Safe

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">
“Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on Earth.”



— Charlie Munger
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The only thing I miss about being an equities trader is being around other traders, because the trading desks I worked on were a lot of fun.



They always have been: “Horse-play starts over nothing, and sometimes infects all but the staid oldsters,” a 1920 account of the outdoor “Curb Exchange” on Wall Street reported. “One irrepressible youth furtively knocks off another&#8217;s hat. The indignant victim grabs and throws the hat nearest to his clutching hand, and in a minute the air is full of sailing head-gear.”



Crypto, by contrast, isn’t nearly as lighthearted — partly because it’s a WFH industry (it’s difficult to knock off a colleague’s hat over Zoom).



But, it’s also because the founding ethos of crypto is that it&#8217;s “money for enemies.”



It’s difficult to have fun around someone you consider an enemy.



Bitcoiners in particular often come across as a bit humorless; perhaps more inclined to mansplain money and banking than they are to go for a laugh.



The rest of crypto, too, can feel like an adversarial, player vs. player and negative-sum place.



That is fun while you’re winning, but most of the time, most people aren’t.



This matters because fun is important in finance.



Even in <a href="https://x.com/MaxfieldOnBanks/status/1920569223509602378?t=sjxSuzc99arSp6NjGdHlTQ&amp;s=19">staid commercial banks</a>, going for laughs helps build the kind of trust that the finance industry runs on.&nbsp;



Nothing would happen in TradFi if people didn’t trust each other.



That is a feature, not a flaw, of both finance and humans.&nbsp;



The evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich <a href="https://pca.st/episode/3101c90c-96ad-4c40-86d1-cb0239478b2e?t=1301">explains</a> that “humans haven’t succeeded because of our raw intelligence. Humans have succeeded because they cooperate.”



In other words, the reason humans made it to the moon and not, say, alligators isn’t because we’re individually smarter than alligators, but that we’re collectively smarter..&nbsp;



Henrich <a href="https://pca.st/episode/b724ebb0-b896-405f-bd6f-cfc21e0731d1?t=1411">notes</a> that human brains have been shrinking over the millennia as we’ve been naturally selected for our willingness to trust one another, not for our raw computing power.



As our individual brains have shrunk, our “collective brain” has grown.



But trust doesn’t scale over fiber-optic cables alone.



As Henrich puts it, “the collective brain requires trust in strangers,” and <a href="https://www.iese.edu/standout/face-to-face-conversations-power/">trust</a>, research shows, is built through real-life, face-to-face interaction.



That, I think, is why conferences are more valuable than they might seem.



Despite the industry&#8217;s dour reputation, crypto conferences are surprisingly fun.&nbsp;



Dunk tank, after parties, free merch and, most importantly, an abundance of actual people to talk to — not just Twitter handles.



I think that’s good news, because if crypto wants to fulfill its promise, it might need a little more trust and a lot more fun.



One good talk: Leo Dorlöchter, <a href="https://www.peaq.xyz">Peaq</a>



To the oft-asked question about crypto’s purpose, Peaq founder Leo Dorlöchter offers a sci-fi answer: Crypto will be “the computer of the machine economy.”



Specifically, Dorlöchter sees a near future in which autonomous self-driving taxis recharge their batteries with a “tokenized EV charger” that, in turn, sources energy from “tokenized solar panels.”&nbsp;



Humans might not have much gainful employment in that world (“machines will do most of the work”), but we will be able to invest in the machines.



DePIN, Dorlöchter says, is “creating a new asset class” by allowing people to “earn from autonomous machines.”



We’ve never been able to invest directly in a machine, he points out — only in the companies that own the machines.



That could change with “initial machine offerings,” in which crypto investors have the opportunity to finance the critical infrastructure needed for the fully autonomous machine economy to emerge.&nbsp;



(Don’t tell Eliezer Yudkowsky, though, he might want to <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-expert-bomb-datacenters">bomb</a> us.)



Beyond DePINs, the “good news” for crypto is that “the machines will go onchain” — for payments, identity, sensors, user interfaces and data.



Dorlöchter categorizes these activities as a “trust infrastructure” where autonomous machines will need to cooperate with each other.



Perhaps ironically, it’s only trustless crypto that can provide it.



Another good talk: Tarek Mansour, <a href="https://kalshi.com">Kalshi</a>



Kalshi isn’t a crypto company, but its founder Tarek Mansour thinks that’s a distinction that won’t matter for much longer.



“Any kind of fintech company is inevitably going to be a crypto company,” Mansour predicted this morning.



Kalshi, he said, will increasingly do business on crypto rails “because they work better.”



To my surprise, they’re doing a lot of business: $1 billion a month in prediction market betting volume, with millions of active customers and 1,500 live markets, according to Mansour.



I expected that prediction markets would remain a once-every-four years phenomenon, but it’s starting to look like people want to bet on more than just presidential elections.



Mansour thinks it will get a lot bigger, too: “In 10 years, I don’t see any reason why prediction markets wouldn’t be bigger than the stock market.”



I’m not sure that would be good news for the world.



Mansour says prediction markets are the fastest growing “asset class,” but if so, they are a weird kind of negative-sum asset — different in kind from positive-sum stocks, bonds and real estate.&nbsp;&nbsp;



If investors put money into prediction markets instead of productive assets, it seems like that would be a net negative for the world.



But Mansour asks us to “imagine a world where any debate can be settled in prediction markets.”



That might make them a net positive, because one thing I agree with Mansour on is that “financial markets see the future better than anything else.”



If prediction markets help us see the future better, we can all make better decisions.



Also, the markets will be settled in crypto, so that will be fun.



Miscellaneous quotes:



“We really want to reverse engineer into a Pizza Hut franchise.” — Konstantin Richter, Blockdaemon, in satirizing the current craze for crypto SPACs



“USD1 will be the biggest stablecoin…World Liberty Financial will be a household name.” — Zak Folkman, World Liberty Financial (in a moment of Trumpian understatement)



“The first thing in crypto that’s starting to work.” — Ali Yaha, a16z, on stablecoins



“If you want to do great things, you should reach out.” — Luca Prosperi, M0



“Be a human. Write and read code.” — Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript, after arguing that LLMs will never be as smart as humans



“We just ate shit for longer than anyone else and worked out.” — Tarek Mansour on the success of Kalshi



“If you sue a regulator, make sure you win.” — Tarek Mansour



“In the next five years almost all financial transactions will be driven by agents.” — Ali Yaha, a16z



Overheard: “I went to a cypherpunk meet up in 1994.”



Crypto conference innovation: Giant beanbags in lieu of chairs. (Bonus tip: Find one up against a wall, it’s less awkward.)



Today’s takeaway: Two slices and a Coke.



See you tomorrow for day three!



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



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



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

The Breakdown Newsletter

Permissionless IV, Day 2 takeaways

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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It&#8217;s been a wild week out there, with liquidations rocking the market over the weekend and into Monday.&nbsp;



While Solana volumes spiked, memecoins <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-dex-activity-2-0">still held the top spot</a>, defying expectations of a risk-off shift.



The shifting market sands came into clearer focus <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/6/24/fragile-iran-israel-ceasefire-calms-oil-markets">following</a> the fragile ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel. The deal, unexpectedly brokered by US President Donald Trump, seems to have pulled global markets out of a nosedive.



On <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">Solana</a>, that détente unleashed a wave of forced liquidations, according to <a href="https://solanafloor.com/news/defi-sol-liquidations-market-crash">reporting</a> from SolanaFloor. Over $31 million in SOL perps were wiped onchain, surpassing even CEX liquidations for the second day in a row. Onchain liquidations exceeded centralized volumes by 96%, clearing the decks for a structural rebound.



