Boson

Boccaccio

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>.



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



The past three days on the timeline have been strictly focused on the bid for USDH, a ticker on Hyperliquid.



As background, the USDH ticker, currently reserved, is set to be released through an onchain validator vote with the goal of launching a Hyperliquid-first and compliant USD stablecoin. Validators will vote on which team may purchase and deploy the ticker, using the same onchain mechanism as delisting votes. Teams interested must submit proposals in the USDH Discord forum, including their address, and the approved team will still need to participate in the spot deploy gas auction.



In the longer term, spot quote assets will become permissionless, starting with testnet, with staking and slashing requirements to be announced. The USDH ticker does not carry special privileges and will exist alongside multiple stablecoins within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Voting for the ticker is based on stake, with proposals due by Sept. 10 at 10:00 UTC, validator intent to be declared by Sept. 11 at 10:00 UTC, and the final vote to occur on Sept. 14 between 10:00-11:00 UTC.&nbsp;



As of today, nine validators have announced who they intend to vote for, with six voting for Native Markets, two for Paxos and one for Ethena. The remaining 10 validators, who hold approximately 58% of stake, are unassigned (86.76M HYPE). Native Markets is currently in the lead with 30.8% of voting share, while Ethena and Paxos combine for 11.6%.&nbsp;



In terms of benefits for Hyperliquid and HYPE, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, it is interesting to see that incumbents from large teams (Ethena, Paxos etc.) are battling out to gain dominance within Hyperliquid by giving up a large percentage of their revenue.&nbsp;



Context regarding the three most relevant proposals:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Paxos: Milestone-based. Starts at 20% AF when &lt;$1 billion, rising to 70% at >$5 billion, capped at 70%.</li>



<li>Ethena: 95% passthrough to AF/HYPE, KPI could drop to 90% with 5% to an Ethena entity.</li>



<li>Native Markets: 50% of reserve yield streamed to AF, remaining 50% for growth across HIP-3, builder codes and DeFi frontends.</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107507" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-71.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



For Ethena, the lowest contribution to the Assistance Fund would still be more than $40 million per year, even in the conservative KPI scenario. At full scale, its contribution rises to nearly $250 million, making it the strongest provider of direct economic value among the three. For Paxos, the lowest level of contribution is around $9 million per year at small scale, while its highest contribution tops out at roughly $183 million once it reaches the largest market share bracket. Native Markets, with a fixed 50% allocation, is currently the leader based on declared intent. Its range runs from about $23 million per year at the low end to around $130 million at full capture.



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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/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</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/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



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

0xResearch Newsletter

USDH and the search for another AF

Cracked Labs launches BattleCodes: Turning crypto events into a sport

Blockworks

Binance and Franklin Templeton announced a strategic collaboration to develop new digital asset products that combine blockchain technology with traditional finance.



The initiative focuses on evaluating tokenization use cases by combining Binance’s global trading infrastructure with Franklin Templeton’s experience in regulated fund management. Franklin Templeton manages $1.6 trillion in assets and has developed tokenized money market funds through its Benji Investments Technology Platform. Binance remains the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume.



Executives from both firms said the collaboration is intended to increase efficiency in capital markets by lowering settlement costs and improving collateral management.



“We see blockchain not as a threat to legacy systems, but as an opportunity to reimagine them. By working with Binance, we can harness tokenization to bring institutional-grade solutions like our Benji Technology Platform to a wider set of investors and help bridge the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance,” said Sandy Kaul, head of innovation at Franklin Templeton.&nbsp;



Roger Bayston, who oversees digital assets, added it could “take tokenization from concept to practice for clients to achieve efficiencies in settlement, collateral management, and portfolio construction at scale.”



Binance’s Catherine Chen said the exchange’s goal “furthers our commitment to bridge crypto with traditional capital markets and open up greater possibilities.”



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </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/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</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/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



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

Binance

Binance and Franklin Templeton partner on tokenization

Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read more 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">
&nbsp;&#8220;Nobody goes to the store to buy a Swiss Army knife. It’s something you get for Christmas.”



— Jensen Huang
</blockquote>



Great businesses start as scalpels, not Swiss Army knives.



By choosing one thing to do, companies are more likely to get great at that one thing — and customers are more likely to know that’s the thing they do.



Here, for example, is Yahoo’s homepage, circa 1999: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="blob:https://cms.blockworks.co/0f9c6e90-a5b4-4f0d-aa85-6c8ee5d5aeeb" width="624" height="271">



There’s a lot going on there — search, auctions, news, email, instant messaging — and Yahoo wasn’t particularly good at any of it.



Here’s Google’s homepage, circa 1999:



<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="624" height="219" src="blob:https://cms.blockworks.co/2162e9ff-dbf4-4579-8dfb-a35589f0f55c">



It’s easy to see why that proved to be the winner: the single-purpose website made it clear to users what Google does, and that helped Google get very good at doing it.



The fact that lowercase “google” has since become a verb and Yahoo doesn’t do anything more important than host my fantasy baseball league is evidence that being great at one thing generally beats being average at many things.



Will that apply to blockchains, too?



Bitcoin is a single-purpose chain — all it does is send bitcoin — and its simplicity might be the main reason it&#8217;s been such a success.



But Ethereum and Solana are also general-purpose chains and they, too, have had some success.&nbsp;



And neither approach seems to be encroaching on the other: Bitcoin has so far failed at DeFi and Ethereum has so far failed to become money.



So maybe both approaches can peacefully co-exist?



It might be too early to answer, because general-purpose chains will soon have a new, single-minded competitor.



Last week, Stripe and Paradigm formally announced the development of a stablecoin-focused blockchain, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tempo-stripe-paradigm-planned-l1">Tempo</a>, that feels like an instant favorite to win the emerging crypto payments business.



Tempo will be purpose-built for stablecoins, offering predictable fees (paid not in a native token, but stables), near-instant finality, “opt-in” privacy and compliance functionality, “lanes” exclusively for payments, and high throughput — all things that general-purpose chains struggle with.



Matt Huang, who leads the development of Tempo, <a href="https://x.com/matthuang/status/1964123449045242041">suggests</a> that being more narrowly focused will allow the chain to develop faster:&nbsp; “We feel urgency to build for the demand that’s coming and want fewer dependencies, including on the rate of Ethereum L1 progress.”



Calling out Ethereum like that might suggest that Tempo will have ambitions beyond payments.



Perhaps tellingly, Huang says that, while Tempo will start with a permissioned validator set, the chain will be “permissionless” from day 1 and will “decentralize further from there.”



A fully decentralized and permissionless blockchain that excels at payments sounds a lot like what you’d want a general-purpose blockchain to be.



Could Tempo pose a threat to Ethereum and Solana not just in payments, but in everything?



The Google example suggests it’s possible: they beat Yahoo at search, then expanded horizontally into email, cloud computing, smartphones, self-driving cars — becoming even more of a Swiss Army knife than Yahoo was in 1999.



There are several such examples: Microsoft was just BASIC, Amazon was just books, Apple was just PCs, Southwest Airlines was just Texas.



But there are counter-examples, too.



To name just one, single-purpose calculators used to be better for doing quick math than general-purpose computers, but who owns one now?



