STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana

Ben Strack

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



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While dozens of public companies currently hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, a world where thousands — yes, thousands — more follow suit is inevitable. At least according to panelists at Bitwise’s Bitcoin Standard Corporations Investor Day.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“To everyone wearing an orange tie…It’s good to be on the team with you,” Strategy founder Michael Saylor told the Thursday event crowd.



He then wanted the Pier 59 window shades lowered to prevent light from obfuscating his PowerPoint presentation. As if the bitcoin Gods heard him, they started coming down a moment later.



It was Saylor’s typical spiel, one you might have heard before: Most asset classes don’t beat monetary inflation. Bitcoin allows an Uber driver in Nigeria to outperform the smartest money managers in NYC. It’s a better version of gold that he expects to hit $13 million a coin by 2045. Yada yada yada.&nbsp;



Strategy owns 538,200 BTC. (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/strategy-rebrand-and-2025-targets">Here’s</a>, in a nutshell, how they plan to keep buying.)&nbsp;



“I don’t say this to brag, because the truth is the way we did it was so brainless,” Saylor said. “Everything that all these companies do is extremely complicated — we could not create NVIDIA chips or create iPhones. Every one of you could copy me.”



But will they?



Bitwise, in a Q1 report, put the number of public companies holding BTC at 79.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfwHp_uNJls6agN49K8ZFkZhs0xOaKU-fgRh4idUenynjMhaPGhTnWNhbKKGs5L7GqxOU7hRGNenhTbq78SltLs-l8qoh_N-rdQ7ObJhksL1cKvkpb1D_FAxbrh6YG7i7ExEHadRQ?key=MCe-UR43chjQn9nz5kI1iVjY" alt=""/></figure>



Kraken CFO Stephanie Lemmerman made perhaps the most interesting prediction. She expects about 20% of the roughly 55,000 public companies to hold BTC a couple years from now.



That’s a lot of companies. Like 11,000.



A key piece of the nebulous “broader adoption” narrative you hear plenty about, companies jumping in can move prices while offering additional endorsements.&nbsp;



Semler Scientific Chair Eric Semler noted how the medical tech provider — sitting on plenty of cash — was facing challenges within its core business. The company first bought BTC last year and now owns 3,303 BTC.&nbsp;



While it took the old SEC months to approve Semler’s first at-the-market (ATM) offering to help it buy more bitcoin, Semler said, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-actions-timeline">the new-look agency</a> quickly greenlit its <a href="https://ir.semlerscientific.com/news-releases/news-release-details/semler-scientificr-announces-updated-btc-atm-activity-purchased">latest one</a>.



There are possibly “thousands” of what the executive called “zombie” companies in a similar situation that would benefit from a BTC treasury strategy, he added.



Then there are those looking to go bigger. Twenty One Capital — a new entity backed by Tether and Softbank that is combining with Cantor Equity Partners — looks to launch with roughly 42,000 BTC. That would be behind only Strategy and bitcoin miner Marathon Digital.&nbsp;



“There’re a lot of smaller-scale…bitcoin treasury companies, which have a role to play,” Cantor Fitzgerald’s Robert Harrington said. “But I think this market demands scale.”&nbsp;



Once one of the Magnificent 7 companies starts buying BTC, many more will follow, panelists noted throughout the day. You might remember Microsoft shareholders <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microsoft-btc-shareholder-proposal-vote">rejected</a> a related proposal in December.&nbsp;



We know, of course, that bitcoin is volatile. An audience member asked what happens if BTC’s price falls below the price at which a company acquired it.



Establishing “board alignment” that this is a long-term play is crucial, said <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/public-crypto-company-nasdaq#">Fold</a> General Counsel Hailey Lennon. She added: “Unless the fundamentals of bitcoin change, the goal is not to sell.”



Lemmerman noted too: “It’s not necessarily where you came in but where you expect [BTC] to be and what you’re forecasting.”



Fundstrat Capital CIO Tom Lee argued, too, that there’s “a lot more to the [bitcoin] treasury story” than buying a speculative asset that can appreciate. It’s a new accounting standard of sorts — “the idea that you don’t have to have cash holdings only in the US dollar.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Put another way, Kinetics Mutual Funds co-founder Peter Doyle said BTC is an off-ramp to “playing financial Whack-a-Mole” as governments continue to print money. That’s why he said all companies will ultimately adopt bitcoin.



Saylor “woke up” in 2020 when he realized what was happening to his cash and his business, Doyle noted.&nbsp;



“They don’t feel that yet,” he added of others. “But they’re going to feel that.”



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Bitcoin

Why execs say a corporate bitcoin adoption boom is inevitable

Kate Irwin

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



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The period drama television series Peaky Blinders has been licensed for a blockchain game, Banijay Entertainment and crypto startup Anonymous Labs announced on Thursday.



The game will have an in-game cryptocurrency and a mix of “interactive experiences” and action sequences, according to a <a href="https://www.banijay.com/blog/2025/04/24/anonymous-labs-partners-with-banijay-rights-to-launch-peaky-blinders-web3-game/">blog post</a>.&nbsp;



The game will be set in the post-World War I era in Birmingham, England, like the show.



The show follows the gang known as the Peaky Blinders and stars Irish actor Cillian Murphy. It aired from 2013 until 2022 on BBC networks and is streamable on Netflix.&nbsp;



While the game’s title and further details have not yet been revealed, the game is slated to launch in 2026.



Anonymous Labs is trying to bring “Web2” IP into crypto. It previously launched a token for the animated character and comic book cat Simon’s Cat, but that token is <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/simonscat/">down</a> 89% from its all-time high four months ago.



David Christopher, group director of licensing and merchandising at Banijay Rights, brokered the Peaky Blinders crypto game deal. Banijay Rights <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/peaky-blinders-producer-acquired-banijay-uk-caryn-mandabach-productions-1235915683/">acquired</a> Peaky Blinders’ production company, Caryn Mandabach Productions Limited, last year. Banijay previously <a href="https://www.banijay.com/blog/2022/05/23/banijay-brands-strengthens-peaky-blinders-licensing-portfolio/">struck</a> Peaky Blinders deals with CMPL in 2022 before ultimately acquiring the company.



This won’t be the first time the world of Peaky Blinders has appeared in a game, though.&nbsp;



In 2023, narrative VR game Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom released to mixed reviews on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903670/Peaky_Blinders_The_Kings_Ransom_Complete_Edition/">Steam</a> and didn’t grab much attention. Peaky Blinders: Mastermind is a puzzle game that was released in 2020 and got better reviews (and more of them), but it was ultimately discontinued on Steam in late 2022.



More recently, Banijay facilitated <a href="https://www.banijay.com/blog/2025/03/18/world-of-tanks-partners-with-banijay-rights-to-launch-peaky-blinders-battle-pass-season/">a deal</a> for Peaky Blinders with the (non-crypto) MMO World of Tanks. Themed characters and a special tank were available in-game as part of a unique battle pass season from March 20 until March 31 last month.&nbsp;



There have been a handful of traditional media licensing plays in the crypto gaming space lately — though most have been with older IPs that are not as known among contemporary Western gaming audiences.&nbsp;



SEGA has licensed Code of Joker and Sangokushi Taisen for different crypto games, and Ubisoft has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/immutable-ubisoft-tcg-might-and-magic">built one</a> based on its retro Might and Magic game franchise for Immutable. 



In years past, Hollywood studios like Warner Bros. have <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ready-player-one-metaverse">explored</a> crypto plays, but none have made a major splash with audiences.



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Gaming

Peaky Blinders crypto game slated to launch next year

Donovan Choy

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



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When you see pro-crypto people declaring on Twitter that “blockchains will replace TradFi,” what that specifically means is the disruption of the DTCC (Depository Trust &amp; Clearing Corporation) as the canonical post-trade clearing and settlement house for US securities markets.



The DTCC is owned by a consortium of the world’s biggest banks. The company has a monopoly on securities settlement, clearing something like $9 trillion to $11 trillion in value daily.



The idea that the DTCC would use a blockchain would’ve been laughable just several years ago. It was expected that the incumbents would be too slow or too skeptical of the tech to adapt.



Well, not anymore.



The Depository Trust &amp; Clearing Corporation (DTCC) <a href="https://www.dtcc.com/news/2025/april/02/dtcc-announces-new-platform-for-tokenized-real-time-collateral-management">announced</a> earlier this month that it was creating a new platform, “Collateral AppChain,” for “tokenized real-time collateral management.”



