a16z crypto show

More than 30 years ago, Gödel Prize Winner Noam Nisan helped develop a proof technique that he never expected anyone to use in the real world. At the center of that breakthrough was the sum-check protocol — an elegant technique that emerged from Noam Nisan’s early work on interactive proofs. At the time, even Nisan assumed ideas like these were far too theoretical to become practical technology. Today, sum-check sits at the heart of some of the fastest modern SNARKs, proof systems that are increasingly important to blockchains and verifiable computation. In this episode of First Principles, a16z crypto Head of Research Tim Roughgarden and research partner Justin Thaler sit down with Noam Nisan to trace the unlikely journey from theory to infrastructure. They explore how interaction and randomness changed the very definition of a mathematical proof; the deceptively simple “two into one” insight behind sum-check; the rapid sequence of discoveries that culminated in IP = PSPACE; and why Justin believes sum-check may be close to the optimal tool for building practical SNARKs. But Nisan’s career also tells a broader story about how research responds to technological change. When the web arrived in the 1990s, he deliberately left a field in which he was already a leading researcher to understand a new problem: How do you get independent actors on the internet to cooperate when they have different incentives? That question helped give rise to algorithmic game theory — and, decades later, brought Nisan back to questions around blockchain fees, token economics, and protocol design. Highlights 0:00 — Intro 1:28 — Noam Nisan and the origins of verifiable computation 2:58 — Why Noam Nisan left complexity theory 7:52 — POPcorn, distributed computing, and early blockchain-like ideas 11:10 — The birth of algorithmic game theory 16:14 — Justin Thaler discovers the sum-check protocol 25:05 — From arithmetization to LFKN 27:06 — The story behind IP = PSPACE 30:40 — Why sum-check matters for modern SNARKs 31:15 — What is a SNARK? 38:52 — The key idea behind sum-check: turning two into one 44:03 — When SNARKs went from theory to practice 46:03 — Why blockchains were the breakthrough use case 50:36 — Noam Nisan’s move into blockchain economics 56:15 — EIP-1559, transaction fees, and efficient blockspace 1:02:07 — From theoretical computer science to real-world systems 1:08:49 — Boiling down the sum-check protocol: Two become one 1:10:58 — Is the sum-check protocol optimal? About First Principles First Principles is a series from a16z crypto exploring the foundational ideas behind modern computing, cryptography, and blockchains through conversations with the researchers who developed them — and the people extending those ideas today. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How can you prove that something is true without revealing why it is true? That question gave rise to zero-knowledge proofs, one of the most important breakthroughs in modern cryptography. What began as an attempt to solve a seemingly playful problem — playing poker securely over the telephone — ultimately changed how computer scientists think about proofs, privacy, and verification. In this episode of First Principles, Turing Award–winning cryptographer Shafi Goldwasser joins a16z crypto Head of Research Tim Roughgarden and Research Partner Justin Thaler to tell the origin story of zero-knowledge proofs and interactive proof systems. Goldwasser recounts how she, Silvio Micali, and Charles Rackoff developed a new kind of proof involving interaction, randomness, and a small probability of error. Their work introduced the idea that a prover could convince a verifier that a statement is true while revealing no additional information. The conversation follows those ideas through some of theoretical computer science’s deepest results, including interactive proofs, IP = PSPACE, probabilistically checkable proofs, the sum-check protocol, and SNARKs. These concepts now power blockchain rollups, privacy-preserving applications, and systems for verifying computation without repeating all the work. They also explore why breakthrough ideas are often initially rejected, how toy problems can lead to foundational theories, why abstraction and narrative matter in scientific research, and whether AI systems should be required to prove their answers. Highlights 0:00 — Intro 3:36 — How mental poker inspired zero-knowledge proofs: Proving that something is true without revealing the underlying information 6:30 — The simulation paradigm and the meaning of “zero knowledge” 8:33 — Why the original paper was repeatedly rejected 10:33 — How interactive proofs became more powerful than conventional proofs 13:36 — The road to modern SNARKs 19:02 — Why the sum-check protocol is so useful for verifiable computation 25:31 — Why many so-called “zk proofs” are not actually zero knowledge 34:06 — Why toy examples, playfulness, and narratives can produce deep theory 37:23 — The role of rigor and computational assumptions in cryptography 42:44 — Applying zero-knowledge proofs to law, evidence, and secret software 45:23 — Training AI systems to provide proofs alongside their answers 54:27 — Why genuinely new ideas are often difficult for experts to recognize About First Principles First Principles is a special limited series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. Links Shafi Goldwasser MIT CSAIL: http://people.csail.mit.edu/shafi/ Simons Institute: https://simons.berkeley.edu/people/shafi-goldwasser Tim Roughgarden a16z crypto: https://a16zcrypto.com/team/tim-roughgarden/ Website: https://timroughgarden.org/ "X: https://x.com/Tim_Roughgarden Justin Thaler a16z crypto: https://a16zcrypto.com/team/justin-thaler/ Website: https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/jthaler/ X: https://x.com/SuccinctJT a16z crypto Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto Website: https://a16zcrypto.com/ X: https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto Newsletter: https://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.

