Cornucopias

Jack Kubinec

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In today&#8217;s edition of sentences I never expected to write: The Central African Republic launched a Solana memecoin over the weekend, announced by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra on X.



President Touadéra has long been a crypto fan, following El Salvador’s lead in adopting bitcoin <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/el-salvador-approves-bitcoin-as-legal-tender-in-supermajority">as legal tender</a> in 2022. This latest foray into the blockchain could prove far more lucrative for the state: The CAR token peaked at over $800 million in market capitalization, according to DEX Screener. That’s nearly a third of the nation’s 2023 GDP of $2.76 billion.&nbsp;



As is always the case with memecoins, however, CAR quickly crashed and currently holds $50 million in market cap.&nbsp;



The obvious comparison here is to Donald Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-memecoins-rock-solana">inauguration eve memecoin</a>, but unlike TRUMP, CAR claims to have a purpose. 45% of CAR’s supply is earmarked for “country development” and “charity,” the project’s official website claims. CAR tokens have been <a href="https://x.com/streamflow_fi/status/1888875359182967159">locked</a> up on the Solana token distribution platform Streamflow.



The CAR memecoin’s website and services are managed by COMIGEM, according to its terms and conditions. COMIGEM is a state-owned mineral buying office in the Central African Republic. 25% of the CAR supply is set aside for “Creators &amp; Company,” which would presumably refer to COMIGEM. An email associated with CAR did not return requests for comment.&nbsp;



Jupiter, the Solana DEX aggregator, was able to <a href="https://x.com/weremeow/status/1888765984393347477">verify</a> that it is in contact with the team behind the token, and it asked the team to make its blockchain contract uncancelable.&nbsp;



This afternoon, Touadéra posted a video of a high school in the country that is “deteriorating rapidly” and said $50,000 worth of CAR tokens will be allocated within the next 30 days to repair the school.



In a video posted to X earlier today, Touadéra celebrated the memecoin launch “success” and cast the Central African Republic as being at the “forefront” of a “revolution” being wrought by blockchain.



The token’s market capitalization jumped some $200 million shortly after the president’s post, before quickly dipping lower than where it had been trading before.



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Central African Republic debuts memecoin managed by state-owned mineral firm 

Ben Strack

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



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It was a few weeks back I wrote about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-states-btc-reserve-plans">new proposed bills</a> in Texas and Oklahoma focused on crypto investments. They joined plenty of states with similar plans — i.e. <a href="https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/billInfo.cfm?bn=2664&amp;body=H&amp;sInd=0&amp;sYear=2023&amp;type=B">Pennsylvania</a>, <a href="https://x.com/Dennis_Porter_/status/1877746381949116787">New Hampshire</a> and others.&nbsp;



More recently, Caylin Young, a delegate in Maryland’s state legislature, proposed establishing a bitcoin reserve fund. There appears to be a hearing on this slated for March 6.



The bill would allow the state treasurer to invest funds obtained through enforcing certain gambling violations toward the crypto asset, according to a proposal <a href="https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB1389?ys=2025RS">synopsis</a>.&nbsp;



In Kentucky, <a href="https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/25rs/hb376.html">House Bill 376</a> was introduced to “authorize the State Investment Commission to make investments in certain digital assets and bullion.”&nbsp;



The bill does not mention BTC specifically. But it does note stablecoins (with appropriate US approval) and digital assets (ex stablecoins) with a market cap exceeding $750 billion over the previous calendar year.



That market cap figure is used in Iowa’s House File 246, too — legislation also introduced last week.



This comes after a proposal in Utah allowing the state to allocate up to 5% of certain public funds to crypto <a href="https://le.utah.gov/mtgvotes.jsp?voteid=34423">moved on</a> to the state senate. Contrarily, North Dakota’s House <a href="https://legiscan.com/ND/text/HB1184/id/3046589">rejected</a> a similar plan.&nbsp;&nbsp;



ProChain Capital’s David Tawil wrote in a Sunday email that the <a href="https://bitcoinreservemonitor.com">strategic bitcoin reserve race</a> “is on and it is real.”



“The largest investors in the world (municipalities, pension funds and nation-states) are going [to] compete to accumulate bitcoin as a digital gold, to serve as a safe haven reserve asset and, in the case of nations, to combat deflation in their own currencies,” he wrote.



Though specifics around the federal government’s possible BTC-buying plans remain unknown for now, there’ll be plenty to watch at the state-level.



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American states jockey in BTC reserve race 

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



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Bitcoin’s price is roughly flat week over week as investors eye the next potential crypto market mover.



As Wintermute OTC trader Jake O. put it: “After two consecutive weekends of heightened volatility, the past few sessions have been noticeably slow, with spot ranges tightening.”&nbsp;



“This slowdown coincides with a lack of fresh crypto-specific narratives, as traders reassess positioning after last week&#8217;s liquidation event,” he added.



You want narratives?



Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz shared some views — albeit higher-level and less focused on day-to-day prices — for listeners of his panel at the Ondo Summit last week. You might recall I shared the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ondo-summit-crypto-exec-takes">regulation/legislation takeaways</a> from that event.



Novogratz’s first prediction came when he introduced his company, which hopes to go public. “We’ve been waiting 4.5 years, there’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">a new SEC</a> and so I think you’re going to see a whole host of companies — come May or June — listing on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq.”



He then shared scenes from the VP JD Vance’s ball last month (separate from the Crypto Ball<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/inauguration-weekend-crypto-ball"> Casey attended</a>). Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg were there, he said, along with what Novogratz estimated to be 20 crypto CEOs.



This big representation felt bullish, he noted. Even if, in Novogratz’s words, “the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-more-than-a-memecoin">Trump coin</a> didn’t help that spirit.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



“I think [bitcoin will] be on the government’s balance sheet in six months,” he said, noting BTC has “carved out a lane” as a store of value.&nbsp;



On that note, the Galaxy CEO casually claimed to have had lunch with the head of one of the largest sovereign wealth funds two weeks after the election. You know, as really rich executives do.



Essentially <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-vs-biden-crypto-orders">if the US is to buy bitcoin</a> (even at the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-as-a-potential-us-reserve-asset">state-leve</a>l, which we’ll discuss later), many of these funds want in too.



“He was cutting his first $500 million check to dip his toe in,” Novogratz said.



Also on that panel was Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead, who chimed in to address those talking of a crypto bubble.&nbsp;



“How can you have a bubble that nobody owns?” he said. “The median holding of an institutional investor in blockchain is zero.”



