a16z crypto show

Following a string of major DeFi exploits, we unpack what’s driving the recent rise in hacks across crypto.

a16z crypto GP Eddy Lazzarin and security engineer Matt Gleason join host Robert Hackett to take a closer look. Their argument: AI is not introducing entirely new vulnerabilities. It is making existing weaknesses easier to identify and exploit. The question is whether defenders can evolve as quickly as attackers.

They also cover:

- why “AI-powered hacking” is difficult to measure

- how geopolitical tensions may be influencing cyber activity

- why defenders should be aggressively stress-testing their own systems

- how AI could eventually outperform humans at resisting social engineering

- what users can do today to protect themselves online

 

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

00:57 - The surge, explained

01:37 - Did attackers use AI

04:19 - How AI can help defend against attacks

09:16 - The doomsday marketing debate

17:17 - DeFi transparency: opportunities and challenges

21:00 - Social engineering and how to stay safe

 

Follow along here:

Eddy Lazzarin: https://twitter.com/eddylazzarin

Robert Hackett: https://twitter.com/rhackett

Matt Gleason: https://twitter.com/mg_486662

Follow a16z crypto:

X: https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/a16zcrypto/posts/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto

Subscribe for more industry reports, trend updates, news analysis, builder guides, and other resources: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/subscribe/

 

As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're announcing a16z crypto's Fund 5: $2.2B in committed capital to back the startups and founders who are building the next era of crypto. All four GPs sat down to talk through where crypto is right now, what's changed, and where it may be headed next. Chris Dixon, Ali Yahya, Guy Wuollet, and Eddy Lazzarin join Robert Hackett to cover...

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

Resources: 

Chris Dixon: https://x.com/cdixon

Ali Yahya: https://x.com/alive_eth

Eddy Lazzarin: https://x.com/eddylazzarin

Guy Wuollet: https://x.com/guywuolletjr

Robert Hackett: https://x.com/rhackett

Follow a16z crypto: X: https://x.com/a16zcrypto 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/a16zcrypto/posts/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto

Subscribe for more industry reports, trend updates, news analysis, builder guides, and other resources: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/subscribe/

 

*** 

As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Agents can now do almost anything a human can do with a computer. So what happens when they start spending money on your behalf?

Sam Ragsdale (founder and CEO of Merit Systems, a startup building infrastructure for the agentic economy) joins a16z crypto's Eddy Lazzarin, Noah Levine, and Robert Hackett on the open agentic commerce stack, and why the internet's business model is about to get rewired.

00:00 – Intro 

01:33 – Two flavors of agentic commerce 

04:30 – What is an agent, actually? 

12:57 – The headless merchant thesis 

17:17 – What happens to existing friction? 

24:45 – The economic contract of the web is broken 

27:46 – Will agents get distracted by ads? 

35:152– Stablecoins vs. credit cards 

41:54 – Sam's bear case on interchange 

49:11 – The killer app for agentic commerce

 

Sam Ragsdale on X: /samrags_ 

Eddy Lazzarin on X: /eddylazzarin 

Noah Levine on X: /nlevine19 

Robert Hackett on X: /rhackett 

 

Follow a16z crypto: /a16zcrypto 

Subscribe for more news and updates: a16zcrypto.substack.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A few big companies control most of the infrastructure behind AI.

Most people experience AI through a wide range of different apps that actually depend on a deeply centralized stack of data and compute. In this conversation, Ben Fielding and Harry Grieve — cofounders of decentralized machine learning protocol Gensyn — explain why this matters, and what it would take to rebuild AI as open infrastructure instead.

From unused global compute to the philosophical implications of machine intelligence, they argue that the next evolution of AI must be owned, coordinated, and verified in a fundamentally different way.

Highlights 

00:00 – Intro 

00:29 – The biggest misconception about AI infrastructure 

01:20 – Why centralization in AI is a deeper problem than people realize 

04:19 – Why AI needs crypto 

05:51 – How AI models are trained 

08:15 – The rise of autonomous AI agents with onchain identities 

10:37 – Lightning round

Ben Fielding on X: https://x.com/benfielding 

Harry Grieve on X: https://x.com/harrygrieve 

Gensyn on X: https://x.com/gensynai 

Follow a16z crypto on X: https://x.com/a16zcrypto 

Subscribe for more news and updates: a16zcrypto.substack.com

 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The internet already has a bot problem — and it's just getting worse.

a16z's Ben Horowitz and Erik Torenberg speak with Alex Blania of Tools for Humanity. World is building the largest real human network, a proof-of-human layer for the AI era. They cover the technical challenge of proving human uniqueness at scale using iris biometrics, the privacy architecture behind World ID, and why platforms from social networks to dating apps to video conferencing will soon require proof of human verification.

Timestamps: 

0:00—Introduction 

4:07—Three Big Ideas People Were Interested In 

9:05—The Orb Verification Piece 

15:20—Social Media Bots: PSYOPs and Propaganda 

29:18—We Had Proof of Personhood for the Longest Time 

36:44—Next Year Go-to-Market Is Focused on the US 

40:09—Different Levels of Verification

Resources: 

Follow Alex Blania on X: / alexblania 

Follow Ben Horowitz on X: / bhorowitz 

Follow Erik Torenberg on X: / eriktorenber

Follow a16z crypto for more... 

X: https://x.com/a16zcrypto 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/a16zcrypto/posts/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto 

Substack: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/subscribe/

 

As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.