Stronghold

Byron Gilliam

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it.”



— William Whyte
</blockquote>



A recent <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666325002119">study</a> of web-based surveys reports that AI bots have a preference for “risky sexual behavior.”



That, at least, is what the bots say in those surveys, but surveys are self-reporting and therefore not conclusive. Who knows what they really get up to behind closed doors?



Either way, it’s a problem, because survey-answering bots are making it increasingly difficult to find out what people are getting up to.



Researchers in fields like economics, public health, consumer habits and political science have long relied on surveys to understand human behavior.



Now, because no one picks up the phone anymore, these surveys are conducted almost entirely online.



Bots, however, have proven much happier than humans to fill out online surveys.



Why would they bother?&nbsp;



Money, for one thing.&nbsp;



To offset falling response rates, researchers have resorted to paying people to respond to their questions online — sometimes as much as <a href="https://www.swagbucks.com/articles/are-paid-surveys-legit">$5 per survey</a>.



This has caused a problem with people in low-income countries, where $5 still goes a long way, pretending to be the people in high-income countries that researchers are usually asking about.



It might take, say, 15 or 20 minutes to fill out a $5 survey, but if you’re doing it for the money, you might spend another 45 minutes looking for a survey that pays, so the hourly return is not great.



Unless you’re a bot, that is, in which case the whole process takes only seconds, and the $5 reward will be many multiples of what it costs for a few seconds of data center compute.



More speculatively, bots might also respond to surveys to affect elections by skewing the polls, or just to muddy the informational waters for a geopolitical rival.



Or maybe the bots just want to make themselves heard. Who knows?



Whatever their motivations, bots are now <a href="https://www.lab42.com/blog/have-ai-bots-infiltrated-your-survey-data">estimated</a> to account for as much as 30% of the responses to online surveys — more than enough to invalidate their results.



Worse yet, 37% of all internet traffic is <a href="https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/ppc/application-security/bad-bot-report?utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;utm_content=&amp;utm_term=imperva%20bad%20bot%20report&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;utm_content=&amp;utm_term=imperva%20bad%20bot%20report&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=22453747885&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD_tGUS3WdYQkjzdG803x23Fm7HZM&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA5abIBhCaARIsAM3-zFVZuehZRRmDlhaB6mhNQPn7wqu37FjPmBJm1tCE4uvDJlWhruWOhvMaAoB_EALw_wcB">attributable</a> to “bad bots” operating with “malicious” intentions.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1062" height="530" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109807" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=1062 1062w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1062px) 100vw, 1062px" /></figure>



37% represents a lot of bad bots, and because CAPTCHAs don&#8217;t trip them up anymore, the $120 billion market-research industry is at risk of being overrun.



There are other defenses survey researchers can try, like excluding results from respondents that answer “honeypot questions” (invisible to humans), or filtering for inhumanly fast response times.



But that is a game of cat and mouse that the bots will surely adapt to.



A more decisive approach is to stop looking for humans altogether: <a href="https://www.societies.io/">Artificial Societies</a> replaces human survey respondents with AIs trained to imitate them.



This replaces bad (or indifferent) bots with bots specially designed to predict how targeted groups of humans would respond — “collectives of AI personas that allow you to run experiments in minutes, not months.”



I’m sure that works for testing out a new marketing campaign, or predicting how a new flavor of Pringles might go over in the Midwest (pumpkin spice, maybe?).



But what about for events where the stakes are a bit higher, such as a presidential election?



It’s a question worth pondering because, with telephone response rates now below 5%, online surveys have become the primary means of understanding 1) how people are going to vote and 2) why they’re going to vote that way.



A lot has been made of prediction markets&#8217; uncanny ability to predict elections better than traditional pollsters, so you might not think we need the polls anymore.



But prediction markets are themselves based on polls: The French trading whale who made Polymarket so accurate by betting big on Trump did so only only after commissioning his own private polling.



Those polls were conducted online, of course — and by 2028, that kind of data could well be so corrupted by bots that it’s unusable, which would make prediction markets unusable, too.



More importantly, if pollsters can’t determine what motivates people to vote the way they do, politicians will have a harder time representing them.



Creating collectives of AI personas seems unlikely to help with this because how would they capture what people are thinking right now?&nbsp;



AIs can only be trained on data that already exists, which seems ill-suited to catching the kind of new information that always seems to make one election different from the last.



For something as consequential as deciding a presidential election, only communicating directly with humans will do.



Soon, there might be only one way to do it: blockchain-based cryptography.



Cryptographic proof-of-humanity has been disappointingly slow to catch on. People have not rushed to scan their retinas with <a href="https://world.org/">World</a>, for example, perhaps because they don’t care much whether the internet content they consume was created by a human or a bot.&nbsp;



But survey-makers do care: Sometimes you need to know what actual humans think, and not just simulated humans.



If online surveys are a form of mass communication, AI-simulated surveys are only <a href="https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/illusion-of-thinking">the illusion</a> of it.



Crypto-enabled proof-of-humanity could enable the real thing — a way to know what real people are thinking again (to the extent that was ever possible).&nbsp;



It’s probably still a long way off.



It would have to become near ubiquitous: A survey of only people who have scanned their retinas in return for crypto tokens won’t be too representative of the general population.



It would also have to be trusted enough that we’re not afraid to tell them what we get up to behind closed doors.



Until we do, humans may find it increasingly difficult to communicate with one another.



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Only crypto can stop the bad bots

Sam Schubert

Carlos

0xResearch Newsletter

Red day for crypto, green day for miners

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There’s a profound difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it viscerally — like reading a physics textbook versus watching MythBusters explode a water heater.



The textbook tells you that heating water in a closed system builds hydraulic pressure as the water&#8217;s volume tries to expand.



You read the words, you understand the theory of phase-change physics.



But MythBusters demonstrates how pressure can turn a water heater into a rocket that shoots 500 feet in the air.&nbsp;



You watch their <a href="https://youtu.be/rGWmONHipVo?si=MLcY8Odevxe8f7_J">YouTube video</a>, you understand the reality of a catastrophic steam explosion.



Showing can be more valuable than telling.



Last week, Brian Armstrong showed us George Soros’ <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/2b96bb8c-e2e1-4d88-9eea-badf16d0a2b8/george-soros-financial-markets-transcript.pdf">theory of reflexivity</a> in a real-world experiment that would make the MythBusters proud.



After fielding questions from analysts on an earnings call for Coinbase, Armstrong <a href="https://x.com/0xTyrael/status/1984023540111437882">read out all the remaining words</a> that people in prediction markets had been betting he might say.



“I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase will say on their next earnings call,” he said at the very end of the call. “And I just want to add here the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, staking, and Web3.”



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1202" height="684" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109777" style="width:699px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=1202 1202w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=459 459w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=385 385w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-13.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1202px) 100vw, 1202px" /></figure>



This got mixed reviews, with some finding it an amusing stunt and <a href="https://x.com/adamscochran/status/1984077017738801420">others</a> calling it market manipulation.&nbsp;



I’d argue it was neither.



