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a16z recently submitted a public comment letter to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in response to the CFTC's request for comments on the listing of computing power derivative contracts, expressing support for establishing a regulated computing power derivatives market in the United States. The related derivatives would help AI startups and cloud service providers hedge against computing power price, utilization, and duration risks, and reduce the financing costs of AI infrastructure.a16z stated that the CFTC does not need new statutory authority, as the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), Part 38 core principles, and Part 40 self-certification process are sufficient, and no new rules are needed prior to listing. The letter suggested that the CFTC rely on the existing regulatory framework to support the adoption of computing power price benchmarks that comply with the principles of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and allow exchanges to launch cash-settled computing power futures, including fixed-term futures and perpetual contracts.a16z crypto is an investor in Ornn, and ICE announced in May plans to launch GPU computing power futures based on the Ornn Computing Power Price Index (OCPI).

The venture capital firm a16z released a chart weekly report written by Moses Sternstein on October 23, 2026. The report states that Netflix is still growing, with revenue growth slowing to just below about 12%, the lowest level since 2021 to 2022. The company is producing its own short videos and entering live sports. The report cites BCG data indicating that the upper limit of media consumption in the U.S. is about 26 hours per week, showing a moderate decline since the peak of lockdowns. Moses Sternstein: Competition comes not only from other streaming services but also from short videos, with much of the recent media growth coming from background consumption while driving or working.In terms of computing power, the report cites Ornn Data stating that the rental price of every GPU in the chart series is higher than at the beginning of the year, including the oldest A100, which is about 9% to 143% higher compared to a 6-year straight-line depreciation. Moses Sternstein: Over a longer period, older A100 and H100 GPUs spend more time below that line, but have only shown significant strength since April this year, making comparisons over a longer period not entirely fair. According to OpenRouter, token demand surged sharply in spring, jumped again after a brief plateau at the end of summer, with token consumption for both open-source and closed-source models still following an exponential path, and the share of proprietary models slightly increased last week. The author states that OpenRouter only covers a very small portion, and these indices are not perfect proxies for actual token spending and GPU pricing.In manufacturing, the report states that computer production capacity and utilization rates are rising, with production increases being larger. The increase in communication and semiconductor production mainly comes from expansion, while the price increase for electrical equipment is the largest, but domestic production has slightly declined. The import increase of key categories of AI capital expenditures mentioned above far exceeds the domestic production increase in dollar terms. According to ADP, the increase in average weekly hours for industries related to AI construction is greater than that of other industries, and is generally greater than the net increase in personnel. Job switchers in manufacturing have about a 5 percentage point wage growth premium compared to stayers. Cybersecurity stocks remain strong in IGV this year, but have seen a larger pullback than the market since October. The revenue growth rate of large companies has mostly only increased by a few percentage points, with some experiencing declines, and stock price performance reaching up to about 125%, with Palo Alto Networks' revenue growth largely driven by acquisitions.

a16z Frontier founding partner Chris Dixon stated that early Web2 platforms were built on fragile tacit agreements: independent creators, bloggers, news media, and community volunteers contributed high-quality content for free, while platforms provided traffic distribution, audience accumulation, and commercial revenue opportunities.He pointed out that after forming a monopoly through network effects, platforms continuously tightened algorithms, forcing creators to pay for traffic. With the advent of the generative AI era, large model companies collect long-accumulated content from the entire internet through crawlers and directly provide answers in search and Q&A interfaces, no longer diverting traffic to the original websites, thus severing the economic cycle of independent creators.Dixon believes that if this trend continues, high-quality original content may be depleted, and the internet could be flooded with low-quality machine-generated content. He proposed that verifiable data ownership could be established through blockchain protocols, allowing data calls, reasoning, and training to be traceable and automatically receive economic returns. Reshaping this contract is one of the important missions of the Frontier fund.

Imran Khan, co-founder of Alliance, expressed his views on a16z crypto's shift towards cutting-edge technology. He stated that he is always grateful to a16z for leading the investment in Coinbase in 2013, which provided external validation for the crypto industry; Marc Andreessen's 2014 article "Why Bitcoin Matters" in The New York Times pushed him to shift his career towards Bitcoin.Imran Khan mentioned that at that time, very few institutions or funds were willing to publicly support crypto, and a16z and USV were two funds that took on brand risk. Since then, a large number of talents have entered and reshaped the crypto industry. He believes that the current infrastructure development in artificial intelligence has a practical connection with Bitcoin mining infrastructure and the talent flowing from crypto to artificial intelligence.He stated that the shift from crypto to cutting-edge technologies such as robotics, biology, artificial intelligence, energy, and computing power means that the talents and capabilities built in crypto over the past decade can be applied to a broader range of fields. He cited the resistance faced by data centers as an example, noting that crypto also faced opposition, but traditional finance has now accepted crypto to a certain extent. He believes that cutting-edge technology is the next generation of technology builders, and the world often recognizes the importance of new technologies many years later.

