Adam Efrima is the SSV Core team Co-founder. He has been active in the crypto industry since 2013. Over eight years living in China working in the financial industry and fintech space, Adam has worked in CITIC Bank covering outbound investments for Chinese SOEs, he was also in charge of setting up the eToro Shanghai operation. Since then, Adam has been deeply involved in Ethereum staking, co-founding top performing staking project Bloxstaking as well as co-founding SSV Network, a decentralized validator infrastructure for ETH staking.

Adam Simmons is Chief Strategy Officer at RDX Works, a key contributor to the Radix public ledger. He has over 13 years of experience in building &amp; growing businesses in a range of industries including online video, blockchain &amp; digital marketing. With experience in both senior leadership &amp; hands-on roles, he has repeatedly recruited, managed, and trained highly successful teams within marketing, customer success and operations functions. Adam is also a previous member of the UK Paralympic Sprint Kayaking Team and has competed in multiple World and European Championships.


Adam Swick is the Chief Growth Officer at Marathon Digital Holdings. Prior to joining Marathon, he served as a principal at Refinery Ventures, where he was responsible for identifying and recommending business strategies to accelerate the growth of all companies in Refinery’s portfolio. Before Refinery, Swick was the director of strategic finance at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, where he managed the company’s balance sheet, debt program, investor relations, and all forecasting activities. Prior to Kraken, he founded Swick Capital, a crypto-asset hedge fund, worked at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, and was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group. Swick holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS in finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adrian Brink is the co-founder of Namada and Anoma, where he focuses on building privacy-preserving systems that are resilient to global crises. Previously, he was a core developer at Tendermint (Cosmos) and worked at the Web3 Foundation. He also co-founded Cryptium Labs, which was later sold to Chorus One, and Metastate, where he contributed to major upgrades to the Tezos protocol​.

Adrien Stern is the founder &amp; CEO of Reveel, the omnichain payments infrastructure that enables one-click cross-chain payments to connect people across borders and networks. Before founding Reveel, Adrien led digital transformation efforts at BNP Paribas CIB. He was also previously a venture builder, and owns Bridge Music, a record label and recording studio. Adrien has a Bachelor’s degree in Sciences of Management from The University of Lausanne and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Esade. 

Alex Hoffman is Head of Ecosystem at Superposition Finance. Superposition is revolutionizing DeFi by addressing its core challenges through robust risk management powered by Concordia’s best-in-class risk engine, omnichain functionality, and transparency.

Alexei Zamyatin is a co-founder of BOB, a first-of-its-kind hybrid Layer-2 powered by Bitcoin and Ethereum. He has been a Bitcoin and interoperability research contributor since 2015 and is most known for his work on trustless cross-chain bridges and L2s. Alexei holds a PhD in computer science from Imperial College London.


Alison Haire is the CEO and founder of Lilypad, a serverless, decentralized compute network that democratizes access to computational power by providing scalable infrastructure for AI, machine learning and other high-demand processes. Before founding Lilypad, she held roles at companies such as Filecoin, IBM and Accenture. Under her leadership, Lilypad leverages idle GPU capacity worldwide to fuel an open AI economy, providing cost-effective and scalable compute resources. Her work focuses on making high-performance computing accessible to more developers and researchers, while challenging the dominance of large centralized cloud providers​​.

With over 20 years of experience leading and designing games and tech companies, Alun is well-versed in creating innovative products that tackle experiential and developer challenges. In addition to his stewardship of LAOS Network, he is CEO and co-founder of the company building LAOS, Freeverse, which focuses on building scalable blockchain infrastructure. His history as the co-creator of ‘Barcelona World Race - THE GAME,’ a cutting-edge video game enabling virtual participation in real-world events, and his wider passion for gaming, have fed into his vision for LAOS Network as a solution for the intersection of Web3 tech with both gaming and real-world applications. Alun also led Shar3d.io, a pioneering company enabling collaborative 3D web applications, and served as CTO of Bodypal.com, a virtual garment services company. He holds a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from University College London.



Amanda Cassatt is the founder and CEO of Serotonin. Amanda previously served as Chief Marketing Officer of ConsenSys from 2016 through 2019. Joining one year after the launch of Ethereum, Amanda played a crucial role in defining, creating, and growing the narrative for ConsenSys, Ethereum, and blockchain overall.

Amanda stewarded the ConsenSys brand through its global expansion across enterprises, governments, developers, and consumers. She created and scaled the marketing team to over 50 people, serving both the ConsenSys brand and 50+ portfolio companies such as MetaMask, Infura, Truffle, and Gitcoin; managing teams in product marketing, growth, design, content, community, events, email, analytics and SEO. Amanda’s contributions to some of the most successful product launches, token sales and fundraises landed her on Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016. Amanda is the author of the world's first web3 marketing book, Web3 Marketing: A Handbook for the Next Internet Revolution.

Amanda Keleher currently serves as Chief People Officer at Consensys, one of the largest and fastest-growing companies in the blockchain technology space. A well-rounded business leader with an over 25-year career in the technology space, Amanda is the driving force behind the human element of Consensys where she is responsible for overseeing all of the aspects of people, from building and maintaining the company culture to harnessing human capital as a key driver of business. 

Before joining ConsenSys, Amanda served as the Head of People at ThoughtWorks, a global technology consultancy company, for nearly ten years, where she led the global scale expansion by opening offices around the world and recruiting a diverse workforce at a time when the DevOps movement had just been born and a new skill set were yet to be developed. After her time at ThoughWorks, she served as the Executive Vice President, People &amp; Culture of Index Exchange, one of the world’s premier ad tech organizations; and as VP of People at Little Bits and Intent Media where she excelled in designing effective and creative strategies to attract and retain world-class talent in hyper competitive environments

Andrea Berry is a seasoned online video strategist with 15+ years of experience in transformative media partnerships. 

Her early successes include helping to launch Qello Concerts, the first direct-to-consumer live-music OTT service, later transforming it into Qello Media Services and Vimeo’s OTT channels offering across various industries as their first strategic sales director for their enterprise.

Currently, as the Head of Business Development at Theta Labs, Andrea leverages her expertise in online video and blockchain to drive strategic partnerships and growth opportunities for the company. She helps enterprises take advantage and lean into the opportunities Web3 presents. 

Andrew Redden is the CEO and CTO of Last Network, a blockchain platform focused on sustainable cash flow and reinvestment. Previously, he worked at Gitcoin and has contributed to numerous DeFi and Web3 projects. Redden's career reflects a commitment to developing technologies that prioritize long-term viability and community engagement​.

Andrew Thurman is a Data Editor based in Washington, DC. He previously wrote for CoinDesk and Cointelegraph, and worked in various roles for Chainlink and Nansen. His analysis has been quoted in The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, Reuters, The BBC, CNBC, and elsewhere. Contact Andrew at andrew@blockworks.co.

Andrey Sergeenkov writes educational articles as a freelancer. His works have been published in Coindesk, Cointelegraph, Entrepreneur and CoinMarketCap. He believes that transforming society towards lifelong learning, combined with decentralization in government and business, will lead to exponential social development.

Andy Bromberg is CEO of Beam and Contributor to the Eco Protocol. Eco has raised more than $90 million from an array of leading investors, including a16z Crypto, L Catterton, Activant Capital, Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and others. Prior to Eco, Andy was Co-founder and President of CoinList. Andy is also a founding board member at FreeWorld, a non-profit seeking to end institutionalized poverty in the United States by providing access to living-wage jobs for people with criminal histories. He studied Mathematics and Computer Science at Stanford University and co-founded the Stanford Bitcoin Group.

An established and versatile Financial Executive with over two decades of experience running multiple trading businesses across top-level banks such as HSBC, Barclays, and UBS. After running the top Agency and SSA business for both UBS and Barclays, he took over Emerging Markets macro trading for Barclays. In 2018, wanting to go deeper into Emerging Markets he took a role as Head of Latam local markets trading where he was responsible for trading activities across Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. In 2021 DeMartino moved into Crypto when he became CEO and founder of Coinbase Risk Strategies focused on DeFi and Derivatives trading. More recently he started Trident Digital Group, a crypto-native solutions firm that is focused on lending and safe yield generation and stablecoin adoption.


Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman in 2001. Earlier, he worked in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs &amp; Co.

In 2022, Scaramucci was ranked #47 in Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. In 2016, he was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he received Ernst &amp; Young’s New York Financial Services “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award.  Anthony is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a board member of the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. He is the author of five books.

Scaramucci served on President Donald J. Trump’s 16-person Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, and in 2017 briefly served as Chief Strategy Officer of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and White House Communications Director.

Scaramucci, a native of Long Island, New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Tufts University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

Antoni is a co-founder of Aleph Zero Foundation (Switzerland), an organization overseeing the development of the Aleph Zero blockchain, and a Managing Partner of Cardinal Cryptography (Poland), firm focused on core development of the Aleph Zero ecosystem.

Ari Juels is the Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill Professor in the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion and a Computer Science faculty member at Cornell University. He is a Co-Director of the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3). He is also Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs. He is the author of crypto thriller novel The Oracle (Talos Press), which was released on 20 February 2024.

Austin Alexander is co-founder of LayerTwo Labs, a company focused on advancing the Bitcoin ecosystem through innovative solutions and specializing in the development of Drivechain, a specific type of blockchain sidechain designed to foster creativity and scalability within Bitcoin.

Austin Campbell is the founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Previously, he has run portfolio management at Paxos for the stablecoins as well as being the chief risk officer of Paxos National Trust, has managed fixed income trading desks at JP Morgan and Citi, and has been a portfolio manager and structurer at Stone Ridge, the parent of NYDIG. He holds a BS in Mathematics from CSU Chico and a MBA from NYU Stern.

Ben Mills is the co-founder of Meso, a payments platform connecting banks and blockchains. Prior to Meso, Ben spent a decade building payments products as an early team member at Braintree (acquired by PayPal), as Head of Product at Venmo, and working on Solana Pay at Solana Labs.

Ben Rubin is the CEO and co-founder of Towns, a decentralized messaging platform dedicated to redefining online communication. Rubin has a rich background and a decade of experience in creating digital spaces that build trust and foster human connection. Prior to founding Here Not There Labs, the developer of Towns, Ben founded two venture-backed startups, Meerkat and Houseparty, both of which reimagined how people interact digitally. He scaled his communication products to hundreds of millions of users and raised over $70M in funding from Sequoia Capital and Greylock. After Houseparty was acquired by Epic Games in 2019, Ben went on to found Here Not There Labs, a venture-backed startup with over $30M in funding from a16z crypto and Benchmark Capital.

Ben Strack is a senior reporter covering macro and crypto-native funds, financial advisors, structured products, and the integration of digital assets and DeFi into traditional finance. Prior to joining Blockworks, he covered the asset management industry for Fund Intelligence and was a reporter and editor for various local newspapers on Long Island. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in journalism.

Contact Ben via email at ben@blockworks.co

Bessie is a Brooklyn-based reporter covering DeFi and technology. Bessie worked as a tech journalist for The Org prior to joining Blockworks and was a management consultant for KPMG in another life. She is originally from Melbourne, Australia and holds an MA from New York University. She is also the mother of a bratty cat named Mochi. You can reach Bessie at bessie@blockworks.co

Bezalel Eithan Raviv, an ex-member of IDF Cyber Unit 8200, is a seasoned entrepreneur with deep expertise in technology and innovation. He now leads Lionsgate Network, a blockchain analysis firm specializing in professional money recovery services for digital asset investors in the +$2.5 trillion market. Prior to this role, Bezalel founded an investment banking firm supporting AI startups and developed Halleluiah, a pioneering web3 migration pattern for global music copyrights.

