Andreessen Horowitz Hires Engineers From Facebook’s Novi Wallet

Andreessen Horowitz hires engineers from Facebook’s Novi team and the crypto division has a $2.2 billion fund to use for crypto investments as we are reading more in our latest cryptocurrency news today.

Andreessen Horowitz hires engineers for its a16z crypto division. The venture capital firm is a founding member of the organization behind the Facebook Diem crypto project and made sure that there will be something good coming out of that investment that hasn’t brought any result so far. The two lead engineers for Facebook’s Novi Wallet will be used to hold a dollar-based stablecoin that is issued by the Diem association which Facebook created and they are now moving into senior roles at a16z Crypto as per the blog post from today.

We’re excited to announce @riyazdf as CTO and @nassyweazy as CISO for a16z Crypto. As part of the operating team, Nassim and Riyaz will provide rigorous security and technical guidance for our crypto projects. COO @AAlbaneseNY has more 👇 https://t.co/m3CbDNwJgP

— a16z (@a16z) October 11, 2021

Riyaz Faizullabhoy and Nassim Eddequiouaq who switched roles at the crypto custody firm Anchorage two years ago to work on facebook’s wallet have now been named Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer. Facebook announced Libra back in 2019 with a goal in mind to create a digital asset whose value was tied to a  basket of other world currencies. Instead of the stablecoin that maintains a 1:1 peg to the US dollar, Libra would have a stable price while becoming its own de facto global currency that would be held in the Calibra wallet. Shepherding the project was Libra Association that included both Andreessen and Coinbase alongside credit card companies and NGOs.

All of this has changed, however. Libra became Diem and Calibra swapped its name to Novi but the rebranding didn’t divert the attention away from the turmoil. The association lost a few members including Stripe, eBay, and Mastercard as well as Visa on the same day, right after the US lawmakers warned of the regulatory implications. The Diem Association then downgraded its ambitions to a simple US-based stablecoin since many executives left the project. Now, the two engineers will join Kevin Weil who is the co-founder as well as Morgan Beller, the Head of Strategy. A16z still has a lot to do as the crypto fund raised $2.2 billion after earlier bets on Uniswap and Compound paid dividends. Andreessen even led the $152 million Series B funding round for Ethereum NFT Game Axie Infinity.