Instead, I view it as a vivid illustration of how most financial markets work, as explained by George Soros’ theory that market prices affect the value of the assets they’re attempting to price.



Soros, who aspired to be a philosopher before deciding to be a billionaire hedge-fund manager, credits his success to identifying a flaw in the theory of efficient markets: “Market prices always distort the fundamentals.”



Instead of passively reflecting an asset’s fundamentals, as conventional wisdom assumes, financial markets actively shape the reality they’re meant to measure.



Soros cites the 1960s craze for conglomerates as an example: Investors believed these companies could create value by buying smaller, cheaper companies, so investors bid up their stocks — which, in turn, allowed them to create value by using their inflated share prices to buy smaller, cheaper firms.



In short, this created a &#8220;continuous and circular&#8221; feedback loop where participants&#8217; thinking influenced the events they were betting on — and those events in turn influenced their thinking.



Today, Soros might cite the example of digital asset treasury companies like Strategy, which Michael Saylor pitches to investors with the circular logic that they should value Strategy shares at a multiple of NAV because trading at a multiple of NAV makes the shares valuable.



Writing in 2009, Soros used his theory of reflexivity to argue that the root cause of the Great Financial Crisis was the basic misperception that “the value of [real estate] collateral is independent of the availability of credit.”



The prevailing view was that banks had merely overvalued the real estate securing their loans, while investors had overpaid for the derivatives backed by those loans.



And that is sometimes how it works — a simple mispricing of assets.



But Soros argued that the monumental scale of the financial crisis in 2008 could only be explained by a feedback loop. Investors overpaid for credit, which drove up the value of the collateral that backed it: “When credit becomes cheaper and more easily available, activity picks up and real estate values rise.”



And higher real estate values, in turn, encouraged credit investors to overpay even more.



In theory, prices for credit derivatives like CDOs should reflect real-estate values. In practice, they helped create them.



That, at least, is how a textbook would explain Soros’ theory of financial reflexivity.



But Armstrong didn’t just explain it, he demonstrated it, MythBusters-style.



By saying the words people were betting he’d say, he showed that participants’ views (the prediction market) can directly shape an outcome (what he said) — exactly what Soros meant when he said market prices can distort the underlying fundamentals.



This is a timely lesson because the current AI bubble is Armstrong’s experiment at a multitrillion-dollar scale: People think AGI will happen, so they’re investing in OpenAI, Nvidia, data centers, etc, which makes AGI more likely to happen, which makes more people invest in OpenAI&#8230;



This captures the full meaning of Soros’ famous comment on bubbles: He rushes in to buy because buying makes prices go up and higher prices strengthen the fundamentals — which draws in even more buyers.



But Soros would warn investors against believing in self-fulfilling prophecies because, in the extreme case of a bubble, investors drive up prices faster than prices can drive up fundamentals.



“A positive feedback process that runs its full course is initially self reinforcing,” Soros wrote with the Great Financial Crisis in mind, “but eventually it is liable to reach a climax or reversal point, after which it becomes self reinforcing in the opposite direction.”



In other words, trees don’t grow into the sky and bubbles don’t inflate forever.



There’s no real-world, MythBusters-type experiment to demonstrate that, unfortunately.



At the very least, though, we now know that market prices can make things happen, like words in an earnings call transcript.



So why not AGI too?



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Brian Armstrong

Busting the myth of efficient markets

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Gold continued to fall but still outperformed BTC last week. Macro conditions softened following the Fed’s less dovish-than-expected tone, which saw most crypto segments fall (with AI the notable exception). Today we dive into recent ETF flow divergences, with SOL positive while BTC and ETH are seeing outflows, and the Solana DEX aggregator landscape shift as Titan and DFlow take share from Jupiter.



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



Over the past week, Gold extended its decline (-2.6%) to just above $4,000/oz but still outperformed BTC (-4.2%). Equities remained more resilient to macro weakness, with the S&amp;P 500 up +0.3% and the Nasdaq 100 gaining +1.4%, supported by Big Tech earnings beats.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1185" height="666" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109754" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=1185 1185w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-4.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1185px) 100vw, 1185px" /></figure>



In crypto, AI was the standout, up 20.2% while most segments declined. L1s fell 6.0% and L2s 16.9%, tracking weaker BTC and a 3.7% drop in network REV.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1342" height="749" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109756" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=1342 1342w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=468 468w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-6.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1342px) 100vw, 1342px" /></figure>



In AI plays, TAO rose 25.6% for the week, supported by Wednesday’s launch of the Bittensor Staked TAO ETP from <a href="https://www.coinspeaker.com/dda-staked-bittensor-etp-ticker-stao/">Deutsche Digital Assets</a> and Safello. Investors also priced Bittensor’s upcoming halving around Dec. 10, which will cut TAO mining rewards by 50%. VIRTUAL gained 40.6%, coinciding with Virtuals’ integration of Coinbase’s x402 protocol to enable stablecoin micropayments between agents and APIs.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1335" height="717" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109755" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=1335 1335w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-5.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1335px) 100vw, 1335px" /></figure>



Crypto miners appear to be consolidating after strong quarterly gains, with our index down 5.4% this week. WULF outperformed with an 11.5% gain following the announcement of another HPC colocation <a href="https://investors.terawulf.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/121/terawulf-expands-strategic-partnership-with-fluidstack">deal</a>, while CORZ rose 11.3% after the proposed CoreWeave merger, widely viewed as undervaluing the company, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/30/core-scientific-shareholders-reject-9-billion-coreweave-offer-deal-terminated.html#:~:text=Crypto%20miner%20Core%20Scientific%20on,proxy%20campaigns%20against%20the%20agreement.">fell through</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1337" height="752" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109759" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=1337 1337w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-9.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1337px) 100vw, 1337px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Charts for the week</h2>



Aggregate crypto ETF flows turned negative last week, dominated by BTC outflows offsetting earlier October inflows that had pushed daily totals above $1 billion. The slowdown reflects cooling demand following a strong early October run-up, compounded by the Fed’s less dovish tone last week despite delivering the anticipated 25bps rate cut.



