The world of crypto Full of noise. Memes, speculation, rug pulling, scams, hype, and disruptors distract us from all the innovative things people are building with blockchains. Sometimes the noise pollutes the flow of information so much, it can be really hard to keep believing in technology.
However, one venture capital veteran feels that the only way to cut a clear path is to focus on blockchain technology and build startups in the industry.
“Cryptocurrencies and blockchains are in the news a lot, but a lot of it is about speculation and prices. “I feel like there’s another side to the story,” Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), told TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction Podcast. “It’s the side of the story that I live in, and that the entrepreneurs we work with live in, which is what I would call the production side of blockchain.”
Dixon has been with a16z since 2012 and helped found the company's cryptocurrency division, which he currently leads. For the past year or so, he's been busy writing his new book, Read, Write Yourself, which came out earlier this week.
In the book, Dixon compares blockchain technology to steel, and Web 2.0 to wood – when steel first came out, most people thought it was unnecessary because wood worked so well, but then things changed radically once steel was widely adopted.