Craig Naylor

@AriannaSimpson Congratulations Arianna -- excited for your next chapter!!

Some news! After 6 incredible years, I’m going to be transitioning out of a16z. I’m starting a fund of my own to do what I love most, which is investing in great founders as early as I can find them, with a broader aperture across the many verticals where great companies are being built today. I learned a huge amount during my time at a16z. @cdixon is widely known as a legendary investor and having the opportunity to work closely with him for the past 6 years has been an honor. I am extremely grateful for his mentorship, the opportunities he gave me here, and for the capital and responsibilities he entrusted me with. His frameworks will shape how I think about investments for the rest of my career. When I joined, the crypto vertical was 7 people (it’s now north of 80), and the firm, while already successful, was nowhere near the scale or scope it has today. At the time I thought the firm’s moves to dominate the industry had mostly unfolded, but I underestimated how much the lead could widen in a few short years. @bhorowitz and @pmarca have built an institution, and I am glad to have had the chance to play a small role on the team. I’m sure I’ll be looking back 6 years from now and see the firm in a position  that’s  hard to even imagine from today’s vantage point. Most of the best people I’ve worked with in my career to date have been at a16z – there are too many to name. I’m very grateful to have worked with so many incredible folks here, and I know that I am leaving the crypto team and the investing practice in extremely capable hands with @cdixon, @alive_eth, and @guywuolletjr. I’m also really going to miss working with @jasonrothenal and @eddylazzarin every day in Menlo Park — I’ve learned so much from both of them. I’m very proud of the work I did here, and most importantly, of the founders I had the privilege of working with. They are the reason why I love being an investor. Sometimes it takes dozens of meetings, but every time you find a star, it makes you fall in love with the job all over again. a16z’s passion for and commitment to founders and their companies is what made me love this job in particular. I’m excited to keep doing that in my next chapter — and if you’re building, I’d love to meet!

It's time to build.

Excited to announce that @a16zcrypto is expanding into Asia and opening our first office in Seoul, South Korea. As part of this, we’re thrilled to have @sungmo_apac16z join our team as Head of APAC go-to-market to lead the Seoul office and start building our presence in the region. Our expansion will offer go-to-market support for portfolio companies seeking to accelerate growth, forge strategic partnerships, and build lasting communities across Asia. SungMo will work closely with the founders in our portfolio, and also in his corporate network, to strengthen market connectivity and accelerate crypto adoption across the continent.  @sungmo_apac16z brings deep experience and expertise across both enterprise and crypto-native ecosystems. Most recently, he was APAC Lead at Monad Foundation, where he built out their go-to-market and ecosystem strategies across East Asia, Greater China, South East Asia and India. Prior to Monad, he was Head of APAC Business Development at Polygon Labs, where he led enterprise partnerships and collaborations with emerging crypto projects. He speaks four languages: Korean, Japanese, Chinese and English.

Kalshi's trajectory has been very impressive. Volume has grown 8x since July, to more than $1B per week. Congrats to the team, we're excited to double down on our investment.

We’re excited to share our 2025 State of Crypto report. This year’s story: the maturation of the crypto industry — with growing institutional adoption, the rise of stablecoins, better infrastructure, new consumer experiences, and long-awaited regulatory clarity. Read the full report → a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/… Here are the biggest trends of 2025…

