Torch of Liberty

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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“The miracle of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs.”&nbsp;



— John Bogle



<a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2025/08/06/how-loyalty-programmes-are-keeping-americas-airlines-aloft">Could stablecoins kill the airlines?</a>​​



The Economist writes that the four biggest US airlines would all have made a loss last year if not for their side hustle selling loyalty points.



Delta, for example, made an operating profit of $6 billion on the year, $7 billion of which came from selling loyalty points to credit card companies.&nbsp;



Incredibly, Delta says 1% of America’s GDP is spent through its co-branded cards.



In total, US consumers paid $187 billion in credit card interchange fees last year, which always seems ripe for disruption.



But The Economist points out that roughly three-quarters of interchange fees are returned to customers as rewards or rebates.



People love their rewards, especially the airline rewards that make travel feel like it’s free. This could be a defensive moat for the credit card companies that stablecoin issuers are hoping to disrupt.



Understandably, the airlines would like the card companies to maintain that moat — so much so that they lobbied against an amendment to the GENIUS Act that would have lowered interchange fees.



In a <a href="https://www.digitaltransactions.net/opposition-mounts-to-the-durbin-marshall-amendment/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">letter</a> to Congress, the airline industry warned that the legislation would “lead to significantly fewer passengers and flights.”



The amendment was dropped, but if stablecoins really catch on, it could have the same effect: fewer flights and higher ticket prices.



But what if stablecoins offer points, too?&nbsp;



The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/business/wall-street-banks-crypto-stablecoins.html">reported</a> this morning that big US banks planning to issue stablecoins also “plan to operate rewards programs, similar to existing credit card promotions, to woo customers to their own coins.”



<a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-family-crypto-1e7ab14a?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAi8AHEWU5AffhZBSv_TQbcTnUofOrvKWrD2LDnjVPiUPUopD2VUdx7lmQIqyKQ%3D&amp;gaa_ts=689cfe24&amp;gaa_sig=Of7yLxXiom12TAQLQTXDx1x7fG8CZhe2xrGRkEyM2ozPTIWhlZbOAZYs8_QD2FXa_OxhUqBdMYcgIFsrUAD5sg%3D%3D">PancakeSwap diplomacy</a>



The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-family-crypto-1e7ab14a?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAiQ5e0ijjCRuKB28f0bK_cN-PmNcO3Dyy02yWmbP9s183aOIDOA0m1-a4bbJgE%3D&amp;gaa_ts=689e03f8&amp;gaa_sig=3K9u0zdaSpLfTwXipkjvw7rHnBrH0tIRlcEJWoLgejOE9AE3oTMfO_0XBeVBIGyjfT96cOUq-MiqwWHb9zLXrA%3D%3D">reports</a> that Binance is making a concerted effort to promote World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin, presumably to curry favor with President Trump.



Amusingly, much of it is happening on PancakeSwap.



90% of the trading in USD1 happens on the breakfast-themed decentralized exchange, where volumes exploded over the last two months.



The reason? “Crypto investors were chasing prizes worth up to $1 million for generating as much USD1 trading as possible as part of a ‘Liquidity Drive.’” (I’m guessing paid by Binance.)



Popular USD1 pairs include Torch of Liberty and Eagles Landing — memecoins launched with the explicit goal of getting people to use the president’s stablecoin.



Despite the America-first branding, most of the activity happens in China: “Traders, mostly writing in Chinese, gather in groups on the Telegram messaging app to talk about competing for rewards paid out to top users of USD1 and advertised by PancakeSwap.”



Recent events have left many <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-trump-being-so-generous-to-china/a-73594826">wondering</a> why Trump is being so nice to China.



Could it have anything to do with a Chinese crypto exchange paying Chinese traders to use a US president’s stablecoin, to trade US-themed memecoins, on a US-breakfast-themed exchange?



I mean, it’s only natural to feel more generous toward someone that’s making you a lot of money.



Improbably, I know. The US-China détente is probably not about PancakeSwap.&nbsp;



But we can’t rule it out!



Which is wild.



If memecoin traders on PancakeSwap ease tension between China and the US, it will all have been worth it.



<a href="https://blog.bitmex.com/treasury-company-advisory-agreements/">DATs are more expensive than you think</a>



BitMEX Research details the hidden costs of investing in digital asset treasury companies.



Many DATs pay an outside asset manager just to hold on to their crypto for them.



The Solana DAT Upexi, for example, pays an annual fee of 1.75% of its assets to custody its SOL tokens.



Verb Technologies, a Toncoin DAT, pays an annual “advisory fee” equal to 2% of its market capitalization (every year!) to the investment firm Kingsway Capital Partners.&nbsp;



How much there is to advise on with a DAT is unclear — you just buy the token, right?



And paying your advisor as a percent of market capitalization instead of NAV seems particularly egregious.



MEI Pharma, the Litecoin DAT, pays 0.75% a year to an advisor and 1.75% a year to an asset manager.



ATNF, the latest ETH DAT, pays an asset manager 2% assets for custody, with a hefty annual minimum of $1 million.



ATNF is up 113% this week, so you can see why investors might not care just at the moment.



But they should because the “tyranny of compounding costs” is inescapable over time.



Most of these new DATs issue warrants and/or options to their advisors as well, which will dilute shareholders when exercised.



BNC, the BNB coin DAT currently trading at $28, has granted options to its advisor at an exercise price of $0.00001 per share.



“In some cases,” BitMEX adds, “there is often an incentive or payment linked to the market capitalization or premium to mNAV.”



You can also throw in the cost of the C-suite incentives, payroll, legal advice, banker advice, auditor fees, exchange-listing fees…&nbsp;



All of which must add up to multiple percentage points of NAV per year. Every year.



Or you could hold an ETF for an all-in annual fee of 0.2%.



Or hold the crypto yourself for a fee of 0.00%.



“The end game here is that many of these companies eventually trade at a significant discount to mNAV and become zombies once again,” BitMEX concludes, “potentially still paying significant fees.” Emphasis added to make John Bogle roll over in his grave.



<a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/08/11/3130918/0/en/Safety-Shot-Announces-Strategic-Alliance-with-Bonk-Founding-Contributors-Initiating-BONK-Treasury-Strategy.html">Bonk treasury strategy</a>



Markets have a knack for chasing any profitable strategy right up to its breaking point — and for DATs, they may have hit it this week.&nbsp;



Could a Bonk treasury company be to DATs what Pets.com was to e-commerce — a cartoon mascot that ends up discrediting the whole category?&nbsp;



Maybe. The token dropped 5% after the announcement.



<a href="https://stargate.discourse.group/t/layerzero-foundation-acquisition-of-stargate-stg/682">Merger arbitrage comes to crypto</a>



The financial blogger Mojo <a href="https://mojo3324106.substack.com/p/the-factory-that-makes-investment">explains</a> why “merger arbitrage” is the best way to learn about markets.



Speculating on whether a company with a pending takeover offer will ultimately be bought and at what price requires deep knowledge of both bidder and target, the industry it’s in, antitrust law, how the regulatory bodies work and much more.



It also makes you think harder about investing: “Merger arbitrage forces systematic thinking and mastery of process in ways that picking growth stocks never could,” Mojo writes.



Unlike most investing, merger arb generally requires you to be right for the right reason — being carried along by momentum or catching a narrative won’t save you from lazy decision making.



I’d argue that being right for the wrong reason is especially prevalent in crypto.&nbsp;



If so, the merger-arb situation announced this week might be especially educational.&nbsp;



On Monday, the LayerZero Foundation, which develops the LayerZero messaging protocol, proposed the acquisition of Stargate, a bridge protocol that uses LayerZero.&nbsp;



Just like a stock-based deal, the foundation’s offer was $0.1675 per token, paid in ZRO at a ratio of 1 STG to 0.08634 ZRO.



To know whether that presents an opportunity for arbitrage (by buying STG and shorting ZRO), you’ll need a deep understanding of DAO governance, how both protocols work, who the stakeholders in each community are, the crypto borrow-and-lend market&#8230;



There’s a lot more to it than, say, guessing how much the market will overpay for a DAT.&nbsp;



“Merger arbitrage strips investing down to its essential elements,” Mojo sums up.



Crypto investing could use some of that, I think.



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Thursday links: Points, pancakes, DATs and merger arb

Donovan Choy

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



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Here’s a weekly snapshot of the Solana ecosystem.



SOL’s price briefly flirted with the $200 mark before it dipped to $193 amid a broader market dip this morning.



