Nacho the Kat

Felix Jauvin

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



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This week is all about the labor market! With the jobs report coming out tomorrow, let’s dive in and get a state of play on where things stand.&nbsp;



My favorite way to get a high-level pulse on the labor market is taking a look at Atlanta Fed’s labor market spider chart:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdl_1-GmyBgNjNKdMUI41Ss4x5RPqT4t08Uex5Jx3wCK_fbt03yG7IT1k2y38ZZUsrF7-hrb-toq0F36TE9K2wIRxCa3etSggRf5_ciRgz2Jnwu_y4DBx8tKX76rrr2Z6rLrTld?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



Compared to both one year ago and to the pre-Covid trend, we can glean a few general trends:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The private sector is quite weak and continues to be. Hiring rates are very low, causing people to hold onto their jobs and avoid quitting at all costs.</li>



<li>Wage growth, one of the key drivers of the huge inflation we saw in 2021-2022, continues to soften as the labor market returns to being in balance.</li>



<li>Generally, it’s a bad time to look for a new job, but as long as you don’t quit, it’s unlikely you’ll be laid off either.</li>
</ul>



With the stage set, let’s dig into all the labor market data we’ve received this week.



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



On Monday, we received the JOLTS report for April, which came in quite strong.



Job openings rebounded higher to 7.39 million, above consensus expectations of 7.10 million.



However, when contrasting it to higher-frequency data like Indeed Job Postings, this is likely to be an outlier bounce higher that is likely to return to a downward trend next month.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfBLuU8ER87COjuMY2STgxWLLa1pR8h2QV1-j9yOTXixfzXPbYXtBuPWj3ewJYrMxKS4YcbX1OOa72QaiXVKnY7rhq4ydawC7g3TkVMBN0gV4hXB3yYvfWvanqwu36Hz9G1vNy0Xg?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



One of the key insights for understanding slack in the labor market is comparing the number of job openings to unemployment.&nbsp;



One of the big reasons the Fed was able to hike so aggressively in 2022 without hurting the labor market is because the huge amount of job openings acted as a buffer so that the unemployment rate wouldn’t tick up. The Beveridge curve is the best way to view this dynamic.&nbsp;



As we can see from this week’s print, we held steady at the low end of the job vacancy rate where there’s just enough slack in the labor market to avoid an acceleration in unemployment:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcSdKL_HEL6fJSwlBhzctWOajhBfV5c8z0tH1hNNrlB2u_J1QwsASelwvXytOvwaQpZsvHd7GPfjfayskXSWCxMeFz8GNYrbZWv5FGdx09TVvAfULwWE1Asj4_xnz4F2WP0fjc1vQ?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Claims data</h2>



Today we received the claims data, which provides one of the more high-frequency labor market data points we can see every week.&nbsp;



Interestingly, continuing claims — which saw a new cycle high last week — were revised lower and are now back within the range:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXenzw1VeKvGYZ88zL4N-8gQ5nHapVUXpPJNr7oDCMrFJpSyd8j-6D8Pd-NiHF3kGHQZs9CsGI-rR4U88xjPrSwPh53c6gIb3W-TB0n2PdEHzU8tOO6eXsb3ulxCt4jpw8DknsMvvg?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



Finally, we receive the jobs report tomorrow, which will provide a good look into how the labor market is digesting the impact of tariffs:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe-zrs5X2pKIR76pN7AxCxGGTH7N0tEMvkTsnSaHd5j7GsfujQwfvUHpUQyn4EOXdlKQ5k8QPs56AYw58ykx3eelJpDFdgWwdkJLJfnDjt68oW_EVU4ieB5Pqa8uVPiB6rJnMF9?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



Overall, according to this week’s data, a picture of a labor market that remains on thin ice emerges.&nbsp;



Not quite bad enough to crack the ice — but still strong enough to hold up the economy.



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Economy

The current labor market, in charts

Kate Irwin

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



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No, it’s not a Twitter <a href="https://dfpi.ca.gov/consumers/crypto/crypto-scam-tracker/#:~:text=Crypto%20Giveaway%2FAirdrop%20Scam%20%E2%80%93%20Scammer,or%20offering%20airdrops%20on%20a">giveaway scam</a> — a reality show about livestreaming influencers who compete to win one whole bitcoin is coming to Netflix in the UK and Ireland June 18.



The House of Streams <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28994419/">show</a> will feature eight Twitch streamers who live in a villa in Malta for two weeks over the course of the competition.&nbsp;



EA FIFA streaming host Nicole Holliday is hosting the show. It was created by Mark Holland, CEO of Stream House Media Productions. The show was made with support from the Malta Film Commission.



Holland <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/article/maltamade-reality-tv-show-award-winner-one-bitcoin-worth-97000.1110565">told</a> news outlet Times of Malta that the bitcoin grand prize — as opposed to fiat currency — helps the show feel different.



“Everything about House of Streams is different, so the final reward couldn’t have been a simple cash prize or a trip to the Maldives,” Holland said.



The show’s eight streamers are from different countries including the US, UK, and Australia, to name a few.



And just in case you’re unaware of degen internet culture and how Twitch streaming works, Twitch streamers interact with their “chat,” or live audience that types in chat messages, during their broadcasts. Those chat members can influence streamer behavior, and can send streamers money or other types of gifts.



While it’s not a crypto-focused reality show, House of Streams using BTC as a prize does normalize crypto in a way, especially for younger audiences interested in Twitch and livestreaming culture.



We’ve seen some startup attempts at reality shows in the past that are entirely crypto-focused, like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29703667/">Killer Whales</a>. That show, which was very Shark Tank-like, has just a 2.9 out of 10 rating on IMDB.



House of Streams apparently started shooting when bitcoin was near its recent low of just around $18,000, which happened most recently in late 2022 and early 2023.&nbsp;



A lot has changed since then, though — so will the show still feel relevant in 2025?



1 BTC is now more than $104,000. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap hit a new all-time high of over $111,000 just two weeks ago.&nbsp;



“I think it will lead the way for shows that have real-time audience participation and will reshape the ‘real’ in reality TV,” Holland said.



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Gaming

Netflix show to give away 1 BTC in Twitch streamer competition

Donovan Choy

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



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Since its genesis, crypto has been a wildly speculative market where excellence in storytelling commands a price premium.



Crypto’s average daily volatility is several times higher than that of traditional assets like gold or equities.



Storytelling pervades all capital markets, but why is it especially pervasive and magnified in crypto?&nbsp;



I can think of two reasons.&nbsp;



The most obvious: its permissionless nature. Anyone can buy a token (no KYC), and anyone can launch a token (see <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">pump.fun’s success</a>).



A second and more subtle reason: weak legal protections for token holders.



As a professional investor, these are all questions you have to reckon with:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Will your DAO launch a second token?</li>



<li>Do protocol revenues accrete to private equity, rather than the token?</li>



<li>What do your token’s market-making agreements look like?</li>



<li>Will founders sell their allocations on the private OTC market quietly?</li>
</ul>



All of these questions (with no answers) create uncertainty for investors, which shrinks the available market pie to the most degenerate gamblers.