<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 Depository Trust &amp; Clearing Corporation (DTCC) Announces New Platform For Tokenised Collateral Management Umm, this is kind of a big deal.&mdash; ◢ J◎e McCann 🧊 (@joemccann) <a href="https://twitter.com/joemccann/status/1907509320897503430?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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In the DTCC’s “Great Collateral Experiment” hands-on demo, they explained how its Collateral Appchain could be used to mobilize treasuries, equities, tokenized money market funds and even cryptoassets globally in real time – free of settlement or liquidity constraints.



You can watch it <a href="https://youtu.be/TrdTXI_80_8">here</a> for yourself. It reminded me of some of the earliest “enterprise blockchain” efforts like JPMorgan demoing <a href="https://consensys.io/blog/consensys-acquires-quorum-platform-from-jp-morgan">Quorum</a> back in 2016. Except this time, it’s more than a proof of concept.



The DTCC team demonstrated how its Collateral Appchain would improve upon its antiquated T+X settlement processes to a real-time model where firms no longer face liquidity bottlenecks due to constraints around market hours or needing to hold extra collateral as a buffer while waiting for settlement.



Translation: We recognize the merits of blockchains, we are updating our outdated technology to blockchain rails, and you don’t have to use Ethereum.



Or, as Galaxy Research’s Thad Pinakiewicz <a href="https://glxy.galaxy.com/weekly-research-brief-house-passes-the-stable-act?ecid=ACsprvvGEK3ge3uoTj9-KmFpPBqetENayuWL27M8dOCZQaxrx__iH44b4r6S1-yFkh-WgSA9RlID&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8klkyju-pg7AUWRzmyjPfVYmvSwinqAcmwvtPR3txhrR0bRJ0EG1vgfH6tCl1xq7IrTTPreEuUxY1FfzBs_cutHcnp7A&amp;_hsmi=355254964&amp;utm_content=355254964&amp;utm_source=hs_email">notes</a>: “The DTCC is trying to avoid having their position usurped by co-opting the only tech that can feasibly threaten them.”



But what does this mean for crypto?



It’s not so surprising that the DTCC has come around to blockchain technology. Many financial institutions are already embracing the tech.&nbsp;



What is surprising is that the DTCC has proven a lot more nimble than crypto-natives would’ve expected.



Should the DTCC’s Collateral Appchain come into reality quickly, it does bring into question the remaining value proposition of public blockchains.



Yes, the DTCC’s Appchain validator set is probably going to be centralized. Assets are still going to remain in traditional custodial systems to remain regulatory-compliant. It’s built on the <a href="https://besu.hyperledger.org/">Hyperledger Besu</a> Ethereum client, so it’s likely going to be a permissioned system and non-composable with DeFi.



But the DTCC Appchain will have other crucial advantages.&nbsp;



The DTCC Appchain will be unencumbered by the complexities and costs that public blockchains require to facilitate onchain securities trading.



The Appchain will also have the liquidity to enable trillions in daily trading that public blockchains do not currently possess.



There’s a reason why the DTCC has stuck to its suboptimal <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tplus1.asp">T+1 netting settlement process</a>, and that reason is because it’s more efficient than having to process every transaction like a public blockchain does.



What does that mean for crypto-native efforts (such as Ethena’s Converge chain) who have been building a similar settlement layer for TradFi clients?



Guy Young, founder of Ethena, believes the DTCC’s developments are a “strong validation” of its Converge chain thesis.



“However, these purpose-built settlement layers for TradFi need real products or assets to be delivered alongside the infrastructure otherwise it will be just more empty blockspace. This is where Ethena and Securitize are uniquely positioned to provide our existing 10b+ AUM asset base and product set to these pools of capital.”



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0xResearch Newsletter

The DTCC Collateral Appchain wants to rewrite the rules of TradFi settlement

Pete Rizzo

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



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Imagine being in an industry where a yellow piece of paper is one of your most iconic symbols.&nbsp;



Well, that’s Bitcoin, and today’s legend is none other than Christian Langalis, better known as Bitcoin Sign Guy.



Langalis is the young man in a suit who held up a sign that read “Buy ₿itcoin” while Janet Yellen, then-Chair of the Federal Reserve, stood her ground in front of Congress in 2017.



Today’s story is about much more than just his viral moment, however.



Before he became a meme, Christian was just another 25-year-old working at a global macro fund.&nbsp;



But he wasn&#8217;t your typical Wall Street junior analyst. He was the “young Bitcoin kid.” A man that nobody took seriously when he talked about cryptocurrency.&nbsp;



For Langalis, being dismissed had an unexpected effect. Instead of discouraging him, it opened his eyes to something crucial: The markets weren’t what they seemed.&nbsp;



They were, in his view, artificial constructs propped up by central bank policies. So he did what any self-respecting skeptic would do. He started buying bitcoin.



And like many bitcoiners before and after him, Christian didn’t just buy bitcoin; he wanted to understand the system he was rebelling against. What do you do when you realize the world is only serving the interest of the few? You dive into alternative economics.



<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">3/ Christian became a fierce Libertarian He started reading everything he could about Austrian economics He read the classics by Schumpeter and Rothbard 😍 <a href="https://t.co/jnhrFZZvh7">pic.twitter.com/jnhrFZZvh7</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986273317957663?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Nowadays, Keynesians rule the world, at the behest of the late John Maynard Keynes.



But others are becoming favorites again, with Schumpeter, Rothbard and Mises staging a comeback. These authors had a deep effect on Langalis, and they pushed him into the Cato Institute, a world-renowned libertarian think tank.



Under the guidance of George Selgin, one of the world’s utmost authorities on money, Christian began developing his own economic thesis on Bitcoin. But he wasn’t content just to profit from bitcoin — he wanted to understand its potential to reshape the financial world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stage set</h2>



Then came July 2017.&nbsp;



Christian was asked to attend the annual Federal Reserve report to Congress. As Janet Yellen droned on about monetary policy, a bored Christian had an idea. He grabbed his notepad and wrote two simple words: &#8220;Buy ₿itcoin.&#8221;



The price was $2,300 at the time, and bitcoin was in the midst of an epic run that would eventually take it to $20,000. Christian figured he&#8217;d flash the sign and maybe grab a screenshot later. For the LOLs. He had no idea he was about to create a moment that would define Bitcoin culture.



With the price now ~$93,200 per coin, everyone who listened is up almost 4,000%.



<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">5/ There, Christian was asked to attend the Fed report to Congress Bored, Christian decided to write &quot;Buy Bitcoin&quot; on his notepad He figured he&#39;d flash the sign, then collect the screenshot later&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/cynSy9UADg">pic.twitter.com/cynSy9UADg</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986424585458041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Within seconds, security descended. Christian was escorted out of the hearing. You can actually see him being removed on the livestream. But by then, it was too late.



We can safely call it the Bitcoin photobomb seen around the world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Aftermath</h2>



The Bitcoin community’s response was immediate and overwhelming.&nbsp;



Christian received over 7 BTC ($16,100 then, $650,000 now) in donations from supporters who appreciated his bold statement. Overnight, he had become an icon.&nbsp;



Instead of getting drunk with fame, Christian’s conviction only deepened — luckily! He later revealed he was holding 99% of his net worth in bitcoin, and declared he “won’t be converting it back into US dollars.”



Did someone say skin in the game?



In the years following his famous stunt, Christian has used his newfound celebrity for good.&nbsp;



He’s appeared at numerous events, always in his trademark suit and tie, raising money for organizations like Coin Center, a non-profit that helps defend Bitcoin&#8217;s interests in Washington DC. Years later, he called it a &#8220;new financial substrate&#8221; and predicted that one BTC will eventually be worth over $1 million.&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">10/ In the years to follow, Christian used his celebrity to raise money for charities Here he is with his trademark suit and tie, raising money for Coin Center The non-profit helps defend Bitcoin in D.C. ✊ <a href="https://t.co/IMM9OfFF0S">pic.twitter.com/IMM9OfFF0S</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986518202327149?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



But Langalis isn’t like most of you talking heads. He’s also building. Christian has founded a new Lightning startup that&#8217;s currently in stealth mode, working to advance the Bitcoin economy he believes in.