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The weakness was partly explained by a rising Treasury General Account (TGA) balance as US government spending slowed amid the shutdown. Higher TGA balances drain liquidity and have been a persistent headwind for risk assets in recent months.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1512" height="832" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109752" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=1512 1512w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-2.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1512px) 100vw, 1512px" /></figure>



However, SOL ETF flows picked up over the past few days, averaging roughly +0.04% to market cap per day, the strongest inflows relative to market cap last week. The relative pickup likely reflects renewed attention following the launch of Solana ETFs last week, which expanded institutional access to the asset.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1124" height="624" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109753" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=1124 1124w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-3.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1124px) 100vw, 1124px" /></figure>



Monthly DEX volume on Solana increased to ~$142 billion in October, up from ~$111 billion in September. The rebound was driven primarily by SOL-stablecoin activity, signaling some renewed momentum across Solana’s DeFi ecosystem.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1124" height="624" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109766" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=1124 1124w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-12.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1124px) 100vw, 1124px" /></figure>



Total DEX aggregator volume on Solana reached roughly $86 billion in October, also marking a rebound from summer lows. Jupiter remained dominant, but Titan and DFlow gained material market share, recording $7.2 billion and $7.5 billion, respectively, in monthly volume. The trend reflects increasing competition among Solana’s DEX aggregators as new players capture a larger share of trading activity, with October’s developments indicating Jupiter’s dominance may be under threat.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1124" height="624" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109763" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=1124 1124w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-10.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1124px) 100vw, 1124px" /></figure>



Titan <a href="https://x.com/Titan_Exchange/status/1981915467536114088/photo/1">reported</a> a dominant win rate over Jupiter and DFlow throughout October, claiming to execute the majority of trades at the best price. While DFlow’s data feed was discontinued mid-month, Titan’s figures suggest consistent outperformance across most tracked pairs, though independent verification remains limited. Drama emerged in October after both DFlow and Jupiter asked Titan to remove their routers from its meta-aggregator, citing concerns that Titan’s system favored its own quotes while marketing fair competition.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109758" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-8.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Balancer suffered a major security breach, with onchain estimates <a href="https://x.com/SuhailKakar/status/1985296236434620554/photo/1">showing over</a> $100 million in assets drained. The attack targeted Balancer’s v2 pools, triggering significant outflows from vaults across several chains. The exploit appears to have stemmed from improper authorization during pool setup, allowing attackers to deploy malicious contracts that manipulated vault calls to drain funds across connected pools.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="701" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109757" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image-7.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>







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Gold declined but still outperformed BTC last week

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
&nbsp;“A world without bubbles is a world defined by pre-existing limitations.”



— Byrne Hobart
</blockquote>



I had a childhood friend whose arms swung slightly out of sync while running.&nbsp;



Over a short distance, this was unnoticeable. But chase him long enough and there’d inevitably come a moment when his arms swing forward in unison and he’d pitch himself into a faceplant.



Markets work the same way: When investors all start doing the same thing, in unison, there inevitably comes a point when we faceplant.



So I consider my friend a cautionary tale for the companies and investors currently going all-in on AI — but also a hopeful one for the world.



Bubbles are dangerous because they get everyone investing in the same direction.



But they’re beneficial because they get everyone working in the same direction.



That’s the thesis of Byrne Hobart’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Boom-Bubbles-Stagnation-Byrne-Hobart/dp/1953953476">Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation</a>, which explains that investing bubbles align financial speculation and technological innovation in a way that makes speculative enthusiasm a force of societal progress.



Investing bubbles are typically equated with financial ruin, but they can also build world-changing things that wouldn’t otherwise be possible — like railroads, the Erie Canal, and the fiber-optic cable network the internet now runs on.



It’s almost certainly happening again.



“We&#8217;re at a fun point in market history,” Hobart <a href="https://www.thediff.co/archive/longreads-open-thread-152/?ref=the-diff-newsletter">wrote</a> in his most recent newsletter, “where more investors than ever and more assets than ever reference a single technological trend.”



This week, the market was sending unmistakable signals that more investors should be referencing the trend of AI.



Nvidia became the first company to be worth $5 trillion.



OpenAI was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-lays-groundwork-juggernaut-ipo-up-1-trillion-valuation-2025-10-29/">reported</a> to be planning a $1 trillion IPO.



Microsoft <a href="https://tomtunguz.com/msft-gcp-earnings-2025-10-30/">said</a> it has a $400-billion backlog of orders for its AI infrastructure.



Amazon <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-launches-ai-infrastructure-project-power-anthropics-claude-model-2025-10-29/">announced</a> the opening of an $11 billion datacenter built exclusively for a single chatbot, Claude.



And Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon all announced they’re raising capex plans — collectively, they may spend as much as $500 billion on datacenters and GPUs next year.



These kinds of data points will look like the murky warning signs of a bubble to sceptics.



But to companies, entrepreneurs, inventors and intrepid inventors, the message could not be any clearer: Build for AI.



We also had signs this week that the bubble is working as intended.



The semiconductor startup <a href="https://extropic.ai">Extropic</a>, for example, wants to reinvent computing — not with faster transistors, but with probabilities.



This week, it showed off the first working “thermodynamic sampling unit,” or TSU — a chip it says can run AI models using 10,000x less energy than GPUs.



The trick: no more ones and zeros.&nbsp;



Instead, TSUs operate with probabilities, just like AI itself.



It’s a longshot, but the potential payoff of disrupting Nvidia is so large — $5 trillion! — it only needs a small chance of working to make the risk/reward attractive for investors.



Even more ambitiously, the semiconductor-equipment startup <a href="https://substrate.com">Substrate</a> announced this week that it’s developed a fundamentally new way to manufacture semiconductors.



Substrate’s prototype machine uses a particle accelerator (!) to generate x-rays that map nanoscale circuit patterns onto silicon wafers.&nbsp;



If successful, Substrate could leapfrog both ASML and TSMC and bring both semiconductor and semiconductor-equipment manufacturing back to the US.



Substrate founder James Proud <a href="https://stratechery.com/2025/an-interview-with-substrate-ceo-james-proud-about-building-a-disruptive-foundry-in-america/">told</a> Ben Thompson this week that he originally estimated his chance of success at 1%.



His odds are better now that he has a working prototype, but even at 1%, the prize is so large — disrupting TSMC and ASML in one fell swoop — that the risk is worth taking.&nbsp;



Investors gave Substrate <a href="https://www.inc.com/ava-levinson/substrate-raised-100-million-to-produce-computer-chips-its-competing-against-industry-giants/91257154">$100 million</a> this week to try.



It takes a special kind of market to get investors interested in those kinds of bets — the kind where seemingly everyone is chasing a single technological trend.



However that works out for investors, it’s likely to work out well for the world. With luck, it could leave us with cheaper, more-efficient semiconductors, a surplus of energy production and less dependence on three all-important companies: NVIDIA, TSMC, and ASML.



Only a bubble could make it happen.



Let’s check the charts.



Concentrating our bets:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="961" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/top10.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109743" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/top10.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/top10.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The 10 largest components of the S&amp;P 500 account for a record 42% of the index’s value. Pretty much everyone thinks that’s a surefire sign it’s a bubble. But concentrating our bets is what makes special things like railroads, canals and the world wide web happen.&nbsp;



Record growth:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1406" height="828" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-199.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109735" style="width:703px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-199.png?w=1406 1406w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-199.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1406px) 100vw, 1406px" /></figure>



Growth rates for web services at Amazon, Google and Microsoft all ticked up this quarter. Businesses that are already doing tens of billions are not meant to maintain double-digit growth rates, let alone grow faster.



