Pod Insights a16z Podcast Crypto Trends for 2025: Stablecoins, App Stores, UX, and More About this episode We cover some of our big ideas for 2025 in this episode, spanning the trends of stablecoins, app stores, infrastructure and UX, and more. Check out part 2 for more trends at the intersection of crypto and AI.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Steph Smith? So far in our four-part 2025 Big Ideas series, you've heard from teams all over A16Z, from American dynamism to healthcare to fintech and more. But one team you haven't heard from yet? A16Z Crypto. And that's because we have an entire episode dedicated to their 14 big ideas for 2025, ranging from crypto wallets for AI agents, to decentralized chatbots, to proof of personhood, prediction markets, crypto app stores, and so much more. After such a banner year where, among other things, Bitcoin hit all-time highs above $100,000, it really should be no surprise that our Web3 team thinks there's a lot to come next year. So if you'd like to stay up to date with all things Web3
0:45 Steph Smith? and the next generation of the internet, check out Web3 with A16Z. And of course, if you'd like to see all 50 big ideas, including all 14 from crypto, head on over to a16z.com/bigideas.
1:05 Sonal? Welcome to Web3 with A6 and Z. I'm Sonal and today, Robert and I are excited to bring you two special end-of-year episodes, which also look ahead to 2025. Because we're covering our annual big ideas, which includes some tech trends individual team members are excited about. It's a firm wide list with crypto having the biggest showing every time. And this year, our team had 14 trends compared to nine last year and seven the year before. You can check out the full list at a16zcrypto.com/bigideas. This episode is part one of two. You don't have to listen to them in any particular order, covering the trends of stablecoins, app store distribution and discovery, where the next users will come from, how builders improve and choose infrastructure, and simplifying user experience.
1:48 Sonal? Our guests for each of those are Sam Broner, Maggie Su, Darren Matsuioka, Yoke Mnoy, and Chris Lyons. Robert and I follow with some meta-commentary at the end, so stay tuned until then. And be sure to also check out our other Big Ideas episode, which covers all the ideas at the intersection of crypto and AI. As a reminder, none of the following is investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments. With that, let's begin with the first idea.
2:21 Sonal? Sam, your big idea was about stablecoins. You've been writing a lot about stablecoins. And Robert co-produced the State of Crypto report with Darren. And the big takeaway they had is that stablecoins have found product market fit. But what we really want to hear from you is why now?
2:37 Speaker 02 So, over the last year, there's been substantial platform improvement, where stablecoins went from costing $5 to less than a tenth of a cent to send from person to person. And that unlocks a huge, huge improvement in the cost structure of paying for anything. But they still haven't been adopted by the retailers, merchants, and other businesses that would most stand to benefit from that improved cost structure. I think people think that the first adopters are going to be tech-centric businesses. But those are high-margin businesses that don't need that improved cost structure. So, the most margin-sensitive businesses, like the corner stores, the restaurants, the mom-and-pop shops, are probably going to be the people
3:22 Speaker 02 who are most eager to start accepting stablecoins. We're talking about taking businesses like a coffee shop, which is running right now on a 2% margin, and doubling it. Really turning businesses that are hardly profitable today to being moderately profitable. A huge difference.
3:38 Sonal? This was what kind of gave me the aha moment, is when you talked about what the small businesses don't get from credit card companies. So, they're not only paying these fees, but they're not even getting the benefits?
3:47 Speaker 02 Yeah. What's so remarkable about credit cards is that they offered consumers fraud protection. And that was great for bootstrapping things like online sales. But fraud protection does basically nothing when the cashier is handing you a coffee as you give them the money. We're talking about 30 cents per transaction and an additional 2% on top of that. That brings a $1.50 coffee. Almost 30 cents of that, you know, a fifth of that is going to the payment provider. They didn't do anything in that transaction. They don't really offer very much value. So, the 2% margin that you're giving up is pure profit for the payment providers and a purely a negative for your local, your local coffee shop. I can't wait for them to get that 30, 35 cents margin back and fill their businesses out.