Just imagine the impact of a tiny fraction of the $500 trillion of global assets <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/2025-btc-adoption-wave">migrating to crypto</a>, Morehead posed. Given his recent convos with institutions that have changed their tune, he expects that to occur this year.&nbsp;



After bitcoin’s ascent to $109,000, it has obviously retreated — hovering around $97,650 at 2:15 pm ET Monday. Could it move lower to, say, $80,000?



Sure, Novogratz said.&nbsp;



“That doesn’t invalidate this space at all,” he added. “Quite frankly that’s the buying opportunity.”



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Crypto narratives as we await next market move 

Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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Decentralized finance today is still largely an <a href="https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1827642283560144916">ouroboros</a>, as Vitalik once pointed out.



Protocol revenues and fees are real, and they prove the tech works. That is important! But these revenue flows are still largely the downstream result of speculative capital passing between traders in a circular, self-consuming cycle.



Protocols like Pendle observed these state of affairs, declined to pass judgment, then simply built the best possible product to capitalize on this ouroboros-like economy.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcp8aiueVHOQ9Kyx-VHnYEoJMM4smj3D642ImspmFJIxGvFmEUdkrlD6hKdk9g8L19YO33nHs97KpjeharT4_SV120eQ1fCcMmTs-lj_qwb3ZQ8yhTh0k5Hd6gKhmUNUzB1_R1J6Q?key=hTKTFL_IO0M0cack5bck4X6e" alt=""/></figure>



Want a fixed yield? Buy Pendle Principal Tokens (PT). Prefer to farm points with expectation of big airdrops? Buy Yield Tokens (YT). It’s as simple as that.



What Pendle has created is not new. It’s the TradFi-equivalent of zero-coupon bonds, interest rate swaps or forward rate agreements.



But Pendle has emulated these traditionally structured products extremely well in DeFi. In 2024, Pendle grew its TVL levels to $4.4 billion and daily average trading volumes to $96 million — a 20x and 100x increase, respectively.



Pendle is so successful that it has in effect become a de facto token launchpad akin to an ICO, but better.&nbsp;



For instance, in the weeks leading up to Berachain’s genesis airdrop, <a href="https://app.pendle.finance/trade/markets?utm_source=landing&amp;utm_medium=landing&amp;category=berachain">Berachain Pendle markets</a> accumulated more than a billion in TVL from users wanting to yield trade on Berachain assets and game airdrops.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Pendle&#8217;s 2025 outlook</h2>



Pendle co-founder TN Lee announced last week the protocol’s big <a href="https://x.com/tn_pendle/status/1886763833081126976">plans</a> for 2025.&nbsp;



There are a host of minor piecemeal upgrades coming, like dynamic fees for yield trading and improvements to the vePENDLE token bribe system.



But the most notable upgrade looks to Pendle’s plans to target the most lucrative yield source in crypto: perps funding rates.&nbsp;



As part of this “Boros” (a play on ouroboros?) initiative, Pendle will allow traders to swap to yield trade perpetual funding rates.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd56undS9JDohkJ_ap0K3EO42T4T-R_L8mArScsZxqkaLXfz3S-be2OqW8MigcUV7_pXZ-_wZoxEeOI9-mQ3W6jXathYaGnW2lJKzZ5GYAX_ol8UjOUqkGvvhZkZKfndATMLFhe-g?key=hTKTFL_IO0M0cack5bck4X6e" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://medium.com/pendle/pendle-2025-zenith-cf1a91e6e23f">Pendle</a></figcaption></figure>



This would enable protocols like Ethena to lock in predictable funding yields, which would entail fixed APYs for <a href="https://app.ethena.fi/dashboards/apy">sUSDe</a> holders.&nbsp;



In hyper-volatile perps markets like memecoins, long traders will also be able to hedge against their perps positions by locking into a predictable, fixed funding rate.



Pendle is also planning an expansion to non-EVM chains Solana, Hyperliquid and Ton. Solana already has a burgeoning yield-trading market, though it’s still small relative to Pendle.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfxR4Tc2UM0f3M1yN33GueBFtBYibtH1WKekobEVgUwrAQP0AjrLIdIpQ77yO6NV5pMd63HVC48ejSZCX7ps0tQR7RBvg4letAsQJrZi0OPRI5VYAxpnC9zYRgsb7zdv_Mkjfh5gw?key=hTKTFL_IO0M0cack5bck4X6e" alt=""/></figure>



Finally, Pendle is coming for TradFi. The pitch is straightforward: “Why stick with 8% yields on a 5-year corporate bond when you can enjoy a 17% WBTC PT yield?”



This is part of the team’s plans to launch a KYC’d product for regulated entities as well as Islamic funds to access crypto yields.



Pendle’s pendulum is swinging, and looks to swing even harder in the coming year. With its planned expansions to target non-EVM chains and TradFi liquidity, these moves radically expand Pendle’s target addressable market beyond spot yield markets on Ethereum and the broader crypto sector itself.



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Pendle announces plans to target Solana, Hyperliquid and Ton

David Canellis

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



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There’s meant to be two warring wolves within all of us.



But in crypto, there’s so many more than two.



The story goes that whichever wolf we feed the most will grow strong and devour the other. It&#8217;s a metaphor for good and evil — nurturing virtue in the soul will scrub it clean of all things fiendish, eventually.



So, which wolf is crypto feeding? Take your pick:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Permissionless finance and censorship resistance</li>



<li>Tokenization of all things</li>



<li>Memecoin casinos</li>



<li>Public goods funding</li>



<li>P2P cash</li>



<li>Wall Street adoption</li>



<li>DAOs and onchain governance</li>



<li>Regulated stablecoins and tokenized money market funds</li>



<li>Incentivizing physical infrastructure networks</li>



<li>Digital collectibles</li>



<li>Yield and airdrop farming</li>



<li>Mixers and privacy tech</li>



<li>Charity and scientific research</li>



<li>Crypto-powered smart cities</li>
</ul>



There’s likely many more that have slipped my mind. Still, what’s clear is this: crypto’s builder culture has conditioned us to believe that it’s possible — and optimal — for all wolves to be fed at the same time and not tear each other’s throat out in the process.



Take the alpha wolves of this particular cycle: Wall Street adoption and memecoin casinos.&nbsp;



Setting aside the potential for a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-position-new-crypto-etf-proposals">Dogecoin ETF</a> to bridge the gap between those two concepts, an exceedingly well-fed Wolf of Wall Street Adoption would be far more powerful than mere memecoins in TradFi wrappers on stock exchanges.



Perhaps its final form would involve tokenized stocks, bonds, foreign currencies and all other financial instruments trading round-the-clock on public blockchain rails — and globally accessible to boot.&nbsp;



Or it is hedge, mutual and pension funds making long-term investments far across the crypto space, rather than just buying and selling bitcoin for its volatility (or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pension-funds-explore-crypto-investments">ill-timed investments</a> in centralized lenders and exchanges).