While centralized markets found their footing, Solana validator revenue <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">continued to cool</a>, and net staking yields held steady at 7.23%. Supply dynamics began to shift as liquid staking tokens (LSTs) crept upward again, hinting at renewed confidence in passive yield strategies.



Risk is still here. But capital is learning where it wants to live. And increasingly, that seems to be Solana.



The chain has <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/l1">remained the top performer</a> across all L1s and L2s in network revenue for more than 13 weeks now. Developer activity has stayed elevated. And while SOL&#8217;s price action remains tethered to macro chop, the fundamentals are quietly diverging.



Bitcoin, meanwhile, retraced from its recent highs, briefly <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">dipping</a> below $100,000 for the first time since early May during the weekend selloff. However, it reclaimed key levels after the ceasefire without triggering a cascade of further liquidations. Capital appears to be rotating within crypto, not exiting it.



This week&#8217;s activity exposed a deeper rotation in how capital behaves under stress. In the face of macro risk, Solana mostly saw reallocation rather than outflows. Liquidity stayed onchain, stablecoin volume surged and perp infrastructure absorbed volatility faster than centralized markets did.



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



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



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



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

Risk-on in Solana, even as ceasefire cools tensions

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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Fed Chair Jerome Powell, tight-lipped while facing questions from lawmakers, didn’t say whether the Fed would cut rates in July (or even this summer).



But he also never definitively said it wouldn’t.&nbsp;



Odds of a 25-basis point interest rate cut at the FOMC’s late-July meeting increased from 18.6% to 20.7% today, per CME Group <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html?redirect=/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html">data</a>. It’s a small move, but a move nonetheless — one that signals investors are reading between the lines when it comes to Fed-speak.&nbsp;



“If it turns out that inflation pressures do remain contained, we will get to a place where we cut rates sooner rather than later,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. “But I wouldn’t want to point to a particular meeting.”



It’s similar to what Powell <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/june-fomc-meeting-takeaways">said last week</a> after the FOMC concluded its June meeting and announced it would <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-fomc-rates-june-2025">hold interest rates</a> for now.&nbsp;



Powell’s comment comes days after two Fed governors — both appointed by President Trump — said it may make sense to cut at the July meeting. Christopher Waller on Friday said the FOMC needs to have a rate cut on the table next month. Michelle Bowman agreed on Monday, adding that unless there’s a major uptick in inflation, a July cut should be in order.&nbsp;



Analysts had predicted tariffs would be impacting prices by now, weighing on recent progress on the inflation front. But economic readings so far have been contained. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cpi-print-softer-than-expected/">May’s headline CPI</a> increased 0.1% over the month, less than projections of a 0.2% increase.&nbsp;



Annual inflation is still reading higher than the Fed’s 2% target (annual headline CPI for May came in at 2.4%), but it hasn’t jumped too much since President Trump’s “Liberation Day” in April. Headline PCE (the Fed’s preferred gauge) came in at 2.1% in April, a decrease from March (2.3%).&nbsp;



We’ve <a href="https://forward-guidance.beehiiv.com/p/geopolitical-shock">written before</a> about why this may be. Businesses were expecting tariffs, so they proactively increased inventories. Trump’s tariff policies are also prone to revisions, so it’s understandable that companies are hesitant to immediately raise prices.&nbsp;



Oil prices have stabilized since their initial jump earlier this month, but the situation in the Middle East is precarious. Should things escalate, a surge in oil could derail progress on inflation.&nbsp;



Powell resumed his two-day congressional testimony this morning in the Senate, making similar comments about a need to monitor the economic situation before adjusting policy.&nbsp;



Stocks were mostly flat during the first half of the trading session, but both the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes were modestly in the green. After closing on Tuesday just 1% off from a new all-time high, the S&amp;P 500 may be poised for a breakout.&nbsp;



Looking ahead, Friday’s PCE report will be the biggest tool for investors looking to predict the Fed’s next moves.&nbsp;



Keep an eye on your inbox, as we’ll unpack that at the end of the week.



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Federal Reserve

Powell says Fed will continue to monitor inflation before cutting rates

Ben Strack

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



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Before writing about crypto, I spent a couple years covering the traditional asset management industry (mutual funds, ETFs, etc).&nbsp;



Janus Henderson was one of the companies on my beat. So when I saw the investment firm’s name in my crypto-centric inbox this morning, I was once more reminded of the ongoing TradFi-DeFi intersection.



The announcement dealt with the launch of a credit infrastructure DeFi protocol called Grove, which allocated $1 billion from the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/maker-rebrands-as-sky-dai-will-be-changed-to-usds">Sky ecosystem</a> to the newly tokenized Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Strategy (JAAA).



Janus Henderson partnered with Anemoy and Centrifuge to launch its first tokenized fund — offering access to short-term US Treasury bills — last September.



Nick Cherney, Janus Henderson’s innovation head, noted at the time that “bringing robust institutional collateral pools into decentralized autonomous organizations and stablecoin ecosystems” is a big piece of the TradFi-DeFi bridge.&nbsp;



Now, Janus Henderson has a tokenized version of the CLO (Collateralized Loan Obligation) ETF it launched in 2020. The fund, which seeks income via collateralized loan obligations of various maturities, has more than $20 billion assets under management.&nbsp;



“CLOs are just one of the many assets ripe for movement into DeFi due to their attractive yield profile and structure,” Grove Labs co-founder Sam Paderewski argued.&nbsp;



Janus Henderson moving funds onchain reflects the firm “preparing for the possibility that blockchain technology will transform traditional finance in the long term,” Cherney said in a statement today.



It’s early days, with stablecoins’ market cap around $240 billion. Tokenized private credit and tokenized Treasury products have grown considerably over the past year, but are only valued around $14 billion and $7 billion, respectively.  



So this tokenized CLO offering represents just another development in what many expect to be <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">a massive space</a>. We’ll continue to monitor.



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



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



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Forward Guidance newsletter

Newly tokenized Janus Henderson CLO strategy sees $1B inflow

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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Moca Foundation — the group behind the MOCA token affiliated with Animoca Brands’ Moca ID and Mocaverse — is launching <a href="https://moca.network/blog/what-is-moca-chain/">Moca Chain</a>.



The namesake L1 blockchain is focused on being a cross-chain identity layer and verification system. The MOCA token will be the chain’s native token.



In an X Space Wednesday morning, Animoca Brands cofounder and Chair <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/animoca-brands-yat-siu-crypto-gaming-comeback">Yat Siu</a> explained that for crypto users, Moca Chain can be an alternative to giving your personal data — and therefore identity — to big tech firms like Google and Meta. 



For businesses, it can be a way to reach target audiences without needing to see or store all of their personal data.&nbsp;



“Our digital identity is all over the place right now,” Siu said, adding that he sees Moca Chain as a way for crypto users to own and control their own digital data. In the future, he expects more “walled gardens” or closed tech/data ecosystems, like those belonging to Apple or Meta, to be forced to open up.&nbsp;



The blockchain’s testnet is <a href="https://x.com/MOCAFoundation/status/1937859074907144537">expected</a> to launch this year in Q3, with a mainnet launch near the end of this year in Q4. Moca Foundation <a href="https://x.com/MOCAFoundation/status/1937859068074590390">describes</a> the blockchain as both EVM-compatible and chain-agnostic, as well as modular.&nbsp;



Moca Chain will also offer decentralized data storage, a feature we’ve seen recently with the launches of protocols like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mysten-labs-walrus-decentralized-gaming">Walrus</a>. On the tech side, the Moca blockchain is also planning to use ZK proofs, zkTLS and an oracle for user identities.