They’re struggling to keep up:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1406" height="940" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-194.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109729" style="width:602px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-194.png?w=1406 1406w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-194.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1406px) 100vw, 1406px" /></figure>



The big four hyperscalers are spending $100 billion a quarter on capex and it’s still not enough. “We see the demand as fast as we&#8217;re adding capacity,&#8221; Amazon’s CEO <a href="https://x.com/TheTranscript_/status/1984018632095981884">said</a> this week. “We build some amount of infrastructure to what we think is an aggressive assumption,” Mark Zuckerberg added, “and then we keep on having more demand.”



It’s much more than the Big Four:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1550" height="842" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-177.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109697" style="width:816px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-177.png?w=1550 1550w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-177.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1550px) 100vw, 1550px" /></figure>



Coatue <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y2CLckBIjfjGClkNikvfOnZ0WyLZhkrT/view">notes</a> that hyperscalers are no longer the best performing AI stocks, trailing software, semis and power by a wide margin year to date.



China ascendent:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1438" height="828" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109714" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=1438 1438w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=453 453w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=380 380w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-184.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1438px) 100vw, 1438px" /></figure>



24% of global semiconductor production now happens in China, vs. just 11% in the US. Not shown here is that nearly all the highest value ones are made in Taiwan. Only investment in an all-new technology like x-ray lithography could change that.



Something we have in common:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1438" height="938" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-195.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109730" style="width:780px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-195.png?w=1438 1438w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-195.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1438px) 100vw, 1438px" /></figure>



<a href="https://x.com/scottlincicome">Scott Lincicome</a> notes that since 2010, China has “deindustrialized&#8221; more than the US has since the mid-1990s.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1438" height="828" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-200.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109737" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-200.png?w=1438 1438w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-200.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1438px) 100vw, 1438px" /></figure>



By 2030, Substrate estimates it will cost $50 billion to build a semiconductor foundry. A foundry based on x-ray lithography, Substrate says, would cost less than $10 billion.



Of course they do:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1550" height="874" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109713" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=1550 1550w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=463 463w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-183.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1550px) 100vw, 1550px" /></figure>



54% of fund managers surveyed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch believe we’re in a bubble.&nbsp;



Let’s hope they’re right.



Have a great weekend, bubble-blowing readers.



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Friday charts: The bull case for bubbles 

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“The illusion that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future.”&nbsp;



— Daniel Kahneman
</blockquote>



<a href="https://dune.com/alexmccullough/polymarket-brier-score">Prediction markets are spookily accurate</a>&nbsp;



Professional sports bettors judge themselves not by the outcome of their bets, but by the final betting line: If they placed their bet at better odds than those available immediately before the event, it was a good bet, even if it loses.&nbsp;



But how do you judge the accuracy of the betting market itself?



<a href="https://x.com/alexmccullaaa">Alex McCullough</a> uses “Brier scores” — a statistical method of judging the accuracy of probabilistic predictions.



Applying that methodology to Polymarket, he finds that the bettors there have been spookily good at predicting events.&nbsp;



The Brier score for any given prediction market is the squared difference between the forecasted probability of an event and the event’s actual outcome.



Squaring the difference is instructive because it penalizes overconfidence: Assigning a 90% probability to something that doesn’t happen gives you a high Brier score (0.9^2 = 0.81).&nbsp;



Assigning a 10% probability to something that doesn’t happen gives you a low one (0.1^2 = 0.01).



McCullough finds that Polymarket’s probabilities have a shockingly low Brier score of 0.0581.



To put that into perspective, a market where every probability was 50% would score 0.25, and a market where every probability was always 0% or 100% and always correct would score 0.



So, at 0.0581, Polymarket’s Brier score suggests that its prediction markets are roughly 77% more accurate than a coin flip, and not so far removed from perfect.



McCullough says that puts Polymarket “on par with the best prediction models in existence.”



Might they be too accurate then? Betting markets have to be at least a little inefficient, or else there won’t be any incentive for the superforecasters and insiders that make markets efficient to participate (confusingly circular, I know, but true). 



But McCullough calculates Polymarket’s Brier score using its prices one day before event resolution — the equivalent of using the final betting line for a sporting event.



So, one takeaway from his data is that you might still make money in prediction markets, but only if you can beat the final line.



Sports bettors will tell you that’s not easy to do.



<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Bets-Making-Smarter-Decisions-ebook/dp/B074DG9LQF/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.j2ZTyyUCeR_xKKs3IWfctmEoCz9gvF4FDWJgKjwID07QdCOgbxMN4zWjvR8QRxVbvfYIQSvM5xPLkzQ_rG4h2BETKvJ8tQwvyed2skOrlxKM8vmnbBdqpbxtzukbfQxoNnLz9-HCe7jeFEfwVEXbTvLi2U75GKCCw3n_PMOWUoQcmR_EdE1pHz3B4Y0HsDHO2xPT7MJtExSGU_L39Uph16H_B4cwSq_g7KtrLINdLCo.uJ9k76mOnP6LIY_Dc2ccRBRWl1WQZRNQpTMv92YEm_A&amp;qid=1761843266&amp;sr=8-2&amp;asin=B074DG9LQF&amp;revisionId=eee2c2a8&amp;format=3&amp;depth=1">Life is poker, not chess</a>



Daniel Kahneman warned of the “pernicious effects” of outcome bias: “It leads observers to assess the quality of a decision not by whether the process was sound, but by whether its outcome was good or bad.”



Poker players like Annie Duke call this “resulting”: changing strategy just because a few hands of Texas hold ‘em went against you.



That is not the way to do it, in poker or in life: “No sober person thinks getting home safely after driving drunk reflects a good decision,” Duke notes.



And yet, in nearly everything other than poker, nearly everyone does this: Ask someone why they think they made a mistake and there’s a near 100% probability they’d point to the outcome.&nbsp;



But life, Duke adds, is poker (probabilities), not chess (outcomes).



So here’s some investing/life advice: Don&#8217;t judge your decisions by their results.



<a href="https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/markets/prediction-markets">Prediction markets are popular</a>



Incredibly, prediction markets are now busier than they were at the peak of the 2024 presidential election when seemingly everyone was at least watching them.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="722" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109681" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-165.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



This probably means that prediction markets have evolved from being a once-every-four-years novelty to a constant source of information. Possibly on everything.&nbsp;



Case in point: People bet $1.4 million on a <a href="https://kalshi.com/markets/kxfedmention/fed-mention/kxfedmention-25oct">Kalshi market</a> predicting what Jerome Powell would say in his press conference yesterday.



FOMC press conferences are pretty staid affairs — if people will bet on that, they’ll probably bet on anything.



I suppose that’s a good thing, because even the most obscure bets can be informative.&nbsp;



Alex McCullough found that “the least liquid markets, with under $1K of total trading volume, achieve a good [Brier] score .1226 at time of writing.”



I have no idea how that could possibly be — but I guess it means there really is a <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/major-meteor-strike-10kt-in-2025?tid=1761841257600">7% chance</a> a large meteor will hit earth in the next two months.



