Original text organized and compiled by: Portal Labs
Original Title: Preparing for the Pitch with Arianna Simpson
In the Web3 world, cycles are not an accident, but a norm. The alternation between bull and bear markets is like the tides of capital and the four seasons of nature. For founders, the biggest challenge has never been predicting the next reversal, but rather how to survive amid the ups and downs, and even build long-term value against the trend.
Recently, a16z crypto partner Arianna Simpson shared her over a decade of experience investing in the crypto industry on a podcast. From the shock of the Bitcoin whitepaper, to the product-market fit of stablecoins, to the intersection of Crypto and AI, as well as advice for founders.
These observations and experiences are not only applicable to Silicon Valley. In the view of Portal Labs, they also provide valuable references and insights for Web3 founders and high-net-worth investors in China.
The Nature of the Cycle
Arianna entered the world of crypto with the shock she felt over a decade ago when she first read the Bitcoin white paper. However, what truly kept her in the space was not that fleeting moment of excitement, but the ups and downs she experienced over the subsequent ten years. She witnessed the birth of Bitcoin, the boom of DeFi, and the frenzy of NFTs, as well as the bubbles and cool downs that followed. It was through this long-term observation that she gradually formed a clear understanding: the crypto industry has never grown linearly, but rather progresses in dramatic waves, with emotions and capital surging and receding alternately.
Therefore, she shifted her focus from "predicting the next wave of opportunities" to "identifying who is building against the wind." Her investment approach resembles a form of following: following what the best founders are doing. When the strongest founders flock to stablecoins, funds should converge there; when cutting-edge teams continue to invest in Crypto × AI or DePIN, new value gaps often emerge as well. It’s not about making grand pronouncements first and then looking for projects to validate them; rather, it’s about calibrating one’s worldview and capital allocation based on the direction of frontline builders.
For Web3 founders and high-net-worth investors in China, this methodology is more actionable than "cycle prediction." For founders, the cooling-off period is not an excuse, but a form of screening: being able to push the product and stack forward in years without applause indicates that both the direction and the people are right; for allocators, what really needs to be assessed is not the theme's popularity, but whether the team can maintain speed, discipline, and mission density during tough years. This order of "identifying people - observing long-term execution - discussing valuation" is more capable of transcending bull and bear markets than any short-term narrative.
Stablecoin
Narrowing the lens to stablecoins. Arianna's judgment is quite straightforward: it has become the focal point not because of a new speculative narrative, but because it is genuinely being used on both ends—consumers use it for cross-border transfers and to hedge against local currency fluctuations; businesses use it for settlements, allocations, and bridging accounts receivable and payable. More crucially, over the past year and a half, the two foundational infrastructure "valves" of speed and cost have finally been opened, allowing stablecoins to transition from an imagined payment network to a real settlement layer.
This point directly hits the founders of Web3 in China and high-net-worth individuals. For overseas teams, the real bottleneck is often not the product, but the cash flow: how to stably, at low cost, and traceably send money to the labeling teams in Southeast Asia, node maintainers in Africa, and channel partners in Latin America; how to enable overseas clients to make payments without complicated corporate processes; how to manage periodic receivables in a dollar environment and control exchange rate risks in a local currency environment. The value of stablecoins lies not in the 'coin', but in the 'track'. When you standardize the entry and exit of funds, identity verification, reconciliation receipts, and tax records onto an auditable track, the complexity of cross-border business will significantly decrease.
Of course, there will be more and more issuers, but users will not pay for every new token. Arianna's intuition is that in the short term, there will be a flourishing variety, but in the long term, it will converge to a few stablecoins that are "large-scale, reputable, and have an ecological niche"; further down the line, the front-end experience will become abstracted, and users will hardly perceive specific tokens, with the back-end automatically completing clearing and settlement through "track interoperability."
This means that for the upcoming development of stablecoins, the team should not waste energy on the impulse of "I want to issue one too," but should focus on more pragmatic designs, such as how to thoroughly "nativize stablecoins" in your business processes, risk control, and financial systems. When your product can naturally operate on a path of U.S. dollar pricing, stablecoin settlement, and on-chain reconciliation, your cross-border efficiency and credibility will stand out among peers.
