Andressen Horowitz Launches New $515 Million Fund for Cryptocurrency

A new cryptocurrency fund has been put into place by Andressen Horowitz, a “private American venture capital firm” that was founded in 2009.  This is the group’s second cryptocurrency fund, according to a blog post.

This new fund will be for $515 million and will be used specifically for cryptocurrency projects and businesses.

The goal here, of course, is to circumvent the traditional banking system that, quite frankly, can take too long to transfer money.

An excerpt from the post regarding this:

“The payments system we use today was designed more than a half-century ago, and the way we transfer and distribute value has lots of room for improvement. Transferring actual value quickly and cheaply without a third party, in much the same way we currently transfer data like emails or photos, will soon be technologically possible at scale.”

What’s interesting is that this fund is meant to challenge traditional platforms like Venmo or PayPal, the release notes. Whereas those services are more of an IOU, it says, cryptocurrencies are sending “bits and bytes.”

“Turning money into pure bits also allows software developers to creatively design new services around money the way they have done with photos and text,” the release also notes, claiming that this technology allows for brand new ways to transact.