Billy Luedtke is the CEO and founder of Intuition, an information protocol powering a more trustful internet. Billy previously served as senior technology advisor at EY, a leading global professional services organization providing assurance, tax, audit, strategy and transactions. At EY, Billy created the company’s blockchain consulting practice, leading the technical development of blockchain-enabled distributed systems. Billy later became a senior token engineer at Consensys, a leading Ethereum developer (MetaMask, Infura, Linea). Billy continues to serve as an advisor at Consensys and MetaMask.

Billy Sebell is the Executive Director of the XDC Foundation and an early contributor to the XDC Network. Since early 2018, Billy has worked to develop the XDC community, focused on ecosystem and network growth and implementing use cases in trade finance. Billy previously spent more than 25 years in manufacturing and consumer products, dealing with the challenges businesses face in capital markets and international trade.

Bob Bodily is the Provo, Utah-based CEO and Co-Founder of Bioniq, a BTC Ordinals wallet and marketplace. He has a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and a Ph.D. in educational/instructional technology from Brigham Young University, with 25 articles and 1K citations. He is a data engineer with 100K+ lines of production Python code, and he has two previous software startups, including an EdTech SaaS that sold in 2021.


Bogdan is the Co-Founder and CTO of Tenderly, the full-stack infrastructure solutions provider powering Web3 developer teams with the essential tools and services throughout their development journeys. 

Prior to co-founding Tenderly, Bogdan worked as a software engineer for major software platforms such as MVP Workshop and Go Daddy where he was responsible for constructing and managing the development of distributed cloud systems before realizing the lack of infrastructural support for Web3 developers. With his vast experience in constructing, expanding, and overseeing extensive distributed cloud systems, he is well-versed in the intricacies of blockchain technologies and their practical applications. 

Brandon Truong is lead product contributor for ZetaChain. He previously co-founded social platform Yada (which was acquired in 2020) and spent time building products for BuzzFeed and Udacity. 


 Brian Pak is CEO &amp; Co-Founder of ChainLight, an award-winning blockchain security firm that specializes in smart contract audits and on-chain monitoring. He is also a co-founder of Theori, an established US-based offensive cybersecurity company, since 2016, which he still leads today, having now amassed trusted partners including Microsoft, Google and Samsung. Brian’s early career started when he co-founded and developed Kaprica Security, inventing and patenting the Skorpion Charger, an Android mobile charger that can detect malicious software with no user action required. He has worked on research and development projects with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US. Brian is also a founder of the team PPP (Plaid Parliament of Pwning) which won DEF CON CTF, one of the most prestigious hacker competitions held in Las Vegas, in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. Brian graduated with a Masters Degree in Software Security Research from Carnegie Mellon University.

Three years ago, his act of burning a physical Banksy ignited global discourse on NFTs and Web3, exposing the industry's flaws. Now, through XION, founder Burnt Banksy leads a mission to democratize Web3 to the masses, making ownership accessible to all by removing unnecessary barriers and complications through chain abstraction. To date: XION has raised over $36M in funding with the goal of "making crypto disappear." Ultimately, Burnt Banksy wants to provide the benefits of crypto to people without requiring them to know anything about crypto.

Byron Donalds grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and he is also the proud son of a hardworking and loving single mother. His mother dedicated her time instilling in him that greatness requires sacrifice, which drives him as a devoted family man and United States Congressman.  

Byron is a graduate of Florida State University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and marketing. Byron's career led him to Southwest Florida, where he worked in the banking, finance, and insurance industries. Elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, Byron represented Hendry County and east Collier County in the State Capitol. During his tenure in the Florida House, Byron served as the PreK-12 Quality Subcommittee Chair during the 2018-2019 Legislative Session and served as the Insurance &amp; Banking Subcommittee's Chairman 2019-2020 Legislative Session. While serving in the Florida House, primarily focused on elder affairs, criminal justice reform, and ensuring that each child has access to a world-class education. 

Byron is committed to serving and giving back to the community that gave him so much. He has served Southwest Florida in many ways, including previously serving on the Board of Trustees for Florida Southwestern State College after being appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott. Byron continues to volunteer in his church as a youth leader and a mentor. He also enjoys volunteering as a coach in youth football and basketball leagues.

Congressman Byron Donalds lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, Erika, and their three sons: Damon, Darin, and Mason. Byron has spent his entire adult life serving others, whether it be through volunteering, business, or leadership. He is committed to representing Florida's 19th Congressional District's conservative values in Washington DC to ensure a stronger Florida and a stronger nation.

Byron Gilliam writes the Blockworks Daily newsletter, in which he tries to explain crypto markets to traditional investors and traditional markets to crypto investors (while trying to explain both to himself). Before joining Blockworks, Byron spent 25 years trading international equities for banks and brokers in Frankfurt, London, Paris and New York. He holds a bachelor's degree in History from Binghamton University. Contact Byron at byron@blockworks.co.

Cameron B. Pick is a partner and patent attorney at the Chicago-based intellectual property boutique law firm Marshall, Gerstein &amp; Borun. He prosecutes patents for emerging technologies, including blockchain and crypto, among other innovative areas. He may be reached at cpick@marshallip.com. 

Candace Kelly is the Chief Legal and Policy Officer for the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world's financial infrastructure. She leads the team responsible for SDF’s legal affairs and the policy team that is focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors. Previously, Candace worked for Uber Technologies, Inc., where she helped navigate the company’s response to regulatory investigations and advised on safety, security, privacy, consumer protection, and law enforcement response. Prior to that she served for 17 years at the United States Department of Justice.

Carlos Mercado is a data scientist at Flipside Crypto, specializing in the convergence of data science, cryptocurrency, economics, and open-source research. His expertise spans the Ethereum ecosystem and over 20 other blockchains, where he leverages SQL, R, Python, and Solidity to develop innovative data models and analytics tools. Carlos's notable contributions include the creation of the True Freeze DeFi primitive and leading the production of the 2023 Crypto Users Report, generating significant industry impact. Prior to Flipside, he applied his skills in AI strategy and product development at Guidehouse and offered data science consulting services.


​​Casey Wagner is a Senior Reporter based in New York. Casey covers crypto regulation, markets and central banks. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported on macroeconomics at Bloomberg News. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies. Contact Casey via email at casey@blockworks.co

Charles Hoskinson is a Colorado-based technology entrepreneur and mathematician. He attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Boulder to study analytic number theory before moving into cryptography through industry exposure.

His professional experience includes founding three cryptocurrency-related start-ups – Invictus Innovations, Ethereum and IOHK – and he has held a variety of posts in both the public and private sectors. He was the founding chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation’s education committee and established the Cryptocurrency Research Group in 2013.

His current projects focus on educating people about cryptocurrency, being an evangelist for decentralization and making cryptographic tools easier to use for the mainstream. This includes leading the research, design and development of Cardano, a third-generation cryptocurrency that launched in September 2017.

Chris Barrett serves as the Director of Communications at Chainlink Labs and has been involved with Chainlink since 2017. Chainlink is the only on-chain data and cross-chain platform that enables financial institutions to develop customized, flexible, compliant, and future-proof blockchain applications and tokenized assets. Before this role, he founded a leading PR agency for technology startups, where he worked with over 1,000 innovative companies. Chris is also an avid runner, having maintained a streak of running for over five consecutive years. 

Chris Brooks founded CryptoAssetRecovery.com in 2017 to help digital asset owners recover lost assets. Chris was a programmer at Fidelity Investments, VP of Technology at venture-backed Carescout (which sold to GenWorth, a spinoff of General Electric) and has founded and sold three bootstrapped internet companies. 

Chris Swenor is a seasoned entrepreneur and blockchain pioneer with a 20-year career that kicked off as a self-taught programmer at age 13. He swiftly moved from corporate roles into startups, leading several to successful acquisitions. Chris started venturing into blockchain and cryptocurrency in 2013, founding Reach in 2019, a platform that has since attracted over $13M in funding and onboarded more than 8,000 developers.

In recent years, Chris founded Humble, a decentralized exchange on Algorand, and Alloy, a blockchain gaming platform acquired in 2023. He is currently working on Voi Network, a layer 1 blockchain empowering its community with user-centric governance and economics. 

Christopher Perkins is President of CoinFund, a web3 focused Registered Investment Advisor.  He is also a member of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee and its Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee.

Ciarán Murray is a seasoned veteran of the blockchain industry. Aside from advising on numerous blockchain projects over the years, and releasing a synthetics assets proof-of-concept last year, Ciarán previously worked in the media industry for British Sky Broadcasting. He is not only well placed to understand the issues facing the media industry but also how to apply blockchain and other distributed technologies to remedy them.

Da Hongfei is the founder of Neo, an open-source, community-driven blockchain platform designed to welcome developers into the Smart Economy. Hongfei operates as CEO of Neo Global Development (NGD), the executive arm of the Neo Foundation that is committed to developing the Neo protocol and its supporting ecosystem. He is seen as a luminary in the Web3 space and as a blockchain pioneer in Asia. Hongfei received his education at the South China University of Technology, receiving degrees in technology and English.

Damian Alvarez is a communications professional helping Web3 clients get their stories heard. He is currently the Head of Communications at Aori, an omni-chain logic layer that leverages off-chain data storage to enable high-frequency on-chain trading. He has worked at agencies such as Edelman and YAP Global to assist a variety of emerging and established clients to engage in industry-wide narratives surrounding technology. He may be contacted at damian@aori.io.

Dan Keeler is Editor-in-Chief at Blockworks. Prior to joining Blockworks, he was Frontier Markets Editor at the Wall Street Journal where he managed the Journal’s coverage of smaller emerging markets as well as created a number of high-profile events and a highly regarded newsletter. Before joining the WSJ, he was the Editor of Global Finance magazine. He is also the founder of New York’s FM Network, a group that hosts gatherings of finance professionals focused on smaller emerging markets.

Contact Dan via email at dan@blockworks.co

Dan Smith is a Senior Research Analyst based in the United States covering Curve, Convex, Aave, and Compound. Daniel previously worked in tax and valuation at EY and Bennett Thrasher. He is focused on using data visualization tools to better understand the health and profitability of various DeFi protocols. Contact Dan at daniel@blockworks.co

Daniel Batten is a ClimateTech investor, Bitcoin environmental impact analyst, CEO advisor and author. He is most widely known for his data-driven approach to Bitcoin mining research.


Daniel Cawrey has been involved full-time in the crypto space since 2013, including as an editor at CoinDesk. He is author of 2020’s “Mastering Blockchain” and 2023’s “Understanding Crypto” books, both available on Amazon.

Daranee Ganesh is a publishing and production manager based in Washington, DC. She holds an LLB with a focus on emerging technologies. Prior to Blockworks, Daranee worked on several legal and non-profit projects aimed at integrating decentralized solutions in the social justice framework, specifically within immigration and environmental law. Contact Daranee at daranee@blockworks.co.

Darren Kleine is an Alberta-based reporter covering podcast content at Blockworks. Previously reporting for Cointelegraph, he wrote feature content and a weekly series focused on the personal stories of influential figures in the Web3 space. He has been an active participant in the NFT art scene since 2020, creating works on curated platforms including SuperRare and KnownOrigin and hosting an NFT art-focused podcast called NFP with DKleine. Contact Darren Kleine at darren@blockworks.co.

David is an Editor based in the Netherlands focused on data-driven journalism. Previously, he wrote for TheNextWeb's crypto vertical before launching Protos in 2021. He's a reformed hardline Bitcoiner passionate about permissionless and decentralized networks. Contact David at david@blockworks.co

David Schwed serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Halborn, an elite blockchain security firm. Prior to Halborn, he was the Global Head of Digital Assets Technology at BNY Mellon, the world's biggest custodian bank, where he integrated the IT strategy for the company's digital asset services. David was also CISO for Galaxy Digital, where he led the development of information security and IT infrastructure, and served as a risk committee advisor, evaluating emerging threats in financial services. He also founded the Cybersecurity Master's Program at Yeshiva University’s Katz School of Science and Health, sharing his expertise as a practitioner-in-residence.