In a fitting twist of fate, Christian recently auctioned off the original “Buy ₿itcoin” sign for over $1 million. The piece of paper that once photobombed the Federal Reserve Chair had become a piece of Bitcoin history.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Legacy</h2>



Christian Langalis&#8217;s story is more than just a tale of a viral moment.&nbsp;



It’s about having the courage to challenge the status quo, even when nobody takes you seriously, in the status quo’s arena. It’s about understanding that sometimes, the simplest actions can have the biggest impact.



All things that made him CoinDesk’s Most Influential person in Bitcoin in 2017.



For those who bought bitcoin when Christian held up his sign, the returns have been spectacular. But perhaps the real value of his gesture wasn’t in the investment advice, but in the message it sent: that Bitcoin represents a peaceful revolution against the traditional financial system.



Have a great weekend, And remember, sometimes the best investment advice comes on a piece of paper held up behind a Fed chair.



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Christian Langalis: From meme to bitcoin millionaire

Katherine Ross

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



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“I’m always trying to figure out where the puck is going,” Pantera’s Paul Veradittakit told me.&nbsp;



It’s a key part of how Veradittakit determines whether or not he’s interested in investing time and, of course, money into a project.&nbsp;



Veradittakit’s been around the industry for over a decade. If he hadn’t joined Pantera, he might have been one of the first employees at Coinbase. Instead, he and Pantera founder Dan Morehead decided to invest in companies that were building like Coinbase in other parts of the world.&nbsp;



Veradittakit said Pantera’s invested in 22 unicorns, with him taking the lead on 17 of them.&nbsp;



He’s now focused on finding the next winners of this cycle, especially since times have changed and, well, you know the rest. His bread and butter is Series A rounds, which are when a firm raises significant capital for the first time.



Veradittakit said there’s a bit of flexibility in a seed round, but that isn’t the case for a Series A. In order to put money behind a firm, he’d need to see it as a billion-dollar company, and his focus is on hunting for those future unicorns.&nbsp;



“While a founder is great, I&#8217;m looking for someone who will not stop until they succeed. Someone hungry, someone who won&#8217;t take no for an answer, will continue to find answers to problems,” he told me. Bonus points if they’re constantly information-seeking.



“The other thing that I look at is if the company already has a product. Then I want to see that the product is something that clients and customers love…It&#8217;s even better if we&#8217;re able to use the product ourselves; then we could even provide a lot of value just from us being an investor.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Fund V</h2>



Pantera is in the middle of raising for its next big fund: Pantera Fund V.&nbsp;



“Our last fund was $1.25 billion; this fund is targeted to be a billion…Quite a bit of interest from existing investors and new investors…We’re excited because there are a lot of companies right now that are hitting their stride,” he explained.



“We are a multi-stage firm, so we can now see companies…getting to Series B and beyond… We&#8217;re starting to see protocols that are finding product market fit that we can buy off of treasuries, and so there&#8217;s a lot of opportunity, especially [as] capital markets that are opening up, the IPO markets, we could be investing in those types of companies.”



For Veradittakit, perhaps the most exciting factor is that the friendlier US environment has encouraged founders and developers to build on American soil. Forty percent of Pantera’s capital has gone to projects outside of the US in the past, and Veradittakit is optimistic they’ll balance that out with the inclusion of more US-based companies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">VC Coins</h2>



One topic I wanted to get Veradittakit’s take on: the critiques of VC coins, or projects that give venture capitalists large allocations.&nbsp;



Veradittakit understands where the frustration comes from, noting that in 2017-2018, “a lot of investors made a lot of money, and then retail got rugpulled.” Those events are probably cyclical, happening when the market’s hot, he added.



“I think having vesting schedules and more alignment between VCs and entrepreneurs in terms of building for the long term is very important…Having more transparency around investing schedules and all of that is also going to be important for retail, so that they know what they&#8217;re getting themselves into, right? You only feel bad when you feel like you’re getting blindsided,” he told me.&nbsp;



As the industry matures, Veradittakit believes we’re going to see more projects go from having a very small team from the get-go and taking on more of a startup feel with executives and, for example, a business development team.



Pantera, he added, aims to help projects that it invests in (obviously, they’re going to want said projects to succeed), with a focus on hiring, tokenomics and governance.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s next</h2>



Veradittakit and I also hit on what interests him and, perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t these days.&nbsp;



In conversation, he highlighted staking, insurance and infrastructure plays (though not L1s), and also “things that make moving assets and providing security and insurance across a multi-chain world [easier], and [which make] it very easy for developers to provide the best user experience.”



Then, of course, projects at the intersection of TradFi and crypto — including stablecoins, RWAs, tokenized stocks, etc. And, finally, consumers.



“Especially with consumer companies now feeling more comfortable to launch a token, I think we can really start seeing consumer-facing products get traction and have participation from the users, whether it’s in the US and beyond.”



Which, he believes, will benefit DeFi, gaming, consumer finance and DePIN.



However, Pantera’s still not very exposed to hardware.&nbsp;



“It’s just a very capital-intensive business. There would have to be…a seed-stage company and something that was just so cutting edge that we couldn’t pass [it] up,” Veradittakit told me.&nbsp;



Pantera has also undertaken some AI investments, but they’re sidelining AI for the most part to see how the tech plays out. Veradittakit assured me it didn’t impact his belief that tokens could be used as AI incentives and AI agents which, in his view, could represent a “killer use case” for crypto.



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



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



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



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



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

Empire Newsletter

How Pantera’s Paul Veradittakit spots crypto unicorns

Jack Kubinec

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



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



The Solana Foundation is tightening its leash on the validators receiving its stake.&nbsp;



The Solana Foundation now says that for every new validator added to the Solana Foundation Delegation Program, it will remove three long-standing ones with under 1,000 SOL in external stake. The goal: have fewer validators relying on foundation stake and more earning authentic backing from the community.



Blockworks Research data lead Dan Smith estimated that at current staking levels, around 150 Solana validators would lose their foundation stake under the new rule.&nbsp;



The Solana Foundation has a sizable stash of SOL tokens, and it stakes some of those tokens with smaller validators. Those validators who go through KYC checks and enlist in the program also have some of their voting costs covered for a year. The program has booted participants before: In June 2024, it <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-sandwich-attacks">cut a group</a> of validators found to have been operating private mempools, which can be used for sandwich attacks.&nbsp;



This all may sound like inside baseball, but the delegation program is pretty central to Solana’s validator landscape. Last year, a <a href="https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-foundation-delegation-program-sfdp#solana-foundation-delegation-program-sfdp">report</a> from Solana infrastructure shop Helius found 72% of validators receive foundation stake.&nbsp;



Solana validators earn revenue partly through inflation, priority fees, and MEV, which all scale as validators attract more delegated stake. In other words, finding lots of stake is the whole ballgame for validators. By booting validators from the delegation program, the Solana Foundation is forcing validators to either find new sources of stake or potentially go out of business.



The SFDP is a good program for bootstrapping a bigger validator set, but the Solana Foundation keeping some validators afloat obviously can’t last forever. It’s probably healthy for Solana to discourage freeloading.



Still, count this as one of a continuing string of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-small-solana-validators-struggle">woes for smaller Solana validators</a>. First a drawdown in market activity, now this, then maybe a cut to Solana’s emissions rate down the road.



Jeffrey Albus contributed reporting.



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



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



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



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

Solana Foundation begins pruning validators from delegation program

Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from the Blockworks Daily newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/daily">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">
“Capital runs as surely and instantly where it is most wanted, and where there is most to be made of it, as water runs to find its level.” — Walter Bagehot (1873)
</blockquote>



Q: What’s it cost to have dinner with the president?



The <a href="https://gettrumpmemes.com/dinner">official website</a> promoting a “Dinner with President TRUMP” pitches the opportunity as “The most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World.”&nbsp;



(Reader beware, the site has more capitalization than a German dictionary.)



Specifically, the dinner is “Only for the TOP 220 $TRUMP Coin Holders,” which does indeed make it pretty exclusive: You’d need to buy about $380,000 of TRUMP to break into the top 220, <a href="https://solscan.io/token/6p6xgHyF7AeE6TZkSmFsko444wqoP15icUSqi2jfGiPN">per Solscan</a>.



It might not take quite as much as that because some of the addresses in the top 220 are exchanges (which presumably won’t register their holdings) and some are individual holders who might not want to be KYC’d — the Secret Service will want names, not just FmEMyxFASzDyADXycG8CCTrNB1AMSdoigog3SixNzMNb (as the current 220th-largest holder is publicly known).