That, in turn, produces incentives for companies to ignore the laws of profit and loss and rather play the narrative game, or what Theia Research’s Felipe Montealegre termed “<a href="https://youtu.be/99XsVSN_doQ">narrative Stalinism</a>” in a recent talk.



“Whoever decides what the narrative is decides what tokens do well regardless of product-market fit and customers, and decides who gets more capital or less capital to invest. It’s a perverse equilibrium.”



To be sure, storytelling is and has always been <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blockworks-research-crypto-investing">part of investing</a>.&nbsp;



Investing is fundamentally a social, not natural, science.



And the social sciences will always contain elements of subjectivity — contrary to mainstream economics, where the economy can be neatly modulated on a supply and demand graph with perfect causal explanations.



F. Ross Johnson, the CEO of the great American food and tobacco conglomerate RJR Nabisco in the 1980s, often lamented the poor market valuation of his shares despite its great cash flows.



In the revered business book Barbarians at the Gate, Johnson famously complained:&nbsp;



“It’s plain as the nose on your face that this company is wildly undervalued…we tried to put food and tobacco businesses together, and it hasn’t worked. Diversification is not working. We are sitting on food assets that are worth 25x earnings and we trade at 9x earnings, because we’re still seen as a tobacco company.”



Negative cultural perceptions of tobacco soiled RJR Nabisco’s prospects.



But in the case of crypto, the problem is even more fundamental.



Fundamental property rights suck.



As Montealegre argued, most companies play the game of “narrative Stalinism” because weak token holder protections raise the cost of capital and entry barriers for more risk-averse institutional investors.



From the viewpoint of a fundamentals investor, wishing for an alt season so “number goes up” is pure hopium. You’re better off betting on a token with real revenue flows, but first: Fix the property rights problem.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Fundamental companies</h2>



Despite the prevailing problems in crypto capital markets, however, a handful of companies have punched up against their weight. Revenue-generating companies are scarce, but they exist.



Within finance, Jupiter, Raydium and Ethena are all million-dollar-generating businesses. The Hyperliquid perps DEX stands out at the top, with <a href="https://dune.com/queries/4508934/7532291">$1-2 million</a> in daily revenues.



If you prefer businesses not tethered to the “circular” economy of DeFi, there is the onchain private credit Maple Finance, which hit a monthly high in <a href="https://dune.com/maple-finance/maple-finance">$1 million</a> revenue in May. Or Shuffle, a gambling app generating an annualized <a href="https://x.com/bidclubio/status/1927324325884944639?s=19">$100 million +</a> in “net gaming revenue.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcwWGMa9q_a0nGA7I67wWWafRX6tAxpuunLV-ERhC5sTBEx8r87SfT9o5WoFoS7CUDJaOWQRQZzag2m90vsUeeAE5godw5uImT7zCpanfVf5cfON2u1aDeyS206702R8tCRPgPgtQ?key=DVgGkajGsjjCdTe9gXd0JA" alt=""/></figure>



Even the nascent DePIN sector has a few breakouts of its own, namely the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/depin-grass-reshaping-ai-data-layer">data-scraping Grass</a> (allegedly generating <a href="https://www.bidclub.io/posts/cmbhf46080000eu6u0azpimfs?invite=cmbhf732f0003eu6uwfmf7158">eight figure annualized revenues</a>) and the real-time kinematic network Geodnet, making sub $2-3 million in <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/geodnet-enabling-ubiquitous-autonomy">annual recurring revenues</a> (ARR). 



Debate around the right ways to value tokens is also notably louder, as seen in recent <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/valuing-blockchains-rev-debate">talk</a> around real economic value (REV). This suggests a growing class of investors moving away from speculation, and toward more rigorous approaches to valuations.



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0xResearch Newsletter

Crypto needs to fix token holder protections

FAIR introduces native AI optimization to blockchain infrastructure with Vodafone as a founding validator.



<a href="https://skale.space/?utm_source=blockworks" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SKALE Labs</a>, the team behind the gas-free invisible blockchain network, SKALE, today announced its plans to launch FAIR, the world’s first MEV-resistant Layer 1 blockchain. Built to serve the future of financial protocols that leverage AI agents for value transfer, FAIR launches with Vodafone as a founding validator for the network. The blockchain creates a fair environment where AI agents and users can access deep liquidity without MEV or other forms of value extraction.



Traditional finance is driven by quant bots executing trades across deep, liquid markets in private environments. With the use of AI onchain projected to increase 100-fold, MEV will continue to extract more value from blockchain ecosystems. Both users and AI agents will need a fair blockchain environment to interact with.&nbsp;By eliminating MEV at the consensus level with BITE Protocol, FAIR enables AI agents and financial protocols to execute transactions onchain and access deep liquidity&nbsp;– privately and with fairness guaranteed.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
SKALE Labs CEO and Co-Founder Jack O’Holleran&nbsp;commented on the news, “MEV has an expiration date. It is a major flaw in the current state of decentralized finance. Today, every user pays a tax on every trade to MEV bots. This problem will grow exponentially with the growth of agentic AI. Blockchains that don’t solve for MEV will someday be obsolete. FAIR solves for MEV by embedding encryption directly into consensus and is the first truly MEV-resistant blockchain, solving a problem the industry has long accepted as inevitable. With the launch of FAIR EVM and the FAIR SDK, developers can now build AI-driven applications and autonomous agents that operate privately, without front-running or manipulation. Whether deploying on SKALE or directly on FAIR, we’re giving builders a platform where cryptographic fairness, privacy, and performance are guaranteed by design.”
</blockquote>



FAIR will introduce native AI integration designed for both security and autonomy. In the short term, FAIR leverages AI to secure transactions, stopping hacks and making blockchain more user-friendly. Long-term, FAIR is built to support AI agents’ onboarding to DeFi, with the FAIR SDK including tools for autonomous agents to interact securely with onchain markets, execute logic-based strategies, and access DeFi rails without risk of transaction manipulation.&nbsp;



FAIR will be powered by FAIR EVM, a C++-based, parallelized virtual machine featuring asynchronous execution, instant finality, and database-level optimization, setting a new standard for performance while maintaining MEV protection and native AI integration.



