Invictus

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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It has often been said that most crypto startups are guilty of making “blockchains in search of a problem.”



Perhaps one segment that defies that stereotype is crypto casinos. The Financial Times pegs this niche market to be <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/66f879c6-e51c-4e9d-91ba-b15eecac45c1?utm_source=chatgpt.com">roughly</a> at $81 billion in 2024.



Consider Shuffle.



Incubated by Fisher8 Capital and co-founded by former Alameda trader Noah Dummett, Shuffle is a casino and lottery platform boasting at least $100 million in annualized “net gaming revenues” — meaning all revenues after VIP rebates and cashbacks.



The SHFL token’s current FDV of $232 million is about a cheap 2.3x multiple, compared to the range of 10-40x revenue multiples for most other top DeFi tokens. Those revenue numbers would place Shuffle on a list of the top 20 revenue-generating Web3 businesses, yet the project remains largely absent from the so-called “<a href="https://x.com/simononchain/status/1942460321525911857">revenue meta</a>” conversation on Crypto Twitter.



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



Despite being frequently referred to as a “crypto casino,” Shuffle executes the majority of its gameplay mechanics offchain — largely due to the fact that posting every bet on a public chain would overwhelm even the fast L2 networks.



Additionally, most of Shuffle’s gambling games are outsourced toiGaming content studios like Evolution, Hacksaw Gaming, Pragmatic Play, etc. So while Shuffle provides players with a frontend and bankroll, iGaming studios generates the outcomes on the backend.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeGUlAzRa_bCzwfxYawpZZl9A4SG4e2dqCwTCzhBWIveIFKkDuhnpY6waH-K_MFr14xeTzmxrZjU9blRUfPScu8-Nqb8SIRNatrsfoqeSs5SOjY2JZFQm6MB0EhmHrq0KeVdRrfGw?key=75US7HV7Q6NZkZ3cXZidqA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Shuffle.com</figcaption></figure>



This separation limits Shuffle’s tampering risk but also means revenue cannot be verified onchain.&nbsp;



Yet in a highly commoditized sector like gambling, this may be a conscious decision, where revealing wager volumes would expose strategic information about a casino’s balance sheet, runway, and its ability to take large bets to competitors.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How blockchains come in</h2>



Traditional casino businesses rely on card networks and bank wires that typically treat gambling as a high-risk “sin” vertical. This means that players face various forms of friction such as extremely high fees, frequent declines, chargeback complications, and blocked cross-border deposits.



These problems that plague traditional gaming businesses introduce a lucrative entrepreneurial opportunity for crypto casinos like Shuffle to tackle using blockchains, through which crypto assets can settle globally in seconds without chargeback risks.



This on- and off-ramping of assets is the decisive key selling point for crypto casinos like Shuffle, Stake, Roobet and more.



But then there is also, of course, the SHFL token, an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. This is where Shuffle gets interesting and stands out from its crypto competitors.



While Shuffle originally used a buyback and burn value accrual mechanism, last year it introduced a weekly lottery that pays out USDC rewards to staked SHFL token holders.



15% of Shuffle’s weekly revenues (something like $200k-$300k) are returned through this lottery, which closes at a fixed time every Friday. In APR terms, the team told me that’s about a 48% annual return.



(A new onchain lottery is soon to be <a href="https://shfl.shuffle.com/the-shfl-lottery-the-internets-lotto">launched</a>.)



A further 30% of gaming revenues earned in SHFL continues to be burned, creating a deflationary sink for the token.



To date, Shuffle has burned about 5% of its total circulating supply.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeCUF69cjnV-Msh5xyDGcpoWAGHikpGMcb9yP_LuEaZQ-7CXcFKfuXZ0RuqbAGDgHdtkNzc7nl1W9qK9-wlc13jaYcwJF8rTprnHfdA95NhZccny9YNhb-GklWbhDcRUipSqgzj?key=75US7HV7Q6NZkZ3cXZidqA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://shuffle.com/token">Shuffle</a></figcaption></figure>



This decision was largely motivated by strategic customer retention reasons — because buyback and burns were perceived as an intangible value accrual mechanism, Fisher8 Capital investment analyst Lai Yuen told me.



Because all token movements occur onchain, anyone can track lottery prize funding, draws and burns in real time — levels of transparency that are almost unheard of in traditional gambling.



On Crypto Twitter, gambling businesses seem to be largely left out of the conversation, perhaps for ethical reasons. Other sources I’ve spoken to have also mentioned that some liquid funds generally have a mandate to avoid sin verticals.



But there’s no denying that GambleFi offers a unique insight into the kind of technological innovation that blockchains bring.



Companies like Shuffle have traction precisely because they solve an acute payments-and-access problem for a global customer base that wants to gamble, and is willing to accept regulatory risk in exchange for instant deposits and fast withdrawals.



That regulatory-payments arbitrage is the wedge that lets crypto casino businesses carve out an annual $80 billion gray-market industry despite outright bans or geoblocks in most major jurisdictions.



Shuffle recently announced plans to channel that model into a compliant US offering (ShuffleUSA), signaling growth expansion on the horizon.



<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">A new era of play is about to land 🇺🇸<a href="https://t.co/Gj7KpvH5Fn">https://t.co/Gj7KpvH5Fn</a> <a href="https://t.co/SJNPR8UHWS">pic.twitter.com/SJNPR8UHWS</a>&mdash; Shuffle.us (@ShuffleUSA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShuffleUSA/status/1941165106626216397?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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0xResearch Newsletter

How blockchains are changing the traditional casino business

Byron Gilliam

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!”



— Timothy May, 1988
</blockquote>



<a href="https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/crypto-anarchist-manifesto/">The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto</a>



What would Timothy May think of “Crypto Week”?



If the OG cypherpunk and author of The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto were here to read the <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=410793">statement</a> from the House of Representatives — itself a kind of manifesto — declaring this to be Crypto Week, I expect he’d have mixed feelings about it.



He’d certainly object to the idea of a “Crypto Czar,” appointed by the president of the very government whose authority he hoped to undermine.



(“Cryptologic methods,” he believed, would undermine “government interference in economic transactions.”)



On the other hand, he’d be pleasantly surprised, if not shocked, to learn that the US government is banning itself from issuing a central bank digital currency.



But he’d be most surprised to learn that the US government’s stated aim is to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency.



“The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology,” he wrote in the manifesto.



I guess not!



He’d have reservations, sure.&nbsp;



Markets, he thought, should self-police via mathematics, not laws, and that’s not what’s being promoted this week.



The CLARITY Act, for example, applies the Bank Secrecy Act (public enemy No. 1 for financial cypherpunks) and other KYC/AML rules to most intermediaries.



But “intermediaries” is the key word there: The Act also preserves the right to hold and use digital assets in personal wallets.&nbsp;



May’s vision was that “two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other.”&nbsp;



Insert an intermediary, though, and even May might think the government is right to regulate.



What might shock him most, though, is some of the rhetoric.



“Ensuring the future of the digital economy,” Representative Tom Emmer says in the official House statement, “reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty and free-market competitiveness.”&nbsp;



Privacy and individual sovereignty are cryptoanarchist values, too.



In that sense, Crypto Week feels like a surprising vindication for May and the community of cypherpunks he inspired (Bitcoiners included).



He would, however, take note of the multiple mentions of “protecting consumers” in the House statement and see that as evidence that the State is not surrendering its surveillance powers anytime soon.&nbsp;



May ends his manifesto with a vivid image: governments fencing in citizens like livestock on a barbed-wire ranch.



Even after Crypto Week, I’m sure he’d say the fences remain up.



