Exclusive Interview with the Founder of Haun Ventures: The First Female Partner at a16z and Advocate for Stablecoins
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Exclusive Interview with the Founder of Haun Ventures: The First Female Partner at a16z and Advocate for Stablecoins
"Turks don't view USDT as a cryptocurrency; they treat USDT as money."
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Connie Loizos, TechCrunch
Translated by Luffy, Foresight News
In 2018, when bitcoin was trading around $4,000 and most Americans still viewed cryptocurrency as a passing fad, Katie Haun squared off against Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in a debate in Mexico City. While Krugman focused on bitcoin’s wild price swings, Haun shifted the conversation to another area: stablecoins.
She argued on stage: "Stablecoins are really interesting and critically important for this ecosystem—they help hedge against that volatility." She explained how dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies could deliver the benefits of blockchain technology while avoiding the price fluctuations inherent in traditional crypto assets.
Krugman dismissed the idea entirely.
This moment wasn’t a turning point in Haun’s career, but it was one of many that have come to define it. Haun is a former federal prosecutor with a unique background in crypto investing—she spent over a decade investigating financial crimes and established the government’s first dedicated cryptocurrency task force. In 2018, she became Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) first female general partner and co-led its crypto fund, a16z crypto. In 2022, she launched Haun Ventures, which now manages more than $1.5 billion in assets.
Going independent hasn’t been seamless. Despite her high-profile role at a16z and deep industry connections, there has been little public collaboration since she launched her own firm. Haun stepped down from Coinbase’s board last year, while Marc Andreessen remains a director.
On Wednesday night, during TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event, when asked about her relationship with a16z, she downplayed any tension while acknowledging they aren’t collaborators. “There’s no gentleman’s agreement,” she responded when questioned about whether she avoids competing with her former employer. “In fact, I still stay in touch with a16z. You’re right—we just haven’t invested together recently.”
The lack of joint investments may reflect the cutthroat competition in the industry or the challenges of directly competing with former colleagues from one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture firms. Either way, Haun is charting her own path—one centered squarely on stablecoins, cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar.
Unlike volatile assets such as bitcoin or ether, stablecoins like Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT trade consistently at $1, creating digital representations of traditional money that can move across blockchain networks.
Today, Haun’s early conviction in stablecoins appears increasingly prescient. A category that barely existed in 2015 is now worth $250 billion and reportedly ranks as the 14th-largest holder of U.S. Treasuries. Last year, stablecoin transaction volume surpassed Visa’s for the first time.
“A few years ago, people looking at stablecoins would ask, what’s the value proposition?” Haun said Wednesday night. “You asked me that question before. You said, why do we need stablecoins? And I said, it’s a ‘if it works for me, it works for everyone’ kind of thing.”
In reality, the existing financial system works well for most Americans. We have Venmo, bank accounts, and credit cards. But drawing on her experience as a prosecutor with insight into global finance, Haun says she long understood that the U.S. situation isn’t universal.
She believes stablecoins offer distinct advantages in countries with unstable currencies or limited banking infrastructure, providing instant access to stable, dollar-denominated value that can be sent anywhere in the world at minimal cost. “People in Turkey don’t think of USDT as a cryptocurrency,” she said Wednesday. “They see USDT as money.”
Clearly, the technology has evolved significantly since the 2018 debate. International transfers via stablecoins once cost as much as $12; now, Circle claims its USDC is fully backed 1:1 by dollars held in JPMorgan Chase bank accounts and audited by one of the Big Four accounting firms.
Widespread corporate interest comes as no surprise. Reports indicate Walmart and Amazon are exploring stablecoins, as are other giants like Uber, Apple, and Airbnb. The reason is simple: economics. Stablecoins offer a way to transfer dollar value using crypto rails instead of traditional banking infrastructure—potentially saving retail-focused companies billions in fees.
But critics warn this shift could trigger economic disruption. While Circle and Tether claim sufficient reserves back their tokens, unlike traditional banks, these reserves lack government guarantees. Moreover, if large corporations can issue their own currencies, how will monetary policy and banking regulation evolve?