While the FAIR Mainnet will eventually introduce its own native token, $SKL will remain a core asset through targeted burn mechanics and cross-network utility. FAIR will operate with a dual-token model that creates mutual value across both the FAIR and SKALE ecosystems, with a significant allocation of the FAIR native token going to the community and $SKL holders.&nbsp;



SKALE has already established itself as a leader in web3 gaming and AI application development, and with FAIR, the network positions itself as the foundational infrastructure for autonomous AI systems.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
David Palmer, Pairpoint by Vodafone, Chief Product Officer&nbsp;commented, “The rapid evolution of AI and other automation technologies is forcing the evolution of a new digital infrastructure to serve the fast-evolving digital world, and cellular, Web3, and AI will be a part of it. As part of the technological convergence this requires blockchain adoption is growing with the potential to form a trust and automation link between people, businesses, IoT devices and even AI Agents,&nbsp;which places significant emphasis on security both at the edge and onchain to prevent attacks like miner/maximal extractable value attacks (MEV). Pairpoint by Vodafone is proud to join FAIR as a validator and partner, helping build and validate a network that global institutions can trust for transparency and fairness. We’re excited to foster and maintain this ecosystem alongside other leading validators in the space, to help bring the world of cellular and blockchain and create new trust and automation for business as we move to the AI economy.”
</blockquote>



Through a shared tech stack, SKALE Chains will upgrade to the FAIR SDK, making all SKALE Chains MEV resistant and faster while enabling SKALE-based dApps to benefit from encrypted execution and native AI functionality.&nbsp;



For more information, users can visit:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.fairchain.ai/">https://www.fairchain.ai/</a>&nbsp;



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SKALE Labs launches FAIR, world’s first MEV-resistant L1 built for AI and DeFi

David Canellis

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



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Decentralization is a spectrum.



No doubt you’ve heard this before. After all, Bitcoin started out much more centralized than it is today: There were <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=194078.0">check points</a> and single-digit node counts, and the hash rate is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/satoshi-bitcoin-holdings-wallet-123b">believed</a> to have been concentrated mostly with Satoshi for at least the first year.



But a spectrum needs two dimensions, otherwise it’s just a scale.&nbsp;



For blockchains (and peer-to-peer networks more generally), the other dimension would be “interestingness” — the more decentralized something is, the more interesting it is.



Pre-Bitcoin, e-gold was the most successful alternative digital currency. And it was still very interesting, even with its overt centralization.



Seventeen years ago, in 2008 (and five months before Bitcoin’s white paper), the public got <a href="https://www.offshorealert.com/us-judge-rejects-e-golds-argument-that-it-is-not-a-money-transmitter/">confirmation</a> that e-gold’s legal appeals couldn’t save it: A federal judge had ruled that e-gold was in fact a money transmitter by the government’s standards.



The company and its execs would officially stand trial for operating as one without a license, with four criminal counts against their names, for which they’d plead guilty.



At the very surface level, e-gold was not totally dissimilar from how some stablecoins operate, only it was launched in 1998, when there was no such thing as a cryptocurrency.



Users would first exchange fiat currency for digital grams of gold that would then be credited to their e-gold accounts. Gold &amp; Silver Reserve Inc., an offshore company registered in Saint Kitts and Nevis, physically backed each of those digital grams with actual gold — first in a safe deposit box in Florida and later across bank vaults in London and Dubai.



E-gold users could then cheaply send gold-denominated payments to other users, and balances could then be cashed out via supporting money exchangers.



All transactions were instant, irreversible and tallied by a private ledger operated by the company on a centralized server. Gold &amp; Silver Reserve Inc. charged a minor fee for the trouble, and allowed accounts to be opened without any identity checks, making each user pseudonymous.



E-gold was properly massive for its time. At its 2006 peak, it was second only to PayPal when it came to internet-native payment processing: over 5 million registered <a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/06/e-gold/">accounts</a> spread all over the world, with active users pushing $2 billion worth of transactions per year.&nbsp;



But the cumulative value of all the e-gold in circulation — which we’d probably describe as its market cap — was low by today’s standard. It was only $85 million, converting to around 3.8 metric tons of physical gold to back each unit.



Tether Gold, probably the closest we have to a modern crypto equivalent of e-gold, otherwise has a circulating <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tether-gold">supply</a> of over $800 million, but only about 134,000 transactions in the token’s entire <a href="https://etherscan.io/token/0x68749665ff8d2d112fa859aa293f07a622782f38">history</a>. Around 7,250 Ethereum addresses contain at least some Tether Gold, although those include exchange hot wallets holding balances on behalf of an unknown numbers of users.



E-gold unravelled precisely due to its lack of decentralization. In the simplest terms, the feds could shut it down because it was run by a small number of people who controlled all of its functions, from the buying and selling of gold reserves to server maintenance and lax fraud prevention.



E-gold was interesting on a libertarian level — and even with cypherpunks — until the risks of its centralization became glaringly obvious.&nbsp;



Bitcoin fixed this.



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digital gold

Before Bitcoin: Digital gold in the ’90s was interesting, until it wasn’t

Casey Wagner

Ben Strack

Stablecoin issuer Circle started trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday at a price of $69 per share, but quickly jumped as high as $75 in initial trading. The company trades under the ticker symbol CRCL. The stock was halted for volatility within minutes of opening. 



“We’ve seen really, really tremendous demand from phenomenal investors that I think see what we see, which is that the internet is entering a new chapter,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said during an interview with CNBC Thursday ahead of the listing.&nbsp;



“It is the chapter of upgrading the financial system with stablecoin money.”&nbsp;



This opening trade price is higher than the company’s Wednesday evening initial public offering price of $31, which was above the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-upsizes-ipo">proposed range.</a> Investors who purchased directly from underwriters are now up roughly 144%.  



Allaire rang the opening bell at the NYSE ahead of trading and is scheduled to ring the closing bell virtually from Circle’s New York headquarters.&nbsp;



Circle, its founder and its early shareholders <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-price-above-range-to-raise-1-1-billion">raised</a> $1.1 billion from 34 million shares. After the close on Wednesday, the company upped the offering from 32 million shares.



There was overwhelming investor demand for the IPO. The offering was 25 times oversubscribed, according to a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-be-likely-to-price-above-marketed-range-mbi24hhn?embedded-checkout=true">report</a> from Bloomberg.&nbsp;



Read more:<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand"> Weighing institutional, retail demand for Circle ahead of public debut</a>



“This is how the US becomes the global crypto/blockchain hub and fulfills the administration&#8217;s objective,” 10T Holdings CEO Dan Tapiero wrote in a Wednesday LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7335823053962080257/">post</a>. “The bigger companies in the digital asset world gain added credibility by going through a real-world vetting process.”



Now, all eyes are on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-nyse-listing-predictions">how the stock moves</a> in the first few hours of trading.&nbsp;



VanEck’s Matthew Sigel told Blockworks Tuesday that Circle can be considered a “boring is beautiful trade” for institutions given its profitability, minimal leverage and position within the Web3 ecosystem. But retail investors “may find it harder to latch on” to a company with less volatility and brand recognition than an exchange like Coinbase, he argued.&nbsp;



Circle’s NYSE listing comes a few weeks after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/galaxy-defi-technologies-nasdaq-us-listings">Galaxy Digital and DeFi Technologies</a> made their respective US public debuts on the Nasdaq.&nbsp;



Tapiero said at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit in March that ownership of crypto companies via exchange listings was a “mini step” that leads to more value moving onchain.



“American investors like to own businesses with cash flow, balance sheets, income statements, a proper board — and also legitimacy,” he noted at the time.



This is a developing story.



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Circle

Circle hits $75 per share in first-day pop on NYSE

Katherine Ross

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



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



By the end of the day today, a stablecoin issuer will be public on the New York Stock Exchange.&nbsp;



Last night, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-price-before-nyse-debut">the stock priced at $31</a>, well above the initial range of $24 to $26, so clearly there’s excitement for the IPO. Not to mention, it once again upsized its share offering. We’re now at 34 million shares, and it looks like the IPO is on track to raise over $1.1 billion.