You’re more likely to have a Swiss Army knife in a drawer somewhere than a Texas Instruments calculator.&nbsp;



So, if general-purpose computers could make calculators unnecessary, maybe general-purpose blockchains can eventually make payments blockchains unnecessary, too.



Max Resnick is confident they will: “Decentralized blockchains,” he <a href="https://x.com/MaxResnick1/status/1964072214568784069">predicts</a>,&nbsp; “will be superior to centralized ones in every way” — including speed, scale, reliability, and even regulatory compliance.



If so, Tempo may have fired the starting gun in a race to make general-purpose chains super fast before a super fast, single-purpose chain can be decentralized.



This might be a race with no finish line: it might be impossible to be both decentralized and optimized for payments.



Mert Mumtaz, for example, <a href="https://x.com/tbpn/status/1964079154795860310">thinks</a> Tempo won’t even be a blockchain, let alone a general-purpose one: “How can you possibly have something that’s a payments-only chain?”



For Mumtaz, blockchains are decentralized by definition — and a decentralized blockchain is by definition general-purpose.



Tempo says they will progress toward decentralization.&nbsp;



But Mumtaz thinks that will inevitably flood the chain with frivolous things like Fartcoin, clogging things up and degrading the chain’s performance in payments.



There are only two ways to be a payments chain, he says.



One is to make the chain “not Turing complete,” like Bitcoin, “where you can’t do anything other than send money” — and the other is to “permission the chain.”



If so, Ethereum and Solana can rest easy that they’re not going to become Yahoo to Tempo’s Google.



But what if Tempo gets all the users without decentralizing?



If Tempo really is faster, cheaper, and where all the stablecoins will end up, users might go there not just for payments, but for everything — without regard to whether it meets Mumtaz’s definition of a blockchain.



So this might turn into more of a test than a race. Is decentralization the kind of thing people are willing to pay for?



Or the kind of thing you only get for Christmas?



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



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



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supply-shock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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The Breakdown Newsletter

Should blockchains be single-purpose?

Ben Strack

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



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A crypto company plots a US public listing (yes, again). And one wading deeper into the space is likely to benefit from an “index effect” that boosts visibility and demand.&nbsp;



This is a follow-up of sorts to the crypto public listing update I wrote last week. That was after American Bitcoin shares hit the Nasdaq and Gemini took another <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2055592/000110465925085963/tm255912-15_s1a.htm">step</a> toward its IPO.&nbsp;



I also <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-stock-digest-sep-2025">compared Coinbase and Robinhood</a>, noting the latter company was potentially set to join the S&amp;P 500. We found out Friday that HOOD will indeed become part of that index on Sept. 22 — joining COIN, which was added in May. The former stock saw a boost on the news.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1562" height="880" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107484" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=1562 1562w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=463 463w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-70.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1562px) 100vw, 1562px" /></figure>



Robinhood’s crypto transaction revenue was $160 million in Q2 — making up ~30% of the company’s $539 million in overall transaction revenue. That $160 million figure was down ~37% from Q1 crypto revenue, but marked a 98% year-over-year increase.



Robinhood has doubled down on crypto this year, launching stock tokens in Europe and crypto staking to eligible US customers. It also closed its acquisition of Bitstamp and even <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-l2-staking-us">shared plans for a layer-2 blockchain</a>.



So investors with capital in an S&amp;P 500 fund will soon be exposed to both COIN and HOOD automatically. But those still looking to choose between them may consider what Blockworks Research analyst Marc Arjoon called the “beta vs. balance” trade-off.&nbsp;



“Coinbase offers superior upside convexity to crypto cycles but with materially higher earnings volatility,” he wrote in an Aug. 29 report. “Robinhood’s improving, more repeatable EBITDA supports a higher quality multiple.”



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="938" height="516" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-107490" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=938 938w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-at-4.35.21 PM.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 938px) 100vw, 938px" /></figure>



Despite speculation that Michael Saylor’s Strategy could also be added to the S&amp;P 500, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin was left out of the index for now. Strategy’s market cap of $93 billion is ~4x above the S&amp;P 500 minimum of $22.7 billion, making it one of the biggest companies not in the index.



The omission says less about Strategy’s business and more about the index committee’s evolving comfort level with bitcoin-centric corporate models, Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer argued in a Monday research note. The company, after all, logged a profitable second quarter — the last criteria it required for S&amp;P 500 inclusion.



“But the index is not a purely rules-based club,” Palmer added. “The committee explicitly reserves judgment to maintain sector balance and index representativeness such that a company can ‘check all the boxes’ and still find itself waiting for a slot.”



<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">Thinking about the S&amp;P right now… <a href="https://t.co/Y5nPc9XT4l">pic.twitter.com/Y5nPc9XT4l</a>&mdash; Michael Saylor (@saylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1964219505694892123?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Finally, it’s worth mentioning that CoinShares yesterday revealed a plan to go public in the US later this year via a deal with a SPAC called Vine Hill Capital Investment Corp. It’s currently listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm.



It’s part of CoinShares’ broader strategy to expand in the US after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinshares-buys-valkyrie-fund-business">buying Valkyrie’s fund business</a> last year. The largest crypto ETP issuer in Europe has seen its assets under management triple to about $10 billion over the past two years.



This comes a couple months after we saw competing asset manager <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/grayscale-exposure-signals-etfs">Grayscale appear to take a step</a> toward going public. All’s to say, the year of crypto-public markets intersection rages on.



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

Equities

Inside the S&P 500’s HOOD inclusion, MSTR rebuff

Kate Irwin

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



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After receiving bids from Arbitrum, Polygon, zkSync, and Optimism, gaming-focused Ronin has <a href="https://x.com/Ronin_Network/status/1965220031320793442">announced</a> it’s going to use Optimism’s tech to transform itself from an Ethereum sidechain into a full Ethereum L2.



“This was a highly contested battle between L2 providers,” Ronin cofounder Jeffrey “Jihoz” Zirlin <a href="https://x.com/Jihoz_Axie/status/1965223718491230286">said</a>. “This move opens up Ronin&#8217;s upgrade to Proof of distribution which will create more rewards for the builders.”



Ronin will join the likes of Base, Unichain, Worldchain and Kraken’s Ink, who also use Optimism’s codebase for their respective L2s.



Arbitrum had <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/arbitrum-offer-ronin-750k-arb">placed</a> the first offer, a move that ultimately <a href="https://x.com/pixiekate13/status/1958696275777659067">did not appear</a> to land in its favor.&nbsp;



And in case you missed Optimism’s final bid, it <a href="https://x.com/agoshoUY/status/1963178614830076225">offered</a> 5 million OP tokens, contingent on hitting certain revenue metrics with 500,000 OP upfront — plus support from Eigen Labs, Conduit and Boundless. Ronin <a href="https://x.com/Ronin_Network/status/1965220461366968665">said</a> this translates to an addition of about $5 million to $7 million to its treasury via OP, ZKC and Eigen tokens.&nbsp;



In a post about the news, Optimism cofounder Mark Tyneway <a href="https://x.com/tyneslol/status/1965234801885217064">said</a>: “Don’t get caught up in the recent alt L1 narratives, it’s still incredibly attractive to launch an OP Stack based L2.”