At this moment, it’s difficult to imagine either scenario playing out — as much as I might like them to — because the Wolf of Memecoin Casinos is simply far too big right now.



Take the first facet of adoption: the fulfillment of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-tokenization-investment">Larry Fink’s vision</a> of tokenization as the “next generation for markets.”&nbsp;



Wall Street has already <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/goldman-sachs-future-public-blockchains">burned through the idea</a> of porting finance to permissioned blockchains. But public chains in their current form, especially ones that have pushed for a decent degree of decentralization, often barely withstand major influxes in activity before service degrades.



It’s happened on <a href="https://consensys.io/blog/the-inside-story-of-the-cryptokitties-congestion-crisis">Ethereum</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-network-congestion-transaction-volume">Solana</a>, <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/03/20/coinbases-base-chain-warns-of-stuck-transactions-amid-traffic-surge">Base</a>, <a href="https://protos.com/ripple-xrpl-crypto-ledger-overloaded-airdrop-spam-source-code-broken/">XRPL</a> and others when memecoins were broadly super hot, but more recently Solana infrastructure chugged solely around two big memecoins: TRUMP and MELANIA.



Maybe they’d use their own layer-2s or layer-3s, but essentially, Wall Street would want to adopt networks that can handle many, many more wildly popular assets all at once, and not have to compete against memecoin traders to use the chain.



As for the second — funds investing in crypto long-term like they do with stocks and bonds — they will no doubt base those decisions on fundamental metrics, like Blockworks Research’s Real Economic Value (REV), which <a href="https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1887146391874756775">points</a> to memecoin trading as the prevailing avenue for accruing value in public blockchains right now — even if they can only handle so much of it.



Is investing in crypto infrastructure powering profitable onchain casinos enticing enough for old-world financial institutions? Maybe some.



I’d still bet more would jump if another one of crypto’s rabid wolves were properly fed.



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In crypto there are too many damn wolves

Katherine Ross

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



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Crypto venture capital spending continued to stay on the lower end throughout the end of 2024, PitchBook found in a new report.&nbsp;



Breaking it down by the numbers: deal values jumped to $2.4 billion in the final quarter of 2024 — a 13.6% increase from the third quarter but the number of deals declined to 351 from 411.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc-xTXptOQT8GzKuKz0W2cVOM6TlCB53ZKiGPNzxrvGcYFX0OIwFxf75BNd5Ple2ieDl7EAhm7B0JMGOLE2lo22uHBdP1nTUEEUi5q67v4HdnH6rdvDrgXXUnKRnmylz0Zer9AA?key=JOAUs5lZRL4PgoRC0B8h7JAu" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A look at where the capital&#8217;s going</figcaption></figure>



“While the rebound in funding suggests that investors remain willing to back established teams and differentiated technologies, the continued pullback in deal count highlights growing investor selectivity — a dynamic that first became evident in Q3,” PitchBook’s Robert Le wrote.&nbsp;



If you’re an optimist looking for the silver lining, this could mean that we’re seeing a concentration in fewer projects that show more promise. If you’re a pessimist, then the data plays into the narrative that we’re still not back to pre-crypto winter levels.



If we look at 2023 and 2024, the data is not so different.&nbsp;



Last year, crypto VC spending topped out at $10 billion across 1,940 deals. In 2023, investors deployed $10.3 billion via 1,936 deals.&nbsp;



Values, however, were on the rise in 2024 — another point to the optimists.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf7E3BfMU6ul_xbtYyWX-ekth1VtNc36di-eYyL81pRNSxluAa1jlqIOpuU9kumrFLrKDv_N6JmSh_EH1N0kj1tsuzEaXpfL_9FoqG6WEZISddqRgM2n7ftc1auwjXhQpXLQsqolA?key=JOAUs5lZRL4PgoRC0B8h7JAu" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Still nowhere near the 2021 and 2022 cycles</figcaption></figure>



Let’s break it down a bit more: The median check cut in the seed stage jumped 20% to $3 million last year from $2.5 million. Then you have early-stage funding, which rose 26% to $4.8 million.&nbsp;



Late-stage, however, saw a slight drop from $6.4 million to $6.3 million, suggesting that “founders at more mature companies are raising smaller but strategically focused rounds rather than pursuing the larger checks seen in previous cycles” Le wrote.



We can pick apart the data to fit whatever narratives we want to see. But there’s no doubt that there are both positives and negatives. Don’t be surprised that crypto VC spending isn’t back to 2021 levels, and don’t expect that kind of comeback to happen overnight either.&nbsp;



On the other hand, the data perhaps shows some maturity happening in the crypto VC space.&nbsp;



That is, perhaps, a nice little break from the jailstool narrative.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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‘Rebound’ in crypto venture capital suggests focus on ‘established’ teams: PitchBook

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



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When President Trump launched the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-memecoins-rock-solana">TRUMP memecoin</a> on the eve of his inauguration, he did so on the Solana blockchain.&nbsp;



Memecoins, which are jokey crypto tokens that trade based on vibes, are currently the most popular use for Solana. The network’s long-term vision — for capital markets to all be housed within a shared global system — is much broader than that. Solana’s chance of achieving this largely comes from its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-blockchain-tps-testing">speed</a> and the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-network-congestion-transaction-volume">cheap transaction fees</a>, which also happens to be why memecoin traders like it so much.



Solana is a blockchain, and a blockchain is a decentralized digital asset ledger. Every bank operates an asset ledger, but the ledgers don’t work together very well. They’re often slow and expensive to move money around on because banks and other existing asset ledgers use <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-anatoly-yakovenko-1000x-visa">inefficient infrastructure</a>.&nbsp;



Blockchains are made up of global computers running software that ensures the asset ledger is accurate, which can be expensive. It costs over a dollar on average to transact on the Bitcoin network, and it costs $0.05 on average to buy something on Ethereum. What’s more, Bitcoin and Ethereum — which are the largest and second-largest blockchains — only process a few handfuls of transactions per second. Credit cards handled an <a href="https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/number-of-credit-card-transactions/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20nationwide%20credit%20card,%2D10%20in%2Dstore%20purchases.">average</a> of 1,700 transactions per second in 2023, according to data from Capital One.



Solana’s chief architect, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/qa-solana-founders-raj-anatoly">Anatoly Yakovenko</a>, was a software engineer at the wireless technology firm Qualcomm. Yakovenko endeavored to make blockchains faster and cheaper by realizing some principles of wireless technology that could be applied to blockchain, which led him down the road to creating Solana. Yakovenko raised venture capital funding and began building the blockchain alongside a couple co-founders.&nbsp;



Solana launched in 2020. The blockchain’s key innovation was creating “proof-of-history,” a term used to describe a kind of clock that every validator — the people running the computers with Solana’s software — used to process Solana transactions more quickly than they could otherwise.



