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Rangers Protocol Gas

Byron Gilliam

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Because that’s where the money is.”



— Willie Sutton, on why he robbed banks
</blockquote>



<a href="https://www.google.com/finance/quote/CRCL:NYSE?window=1M">Circle traded at 1x AUM</a>



At its June 23, history-making peak, Circle shares traded at an enterprise value (market cap minus cash) of roughly $62 billion.



That is wild because Circle’s assets under management is…wait for it…$62 billion!



In other words, stock market investors were briefly valuing Circle at 100% of AUM.



(It’s down to about 67% now.)



By contrast, BlackRock Asset Management’s enterprise value is just 1.5% of the $11.5 trillion of assets it manages.



That’s clearly not a metric any Circle investor cares about, but I still find it extraordinary — and the shares seem extraordinarily expensive on <a href="https://x.com/jonbma/status/1935727836339281965">more standard metrics</a>, too.



The most extraordinary metric, however, is simply the stock’s performance: CRCL shares ended their first day of trading up 180% from the IPO price, and their second day up 247%.



Fortune <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/06/10/circle-ipo-stock-price-valuation-outlook/">reports</a> that this makes Circle the best performing IPO of any large stock since 1980 —&nbsp; a genuinely incredible achievement considering that the dotcom boom is included in that large sample size.&nbsp;



But things got even crazier: CRCL subsequently traded as much as 750% above its IPO.



I don’t, however, think the IPO was underpriced.



In their initial research report, analysts at Goldman Sachs (which led the IPO), put an <a href="https://x.com/HadickM/status/1939721883185762794">$80 price target</a> on the shares — nearly 60% below current levels.



(Amusingly, Goldman still rates the shares as a “hold.”)



That understandably makes people question why Goldman priced the IPO all the way down at $31 — especially considering that the issue was 25x oversubscribed.



But investment banks don’t unilaterally dictate IPO prices. Instead, it’s mostly a function of what their institutional customers are willing to pay.&nbsp;



And it’s likely the case that while the Circle offer was 25x oversubscribed at $31, it might have been zero times subscribed at, say, $41.



Institutional accounts typically put in for more than they actually want so as to try getting a better allocation, so the “times oversubscribed” statistic is just marketing.&nbsp;



Regardless, the huge IPO pop has instantly changed the perception of Circle as a business.



I think of Circle as an asset manager running a tokenized money market fund — which I might have valued at 10% or 20% of AUM (generously, to account for its good growth prospects).&nbsp;



But the stock market clearly thinks that Circle is a tech stock, which can be valued at anything.



And the stock market is always right.



So even if Circle did leave money on the table, I’d say it was money well spent.



<a href="https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BMNR:NYSEAMERICAN?window=5D">BMNR is up 30x in three days</a>



Shares of BitMine, the latest in an ever-growing line of crypto treasury stocks, are trading at $135 today — three days after raising capital at $4.50.



BitMine aims to be an Ethereum version of MicroStrategy, and it’s off to a great start, so it might well achieve that.&nbsp;



(I’d still probably put my money on SBET, but I think all these things are silly, so what do I know.)&nbsp;



But who in their right mind thinks that paying 30x more for a stock than professional investors did three days ago is a good idea?



It’s hard for me to imagine and I’m not sure what to make of it.



But this, along with Circle, is a reminder that there’s a lot more money in stock markets than there is in crypto markets — and also a lot fewer ways to buy “crypto.”



This sudden mismatch of supply and demand has created a bizarre situation in which stock market investors appear to be far more bullish on crypto than crypto investors are.&nbsp;



Crypto tokens have been flatlining for months, but crypto-related equities are booming.



There’s even a boomlet in <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/07/02/coinbase-liquifi-acquisition-mergers-acquisitions-crypto-industry/">crypto-related mergers and acquisitions</a> going on.&nbsp;



IPOs, speculative excess, M&amp;A: The next crypto bull market is here — it’s just not happening in crypto.



Why is it happening on the stock market instead? Because that’s where the money is.



<a href="https://dacfp.com/whitepaper-0625/">Traditional investment advisors love crypto now, too</a>



Ric Edelman, the founder of a registered investment firm with $300 billion of assets under management, now <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/edelman-crypto-allocation-portfolio">recommends that investors allocate</a> as much as 40% of their savings to crypto.



The most conservative investors, he says, should allocate 10%.



Amazing.



In short, Edelman’s reasoning is that 1) with people living longer, even a 60-year-old investor should be investing on a 50-year time horizon and 2) crypto is one of the “exponential technologies” that long-term investors should seek exposure to.



“Thousands of companies in dozens of industries are at risk of obsolescence or massive market decline due to technological advancement,” Edelman warns, before making his case for crypto as a future-proof industry (because of bitcoin and stablecoins, basically).



Having skimmed his promotional PDF (thoughtfully written in a font large enough for 110-year-old investors to comfortably read), I’m a little skeptical that Edelman has studied crypto thoroughly enough to have a strong opinion on the multi-decade trajectory of this brand new asset class.



But, however right or wrong he proves to be (let’s check back in the year 2085), the most telling thing in his presentation may be the “dozens of ways” to invest in crypto that he cites — all of which are different ways to get exposure to bitcoin and ETH on the stock market.



Crypto is the future, he thinks, but I guess he doesn’t recommend using it.



Still, if the kinds of investors that Edelman advises are going to put 40% of their savings into exchange-listed crypto — or 10% even — we’re going to need a lot more exchange-listed crypto.



<a href="https://x.com/opt_fun">1,000x leveraged crypto trading is now available</a>



A new crypto exchange on Hyperliquid, opt.fun, offers traders 1,000x leverage on crypto trades “for one minute.”



That seems like a bad idea to me — for one second, even.&nbsp;



1,000x leverage implies an equity margin of 0.1%.&nbsp;



So if you bought something with a bid/offer spread of more than that, you’d immediately be stopped out for a total loss.



That may not be how opt.fun works, I’m not sure.&nbsp;



But I’m <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/156031/uprise-lost-99-of-client-funds-while-shorting-luna-during-its-price-crash">reminded</a> of the AI-enabled quant fund that managed to lose all of its assets under management by getting stopped out of a short position in LUNA in the same week that LUNA fell 99.99%.



Even on a zoomed-in chart, you could barely discern the uptick that must have gotten it.



But the AI had shorted with so much leverage that the position was almost immediately stopped out.



If it had held on for just one more minute, it probably would have covered the short nearly 100% lower, possibly turning a tiny sliver of capital into, say, a 1,000%+ gain after leverage.



But a minute is a long time in markets — in crypto ones, especially.



(Edelman might be right to stay out of them.)



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



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



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



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



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

The Breakdown Newsletter

Thursday links: CRCL, BMNR, RIAs and 1000x leverage

Jack Kubinec

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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TAPEDRIVE won the grand prize in the latest Colosseum hackathon, a popular hackathon-cum-venture accelerator started by original Solana Labs hackathon organizers.&nbsp;



The contest, which I tend to view as a partial litmus test for what Solana builders are interested in at the moment, had a large number of stablecoin entries, one organizer told me. But the grand prize winner took at a stab at a problem internal to Solana: the cost of storing data onchain.