These adds aim to keep user data private. Third-party Moca Chain issuers will be the verifiers of user identities, earning as they provide that service.&nbsp;



To me, Moca’s plans here sound like a crypto-powered alternative to Google’s single sign-on (SSO) offering that’s spread across the industry lately. For crypto firms like Immutable and Abstract, SSO has been an answer to the clunky legacy wallet onboarding processes of the past.&nbsp;



But not everyone necessarily wants to tie all their Google Search history, cloud storage and email account to a crypto wallet.&nbsp;



While we won’t be able to claw our data back from the big tech giants without substantial US regulation (similar to what the EU has done), I’d say an easy-to-use, decentralized digital-identity option that puts privacy first is always welcome.



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



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



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



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

Animoca-linked Moca Chain plots Q4 mainnet launch

With capital pouring into spot bitcoin and ether ETFs in recent weeks, a fast-approaching SEC decision could spur the next wave of crypto fund launches.&nbsp;



Though filings for single-asset ETFs have multiplied in recent months, products holding a basket of tokens could be the next to get the regulatory nod.&nbsp;



Specifically, the securities regulator is set to rule on Grayscale Investments’ proposal to convert its Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) to an ETF. Its deadline to do so is July 2.



GDLC has about $730 million of assets under management. While more than 90% of the fund’s assets are allocated to bitcoin and ether, it also holds XRP, solana (SOL) and cardano (ADA).&nbsp;&nbsp;



Rival fund manager Bitwise also looks to convert its BITW crypto index fund. And <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">Hashdex is vying to add assets</a> to its Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF (NCIQ), which currently only holds BTC and ETH.&nbsp;



The SEC could decide that XRP, SOL, ADA, etc. represent such a small amount of the index that it’s going to let the products through, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart said at Blockworks’ Permissionless conference on Tuesday. Or the agency could choose to first develop a comprehensive set of rules.&nbsp;



“If they’re not approved on this first date, it’ll only be because the SEC isn’t ready with a full framework,” Seyffart said.&nbsp;



The SEC gave the greenlight to US spot bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 before then permitting ether ETFs to launch that July.&nbsp;



The BTC offerings, led by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), have so far notched $47 billion of net inflows, Farside Investors <a href="https://farside.co.uk/btc/">data</a> shows. The category has seen inflows on each of the last 11 trading days, with $589 million entering the funds on Tuesday — the highest daily total in June.&nbsp;



Ether ETF inflows, which stand at $4 billion, have accelerated recently. The segment has totaled roughly $1 billion of inflows in June alone.&nbsp;



But offering investors broader crypto market exposure is the bigger opportunity, argued Hashdex CIO Samir Kerbage. He <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-media-etf-cryptodotcom">previously told Blockworks that</a> his firm ultimately wants to create “the Nasdaq 100 for crypto.”



“When you’re investing only in bitcoin, you’re making a decision to short the crypto market,” Kerbage added at the time.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">Crypto indexes offer ‘biggest opportunity’ as SEC decision looms: Hashdex CIO</a>



Last month, Grayscale ETF head David LaValle said on Nate Geraci’s Crypto Prime podcast that he expects a multi-token offering will be the next crypto ETF to launch.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“We have been having good conversations with the NYSE and with the SEC to get to a place where we think we can bring that product to market in an exchange-traded product wrapper.”



The SEC is also considering single-asset spot crypto ETFs focused on litecoin, solana, XRP, dogecoin, cardano and others. The agency <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-etf-sec-forms">asked prospective Solana ETF issuers to amend S-1 forms</a> earlier this month, sources told Blockworks.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Bloomberg Intelligence analysts have said they expect these single-asset products to be approved by the end of the year. The SEC’s deadline to rule on a number of those doesn’t come until autumn.&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">NEW: <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EricBalchunas</a> &amp; I are raising our odds for the vast majority of the spot crypto ETF filings to 90% or higher. Engagement from the SEC is a very positive sign in our opinion <a href="https://t.co/5dh8G8rK6Y">pic.twitter.com/5dh8G8rK6Y</a>&mdash; James Seyffart (@JSeyff) <a href="https://twitter.com/JSeyff/status/1936117896347803748?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">SEC commissioner Hester Peirce has asked for patience</a> on crypto-related progress, including in the ETF arena. She noted during a Trillions <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwBZbTh39w">podcast</a> last month that a comment letter from an exchange recommended “generic listing standards” for crypto ETFs.&nbsp;



“That is a request that really resonates with me too, so I think there’s a lot of work to do and we have to think about how to do it most efficiently,” Peirce explained.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Van Buren Capital general partner Scott Johnsson <a href="https://x.com/SGJohnsson/status/1915619368156762388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1915619368156762388%7Ctwgr%5E00d4fbd43a5d291f9b959e2f9ff743febce506e2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fblockworks.co%2Fnews%2Fhashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">said</a> on X that because the proposed crypto index products have a more undefined universe of allocations, the SEC could adopt a general rule instead of a case-by-case rule application.



He told Blockworks: “Once the basket products are approved, [it] should be a straightforward application to single-asset spot products like SOL.”



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ETFs

More crypto ETFs coming? A key SEC deadline is one week away

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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Sei is a L1 blockchain launched in August 2023.



A confluence of positive tailwinds have given its native SEI token a monster pump of 85% over the past week.



Earlier this week, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission announced the selection of Sei (and Aptos) as the final two candidates for its WYST stablecoin pilot, the first initiative of its kind by a US state.



<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">Sei Network was one of only two blockchains selected in the last round by the Wyoming Stable Token Commission. A monumental proposal for the first US state-issued stablecoin. Sei will be the money chain. This is a major step forward as Sei continues to lead crypto innovation in… <a href="https://t.co/AX9fiL2NVc">https://t.co/AX9fiL2NVc</a>&mdash; Sei 🔴 (@SeiNetwork) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeiNetwork/status/1935846324932325857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Two other factors are possibly contributing to SEI’s price action.&nbsp;



First, momentum around <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle’s recent IPO</a>, which based on its <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000119312525070481/d737521ds1.htm">S-1 filing</a>, holds 6,250,000 SEI ($1.9 million today). Second is a pending SEI ETF <a href="https://blog.sei.io/sei-ecosystem-continues-momentum-with-landmark-etf-filing-in-the-u-s/">filed</a> by Canary Capital back in May.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdXk6GB-aVIVT6hzIrk29tPzaHGpw48MR6o3xL9eQHRVwDOb---ilRFNnUJwVELOr13wodkhlbelRlRXq3H4qFCyfk0edRqXjOSUHwe-HOlm-5cPRQHv5BXamAQzWckhdqtbTTj?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Circle <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000119312525070481/d737521ds1.htm">S-1</a>.</figcaption></figure>



How does Sei’s onchain economy look beyond buzzy news headlines?



TVL is on the up. It’s at about $564 million today, of which $418 million sits on Yei Finance money market. In the last seven days, Sei is the fourth-largest chain by net inflows, at <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/flows">$4.9 million</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfet1vVDELDKpV6zBek8EM7Bj55KF6jNrewTVO8Jtu0Fr6U6580lBZXs76W-Y8MerS1mIMFvbvHWvh6nuGjM9yjuoqfB9nXSTqmLAhjHg26W51fXfJcbTSrCqTd-zOrrBJzZ_PmCw?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/sei/sei-network-overview">Dune</a>.</figcaption></figure>



Most of Sei’s usage is driven by gaming. Based on DappRadar, Sei has about 34% (7.38 million) of the Web3 gaming market share by unique active wallets in the last 30 days.



(For context, Ronin has about <a href="https://dappradar.com/rankings/chains?category=chains_gaming&amp;range=all&amp;sort=dappCount&amp;order=desc">718k</a> active wallets in the same time period.)