SOL, which is also referred to as Solana, is the crypto token issued by and used to secure the Solana network. People can also buy and sell SOL, kind of like they do a stock.



When people transact on Solana, they pay a SOL-denominated fee. This is usually a fraction of a cent used partly to compensate validators for running Solana’s software. For comparison’s sake, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/helio-upgrades-solana-pay-plugin-for-shopify">credit cards</a> usually charge 1.5-3.5% of a transaction to the merchant, a cost which gets passed along to consumers.&nbsp;



Solana is also much faster than Bitcoin or Ethereum, handling over 1,000 transactions per second. It could theoretically handle even more given more demand for Solana’s asset ledger.



Solana has had a few outages — events wherein validators stopped producing blocks due to a bug in the software. The last time <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-downtime-post-mortem">Solana halted</a> was on Feb. 6, 2024. These outages were partly caused by Solana’s lack of client diversity, which is a way of saying there’s basically one version of the Solana software. So if there’s a bug in the code, every validator is affected. There is a second Solana client being written from scratch called Firedancer, but it’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-validators-mev-concerns">not quite ready </a>yet.&nbsp;&nbsp;



FTX, a crypto exchange that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-impacts-on-cryptos-future">went bankrupt</a> and brought the whole crypto market tumbling down, was an <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-bankman-fried-crypto-portfolio">early Solana adopter</a>. Solana’s reputation was badly hit following its collapse, with the price of SOL dipping under $10 in late 2022. Remarkably, the network survived and had a roaring comeback in 2024. SOL hit an <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-sets-all-time-high-of-263">all-time high</a> of $293 after Donald Trump released a memecoin in January 2025.



President Trump isn’t the only person using Solana for memecoins. For all intents and purposes, memecoin trading is currently the main use for Solana’s asset ledger. Trading these volatile tokens is pretty much just gambling, and some knock Solana for its memecoin entanglement. Others <a href="https://x.com/weremeow/status/1845273658069221558">argue</a> that less refined use cases can help the technology scale for more serious ones, citing how demand for online pornography forced broadband capacity to scale up and create the modern internet.



The more serious use case Solana hopes for is what the blockchain’s supporters <a href="https://multicoin.capital/2025/01/22/the-solana-thesis-internet-capital-markets/">call</a> internet capital markets. The idea is that Solana could let all kinds of assets — memecoins but also stocks, bonds, tokenized raw materials, whatever — be traded within the same system. This is partly attributed to all Solana data being available to all network participants, which is something Solana developers call global shared state. This Solana-centric financial system could be more inclusive and efficient than the current system, where every financial venue has its own database.



That future is still a ways away, of course, but with its speed and low fees, Solana has as good a chance as any blockchain of pulling it off.



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Solana: A beginner-level explainer

Casey Wagner

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



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The US Treasury Department issued its quarterly refunding statement this week. As Felix <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bessent-quarterly-refunding-announcement">alluded to yesterday</a>, this is where officials announce their debt issuance plans for the coming quarter.&nbsp;



The Treasury will be holding auction sizes steady “for at least the next several quarters,” the latest <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0010?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">statement</a> read. Treasury yields, in response, slid. 10-year yields were hovering around 4.5% Friday while the 2-year rose to 4.28%.&nbsp;



Normally, higher yields mean lower stocks, like we saw in 2022 when the 10-year rose to over 4% and the S&amp;P 500 ended the year almost 20% lower.&nbsp;



In 2023, for most of the year, yields kept creeping up and so did US equities. It’s worth noting though that the S&amp;P 500 doubled its annual gains during the final quarter of 2023 when the 10-year yield fell 0.5%. 2024 followed roughly the same pattern.&nbsp;



Okay, history lesson over. That brings us to now. There’s really no reason to think stocks can’t maintain momentum with yields in the 4%-range, but if yields move too much higher, recessionary fears come back and stocks go down.&nbsp;



The outlook for Treasury yields is uncertain for a few reasons.&nbsp;



First, there’s the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-fed-committed-to-pausing-rate-cuts-why">Fed hitting pause</a> on its interest rate-cutting cycle, for who knows how long. Plus, inflation is still sticky. Rising tensions surrounding <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-tariffs-trade-war">global trade</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-gradual-tariff-policy">higher tariffs</a> on US imports (if and when enacted more broadly) could also weigh on growth, or expectations for growth at least.&nbsp;



Then there’s the Treasury’s new leadership. Secretary Scott Bessent hasn’t been shy about his distaste for how former Secretary Yellen handled things, namely her choice to primarily use short-term bills for funding.&nbsp;



Long story short, it’s all pretty up in the air. But when the dust settles we’ll have all the info you need. Keep an eye on your inbox.



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Why the outlook for Treasury yields remains uncertain 

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



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It wasn’t exactly surprising to hear speakers at yesterday’s Ondo Summit in Manhattan opine on crypto regulation/legislation.&nbsp;



But beyond the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-lenient-crypto-regulation">post-election optimism</a> we’ve heard plenty of, there was clear recognition of the ample work to do.



Former Congress member Patrick McHenry called <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-chair-nominee-crypto-past">Paul Atkins</a> a “great choice for SEC chair.” But finalizing confirmations like his can be a months-long process, McHenry noted. Hence the potential “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-in-purgatorial-state?utm_source=mail.blockworks.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=crypto-value-is-no-longer-an-oxymoron">purgatorial state</a>” of the SEC, if you recall from last week’s Forward Guidance.



Another months-long process: the “arduous” journey to draft and pass legislation, McHenry added. There’re hearings before lawmakers start to craft a bill. Then, getting it out of committee and bringing it to the floor. If passed in the House, it’s off to the Senate, which McHenry called “a completely different beast.”



At “breakneck speed,” a crypto bill could be signed on July 4.



“Or it could take 18 months,” he noted.&nbsp;



Beyond timelines, McHenry encouraged the industry to engage with the folks in Washington. It’s now safe to do so, he argued — with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-reveals-sab-121-rescission">end of SAB 121</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">Hester Peirce’s plans</a> as key indicators.



Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul knows all about engagement. Her firm has a whole team that does nothing but create FAQ materials and presentations for regulators.



“On one hand you’ve got to go very quick and be very open-minded and be very willing to disrupt yourself,” Kaul said during one panel. “On the other side, you really need to take the regulators on a journey with you and use your reputation as someone they trust to get them comfortable that it’s OK to move forward.”