Solana is the busiest blockchain in existence as things stand. With all of this onchain activity paired with fast block times, it can get expensive to store data on Solana. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and others have talked about this problem of reducing data storage overhead on the network.&nbsp;



TAPEDRIVE claims to have the ability to read or write data (that is, access or add it to the chain) 1,400x cheaper than Solana’s status quo.&nbsp;



The program basically bundles Solana data and adds less expensive cryptographic proofs to the blockchain. A network of miners is incentivized to store this data using the TAPE token. To earn these token rewards, TAPEDRIVE miners solve data storage challenges in parallel every minute to prove that they hold their assigned portion of the data archive. This all still relies on Solana’s proof-of-stake mechanism for security.



This sounds reminiscent of the first Colosseum <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ore-wins-50k-solana-hackathon">hackathon winner in ORE</a>, which was a viral proof-of-work game built on Solana that had miners solve puzzles every minute.&nbsp;



The project’s founder, known as Z, told me they’re still “shell shocked” after winning. “I’m really grateful to have the opportunity to work on this full time now. Job’s not done. I’m fairly optimistic it could help a lot of teams once it’s dialed in,” they added.



Interestingly, TAPEDRIVE intentionally doesn’t use zero-knowledge technology for reasons laid out in the white paper of data storage platform Arweave, Z said.&nbsp;



The rest of the hackathon’s winners ran the gamut from prediction markets to gaming, but Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor said he thinks the strongest entries came from the stablecoins track. Builders in that area were pushing to “grow crypto payment adoption within specific regions and industries,” Taylor said.



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



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



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



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



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

hackathon

Solana data storage project wins Colosseum hackathon

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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As is the case with economic data these days, the devil is all in the details.



Today we received the latest jobs report, and the topline data looked fantastic.&nbsp;



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Non-farm payrolls came in at 147k vs. consensus estimates of 100k.</li>



<li>The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%, below forecasts of an increase to 4.3%.</li>
</ul>



The 4.1% unemployment rate is much stronger than the FOMC’s recent estimates in their June Summary of Economic Projections, and likely takes any possibility of a July cut off the table:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd6VYkw9H9OkljBOzVS4MyNfs4RtElua40P-Z6Sz7CXDn5oeASyZgAugdYNwfG-ImTYqyDareQL3bxdg5668MpFn-L_OFbRfH4eCTtsqaO-Jw4w0zR0iJvJIFog3GOgToRMcHF_QA?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:595px;height:auto"/></figure>



The key vector of what is driving this topline strength in the labor market is a decreasing labor force. This is due to plummeting immigration ever since Trump took office.&nbsp;



Looking at land border crossings, we can see these have cratered.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdlfY0CXLp81qEBLtC-4yVlrge3UiGXZ_LTJiqLxGgO-1PaLWBOkuOf1bjsZBHSDIq8IK4prdF0SO76oukiQfFjbLxy47ZBC6x-uxovHILoEJGPD0-qooChzmqoNCbie_MTcDBGsQ?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:603px;height:auto"/></figure>



One year ago, we saw this dynamic in reverse:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Huge levels of immigration under the Biden administration grew the labor force, which mechanically increased the unemployment rate, since it took time for those new entrants to get a job. And, in the meantime, those new entrants are considered unemployed in BLS data.</li>



<li>This was what caused the false-positive signal of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-recession-signals">the Sahm rule</a> that led to the Fed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-interest-rate-cut-50-bps">cutting 50bps</a> in quick order. </li>
</ul>



Putting it together: In the same way that immigration was causing a mechanically weak labor market last September, we now see a mechanically strong labor market.&nbsp;



This dynamic shrouds what’s happening deeper in the data.&nbsp;



Private payrolls came in at 74k, below expectations of 105k. The reason for the significant upside surprise came from government payrolls, which surged to 73k — up from 7k the previous month:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfraLfl9afNnyJrV7jVCi2IFIpLmglSap8hDY2-PON7tFvO0D7mioh_lZI2UcIq8mJvrF6bXCBrTiVJu1KVFCX8SWS6XPwQRST76luLVg9_kMn4nTcI8tL4tatY0sueK9nCqk2tFw?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:599px;height:auto"/></figure>



Looking at the industries that drove payroll growth, education and health services continue to bleed lower, which is notable, as these have been the primary driver of payroll growth in recent years.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcs2_TRrkwx34Rf90yJW1y0EehQ7Ai2QIwd9ziu4us-ANbgJv9yIDXPW_-42jUNUgV3ocKAsYPeqxq68sPKR1hCPc5NNlNkJk9e5Khyj3oXTUODkw47xUj4PIIUPGYWhfNPswC0vw?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:610px;height:auto"/></figure>



This delicate balance in the labor market is mostly felt by those who are currently unemployed and finding it extremely difficult to get a new job.&nbsp;



Continuing jobless claims are grinding higher every week amid a labor market that punishes job seekers.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfHReCM00OFu1rzuR5Y0qJXLPatfj-9wZ1zZZctO_7JTG62ShVRCX7MOh5bsjLMOnO3HhE1wDoAXHeivzHk-vTo9kTFITgxHDYtrhHKK9d_bUTpBdR_8lzfN192o_s_GmTyna9PMQ?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:620px;height:auto"/></figure>



What’s interesting is that the economy isn’t rolling over quite enough to trigger any meaningful layoff cycle. And so, we see that initial jobless claims continue to chop around aimlessly:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfWaUr-f1yjYtUMaIdJkk7BJLHTeY__SohEvmGIsjNiNaEkztrMLw_IKrbaC6Qt2Qie6Ff9nC8SKgq2K5gPpy3ZtffxNBoTcHZpMfS2WsuPwt-J86UEfBIbYxqAD6XGmDtm6EGCrA?key=Hz-OnH6P0L1xfaCne1Hqvg" alt="" style="width:620px;height:auto"/></figure>



Putting this all together, we have a labor market that has some valid issues — but is not bad enough to trigger any sort of meaningful policy response.&nbsp;



It looks increasingly likely that the Fed will continue to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/june-2025-fmoc-fed-interest">sit on its hands</a> and not make any meaningful move in either direction.



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



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



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



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



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

Economy

The labor market is sending false signals

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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A crypto researcher has whipped up an open-source payment processor within a week that lets a buyer tap a crypto wallet on a mobile device to pay for items without any processing fees typical of credit cards and terminals like Square.



Tim Robinson, head of crypto research at VC firm BlueYard, shared a video of the device in action this week making a payment with the MetaMask app on his phone.&nbsp;



The terminal, which he’s dubbed <a href="https://paragraph.com/@blueyard/building-a-crypto-payment-terminal">FreePay</a>, has a few different components, including an NFC reader and a screen for the seller to type in the amount they want to charge.



“We’re supposed to be replacing TradFi, not joining them,” Robinson said.



Robinson built a companion app for sellers using FreePay and an Android app for customers, but notes that FreePay only works with MetaMask and Coinbase Wallets (at least in its current form).



<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 was sick of seeing all these crypto debit cards for wallets, we&#39;re supposed to be replacing TradFi not joining them! How hard could it be to do it crypto native anyway? So I created this &#8211; FreePay &#8211; the worlds first open source, fee-free payment terminal. <a href="https://t.co/zLyZAY81fY">pic.twitter.com/zLyZAY81fY</a>&mdash; Tim Robinson (@timjrobinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/timjrobinson/status/1940331404627411261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 2, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



In recent months, crypto firms — from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-amex-shopify-card-payments">Coinbase</a> to MetaMask, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/avalanche-visa-card-payments">Avalanche</a> to Solayer — have all unveiled their own various crypto payment cards using traditional payment processors like Visa, Mastercard and even American Express.&nbsp;



But while these big-name TradFi firms have widespread reach, their fees aren’t inconsequential and can cut into businesses’ bottom lines or result in those higher costs being passed on to consumers.



