Connie Loizos

Sun, Jun 22, 2025, 11:43 AM8 min read

In 2018, when Bitcoin was trading around $4,000 and most Americans, at least, thought cryptocurrency was a fad, Katie Haun found herself on a debate stage in Mexico City opposite Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. As Krugman focused on Bitcoin’s wild price swings, Haun steered the conversation toward something else — stablecoins.

“Stablecoins are really interesting and really important to this ecosystem to hedge against that volatility,” she argued onstage, explaining how digital tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar could offer the benefits of blockchain technology without the ups and downs of traditional cryptocurrencies.

Krugman dismissed the idea entirely.

It wasn’t exactly a turning point in Haun’s career, but it was one moment among others that have helped define it. A former federal prosecutor, Haun brings an unusual background to crypto investing, having spent over a decade investigating financial crimes and creating the government’s first cryptocurrency task force. After becoming the first female partner at Andreessen Horowitz in 2018 and co-leading its crypto funds, she founded Haun Ventures in 2022 with over $1.5 billion in assets under management.

Hanging her own shingle hasn’t been without its complexities. Despite her role at a16z and the industry connections that came with it, the two haven’t publicly co-invested in anything since shortly after she launched her fund, and Haun stepped down from Coinbase’s board last year while Marc Andreessen remains a director.

When asked Wednesday night at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event about her relationship with Andreessen Horowitz, she downplayed any potential friction while acknowledging they aren’t collaborators exactly. “There’s no ‘gentleman’s agreement,'” she said, echoing this editor’s question about whether there’s any understanding to avoid competing with her former employer. “In fact, I still talk to Andreessen Horowitz. You’re right that we haven’t really done any deals together of late.”

The apparent lack of co-investment could reflect the cutthroat industry or the challenges associated with leaving one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent firms to compete directly with former colleagues. Whatever the case, Haun is now charting her own course, and at the heart of it is stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to traditional assets like the U.S. dollar.

Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which can swing wildly in value, stablecoins like Circle’s USDC or Tether’s USDT are meant to trade at exactly $1, creating a digital representation of traditional currency that can move on blockchain networks.