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcMkwSeDhcw3fXuT7v6Uue8SdsndfFFCvhFD-S68WhClYy3jUskTNRdAOn4BmAjJg6xLHpt0opTS1IqMGocK8NlFx0TD9BOWbxqhcKtiuc82jyGhh18vfoSmQWH4jFCrVdsn-PINA?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://x.com/DappRadar/status/1934639669058392390">DappRadar</a>.</figcaption></figure>



Granted, active wallets are a <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/3-blockchain-metrics-that-suck?_bhlid=e7ec9d125f96db219eb346b82d394dbd8574633a&amp;utm_campaign=3-blockchain-metrics-that-suck&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=blockworks-research.beehiiv.com">notoriously gamifiable metric</a>, but it does point to the considerably strong niche that Sei has carved out for itself in Web3 gaming.



Dominant games include the World of Dypians MMORPG on Epic Games, as well as mobile games like Archer Hunter and Hot Spring — both on the App Store and Google Play. All three games rank in the top 10 most active games on Sei in the last 30 days.



Finally, the tech.



Sei is already a pretty fast chain today, processing roughly <a href="https://docs.sei.io/evm/differences-with-ethereum">100 Mgas per second</a> (12.5k TPS) with a time-to-finality of 500ms.



Its upcoming “Giga” upgrade is set to ramp this even higher, to a target of 5 Ggas per second, targeting 200k TPS and a sub-400 ms finality.&nbsp;



These gains come from a radical architectural overhaul:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Autobahn is a multi-proposer consensus protocol that replaces the current single-proposer Tendermint model.</li>



<li>Decoupling consensus and execution will allow transactions to be ordered independently of execution, unlocking asynchronous execution.</li>



<li>Parallel execution — using Block-STM-style techniques familiar from Move-based chains — accelerates transaction processing across multiple cores.</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfeVK5QxMFzNycQmFW5oJWtL4_dC65QvYO_S9Azm1GFjxzQgC4hP9t89TJbAC7BCBpVXzmfS3HfAdUJhcDUJi6wvUPKEqPvaCewE2m0eQA05ysXUSE5Dx9ug6xUwbMbNmi3H_Y6?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Blockworks Research.</figcaption></figure>



Blockworks Research’s Loso told me: “Wyoming’s consideration of Sei as one of the top options for its stablecoin initiative shows a strong vote of confidence in [Sei’s] technical capabilities.”&nbsp;



For a comprehensive explainer on Sei’s upcoming Giga upgrade and how it compares to other chains, see Blockworks Advisory’s <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/inside-sei-giga-autobahn-architecture-and-ecosystem-outlook">report</a> on Sei.



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</ul>

0xResearch Newsletter

Gaming-focused chain Sei surges 85% on the week — why?

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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Bitcoin is everything, everywhere, all at once.



Yes, Bitcoin has reshaped the financial order. It has also altered the way money and value move in developing economies, either directly or indirectly. But Bitcoin is also pragmatic in its simplicity, compared to other blockchain networks and the projects built on top of them. 



Those hardboiled sensibilities are at odds with what could be Bitcoin’s endgame — a global, trustless settlement layer and eventually, hyperbitcoinization. 



At Permissionless IV in Brooklyn, Pete Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian, sat down with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/peter-todd-legend-bitcoin-brain-wallet/">Peter Todd</a> to hear how he squares these dynamics and more.



Todd is a veteran Bitcoin developer, having worked on Bitcoin Core on and off since as early as 2011, still the Satoshi era.&nbsp;



He’s also played key roles in RGB (a tokenization protocol built on top of Bitcoin), Zcash and enterprise blockchain platform R3. Todd founded <a href="https://opentimestamps.org/">OpenTimestamps</a>, a leading example of a non-financial use case for Bitcoin.&nbsp;



So who better to contextualize innovation within the Bitcoin and blockchain space?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Polymarket success</h2>



Todd pointed to Polymarket as one example of a successful crypto app outside of Bitcoin. “Well, it&#8217;s a successful application because they managed to use things about blockchain tech to navigate the regulatory arbitrage necessary to stay in business. And I don&#8217;t think you can deny that Polymarket as a business is successful.”&nbsp;



“Now, you know, did they go build on Bitcoin? No, but I&#8217;m still not likely to say it&#8217;s not a success. I mean, the amount of money bet on Trump is an example.”



Todd highlighted that this does come with downsides. Polymarket is not as actually as decentralized and self-custodial it could be. But in assessing those characteristics, it’s important to look at it from Polymarket’s perspective.



“They&#8217;re trying to run a business that does something specific. Because they&#8217;re running a betting market, a lot of that is very inherently centralized, because in reality all the bets go through a relatively small number of people in a relatively centralized way.



“Now they may disagree with me, but, you know, that&#8217;s kind of the truth of how this really works. And their client-side software, the way you get it, is relatively insecure. It&#8217;d be very cool to build all this in Bitcoin, but it requires so much more engineering effort to do well.”&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"><a href="https://t.co/Me91Ms0smZ">https://t.co/Me91Ms0smZ</a>&mdash; Blockworks (@Blockworks_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Blockworks_/status/1937493411025588366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Rizzo and Todd’s chat starts at around 1:15:00 into this video.</figcaption></figure>



In terms of Bitcoin’s primary utility — peer-to-peer payments — Todd sees Lightning as the default mode to achieve that, rather than direct onchain transactions. “Matter of fact, I just had a talk two days ago by someone from Costa Rica talking about their main point-of-sale payment solution — basically, they’re just dropping onchain Bitcoin support because it’s pointless. Everyone uses Lightning, end of story. There’s just no reason to do anything else.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Global Tether</h2>



But stablecoins on other more centralized networks have grown to be more ubiquitous in many places, particularly tether.



“I think Bitcoiners often underestimate how popular USDT is…A couple of years back I was in Macedonia, the capital, just visiting, and sure enough, every single currency exchange booth, they accept USDT or similar things,” Todd said. “And I actually wound up sitting down at one of them for a good half hour, because the guy behind the booth was new at his job and just interested in how Lightning worked and we struck up a conversation. And sure enough, every five minutes he had another person coming in, either selling cash or buying cash. And most of them were just using Binance.”



Rizzo asked: “But that’s competitive against Bitcoin, right? These are transactions that could otherwise have been in bitcoin.”



“Well, but the point is: All these people, they don&#8217;t care about Bitcoin — they care about moving value around. And what they care about is that they&#8217;re moving something that’s fairly stable,” Todd replied.



“Another more recent example is Kiev. Someone I know was buying a new laptop, and it just happened [that] the easiest way for them to buy a laptop was to give USDT to the laptop store — which is actually a very standard thing these days in that part of the world. And I&#8217;m sure the laptop store turned around and sent the USDT straight off to one of their suppliers the next day. You know, could they have done that with Bitcoin? Yeah, sure. But right now USDT is a more stable currency with regard to laptop prices.”



You can play back the rest of the chat, which covers the development arc of Bitcoin layer-2s, DeFi and more, via the <a href="https://x.com/Blockworks_/status/1937493411025588366">Permissionless IV day one livestream</a> on X.



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</ul>

Bitcoin

Peter Todd tells Permissionless why people don’t care about Bitcoin

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"/>



“We’ve seen a huge influx of demand for our stablecoin infrastructure in general,” Paxos Head of Strategy Walter Hessert told me.



So perhaps the Monday <a href="https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/stories/2025/mastercard-stablecoin-utility-and-scale.html">announcement</a> that Mastercard was joining the Global Dollar Network wasn’t totally surprising.&nbsp;



“Mastercard is bringing the power of its global franchise to support a growing portfolio of regulated stablecoins from issuers around the world,” Mastercard said.



Hessert noted that Paxos has had a “long relationship” with the credit card company, and has been behind the scenes “powering some of the innovations that they’ve brought to market for their customers, leveraging stablecoin blockchain, etc.”



He noted that firms like Mastercard are recognizing that there’s a need for stablecoins, and that’s why we’re seeing a pickup in both the demand and firms finding ways to get involved.&nbsp;



Speaking of the demand, though, “the current… stablecoin models are not really meeting the needs of the market.”



