Daren Matsuoka

@darenmatsuoka

122 Following

976 Followers

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None of the above should be taken as investment advice or an advertisement for investment services; please see https://a16z.com/disclosures/ for more information.

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@stavros, Greg, and Jared are industry veterans with more than 50 years of combined experience in the gaming industry. They've shipped software at scale to billions of users, including Call of Duty multiplayer, and previously held roles at EA, Razer, Facebook, and Coinbase.

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Games are perhaps the product most obviously suited to stablecoin-based payment rails – driving billions of microtransactions annually – and as the industry finally begins to unbundle after a decade of consolidation, it’s the right time to redefine the stack.

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Our CSX Investment in Oncade The gaming industry is at an inflection point, with AI tools and vibe coding platforms democratizing game development. But when it comes to some of the critical pieces – like payments and distribution – the options are extremely limited and extractive.

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Oncade offers a new approach. With community-led distribution and more efficient blockchain-based payment rails, the next generation of game makers can earn more money (and keep more of that money earned for themselves!).

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Give this a listen for the tldr on all the recent stablecoin news from @sambroner. I also share a weather report on the latest trends in stablecoin data ⛅️

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None of the above should be taken as investment advice or an advertisement for investment services; please see https://a16z.com/disclosures/ for more information.

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We’re thrilled to have KYD Labs in the CSX SF cohort. I’ve been truly inspired by this team.

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Ticketing is one of the most brutal, entrenched industries to disrupt — but if anyone can do it, it's Ahmed and David. They know every corner of this business and see every challenge as an opportunity. It’s no surprise KYD became the first crypto-native company in history to win an exclusive ticketing contract with a major U.S. music venue — and they did it in New York City, a cutthroat live events market.

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In order to scale this offering, KYD will be introducing a decentralized factoring protocol (for accredited investors), backed by real cash flows from ticket sales. This will allow venues to unlock the capital they need to produce more shows, book bigger talent, and scale faster — creating a powerful flywheel for growth and financial independence across the live events ecosystem.

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The team has sat down with countless venues, promoters, and agents to discover the real pain points that need to be addressed. From these learnings, they built a ticketing platform with a set of integrated marketing tools that provide crystal clear ROI: After integrating KYD, venues now sell 30% more tickets.

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The People's Ticketmaster is coming. Ahmed and David, the founders of KYD Labs, bring deep ticketing expertise and firsthand experience battling the unfair power dynamics that dominate the live events industry today.

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Given the rich design space for tokens, I've long wanted an elegant taxonomy for categorizing them. @eddy, @milesjennings, and @skominers have finally done it... evaluating tokens across their technical, legal, and economic dimensions.

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Stablecoin activity is largely uncorrelated to crypto trading/purchases, which indicates there are other organic use cases emerging. https://warpcast.com/darenmatsuoka/0x1881d40a

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Stablecoin transaction volume – adjusted for inorganic activity such as bots – reached an all-time high last quarter.

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Source is Artemis, which they define as "Number of unique addresses that have transacted stablecoins" during the period.

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Stablecoins have found product market fit and this chart shows it. Stablecoin activity is largely uncorrelated to crypto market cycles – organic, non-speculative use appears to be widespread and growing even as crypto trading volume fluctuates.

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Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix is brilliant. Extremely triggering, but incredibly well done.

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None of the above should be taken as investment advice or an advertisement for investment services; please see https://a16z.com/disclosures/ for more information.

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To learn more about why these metrics are my ones to watch, check out my full post https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/5-metrics-to-watch-2025/

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