a16z crypto partner Ali Yahya posted on X that he has decided to leave a16z, move to San Francisco, and start a company. He stated that he has been with the company for nearly 10 years, and when he met Chris Dixon, Ben Horowitz, and Marc Andreessen in 2017, he was an engineer at Google Brain working on robotics research, with a strong interest in open source but no knowledge of investing.Ali Yahya mentioned that at that time, Chris Dixon had already laid the groundwork for a16z in the early crypto space by investing in companies like Coinbase, but the company's crypto team consisted of only Chris Dixon, and he hoped to expand the team. Chris Dixon invited him to leave Google to help build the company's crypto business. He expressed that forming the team together and supporting founders' work has been the most meaningful experience of his life, and he thanked Chris, Ben, Marc, and the team.Regarding his entrepreneurial direction, Ali Yahya stated that he is still in the early stages and is most focused on infrastructure that can support an open software ecosystem. He made two observations: current AI is mostly a technology for individual use, but in the future, it will shift towards collaboration among multiple people and multiple intelligent agents, potentially leading to large-scale open networks; the cost of software development has significantly decreased, allowing for on-demand generation and disposal after single use, which will change the software stack and may give rise to new operating systems mediated by AI and an AI-native developer ecosystem. He invited those working in related fields, especially those in the Bay Area, to communicate with him.

On October 23, a16z General Partner Chris Dixon announced that a16z crypto would be renamed a16z Frontier. The investment scope has expanded from crypto startups to a broader category of frontier technology startups, which are companies that create new technologies, open new markets, and may take years to mature. Dixon emphasized that this adjustment is an expansion of scope rather than a shift in direction, and the team will continue to invest in crypto and related businesses while advocating for reasonable crypto regulation.Dixon stated that as blockchain becomes more widely adopted, Wall Street and fintech companies have normalized the launch of on-chain products, and the importance of the "crypto company" label has diminished; companies should be defined by their business rather than the technology they use. His explanation also pointed to the AI wave, which not only focuses on using AI to perform existing tasks faster and better but also emphasizes the emergence of new native use cases, full-stack entrepreneurship that integrates software and hardware with services, and new networks that connect people with intelligent agents.Dixon believes that blockchain will continue to play an important role, providing the internet with a fast, cheap, global, and programmable funding track. Stablecoins are becoming standard tools for fintech and institutions, and they can also support machine-to-machine transactions and the cold start of new networks. The fund will be co-led by Dixon along with a16z founders Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and General Partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet, while the operating team will continue to serve existing and future portfolio companies in areas such as regulation, market entry, talent, marketing, and technology development.

On October 22, a16z announced the removal of "Crypto" from the name of its flagship blockchain fund, renaming it to a16z Frontier, and long-time general partner Ali Yahya is stepping down. The announcement stated that this move does not signify a withdrawal from investing in the cryptocurrency space, but rather aims to further broaden the investment scope.The fund has previously raised nearly $10 billion, including $4.5 billion in 2022 and $2.2 billion for Fund 5 this year, making it one of the largest institutional players in the industry. When raising Fund 5 this year, a16z stated that the industry is shifting from a price cycle to a usage cycle, focusing on the infrastructure of stablecoins, on-chain finance, prediction markets, and asset tokenization, rather than merely chasing market trends.Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z crypto, will remain in his position. Investments related to crypto assets and blockchain remain one of the core directions, but the overall label and strategic focus have been adjusted to cover a broader range of frontier technology fields.

According to The Information, a16z will remove "Crypto" from the name of its flagship blockchain fund, renaming it to "a16z Frontier," and will shift its focus to other investment areas; the fund's first founding member will also be leaving.

According to market news, the robotics startup Eka Robotics announced the completion of a $150 million Series A funding round, with a post-money valuation of $1.45 billion, co-led by a16z and F-Prime. The company was founded by MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja.Eka has developed a control architecture that combines force-sensitive grippers with a "vision-force-action" model, distinguishing it from the mainstream "vision-language-action" model. This model utilizes physics simulators and large-scale reinforcement learning training to generate thousands of hours of robotic experience in just a few minutes. According to the company, its robots can grasp approximately 1,500 objects weighing no more than 1 kilogram per hour (compared to about 600 for humans), with a success rate exceeding 95%. The hardware cost of its grippers is less than $1,000, with a rated lifespan of 5 million cycles, aiming to reach the 20 million cycle standard of industrial robotic arms.

