Riyaz Faizullabhoy, former Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Nassim Eddequiouaq, former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), are reportedly starting a cryptocurrency custody firm focused on institutional clients. The new venture has the backing and seed funding of a16z. Faizullabhoy and Eddequiouaq both left a16z in February 2023 to pursue the new custody venture. They previously worked together on crypto at digital asset custody specialist Anchorage and co-created the crypto custody infrastructure for the Novi (formerly known as Calibra) wallet at Facebook. Institutional crypto custody is a busy space, and the new venture will compete with other technologies available to manage cryptographic keys for hedge funds, asset managers, and banks. (Coindesk)

Venture capital firm a16z has released Magi, a new rollup client for Ethereum's layer-2 ecosystem, Optimism. Magi is an OP Stack rollup client written in Rust that will add to the rollup's client diversity, which a16z says is important for network safety and liveliness. Optimism is the second most popular Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution after Arbitrum, with a total value locked of $2.09 billion, an all-time high. The TVL for the entire L2 ecosystem is just under $10 billion and cooling from an all-time high as crypto markets correct.

Optimism’s OP token (OP) jumped nearly 6% Wednesday after venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced plans to build a stack rollup – a type of scaling solution – on the layer-2 blockchain.

After spending a day building hype with a series of cryptic tweets including images of orange balls, A16z Crypto just revealed what all the fuss was about: a new Layer 2 rollup client called Magi. 

The native token of the Optimism blockchain, OP, rallied after an engineer at the crypto arm of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) tweeted out a picture of an orange circle, accompanied by “coming soon.”

Crypto prices are languishing way below the dizzying heights of 2021, even with Bitcoin’s (BTC) price breaching the $30,000 mark. And yet, despite the crypto winter last year, the market has matured and made progress, according to a16z’s latest ‘State of Crypto’ report.

The share of global crypto developers based in the United States declined by 26% from 2018 to 2022, according to a report from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z. The report, titled “State of Crypto 2023,” cited data from Electric Capital and SimilarWeb to support its findings.

The engineering team at a16z crypto has released a set of open-source tools for developers, builders, and users in the crypto ecosystem.

a16z Crypto, the web3 investment arm of Andreessen Horowitz, has unveiled its new "State of Crypto" index, which factors in several adoption and innovation parameters, including the number of active developers, mentions of crypto in academic research, and volumes across decentralized exchange venues. The index declined by 25% while the price of bitcoin is down 55% from its highs in 2021. However, a16z is attempting to illustrate the dichotomy between market cycles and product cycles, according to the firm's chief technology officer Eddy Lazzarin. The firm pointed to the "radical acceleration" of Ethereum scaling solutions and zero-knowledge systems as an example of compounding tech progress.

A16z has dug deep into the crypto space after launching four funds dedicated to the industry. The most recent one closed at $4.5 billion in May 2022, and Arianna thinks it’s appropriate, given the size of the opportunity.