<a href="https://www.elliptic.co/resources/the-state-of-cross-chain-crime-2025">Crypto remains popular with criminals</a>



In its latest report on crypto crime, onchain analytics firm Elliptic reports that the crypto ecosystem is “increasingly being exploited by illicit actors.”



Specifically, it estimates that the all-time total of “cross-chain criminal and high-risk” crypto transactions has risen to $21.8 billion, including over $2.17 billion in the first half of 2025.



Elliptic attributes 12% of the total to North Korean hackers (which, I imagine, is how Kim Jong Un paid for his new <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/07/05/g-s1-75663/north-korea-beach-resort-wonsan-tourism">beach resort</a>).



Blockchains remain transparent, but the report suggests that following crypto money trails may be getting harder: 20% of money laundering actions, it notes, move crypto across more than 10 blockchains.



The result is that crypto continues to play its role in the disturbing rise of “industrial-scale fraud.”



The most recent example came this week, when the DEA <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-drug-raids-net-10-million-in-crypto-linked-to-notorious-mexican-sinaloa-cartel-officials-say/">announced</a> that it had seized more than $10 million in cryptocurrency from Mexico&#8217;s Sinaloa cartel, in raids that also netted massive quantities of fentanyl.



(Tariffs on fentanyl still aren’t high enough, I guess.)



Timothy May would be unperturbed. “Various criminal and foreign elements will be active users of CryptoNet,” he wrote. “But this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy.”



But the crypto industry still needs to do more to police itself.



After researching the ByBit hack in March, the onchain sleuth <a href="https://x.com/zachxbt">ZachXBT</a> wrote in his Telegram channel that the industry “is unbelievably cooked when it comes to exploits/hacks.”



Attempting to retrieve funds from the ByBit hack was “eye-opening,” he wrote, noting that “several ‘decentralized’ protocols have recently had nearly 100% of their monthly volume/fees derived from [North Korea] and refuse to take any accountability.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Centralized exchanges, he added, are even worse because they take “multiple hours” to respond to his inquiries, which is far too slow: “It only takes minutes to launder.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



The industry, he warned, is so negligent in policing itself that it risks inviting much tighter government regulation.



Maybe not this week, though.



<a href="https://x.com/leereiners/status/1944528985712394729">Stablecoins won’t save the US dollar</a>



<a href="https://x.com/leereiners">Lee Reiners</a> takes exception to all of the “techno-utopian soundbites” DC politicians have been using to promote stablecoins recently.



The idea that stablecoins will extend the reign of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency has been repeated so often that it’s become received wisdom both in and out of crypto circles.



But Reiners takes the opposite view, arguing that stablecoins will have “no impact on the dollar’s status as a global reserve currency.”



“By imposing stricter requirements,” he argues, the GENIUS Act “could actually diminish dollar dominance if it drives stablecoin users and issuers toward non-USD alternatives that remain unregulated or offshore.”



In other words, he thinks stablecoins will lose their appeal for “bad actors” once they’ve been regulated.



(I doubt it, though. They’ll still be dollars that are not subject to KYC checks.)



But even if dollar-pegged stablecoins are used more frequently, he continues, “that growth would likely cannibalize existing dollar instruments…rather than expand the overall footprint of the dollar.”



I still think stablecoins could help at the margin by encouraging more international transactions to be done in dollars, basically.



But if the US government so debases the dollar that people question its value, stablecoins won’t be nearly enough to save it.



<a href="https://x.com/TheOneandOmsy/status/1945280399946420527?t=70HVVyNl5C_s6YE993EFdQ&amp;s=19">Citi stablecoin plans</a>



The one thing that Citi is truly good at is global payments: Its Trade and Treasury Services business, which moves money around for large customers, is the world’s biggest.



So I think it’s telling that Citi has advanced plans to issue a stablecoin and integrate it into its global payments offering.



CEO Jane Fraser noted that only 6% of stablecoin volume is related to payments, which she attributes to the high cost of on- and off-ramping them into and out of fiat — costs that add up to 7%, she says.



Citi expects to change all that, offering to move stablecoins across borders and in and out of fiat at near-zero cost, she implied (“without incurring that transaction cost”).



She also suggested, however, that it&#8217;s more likely to use tokenized deposits than stablecoins.



Tokenized deposits might prove difficult for the crypto industry to compete with.



The GENIUS Act, Fraser added, levels the playing field for banks to get involved in digital assets and Citi is enthusiastic about it.



Of that, I’m certain Timothy May would not approve.



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Anarchy, crime and stablecoins

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>.



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As issues with Solana’s code have been ironed out over the years, block times — or how long it takes the network to produce a new block of transactions — have <a href="https://x.com/steviez_sol/status/1894482387406319962">declined</a>, even dipping under Solana’s putative level of 400ms.



But over the past month, an interesting trend has emerged: Median block times spiked, and Solana was adding new transactions to the blockchain slower than before. At fault was a new meta among Solana validators that showed it can be lucrative to produce blocks slowly. Anza, Jito and Marinade appear to be weighing fixes to the problem, Blockworks has learned.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfXqJmWLpKAEI12nVQH6IfRYyMVCgZ4a9Gpvb_kpRMHc10X0VBFPnOWpvhcCSsgN4dn6rbbqyyn4MCWd8cfDabSdgWa3EKtteNsHr3oCZTKlBNj_oYFUxj7-r07SrX3tQveb7pAPA?key=LFAZsqUetGzUNwFhKYUlxQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Solana epoch lengths spiked in June. Source: <a href="https://risk.kamino.finance/Epoch_Slot_Durations">Kamino</a></figcaption></figure>



Every Solana block has a validator who serves as leader — meaning they collect transactions, create a block and broadcast it to the network. Leaders collect transaction fees from the blocks they create. More order flow means more fee opportunities, so it can be more lucrative for validators to see and process 500ms worth of transactions as opposed to 300ms, for instance.&nbsp;



At a basic level, some Solana validators appear to be waiting as long as possible to pack blocks with transactions in hopes of maximizing their yield, which has caused Solana’s epoch lengths to increase.&nbsp;



This isn’t ideal for a network focused on being <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nasdaq-on-solana-opening-bell-sol-strategies">as fast as the Nasdaq</a>. Plus, fewer epochs per year means fewer opportunities for staking rewards to compound for stakers, Sol Strategies chief technology officer Max Kaplan noted.



Solana offers something called “grace ticks,” which is a late period wherein leaders can still successfully submit blocks. This prevents validators in far-flung locations from being unfairly penalized, but it also opens the door for validators to be late on purpose.&nbsp;



The alternative Solana client Frankendancer also recently released a revenue-maximizing scheduler, and validators running the client appear to be packing their blocks a bit more slowly than normal, Kaplan said.&nbsp;



Kaplan added that the Frankendancer delay is minimal compared to more egregious delayers, and that he wouldn’t portray it as a “bad thing.” Plus, block delaying isn’t a new concept on proof-of-stake blockchains. Firedancer’s upgrade may have brought this strategy to light on Solana, however. Jump did not immediately return a request for comment.



Interestingly, Firedancer software engineer Michael McGee described the phenomenon on this week’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbY0vLjQO9A">Lightspeed podcast episode</a>.



“One of the things we&#8217;ve seen with our current validator…[is that validators] can often make a more profitable block by delaying execution of transactions,” McGee noted.



Solana validators who are more noticeably delaying blocks tend to be running modified versions of the Agave-Jito client, Blockworks Research analyst Victor Pham noted.&nbsp;



For example, during epoch 802 in mid-June, Galaxy and Kiln’s median block time was higher than 570ms each. A number of unlabeled validators were also slow, and Temporal’s validators had 475ms median block times, according to Solana Compass <a href="https://solanacompass.com/statistics/block-times?epoch=802">data</a>.



