Guy Wuollet of a16z says crypto is leaving the ‘collared shirt’ hoodie category of the decade
a16z crypto partner Guy Wuollet says crypto is entering its “collared shirt” era, as the firm doubles down on a 10-year infrastructure bet even as top partners pull out amid a new $2b fund.
Summary
- The partners of a16z crypto also publicly emphasized the investment period of 10 years and more in this sector, comparing today’s market to the pre-internet stage and the early stage of AI.
- At the same time, big-name partners including Arianna Simpson and Kofi Ampadu are exiting or transitioning, underscoring how the business’s talent is changing as the industry grows.
- The crypto group is now raising nearly a fifth fund of $2 billion, indicating that institutional LPs still see blockchains, tokens, and AI‑crypto convergence as core long-term themes.
Guy Wuollet, a partner at a16z crypto published a new essay arguing that “funds are not separate from the big picture; they are part of it,” describing blockchains as the underlying infrastructure instead of a speculative sideshow. “At a16z and a16z crypto, we are looking at the long term: our fund structure is designed for a cycle of more than 10 years because building new industries takes time,” wrote the partner, likening the current phase to laying the rails before new phases of applications begin. The piece emphasized that many successful applications will only emerge when wallets, identity, liquidity, and trust mechanisms are mature, consistent with a16z research that compares the crypto timeline with decades of work behind modern AI.
a16z crypto double down on long term thesis
That message echoes comments from a16z crypto general partner Chris Dixon, who recently said blockchain is “the next basic infrastructure of the Internet,” and that the industry is in a long “foundational” phase similar to the neural‑net paper of 1943 for today’s AI boom. Dixon also noted that the company has historically held about 95% of its investments because, in his words, “selling high-quality assets early is a very bad investment decision.” This situation supports the push of a16z crypto on themes such as stablecoins, tokenization, privacy, and prediction markets, laid out in the roadmap “Big Ideas 2026” which includes crypto as internet pipelines where value moves as fast as data.
The long-term announcement comes as other a16z-affiliated partners adjust their career paths. Foresight News reported that Arianna Simpson, general partner at a16z crypto, “announced her resignation,” while partner Kofi Ampadu also left after the company suspended its Talent x Opportunity (TxO) program; a memo obtained by TechCrunch shows Ampadu telling employees to “close my a16z chapter” following four years of supporting the network’s founders. Those moves reflect a broader reorientation within top crypto VCs, as funding balances between seed bets, growth-stage deals, and new AI‑crypto hybrids.
Despite the uproar from the staff, a16z crypto itself is pushing forward with a new war chest. According to a report citing multiple insiders, the company’s blockchain arm is looking at nearly $2 billion for its fifth dedicated crypto fund, in addition to a broader multistrategy raise of $15 billion across infrastructure, applications, and growth-stage vehicles. Since launching its $300 million crypto fund in 2018 — after Bitcoin’s first run to $20,000 — a16z has grown that platform into a $4.5 billion vehicle and now supports projects ranging from DeFi exchanges and contracts to games and NFT studios.
For builders, the message is mixed but ultimately positive: competition for a16z checks is intensifying, as the capital pool itself is growing. On the other hand, the departure of familiar faces like Simpson and Ampadu shows that even marquee crypto franchises are not immune to internal strategy changes; on the other hand, the target fund of 2 billion dollars and the stated commitment to hold 95% of the positions show that LPs and partners are always together in managing crypto as a game of ten and more. The company’s research arm continues to call for clear token regulations and large-scale DeFi adoption, arguing that “big initiatives take time” and that today’s messy, volatile age is the “first” phase before a sharp shift in usage.
