The company said in a statement that the London office, which will open later this year, will engage with institutions in the UK and assist the development of blockchain technology and entrepreneurs. It will be overseen by one of the firm’s general partners, Sriram Krishnan.
Andreessen Horowitz, a major cryptocurrency investor, announced on Sunday that it will open its first overseas office in London, at a time when US regulators are increasing their scrutiny of the cryptocurrency business.
The company said in a statement that the London office, which will open later this year, will engage with institutions in the UK and assist the development of blockchain technology and entrepreneurs. It will be overseen by one of the firm’s general partners, Sriram Krishnan.
Andreessen’s action comes at a time when the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is pushing down on the cryptocurrency industry, suing cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance last week for allegedly breaking its rules.
“We’re thrilled to open our first international office in a jurisdiction that welcomes blockchain technology and is committed to creating a predictable business environment by pursuing regulations that both embrace Web3 and protect consumers,” said Chris Dixon, co-founder and managing director of Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto fund, which is establishing the office.
Dixon stated that the decision came after months of discussions with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other officials.
Sunak stated in the statement that he is “determined to unlock opportunities” for blockchain technology and “turn the United Kingdom into the world’s Web3 center.” Web3 is a much-touted vision of a blockchain-powered future internet.
Dixon, on the other hand, stated that his company will continue to invest in the United States and collaborate with politicians there.
“We will continue to invest heavily in the United States.” “We remain committed to working with US policymakers and regulators to advocate for more regulatory clarity for crypto startups in the United States,” Dixon wrote in a blog post.
Crypto in its early stages
Dixon also stated in the blog post that, while there are numerous prospects with crypto and Web3, the market is still in its infancy.
“Technology takes decades to develop — after 80 years of development, we are only now seeing mainstream applications of AI.” We are still in the early stages of cryptocurrency. There are currently tens of thousands of crypto developers, but the number is rapidly increasing, and we hope to see one million developers by 2030,” Dixon wrote in his blog post.
Dixon stated that one of the reasons for selecting the United Kingdom is that its authorities are also eager to collaborate with the business to develop rules that encourage startups to explore decentralization.
“We have been working with policymakers and regulators all over the world, and it has become clear during our discussions that the UK government sees the promise of web3, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggesting that the UK can become a hub of web3 innovation,” he wrote.
Andreessen Horowitz also invested in Gensyn, a crypto firm based in the United Kingdom, whose decentralized compute protocol is expected to enable developers to build cutting-edge AI systems on any connected hardware, and whose novel cryptographic verification system allows users to trust that the protocol’s machine learning work was completed correctly.