4:30 Speaker 02 It's very, very rare that you have the opportunity to add 2% directly to your bottom line.
4:36 Speaker 03 There's a bit of a cold start problem here, though, right? Because these customers have to have stable coins in order to be able to use them to pay these businesses and circumvent the interchange fees. Do you think we're going to start seeing businesses almost help promote stable coins and onboard people onto stable coins in order to reap these benefits? Are we going to start seeing this kind of turn where businesses actually help the go-to-market strategy for stable coins?
5:02 Speaker 02 That's my strong belief, but people have relationships with these in-person retailers, coffee shops, and corner stores. They go there often, so I think we're going to see these strong local brands begin to bring people onto stable coins as part of that initial adoption curve.
5:17 Speaker 03 What I love about this is when I first started covering crypto over at Fortune, my editors would always be like, "When can you buy a coffee with Bitcoin?" And I was like, "No, no, no, it's not like that. That's not what it's for." But now it's like, actually, that is sort of what, at least, this is for.
5:33 Speaker 02 It's exactly what it's for, and I think there'd be some of the early adopters to do it, so.
5:36 Sonal? Thank you, Sam.
5:37 Speaker 02 See you, guys. Thank you.
5:38 Sonal? So, okay, so that was interesting. Let's go on to the next one. So Maggie, your big idea was a very interesting one because it's actually focusing more on distribution, which makes perfect sense, given your role as in go-to-market and you're like the head of the go-to-market team here. You talk about how crypto is finally getting its own app stores and discovery. Do you want to just like give us an overview of why that even matters? Because when you hear that headline, you're like, "Oh, that feels so inside baseball. Like, why does crypto even need its own thing? Isn't it already an insider industry?" Would love you to talk about the context, what you're observing, and why you think this is an important, big idea.
6:12 Speaker 04 Absolutely. When I started at A16Z about three years ago, and really for the past couple of years, there have been so many companies within our portfolio that have tried to launch apps on the traditional app stores, so Apple's App Store, Google Play Store, and they've gotten blocked or denied or delayed for various reasons. And I think what's really frustrating is that if you read Apple's guidelines, they're confusing. One, they are not complete, so they don't necessarily address all the questions an app developer might have. But then the policy is applied inconsistently, depending on who the reviewer is. And so we've had multiple companies where, depending on who they get as reviewer, or another app is approved for the same thing that they were denied for, it's incredibly inconsistent and it's a black box.
6:55 Speaker 04 And much of it comes down to this concept of IAP having to run any sort of in-app purchase through the app stores. What's been great is that over the past several months, we are starting to see alternatives. One great example is Solana's DApp Store. They're actually fee-free. And when the Saga Phone Part Two, the second generation, comes out, I think they had something like 100,000 pre-orders. And so that will only increase. Another one is the World app. So WorldCoin or World, they've launched several mini-apps and all of these mini-apps have incredible traction. And not just these, but also our blockchains that are supporting different games. They're running their marketplaces. We have infra-marketplaces. You're starting to see so many of these and they're really starting to hit scale.
7:38 Speaker 04 And I think will become a really viable alternative for those traditional app stores.
7:42 Sonal? That's fantastic. One question that comes to mind when I hear this is, and this might be the very meta question that applies to all of crypto, actually, which is, what if you have too many options? One of the nice things about the world we live in with two dominant operating systems on our current mobile phones between Apple and Android is it's nice that I only have to go to one place to get something. So like, are these apps being listed across multiple app stores? Are they specific? Like both WorldCoin and Solana have their own app stores. And you pointed out in your big idea that it's also interesting because those are both companies that also have hardware, not just software. Like in the case of World, they have the orb. In the case of Solana, they have the Saga Phone. And that is obviously very similar to how Apple launched the iPhone and then spawned the app ecosystem.
