Notes from our Crypto Fund 5 conversation:
1. Successful founders in this next era will tend to be product-focused, go-to-market-focused, and pragmatic rather than ideological.
2. The goal: get a billion people onchain through stocks, bonds, stablecoins, and remittances. Once they're onboarded to the infrastructure, adjacent services can follow naturally.
3. We don't have a global financial network. We have a patchwork of small networks glued together by humans and legacy processes. Stablecoins are global from day one: the WhatsApp moment for money.
4. Stablecoins are leading crypto's mainstream traction. ~$300B issued, transaction volume approaching major payment network levels, and growth uncorrelated with trading.
5. The Genius Act gave stablecoins a regulatory framework, and unlocked builder energy overnight. The Clarity Act (or SEC/CFTC rulemaking) could do the same for the rest of crypto.
6. Crypto is winning the revolution, now it's time to govern. That means working with the system, not overthrowing it.
7, A growing share of transactions (potentially the majority) will be done by AI agents, not humans. If you tell one to save you money on your monthly spending, it will use whatever software does that, and it won't care what gets disintermediated.
8, You cannot vibe code USDC or Hyperliquid. Network-effects businesses are the one thing the model companies can't easily replicate.
9. Privacy may be the most durable moat in crypto. Once an application's state is encrypted, it can't be trivially forked to another chain. Switching costs return.
10. If every human on earth gains access to a dollar-denominated, stablecoin-powered account, that alone would be a generational upgrade to the global financial system.
"It's a wonderful time to be a pragmatist building onchain."
Chris Dixon, Ali Yahya, Eddy Lazzarin, and Guy Wuollet on Crypto Fund 5, where crypto is right now, and where it's heading next.
00:00 Open
01:31 Why raise Crypto Fund 5 now
02:10 The GENIUS Act and what regulatory clarity unlocks for builders
04:32 Why stablecoins are crypto's WhatsApp moment
08:54 Why the next era of crypto founders will be pragmatic, not ideological
11:49 From cypherpunk revolution to crypto's "collared shirt era"
15:02 Programmable money meets AI
21:15 Onchain capital markets for compute, energy, and credit
25:57 Why finance is the foundation, not the ceiling
28:48 AI agents as first-class economic actors
38:19 Why privacy is the only moat
41:26 Jevons paradox and the future of blockspace demand
43:20 Jolt and the zero-knowledge breakthrough
58:15 Writing the next chapter of Read Write Own
@cdixon @alive_ @eddylazzarin @guywuolletjr @rhackett