Visa credit card <a href="https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf">fees</a> per transaction can be anywhere from 1% to over 2%, while Amex fees are typically higher, and can range from 1.4% to over 2.5%.



Of course, blockchains come with their own set of fees, but ultimately that depends on the chain used. Ethereum L2 and Solana fees are much, much lower, especially when considering credit card fees plus the 2.6% and up additional fee added just for using a Square terminal.&nbsp;



“I started with L2 support because that&#8217;s what I know best, but because it&#8217;s open source anyone can extend it,” Robinson told me in a DM of FreePay, adding: “Would love to see others add more chains and more wallets to support the standards needed to work with it.”



Crypto use in the US does come with some tax rules, though, which can deter some from using it as a payment method because it’s more complex than a stablecoin or fiat currency payment.&nbsp;



But hey, if you want to spend your crypto directly from your wallet in a tap-to-pay method, FreePay looks like one potential way for merchants to let you do just that.



I personally think we’re still a little ways away from actually seeing crypto being used for daily, small payments at scale, but the crypto industry really should reconsider its full-tilt embrace of fee-heavy, decidedly centralized payment systems (and systems that refuse to bank businesses like legal dispensaries and sex workers).



As others have <a href="https://x.com/zachherbert/status/1938364193700450395">pointed out</a>, crypto could also benefit from more open-source tech more broadly, including hardware wallets. Open-source tech is inherently more decentralized by design — and allows different motives besides maximizing profits alone to come into play.&nbsp;



A lot of compromises have been made by big crypto firms in pursuit of “mass adoption.” But maybe it’s time we look back at history and remind ourselves why bitcoin was even invented in the first place.



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<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/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



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



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decentralization

Crypto needs more no-fee, open-source payment tools

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>.



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



Nexus is billing itself as “the world supercomputer.” The L1’s ambitions are on full display as it churns through its final testnet ahead of mainnet launch, slated for later this year.



Anyone can join <a href="http://app.nexus.xyz">the network</a> in a few clicks from any device, contributing compute power to help build what Nexus calls “a verifiable world.”



What is a “world supercomputer,” you might ask? It’s a novel approach, according to CEO and founder Daniel Marin:



“The goal there is to build the largest distributed computer system ever, and part of the reason we&#8217;re doing that is because we&#8217;re trying to aggregate computing power to build a blockchain with a new architecture,” Marin told Blockworks.



Nexus <a href="http://docs.nexus.xyz">combines familiar ideas</a> from other cutting-edge chains but integrates them into a single, opinionated layer-1.



Like Mina Protocol, Nexus aims to condense all blockchain states into a single succinct proof — but while <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/can-new-recursion-tech-tackle-high-ethereum-fees">Mina uses recursive SNARKs</a> for constant-size proofs, Nexus relies on its RISC-V-based zkVM to handle vastly more complex workloads, including AI inference. Its choice of a RISC-V zkVM is reminiscent of RISC Zero, enabling general-purpose Rust code to be proven verifiably, but Nexus makes this VM a native part of its chain, not just a service layer. Ethereum itself may eventually <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/vitalik-ethereum-evm-scaling-l1-plan">go in this direction</a>.



For data availability, Nexus’ planned sampling approach echoes <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/celestia">Celestia’s modular DA model</a>, while its consensus will evolve from the current and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/commonware-optimized-blockchain-development">commonly used CometBFT</a> (formerly Tendermint) toward HotStuff-2, making it similar to <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/aptos">Aptos</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sui">Sui</a>. These consensus protocols provide fast finality — in Nexus’ case, coordinating globally distributed proving tasks.



Nexus then bakes in a decentralized compute cloud directly into its L1, turning every connected device into part of a single, verifiable computer built around an <a href="https://blog.nexus.xyz/the-nexus-execution-layer-incrementally-verifiable-computation/">Incrementally Verifiable Computation</a> (IVC) machine. The VM generates succinct proofs for every computation step, integrates those proofs via DAG-style propagation, and aggregates them into a single Universal Proof. Nexus uses the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/starkware-polygon-labs-stwo-zk-prover">Stwo (Circle STARK)</a> prover.



That’s a lot of buzzwords, but the TL;DR is this architecture theoretically enables horizontal scalability — each added node increases network throughput.



On the cryptography front, Nexus touts the involvement of heavyweight figures like <a href="http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/j.groth/">Jens Groth</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-abdalla-6a01a726">Michel Abdalla</a>, fortifying its credentials in zero‑knowledge and blockchain research.



And it’s not all theory. Last week, Nexus activated its third and final testnet, and its mainnet is targeted for Q3.



Nexus claims over 2.1 million unique users across its various testnets, <a href="https://blog.nexus.xyz/scaling-wallet-onboarding/">backed up</a> by Sybil detection. About 4,000 accounts are active today, Nexus’ <a href="https://testnet3.explorer.nexus.xyz/stats">block explorer</a> shows.



For Marin, Nexus exists to break out of blockchains’ limitations “because it&#8217;s impossible to build any meaningful application today.”



Marin said: “Our hypothesis from the very start of the company is that coding on a blockchain or coding on a zkVM should feel indistinguishable from coding on your own computer.”&nbsp;



The protocol is optimizing for speed, not decentralization.



“We want to be decentralized in the long term, [but] we don&#8217;t want to be decentralized right now at all, and in fact, pretty much the opposite,” Marin continued. “So it&#8217;s a little bit of a philosophical take that will piss off some people.”



In the near term, the Nexus team is targeting quarterly releases, gunning for the trendy objective of being infrastructure for the AI era.



“We want users to feel like, ‘Wow, we&#8217;re building the future. We&#8217;re part of a community and a network, I can see other apps in the ecosystem, I can do quests and have fun,’” Marin said.



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



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



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



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

0xResearch Newsletter

‘The world supercomputer’: Nexus activates final testnet for AI-ready blockchain

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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You might know that the US dollar has been pummeled this year.&nbsp;



The DXY index — which prices the greenback against a basket of currencies — is down 12% since mid-January, practically erasing all of its gains over the past five years.



Granted, DXY has its <a href="https://www.euromoney.com/article/27bjsstsqxhkmh0p48qj1/foreign-exchange/dxy-index-is-flawed-measure-of-us-dollar-strength-research-shows/">problems</a>. It’s heavily skewed toward the dollar’s exchange rate in Europe, with more than half of its weight assigned to the euro, as well as 20% or so spread unevenly across the British pound, Swedish krona and Swiss franc.&nbsp;



The Japanese yen is the only featured currency from Asia, with about 14%. The renminbi is excluded altogether, and the US dollar is down only about 2.5% against the yuan since mid-January.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcGbG1DfoYf_-pSf-gayNuis61QqeDEraXqIHEPcjQMSw-pdHqIVG5DrL057f7u5pQxcwrVOba5y2B7tWiDSPJ9hI-bHYP5n5voeP-ytKEGW9E1U-iwvrdDS1MKQVWC29pPWPIb4Q?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The orange line is BTC/USD, the purple line is BTC/USD adjusted for DXY’s volatility starting one year ago, and the blue line is DXY.</figcaption></figure>



As you can see, this quickly gets messy. Bitcoin is up almost 12% in the past six months, while the DXY is down by almost the same percentage. Does that mean bitcoin is about even?



