), plus $3B in different methods.
For historic context, a16z has been a prime crypto allocator for years, elevating devoted autos together with:
- $300M for its first crypto fund (2018)
- $515M Crypto Fund II (2020)
- $2.2B Crypto Fund III (2021)
- $4.5B Crypto Fund IV (2022), together with $1.5B seed + $3B enterprise
A few of their notable investments throughout that point embody Coinbase, Solana, Uniswap, OpenSea, and Phantom, plus newer offers like Kalshi and EigenLayer.
🗣️ What They’re Saying
“Because the American chief in enterprise capital, the destiny of recent expertise in the USA rests partly on our shoulders. Our mission is guaranteeing that America wins the following 100 years of expertise.” – Ben Horowitz, a16z cofounder
🧠 Why It Issues
It’s fascinating to take a peek underneath the hood right here to see what a16z is investing in, to get a glimpse of their view of the long run:
- AI infrastructure: a16z is leaning into compute, tooling, and platform layers that may energy the following decade of software program
- “American Dynamism”: protection, housing, provide chains, and different “nationwide curiosity” classes
- Infrastructure + Apps: the picks-and-shovels layer that may survive a number of market cycles (and usually captures worth even when narratives rotate).
For crypto particularly, it’s:
- extra stablecoin and funds rails
- extra tokenized property and settlement
- extra infrastructure that may onboard establishments
- extra crypto x AI convergence
It might be a bit “boring,” however that’s probably an apt method to talk about this subsequent part of crypto. We’re arrange for a boring maturity part.
Stablecoin adoption, tokenized asset adoption and extra institutional infrastructure.
The most important wildcard is how crypto and AI will converge and what funding alternatives will come up from it. We might be watching intently…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
Just a few headlines that stood out:
- Crypto majors are principally flat headed into Monday open; BTC even at $90,600; ETH +1% at $3,110, SOL +2% at $140; XRP -2% to $2.04
- IP (+20%) and XMR (+15%) led prime movers; XMR hit a brand new ATH at $590
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell launched a video message claiming that the felony fees he faces are on account of his not chopping rates of interest consistent with Trump’s needs
- X (Twitter) introduced plans for “Good Cashtags” to point out crypto and inventory costs stay subsequent to tickers
- VanEck projected Bitcoin may attain $53M by 2050, outlining long-term adoption, commerce settlement and store-of-value assumptions driving 29% annual development
- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) raised $15B to fund American Dynanism, with AI and crypto on the forefront
- Ripple obtained FCA approval to scale crypto funds within the UK
- BNY Mellon debuted tokenized deposits for institutional and digital-native shoppers
- A brand new Home invoice would bar lawmakers and federal officers from utilizing prediction markets
- Tether froze $182M in USDT linked to Venezuela oil trades
In Company Treasuries / ETFs
- The BTC ETFs noticed one other $250M in internet outflows on Friday, now with 4 straight days of outflows
In Memes / Onchain Movers
- Meme majors had been principally purple; Doge -3%, Shiba -3%, PEPE -2%, Bonk -2%, Pengu -2%, WIF -3% and Fartcoin -4%
- Testicle was a prime mover onchain, leaping 20% to $20M; Ralph Wiggum (+125%), SPSC (+45%) and SOL (+23%) led different notable onchain movers
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
- Pump Enjoyable teased adjustments to their creator charge sharing, altering coin creation incentives
- Infinex closed their ICO with 44% oversubscription
- Trove accomplished its ICO with $11.5M raised, and an extension that went stay then was walked again; TGE will happen on Jan twentieth
- Rekt Drinks’ World Star Cherry Cola sale goes stay at this time at 1 pm ET
- Rain introduced a $250M increase at $1.95B valuation to increase its stablecoin service
🚚 What is occurring in NFTs?
- NFT leaders had been barely inexperienced over the weekend; Punks even at 28.8 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 4.83 ETH, and BAYC +1% at 5.38 ETH; Hypurr -3% to 514 HYPE
- Good Vibes Membership (+26%), Real Undead (+28%) and Chimpers (+28%) led prime movers
- A Spirit Azuki offered for 28 ETH ($87,500)