I’d expect the first trade to happen mid-morning if not a bit after, taking the demand into account. So this morning, I’m going to do things a little differently and set the stage for today.&nbsp;



The big challenge, ahead of the first trade, will be carefully balancing supply and demand, Bitwise’s general counsel (and former investment banker) Katherine Dowling told me. It’s something that Fineqia’s Matteo Greco <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-nyse-listing-predictions/?nocache">highlighted to my colleague</a> (and Forward Guidance author) Ben Strack as well.&nbsp;



I almost hesitate to bring up Coinbase, because a direct listing and an IPO are two different beasts. But the bankers on Circle’s deal will be cautious to keep the stock’s price at a level where it can’t take off and then come crashing down to earth…which is a bit of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/coinbase-coin-climbs-11percent-in-premarket-after-nasdaq-debut.html">what happened </a>with Coinbase (the stock hit $429 before closing below its opening price of $328).&nbsp;



“You really want that kind of Goldilocks pricing to kind of try to keep it within a narrower band,” Dowling said. “Obviously, that did not happen with Coinbase. So you want to avoid that scenario.”



A strong debut from Circle, eToro’s Bret Kenwell tells me, would be a “huge win” for bulls and crypto.&nbsp;



It’ll also be a testing of the waters for crypto firms, Dowling added. So far, we’ve heard about the institutional demand for Circle’s IPO, but today will also <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand">test the retail demand</a>. Because it’s oversubscribed, she wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a jump in demand which then tapers off.&nbsp;



“I think for the long run, [Circle’s] a good horse to jump on. So I think you&#8217;ll still see that demand out there for the folks that aren&#8217;t getting involved at the IPO stage,” Dowling told me.&nbsp;



Especially given that Circle has (perhaps without meaning to) timed its IPO pretty dang well.&nbsp;



We have lawmakers mulling over a stablecoin bill over in DC at the same time Circle’s making its debut. While I’m not privy to the insider discussions around the IPO, I’d imagine the team is pretty happy about that.&nbsp;



Dowling noted that Circle is just a sign of the evolution we’re seeing in crypto and marks how far we’ve come. Especially taking into account that Circle confidentially <a href="https://www.circle.com/pressroom/circle-announces-confidential-submission-of-draft-registration-statement-for-proposed-initial-public-offering">filed</a> its initial S-1 back in January 2024.&nbsp;



“The importance of that evolution is notable…because it&#8217;s not just as simple as, ‘We had an administration change, so now we&#8217;re pro-crypto.’ It really isn&#8217;t just about that. You&#8217;ve had people…both sides of the aisle, have a much greater understanding of what [stablecoins are], how they work, and that this is a technological change, and I think that&#8217;s been really helpful to that evolution and to getting where we are today,” she said.



“We’ve come such a long way from the Luna debacle, right?” Dowling said. And if nothing else puts this historical moment into perspective, perhaps that will.&nbsp;



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What to expect when Circle’s stock goes public

WalletConnect is the connectivity layer behind onchain apps and wallets used daily.



If you’ve ever connected to a crypto app, chances are you’ve used WalletConnect. Today, the ecosystem is reaching new highs and setting the stage for the next wave of growth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">300 million connections and climbing</h2>



The network has now processed more than 300 million cumulative connections, moving billions in value. From individual users to top-tier institutions, WalletConnect is the default for secure, scalable onchain interaction. But this isn’t a peak, it’s the launchpad. The next phase is already underway, and it’s accelerating.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Network growth highlights: May 2025</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Cumulative Connections: Verified connections on the WalletConnect Network surpassed 309 million in May, signaling increasing reliance on infrastructure built for scale, performance, and trust.</li>



<li>Unique Wallets: Over 47.5 million wallets have now connected through the WalletConnect Network. This growth reflects broader adoption across apps, platforms, and chains.</li>



<li>Integrated Apps: The number of apps integrated with WalletConnect reached 66,500. From emerging projects to established protocols, developers continue to choose WalletConnect to deliver seamless onchain UX.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">$WCT momentum: Staking, adoption, and Solana expansion</h2>



$WCT is central to WalletConnect’s move toward decentralization. 



Users can stake WCT to help secure the network and earn real rewards tied to actual usage.



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>121.3 million WCT currently staked</li>



<li>Over 49,400 stakers globally</li>



<li>Up to 22% APY available through staking</li>
</ul>



Now live on Solana:



To mark $WCT’s expansion to Solana, the Foundation announced a 5 million WCT token allocation for active Solana users. The goal is to reach real onchain participants, builders, stakers, and ecosystem contributors.



Partners include Phantom, Jupiter, Backpack, and Solflare and Solana Mobile. These partners will help identify eligible users. This initiative does not increase total supply, which remains capped at 1 billion tokens.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">New ecosystem members</h2>



The WalletConnect Network continues to grow, welcoming new apps and wallets each week. Recent integrations include Rootstock Collective and KuCoin Wallet, both of which enhance the network’s cross-chain utility and access.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Smart sessions: AI and automated onchain actions at the center of the next chapter</h2>



WalletConnect is betting on a smarter future for onchain UX.



The future isn’t about connecting more wallets, it’s about making crypto as usable as possible. Smart Sessions, also known as Automated Onchain Actions, reduce the need for constant wallet popups. Instead, users grant secure permissions, enabling apps or AI agents to transact on their behalf.



This unlocks real automation, better mobile experiences, and a new layer of utility for $WCT. As adoption scales, it’s expected to drive long-term value through higher transaction volume and broader ecosystem usage.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What’s ahead for the WalletConnect network</h2>



As adoption grows, WalletConnect is positioning itself as a foundational layer of the onchain economy. The roadmap includes several major milestones:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Launch of Total Value Facilitated (TVF) to show real volume moving through the network</li>



<li>$WCT expansion to additional chains</li>



<li>Community fee proposals and mechanism design</li>



<li>Permissionless node operations to open participation</li>
</ul>



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WalletConnect ecosystem update: Growth, milestones, and what’s next

Circle’s taken one of its final steps to going public.&nbsp;



On Wednesday, the stablecoin issuer <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250604831596/en/Circle-Announces-Pricing-of-Upsized-Initial-Public-Offering">announced</a> the pricing of its initial public offering. Shares of the upsized IPO are expected to price at $31. The issuer is going public on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.