Well, whether it’s over five years, three or one, BTC/USD is vastly outperforming major assets and benchmarks.&nbsp;



Bitcoin (priced in US dollars) is beating crude oil, gold, the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcUc88vgBJcOm8KhEnTEX_HaLvKce5SKk0Ieu-nT9-ZkRBFo0qRqcDm2GUlJH4CGNGwRgBvKnZzXh4q1td5dI5fz-KYQpP0dpXpuXOBCkcG9JctNDcISDoPD3uFUrJBPjgcQUjapA?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Not shown: bitcoin trailing Nvidia stock over the three-year and five-year horizons.</figcaption></figure>



Let’s instead see the price of bitcoin, denominated in each of those majors. It’s similar to how we’d measure the price of ETH in BTC terms with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-speedrunning-eth-btc-ratio">ETH/BTC ratio</a>.



Bitcoin’s ratio with the S&amp;P 500, Nasdaq 100 and crude oil topped out in late May, and we’re still just shy of all three.



That’s in line with bitcoin’s current standing against the US dollar (in raw dollar terms, not DXY), only 2% short of a new price record.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe1WoFSy6MY1kuWe5jKDU-7ELXNCtHvUQQTyoHO_hwvVHgjSLyHoazo7UiFNKDE8T_QgaeXqEzrMUEMmadQGtEsv8nnN1MDd1B55SYG4KF1uP6iwV89zhzAqSAyUR0pbscnIGeXJQ?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Luckily, there are many different kinds of all-time highs.</figcaption></figure>



The gold/bitcoin ratio, however, is almost 20% below its all-time high from a week before Christmas 2024.



But what would this newsletter be without something to celebrate?



When bitcoin hit $110,500 earlier this morning, on Coinbase, that was actually an all-time high against DXY — 1139.58 — around 2% higher than the previous peak in late May.&nbsp;



A minor victory, considering the DXY’s flaws. But a win is a win.



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Bitcoin

Bitcoin already sets all-time high against the US dollar index

Katherine Ross

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



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Yesterday we talked about how crypto’s kind of in a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/weird-moment-tokens-equities">weird spot</a>, but the good news is that we’re still seeing improvements across certain parts of the sector. Take consumer, for example. 



We’re seeing a “big dispersion in consumer crypto right now,” Dragonfly’s Tom Schmidt told me.



Part of that comes from the fact that there’s been a shift away from infrastructure.&nbsp;



“The applications themselves monetize better. They have more leverage. They end up often launching their own infrastructure,” he said. “I think there&#8217;s been a shift in venture dollar allocation towards applications, and so applications could launch tokens too.”



Schmidt cited Hyperliquid as an example, noting that it started as just Hyperliquid and not a chain, but it’s since built the infrastructure for a bigger platform.



“I think that&#8217;s kind of more and more the model that…I hear from builders that people are pursuing. In some respects, it fits more than the traditional model of venture capital, which is: You started out as a product, and then eventually you morph into a platform. But you&#8217;re only a platform if there&#8217;s more value created on top of you than [you] created,” he said.&nbsp;



Schmidt noted that he’s seeing a bit of a shift, similar to what happened from 2014 to 2018 crypto, in which talent is really entering the space.&nbsp;



And one of the success areas is iGaming or casino gaming.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s sort of this classic story for crypto, where it&#8217;s like you get around — kind of the old guard — old companies by making things more efficient, making it 24/7 by putting it onchain, trying to do the same thing, but [for] the lottery.&nbsp;



“So…there&#8217;s certainly Web 2.0 equivalents, but the crypto ones are growing like crazy, and they have all these properties that people have kind of come to expect from companies that use stablecoins for payments, or companies that operate in the space. So, yeah, I think that&#8217;s kind of where we&#8217;ve seen more growth and more attraction,” Schmidt explained.&nbsp;



It’s not to say this is the first time crypto projects are making this attempt, but it’s one of the first times that some have been venture-backable.&nbsp;



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crypto apps

Consumer crypto is having a moment

The Investor’s Guide to Machine DeFi

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Private markets are the new public markets.” — Matt Levine
</blockquote>



Because I was a professional trader for a long time, people have always asked me for investment advice.



At first, I’d try to explain that traders don’t know anything about investing, but then they’d just ask me for trading advice, as if it were the same thing.



(Full disclosure: Traders don’t know much about trading, either. It’s mostly luck.)



Eventually, I stopped trying to explain the difference and started just offering the standard advice instead: Put it all in an US equities index fund.&nbsp;



For anyone young enough to ride out the volatility, that’s always worked out because the S&amp;P 500 has returned about 8.5% a year since its inception in 1928.



Over a decade or two, 8.5% a year is a lot — compound interest remains the eighth wonder of the world.



But the vast majority of stocks don’t compound at all, which makes things difficult.&nbsp;



A <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447">study</a> by Hendrik Bessembinder found that just 4% of stocks accounted for all of the net returns in US equity markets between 1926 and 2019.&nbsp;



4%!



The other 96% of stocks, in aggregate, returned nothing.



So, investors who missed out on Amazon (+225,089%), Nvidia (+407,612%) or Microsoft (+825,487%), are unlikely to have achieved that average 8.5% return — or anything close to it.



(Bessembinder also <a href="https://download.ssrn.com/2024/11/11/4897069.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&amp;X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEPn%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQDzBRREWRCOhi4YJ1keOAqX93xc2%2BsYYn%2F28qXwbhsIlQIhAML82tNSZ%2Fx3Rx8pgXnWoQ9T4xi9YHN5NpIqP%2Fgfyyj0KsYFCPH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEQBBoMMzA4NDc1MzAxMjU3IgzwDMQ8e0RzwYuE5WAqmgWRVqfaz%2BfoQwlK5wCEaSjIVEOu0UXXrv4OuLLt%2FSD8YtSVGPOQxvaZSa4cW%2Flf6yM7pVqZY%2F%2Bgd89fT%2FqTsrFVBmxZULOspj8l37Q0at%2Fb4JWLUOwVGVf5HW0jXKGmGoyF39phC9f0SF1IjQyOlX1Fglm3RJFk5LE3yq4Hssi0yTQCzE80vkBtpi14pVSKzYYVMcbJGrNSM%2BjvgKGlxtBDT5Qe0rx7tEwBtUGfSTci3P4%2Fc60mKx%2BcNqY0VsqYUwUx5m8tKo4wY5pB6mlWKHCJdnaQPdrl%2FULHNOhN8p9pTVUeSEVnbK3%2BWZNnZYmsfKnylqryWC%2BG26ZF%2F77i%2FTKXChGyKSMK7Bi4KQCeeQ%2B0Yp1myKAICvDM4QuPuGv9BYMdh9MaQeBBVJ2LeXUPN7M5qiQLyT6inglP%2FPtVPdX48bzSwZN2vdEaBUac8RiwRPTb7YhkgFWZ1lowJX14srARoCHXjWGH3%2BNAhsvPIprLiDMPSc8HpF20pUzahr53YSE4sL4QZdR%2FTWdzS5lZk31OShI6oniGBeT0VyvkiD86XYGyHUgo5tBJk4hOTnb73mRw6Bxco3GqysTEpCE6qrGUKDHaeE9DtEfJsQl5lJ%2BogQSoK5sOoE5sG5f8ZJo9f1vzcb16bd6GzEOctxGNSwrg3Zj33ojp%2FIavdcw0EIJGHbxPgQedVrFqQk%2FEd04OesGnX0rhWBl48lsvoj4HfCSff%2BpSjWNgguITRxh1gh27vcJih1E9j0jC1SwY%2BLlNH6PlsRbwf6%2BC9rZ6ITh5cLE%2BiHSvG4LKmEPXdduE2p%2B%2BJCaqbWDnimZRt6t95oJVsCwm%2B25TcRUD3fgp8vDzdj3ZQbNn7zUlCvE3LciNH0QLsp4tZLqBv2p3LNcwu7KVwwY6sAFTariU6YXMmRPo%2FQiY%2BtfgRrRtrUcctUZulq27oPMLi0b2pQp107YQeCJDkDC7fYwg20%2BxZhChZK9qCFtZKvroTUBMwGSAIto8CNEskEStmX%2FljZkq5JofQuyp7DzGwV%2B7udHQyLhXkXPgSTORVuC9Lx4eplHZK%2B%2F4drrKlA8rsgBszPBGaqnPyGeTVu7vKsuxenyDCtF0yeAokcCZpPBjpMhJzU9V8Y743c27KfYI8w%3D%3D&amp;X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&amp;X-Amz-Date=20250702T162840Z&amp;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&amp;X-Amz-Expires=300&amp;X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWEQWNLDEOU%2F20250702%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&amp;X-Amz-Signature=279e8bda8ba52721519122951ed78d1e0ee273289d3b0b4b38c7a3afcccb244b&amp;abstractId=4897069">cites</a> the 265 million% lifetime return in Altria, but few of us have a 100-year investing lifetime, so I’m not sure how helpful that is.)