8:27 Sonal? So are these all going to become just like filtered only through the lens of what those companies think is important? Is it going to remain open? Where do you kind of see this playing out? I mean, it's still early days, but like, how do they all talk to each other or should they even?
8:39 Speaker 04 I think at this time, the goal is to get the growth of the different app stores. And you make a great point that there might be an overproliferation. We could say the same thing about the prevalence of blockchains themselves. I do think there will need to be some sort of bridging function or consolidation from these. But for now, at least to see these viable alternatives is really exciting. And the world chain example is interesting because these are verifiable humans. So I just peeked into one of their mini apps and it has something like 600,000 registered users. And so I think we should focus on that. And at some point, you need then the curation to balance that out. This has been happening for a while with some of our NFT communities. They have lots and lots of eyeballs that are really excited to dig into other Web3 applications.
9:24 Speaker 04 And so I think we'll start to see some of them also acting as these curation marketplaces for things that are built in their ecosystem.
9:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, I was just gonna ask, you know, one thing that a company like Apple would argue is that because of the curation that they provide, they are owed some fee on all the purchases or the activity that goes on in their app store. How does that square with the permissionlessness that you see in the crypto arena?
9:51 Speaker 04 I would say at this point, there isn't a lot of thoughtful curation. So I would disagree with the first part of that potentially. The second part of that, the great thing about crypto is that you can then move to another platform. Similar thing, games need quite a bit of capital to launch. And for the past several years, blockchains have acted not just as a platform to build upon, but a publisher as well as a distribution and discovery mechanism. And what I've been seeing is many of these game chains now have their own marketplaces and they're able to feature key games that are built on those blockchains. And that is a key benefit because they are able to take users and move them from game to game. And that is the thesis of a lot of our investments.
10:34 Speaker 04 I don't think that they'll be stuck in any one of these decentralized app stores, for example.
10:39 Speaker 03 I love watching all these experiments, like the Solana phone. It like breaks every rule, you know? Don't, don't compete with Apple on like the iPhone. And then they're just like, screw it, we're gonna do that.
10:48 Sonal? Yeah, totally did a wonderful job on our podcast explaining some of the impetus behind it and, and the innovation bet that they were making with it, which I think was fantastic. So I just wanna call out that episode in case listeners haven't heard it.
10:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's a great one.
11:00 Sonal? And then one other point, Maggie, you brought up like it's actually not all fun and games. Like there are some challenges as well, which is, for example, you know, if a product has existing distribution, like on messaging apps, it's hard to port that distribution on chain. And that's one of the things that's going to be difficult for some of these companies that are maybe web two coming to web three. One example you cited was Telegram and the Ton network. I want to be very clear, we're not talking about the token, just the network.
11:26 Speaker 04 I think Telegram has been one of the exceptions. What I've heard from speaking firsthand to many, many organizations that have large incumbent distribution, so they might have a platform in web two, they might actually have something like web three, is that it's, they still find it hard to bring those users on chain. One example that you can look at the public data, Coinbase has something like 100 million verified users that have ever transacted with Coinbase. If you look at both the active users, so the daily act is monthly, that's something like eight or 10 million transacting. And the number of those users on base, I think those numbers have just went up recently. They went up from something like 10 million to 18 million, but that's still about 10% of their total base. So there's this large number of dormant users, and we actually talk about this in our State
12:09 Speaker 04 of Crypto report, which I think is fascinating because it's absolutely true. You talk to any large, could be a messaging app, it could be a centralized exchange, anything like this, and they're all trying to figure out, you know, we got them in somehow, they created an account, but they haven't done anything more. And how can we keep them coming back and transacting on chain?
12:28 Sonal? Yep, I agree. Maggie, thank you so much for joining.
12:31 Speaker 04 Thank you.