Kiln co-founder Ernest Oppetit admitted the validator — Solana’s sixth-largest by stake — had been delaying slots “for a period” but said it has stopped doing so.



“At Kiln we pride ourselves in offering the top staking APY in the market without compromising on security. We have been doing R&amp;D on different parts of the stack, including timing games, and are in constant discussions with our customers, client teams and the foundation on this. At this point we are following the spec and not delaying blocks, but many actors are still doing so. We believe the incentive issue (fast block production leads to lower rewards) ultimately needs to be addressed at the protocol level,” Oppetit said.



“I will say that we are not the reason that people know about this,” Temporal engineering director Ben Coverston said when reached for comment about the validator’s <a href="https://solanacompass.com/validators/Haz7b47sZBpxh9SwggGndN3fAyNQ1S949BPdxWXS3ab6">apparent</a> participation in the slow block trend.



“We, as a service provider, support validator configurations that prioritize maximizing staking rewards for our clients. On Solana, that may mean proposing slightly slower blocks to ensure higher reward capture. Galaxy also remains responsive to community feedback and have since increased block times to within an agreeable threshold,” a Galaxy spokesperson said.



The Solana validator community doesn’t find slowing the network down to be kosher, and slow validators are now facing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-underperforming-validators">public backlash</a>.



They may soon face more material punishments. Blockworks has learned that Jito plans to blacklist slow validators from its stake pool, which is Solana’s largest.



Jito Foundation president Brian Smith said the organization is “drafting a governance proposal that empowers a committee to remove laggards from the JitoSOL delegation set. This should be available for community discussion within a few days.”



Michael Repetny, co-founder of the third-largest stake pool in Marinade, said the pool provider is “[considering] putting it to a governance proposal to discuss pros and cons of introducing [slow validators] as a hard rule/offense of the delegation strategy.”



Help is on the way at the protocol level, too. Anza’s GitHub repository <a href="https://github.com/anza-xyz/agave/pull/6982">shows</a> a new proposal to shrink Solana’s grace tick period by half. Plus, Solana’s proposed consensus overhaul should fix things.



“Alpenglow will solve this by enabling skip votes,” Anza vice president of core engineering Brennan Watt said.



Watt said on a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN5Novxjybs">Lightspeed podcast episode</a> that Anza hopes to have Alpenglow live on mainnet by Solana’s Breakpoint conference in December. 



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blockchain

Behind the scenes of Solana’s slow validator problem

Felix Jauvin

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



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With a flurry of economic data out today, it’s evident that the US economy is in pretty good shape, churning away despite the ever-unfolding stop-start tariff saga.



Let’s recap the data and what it all tells us.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Retail sales</h2>



Retail sales came out the gate swinging today, beating most expectations:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Retail sales month over month: Actual: 0.6%; expected: 0.1%</li>



<li>Retail sales control group MoM: Actual: 0.5%, expected: 0.3%</li>



<li>Retail sales (ex autos) MoM: Actual: 0.5%, expected: 0.3%</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeAO1hOv56DocuBWKYPddPFHhZbqqQ4g7ngfS4G_DQt13DJAIiUlNJTaKQBELAI-BVFug2xhGq_PchZqa8hDKN7_nyFuHsWYxHSjTxs6AzS4LREmPSOPYC243kr0_ncb9hH_8H4?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



It’s important to remember that retail sales are a nominal metric and therefore include inflation. In an era of persistently above-target inflation, this becomes increasingly pertinent.&nbsp;



Despite the nominal good news, you can see how consumers’ purchasing power continues to decline in real terms. For example, this chart from economist Parker Ross:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcq7_Lftb25B6X9Bmmb_XEMk0bV9gJxt3kBG5W3e5l7ljUy8len08LNPhKAL5jmKBnkZQB92_B1rFdYX6tv742_r75qru_xkPayMp1CbQlxL0AGD984kbtIqcR9me34A9hKNrUu?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



This vignette shows why significant recession is so difficult to trigger in a regime of higher inflation.&nbsp;



A recession could occur on a “real” basis —&nbsp;whilst nominal GDP continues to churn higher — in which the net effect is a decrease in purchasing power, as opposed to a nominal decrease in spending and incomes across the economy.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Philly Fed survey</h2>



Setting aside the hard data, we received updates to the Philly Fed survey, which has been exceptionally accurate in recent years.



This soft data shows clear signs of an economy rebounding from Liberation Day uncertainty and adapting to where tariffs stand today.&nbsp;



Across the board, every metric continued higher:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Philly Fed CAPEX index: Actual 17.10, previous: 14.50</li>



<li>Philly Fed employment: Actual: 10.3, previous: -9.8</li>



<li>Philly Fed new orders: Actual: 18.4, previous: 2.3</li>



<li>Philly Fed prices paid: Actual: 58.80, previous: 41.40</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXernSbjHBLUvPqmx-QcxvXydt0O1FPcnI3tayR8Zy6EIfR5VoY_CSlswk9UCHlcWfzjIiC9Th5gSZIyqkY5zOhfTd3LueDR3sT4BL77-vQimU-ilnqmQ_pHqpVvxmmdTPrU0Rxu?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



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



We see further validation of a surprisingly strong economy in the weekly jobless claims data.



Initial claims surprised to the downside and continued their decline:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdUoUtebtTOeaTBrBG9sVpOUVsMuVb4SaALKZPVZRVgm7PkdxEYh1WRGfZBGn5QEQBsTXZ_hivvgF9rVNORotGhEBjRcDjd0Y4yR3Qax0HFp7bdnI8BkT8o4a-ARZoQu6DhN6uStw?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



Continuing jobless claims also surprised to the downside, showing signs that the recent surge over the last month has stalled:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdHcwsC9PHpZeM9VSCtGPC_hWPeidlphxAHXZLA5SWQPGJFmLmPigiWFOC-H0ZnWfWeB6GrEQTtRlijcB9EYAqNEKaBYR67kSEwA-tKIBbLo1wksBZ3o3U0NatVOmC5uS0IE9MQPw?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



This contrast between initial and continuing claims is crucial for understanding the state of the labor market. The economy is solid enough to avoid triggering a meaningful layoff cycle, but weak enough so that those who do become unemployed are having a hard time finding a new job and thus remaining on continuing claims for longer.&nbsp;



Putting this all together, it’s clear the soft and hard data are beginning to rebound and improve.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdJK23Q5iQxmxLKhLgi0gO4oK5W35-L0DuoqSCEV14jMK-mdl47aMo4HYubx6RyqJND3ztmKT3EGPVL4HTqgTovbTjQLNChvgFy3wq-Ci-x2KmoPrhSDGQiDEZ-n332OAUjDVCcmQ?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



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Economy

Recapping the latest US data: Philly Fed, retail sales and more

Casey Wagner

The US House on Thursday passed the GENIUS Act in a 307-122 vote. The landmark stablecoin legislation will now advance to President Trump, who is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



The Senate passed the GENIUS Act last month with a 68-30 vote. 18 Democrats voted in favor.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1582/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22genius+act%22%7D">bill</a> requires stablecoin issuers to maintain fully-backed reserves of US dollars or “similarly liquid” government-issued assets, such as bonds. Issuers with more than $50 billion in issued tokens must complete annual audits.&nbsp;



The law also affords more authority to state regulators, which will be required to maintain regulatory frameworks that are “substantially similar” to those at the federal level. Issuers who exceed $10 billion in issuance must be overseen by federal regulators or apply for an exemption.&nbsp;



Rep. Bryan Steil, who chairs the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, hailed the GENIUS Act as an important milestone for US crypto policy.&nbsp;



“It encourages the innovation and development of Web3 businesses here in the United States,” Steil said during the debate on Thursday morning. “It establishes clear rules to ensure that consumers are protected and businesses have clear regulations to responsibly participate in the digital asset ecosystem.”