Delphine Forma is the policy lead for Europe &amp; UK at Solidus Labs, a leading market compliance and market integrity firm in digital assets. With a career spanning roles in major banks and blockchain ventures, she brings extensive experience in compliance and legal across sectors. She is the founder of the crypto compliance and legal TG group with 1,400 members. A Sciences Po Lyon alumna, Delphine also holds advanced degrees in European Criminal Business Law and anti-money laundering.

Denelle Dixon is the CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization focused on working with and supporting changemakers to create equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology. She leads the teams that help maintain Stellar's codebase, support the communities around Stellar, and advocate on behalf of the network with international stakeholders. Before joining Stellar, Dixon served as COO of Mozilla, one of the most successful mission-driven open-source organizations.. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams including the ongoing fight for net neutrality and the global effort to ensure that people can control their personal data.

Dermot O’Riordan serves as a Director at the POKT Network Foundation where he helps steer product development and strategy. From Ireland to Silicon Valley, Dermot’s career ranged from advising tech companies and VC firms to leading marquee industry events. His interest in Web3 was sparked in 2016 with the rise of DAOs, leading him to dive deeper into the blockchain space, where he served as an advisor to projects like Radix and Dusk, and later, spearheading growth at Eden Block.

Donovan is a reporter based in Singapore. He previously worked in editorial at Bankless and is a huge fan of spaghetti Westerns and the Wu-Tang Clan. Contact Donovan at donovan@blockworks.co.

Elena leads product marketing at Hiro Systems, a developer tooling company bringing smart contracts to Bitcoin. She has spent the past six years working in blockchain and cryptocurrency startups. Elena co-founded Blockchain Latinx, an online community that explores what blockchain means for Latinos and for Latin America. She has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Eli Cohen is a corporate lawyer with 25+ years of experience in commercial transactions, financial services and regulatory matters and has worked in Asia, Europe and the United States. He is the General Counsel for Centrifuge, a real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and securitization platform and Chief Compliance Officer for Anemoy Capital SPC Limited a British Virgin Islands fund company issuer of the tokenized Anemoy Liquid Treasury Fund 1. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, has a Masters in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Eli Zeger writes about democracy and its relationship with technology. His work has been published in the Boston Review, Noema Magazine, Strange Matters, Zora Zine, among numerous other publications.

Elliot is the Head of Climate Strategy at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, where he is helping unlock Bitcoin's clean energy potential by bridging sustainable miners and climate-conscious investors. In his role at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, Elliot educates policymakers and NGOs on Bitcoin’s relationship with the energy system. He is a climatetech operator focused on alleviating energy poverty, bridging the digital divide, and promoting financial inclusion through technologies such as Bitcoin. Elliot was previously a Schwarzman Scholar and has served in the military, US Department of Energy, Clinton Foundation, and more. 

Evan Thomas is General Counsel for Alluvial, a software development company supporting the Liquid Collective liquid staking protocol. He was previously at Wealthsimple, Canada’s largest consumer fintech, where he was Head of Legal for Wealthsimple’s crypto trading platform. While at Wealthsimple, Evan helped launch Canada’s first regulated staking product. Before Wealthsimple, Evan was a litigator at Osler, Hoskin &amp; Harcourt LLP for nearly 15 years. Among other notable cases, Evan was hearing counsel to 3iQ Corp. in its appeal securing regulatory approval for Canada’s first publicly traded bitcoin fund in 2019.

Felix Jauvin is the host of the On the Margin podcast. Based in British Columbia, Canada, he lives and breathes where crypto and macroeconomics intersect.

Felix Xu, crypto geek, early adopter, and NFT collector. Felix graduated from NYU Stern and founded two crypto projects, ARPA and Bella Protocol, among the global top 500 by market cap. Felix previously worked at Fosun Investment, Sackler family office, and Vertical Research in New York and Beijing. Felix loves sailing, kitesurfing and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for his NFT collection.

Frank has a diverse career that spans creative writing, day trading, and a 12-year stint in financial planning. After experimenting with blockchain and being an early adapter to the Solana ecosystem, Mathis co-founded GenesysGo in 2021 to create a faster, more reliable and more secure decentralized data storage protocol. Their flagship product, shdwDrive is built on Solana and aims to bridge the gap between blockchain technology and traditional business infrastructure. GenesysGo is powered by a new type of decentralized data storage consensus mechanism, built from the ground up by the GenesysGo team.

Fraser is co-founder &amp; CTO of Cubist and an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. She is an expert in software correctness: her research focuses on systems security, automated bug finding, and formal verification, from verifying (parts of) production systems like browser JITs, to finding exploitable bugs in real codebases. Her tools have found many zero-day bountied bugs and CVEs in the Chrome and Firefox browsers and multiple operating systems. Fraser received her BA in English and her MS and PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.


Garrett Harper is the producer for the Empire podcast. Garrett worked in private equity and product management before jumping into crypto full-time in 2021. His favorite thing about crypto? It conflates art, gaming, finance, software, and psychology into one hyper-growth industry.

Gijs op de Weegh is the CEO and Founder of StablR, where he leads the strategy, business operations, and investor relations. He founded StablR out of his passion for implementing blockchain technology in the financial industry and exploring its possibilities. Before founding StablR, Gijs co-founded Payvision, an e-commerce payment service provider, in 2002. Under his leadership, Payvision grew to over 300 employees and achieved a turnover exceeding €4 billion.

Gísli Kristjánsson is co-founder and CTO of Monerium, the first company to issue fiat onchain. He fell in love with programming at the age of 13. After working as a bonds broker, Gísli saw the inefficiencies of securities settlements firsthand and recognized the potential of Bitcoin. Prior to co-founding Monerium in 2015, Gísli founded and sold a platform to give users access to geo-blocked content. Fun fact: Gísli’s Ethereum address is among the 1% of the oldest addresses.

Haden Patrick is Director of Business Operations of Cordial Systems, a provider of institutional-grade self custody software using a Zero Trust security model.  Haden has executive experience in team leadership, engineering and education originating from his 24 year career as a Naval Officer. After co-founding SoloKeys, the first open-source security key company, he went on to manage projects connecting web3 to traditional finance at a cryptocurrency trading firm before joining Cordial Systems.

Hadley Stern, Advisor to MPCH, has extensive experience in leadership roles within TradFi and digital asset industries. As Global Head of Custody at the Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM) from 2021 to 2023, Hadley spearheaded the creation of the industry’s first bank-grade crypto-custody platform. Hadley also previously served as Chief Operating Officer at Bloq where he was responsible for the P&amp;L, product roadmap, and general operations. Hadley was Founding President of Fidelity Digital Asset Services where he led Fidelity's Blockchain Incubator and Digital Currency group and was pivotal in early product launches, including activating Bitcoin donations to Fidelity Charitable and building and running Fidelity first Bitcoin mining Operation.



Hannah Finnerty is Blockworks' editorial operations manager and is based in the US. Hannah previously worked in podcast production for The National in Abu Dhabi. She graduated from Bowling Green State University with a degree in multiplatform journalism and Middle Eastern politics. Contact Hannah at hannah@blockworks.co.

Hatu Sheikh is the co-founder and CMO of DAO Maker, the largest on-chain funding platform with 1.5M+ users. The platform's contracts have distributed over $600M, with a cumulative return of around 10x. Hatu has a strong background in marketing and strategy and has played a pivotal role in driving the success of various blockchain-based projects and tokens, crafting effective marketing strategies, and forging powerful synergies within the industry.

Harry Duckworth, a law graduate, embarked on a unique journey that led him to become the youngest trader at global commodities giant Trafigura. He then went on to set up desks for several hedge funds worldwide, accumulating over a decade of experience in trading, hedge funds, and emergent technologies. 

Through his work, he became fascinated by the revolutionary power of blockchain tech soon after the inception of Bitcoin. Years later he founded AgriDex International, to provide digital marketplaces and supply chain information for all participants in the global food chain. 

Hind Kurhan is a Co-Founder of Thesis Defense, a decentralized technology security auditing company whose mission is the facilitation of broad adoption of decentralized technology by improving security and audit consistency throughout the blockchain sphere.


Ian Rogers is the Chief Experience Officer at Ledger, leading the consumer-facing business delivering the world’s #1 way to buy and secure cryptocurrency.  Prior, Ian was the Chief Digital Officer at LVMH for five transformative years, working with a portfolio of nearly one hundred brands across luxury including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Sephora, and Hennessy.  Ian also sits on the boards of Dr Marten’s and Lyst.

Ian spent twenty years bringing digital music to the mainstream, first with Winamp then Yahoo!, Beats, and Apple.  Ian contributed to the 2015 launch of Apple Music including Beats 1, their digital streaming channel. Ian graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science (with honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from Indiana University in 1994.  Ian built some of the earliest music-related Web sites in the early 90s and has been working with Beastie Boys since 1993.

Igor Telyatnikov is the CEO and co-founder of the blockchain and financial services technology company AlphaPoint. Headquartered in New York, AlphaPoint supports over 10 million users, powering marketplaces and wallets in over 35 countries. With 15 years of experience in tech and innovation, Igor has empowered over 150 clients, including CME Group and Scotiabank. In 2022, he partnered with the Government of El Salvador to upgrade its Chivo Wallet into a national Bitcoin and dollar wallet, creating the first nationalized crypto ecosystem. Igor previously held roles at Cvetlo, LiftDNA, and Ingersoll Rand/Allegion, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing from Penn State University. He is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Ishan is a University of Texas McCombs School of Business graduate with a BBA in Finance &amp; Marketing. He founded and managed a Private Equity Fund that reached an eight-figure Assets Under Management (AUM) and has also gained experience with many top 200 projects of crypto market cap. In 2022, he helped found SCRIB3, a Web3 Marketing and PR venture. He was notably among the first to raise an alert about potential deceptive and unethical business practices by FTX. Ishan contributes as a DeFi analyst, an active angel investor, and an advisor in projects like Polygon Technologies.

Jack Kubinec is a Solana ecosystem reporter based in Brooklyn, New York. Jack previously interned at Blockworks before joining full-time. He graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University with a degree in sociology. Contact Jack at jack.kubinec@blockworks.co.

Jag is the CEO and co-founder of re.al, an L2 build to facilitate deep onchain liquidity for tokenized RWAs. re.al seeks to redefine how RWAs are integrated into DeFi, using yield-generating real-world assets as novel building blocks in existing DeFi primitives.

James Cirrone is a breaking news reporter based in New York. Prior to joining Blockworks, James was a reporter and newsletter writer at Bloomberg News. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in journalism. He also played trumpet in the university’s marching band. Contact James via email at james.cirrone@blockworks.co.

Jason Allegrante is the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Fireblocks. He is an experienced Counsel with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry with both large, traditional financial institutions as well as early stage fintech startups.



Jason Dehni is the co-founder and group CEO of Credbull, a leading DeFi platform offering structured high fixed yield solutions in SME private credit. Jason has over 25 years of senior management experience in asset management, private banking, SME lending, insurance, risk management, and crypto across North America, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. His background includes serving as group COO &amp; MENA CEO of a publicly traded crypto asset management company, co-founder &amp; CEO of an SME trade finance platform, and senior leadership roles in asset management, wealth management,  insurance, and management consulting. Jason holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an Honours BA in Economics &amp; Political Science from the University of Toronto. 