For high net worth individuals, stablecoins are a new cash management tool and a "low-friction channel" for global liquidity. However, this does not mean there is no risk. At the portfolio level, reserving an on-chain track for "liquidity turnover" and "hedging against currency fluctuations" is a more future-oriented portfolio hygiene. In simple terms, two principles: carefully select counterparties, diversify custody and wallets; make "compliance and explainability" the first constraint, rather than a last-minute fix.
Crypto × AI × DePIN
Arianna emphasized that super cycles are often not driven by a single technology, but rather by several curves resonating and overlapping within the same time window. The clearest combination today is the decentralized incentives in cryptocurrency, combined with the centralized computing power and data hunger of AI, layered with the orchestration of real-world resources from DePIN.
Translate it into the "actionable" language of the Chinese founders: We have rare long-term accumulation in hardware supply chains, manufacturing and deployment, and engineering organization of edge nodes. If you can connect the "contribution-metrics-payment" chain with stablecoins to incentivize real-world data and resources on-chain, and then package these resources into standardized products consumable by AI (datasets, annotations, bandwidth, storage, inference time slices), you will have the opportunity to create a "supply-side platform." This is not PPT-style token economics; it is serious operations science: indicator definition, anti-cheating, settlement frequency, dispute resolution, credibility system—all need to be engineered.
Another important thread is 'authenticity'. The existence of deepfake content is not frightening; what is frightening is an unverifiable environment. Verifiable timestamps, generation paths, device signatures, and traceability of operational entities will be the 'new utilities' for the future of content and commodity internet. This presents a near-term opportunity for Chinese teams engaged in brand expansion, second-hand trading, and luxury goods circulation. Doing the difficult yet correct thing: making 'verifiable authenticity' the default rather than an optional paid feature.
Looking at AI Agents again. It is irresponsible to hand over a credit card to a semi-mature agent for "self-service online shopping"; however, giving it a wallet with a limit, that can be revoked and audited, allows it to complete a set of tasks (subscribing, purchasing APIs, paying commissions) within a clear strategy, which is realistic and feasible. In other words, "the wallet is the permission system." The real application is not the inflated "universal agent" but rather the vertically focused "bounded rational agent"—binding permissions, budgets, logs, and counterparties together using on-chain wallets within a strongly constrained business domain.
Financing and Governance
The financing environment of 2020–2021 may have left many in Web3 with the illusion that no deck is needed, no model is needed, and investors will offer ridiculous terms in private messages on Twitter.
Arianna spoke bluntly: that was a "twilight illusion," not the norm, and today we should return to basics. Prepare workable materials, honestly present indicators, and set financing goals conservatively but at a position that can be exceeded; it’s better to first close a round with reasonable money and then snowball, rather than starting with 50 million and ending up with nothing.
For Chinese founders, a more realistic order is: first ensure the foundation runs smoothly, then talk about money. First, the engineering resilience of technology and products, performance, risk control, observability, and operability; second, compliance and policy pathways, KYC/AML, cross-border data segmentation, auditable funds and data flows, and tax and invoice closure; third, verifiable business loops, real payments, positive unit economics, and stable payment rhythms. In publicly available narratives, talk less about "coins" and focus more on supply-side infrastructure: for example, standardizing computing power / bandwidth / sensor data into billable APIs using DePIN, or digitizing existing assets and embedding them into compliant issuance and settlement processes using RWA. Once these three things have a chain of evidence, then use milestones to supplement capital in stages, rather than letting financing dictate business direction.
Governance must also return to common sense. A 50-50 split is not fairness; it is inaction. Equity, board of directors, reserved matters, vesting periods, cliff periods, founder exit terms, intellectual property ownership—none of these are sexy, but each one determines whether you can weather the first major storm. Arianna even does not shy away from the merits of "single founder"—at least you won't fall out with yourself. Portal Labs suggests that instead of getting entangled in the "number of partners," it's better to articulate the "list of responsibilities" and "conflict resolution mechanisms" clearly; by rehearsing the worst-case scenario, you can run faster when the best time comes.