Unlike BTC and ETH, SOL does not enjoy an institutional bid (yet) from treasury companies. SOL DATs, mainly Upexi (UPXI) and DeFi Development Corp (DFDV), have accumulated about $596 billion in SOL, compared to $11 billion in ETH and $86 billion in BTC.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfo3qnUVE2EwsXbB3ctZI-7qkQ1miqzkVGMBKhAQgPGYvT0kpRmhwNcQhyLZUjW_E8h9viFaTkW9zcUgrFlvwWiJU7ZtfEFkVvC_B04TbZa9rUvmEM5Cpg9w818GtNgGc7GpUUEHA?key=lCGEZ20LQzDEgtY3bmAgFw" alt=""/></figure>



Looking at daily REV (all fees paid to transact onchain), Solana’s REV has stayed relatively stagnant at the $2.5 million to $3.5 million mark for months.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcWMB1FxPxzEY5E6gzvo0iwUJxtt8T-TWPWZuafG-SA2tKqylwxIFaqvxLAbPmk2FvbjuUCujqz0K0GSA-2MTDEnPc0yvYAH82fvJACo30UyRkzNW7BWePw2pWDm9Jt3kMvRp2rGw?key=lCGEZ20LQzDEgtY3bmAgFw" alt=""/></figure>



Net inflows into SOL’s sole institutional ETF — the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-rex-osprey-first-solana-staking-etf">REX-Osprey SOL Staking ETF</a> (SSK) — have slowed. The fund drew $3.7 million for the week of Aug. 4-10, compared to $58.3 million in its launch week. Daily net flows were $5.2 million on Tuesday.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXct3Z7-BJMyI0zuS63L0ZiIxoe7iKMmEkXZ9UpEw5JF1QSUVUKOzqHgdg5kfef8XDMD-7N-mkbtWTGuk8ce-rWYNps_6Hp2KpdYlwkB5b4MxLGpbkxmkyKUGZ6SxqlBJ3SfEpnsOg?key=lCGEZ20LQzDEgtY3bmAgFw" alt=""/></figure>



Over on the memecoin side of the world, Pump lost its dominance to Letsbonk through July, but recently reclaimed its spot in the last week. Yesterday, Pump saw 30,550 tokens launched compared to 1,499 on Letsbonk.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcDeKL_YMDtlTDWEb8gcdq50zqOhvnnDOxsKsG2-K6uIAVjQCKUxQTEkownKiknmlTyZ6BaNDxZpw-8INqb68Nz_ccjmQf5XK_idxIapkzuLvc9mmMRNdiGBfOyRJEJOF3r0zu1rQ?key=lCGEZ20LQzDEgtY3bmAgFw" alt=""/></figure>



The PUMP token has traded down to $0.0036, after it briefly touched its ICO price of $0.004 last night.



The Axiom trading bot continues to dominate the trading bot market, regardless of which launchpad is winning. Axiom has grown to 60% market share since its inception in February.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeug22PZabAQnYntB4Qmse1Enj0UAkrHrPkPZyx22I8JvI2_nJCh_surFQY2SjYJg14zH6v8Lmn6HOtPQ1IOi9uADXAXUzc9RVC9ec4nmzAw24YSMBmhQkiHeaX3nR-ZEnf1d-oqg?key=lCGEZ20LQzDEgtY3bmAgFw" alt=""/></figure>



Over on the perps market, Drift has been having a good month, <a href="https://x.com/cindyleowtt/status/1955668879398568134">hitting</a> $500 million in open interest yesterday. Its zero-fee trading for BTC and ETH introduced in mid-July has sparked a growth of volumes, as seen in the below chart.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc8qZoCqS4QJUiHzCtAXqV9_2PsK38b2rAQTl8I53QYpjFamiVfbcZhCt-E-otlXFXUxQveTX5KpvWKoApbKa6_Aw8nZlFbf_QKDRnpYD87UFs5jNcG2QN8qqntT5i9OkjJh3oRrQ?key=lCGEZ20LQzDEgtY3bmAgFw" alt=""/></figure>



Despite its growth, though, the perps crown in Solana is still held by Jupiter. 



Based on trading volumes, Drift has about $17.1 billion in the last 30 days, compared to Jupiter perp <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/perps/jupiter">volumes</a> of $23.1 billion. Both are of course still eclipsed by Hyperliquid’s trading volumes of ~<a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/hyperliquid?dashboard=135">$371 billion</a> within the same time period.



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ETFs

The state of Solana in 6 charts

Felix Jauvin

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



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It’s amazing how quickly things can change in one week.



It feels like only yesterday that the Fed appeared unlikely to cut rates at all in September. Now, we’re beginning to price in the chance of not just a 25 basis point cut, but a 50 bps one!



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcIqLXVnFPxgRS9-SQdjWp3QktkkCO7GOzrD5hMp4MTlc65rMLV_DMlDl8FXkrveiiTbx2mlyszeDAJCpomXmce_fvTtZ_36yjHYCYpzffvHxKyoB52CWJVqjUZrUETprAab8Z9?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" alt=""/></figure>



In a Tuesday Fox Business interview, Treasury Secretary Bessent added fuel to the speculation by saying &#8220;the real thing now to think about is: Should we get a 50 basis point rate cut in September?”



I’m old enough to remember when Bessent said he wouldn’t comment on future monetary policy decisions. But here we are.&nbsp;



So, should the Fed cut 50 bps in September? Let’s look at both sides of the argument.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">No cuts</h2>



Although this month’s CPI print was pretty tame and consensus, there are some underlying inflation pressures building.&nbsp;



Core goods, one of the biggest drivers of the disinflation story over the last couple years, is now beginning to accelerate higher, largely driven by tariffs:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfxynCt7Fbq84LrOU49AcJo-R6lEirkgOm2MqZNFb1PXKKFSV6DP5CsPqXhgqzvegULkOl01gOsvxvHXTBB3VxPX4500nHkdAyWN8454L6i4yQTSJbz9NdntZgrdgRFcRRaLb0Uxg?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" alt=""/></figure>



Despite a pretty nasty jobs report last week, forward-looking estimates point to a labor market that is beginning to reaccelerate again.&nbsp;



In the most recent business headcount surveys, the amount of businesses that planned on meaningfully increasing headcount in the next year bounced higher:<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd2Y48iD6dzODB5onj4GCQPcoIhm8f7AyZrCQth5vH3RRbs2l4PwQuhvUOz-M9B_5piBInOGXMWx9B6L7-U7H1vnX2BQLANCd07rEPKuPK-UHVBmiZV_DpBtJ1Rdq1h9uFk7O-Y?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" width="624" height="375">



Looking at Visa’s US spending momentum index, the consumer appears pretty resilient in the face of tariffs and their spending habits are looking like they’re beginning to tick higher:<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc57w1GNEk5DGjGydNeqjW_7VvnHftktH-M6t6VMhN-5HhfrWeOSBQjWu7BGYJCFVSBWkqTf-jvb-A-6Jl6-IejRTxXhkFZT4Sx6pm0vgztMYvq8-ACUbR-sC8jzbBEumu2lpF9?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" width="624" height="377">



Based on this confluence of data, I could make the argument that the economy is beginning to reaccelerate. If the Fed were to cut in September based on lagging data such as NFP, it could end up being a mistake that makes the bond market sell off like it did last year when the Fed did the same thing.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Cut and go big</h2>



Consumption is the engine that drives the US economy. Ever since Q4 2024, it’s been meaningfully slowing.&nbsp;



If purchasing power decreases due to the continued implementation of tariffs, we could well see further weakening in consumer spending that could quite quickly look recessionary.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc86KmotSb3WAyp4UaTK4PCnHiGcK9uB_XGxmZsXTxJwhpFUyaEYBrM4i7c065zePzZdLWLB77kZ87lL4M0mbc52BQ1uvLiHYNVD23QSU8RCtwkCJKmzQQ4wh8SQyRnOpz5rf6Vng?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" alt=""/></figure>



Meanwhile, tariff collections continue to surge higher — and someone needs to foot that bill:<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfo6SOm7VSHGBcekQ5hd2kECPnMYNo1---J3qozxcxv_WMVWG4Q56KVUklkplQ7frEqmHAe6gF2t9WY7ur2s8dNm_p3OiG8yny7McZUtn9t20AcK0CwJAvWshZO7UTYstAXmzCi-A?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" width="624" height="377">



If companies pass on the tariffs to the consumer, those higher prices will eventually hurt aggregate demand since that additional price increase means that money cannot be spent elsewhere. Without an offset, this is negative for growth.&nbsp;



If companies absorb the price hikes, it will squeeze their corporate profit margins, which will also lower economic output. Either way, it’s negative for the growth outlook.&nbsp;



Finally, with a labor market that continues to surprise to the downside with downward revisions that continue to tick lower pro-cyclically, some sort of insurance rate cut could make sense here. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfxEa3gUV14t39q7WjqIHTMeKiFGmEMmo-rN_qgMfcMGx8WTumgAfvTF5K0PUH85Q9f7XlMePHrr2_sW-fdhIZqBgh6eCmmozx6qjbwhG3Rmxq5j90RpCR9_HdmQRvOfG7Y_YgI?key=QdJD92B_gjB-YBebhmyAqg" width="624" height="333">



Putting it all together, I can make the case for a pause as much as I can make a case for substantial cuts.&nbsp;



It’s no wonder the FOMC, on the question of where to go from here, is the most divided it’s been in decades.