Still, anything close to that seems like a steep price for a 220 person dinner — even if it is “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION.”



Also, it’s not.



Slightly lower down on the site is an invitation for the top 25 holders of TRUMP to an “Exclusive Reception.”



I did the math and 25 is less than 220, so I think that must be the world’s most exclusive invitation.



I’m sure they will both feel exclusive — in both cases, “Black Tie is optional and preferred.”&nbsp;



But the top 25 also get a tour: “PLUS, We have separately by us arranged for a Special VIP Tour for you.”



(Correct grammar appears to be optional and not preferred.)



The 25th-largest holder of $TRUMP (excluding exchanges) currently holds about $5 million worth.



Interestingly, this implies that the market is pricing the event with 11x fewer people at 13x the cost — pretty efficient!



If you also add in the value of the VIP tour, I’d say the crypto market is being extremely efficient in the relative pricing of these two invitations — so much so that I’m certain Eugene Fama will soon be writing a paper on it.



Fama — the high priest of efficient markets — will probably wait until we find out the true cost of dinner (however exclusive), which won’t be determined until the ex-date on May 12 (i.e., the date when they take a snapshot for eligibility).



The organizers are being very clever about eligibility: “Your average holdings during this period will determine your ranking.”



I’m estimating that average price will be difficult, so aspiring attendees will have to purchase $TRUMP well in excess of the minimum if they want to guarantee themselves an invite.



That could get expensive, but the final cost will be a function of how much the TRUMP token goes down immediately after the date of record (like when a stock drops after paying a dividend).



The dinner news bumped the price of TRUMP by about 20% yesterday and I’m guessing the market will price in future such invitations, so the token shouldn’t give back all of those gains on May 12.



If it gives back, say, 10%, the real cost of an EXCLUSIVE dinner with the president will probably be in the range of about $40,000.



Good to know!



Q: How do you know this is real?



Because I read the website’s FAQs:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXez9HLKJY3HnBK9QSmUx76SamXdR-U10TEuD9_EEjJoJuGbu-rATBrsULOd23X2H9jQrxtI0RmZlENqK1NbAj60Quw6nLrYNZJ0pFLXC1ukTKpX-_z9ZkzoUp6k9rkKKnjF0c9c?key=8pM6FdysZAP0KWyLpM7UARPD" alt=""/></figure>



Q: Is $TRUMP still a memecoin?



It has real utility now: dinner with the president! And maybe a tour!!!



So, no, I don’t think it is.



$TRUMP is now a utility coin.



Q: Who is the target audience for the dinner?



Judging by the site, they appear to be targeting people who have $380,000+ to drop on a <s>memecoin</s> utility coin, who like random capitalization and dislike grammar, and who find a 1990s infomercial vibe enticing.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdHKVR3jCpm11wbASfNS-gHA37fvWQS_so54fD96i_abKMW-QWF_VSJir6O8VtzmdQU6Ca3cOC-wXB1PEjJo6dPivpquWtsyy71OY1s8SC77gyvWuoDMd_bZ-wN29Ll-zu-q6hl1Q?key=8pM6FdysZAP0KWyLpM7UARPD" alt=""/></figure>



I don’t know who resides in the overlapping middle of that Venn diagram, but I’d love to find out.



More importantly, this raises the question of why people think being one of 220 people in a room with the president is worth putting $380,000 at risk.



The answer could be benign: entertainment value, bragging rights or simple fandom.



But it could also be sinister: buying influence with the president.



Call me naive, but I think it’s the former — mostly because the wacky website seems to signal that this really is for entertainment purposes only and that attending the dinner will not get you pardoned of any federal crimes.



It feels to me like one of those Nigerian prince emails that were deliberately written with poor grammar, implausible stories and blatant red flags to ensure that only the easiest targets would respond to them.



(Scammers don’t want to waste time on anyone who’s likely to figure out they’re being scammed.)



The Trump Dinner website feels similarly calculated to select for those who really do think that being one of 220 people in a room with the president is worth tens of thousands of dollars (with no expectations of anything else).



Q: How much has the Trump family extracted from crypto so far?



The crypto-skeptic <a href="https://x.com/molly0xFFF/status/1913000905307504794?t=a7rcw9waSV4gucsAxejbOg&amp;s=19">Molly White</a> totals it up to about $1 billion, although that’s just a partial accounting (her total leaves out some big ticket items like the 20% of the US bitcoin mining company that Hut8 <a href="https://hut8.com/2025/03/31/hut-8-and-eric-trump-launch-american-bitcoin-to-set-a-new-standard-in-bitcoin-mining/">recently awarded</a> Eric Trump).



But I don’t think you can blame crypto for that — as Bagehot notes, capital (in any form) will flow to where it’s most wanted, like water finding its level.



Capital does seem to flow disproportionately from crypto, however.&nbsp;



By comparison, Amazon is <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/amazon-paying-license-melania-trump-documentary-1235227761/">reportedly</a> paying $40 million for the rights to a documentary on the first lady that they know approximately no one will watch.



That seems at least as egregious as any crypto money that the Trump family has earned — but it’s only 0.002% of Amazon’s market capitalization.



By contrast, the $1 billion that the Trump family has probably extracted from crypto is 0.3% of crypto’s market capitalization — 150x more.



Big picture, I think that’s because crypto, where everything is financialized and tradeable, commands attention far in excess of its market value.



That’s good because it creates opportunities for newsletter writers who might otherwise be stocking shelves at Home Depot or something.



But it’s also bad because it creates disproportionately large opportunities for grifting.



Q: Is crypto worth it then?



I hope so — partly because I’m not ready to start my near-retirement job at Home Depot just yet.&nbsp;



But also because I still believe in the <a href="https://mail.blockworks.com/p/why-the-world-is-better-with-bitcoin?_bhlid=3761740d0f96e5c48eebfb5278a711be7c167e71&amp;utm_campaign=why-the-world-is-better-with-bitcoin&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=mail.blockworks.com">Resistance Money</a> thesis that the world is a better place with bitcoin than without it and <a href="https://mail.blockworks.com/p/read-write-newsletter-book-review-part-one">Chris Dixon’s thesis</a> that crypto can be an anti-corporate, decentralized iteration of the internet.



For a timely reminder of the latter, you might have a listen to the <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/04/my-excellent-conversation-with-chris-dixon.html">conversation</a> that Tyler Cowen had with Chris Dixon this week.&nbsp;



Among other things, Cowen predicts that “without open source, we might end up with two governments, US and China.”&nbsp;



(Because every other government will be outsourced to an AI model made in either the US or China.)



For better and worse, crypto is open-source money and markets.



Q: Would you buy equity from someone wearing a hoodie?



Not if they had the hood up, no.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd-ZXf6wy_D3ULDxGpkd1yHvHMwjZmLILnFnTqGFy8JRAsLIgti3yBNtfX8zRS7nI1zoyxumzwgcLstGLY7kYgpPn0Cw3AnfGAC_97t21jwFePgMVSME4oUK49R5-I2N_29ARXJtw?key=8pM6FdysZAP0KWyLpM7UARPD" alt=""/></figure>



But that’s just me.



Mark Zuckerberg famously wore pajamas to a meeting with Sequoia Capital and that worked out pretty well, so maybe Maller’s new Bitcoin venture, <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250423962305/en/Tether-SoftBank-Group-and-Jack-Mallers-Launch-Twenty-One-a-Bitcoin-native-Company-Through-a-Business-Combination-With-Cantor-Equity-Partners">Twenty One</a>, will work out too.



(On the other hand, there’s also the counterexample of Sam Bankman-Fried wearing shorts and a T-shirt on stage with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, so maybe not.)



More concretely, Twenty One “will introduce two key performance metrics”: Bitcoin per share (BPS) and Bitcoin return rate (BRR).



This is a take on the “bitcoin yield” metric that Michael Saylor invented for Strategy (née MicroStrategy), so I assume that Twenty One’s business plan is to sell equity above NAV (which is not really a business plan — it’s just financial engineering).



That worked for Strategy, of course, but Strategy was first and it had the special sauce of Michael Saylor.



I’m not sure that’s a repeatable, well, strategy.



But the CEO’s photo will probably filter out any investors who agree with me.



It will be up to markets to decide whether Twenty One (and Trump’s dinner) is where capital is “most to be made of.”