Other Representatives insisted that the GENIUS Act does little to protect consumers and prevent runs on stablecoins.&nbsp;



“Central bankers last week issued a warning that stablecoins threaten global financial stability and need a much more restrictive regime than traditional finance,” Democrat Sean Casten said during Thursday morning’s debate.&nbsp;



“The GENIUS act ignores all those experts and instead ties stablecoins into our financial system, but without the safeguards that are required by banks and investment companies,” he added.&nbsp;



The passage comes after a dramatic few days for crypto policy.&nbsp;



After initially failing to pass a procedural vote on Tuesday, Trump met with GOP holdouts to come to an agreement to get the GENIUS Act over the finish line.&nbsp;



In a follow-up vote on Wednesday morning, the measure once again failed before eventually passing late in the evening after hours of vote-flipping and behind-closed-doors debate, according to people familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



Much of the holdup was due to two other crypto bills Representatives are currently considering: the CLARITY Act, which focuses on crypto market structure, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act. Some Republicans wanted to combine the GENIUS and Anti-CBDC Acts, but the faction of the party that insisted on keeping the legislation separate ultimately prevailed.



This is a developing story.



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congress

GENIUS Act passes House

The US House on Thursday passed the CLARITY Act, a first-of-its-kind cryptocurrency market structure bill that has divided the industry.&nbsp;



The bill passed in a 294-134 vote with 78 Democrats voting in favor of the measure. 



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-bills-in-congress">Move over, big, beautiful bill: Crypto Week is coming</a>



The CLARITY Act divides authority over digital assets between the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.&nbsp;



The legislation also establishes a formal definition for “digital commodities.” These would fall under the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cftc">CFTC</a>’s purview while cryptocurrencies classified as securities would be the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a>’s responsibility.&nbsp;



Representatives who voted against the bill argue it does not provide enough oversight of the industry and leaves gaps that could harm cryptocurrency users.&nbsp;



“Let me be clear, I support the growth of digital assets, blockchain innovation and the promise crypto holds for expanding financial access and economic justice, but this bill is not clarity,” Democrat <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=1e37bafbf7b08436&amp;rlz=1C5GCEA_enUS953US953&amp;q=Sydney+Kamlager-Dove&amp;si=AMgyJEt32eZTIgICHpuyQ6jv7FxcAqGka2TT2wt4tUSnSUs0hH1zXxXuBwVTPacDLozS2WvqTxrGJn-EwTnoPNmyzronwM0uhKmGrdtlwWwjh2xS3YE9b0T_5tNDepmrQG7RMhOCnPsLyWoHHJrQucE6X72e6sHOtg%3D%3D&amp;sa=X&amp;sqi=2&amp;ved=2ahUKEwi-gcLewsSOAxUOE1kFHYVSIaYQ_coHegQIEBAB&amp;ictx=0">Sydney Kamlager-Dove</a> said during debate Thursday morning. “It is confusion cloaked in legislation.”&nbsp;



Some in the industry have taken issue with decentralization in the bill. Sufficiently decentralized blockchains — defined in the legislation as transparent chains with no person or individual in control — are considered commodities.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-week-bills-debate">The bills up for debate as ‘Crypto Week’ continues</a>



Others support aspects of the bill, but insist that it still needs more work to fully close existing regulatory gaps.&nbsp;



“As drafted, CLARITY does not extend federal preemption to the ‘exclusions for decentralized finance activities,’ leaving states free to create different, inconsistent rules,” crypto advocacy group DeFi Education Fund wrote in a recent <a href="https://www.defieducationfund.org/post/defi-scores-meaningful-wins-in-clarity-act">blog</a> post.&nbsp;



“It’s important to close this gap and ensure that after all of the hard work Congress is doing to create clear laws for the industry, we don’t end up with a patchwork of 50 state laws taking differing positions.”&nbsp;



The bill succeeds in other ways, though, DEF added, such as allowing for self-custody and excusing certain protocols and software engineers from some reporting and regulatory requirements. 



The legislation now moves to the Senate, where its path to becoming law could stall. Senate Democrats have expressed concern that the legislation does not include enough consumer protections and paves the way for President Trump’s crypto <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-wallet-magic-eden">business interests</a> to flourish.



Updated at 3:32 p.m. ET to reflect final vote count.



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Crypto market structure bill passes US House

Macauley Peterson

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



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Interchain Labs (ICL) has charted a new course for <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a>.



The core team, which has been behind the ecosystem’s strategy and development since the start of the year, announced that it’s shelving plans to make the Cosmos Hub a smart contract platform <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-canonical-evm">hosting an EVM layer</a>. Instead, it will double down on the Cosmos Stack’s role as an infrastructure toolkit for sovereign L1s, targeting businesses, institutions and developers looking to launch their own chains.



The decision wasn’t easy. ICL leadership admitted in a candid townhall that the push to add its EVM directly onto the Hub was pulling resources in too many directions, according to ICL co-CEO Barry Plunkett.



In recent weeks, “we got a lot of confidence that we were going over a cliff,” Plunkett said on a livestream.



Despite early enthusiasm, ICL found the pitch simply wasn’t landing with new developers and investors outside of Cosmos’ existing base. Meanwhile, rising costs and a rapidly fragmenting market for blockspace made competing as yet another general-purpose contract platform increasingly untenable.



Instead, ICL says it wants to focus on what Cosmos does best: helping others launch customizable, sovereign chains connected by IBC. It’s betting big on institutional demand — from banks to stablecoin issuers — who want dedicated L1s with selective interoperability and full control over their infrastructure. The Cosmos Hub is seen as a service marketplace to route assets and provide bridging via products like IBC Eureka.



“We&#8217;re not trying to be someone else,” said ICL co-CEO Magmar. “We&#8217;re going to be Cosmos — except we&#8217;re going to do it on overdrive.”



But that vision raises difficult questions. How exactly will the Cosmos Hub&#8217;s role as a service marketplace drive concrete demand for <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/atom">ATOM</a>? The team insists ATOM remains the “monetization layer” for Cosmos, but specifics remain vague. They point to transaction fees, routing services and potential institutional payments that could buy and burn ATOM, or use it as collateral. Yet ATOM holders have heard variations of that promise before.



There’s also the question of the builders who invested months preparing Hub-native deployments. How will ICL support those teams left in the lurch?



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">To be honest, we were very surprised by this news. We&#39;ve been 100% locked in on the Cosmos DEX for 4-5 months, working very closely with the ICL on product and GTM. The DEX is even about 80% done &#8211; we thought the EVM was going to launch in the next couple months. That said, I… <a href="https://t.co/GVqrZEWNhz">https://t.co/GVqrZEWNhz</a>&mdash; Aidan | Stride (@aidan0x) <a href="https://twitter.com/aidan0x/status/1944892026962551100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Leadership says in some cases it will help them migrate to other Cosmos chains (like Neutron) and continue any prior funding commitments. But after this flipflop, will developers trust the next promise?



Strategic consistency has been a presumed advantage to the ICF <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-ecosystem-changes-after-skip-acquisition">acquihire of the Skip team</a>. Cosmos has long been infamous for its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-ecosystem-will-soon-vote-on-atom-2-0-revised-white-paper">ideological malleability</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-fork-jae-kwon">governance drama</a>. ICL will need to work to contain damage to builder and investor confidence. Its answer is apparently to narrow scope, prioritize institutional customers and stop trying to serve everyone at once.



“There’s already a conglomerate of Japanese banks using Cosmos and IBC to transfer data and assets, collaborating with SWIFT to offer a seamless SWIFT-to-IBC bridge,” Plunkett said. “That happened without our involvement, which is a very good sign.”