The conversations Paxos is currently having with TradFi firms — not just Mastercard — focus on how institutions can utilize stablecoin rails, especially since Hessert noted that it’s “extremely low-cost and virtually free.”



The focus is on figuring out “the right kind of technology and tooling to be equally compliant, in some cases even more compliant, than other types of rails for money. And so they want to start to leverage the rails. And so maybe they have commercial clients. They want to allow those commercial clients to [move money using stablecoins the] same way they would allow them to move a payment using a wire or some RTT system,” he said. 



The other big conversation happening behind the scenes (and this shouldn’t be a terribly big surprise) is that banks specifically are trying to figure out how they can safely and successfully issue stablecoins.&nbsp;



Admittedly, one aspect I’m particularly curious about around Paxos is where it sees itself as stablecoin adoption picks up.&nbsp;



The Global Dollar Network, which promotes enterprise adoption of stablecoins through USDG, has given some firms a chance to have “shared ownership and shared economics,” as well as helping firms figure out product-market fit, Hessert said. And that helps them stand out against Circle’s USDC.&nbsp;



“We’ve also issued $150 billion as a firm on a gross basis of stablecoins today,” he noted.&nbsp;



So, what’s next?



While the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/genius-stablecoin-act-passes-senate-vote">GENIUS Act that passed the Senate</a> isn’t supportive of yield-bearing stablecoins, Hessert said that he’s noticed interest pick up in a different area.



“I do think that there is a large interest from banks in tokenized deposits. And this has been part of the conversation now for several years, and I think that there is a kind of renewed interest in this, with the draft of the GENIUS act…for banks to start to explore what it means to tokenize deposits and how those then interact with stablecoins,” he said.



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Empire Newsletter

Paxos is seeing an ‘influx of demand’ for stablecoin infrastructure

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



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“We know more than we can tell.”



— Michael Polanyi on the importance of IRL collaboration
</blockquote>



Hewlett and Packard; Jobs and Woz; Gates and Allen; Page and Brin; Bezos and (the now-forgotten) Kaphan.



The history of technology in America is a history of two people incubating whole new industries from a garage.



Would any of Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Microsoft, Google or Amazon have been incubated over Zoom?



We’ll never know, but empirical evidence suggests not. Even in this age of video conferencing, face-to-face interaction remains a key ingredient in the alchemy of innovation.&nbsp;



One <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4282331">study</a> found, for example, that adding non-stop flights between two locations resulted in a statistically significant increase in research citations and collaborative patents between said locations.



Another study, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04643-y?error=cookies_not_supported&amp;code=586c1d2f-9fcf-47b4-8916-1f890c13adc8#:~:text=generation%20as%20the%20foundation%20of,our%20effects%20are%20driven%20by">Nature</a>, offers an explanation as to why getting off the sofa and onto a flight might be worth it: “Videoconferencing hampers idea generation because it focuses communicators on a screen, which prompts a narrower cognitive focus.”



(As someone who happily works from a sofa, I report that result only reluctantly.)



Researchers have even used <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30147">GPS data from Silicon Valley</a> to quantify the effect of chance encounters on innovation, finding “substantial returns to face-to-face meetings.”&nbsp;



It’s easy to imagine why this might be the case.&nbsp;



To cite just one pitfall with remote work, <a href="https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/blissfully-happy-or-ready-to-fight-varying-interpretations-of-emo">25% of the emojis</a> we send are misinterpreted by the recipient, often in the opposite way they were intended.



How long would Steve Wozniak have put up with Steve Jobs if any portion of their communication happened by text message?



Not long, I’m guessing.



Businesses seem to get this — it’s presumably why they spent an estimated <a href="https://www.gbta.org/global-business-travel-industry-spending-expected-to-hit-record-1-48-trillion-in-2024/">$1.4 trillion</a> flying employees around for IRL meetings last year.



Businesses don’t spend that kind of money if they don’t think they’re getting a return on it.



I’m guessing it’s also why crypto conferences like Permissionless continue to be so well attended.&nbsp;



You can watch the <a href="https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless/recordings">livestream</a> of all of this week’s panels from your sofa, but it’s more fun to be here in person.



And more productive, too.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A few of the things I heard on day one</h2>



Mike Ippolito opened the conference with some charts and a call to action.



The rising ratio of crypto traded on decentralized vs. centralized exchanges is a key performance indicator that everyone at a conference called Permissionless will feel good about:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcql9LAL1Txv7Y86aBhRiMuBFrLHkA1vKu1yXNxn2Tm3CG1sJBNvMQ8IZv4BJmaOi4UrlW3vZmUh8SYeUbMt156cxs1g7oMFjNWxWEHenU3C3VBeKdsTTzlmlv0_knoKgssqxsuqQ?key=jzr9QKU5ysR1ZKZmRSqpOw" alt=""/></figure>



Binance and Coinbase are great (and would make excellent sponsors of this newsletter). But the raison d’etre of the crypto industry is to move people onchain and, by that measure, we seem to have made a sudden burst of progress.



The revenue being generated onchain is a little underwhelming, however:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd-6uXhsBscLSXDfHviqw9CLpEks_5wKK26KqsSDzYYTQtotKf0VISnzrhfZcE88z98_5wbAvO1tyFGqy5w3h15Sn54sDkbvSEG8ZZfOiTJ6BuyDr3KgEin0VbvW0t1OLVtSy56Jw?key=jzr9QKU5ysR1ZKZmRSqpOw" alt=""/></figure>



Using Solana network revenue as a benchmark, the industry seems to be lacking momentum.&nbsp;



Flatlining revenue is an indication that we’re still waiting for a breakout application to inspire people to do things onchain (other than trade memecoins).



When asked for a crypto success story this morning, the Bitcoiner Peter Todd cited Polymarket — but couldn’t immediately remember its name, mistakenly said it’s on Solana (it&#8217;s on Polygon), and then dismissed all non-Bitcoin blockchains and applications as being “highly centralized.”



That, I think, is a measure of how much work the non-Bitcoin crypto industry still has to do in both finding utility and becoming credibly decentralized.



Non-sovereign money, stablecoins and permissionless gambling (aka, memecoins) is an excellent start.&nbsp;



But is that all there is?



My questioning of Permissionless attendees this morning suggests that crypto enthusiasts are still hoping for more, but are unsure of what that might be.&nbsp;



In opening the conference, Mike Ippolito framed the crypto industry’s challenge by quoting Nikola Tesla: &#8220;The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.&#8221;



In other words, money and finance still belong to TradFi, and that won’t change unless crypto people make it change.



“The present is not good enough,” Ippolito concluded, “and the responsibility is on us and us alone to make it better.”



Keynote speaker: Eric Adams, first Bitcoin mayor of New York



The mayor began his talk by recounting his family story, which started in nearby Brownsville, Brooklyn before moving to Jamaica, Queens.&nbsp;



This resonated with me because my mom’s side of the family did the opposite, going from Queens to Brooklyn, where I spent my formative years of 0 to 3.&nbsp;



(Yes, I’m from Brooklyn, but, no, don’t ask me for directions.)



More substantially, the mayor used his origin story to explain his support for the crypto industry.



Noting that over 40% of Brooklyn’s residents speak a language other than English at home, Adams said he hoped New Yorkers would adopt bitcoin as a better way to send money to relatives abroad.



That is approximately the oldest idea in crypto and has yet to really catch on, but maybe we still need to spread the word: Adams stressed the need for the industry to educate people about how crypto “benefits everyday working class people in the city.”



To benefit the city itself, Adams plugged his idea for BitBonds — municipal bonds backed by bitcoin.



That sounded a little gimmicky to me, until the moderator asked if New Yorkers would be able to pay their parking tickets in bitcoin, which the city could then use to back its bonds.