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



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

Crypto prices dinner with the president

Casey Wagner

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



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



While stablecoin legislation has dominated recent headlines, House Representatives are in the final stages of drafting a crypto market structure bill, according to people familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



I’m told that the discussion draft is expected to be released by the end of the month. The timeline aligns with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-digital-asset-summit-address">President Trump’s goal</a> of having both stablecoin and market structure bills passed by the end of this summer.&nbsp;



Representatives will likely pull from the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), which the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/house-passes-act-fit21-with-bipartisan-support">House passed</a> last Congress. FIT21, among other things, sought to make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the primary regulator for digital asset spot markets, shifting authority from the SEC.&nbsp;



FIT21’s passage was largely celebrated — even by some members of the industry who were <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fit21-isnt-crypto-win">not completely onboard</a> with details of the legislation — for being the first digital asset legislation to make it through a chamber of Congress. With bipartisan support, we might add: 71 Democrats voted in favor of FIT21.&nbsp;



The House Financial Services Committee’s Digital Assets Subcommittee and the House Agriculture Committee each held hearings on crypto market structure earlier this month. Conversations focused on how best to divide authority between the SEC and CFTC.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The STABLE Act in the House and the GENIUS Act in the Senate both await further action. Each bill passed their respective committee markups but neither has been scheduled for a floor vote. The two pieces of legislation are similar, although the GENIUS Act grants state regulators more authority over stablecoin issuers.



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



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



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



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

House prepares second stab at a crypto market structure bill

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



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



Coinbase was pretty frank in its blog post earlier today.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Our relationship with PayPal will take the payments revolution forward,” it stated.&nbsp;



You might recall that PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin in August 2023. This morning, Coinbase said it would waive fees on USD-PYUSD conversions and expand support for stablecoins to PayPal&#8217;s largest merchant partners.



It’s part of the crypto exchange’s wider goal of “promoting broader adoption of faster and more efficient financial services.”



This isn’t Coinbase’s first partnership with a stablecoin issuer. It acquired an equity stake in Circle in 2023, and earns interest income on its USDC reserves. Coinbase’s stablecoin revenue amounted to $910 million in 2024 — up 31% from the year prior.&nbsp;



Free global USDC transfers are available on Coinbase’s layer-2, Base. The company noted in its February shareholder letter: “Stablecoins have found market fit…reinforcing their role as a cornerstone of the onchain economy.”



A Coinbase spokesperson clarified to me this morning that this PayPal link-up does not change its existing relationship with Circle.&nbsp;



“Instead, it pushes the entire stablecoin ecosystem forward,” the rep said.&nbsp;



The big potential for stablecoins (currently sporting a ~$230 billion market cap) and the broader tokenization space <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-tokenization-blackrock-galaxy-das">are well documented</a>. We’ve mentioned them in the last couple newsletters, in fact.&nbsp;



When I asked for more details on how Coinbase expects to collaborate with PayPal going forward (as mentioned in the <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbase-and-paypal-to-advance-stablecoin-payments">blog</a>), the spokesperson wasn’t super specific.&nbsp;



Essentially the exchange looks to allow stablecoins “to be integrated into a wide range of decentralized financial and payments applications directly on blockchain networks.”



More updates on those initiatives are set to come “if regulatory conditions permit,” the spokesperson added. 



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



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



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



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

Coinbase seeks ‘payments revolution’ via PayPal link-up

Felix Jauvin

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



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



It’s clear at this point that one of the Trump administration’s primary goals is to lower trade deficits with other countries, specifically goods trade deficits.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeZ33sKsQA-Isqy3c06dJbQulhshxWEazYYZZY-xL1KpTPjFUCfsK5bXvdS3-0MFG6dbhwE6VGojbXkN9pfy1sp8SKiwoIxROdRNYTmHdOE_Ti96xZivu8frmPEJIyoi-x4tImc0w?key=Wh4qJ2NOCq6WjzVurEg1cDPA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Fred</figcaption></figure>



It’s important to make that distinction because, in fact, the US runs a services surplus!



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf7l-BvZ0KjOzwqTtcxA2bFirds5hSbt_9YCUGOvPLAW2OAJ4Wt538RjZPoWY_POWfjO-ez7a4UwEET2xnoJZtIrd25WjXK8xKFUmAGzRXtsrPw4txRY9cs2w-lYJKm4gYgDyC_0Q?key=Wh4qJ2NOCq6WjzVurEg1cDPA" alt=""/></figure>



The US mechanically imports “stuff” from other countries that manufacture it both better and cheaper. And as the reserve currency of the world, US dollars flow into those other countries to fund those purchases.



Those foreign dollars then get reinvested and held in US-denominated assets such as Treasurys and US equities. This mechanical demand has created an artificially strong US dollar for many decades, paired with a hollowing out of the US middle class whose manufacturing jobs have been offshored.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfrdiGYSwJzD4YgMIDZu0PYl9QkCt81HmBks2sMIZ9JCXieOcnxyG60PpKnPKUer494QagEhPM3duLSZmBr4YSCRu-LZ1Q8XFrcSx69MkPkJ6gsGdPdN1Nev4ANxVTRZoF1Yv1v?key=Wh4qJ2NOCq6WjzVurEg1cDPA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: MacroMicro</figcaption></figure>



Effectively, the grand tradeoff in globalism has been access to cheap “stuff” but a hollowing-out of that once-strong manufacturing base.&nbsp;



One of the great laws of (economic) nature is the balance of payments equilibrium. Mechanically, that currency account deficit (stuff coming in) must be offset by a capital account surplus (money going out to pay for the stuff coming in).



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1168" height="663" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-101127" style="width:800px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=1168 1168w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=460 460w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=386 386w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/credit.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1168px) 100vw, 1168px" /></figure>



This structural capital account surplus that’s held for many years has resulted in a structural bid to US denominated assets. That has led to mechanically-lower Treasury yields (lowering borrowing costs for the government) and higher multiples on US equities relative to other countries (a P much greater than E, in a typical P/E ratio).&nbsp;



The Trump administration has been loud and clear that it wants to decrease the current account deficit. Although it doesn’t speak this second part as loudly, that comes with a lower capital account surplus that would reverse that trend of lower bond yields and higher equity multiples. Effectively, the Trump administration is telling foreigners to take their money and bring it home.&nbsp;



Foreigners aren’t wasting any time getting to work. This chart from Brent Donnelly showcases how all the action in selling those US-denominated assets is happening during the market sessions of those foreign countries. During the NY session, US dollar performance remains steady. However, during the Europe and Asia sessions, it&#8217;s a race for the exits.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfqcEfzdyyfcslTuZSfrMz4u1YpeA2tIbl942irXce0-YeTiDsEeIWxMvuAEF9bFmhifn8_yaSlKrfmWPeHgl7qvd12Kp05m0bARB-SOZXQHaJDFd4lvDD4g4p-wFAhcg4_ozetug?key=Wh4qJ2NOCq6WjzVurEg1cDPA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Brent Donnelly</figcaption></figure>



It is rational for foreign asset managers to exit these assets if the capital account premium baked into US assets is being questioned. It would lead to higher bond yields and lower equity prices.



Effectively, the world needs to reprice the US Treasury yield that is the bedrock of nearly all global relative valuations with a risk premium in it. My terrible attempt at Photoshop (I’m a trader, not a designer, okay?) showcases this mechanic below: 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="762" height="502" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png" alt="" class="wp-image-101117" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png?w=762 762w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png?w=390 390w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png?w=396 396w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png?w=332 332w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/image.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 762px) 100vw, 762px" /></figure>



It remains to be seen how durable this unwind of the current account deficit will be, but by all accounts, it means one thing: Get out of US-denominated assets.&nbsp;



The president of the United States is basically telling you to.



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Trump is telling you to sell US assets

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RTFKT, Nike’s abandoned digital brand pronounced “artifact,” lost its CloneX art overnight.



The art for all 19,500 Ethereum NFTs in the <a href="https://opensea.io/collection/clonex">collection</a> was replaced with a black background with white text that reads: “This content has been restricted. Using Cloudflare&#8217;s basic service in this manner is a violation of the Terms of Service. Please visit cfl.re/tos for more.”



That URL redirects to a Cloudflare terms page that states that a more basic Cloudflare plan does not allow clients to stream videos. “We limited your ability to use our services to deliver video bits from our network to your visitors. This is because every second of a typical video requires as much bandwidth as loading a full web page,” the <a href="https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/policies-compliances/delivering-videos-with-cloudflare/">page</a> reads.