Bidding chains ultimately expected to gain net revenue from Ronin joining them — and so were willing to offer some financial and resource perks upfront (though some of the offers were contingent on Ronin hitting certain targets).



As Arbitrum Gaming Ventures’ David Bolger <a href="https://x.com/CocoraEth/status/1958811195042832648">argued</a> in part of his response to my tweet about their first bid: “Ronin is a billion dollar ecosystem with a massive opportunity ahead.”



Last year, the Optimism Collective saw over $24.6 million in fee split revenue, Blockworks Research <a href="https://blockworks.com/analytics/superchain">data</a> shows.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1052" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107477" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=391 391w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=397 397w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=333 333w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-69.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



In Q1 and Q2 this year, 73% of Optimism Collective’s fee split revenue has come from Base.&nbsp;



Unichain, Ink, and Worldchain make up a much, much smaller percentage of that pie — and currently resemble small blips on the fee revenue chart.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="849" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107476" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-68.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



We don’t yet know how much Optimism will stand to make from Ronin, but the gaming chain is far smaller than Base (Ronin has about $54M in TVL while Base has over $4.7B in TVL, per DeFi Llama).&nbsp;



Ronin could certainly benefit from a closer proximity to Base’s ecosystem, though. And while crypto gaming currently feels quiet right now, Optimism does stand to benefit from having the team behind one of the most successful blockchain games of all time among its ranks.&nbsp;



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Gaming

Optimism scores $5M+ Ronin deal for L2 tech

Donovan Choy

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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In his work on the pre-800 AD Classic Maya economy, the historian Philip Curtin recounts a striking finding: Archaeologists measured the ratio of cutting length to weight in obsidian blades and discovered that the ratio varied inversely with distance from obsidian sources.&nbsp;



The economist Deirdre McCloskey <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913819908443534">cites</a> this as evidence that the human impulse toward exchange and profit-seeking gain has always existed.



“If Mayans lived in a gainless, profitless, nonmarket economy, it would not matter to them how expensive obsidian was. But…the ratio varied inversely with the distance from the sources of the obsidian. By taking more care with more costly obsidian, the blade makers were earning better profits, as they did by taking less care with less costly obsidian.”



Formal markets add property rights and legal enforcement. But they channel innate human behaviors that were already there, contrary to the popular belief that capitalism “causes” consumerism.



Modern Japan (and parts of Asia) offers a vivid illustration of what that economic logic looks like in the extremes.



The average Tokyo street is chock-full of cute and colorful Gachapon capsule machines. People flock to them for the prospect of a rare collectible.&nbsp;



Yet a meaningful share of buyers in these markets aren’t pure collectors: Many chase quick flips.&nbsp;



Take Asia’s latest <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/labubus-succeeded-nfts-failed">Labubu</a> phenomenon, for instance. Resale prices of the wildly popular Pop Mart series <a href="https://www2.yicaiglobal.com/news/pop-mart-slumps-after-chinese-toymaker-boosts-labubu-supply-causing-resale-prices-to-plungehttps://www2.yicaiglobal.com/news/pop-mart-slumps-after-chinese-toymaker-boosts-labubu-supply-causing-resale-prices-to-plunge">reportedly</a> halved when the company announced a supply increase.&nbsp;



There’s also evidence that at least <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2025/08/13/labubus-remain-king-of-the-collectibles-stockx-reports/">40%</a> of consumers buy such toys for “appreciation potential.”



But if profit-seeking is the dominant motive to make and sell these things, then it’s not surprising that the door to hyperfinancialization inevitably swings wide open.



Predictably, crypto entrepreneurs are the first ones kicking the door down.



In the last few months, Gachapon-like platforms have seen growing product-market fit. Total money spent on platforms like Courtyard, Collector Crypt, Phygitals and Emporium grew from $10.4 million in January to $61.1 million in August, according to <a href="https://mementoresearch.com/the-state-of-pokemon-rwa-tcg">Memento Research</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107455" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-66.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Last month clocked a monthly high of about ~$114 million of trading volumes.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107456" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-67.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



These platforms have a similar business model:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Platforms keep a secure vault inventory of professionally-graded collectible cards (typically Pokemon/baseball).</li>



<li>The cards are tokenized as a NFT.</li>



<li>They are sold as randomized Gachapon items to users with paying stablecoins.</li>



<li>After a reveal, you can sell them back to the platform at a predefined buyback rate based on the insured market value of the card, sell it on a secondary marketplace or redeem the physical card from the vault for a fee.</li>
</ol>



There are exceptions. The Phygitals platform on Solana, for instance, does not necessarily have rare cards on hand, and relies on “dropshipping” procurement if the user decides to claim the card. Otherwise, users are offered refunds.



“That&#8217;s a drawback because they don&#8217;t really own the card,” Memento Research’s analyst zkayape told me. “On the other hand, Collector Crypt rare cards are quite well-stocked (759 epic cards at the moment) due to strong procurement on their end from Web2 rails and connections. They’ve been in the scene for quite some time.”



Gachapon spending also resembles a similar whale-like economy structure across all four platforms.



Memento’s research shows that on Polygon’s Courtyard platform, 90.5% of total spend came from just 5.9% of users. On Solana’s Collector Crypt, 93% of all Gachapon revenues came from 17.5% of users — about 50% of users spent above the “whale” threshold of $1000.



Revenues are conclusively driven by Gachapon spending, rather than secondary marketplace trading.



As far as I can tell, these platforms do not use a verifiable RNG, so users are still trusting that platforms are assigning cards at the stated tier probabilities.



Do users care?



The average consumer of real-world Gachapon or blind boxes certainly doesn’t. I don’t know any blind-box collectors complaining of the non-transparency involved with these products.&nbsp;



Financial speculators, however, are a different breed of consumers. These are the guys who live in “expected value” probability math, seeking to optimize every basis point for an edge.



The platforms are designed to buy back cards at a fair market value from users (to keep users gambling), so there’s at least a cap on the financial downside.



Even so, a trust gap remains. Verifiable randomness and zero-knowledge proofs could make Gachapon draws auditable, not just promised.



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Gachapon on the blockchain is already a hundred-million dollar market

Nasdaq will invest $50 million in Gemini’s initial public offering, aligning the two firms ahead of the crypto exchange’s planned debut under the ticker GEMI, according to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg.



Founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Gemini aims to raise up to $317 million in its listing at a target valuation of $2.2 billion, with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup acting as lead underwriters. The IPO would make Gemini the third publicly traded US crypto exchange, following Coinbase, which earlier this year joined the S&amp;P 500, and Bullish.



The deal is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/winklevoss-founded-crypto-exchange-gemini-taps-nasdaq-strategic-investor-sources-2025-09-09/">structured</a> as a private placement that extends beyond financing. Nasdaq’s clients will gain access to Gemini’s custody and staking services, while Gemini’s institutional users will be able to use collateral management features from Nasdaq’s Calypso system, a risk management platform widely adopted across asset classes.



Gemini’s IPO plans arrive during a rebound in equity capital markets, with recent offerings such as Circle and Bullish drawing strong institutional demand. Gemini reported a $282.5 million loss in the first half of 2025 despite revenue of $68.6 million, underscoring challenges in scaling profitably.



