Today in Crypto: Andreessen Horowitz Debuts $4.5B Crypto Fund; WeWork’s Neumann Starts Crypto Credit Climate Firm Flowcarbon

Andreessen Horowitz has set up a new crypto fund, its fourth, which will total $4.5 billion, a company blog said Wednesday (May 25).

Of that amount, around $1.5 billion will go to seed investments, and $3 billion to venture investments.

The company in the blog talked about “golden eras” and major computing cycles that come around every so often, listing PCs in the ’80s and the internet in the ’90s, along with mobile computing in the 2000s.

“We think we are now entering the golden era of Web3,” Andreessen wrote. “Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users. More importantly, a massive wave of world-class talent has entered Web3 over the last year. They are brilliant and passionate and want to build a better internet.”

In other crypto news, Flowcarbon, a carbon-credit startup by WeWork entrepreneur Adam Neumann, despite the controversy surrounding him, has raised $70 million from various backers, Bloomberg reported.

The company sells carbon credits and keeps a record of transactions on the blockchain, and has offices in Berlin, Montana and New York.

The carbon-credit market is “notably opaque” and this can lead to lower-quality credits sold and purchased, with little effect on carbon reduction.

Babel Finance has reached unicorn status after raising $80 million in a funding round, a report from Yahoo says.

The firm provides financial services for bitcoin, ether and stablecoins. The funds will be used for more global expansion and more compliance effort work.

Babel Finance’s value is now sitting at $2 billion.

At the end of last year, the report says Babel Finance had an outstanding loan balance of more than $3 billion, an increase from $2 billion the previous February.

The company averaged around $800 million in monthly derivatives trading volume.