(Down from 18% in June, mercifully.)



<a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigations/how-reuters-tallied-trump-organizations-crypto-income-2025-10-28/">Trump family crypto riches</a>



Over 90% of the Trump Organization&#8217;s earnings in the first half of the year came from crypto, Reuters reports.



Counting only realized gains, they conservatively estimate the president’s sprawling corporation earned $802 million from crypto projects in just the first half of the year.



Earnings from everything not related to crypto added up to just $62 million.



Most of it came from just two projects: $463 million from sales of World Liberty Financial tokens, and $336 million from sales (and maybe trading fees?) of the Trump memecoin.



Neither of those tokens has any claim on earnings or assets — WLFI is effectively a non-dilutive equity and TRUMP is a collectible.



So the $802 million was earned without having to give anything up.



Magic internet money, indeed.&nbsp;



<a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zRPB384lRtPxWEtDZsUgh?si=f7bd78bcc4a1472f">Gemini Space Station S-1</a>



After doing a deep dive into Gemini’s S-1, Lee Reiners and Jimmy Lenz question why its stock trades above zero.



“I just don’t see a path to profitability here,” Reiners concludes, “which begs the question why the stock is worth anything at all.”



Lenz agreed: “I cannot figure it out.”&nbsp;



Ouch.



I did my own analysis of the S-1 and discovered that the crypto exchange is incorporated as “Gemini Space Station, Inc.”



So maybe the investors currently assigning it a $2 billion valuation are mixing it up with SpaceX?



Stranger things have happened.



(In crypto, every day.)



<a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/24-hour-trading-buy-sell-stocks-276ccb3f?mod=djemMoneyBeat_us">The end of closing bells</a>



Barron’s reports that US equities are likely to be trading 24/7 as soon as the second quarter of next year.



If so, I think it’s a terrible idea because nothing good happens after hours.&nbsp;



For many years, trading volumes on US exchanges have gravitated to the first and last five minutes of the trading day, for the simple reason that liquidity seeks liquidity.&nbsp;



Nearly all orders are executed by machines now, and machines, knowing they have no short-term alpha, mostly try to minimize their price impact.&nbsp;



They do that by trading whenever there’s likely to be the most liquidity.&nbsp;&nbsp;



If you don’t have short-term alpha (and you almost certainly don’t), you, too, should trade whenever everyone else is.



That will not be nights and weekends.



Crypto has conditioned people to think trading should happen on nights and weekends because important things sometimes happen on nights and weekends.&nbsp;



But one thing I learned from many years of trading stocks (often before and after market hours), is that you will almost always get a better price by waiting for the market to open.



There are some good reasons for why stocks should be tokenized, but trading them 24/7 is not one of them.



Thinking otherwise is a behavioral-finance illusion.



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Polymarket

Predicting, resulting, zeros, and when not to trade

Kunal Doshi

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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Halloween came early, with markets getting spooked. As we wrap up October, it’s fair to say this month has been a rollercoaster of sharp rallies and steep drawdowns. I’ve seen plenty of posts on CT about people wanting to take a break, and honestly, I recommend it, but don’t leave for good.



Take a moment to reflect on the year and where your edge truly lies so that you can stay laser-focused in the months ahead. Opportunities in crypto will always be there, but they reward patience, clarity and conviction.



With that, here are a few weekend reads to keep your mind engaged while the market takes a breather.



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



The trend we’ve seen throughout the month continued to play out yesterday, with gold up 1.96% while the Nasdaq, S&amp;P 500, and BTC posted losses of -0.35%, -0.42%, and -1.62%, respectively.&nbsp;



The tech-heavy indices were dragged down by Meta and Microsoft as investors grew <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/TSVY4EWA2NJ6FH3FS6KFBUYQFU-2025-10-30/">concerned</a> about their relentless AI spending forecasts. Meta’s stock fell -11.3% in a single day, marking its biggest drop in three years. Meanwhile, the Fed’s hawkish tone continues to weigh on markets, with the <a href="https://www.investing.com/central-banks/fed-rate-monitor">odds</a> of a rate cut in December now sitting at 64.8%. Gold bounced strongly after four consecutive sessions of losses, as investors once again turned toward safe-haven assets amid the prolonged US government shutdown.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1172" height="621" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109667" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=1172 1172w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-162.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1172px) 100vw, 1172px" /></figure>



It was a difficult session for crypto indices, with all major sectors closing deep in the red. The pattern of crypto equities outperforming even in downturns continued, with Crypto, Equities and Miners down only -0.7% and -1.73%, respectively.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1176" height="621" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109668" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=1176 1176w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-163.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1176px) 100vw, 1176px" /></figure>



The weakest performers were L2 and Launchpad, down -8.9% and -8.7%, respectively, on the day. The Launchpad sector was hit hard by Pump, which makes up 56% of the index. It fell -15.8% after strong gains earlier in the week. L2s also struggled, and even exchange coins like MNT, which had shown exceptional strength during the recent run-up, slipped -9% on the day.



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Declines in tech and crypto sectors close out a turbulent October

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Fiat money was invented in colonial America, and to convince people it had value, the colonies that issued it periodically lit their tax revenue on fire.



Paper money dates to 11th-century China, but historian Dror Goldberg <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Money-American-Invention-Governments/dp/0226825108">argues</a> that fiat — money valued primarily because the state demands it for taxes — was invented by the colony of Massachusetts in 1690.



Colonial Americans didn’t call it money at the time; to them, “real money” was metallic coins like Spanish pieces of eight, and the most-common form of paper their local governments printed was referred to as “bills of credit.”



But (as discussed <a href="https://mail.blockworks.com/p/hard-money-is-bad-money">yesterday</a>) very little “real” money was available in the colonies, so bills of credit circulated as money instead.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Counterintuitively, when the bills circulated back to the government as taxes, they were burned.



This goes against our modern expectation of governments collecting taxes to use for current or future spending.



But at that early stage of monetary history, money-issuing governments knew they had to give people reason to believe the paper they printed in arbitrary amounts had value.



To make the public “cherish” its money, the government had to prove it could make that money scarce.



“Whereas it is of the greatest importance to preserve the credit of the paper currency of this colony,” the Virginia legislature <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21881/w21881.pdf">resolved</a> in 1760, “nothing can contribute more to that end than a due care to satisfy the publick that the paper bills of credit, or treasury-notes, are properly sunk.”



To that end, the legislature appointed a committee to ensure that, “at least twice a year,” all the bills of credit that had been collected in taxes were “burnt and destroyed.”



This bonfire of the taxes was often conducted in public, to make a memorable show of the government’s fiscal responsibility.&nbsp;



“The burning was an event,” Andrew David Edwards <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691200262/money-and-the-making-of-the-american-revolution?srsltid=AfmBOopW-7e7jNaW2kNTFYRixgbi2l_UOCIedTewKaJUpUYU8N9y3PMs">writes</a>, “advertised in public newspapers and marked in legislative records.”



