On the other hand, it's immediately obvious you're unrelated, so maybe it doesn't matter.
To answer your question, as the world stabilizes and the crypto scene becomes less tumultuous, we'll see the rise of traditional models. It's a smart move to start that process sooner rather than later.
In the old days, you won by controlling a "channel" -- whether it's a literal TV channel, or a limited asset, or anything where people had to go through you and you alone.
The internet briefly disrupted that old model. But once again it's true: YC won thanks to HN, for example. It's a channel they control, and it shapes us and the way we think.
Once ICO scams stop working, people will eventually realize that the fundamentals are what matter: solid networks, solid resources, and a vision with a group of people to build it. ICOs rarely get you any of those, let alone all of them.
Time for a crypto LinkedIn?
Especially if it works.
More seriously, it's cool that keybase solved the identity problem. It's traditionally been a very hard thing to know for a fact that you're speaking with a certain individual, unless they were compromised.
They also have an encrypted github now, which functions very well. And one of the only realtime chat messaging systems where you can open private chats with whoever you want, if you know their name.
Point: I think Keybase might increasingly take over the role that github currently fills. It's hard to imagine now, but people underestimate the effect of 10 years. And keybase seems to suddenly have a lot of assets that are very appealing, especially from a crypto standpoint.
If I were trying to topple governments with code, most of my work would be encrypted on keybase, and my comms (what little there would be) would be via signal. But my identities would be proven via keybase.
One smart move for gitlab might be to create some kind of realtime messaging system for programmers, similar to the niche that slack communities currently fill. Slack never seemed to embrace the community model -- you have to use hacks just to host a slack community, and then you don't get search for more than 10k messages, which vanish quickly. Discord has been eating Slack's lunch from a technical and user count standpoint (though perhaps not profit). Gitlab could compete by rolling out what slack should have been: an open community-oriented comms service with tools programmers love, plus a place to host your code. Discord doesn't have that, and keybase doesn't have very good support for teams yet.
Beyond the legitimacy of being backed by a well-known venture capital firm, the most obvious is from the article:
"We provide operational support to entrepreneurs. Our crypto investments have access to the same 80+ person a16z operating teams as do our non-crypto investments. Our operating teams have deep expertise in executive and technical recruiting, regulatory affairs, communications and marketing, and general startup management. We are responsible participants in the governance of companies and the governance of networks."