The challenge will be to balance the role as an open infrastructure provider with accountability to the ATOM community. Cosmos is arguably more than just its stack; it’s a social contract with the people and capital that have faithfully bet on ATOM’s centrality.



ICL says it’s entering “startup mode” — iterating fast, testing customer needs and refining the long-term strategy. For Cosmos, this could be the beginning of a sharper, more sustainable vision. Or it might be one pivot too many.



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Cosmos drops Hub-native EVM in sudden pivot

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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We’re over halfway through the year, so let’s do a little recap, shall we?



I mentioned K33’s H1 report in an <a href="https://empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com/p/d7b9ce97-94a1-4902-8655-39efc986574f?draft=true&amp;last_resource_guid=Post%3A48d23733-dc25-48fd-b8ed-eb7e32a16956&amp;utm_campaign=you-can-handle-the-truth&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com">intro the other day</a>, but there’s a lot of interesting data to digest.



Such as the fact that the bitcoin treasury companies acquired a whopping 244,991 bitcoin by the end of June, which marked the official transition from H1 to H2.&nbsp;



Not to mention that the number of treasury companies, perhaps unsurprisingly, almost doubled by the end of the first half. At the beginning of the year, there were 70 firms with bitcoin on their balance sheet, but that quickly ballooned to 134.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeZ3wASDGIv118NxJmfY415bKaIH7oUZxuj9-HrlzoqTM1B8XfFFBO1OWT8F_JCkIYaZUl06xxb7rjUIRcYYRqyPpj3EQAAZCb9C3T1TEADffy5sLhKD9BnSIQjIqGywvNBp8VN?key=9V9NlQxCwTD4hZgXpoDROQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



Companies from the US, Canada, Japan and UK are at the top of the list when it comes to companies pivoting to a bitcoin treasury strategy, but the total sum is made up of companies from 27 countries, according to K33. That gives you a rough idea of how global this is, though the US tops the chart with 41 public companies.&nbsp;



But it’s not all about bitcoin treasury firms or even just bitcoin. A lot has happened this year, as both <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/rwas-35b-securitize">Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitwise-daily-attestations-bitcoin-etfs">Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley</a> were eager to point out to us just this week.&nbsp;



In the first half of the year, USDT and USDC’s circulating supply grew by $38 billion as folks flocked to the stablecoin narrative.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdWOBCE11Y7_qRs3EafJFG9mpU31MefeNRaQP9rruEDTP-puaB2zdXaix9Ye6OVhezRPMevq-GugxUD10iyMNk20cemaC_OKVX2tFalSHewfnI-0jdkFu9HqKCG8P22zya7w2GL?key=9V9NlQxCwTD4hZgXpoDROQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



Unfortunately, if you take stablecoins out of the mix, then only nine of the top 50 cryptos saw positive returns in H1, showing that altcoins are still struggling to find their footing in a market dominated by bitcoin and stablecoins.&nbsp;



Of that nine, K33 noted that three specifically outperformed bitcoin: XMR, HYPE and SKY. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeP-4iTVsMBcpP36_WH7FrTOI1dExDhLQaKzKEkN8W1Z3EImvX8ZCFYk4kyL9GqYcUsfczk_Md_rZdguwXFpP7HLAha0bkmIJwOV-bGUO8_hj-hWA9w3WXNeOYhS8rR8A7l4uo9aQ?key=9V9NlQxCwTD4hZgXpoDROQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



So it looks like the momentum still isn’t there for an altcoin season. Looking ahead though, there may be some hope on the horizon if some of these altcoin ETFs are approved, which could happen by the end of this year, as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-etf-sec-forms">we previously reported</a>.&nbsp;



K33 noted that H2 tends to be the stronger half for bitcoin seasonally, and we have other tailwinds such as more crypto IPOs to follow in Circle’s footsteps and we could get some more information on the proposed US strategic bitcoin reserve.



Not to mention the role that regulation could play, especially as lawmakers on the Hill discuss the crypto bills this week.&nbsp;



So there’s still a lot of gas left in the tank — let’s see where it takes us.



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Empire Newsletter

Bitcoin treasury companies acquired 244,991 BTC in the first half of 2025: K33

Ben Strack

Canary Capital proposed a product offering exposure to the native token of the Injective blockchain as it continues its crypto ETF filing spree.



The New York-based fund group’s latest ETF proposal comes as interest in staking-based products accelerates, Canary notes.



The Canary Staked INJ ETF would hold INJ directly and stake a portion of the assets it holds, according to a Thursday <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2073616/000199937125009309/canaryinj-s1_071725.htm">filing</a> submitted to the SEC. The filing did not specify the amount it would stake or the staking provider.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The Injective layer-1 blockchain focuses on letting developers create financial applications. INJ’s market capitalization sits at roughly $1.3 billion — ranking it 89th largest among crypto assets, according to CoinGecko.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXecUh7ocz9ccRJUGidfXlxU_emZ0P4QpEqlsXkNy52mamnFVfxKEjsZYftTgozDnYTS7agTM1lFNLKZXEWy9rB5Iz_nEwBhnH92OXsBBLlZBKj1LGtSHiAGvloO30kJ-FIFHvYBjg?key=X6MR8vqUb1FBghI7mSYuaA" alt="" style="width:646px;height:auto"/></figure>



Founded by former Valkyrie CIO Steven McClurg, Canary has filed for a number of crypto ETFs in recent months — including those that would hold litecoin (LTC), solana (SOL), XRP, HBAR and Sui (SUI).&nbsp;



Canary also <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2059693/000199937125002883/canarypengu-s1_032025.htm">filed</a> for a PENGU ETF — to hold both the Pudgy Penguins token and NFTs&nbsp; — as Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit was taking place in March.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/execs-das-crypto-futures-etfs">Executives noted at the time</a> that while the SEC (under a new chair and with its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/new-sec-crypto-task-force">crypto task force</a>) is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">more willing</a> to actively engage about products, the bevy of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-plans-abound">altcoin ETF filings</a> isn’t necessarily a sign issuers are being told they have a good shot.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



A person close to the altcoin ETF filings, who was granted anonymity to discuss non-public information, told Blockworks earlier this month that the SEC might wait to develop “generic listing standards” before greenlighting any more single-asset crypto ETFs.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-launch-timelines-sec">Why crypto ETF launch timelines remain up in the air</a>



Injective Labs, in a July 9 <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/ctf-wrriten-input-noah-axler-injective-labs-inc-070925.pdf">letter</a> to SEC commissioner Hester Peirce, made several recommendations to the agency’s crypto task force.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdfMFUkooNMdjepUSXVs629Oo85_i-_RHqTxriTWdDyzgQVzFoyFBBNf2sj5uI1WlDSgstxh6ozp_09G_s5QrZh42oRIkKLtvxig6qYBvgheiqhEkppa8QZBciE-8mcLGlqD_EI?key=X6MR8vqUb1FBghI7mSYuaA" alt=""/></figure>



Injective CEO Eric Chen told Blockworks this week that he’d be closely monitoring the crypto bills Congress is considering.&nbsp;



“With the CLARITY Act, basically what happens is we get to iterate extremely quickly because there’s no more [ambiguity] when it comes to the different profile design [or] different decentralization design that might create compliance issues,” Chen said.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Regularity clarity would help Injective form a “very predictable growth plan,” he added — particularly as the blockchain looks to bring liquidity and use cases to real-world assets within the Injective ecosystem.