a16z Cofounder and General Partner Marc Andreessen and a16z crypto Founder and Managing Partner Chris Dixon on why the CLARITY ACT matters. Congress is debating once-in-a-generation market structure legislation that could determine where financial and internet infrastructure gets built. Chris and Marc join host Robert Hackett to discuss why regulatory clarity matters, what the current policy environment has cost the United States, and what is at stake for developers, entrepreneurs, consumers, and the country’s technological leadership. Marc also looks back at his influential 2014 essay “Why Bitcoin Matters,” when supporting crypto was still a deeply contrarian position, and reflects on how the technology and the political debate around it have evolved since. The discussion explores the lessons of earlier technology revolutions, the importance of giving builders clear rules, and why crypto policy is ultimately about much more than a single industry. It is about who gets to shape the future of money, markets, and the internet. Highlights 00:00 Intro 05:31 From crypto subculture to financial infrastructure 08:37 Why crypto needs rules now 12:20 The regulatory war on crypto 15:41 How CLARITY could prevent another FTX 22:42 Why criminals using crypto may be easier to catch 26:20 Privacy, blockchains, and the invention of HTTPS 30:41 Government ethics and crypto 34:52 The banking lobby’s stablecoin fight 37:05 Why every major bank is building on blockchains 41:04 Developer liability as a killshot 45:23 How CLARITY provides oversight 49:30 What happens if CLARITY fails? 50:50 Regulation vs. innovation 54:12 Why America should lead 55:36 What CLARITY could unlock Links Marc Andreessen: https://twitter.com/pmarca Chris Dixon: https://twitter.com/cdixon Robert Hackett: https://twitter.com/rhackett Why Bitcoin matters: https://a16z.com/why-bitcoin-matters/ What builders need to know about the CLARITY Act: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/clarity-act-what-why-matters Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto Site: https://a16zcrypto.com/ X: https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto Newsletter: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/ As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see https://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.

For the first time, companies can treat AI token spending almost like headcount: allocate more money, deploy more intelligence, and potentially get more work done. That shift could change much more than engineering productivity. It could reshape how companies form, how teams are managed, how businesses are financed, and who is best positioned to build them. In this episode, a16z crypto General Partner Guy Wuollet and Head of Engineering Noah Citron join host Robert Hackett to explore the economics of the AI-native company. They discuss why engineering teams may soon manage token budgets like P&Ls; how AI enables companies to scale labor up and down almost instantly; and whether the future belongs to smaller, leaner businesses run by people who are unusually good at directing agents. The conversation also covers software-engineering “pod shops,” AI as variable labor, the future of consulting and private equity, and why stablecoins and blockchains may become the default financial infrastructure for AI agents and businesses. Finally, they ask a larger question: If AI has created so much new intelligence, why has it not yet produced an obvious jump in economic growth? And in a world where everyone can access powerful models, will intelligence matter less than grit, judgment, and agency? Highlights 00:00 — Intro 4:01 — Why token spending is starting to resemble headcount 4:51 — Deciding how much spend is too much spend 9:04 — The agentic A/B test: How to quantify "return on tokens" 12:05 — The software-engineering "pod shop" 25:13 — Paying deference to the Machine God 26:06 — The rise (or not) of lean, AI-native microbusinesses 28:05 — Everyone's a manager? The new style of thinking for engineers 30:48 — Why AI agents may naturally use stablecoins 34:33 — When AI productivity will appear in GDP 47:49 — Why grit and agency may matter more than IQ 51:38 — How AI could create new paths for startups 54:53 — Innovation, commoditization, and creative destruction Links: Guy Wuollet: https://x.com/guywuolletjr Noah Citron: https://x.com/noahcitron Robert Hackett: https://x.com/rhackett Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto Website: https://a16zcrypto.com/ X: https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto Newsletter: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/ 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.