David Haber, a general partner at a16z, stated that long-cycle intelligent agents can now progress towards goals across dozens of steps and various interaction methods over weeks to months. He noted that AI previously handled short tasks with clear boundaries, where customer service was implemented earlier due to verifiable results and edge cases manageable by humans; now, intelligent agents can guide insurance clients from the initial call to payout, mortgage clients from pre-approval to closing, and business leads from demonstration to signing, gaining returns based on revenue growth rather than just cost savings.He used the example of plaintiff lawyers preparing cases, stating that the process resembles a relay race, where value can easily be lost at handoff points. Potential clients often contact multiple law firms simultaneously, and slow responses or evaluations can lead to loss; after signing, evidence collection is limited by manpower, and firms may not follow up with witnesses who did not answer the fifth call, making it difficult to review low-value cases item by item. Missing bills or unexplained treatment gaps can also lower settlement amounts. Long-cycle intelligent agents can assess in real-time around the clock, utilizing sub-agents to advance evidence collection and client updates via phone, email, or text, while maintaining complete records from call logs to medical records.Haber proposed three commercialization paths: selling platforms to existing teams, taking over outsourced services, or vertically integrating as a full-stack service provider, such as purchasing debt portfolios and completing collections. He mentioned that most states in the U.S. prohibit non-lawyers from sharing attorney fees, so the plaintiff legal scenario needs to align pricing with settlement amounts but cannot directly share profits.

According to Axios, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has laid off most members of a 34-person team responsible for helping portfolio companies recruit talent. Axios reports that the information comes from multiple sources, and the company spokesperson declined to comment.The report states that this service is one of the main supporting services a16z promotes to tech founders. Remaining members of the company's full stack talent team will be reassigned to specialized investment groups, such as growth investment or crypto investment, with plans for each group to build teams to meet their needs, no longer relying on a centralized team. Currently, all team members are still listed on the company website.

Multiple venture capital firms in Silicon Valley are competing to secure GPU computing power to provide exclusive resources for their AI startups. a16z established a computing power pool of about 20,000 GPUs as early as 2024 and is negotiating expansion with data center companies Switch and Volta. General Catalyst plans to build a data center for its portfolio companies and has brought in the former head of NVIDIA DGX Cloud in May this year to oversee AI infrastructure operations.Even if AI startups complete their financing, they may not be able to rent GPUs in a timely manner. In April this year, major cloud providers like Microsoft were reported to prioritize allocating computing power to internal teams and large clients, leaving some startups facing months of waiting. a16z previously disclosed that during times of computing power shortages, prices that could originally be secured with a six-month contract might require a three-year commitment. Model training requires a large amount of GPU usage in a short period, while inference demand is difficult to predict, making it easy to waste funds by locking in computing power for several years in advance.a16z is concentrating on purchasing and leasing computing power through the Oxygen project, redistributing it to its portfolio companies, allowing them to access prices and contract terms typically reserved for large clients. In August this year, a16z co-led a $300 million financing round for Volta, which is valued at $2.4 billion, with investments covering both AI startups and data center companies providing computing power. The small venture capital firm Crucible Capital has built a cluster with 576 NVIDIA B300 GPUs for its portfolio companies to test, while also selling some computing power to a cutting-edge AI laboratory. This model allows venture capital firms to take on investments that were previously mainly borne by cloud providers and data center operators.

a16z crypto invited Stanford University professor Dan Boneh, a16z crypto partner Eddy Lazzarin, and other experts to discuss the threats AI poses to cryptography. The experts pointed out that recent advancements in AI in the field of mathematics have not included cryptographic results and have not proven any specific cryptographic assumptions to be less secure.The experts stated that modern cryptography relies on the assumption that certain mathematical problems do not have efficient algorithms; if this assumption holds, no matter how powerful AI becomes, it cannot find algorithms that do not exist. This assumption is related to the unsolved P vs NP problem in computer science, and current AI advancements have not yet touched upon this issue.The experts believe that AI can significantly reduce the time required for cryptographic reviews. Hypotheses that previously took ten years to validate can now allow models to run for a month to attempt to break them. At the same time, the migration work driven by quantum threats has prepared for some of the risks posed by AI, and cryptographic agility can help systems switch methods when weaknesses are discovered. For developers, the most direct opportunity is to use AI to discover more vulnerabilities before software deployment.