a16z Partner: Still committed to long-termism in crypto investments, believing that after the widespread adoption of blockchain finance, other categories of apps will emerge.

ChainCatcher Message, a16z Partner and a16z Crypto Leader Chris Dixon posted on social media an article titled “The Long Game of Cryptocurrency” stating: There is a popular saying now — the non-financial use cases of cryptocurrency are dead. Some also claim that the “read-write-own” model has failed. These conclusions both misunderstand the core principles and misjudge the stage of development we are in.

We are currently in the financial era of blockchain. But the core idea has never been that all crypto applications will emerge simultaneously, nor that finance will not come first. Its core concept has always been that blockchain introduces a new primitive — capable of coordinating human effort and capital at internet scale, with ownership embedded directly into the system. Finance is the area where this primitive can most naturally demonstrate its value, which is why we often list finance as the primary example of token productive use cases.

Finance is not separate from a broader vision but is part of it. It is the foundation and testing ground for all other applications. At a16z and a16z Crypto, we focus on the long term: our fund structures are designed for cycles exceeding 10 years because building new industries takes time — the sequence of operations is crucial. Infrastructure and distribution networks often precede new categories of applications.

The internet did not begin with social media, streaming, or online communities; it started with packet switching, TCP/IP, and basic connectivity. Only when hundreds of millions of people went online did new cultural and economic categories emerge. Cryptocurrency is likely to follow a similar path. A reasonable hypothesis is: we need to onboard hundreds of millions of people through financial applications like payments, stablecoins, savings, and DeFi before we see meaningful adoption in media, gaming, AI, or other potentially more distant fields.

Many applications depend on ready-made wallets, identities, liquidity, and trust mechanisms. That’s why a16z has spent over five years working hard to establish clear token regulatory frameworks. Great endeavors take time. The breakthroughs we see today in AI are the result of decades of hard work by talented individuals. Building new technological systems is a marathon, and this is what a marathon looks like in practice: a long period of groundwork followed by a sharp turning point. It is precisely those chaotic years that make a brighter future possible.