“Because one of the biggest problems right now within the RWA ecosystem is that it’s pretty much a certificate of ownership that’s recorded on a blockchain with no mobility or real on-chain utility — or very limited, to that extent,” Chen said.&nbsp;



The breadth of assets to be democratized will be what “truly shines” as the RWA space evolves, the Injective CEO explained.&nbsp;



Chen noted: “Finding liquidity, congregating capital and finding an investor base on a very scarcely traded asset or an exotic asset and then being able to locate them and create capital formation all across the world … [is] the most exciting part.”



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



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



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

ETFs

Canary continues filing spree with staked Injective ETF proposal

Jeff Albus

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



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



After months of little ado about everything, the markets are finally seeing some of their old momentum.



As BTC <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">surged</a> above $122,000 on Monday, Solana was pulled along in the gravity tail of bitcoin&#8217;s inflation-cooled rebound. SOL jumped 13% to <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">reach</a> $174.45 — its highest level in weeks — likely buoyed by the excitement around pump.fun&#8217;s recent, <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/pumpfun/pump-fun-ico">highly successful</a> ICO.



On macro, this week&#8217;s backdrop gave just enough breathing room for risk assets to stretch.&nbsp;



While the CPI came in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/">hotter</a> than expected at 2.7% year over year, the PPI cooled to 2.3%, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/latest-numbers.htm">below</a> forecasts. In short, the split was just soft enough to soothe the market&#8217;s anxiety over imminent Fed tightening, even if the July 30 <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/calendar.htm">FOMC meeting</a> remains priced for a hold.



Meanwhile, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to <a href="https://x.com/BoHines/status/1945146377933078559">urge Republicans to support</a> the GENIUS Act and a broader package of digital asset legislation, including stablecoin regulation and an outright ban on a Fed-issued CBDC.



While the House initially <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-week-bills-debate">failed to pass</a> the resolution, a motion to reconsider passed 215-211 the following day.&nbsp;



Back yonder in crypto land, the news spurred continued ETF inflows, thin but directional conviction from institutional buyers and a modest uptick in leverage.



Bitcoin&#8217;s price <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">hovers</a> just below a cluster of liquidity between $119k and $121k, with market makers circling a $120k target before month&#8217;s end.



Solana is showing signs of independent strength. Transaction activity <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">holds steady</a> at 100+ million per day, excluding validator votes, while staking <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=202">remained</a> healthy at a 66.43% participation rate and a net 7.17% yield.



Network revenue <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=15">continues</a> its uptick from a post-May lull, and app-level earnings showed similar resilience, with consistent fee generation from DEXs, token vending platforms and staking derivatives sustaining developer and validator income.



Predictably, the <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/pumpfun-tge">standout</a> this week was pump.fun. Despite challengers like letsbonk.fun drawing attention, pump.fun saw nearly 30 million trades and over $1.7 billion in DEX volume, according to recent insights from Blockworks Research. 94% of this was <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/pumpfun-tge">concentrated</a> in meme tokens. That said, Bonk is still winning on overall trading volume.



Pump also <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-fun-500m-ico-twitch">completed</a> its blockbuster token generation event that targeted up to $1.3 billion across public and private allocations, with a $720 million private raise confirmed and a 25% discretionary <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-revenue-sharing-token-holders">buyback commitment</a>.



With BTC defying gravity again and the Solana rabble growing louder, it&#8217;s looking like those who patiently waited out the lull may finally find themselves back in action.



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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/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 rallies as risk appetite returns

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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M&amp;A hasn’t slowed as Congress mulls crypto legislation and efforts to get more real-world assets onchain continue.



I chatted with Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman last month about the RWA space ahead of the company’s tokenization platform launch slated for this summer (Ondo doesn’t yet have a go-live date).&nbsp;



Saying the vast majority of regulated financial assets will ultimately settle on blockchain rails is “not a crazy prediction” anymore,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-iceberg-rwas-mature-ondo"> Allman told me</a>. Others agree,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-fink-bitcoin-dollar"> including Larry Fink</a> (the man leading the world’s largest asset manager) and Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul (check out<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-products-onchain-exec-says"> my Q&amp;A with her</a> here).&nbsp;



Fast forward to Monday and Ondo said it acquired Strangelove, which focuses on designing and deploying open-source infrastructure across multiple blockchains. This deal was done “strategically” ahead of the aforementioned tokenization platform launch, said Ondo chief strategy officer Ian De Bode.&nbsp;



Called Ondo Global Markets, it’ll initially offer access to 100+ stocks and ETFs — starting on Ethereum and expanding to BNB Chain and Solana.



Strangelove CEO Jack Zampolin said his company’s work on cross-chain communication protocols, permissioned/unpermissioned validator frameworks and modular consensus architecture (that’s a lot of big words) will help Ondo’s platform evolve from a centralized one to a distributed network where institutions can participate in tokenized asset ops.&nbsp;



All told: What stablecoins did for dollars, Ondo is looking to do for securities, De Bode added. At least for the most liquid ones, to start. Others, like Apollo Global Management, are focusing on tokenization<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next"> </a>within <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">less liquid segments</a> like private credit.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeOpUiGvz1SYg-1VMWoUAw0-fWdRG2UsaDtz5Zazoy_xhyH3_-d2GzkTf6jCFRhKJyrEa7ZbrAnwA96VLnEJuqe8AtncdzNSMjZvbCcfqvz0PdKGn3zmi4Jqic0G_IfPBnC_BINyQ?key=4yS2jUSrAEbpfqLBgJNLuA" alt=""/></figure>



It’s worth noting that Ondo earlier this month said it would buy Oasis Pro, gaining access to its SEC-registered broker-dealer, alternative trading system and transfer agent. We know how coveted US digital asset licenses are.&nbsp;



Speaking of which, Nasdaq-listed BSGM this week detailed plans to acquire a FINRA- and SEC-registered broker-dealer to one day offer gold-backed tokenized assets for US investors.&nbsp;



It’s not hard to see why companies want in on this space given some of the projections thrown around (like from that April Ripple/BCG report above).&nbsp;



There’ll be plenty of competition here from both crypto-native and TradFi giants, so grab your proverbial popcorn. Better yet, throw an actual bag in the microwave.



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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>



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</ul>

Forward Guidance newsletter

RWA-related M&A picks up as companies hunt for US licenses

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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US equities were in the red midway through Wednesday’s trading session, after inflation data may have started to reflect tariff-related price hikes and President Trump renewed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-criticizes-fed-chair-powell">threats to fire</a> Fed Chair Jerome Powell.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies were mostly flat as the industry continues to monitor the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-week-bills-debate">status of three bills</a> in the House.&nbsp;



There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s get started.&nbsp;



First up: inflation and tariffs. June’s CPI report showed the headline figure increased 0.3% month over month. The 12-month rate is now 2.7% — in line with expectations but higher than May’s 2.4% reading.&nbsp;



A grain of salt here: The Bureau of Labor Statistics <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/2025/collection-reduction.htm">announced</a> last month that it was reducing its sample collection areas across the US. The change is due to staffing shortages at the agency. Fewer workers on hand to check prices means more estimating and guessing in the data.&nbsp;



The department <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/imputation.htm">based 35%</a> of its missing prices on other regions of the country or different products in June. Prior to staffing shortages, around 10% was typical.&nbsp;



Sectors most exposed to tariffs, like household furnishings and appliances, were up over the month, increasing 1% and 1.9%, respectively. Prices for new and used cars, on the other hand, declined 0.3%.&nbsp;



Odds of interest rates staying the same later this month increased to 97.4% after the print, per <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html?redirect=/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html">data</a> from CME Group.&nbsp;



Speaking of Fed policy brings us to our second topic: Trump is apparently back at it again with threats against Powell.&nbsp;



The president last night showed a draft letter firing the chair to a group of House Republicans, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-fire-fed-chair-powell-8e33497e">WSJ</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/us/politics/trump-powell-firing-letter.html">New York Times</a> reported. Trump on Wednesday, however, told reporters “we’re not planning on doing anything.” 