The firm now expects to offer 34 million shares. Bloomberg first <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-price-above-range-to-raise-1-1-billion">reported</a> the news.&nbsp;



The announcement comes just days after Circle filed yet another amendment to its S-1, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-upsizes-ipo">upsizing the offering and the price</a>. The filing noted the company intended to offer 32 million Class A common stock in its public markets debut, a jump up from its initial plan to offer <a href="https://empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com/p/meme-to-mainstream?_bhlid=ae8ff9f4587d7becb731092a20ad1600bbabdb5b&amp;last_resource_guid=Post%3Ae12c0195-6707-494d-9dcd-963bdc706fd9&amp;utm_campaign=meme-to-mainstream&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com">24 million shares.</a>&nbsp;



Circle said Monday it expected the offering price to be between $27 to $28, an increase from the original range of $24 and $26.&nbsp;



The changes in the Monday filing marked “a crystal-clear signal of strong demand” among institutions, Architect Partners founder Eric Risley told Blockworks earlier this week.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-acquisition">Why an acquisition of Circle may be off the table as its IPO approaches</a>



The stablecoin issuer noted that Cathie Wood-led Ark Invest showed interest in buying roughly $150 million worth of shares. A Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-28/blackrock-is-said-to-plan-to-buy-shares-in-circle-internet-ipo">report</a> last week indicated that BlackRock might also look to acquire Circle shares.&nbsp;



Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital assets research, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand">told Blockworks yesterday</a> that Circle is positioning itself as a “boring is beautiful trade” for institutions seeking crypto exposure without balance sheet risk.&nbsp;



“Retail may find it harder to latch on,” Sigel added. “Circle doesn’t have the same volatility, beta, meme potential or brand recognition as Coinbase.”&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-nyse-listing-predictions/?nocache">Why it’s ‘difficult to predict’ how Circle’s NYSE listing plays out</a>



Circle was expected to debut on the public markets this week after filing its original S-1 amendment last week.



Jay Woods, chief global strategist for Freedom Capital Markets, previously told Blockworks that he wouldn’t be surprised if the company picked Thursday for its debut. There’s not a set reason for it, but it has become a popular choice for IPOs over a Wednesday debut.



As Circle was finalizing its IPO, which it officially announced at the beginning of last year, there were rumors of a potential acquisition by either Coinbase or Ripple. However, Woods said that the S-1 amendment pretty much put the talks of acquisitions to rest, at least for now.&nbsp;



Ben Strack contributed reporting.



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Circle shares price at $31 ahead of NYSE debut

Jeff Albus

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



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



Pump.fun is launching a token. Maybe you&#8217;ve heard? <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">Blockworks first reported</a> yesterday that the memecoin launchpad is looking to raise an eye-watering $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation via a token sale.



The timing has raised a few eyebrows, with some industry watchers noting that the launch follows a <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/pumpfun?dashboard=120">cooling</a> in platform activity from its January peak. At that time, bonding curve volume topped $10 billion, revenue approached $150 million, and nearly 1.7 million tokens per month were launched. Those figures have all dropped by more than half.



To some, it seems that pump.fun rode a euphoric wave of speculative mania, and now it&#8217;s converting that attention into capital while the window&#8217;s still open. Opportunism in crypto? Say it isn&#8217;t so.



The resulting skepticism may account in part for the market&#8217;s sharp reaction following the token rumors.



Solana (SOL) fell 3% on the pump.fun token news and has <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/assets/sol?tags=sol">slid</a> roughly 7% over the week, from recent highs near $170 down to around $156 at the time of publication.&nbsp;



Some on social media <a href="https://x.com/SpiderCrypto0x/status/1930042330477932619">cite</a> memecoin fatigue. Intraday swings <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/assets/sol?tags=sol">showed</a> heightened volatility, underscoring uncertainty amid heavy retail speculation.



But is this cynicism a bit unfair?



Perhaps. It&#8217;s not hard to argue that pump.fun has earned its moment: The platform bootstrapped its early growth with very <a href="https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/593602-12">limited</a> VC backing and popularized a novel product that brought thousands of new users to Solana.&nbsp;



Looking at the data, Blockworks Research <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/pumpfun?dashboard=127">shows</a> that pump.fun’s bonding curve and AMM products routinely generated between $150m and $250m in daily trading volume, with platform fees peaking above $2m per day during May. The majority of trades remain small in size (often under $100), suggesting continued high-frequency activity from retail participants.



On the token side, pump.fun has <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/pumpfun?dashboard=120">been responsible</a> for the vast majority of new token launches on Solana in recent months, with spikes of 30,000-40,000 launches per day observed in early May.



This onboarding funnel fed into a broader explosion of Solana usage.&nbsp;



And while it’s true that wallet funnel data shows that only a minority of pump.fun participants go on to use core Solana infrastructure, those who do often move into Jupiter trading, Raydium LPing and experimental dapps, suggesting real (if limited) downstream conversion.&nbsp;



But competition <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/the-launchpad-wars_pump.fun's-dominance-under-siege">continues to intensify</a>. Raydium&#8217;s LaunchLab, Meteora&#8217;s high-profile celebrity token launches, and Believe&#8217;s startup-centric platform represent direct threats, leveraging flexibility and unique narratives pump.fun currently lacks. This fragmentation has reshaped Solana&#8217;s token-launch landscape in short order, threatening pump.fun&#8217;s once entrenched dominance by offering diversified launch strategies that appeal to broader segments of the market.



As for the token itself, little is known at this stage. That information vacuum has left watchers to speculate whether it will function as a fee-back asset, governance token, or participate in future launch rights.&nbsp;



The launch — which pump.fun has <a href="https://x.com/SolanaFloor/status/1930014722117841030">indicated</a> in the past could include an airdrop to users — could reignite some of the segment&#8217;s lost speculative fervor. Or, it might immediately collapse like most of the assets launched through its ecosystem and catalyze deeper skepticism toward memecoin-based speculation. Either outcome could drastically impact not just pump.fun&#8217;s future but the broader Solana ecosystem&#8217;s market dynamics and sentiment.



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Lightspeed Newsletter

Solana slips as Pump.fun token rumors swirl

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



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



Mastering The Art of the Deal is apparently not easy.&nbsp;



There are supposedly 69 days left to ink a permanent trade agreement with China, but progress has shown signs of stalling in recent days. Here’s what we know:



President Trump in the wee hours of the morning took to social media to comment on the status of trade talks with China. 



Spoiler: There doesn’t seem to be much advancement. 



“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social just after 2 a.m. ET Wednesday.



Last month’s US-China detente placed a mutual temporary (90-day) rollback on tariffs. The US lowered tariffs on China from 145% to 30%, and China decreased levies on US goods from 125% to 10%.&nbsp;



The deal also apparently included a rollback in the strict mineral export restrictions China implemented in retaliation to “Liberation Day,” according to comments from US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.