CFTC Acting Chair Caroline Pham had her own fireside chat at the event. She noted the <a href="https://x.com/strack_ben/status/1882537022646305042">near-term deadlines</a> laid out in Donald Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-vs-biden-crypto-orders">executive order</a> that the agency is working to meet. Pham mentioned, too, that the CFTC plans to bring aboard “crypto market structure experts” as senior advisers.&nbsp;



The derivatives regulator today <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9049-25">revealed</a> an upcoming CEO forum (with Circle, Coinbase, Crypto.com and Ripple) to discuss the agency’s pilot program for tokenized non-cash collateral.



When asked how the industry can avoid squandering this opportunity for clarity, Pham urged sector players to come in with a “reasonable approach.” This will help close an unfortunate “credibility gap” spurred by some of the space’s fraudsters, she argued.&nbsp;



Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead said in a separate panel the industry is still getting used to the friendlier invitations to engage.&nbsp; “The rebels just threw the gates open, the sun’s beaming in and we’re all just still sitting there too afraid to be excited that it’s a new era,” Morehead mused.



But people shouldn’t be scared, McHenry stressed. And it’s key for the industry to take advantage of the momentum now.



“If we’re going to get something positive out of legislative or regulatory action, it will happen in the next 18 to 20 months,” he said. “That is open-field running; and if we miss this window, we’re going to be much worse off and we’re going to see people go back overseas.”



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Engage now, or forever hold your peace

Macauley Peterson

Story is a sovereign layer-1 blockchain built using the Cosmos SDK and CometBFT consensus, with an added EVM execution — a custom Geth fork. This choice allows for full governance control, optimized execution for intellectual property workflows and a staking economy based on the $IP token.



Standard blockchain environments — even high-performance chains like Solana — struggle with modeling the recursive licensing structures that intellectual property ecosystems require, the team said. Story’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-funding-story-protocol-dex-brinefi-investor">unique</a> graph-based architecture is specifically designed to handle the complex relationships between intellectual property assets, the team said.



While Story Protocol’s vision of a graph-based <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/story-protocol-ritual-ai-provenance">intellectual property economy</a> is ambitious, its decision to launch an entirely new layer-1 with its own token instead of, say, a validium rollup, is worth scrutinizing.



Many projects claim to need a custom execution environment, only to ascribe an L1 premium to their tokens. Could Story not have built this as a rollup with a purpose-built intellectual property layer on top?



The Cosmos SDK grants Story more sovereignty, but at the cost of fragmenting liquidity, security and developer mindshare. Do we really need to bootstrap yet another staking economy? Many similar application-specific chains have struggled to justify their independence beyond token incentives. Rollups benefit from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-native-rollups-scalability">inheriting</a> Ethereum’s deep liquidity and mature validator set, and even Cosmos chains are trending toward greater use of Interchain security.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The role and tokenomics of $IP</h2>



$IP serves multiple key functions in the Story ecosystem, according to a <a href="https://www.story.foundation/blog/introducing-ip">blog</a> released today. Such functions include:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Securing the network: Validators stake $IP to participate in consensus.</li>



<li>Gas token: $IP is required for all on-chain interactions.</li>



<li>Governance: Token holders shape the future of Story Protocol through governance decisions.</li>
</ul>



Story has structured $IP&#8217;s supply and distribution to prioritize long-term community participation. The total supply is set at 1 billion $IP, with an initial unlocked supply of 25%.



<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/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-97195" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.story.foundation/blog/introducing-ip">Story Protocol</a></figcaption></figure>



A portion of $IP is burned with each transaction, potentially reducing supply over time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">‘Fair Launch’ staking</h2>



Unlike <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-eigen-tokens-transparency">many token launches</a> that benefit early insiders, Story’s staking mechanism ensures no one earns staking rewards before the community does. February is part of what the protocol is calling the “Singularity Period,” during which users can stake or delegate tokens without earning rewards yet. Only after the “Big Bang” event on March 2 will rewards begin accruing to all participants at the same time.



Public mainnet access is set to launch alongside an initial claim for the community. Importantly, locked tokens will also have their staking rewards locked for a minimum of six months, though that may be extended, a spokesperson told Blockworks.



“We will not allow locked tokens to sell staking rewards anytime soon, and we believe the community should have the ability to set up staking and receive rewards,” the team said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">AI and IPFi</h2>



A fascinating prospect is the potential for intellectual property-based DeFi primitives — or IPFi. Teams like Unleash, Verio and Color are already developing marketplaces, restaking mechanisms and lending/borrowing infrastructure for intellectual property-backed assets. The example of Aria securing real TVL on intellectual property, <a href="https://x.com/StoryProtocol/status/1881713146274156951">including assets</a> like <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/wednesday-february-5">Justin Bieber’s Peaches</a>, is interesting. However, the real test will come once public mainnet launches.



For now, whether intellectual property assets can be meaningfully used as collateral outside of Story Protocol remains theoretical. That said, LayerZero (LZ) integration means that some form of cross-chain composability will be possible from day one — an indicator that Story’s intellectual property-backed assets could plug into Ethereum-based DeFi protocols if liquidity and demand exists.



The mention of a new DeFi-oriented API leveraging LZRead functionality is intriguing. If Story can abstract complexity and make intellectual property-backed lending as seamless as USDC or wBTC lending, it could position itself as a unique RWA-like collateral class for DeFi lenders. But that’s going to be a mammoth task.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">AI meets intellectual property</h2>



Story Protocol isn’t just about digitizing intellectual property — it’s building a blockchain-native economy for AI and creativity. By removing intermediaries, enabling automated licensing and supporting agent-based transactions, Story is positioning itself as a fundamental layer for digital ownership.



&#8220;The easier you make it to register [intellectual property], the easier you make it to license [intellectual property], the easier you make it to transact on it — the more this turns from an oligarchy into a true marketplace,” Story Foundation president and Roman emperor-styled “Marcus Devrelius” <a href="https://x.com/storyprotocol/status/1887591351988158558?s=46&amp;t=yjAdM2ddX0KgGQimu7jcDQ">said</a> in a Twitter Space.



Updated Feb. 7, 2025 at 4:55 pm ET: Clarified company role of Marcus Devrelius.



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Story Protocol turns the page with intellectual property token launch

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



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What’s a good way to gauge how crypto’s faring without depending too much on price action?