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FOMC

Should the Fed cut 50bps in September?

Macauley Peterson

Circle is building its own blockchain —&nbsp;and it’s not a rollup, but a layer-1.



In doing so, the American stablecoin issuer is betting that the shortest path between a dollar and a smart contract is the one it controls — full-stack, sovereign, and custom-built for payments.



The new chain, dubbed Arc, will be Ethereum-compatible, but use USDC for gas, and feature sub-second deterministic finality.&nbsp;



The big question for Ethereum is whether Arc will shift stablecoin activity or function more like a hub-and-spoke architecture, internalizing issuance and settlement while routing liquidity and flow outward to the broader EVM ecosystem via <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/58c53fc4-c272-11ed-a55a-23d88d4d81ed">CCTP</a> and other bridges.



The decision to build a new sovereign chain — rather than deploying on a modular layer 2 — has reignited a familiar argument on Crypto Twitter: does this mark a return to enterprise chains, or is it simply the logical architecture for a dollar-native payments platform? Does it weaken Ethereum’s long-held role as crypto’s settlement layer for stablecoins, or further entrench it through cross-chain interoperability and network effects?



The answers may hinge less on ideology than execution, and whether <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle</a> pursues Arc as a walled garden or merely a better bank.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Vertical integration</h2>



Circle declined to comment on Arc’s technical design, citing a quiet period. But what we know from the <a href="https://6778953.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6778953/Arc%20Litepaper%20-%202025.pdf">published</a> light paper is that the L1 is built on <a href="https://github.com/circlefin/malachite">Malachite</a>, a new high-performance BFT consensus engine originally developed by Informal Systems as a rewrite of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Tendermint</a>. Circle has hired the core team of nine behind Malachite, but the engine remains open-source and is already being used elsewhere, <a href="https://www.starknet.io/blog/product-market-fit/">including</a> in Starknet’s decentralization roadmap.



Informal co-founder Ethan Buchman told Blockworks he views Malachite as akin to the Rust language: “Originally developed at Mozilla, now used by everyone.”



For Buchman, Circle’s decision to launch its own chain is not a rejection of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>, but a standard business choice for a team with sufficient resources. “It’s the same decision every time when people choose to build their own chain: they value vertical integration,” Buchman said.



“The kind of predictability that gives you, and how it sort of hedges uncertainty — because you have the stack, you have the team, you&#8217;re not dependent on some external team for core components,” he said.



Crypto Twitter/X is split on the net-impact. The bullish-ETH read (<a href="https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1955270488860614795">Ryan Sean Adams</a>, <a href="https://x.com/armaniferrante/status/1955261652892348782">Armani Ferrante</a>) says EVM-first corporate chains still feed Ethereum’s network effects. The bearish-ETH camp (<a href="https://x.com/jon_charb/status/1955260430890213650">Jon Charbonneau</a>) argues the marginal EVM developer now accrues close to zero to ETH if flows internalize elsewhere.&nbsp;



Others worry about censorship and developer gravity: <a href="https://x.com/EliBenSasson/status/1955237895473672568">Eli Ben-Sasson</a> fired a warning shot — “Corporate L1s / L2s won’t succeed” — against more open systems, while <a href="https://x.com/adamscochran/status/1955257074318823568">Adam Cochran</a> tried to disqualify Arc as “a consortium chain” rather than an L1.



The counter-narrative from operators is that deterministic finality and protocol-level controls are critical for payments and FX. Arc’s paper leans into that: “A transaction on Arc is either unconfirmed or it is 100% final and irreversible.”&nbsp;



This is the crux of L1 over L2 as a business decision. Rollups “rent” Ethereum’s finality and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-roadmap-data-availability-da">data availability</a>; sovereign L1s own the base-layer policy surface, including <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gas-fees">gas</a> denomination, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/kyc">KYC</a> hooks, dispute/refund logic, and transaction ordering.



Circle will start with what amounts to a <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a> chain using Proof-of-Authority, with a closed validator set. “It’s very cheap to operate,” Interchain Labs co-founder Barry Plunkett told Blockworks.&nbsp;



For instance, 5-10 Cosmos validator costs on the order of a few thousand dollars a month. “Maybe an L2 is a little cheaper because you don’t need as many boxes and don’t have the overhead of paying third parties to operate them for you. But you do have DA costs, so it’s probably a wash,” Plunkett said.



If your profit margin lives on settlement economics and working-capital velocity, sovereignty is attractive. If your priority is time-to-market and broad composability, a centralized-sequencer rollup may be cheaper and easier to ship.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stablecoin boom as backdrop</h2>



A Keyrock/Bitso <a href="https://documents.keyrock.com/hubfs/Stablecoin-Payments-The-Trillion-Dollar-Opportunity.pdf">report</a> out today argues stablecoins are already reshaping the payments landscape. Monthly stablecoin payments more than tripled to $6.3 billion by February 2025, with B2B volumes jumping from $120 million to $2.7 billion in two years; card-based flows crossed $1 billion/month. On their trajectory, annual stablecoin payment volume could approach $1 trillion by 2030.&nbsp;



That helps explain why companies with distribution are eyeing sovereign rails, according to Alchemy CTO Guillaume Poncin, formerly Stripe’s engineering head.



“We are seeing several companies race to build a stablecoin-first blockchain,” Poncin told Blockworks. “The revenue opportunity from owning the settlement layer will dwarf traditional payment processing margins.” The infrastructure costs are tiny by comparison.



Poncin similarly frames L1 vs. L2 analysis as boiling down to a question of control vs time-to-market. “Choosing between the two is a nuanced trade-off… L1s can be fully customized at every layer, [but] <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollups</a> are battle-tested and much easier to build and secure.” He’s not too concerned with fragmentation due to Arc’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a> compatibility, because it “speeds adoption by both developers and users.”



As crypto-native builders chase composability and yield, Circle is playing a different game: infrastructure that can compete with payments giants like <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/visa">Visa</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stripe">Stripe</a>, or even <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/fednow">FedNow</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ethereum isn’t going anywhere</h2>



Critics have framed Arc as a sign that Circle, whose USDC accounts for <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/ethereum/ethereum-stablecoins">nearly 30%</a> of stablecoin supply on Ethereum, is pulling away from the chain that bootstrapped it.



But that overstates the case, according to Buchman.



“I think Ethereum is here for the long term, no matter what decision Circle makes today. I think it, it has achieved a kind of breakout velocity, it&#8217;s entrenched itself as a technology of fundamental import to human rights… Its longevity will be related to its neutrality and its conservatism.”



Circle will continue to have to grapple with that. Past concerns over the influence of the USDC issuer over Ethereum’s direction have been muted by the proliferation of competing stablecoin issuers, in Buchman’s view.



“This is part of Ethereum&#8217;s evolution and the idea that Ethereum only works if all compute happens on Ethereum, I think, is obscene and just it kind of misses the fundamental role Ethereum is going to have over the next 100 years or so,” Buchman said.



Ethereum’s centrality as a destination for stablecoin flows can persist even as issuance and FX trading move upstream to Arc. We don’t yet know the extent to which Circle will court DeFi apps to deploy on Arc, but in general, the application layer still wants to live where liquidity is deepest.



One legitimate concern is whether Arc’s USDC-native design introduces new vectors for censorship or exclusion, especially in sanctioned jurisdictions. If USDC is both asset and gas, what happens when the token itself is frozen?



“Technically, fallback mechanisms are possible,” Buchman said, but the baseline should be the current banking system and he thinks Arc will certainly clear that low bar.



“Is it going to be as freedom-supporting and protective of human rights as Ethereum and Bitcoin themselves? No. I don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s trying to kid themselves about it. But I feel like Circle is trying to go to bat for an open economy.”



There remain open questions about system-level privacy and regulatory constraints, which Circle has only lightly touched on. “We pitched them hard on privacy,” Buchman added.