Last week, when Trump accused China (again via a Truth Social post) of “violating its agreement,” he was talking about China “slow rolling” its side of the deal, Greer said. Greer mentioned restrictions on rare-earth exports specifically.&nbsp;



China is dragging its feet on rolling back the mineral export restrictions, according to a Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/china/u-s-china-trade-truce-risks-falling-apart-over-rare-earth-exports-c36ceb72?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAgx-dmss5tBM6B9oiloLup2S4TUVaOOxisMxNN4LIPyu5Jhtb3qo9Dyc0SeZ0s%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68408745&amp;gaa_sig=ElhNWTewNk-fEkX0uGYrpopTvdHdVcjfye_u_YZAS_2Eep0hO9VkdAEPfwPXlpoaqJj5byON7dRy11laI_hGRw%3D%3D">report</a>. That’s because the US Commerce Department on May 12 <a href="https://www.bis.gov/press-release/department-commerce-rescinds-biden-era-artificial-intelligence-diffusion-rule-strengthens-chip-related">warned</a> that using Huawei Technologies’ Ascend AI chips “anywhere in the world” violated export controls.&nbsp;



The US did this as part of a continued effort to limit technological advancements in China, so it makes sense that the country would counter with retaliatory measures of its own.&nbsp;



Back to the rare earths. Why does the export restriction matter? China mines 60% of the global supply and manufacturers 90% of the global supply of rare earth magnets. Rare earth elements are essential for technology; they are in cell phones, cars, lights, batteries, you name it.&nbsp;



Solvent extraction (the difficult process of separating rare earth minerals from one another) comes with bad impacts on the environment: high levels of toxic waste, water pollution, etc. The process was actually created in the US in the 1950s, but it’s expensive and unpopular in the States. 



All this to say: US-China tensions may be manifesting themselves as export controls and tariffs, but they’re just tools in a broader economic battle. 



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China

Trump takes to social media to complain about China trade talks

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



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Stablecoin issuer Circle’s expected listing on the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow comes roughly four years after another crypto milestone: Coinbase’s public market debut.&nbsp;



I wrote yesterday about how the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand">apparently solid institutional demand for Circle</a> doesn’t necessarily spell out what will happen once CRCL shares list.&nbsp;



&#8220;It’s difficult to predict the precise impact of this listing,” said Fineqia senior associate Matteo Greco. “Back in 2021, there was widespread belief that Coinbase’s stock would soar following its Nasdaq debut. The outcome proved quite different.”



Coinbase’s valuation at the time of its direct listing in April 2021 was widely considered to exceed fair value, Greco told me. And the timing was “unfortunate.”



COIN shares opened at $381 but closed at $328 on day one, Yahoo data shows. Though BTC reached a new high in November 2021, that was the beginning of a bear market. Coinbase stock dipped below $50 at times in mid-2022.&nbsp;



Although the stock has recovered to around $260 today, early investors have effectively been underwater for four-plus years, Greco noted.



With <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecon-execs-bullish-stablecoins-financial-revolution">stablecoin use cases gaining steam</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/senate-advances-genius-act">proposed US legislation</a> on the table, the timing for Circle’s listing appears strong. Still, forecasting how CRCL shares will move on the NYSE is challenging, Greco argued.



“The main factor will be its valuation relative to what market participants deem to be its fair value,” he said.



The $7.2 billion valuation Circle is targeting (given the Monday filing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-upsizes-ipo">upsizing its IPO</a>) is below the $7.7 billion valuation it got in an April 2022 funding round. The final IPO price is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-be-likely-to-price-above-marketed-range-mbi24hhn">reportedly</a> expected Wednesday evening.



Compass Point analyst Ed Engel pointed out that the $7.2 billion valuation implies a 14.3x multiple on annualized first quarter EBITDA; Coinbase and Robinhood trade at about 30x their estimated 2025 EBITDA.



VanEck’s Matthew Sigel told me yesterday that Circle can be considered a “‘boring is beautiful’ trade” given its profitability, minimal leverage and position within Web3 financial infrastructure. But retail investors “may find it harder to latch on” to a company with less volatility and brand recognition than Coinbase, he argued.&nbsp;



Circle’s USDC stablecoin holds a roughly 24% market share in the ~$250 billion stablecoin segment. It generates highly visible interest income that can scale alongside stablecoin adoption, Engel said.&nbsp;



But, he added: “We also expect near-term USDC supply to remain driven by DeFi and crypto trading volumes, which are historically correlated with crypto market cycles.”Check <a href="http://blockworks.co">Blockworks.co</a> for updates on Circle’s final IPO pricing and CRCL stock movements.



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Why it’s ‘difficult to predict’ how Circle’s NYSE listing plays out

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



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A crypto wallet made by Magic Eden, its subsidiary Slingshot, and the TRUMP memecoin team called Trump Wallet is facing scrutiny from the US President’s sons.



The wallet’s reveal — which began as a leak after crypto researcher and critic Molly White spotted it online — spurred an announcement from Magic Eden yesterday confirming the Trump Wallet’s existence, calling it an “official $TRUMP wallet.”&nbsp;



The marketplace <a href="https://x.com/MagicEden/status/1929955044725583993">promoted</a> the upcoming wallet as “the first and only crypto wallet for true Trump fans.”



Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu also posted on X about the wallet, encouraging users to sign up for it after some media outlets <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-wallet-magic-eden">including Blockworks</a> had already <a href="https://x.com/whosknave/status/1929961038843142288">reported</a> the news.&nbsp;



The marketplace later <a href="https://x.com/MagicEden/status/1930011587257217323">said</a> “Yes. It’s real” in response to a tweet from the TRUMP memecoin account.



But the pro-crypto President’s sons Eric and Donald Jr., who are working on various Trump-themed crypto projects of their own via <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-strategic-crypto-reserve">World Liberty Financial</a>, both said they had no idea the wallet was being launched.



There’s also a difference between the “$TRUMP team” (who made the TRUMP memecoin) the “Trump team” (Presidents’ advisors and staff), and the “@Trump team” (Trump Organization), to make things even more confusing.



To further that confusion, CIC Digital, which is owned by the Trump Organization, is affiliated with the token. But the coin’s website says that the Trump family and The Trump Organization aren’t distributing the coin.



Fight Fight Fight LLC is behind the TRUMP token. Fight Fight Fight is run by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-21/trump-s-old-partner-sells-memecoins-cologne-and-access">Bill Zanker</a>, a man believed to be close to the President and who co-authored a book with him that was released back in 2007.



Fine print on the memecoin’s website notes that CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight collectively own 80% of the token supply, with a three-year unlocking schedule.



The TRUMP token — and the President’s <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cb1def8f-53a6-478e-9b3e-33c383b29629">profits</a> from it — <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-05-06-Letter-from-Sen.-Richard-Blumenthal-to-Fight-Fight-Fight.pdf">sparked</a> an investigation last month from the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which seeks to understand the steps Fight Fight Fight is taking to prevent “conflicts of interest or foreign interest” and to assess whether it’s violating federal laws, among its concerns.



Donald Trump Jr. <a href="https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1929965961341247842">said</a> The Trump Organization has “nothing to do with” the Magic Eden-powered Trump Wallet and that he knew nothing about it. Eric Trump also <a href="https://x.com/EricTrump/status/1929966635445576103">denied</a> any knowledge of the wallet, and later cautioned the NFT marketplace against using his family’s name.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdRD2NebS2P5392_6NOBhkWb77fVBuObBkD8KjYufgTaFyw5Sr33d4iSsdwPfdcZBw567FDqCH7Cn0034cjTCLSgsZJfLPuc6E9_SibpUz5M7g8q5hvJISSNfX13UuqUQp0jKuI?key=w58N1Wt491f4R7vc5AMTSg" alt="" style="width:448px;height:auto"/></figure>



“This project is not authorized by @Trump,” Eric wrote, adding: “@MagicEden I would be extremely careful using our name in a project that has not been approved and is unknown to anyone in our organization.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Eric Trump reportedly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/technology/trump-crypto-wallet-sons-rift.html">told</a> The New York Times yesterday that his family will take action against the Magic Eden Trump Wallet, which could include legal steps. In a text to the newspaper, he said: “There is no deal for this product” and added that “There is no agreement for this product. It has not been approved.”&nbsp;



Donald Jr. shared that WLF will launch its own “official wallet” soon. This could mean there may be two Trump-branded crypto wallets out in the world at some point in the near future, which would surely cause confusion.