12:32 Speaker 03 It's really fascinating to think that there are so many people out there who, who have crypto. They hold it, they've interacted with it, but they're just not doing anything yet. They're sort of like lying in wait, they're dormant, just like waiting to get activated. They've got like the broadband going to their house, they've got the phones in their pockets. They're just like, what do I do with this new tech I have? And so it's just a matter of switching that on and people becoming like really actively transacting with it.
13:00 Speaker 05 Let's hear what's next. When we were doing the State of Crypto Report, we really wanted to do our best to size up the crypto industry. There's a lot of noise out there. Measuring users is very tricky in the crypto world for a number of reasons. But when we did this market sizing exercise, we actually found that only 5% to 10% of people who own crypto are actively using crypto. And to me, that stood out as a big gap, but also a really big opportunity for the industry, given where we're at on the technology timeline with blockchains and the infrastructure getting better. The UX continues to get better, and I think we're finally ready for primetime.
13:41 Speaker 05 And given where we're at on that curve, I think this next year is the perfect time to bring people on-chain, convert those passive crypto holders into active crypto users.
13:53 Sonal? For me, that was a very eye-opening idea, because so many people talk about mainstreaming these new users, and it feels not like insurmountable, but it feels like it's skipping a phase, stage-wise, in the technology readiness and development. And your idea was like a wonderful bridge to like, here's a way to bring in existing people, convert them into users. Do you guys have any theories about what brought them? I mean, we don't know the exact answer, obviously, because we don't have that data. But like, what do you think they did in the first place, and then why they stalled out before they did something else?
14:21 Speaker 05 Well, this is like the perfect time to talk about the price innovation cycle. Sure. We have this concept, which is this idea that when crypto prices go up, people get interested. And then people that get interested ultimately decide to build something, the developers come in, they build the products, and those products then kickstart the next wave. And we've seen this happen now many times over the history of crypto. And it speaks to the fact that prices are often a leading indicator for the types of activity that we want to see. And I think we're at the beginning of potentially the next wave.
14:57 Sonal? So, sorry, just to be more concrete about it, though, because I totally agree that's a great framework for it. If I were to speculate, a lot of these people that came on, like that got wallets, might have done it to buy an NFT because they saw like Constitution Dow. Remember when all those people were trying to buy the US Constitution? I think one of the most exciting things about that is that even though they failed their bid to win the Constitution, they, it brought a lot of new people into crypto. But that's probably the only thing they did and then they didn't do anything more with it. I mean, again, we don't know exactly, but like that's what I would sort of speculate. And then now they're just holding these wallets, but they're not active users. I guess the question I have, what do you think would take to get them like to that next thing? Like, what is that gap?
15:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, crypto as a technology has a number of different use cases, but it, but it's also kind of has these different movements underpinning the technology.
15:43 Sonal? Yeah.
15:43 Speaker 05 In 2024, for example, we saw a lot of progress with crypto as a political movement. We saw key politicians and policymakers speaking very positively about the technology. We also saw it make incredible developments as a financial movement, right? So Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs were approved, which broadened investor access. And so, you know, these are the types of things that ultimately bring a lot of people into the space, make them aware that this is something that they can participate in. But where we believe crypto has the most promise is as a computing movement. And Chris Dixon talks a lot about this in his book, Read, Write, Own. The real power of this technology is to create a better version of the internet
16:27 Speaker 05 that is more fair and open and transparent. And I think we are, like I said, at the inflection point here, where we may in 2025 see more developments of crypto as a computing movement because, you know, we have the people that are in there, right? And with the infrastructure developments we've seen with fees coming down, with UX improvements, with new application categories starting to emerge, we potentially could see a killer app like ChatGPT kind of showed us on the AI side that really kickstarts the entire industry and kind of delivers on the promise of crypto as a computing movement, a new internet. And that's what I think I and a lot of the team here is, is really excited to watch.
17:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is something that we've talked a lot about, but the fact that stable coins are, they've found product market fit. And all it really is going to take is one big company to realize that they, you know, not paying merchant fees on credit card transactions with your customers could be tremendously profitable for them, like transformative for their bottom line for these thin margin businesses. It's just going to take one big company to do that before this thing takes off. At least that's one pathway where you could see this thing really kind of hit the big time.
17:39 Sonal? Yeah, I'll add just that. What I again find very interesting about your idea is that notion of bringing adjacent users. And then, then when we're ready, we bring in more of the mainstream users. And we were not ready for that on the UX side anyway. Because when you really think about the mainstream users, I don't know if they're going to come through these paths. Like they're going to be, those interfaces are going to be very abstracted away from them. They might not even know they're using crypto. And so it's actually really interesting when you think about all these different waves that are going to come in through all these different paths. It's very exciting. Awesome, Darren. Thank you so much.
18:07 Speaker 03 Awesome. Thank you.
18:09 Sonal? Okay, so now on to the next one. So Yocham, to quickly summarize, your idea was builders will reuse, not just reinvent infrastructure. And your main point you talk about is how it seems like we always see a bespoke validator set, consensus protocol, da, da, da. And what you say in the post is the outcomes were sometimes only slightly better in specialized functionality, but they often lacked in broader or baseline functionality. That this year you expect to see crypto builders leverage more of the contributions of each other, like using off the shelf infrastructure and that it'll save them time and effort, but really allow them to really focus on differentiating the value of their product, which I think is a fantastic, big idea, much needed call to action even.
18:51 Sonal? So the quick question I have for you is, it sounds like it's great in theory. Will it actually happen? And like, what do you, what do you see as maybe obstacles of making this happen?
18:59 Speaker 06 I think the crucial ingredient for this idea is whether or not the tech stack keeps changing going forward.
19:08 Sonal? Yep.
19:09 Speaker 06 If the hypothesis is correct that the tech stack has stabilized or is stabilizing, and we see certain layers of the tech stack getting well-defined in terms of their interface and how they interoperate with other layers of the tech stack, then you would expect that those layers, there's specialized teams, specialized products, specialized services, working and improving these layers, and that leads to the professionalization of those layers. And then, instead of being spread across the stack, like working on each of these layers simultaneously, it becomes prudent to basically focus on the pieces of the stack that you can make the most impact on. And so, the critical question here is,
19:52 Speaker 06 has the tech stack materialized enough and stabilized enough? If there's like a surprising turn around the corner that turns this tech stack upside down, then this may not happen.
20:04 Speaker 03 Yocum, so your point about people sort of gravitating toward certain products or services or components that are existing out there, it makes me wonder, when do you know that the tech is actually good enough to say, okay, we are going to use this tech, we're not going to try to build something new and better than what already exists off the shelf?
20:23 Sonal? That's a great question. You're basically asking, how do you know as a builder?
20:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, because it's nice to say just use something that's already out there, but what if you're like, but I think I can make something better than that, you know?
20:34 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think advice that I would give that person is to always be aware of the larger ecosystem and the larger ramifications and the larger use case or application. There's a wider context that the product or service is going to be used in than you may perhaps initially think.
20:52 Sonal? Yes.
20:53 Speaker 06 So, one can make an analogy with like a car, right? So, maybe you're very, very good at like building engines, and your idea is I'm gonna build a new car. You know, I'm really good at building engines, and that's really the one key distinguishing factor. But your customer will not only want to have like a fantastic engine, right? The car also has to have like a reasonable stereo, or it has to have like, you know, reasonable seats. It has to maybe have air conditioning, right? Are you gonna like reinvent all those parts as well? Or is there a way for you to focus on the one thing that you're very, very good at while leveraging best-of-class products that are provided by others that provide other parts to the stack?
21:34 Sonal? That's fantastic.
21:35 Speaker 03 It's a great analogy.
21:36 Sonal? That's a perfect analogy, actually.