“They’ve acknowledged it, but we’ll see how far they take it,” he said. “Malachite is well-suited to support privacy-preserving chains, and that’s going to be a critical next step.”



Whether it will ultimately be a handful of new chains or a <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/daily/issue/post_afb749f3-24b3-4a45-a982-d6e174f353d7">Cambrian explosion</a>, it’s clear that some enterprises still prefer building sovereign chains, even in the era of modular, shared security stacks. The tradeoffs between customization, governance, cost, and platform risk are nuanced, whether it’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-l2-staking-us">Robinhood’s rollup</a> on Arbitrum Orbit or Arc’s full L1, or whatever Stripe has in store its newly announced L1 <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stripe-circle-l1s-solana">Tempo</a>.



“I see it a lot like cloud versus on-prem[esis],” Buchman said. “Right now there&#8217;s this whole movement to move things out of the cloud back to on-prem and it&#8217;s going to oscillate back and forth until the end of time — and I think we&#8217;ll see something similar with L1s and L2s.”



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



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



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



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



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



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

Circle

Why Circle chose an L1 — and what it means for Ethereum

Ben Strack

TeraWulf’s stock soared Thursday after revealing a 10-year deal with AI cloud platform Fluidstack that also aligns the bitcoin miner with Google.



The decade-long high-performance computing (HPC) colocation agreements — with two five-year extension options — come as bitcoin miners have looked to diversify income streams in recent years away from volatile crypto-linked revenues.



TeraWulf is set to deliver to Fluidstack more than 200 megawatts of critical IT load at its Lake Mariner datacenter in New York, the company said Thursday. TeraWulf estimates $370 million in annual revenue from this deal.&nbsp;



Perhaps a bigger takeaway from the deal is Google taking a roughly 8% stake in TeraWulf. The tech giant — as a result of backstopping $1.8 billion of Fluidstack’s lease obligations — is set to acquire about 41 million shares of WULF common stock.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coreweave-pending-buy-ai">CoreWeave’s pending Core Scientific buy gives ‘optionality’ as AI needs evolve</a>



TeraWulf’s move to host AI workloads exhibits how a large miner can turn its energy infrastructure into stable, long-term revenue, said BlocksBridge Consulting founder Nishant Sharma.



“The scale and Google’s financial backing make it a standout and could inspire similar moves from peers,” Sharma added.



Despite Google’s involvement making the deal unique, TeraWulf’s deal resembles similar recent pivots across the mining segment. Sharma pointed to Bit Digital entering into a $44 million credit facility in June with the Royal Bank of Canada to expand its AI-focused infrastructure.



Gaining more attention was Core Scientific last year signing various 12-year contracts with CoreWeave. The bitcoin miner offered 200 MW of infrastructure to host the cloud provider’s HPC services; expected annual revenue stemming from the deal was $290 million.



CoreWeave then revealed last month that it would <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coreweave-to-acquire-core-scientific">acquire Core Scientific</a> in an all-stock deal.



“Like Core Scientific’s multi-hundred-megawatt hosting deals with CoreWeave, this is a major long-term HPC commitment,” Sharma said.&nbsp;



“But TeraWulf’s version adds a strategic investor and backstop, giving it more financial certainty and independence.”



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



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



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



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



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



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

Google

Google involved in BTC miner TeraWulf’s ‘standout’ hosting deal 

Kate Irwin

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



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



Blockchain devs are increasingly centering their new products around user accounts and identities — and are launching their own chains as a result.



Zink, an SVM L1 from ATMTA, is the latest new blockchain to join the trend. ATMTA is the studio behind the in-development space exploration game <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/star-atlas-development-advances">Star Atlas</a>, which for years was expected to use Solana’s mainnet for all its crypto elements.&nbsp;



But that now appears to be changing. While some die-hard Solana fans might see the move as a shakeup, those unfazed by this reveal might argue Star Atlas making its own chain was inevitable for scalability, anyway.



Zink uses zero-knowledge proofs to power features like “zProfiles,” which will give users a central identity with “global permission settings” that can automate transactions and connect and apply to multiple apps, according to a statement.&nbsp;



ATMTA founder and CEO Michael Wagner told me via email that Zink is intended to be a “generalist consumer blockchain” long term, but that initially the studio is looking to bring other crypto gaming studios onboard to use the Zink chain.



“Zink will start as a largely centralized and permissioned blockchain. We do anticipate a validator set that includes several external parties on mainnet launch; large validators from Solana. But generally, ATMTA wants to control how the L1 matures in the early phases, and prioritize performance for Star Atlas,” Wagner explained.&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">Star Atlas Dev Log 5: Spent time refactoring the crouch logic. State machine can get a bit complicated given support for toggle crouch and various movement abilities. Did you know if you hold forward and crouch during a dash or upon landing your character will try to slide? <a href="https://t.co/EUbT5c4rEg">pic.twitter.com/EUbT5c4rEg</a>&mdash; Chypto (@Chypto_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chypto_/status/1955297614716363017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 12, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“However, we have a roadmap that ultimately leads to going open access and permissionless. I would anticipate we achieve that within 18-24 months, though expect greater degrees of decentralization over time in a more iterative fashion,” he added.



The studio has slated Zink for a December mainnet launch.&nbsp;



As with most blockchains, Zink’s native token of the same name will be used for staking, consensus and community incentives.&nbsp;



Next month, a ZINK airdrop campaign will track community members’ activity and contributions to let them earn XP (and then ultimately the token). Playing Star Atlas and its affiliated games, like the SAGE browser game, will earn XP, as will locking up Star Atlas tokens ATLAS and POLIS.



Other existing chains focused on user identities include Worldcoin’s EVM blockchain, which seeks to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/worldcoin-biometric-identity-vision">discern between</a> bots and humans, and the upcoming EVM L1 <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/animoca-moca-chain-mainnet-launch">Moca Chain</a>, which aims to give users more control over their identities and data.



How many of these blockchains we actually need is up for debate, of course, though ultimately metrics like revenue and user activity will answer that question in the long term.&nbsp;&nbsp;



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



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<ul class="wp-block-list">
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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>



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



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



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



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



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

Gaming

Solana-compatible Star Atlas L1 plots December launch

Katherine Ross

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



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



In July, we saw over $6 billion go into funding, a pretty big increase in comparison to June, according to Blockworks Research data.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1245" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png" alt="" class="wp-image-106111" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=330 330w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=335 335w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=281 281w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXeHEouzdKHRGgowXWdf_veprMNnCj9c_RRpvJ559-kUyG2KugkcydBVcQ7n7gUN_BRiMfWszFncQ-lhaoRlPMPrcEEVL71wbBpPX6GKEUhbQm-1KyA6y0iTLjUUR7rf3ScSi2cOvQ.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Look at the itty-bitty June bar in comparison to July&nbsp;



Of that $6 billion, roughly $177 million came from M&amp;A activity. To break that down further: 96 raise announcements were made in comparison to just 12 M&amp;A announcements. Both June and May saw 10 or fewer M&amp;A announcements, it did pick up ever so slightly.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1245" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png" alt="" class="wp-image-106112" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=330 330w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=335 335w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=281 281w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXdiqko7sDez8scTxE8_7uHFb3sMUjTl4fw7mPM4tlmXQr9M_PDvz7gFuFEIlYYXKIhnzvNOkXXPdQei1AAJsSwO0rOEj3RkWzxjsa4X99tw7FaCf70wzZtNLtqeBhx8WhGgWxB25A.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



To give you a better idea of the breakdown



If we look at TIE data, which included <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfPMvCtU7PQ">Digital Asset Treasury</a> company raises, then we can also gauge what stage of raises were the most popular last month.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="693" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-106113" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=1120 1120w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=415 415w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=422 422w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=354 354w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXcOvXwbRit5XdE5mh0muCT6HX8PXLHz-cgdhh9DFw4PDcvBPX78kv2SceM5kjxAOHRIYP3qajNnfInYN2cZF1llHYxVhV-KN5lRXUJIOJNmlhYm97vT3jRAAy2iFQjZ_p-LU1dVjQ.jpg?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /></figure>



Source: The TIE Terminal



With the rise of the Digital Asset Treasury companies, there is a decent amount of post-IPO equity being raised. But, excluding DATs, most raise announcements were either seed rounds or Series A rounds.&nbsp;



Let’s break down venture funding further: Coinbase Ventures was one of the most active investors in the last month, participating in 21 rounds.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1245" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png" alt="" class="wp-image-106110" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=330 330w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=335 335w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=281 281w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXf3dHbZ_qxu1s6io8N-H4ZlakR_E-GAqbWVuJ_inLrIRzwQsSdQQmQjNP5m9DV-AEli0GC2YCFj6dhXAn2bCFLmkJ4PtCRSNqyiTKUmkq-sN6gtNk6GnhtPZ7tifrCwFgPdz-vQ.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