“I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely,” Trump added. “Unless he has to leave for fraud.”&nbsp;



That last comment comes after the White House alleged Powell either made false statements to Congress about the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of its offices, or failed to comply with permit requirements. The challenge came via a letter sent last week from Trump budget director Russell Vought.&nbsp;



Trump did admit to meeting with House Representatives on Tuesday night, which brings us to topic number three: What’s going on with crypto policy?&nbsp;



In a Truth Social post yesterday evening, Trump wrote:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc8iwquD2MrnNNvCJRx7QPHXOhoZmJ871c2ywt9d7nH4eSpUV-pMyRQLRqWDapsV-JBOlqN3E-J3FN82Niqtec1eVqDtGAD8VoNmYuuk6JFIVJqbzKgBmpZdVC9eXyznlj43vT7AQ?key=4yS2jUSrAEbpfqLBgJNLuA" alt=""/></figure>



The post came after the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/genius-act">GENIUS Act</a> failed to pass a procedural vote Tuesday. A group of GOP Freedom Caucus members refused to vote in favor of advancing the bill, citing concerns over the GENIUS Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act being separate pieces of legislation, a person familiar with the matter told me.&nbsp;



Representatives gathered on Wednesday to reconsider the rule, but the deal President Trump struck with hardliners on Tuesday did not appear to be effective. The drama was still playing out at time of publishing, so keep an eye on Blockworks’ <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/congress">congressional coverage</a> for updates.&nbsp;



The holdup comes as lawmakers and industry members alike insisted the bill was poised to pass. I’ve been told the White House has already scheduled time in the Oval Office for Trump to sign the bill into law on Friday.



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Donald Trump

Inflation data, firing threats and policy updates: What’s moving markets

Prosecutors and the defense team painted vastly different pictures of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s motives and role during the second day of his criminal trial in Manhattan.&nbsp;



The government’s lead prosecutor Kevin Mosley said Storm helped criminals hide their dirty money. The crimes were intentional and Storm acted out of greed, he said during the opening remarks.



Plus, Mosley added, Storm lied to victims of hacks and scams, telling them there was nothing he could do to help them locate their stolen money.&nbsp;



Defense attorney Keri Axel, however, had a different narrative for the jury. Yes, there may have been some bad actors who used Tornado Cash for illicit purposes, but that’s not Storm’s fault.&nbsp;



“It’s not a crime to make a useful thing that is misused,” she said in her opening statement.&nbsp;



Tornado Cash was decentralized, Axel said, so Storm couldn’t have interfered if he wanted to, and besides, isn’t a tool that provides financial privacy a public service?&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tornado-cash-motion-to-dismiss-denied">Judge denies motion to dismiss case against Tornado Cash founder</a>



The opening statements underpin the underlying questions this case seeks to answer: Was Tornado Cash immutable, and is the developer responsible for how a software was used?&nbsp;



The government also focused much of its opening statement on who used Tornado Cash, specifically North Korean state-sponsored hackers, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bybit-hack-paradigm-samczsun-north-korea">the Lazarus Group</a>. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) alleges this group used Tornado Cash to launder roughly $455 million of the $620 Axie Infinity/Ronin Bridge hack in March 2022.&nbsp;



In their opportunity to address the jury, the defense leaned heavily on Ethereum developer Vitalik Buterin’s relationship with Storm. Tornado Cash was designed with the intention of helping Ethereum users solve a “huge problem” associated with onchain transactions: privacy.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-tornado-cash">Judge rules Tornado Cash is not protected under the First Amendment</a>



Storm, who faces three federal charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, appeared calm during opening statements. He sat facing the jury with a straight face.&nbsp;



The jury, which was finalized Tuesday morning, consists of seven women and five men ranging in age from their 20s to 60s. One juror works as an IT manager and another works for Palantir, a software company with anti-terrorism and AI products.&nbsp;



The trial is expected to last 15 days in court, or roughly three weeks, according to attorneys on both sides.



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Roman Storm

‘He lied’: US government makes opening plea to jury in Roman Storm trial

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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The incentivized testnet (mainnet beta) of RISC Zero’s Boundless network went live on Base yesterday.



Boundless is not a new blockchain. Boundless is a marketplace for zero-knowledge virtual-machine (zkVM) proofs — sometimes called a proof market — that can deploy to any network and settle proofs anywhere.



Who needs it? Any chain or application that wants to process heavy computation onchain, but whose existing virtual environment is ill-suited to leverage zk technology.&nbsp;



Boundless lets teams do so without making radical changes to their architecture. Just like how Chainlink brought price feeds to each chain, Boundless brings verifiable compute.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Boundless network</h2>



Here’s how the network roughly works:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Chains/apps request and submit computation tasks to the Boundless network running auctions on its contracts.</li>
</ol>



<ol start="2" class="wp-block-list">
<li>“Provers” (miners) on the Boundless network running CPUs/GPUs claim these jobs to perform the expensive computation off-chain.</li>
</ol>



<ol start="3" class="wp-block-list">
<li>To accept tasks, provers stake ZKC tokens to lock a proof request. These tokens are slashable, so there’s an economic mechanism to keep work honest.</li>
</ol>



<ol start="4" class="wp-block-list">
<li>When provers finish the job, a tiny, mathematically-verifiable zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) receipt is settled on the host chain.</li>
</ol>



Because verifying a tiny-sized proof on Ethereum or a rollup costs only a minimal amount of gas, the base chain never feels the heat from the underlying computation — even if that computation took minutes, ran on a cluster with GPUs or touched gigabytes of data.



Boundless’ CEO Shiv Shankar reminded me of the prohibitive costs of running zk computation onchain, which can go reach thousands of dollars.



“Today, anyone is able to do that massive computation with a zkVM for less than $30. This sort of boundless mindset is what we are bringing to every chain. Elastic unlimited computation [is] available to you at any point in time,” he said.



The Boundless <a href="https://explorer.testnet.beboundless.xyz/provers">explorer</a> shows 363 active provers processing jobs today, though the team told me they anticipate at least a thousand GPUs proving soon.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Boundless architecture</h2>



Unique to Boundless’ network is its self-developed cryptographic primitive called “proof of verifiable work” (PoVW).



Traditional proof-of-work pays bitcoin miners for hashes, Boundless’ PoVW pays for <a href="https://explorer.testnet.beboundless.xyz/stats">useful zkVM cycles</a>.



PoVW tags pieces of verifiable metadata — or “work receipts” — to each proof as a record of how much computation went into it. This lets Boundless pay the hundreds of provers on its network in proportion to the actual compute delivered, as well as detect fraudulent proofs.



This contrasts to the off-chain auction bidding that <a href="https://blog.succinct.xyz/introducing-the-succinct-network-architecture-and-the-prove-token/">Succinct</a> uses, or the time-based quotes that <a href="https://blog.marlin.org/server-side-zk-proof-generation-for-noir-circuits-with-private-inputs-using-tees-on-kalypso">Kalypso</a> uses.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Today’s adoption</h2>



Early adopters to Boundless include teams like EigenLayer, Celestia, Taiko, Lido and <a href="https://beboundless.xyz/ecosystem">more</a>.



Teams are using Boundless provision of verifiable compute for a variety of purposes.



For instance, EigenLayer is using Boundless to power its AVS slashing logic, Celestia is using it to prove the validity of its data availability on any chain, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/unpacking-the-based-rollups-debate">Taiko</a> based rollup uses it as part of its multi-prover setup, and Lido leverages Boundless for a zk-based staking oracle.



Although Boundless ships with its own RISC Zero zkVM, the network is proof system agnostic.