Before the internet could become a place to bank or transact, it needed a way for strangers to know who they were talking to, and whether a message could be trusted. Turing Award winners Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman helped invent it. In this episode of First Principles, Rivest tells the story of how they developed RSA, the first practical public-key cryptosystem. Their breakthrough made it possible to encrypt information, verify identities, and authenticate messages across an open network without requiring participants to meet or exchange a secret in advance — laying essential groundwork for the secure internet and, decades later, blockchains. Rivest joins Tim Roughgarden, Head of Research at a16z crypto and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, and Dan Boneh — Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, a16z crypto Senior Research Advisor, and the “B” in BLS signatures — for a conversation about the origins and future of modern cryptography. They trace the field from its early days, when most cryptographic research was classified and even the meaning of “security” had not been formally defined, through the publication of the Diffie-Hellman paper and the open problem that ultimately led to RSA. Rivest recounts the night the core idea came together, why the difficulty of factoring made the system plausible, and why no one initially knew whether it would survive sustained attempts to break it. The conversation also explores the other cryptographic primitives that underpin blockchains and the modern internet. Rivest explains why digital signatures interested him even more than encryption, how he designed the MD family of cryptographic hash functions, and why standards such as RSA, DSA, and SHA were shaped as much by politics, patents, and government pressure as by mathematics. Finally, Rivest shares his unusually candid views on quantum computing, post-quantum security, and the deeper theoretical possibility that P could equal NP. Either development could threaten the foundations of modern cryptography — but, as Rivest argues, cryptographers have a responsibility to prepare for even the worst-case scenarios. Highlights 00:00 – Intro: the two problems that could break modern cryptography 01:10 – Why Ron Rivest’s work underpins the internet and blockchains 08:10 – Before public-key cryptography, there was no theory of security 11:05 – The open problem that led to RSA 13:55 – The night Ron Rivest discovered the core idea behind RSA 17:55 – Why digital signatures were the real breakthrough 19:14 – The RSA challenge — and a prediction that was off by quadrillions of years 28:33 – How government pressure shaped cryptographic standards 30:36 – Designing the hash functions that made digital signatures practical 33:26 – The Fiat–Shamir transformation, explained 38:04 – Building a cryptography company before the web existed 42:31 – Will quantum computers ever become powerful enough to break RSA? 48:02 – The cryptography securing the internet, elections, and everyday life 50:11 – What surprised Dan: Quantum giveth and quantum taketh away About First Principles First Principles is a special limited series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. Subscribe to follow along: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjQ9HCQMu_8yIg60YAq67HDdvp7E_T5e8 Hear more from: Ron Rivest: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/ Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Dan Boneh: https://twitter.com/danboneh Follow a16z crypto: X: https://twitter.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.

