We continue our YouTube series “Founding Stories” with the story of Anchorage.
To set the stage, what do you do to keep a valuable asset safe? Well, if you were a pirate, you’d keep your booty in a locked treasure chest, assign a guard, and maybe bury the chest somewhere secret: X marks the spot!
Now flash forward to the modern age: how do you know you really own those stocks and mutual funds you bought? As it turns out, there is a complex set of technology, regulations, laws, and procedures that your broker follows to make sure they are keeping your holdings safe. When they do this, they are acting as a financial custodian.
Now flash forward again to the cryptocurrency era with its private keys, multiple cryptocurrencies, new ways to vote, and other complexities. We need to rethink the roles, technologies, and processes for a cryptocurrency custodian, and that’s exactly what Anchorage is doing.
In this video, a16z General Partner Chris Dixon talks with the co-founders of Anchorage Diogo Monica and Nathan McCauley about:
- What they learned building out security engineering practices and technology at Square and Docker
- The founding story of Anchorage
- What custodians do, and the new responsibilities of a crypto custodian
- How crypto custodians can help unlock more engagement from traditional financial institutions
- What Libra is, why Anchorage decided to join the Libra Association as a founding member and what role the company will play in the new global cryptocurrency. (Full disclosure: a16z is also a founding member, as a16z General Partner Katie Haun describes.)
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Diogo Monica
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Nathan McCauley
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Chris Dixon is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz since 2012 where he founded and leads a16z crypto.