“Unfortunately, while most people respect these limitations and understand they exist to ensure high quality of service for all Cloudflare customers, some users attempt to misconfigure our service to stream video in violation of our Terms of Service,” the post continues.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdfvd2JkMDLC6hbrKHNdJJRmnXEWQFlI5FM6F_Cq4BMek12obe0vtvZXCfI-TePWufGyR_r9S8zSVguX-5GWg8119F9ClOHnN0Uc2dGhi38BAlTnAZ31l15oKQa_ZDp8kNt4VZVug?key=QkJpWubnKckpolBGsq0DbuvZ" alt=""/></figure>



The issue, then, appears to be due to the fact that the CloneX NFT data was not being hosted on an adequate Cloudflare plan. Others, like Yuga Labs blockchain lead 0xQuit, speculated that RTFKT may have <a href="https://x.com/0xQuit/status/1915413726091747477">forgotten</a> to pay their Cloudflare bill and saw their service cancelled (RTFKT lead Samuel Cardillo <a href="https://x.com/cardillosamuel/status/1915439803442548782?s=46">told</a> me it has “nothing to do” with an unpaid bill).



Other RTFKT collections — like its NFTs with artist Fewocious, its Animus Eggs, and its Nike Dunk Cryptokicks — still had visible video art live as of Thursday at 10:30am ET white the CloneX art was gone.



The CloneX shakeup appears to have happened overnight, when several X users noticed the issue and flagged it on social media.



“And some of you thought this was the next @cryptopunksnfts since it was abandoned,” Ape Ventures founder Xeer <a href="https://x.com/Xeer/status/1915338336991842742">wrote</a> early Thursday morning. Unlike most NFT collections, CryptoPunks art is <a href="https://www.larvalabs.com/blog/2021-8-18-18-0/on-chain-cryptopunks">stored</a> fully onchain on Ethereum.



Because NFTs can use art or visual data that’s hosted by a centralized company — like Cloudflare or AWS — they are inherently more mutable and censorable than decentralized data storage options. The tokens will still exist — but the art associated with it can vanish or be altered.



By 11:15 am ET on Thursday, however, some of the CloneX NFT art had reappeared, suggesting the issue with Cloudflare had been resolved (By 12:30pm ET, the art had reappeared).&nbsp;



So what happened? RTFKT Head of Tech Samuel Cardillo <a href="https://x.com/CardilloSamuel/status/1915371853075669391">said</a> the CloneX and Animus NFTs are moving to decentralized blockchain storage platform Arweave. Cardillo added that their Cloudflare plan will end at the end of April. The team had been trying to switch their storage infrastructure since December, but the switch took longer “because of internal corpo [sic] process.”



“Somehow this morning Cloudflare decided to move to the Free plan [a] few days before the end of the contract which also triggered that bug in which Cloudflare refuses to stream images and videos,” Cardillo said.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeUFQXAP2Lz1SdZAlIiUcMVroVnqMwOshzIhT1GGzicD4yWvJNJgDLCd3IF6lhXJx8bg3J7537Oz33wR7rh_fFmg_GCPXYBn6o_mNH0ffTFwjctx0eQGuVKUQ-yYwPelNw-9jdpQQ?key=QkJpWubnKckpolBGsq0DbuvZ" alt=""/></figure>



RTFKT shut down operations in December, spurring a slew of over 3,300 CloneX sales in one day as traders gave up hope on the future of the collection.



RTFKT’s post about its shutdown at the time didn’t offer much of an explanation. It instead claimed the shutdown was “a new chapter” for the company.



“RTFKT isn’t ending. It’s becoming what it was always meant to be — an artifact of cultural revolution,” the <a href="https://x.com/RTFKT/status/1863621178532773928">post</a> read.



It’s a bitter end for those who lost money on the NFTs as well as those who had longer-term hopes for the December 2021 collection. The CloneX floor price hit an all-time low earlier this month, with NFTs selling for roughly $230 worth of ETH, per NFTPriceFloor <a href="https://nftpricefloor.com/clonex">data</a>.&nbsp;



In April 2022, RTFKT CloneX NFTs had a floor price of over $60,000 per NFT. Rarer CloneX NFTs have <a href="https://www.cryptoslam.io/clonex?tab=top_sales&amp;period=all">sold</a> for prices as high as $1.25 million.&nbsp;



Blockworks has reached out to Cloudflare for comment.



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NFTs

Cloudflare removes RTFKT CloneX NFT art due to Terms of Service violation

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Here’s a common paradox L1s face today:



L1s want to enable application-specific L2 chains because every app cannot coexist in the same blockchain environment. Builders want freedom to customize.&nbsp;



But when every appchain is making their own independent design decisions, you have fragmentation. Then they leave your L1.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXech4uaHAx8OtvKBlnAzaGwRJ-fjfmV5Xi6KHoVvLQjDiQvy8LQ-JMATLJkuXDJDMVqK0pKoaeq5auAtyBfcDdIc7reSYqbx0eM2nM-loK6dukzbQefWbRKYMUNSTGSQjpeji4mSQ?key=4XOombGfm_T4NYi0pZbB_87M" alt=""/></figure>



Ethereum, Cosmos, Avalanche and Polkadot have all suffered from similar problems.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Initia’s architecture</h2>



Initia, which is launching its mainnet today, is determined to run back the same appchain vision while avoiding the pitfalls of fragmentation.



Appchains that choose to build on Initia benefit from a tightly integrated and opinionated tech stack — what Initia calls the “Interwoven Stack.”



All Initia appchains are built with the same stack and standards. They share a canonical bridge (LayerZero), cross-chain messaging (Cosmos IBC), underlying framework (Cosmos SDK) and standardized gas token (native USDC via Noble is the default though chains can change it) across chains, as well as and data availability layer (Celestia).



Appchains can run on whichever execution environment they prefer. Of the 18 announced teams building on the Interwoven Stack, they are generally evenly split between the EVM, MoveVM and WasmVM, Initia’s co-founder Zon told me.



They can also leverage common MEV infrastructure like POB (Protocol Owned Builder) and Protorev to capture non-toxic MEV, use a common enshrined oracle (Connect), a common multisig (Initia Multisig), block explorer (Initiascan) and domain name service (Initia Username).



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcfr_Xg0J9kkNQcVzu074fEgv67OGnlSXme1CDAB4Mi2fn1CAy4h9IdV-RlJjgkBk51zPTFS_-856PfsyzWx7_03sSJ3Piy4DtMx80UXKBPga3HZgdJtZn4xx_bYeC5jZOPJG9W?key=4XOombGfm_T4NYi0pZbB_87M" alt=""/></figure>



You get the idea — it’s every essential public good possible to allow an ecosystem of differently-minded builders to run on common standards without suffering fragmentation.



OK, well what about the L1?&nbsp;



The Initia L1 runs on the MoveVM and CometBFT consensus with single slot finality and a 500 ms blocktime.&nbsp;



The L1 is meant to act as a liquidity hub, very much like what Cosmos Hub aspired to be.&nbsp;



What keeps liquidity on the L1? INIT token holders can stake INIT on the L1 to earn inflationary staking rewards, as well as trading fees on Minitswap, the L1’s native DEX.&nbsp;



There is no fee charged to pass through the hub right now, though that may be integrated down the road, the Initia team said.



This is referred to as “<a href="https://docs.initia.xyz/home/core-concepts/enshrined-liquidity/introduction">enshrined liquidity</a>,” which effectively enables INIT tokenholders to benefit from both staking rewards as well as act as a liquidity provider — a restaking of sorts.



What would deter successful Initia appchains from <a href="https://x.com/0xljki/status/1749812293565809099">leaving</a> Initia to create their own chains?



For one, appchains already have full customization over their environment and are able to internalize their own MEV.



Secondly, Initia appchains are not the same as general-purpose L2 rollup chains, so their native tokens will likely exist on the L1 where the most liquidity is.&nbsp;



“They&#8217;re not going to launch a DEX on their chain because that&#8217;s not what their appchain is for,” Initia co-founder Stan said.



Finally, Initia explicitly rewards appchains with INIT rewards based on TVL and governance metrics as part of its <a href="https://docs.initia.xyz/home/core-concepts/vip/introduction">Vested Interest Program</a> (VIP). Users earn INIT based on criteria set by L2s.



The VIP program is what Initia hopes will stave off the lack of value accrual that ATOM suffered from.