Support for competing zkVMs, such as Succinct’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/succinct-sp1-bug">SP1</a>, ZKsync’s Boojum or Jolt, is on the roadmap, allowing developers to switch tooling without leaving the marketplace.



Boundless’ full mainnet launch and Token Generation Event are slated for late 2025.



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RISC Zero launches Boundless testnet on Base

David Canellis

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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“Crypto” as a term is losing its meaning.&nbsp;



And that’s okay. It’s a good thing, even.&nbsp;



Crypto is an asset class, a technology and a community, all at the same time. Soon, it will be necessary to be very specific when discussing any of its aspects.



This is true at high and low levels of analyzing what crypto really is. Does Bitcoin compete with Ethereum? As far as their technologies go, not really. But there&#8217;s an argument to be made that BTC and ETH do compete as assets.&nbsp;



Does Ethereum compete with Solana? For sure, as both a technology and an asset. How about World and its native token worldcoin (WLD)?&nbsp;



On the surface, World is absolutely similar to any other blockchain with its own ecosystem of apps and protocols.&nbsp;



The official Worldcoin wallet aside, the <a href="https://www.miniapps.world/">top</a> apps on the network are various third-party wallets, apps that dish out tokens for various tasks or otherwise let users stake tokens in return for yield. Fairly cookie-cutter by today’s standards.



Of course, World and WLD are largely unique because of the Orb, the biometric scanner that’s meant to human-proof the internet from its inevitable AI overlords.



<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">&quot;The Internet will inevitably need some kind of proof-of-humanity system in the near future.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/JjsRnL1sDc">pic.twitter.com/JjsRnL1sDc</a>&mdash; World (@worldcoin) <a href="https://twitter.com/worldcoin/status/1927354632650522872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">TIME zoomed into the Orb with its May piece, “<a href="https://time.com/7288387/sam-altman-orb-tools-for-humanity/">The Orb Will See You Now</a>”</figcaption></figure>



There are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/worldcoin-privacy-concerns">valid critiques</a> of World’s vision of the future (and its present, for that matter). But what’s often overlooked is that its co-founder Sam Altman really wants universal basic income to play a central role in whatever life humans will live around the Singularity.



Separately to World and Tools for Humanity, Altman has already run an $60-million, three-year <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-basic-income-study-results-2024-7?international=true&amp;r=US&amp;IR=T">UBI experiment</a> with 3,000 participants across Texas and Illinois. “We do see significant reductions in stress, mental distress, and food insecurity during the first year, but those effects fade out by the second and third years of the program,” the researchers found, but the maximum payments of $1,000 per month were just not enough to solve challenges such as&nbsp; “chronic health conditions, lack of childcare, or the high cost of living.”



WLD, in essence, has the blockchain bones of a crypto-powered UBI scheme via its year-long grants program, which pays a small sum of tokens to anyone who has verified through the World App, be it by feeding their biometrics to the Orb or by submitting their government-issued IDs, such as passports.



Recently, the total <a href="https://dune.com/world/world">number</a> of individual users who have received at least one grant ticked over to 12 million (about a quarter of the combined population of Texas and Illinois).&nbsp;



Those users have altogether received more than 595 million WLD to date, which at current prices (WLD = ~$1) puts the total value of the verification grants at $595 million — nearly 10 times the value of the previously referenced UBI study.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdq78Jv6PX_SRxXl4hptAk_1ebjnzWMCRIBUq0wWVnCT5RkYtFNm9wQVhhhu6qOQ-kwkabot7cpipe-0QDGt9SY6HBp1cxP0UBM5DXBVkFVIKxYdRlzUbGJAaI03Q8T2moXg3ueRA?key=PLAEVq4ZGs-eriayO3elAg" alt=""/></figure>



But the price of WLD has reached as high as nearly $12. So, if we value the grants at the approximate time of distribution — accounting for users potentially dumping their tokens as soon as they receive them — the total value of WLD grant distributions moons to $1.61 billion.



On average, each user has received around 50 WLD as part of the grants program, worth only about $50 right now but closer to $600 at all-time highs. And it’s likely the real value that recipients unlocked sits somewhere in the middle-to-low end of that scale.



That’s obviously lower than the $1,000 per month paid out in Altman’s previous real-world UBI trial, so the effectiveness of World’s quasi-UBI scheme is questionable at best. But when it comes to World, its grants program might be the closest thing it has to a killer app, at least at the consumer level, with integrations with platforms, businesses and so on rounding out the rest of its potential.



Awkwardly, this would place tokenomics at the vanguard of humanity’s last line of defense for the AI takeover, which by the way things are going, sounds just about right to me.



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World’s killer consumer app might be UBI — but it all hinges on price

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Six years is certainly a long time in crypto. But Libra (later Diem) might’ve felt right at home in the current agreeable atmosphere in the US.



Back then, Meta (still Facebook) had its own blockchain subsidiary, Calibra, that was pushing to launch a new type of cryptocurrency pegged to a basket of various fiat with a floating value.



The Calibra wallet was meant to be <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/20/18693521/facebook-libra-cryptocurrency-calibra-explainer-how-does-work-features">integrated</a> with WhatsApp and Messenger and promised to let users send money to each other with practically zero fees. Libra, the token, was also intended to be used for e-commerce on Facebook.



Libra was mostly styled as a crypto-powered competitor to PayPal — former PayPal President David Marcus was leading the effort — but rhetoric would often sneak in.



Bitcoin was supposedly “not a good medium of exchange … because [fiat] currency is actually very stable and bitcoin is volatile,” Marcus <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/1669080/facebook-is-going-into-the-banking-business-with-blockchain.html">told</a> Fox Business, which, to be fair, maps to what <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/peter-todd-permissionless-bitcoin-tether">Peter Todd told Pete Rizzo</a> at Permissionless IV last month.



Trustlessness still stands for something. While the so-called Libra Association intended to diversify responsibility away from Facebook and onto corporate backers including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Uber, the Senate Bank Committee had deep concerns.



Granted, longtime antagonist Sherrod Brown led the grilling on this day in 2019, and he’s no fan of Bitcoin, either. But the notion was that Facebook couldn’t be trusted to handle user bank accounts — their finances — in any capacity at all, particularly in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which had broken the previous year.



It took then-North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry to make it explicitly clear why Bitcoin was so innovative in the first place.



McHenry was averse to the way in which Facebook was railroaded into defending libra while it was still in a conceptual phase. But when asked about whether the US government may or may not allow alternative currencies — be it bitcoin, libra or stablecoins — to flourish without strict guardrails, McHenry had this to say on CNBC Squawk Box:



“Well, I think there is no capacity to kill Bitcoin. Even the Chinese with their firewall and their extreme intervention in their society could not kill Bitcoin…but the new iterations of this that are trying to mimic it, that are not fully distributed, that are not fully open, there are different mechanisms to kill it.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Rep. Patrick McHenry: &#039;There&#039;s no capacity to kill Bitcoin&#039;" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xolYGw2wU6Y?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



Six years (and a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-nft-royalties-memecoin-taxes">few NFT drops</a>) later, Trump would change his tune about bitcoin and start accepting it for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-accepts-crypto-donations-2024-election">campaign donations</a>, culminating in the executive ordering of an official US <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-crypto-reserve-management">strategic bitcoin reserve</a> in March.



Jamie Dimon <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/17/hes-changed-his-tune-trump-reveals-jpmorgan-ceos-sudden-bitcoin-and-crypto-flip-amid-huge-price-surge/">softening his anti-bitcoin stance</a> around the same time might’ve had something to do with it. So too a realization that Bitcoiners were drastically underserved by the Biden administration. 



But maybe, McHenry’s comments set the tone — an “a-ha” moment for outsiders to finally understand why Bitcoin.



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