Jean-Marie Mognetti is Chief Executive Officer of CoinShares, a publicly listed investment firm that manages over five billion in digital assets on behalf of a global investor base, and an experienced commodities trader with a background in quantitative strategies. A veteran of the Global Advisors group of companies since 2011, Jean-Marie has served in various leadership roles throughout his tenure, most recently as CEO of Global Advisors (Jersey) Limited and director of GABI, the world’s first regulated Bitcoin fund. In addition to his management responsibilities as CEO, Jean-Marie oversees the firm’s proprietary trading arm, capital markets portfolio, and risk management practices – areas in which he has developed unique expertise over his career. Prior to joining Global Advisors, Jean-Marie was a quantitative strategist with Hermes Commodities Fund Managers, and an Energy Trader Assistant at Lehman Brothers. He holds Master of Science degrees in Mathematical Trading and Finance from Sir John Cass Business School in London, and Bank-Finance-Insurance from Université Paris Dauphine in Paris, in addition to a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Finance from Université Paris Dauphine.

Jeff is an editor at Blockworks, based in the United States. He has been a part of the blockchain space for over a decade, most recently working as US news editor at Cointelegraph. His areas of focus include empowering artists and creators through technology, using proof-of-participation methods to reward self-improvement, reducing the effectiveness of Sybil attacks, seeking transparent equity for disadvantaged communities, and exploring fairer models of world governance. Contact Jeff at Jeffrey@blockworks.co.

Jesper Johansen is the founder and CEO of NORTHSTAKE, a regulated custodial staking company specialized in building regulatory compliant crypto staking products for institutional investors and financial institutions. The team holds backgrounds from financial institutions, pension funds, large investment companies to consulting, technology and audit firms, such as Accenture, Deloitte, PwC as well as blockchain and crypto projects e.g. DAI Foundation (MakerDao), Ethereum and L1/L2s. 

Prior to NORTHSTAKE, Jesper held leadership positions with Accenture Strategy and Deloitte Consulting advising clients in heavily regulated industries to implement new technologies and drive business transformation. He holds a MBA from Copenhagen Business School and a B.Sc. in International Business. 

Jess is the CEO of Reown, the onchain UX platform and builders of the WalletConnect Network. Previously she led Crypto at Checkout.com, a global fintech company. Jess was also a member of the Bank of England CBDC Engagement Forum and a member of UK Finance New Digital Money Steering Group, Innovate Finance Fintech Strategy Group and Department for International Trade Fintech Group.

Jess Sun is an independent writer and content strategist. She loves bringing good ideas to light, helping the people behind them shine, and bridging gaps in understanding. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn. Go to her website to learn about working with her.

Jesse Knutson is the head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, where he is responsible for expanding the platform’s issuance pipeline, overseeing distribution and building its user base while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Prior to this role, Knutson served as vice president of financial products at Blockstream, and held roles at prominent investment banks including Macquarie Group and Barclays.

Jim Myers is an engineer, early-stage investor, and the CTO &amp; Co-Founder of Flipside Crypto, a leading blockchain data analytics and business intelligence platform. Prior to co-founding Flipside, Jim developed the core technology that took products from 0 to 1 at companies such as Mylestone, Pluralsight, and Smarterer. Jim’s journey into the crypto industry began in 2015, eventually co-founding Flipside Crypto in 2017 to help empower crypto communities to create and share data-driven insights on the projects they care most about. Jim's passion for building extends to the broader startup community via his developer event series, Stack Dive, and as an angel investor to several local Boston-area startups, including AdHawk and LinkSquares. In a previous life, Jim developed advanced models to quantify risk and abnormal returns in the market for Financial Transmission Rights, a type of energy derivative.

JJ is an advisor, mentor and co-founder working across Bitcoin, mining and web3. He currently mentors for Outlier Ventures new Bitcoin Base Camp program and has co-founded a new protocol operating in stealth mode.

Joey is ranked by Chambers and Partners as one of the top 12 lawyers in the world, advising many of the largest platforms around the globe in the space. He co-chaired the Gibraltar Government’s working group on Blockchain for 3 years, which was established to develop the infrastructure to accommodate a DLT regulatory framework. Joey is also a specialist consultant to the United Nations and trains and assesses authorities primarily around South East Asia in virtual asset developments, DeFi and regulation. He is a member of several think tanks including the prestigious global ‘Wharton Reg@Tech’ initiative, the Blockchain Industry Parliamentary Roundtable on Blockchain Technologies at Parliament in the UK, and also contributed to the UK Law Society on the Blockchain Legal and Regulatory Guidance publication. He was the Xapo Representative on the Libra/Diem Association and has also contributed to various stablecoin and CBDC developments. 

Joeyz Yu is an entrepreneur with over 18 years of experience in product design and development. He co-founded Sending Labs to revolutionize communication protocols and social applications for Web3, leading the development of their flagship products SendingMe and SendingNetwork. Previously, Joeyz co-founded MoboTab, where he created the Dolphin Browser, used by over 200 million users and later acquired by ChangYou. Joeyz's passion for empowering users and building exceptional teams drives his mission to shape the future of the internet. 

Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/brand/the-breakdown">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Since 1971, when the United States indefinitely suspended its promise to convert paper dollars into gold, we all use Massachusetts currency.”



— Dror Goldberg
</blockquote>



The American colonies won their independence from Great Britain with a weapon of their own invention: fiat currency.



In 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had made monetary history when it issued 7,000 GBP in “bills of credit” to soldiers returning from a failed raid into Quebec.



The disgruntled soldiers had expected to be “paid” in plunder, and when that failed to materialize, the colony gave them newly printed paper money instead — paper that was valuable only because it was required for paying taxes.



It wasn’t the first paper currency ever — that honor belongs to the Song Dynasty, which issued paper money in China roughly 700 years earlier.&nbsp;



But those ancient notes were initially redeemable for copper coins.



The Massachusetts bills of credit, by contrast, were the first paper money in history to hold value solely because the issuing government required them for tax payments.



It was a neat trick: Print paper money and then force people to earn it (by soldiering, for example) because they needed it to pay their taxes.



The Massachusetts money was “an invention on a global scale and a great intellectual breakthrough,” as Dror Goldberg documents in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Money-American-Invention-Governments-ebook/dp/B0BXX5G7TD/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1A06GRPHIJFIA&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.VxXZIFgtI1-2iniBdN3vx-Os7TFH24Sva69R6SZY-H0.qEJQBDSq5jp46XsnxeYybK2pTq2Qlg2_eNN2sLOD5u4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=easy+money+dror+goldberg&amp;qid=1751502757&amp;sprefix=easy+money+dror+goldberg%2Caps%2C141&amp;sr=8-1">Easy Money: American Puritans and the Invention of Modern Currency</a>.



“It was a fundamental change in the legal foundation of money, shifting the anchor of money for the first time in history from the intrinsically valuable goods it was made of to the circulation of money into and out of the state’s treasury.”



“Who needs gold when you have taxes?” Goldberg neatly sums up.



As simple as that idea was, however, governments were a bit slow to catch on.&nbsp;



The Massachusetts Bay Colony ended its first experiment in fiat money just two years later when it retired all of the bills it had issued (after collecting them for taxes).&nbsp;



Other American colonies followed their example, but also only in brief spurts — and there was only one such experiment outside of the colonies: a 1716 issuance of billets de banque that quickly plunged France into the financial crisis known as the Mississippi Bubble.



The world only recognized the power of tax-backed paper currency a few decades later, when the colonies collectively used it to win independence from their British overlords.&nbsp;



In 1775, the cash-strapped Continental Congress paid the rebel army it had raised by issuing paper currency backed only by the promise that the individual colonial governments would accept it for tax payments.



It didn’t go very well.



Despite the proof-of-concept in Massachusetts, people struggled with the idea of tax-backed money — so much so that the Continental Congress printed its dollars with an entirely fictional promise right on the front.



In large letters, each dollar declared that “THIS BILL entitles the Bearer to receive TWENTY Spanish MILLED Dollars or the value thereof in Gold or Silver.”



But the only thing the government ever intended to give in return for a continental dollar was a tax receipt.



Also, the Continental Congress printed far too many of them. By 1781, continental dollars had lost nearly all of their purchasing power.



But against all odds, it kept an army in the field. And in so doing, it proved that fiat currency, however unsound, could win wars — and even print a nation into existence.



“The noise of the rebels’ printing press was the stamp heard round the world,” as Dror Goldberg puts it.



After the war, however, even the victorious Americans recoiled at the thought that money could be backed by nothing more than the power to collect taxes.



“Paper is poverty,” Thomas Jefferson wrote just a decade after paper money had come to his rescue. “It is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”&nbsp;



Nearly everyone agreed.



It wasn’t until 1971 — 281 years after the Massachusetts innovation — that the United States fully accepted the idea that money could be backed by nothing more than its power of taxation.



This might not end well.&nbsp;



The American government is currently exploring the outer boundaries of just how much tax-backed currency the world is willing to accept.



But if you celebrated the American Revolution today, you should consider celebrating the great American invention of fiat currency too.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha directly in your inbox.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

The Breakdown Newsletter

The other American Revolution: Fiat currency

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Standing outside the Clase Azul loft in downtown Brooklyn, I called my mother to inform her I had just spent $2,000 on a bottle of tequila.



“Are you drunk?” came her stunned reply.



Reader: I was not drunk. I was investing. Two and a half weeks later, I had sold the bottle for $3,000 — courtesy of the blockchain.



In early June, BAXUS co-founder Tzvi Wiesel invited me to join him at a Clase Azul private tasting and bottle launch. At the event, the tequila brand’s head distiller led a tasting, pointing out notes of apple and a blue and orange bottle meant to evoke the New York skyline. Then, the gathered faithful were given the option to buy one or two bottles of “The Loft Brooklyn Collection” — available exclusively in New York.&nbsp;



For much of the event, the salespeople didn’t pay much mind to me, a schlubby crypto journalist, compared to the older, richer-looking clientele. But a few minutes later, I found myself in a cool back room, my hand shaken by an eager-looking employee clad in black. After taking a picture with my $2,000 booze, I sent the bottle home with Wiesel, who then scanned and uploaded it to BAXUS’ Solana-powered spirits marketplace.



BAXUS stores liquor in physical vaults on behalf of spirits collectors. Each bottle is 3-D scanned and paired with an NFT that can be bought or sold on BAXUS. Transactions are settled in USDC, and users can on- or off-ramp from fiat with Coinflow. BAXUS takes a 10% sellers’ fee. Collectors can make multiple swaps without physically possessing a bottle, and if they want to actually drink their liquor, BAXUS will ship it for a $25 fee.&nbsp;



I unsuccessfully listed my bottle for $3,500, but then I got a bite at $3,000, which set me up with a $700 profit after fees. (That’s a 35% return in a couple weeks. Why am I sending this newsletter out for free?)



The whole process was made possible by blockchain tech.&nbsp;



“Blockchain enabled the seamless payment via crypto, the instant settlement in your account, the owner to keep the bottle in the vault while still being able to show verifiable proof of ownership,” Wiesel said in a text. “Think about how the original process required you to go to Brooklyn, pay with a credit card, etc. [If] you wanted to resell it you would have had to go and find a buyer online (illegally) and then [try] to establish trust that you actually have the bottle and will send it to them. This eliminated all of the friction.”



It’s frequently said that crypto needs to solve real problems. In this case, crypto solved my problem of having acquired a limited edition tequila bottle for less than its market value. I hope to face this problem again sometime soon.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha directly in your inbox.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

Food and beverages

I made a profit flipping tequila on the blockchain

Casey Wagner

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



It may have been a short trading week, but on the economic data front, things have been very busy.&nbsp;



The US labor market was in full focus, first with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/june-adp-report-miss-jobs">ADP’s print</a> on Wednesday and then the Department of Labor’s report on Thursday.&nbsp;



Here’s a recap:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">June ADP report shows private-sector payroll decrease</h2>



The June ADP employment report came in remarkably lower than projections. Analysts expected the private sector to add 100,000 positions, but in reality, payrolls decreased by 33,000, according to ADP.