To put all of this in perspective, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/venture-capital-funding-up-in-june">June saw a bit of a comeback in funding</a> after a very slow May, and it looks like July is yet again showing another pick up.&nbsp;



Last month also outpaced March, which had been the most successful month since 2021 based on Blockworks Research data, which goes to show how large the appetite is. Currently, DATs clearly reign supreme if we’re looking at total fundraising.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="693" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png" alt="" class="wp-image-106109" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=1120 1120w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=415 415w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=422 422w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=354 354w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AD_4nXc9PqxEsL0-HzHT6nTGZD-P72CC30-qTqFRxZPAOti1867U_hKjyh0BmvlTLHDjK_9KdFdWopbzBOoMr_bAR3QEsLied-egENpR65ISO_CC5HYUeP44-8IULLtGiWcz0l7DXvINg.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /></figure>



Source: TIE Terminal



Payments, however, also saw a decent amount of activity. As did DeFi (which was the second most popular category in June for fundraising).&nbsp;



Here’s my take: DATs are the hot item of the moment, and it shows in the data. However, I’m curious to see if they can continue this momentum into August (which, like the summer months, tends to be seasonally weak) or if we’ll see a slight decline next month.&nbsp;



But overall, the data looks pretty strong at this point, and we didn’t even really touch on just how successful crypto IPOs have been.



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Crypto funding tops $6B in July: Blockworks Research

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“For new technologies to play a role in protecting Americans’ privacy, government must guard jealously the ability of Americans to use them.”



— Hester Peirce
</blockquote>



Centralized stablecoins, permissioned blockchains, corporate treasury companies…the hottest topics in crypto are not very cypherpunk these days.



Weirdly though, the SEC is.



In a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-remarks-blockchain-conference-080425#_ftn47">speech</a> last week, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce delivered a defense of privacy that wouldn’t be out of place on the original <a href="https://mailing-list-archive.cryptoanarchy.wiki">cypherpunk mailing list</a>.



She even cited Eric Hughes, founder of the mailing list and author of <a href="https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html">A Cypherpunk Manifesto</a>, as an inspiration for her surprisingly radical line of thinking.



Hughes probably never imagined he’d be approvingly quoted by a government official, as you can tell from the line Peirce chose to quote: “We cannot expect governments, corporations or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence.”



And yet, here is one of the US’s most influential regulators not just name-dropping Hughes, but amplifying his radical views on privacy-preserving technology.



She hardly sounds like someone who works for the government, though: “Where, by design or deficiency, the law will not protect us, technology might.”&nbsp;



That’s a pretty good summation of Hughes’ core message that, because we trust governments to grant it, “privacy in an open society requires cryptography.”



Writing in 1993, Hughes spoke aspirationally about the need for “systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place.”



Writing in 2025, Peirce cites crypto mixers, privacy-preserving blockchains and even decentralized physical networks (DePIN!!!) as systems that can provide such anonymity.



She makes the case for these technologies succinctly: “New and improved technology can diminish the need for us to rely on third parties and thus to hand our information over to them.”&nbsp;



Peirce even makes explicit what Hughes diplomatically left unsaid in the Manifesto: Privacy preserving technology must be allowed “even though doing so enables people to use them for bad purposes.”



What could be more cypherpunk than that?



It’s an extraordinary turn of events to see an SEC commissioner being so closely aligned with the author of the original cypherpunk’s call to arms on privacy.



Their views are not entirely aligned, however — but in the opposite way you might expect.



Much of Peirce’s speech targets the “third-party doctrine” — the legal theory that lets law enforcement access your banking data without a warrant — which she accuses the US government (her employer!) of wielding like a “sledgehammer.”



“The third-party doctrine is a key pillar of financial surveillance in this country,” she writes, before making clear that she’d like to knock it down.



In short, she argues that your banking records deserve the same Fourth Amendment protection as whatever goes on in your home behind closed doors.



Weirdly, I think Hughes might disagree.



“If two parties have some sort of dealings,” he wrote in the Manifesto, “then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it?”



That is a tidy restatement of the government’s insistence that once you give your information to a third party, such as a bank, it’s no longer your private information.



Hughes even adds that “we seek not to restrict any speech at all” — which must therefore include banks speaking about their customers.



(Wouldn’t it be funny if the prosecution cited Hughes in the next Roman Storm trial.)



But this is why both Peirce and Hughes put their faith in technology: Even if the current government chooses to respect your privacy, the next one probably won’t.



“We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place,” Hughes wrote.



But not just that.



“For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract,” he added. “Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one&#8217;s fellows in society.”



This will be a hard sell, I think.



Most people say they are in favor of privacy. But most people also say they’re against money laundering and terrorist financing.



Few are as radical as Peirce and Hughes in believing that privacy is so fundamental that its benefits outweigh any harm it might enable (or fail to prevent).



If Peirce’s speech finds its way to Hughes (wherever he is), I’m sure he’d recognize and appreciate it as an effort to win the not-yet-radicalized over to the cause.



“We the Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and hope we may engage you,” he wrote in 1993.



Hester Peirce can count herself among the “we.”



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A regulator’s radical defense of privacy

Jeff Albus

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Lightspeed has exclusively learned that Maple — one of Solana&#8217;s largest onchain asset managers — is bringing its yield-bearing syrupUSDC stablecoin into perpetual futures markets operated by Drift, Solana&#8217;s flagship perps DEX.



Drift, known for its deep onchain liquidity and capital-efficient margins, will accept syrupUSDC as margin collateral, allowing traders to earn a 7-8% APY on their margin while trading.



This will be the first time the exchange has allowed a collateral asset to serve dual purposes, earning yield while backing positions — sweetened by $100,000 in incentives and an initial $50 million cap.



One of Solana&#8217;s biggest wins is that its DeFi ecosystem can move at the speed of centralized markets. It doesn&#8217;t matter how advanced your strategies are or how complex your positions get.



The network&#8217;s speed means traders can rebalance instantly, while staying entirely onchain. That&#8217;s more than competing ecosystems like Ethereum can often promise without high fees or serious latency.



Often, though, the very need for collateral means capital ends up sitting idle as margin, earning nothing while waiting for trades to play out. That leads to higher opportunity costs, less capital efficiency and slower compounding for active traders.



But because users can now post syrupUSDC as margin on Drift, those same dollars can both secure your trades and earn passive income. Traders will be able to offset funding costs, free up cash flow and keep capital productive without changing their trading style.



More capital will flow into Solana&#8217;s onchain perps market, which also means Drift&#8217;s open interest should climb, and we&#8217;re more likely to see syrupUSDC adoption spread across more protocols.



SyrupUSDC is backed by Maple&#8217;s institutional lending pools and earns a steady yield from over-collateralized loans. Drift&#8217;s cross-collateral system treats it like USDC for margin purposes, but allows the yield stream to keep running while positions are open.



Altogether, their goal is to allow money to multitask, cutting out the dead time it would otherwise spend doing nothing.



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Yield-bearing margin arrives on Drift

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We watched what happened when Circle listed on the NYSE two months ago. Today, the industry looked on as crypto exchange Bullish did the same.



BLSH jumped to more than triple its IPO price minutes after going public before losing momentum later in the session.&nbsp;



The company yesterday revealed IPO pricing of 30 million shares at $37 per share — up from the $32-33 estimate it shared in a Monday <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1872195/000110465925075896/tm2421409-23_f1a.htm">filing</a>.



Shares opened at $90 around 1 p.m. ET — roughly 143% higher than the IPO price. The company’s stock quickly <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bullish-stock-surges-ipo-110/">surged to $118</a>, but had dropped below the opening price when the market closed.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcdjt8d5uKtuNatOpxA_h_zUgWoGg422vRMyjCVViVkBuHvRVDUcwlIfd2-EjDKmncnQTkTWnXnhMKsK_yT8pxC4WLf76EydDFaT51a6ThvvxTSSfyAtjE2jXxBA9yMxa-BBz5TgA?key=ugntXJX7FAzGhfsEJue-hA" alt="" style="width:602px;height:auto"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Yahoo finance</figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle stock debuted</a> at $69 per share on June 5 (more than double its IPO price of $31). Though the USDC issuer’s stock price peaked near $300 on June 23, CRCL shares were trading for around $156 midday Wednesday.&nbsp;



All’s to say: Where Bullish’s stock price goes from here is anyone’s guess.&nbsp;



Led by former NYSE president Tom Farley, Bullish launched in 2021 with backing from Block.one, Thiel Capital, Galaxy Digital, Nomura and others. It offers a spot and derivatives exchange, as well as liquidity services; Bullish also owns crypto media company CoinDesk.



