Raising $2.2 billion, A16Z is determined to fight it out in Crypto

On May 5th, a16z crypto, the dedicated crypto VC under Andreessen Horowitz, announced the completion of its fifth fund, totaling $2.2 billion. At the same time, CTO Eddie Lazarin was promoted to general partner, joining Chris Dixon, Ali Yahya, and Guy Wuollet as the fourth GP of this fund.

Most English media focus on “this is the largest fundraising during the current crypto winter,” emphasizing the $2.2 billion figure. But this number also appeared in 2021, when a16z crypto completed its third fund, also at $2.2 billion. Between then and now, five years, a bull market peak, and two crypto winters have passed, and a16z has bet on this number once again.

This figure’s story isn’t about “size,” but about “persistence.”

a16z crypto’s previous dedicated crypto fund, Fund 4, was raised in May 2022, with a size of $4.5 billion, making it the largest single crypto VC fund in history, a record that still stands. Dropping from $4.5 billion to $2.2 billion, the scale has indeed halved. But in this winter, the only institution able to gather another $2.2 billion to continue betting on crypto is a16z.

Looking at the sizes of all five crypto funds raised by this institution over the past eight years, the pattern becomes clearer. Fund 1 (2018, $350 million) and Fund 2 (2020, $515 million) were early experiments. Fund 3 (2021, $2.2 billion) stretched during the first phase of the industry bull market, quadrupling in size. Fund 4 (2022, $4.5 billion) was the peak, doubling again. Fund 5, after five years, returns to $2.2 billion, exactly the same as Fund 3.

Connecting the peaks of Fund 3 and Fund 5 with a dashed line, the picture looks like this: in the crypto narrative, a16z crypto has gone full circle, returning to the size it had in 2021. Since 2018, this institution has committed a total of $9.8 billion, nearly half ($4.5 billion) of which is still allocated to Fund 4, which has yet to be fully spent. Fund 5 is not a new wave of capital infusion but a continuation of the same, deploying more crypto capital while Fund 4 remains unspent and the industry cools again.

From another perspective, this chart can be read differently. The intervals between Funds 1 and 4 have shortened: 2 years, 1 year, 1 year, reflecting the typical pace of the crypto industry from 2018 to 2022. After Fund 4, the interval suddenly extends to 4 years.

During these four years, FTX collapsed, DeFi experienced a comeback and retreat, Bitcoin ETFs were approved in 2024, and a new bull market emerged before retreating again. a16z crypto did not continue raising funds at the pace of Funds 1-4 but instead used up part of Fund 4’s capital before raising the next fund. On the day Fund 5 was closed, it had been exactly 48 months since Fund 4.

But looking only at a16z crypto’s own curve is incomplete; whether $2.2 billion is a matter of persistence or following the trend depends on the industry context at the same time.

The reality is that the industry’s decline has been steeper than a16z crypto’s own curve suggests. According to Galaxy Digital, global crypto VC investments totaled about $32.8 billion in 2021 and still reached $30.4 billion in 2022. Over two years, this exceeds $63.2 billion, the largest risk capital injection in crypto history. After FTX’s collapse, in 2023, this number shrank to $10.1 billion, nearly a 70% drop. In 2024, it slightly rebounded to $11.5 billion, and in 2025, according to PitchBook, it returned to about $18 billion, back to 2020 levels.

Placing a16z crypto’s two large fundraising rounds into this curve reveals the proportions. Fund 4’s $4.5 billion in 2022 accounted for roughly 15% of the industry’s total, meaning about $1 of every $7 in crypto VC funding was managed by a16z crypto. Fund 5’s $2.2 billion in 2025 accounts for about 12% of the $18 billion industry pool. In absolute terms, a16z crypto’s fundraising has halved; in relative terms, it holds nearly the same share within a shrinking pool, from one-third to about one-quarter.

