Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

Today's top news:

• Crypto majors chop as oil goes higher; BTC at $81.8k
• Bitcoin ETFs see $635M in net outflows in a big reversal
• a16z drops “crypto” from its fund name, though it will continue investing
• Pump launched EVM limit orders in its app
• Decrypt announces onsite trading via a Jupiter partnership

a16z Drops 'Crypto' From Its Fund

Andreessen Horowitz is renaming its crypto fund “a16z Frontier” and widening the vehicle's mandate to cover artificial intelligence, autonomous machines and biology, as Decrypt reported. Chris Dixon, who has run the crypto team since 2018, leads the new fund alongside Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet.

Although “crypto” is removed from the name, the firm describes the move as “an expansion” and says it will keep investing in crypto. The most recent fund size on record is $2.2 billion, announced in May — predating the rebrand, so how the firm's first deals under the broader mandate split across crypto and the new sectors will show what that commitment means in practice.

Dixon's argument is that blockchains have faded into the background of products shipped by Wall Street and fintech firms, so companies should be judged by what they do rather than the plumbing underneath. Recent months have made the case for him: JPMorgan put deposit tokens on Ethereum, Mastercard built agent payments on Base using Coinbase wallets, and BNY tested tokenized Treasuries with Citadel. None of those were pitched as crypto products — they simply use crypto. As the newsletter framed it, that is what winning looks like for infrastructure: nobody calls Stripe a “TCP/IP company.”

Dixon points to Oculus, Skydio and Zipline as the model long-horizon bets that looked silly before they didn't. In 2022, with the market down two-thirds from its peak, he said he judged the sector by developer and entrepreneur activity rather than price. He has also been explicit that crypto has a job in the new mandate: letting AI agents pay each other.

The timing, however, is the timing. The renaming lands with bitcoin down on the year, ETFs bleeding through October, and capital inside every multi-strategy firm competing against an AI trade that has absorbed everything. A fund that was crypto-only must now pitch crypto deals against autonomous machines and biology at the same partner meeting. That is a real change, whatever it is called — and an uphill battle. But that is crypto's new reality.

Markets and Macro

Crypto majors were mostly even after the prior day's selloff: BTC was flat at $81.8k, ETH at $2,400 and SOL at $104, while HYPE slipped 1% to $78 and ZEC fell 2% to $1,230. Top alt movers included PEPE (+13%), DOT (+2%) and DASH (+8%).

Oil climbed 2% to $101, while gold slipped 0.4% to $4,040. Stock futures were red again as oil ground higher, with the Dow down 0.6% and the Nasdaq down 0.1%.

Policy and Legal

Senator Richard Blumenthal opened an inquiry into payments Tether made to Nxum Group, the consulting firm co-founded by Bo Hines, sending letters to both after the Wall Street Journal reported that Nxum was paid for Tether work while Hines was still advising Trump on stablecoin policy.

Crypto is showing up in the midterms mostly as an attack line against the industry, with Fairshake confirming that its heavy general-election spending does not mention crypto at all.

SoFi launched SoFi Earn, which it calls the first national bank-issued tokenized deposit for consumers, paying 4.40% APY on tokens that each represent $1 held at SoFi Bank. It is the same infrastructure pattern Dixon describes: tokenized rails shipped as a bank product, not pitched as a crypto one.

New York's attorney general is seeking $1.37 billion from NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion over an alleged crypto Ponzi scheme that took in $1.16 billion between 2019 and 2023 while actually trading just $25.99 million of it.

A Circle shareholder sued Trump, World Liberty Financial and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in federal court, alleging laws were violated when an Abu Dhabi firm tied to the UAE royal family put $2 billion into Binance using the USD1 stablecoin, and arguing the arrangement left Circle “unable to compete.”

Corporate Treasuries and ETFs

Bitcoin ETFs saw $635 million in net outflows on Thursday in a sharp reversal; Ethereum ETFs saw $110 million in net outflows. That continues the October bleed referenced in the a16z item above, and upcoming flow reports will show whether Thursday was a one-off or a trend.

Tokens, Airdrops and Protocols

Decrypt added onsite token trading through a partnership with Jupiter, letting readers with Decrypt Money Accounts swap tokens without leaving the site or connecting an external wallet.

Pump launched EVM limit orders spanning ETH, RH Chain, Base, BSC and more, the company announced on X.

Hyperliquid led onchain protocols in revenue with $2.78 million, followed by Pump with $1.94 million and Papertrade with $1.11 million, according to DefiLlama.

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were green, led by PEPE: DOGE +1%, SHIB +2%, PEPE +13%, PENGU +4%, TRUMP +1%, SPX even and BONK +8%.

Robinhood chain leaders were mostly flat: Pons -2% at $170 million, AI +3% at $80 million and Cashcat even at $103 million, while Torch +50%, Microduck +53% and GF +75x led the top movers.

Solana's top movers included Nagi +650%, Birb +40% and Monerochan +130%, while Kimchi fell 50%.

NFTs

NFT leaders were mostly red: Punks were even at 31.3 ETH, BAYC fell 5% to 5.67 ETH and Pudgy slipped 1% to 2.46 ETH. Invisible Friends (+16%) and Azuki (+8%) led the top movers.

OpenSea introduced referral fees on its mobile app, with users earning 25% of their referrals' swap fees, per the company's post on X.