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Blog iconHaun Ventures
Feb 1

All Eyes on the U.K.: Crypto on the Thames

By Chris Lehane and Tomicah TillemannCrypto founders have spent years asking policymakers for regulatory clarity. That goal got closer this week—just not in the United States.There has been a lot of noise, finger-pointing, and posturing about crypto regulation in the wake of several high-profile meltdowns in the industry. In the absence of meaningful new legislation—a.k.a. new rules for new things—many American officials continue to pursue regulation by enforcement, a posture that’s been unhe...

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Introducing Haun Ventures

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Taking A Long Term View of Web3

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The Web3 Voter

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Zero Knowledge Proofs

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How the Supreme Court’s EPA Decision Could Shape the Future of Web3

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OFAC Cannot Shut Down Open-Source Software

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Blog iconHaun Ventures
Nov 15
Taking A Long Term View of Web3
By Katie Haun and Fred Wilson The events surrounding FTX have shaken the confidence of many. How did one of the largest crypto exchanges collapse so quickly? Why do meltdowns like this seem to keep happening? At times like this, it helps to have a long-term view of web3 as a sector, not just a forward-looking long-term view, but also some perspective on where we have come from. As longtime investors in web3 and board members (also individual shareholders) of Coinbase, one of the oldest and be...
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Nov 10
The State of Digital Asset Legislation Post Midterm Elections
By Tomicah Tillemann and Chris Lehane The battle for the House and Senate remains too close to call. However, it is clear that the margin of control in both bodies will be sufficiently narrow that advancing a meaningful legislative agenda will require support from Democrats and Republicans. We’ll be discussing these legislative dynamics and the current politics of web3 in a Twitter Space today with a group of political experts including former John McCain spokesperson Niki Christoff, Democrat...
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Nov 4
Our Response to the Treasury Department’s Request for Input from Web3
By Tomicah Tillemann, Chris Lehane, and James Rathmell Yesterday, we submitted extensive comments in response to a request for input from the Treasury Department. The agency is looking for help figuring out how to support the development of digital asset technology without enabling bad actors. As a reminder, an Executive Order issued by the White House in March assigned the Department responsibility for quarterbacking elements of the government’s broader web3 strategy. To date, much of the ag...
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Oct 31
New Rules for a New Thing: A Petition for CFTC Rulemaking on DAO Participant Liability
The CFTC’s recent enforcement action against Ooki DAO is the latest example of why regulation by enforcement is bad for the rule of law. Everyone should want more responsible governance in web3, not less. DAOs represent a new democratized model for governance—one that empowers community participants to actively engage in collective decision-making and better align stakeholder interests. DAOs help unlock a decentralized and economically distributed framework for technology development. Rather ...
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Oct 27
Convening Web3 in DC
By Tomicah Tillemann and Chris Lehane Earlier this year, we invited a group of web3 founders to Washington for a series of high-level engagements with policymakers. These discussions, part of what we call Founders Days, have spanned meetings with Senators, Members of Congress, the White House, executive agencies, and even foreign embassies. The timing isn’t coincidental. Web3 founders are currently facing the most dynamic policy environment in the history of the space. Legislative and regulat...
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Oct 21
DeFi, the DCCPA, and How You Can Help
By Tomicah Tillemann This week a draft copy of the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (the DCCPA) appeared online. The DCCPA is a new draft piece of legislation being developed by Senators Debbie Stabenow and John Boozman, the top Democrat and the top Republican (respectively) on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC. This bill is actually broken out from the Lummis-Gillibrand draft bill, a measure that represents a promising attempt to establish some basic rules ...
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Oct 19
OFAC Cannot Shut Down Open-Source Software
By Katie Haun and James Rathmell Since our post last month, there have been some further developments in reaction to the Tornado Cash sanctions, from Coinbase’s lawsuit to Treasury’s clarifying guidance and Coin Center’s complaint. We’re glad to see a strong response from the industry because we believe foundational principles are at play in this case. Namely, can governments ban open-source technology with sanctions, proscriptions, or embargoes that aren’t narrowly tailored? OFAC is right th...
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Sep 29
The Web3 Voter
By Chris Lehane and Tomicah Tillemann At Haun Ventures, our belief that we need new rules for new things is central to our advocacy for web3. For over a decade, many in the crypto community have focused on effecting change through engagement with the executive branch of government. As we head into a new chapter for the space—a moment in which a myriad of new use cases beyond finance are emerging—it is the other two branches of government, the legislative and the judiciary, that will feature p...
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Sep 28
CFTC, DAOs, and Why Regulation by Enforcement is Bad for the U.S.
By Chris Lehane and Tomicah Tillemann The recently announced Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) enforcement action against Ooki DAO is the latest example of why an "enforcement-only" approach to web3 is bad for the rule of law, bad for the US economy, and bad for national security. It’s also further evidence that the country will need to embrace new laws for new things if we want to lead the world in building the next generation of the internet. To be clear, we don't know all ...
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Sep 16
The merge: base-layer incentives at work
By Sam Rosenblum tl;dr – the Ethereum merge is a historic milestone for the crypto ecosystem and a good reminder that core infrastructure is still in an early development phase; the full crypto tech stack will continue to evolve in parallel for a long time to come. The merge took place late last night (PT), marking the transition of Ethereum from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake consensus. It was the culmination of years of work among participants in a decentralized ecosystem: research by the ...
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Sep 13
Zero Knowledge Proofs
By Breck Stodghill Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) are an exceptionally powerful method of cryptography that will have far reaching applications as infrastructure for the new internet. ZKPs enable an entity (the prover) to verifiably demonstrate to another entity (the verifier) that some computation took place without revealing certain underlying data or requiring the verifier to execute the computation. With this property in mind ZKPs are an incredibly promising class of technology for privacy ...
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Sep 8
Digital Assets and Gary Gensler’s Historical Spin
By Chris Lehane Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler recently asserted that when it comes to digital assets, the federal government can rely on rules that have applied to the financial markets since the 1930s. No need for new ones. Gensler pointed to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, to make the case that laws passed to protect consumers decades ago can keep protecting them even as “new technologies come along.” Chairperson ...