As of March 31, Bullish held $1.7 billion worth of bitcoin, $144 million of US dollar stablecoins, $28 million in cash and $55 million of ether and other digital assets.



The company’s roughly $1.8 billion in cash and crypto makes it one of the most well-financed companies in the space, noted Architect Partners VP Ryan McCulloch.



“By buying this stock, you are heavily invested in their future potential to invest this cash,” he told Blockworks.



McCulloch labeled Amber Group and OSL Group as the most similar public companies to Bullish, given that they are Asia-focused exchanges offering a similar suite of services.&nbsp;



But Amber Group and OSL Group are trading at enterprise values around $600 million and $1.4 billion, respectively — significantly lower than the roughly $13 billion valuation Bullish went public with,&nbsp; he explained.



“They get significantly more public exposure via the media business, which likely serves as free lead generation for the trading business and vice versa,” McCulloch said. “This is far different than any others and seems to provide a unique market positioning.”



Matthew Sigel, who manages the VanEck Onchain Economy ETF (NODE), also noted Bullish’s sizable bitcoin treasury — enabling tighter spreads and “competitive positioning” in both spot and derivatives markets.&nbsp;



“These capabilities can compound across trading, data and index businesses,” Sigel added. “In a bull scenario based on our internal modeling, there is a path to $600 million in revenue and $200 million in EBITDA.”



More crypto company IPOs are expected in the coming months, as Gemini, <a href="http://grayscale">Grayscale</a>, BitGo and Figure Technology have confidentially filed draft registration statements with the SEC.



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Bullish

Bullish closes 89% above IPO price after up-and-down NYSE debut

Five years ago today, Curve Finance — now one of DeFi’s longest-running protocols — saw the launch of its governance token CRV in what remains one of the most unusual moments in crypto history.



On August 13, 2020, an anonymous Twitter account, @0xc4ad, announced that they had gone ahead and deployed the CRV token and DAO contracts before the Curve team themselves had done so.



“Yo, @CurveFinance! Saw your DAO is ready to rock and I gots to MAXIMIZE MY ALPHA! So I went ahead and deployed it for you,” the account posted.



<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">Yo, <a href="https://twitter.com/CurveFinance?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CurveFinance</a> ! Saw your DAO is ready to rock and I gots to MAXIMIZE MY ALPHA ! So I went ahead and deployed it for you. Get at me in DM to verify and lets get this party started!! <a href="https://t.co/D0KqEg4Ldr">pic.twitter.com/D0KqEg4Ldr</a>&mdash; 0xc4ad (@0xc4ad) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xc4ad/status/1293977012550467584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



They linked to the deployment address, token contract, and even the freshly created Aragon DAO, assuring followers the contracts matched Curve’s specifications.



“You guys ready to harvest some CRV with me or what?!?” they <a href="https://x.com/0xc4ad/status/1293978460411568131">wrote</a>, tagging a who’s-who of early DeFi influencers.



The Curve team, ostensibly blindsided, responded carefully. “Interesting. We are proceeding with caution here, so far looks like contracts are the correct ones,” the official account <a href="https://x.com/CurveFinance/status/1294007705263386631">tweeted</a>, noting they would verify before endorsing the launch.



Once confirmed, the deployment effectively became the official CRV token launch, initiated — the story goes — not by the team, but by an opportunistic outsider. The @0xc4ad account soon vanished from Twitter, leaving behind one of DeFi’s most enduring origin stories.



Asked if the mystery will ever be solved, founder Michael Egorov told Blockworks, “Good question! I still don&#8217;t really know today. Looks as hard to know as Satoshi&#8217;s identity.”



Since that chaotic start, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/curve-finance">Curve Finance</a> has grown from a <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a>-focused AMM <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/dex">DEX</a> into a core layer of DeFi’s liquidity stack, influencing protocol design across the industry. Reflecting on its rise, Egorov said: “What went as calculated is market sizing of stablecoin swaps,” though he added Curve’s centrality in DeFi infrastructure “was a bit surprising, but not totally unexpected.”



Today’s anniversary coincides with a <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/crv">CRV</a> inflation drop, reducing the token’s emission rate. Egorov sees ongoing misunderstandings around Curve’s governance design: “Many projects think that token burn is better (<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/changpeng-zhao">CZ</a> thinks that!),” he said, but noting that, to him, “it appears that token locking is simply much more efficient for reducing circulated supply as well as in aligning people with governance.”



Egorov is now focused on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/michael-egorov-yield-basis-protocol">Yield Basis</a>, an AMM-based solution to impermanent loss. “I think ve-tokenomics is good, so I apply it there,” he said, adding that Yield Basis will split rewards between LP tokens and real yield without a boosting mechanism.



From an unplanned, community-triggered launch to becoming a foundational DeFi protocol, Curve’s story is proof that sometimes chaos — and a little mystery — can yield lasting decentralized infrastructure.



Correction Aug 14, 2025 at 5:20 am ET: Description of Yield Basis.



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Curve

Curve turns 5, marking a half-decade since DeFi’s strangest token launch

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



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Since the Zora app launched in September last year, it’s seen some adoption, with over 127,000 downloads on iOS and more than 50,000 downloads on Android, according to data from Appfigures and Google.



Out of those, nearly 18,000 Zora accounts are posting daily, Blockworks Research data shows. And 36% of daily posting Zora accounts are actually doing so not from Zora itself, but from the Base app.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXca2U_cdFXr4c7adzIPpiEYkTe1kFSr717AD8zRa-RjuL5s8uSdx41I3z_Y-hlAYqlXN-thwuO_D0RqT4P6RQnxPPR0DogZbfTF1WS8BNn3iDD1xXp5l2hzEevyHiJvF_II7WeREA?key=3HoGeV0_RBk32QwQrWRvSA" alt="" style="width:692px;height:auto"/></figure>



When the Coinbase Wallet app rebranded to just “Base” last month and integrated Zora for some users, that sparked a surge in Zora use through the Base app itself (Zora can also be accessed and used via a web browser).&nbsp;



Yesterday, Base engineer Youssef El Allali <a href="https://x.com/0xyoussea/status/1955424838379770241">shared</a> an AI agent tool that lets Base app users trade small amounts of Zora creators’ tokens by mentioning a Zora account’s handle, which could further speed up trading and further abstract it away from the mobile app itself.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcqERkbYEtBqoya0ACzQwuu6fKsPpckfK9ZaJuYDFJ7UR0TmeXnYbK-PMlzE4uQLHSWYPtfUqnAYCQqtiVyqaCXXoA_5j6vBmILrS9kgsj7aPeFstwECGoe1RfMsHP6iCMSqeWu?key=3HoGeV0_RBk32QwQrWRvSA" alt="" style="width:694px;height:auto"/></figure>



When you join Zora, a creator token is automatically generated and associated with you, and other users can effectively “trade” you. There isn’t really an obvious reason to buy someone else’s token, though, other than to financially support them or potentially flip their token to make a quick buck.



And while some crypto traders may have written off Zora as a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zora-latest-content-coin-fad">short-lived fad</a> like Friendtech or StarsArena, Zora has something those don’t — backing from Coinbase.



<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">Introducing&#8230; Zora Coins Agent 🤖 An AI agent that uses Base Account Spend Permissions, <a href="https://twitter.com/CoinbaseDev?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CoinbaseDev</a> server wallets and <a href="https://twitter.com/zoradevs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@zoradevs</a> SDK to buy you any creator coin you want Just give it the handle and it will do the rest, no clicks, no pop-ups, all managed by spend permissions <a href="https://t.co/Y1U37EQKCY">pic.twitter.com/Y1U37EQKCY</a>&mdash; Youssef (@0xyoussea) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xyoussea/status/1955424838379770241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



So far, some of the Zora creator tokens’ market caps are surprising. As of Wednesday morning, about 20 Zora content creators, including ex-Coinbase employee turned Zora cofounder Jacob Horne, have creator account market caps of $1 million or more each.&nbsp;



45 creators have “market caps” of over half a million dollars each.&nbsp;



The top 10 accounts on Zora by market cap include a porn account, an AI art account, a crypto trading influencer, and some meme accounts, to name a few. Overall, it doesn’t look like art is dominating Zora’s financial landscape.&nbsp;



Some Zora accounts are personal and tied to individuals, while others are more anonymous or appear to represent a company or group.