Understanding this layer clarifies the true position of Fund 5’s $2.2 billion. Its scale has halved, but in a pool that has shrunk to one-third of its previous size, its share remains nearly unchanged. To achieve this, LPs over the past three years have not cut their crypto allocations to zero, and a16z partners have had to convince themselves to “continue deploying capital into crypto.”

Another detail worth highlighting: between 2024 and 2025, Multicoin’s AUM surged from about $600 million to $6 billion, then halved to $2.7 billion after Bitcoin’s decline in October. Meanwhile, a16z crypto’s portfolio valuation shrank by about 40%. Haun Ventures, on the other hand, grew by roughly 30% year-over-year.

In 2025, Pantera, through investments in five companies including Circle and BitGo that went public, distributed profits to LPs and began raising its fifth fund. During the winter, industry peers generally focused on three activities: raising new funds, returning capital to LPs, and expanding investment scope beyond crypto. a16z crypto chose only the first—no capital return, no expansion, just continued crypto investments.

The third perspective is to look at industry peers. The comparison between $2.2 billion and $4.5 billion is a16z crypto’s own; the comparison between $18 billion and $32.8 billion is industry-wide; and the final comparison is among peers.

Looking at the latest funds from leading crypto VCs between 2024 and 2026: Polychain at $400 million, Dragonfly at $650 million, Haun Ventures at $1 billion, Paradigm’s new fund at $1.5 billion (still fundraising), and a16z crypto Fund 5 at $2.2 billion. a16z crypto is the largest in this round, but the more critical detail lies between it and Paradigm.

Paradigm was founded in 2018 by a former Sequoia partner and Coinbase co-founder, long seen as a direct competitor to a16z crypto in the crypto space. In 2024, Paradigm closed an $850 million early-stage fund, “Paradigm Three,” and announced a new fund targeting $1.5 billion. According to the Wall Street Journal, this new fund’s scope has expanded from pure crypto to AI, robotics, and other frontier computing. In other words, Paradigm’s partners have judged that “only investing in crypto would miss too many opportunities.”

a16z crypto’s stance is opposite. On the fund’s announcement day, a spokesperson told Fortune: “Fund 5 will 100% invest in crypto entrepreneurs.” In the VC context of 2026, this is a stance of persistence.

In 2024, for every dollar of crypto VC invested, about 18 cents went into projects combining “AI + crypto.” By 2025, this figure more than doubled to 40 cents.

This 40% figure reflects a complete shift in funding pathways. According to a16z’s January publication “Why Did We Raise $15B,” the parent company completed a $15 billion new fundraising round in January 2026, distributed across Apps ($1.7 billion, AI applications), Infrastructure ($1.7 billion, AI infrastructure), Growth ($6.75 billion), American Dynamism ($8B), Bio ($700 million), and Other ($3 billion, including crypto, fintech, and enterprise software). The public breakdown does not list “Crypto” as a separate category. Fund 5’s $2.2 billion was raised separately four months later.

a16z’s parent company’s capital base expanded from $42 billion in May 2024 to over $90 billion in March 2026, but the crypto division’s share dropped from 11% during Fund 4 to 2.4% during Fund 5. Internally, crypto has shifted from an “independent sector” to a “bet within the ‘Other’ pool.” The parent’s capital focus has moved away, leaving only a16z crypto still committed to deploying capital into crypto.

This is the true position of Fund 5. It is a concentrated bet on crypto within the a16z ecosystem, scaled down to half of the previous round, but in a parent company where crypto’s share has been compressed to 2.4%, it remains the only dedicated crypto fund. According to Fortune, at the end of Fund 4, investments included Babylon (a protocol allowing Bitcoin holders to use BTC as collateral), cross-platform prediction market tool Kairos, and $50 million into Solana staking protocol Jito—examples of the deployment direction for Fund 5. The stated goal by Dixon and partners in the announcement is to “invest in the overlooked part of the cycle, turning new infrastructure into everyday products for ordinary people.”

The only ones left to persist in crypto are a16z itself.