“We would love to do that,” the mayor responded.



And why not, it would be a cheap call option for the city: If bitcoin goes up, take your profit; if it goes down, default!&nbsp;



Unfortunately, the mayor might not have enough time to make it happen. The aforementioned Polymarket gives Adams a <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/new-york-city-mayoral-election/will-zohran-mamdani-win-the-2025-nyc-mayoral-election?tid=1750780256105">10% chance</a> of re-election in November.



Panels I watched: As I had hoped, the afternoon track on DePIN restored my faith that crypto is at least trying to solve real problems.



David Vorick noted that in some parts of the emerging markets, “energy is the difference between life and death.” He explained that the mission of his DePIN venture, <a href="https://glow.org/blog/what-is-glow">Glow</a>, is to incentivize the buildout of solar energy in exactly those places.



Listening to Vorick is a reminder that crypto tokens can have purposes beyond gambling. “If you want to see a lot more solar in the world,” he said, “holding the glow token is a way to both express that preference and help make it happen.” (Paraphrased.)



If that sounds cringe to you, it’s because you’re reading it in a newsletter — in person, it sounds perfectly sincere, as I’m sure it is.



Abhay Kumar of <a href="https://www.helium.foundation">the Helium Foundation</a> similarly explained that DePIN is a “new way of making networks” and that tokens determine what kinds of networks get made: “Voting with your wallet is real.”



Finally, Sam Hougan explained that <a href="http://inference.net">Inference.net</a> is creating a DePIN network to help “data centers around the world fill the extra capacity they have” — a use case that will only get more useful, I imagine.



DePIN is no longer the new-new thing, and the results so far have been modest.



But there’s hopefully bigger things to come: The panellists cited satellites, manufacturing and drones as important sectors that are most ripe for DePIN-enabled disruption.



Quotes from day one: “It’s very stupid, you’re going to lose money, but it’s fun.” — Dan Smith, Blockworks Research, on memecoins “You have to break your brain to understand it.” —  Dan Smith on the memecoin industry



“I don’t think tokens should be money. Tokens need to have some utility in the network.” — Sam Hougan, Inference.net



“I think tokens are one of the most powerful forms of money.” — David Vorick, Glow



“We’re super excited about crypto now.” — David Rhodus, Permissionless Labs, after seeing the demand for DePIN provided bandwidth



“We’re actually building stuff useful enough that people are willing to pay for it, which is very exciting.” — Logan Jastremski, Frictionless



Overheard: “People can’t think about two things at once.” — Anonymous, on crypto losing mindshare to AI and why “TradFi is sleeping on crypto”



Crypto conference innovation: Holding half a conference outdoors turns out to be an excellent idea, even when it’s 100 degrees out.



Merch of the day: Cooling neck scarves. Dunk them in ice water, wrap them around your neck, and you’ll forget it’s summer in New York City.



Something I learned: Air conditioning is the greatest invention in human history.



Today’s big takeaway: Egg and cheese on a roll, with salt, pepper and ketchup.



See you tomorrow for day two.



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Permissionless IV, Day I takeaways

Jack Kubinec

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



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DeFi infrastructure firm Yield.xyz has exited stealth with a $5 million strategic round from Multicoin Capital, Lightspeed has learned exclusively.&nbsp;



Yield.xyz aggregates staking and DeFi yields into one set of APIs. This lets wallets, crypto apps and neobanks offer DeFi functionality without having to manually integrate a laundry list of yield venues. Down the line, the platform aims to offer a more automated yield strategy, where the DeFi yield rate can be abstracted away and built around <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/yield-protocol-infinifi-banking-onchain">users’ risk appetites</a>.&nbsp;



Yield.xyz, which was formerly known as Omni, got its start in the 2021 crypto cycle as a multichain wallet app. Earlier this year, the company was acquired by Echo Base, the company behind the peer-to-peer crypto marketplace Paxful.



With the rebrand and fresh funding from Multicoin, Yield is now honing in on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/centralized-exchanges-defi-mullet">general yield integrations</a>.&nbsp;



Crypto allows developers to spin up new pools of capital basically instantly. This can be dopamine-inducing for users, but a pain point for user-facing apps. Yield noticed that some of its clients would have 20 or more employees cobbling together DeFi APIs and creating “backend Frankensteins,” co-founder Serafin Lion Engel told me. When employees would leave the wallet or app companies, it would be costly to figure out how to maintain the codebases, he added.&nbsp;



With Yield.xyz, apps can just integrate one API and get access to hundreds of staking and DeFi integrations, Lion Engel said. It’s the largest yield supplier by number of integrations for the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hardware-wallet-ledger-integrates-defi-for-enhanced-liquidity">crypto wallet Ledger</a>.&nbsp;



Yield.xyz’s infrastructure offers access to over 200 yield sources on Solana, according to a tracking sheet viewed by Blockworks. This number will likely grow further with the firm’s support from Solana-aligned Multicoin, which gives Yield a “front row seat to everything that’s going on in Solana,” Lion Engel said.



Down the line, Yield wants to onboard more traditional fintech-y firms like neobanks. It also wants to create an automated yield strategy where deposits can automatically rebalance and possibly create something like a unified DeFi yield rate. The demand for these developments could be driven by the explosive <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-accelerating-payments-commerce">growth in demand</a> for stablecoins.&nbsp;



“Now it&#8217;s very easy for you to onramp and get access to stablecoins. The next thing is really going to be being able to get yield on them,” Lion Engel said.



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blockchain

Yield.xyz nets $5M Multicoin bet to eliminate ‘backend Frankensteins’

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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Another new crypto-powered launchpad platform is setting up shop — but this one’s for the devs.&nbsp;



Star.fun is like a crowdfunding site, but with tokens and for startups. It uses Solana, plus Meteora’s liquidity pools.&nbsp;



“I&#8217;m super passionate about the idea that you can build a business and raise money for it all from your laptop without needing intros to VC[s],” Star founder Adam Bergeman told me in a DM.



Instead, Star is a way to bring startup investment opps to the crypto-native masses by letting traders invest in projects simply by buying a startup’s affiliated token.



The site isn’t fully filled out yet, and may add a leadboard soon. Star is starting with its own namesake token to fundraise, and plans to add others’ projects to its launchpad next week.&nbsp;



The Star team plans to use AI to review all founders’ code on GitHub as part of its vetting process. You can probably expect some <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-rise-of-vibe-coding-on-solana">vibe coders</a> to appear on Star, as well.



The native <a href="https://x.com/stardotfun/status/1937346005944701345?s=46">STAR</a> token will be earnable by referring founders, and can also be purchased as an access token where holders can enter exclusive funding rounds and see more project data, according to its website.&nbsp;



As of Tuesday morning, STAR’s raised $3,600 of its $2.5 million goal. The team is aiming for a fully diluted valuation of $12.5 million via the STAR public sale, according to a pitch deck viewed by Blockworks. The sale began on Monday, and will continue until June 30 next week.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcOpVVadn4_YBtVI_QTX7-vazXVRcI98QIVZCLQU1DgOpLV_iJEjSDbKLGXSgxBbrlOAaVRHwkutlGgYUM01enzOu2XeFLejfa_gapeKZcYCXSHEogbBqLaEB0YnfvP8vAHsNOeLA?key=oCSRoLQITnEnUvAcYv2Ovw" width="624" height="267">



Star plans to commit some of its trading volume revenue to buying back and burning STAR. A quarter of the token’s allocation is being reserved for the team, and another quarter is being reserved for the Star ecosystem.



Like pumpfun, Star-launched tokens will have to graduate in order to have access to bigger liquidity pools. Projects can also raise USDC on Star, too.