Long before onchain markets made mechanism design a daily engineering problem, Nobel Prize winner Paul Milgrom was asking how prices actually form — and how better auction rules could reshape actual markets. His work helped transform auction theory from an elegant branch of economics into a practical toolkit for allocating scarce resources, from wireless spectrum to digital ads to financial markets. In this episode of First Principles, Tim Roughgarden, Head of Research at a16z crypto, sits down with Milgrom alongside Scott Kominers — Harvard Business School professor and a16z crypto research partner — for a conversation about auctions, information, price discovery, and the design of complex markets. Together, they explore Milgrom’s foundational work on auction theory, the famous Milgrom-Weber paper, the Grossman-Stiglitz paradox and the Glosten-Milgrom model of market microstructure, and why understanding how prices form matters for everything from prediction markets to decentralized finance. They also discuss Milgrom’s work designing the FCC spectrum auctions — including the auctions that helped allocate wireless spectrum for technologies like mobile broadband and 5G — and the later FCC incentive auction, a massive market design challenge that combined economics, computer science, policy, and real-world implementation. Highlights 00:00 Intro: economics assumptions that are “just wrong” 02:19 Scott Kominers on the genius of Paul Milgrom 05:35 The price discovery problem economics forgot 07:48 The auction theory breakthrough of the 1980s 17:15 Why market microstructure matters for DeFi 24:17 When math teaches economics something new 29:22 Designing auctions people can actually use 32:40 How theory became spectrum auction design 36:22 The floppy disk that helped convince the FCC 41:05 What changed when auctions moved online 45:28 The auction that reorganized television 57:25 Why the best auctions feel simple 1:07:30 What economics and computer science can learn from each other 1:13:22 Futures markets for compute 1:15:12 Paul Milgrom’s advice for builders About First Principles First Principles is a special limited series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. Subscribe to follow along: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjQ9HCQMu_8yIg60YAq67HDdvp7E_T5e8 Hear more from Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Scott Kominers: https://twitter.com/skominers Follow a16z crypto X: https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/a16zcrypto/posts/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto Substack: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/subscribe/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Long before crypto made coordination programmable, Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth was designing markets where coordination could save lives. In this episode of First Principles, Roth tells the story of how he helped build systems for some of the hardest matching problems in the world, from where doctors train and where students go to school to how kidney donors can reach the patients who need them. He joins Tim Roughgarden, Head of Research at a16z crypto, and Scott Kominers — Harvard Business School professor, a16z crypto research partner, and one of Roth’s former students — for a conversation about how market design moves from theory into the real world. They explore how economic theory becomes practical engineering, whether that's matching riders to Ubers, doctors to medical residencies, students to New York City high schools, or organ donors to people whose lives depend on it. They also cover how these same problems show up in today’s crypto networks. Roth explains why markets are not just natural forces, but engineered systems; why the details of timing, congestion, incentives, and trust can make or break a marketplace; and why some of the most important markets are the ones where simply exchanging money can’t do the work. This is a conversation about economics at its most practical and profound: how to design systems that coordinate people, solve real problems, and sometimes save lives. 00:00 Intro: Why market design matters 04:18 The economist as engineer 08:09 When theory meets the real world 07:02 Fixing the medical residency match 15:32 Why markets unravel 18:22 Redesigning NYC high school admissions 28:05 The hidden problem of congestion 34:47 How kidney exchange saves lives 45:26 How the internet changed market design 48:25 Airbnb, Uber and smarter marketplaces 51:28 Repugnant transactions and moral economics 53:32 When markets need social support 54:32 The unexpected effects of criminalizing surrogacy 01:04:58 Preference signals and the job market 01:18:53 A broken market: resettling refugees and other migrants Hear more from: Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Scott Kominers: https://twitter.com/skominers Follow a16z crypto: X: https://twitter.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.