If you ask Kaiko, it’s L2s.&nbsp;



So far, since the election, the research firm’s L2 index has traded higher, which is — admittedly — perhaps not a huge surprise, given that all of crypto took on an optimistic outlook starting in November.&nbsp;



The index tracks five L2s across Bitcoin and Ethereum. It also tracks Polygon.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeEEd5MYVjhKvoLuqOfJvOK7unmosgZfVsX8TUaOhLrGpFWVoVAr9QQB6a78PRjnwBJkYe5ZjQOt9encik3HtJ1jq-ooi_svQ1FKnDeF34Fj8AsLMItr8kJTVkkn80NiHj08anJlw?key=r7UJwDSxvmuP7JeyAN-Z78QO" alt=""/></figure>



As you can see above, we have Stacks, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon and Starknet in the same bucket.&nbsp;



Keep in mind that L2s are making a comeback so far after falling behind the market last year. And there’s been <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-infrastructure-bloat">plenty of discussion</a> around whether we have too many L2s.&nbsp;



That’s not to say that there isn’t still demand though.&nbsp;



Take, for example, a Galaxy <a href="https://www.galaxy.com/insights/research/bitcoin-layer-2-modular-future/">report</a> from November that projects that $47 billion of bitcoin could be “bridged into bitcoins L2s by 2030” — or roughly 2% of bitcoin’s circulating supply.



Anyway, back to the data: There might be some more positive catalysts in store for L2s, especially if bitcoin doesn’t dominate the narrative as much moving forward.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcBB2fNhZG-kGUcnLkAPuwCCl3Tldn-kOcFRRfQgsGfZG_Txl-1YmxC9cspb7gOIFDie99oQ4wLXd7G-W-H4oXHrpfChfMWk8-yr8nTfXvtS9XSyxdbJjx9ZWCkdWbt1CcNPM_18w?key=r7UJwDSxvmuP7JeyAN-Z78QO" alt=""/></figure>



“Sector rotation is another potential tailwind for L2 assets. BTC dominated the crypto market in 2024, setting record highs before and after the U.S. election as institutional investors poured billions into spot BTC exchange-traded funds. However, the rally hasn’t yet extended beyond BTC, as has historically been the case. While the crypto market structure has evolved, a rotation to smaller assets remains likely as investors seek higher upside potential via high-beta tokens,” Kaiko analyst Adam McCarthy wrote.&nbsp;



Taking into account that the changing regulatory headwinds play a huge factor here — especially in Polygon’s case given that the SEC previously labeled <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-10-tokens-securities">MATIC a security</a> — and perhaps the future’s looking a bit brighter.&nbsp;



While investing in bitcoin is accessible to the masses, it’s hard to find opportunities beyond it, McCarthy wrote.&nbsp;



“While the broader crypto bull market has yet to fully extend to altcoins, evolving regulatory dynamics could serve as a catalyst for renewed interest. As policy shifts in Washington and investors explore opportunities beyond Bitcoin,” L2s are “positioned for significant growth in 2025,” he continued.&nbsp;



Man, it’s hard to be pessimistic in crypto right now.



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Sector rotation ‘tailwind’ for L2s: Kaiko

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



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Solana has seen frenzied trading activity over the past year, and arguably the biggest beneficiary has been the network’s validators.



Since November, validator revenue consistently netted at least $40 million every roughly two days, according to data from 21 co. That’s up from roughly $4 million every two days this time last year. A number of new validators have been springing up to enter the fray.



The small crypto research startup Kairos Research launched a Solana validator in partnership with node operator Firstset this week, which currently has around $3 million in delegated SOL. Solana validator hardware requirements are “an order of magnitude higher” than on other blockchains, Firstset told me, so the server providers it looked at were a bit more expensive than they would have been on Ethereum, for instance.&nbsp;



Kairos also had to reckon with the higher hardware provider costs based on Solana’s higher throughput and the bit more than one SOL per day validators have to spend voting on blocks, which is how the network reaches consensus.&nbsp;



The Solana Foundation initially covers voting costs for new validators, and it stakes its large stash of SOL with smaller validators. With the Solana Foundation’s help on voting costs, Kairos and Firstset’s validator currently costs around $1,400 per month to run and is already breaking even.



Validators earn revenue from SOL-denominated block rewards the network pays out as well as MEV and priority fees paid by users trying to land transactions. Validators set a commission on block rewards and MEV income, and they currently receive half of priority fees. Those who have more SOL staked have a better chance of receiving block rewards, so validator revenue increases with size.



Helius, the largest validator on the Solana network with more than 3% of the total stake, didn’t initially intend to get into the staking business at all. When stake-weighted quality of service — a newer feature that prioritizes network traffic based on stake and makes it easier for RPC nodes with validators to land transactions — went live on Solana, Helius changed course.&nbsp;



“I was like, ‘Shit, we need a Solana validator now,’” Mumtaz recalled on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FES9-WXxfHc">Lightspeed podcast episode</a>. The hardware costs were negligible for Helius, since the company already ran a number of nodes, and it quickly began attracting stake after launching in May 2024 due to Mumtaz’ brand and the high APY it passed onto stakers.&nbsp;



Larger enterprises have the option to go the acquisition route. Sol Strategies, a holding company focused on Solana, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-strategies-is-solanas-microstrategy">has acquired</a> two validator operations. Its validator operations now <a href="https://dune.com/sol_strategies/sol-strategies">net</a> between 100 to 200 SOL during most epochs, a Solana time measurement which takes around two days. That’s tens of thousands every other day in revenue.&nbsp;



Max Kaplan, who was once head of engineering at Kraken, started one of the staking companies Sol Strategies acquired, and he’s now the company’s head of staking.



“It&#8217;s very competitive now,” Kaplan said of the staking space. “You need to be good at system level optimizations [and/or business development] to really make it profitable.”



Kaplan still thinks new validators turning a profit is doable. Validators’ fortunes will partly depend on if Solana can maintain what has been an unprecedented level of usage over the past several months.



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New validators spring up as Solana usage surges

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



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If there’s one question I’m starting to hear it’s this: Have we topped?



I jokingly responded to Bitwise’s Ryan Rasmussen that I didn’t want TRUMP to be the top, and I stand by that. I’m admittedly, perhaps wishfully, hoping that we don’t top till later this year.&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">Was TRUMP the top?&mdash; Ryan Rasmussen (@RasterlyRock) <a href="https://twitter.com/RasterlyRock/status/1887216884241891566?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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It sounds like Empire’s Jason Yanowitz was on the same page but the “funky” price actions led to a theory for him. Strategy, the firm formerly known as MicroStrategy, has propped up the price of bitcoin.&nbsp;



Without the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microstrategy-btc-purchase-recap">$20 billion-plus spending spree</a> that Michael Saylor’s company went on throughout the end of last year into this year, we’d have bitcoin at a far lower price.&nbsp;



Here’s the catch: Yanowitz thinks that puts us earlier in the cycle. And his theory’s backed up by Dan Matuszewski of CMS Holdings.