By making a public display of making money more scarce, the government hoped to maintain its value.



300 years later, that’s still sort of how it works.



Over the past three and half years, the Federal Reserve has “burned” about 2.4 trillion of the bills of credit (aka, dollars) it printed after the pandemic (in the form of bank reserves).



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1596" height="982" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109658" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=1596 1596w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=418 418w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=424 424w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=356 356w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-160.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1596px) 100vw, 1596px" /></figure>



Technically, the Fed makes money more scarce by reducing the amount of debt it holds: US dollars are created when the Fed buys bonds from banks (which adds to banks’ reserves), and destroyed when the Fed lets those bonds mature (reducing bank reserves).&nbsp;



As a demonstration of responsible monetary policy, that’s not quite as dramatic as lighting bills of credit on fire.



Nor is the money destroyed very publicly: The Fed’s role in creating and destroying money did not get a mention in today’s FOMC’s <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20251029a.htm">statement</a>, which announced only its decision on interest rates (a quarter-point cut).



In his press conference, however, Chair Powell additionally announced that the FOMC had decided to “cease run-off” of the debt it holds.



This is a modern way of saying it will not burn any more money.



In fact, it might soon be printing it again.



Reserves “have to be ample,” Powell said in the Q&amp;A, adding that “at a certain point, you want reserves to start gradually growing.”



The Fed grows reserves by buying bonds.



In other words, the Fed will soon be printing money again (by buying bonds), because $6.6 trillion of bank reserves is no longer “ample” in today’s monetary regime.



There are a lot of monetary plumbing reasons for that, most of which are beyond my newsletter-writer understanding.



But the announced change of direction highlights perhaps the biggest difference between burning bills of credit in 1760 and reducing bank reserves today: It was fiscal policy back then and monetary policy now.



“Colonial Americans burned their money because each bill represented a tax debt that had been repaid,” Andrew David Edwards explained.



Of course, that’s not what’s happening now.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1596" height="992" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109659" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=1596 1596w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=413 413w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=420 420w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=352 352w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-161.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1596px) 100vw, 1596px" /></figure>



In the time the Federal Reserve responsibly burned $2.4 trillion of reserves, the federal government somewhat irresponsibly added $6 trillion of debt.



George Washington, who used his farewell address to advise that governments’ “vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts,” would not approve.



Despite a strong economy, the US has made no effort at all to reduce its debt, and that has gotten people worried about fiat money again.



There’s not much the Fed can do about that, because burning bank reserves will never be as convincing as burning tax receipts.



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Federal Reserve

The dollar needs a new bonfire of the bills

Shaunda Devens

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Markets are recalibrating after the Fed’s second rate cut of the year, with Powell’s comments sparking a sharp shift in expectations. Flows are once again driving returns, as Solana’s new staking ETFs steal the spotlight and put TradFi’s appetite for yield on display. We also explore what it means to stay competitive when the edge in crypto keeps shrinking, and why understanding where to play may matter more than what to trade.



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



The Fed delivered its second rate cut of the year yesterday, but it was Jerome Powell’s remarks that rattled markets. He noted that the Fed has not yet made a decision about December and that officials hold strongly differing views on the pace of future cuts. Following his comments, the odds of a December cut <a href="https://www.investing.com/central-banks/fed-rate-monitor">dropped</a> from 90% to 66%, sparking a risk-off reaction.&nbsp;



BTC fell -2.5% and Gold slipped -0.6%, while equities held up relatively well. The S&amp;P 500 dipped -0.02%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.27%, helped by Nvidia, which became the first $5 trillion company amid continued strength in the AI trade and reports that OpenAI is targeting a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-lays-groundwork-juggernaut-ipo-up-1-trillion-valuation-2025-10-29/">$1 trillion IPO</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1171" height="625" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109649" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=1171 1171w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-154.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1171px) 100vw, 1171px" /></figure>



Looking at crypto-specific sectors, the AI sector mirrored its equity counterparts, rising 1.67% on the day. The other standout was RWA, which gained nearly 1%. The AI index was once again supported by TAO, up 1.8%, while LINK gave a boost to the RWA sector, climbing 1.3%.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1173" height="626" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109654" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=1173 1173w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-159.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1173px) 100vw, 1173px" /></figure>



Surprisingly, BTC was the weakest performer overall, weighed down by sharp ETF outflows of -$470.7 million and continued <a href="https://x.com/lookonchain/status/1983378308567011393">profit-taking</a> from early whales. These factors are adding short-term pressure in what remains an already fragile market environment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Market Update</h2>



Returns follow where flows go, and this week all eyes are on Solana. The launch of the Bitwise BSOL ETF has given SOL a major tailwind, pulling in $116 million in inflows within just two days and generating <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/376839/huge-number-bitwise-solana-etf-crosses-70-million-volume-second-day">$128 million</a> in trading volume. That makes it one of the strongest ETF debuts of the year. Grayscale’s SOL ETF also entered the market, though with a quieter start at $1.4 million in first-day inflows.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="976" height="621" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109650" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=976 976w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=404 404w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=410 410w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=344 344w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-155.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 976px) 100vw, 976px" /></figure>



What makes these SOL ETFs stand out is that both include staking rewards, something Ethereum has yet to achieve despite anticipation around its own staked ETF. That could soon change as BlackRock’s ETH staking ETF deadline arrives today. Bitwise partnered with Helius, while Grayscale chose Figment to manage SOL staking. The contrast is clear when compared with the REX/Osprey SOL ETF, which saw just $4.4 million in inflows last week.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="773" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109652" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-157.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Crypto ETFs are fast becoming <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/360813/blackrocks-bitcoin-etf-revenue-sp-500-fund-bloomberg">profit engines</a> for their issuers, and the new staked SOL ETFs are no different. Take BSOL for instance: On top of a 0.20% management fee, Bitwise keeps 6% of staking rewards. Assuming a $500 million AUM and a 7% yield, that translates to roughly $2.4 million in annual revenue, pushing the effective fee close to 0.48%.



Now, the race is on. Canary Capital, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, 21Shares and Fidelity have all filed for their own staked SOL ETFs. If inflows and volumes hold up, it’s only a matter of time before BlackRock joins the chase. Whether TradFi has truly bought into the “Solana as a payments chain” story remains to be seen, but with enough momentum, November could be the start of a flow-driven SOL season.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Finding edge</h2>



Equities keep ripping higher. Giants like Nvidia are up around 60% YTD, the S&amp;P 500 has gained 16%, and even gold is up 52.5% — on track for its best year since 1979, when US inflation was stuck in double-digits. Meanwhile, of the 17 crypto indices we track, only four are positive YTD, and two of those are equity-related (miners and crypto equities).



This has gotten me, and <a href="https://x.com/thinkingvols">many other traders</a>, asking why are we still trading coins that:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>underperform most equities both in absolute and risk-adjusted terms,</li>



<li>lack transparency, and</li>



<li>offer little to no investor protection (see the case of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-acquires-padre">Padre</a>).</li>
</ul>



The truth might be uncomfortable. Being a good trader is not only about picking the right tokens or having the right thesis, but also about choosing the right market to compete in.



