Jesse Walden, former partner of A16Z, launches Variant Fund and explains why it focuses on the "ownership economy"

Variant Fund, a new venture capital firm dedicated to creating a cryptocurrency-driven "ownership economy," was launched on July 14 by Jesse Walden, a former partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm A16Z and co-founder of Mediachain.

In his official post, Jesse Walden argues that ownership economics will be the next frontier in encryption and consumer software, and he believes that building such platforms can leverage the most powerful forms of market incentives to amplify network effects.

He also argues that the history of protocol adoption fits a pattern: First, early adopters of new protocols do things that would have been impossible before the new technology was licensed. Often, this new behavior involves a violation of the rules. A successful strategy for founders is to build products that make these new models more accessible to a wider audience. This pattern can be found in the early web protocols such as IP, HTTP, HTML, etc., then the application of RSS, and even the widespread use of BitTorrent.

"Needless to say, any startup or new technology is one of the most challenging problems of how to be used, especially in places that need network effects -- even with today's mainstream platform of existing network effect competition. As early COINS and etheric lane community realized, ownership is the tool that helps to solve the problem." Jesse Walden mentioned several projects/teams, including Celo, Compound, Uniswap, Braintrust, Bird and Dumpling, and Numerai and many more.

"The world is increasingly aware that 'software is eating the world,' so it's no surprise that the narrative of individual economic empowerment on the Internet now resonates more than ever." He says the team will work with entrepreneurs and communities at an early stage. Meanwhile, Variant Fund has received support from A16Z general partners Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen, Union Square Ventures (USV) and Compound founder and CEO Robert Leshner, and has made investments that haven't been announced, Jesse Walden told Coindesk.

Jesse Walden started his music career as an artist agent back in 2014 and later co-founded Mediachain Labs with a friend. In 2018, he joined the investment team at A16Z to research encryption networks and their functions and applications more broadly.

Assistant Us assistant secretary of State For Economic development

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