Beyond the US, Gemini is expanding its European presence with new staking services for ether and solana under the EU’s MiCA framework and regulated derivatives under MiFID II, signaling a push to build compliance-driven growth abroad.



This is a developing story.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Gemini

Nasdaq lines up $50M investment in Gemini IPO

Carlos

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Crypto markets have had a positive start to the week, with clear outperformers but for very different reasons. The chart below shows the week-over-week performance of various assets as of Sept. 8. We observe that WLD (+84%), PUMP (+39%), ENA (+25%), HYPE (+18%), and SOL (+9%) have shown remarkable relative strength against BTC (+3%) and ETH (flat).



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107449" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-64.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Let&#8217;s start discussing HYPE and PUMP, whose outperformance has been primarily fundamentals- or value-driven. Regarding Hyperliquid, major stablecoin issuers including Paxos, Frax, Sky and Agora are outbidding each other ahead of a Sept. 14 validator governance vote that will determine who gets to have Hyperliquid&#8217;s native &#8220;USDH&#8221; ticker, with proposals offering aggressive revenue-sharing agreements (up to 100%).



The USDH debate has centered around institution- vs. native-team issuance and ecosystem alignment. For instance, Native Markets, led by Max Fiege,<a href="https://nativemarkets.substack.com/p/expanded-proposal-native-markets"> proposed</a> that 50% of the reserve yield be immutably contributed to the Assistance Fund, while the other 50% be dedicated to USDH growth through partnerships with builder-code interfaces, HIP-3 markets and HyperEVM apps. Paxos, on the other hand,<a href="https://x.com/Paxos/status/1964422295176564937"> proposed</a> allocating 95% of interest from reserves backing USDH to buy back HYPE and redistributing it to applications and validators proportional to their USDH balances across their platforms.



While Native Markets would be GENIUS-compliant via Bridge, Paxos has highlighted its already proven global regulatory coverage and reach (not only GENIUS, but also MiCA and MAS-compliant), with existing payment corridor integrations across the Middle East, Latam, Africa and Asia. While it&#8217;s still unclear who will come out on top, it&#8217;s evident that Hyperliquid wins regardless. Migrating $5 billion in USDC deposits to USDH could represent an additional $200 million in revenue for Hyperliquid annually, representing ~20% of its ~$1 billion revenue run rate. At the same time, the battle to win the USDH ticker showcases the conviction and value these issuers see in Hyperliquid&#8217;s exchange and the HyperEVM ecosystem, with HYPE hitting an all-time high of $52.67 today.



While Hyperliquid has been the center of attention, PUMP has actually been the best-performing asset of the two in the past week, up 39% (vs. 18% for HYPE). Pump has decisively reclaimed its launchpad market share, now above 85%, running at an annualized revenue rate of $540 million and using 100% of its revenues to buy back the token. Moreover, it remains surprisingly attractively priced, with a circulating P/S of three and FDV/Sales of&nbsp; nine.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107450" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-65.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The other side of HYPE and PUMP&#8217;s fundamentals-driven price increases are SOL, ENA, and WLD’s DATCO-driven flows. Yesterday, Forward Industries (NASDAQ: FORD), Galaxy-Multicoin’s SOL DATCO, announced<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250907677362/en/Forward-Industries-Inc.-Announces-%241.65-Billion-Private-Placement-in-Cash-and-Stablecoin-Commitments-Led-by-Galaxy-Digital-Jump-Crypto-and-Multicoin-Capital-to-Initiate-Solana-Treasury-Strategy"> $1.65 billion</a> in cash and stablecoin commitments, confirming <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/samani-expected-chairman-solana-treasury">Kyle Samani as chairman</a>. With this announcement, the big question regarding whether DATCO purchases would translate to buying SOL with cash on the secondary market vs. simply purchasing locked SOL at a discount has been answered. Combined with Solana ETFs under the &#8217;33 Act likely being approved in October, SOL is poised for outperformance into year-end as the third crypto asset with a structural funnel to TradFi flows after BTC and ETH.



On its part, StablecoinX<a href="https://x.com/ethena_labs/status/1964063567772340432"> announced</a> on Friday an additional $530 million capital raise to buy ENA on the open market. The planned deployment schedule for ENA purchases will be dynamic based on price: $5 million per day if ENA is above $0.70, and $10 million per day if ENA is below $0.70 or if it&#8217;s down more than 5% in a 24-hour period. Importantly, the Ethena Foundation has the right to veto any sales of ENA by StablecoinX at its sole discretion.



Finally, Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: OCTO) <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eightco-holdings-inc-octo-announces-250-million-private-placement-with-an-additional-20-million-strategic-investment-from-bitmine-bmnr-to-initiate-worlds-first-worldcoin-wld-treasury-strategy-302549012.html">announced</a> on Monday a $250 million raise to implement the first Worldcoin-focused DATCO strategy, with Dan Ives appointed as chairman. Notably, Tom Lee’s Bitmine (BMNR) had purchased 13.7 million shares of OCTO at $1.46, which rose ~3,000% to $45 on Monday, meaning that the $20 million investment is now worth more than $600 million. On its part, WLD rose as much as 85% on Monday, hitting a high of $1.92.



The contrast between value- vs. momentum-driven price action is interesting to think about, especially in the context of investment horizons and sustainability of flows. The buying pressure from DATCOs has been telegraphed to the market, leading to frontrunning by traders and investors. The main uncertainty for these vehicles is whether they will trade at a premium to NAV, in which case they will be able to sell equity to buy more of the underlying token, à la BMNR. On the other hand, Hyperliquid and Pump&#8217;s flows are more reliant on these apps expanding their leading position in each of their respective verticals and increasing their revenue (and thus buybacks) growth rate. That is, of course, not to say assets like SOL and ENA are devoid of fundamentals, since they have clearly found product-market fit and are quality tokens. Still, the majority of their inflows in the past few weeks have come from DATCOs&#8217; expectations as opposed to fundamental catalysts.



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Hyperliquid’s USDH battle and the DATCO bid

Macauley Peterson

Barter, the second-largest routing engine on Ethereum and the top solver on CoW Swap, has acquired the solver codebase of competitor Copium Capital in a move that could reshape the dynamics of decentralized trade execution.



The deal brings together two of CoW Swap’s most effective strategies. Copium had carved out a niche with efficient usage of RFQ (request-for-quote) and market maker liquidity, while Barter specialized in maximizing flow through <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/understanding-automatic-market-makers">AMMs</a>. According to CEO Nikita Ovchinnik, the combination provides the missing piece for Barter to push beyond 50% market share on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cow-dao-mev-capturing-amm">CoW Swap</a>.&nbsp;



“Copium built its edge around efficient usage of RFQ and market maker liquidity, while Barter specialized in routing more flow through AMMs than anyone else,” Ovchinnik told Blockworks. With Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade and the rise of gas-optimized AMMs like Euler Swap, Fluid, and Ekubo, RFQ share has been declining — but Barter believes those capabilities are key to consolidating leadership.



From a user’s standpoint, CoW Swap’s mechanism selects the best price available for each order, so head-to-head comparisons between solvers are less meaningful: If a solver doesn’t win, it’s because another produced a better quote at that moment, a spokesperson told Blockworks.