The X account (@TrumpWalletApp) linked to Magic Eden’s so-called Trump Wallet was&nbsp; suspended for breaking the social media platform’s rules, but it’s unclear which rule or rules might have been broken.



Magic Eden’s ME token spiked shortly after the wallet was first revealed online, rising from $0.86 to roughly $1.04. ME is up roughly 7% in the past month, but remains down about 94% from its all-time high.



A spokesperson for Magic Eden and Lu declined to comment further beyond its existing social media posts.



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Donald Trump

Eric Trump to Magic Eden: ‘Be extremely careful using our name’

Macauley Peterson

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



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Hyperliquid has become the dominant venue for onchain perpetuals, leapfrogging <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/dydx">dYdX</a> by embracing a radical idea: full transparency. Every resting order is hash-linked to a wallet, whose P&amp;L and liquidation level are visible to the network. This “L4” order book is more granular than TradFi’s L3 venues, which conceal trader identity, positions or leverage levels.



Hyperliquid’s radically transparent market structure has no informational asymmetry between participants — and given its stellar growth, it’s working. But is it optimal?



Jeff Yan, the founder of Hyperliquid Labs, argues yes. In a recent <a href="https://x.com/chameleon_jeff/status/1929753039969440212">X thread</a>, he likened the design to ETF rebalances and electronic lit markets in equities. His thesis: Transparency lets market makers identify non-toxic flow, tighten spreads and scale liquidity, even for billion-dollar whales.



Yet, Variational, the team behind a new derivatives protocol on <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/arbitrum">Arbitrum</a> called Omni, is betting on the opposite design choice: total privacy.



Critics like <a href="https://x.com/ThomasUhm/status/1929170772095815702">Thomas Uhm</a> and Edward Yu (Variational’s co-founder) <a href="https://x.com/mr_plumpkin/status/1929059419326918822?s=46">pointed out</a> a potential flaw: Transparency benefits uninformed flow — not alpha traders. “If you’re a profitable trader with edge, you want to move in stealth,” Yu told Blockworks. “Otherwise, the market will price in your impact the moment your intent becomes visible.” For example, “if someone can see your flow ahead of time through L4 data, they can frontrun, fade or cancel. Your alpha disappears.”



Omni, which announced today that it has raised $1.5 million in strategic funding from Mirana Ventures, Caladan, Zoku Ventures among others, is a peer-to-protocol trading venue, CEO Lucas Schuermann explained to Blockworks.



Users RFQ directly against an integrated market maker — the Omni Liquidity Provider (OLP). There’s no public book. No shared intent. Every fill is private.



When a trader joins Omni, they receive a segregated individual smart contract to hold all their funds. “We call it a settlement pool — essentially an escrow account for the margin that sits between the user and OLP,” Scheurmann said.



Omni is explicitly designed to shield traders. It’s a philosophical fork from the Hyperliquid hypothesis. Schuermann explained that the architecture evolved from institutional RFQ rails: “We essentially took all of our experience and infrastructure and market making liquid products…and we put that knowledge into OLP,” Schuermann said. “But after building all this infrastructure, we realized it could solve problems for retail.”



This private structure enables more than just discretion — it also redistributes protocol revenue. OLP vault depositors <a href="https://docs.variational.io/variational-omni/about-omni/the-omni-liquidity-provider-olp#how-olp-is-funded">will eventually</a> earn market-making profits, while traders receive partial refunds on losing trades. “We don&#8217;t want to sell the order flow to a third party who&#8217;s going to extract value. We want to give it back to users.”



This may sound similar to Hyperliquid’s HLP model, but the design philosophies differ sharply. Hyperliquid’s HLP vault allocates capital to in-protocol market makers who compete to quote tight spreads on the order book, with profits or losses passed back to HLP depositors. By contrast, the OLP vault routes liquidity to external venues — including Binance, Bybit and even Hyperliquid itself — where it acts as a taker, not a maker. This lets OLP sidestep the toxic flow and predatory dynamics that can come with posting passive quotes, especially on transparent books.



It does introduce custodial risk for liquidity providers, comparable to holders of Ethena’s synthetic dollar product: Funds leave the Omni protocol and rely on third-party exchange APIs and account controls.



Variational mitigates this risk by maintaining control over those deployments and publicly tracking all balances and trades for the OLP strategy. The added operational risk is compensated by what the team believes is materially better execution.



Omni is part of a broader movement: user-owned infrastructure. And Schuermann believes this model can scale liquidity — even for the long tail of assets, which are usually related to AMM pools like Uniswap or Radium.



Omni routes trades through a competitive, gasless RFQ pipeline where OLP quotes all pairs.&nbsp;



“We pick these up automatically amongst many others, and list them along with hundreds on our platform, but the key thing is OLP market makes them from day one,” he said, noting that making illiquid products liquid is part of the Variational team’s core expertise.



So while it’s hard to see anyone dethroning Hyperliquid right now, Omni may hope to carve out a new lane, one built for retail flow with edge, where alpha is protected and profits flow back to users.



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To take on Hyperliquid, Omni bets on privacy

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



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On a long enough timeline, all companies will become Bitcoin companies. Some have just been there from the very start.



PayPal, back when it was still owned by eBay, was an unknowing bedrock for the very first Bitcoin exchanges.



And considering how often the two were lumped together — a tech duo flipping the script on online payments — Bitcoin and PayPal were almost adoptive siblings. One radical, one moderate.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">On This Day</h2>



“Commerce on the internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments,” Satoshi wrote to open the Bitcoin <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf">white paper</a>.



“While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model.”



PayPal was fundamental in the very first trade between bitcoin and the US dollar, which occurred not on this day, but in October 2009.&nbsp;



Martti Malmi, one of Satoshi’s right-hand men in the early days, famously <a href="https://x.com/marttimalmi/status/423455561703624704">swapped</a> $5.02 for 5,050 BTC to the operator of New Liberty Standard, with the fiat side of the transaction handled by PayPal.



It was so early that PayPal had no policies dealing with the concept of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, which of course meant everything was fair game!



