a16z

📅 January 7 | United States
For more than a decade, Bitcoin has been celebrated as a store of value, but criticized for its apparent inability to fully integrate into the world of programmable finance. While Ethereum, Solana, and other networks built complex DeFi ecosystems, most of the capital in BTC remained immobile, protected by a security narrative, but unproductive.

📖Venture capital firm a16z Crypto confirmed the direct purchase of $15 million in BABY tokens, reinforcing its commitment to Babylon, a protocol focused on transforming Bitcoin into onchain collateral without custody or wrapped versions of the asset. With this investment, Babylon brings its total disclosed funding from 2023 to $103 million, following a $18 million Series A and $70 million strategic round led by Paradigm.
According to co-founder David Tse, the funds will go towards the development of Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (BTCVaults), an infrastructure designed to allow native Bitcoin to be verifiably locked as collateral, always remaining on the Bitcoin blockchain. The goal is to solve one of the biggest historical bottlenecks in the ecosystem: the use of BTC in financial applications without resorting to centralized custodians or synthetic assets.
less than 1% of the total Bitcoin supply is currently wrapped or used in decentralized applications, while more than $1.4 trillion in BTC remains idle. This dormant capital does not reflect a lack of demand, but rather a lack of infrastructure aligned with the fundamental principles of Bitcoin, especially self-custody and trust minimization.
BTCVaults allow Bitcoin to be locked as collateral in a cryptographically verifiable manner. Through zero-knowledge proofs, external applications can confirm that the BTC is still locked without needing to move it or delegate control. The architecture relies on witness encryption and garbled circuits, allowing verification to occur without Bitcoin leaving its base layer.
This design opens the door to a new generation of financial products built on Bitcoin, including loans, credit issuance, stablecoins, insurance and other complex financial structures. All this without converting BTC into a synthetic representation or transferring custody to third parties, a key point to attract the most conservative holders of the asset.

Topic Opinion:
For years, the ecosystem accepted as dogma that making Bitcoin productive meant sacrificing its fundamental principles. BTCVaults directly challenges that idea. If the model works at scale, it could redefine Bitcoin's role within the global financial system, going from a passive asset to becoming the backbone of decentralized credit.
💬 Could BTCVaults usher in a new financial era based on BTC?

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#bitcoin #Babylon #a16z #Layer2 #CryptoNews $BTC $BABY

Morgan Stanley submits application for Ethereum spot #ETF
Moody's releases 2026 outlook: Stablecoins are moving towards "digital cash"
#a16z : Privacy will be the most important barrier for the crypto industry in 2026
#Bitwise CIO: If the US stock market stabilizes and legislation progresses, the crypto market will continue to rise this year
Rumble and Tether jointly launch non-custodial crypto wallet Rumble Wallet
#CoinRank #GN

​Venture capital giant a16z has just released its roadmap for 2026, pinpointing exactly where the "Smart Money" is flowing. As we transition from speculation to utility, these 17 trends are set to define the next bull cycle.
​🏦 1. The "Internet as a Bank" (Stablecoins 2.0)
​Stablecoins have already surpassed Visa in annual transaction volume. In 2026, a16z predicts:
​Smart On/Off Ramps: Moving money between fiat and crypto will become invisible and instant.
​Ledger Upgrades: Traditional banks will finally adopt stablecoin rails to modernize aging ledgers.

💰 Watch: $USDC , $PYUSD, and the rise of decentralized stablecoins.
​🤖 2. From KYC to KYA: The AI Agent Economy
​As AI agents become autonomous economic actors, they need their own wallets and identities.
​Know Your Agent (KYA): New frameworks will verify AI identities, allowing them to pay for data, GPU time (via $RENDER or $AKT), and API calls permissionlessly.
​Research Power: AI will move from simple chat to performing substantive on-chain research.
​🔒 3. Privacy: The Ultimate Competitive Moat
​Privacy is no longer optional; it’s a requirement for institutional adoption.
​ZK & FHE: Technologies like Zero-Knowledge Proofs and Fully Homomorphic Encryption ($FHE ) will allow users to prove data (like age or solvency) without revealing the data itself.
​Decentralized Messaging: A shift away from centralized platforms toward end-to-end encrypted, on-chain communication.
​📈 4. Native RWA & Staked Media
​Beyond Tokenization: We are moving from simply "porting" assets to Native On-chain Issuance of Real World Assets ($RWA).
​Prediction Markets: These will become the primary way to "price the truth" regarding global events.
​Staked Media: A new era where content and credibility are backed by economic stakes.
​💡 The Bottom Line
​a16z is betting on the convergence of AI, Stablecoins, and RWA. The industry is shifting from the "Wild West" to a value-driven industrial era.
​Are you aligning your portfolio with these 2026 mega-trends? 👇
​#a16z #Crypto2026 #Stablecoins #RWA #Write2Earn

I used to think that the crypto market in 2026 would still be a replay of the old script of Meme coin frenzy and concept coin speculation— as long as the story was good, it could harvest a wave of traffic. It wasn't until I finished reading a16z's (2026 Outlook for the Crypto Field) that I was harshly awakened: The era of 'expected consensus' in Crypto has officially ended, and 2026 is the year of life or death for 'landing consensus.'
In the past, we paid for 'what might happen in the future'; now we must vote on 'what has actually happened.' The 17 directions listed by a16z essentially convey a message: Crypto is finally about to be 'weaned' from being an 'alternative asset' that survives on speculation and will transform into 'infrastructure' that supports the real economy. These three landing trends are precisely the gathering place for Alpha in the next two years, and those who understand have already begun to plan.

Tom Lee: Gold has seen a parabolic rise over the past year, leading the cryptocurrency market.
More than 40 countries, including the UK, implemented new crypto tax rules on January 1st, requiring exchanges to collect and report user transaction records.
#Coinbase Research Head: Factors driving crypto growth, such as regulation, ETFs, and stablecoins, will become even stronger in the future.
Opinion: Will provide full compensation for the #Metamask market results bias caused by oracle contamination.
#a16z crypto releases 17 industry outlooks for 2026.

#CoinRank #GN

This article will describe the evolution of venture capital dynamics in blockchain-related entities over the past 15 years, focusing on the shift in some companies toward liquid investments, where VCs do not acquire equity but instead acquire tokens with a vesting schedule.
In addition, famous investment institutions like a16z will be listed as making their first investments in the crypto space, such as their investment in OpenCoin (later Ripple Labs) in April 2013.
In the early days of Bitcoin, from 2009 to 2012, VCs had little interest in the crypto space, so this article will start the analysis from 2012. It is also worth noting that the long-term correlation between Bitcoin price and funding amount does not disappear until 2023.