21:38 Speaker 03 But it's also, it's also very apt coming from you, Joachim, because you're German and in Germany, they have all these very, very specialized auto parts makers that like completely make like the best possible tiny component in the BMW car that like nobody else can top. So it's, it's also extra.
21:56 Sonal? I'm just laughing because I can't believe you went there, but that's a great point.
22:00 Speaker 03 It's easy to say when you have the best car components around.
22:02 Sonal? Totally, totally. Joachim, you know, I was joking with you about this big idea that one of my personal observations is that I think people in crypto have this thing which I call constraints porn, that there's a lot of people in this early phase of crypto that are just really into it because of the constraints. And I think your big idea is going to be very annoying for that crowd because they actually really like that part of the problem. And in a way, your big idea actually welcomes more new builders to the space, which is quite democratizing, in my opinion.
22:32 Speaker 06 I mean, it's really an amazing time to build in this space, right? Because so many code bases that people can tap into when they build their products or their services. And, you know, there's really so little you have to genuinely do yourself, right? Like, you can really focus on what you're good at. And for everything else, there's highly specialized parts already out there. So probably a good idea to reuse them whenever you can and tap into the expertise of other teams, of people who build on other parts of the stack.
22:59 Speaker 03 Thank you.
23:00 Sonal? Wonderful. Thank you, Joachim. And now we have the last one. So Chris, you've had a lot of different roles at A6 and Z over the last decade, but in your job, you come across a lot and you work with and you've on-boarded a lot of fashion, music, media executives into Web 3. And so I think your vantage point is not just speaking for yourself, but like thousands of the people that you've met with. So can you tell us like your big point for 2025?
23:26 Speaker 07 Of course, of course. So my big idea for 2025, which has been my big idea for 2024 and 2023 and 2022. But I think now we finally are at a state where, you know, we can really make this happen. I call it hiding the wires. And so what that means is that obviously, everybody knows the benefits of crypto and how it's going to be the future of so many different industries, whether it's music, whether it's fashion, film, the power of ownership, the power of decentralization. But there's a little bit of a lack of knowledge from people that aren't in the crypto industry.
24:06 Speaker 07 When we're using, you know, technical terms like ZK rollups or L2s or gas or gas fees. And I just have a PSA to the crypto industry that we don't need to start with the phrase of, hey, this is an NFT project, or hey, this is a token, or hey, you know, if you connect your wallet into the, like, those are great things for people in the crypto industry. But if you're gonna really take something and have it go mainstream, we can't lead with the technical terms because unfortunately, most people do not know, nor do they care. And what I mean by hiding the wires is not necessarily leading with the technical infrastructure,
24:50 Speaker 07 with the technical terms, the, the technical products that obviously are the benefits behind the application, but don't necessarily need to be the overarching sell.
25:02 Speaker 03 I love this thesis because it just like, it's about cutting through the jargon and like, okay, we talk about NFTs. What is a non-fungible token? It doesn't really matter. What matters is it's a way for creators to get paid.
25:12 Speaker 07 Exactly.
25:13 Speaker 03 Or like, even somebody at our own company the other day was like, why do I need a stablecoin? But like, what if you didn't call it a stablecoin and it was just a way to save like 50 bucks over the course of a year on coffees that you're buying, you know?
25:26 Speaker 07 Exactly.
25:27 Speaker 03 All of a sudden, it's like, oh, I, whatever it's called, I don't know. I just, I want it because it makes sense.
25:32 Speaker 07 I want it. And I can't believe we didn't have this beforehand.
25:36 Speaker 03 Yes.
25:37 Speaker 07 You know, I came from the music industry. And when I used to go to conferences, nobody ever went to an MP3 conference. You know, like, like, why are we starting conferences in using technical terms in order to try and attract mainstream users into the space? But we're very happy to put an NFT conference on a billboard at any moment. A great example is the SMTP, right? Like, that's actually like a extremely technical protocol, you know, where anybody could build on top of it, but through apps like Gmail and Superhuman and Yahoo Mail and all these things made it extremely simple for people to utilize and get the benefits of SMTP software.