It’s the first negative print since March 2023, although the figure has declined every month since March 2025. Take this with a grain of salt, though. A government employment report painted a different picture (more on that later).



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jobless claims lower than expected</h2>



Initial jobless claims for the week ended June 28 came in lower, at 233,000. This compares 240,000 expected and 237,000 the week prior. It’s the softest reading in six weeks, but the figure still remains elevated compared to this time last year.



Summer is typically volatile for unemployment figures, so keep that in mind for the coming weeks. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BLS employment report shows payroll growth</h2>



The Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics June employment report showed public and private payrolls grew by 147,000, outpacing expectations (~110,000). This comes in line with the 12‑month average (~146,000), while the unemployment rate dipped to 4.1% as participation fell slightly.



Sectors that saw the most growth were state/local government (+73,000) and healthcare (+39,000). Private‑sector hiring slowed, coming in at 74,000 — its weakest since October. 



This is, of course, much higher than the figure reported by ADP, but it’s not terribly uncommon for these two reports to come in mixed (they have different data reporting cutoffs, methodologies, etc).



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

Economy

For the US labor market, June data was mixed

Kate Irwin

This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



I’ve been hearing more chatter about decentralized file storage lately.



Yeah, it’s not exactly a sexy topic. But one could argue that decentralized storage is integral to a crypto ecosystem that’s actually decentralized and not concentrated within one or two corporate entities.&nbsp;



And even if decentralization doesn’t really matter to you, does fraud? How about the rise of AI-generated data and files that could be used to hack or scam you, or brick your phone when you need it most?



“With something like AWS [Amazon Web Services], you can’t actually verify if a file is what it’s supposed to be or not. And that fundamentally breaks blockchains and crypto transactions,” Pinata CEO Kyle Tut told me in an interview.&nbsp;



Decentralized storage methods could be ultimately used as a way to combat fraud by verifying authentic information including provenance data — especially in the increasingly AI-dominated world we’re hurtling toward.



“If we want to have automated transactions, whether they’re AI-powered or not, you need to have files and data sets that are verifiable and authentic. And so that is where we spend all of our time, is ensuring that data and files are exactly what they’re supposed to be. And if they changed, we know that they’ve changed,” Tut said.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">To show how it works, we built Pinnie’s Guestbook, an onchain app with social data from <a href="https://twitter.com/farcaster_xyz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@farcaster_xyz</a>, deployed on <a href="https://twitter.com/arbitrum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@arbitrum</a>. → <a href="https://twitter.com/ponder_sh?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ponder_sh</a> indexes each message from the smart contract → <a href="https://twitter.com/pinatacloud?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@pinatacloud</a> stores them on IPFS, keeping the data queryable even if the node resets <a href="https://t.co/lMgnoE0UNn">pic.twitter.com/lMgnoE0UNn</a>&mdash; Pinata (@pinatacloud) <a href="https://twitter.com/pinatacloud/status/1940101795428409514?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Pinata has worked with a number of NFT collections and marketplaces like OpenSea and Sorare to decentralize their assets. Typically, it’s images, videos, and JSON files that get stored. More recently, it’s worked with memecoin platform pump.fun to store memecoin art files, too.



“IPFS [InterPlanetary File System] is, like, a very difficult protocol to get to work. And so what we spend all of our time on is ensuring that it&#8217;s fast and stable. We have seven-plus years of ensuring that when you&#8217;re trying to get files, you&#8217;re getting them fast and you&#8217;re getting them reliably,” Tut explained.



But his ultimate goal is to get everyone to run an <a href="https://docs.ipfs.tech/concepts/what-is-ipfs/#defining-ipfs">IPFS</a> node plus a crypto wallet on every device they own.&nbsp;



“That&#8217;s the only way that you can generate true provenance of that file from creation to consumption,” Tut said. “Where we&#8217;re going post-AI, where AI can DDoS everything, we need to verify what this file is, where it came from, who created it, when was it created? Like all those types of little things need to happen, and the only way you can do that is through IPFS and wallet signatures on-device. You have to sign this data as soon as it’s generated.



“Our whole underlying assumption and the future that we&#8217;re building to is [that] all files need to be identified through IPFS, and then they need to be signed by a blockchain. We don&#8217;t care what blockchain. And that&#8217;s kind of the beauty of IPFS. At the end of the day, it can work with every blockchain,” he said.



Spinning up nodes and wallets left and right is certainly a lot to ask people to juggle — and isn’t realistic for everyone right now.&nbsp;



But maybe this uncertain AI-driven future ahead will convince more of us that it’s worth the hassle.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha directly in your inbox.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

Why we need a wallet on every device in a post-AI world

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/brand/the-breakdown">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Because that’s where the money is.”



— Willie Sutton, on why he robbed banks
</blockquote>



<a href="https://www.google.com/finance/quote/CRCL:NYSE?window=1M">Circle traded at 1x AUM</a>



At its June 23, history-making peak, Circle shares traded at an enterprise value (market cap minus cash) of roughly $62 billion.



That is wild because Circle’s assets under management is…wait for it…$62 billion!



In other words, stock market investors were briefly valuing Circle at 100% of AUM.



(It’s down to about 67% now.)



By contrast, BlackRock Asset Management’s enterprise value is just 1.5% of the $11.5 trillion of assets it manages.



That’s clearly not a metric any Circle investor cares about, but I still find it extraordinary — and the shares seem extraordinarily expensive on <a href="https://x.com/jonbma/status/1935727836339281965">more standard metrics</a>, too.



The most extraordinary metric, however, is simply the stock’s performance: CRCL shares ended their first day of trading up 180% from the IPO price, and their second day up 247%.



Fortune <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/06/10/circle-ipo-stock-price-valuation-outlook/">reports</a> that this makes Circle the best performing IPO of any large stock since 1980 —&nbsp; a genuinely incredible achievement considering that the dotcom boom is included in that large sample size.&nbsp;



But things got even crazier: CRCL subsequently traded as much as 750% above its IPO.



I don’t, however, think the IPO was underpriced.



In their initial research report, analysts at Goldman Sachs (which led the IPO), put an <a href="https://x.com/HadickM/status/1939721883185762794">$80 price target</a> on the shares — nearly 60% below current levels.



(Amusingly, Goldman still rates the shares as a “hold.”)



That understandably makes people question why Goldman priced the IPO all the way down at $31 — especially considering that the issue was 25x oversubscribed.



But investment banks don’t unilaterally dictate IPO prices. Instead, it’s mostly a function of what their institutional customers are willing to pay.&nbsp;



And it’s likely the case that while the Circle offer was 25x oversubscribed at $31, it might have been zero times subscribed at, say, $41.



Institutional accounts typically put in for more than they actually want so as to try getting a better allocation, so the “times oversubscribed” statistic is just marketing.&nbsp;



Regardless, the huge IPO pop has instantly changed the perception of Circle as a business.



I think of Circle as an asset manager running a tokenized money market fund — which I might have valued at 10% or 20% of AUM (generously, to account for its good growth prospects).&nbsp;



But the stock market clearly thinks that Circle is a tech stock, which can be valued at anything.



And the stock market is always right.



So even if Circle did leave money on the table, I’d say it was money well spent.



<a href="https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BMNR:NYSEAMERICAN?window=5D">BMNR is up 30x in three days</a>



Shares of BitMine, the latest in an ever-growing line of crypto treasury stocks, are trading at $135 today — three days after raising capital at $4.50.



BitMine aims to be an Ethereum version of MicroStrategy, and it’s off to a great start, so it might well achieve that.&nbsp;



(I’d still probably put my money on SBET, but I think all these things are silly, so what do I know.)&nbsp;



But who in their right mind thinks that paying 30x more for a stock than professional investors did three days ago is a good idea?



It’s hard for me to imagine and I’m not sure what to make of it.



But this, along with Circle, is a reminder that there’s a lot more money in stock markets than there is in crypto markets — and also a lot fewer ways to buy “crypto.”



This sudden mismatch of supply and demand has created a bizarre situation in which stock market investors appear to be far more bullish on crypto than crypto investors are.&nbsp;



Crypto tokens have been flatlining for months, but crypto-related equities are booming.



There’s even a boomlet in <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/07/02/coinbase-liquifi-acquisition-mergers-acquisitions-crypto-industry/">crypto-related mergers and acquisitions</a> going on.&nbsp;



IPOs, speculative excess, M&amp;A: The next crypto bull market is here — it’s just not happening in crypto.



Why is it happening on the stock market instead? Because that’s where the money is.



<a href="https://dacfp.com/whitepaper-0625/">Traditional investment advisors love crypto now, too</a>



Ric Edelman, the founder of a registered investment firm with $300 billion of assets under management, now <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/edelman-crypto-allocation-portfolio">recommends that investors allocate</a> as much as 40% of their savings to crypto.



The most conservative investors, he says, should allocate 10%.



Amazing.



In short, Edelman’s reasoning is that 1) with people living longer, even a 60-year-old investor should be investing on a 50-year time horizon and 2) crypto is one of the “exponential technologies” that long-term investors should seek exposure to.



“Thousands of companies in dozens of industries are at risk of obsolescence or massive market decline due to technological advancement,” Edelman warns, before making his case for crypto as a future-proof industry (because of bitcoin and stablecoins, basically).



Having skimmed his promotional PDF (thoughtfully written in a font large enough for 110-year-old investors to comfortably read), I’m a little skeptical that Edelman has studied crypto thoroughly enough to have a strong opinion on the multi-decade trajectory of this brand new asset class.



But, however right or wrong he proves to be (let’s check back in the year 2085), the most telling thing in his presentation may be the “dozens of ways” to invest in crypto that he cites — all of which are different ways to get exposure to bitcoin and ETH on the stock market.



Crypto is the future, he thinks, but I guess he doesn’t recommend using it.



Still, if the kinds of investors that Edelman advises are going to put 40% of their savings into exchange-listed crypto — or 10% even — we’re going to need a lot more exchange-listed crypto.



<a href="https://x.com/opt_fun">1,000x leveraged crypto trading is now available</a>



A new crypto exchange on Hyperliquid, opt.fun, offers traders 1,000x leverage on crypto trades “for one minute.”



That seems like a bad idea to me — for one second, even.&nbsp;



1,000x leverage implies an equity margin of 0.1%.&nbsp;



So if you bought something with a bid/offer spread of more than that, you’d immediately be stopped out for a total loss.



That may not be how opt.fun works, I’m not sure.&nbsp;



But I’m <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/156031/uprise-lost-99-of-client-funds-while-shorting-luna-during-its-price-crash">reminded</a> of the AI-enabled quant fund that managed to lose all of its assets under management by getting stopped out of a short position in LUNA in the same week that LUNA fell 99.99%.



Even on a zoomed-in chart, you could barely discern the uptick that must have gotten it.



But the AI had shorted with so much leverage that the position was almost immediately stopped out.



If it had held on for just one more minute, it probably would have covered the short nearly 100% lower, possibly turning a tiny sliver of capital into, say, a 1,000%+ gain after leverage.



But a minute is a long time in markets — in crypto ones, especially.



(Edelman might be right to stay out of them.)



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Thursday links: CRCL, BMNR, RIAs and 1000x leverage

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TAPEDRIVE won the grand prize in the latest Colosseum hackathon, a popular hackathon-cum-venture accelerator started by original Solana Labs hackathon organizers.&nbsp;



The contest, which I tend to view as a partial litmus test for what Solana builders are interested in at the moment, had a large number of stablecoin entries, one organizer told me. But the grand prize winner took at a stab at a problem internal to Solana: the cost of storing data onchain.