Barter has already executed over $18 billion in total volume, averaging roughly $900 million weekly. The integration of Copium’s code will roll out gradually, with internal audits and canary releases before full production deployment. The first strategies to hit production will target new-token onboarding and RFQ upgrades, aimed at improving execution for large trades and fresh assets.



The acquisition comes as the solver market itself is maturing, according to Mounir Benchemled, founder of Velora (formerly Paraswap). “In ’23 or late ’22 where the first real solvers started to emerge, I think Barter was one of the first and [then came] Wintermute and others,” Benchemled told Blockworks. That evolution coincided with the rise of solver auctions. “Building auctions and innovating the auction structure, becomes the new standard for intent-based products,” he said.



While auctions broaden competition, some centralization concerns persist. “The selection of winners still happens in a centralized fashion…A user will send their sign order to the protocol server — which is a centralized AWS server in general — we create an option and select the winner,” Benchemled explained.&nbsp;



CoW Swap takes a pragmatic stance: RFQ owners set their own access rules, and from the protocol’s perspective the key criterion is whether users get better prices. CoW cares most about outcomes at the point of execution. The “Solver Info” <a href="https://dune.com/cowprotocol/solver-info">Dune dashboard</a> provides transparency into the distribution of active solvers.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="888" height="612" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png" alt="" class="wp-image-107446" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=888 888w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=373 373w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=379 379w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=318 318w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-63.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 888px) 100vw, 888px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Barter at 28.2% | Source: <a href="https://dune.com/cowprotocol/solver-info">Dune / cowprotocol</a></figcaption></figure>



In May, CoW DAO <a href="https://snapshot.box/#/s:cow.eth/proposal/0xf9ecb08c4738f04c4525373d6b78085d16635f86adacd1b8ea77b2c176c99d32">approved</a> moving from batch auctions to “fair combinatorial auctions” to improve fairness and throughput and to address centralization risks (e.g., single-winner limitations and reliance on Ethereum Best Bid and Offer).



Ovchinnik counters that different teams still win across different order profiles. “Some teams excel at niche pairs, some win with best routes, others utilize their private liquidity to provide better prices,” he said. He added that CoW Swap’s evolving auction parameters and incentives ensure no single solver can rest on its laurels.&nbsp;



More broadly, the CoW team says it is not its role to dictate how the market should consolidate or diversify; the solver set is open to any team that follows the rules, and performance from there is up to each participant.



Barter says it will measure success in the next three to six months by expanding its presence on meta-aggregators and intent-based venues beyond CoW Swap, including UniswapX and 1inch Fusion. A user-impact update highlighting surplus metrics will be published on its <a href="https://x.com/BarterDeFi">social channels</a>.



“This isn’t just about merging codebases — it’s about shaping the execution layer of Ethereum,” Ovchinnik said. Traders may never interact with solvers directly, but their algorithms are increasingly what determines the price users receive.



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crypto apps

Barter buys rival solver codebase to expand CoW Swap dominance

Coinbase announced that it has acquired the founders of Sensible, a team specializing in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, to strengthen its onchain consumer roadmap.



Co-founders Jacob Frantz and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7371179867008049152-xduY?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAAI-1EsBdXb9eqW8Lj0Y1aFQpUkvgw_kYBo">Zachary Salmon</a> will lead teams <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/blog/Coinbase-acquires-team-to-accelerate-onchain-consumer-roadmap">tasked</a> with making DeFi tools easier to use, part of Coinbase’s broader ambition to become what it calls an “everything exchange.”



<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">Excited to share that <a href="https://twitter.com/coinbase?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@coinbase</a> is acquiring the Sensible team to help make crypto something people *use* in addition to *own*. <a href="https://t.co/TYZK3KMrmU">pic.twitter.com/TYZK3KMrmU</a>&mdash; jacob (@therealjfrantz) <a href="https://twitter.com/therealjfrantz/status/1965415706503381360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Sensible’s co-founders previously built applications that brought DeFi to retail users, an area Coinbase has been steadily expanding through initiatives like Coinbase Wallet and its layer-2 network, Base.



By integrating their expertise, Coinbase aims to reduce the complexity of decentralized lending, staking, and rewards programs, which often remain out of reach for newcomers. The company highlighted examples such as non-custodial smart wallets for crypto-backed loans and staking services that allow users to earn rewards for helping secure blockchain networks.



This acquisition follows a series of Coinbase moves in 2024 and 2025 aimed at bolstering its onchain ecosystem. The company bought the Utopia Labs team in late 2024 to accelerate its payments roadmap and added Spindl in early 2025 to expand onchain advertising. More recently, Coinbase welcomed leaders from Opyn Markets to develop market infrastructure.



This is a developing story.



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



This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Coinbase

Coinbase adds Sensible leadership to build onchain consumer tools

Cboe Global Markets announced on September 9 that it plans to launch bitcoin and ether “Continuous futures” on the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) beginning November 10, 2025, pending regulatory review.



The contracts are <a href="https://ir.cboe.com/news/news-details/2025/Cboe-Plans-to-Launch-Continuous-Futures-for-Bitcoin-and-Ether-Beginning-November-10/default.aspx">designed</a> to mimic the appeal of offshore perpetual futures while operating within a US-regulated, centrally cleared, and intermediated framework.



Unlike traditional futures, which require periodic rolling into new maturities, Continuous futures are structured as single, long-dated contracts with a 10-year expiration. According to Cboe, positions will be adjusted daily to spot prices of bitcoin and ether using a transparent funding rate mechanism, creating a regulated alternative to perpetual contracts.



Catherine Clay, Cboe’s Global Head of Derivatives, said the products are intended to expand access to US traders, including institutions and retail customers, while simplifying risk management. The initiative follows Cboe’s June 2025 migration of its financially settled bitcoin and ether futures to CFE, part of its broader roadmap to expand digital asset offerings.



The contracts will clear through Cboe Clear U.S., a derivatives clearing organization regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Educational sessions hosted by Cboe’s Options Institute are scheduled for October 30 and November 20. While the exchange emphasized regulatory safeguards, it cautioned that futures trading carries substantial risk and may not suit all participants.



Cboe first entered crypto derivatives with margined Bitcoin and Ether futures, announced in November 2023 and launched on Cboe Digital on January 11, 2024. Backed by 11 major firms, the launch made Cboe the first U.S.-regulated crypto-native exchange to offer both spot and leveraged futures on one platform.



On June 9, 2025, Cboe migrated its Financially Settled Bitcoin (FBT) and Ether (FET) futures from Cboe Digital to the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE), bringing them under its centrally cleared ecosystem. These contracts are cash-settled, reference Kaiko rates, and trade nearly 24×5, providing regulated tools for speculation, hedging, and risk management.



This is a developing story.



Updated 10:29 a.m. ET for with details about Cboe.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Bitcoin

Cboe to debut bitcoin and ether Continuous futures in November

A new compensation report from the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/protocol-guild">Protocol Guild</a> paints a clear picture of the tradeoffs Ethereum core developers face: Many are underpaid in fiat terms and receive no upside exposure to tokens, yet continue to maintain Ethereum’s most critical infrastructure.&nbsp;



For this cohort, Protocol Guild (PG) has become the sole source of “equity-like” compensation, filling a structural void that traditional employers can’t — or won’t — bridge.