26:20 Speaker 07 When I'm sending emails and blasting back and forth and crushing through my day, I'm not thinking, oh, wow, like, this SMTP software is working perfectly. I'm just doing what I have to do. And because of that, I'm getting the benefits of the technology. And I think the same thing really needs to happen when it comes to crypto, where there's so much benefits. I mean, you think about decentralization, you think about, you know, ownership, you think about, you know, knowing your customers and disrupting middlemen and, you know, being able to have direct, I mean, my hope is that for next year, if we can have more businesses and more companies that are thinking that intuitively for the customer and for the
27:01 Speaker 07 everyday people, it's going to, you know, get us creating new industries and reimagining how the future of creatives, how the future of small, medium businesses, you know, the future of restaurants, you name it, will all be able to leverage the benefits of crypto.
27:18 Sonal? And interestingly enough, all those people you cited, creators, the small businesses, et cetera, are the ones that would benefit the most from the futures of crypto. But to your point, they're not able to directly access it yet.
27:31 Speaker 07 Exactly. And it's not their fault, it's not their job to understand how to swap tokens or to, you know, have different wallets that go off different chains. Like, they just want to be able to get access to the benefits. This is why, like, we're all working in this space, and that's what I'm most excited about.
27:48 Sonal? That's perfect and a great note to end on.
27:52 Sonal? Well, why don't we start by just riffing off what we see are the kind of cross cutting themes?
27:56 Speaker 03 So I think this year I noticed three broad categories of topics that people brought up for their big ideas. The first section was having to do with AI and the intersection of AI and crypto, which is no surprise. It's been just a total, you know, momentous year for AI. The second bucket, I would describe as, you know, we like to talk about digifizzy here.
28:20 Sonal? Yeah. Oh, God, I hate that phrase, but yes.
28:22 Speaker 03 I know. It's a, it's a rough word, but this kind of coming together of the digital and physical worlds.
28:27 Sonal? Oh, interesting.
28:29 Speaker 03 In a sort of practical way. And, uh, you know, that's everything from kind of like payments to voting, to creating networks for physical infrastructure. So if maybe AI is like the software side, maybe this is more of like the hardware or hardware of like reality and life and living.
28:47 Sonal? By the way, on that second theme, that's so interesting because I would never have categorized it that way. But now that you say that, I see exactly what you mean because there's examples of tokenizing things in the physical world. Tokenizing, putting bonds on chain. I mean, one of the examples is even using your own physical body and biometric data and tokenizing that. So you're right. That is interesting.
29:07 Speaker 03 Right. I mean, how much more physical can you get?
29:10 Sonal? Yeah, yeah, we can. I wish I could cut you saying digifizzy, but hey, uh, I'll take it because that is what the worst. By the way, where do you stand on digifizzy versus digital?
29:21 Speaker 03 They're both terrible words.
29:22 Sonal? Really awful. Digital to me is far worse.
29:24 Speaker 03 I'm holding out for something better.
29:26 Sonal? Yes, me too. We'll have to coin something. Anyway, yeah, and that's, that's cool. I didn't see it that way, but I agree. What's the third theme you see?
29:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. And then maybe I'd rank the third category as just like generally the tech improving. Like kind of taking what has happened over the past year and just sort of incrementing it up. What will happen if everything gets a little bit better, a little bit easier to use, a little bit more smooth and seamless?
29:50 Sonal? Yeah.
29:51 Speaker 03 And just kind of, yeah. So I, I feel like those are the three kind of categories that I'm, I was detecting.