Concerns extend beyond economic instability. Not all stablecoins are created equal. Many lack the support and regulatory oversight provided by firms like Circle. While well-regulated stablecoins like USDC are backed by actual dollars and U.S. Treasuries, others operate with less transparency or rely on complex algorithmic mechanisms that have proven prone to collapse.
Recently, the family of former President Donald Trump launched their own stablecoin, bringing corruption concerns into sharp focus and highlighting potential conflicts of interest within the industry, where political influence can directly affect market value and regulatory outcomes.
These concerns peaked during congressional debates over the GENIUS Act—a bill aimed at establishing a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. The bill passed the Senate earlier this week with bipartisan support, including 14 Democrats crossing party lines. It now awaits a vote in the House before potentially reaching the president’s desk.
Yet Senator Elizabeth Warren, the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has strongly opposed the legislation, calling it a “highway to Donald Trump’s corruption.” Her criticism centers on a glaring loophole: while the bill bans members of Congress and senior executive branch officials from issuing stablecoin products, it says nothing about their family members.
Wednesday night, when asked about Warren’s concerns, Haun nearly rolled her eyes. “It’s ironic to me that Elizabeth Warren or other Democrats call this corruption while refusing to engage in shaping crypto legislation,” she said. “If we’d had rules in place earlier, we’d have a framework—clear definitions of what’s a security, what’s a commodity, and what consumer protections should apply.”
Haun’s venture firm has already invested in multiple stablecoin projects, including Bridge. Unsurprisingly, she voiced strong support for the GENIUS Act. But when asked what aspects she disliked, she offered a notable critique: the bill prohibits interest-bearing stablecoins.
To the StrictlyVC audience, she said: “I’m not sure paying interest on stablecoins is necessarily good for U.S. consumers—but banning it might not be either.” The core issue is who profits from the interest generated by stablecoin reserves. Currently, that income flows to companies like Circle and Coinbase. But Haun questions why consumers can’t earn that yield, just as they do with savings accounts.
She explained: “If you have a savings or checking account and earn yield, you’re getting interest. What if someone said, ‘No, the bank gets the interest, not you,’ and then they go lend your money out?”
When addressing Warren’s other concern—that stablecoins could become tools for money laundering and terrorist financing if the GENIUS Act becomes law—Haun was far less equivocal.
“Criminals are great beta testers of every new technology,” Haun said. “But this technology is highly traceable—much easier to track than cash. The biggest tool for crime is U.S. dollar bills.” According to Haun, the Treasury Department has confirmed that 99.9% of money laundering occurs through traditional bank wire transfers, not cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, she argues, regulatory clarity from legislation like the GENIUS Act could actually make the system safer by distinguishing legitimate, well-backed stablecoins from more experimental or risky variants.
Indeed, as the stablecoin ecosystem matures, Haun anticipates even bigger changes ahead. She envisions a future where various assets—from money market funds to real estate to private credit—are “tokenized” and traded globally, 24/7.
“It’s just the digitization of physical assets,” she explained. “BlackRock, Franklin Templeton—they’ve already tokenized money market funds. This is already happening.”
Haun believes tokenized assets could democratize investing the way Netflix democratized entertainment. For example, instead of needing significant wealth to meet minimum investment thresholds, anyone with $25 and a smartphone could buy shares in Apple or Amazon.
“Just because something is inevitable doesn’t mean it’s imminent,” Haun said Wednesday. But she believes the shift is coming, driven by the same forces behind stablecoins’ success: they’re faster, cheaper, and, she insists, more accessible than traditional alternatives.
Looking back at the 2018 debate with Krugman, Haun’s persistence seems vindicated. Today, the central question isn’t whether digital dollars will reshape the financial system—it may be whether regulators can keep pace with the technology while addressing legitimate concerns around corruption, consumer protection, and financial stability.
Haun doesn’t seem worried. While critics point out that stablecoins represent only 2% of total global payments and question their product-market fit, Haun dismisses those concerns. Instead, she sees a familiar tech adoption story—one that repeats itself and often takes longer than initially expected.
She told the audience, “We think we’re still early.”
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