Today we are announcing that a16z is co-leading the Series D in @Kalshi, a regulated exchange for trading on prediction markets. Prediction markets are a modern implementation of a classic economic idea, one most clearly articulated by Friedrich Hayek. Hayek and the knowledge problem Hayek argued that no central planner could ever access the dispersed knowledge held by millions of people across an economy, a fundamental challenge that has come to be known as the “knowledge problem.” Much of this knowledge is tacit and unspoken, embedded in people’s experiences, circumstances, and preferences. Hayek wasn’t just pointing out the limits of central planning. He was offering a solution. In his 1945 essay The Use of Knowledge in Society, Hayek argued that the solution lies in looking outward, not inward: “We need decentralization,” as he put it. Markets, in Hayek’s view, are not just allocation mechanisms but information systems. Prices act as signals, compressing vast amounts of local knowledge into actionable information. Moreover, prices create incentives: they encourage people to make decisions and act in ways that drive information back into the system. This creates an iterative feedback loop, an engine that drives better performance. Today we might say that the answer to the knowledge problem is not to give central planners more sophisticated computers. The answer is that markets themselves are the computers. Prediction markets make this idea concrete, applying it to questions about the future and turning collective knowledge into prices that reflect probabilities. Why we’re investing in Kalshi This is why we’re excited about prediction markets, and why we’re investing in Kalshi. Kalshi is bringing prediction markets into the mainstream with a compliant, scalable platform for event contracts covering everything from elections and economics to sports and culture. It has already seen billions in trading volume and continues to grow quickly. Kalshi also plans deep crypto integrations, work we’re excited to collaborate on, and today announced they’re expanding globally to 140 countries. We’re not the only ones excited about the potential of prediction markets. For businesses and investors, event contracts can hedge risk, such as exposure to economic or policy changes. For policymakers and analysts, market prices offer real-time forecasts that can outperform polls and expert predictions. And for society at large, prediction markets create an open, transparent, and incentive-driven way to aggregate beliefs about the future. This is the right moment for prediction markets. As trust in established institutions reaches historic lows — at least according to the polls — we need new systems that can earn trust in different ways. We believe the answer lies in open, decentralized systems. DeFi provides an alternative to traditional finance, stablecoins to conventional payment providers, and prediction markets to expert forecasts. Where people once trusted banks or pundits, they can now trust protocols and markets. Hayek’s insight was that knowledge is too widely distributed for any one authority to possess. Instead, we need systems that harness the intelligence of the many. Kalshi puts this idea into action, transforming dispersed information into concrete, market-based forecasts. We’re excited to support their work as they bring prediction markets into the mainstream.

We've had 25 research interns over the past four summers @a16crypto, many of whom are now among the most visible researchers in the space. If you'd like to be a part of the summer '26 cohort, apply here: a16z.com/about/jobs/?gh…

Hiring in crypto always sparks debate: do you need crypto-native talent, or can great people from traditional tech make the leap? In this piece, @its_iLan and I touch on when crypto expertise is essential, where outside experience shines, and how to pitch your opportunity to non-crypto candidates.

With the GENIUS Act celebration done, builders already want to know what's next. The answer is CLARITY – crypto market structure legislation – which also got overwhelming bipartisan support in the House last week. Here's everything you need to get caught up on CLARITY:

The House just made history by passing major legislation on stablecoins (GENIUS Act) and market structure (CLARITY Act) in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way. This is a huge moment for crypto and for all Americans. We’re very close to having comprehensive, proactive rules in place for the first time. Next up: the GENIUS Act goes to the President’s desk for his signature. After that, the Senate should pass the CLARITY Act. We believe passing these laws is the best way to ensure that America remains the world leader in the next era of the internet. Thank you to all the cosponsors of these bills and the incredible supporters on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

The upcoming era of AI, digital money, and quantum computing will require a new standard for secure and interoperable communication. @xmtp_ is a protocol for the future of messaging — open, decentralized, and quantum-resistant. Just as SMTP laid the foundation for email at the dawn of the web, XMTP is built to do the same for this new era.

Finally, we can own and control our messaging the way we own & control our money. Today at NewDayOne, @baseapp + XMTP unlock a new surface for builders: AI + Money + Secure group chats It’s time to build agents & mini-apps that work for people, not platforms. Let’s dive in👇

How crypto and AI enhance each other a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/…

10 of the most common hiring mistakes we see early stage founders make - Another great post from @aharshner Check it out below👇👇

I wrote a post highlighting 10 of the most common hiring mistakes early stage founders make: a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/…

Still looking to fill some roles, please send over any referrals!

American Dynamism.