The numbers are striking. The median Ethereum core developer earns $140,000 in fiat compensation from their employer, while the median external offer stands at $300,000, creating a 114% gap. PG distributions, which are streamed via a transparent, onchain vesting schedule, add another $67,121 at the median, boosting total compensation to $207,121. That still falls short of market, but helps close the gap and represents nearly one-third of total income for the average developer.



Where PG’s role is most pronounced is in risk compensation. Only 37% of surveyed contributors receive any equity or token grants from their employers. PG fills that gap with a mechanism that behaves more like early-stage equity than salary: long-dated, ecosystem-aligned, and tied to the long-term health of Ethereum itself.



In the past year, 38% of surveyed members received employment offers — typically from L2s or other L1s — often with token or equity components. Reports from a small but revealing subsample indicate the median grants amount to 6.5% of tokens/equity, indicating substantial upside potential unavailable to most core Ethereum contributors.



Compensation disparities arise not only between ecosystems, but within Ethereum itself.&nbsp;



For example, the <a href="https://www.protocolguild.org/blog/20250909-compensation-insights-for-ethereum-core-developers-2025">report shows</a> Research roles carry a $215,000 median cash package, while client development and coordination sit at $130,000 — despite the latter being indispensable to the protocol’s functioning. Similarly, developers with 7–8 years of experience earn a median $212,000, outpacing the $150,000 median for those with 9+ years, hinting at lagging raises or under-leveled roles for some of Ethereum’s most seasoned contributors.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="851" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-107421" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/image-62.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.protocolguild.org/blog/20250909-compensation-insights-for-ethereum-core-developers-2025">Protocol Guild</a></figcaption></figure>



The implication is there’s real retention risk, and 59% of respondents rate Protocol Guild as “very” or “extremely” important to their decision to stay in Ethereum core development. Since its May 2022 pilot, PG has distributed over $32 million to contributors, funded by ecosystem projects pledging 1% of their token supply. But the donor base is concentrated: Just three foundations account for nearly the entire current vesting pipeline, underscoring the need for broader buy-in if the model is to scale.



Protocol Guild operates as a shared funding mechanism. Participating projects commit 1% of their token supply to a vesting contract that streams funds to Guild members over four years. These distributions are governed by a transparent, onchain allocation system based on each contributor’s tenure and role weight. Importantly, Protocol Guild doesn’t employ developers directly; it supplements their existing compensation with an “equity-like” stream that reflects Ethereum’s long-term success and ecosystem-wide commitment to credible neutrality. Contributions and vesting schedules are fully auditable on platforms like Dune.



PG’s designers emphasize that this is not charity, it’s a form of economic infrastructure. The four-year vesting stream aligns incentives with Ethereum’s roadmap, without compromising the credible neutrality core developers are meant to uphold. In effect, PG has become the equity package for contributors working outside of traditional corporate structures.



The question is: Can Ethereum scale this mechanism to keep valuable human capital around for the long-haul?



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Developers

The most important Ethereum developers are the most underpaid

Jack Kubinec

Plasma, a forthcoming layer-1 blockchain built for stablecoins, has made three new senior hires, Blockworks has learned exclusively.



The startup brought in Murat Firat as head of product, Adam Jacobs as head of global payments, and Usmann Khan as head of protocol security. These senior level hires come shortly after the Peter Thiel-backed project held a blockbuster token sale that netted some $373 million in commitments. 



Plasma is yet to publicly announce a date for its mainnet launch.



Plasma will be purpose-built for stablecoins, which according to its public documentation means over 1,000 transactions per second, zero-fee USDT transfers, custom gas tokens, and confidential transactions.&nbsp;



The fee-less Tether stablecoin transfers will be enabled by an in-protocol paymaster, according to Plasma’s documentation. Charging no gas fees would mean users wouldn’t need to hold native tokens in order to transact on Plasma.



The protocol seems to be on friendly terms with Tether. Zero-fee transfers are only enabled for USDT, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino is on the cap table, and Bitfinex, where Ardoino is also chief technology officer, <a href="https://www.plasma.to/insights/plasma-raises-24m-led-by-framework-and-bitfinex-usdt0-to-build-the-leading-blockchain-for-stablecoins">led</a> Plasma’s seed and series A rounds alongside USDT “liquidity protocol” USDT0 and Framework Ventures.



“[We will] work closely with Tether to ensure Plasma becomes a key distribution channel for the most liquid and dominant stablecoin,” Plasma CEO and founder Paul Faecks said.



Plasma’s new hires come from varying backgrounds. Firat had previously founded Turkish crypto exchange and Lira-pegged stablecoin issuer BiLira. Jacobs was once global head of payments at FTX before spending time at the Canadian fintech firm Nuvei. Khan is rated sixth on the <a href="https://immunefi.com/leaderboard/">leaderboard</a> for crypto bug-bounty site ImmuneFi.



Plasma has made several other key hires since coming out of stealth in October 2024. Others include Jacob Wittman <a href="https://x.com/jakewittman/status/1915447216384467101">becoming</a> general counsel and the anonymous <a href="https://x.com/river0x_/status/1963224607416299588">river0x</a> and <a href="https://x.com/lemurf/status/1963577216740049048">murf</a> becoming DeFi lead and senior product designer, respectively.



As the protocol approaches mainnet, the thesis that stablecoins need a blockchain of their own will be put to the test.



“We’ve made deliberate, protocol-level design changes to treat stablecoins as first-class citizens. This way, stablecoins rails on Plasma will be able to underpin global money movement in the digital era,” Faecks said.



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Peter Thiel

Plasma builds out senior team ahead of mainnet: Exclusive

Stripe and Paradigm are plotting to launch a new platform that some have likened to a “Libra that lived.”&nbsp;



The chain, Tempo, aims to bring stablecoin-powered payments onchain at a scale Stripe is uniquely positioned to deliver.



The announcement came with heavyweight design partners, such as Visa, Deutsche Bank, OpenAI, Shopify, and the sketching of an architecture: not an Ethereum <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/layer-2">layer-2</a>, but a new L1, optimized for predictable fees, sub-second finality, gas-in-stables, and 100,000+ TPS.



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> community was mostly nonplussed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why Tempo is an L1 — and why should we care</h2>



Paradigm’s Matt Huang <a href="https://x.com/matthuang/status/1964123449045242041">laid out the case</a>. “Tempo will be a permissionless chain. On day 1, anyone will be able to deploy a token, and anyone will be able to transact on the chain…We’ll start with a permissioned validator set to get going and decentralize further from there.”



Huang framed the decision to go L1, not L2, as both technical and political.



“Building a network for global payments will require bringing together thousands of partners that may not trust us, or Stripe, or anyone as a platform. We think a decentralized validator set — for the chain itself — is a necessary requirement for those partners, and to ensure that the chain is unquestionably neutral in the long run.”



On its face, that sounds a lot like Ethereum, and the new chain will be built on Reth and therefore EVM-compatible. But Huang also cited UX features L2s don’t currently offer natively — like multi-token gas support via an enshrined AMM, payments-specific lanes, sub-second finality, and with opt-in privacy features.