“The greatest downfall for ATOM was the fact that Cosmos users did not care for the token itself. Cosmos appchains did not have a strong reason to integrate ATOM.”



To be fair, these aren’t particularly original mechanics. Initia’s VIP rewards have striking similarities to Berachain’s “proof-of-liquidity” or Blast’s “Gold” campaign. MEV capture is being pursued by many other ecosystems/apps. Arbitrum <a href="https://blog.arbitrum.io/custom-gas-tokens-for-all-arbitrum-chains/">announced</a> custom gas tokens today.&nbsp;



What is perhaps original is the holistic combination of all of these design choices from day one to avoid the many problems of value accrual that have plagued ATOM or ETH.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Initia launch</h2>



Initia has raised $25m in total through three private rounds and a $2.5m Echo round in September 2024.



According to Initia’s press release, there are at least 18 teams that are building on its Interwoven Stack. These teams have collectively raised $28m, notably more than Initia&#8217;s own raise. I noticed a similar pattern with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/megaeth-l2-blockchain-fast-speed">MegaETH</a>. Is the fat protocol thesis dead?



Anyway, INIT goes live today. Here are its <a href="https://x.com/initiaFDN/status/1914309728093831407">tokenomics</a>.



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Running back the appchain vision: Initia mainnet launches today

David Canellis

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Eleven years ago this week, one of the first great Bitcoin documentaries, The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.



The film is rare in that it was made by someone with real skin in the game.



It centers around Daniel Mross, a Pittsburgh-native computer programmer who began mining bitcoin in 2011 and went on to found Bitcoin-focused investment fund Maximalist Capital.



Filmed by brother Nicholas between 2013 and 2014, when bitcoin was headed to $100 for the first time, Dan travels the world to meet major figures in the space, as yet only four years into its lifespan.



They meet <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1875542871270449274">Charlie Shrem</a>, then-CEO of bitcoin exchange service BitInstant as it worked through sudden supply issues resulting from Mt Gox downtime; <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1808833197397958969">Eric Voorhees</a>, when BitDice was still a big deal; and Mark Karpeles, who gave a secretive tour of Mt Gox’s office in Japan only months before it went down for good.



Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam also make cameos. Coinbase was timely: The global Bitcoin economy was actively reckoning with the growing need for more crypto exchanges in light of the Mt Gox debacle.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A06qdTpOYcg?si=SF79EOofDflvZ8Z-" 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>







The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin has a 7.1 rating on IMDb



The Mross brothers even visit Gavin Andresen — still lead maintainer at the time — at his Massachusetts home. “Do your neighbors know that you’re at the center of one of the most disruptive technologies?” Daniel asked.&nbsp;



“I think they know that I do this wacky Bitcoin project… I don’t think they know quite how big it is yet,” Andresen replied.



One electric scene shows Roger Ver — before the Block Size Wars, when he was Bitcoin Jesus — explain the benefits of Bitcoin (and BitPay, in which he was an early investor) to a Korean grocery store owner in the Bay Area.



Bitcoin and BitPay’s low fees compared to credit cards were a major selling point. “I guarantee over the next couple weeks you’ll have lots of computer nerds that love bitcoins, [who] will be coming in here specifically to shop at your supermarket so that they can pay with Bitcoin,” Ver said.



The store owner had the perfect follow-up: “And there’s no central office that they could raid or anything like that?&#8230;So who’s the owner of bitcoins: everybody that owns bitcoins?”



Ver replied: “Yeah! Just like, ‘Who’s the owner of gold: whoever owns some gold.’ Short of shutting down the entire internet and the entire world, there’s no way to stop Bitcoin.”



When we speak of Bitcoin nostalgia, this type of scene comes to mind. What we all would do to return to a time when simply explaining the fundamentals of Bitcoin as it is in the moment, and not what it could be sometime in the future, brought real wonder into people’s lives.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfLiYx1lSprSWMDssGbQHWuNS0nUmpkXqdICR_gRUFJIBCY10X_ndV7nNcV_rbOPJBEN4Io0wlcgTk2vsPdhNfxhGiCZ7pkqToSFwycWliRMjM-NLmJSyJcG1QNCfv94qOdc6BszQ?key=IVx1y8CKchDT7rDFWSNfOpRh" alt=""/></figure>



Bitcoin’s magic affected all sorts of people. “Mr Bitcoin,” a drug dealer who did business via Silk Road out of an internet cafe in Los Angeles, told the filmmakers:



“I think of it as a global thing when I’m on the computer — I’m doing business with the world. When I first heard about it, I was laughing about it. It took me a week to just even think about this for real…I mean, I&#8217;m not gonna lie — I get booty off this. I kind of like talking about this stuff with girls, like girls be like, ‘That shit is hot,’ and like, ‘You&#8217;re not on your street, and you got a little nerd knowledge; this is great.’”



But if nostalgia is really about severe homesickness, as Krauss suggests, then what is “home” in the Bitcoin context?



Watching The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin, the answer is clear: our homes, literally.



The film starts with Daniel showing off his home mining setup — a handful of GPUs sprawled across a basic table in his basement.&nbsp;



Then, as the film progresses and the mining difficulty rises alongside bitcoin’s price, he upgrades to some of the first ever ASIC rigs, still in his basement.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdl6t1YHPEZsh_SL0JkQD68Xovm0f5NqlL6BWZ7LkEVRuS8ES0HBbnTFy3QPAtgCtbWuuNRAUA-iCBTVVtZpJGDjH2qVyx938RfwwlvrLCI_vDvQ5w6J9FlzdfVtQqv3KHZtWdm3w?key=IVx1y8CKchDT7rDFWSNfOpRh" alt=""/></figure>



By the end, though, Daniel is forced to give up mining altogether, having been actively priced out during filming. “When I started, Bitcoin mining was a hobby for geeks, now it’s a big business. In order to continue mining and continue playing the game and be competitive and profitable, I would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on gear.”



“The 18 miners I ordered from Avalon never arrived and the units from Butterfly Labs took over a year to ship. By the time I got them, Bitcoin mining was so competitive that I would never be able to mine back all the coins I used to buy them. As my new units are arriving, I’m selling them for bitcoins to try to recoup what I can.”



Obviously, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle when it comes to bitcoin mining. The odds are stacked even further against home miners these days, and it’s questionable whether bitcoin’s initial low-fee feature was ever going to be sustainable with widespread adoption.



But if you’re nostalgic about Bitcoin from the early-mid 2010s, I’d offer two potential cures: go and use bitcoin as money — not an investment — and start tinkering around with open-source mining rigs.&nbsp; Aside from bringing Bitcoin back home, literally and figuratively, I hear they <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solo-bitcoin-miner-solves-block">can be incredibly lucky</a>.



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Two cures to treat Bitcoin nostalgia for the 2010s

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ICYMI: Arch Labs announced a $13 million raise with the goal of launching a bitcoin virtual machine.&nbsp;



The Series A round was led by Pantera Capital.



<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">We’re excited to share that <a href="https://twitter.com/PanteraCapital?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PanteraCapital</a> is leading our $13M Series A to help <a href="https://twitter.com/Arch?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Arch</a> build the permissionless financial rails for a Bitcoin-denominated world. This funding brings us closer to unlocking Solana-like speed for Bitcoin apps, tapping into the $1T+ Bitcoin economy. <a href="https://t.co/hI8S62VyiH">pic.twitter.com/hI8S62VyiH</a>&mdash; Arch Network (@ArchNtwrk) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArchNtwrk/status/1914671769861947832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“We’re at a pivotal moment—both for Arch and for Bitcoin. Bitcoin has seen massive growth and institutional acceptance, but the mempool tells a different story: Not enough on-chain activity is driving sustained fees for miners,” CEO Matt Mudano told me. “This raise allows us to scale engineering, grow our community and support a new wave of builders. Our focus is on creating a thriving, composable ecosystem of applications that bring real utility to Bitcoin and help secure its future.”



They plan to deploy the capital across three priorities, he added. Scaling the “core engineering team,” ecosystem growth, and “expanding developer adoption.”



Basically, the team is hyper-focused on infrastructure as it works toward mainnet launch. Arch Labs is also using “grants, developer tooling and community programs to help turn Arch into the home for Bitcoin’s programmable economy.”



The team also plans to launch a token, but Mudano told me that they can’t disclose details at this time. What he did say, though, was that a native token is important in the team’s eyes, given that it will be used for both gas and staking. It would also help secure the network through “aligned incentives.”