This reminds me of an article by <a href="https://x.com/therobotjames?lang=en">Robot James</a> that influenced a lot of trading philosophy: “<a href="https://robotwealth.com/stop-trying-to-beat-djokovic-at-tennis/">Stop Trying to Beat Djokovic at Tennis</a>.” The idea behind this centers on markets being an extremely competitive zero-sum game. A retail trader competing is similar to stepping into the ring with Mohammed Ali:



“You don’t want to be trying to outsmart and out-gun other traders in a highly competitive zero-sum game.



You can’t win like that. So don’t just consume a bunch of economic data and expect you’ll figure out macro scenarios better than the market. That ain’t gonna happen. You’re trying to beat Djokovic at macro tennis.”



Rather than trading the S&amp;P 500 against Jane Street and HRT, you want to find an uncompetitive arena. From 2020 to 2022, crypto was exactly that: a massive, unstructured, retail-dominated market that allowed you to compete directly against other individuals in a grand PVP battle. It was probably the most +EV market for anyone to trade in. However, as YTD altcoin performance shows, the landscape has shifted. The arena has become much more competitive, with retail now picked off by extractionary fee structures, deep information asymmetries and constant sell pressure.



That does not mean there are no opportunities left. It means that finding true edge in altcoin picking has become increasingly difficult. More than ever, traders need to be intentional about where they compete, understand the structure of the market they are operating in and consider its advantages and drawbacks. I believe that consistently identifying outperforming altcoins is one of the hardest games to play. It requires&nbsp;



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>catching short-lived narratives that often fade within weeks,</li>



<li>forecasting sector rotations and flow dynamics, and&nbsp;</li>



<li>extracting alpha from fundamentals, all while operating in markets where most tokens primarily exist to fund project expenses and team allocations.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



From that perspective, equities may actually offer a less competitive and more favorable environment.



The one major advantage crypto still has is its community distribution structure and incentives. While traditional finance has mature shareholder rights, crypto has a cultural and often implicit obligation to distribute tokens to early participants. For example, Plasma deposits at a $500 million FDV were up 32x, MegaETH’s raising at $1 billion while being valued around $5 billion pre-market, and Monad is currently distributing to its community. These types of markets are uncompetitive by design, as their incentive mechanisms reward early participation. There have been many similar examples, from Lighter to Plasma to Kinetiq, where being early was the right move, and the downside was limited to opportunity cost.



Looking ahead, one potential opportunity is Polymarket, which raised at a $10 billion valuation and has <a href="https://x.com/Bitcoineo/status/1981723645127922037">confirmed both a token and an airdrop</a>. In 2024, Polymarket processed $8.6 billion in volume, and in 2025 YTD volumes have already reached $12.3 billion.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109653" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-158.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



There is no known airdrop methodology, which is exactly where the edge lies. But if you assume that retroactive volume will be rewarded, you can make a strong argument for a highly lucrative airdrop, depending on the total distribution percentage and the final snapshot date.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1106" height="282" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109651" style="width:613px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=1106 1106w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-156.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1106px) 100vw, 1106px" /></figure>



The point here is not to say that the Polymarket airdrop will be the best one to farm. Rather, it is to highlight there are still many ways to gain exposure to new, promising projects while limiting directional risk. Instead of positioning in an altcoin with a 200% bull case and a -70% bear case, you can position for Polymarket upside through delta-neutral strategies where the potential reward is higher and the downside is limited to your time and effort. Whether that means farming HIP-3 markets, leveraged looping tokens like USDai, or participating in liquidity programs depends on how you want to express your view of the market. However, types of opportunities continue to offer asymmetrical returns, even as the broader altcoin market becomes increasingly competitive.



Updated November 3, 2025 at 12:15 am ET: Clarified Bitwise staking fees.



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When the easy trades disappear

David Canellis

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VC firm 1kx has run the numbers on the crypto economy in a report shared with Blockworks ahead of its release later today.



After analyzing more than 1,200 protocols across 2020 and until Q3 2025, 1kx found that value distribution to token holders has returned to all-time highs, even if total revenues have yet to beat their 2021 tops.



1kx defined value distribution to token holders as the net sum of buybacks, burns and other accruals, minus emissions (validator rewards and so on).&nbsp;



That came to $1.9 billion distributed in Q3 this year, about on par with H2 2021, when fees paid by users had peaked.



“Applications drive most of the distributed value, driven by incentive reductions: top apps cut token incentives from $2.8 billion (90% of their fees) in H2 2021 to less than $0.1 billion in H1 2025, boosting net returns to holders,” the report stated.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1133" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109643" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=363 363w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=369 369w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=309 309w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-152.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Value accrual has gone up and to the right | Source: 1kx



The trend is not uniform across the space, however. Many protocols still distribute net zero value to token holders, particularly newer networks which emit more token incentives than they return to investors, “a common pattern e.g. amongst L1s,” per 1kx.



In total, 1kx placed the size of the crypto economy at an estimated $56 billion for the first half of 2025.



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Onchan fees: $9.7 billion (+41% YoY);</li>



<li>Offchain fees: $23.5 billion (+25% YoY);</li>



<li>Other income: $23.1 billion (+5% YoY).</li>
</ul>



(“Other income” mainly consists of block rewards and the yield earned by stablecoin issuers on T-Bills etc.)



The crypto economy is also much more diversified now than in 2021. Ethereum alone did more than 40% of all onchain fees in that year, now less than 3% year-to-date, according to the report. “Their scaling efforts are a major driver of the 86% decrease of average blockchain transaction fees.”



This has given cover for the app layer to flourish, even if the top 20 protocols (2% of the total) are generating 69% of all onchain fees right now.&nbsp;



“Of 1,000+ protocols analyzed, 71 have exceeded $100 million in onchain ARR, and 32 reached that within a year of launch, a pace comparable only to top AI breakouts like Cursor,” 1kx analysts found. They added that Meta/Facebook took three to four years to achieve $100 million ARR.



While revenues for some examples have since fallen, the firm counted blockchains Base, Filecoin, and Linea, DePIN cloud computing platform Aethir, DeFi apps Ethena, GMX, Virtuals and SushiSwap, wallets and interfaces Axiom, Moonshot and Photon, and consumer apps friend.tech, LooksRare and pump.fun, among others.



And many early surges were propelled by massive incentive programs. LooksRare in particular generated $500 million in fees within its first quarter but emitted the same amount in token rewards during that time, and volumes largely disappeared when those programs ran out.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1059" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109644" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=388 388w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=394 394w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=331 331w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-153.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The onchain economy has expanded far beyond Ethereum mainnet



It all points to an onchain economy that’s changing. User fees are increasingly coalescing around apps and protocols instead of the underlying chains.