<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">12. Either way this time has been different <a href="https://t.co/g5VEIQWpnl">pic.twitter.com/g5VEIQWpnl</a>&mdash; Holdings (@cmsholdings) <a href="https://twitter.com/cmsholdings/status/1887220342655230327?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



As Yanowitz <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/410d84f2-e4dc-11ef-9cb6-977e0c795192">explained in the Round Up this morning</a>, we haven’t seen enough venture capital yet, it’s “very PvP.”



“I don’t know why this is different this time around or if I’m just off on where we are in the cycle but my guess is the overhang of 2021 is still with us. Liquid basically doesn’t exist and therefore can’t materially drive flows or collect inflows and venture remains the big yardstick for alts,” Matuszewski wrote.



Santiago Santos noted that we need to see “more flows coming in,” and that we haven’t see that yet outside of a “selective” few.&nbsp;



Are we there yet might be the next question we start asking as we debate the top. No matter where we are in the cycle, though, we should acknowledge that we’re in the early days of this new administration and one can only imagine that some of their actions will act as a catalyst moving forward.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mvUpUuA8tJQ?si=6qz3GMwa802TGpwp" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>



And now you know.



Speaking of the regulatory environment, I listened to the Operation Chokepoint 2.0 hearing held on Capitol Hill yesterday.&nbsp;



None of it, admittedly, was as interesting as the <a href="https://x.com/iampaulgrewal/status/1887500132523860283">court transcript generously shared by Coinbase’s Paul Grewal</a>, but if there was one takeaway by all parties involved, I’d say that everyone seemed ready to move on.&nbsp;



I, too, hope we can move forward and get some answers on what happened and why. In case you need a refresher: Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was carried out by regulators, including the FDIC, to debank or prevent crypto companies from being able to bank with traditional institutions.&nbsp;



Admittedly, I was skeptical initially on how much of this was intentional versus just the fault of vague or nonexistent regulations but there’s enough hard proof now, including in the aforementioned court transcripts, to show that there was intention.&nbsp;



If you want the TLDR but still want to get some of the spiciest bits from the transcript, I’d recommend checking out Scott Johnsson’s thread below.



<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&#39;m two pages into this transcript, and it&#39;s already hilarious. Since Paul is respectfully deferring on characterizing, let me do so. The judge is absolutely livid. <a href="https://t.co/dhBKXMYAoR">https://t.co/dhBKXMYAoR</a> <a href="https://t.co/1mCIZNPEeZ">pic.twitter.com/1mCIZNPEeZ</a>&mdash; Scott Johnsson (@SGJohnsson) <a href="https://twitter.com/SGJohnsson/status/1887512912089972772?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Grewal was a witness in the hearing alongside WSPN USA CEO Austin Campbell and Better Markets Banking Policy Director Shayna Olesiuk.



Campbell, at one point, told lawmakers that regulators decided to debank crypto firms just because of some bad actors (cough cough FTX amongst others). And Grewal argued that the targeting of digital asset firms “discourages” banks from even trying to bank companies in the space.&nbsp;



“What we saw in the documents that were produced yesterday, case after case, when the bank stepped forward and raised their hands and asked for permission to offer basic services, they were either ignored or they were given detailed examination and re-examination and re-examination until they simply gave up,” Grewal said. While we’re in friendlier waters, I think it’s fair to say that we need to see some changes — beyond the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-appoints-travis-hill-fdic-acting-chair-white-house-says-2025-01-20/">changing of the guard at the FDIC</a> — before we can fully say we’re past Operation Chokepoint 2.0.



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Is crypto still early in the cycle?

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



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Digital assets are not quite like any others. That’s part of what makes them appealing to many — but it can also spur confusion.



Trying to quantify the relationship between BTC, for example, and other asset classes is becoming more prevalent as more investors seek diversification and hedging opportunities.&nbsp;



A clear finding in a recent FTSE Russell report: The rolling correlations of bitcoin and ether returns sharply increased with risk-on assets since 2020.



If we look at BTC in particular, the Russell 1000 index — comprising US large-cap stocks — has a 0.58 correlation to the asset. That relationship is nearly as strong for BTC and US financial stocks and US tech stocks — at 0.53 and 0.52, respectively.&nbsp;



The correlation, since Covid, between BTC and US high-yield credit (the most “risk-on” fixed income asset class) stands at 0.49.



Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak (spurring inflation and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-chair-powell-economy-depends-on-covid-path">monetary tightening</a>), all these correlations were much closer to zero.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXffBeeFASUb7uuFqgOXUWMOhxoAU8XPo8mLPDlq4o0Eg82Ho_FRCDJ7_hsGqedA3_VBxUQZBBkzma36znxCYk6XD9RpRUh6qSkvq-xycZp2br9U4c5iwYaJ-cQwpYa0M-WQfWY4?key=JKn2IKvppGoCAezKSe7GPSkT" alt=""/></figure>



7–10 year US Treasurys were rather unique in not seeing a meaningfully higher correlation to BTC after Covid. And the US dollar is the only asset showing negative correlation to BTC and ETH over those years.



Despite bitcoin often being compared to gold, the BTC-gold correlation in the post-Covid era is only 0.15.



BTC’s high volatility (and the varying importance of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/alliancebernstein-gold-bitcoin-returns">safe haven</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/goldman-sachs-ceo-btc-store-of-value">store-of-value </a>characteristics in financial markets) may obscure the “true correlation” between these assets’ returns, the report notes.



It adds: “But the true correlation may simply be low, reflecting the fact that bitcoin and ETH are predominantly risk-on assets, whereas gold has a long-established trading history as a ‘safe haven’ asset, even if they do share some store of value characteristics.”



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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BTC’s evolving correlation to more traditional asset classes  

Kate Irwin

This is a preview of upcoming newsletter The Drop. To read full editions after launch,&nbsp;<a href="https://thedrop.beehiiv.com/subscribe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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There’s been a lot of buzz around Berachain, which <a href="https://x.com/berachain/status/1887485522492203155">launched</a> on Thursday and has already seen over <a href="https://berascan.com/">2 million</a> transactions.&nbsp;



It’s the latest launch by the makers of the Bong Bears NFTs, a collection of 100 smoking bears on the Ethereum blockchain launched back in the 2021 crypto boom.&nbsp;



Berachain, by contrast, is an ambitious Web3 blockchain using “Proof of Liquidity,” with the idea that pooled-up funds will lead to a sustainable ecosystem long-term.&nbsp;



Some, however, are not so sure. An exec with ties to a gaming-focused chain tells me: “[Berachain] bothers me deeply.” They don’t like how the project accumulated a pile of NFT money first and then built a whole chain somewhat randomly years later.