Paradigm has been a major Ethereum proponent and develops the Reth execution client, boosting the network&#8217;s client diversity. That detail drew particular attention from Ethereum core devs, since just days earlier, a critical bug in Reth caused synced nodes to stall. Paradigm CTO Georgios Konstantopoulos <a href="https://x.com/gakonst/status/1963633379284587017">called it</a> a “brutal moment, but ultimately one we learn from and get stronger.”&nbsp;



On Ethereum, the bug was annoying but not catastrophic, because Reth is just one of many. For Tempo, launching with Reth as its primary execution engine, an episode like that could plausibly halt the chain.



Critics quickly zeroed in on what they saw as Tempo’s contradictions. “Where is the Ethereum alignment?” <a href="https://x.com/preston_vanloon/status/1963689840051896383">wrote</a> Ethereum core dev Preston Van Loon.



<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">My take on Tempo as an VC chain / L1: &#8211; No client diversity (major risk) &#8211; Anyone can just make a token and use that to pay gas? lol &#8211; Should be an L2, not L1. Where is the justification for this? Where is the Ethereum alignment? &#8211; Smells like another consortium chain, oh well&#8230;&mdash; prestonvanloon.eth (@preston_vanloon) <a href="https://twitter.com/preston_vanloon/status/1963689840051896383?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 4, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Paradigm has already tried the L2 route with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/blast">Blast</a>, sometimes thought of as “Paradigm’s L2” due to its lead role in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blast-layer2-ethereum-yield">Blast’s $20M raise</a>, so it’s possible the VC firm could have ruled out building on Ethereum <a href="https://x.com/0x9212ce55/status/1963942915786383683">to avoid a conflict</a>.



(A Paradigm spokesperson declined to comment specifically for this story.)



At stake is more than just branding. Tempo’s design decisions reignited long-running questions about whether L2s can deliver the UX and institutional trust required for real-world payments. But they also raised alarms about what happens when corporate players reinvent blockchain infrastructure outside the neutral, credibly decentralized systems Ethereum has tried to protect.



It’s bound to be a years-long battle, but as Yuval Kogler <a href="https://x.com/yugacohler/status/1963865768291877275">put it</a>: “The relative success of the various blockchains will be a direct referendum on the market value of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/decentralization">decentralization</a>.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The corp chains critique</h2>



To many longtime crypto builders, Tempo echoes the dreams — and mistakes — of Facebook’s Libra. Christian Catalini, one of Libra’s original architects, <a href="https://x.com/ccatalini/status/1964027796864585747">questioned</a> whether any corporate player could deliver on the promise of neutrality.



“Would a sane competitor bet its future on Stripe&#8217;s promise not to eventually favor its own products?”



Catalini, co-founder alongside David Marcus of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspark-bitcoin-lightning-payments">Lightspark</a>, a payments-infrastructure company building on Bitcoin’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/lightning-network">Lightning Network</a>, went <a href="https://x.com/ccatalini/status/1964028283844251736">further</a>: “As long as there is a single throat to choke — or a committee of them — you can’t truly rewire the system. Worse, any network with an architect is living on borrowed time.”



Omid Malekan, a crypto author and early educator, was <a href="https://x.com/malekanoms/status/1963931256111944079">equally blunt</a>: “I can&#8217;t believe I still have to say this in the year 2025, but let me explain once again why permissioned chains like Tempo (or Canton or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-l1-impact-ethereum">ARC</a> or any other corporate chain) are likely to fail.” His critique centers on liability: if validators are known and permissioned, they can be sued, censored, or compelled to roll back the chain.



<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">Question: if every large corporation is going to operate their own chain with their own on-ramps, stablecoins, etc., how is it better than the current system?&mdash; Toghrul Maharramov 🇺🇦 (@toghrulmaharram) <a href="https://twitter.com/toghrulmaharram/status/1964449544986603973?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Still, not everyone saw Tempo as a retreat into safe corporatism. Nick van Eck <a href="https://x.com/Nick_van_Eck/status/1964140110666191294">argued</a> Stripe is unlikely to be merely experimenting, but launching a full-stack payments competitor to Visa.&nbsp;



“Tempo is a clear shot across the bow [announcing] that they are trying to build the next generation Visa network,” said van Eck, calling Huang’s ode to neutrality tantamount to “gaslighting everyone”: “They are openly declaring war against everyone building in stablecoins, the payment networks, and the banks.”&nbsp;



In van Eck’s view, Stripe is moving fast because it has to — before incumbents cut them off. Agora is one of those stablecoins seeking to grow distribution.



“The opportunity up for grabs here is enormous,” van Eck said. “Probably $1T+ in enterprise value to be won or lost if we look a decade down the road.”



From the market-structure angle, there’s a strategic read on stablecoin rails themselves, according to Laurent Benayoun, CEO of Acheron Trading.



“Having control over the infrastructure powering payments and RWAs will increase the revenue and influence of stablecoin issuers,” Benayoun told Blockworks. “That said, two things will ultimately matter: how private issuers will tackle creating public chains, and as a consequence which will receive the highest degree of adoption post consolidation of that niche.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A fresh look at fast finality</h2>



Tempo may be shipping fast finality, but Ethereum researchers made it clear they’re working on it too, and faster than critics might think.



Barnabé Monnot, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, <a href="https://x.com/barnabemonnot/status/1964252013459386496">posted</a> a breakdown of ongoing work to shorten slot times, expose fast confirmation rules in clients, and pursue more aggressive finality gadgets.



ZKsync’s Alex Gluchowski <a href="https://x.com/gluk64/status/1964241553364296038">responding</a> to Huang’s Tempo preview, noted “the only serious technical argument in this post is fast L1 finality — something we as L2s can neither fix nor mitigate.” That’s the sort of dependency chains like Circle’s Arc also seek to avoid.



<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">The only serious technical argument in this post is fast L1 finality—something we as L2s can neither fix nor mitigate. We fully depend on the L1 progress rate here. I&#39;d told <a href="https://twitter.com/ethereumfndn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ethereumfndn</a> leadership earlier in summer that&#39;s the ONLY thing we care about on the ETH roadmap. <a href="https://t.co/LWb3jNBhKg">https://t.co/LWb3jNBhKg</a>&mdash; ALEX | ZKsync ∎ (@gluk64) <a href="https://twitter.com/gluk64/status/1964241553364296038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Vitalik Buterin <a href="https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1964407261801173312">joined</a> the thread to support Monnot’s work: “These are good ideas! Most of them are delta-neutral (in the sense of the δ network latency assumption), which is even better.” In distributed-systems terms, δ (delta) is the maximum time messages take to propagate; calling proposals “delta-neutral” signals they don’t require faster networks or tighter validator clustering to be safe.



The real trick, Buterin caveated, is whether Ethereum can maintain geographic and economic decentralization while cutting time to finality.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">“Revolution” or “failed coup”?</h2>



The emergence of Tempo is less a rejection of Ethereum than a test of its pace. Stripe isn’t launching Tempo to provoke the Ethereum community, though it may have that consequence.