This has always been the rationale for index investing: It’s impossible to pick the small number of stocks responsible for long-term equity returns (let alone resist the urge to sell them), so it’s best to buy them all via an index (and never sell them).



Now, though, those kinds of mega-winners are less likely to be in the index.



Today’s most exciting companies — OpenAI, SpaceX, Epic Games — stay private seemingly forever.



This is a problem.



If we’re all counting on our stock portfolios to return 8.5% a year, but the kinds of companies that accounted for that 8.5% are no longer in them, how is anyone ever going to retire?



One possible solution is to “make IPOs great again,” as SEC Chair Paul Atkins <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/07/02/sec-chairman-paul-atkins-on-regulating-private-markets-rise-of-stock-tokenization.html">told CNBC</a> he intends to do.



Atkins says that by making disclosure requirements less onerous, companies will be encouraged to return to the stock market.&nbsp;



But I’m not sure why they’d bother — there’s so much private capital available for high-profile companies like OpenAI and Epic Games that there’s no reason for them to suffer any level of disclosure at all (let alone quarterly earnings calls, road shows, litigation risk, etc.).



The other possible solution is simply to let everyone invest in private companies.



Last week, <a href="https://republic.com">Republic</a>, an SEC and Finra regulated investing platform, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/republic-investing-tokens-companies-ipo-ccff7f91?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAifvq5QstV0p4Bp-L8k3h1zK1wuMwjESjo6Fu-Vm3MvxSeDgkal95KbWWQh6RQ%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68658bd8&amp;gaa_sig=yRnX_ZPEeV6ANHHm5tMtayCcM6Ln9DxROtFvyI_H5McjD6WaVDxH6LDt34maN4plG3KvrZev2PfiqkgKhLUdrw%3D%3D">announced</a> it will make history by offering equity exposure in private companies to US investors — and that it’ll do so within the current set of US securities regulations, no special dispensation required.



Crypto, apparently, makes this possible.



After being KYC’d by Republic, retail investors will be able to buy tokenized versions of private shares that will (after an SEC-mandated waiting period) trade onchain between whitelisted wallets.



Republic is confident enough that regulators won’t object to its tokenized “<a href="https://republic.com/mirror">mirror shares</a>” that it’s now taking pre-orders for shares of SpaceX, OpenAI, Epic Games and Anthropic.&nbsp;&nbsp;



There are reasons for caution: Mirror shares do not confer any ownership rights. Instead, they are essentially a tradeable IOU, ultimately redeemable only in the event of an IPO or sale of a private company.



The IOUs are issued by Republic, not the companies themselves, so buyers will have counterparty risk if they do get a chance to redeem.



(This afternoon, OpenAI <a href="https://x.com/OpenAINewsroom/status/1940502391037874606">warned</a> that the “OpenAI tokens” being offered by Robinhood to EU customers “are not OpenAI equity.”)



And while I’m guessing that Republic will generally back the mirror shares 1:1 with the equity it represents, it’s not required to.



Retail investors, however, have never been known for caution.



Republic co-CEO Andrew Durgee told me this morning that it’s already received $300 million of reservations for mirror shares. That, I think, reflects the magnitude of the problem currently faced by public market investors, who rightly feel sidelined by the rise of private markets.&nbsp;



But buying OpenAI or SpaceX at a $300 billion+ market cap is unlikely to help anyone retire anytime soon.&nbsp;



Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia, for example, all IPO’d at market capitalizations of well under $1 billion.



Better yet, Microsoft IPO’d at a P/E ratio of 10, which many people thought was expensive at the time.



It’s hard to imagine anyone making 800,000% from a $300 billion starting point and who knows what valuation. I imagine Republic will soon make tokenized shares of younger, cheaper, still-private companies available, and maybe the next Microsoft will be among them.



But how will anyone spot it?



It’s easy to dismiss the SEC’s accreditation rules as paternalistic, but the equity raising process it enforces is a price discovery mechanism that makes equity markets significantly safer for retail investors.



Moving that process onchain comes with risk.



Still, fewer public companies to invest in is a growing problem for retail investors and investing in more private companies might be the answer.



Just don’t expect to make 8.5%.



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Crypto brings private markets to the public

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>.



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Bad news first. Solana closed June at $155, which is down 1.2% month over month. That&#8217;s not catastrophic, considering a broader altcoin slump, but SOL has underperformed BTC and HYPE for the second straight month.



Real economic value (REV) fell 48% in June, DEX volume dropped 35%, and Token Holder Net Income plunged 56% MoM, <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/solana-june-2025-update">according</a> to a recent update from Blockworks Research — though it&#8217;s worth noting Solana still <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/l1/chain-compare-overview/network-rev">leads across all networks</a> by these metrics.



On the upside, Solana <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=39">processed</a> over 2.1 billion successful transactions in June, setting a new record. App revenue hit $150 million, up from $133 million in May, which was 35% of all application revenue across chains. The highest-earning apps (Pump and Axiom) pulled in over $76 million in June, driven by memecoins and leverage.



It&#8217;s now Wednesday, and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-rex-osprey-first-solana-staking-etf">as promised</a>, the REX-Osprey SOL Staking ETF is <a href="https://x.com/Crypto_Inside_/status/1940412863069479296">live</a>. The price of SOL popped to $161 on the anticipatory lead-up but fell back toward $146 within a day. At the time of publication, SOL prices <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">hover</a> around $152.&nbsp;



Pump <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=202">flipped</a> Raydium in DEX volume for the first time, closing June with a 32% share vs. Raydium&#8217;s 26%. Trading-focused apps now <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=15">account</a> for nearly 90% of Solana&#8217;s total application revenue.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, xStocks — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-stocks-good-bad">tokenized US equities</a> — went <a href="https://x.com/xStocksFi/status/1939630016238907651">live</a> June 30. There are 11 listings so far (SPYx, TSLAx, MSTRx, etc.), with 40 more <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/solana-june-2025-update">in the pipeline</a>. Day-one volume cleared $1.3 million.