But is it a good idea to assign “value” to people — or their personal posts or pieces of content — in such a rapidfire, mercurial way?&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXehA1FjdF89Pc_GR6KhC7fvETj3ssKt9FiU_9fscip9vVSFZDZgEeH2rr5Te7aVFckbJfcRhbEU0KTnZpmlkBd4btjOhxYFYklJpBp4vdJRdZSxg2LhlqkuTybcJdVrxw4qSLGi?key=3HoGeV0_RBk32QwQrWRvSA" alt="" style="width:674px;height:auto"/></figure>



Some artists and founders aren’t so sure about Zora.&nbsp;



This week, Coinbase’s Base lead and unofficial Zora hype-man Jesse Pollak wrote: “Help I keep putting money into @zora and supporting creators and collecting content but my balance keeps going UP?!?!?”



“It doesn’t always go up,” electronic music artist and Royal founder Justin Blau <a href="https://x.com/justinblau/status/1955067797555315069">replied</a>. “The narrative is beginning to feel irresponsible. I don’t wanna wait another 4 years to convince creatives that crypto has more uses for them than memetic speculation.



“There is nothing wrong with speculation, just call it what it is. This disguising narrative is dangerous,” Blau continued.&nbsp;



Pollak hit back: “I didn&#8217;t promise up only. I described my experience that is very real. I&#8217;m also more optimistic than you about the combination of infinite creativity and a better creator economy.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">I funded my Zora account and base app account with $100 (separately) supported a bunch of creators and posted original content over the past few weeks. Here’s my updated liquid balances: Zora: $0.29 base app: $1.35&mdash; foundnone.eth (@transmental) <a href="https://twitter.com/transmental/status/1953571741902811622?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Some other artists, like visual artist ThankYouX, aren’t sold on the Zora idea, either (ThankYouX has released his work as NFTs and integrated blockchain tech into his work since 2020).



“It just adds a purely speculative element which isn’t what art is about,” ThankYouX <a href="https://x.com/ThankYouX/status/1955074694669123659">wrote</a> of Zora. “And the Zora team is very irresponsible with how they’ve handled things by launching automatically for artist[s] and hyping the speculation element too much.”



Notably, Vitalik Buterin tried Zora recently — and argued, among other things, that requiring users to input email addresses (and the affiliated smart wallets tied to them) could contribute to user segregation on Ethereum.



“You want compatibility for existing ethereum uses, no?” he <a href="https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1954987470896107592">asked</a> Horne in a post. “Otherwise you&#8217;re creating two incompatible ecosystems, one for ‘real ethereum users’ [and] one for ‘mainstream people’; I actually think this is one of the biggest risks in ethereum UX right now.”



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Coinbase

‘Memetic speculation’: Users debate Zora, the creator-token app with Coinbase backing

The stock of crypto exchange Bullish popped in the first few minutes after its New York Stock Exchange listing Wednesday, marking more evidence of demand for equity exposure in the segment.&nbsp;



Bullish on Tuesday revealed the pricing of its initial public offering of 30 million shares at $37 per share. That was up from a per-share price between $32 and $33 that the company anticipated in a Monday <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1872195/000110465925075896/tm2421409-23_f1a.htm">filing</a> to the SEC.



BLSH shares opened around 1 pm ET at $90 — about 143% above the IPO price. Minutes later, the company’s stock surged to $118, according to Yahoo Finance data.&nbsp;



Led by former NYSE president Tom Farley, Bullish launched in 2021 with backing from Block.one, Thiel Capital, Galaxy Digital, Nomura and others. It offers a spot and derivatives exchange, as well as liquidity services; Bullish also owns crypto media company CoinDesk.



As of March 31, Bullish held $28 million in cash, $144 million of US dollar stablecoins and $1.7 billion worth of bitcoin and $22 million of ether, the Monday filing shows.



Bullish’s IPO comes about two months after stablecoin issuer Circle listed on the NYSE.&nbsp;



CRCL stock opened around $69 during its June 5 debut — more than double the upsized IPO price of $31 per share. The shares rose slightly above $100 that day before settling at $82 at market close.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle ends NYSE debut up 167% from IPO price</a>



Though the USDC issuer’s stock price peaked near $300 on June 23, CRCL shares were trading for around $155 on Wednesday afternoon.



Industry watchers predicted Circle’s IPO would lead to more companies following suit.&nbsp;



Most recently, Figure Technology confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the SEC. Gemini and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/grayscale-exposure-signals-etfs">Grayscale</a> did the same in June, while BitGo filed such paperwork last month.



Check out today’s Forward Guidance <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">newsletter</a> for more on Bullish’s NYSE debut.



This is a developing story.



Updated 8/13/2025 at 1:33 p.m. to correct an error in the article subheading.



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Bullish stock surges above $110 per share minutes after public debut

Offchain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum, has acquired smart account infrastructure provider ZeroDev in a move that signals its ambitions beyond scaling infrastructure.&nbsp;



The deal, which brings ZeroDev’s five-person team fully into Offchain Labs, represents what CEO Steven Goldfeder calls “a very logical next iteration” of the company’s mission.



Founded in 2018, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/offchain-labs">Offchain Labs</a> initially focused on scaling Ethereum with optimistic <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollups</a>. But Goldfeder says the broader goal has always been “to solve the hardest problems that are standing in the way of bringing blockchain technology to mass adoption.”



In that light, the acquisition isn’t a pivot, Goldfeder told Blockworks. “We started off [with] layer two, we went down to layer one, and now we&#8217;re going a little bit further up&#8230;in the smart contract layer,” he said. “We can make these tools work seamlessly together.”



ZeroDev, whose platform powers <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/vitalik-buterin-eip-account-abstraction">smart account</a> infrastructure for projects like ApeChain, <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/lightspeed/1bd088c0-3f45-11ef-8d0e-33cba733fb4d">Infinex</a>, and Crossmint, fits neatly into that stack-wide ambition. “They’re the leaders, the innovators in the smart account space,” Goldfeder said. “It fit very well with the profile of our team.”



With smart accounts enabling features like gas abstraction, programmable security, and automated transactions, Offchain sees them as critical to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/if-we-dont-make-crypto-invisible-it-will-never-reach-the-mainstream">onboarding the next wave</a> of users. The challenge today, according to Goldfeder, is not just the technology but the fractured developer experience; he flagged “wallet integration and wallet support” as a bottleneck.



“Often the user experience doesn&#8217;t seamlessly pull these all together in a way that&#8217;s abstracted away from the user,” Goldfeder said.



He offered a familiar metaphor: “When I go on YouTube to watch a video, I don’t get a pop-up that says, ‘Do you wanna watch this video on AWS or on GCP?’ I just want to watch my video.”



Chain fragmentation remains a UX hurdle, even within the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/arbitrum">Arbitrum</a> ecosystem. “If I&#8217;m a user on Arbitrum One and I want to go and buy an NFT on ApeChain…The gas on Arbitrum is ETH, the gas on ApeChain is APE, maybe I&#8217;m holding ARB, but there&#8217;s just a lot of manual steps.”



ZeroDev’s smart account tooling could help streamline this, and other of the “harder problems.”



“Everyone says Ethereum has a fragmentation problem,” Goldfeder said, “This is just another tool in our toolbox.”



That tooling focus doesn’t mean Offchain Labs is losing sight of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/scaling">scaling</a> fundamentals. The company is still exploring hybrid rollup architectures, including <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zk-proofs-escape-velocity-eth">eventual ZK proof integration</a>.



For now, Offchain is betting that improved UX, smart accounts, and deeper vertical integration will push Ethereum’s most-used rollup into a new phase. “It’s not only about the raw technical components,” Goldfeder said, “but how do we actually package it up?”



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Arbitrum

Arbitrum’s next chapter: Smart accounts, UX, and Offchain Labs’ ZeroDev bet

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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A16z and the DeFi Education Fund are asking the SEC for a safe harbor for blockchain technology. Simply put, this means that projects wouldn’t have to pursue broker registration for DeFi apps.&nbsp;



“While decentralized blockchain systems underlying apps are clearly excluded from the SEC’s broker-dealer registration regimes, apps face regulatory uncertainty because they are typically developed and maintained by centralized actors. The SEC has previously taken the position — through enforcement actions and Wells notices — that developers of apps could be deemed brokers if they enabled users to transact in securities,” a16z wrote in a blog post this morning. 



In order for an app to qualify, a16z and DEF proposed four criteria: underlying protocols have to be decentralized, it has to be non-custodial, there can’t be investment recommendations, and no discretion. 