Competition and Expansion
Being plagiarized is not news; being obsessed with confrontation is. Arianna's approach is to reclaim the narrative: define the topic with product cadence, key metrics, and customer stories, rather than directing traffic to competitors. For Chinese Web3 teams, it is particularly important to fill in the "infrastructure" of PR and communication: professional branding teams, media whitelists, KOL advocates, user community product education, and transparency of technical documentation. The narrative is not PR rhetoric, but the evidence of your continuous delivery.
At the same time, uncontrolled growth is both a good thing and a crisis. When the service water level is breached, it should be handled in a tiered manner like firefighting: first protect the safety of funds and user assets, then ensure availability, and finally optimize the experience. When necessary, throttling, opening temporary whitelists, outsourcing customer service and risk control, and even quickly bridging to supplement computing power are all acceptable trade-offs. Write the "disaster recovery plan" during calm times, rather than learning it on trending topics.
Mergers and acquisitions are another signal. Traditional giants are starting to act as buyers in the crypto space, and "puzzle-like mergers and acquisitions" are also emerging within the industry. The ideal situation is for you to be the acquirer, but an excellent target for acquisition can also be the best solution for the team, users, and early shareholders. The evaluation criteria are simple: strategic fit, user value, team continuity, and respect for the technological roadmap. Leave emotions to your social circle and terms to lawyers.
Do the difficult but right thing a little longer
The market will not provide standard answers for founders, and the cycle won't either. Therefore, don't rush to predict the waves; focus on those who can still push the system forward in headwinds, and allocate time and resources to them. In the context of China, the answers are even more straightforward yet challenging: slogans should not just be shouted but should be substantiated with accounts, systems, and compliance documents; growth is not about trending topics, but stable and reusable supply and cash flow; competition is not about confronting lines, but about holding the narrative power and reclaiming the topic through continuous delivery.
If there is one thing to say to China's Web3, Portal Labs believes it should be: first, do the difficult and correct things for a longer time, pursue fewer trends, and see who is still present in ten years and whose system is still running. Cycles will continue to rise and fall, but what truly determines victory or defeat is never the weather, but rather the foundation on which you build your house.
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A16z partner's ten-year advice: In the new cycle, just focus on these three things.
Original author: a16z crypto
Original text organized and compiled by: Portal Labs
Original Title: Preparing for the Pitch with Arianna Simpson
In the Web3 world, cycles are not an accident, but a norm. The alternation between bull and bear markets is like the tides of capital and the four seasons of nature. For founders, the biggest challenge has never been predicting the next reversal, but rather how to survive amid the ups and downs, and even build long-term value against the trend.
Recently, a16z crypto partner Arianna Simpson shared her over a decade of experience investing in the crypto industry on a podcast. From the shock of the Bitcoin whitepaper, to the product-market fit of stablecoins, to the intersection of Crypto and AI, as well as advice for founders.
These observations and experiences are not only applicable to Silicon Valley. In the view of Portal Labs, they also provide valuable references and insights for Web3 founders and high-net-worth investors in China.
The Nature of the Cycle
Arianna entered the world of crypto with the shock she felt over a decade ago when she first read the Bitcoin white paper. However, what truly kept her in the space was not that fleeting moment of excitement, but the ups and downs she experienced over the subsequent ten years. She witnessed the birth of Bitcoin, the boom of DeFi, and the frenzy of NFTs, as well as the bubbles and cool downs that followed. It was through this long-term observation that she gradually formed a clear understanding: the crypto industry has never grown linearly, but rather progresses in dramatic waves, with emotions and capital surging and receding alternately.
Therefore, she shifted her focus from "predicting the next wave of opportunities" to "identifying who is building against the wind." Her investment approach resembles a form of following: following what the best founders are doing. When the strongest founders flock to stablecoins, funds should converge there; when cutting-edge teams continue to invest in Crypto × AI or DePIN, new value gaps often emerge as well. It’s not about making grand pronouncements first and then looking for projects to validate them; rather, it’s about calibrating one’s worldview and capital allocation based on the direction of frontline builders.
