Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong walks us through “Setting Up and Scaling a Crypto Company,” explaining how crypto can help startups raise money, acquire customers and build a global profile. The issuing of tokens, for example, can align the incentives of early users and reinforce network effects, helping solve the “cold-start” problem that can derail many startups. Armstrong also outlines the disadvantages of crypto that entrepreneurs must watch out for, including regulatory uncertainty. On balance, he thinks crypto is where the internet was in the early days. “In 5 or 10 years, pretty much every startup that gets created, it’s going to use the internet, it’s going to use AI, and it’s also going to use some form of cryptocurrency somewhere in that product.”
Andreessen Horowitz’s Crypto Startup School brought together 45 participants from around the U.S. and overseas in a seven-week course to learn how to build crypto companies. Andreessen Horowitz is partnering with TechCrunch to release the online version of the course over the next few weeks.