Ethereum still has the network effects, and decentralization strengths, like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-upgrade-testnet-hiccup">client diversity</a>, and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-inclusion-lists-scrutiny">credible neutrality</a>. Tempo will have distribution, product polish, and a measure of institutional trust. The challenge for Ethereum is to meet the moment technically — fast confirmations, better L2 UX, cleaner <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/interoperability">interop</a> — before Tempo or any other major fintech player captures the payments layer outright.



As Catalini <a href="https://x.com/ccatalini/status/1964027763616358450">warned</a>, if the world settles on corporate chains like Tempo, “the crypto experiment was not a revolution, but a failed coup.”



But as stablecoin adoption grows, Tempo may well serve as a catalyst for Ethereum rather than competition.



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Ethereum

Upping Tempo: Stripe’s planned L1 challenges Ethereum to move faster

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read more 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">
&nbsp;“Without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless.”



— Satoshi
</blockquote>



Property rights are not sacrosanct in traditional finance.



Even in the US stock market — where shareholder rights are treated with near-religious reverence — a company’s management can sometimes forcibly divest an unwanted shareholder of their shares.



In 2009, for example, the struggling software firm Selectica used a poison pill defense to cut a single shareholder’s stake in half.



When the pill was triggered, all shareholders other than Versata, a hedge fund, received rights that effectively doubled the number of shares they owned.



In effect, this redistributed half of Versata’s share in the company to the company’s other shareholders.



Versata sued, but a Delaware judge sided with the company — proving that, under some circumstances, a board can seize a shareholder’s property much like a government invoking eminent domain.



Unlike eminent domain, however, the company doesn’t have to compensate the dispossessed owner.



It’s not done lightly.&nbsp;



Selectica had to prove in court that its action was a “proportionate” response to a threat posed by a hostile shareholder.



But the fact that it’s possible is part of what inspired crypto and decentralized finance: a new kind of financial system where property rights are enforced by code, not the whims of a Delaware judge.



On Friday, however, World Liberty Financial — a DeFi protocol that’s “governed by a distributed community of WLFI tokenholders” — effectively dispossessed a large token holder of their tokens.&nbsp;



Justin Sun’s substantial holding of WLFI was frozen (perhaps temporarily) when his tokens were added to a blacklist that prevents them from being moved.



In total, World Liberty <a href="https://x.com/worldlibertyfi/status/1964081166367035684">blacklisted 272 accounts</a> this weekend, mostly in an effort to stop phishing attacks — which is laudable, but not exactly in the spirit of not-your-keys-not-your-coins permissionless crypto.



Sun’s tokens, however, were frozen amid reports that he shorted WLFI tokens borrowed from an exchange he controls.



Someone at World Liberty took exception to this and froze Sun’s property in response — something they can do without consulting the “distributed community” of token holders that ostensibly governs the protocol.



TradFi executives don’t appreciate short selling either, of course.



Companies that feel attacked by short sellers will sometimes issue special dividends to complicate short positions, contrive to have large holders recall the shares they’ve lent out, or even lobby the government to ban the practice (as banks successfully did in 2008).



But crypto makes this so much easier: Smart contracts can give protocols the ability to stop their tokens from moving.&nbsp;



Few protocols grant themselves this ability, presumably because it’s counter to the spirit of a decentralized, permissionless financial system.



Blacklists are usually only found in centralized stablecoins, where issuers need the ability to freeze criminals’ funds at the request of law enforcement.&nbsp;



But a blacklist for tokens?



World Liberty might be unique in granting itself the ability to extinguish property rights with just a function call to blacklist(address).



This seems to contradict the spirit of its founding mission.



As World Liberty co-founder and CEO Zach Witkoff tells it, the project was inspired by a conversation he had with the Trump brothers, Eric and Donald Jr., shortly after their accounts were “terminated” by two of the largest US banks.&nbsp;



“So, we started discussing solutions, and the conclusion was that we needed a more democratized system,&#8221; he <a href="https://wublockchain.medium.com/wlfi-ceo-coo-in-conversation-dismantling-banking-hegemony-03546c1579f8">explained</a>. “The origin of World Liberty was to truly return financial control to the users.”



But not, evidently, to users of the World Liberty token.



The project’s <a href="https://static.worldlibertyfinancial.com/docs/intl/gold-paper.pdf">Gold Paper</a> states “WLF believes that the ability to transact privately and without intermediaries is a core American value.”



But World Liberty itself is an intermediary — and an unusually powerful one.



They did warn us.&nbsp;



Further down in the gold paper it cautions that in a “Material Adverse Event or Security Risk,” governance power can be “completely vested in the multisigs.”



This makes dispossessing an unwanted token holder much easier compared to executing a complex poison pill defense that a shareholder can appeal in a Delaware court of law.



Justin Sun, by contrast, can appeal the seizure of his property only to the court of social opinion: “My tokens were unreasonably frozen,” he <a href="https://x.com/justinsuntron/status/1963807543983263802">posted</a> on X after denying accusations of short selling.&nbsp;



That’s not how this alternative financial system was meant to work.



Just the opposite: World Liberty’s multisig appears to give its founders a level of control that TradFi founders can only dream of.



Traditional founders sometimes maintain control of their company with special voting rights, but how much easier is it when that control is baked into a smart contract?



World Liberty’s control appears to be absolute.



Their token, WLFI, is strictly for governance —&nbsp; “the sole utility of holding WLFI is governance of the WLF Protocol” — but World Liberty can ignore the decisions token holders make.



Late last year, WLFI holders <a href="https://snapshot.box/#/s:worldlibertyfinancial.com/proposal/0xce3ff6b195863c2217865ba6f028d2e163d9156a25cb35d923da3a5bc8479483">voted</a> to grant the Aave DAO “approximately 7% of the total supply of $WLFI tokens” (because World Liberty was originally conceived as a fork of Aave).



Eight billion tokens voted in favor of the proposal, vs. just 187,000 against.&nbsp;



Despite that overwhelming consensus, World Liberty appears to be reneging on the deal, <a href="https://x.com/WuBlockchain/status/1959288692159512991">reportedly</a> calling it “fake news.”



This, too, is a TradFi founder&#8217;s dream.



Crypto founders already have the magical ability to raise capital without surrendering a share of their future profits (by issuing governance tokens).&nbsp;



And in this case, the founders didn’t have to surrender any governance rights, either.



Could anything be a better deal than that?



To be fair, selling a token that people think of as equity but is actually more like a collectible is hardly unique to World Liberty — there are many such cases.



If anything, World Liberty deserves credit for being upfront about it: Just the fact that it employs a CEO tells you that, whatever idealistic language used in its gold paper, it’s more of a company than a protocol.&nbsp;



But blacklisting shareholders is a level of centralization that outdoes even TradFi.



“Tokens are sacred and inviolable,”&nbsp; Justin Sun <a href="https://x.com/justinsuntron/status/1963807543983263802">wrote</a> on X, ”this should be the most basic value of any blockchain.”



Sun is not generally known as a champion of decentralization, but he makes the case for it concisely.&nbsp;



“It’s also what makes us stronger and more fair than traditional finance,” he added.



World Liberty’s founders would presumably agree: The first line of their gold paper says World Liberty is “pioneering a new era of Decentralized Finance.”



So far, though, they’re making it look a lot like the old era.



But better.



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