For Web3 founders and high-net-worth investors in China, this methodology is more actionable than "cycle prediction." For founders, the cooling-off period is not an excuse, but a form of screening: being able to push the product and stack forward in years without applause indicates that both the direction and the people are right; for allocators, what really needs to be assessed is not the theme's popularity, but whether the team can maintain speed, discipline, and mission density during tough years. This order of "identifying people - observing long-term execution - discussing valuation" is more capable of transcending bull and bear markets than any short-term narrative.
Stablecoin
Narrowing the lens to stablecoins. Arianna's judgment is quite straightforward: it has become the focal point not because of a new speculative narrative, but because it is genuinely being used on both ends—consumers use it for cross-border transfers and to hedge against local currency fluctuations; businesses use it for settlements, allocations, and bridging accounts receivable and payable. More crucially, over the past year and a half, the two foundational infrastructure "valves" of speed and cost have finally been opened, allowing stablecoins to transition from an imagined payment network to a real settlement layer.
This point directly hits the founders of Web3 in China and high-net-worth individuals. For overseas teams, the real bottleneck is often not the product, but the cash flow: how to stably, at low cost, and traceably send money to the labeling teams in Southeast Asia, node maintainers in Africa, and channel partners in Latin America; how to enable overseas clients to make payments without complicated corporate processes; how to manage periodic receivables in a dollar environment and control exchange rate risks in a local currency environment. The value of stablecoins lies not in the 'coin', but in the 'track'. When you standardize the entry and exit of funds, identity verification, reconciliation receipts, and tax records onto an auditable track, the complexity of cross-border business will significantly decrease.
Of course, there will be more and more issuers, but users will not pay for every new token. Arianna's intuition is that in the short term, there will be a flourishing variety, but in the long term, it will converge to a few stablecoins that are "large-scale, reputable, and have an ecological niche"; further down the line, the front-end experience will become abstracted, and users will hardly perceive specific tokens, with the back-end automatically completing clearing and settlement through "track interoperability."
This means that for the upcoming development of stablecoins, the team should not waste energy on the impulse of "I want to issue one too," but should focus on more pragmatic designs, such as how to thoroughly "nativize stablecoins" in your business processes, risk control, and financial systems. When your product can naturally operate on a path of U.S. dollar pricing, stablecoin settlement, and on-chain reconciliation, your cross-border efficiency and credibility will stand out among peers.
For high net worth individuals, stablecoins are a new cash management tool and a "low-friction channel" for global liquidity. However, this does not mean there is no risk. At the portfolio level, reserving an on-chain track for "liquidity turnover" and "hedging against currency fluctuations" is a more future-oriented portfolio hygiene. In simple terms, two principles: carefully select counterparties, diversify custody and wallets; make "compliance and explainability" the first constraint, rather than a last-minute fix.
Crypto × AI × DePIN
Arianna emphasized that super cycles are often not driven by a single technology, but rather by several curves resonating and overlapping within the same time window. The clearest combination today is the decentralized incentives in cryptocurrency, combined with the centralized computing power and data hunger of AI, layered with the orchestration of real-world resources from DePIN.
Translate it into the "actionable" language of the Chinese founders: We have rare long-term accumulation in hardware supply chains, manufacturing and deployment, and engineering organization of edge nodes. If you can connect the "contribution-metrics-payment" chain with stablecoins to incentivize real-world data and resources on-chain, and then package these resources into standardized products consumable by AI (datasets, annotations, bandwidth, storage, inference time slices), you will have the opportunity to create a "supply-side platform." This is not PPT-style token economics; it is serious operations science: indicator definition, anti-cheating, settlement frequency, dispute resolution, credibility system—all need to be engineered.
Another important thread is 'authenticity'. The existence of deepfake content is not frightening; what is frightening is an unverifiable environment. Verifiable timestamps, generation paths, device signatures, and traceability of operational entities will be the 'new utilities' for the future of content and commodity internet. This presents a near-term opportunity for Chinese teams engaged in brand expansion, second-hand trading, and luxury goods circulation. Doing the difficult yet correct thing: making 'verifiable authenticity' the default rather than an optional paid feature.