Solana is the busiest blockchain in existence as things stand. With all of this onchain activity paired with fast block times, it can get expensive to store data on Solana. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and others have talked about this problem of reducing data storage overhead on the network.&nbsp;



TAPEDRIVE claims to have the ability to read or write data (that is, access or add it to the chain) 1,400x cheaper than Solana’s status quo.&nbsp;



The program basically bundles Solana data and adds less expensive cryptographic proofs to the blockchain. A network of miners is incentivized to store this data using the TAPE token. To earn these token rewards, TAPEDRIVE miners solve data storage challenges in parallel every minute to prove that they hold their assigned portion of the data archive. This all still relies on Solana’s proof-of-stake mechanism for security.



This sounds reminiscent of the first Colosseum <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ore-wins-50k-solana-hackathon">hackathon winner in ORE</a>, which was a viral proof-of-work game built on Solana that had miners solve puzzles every minute.&nbsp;



The project’s founder, known as Z, told me they’re still “shell shocked” after winning. “I’m really grateful to have the opportunity to work on this full time now. Job’s not done. I’m fairly optimistic it could help a lot of teams once it’s dialed in,” they added.



Interestingly, TAPEDRIVE intentionally doesn’t use zero-knowledge technology for reasons laid out in the white paper of data storage platform Arweave, Z said.&nbsp;



The rest of the hackathon’s winners ran the gamut from prediction markets to gaming, but Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor said he thinks the strongest entries came from the stablecoins track. Builders in that area were pushing to “grow crypto payment adoption within specific regions and industries,” Taylor said.



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hackathon

Solana data storage project wins Colosseum hackathon

Felix Jauvin

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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As is the case with economic data these days, the devil is all in the details.



Today we received the latest jobs report, and the topline data looked fantastic.&nbsp;



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Non-farm payrolls came in at 147k vs. consensus estimates of 100k.</li>



<li>The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%, below forecasts of an increase to 4.3%.</li>
</ul>



The 4.1% unemployment rate is much stronger than the FOMC’s recent estimates in their June Summary of Economic Projections, and likely takes any possibility of a July cut off the table:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd6VYkw9H9OkljBOzVS4MyNfs4RtElua40P-Z6Sz7CXDn5oeASyZgAugdYNwfG-ImTYqyDareQL3bxdg5668MpFn-L_OFbRfH4eCTtsqaO-Jw4w0zR0iJvJIFog3GOgToRMcHF_QA?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:595px;height:auto"/></figure>



The key vector of what is driving this topline strength in the labor market is a decreasing labor force. This is due to plummeting immigration ever since Trump took office.&nbsp;



Looking at land border crossings, we can see these have cratered.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdlfY0CXLp81qEBLtC-4yVlrge3UiGXZ_LTJiqLxGgO-1PaLWBOkuOf1bjsZBHSDIq8IK4prdF0SO76oukiQfFjbLxy47ZBC6x-uxovHILoEJGPD0-qooChzmqoNCbie_MTcDBGsQ?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:603px;height:auto"/></figure>



One year ago, we saw this dynamic in reverse:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Huge levels of immigration under the Biden administration grew the labor force, which mechanically increased the unemployment rate, since it took time for those new entrants to get a job. And, in the meantime, those new entrants are considered unemployed in BLS data.</li>



<li>This was what caused the false-positive signal of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-recession-signals">the Sahm rule</a> that led to the Fed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-interest-rate-cut-50-bps">cutting 50bps</a> in quick order. </li>
</ul>



Putting it together: In the same way that immigration was causing a mechanically weak labor market last September, we now see a mechanically strong labor market.&nbsp;



This dynamic shrouds what’s happening deeper in the data.&nbsp;



Private payrolls came in at 74k, below expectations of 105k. The reason for the significant upside surprise came from government payrolls, which surged to 73k — up from 7k the previous month:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfraLfl9afNnyJrV7jVCi2IFIpLmglSap8hDY2-PON7tFvO0D7mioh_lZI2UcIq8mJvrF6bXCBrTiVJu1KVFCX8SWS6XPwQRST76luLVg9_kMn4nTcI8tL4tatY0sueK9nCqk2tFw?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:599px;height:auto"/></figure>



Looking at the industries that drove payroll growth, education and health services continue to bleed lower, which is notable, as these have been the primary driver of payroll growth in recent years.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcs2_TRrkwx34Rf90yJW1y0EehQ7Ai2QIwd9ziu4us-ANbgJv9yIDXPW_-42jUNUgV3ocKAsYPeqxq68sPKR1hCPc5NNlNkJk9e5Khyj3oXTUODkw47xUj4PIIUPGYWhfNPswC0vw?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:610px;height:auto"/></figure>



This delicate balance in the labor market is mostly felt by those who are currently unemployed and finding it extremely difficult to get a new job.&nbsp;



Continuing jobless claims are grinding higher every week amid a labor market that punishes job seekers.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfHReCM00OFu1rzuR5Y0qJXLPatfj-9wZ1zZZctO_7JTG62ShVRCX7MOh5bsjLMOnO3HhE1wDoAXHeivzHk-vTo9kTFITgxHDYtrhHKK9d_bUTpBdR_8lzfN192o_s_GmTyna9PMQ?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:620px;height:auto"/></figure>



What’s interesting is that the economy isn’t rolling over quite enough to trigger any meaningful layoff cycle. And so, we see that initial jobless claims continue to chop around aimlessly:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfWaUr-f1yjYtUMaIdJkk7BJLHTeY__SohEvmGIsjNiNaEkztrMLw_IKrbaC6Qt2Qie6Ff9nC8SKgq2K5gPpy3ZtffxNBoTcHZpMfS2WsuPwt-J86UEfBIbYxqAD6XGmDtm6EGCrA?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:620px;height:auto"/></figure>



Putting this all together, we have a labor market that has some valid issues — but is not bad enough to trigger any sort of meaningful policy response.&nbsp;



It looks increasingly likely that the Fed will continue to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/june-2025-fmoc-fed-interest">sit on its hands</a> and not make any meaningful move in either direction.



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The labor market is sending false signals

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A crypto researcher has whipped up an open-source payment processor within a week that lets a buyer tap a crypto wallet on a mobile device to pay for items without any processing fees typical of credit cards and terminals like Square.



Tim Robinson, head of crypto research at VC firm BlueYard, shared a video of the device in action this week making a payment with the MetaMask app on his phone.&nbsp;



The terminal, which he’s dubbed <a href="https://paragraph.com/@blueyard/building-a-crypto-payment-terminal">FreePay</a>, has a few different components, including an NFC reader and a screen for the seller to type in the amount they want to charge.



“We’re supposed to be replacing TradFi, not joining them,” Robinson said.



Robinson built a companion app for sellers using FreePay and an Android app for customers, but notes that FreePay only works with MetaMask and Coinbase Wallets (at least in its current form).



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">I was sick of seeing all these crypto debit cards for wallets, we&#39;re supposed to be replacing TradFi not joining them! How hard could it be to do it crypto native anyway? So I created this &#8211; FreePay &#8211; the worlds first open source, fee-free payment terminal. <a href="https://t.co/zLyZAY81fY">pic.twitter.com/zLyZAY81fY</a>&mdash; Tim Robinson (@timjrobinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/timjrobinson/status/1940331404627411261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 2, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



In recent months, crypto firms — from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-amex-shopify-card-payments">Coinbase</a> to MetaMask, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/avalanche-visa-card-payments">Avalanche</a> to Solayer — have all unveiled their own various crypto payment cards using traditional payment processors like Visa, Mastercard and even American Express.&nbsp;



But while these big-name TradFi firms have widespread reach, their fees aren’t inconsequential and can cut into businesses’ bottom lines or result in those higher costs being passed on to consumers.



Visa credit card <a href="https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf">fees</a> per transaction can be anywhere from 1% to over 2%, while Amex fees are typically higher, and can range from 1.4% to over 2.5%.



Of course, blockchains come with their own set of fees, but ultimately that depends on the chain used. Ethereum L2 and Solana fees are much, much lower, especially when considering credit card fees plus the 2.6% and up additional fee added just for using a Square terminal.&nbsp;



“I started with L2 support because that&#8217;s what I know best, but because it&#8217;s open source anyone can extend it,” Robinson told me in a DM of FreePay, adding: “Would love to see others add more chains and more wallets to support the standards needed to work with it.”



Crypto use in the US does come with some tax rules, though, which can deter some from using it as a payment method because it’s more complex than a stablecoin or fiat currency payment.&nbsp;



But hey, if you want to spend your crypto directly from your wallet in a tap-to-pay method, FreePay looks like one potential way for merchants to let you do just that.



I personally think we’re still a little ways away from actually seeing crypto being used for daily, small payments at scale, but the crypto industry really should reconsider its full-tilt embrace of fee-heavy, decidedly centralized payment systems (and systems that refuse to bank businesses like legal dispensaries and sex workers).



As others have <a href="https://x.com/zachherbert/status/1938364193700450395">pointed out</a>, crypto could also benefit from more open-source tech more broadly, including hardware wallets. Open-source tech is inherently more decentralized by design — and allows different motives besides maximizing profits alone to come into play.&nbsp;



A lot of compromises have been made by big crypto firms in pursuit of “mass adoption.” But maybe it’s time we look back at history and remind ourselves why bitcoin was even invented in the first place.



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decentralization

Crypto needs more no-fee, open-source payment tools

Macauley Peterson

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Nexus is billing itself as “the world supercomputer.” The L1’s ambitions are on full display as it churns through its final testnet ahead of mainnet launch, slated for later this year.



Anyone can join <a href="http://app.nexus.xyz">the network</a> in a few clicks from any device, contributing compute power to help build what Nexus calls “a verifiable world.”



What is a “world supercomputer,” you might ask? It’s a novel approach, according to CEO and founder Daniel Marin:



“The goal there is to build the largest distributed computer system ever, and part of the reason we&#8217;re doing that is because we&#8217;re trying to aggregate computing power to build a blockchain with a new architecture,” Marin told Blockworks.



Nexus <a href="http://docs.nexus.xyz">combines familiar ideas</a> from other cutting-edge chains but integrates them into a single, opinionated layer-1.



Like Mina Protocol, Nexus aims to condense all blockchain states into a single succinct proof — but while <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/can-new-recursion-tech-tackle-high-ethereum-fees">Mina uses recursive SNARKs</a> for constant-size proofs, Nexus relies on its RISC-V-based zkVM to handle vastly more complex workloads, including AI inference. Its choice of a RISC-V zkVM is reminiscent of RISC Zero, enabling general-purpose Rust code to be proven verifiably, but Nexus makes this VM a native part of its chain, not just a service layer. Ethereum itself may eventually <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/vitalik-ethereum-evm-scaling-l1-plan">go in this direction</a>.



For data availability, Nexus’ planned sampling approach echoes <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/celestia">Celestia’s modular DA model</a>, while its consensus will evolve from the current and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/commonware-optimized-blockchain-development">commonly used CometBFT</a> (formerly Tendermint) toward HotStuff-2, making it similar to <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/aptos">Aptos</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sui">Sui</a>. These consensus protocols provide fast finality — in Nexus’ case, coordinating globally distributed proving tasks.



Nexus then bakes in a decentralized compute cloud directly into its L1, turning every connected device into part of a single, verifiable computer built around an <a href="https://blog.nexus.xyz/the-nexus-execution-layer-incrementally-verifiable-computation/">Incrementally Verifiable Computation</a> (IVC) machine. The VM generates succinct proofs for every computation step, integrates those proofs via DAG-style propagation, and aggregates them into a single Universal Proof. Nexus uses the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/starkware-polygon-labs-stwo-zk-prover">Stwo (Circle STARK)</a> prover.



That’s a lot of buzzwords, but the TL;DR is this architecture theoretically enables horizontal scalability — each added node increases network throughput.



