Benzinga | Jun 25, 2021 10:21AM EDT

'The Next Wave Of Innovation Will Be Driven By Crypto,' Andreessen Horowitz Launches $2.2B Crypto Fund

American venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has launched a $2.2 billion cryptocurrency investment fund.

What Happened: According to a Thursday CNBC report, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz's venture capital firm announced its crypto fund yesterday.

Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund will invest in blockchain and digital asset start-ups.

General Partner Ali Yahya pointed out that the size of the investment is also a testimony to the firm's perspective on crypto in a recent announcement.

"The size of this fund speaks to the size of the opportunity before us: crypto is not only the future of finance but, as with the internet in the early days, is poised to transform all aspects of our lives."

Why It Matters: Andreessen Horowitz's first crypto fund was launched three years ago, during a crypto bear market that earned the nickname of "crypto winter" after Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) lost roughly 80% of its value from its 2017's high of $20,000.

Bitcoin once again lost nearly half of its value from its May high of over $60,000, and Andreessen Horowitz recognizes the volatility but points out that "prices may fluctuate but innovation continues to increase through each cycle."

Andreessen Horowitz's partners believe that the "next wave of computing innovation will be driven by crypto," which coming from the representatives of a venture capital firm known for being an early investor in companies such as Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Instagram, Lyft Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT) and Pinterest Inc. (NYSE:PINS) may act as a wake-up call for many.

Read also: Two South African Brothers Disappear With $3.6B Worth Of Bitcoin In Biggest Scam To Date

The fund also previously invested in Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), which became the first publicly traded US crypto exchange through a direct Nasdaq listing earlier this year.

Other a16z's crypto investments include Facebook's stablecoin project Diem, previously known as Libra, and non-fungible token (NFT) companies DapperLabs and OpenSea.