“We’re being thoughtful about timing and strategy, especially in a market that’s still finding its footing,” he told me.



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How Arch Labs plans to deploy $13M raise

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



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A bank, but make it DeFi.&nbsp;



Ether.fi is launching the first DeFi bank, a decentralized and non-custodial alternative to traditional banks.&nbsp;



Basically, the project is expanding into a new category, “which is not a traditional bank, in the sense that it doesn’t take users’ deposits, but it really is a viable alternative to banks,” CEO Mike Silagadze told me.



“Our plan from the beginning was to build this larger platform that really became a bank alternative for users,” Silagadze noted. “I think over the next year…you [will] actually see…half a dozen companies launch something that starts looking a lot like this, where it’s basically like a Revolut or a neobank…but built on DeFi crypto rails.”



As anyone who regularly uses DeFi knows, “there’s this&#8230;awful dance you have to go through, basically, where you put some stuff onchain, you do stuff there, hopefully you’re in some rewards or yields.” Then, Silagadze continued, “you have to get the money offchain,” so you go to an exchange and sell your crypto for fiat, and the fiat has to go somewhere… and yeah, you get the idea. It’s not an easy process.



Ether.fi’s goal is to onboard crypto natives that already use its other products, then work to onboard the less-crypto-native folks who use centralized exchanges or are perhaps crypto-curious.&nbsp;



Over the past year, the project has found success in its product launches and currently offers both Ether.fi Stake and Ether.fi Liquid.&nbsp;



“Even for myself, I probably do 70 to 80% of my finances now on Ether.fi and&#8230;hopefully soon, adding a few features, I’ll really be able to move close to 100%, which is what we want to offer to people. So that’s kind of&#8230;the culmination of this vision we had from the early days,” Silagadze told me.&nbsp;



But it’s also expanding to the US, with Silagadze noting that the country is “open for business for crypto companies” nowadays.&nbsp;



“Specifically, the staking product is opening up, and then the cash product is going to be available for most states in the US. The reason for that is twofold. One is obviously the new SEC. They disbanded the unit that was going after crypto and prosecuting people for all kinds of silly reasons, and now they’re working on the stablecoin bill,” he explained.&nbsp;



And the other reason is that the “licensing that we were able to get allows us to operate in the US.”



But this new move is something Silagadze and Ether.fi couldn’t have done six months ago. They were looking to launch new products, but he had thought the US was out of the question. Oh, how times have changed.&nbsp;



Right now, Ether.fi has roughly 200,000 users. That said, Silagadze noted it’s hard to keep track because folks have different wallets, but they’ll be able to pin down more accurate numbers as folks make accounts for the DeFi bank.&nbsp;



“Our internal goal is to get to about 100,000 cards by the end of this year. If we could get to that, we would feel pretty good about it,” he said.



I asked Silagadze if the expansion would require any further funding (the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ether-fi-funding-restaking-interest">firm last raised in February of last year</a>), but Silagadze told me they haven’t “touched the money.”&nbsp;



“We&#8217;ve been profitable since almost day one. So in 2024, we did about $22 million in revenue, and we were profitable this year. It depends on a lot of factors, but we’ll probably do&#8230;$40 [million] to $90 million in revenue, and very likely [be] comfortably profitable,” he explained.



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Banking

Ether.fi expands to US, launches DeFi bank

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“There are only two ways to make money in business: bundling and unbundling.”



— Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape
</blockquote>



Stablecoins might unbundle banking (and then re-bundle it)



Bundling and unbundling aren’t the only ways to make money, of course — you can also invent something new or do an old thing more efficiently, for example.



But Jim Barksdale’s comment — made spontaneously to close a roadshow meeting for the Netscape IPO — became a dictum in tech circles because it explains a lot of things about the business of technology.



Much of the internet revolution, for example, can be framed as unbundling.&nbsp;



The internet caused newspapers to be unbundled into Craigslist, search engines and blog posts.



Fiber optics caused cable TV to be unbundled into streaming services.



Barksdale&#8217;s Netscape might be said to have unbundled the internet, letting users bypass bundled services like AOL and CompuServe, including email, news, chat and curated web access.



Sometimes, these unbundled services then get rebundled.



It used to be that to listen to a single song we liked, we had to buy 12 of them bundled into an album.



With the advent of the internet, we could buy each song individually as MP3 files (or download them illegally for free).



Now, we typically buy a bundle of millions of songs from Apple Music or Spotify.



Something similar may now be happening with crypto and banking.



Stablecoins are often described as tokenized dollars or money market funds issued by a crypto version of narrow banks.



But the best way to understand their potential significance might be as an attempt to unbundle banking.



Banks bundle all kinds of financial services: deposits, custody, payments, credit cards, lending, asset management, investment banking — most of which you are probably not interested in when you open a bank account.&nbsp;



Stablecoins, by contrast, offer the two services you are definitely interested in — the storage and transfer of money — and nothing else.



This might catch on because doing one thing well and leaving everything else out is often what disruptive technologies do best.



Stablecoins are a disruptive technology because they turn money into software — composable, portable and always on.



This is likely to cause problems for the legacy banks that are dependent on deposits as a cheap source of funding and whose offerings are encumbered by legacy systems and compliance regulations.



Stablecoins could take business from them by being a better kind of money offered in a better kind of checking account.



But that doesn’t mean that issuing them will be a better kind of business.&nbsp;



The risk disclosure section of Circle’s recent <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000119312525070481/d737521ds1.htm">S1 filing</a>, for example, is long and frightening: Competition, it warns, is “intense and increasing,” its profitability is dependent on interest rates (and therefore out of its control), CBDCs could “eliminate or reduce the need” for stablecoins, and regulation remains highly uncertain.



The S-1 also makes clear that it’s more expensive to issue stablecoins than Tether&#8217;s oft-cited results might have you think: Circle incurred $482 million of operating expenses in 2024 and just over $1 billion of “distribution, transaction and other costs.”



But you don’t have to read a 225-page S1 to be concerned — you only have to read this morning’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-23/paypal-aims-to-boost-stablecoin-use-by-offering-3-7-on-balances?utm_source=telegram&amp;utm_content=crypto&amp;utm_medium=social">Bloomberg headline</a> that “PayPal Aims To Boost Stablecoin Use By Offering 3.7% on Balances.”



That 3.7% is only about 60 bps below the fed funds rate, which isn’t much of a gross margin for issuers to work with.



If that becomes the norm, how will they make money from stablecoins?



Barksdale’s dictum suggests that stablecoins might have to become a loss leader for other, more profitable services.



As Circle’s S-1 implies, stablecoins seem likely to be issued by payments companies, banks and crypto exchanges as a way to attract or retain customers, irrespective of profitability.



To stay competitive, stablecoin issuers might need to offer the same core services — payments, banking and exchanges — as the companies they’re disrupting.



In other words: rebundle!&nbsp;



There is precedent for this.



As Barksdale’s Netscape colleague Marc Andreessen puts it, startups that disrupt incumbents by unbundling their services “often end up reforming themselves into a version of the company they took down.”



This has been a recurring pattern: As startups grow, the natural strategy is to “stay focused on your core and then add things to it,” Barksdale explains.&nbsp;



“And before long, you become a big bundle again.”



A current example is Robinhood, which will <a href="https://www.bankingdive.com/news/robinhood-to-launch-banking-product-deepak-rao/744277/">soon</a> offer checking and savings accounts, payments and cash withdrawals in addition to its core business of brokerage.



It feels like only a matter of time until it adds a stablecoin to that offering (as it has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-26/robinhood-revolut-explore-entering-the-burgeoning-stablecoin-sector">reportedly</a> considered doing).



Robinhood would probably treat it as a loss leader, if so, and that could threaten stablecoin issuers’ already thin margins.&nbsp;



To stay profitable, stablecoin issuers might then have to rebundle some of the banking services they left behind.



They might even be required to rebundle.



The risk section of Circle’s S-1 filing includes a warning that “legislation requiring stablecoin issuers to be banks or to be affiliated with banks could materially affect our business.”



That may be why Circle and others are <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/crypto-knocks-on-the-door-of-a-banking-world-that-shut-it-out-082b3968?st=VkCCZA">reportedly</a> planning to apply for bank charters and licenses, despite the considerable cost that entails.



But could all this be an upside risk, too?



Bundling, after all, is one of only two ways to make money.



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