“The guiding principle of the safe harbor is that only those Apps which do not engender the risks that the Exchange Act’s broker-dealer regulatory regime was designed to address should be eligible; in such cases, registration as a broker under the Exchange Act is unwarranted and inappropriate,” the two said in their official proposal to the SEC.



So, all in all, they have to be credibly neutral and permissionless. Makes sense, right?&nbsp;



Both DEF and a16z have made it pretty clear that they’re looking out for projects in crypto. Heck, if you missed it earlier this week, a16z’s Miles Jenning and Eddy Lazzarin even went on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/5f38c3ec-749c-11f0-96bf-4bef818bfbd7">Empire podcast</a> to discuss safely launching tokens. 



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zfqASHqSTl0?si=77yyTwKO1PPfGLSg" 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>







“Developers shouldn’t have to guess whether building public, neutral, and non-custodial software exposes them to the risk of being treated like financial intermediaries,” a16z said. 



The push comes roughly a week after Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/roman-storm-guilty-one-count">was found guilty</a> of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter business by a jury in a trial that’s left all of us <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/opinion-tornado-cash-conviction-raises-alarm">wondering about</a> potential implications. This push from a16z and DEF would help to clear some of the current murkiness.&nbsp;



“This proposal aims to be flexible to account for the ever-evolving nature of early-stage tech development and is grounded in the understanding that most apps are fundamentally non-custodial, passive software tools that allow users to interact directly with public, decentralized network and protocol infrastructure — and, therefore, should not be subject to broker-dealer registration requirements,” DEF’s Amanda Tuminelli said. 



Despite the fact that it’s very clearly a new era at the SEC, there’s work to be done to allow projects and developers in the space to continue to innovate safely.&nbsp;



Now to see how the SEC plans to approach this topic.&nbsp;



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Empire Newsletter

A16z and DeFi Education Fund propose ‘safe harbor’ policies for DeFi apps

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Just because you can doesn&#8217;t mean you should.”



—&nbsp; Aristotle, your conscience, your mom, and Jurassic Park
</blockquote>



We don’t usually get data on Americans’ retirement accounts, but a congressional request once prompted the Joint Committee on Taxation to <a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/7.28.21%20JCT%20Mega%20IRA%20Data1.pdf">reveal</a> just how big some can get: In 2019, just 156 Roth IRAs held $15.6 billion in assets.



This begs an obvious question: Who needs a tax break on their $100 million of retirement savings?



$80 million of post-tax money seems like plenty to get by on after the age of 60 (even for all the tech moguls planning to live to 120).



But some have quite a lot more than that.&nbsp;



In 2021, ProPublica <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank">reported</a> that Peter Thiel held more than $5 billion in a single, giant Roth IRA account.&nbsp;



Helpfully, it also detailed how he did it.



While you and I max out our Roth IRAs with $7,000 worth of index funds, others opt for more exotic investments — like early-stage equity.



In 1999, for example, Thiel used $1,700 of Roth IRA funds to buy 1.7 million shares of PayPal. Three years later, PayPal IPO’d at $13 a share — a 13,000-fold gain on his cost basis of $0.001 per share.



Because it was in an IRA, he owed no tax.&nbsp;



Better yet, he was able to roll those winnings, tax-free, into 10.2% of Facebook — acquired for $500,000 (still held in his Roth IRA), and an undisclosed portion of his stake in Palantir (now worth many billions).



Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and the first outside investor in Facebook, so the rest of us would never have had access to those kinds of deals. 



But President Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/democratizing-access-to-alternative-assets-for-401k-investors/">proposed</a> last week that everyone be given access to alternative investments in their retirement accounts, crypto included. 



In response, critics have warned that crypto is ill-suited for retirement savings because it’s too risky.



But it’s already available to a small sliver of people — and at virtually no risk — via “Token Launch Roth IRAs,” an entertainingly extreme edge case in the debate over crypto in retirement accounts.



While equity founders like Peter Thiel have long been able to stash early-stage investments in their Roth IRAs, crypto founders could not — because how do you get a blockchain token into a brokerage account?



You couldn’t, until AnchorZero built the systems to add even pre-launch tokens to traditional retirement accounts, and Anchorage Digital Bank figured out how to custody them.



Simply put, AnchorZero’s Token Launch Roth IRAs are “the first and only solution for pre-launch tokens to eliminate capital gains taxes.”



This is not a problem I ever imagined needed solving.



In its enthusiasm for helping founders not pay taxes, AnchorZero’s website reads like a Scrooge McDuck parody of robber baron excess.



“Until now,” its <a href="https://anchorzero.com/insights/anchorzero-launches-token-optimized-roth-iras-for-tax-free-gains-on-digital-assets/">product announcement</a> explained, ”the only way to include tokens in an IRA was to wait until they were listed on a public exchange, by which time their value had often increased exponentially. AnchorZero’s solution is the first to support private, pre-launch tokens and derivatives, ensuring that founders can take advantage of the low-cost basis at token creation.”



The website offers an illustrative example, seemingly written by someone who doesn’t quite know how to read the room:



“Consider Alice, a crypto founder launching a new token. At creation, before public trading, the token’s market cap is a modest $10,000. As a savvy tax strategist, Alice allocates a portion of the token supply to her Roth IRA. When she decides to sell, her token interest is worth $50 million, which is entirely tax-free. Had she chosen to forgo the IRA approach, Alice would have owed $18.5 million in capital gains taxes, leaving her with $31.5 million — a staggering difference of millions in tax savings.”



If its website had ears, they’d have to be plugged while I yell at it: ALICE DOESN’T NEED A TAX BREAK!!!



But she was only just getting started.



“AnchorZero’s solution allows investors to reinvest tax-free gains into new tokens, startups and venture funds. Over time, the compounding benefits of the Roth IRA become even more pronounced. In Alice’s case, her IRA could grow to $815 million over 20 years, compared to $190 million without the tax advantages.”



These kinds of “Alice” examples are usually something like, “Alice sends $5 to Bob.”



But (to paraphrase Spinal Tap) this one goes to $815 million.



Gaming the byzantine US tax system is hardly a novel idea, but seeing it spelled out at that scale and on a public website feels different — as if hedge funds were running TV ads to gloat over how much money the carried-interest loophole was making them. Or Big Pharma put up billboards to crow about its Ireland tax dodges.



Bury it in euphemisms! Hide it in the fine print!! Do some dog whistling!!!&nbsp;



Or make the numbers 100x smaller, at least, please.



Because it’s one thing to exploit a loophole and it’s another thing to celebrate it. Especially one as egregious as this.



Has there ever been a more narrowly targeted tax dodge? 



The carried-interest loophole for hedge funds is pretty bad, but I’d guess there are more hedge fund managers in the US than there are crypto founders.



And pre-launch crypto tokens are sure to be priced even cheaper than pre-IPO PayPal shares.&nbsp;



On the one hand, AnchorZero is only offering to help those founders do something that the law allows.



On the other hand, why???



I marvel at the time, effort and investment it must have taken to build the complex systems required to help this tiny sliver of people who don’t need anyone’s help.



Even if you think every loophole deserves exploiting, is that really what you want to do with your limited time on Earth?



Personally, I’m not sure I’d sleep too much worse if I spent my days engineering new ways to telemarket fake tech support to seniors or catfish lonely bachelors.&nbsp;



Ethical considerations aside, these kinds of things can backfire, as we learned from <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1at69qj/your_scientists_were_so_preoccupied_with_whether/">Jurassic Park</a>. (“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn&#8217;t stop to think if they should.”)



The danger here, I think, is that crypto already has an image problem.



Thanks to cabal memecoins, low-float-high-FDV project tokens and digital asset treasury companies, there’s a growing perception that most of the industry’s profits accrue to a small number of insiders at the expense of its retail investors.&nbsp;



This is especially unfortunate because a big part of crypto’s original appeal was that bitcoin was fair-launched and equally accessible to all.&nbsp;



If Token Launch Roth IRAs catch on — and how can they not? — we’ll have strayed further than ever from that ideal.



People will notice. Inevitably, we’ll get an exposé on a $5 billion Token Launch Roth IRA and it will make half of America hate crypto even more than it already does.&nbsp;



I could hardly blame them, if so.



The US government is currently in the process of handing the crypto industry everything it&#8217;s ever asked for.



The least we could do in return is pay our taxes!



Even Peter Thiel thinks the US tax system has “fairness problems” — because, he said, “you have super rich people paying a lower rate than people in the middle or upper middle class.”



Putting pre-launch tokens in retirement accounts would supercharge that problem.



And crypto’s image problem, too.



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