Before blockchains could reach consensus, Leslie Lamport had to define what agreement even meant when computers fail, lie, or disappear. In this episode of First Principles: The Scientific Roots of Blockchain Technology, Turing Award-winning computer scientist Leslie Lamport joins Tim Roughgarden Head of Research at a16z crypto and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, and a16z crypto Research Partner Ittai Abraham to trace the ideas that helped define modern distributed computing. Lamport’s work formalized some of the field’s deepest questions: how to reason about concurrent systems, how distributed systems can agree despite failures, and how to prove that protocols do what they are supposed to do. His work on logical clocks, state machine replication, the Byzantine Generals problem, and Paxos has shaped everything from cloud infrastructure to the consensus protocols underlying modern blockchains. The conversation begins with Lamport’s early work on concurrency and the origins of the Byzantine Generals Problem, and then turns to fault tolerance: what happens when machines crash, behave unpredictably, or even act maliciously? We also cover the feedback loop between theory and practice, the long arc of fundamental research, and how blockchains are inheriting and extending decades of distributed systems work. Highlights 00:00 – Intro: The problem every blockchain is built to solve 02:52 – Why concurrent systems are surprisingly tricky 04:40 – The origins of the bakery algorithm 07:37 – What does it mean for a protocol to be “correct”? 12:03 – The origins of the Byzantine Generals problem — and what happens when some computers fail 17:49 – How Paxos emerged from an attempted impossibility proof 23:47 – Why theory and practice need each other 33:48 – Government funding, DARPA, and the long arc of foundational research About First Principles First Principles is a special limited series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. Hear more from: Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Ittai Abraham: https://twitter.com/ittaia Follow a16z crypto: X: https://twitter.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.

Every blockchain today leans on replication ideas worked out in the 1980s, by a Turing Award winner who wasn’t thinking about how it might apply to money at all. In this episode of First Principles, a16z crypto Head of Research and Columbia professor Tim Roughgarden speaks with Barbara Liskov, MIT professor, Turing Award winner, and one of the most influential computer scientists in programming languages, data abstraction, fault tolerance, and distributed computing. a16z crypto research partner Ittai Abraham joins the conversation. The discussion traces Liskov’s path from programming languages and modularity to distributed systems research; from CLU and Argus to viewstamped replication; and from benign failures to Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance, or PBFT — a protocol family whose ideas now shape many modern blockchain systems. Liskov explains why modularity matters, how systems researchers thought about replication in the 1980s, why view changes were such a key idea, and how PBFT extended earlier work to handle malicious behavior on the internet. The conversation also explores the bridge between theory and practice, the importance of proofs and specifications, and why the next generation of systems research may be reshaped by AI. First Principles is a special, limited series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero-knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and behind blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. Highlights: 00:00 Intro: How do systems stay reliable when parts fail? 01:18 Barbara Liskov’s path from programming languages to distributed systems 05:45 Why modularity is “everything” 07:22 The replication problem: keeping data available across many machines 09:58 Viewstamped replication and the “ledger” before blockchains 16:32 Why good research starts with what you don’t understand 18:10 Leslie Lamport, Paxos, and the inevitability of ideas in the right time, in the right place 21:48 Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance: what changes when replicas can lie 19:35 How PBFT bridged theory and practical systems 22:38 Why you should never trust an individual replica 28:39 Why blockchains are state machine replication in the wild 31:27 AI, verification, and the future of computer science Follow: Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Ittai Abraham: https://twitter.com/ittaia Follow a16z crypto: X: https://twitter.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.

Bitcoin often gets credited with inventing trustless consensus. It didn’t. The problem was named decades earlier — in the world of distributed computing — and researchers spent years studying how machines could reach agreement even when some participants were faulty, adversarial, or corrupt. What Bitcoin did was something different: It solved a classic Byzantine agreement problem in a radically new, permissionless setting. And it took the research world years to fully recognize what Satoshi had done. In this episode of First Principles, a16z crypto Head of Research and Columbia professor Tim Roughgarden is joined by a16z crypto research partner Ittai Abraham — one of the world’s leading researchers in Byzantine agreement and consensus protocols, a founding member of VMware’s blockchain project, and founder of the technical blog Decentralized Thoughts — to unpack the scientific roots of blockchain consensus. Together, Tim and Ittai trace the line from classic distributed systems research to Bitcoin, proof-of-stake, Tendermint, Casper, DAG-based protocols, Solana’s Alpenglow, and the modern race for higher throughput and lower latency. Along the way, they explain why concepts like Byzantine fault tolerance, state machine replication, safety, liveness, and partial synchrony are not just academic abstractions — they are the language and design principles behind today’s blockchain protocols. This conversation kicks off First Principles: The Scientific Roots of Blockchain Technology — a special, limited series from a16z crypto on the scientific ideas behind modern computing — especially blockchains — told through conversations with the pioneers who helped create them, including Barbara Liskov, Leslie Lamport, and more. Hosted by Tim Roughgarden, the series explores the foundational concepts behind distributed systems and consensus protocols; economics, mechanism and market design; and cryptography, from digital signatures to zero knowledge. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and behind blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, told by the people who helped build it. Highlights 00:00 Introduction to First Principles: The Scientific Roots of Blockchain Technology 00:56 Why consensus matters for blockchains 02:30 Byzantine agreement: The old computer science problem Bitcoin made practical 04:34 Blockchains as a shared system of record: State machine replication and blockchain state 06:41 How two research worlds — distributed computing and crypto — began to converge 07:49 Proof of work vs. proof of stake 09:27 Why Ethereum’s move to proof-of-stake took years 11:08 When crypto rediscovered decades of distributed systems research 11:50 Why BFT became practical 12:49 Throughput, latency, and modern consensus design 14:05 DAG-based protocols and faster blockchains 15:25 Peace time vs. war time: why modern blockchains need two modes 16:47 Theory, practice, and the future of blockchain research Follow: Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Ittai Abraham: https://twitter.com/ittaia Follow a16z crypto: X: https://twitter.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.