Validator income is <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">compressing</a> fast. Jito tips dropped to 51% of total REV, and the validator set shrank by 25% due to Solana Foundation offboarding.



With FCFS and app-specific sequencing <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/solana-may-2025-update#network-health">on the horizon</a>, revenue for operators may decline further as latency supplants fees as the primary competitive advantage.



In June, Solana apps <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana">generated</a> $2.40 in revenue for every $1 in REV, another all-time high. With the pump.fun ICO <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">confirmed</a> (timeline still TBD), don&#8217;t be surprised if that trend accelerates.



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ETFs

Solana ETF bump fizzles after $161 price spike

Casey Wagner

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



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June’s ADP employment report was a remarkable miss.&nbsp;



Analysts expected the private sector to add 100,000 positions. In reality, private payrolls lost 33,000.&nbsp;



It’s the first negative print since March 2023, although the figure has declined every month since March 2025.&nbsp;



Stocks initially opened lower Wednesday but rebounded later on President Trump’s <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114784170652465525">announcement</a> that the US had penned a trade agreement with Vietnam, fueling optimism that other deals will be struck before the July 9 deadline.&nbsp;



Odds of a 25bps interest rate cut later this month increased to 23.8%, up from 20.7% yesterday. Fed Chair Powell has said time and time again that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/powell-interest-fed-continue-monitor-june">it’s the data</a> that will determine the timing of the next cut.&nbsp;



Tomorrow, we’ll get the weekly initial jobless claims and the June employment report from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. For initial claims, analysts project 240,000 first-time filers for the week ended June 28. If the figure comes in as expected, it’ll be especially positive for the labor market; signs of increased layoffs will be negative for markets.&nbsp;



The BLS report is expected to show the economy added 110,000 nonfarm payrolls. Unemployment is projected to come in a hair higher at 4.3% vs. 4.2% in May.&nbsp;



Here’s hoping those prints come in more in-line with expectations, but we won’t hold our breath. As a reminder: US markets have an abbreviated trading day on Thursday and will be closed on Friday for the July Fourth holiday.



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June ADP report shows massive miss in private-sector jobs

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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Community-focused gaming startup Moku has hired Kathleen Osgood as its chief business officer to cement the firm as a key player in crypto-powered AI gaming.



Osgood was previously Ronin builder Sky Mavis’s Director of Business Development for over three years, and was Jump Capital’s Director of Market Development before that.



Osgood told me in an interview that she’ll be focused on bringing new partnerships, market-makers, and institutions to the a16z Speedrun-backed studio.



“Web3 gaming is broken. Nearly everyone is trying the same model,” Osgood <a href="https://x.com/kosgoood/status/1940425854770680149">wrote</a> in a post announcing her new role. “It’s not about more games. It&#8217;s about a different way to earn from games.”



In September, Moku raised <a href="https://playtoearn.com/news/moku-raises-5m-in-funding-round-led-by-sky-mavis-a16z">$5.35 million</a> in funding from Sky Mavis, a16z Games’ Speedrun, Framework Ventures, 32-bit Ventures, and over a dozen angel investors, plus others.



Moku began in 2021 as a launchpad and engagement platform to organize the Ronin community around different projects, but now has its own Ronin-based NFT collection of 8,888 cutesy characters and a flagship game, Grand Arena. The Mokis look a bit like bear-raccoon hybrids, and wear a range of different accessories and outfits. The <a href="https://marketplace.roninchain.com/collections/moki-genesis">floor price</a> for a Moki Genesis NFT is about 219 RON, which is about $96.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXde5b57_00FvrSlzazU1UqkwgDp7_Qys1OmcmgR8aJp3Soa4yyWpLgFtQh2cwwC0qxmlFxJ0kKsz3KxkX2Jv0p-qef0fldcoD9R09e1UjveTYnCR3ixPWxIGhd-1jLEQwWH60oi2A?key=NsHHtsX_FAlddJvHPW12EQ" alt=""/></figure>



“It’s built for AI,” Osgood told me of the upcoming game. “I think a lot of the problem in Web3, and people are seeing, is there are a lot of bots, and there isn’t a sticky audience.”



“Moku is turning it on its head and being like, we’re going to build a game for AI, and we’re going to create this whole AI system,” she said.



Essentially, Grand Arena players can bring select NFTs they own into the game as cards and have them battle each other in a hands-off way where the human player is primarily a spectator. NFT owners can also earn royalties on their assets when they’re used in-game.



NFTs that can connect to Grand Arena will be able to battle others’ NFT characters, and their characters&#8217; personalities will change based on what happens.



Some early <a href="https://x.com/lizziebutt_poo/status/1932910864866422878">renderings</a> and <a href="https://x.com/Moku_HQ/status/1930460853259702520">art</a> of the game’s environment suggests it may have vertical battler elements in the vein of MapleStory or Super Smash Bros.&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">Almost 42% of all Mokis are locked in for Grand Arena <a href="https://t.co/LATbaHQaE1">https://t.co/LATbaHQaE1</a> <a href="https://t.co/0YBl2b6o9D">pic.twitter.com/0YBl2b6o9D</a>&mdash; Bruce✨ (@BruceMoku) <a href="https://twitter.com/BruceMoku/status/1933727367413055573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“I think this could transcend and just become like an AI-native competitive layer for all of gaming,” Osgood said. “Even past gaming, it’s mostly idle NFTs, assets, or IP that can come in and plug themselves in.”



Grand Arena has traits of an idle, casual battler game that could be appealing to those holding different NFTs but who maybe don’t have the time to grind levels in different games.&nbsp;



The Moku team plans to focus on Moki Mayhem with its own NFTs within Grand Arena first, with plans to let third-party collections plug in in the future.&nbsp;



“It actually is creating a whole new niche within crypto,” Osgood said.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-104702" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=1280 1280w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /></figure>



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The Drop newsletter

Moku Chief Business Officer shares why crypto gaming is broken — and how to fix it

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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You can finally trade traditional stocks on a blockchain!



That’s thanks to “xStocks”, the new tokenized stocks product brought to you by Kraken and Backed Finance (and soon Robinhood).



<a href="https://x.com/krakenfx/status/1939640352991756798?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1939640352991756798%7Ctwgr%5Efb353d6778ffb8e881e255135486b0931273292a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcryptobriefing.com%2Fkraken-tokenized-stock-trading%2F">24/7 trading</a>, instant settlement, tokens composable with decentralized finance, dividend payments flowing directly to your wallets and — best of all — a legal claim on the underlying stock.



Nice! Maybe my mom will finally understand the industry I work in.



But wait…there are nuances.



Anybody with a wallet can buy xStocks on Solana, yes.



But only qualified, KYC’d, non-US Kraken investors will be able to mint and redeem the underlying tokenized xStocks.



That’s because Backed issues each asset out of a Liechtenstein-domiciled SPV (special purpose vehicle). The SPV buys (or sells) the underlying shares on a regulated exchange during US market hours after a mint or burn request.



That takes us to the liquidity and price peg problems with tokenized stocks.



Stocks trade Monday to Friday, from 9:30 a.m. ET to 4 p.m.&nbsp;



But tokenized stocks trade 24/7.