While asking around at Permissionless Tuesday morning, Star drew some immediate comparisons to <a href="https://x.com/echodotxyz">Echo</a>, another next-gen ICO platform for investing in crypto startups. There’s also Legion.



Star reminds me a bit of Stars Arena (RIP) and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/frienddottech-relinquishes-platform-control">Friendtech</a> (also RIP), which were mainly about “investing” in people and trading “shares” of their influence via crypto.



Star has two affiliated Wyoming-based LLCs, with one being OpCo LLC and the other being TokenCo LLC, a DAO that oversees the token.&nbsp;



STAR appears to be available to anyone in the US regardless of investor status, as myself and another US-based Blockworks teammate were able to connect our wallets to the site.



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Solana

Solana-based StarFun lets projects raise capital with crypto

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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Banks take in deposits to invest a portion in riskier, illiquid assets — that’s how they make money.



This “borrow short, lend long” business model is otherwise known as fractional reserve banking. As long as not every depositor wants their money at once, everyone’s happy!



When crisis mode hits and users rush for the exits, the risk models of banks are put to the test.



At the heart of the problem is non-transparency around a bank’s liabilities and available assets. You could theoretically avoid this problem if that information was visible, as you could curate your own risk models.



Enter infiniFi, a new DeFi protocol on Ethereum that aims to replicate the entire stack of fractional reserve banking onchain.



How it works:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Users deposit stablecoins for iUSD receipt stablecoin.</li>



<li>For lower risk yield, stake iUSD for siUSD. This is liquid.</li>



<li>For higher risk yield, lock up iUSD for liUSD. This is illiquid.</li>
</ol>



Now the “fractional reserve banking” component comes in.



InfiniFi deploys the liUSD liquid tranche capital into lower risk return money markets like Aave or Fluid, while optionally deploying the siUSD illiquid tranche into higher risk return strategies. (Governance will eventually <a href="https://docs.infinifi.xyz/Whitepaper-1f244c414f3680638480da26b5c47895">determine</a> these decisions.)



That exact ratio is informed by the demonstrated preferences of depositors and which yield options they select (siUSD vs liUSD).



The positive-sum outcome? InfiniFi gets to distribute amplified yields for both groups of depositors than if they had pursued their strategies individually.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf06-5f8LN88vv5r1slobEIeVD_Nd8UmLUOIFkJh-OZZSRnF9p9IQq0oLuD9vj8MMKJKqsHtzmhE69A0fjk7y_M-z7FS13NZBq_d0oCCdl40fbbfLfKpTQtrsuKSw4TRXN4BmSD_A?key=b6r_RZ3PubsUAQ7aaJEtyw" alt=""/></figure>



Source: <a href="https://docs.infinifi.xyz/Whitepaper-1f244c414f3680638480da26b5c47895#1f244c414f36817f9cb7d03bd9c8a9b0">infiniFi</a>



Based on infiniFi’s website, whether you’re opting for a liquid (siUSD) or locked (liUSD) yield, you get a comparatively superior yield than the underlying protocol.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfM6rroq45BXgu0XIt9HAiitvFDSxZqov7kTZp5ymWn3Y9pzpfCSwmtOFpRyzlhOz_v3X71YLVjkJkzjGjLG85_SSQIw33TrDcW_E7IuFW7uc2nU8H0LNIqTk7bHW-B5iuluGBVKA?key=b6r_RZ3PubsUAQ7aaJEtyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://infinifi.xyz/">infiniFi</a>.</figcaption></figure>



It’s a neat business model.



But what infiniFi is doing in itself — borrowing short and lending long — isn’t all that different from what banks usually do.



The innovation comes from the fact that the entire stack is on the blockchain.



That’s how you, as a user, can sleep easily at night — you know your bank isn’t pulling a Sam Bankman-Fried and pursuing unchecked leverage against the most illiquid assets.



InfiniFi’s reserve composition is completely transparent onchain, so you don’t have to rely on a quarterly call report.



You can easily look up USDC deposits and iUSD tokens minted against it to determine its exact asset-liability mismatch, if any.



You can also examine a breakdown of the protocol’s yield strategies, or whether the protocol is abiding by its liquidity buffers — down to the amount and type of assets they’re made up of.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfuIWvU5M1LgOmMQYlr7bteoKiI221JXIxJE75-XhXdzrCuyuaD4R0RHBaM4pIMLvR4RZnJ5P9lAMpj8et5jnCaHbhTY95FcE6pukSxwABiw-iql_j68Eyyw6opxe0F79N54NhwZA?key=b6r_RZ3PubsUAQ7aaJEtyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/bob_dinkytown/infinifi">Dune</a>.</figcaption></figure>



In the event of a hack or “bank run,” an explicitly coded loss waterfall will determine who gets paid in order.&nbsp;



The highest-yield and locked liUSD token holders are first in the firing line, absorbing losses first.&nbsp;



SiUSD stakers (lower yield, no lock) are hit only after locked users are wiped. Plain iUSD holders come last.



No one wants to see this happen, but users can at least find some respite in the fact that they won’t have to wait two years like FTX depositors did.



InfiniFi has attracted $33 million <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/infinifi">in TVL</a> and has an ongoing six-month <a href="https://x.com/infinifilabs/status/1932449266301075652">points</a> program launched at the start of June.



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Yield protocol infiniFi replicates fractional reserve banking onchain

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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Who’s selling bitcoin?



It’s a question that’s popping up routinely. The wonder is somewhat justified: Strategy alone is buying up billions in bitcoin every other week — so there must be an equivalent force dumping coins at the same time.



For more context, public stocks like Strategy, Metaplanet, Semler, Coinbase and two dozen others have scooped up about 251,700 BTC since the start of the year, a sum currently valued at $26.51 billion. 



That’s more than 3x the number of fresh coins that were mined in the same period. And that’s not counting the 20,800 BTC ($2.2 billion) collected by private companies like Tether and countries such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bhutan-btc-mining-operations">Bhutan</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/president-nayib-bukele-bitcoin-maxi">El Salvador</a>.



ETFs from around the world have bought an additional 149,100 BTC ($15.7 billion) on behalf of shareholders — predominantly BlackRock’s IBIT, which is holding 130,850 ($13.8 billion) more coins than it was on Jan. 1.



All told, going by the latest available disclosures, more than 400,800 BTC has been stashed away by governments, private and public companies and ETFs this year — equal to 2% of the circulating supply.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdSvl7nW-M8nOa1YV3DfaU0xAxY9CVeZjqEd9725lGkPL3iQiKCvxAQG70iSJ4zokUjaIJGRCYlOwxhbo2xjBAoCkBCS02Dqr_WwShJwxRJMSDPsP8YPpIU7SXzVQF3D9osYIWpjA?key=H_vVFm07tgzAgZ5vSoF73w" alt="" style="width:619px;height:auto"/></figure>



But that’s only counting companies that have increased their holdings.&nbsp;



As for who is actively selling, on the surface level, there doesn’t appear to be one major cohort that’s the culprit.



Still, miners have been slowly offloading their stock. CryptoQuant <a href="https://cryptoquant.com/asset/btc/chart/miner-flows/miner-reserve">data</a> shows miner balances overall are down about 2,000 BTC since the start of the year while retaining an eye-watering 1.8 million BTC ($191.4 billion, over 9% of the circulating supply). The US dollar value of collective miner holdings is, however, at an all-time high.



Otherwise, more than half of all ETFs have been selling the pico top. Fidelity’s FBTC has shed over 6,500 BTC this year while Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust has sold more than 20,000 BTC, with its mini-trust making up only a fraction of the difference. Many other funds have released thousands of coins in the first six months of this year.



It may not be a perfect counterbalance to Strategy, the Saylor clones, and the ETFs that are buying, but it’s clearly adding up.



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If companies, countries and ETFs are buying bitcoin — who’s selling?