Crypto has been walled off from the real economy for years — that's changing. Sonal Chokshi and Robert Hackett sit down with Eddy Lazzarin, a16z crypto's newest General Partner, to break down why crypto is entering a completely different phase and what gets built once the rules finally catch up to the technology. The discussion spans: - what the CLARITY Act actually does and why it changes the design space for crypto founders - the difference between a network token and a security, and why it needs to be written into law - why stablecoins are crypto's first real killer app and how the rest of the economy is reconfiguring around them - how tokens let builders decouple pricing from growth in a way stocks never could - why 97.8% of the value created in capitalism leaks out, and what that means for anyone trying to capture any of it Highlights: 00:00 Intro 01:25 What it means to be a GP 02:00 Consensus vs. non-consensus bets 04:27 Network tokens and the CLARITY Act 09:35 Revenue, value capture, and network-token business models 21:18 Stablecoins as crypto’s first killer app 28:52 Engineer-philosopher mindset 39:04 Intellectual influences 52:40 Eddy’s path to crypto 1:03:15 The exuberant adoption phase of AI 1:14:38 Being "pro–AI psychosis" Follow: Eddy Lazzarin: https://twitter.com/eddylazzarin Sonal Chokshi: https://twitter.com/smc90 Robert Hackett: https://twitter.com/rhackett 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.

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.

What if the future of lending doesn’t need banks at all? Paul Frambot, cofounder and CEO of Morpho, explains what it means to build lending infrastructure without banks, and why DeFi’s real breakthrough isn’t “risk-free” loans, but open, onchain markets that make lending more transparent, competitive, and efficient. In this conversation, Paul breaks down the biggest misconception in DeFi lending, how to think about risk onchain, why institutions are learning faster than expected, and where banks, asset managers, fintechs, and stablecoins fit into the next wave of adoption. He also shares his long-term vision for finance: a world where open blockchain infrastructure replaces siloed financial systems, access to capital gets broader, and financial products become cheaper, more personalized, and easier to build. Highlights: 0:00 Intro 0:36 What Morpho actually does 1:22 DeFi’s biggest misconception 5:26 Why Wall Street is paying attention now 6:46 Who’s adopting onchain finance first: Banks or asset managers? 9:57 The race for a Euro stablecoin 10:49 The future of finance, 5–10 years out 11:16 Why finance is still broken 13:30 What open mortgage and credit markets could become on open blockchains 15:14 The worst advice Paul's received as a founder 17:17 What's wrong with an $8 croissant (besides the obvious) 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.