Looking at AI Agents again. It is irresponsible to hand over a credit card to a semi-mature agent for "self-service online shopping"; however, giving it a wallet with a limit, that can be revoked and audited, allows it to complete a set of tasks (subscribing, purchasing APIs, paying commissions) within a clear strategy, which is realistic and feasible. In other words, "the wallet is the permission system." The real application is not the inflated "universal agent" but rather the vertically focused "bounded rational agent"—binding permissions, budgets, logs, and counterparties together using on-chain wallets within a strongly constrained business domain.
Financing and Governance
The financing environment of 2020–2021 may have left many in Web3 with the illusion that no deck is needed, no model is needed, and investors will offer ridiculous terms in private messages on Twitter.
Arianna spoke bluntly: that was a "twilight illusion," not the norm, and today we should return to basics. Prepare workable materials, honestly present indicators, and set financing goals conservatively but at a position that can be exceeded; it’s better to first close a round with reasonable money and then snowball, rather than starting with 50 million and ending up with nothing.
For Chinese founders, a more realistic order is: first ensure the foundation runs smoothly, then talk about money. First, the engineering resilience of technology and products, performance, risk control, observability, and operability; second, compliance and policy pathways, KYC/AML, cross-border data segmentation, auditable funds and data flows, and tax and invoice closure; third, verifiable business loops, real payments, positive unit economics, and stable payment rhythms. In publicly available narratives, talk less about "coins" and focus more on supply-side infrastructure: for example, standardizing computing power / bandwidth / sensor data into billable APIs using DePIN, or digitizing existing assets and embedding them into compliant issuance and settlement processes using RWA. Once these three things have a chain of evidence, then use milestones to supplement capital in stages, rather than letting financing dictate business direction.
Governance must also return to common sense. A 50-50 split is not fairness; it is inaction. Equity, board of directors, reserved matters, vesting periods, cliff periods, founder exit terms, intellectual property ownership—none of these are sexy, but each one determines whether you can weather the first major storm. Arianna even does not shy away from the merits of "single founder"—at least you won't fall out with yourself. Portal Labs suggests that instead of getting entangled in the "number of partners," it's better to articulate the "list of responsibilities" and "conflict resolution mechanisms" clearly; by rehearsing the worst-case scenario, you can run faster when the best time comes.
Competition and Expansion
Being plagiarized is not news; being obsessed with confrontation is. Arianna's approach is to reclaim the narrative: define the topic with product cadence, key metrics, and customer stories, rather than directing traffic to competitors. For Chinese Web3 teams, it is particularly important to fill in the "infrastructure" of PR and communication: professional branding teams, media whitelists, KOL advocates, user community product education, and transparency of technical documentation. The narrative is not PR rhetoric, but the evidence of your continuous delivery.
At the same time, uncontrolled growth is both a good thing and a crisis. When the service water level is breached, it should be handled in a tiered manner like firefighting: first protect the safety of funds and user assets, then ensure availability, and finally optimize the experience. When necessary, throttling, opening temporary whitelists, outsourcing customer service and risk control, and even quickly bridging to supplement computing power are all acceptable trade-offs. Write the "disaster recovery plan" during calm times, rather than learning it on trending topics.
Mergers and acquisitions are another signal. Traditional giants are starting to act as buyers in the crypto space, and "puzzle-like mergers and acquisitions" are also emerging within the industry. The ideal situation is for you to be the acquirer, but an excellent target for acquisition can also be the best solution for the team, users, and early shareholders. The evaluation criteria are simple: strategic fit, user value, team continuity, and respect for the technological roadmap. Leave emotions to your social circle and terms to lawyers.
Do the difficult but right thing a little longer
The market will not provide standard answers for founders, and the cycle won't either. Therefore, don't rush to predict the waves; focus on those who can still push the system forward in headwinds, and allocate time and resources to them. In the context of China, the answers are even more straightforward yet challenging: slogans should not just be shouted but should be substantiated with accounts, systems, and compliance documents; growth is not about trending topics, but stable and reusable supply and cash flow; competition is not about confronting lines, but about holding the narrative power and reclaiming the topic through continuous delivery.
If there is one thing to say to China's Web3, Portal Labs believes it should be: first, do the difficult and correct things for a longer time, pursue fewer trends, and see who is still present in ten years and whose system is still running. Cycles will continue to rise and fall, but what truly determines victory or defeat is never the weather, but rather the foundation on which you build your house.