Yet as the pseudonymous Berachain founder Smokey <a href="https://youtu.be/u_eDYZYN9B4?feature=shared&amp;t=80">puts it</a>, Berachain was a series of “happy accidents.”&nbsp;



But there’s another new chain in town. Abstract — which launched last month from the Pudgy Penguins team — continues to hold attention on Crypto Twitter right now, leading some to compare it with Berachain.&nbsp;



One <a href="https://x.com/cnig69/status/1886957776171364813">post</a> that got over 600 likes in less than 24 hours praised Berachain for incentivizing whales and attacked Abstract Chain for catering to “normies and streamers” because Abstract’s platform centers games and livestreaming.&nbsp;



Right now, only about 750 approved accounts can livestream on Abstract (in the past few days, I’ve seen anyone from 57 to 75 streamers live at any given time). Maybe it’ll get more traction than Theta and DLive crypto streaming — or maybe not.



There are already over 35 gaming-related projects on Berachain’s website, suggesting it’s a gaming-friendly chain, too. It got<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/berachain-pre-launch-liquidity"> over $1.6 billion</a> in pre-launch liquidity, while Abstract has just <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Abstract">$8.49 million</a> in total value locked (TVL) as of Thursday morning.&nbsp;



The bear-themed blockchain has <a href="https://x.com/berachain/status/1887178672995537236">unveiled</a> its token airdrop, too. Berachain is <a href="https://x.com/berachain/status/1887178677810553117">allocating</a> half its token supply to investors (34.3%) and “initial core contributors” (16.8%).&nbsp;



Some early testnet users are <a href="https://x.com/mark_krov/status/1887193558815285305">pissed</a>, as they’re only being allocated a tiny fraction (<a href="https://blog.berachain.com/blog/berachain-airdrop-overview">1.65%</a>) of the airdropped tokens in total.&nbsp;



Another big catch, of course, is that they’re blocking US residents from a number of online sites, including those for the project’s BeraHub, its HONEY stablecoin, and its token and NFT bridges. Will you be able to get around this? I’m currently working from South Africa, so the hub’s site loads for me until I turn on my VPN and choose a US-based IP address. Then, access denied.



Blockchains will inevitably get compared — but it doesn’t make much sense to compare Berachain and Abstract, Abstract Marketing Lead Phineas Totten tells me. “Our product is so distinctly different.”



“We just want to have fun on-chain again,” he adds.



Sony’s Soneium blockchain has also arrived. It launched three weeks ago as a rollup on Optimism. It’s being managed by Sony Block Solutions Labs, separate from Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation.&nbsp;



But that doesn’t mean games on Soneium are 100% out of the picture.&nbsp;



Sam Barberie — head of strategy and partnerships at blockchain gaming infra firm Horizon — tells me he’s been working with Sony on some of their blockchain solutions. Sony’s move into crypto is exciting because they’re, as he puts it, “willing to experiment.” If this experiment works out, he posits, even more big fish could jump into the crypto pond.



“When companies get to see that [success], and the sky doesn’t fall, then it starts to open up more conversations,” Barberie says.



Soneium is a big deal for Web3 — if it can make a splash with US companies or consumers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">PENGU fire fizzles&nbsp;</h2>



PENGU, the Pudgy Penguins’ NFT token, burned big this week.&nbsp;



The team set over <a href="https://x.com/pudgypenguins/status/1887164609133429246">12.1 billion</a> Pengu tokens on figurative fire in a token burn amounting to roughly $150 million, or about 14% of the total supply. That’s keeping their <a href="https://x.com/pudgypenguins/status/1885027033794621514">promise</a> that after the Pengu claim ended, remaining tokens would be burnt. That’s good news.



That burn hasn’t sent the token climbing, though. Pengu is down 5.5% in the past day, and down roughly 73% in the past month. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Raised by wolves</h2>



Yet another gaming-adjacent token may be on the horizon.&nbsp;



WolvesDAO, an invite-only group of Web3 gaming enthusiasts, may be releasing a token. The WolvesDAO hosts Twitter Spaces, but they also have a robust, exclusive Discord server that frequently purges inactive members.&nbsp;



WolvesDAO cofounder Sam Steffanina tells me via DM: “Something along those lines” of a token is in the works following a <a href="https://x.com/WolvesDAO/status/1887181047718203505">few</a> mysterious <a href="https://x.com/WolvesDAO/status/1886842509948580040">posts</a> to the group’s X page.&nbsp;



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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Berachain and Abstract are buzzing, but face criticism

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



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First, MicroStrategy rebranded to, well, just Strategy. Then it detailed its plans for 2025.



If you weren’t yet convinced the company formerly known as MicroStrategy was all in on bitcoin, perhaps yesterday changed that.



<a href="https://x.com/strack_ben/status/1887201721728049298">Strategy’s orange logo</a> features a bitcoin “B.” Company leaders, after Wednesday’s market close, pledged to stick with its plan to raise, purchase, and repeat.



The self-proclaimed bitcoin treasury company (and now <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mstr-and-bitcoin-standard-etf-filing">a Nasdaq 100 stock</a>) held 471,107 BTC, as of Feb. 2 — worth roughly $46 billion at that time. It acquired 258,320 for $22.1 billion in 2024 (avg. price of $85,447 per BTC).&nbsp;



On yesterday’s earnings call, Strategy CEO Phong Le reiterated the company’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microstrategy-shares-audacious-plan-to-buy-more-bitcoin">21-21 plan</a> detailed in Q3 — raising $21 billion of equity and $21 billion from fixed income securities between 2025 and 2027. Strategy has made progress there faster than anticipated due to “favorable market dynamics,” he noted.&nbsp;



The capital-raising/BTC-buying ramp-up in Q4 was clear. Strategy raised $15 billion through equity issuances and $3 billion via convertible debt. It had raised $10 billion over the previous 17 quarters (dating back to first adopting BTC as its treasury reserve asset).



The company is shifting its focus in 2025 to fixed income issuances (i.e. convertible notes, preferred stock), Le said. Its long-term leverage target is 20-30% of its BTC holding value.



In a Thursday research note, Benchmark’s Mark Palmer pointed to Strategy upping its 2025 BTC yield target to at least 15% — up from the 6-10% figure it offered on the last earnings call.&nbsp;



Though Strategy <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microstrategy-pauses-btc-buying-spree">paused its BTC-buying spree</a> last week, Palmer said the company’s $10 billion BTC dollar gain target (quantifying shareholder value created by its treasury operations) implies it will continue to “aggressively” raise capital to fuel BTC buys.



Palmer kept his price target for MSTR (the ticker remains) at $650. The stock was trading around $326 at 1:30 pm ET.



Oh, and Strategy wants you to know it’s launched a merchandise store for all your apparel needs. To each their own.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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