On the cryptography front, Nexus touts the involvement of heavyweight figures like <a href="http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/j.groth/">Jens Groth</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-abdalla-6a01a726">Michel Abdalla</a>, fortifying its credentials in zero‑knowledge and blockchain research.



And it’s not all theory. Last week, Nexus activated its third and final testnet, and its mainnet is targeted for Q3.



Nexus claims over 2.1 million unique users across its various testnets, <a href="https://blog.nexus.xyz/scaling-wallet-onboarding/">backed up</a> by Sybil detection. About 4,000 accounts are active today, Nexus’ <a href="https://testnet3.explorer.nexus.xyz/stats">block explorer</a> shows.



For Marin, Nexus exists to break out of blockchains’ limitations “because it&#8217;s impossible to build any meaningful application today.”



Marin said: “Our hypothesis from the very start of the company is that coding on a blockchain or coding on a zkVM should feel indistinguishable from coding on your own computer.”&nbsp;



The protocol is optimizing for speed, not decentralization.



“We want to be decentralized in the long term, [but] we don&#8217;t want to be decentralized right now at all, and in fact, pretty much the opposite,” Marin continued. “So it&#8217;s a little bit of a philosophical take that will piss off some people.”



In the near term, the Nexus team is targeting quarterly releases, gunning for the trendy objective of being infrastructure for the AI era.



“We want users to feel like, ‘Wow, we&#8217;re building the future. We&#8217;re part of a community and a network, I can see other apps in the ecosystem, I can do quests and have fun,’” Marin said.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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0xResearch Newsletter

‘The world supercomputer’: Nexus activates final testnet for AI-ready blockchain

David Canellis

This is a segment from the Supply Shock newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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You might know that the US dollar has been pummeled this year.&nbsp;



The DXY index — which prices the greenback against a basket of currencies — is down 12% since mid-January, practically erasing all of its gains over the past five years.



Granted, DXY has its <a href="https://www.euromoney.com/article/27bjsstsqxhkmh0p48qj1/foreign-exchange/dxy-index-is-flawed-measure-of-us-dollar-strength-research-shows/">problems</a>. It’s heavily skewed toward the dollar’s exchange rate in Europe, with more than half of its weight assigned to the euro, as well as 20% or so spread unevenly across the British pound, Swedish krona and Swiss franc.&nbsp;



The Japanese yen is the only featured currency from Asia, with about 14%. The renminbi is excluded altogether, and the US dollar is down only about 2.5% against the yuan since mid-January.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcGbG1DfoYf_-pSf-gayNuis61QqeDEraXqIHEPcjQMSw-pdHqIVG5DrL057f7u5pQxcwrVOba5y2B7tWiDSPJ9hI-bHYP5n5voeP-ytKEGW9E1U-iwvrdDS1MKQVWC29pPWPIb4Q?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The orange line is BTC/USD, the purple line is BTC/USD adjusted for DXY’s volatility starting one year ago, and the blue line is DXY.</figcaption></figure>



As you can see, this quickly gets messy. Bitcoin is up almost 12% in the past six months, while the DXY is down by almost the same percentage. Does that mean bitcoin is about even?



Well, whether it’s over five years, three or one, BTC/USD is vastly outperforming major assets and benchmarks.&nbsp;



Bitcoin (priced in US dollars) is beating crude oil, gold, the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcUc88vgBJcOm8KhEnTEX_HaLvKce5SKk0Ieu-nT9-ZkRBFo0qRqcDm2GUlJH4CGNGwRgBvKnZzXh4q1td5dI5fz-KYQpP0dpXpuXOBCkcG9JctNDcISDoPD3uFUrJBPjgcQUjapA?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Not shown: bitcoin trailing Nvidia stock over the three-year and five-year horizons.</figcaption></figure>



Let’s instead see the price of bitcoin, denominated in each of those majors. It’s similar to how we’d measure the price of ETH in BTC terms with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-speedrunning-eth-btc-ratio">ETH/BTC ratio</a>.



Bitcoin’s ratio with the S&amp;P 500, Nasdaq 100 and crude oil topped out in late May, and we’re still just shy of all three.



That’s in line with bitcoin’s current standing against the US dollar (in raw dollar terms, not DXY), only 2% short of a new price record.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe1WoFSy6MY1kuWe5jKDU-7ELXNCtHvUQQTyoHO_hwvVHgjSLyHoazo7UiFNKDE8T_QgaeXqEzrMUEMmadQGtEsv8nnN1MDd1B55SYG4KF1uP6iwV89zhzAqSAyUR0pbscnIGeXJQ?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Luckily, there are many different kinds of all-time highs.</figcaption></figure>



The gold/bitcoin ratio, however, is almost 20% below its all-time high from a week before Christmas 2024.



But what would this newsletter be without something to celebrate?



When bitcoin hit $110,500 earlier this morning, on Coinbase, that was actually an all-time high against DXY — 1139.58 — around 2% higher than the previous peak in late May.&nbsp;



A minor victory, considering the DXY’s flaws. But a win is a win.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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Bitcoin

Bitcoin already sets all-time high against the US dollar index

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Yesterday we talked about how crypto’s kind of in a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/weird-moment-tokens-equities">weird spot</a>, but the good news is that we’re still seeing improvements across certain parts of the sector. Take consumer, for example. 



We’re seeing a “big dispersion in consumer crypto right now,” Dragonfly’s Tom Schmidt told me.



Part of that comes from the fact that there’s been a shift away from infrastructure.&nbsp;



“The applications themselves monetize better. They have more leverage. They end up often launching their own infrastructure,” he said. “I think there&#8217;s been a shift in venture dollar allocation towards applications, and so applications could launch tokens too.”



Schmidt cited Hyperliquid as an example, noting that it started as just Hyperliquid and not a chain, but it’s since built the infrastructure for a bigger platform.



“I think that&#8217;s kind of more and more the model that…I hear from builders that people are pursuing. In some respects, it fits more than the traditional model of venture capital, which is: You started out as a product, and then eventually you morph into a platform. But you&#8217;re only a platform if there&#8217;s more value created on top of you than [you] created,” he said.&nbsp;



Schmidt noted that he’s seeing a bit of a shift, similar to what happened from 2014 to 2018 crypto, in which talent is really entering the space.&nbsp;



And one of the success areas is iGaming or casino gaming.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s sort of this classic story for crypto, where it&#8217;s like you get around — kind of the old guard — old companies by making things more efficient, making it 24/7 by putting it onchain, trying to do the same thing, but [for] the lottery.&nbsp;



“So…there&#8217;s certainly Web 2.0 equivalents, but the crypto ones are growing like crazy, and they have all these properties that people have kind of come to expect from companies that use stablecoins for payments, or companies that operate in the space. So, yeah, I think that&#8217;s kind of where we&#8217;ve seen more growth and more attraction,” Schmidt explained.&nbsp;



It’s not to say this is the first time crypto projects are making this attempt, but it’s one of the first times that some have been venture-backable.&nbsp;



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crypto apps

Consumer crypto is having a moment

The Investor’s Guide to Machine DeFi

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/brand/the-breakdown">subscribe</a>.



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Private markets are the new public markets.” — Matt Levine
</blockquote>



Because I was a professional trader for a long time, people have always asked me for investment advice.



At first, I’d try to explain that traders don’t know anything about investing, but then they’d just ask me for trading advice, as if it were the same thing.



(Full disclosure: Traders don’t know much about trading, either. It’s mostly luck.)



Eventually, I stopped trying to explain the difference and started just offering the standard advice instead: Put it all in an US equities index fund.&nbsp;



For anyone young enough to ride out the volatility, that’s always worked out because the S&amp;P 500 has returned about 8.5% a year since its inception in 1928.



Over a decade or two, 8.5% a year is a lot — compound interest remains the eighth wonder of the world.



But the vast majority of stocks don’t compound at all, which makes things difficult.&nbsp;



A <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447">study</a> by Hendrik Bessembinder found that just 4% of stocks accounted for all of the net returns in US equity markets between 1926 and 2019.&nbsp;



4%!



The other 96% of stocks, in aggregate, returned nothing.



So, investors who missed out on Amazon (+225,089%), Nvidia (+407,612%) or Microsoft (+825,487%), are unlikely to have achieved that average 8.5% return — or anything close to it.



(Bessembinder also <a href="https://download.ssrn.com/2024/11/11/4897069.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&amp;X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEPn%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQDzBRREWRCOhi4YJ1keOAqX93xc2%2BsYYn%2F28qXwbhsIlQIhAML82tNSZ%2Fx3Rx8pgXnWoQ9T4xi9YHN5NpIqP%2Fgfyyj0KsYFCPH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEQBBoMMzA4NDc1MzAxMjU3IgzwDMQ8e0RzwYuE5WAqmgWRVqfaz%2BfoQwlK5wCEaSjIVEOu0UXXrv4OuLLt%2FSD8YtSVGPOQxvaZSa4cW%2Flf6yM7pVqZY%2F%2Bgd89fT%2FqTsrFVBmxZULOspj8l37Q0at%2Fb4JWLUOwVGVf5HW0jXKGmGoyF39phC9f0SF1IjQyOlX1Fglm3RJFk5LE3yq4Hssi0yTQCzE80vkBtpi14pVSKzYYVMcbJGrNSM%2BjvgKGlxtBDT5Qe0rx7tEwBtUGfSTci3P4%2Fc60mKx%2BcNqY0VsqYUwUx5m8tKo4wY5pB6mlWKHCJdnaQPdrl%2FULHNOhN8p9pTVUeSEVnbK3%2BWZNnZYmsfKnylqryWC%2BG26ZF%2F77i%2FTKXChGyKSMK7Bi4KQCeeQ%2B0Yp1myKAICvDM4QuPuGv9BYMdh9MaQeBBVJ2LeXUPN7M5qiQLyT6inglP%2FPtVPdX48bzSwZN2vdEaBUac8RiwRPTb7YhkgFWZ1lowJX14srARoCHXjWGH3%2BNAhsvPIprLiDMPSc8HpF20pUzahr53YSE4sL4QZdR%2FTWdzS5lZk31OShI6oniGBeT0VyvkiD86XYGyHUgo5tBJk4hOTnb73mRw6Bxco3GqysTEpCE6qrGUKDHaeE9DtEfJsQl5lJ%2BogQSoK5sOoE5sG5f8ZJo9f1vzcb16bd6GzEOctxGNSwrg3Zj33ojp%2FIavdcw0EIJGHbxPgQedVrFqQk%2FEd04OesGnX0rhWBl48lsvoj4HfCSff%2BpSjWNgguITRxh1gh27vcJih1E9j0jC1SwY%2BLlNH6PlsRbwf6%2BC9rZ6ITh5cLE%2BiHSvG4LKmEPXdduE2p%2B%2BJCaqbWDnimZRt6t95oJVsCwm%2B25TcRUD3fgp8vDzdj3ZQbNn7zUlCvE3LciNH0QLsp4tZLqBv2p3LNcwu7KVwwY6sAFTariU6YXMmRPo%2FQiY%2BtfgRrRtrUcctUZulq27oPMLi0b2pQp107YQeCJDkDC7fYwg20%2BxZhChZK9qCFtZKvroTUBMwGSAIto8CNEskEStmX%2FljZkq5JofQuyp7DzGwV%2B7udHQyLhXkXPgSTORVuC9Lx4eplHZK%2B%2F4drrKlA8rsgBszPBGaqnPyGeTVu7vKsuxenyDCtF0yeAokcCZpPBjpMhJzU9V8Y743c27KfYI8w%3D%3D&amp;X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&amp;X-Amz-Date=20250702T162840Z&amp;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&amp;X-Amz-Expires=300&amp;X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWEQWNLDEOU%2F20250702%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&amp;X-Amz-Signature=279e8bda8ba52721519122951ed78d1e0ee273289d3b0b4b38c7a3afcccb244b&amp;abstractId=4897069">cites</a> the 265 million% lifetime return in Altria, but few of us have a 100-year investing lifetime, so I’m not sure how helpful that is.)