While Wall Street is open, a primary-market arbitrage keeps xStocks pegged to the cash price.



What happens to the peg when the trading day closes?



If Tesla finishes Friday at $300 and TSLAx changes hands at $290 on Sunday, price convergence only happens when someone is willing to burn tokens for shares after the market reopens.



But since market makers can’t hedge a Sunday fill until the bell rings on Monday, they’ll have to protect themselves by quoting wide spreads and small size, as Dragonfly Capital’s Rob Hadick <a href="https://x.com/HadickM/status/1940018046833201168">pointed out</a> in an excellent tweet.



This is somewhat echoed by Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, who <a href="https://x.com/EvgenyGaevoy/status/1940099986093392360https://x.com/EvgenyGaevoy/status/1940099986093392360">acknowledges</a> that market makers “are generally not the biggest fans of providing liquidity on AMMs, let alone on weekends.”



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfEnf8WhlKH9VL5t5Jc8icZiYKtgr-lV06qeqMdS-kKXDRJV1iyGE2rPlDMsXz-LCVl1Pz8CNCiKhAv0g5LwKp1vL-CjVOy_olvR3kAKSKyzLp7rSXBHhu-S8jXLECXdHPZ6O_fDQ?key=IKxPxTi0aCdQab-QNaxkuQ" alt="" style="width:599px;height:auto"/></figure>



This probably won’t matter so much for smaller trades. But the current lack of liquidity undermines the value proposition of tokenized equities.



You can play around on <a href="https://jup.ag/tokens/XsDoVfqeBukxuZHWhdvWHBhgEHjGNst4MLodqsJHzoB">Jupiter</a> to see for yourself how a six-figure trade would eat a high price impact of up to a triple-digit BPS.



The silver lining is that equities are far less volatile than crypto, so maybe some market makers would be willing to stomach that risk.



But until these issues get better, you can probably get much better execution and cheaper delta exposure with synthetic perps using Ostium, a perps DEX on Arbitrum that I’ve <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ostium-dex-points-rwa-arbitrum">touched on</a> previously.



Ostium’s co-founder, Kaledora Linn, <a href="https://x.com/kaledora/status/1939905756158886002">notes</a> that opening a $250k TSLA position through Ostium’s synthetic perps is roughly 100x cheaper than what you’d pay for a tokenized stock right now.



The only trade-off is that Ostium’s synthetic assets don’t enjoy the same capital efficiency of tokenized stocks (because they’re tokenized!).&nbsp;



You can now put your tokenized stocks on a money market like Kamino and borrow stablecoins against them.



<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">Nice little <a href="https://twitter.com/xStocksFi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@xStocksFi</a> easter egg added to the Kamino Swap UI Whenever an xStock is selected, you’ll see a brief explainer covering the xStocks basics: ✅ 1:1 Backing ✅ Dividends distribution via rebasing ✅ Zero fees swaps via Kamino <a href="https://t.co/LlpxDOOKCS">pic.twitter.com/LlpxDOOKCS</a>&mdash; Kamino (@KaminoFinance) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaminoFinance/status/1940152382806991052?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



It’s not clear if Robinhood will enable that composability, though.&nbsp;



An early peek under the hood (thanks to <a href="https://x.com/0xren_cf/status/1940077604939129253">Ren of Electric Capital</a>) of Robinhood’s tokenized stock contracts reveals requirements of KYC/AML checks that limit transfers to approved addresses.



We’ll have to wait and see.



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The good and bad of tokenized stocks

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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Satoshi stood on the shoulders of giants when they built Bitcoin.



Bitcoin could’ve only arrived in 2009 after the World Wide Web came along in 1989, which was only so accessible due to the advent of the microprocessor in the early 1970s.&nbsp;



All three innovations are echoes of the telegraph.



I’m here to tell you that Sony’s Walkman may have been just as important.



The release of the first Sony Walkman wasn’t exactly on this day. It was yesterday, in 1979, that Sony began selling the <a href="https://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/walkman_sony_01_tps-l2_eng_v3.htm">TPS-L2</a> in Japan — a blue, pocket-sized portable cassette player that became a worldwide cultural phenomenon within just two years.



Legend has it that Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka had tasked Sony’s tape-recorder department with designing a device for listening to the opera on a long-haul flight.



A skunkworks team of crack engineers got to work. They pulled apart the Sony <a href="https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/design/gallery/TCM-100B/">TCM-100B</a>, or the Pressman, a portable cassette recorder that could be used with one hand, released only a year earlier.&nbsp;



The Pressman was already popular with journalists and businesspeople for taking voice memos and could playback recordings from an in-built speaker at 1.5x speed.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXehImt5pmONL6NF2gde9qosPYaD7LpfOy-bxUCRY92rCSQA0d0PKlnvTGsOdKi4u9N78M3J5FTa1zJZa-ZbXHrvAui0iqxwKpVGLlm3fm0TdL5Pa7Ci3AJtF-4VRZa6meza_vND?key=vFmYwKltMbW3vTYoNHfUyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Bank of America’s innovation chart pinpoints where certain inventions are located on the history of human population. The chart puts Bitcoin on par with the polio vaccine and DVDs, but the Walkman isn&#8217;t on it.</figcaption></figure>



Within four months and led by engineer Kozo Ohsone, Sony’s team replaced the Pressman’s speaker and record circuits with a stereo amp, producing a prototype in the same chassis. A portable, stereo cassette player, paired with a lightweight set of headphones.&nbsp;



Despite internal protests from non-believers at Sony, it took only eight weeks for the first batch of 30,000 Walkmans to sell out in Japan, and by the end of 1980, two million units had been shipped worldwide.



While there had been earlier iterations of portable music players, Sony’s Walkman quickly became a must-have across all walks of life. The New Yorker, in September 1981, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1981/09/21/the-walkman">described</a> seeing “seeing diplomats in Washington, stewardesses in Chicago, a cable-car conductor in San Francisco, and a toddler in Seattle, all of whom were wearing Walkman recorders or facsimiles thereof.”&nbsp;



Common Cog <a href="https://commoncog.com/c/cases/sony-walkman/?from_concept=technological-windows">writes</a> about the Walkman: “To put things into context: the possibility of having a personal soundscape that one could walk around with did not exist in the 1970s. Building a device capable of this was not a hugely complicated technical challenge…but there was simply no proven market for it.”



Sound familiar? Before the Walkman, it was simply not feasible to be your own DJ, at least outside of the home and away from a stereo. The Walkman changed social behavior, with people isolating themselves with headphones in public spaces, on trains, buses and planes, for the first time ever.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe6QAa7hiV71KqSpBT3HJTfZ-GJbayRvwP5b97pId4wZLJ2RWoCo-aAmiG15DBbjHav5q23efUgHZtLckFKRVourkDwwkwCvG5yJaAZVKSO2P-EgVsVOvRLy-wxFPV3lDCkw0SH?key=vFmYwKltMbW3vTYoNHfUyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The real questions, via Reddit.</figcaption></figure>



It’s an older <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoins-brexit-hedge-against-instability">slogan</a>, but Bitcoin similarly made it possible to be your own bank, at least outside of hoarding cash under mattresses or in walls. Bitcoin has changed how people behave economically, having provided an alternative to a financial system that has never worked for everyone.&nbsp;



Both the Walkman and Bitcoin faced pushback from society, with critics <a href="https://books.google.nl/books/about/Personal_Stereo.html?id=3dUsDwAAQBAJ&amp;redir_esc=y">labeling</a> the personal stereo as self-indulgent and anti-social, an accessory for the “me” generation. Bitcoin has otherwise only barely shaken its cultural connotations with criminals and fraudsters, however unwarranted.



