One of the most active venture capital firms in crypto, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is ready to invest heavily in core research of the industry. It announced ‘a16z Crypto Research,’ a new research unit that aims to shape crypto and Web3 as formal fields of study while also addressing key issues in the field.
The research initiative is inspired by Open AI and Alphabet’s DeepMind. The announcement by VC firm’s GPs Ali Yahya and Chris Dixon tells us more about a16z’ crypto research. It will be a multidisciplinary lab that will work closely with the firm’s investment portfolio.
The organisation will be led by Columbia and Stanford computer science professors Tim Roughgarden as Head of Research and Dan Boneh as Senior Research Advisor.
Tim’s work includes putting his proposal into action, which is based on a formal analysis of the polarizing fee mechanism in EIP-1559.
Dan, who was working with a16z as a Research Advisor and Partner is promoted to Senior Research Advisor. His work is mentioned for the creation of the concept of a Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) and cryptographic constructions such as BLS signatures.
Joseph Bonneau, a cryptocurrency expert; Benedikt Bünz, a Stanford Ph.D. student and chief scientist at Espresso Systems; Scott Kominers, a Harvard Business School professor; and Valeria Nikolaenko, a former research scientist for Novi at Meta, will be the team’s four research partners.
The research team will work closely with three other teams of the venture firm: the Protocol Design & Engineering Team, Legal and Regulatory Team, and Marketing Team.
The four teams will work alongside companies in the VC’s portfolio to:
- Generate ideas for solving hard open problems;
- Write production-grade code that brings ideas to life;
- Ensure the ideas and implementation are compliant with applicable regulations;
- Share the findings with the broader web3 community.
While many crypto firms have hired research teams, a16z is attempting something bigger, most probably an entire research lab dedicated to crypto.
Tim Roughgarden noted in a tweet, “As a research lab within a VC firm, a16z crypto research represents a new funding model for basic research—one that seems obvious in hindsight (with the long-term focus necessary for fundamental research already hard-wired into the firm’s business model).”
The VC giant cites additional development over the last decade taking place in decentralized finance (DeFi), open-source code running on blockchains (DAOs), and social networks that empower artists and creators (via NFTs).
The entire industry can benefit from an a16z crypto research lab and this approach is unique to a university-based lab. The research institute Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) which is a part of the University of Cambridge, recently unveiled its crypto-oriented research initiative ‘Cambridge Digital Assets Programme’ (CDAP).