New Liberty Standard was a manual <a href="https://newlibertystandard.io/exchange">operation</a> — the price was initially fixed to the average electricity cost to mine a whole coin, and anyone wanting to buy or sell bitcoin would need to send an email to a Gmail address stating how many they’d like to trade.&nbsp;



Traders were then directed to send cash to a PayPal account and wait for their Bitcoin address to be credited.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfFSk1dqN8FJPsHdaZxeX-EtiFStm9bZKFOEOdTvLfeBU1Q_287KW_c3n1PKm8_T3jp91QlnSLhTdTWoxhdFYvJlXsH3bN855hx1Ccxy83o2XOh3lbKfpPiERd5RwonaWE82Mz2UA?key=_UXEm8Dw23GofD1xW8zLeg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">New Liberty Standard would later add supply and demand into its pricing model, leaving us with this spectacular post from a non-believer.</figcaption></figure>



New Liberty Standard was more of a currency exchange desk than a trading platform. But within two months, Bitcointalk user dwdollar was working on a way to bring true price discovery to bitcoin.



“I am trying to create a market where Bitcoins are treated as a commodity,” he <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20.msg100#msg100">wrote</a> in January 2010, as bitcoin celebrated its first birthday.&nbsp;



“People will be able to trade Bitcoins for dollars and speculate on the value. In theory, this will establish a real-time exchange rate so we will all have a clue what the current value of a Bitcoin is, compared to a dollar.”



Bitcoin Market debuted shortly after as the first official BTC exchange, as denoted by its ability to price bitcoin based on supply and demand rather than mining cost.&nbsp;



In some ways, Bitcoin Market resembled a modern-day crypto exchange, even if you could only have one order open at a time. There were BTC pairs for fiat currencies (US and Australian dollars) as well as for grams of gold, with all trades handled off-chain by a centralized server.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd94C9axAjWl9UHNyy11wj19SomSiEdP3F_0O4I2KnQ-K-38_o1UFdSJ-dzUHLNREUMUifmWGgoc-WhdYW3Qxm_3VrVLLCVPC_RJr2T_MQ-sQKrNqa7scO66bhLI1DVgwdIaiExIw?key=_UXEm8Dw23GofD1xW8zLeg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">It took only six months for the price of bitcoin to rise by 1,000% following the launch of Bitcoin Market. By August 2011, bitcoin was trading on the platform for $15 apiece.</figcaption></figure>



Pairs were also broken down by payment processors, which complicated matters. In PayPal’s case, it eventually stopped allowing its users to transact with Bitcoin Market’s PayPal account — so anyone hoping to trade bitcoin with US dollars from their PayPal accounts would need to buy and sell a specialized PayPal USD pair, BMBTC/PPUSD.



The site <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110826203112/https://www.bitcoinmarket.com/info/faq/#paypal_deposits">read</a>: “Bitcoin Market holds the seller&#8217;s Bitcoins until the seller has received PayPal funds from the buyer. Then the seller confirms payment and the bitcoins are dispersed to the buyer&#8217;s Bitcoin Market account. In short, Bitcoin Market acts like an escrow agent for PayPal payments.”



It was actually on this day, in 2011, that Bitcoin Market was forced to suspend PayPal payments — opposite to how that dynamic usually goes.&nbsp;



After removing the invitation-only restriction on new signups, opening it to the public, Bitcoin Market users were hit by a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120319162645/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12678.0">wave</a> of fraudsters initiating phony PayPal refunds after receiving the coins they paid for. Which is ironically quite similar to a double-spend attack, except it wasn’t the Bitcoin blockchain under siege, but Bitcoin Market’s PayPal hot wallet.



These days, PayPal lets its users buy, hold and sell bitcoin right within its flagship app, and even allows BTC to be withdrawn to external wallets.&nbsp;



But using PayPal to manage bitcoin feels just like that scene from the Matrix, where Neo (a PayPal user) can’t believe that Morpheus (Satoshi) has suggested that they can dodge bullets (transact trustlessly).



“No [PayPal user], I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.”



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Bitcoin

Bitcoin Market: How a single user brought price discovery to Bitcoin

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



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I’m quite intrigued by the cautious atmosphere that’s been adopted since bitcoin broke through all-time highs last month.&nbsp;



K33 noted that CME exposure has “risen modestly,” but it’s nowhere near its previous peaks.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfAOBNPr9VHFm5WpNNvTPlr3W6EVK9tZ99iPf7fSH0liN8ihVEybBW7y9QpRUsWfVvV9FgThT4HFVuhLx5AoXH-LfrRcsy_m0nnB_tywTQXzES0mERWg0OzxQH0rFVohfD-euPj_g?key=JSpEp1UER4Z_ZhvK96TtaA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



As you can see in the chart above, open interest for CME bitcoin futures is in a slight downtrend.



The good (and potentially risky) news is that “offshore perpetual markets have seen growing open interest nearing late 2024 highs, but with ambiguous funding rates, setting the stage for heightened liquidation risks and potential volatility spikes in both directions.”



Overall, the derivatives environment has gotten a bit of a chill despite us heading into summer, with analyst Vetle Lunde noting that the perpetual future open interest dropped by 15,000 bitcoin since the end of May. The silver lining here, though, is that overall we’re seeing open interest remain near April highs at 278,000 BTC.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfuCtBCEnugT8s72_ZtCiP-Wtnu6XRkUosmcOMUroCn1Pr4mdJ5m1-5w5d_3HC0vqnJQr_Xwy6_uA9h4_6x3VfKT-1Xa1j2IDmnrcEIX7JempW2HV3Zj0DZkmE2l5ztwwO4hvk9?key=JSpEp1UER4Z_ZhvK96TtaA" alt="" style="width:556px;height:auto"/></figure>



I know what you’re thinking: Data insights are great, but what do they mean?



As I mentioned in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/venture-capital-funding-may-2025">Monday’s Empire</a>, May can be a seasonally weaker month, which leads into the summer months when everyone is busy (hence “sell in May and go away,” if you’re familiar with traditional markets).&nbsp;



So let’s zoom in on CME here.



“While exposure from both direct participants and leveraged ETFs on CME has seen an uptrend over the past month, both cohorts see considerably lower exposure than during prior activity peaks. This is indicative of broad passivity and modest froth, despite BTC’s solid performance over recent months,” Lunde noted.&nbsp;



However, notional open interest in bitcoin perpetuals was on the rise, and remains on an uptrend…something that could — like we noted above — suggest potential volatility.&nbsp;



“There is no clear one-directional bias to read into this activity. In essence, this creates a structure that enhances liquidation risks in either direction thus setting the stage for accelerated volatility ahead,” Lunde wrote.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeqB9TPj61eZAe3quRv2ljvtk_GC0LiXLWOTCZDajLC1-HHxWQoIX9Fei7Cpozvsg85UxEf-BLqVtFkajhnwl6aA3An1WBSQvtu-0QVtp7uhwjIqu72O-YwmhLNDTuv3HztrTAi7w?key=JSpEp1UER4Z_ZhvK96TtaA" alt="" style="width:638px;height:auto"/></figure>



Basically, prepare yourselves for volatility, because it’s crypto and, well, that’s par for the course here. But keep in mind we’re heading into the seasonally weaker summer months.



With the hefty amount of institutional interest we’ve witnessed, there is a possibility that we see crypto act a bit more like the traditional markets during seasonally weaker months.&nbsp;



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Nacho the KatNACHO

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