The growing attention to stablecoins is set to help fuel a new wave of on-chain assets, Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman said.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle’s successful IPO</a> has created “even more of a buzz” around the blockchain space and what’s next, he told me in an interview last week.&nbsp;



CRCL stock has surged (with help from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/genius-stablecoin-act-passes-senate-vote">the Senate’s GENIUS Act passage</a> last week), opening at $250 on Tuesday — up roughly 70% from a week ago.



“I think it’s the tip of the iceberg,” Allman said of stablecoins. “We’re going to see, in a lot of ways, the exact same playbook being run for other large, liquid assets.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">Which tokenized RWA segments will boom next?</a>



Like BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and others, Ondo offers on-chain access to tokenized Treasurys. The company’s tokenization platform — set for launch next month — intends to let applications and wallets offer exposure to US publicly traded stocks, bonds and ETFs. 



There’ve been plenty of attempts to tokenize private markets. Allman told me that while he worked at Goldman Sachs from 2019 to 2021, his team explored tokenization for syndicated loans, which can take weeks to settle.



“But in reality, there’s a lot of general automation and digitization and standardization of documentation that has to be done before tokenization really is the limiting factor of accessibility,” the Ondo CEO said. “So I think that work is being done around a lot of these other asset classes in parallel.”



Tokenizing illiquid asset classes doesn’t make them liquid, Allman added.&nbsp;



He acknowledged that firms like BlackRock and Apollo Global Management are focused on creating more liquidity around private asset classes, and that will help allow for broader tokenization adoption there in the future. Apollo started offering tokenized access to its Diversified Credit Fund, for example, in January.&nbsp;



“The vast, vast majority of regulated financial assets will settle on blockchain rails in the future,” he noted. “That’s not a crazy prediction.”



Keep reading for more excerpts from Blockworks’ interview with Allman.



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



Blockworks: What did you think of the investor demand around Circle’s IPO?



Allman: Stablecoins are obviously by far the largest [real-world asset] — really the only one — that we’ve seen yet get substantial product-market fit. Stablecoins are a great model for us…to think about the benefits of tokenization that most resonate with the marketplace.&nbsp;



There are a lot of theoretical benefits for tokenization, from driving efficiency gains through reduction in settlement times and enabling onchain programmability. But I think what stablecoins have most tapped into is just expanding accessibility globally, especially in the case of Tether really getting into LatAm and Turkey and certain parts of APAC.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecon-execs-bullish-stablecoins-financial-revolution">Digesting Stablecon: Execs bullish on imminent financial infrastructure revolution </a>Circle, with USDC, has obviously seen more traction in the US [and] in DeFi. But we have been very focused at Ondo on tokenizing other assets…on taking that value prop that stablecoins have demonstrated and reapplying it to other assets.&nbsp;



Blockworks: As Ondo gets set to launch a tokenization platform, what do you make of some of the high projections for this segment?



Allman: I think the fact that assets settle on blockchain rails will be abstracted away over time, so the statement there’s $1 trillion, $5 trillion or $10 trillion of assets “tokenized” won’t hold the same significance at some point in the future.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Securities settlement is very regional and fragmented today. Every country seems to have its own securities settlement depository, and I think there will be a big push to have settlement happen on distributed databases. Not necessarily public Ethereum; I think there are certain compliance and other features that may necessitate permissioning in certain parts of the stack.



Blockworks: What was your takeaway from meeting with the SEC earlier this year?&nbsp;



Allman: They’re extremely open-minded and thoughtful and willing to engage with us, which is really exciting to see and encourages us to want to be more transparent and want to put more effort into figuring out how we can bring our products into the US.&nbsp;&nbsp;



There’s a variety of potential paths to how we could bring something like Global Markets — tokenized US public securities — specifically to the US. We haven’t settled on which path makes the most sense to put all our eggs into, so we’re having ongoing conversations related to that.



But the meeting definitely left me much more optimistic that there will be a path, and we and others … won’t have to put so much effort into staying outside the US indefinitely.



Blockworks: How does Ondo seek to differentiate from bigger traditional players that might be wading deeper into the tokenization space?



Allman: Primarily through ecosystem and distribution. We’re a vertically-integrated platform building not just the tokenized assets but also the infrastructure and protocols to create utility and distribution around those tokenized assets. [Ondo Chain is] meant to be this hub for securities issuance onchain, where issuers can bring assets onchain initially and then have them distributed to the broader public blockchain ecosystem.



We’re going to be working on other similar protocols for creating utility for tokenized securities — both those that we issue and those that others issue on Ondo Chain. So we sit in sort of an interesting part of the ecosystem, in that we very much want to encourage these other issuers.&nbsp;



This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.



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Banking

Stablecoins ‘tip of the iceberg’ as RWA space matures: Ondo CEO

Westie

Even the best data loses its edge when scattered.



Dashboard Builder, the latest addition to <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com">Blockworks Research</a>, allows full control over how you view and use Blockworks data.



Earlier this year, we <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blockworks-evolution-into-a-data-powerhouse">laid out an ambitious plan</a>: double‑down on data, put better tools in the hands of crypto professionals, and increase transparency.



With Dashboard Builder, investors can surface critical signals in moments and protocol teams can track growth and retention without dashboard gymnastics.



We continue to stand by our vision: improve the data, improve the industry.&nbsp;



Now, let’s improve how you see that data.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why Dashboard Builder?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Custom Dashboards" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1095973023?h=a8be1a2978&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963" width="1024" height="576" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share"></iframe>
</div></figure>



Dashboard Builder is our first step toward in-platform customization. Now, you can shape and arrange data right inside Blockworks Research, bringing the visuals you need into one place.



The Builder allows you to:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Tell your own story. Combine metrics that matter to your thesis rather than relying on our default layouts.</li>



<li>Work faster. Eliminate the tab‑hopping routine and surface insights in seconds.</li>



<li>Share with context. Present a clean narrative to teammates or clients. No extra screenshots required.</li>



<li>Curate an investment thesis. Pin the KPIs that prove or disprove a trade idea and watch them update every single day.</li>
</ul>



We rebuilt the front‑end around a true drag‑and‑drop canvas. Drop in any Blockworks chart, table, or text box and it snaps into place instantly.&nbsp;



Under the hood, every tile pulls from the same validated data warehouse, so the quality data you trust stays intact no matter how you slice it.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Coming soon: The complete toolkit</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Coming Soon" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1095972653?h=94a37482d8&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963" width="1024" height="576" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share"></iframe>
</div></figure>



Dashboard Builder is the first of several releases aimed at giving you full control over Blockworks data.&nbsp;



This summer you can expect:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Data API: Programmatic access to raw and normalized data for Python notebooks, Excel models, or any in‑house system.</li>



<li>Chart Builder: A no‑code environment to design custom visuals directly in the platform.</li>
</ul>



Together, these tools combine both flavors of access — customize inside, retrieve outside — and transform Blockworks Research into a true end‑to‑end analytics workspace from ingestion to visualization to distribution.



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



Blockchain transparency should make rigorous analysis easier. But today, data collection and cleanup are still harder than they should be.&nbsp;



Our mission is to remove that friction so investors and operators can make decisions on solid ground.



Data wrangling should not be a full time job. That is where the hours disappear.



Less time downloading CSVs. More time finding alpha.



Dashboard Builder shrinks the gap between &#8220;I saw it&#8221; and &#8220;I acted on it,&#8221; pushing you closer to effortless crypto insights.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Try it today</h2>



Dashboard Builder is <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com">live inside the platform</a>. Spin up a custom view, kick the tires, and let us know where we can improve. Plus, keep an eye out for our Data API and Chart Builder launching later this year.



Questions or ideas? Reach us anytime at <a href="mailto:research@blockworks.co">research@blockworks.co</a>.

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