What if opening a trading account was as easy as downloading an app? Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito — a Solana-based liquid staking protocol — breaks down why he thinks all of finance is moving onchain, and what his small team is doing to make that happen. During the 2022-2023 bear market, Jito was getting pitched constantly to jump ship to other chains. Lucas explains why they turned everything down, doubled down on Solana, and chewed a lot of glass. We also cover how Jito acts like a Cloudflare for Solana, why cheap transactions create surprising problems, what convinced Lucas that the Solana engineers were in it for the right reasons, and his vision for a financial system anyone can access with just a phone. Follow Jito: https://www.jito.network/ Follow Lucas: https://x.com/buffalu__ Highlights 0:00 — Intro 0:49 — What is Jito and why does it exist 1:11 — Why Solana transactions are less than a penny 2:00 — What attracted Lucas to Solana from Ethereum 2:39 — How Jito is like Cloudflare for blockchains 5:02 — The $1,500 Ethereum transaction fee problem 7:21 — The vision: all of finance onchain 7:46 — Onchain vs. opening a Robinhood account 8:37 — Lucas's journey from robotics to crypto 9:55 — Solana's rate of improvement and Anatoly's Law 10:44 — The pitch for people new to crypto 15:00 — Staying lean at 21 people 15:17 — Nicotine as a productivity hack 15:58 — Sleep, alcohol, and the Oura ring 16:40 — Smallest hill you'll die on: littering and shopping carts 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.

Should we push AI forward as fast as possible, or be more careful about how it develops? Two competing views are emerging: e/acc (effective accelerationism): go faster, progress is the only path forward d/acc (defensive / decentralized acceleration): accelerate, but carefully, or risk losing control In this episode of the a16z crypto show, Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum founder) and Guillaume Verdon aka "Beff Jezos" (Extropic founder & CEO,) join Eddy Lazzarin (a16z crypto CTO) and Shaw Walters (Eliza Labs founder) for a deep debate about these two perspectives and what they mean for AI, crypto, and the future. They discuss: Whether acceleration is something we can control The biggest risks of AI, from surveillance to concentration of power Why open source and decentralization may shape who benefits Whether slowing down AI is realistic or even desirable How humans stay relevant in a world of increasingly powerful systems What the next 10, 100, and 1,000 years might look like At its core, this episode asks: Can acceleration be steered, or is that beyond our control? Highlights: 00:00 Opening 07:02 Thermodynamics and first principles 16:04 Acceleration, entropy, and civilization 28:29 The core disagreement 32:42 Comparing and contrasting e/acc and d/acc 36:20 Open source, open hardware, and local intelligence 54:18 Should AI be slowed down? 1:02:35 Autonomous agents and artificial life 1:21:07 Crypto as the trust layer between humans and AI 1:35:37 Closing arguments Follow a16z crypto for more... 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.

What does the future of the creator economy actually look like? The economics of content creation are changing, what happens to copyright in a world of abundant generated content, and why human taste, curation, and connection may matter even more going forward. In this episode, host Robert Hackett talks with Justin (CEO, Bond) and Michael Blau(Head of Product, Bond) about the changing relationship between creators, audiences, platforms, and technology. They unpack how today’s platforms shape creator behavior, why audience relationships are often trapped inside algorithms, and what a more direct creator-fan connection could look like. They also explore broader questions around crypto infrastructure, stablecoins, and whether blockchain can enable new kinds of internet-native products without needing to be the focus of the user experience. Along the way, Justin reflects on his path from music into crypto, Michael talks about how magic shaped the way he thinks about originality and performance, and both share thoughts on NFTs, digital ownership, productivity tools, books, and creative inspiration. Highlights 0:00 Intro 0:47 The biggest misconceptions about creator monetization 1:04 Why creators still don’t know their audience 1:34 Trading, speculation, and the limits of past creator crypto models 2:31 Why creator-fan relationships could move onchain 4:41 Stablecoins and global internet products 6:55 Justin Michael’s journey from DJ to crypto builder 8:12 What artists still don’t get from platforms 10:09 Subscription models, fan support, and alternative mechanics 17:57 AI, content abundance, and the future of creativity 18:57 Why human curation still matters 19:36 Copyright, IP, and a world shaped by AI 25:00 The difference between AI and crypto products 25:38 What magic teaches about creativity and originality 28:23 Inspirations: John Mayer, Zedd, Brian Chesky, David Blaine 35:06 Why NFTs still matter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.