This has always been the rationale for index investing: It’s impossible to pick the small number of stocks responsible for long-term equity returns (let alone resist the urge to sell them), so it’s best to buy them all via an index (and never sell them).



Now, though, those kinds of mega-winners are less likely to be in the index.



Today’s most exciting companies — OpenAI, SpaceX, Epic Games — stay private seemingly forever.



This is a problem.



If we’re all counting on our stock portfolios to return 8.5% a year, but the kinds of companies that accounted for that 8.5% are no longer in them, how is anyone ever going to retire?



One possible solution is to “make IPOs great again,” as SEC Chair Paul Atkins <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/07/02/sec-chairman-paul-atkins-on-regulating-private-markets-rise-of-stock-tokenization.html">told CNBC</a> he intends to do.



Atkins says that by making disclosure requirements less onerous, companies will be encouraged to return to the stock market.&nbsp;



But I’m not sure why they’d bother — there’s so much private capital available for high-profile companies like OpenAI and Epic Games that there’s no reason for them to suffer any level of disclosure at all (let alone quarterly earnings calls, road shows, litigation risk, etc.).



The other possible solution is simply to let everyone invest in private companies.



Last week, <a href="https://republic.com">Republic</a>, an SEC and Finra regulated investing platform, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/republic-investing-tokens-companies-ipo-ccff7f91?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAifvq5QstV0p4Bp-L8k3h1zK1wuMwjESjo6Fu-Vm3MvxSeDgkal95KbWWQh6RQ%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68658bd8&amp;gaa_sig=yRnX_ZPEeV6ANHHm5tMtayCcM6Ln9DxROtFvyI_H5McjD6WaVDxH6LDt34maN4plG3KvrZev2PfiqkgKhLUdrw%3D%3D">announced</a> it will make history by offering equity exposure in private companies to US investors — and that it’ll do so within the current set of US securities regulations, no special dispensation required.



Crypto, apparently, makes this possible.



After being KYC’d by Republic, retail investors will be able to buy tokenized versions of private shares that will (after an SEC-mandated waiting period) trade onchain between whitelisted wallets.



Republic is confident enough that regulators won’t object to its tokenized “<a href="https://republic.com/mirror">mirror shares</a>” that it’s now taking pre-orders for shares of SpaceX, OpenAI, Epic Games and Anthropic.&nbsp;&nbsp;



There are reasons for caution: Mirror shares do not confer any ownership rights. Instead, they are essentially a tradeable IOU, ultimately redeemable only in the event of an IPO or sale of a private company.



The IOUs are issued by Republic, not the companies themselves, so buyers will have counterparty risk if they do get a chance to redeem.



(This afternoon, OpenAI <a href="https://x.com/OpenAINewsroom/status/1940502391037874606">warned</a> that the “OpenAI tokens” being offered by Robinhood to EU customers “are not OpenAI equity.”)



And while I’m guessing that Republic will generally back the mirror shares 1:1 with the equity it represents, it’s not required to.



Retail investors, however, have never been known for caution.



Republic co-CEO Andrew Durgee told me this morning that it’s already received $300 million of reservations for mirror shares. That, I think, reflects the magnitude of the problem currently faced by public market investors, who rightly feel sidelined by the rise of private markets.&nbsp;



But buying OpenAI or SpaceX at a $300 billion+ market cap is unlikely to help anyone retire anytime soon.&nbsp;



Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia, for example, all IPO’d at market capitalizations of well under $1 billion.



Better yet, Microsoft IPO’d at a P/E ratio of 10, which many people thought was expensive at the time.



It’s hard to imagine anyone making 800,000% from a $300 billion starting point and who knows what valuation. I imagine Republic will soon make tokenized shares of younger, cheaper, still-private companies available, and maybe the next Microsoft will be among them.



But how will anyone spot it?



It’s easy to dismiss the SEC’s accreditation rules as paternalistic, but the equity raising process it enforces is a price discovery mechanism that makes equity markets significantly safer for retail investors.



Moving that process onchain comes with risk.



Still, fewer public companies to invest in is a growing problem for retail investors and investing in more private companies might be the answer.



Just don’t expect to make 8.5%.



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Crypto brings private markets to the public

Jeff Albus

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Bad news first. Solana closed June at $155, which is down 1.2% month over month. That&#8217;s not catastrophic, considering a broader altcoin slump, but SOL has underperformed BTC and HYPE for the second straight month.



Real economic value (REV) fell 48% in June, DEX volume dropped 35%, and Token Holder Net Income plunged 56% MoM, <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/solana-june-2025-update">according</a> to a recent update from Blockworks Research — though it&#8217;s worth noting Solana still <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/l1/chain-compare-overview/network-rev">leads across all networks</a> by these metrics.



On the upside, Solana <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=39">processed</a> over 2.1 billion successful transactions in June, setting a new record. App revenue hit $150 million, up from $133 million in May, which was 35% of all application revenue across chains. The highest-earning apps (Pump and Axiom) pulled in over $76 million in June, driven by memecoins and leverage.



It&#8217;s now Wednesday, and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-rex-osprey-first-solana-staking-etf">as promised</a>, the REX-Osprey SOL Staking ETF is <a href="https://x.com/Crypto_Inside_/status/1940412863069479296">live</a>. The price of SOL popped to $161 on the anticipatory lead-up but fell back toward $146 within a day. At the time of publication, SOL prices <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">hover</a> around $152.&nbsp;



Pump <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=202">flipped</a> Raydium in DEX volume for the first time, closing June with a 32% share vs. Raydium&#8217;s 26%. Trading-focused apps now <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=15">account</a> for nearly 90% of Solana&#8217;s total application revenue.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, xStocks — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-stocks-good-bad">tokenized US equities</a> — went <a href="https://x.com/xStocksFi/status/1939630016238907651">live</a> June 30. There are 11 listings so far (SPYx, TSLAx, MSTRx, etc.), with 40 more <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/solana-june-2025-update">in the pipeline</a>. Day-one volume cleared $1.3 million.



Validator income is <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">compressing</a> fast. Jito tips dropped to 51% of total REV, and the validator set shrank by 25% due to Solana Foundation offboarding.



With FCFS and app-specific sequencing <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/solana-may-2025-update#network-health">on the horizon</a>, revenue for operators may decline further as latency supplants fees as the primary competitive advantage.



In June, Solana apps <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana">generated</a> $2.40 in revenue for every $1 in REV, another all-time high. With the pump.fun ICO <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">confirmed</a> (timeline still TBD), don&#8217;t be surprised if that trend accelerates.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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ETFs

Solana ETF bump fizzles after $161 price spike

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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June’s ADP employment report was a remarkable miss.&nbsp;



Analysts expected the private sector to add 100,000 positions. In reality, private payrolls lost 33,000.&nbsp;



It’s the first negative print since March 2023, although the figure has declined every month since March 2025.&nbsp;



Stocks initially opened lower Wednesday but rebounded later on President Trump’s <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114784170652465525">announcement</a> that the US had penned a trade agreement with Vietnam, fueling optimism that other deals will be struck before the July 9 deadline.&nbsp;



Odds of a 25bps interest rate cut later this month increased to 23.8%, up from 20.7% yesterday. Fed Chair Powell has said time and time again that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/powell-interest-fed-continue-monitor-june">it’s the data</a> that will determine the timing of the next cut.&nbsp;



Tomorrow, we’ll get the weekly initial jobless claims and the June employment report from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. For initial claims, analysts project 240,000 first-time filers for the week ended June 28. If the figure comes in as expected, it’ll be especially positive for the labor market; signs of increased layoffs will be negative for markets.&nbsp;



The BLS report is expected to show the economy added 110,000 nonfarm payrolls. Unemployment is projected to come in a hair higher at 4.3% vs. 4.2% in May.&nbsp;



Here’s hoping those prints come in more in-line with expectations, but we won’t hold our breath. As a reminder: US markets have an abbreviated trading day on Thursday and will be closed on Friday for the July Fourth holiday.



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June ADP report shows massive miss in private-sector jobs

This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Community-focused gaming startup Moku has hired Kathleen Osgood as its chief business officer to cement the firm as a key player in crypto-powered AI gaming.



Osgood was previously Ronin builder Sky Mavis’s Director of Business Development for over three years, and was Jump Capital’s Director of Market Development before that.



Osgood told me in an interview that she’ll be focused on bringing new partnerships, market-makers, and institutions to the a16z Speedrun-backed studio.



“Web3 gaming is broken. Nearly everyone is trying the same model,” Osgood <a href="https://x.com/kosgoood/status/1940425854770680149">wrote</a> in a post announcing her new role. “It’s not about more games. It&#8217;s about a different way to earn from games.”



In September, Moku raised <a href="https://playtoearn.com/news/moku-raises-5m-in-funding-round-led-by-sky-mavis-a16z">$5.35 million</a> in funding from Sky Mavis, a16z Games’ Speedrun, Framework Ventures, 32-bit Ventures, and over a dozen angel investors, plus others.



Moku began in 2021 as a launchpad and engagement platform to organize the Ronin community around different projects, but now has its own Ronin-based NFT collection of 8,888 cutesy characters and a flagship game, Grand Arena. The Mokis look a bit like bear-raccoon hybrids, and wear a range of different accessories and outfits. The <a href="https://marketplace.roninchain.com/collections/moki-genesis">floor price</a> for a Moki Genesis NFT is about 219 RON, which is about $96.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXde5b57_00FvrSlzazU1UqkwgDp7_Qys1OmcmgR8aJp3Soa4yyWpLgFtQh2cwwC0qxmlFxJ0kKsz3KxkX2Jv0p-qef0fldcoD9R09e1UjveTYnCR3ixPWxIGhd-1jLEQwWH60oi2A?key=NsHHtsX_FAlddJvHPW12EQ" alt=""/></figure>



“It’s built for AI,” Osgood told me of the upcoming game. “I think a lot of the problem in Web3, and people are seeing, is there are a lot of bots, and there isn’t a sticky audience.”



“Moku is turning it on its head and being like, we’re going to build a game for AI, and we’re going to create this whole AI system,” she said.



Essentially, Grand Arena players can bring select NFTs they own into the game as cards and have them battle each other in a hands-off way where the human player is primarily a spectator. NFT owners can also earn royalties on their assets when they’re used in-game.



NFTs that can connect to Grand Arena will be able to battle others’ NFT characters, and their characters&#8217; personalities will change based on what happens.



Some early <a href="https://x.com/lizziebutt_poo/status/1932910864866422878">renderings</a> and <a href="https://x.com/Moku_HQ/status/1930460853259702520">art</a> of the game’s environment suggests it may have vertical battler elements in the vein of MapleStory or Super Smash Bros.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Almost 42% of all Mokis are locked in for Grand Arena <a href="https://t.co/LATbaHQaE1">https://t.co/LATbaHQaE1</a> <a href="https://t.co/0YBl2b6o9D">pic.twitter.com/0YBl2b6o9D</a>&mdash; Bruce✨ (@BruceMoku) <a href="https://twitter.com/BruceMoku/status/1933727367413055573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“I think this could transcend and just become like an AI-native competitive layer for all of gaming,” Osgood said. “Even past gaming, it’s mostly idle NFTs, assets, or IP that can come in and plug themselves in.”



Grand Arena has traits of an idle, casual battler game that could be appealing to those holding different NFTs but who maybe don’t have the time to grind levels in different games.&nbsp;



The Moku team plans to focus on Moki Mayhem with its own NFTs within Grand Arena first, with plans to let third-party collections plug in in the future.&nbsp;



“It actually is creating a whole new niche within crypto,” Osgood said.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-104702" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=1280 1280w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /></figure>



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