29:58 Sonal? On the last one, I thought of that more as just really significantly improved user experience and a little bit more of a maturing of an industry. That's, that's more ready to think about the people first versus a technology first. That's how I'd categorize that last theme. So for instance, like YOKE. Talks about how, you know, people don't have to design everything from scratch. You can actually build things and use off the shelf components and repurpose them. Chris Lyons talks about the other extreme, which is, hey, you may not even know you're using it as crypto. And then Mason talked about how like, just as a mindset shift, cutting across both of these, that people will start with thinking of what they're trying to solve for. And then the technology will follow versus the other way around, which seems like how the industry has led.
30:42 Sonal? And I think it's exactly because of the improvements that you're describing. Where would you put Maggie's discovery one on this list, like app stores?
30:50 Speaker 03 That's such a good one. Yeah, that's such a, I would rank that one as kind of a crossover between the second bucket and third bucket. The second being this kind of merging of the digital and physical.
31:01 Sonal? Yeah.
31:01 Speaker 03 You know, she has this nice point she makes about how we're seeing some crypto hardware, like World Apps Orb and Solana's mobile phone, kind of leading to these app store experiences that would sort of, kind of, I don't want to say mimic, but would at least echo the way that previous generations of the web kind of hit it big.
31:24 Sonal? Like the iPhone and its app store.
31:26 Speaker 03 The iPhone and the app.
31:27 Sonal? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's interesting because I would agree, but I would maybe put a twist on Maggie's where it's actually kind of an interesting contradiction too. Because on one hand, we're saying, hey, crypto could be very poised for the mainstream or even the, as Darren would argue, the adjacent mainstream, which is the people who are already wallet owners but not users. But in Maggie's, I think it's also very interesting because she's also talking about crypto having its own area and like having its own app store essentially. But, you know, as we've seen with like recent discussions around de-banking and other things, like a lot of these app stores were kicking crypto out and not ready for it yet. And obviously their positions have changed, like Coinbase just announced that Apple Wallet integration. But there's enough crypto apps that. Crypto can have its own app store,
32:11 Sonal? which is very interesting.
32:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, de-banking has become this like big topic of conversation. This issue of crypto businesses, startups, and also people kind of losing access to the financial system unfairly and without any explanation or justification as to why. And we see something similar from the tech perspective, where you have deplatforming. And you mentioned this with the app stores, you know, when an app doesn't get greenlit for an app store or it gets removed inexplicably.
32:40 Sonal? And by the way, for arguably similar reasons, because as you saw in our de-banking explainer, sometimes it's very justifiable, like a bank is allowed to. And sometimes the app stores will argue it for security reasons or some other, quote, "good" reason. And oftentimes it might be, but a lot of times you're like, huh, not really.
32:56 Speaker 03 Yeah. And so I see like part of that third bucket I was describing of like things getting a little bit better. I think you could also describe it as kind of like crypto holding its own as its own kind of platform. And, you know, Miles is his big idea. He talks about how, you know, this piece of legislation that Wyoming recently passed, the DUNA, the Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association. It recognizes these communities as legal entities to operate protocols.
33:26 Sonal? That's great.
33:27 Speaker 03 And to operate crypto startups.
33:29 Sonal? Yeah.
33:30 Speaker 03 In a decentralized manner for the first time. And that is a platform that like, didn't exist before. People were kind of just flying the plane and kind of, you know, whatever, the tech works, but it didn't have an exact spot to fit in like the legal framework.
33:44 Sonal? Right, well, a lot like Maggie's point, where it's a little bit like crypto, the DAOs, the decentralized autonomous organizations, need their own legal entity structure that's not only an LLC, but something, you know, just like we have a corporation and LLC and this is like a version that works for decentralized autonomous communities. That's a very good point. I'm glad you're bringing that one up.
34:05 Speaker 03 Yeah. If you liked what you heard, we cover these topics bi-weekly in our newsletter. You can find the signup for the newsletter on the a16zcrypto.com website. Check it out and subscribe.
34:17 Sonal? Awesome. Well, I'm excited for the year ahead and more interesting podcasts coming up from our team. Thanks, Robert.
34:24 Speaker 03 Thanks, Donald.
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