New Delhi, May 25 (IANS): Leading investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) on Wednesday announced a new $4.5 billion fund for crypto and blockchain companies and startups (or Web3.0 startups), as the global crypto market undergoes turmoil with Bitcoin losing nearly 50 per cent of its worth from November last year.

It marks Andreessen's fourth fund for the asset class and brings its total raised for crypto and Blockchain investments to $7.6 billion.

According to the investment firm, in the last decade, the world of crypto and web3 has likewise emerged as a new frontier in technology.

The new $4.5 billion fund doubles the size of their last crypto fund. The firm last year announced a $2.2 billion Crypto Fund III.

"We think we are now entering the golden era of web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users," said Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

"We've been investing in crypto since 2013, and today we're announcing our fourth crypto fund, totaling $4.5 billion," he added.

Of that, approximately $1.5 billion will be dedicated to seed investments, and $3 billion to venture investments.

"This brings our total crypto/web3 funds raised to over $7.6 billion," said Dixon.

The VC firm is going to use these funds to invest in promising web3 startups at every stage.

A16Z recently announced the creation of a16z crypto research, a new kind of multidisciplinary lab that will work closely with its portfolio and others toward solving the important problems in the space, and toward advancing the science and technology of the next generation of the Internet.

The annocement came as global crypto mayhem last week wiped out Bitcoin worth $3.5 billion -- created to defend and support the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin which saw a total crash -- and no one has any idea how such a large sum of funds disappeared.

Nearly 80,394 Bitcoin worth $3.5 billion were purchased by the Luna Foundation Guard, the non-profit organisation set up to promote the growth of the Terra ecosystem this year, according to Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

The sudden meltdown dealt a crushing blow to many tech-savvy young investors who betted big on the algorithmic cryptocurrencies, seen largely as experimental, amid the recent boom in cryptocurrency assets.

Luna's value collapsed in one of the most stunning crypto crashes ever recorded.

In total, over $15 billion in cryptocurrency value was wiped after the TerraUSD stablecoin collapsed.