Through a certain lens, the Walkman may have primed the culture for the arrival of Bitcoin, 30 years later, having warmed us up to the idea that we can be our own anything, no matter where we are.



But here’s how Bitcoin beat the Walkman: It took nine whole years for the Oxford English dictionary to include “Walkman” as a mainstream English term. Bitcoin made it in half that time, alongside “twerk” and “emoji.”



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What the Sony Walkman and Bitcoin have in common

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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Any time you have Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi and 6MV’s Mike Dudas on the same stage, you know you’re in for a good (and insightful) time.&nbsp;



They didn’t disappoint last week when they shared a stage with Selini Capital’s Jordi Alexander and Blockworks Research’s Boccaccio.&nbsp;



Qureshi noted that right now, crypto markets are in a weird spot.&nbsp;



“I’ve never seen this place where crypto markets are kind of staid and rational and reasonable, and they’re kind of [sitting on the] sidelines. And public markets are just a bullion, they’re insane. 



“No one understands what’s going on. Nobody can explain anything. So it’s a weird moment, and I can’t imagine it’s going to persist for that long, but that’s where we are right now. All of the energy is in public markets and not in crypto markets,” he said.



Which makes a lot of sense. Look at the demand for Circle, for example. Or any of the crypto treasury companies.&nbsp;



This doesn’t mean that crypto VCs are in for a total loss, however.&nbsp;



“One of the things that people often forget about crypto VCs is that we do both…Roughly on a cost basis, when we invest into startups, about half of our investments are into equity and about half of them are into tokens. And so it’s weird that the tokens are doing not-so-great, and the equities are doing kind of weirdly amazing. But it’s like, okay, cool. We&#8217;re exposed to both,” he explained.&nbsp;



For Dudas, though, it means that he’s seeing more projects lean into valuing the token.&nbsp;



“We’re in a real moment of flux where I think it’s a good thing, in that people realize that equity can have value…but you should have a line of sight to some credible token value accrual,” he told the crowd at Permissionless last week.&nbsp;



So both of these tied together have put crypto in a bit of an awkward position right now. But it doesn’t seem like this is going to be forever. Perhaps things like the Token Transparency Framework from my Blockworks colleagues can help move us in the right direction, which might break up the equity favoritism.&nbsp;



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Empire Newsletter

‘Crypto markets are in a weird spot’ while public markets heat up

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
&#8220;Which is the bigger number? Five or one?&#8221; — Robert Baratheon, Game of Thrones
</blockquote>



Distribution matters in business. Often more than the thing being distributed.



Google, for example, always had the best algorithms for searching the internet, but the now-ubiquitous service didn’t catch on until Larry Page and Sergey Brin figured out how to get it widely distributed.



As recounted in an <a href="https://youtu.be/v1nkN0sM2wc?si=D7iCrPDvLfB1brRC">Acquired podcast</a> released yesterday, Google’s co-founders bet the company by guaranteeing AOL $100 million it didn’t have in exchange for the right to show ads to AOL’s users.



(Yes, I listen to three-hour Acquired podcasts the first day they drop. What of it?)



They also aggressively pursued revenue-sharing agreements, sometimes paying websites more than 100% of the ad revenue they generated (because Page and Brin recognized the long-term value of expanding their distribution). But Google’s real coup was the “toolbar” that it paid PC makers and software providers to bundle with their products.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdK7QvTWhXG1sQPr-jRtMD-UssV6wDt80mJlHQeYW5pEZt0950TdbiYdIhInkjmDHYSMLo7MAPjjbqU565R42QU-ukV04dqCHhYNQKnQgdfpShoTSwGproETzcPBXg5hbr3hJvunQ?key=X26x6BxwP57TxqPeKWJ5Bw" alt=""/></figure>



This expanded Google’s distribution far beyond the early web-adopters who knew to go straight to the Google.com homepage for the best search algorithm.



This was critical because web search is a bizarro business in which the law of supply and demand is flipped on its head — the more ads Google sold, the more it could charge for them.



This unique dynamic of “increasing returns to scale” (as the Acquired co-hosts call it) made web search a winner-takes-all market.



It also ensured that whoever got the most users first would win that market, however good or bad their tech was.



We might soon learn if the same applies in crypto.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">When one is the greatest number</h2>



Robinhood does not have the best tech in crypto — not yet, at least.&nbsp;



After announcing its new offering of tokenized stocks yesterday, CEO Vlad Tenev said Robinhood would be issuing the new tokens on Arbitrum, but only “for a short time” while it builds its own blockchain.



It might, however, have the best distribution.



Given its branding, Robinhood’s 25.9 million account holders probably represent the cohort of retail investors most inclined to give new crypto products a try.



In addition to tokenized stocks, Robinhood will be offering perpetual futures and crypto staking.



I’m guessing that Robinhood’s tech in these categories won’t be as good as, say, Hyperliquid’s and Jito’s, respectively.



But much like Google’s early revenue-sharing deals, Robinhood is doubling down on distribution by offering a “2% match” on any crypto that customers deposit.



And Robinhood’s slick, mobile-first UX could play the same role as Google’s search toolbar: a distribution shortcut that brought a complex product to the mainstream.



Unlike search, crypto is probably not a winner-takes-all business because it doesn’t enjoy “increasing returns to scale” — anyone that’s been long altcoins recently will know that the standard laws of supply and demand still apply.



But the standard laws of counting might not.



As Robert Baratheon explains in Game of Thrones, one can be bigger than five in the same way that one clenched fist is more powerful than five waggling fingers.



“One army,” he says, “united behind one leader with one purpose” will defeat five armies with five leaders and five purposes.&nbsp;



Similarly, Robinhood is betting that its unified offering of crypto services will defeat the crypto industry’s ever-growing offering of individual purposes.&nbsp;



Crypto has been arguing about this for a couple of years now: Solana is the clenched fist of monolithic blockchains and Ethereum is the waggling fingers of modular ones.



So far, that ever-heated debate has played out along technical lines: parallel execution, local fee markets, decentralized sequencers and other things I don’t totally understand.



Either approach could work, just as monolithic worked for Apple and modular worked for Microsoft.&nbsp;



And both sides can claim victories this week: Robinhood is building an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain for tokenized stock trading, and tokenized “xStocks” began trading on Solana <a href="https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1940043857842012211">today</a>.



So we might finally find out which approach to blockchains is faster, cheaper and more secure.&nbsp;



But what if it’s distribution that really matters?



If so, crypto could turn out to be a winner-takes-most kind of business.&nbsp;



Robinhood says its intention is to &#8220;make the technical part invisible&#8221; and offer &#8220;one platform for everything investing,&#8221; which sounds like a take-most-of-the-business kind of strategy to me.



Notably, that ambition was <a href="https://x.com/RobinhoodApp/status/1939701274217460047">announced</a> by a CEO in a white pinstriped suit and silk cravat at a French seaside villa in front of a Robinhood-branded pool and the Mediterranean Sea (not yet branded).&nbsp;



Could anything be further removed from crypto’s cypherpunk roots than that?



But crypto is a business now.



And distribution might make Robinhood its big winner.



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



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