But it might be that the market has yet to catch up to the new dynamics (read: the <a href="https://x.com/coinbase/status/1983575664700666181">revenue meta</a>). 1kx highlighted that “DeFi/Finance protocols account for 73% of all fees, though in aggregate their market cap share remains well below 10%.”



As for where it’s all headed, the app layer is tipped to continue growing — the DeFi/Finance sector could see YoY growth of over 50% from here (asset prices willing), with onchain fees exceeding $32 billion next year (+63% YoY).



And what would a crypto newsletter be without bullish predictions? Here’s five about revenues from 1kx:&nbsp;



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Tokenized RWAs will generate $100 million fees (5x YoY):</li>



<li>DePIN protocols will rake in more than $450 million, sustaining triple-digit growth.</li>



<li>Wallets will grow slightly faster than DeFi (50%).</li>



<li>Consumer apps will see roughly a 70% YoY increase in fees.</li>



<li>Middleware will grow by 50% with many protocols about to start or boost monetization (e.g. WalletConnect).</li>
</ul>



TL;DR: We like the apps.



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</ul>

Empire Newsletter

Value distribution to token holders returns to all-time high: 1kx report

Marc Arjoon

Boccaccio

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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Happy Wednesday. Equities stayed strong, while crypto cooled slightly after recent rallies ahead of key inflation data. Elsewhere, Western Union unveiled its stablecoin push and its new US Dollar Payment Token (USDPT) on Solana.



MegaETH’s public sale auction ends tomorrow, and we think it’s probably one of the best opportunities this year, if you are able to get any allocation above the minimum.



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



Global markets diverged sharply as traditional risk assets held firm while crypto sectors saw a broad selloff. The Nasdaq 100 (+0.8%) and S&amp;P 500 (+0.3%) extended their recent resilience, supported by strong tech earnings and cooling Treasury yields. Gold (-0.8%) and BTC (-1.0%) both slipped, signaling modest risk rotation rather than outright fear or a mild “risk-off” tilt within digital assets, even as equities stayed buoyant.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="830" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109623" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-150.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Crypto sectors painted a sea of red. Gaming (-4.5%) led declines, followed by Meme (-3.3%), L2 (-3.2%), and L1 (-3.2%), a notable reversal in higher-beta categories that had outperformed earlier in the month. Ethereum and Solana ecosystems (both -2.7%) also lagged, as network activity slowed and profit-taking intensified post-recent rallies. The one bright spot was AI (+3.5%), which bucked the trend amid renewed enthusiasm for decentralized compute narratives and broader tech strength.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="859" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109624" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-151.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The day’s weakness in crypto appears sentiment-driven, coinciding with macro caution ahead of upcoming US inflation data and continued ambiguity over ETF inflows. Onchain volumes have softened, suggesting traders are waiting for fresh catalysts before reengaging risk.



Volatility remains contained, a sign that the pullback may be more of a rotation than a liquidation. All eyes now turn to macro prints later this week (unemployment rate, wage growth, Q3 GDP growth, ISM and more) which could determine whether the next move in crypto is another correction or a renewed push higher.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Market Update</h2>



Western Union’s (WU) Q3 2025 financials outlined an explicit “Stablecoins in Remittances” initiative focused on four verticals: treasury optimization, crypto-fiat on- off- ramps, expanded banking reach and direct customer access. That’s corporate speak for “we’re building a stablecoin bridge.” After eight straight quarters of digital revenue growth and double-digit transaction expansion, the firm is now positioning itself as a compliant layer between regulated banking rails and permissionless stablecoin liquidity.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1405" height="595" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109622" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=1405 1405w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-149.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1405px) 100vw, 1405px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://s21.q4cdn.com/100551446/files/doc_financials/2025/q3/3Q25-Presentation-FINAL.pdf">Western Union</a></figcaption></figure>



The strategy aligns with what’s already happening onchain: USDT and USDC volumes through emerging market exchanges have doubled YTD, while USDC remittance corridors (like Philippines and Brazil) are seeing faster settlement speeds and lower costs than traditional wires. Western Union’s “digital-first” expansion into Latin America, via Argentina and Brazil wallets, makes stablecoin integration a natural next step. This news pushed the stock higher, and WU is up (+16.7%) since.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="940" height="624" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109621" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=940 940w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=387 387w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=393 393w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=330 330w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-148.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px" /></figure>



For Western Union, this is a welcome sign from investors after a torrid year. For crypto markets, this marks a pivotal macro signal. Stablecoin adoption is crossing from DeFi yield-chasing into regulated payments infrastructure. As Tether’s dominance rises (now ~60% of supply), expect compliance-focused issuers like Circle to lean heavily into B2B remittance partnerships, especially as global fintechs scramble to match Western Union’s move. Moreover, yesterday it announced its plan to launch US Dollar Payment Token (USDPT), its new stablecoin and an “innovative Digital Asset Network” designed to bridge the digital and fiat worlds (built on Solana and issued by Anchorage Digital Bank). Watch for Western Union’s 2025 Investor Day (Nov. 6), for any more moves that could set off a new wave of “TradFi stablecoin” trade setups.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">MegaETH public sale</h2>



The MegaETH public sale concludes tomorrow after running for 72 hours as an English auction that began on Oct. 27 at 9 a.m. ET. Unlike traditional token sales, this English auction format allows the market to determine the fair price through competitive bidding. The system works by establishing a clearing price — the lowest price point where total bids can fill the entire 500 million token allocation. All successful bidders pay this same clearing price regardless of their individual bid amounts, meaning someone who bids at the maximum $0.0999 per token would still only pay the final clearing price if it settles lower. Bidders who fall below the clearing price receive full refunds, while those at or above it secure allocations. The auction format eliminates gas wars and first-come-first-served advantages, creating a more equitable distribution mechanism.



The sale offers 500 million MEGA tokens, representing 5% of the total 10 billion token supply, conducted entirely on Ethereum mainnet using USDT as the payment method. The auction operates within a price range from $0.0001 to $0.0999 per token, with the starting price set at $0.0001 representing a $1 million fully diluted valuation and the ceiling price of $0.0999 representing a $999 million FDV. Individual participants can bid between $2,650 minimum and $186,282 maximum, with a tick size of $0.0001 for bid increments. The structure includes a mandatory one-year lock-up period for US accredited investors who receive a 10% discount, while non-US participants can optionally choose the same lock-up terms for the discount benefit. Following the auction&#8217;s conclusion tomorrow, the allocation calculation period runs from Oct. 30 to Nov. 5, with withdrawals and refunds available from Nov. 5-19, and final allocation and reallocation occurring from Nov. 19-Nov. 21.



As expected, the MegaETH public sale has been tremendously successful so far, with a 14x oversubscription as of today. This number will likely only increase as we head into the final day, with the majority of deposits/bids coming in in the last few hours.&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">Wow, someone made a free money machine and attracted a lot of people who wanted free money. That’s crazy Hyperliquid <a href="https://t.co/s8X84N6Pjy">pic.twitter.com/s8X84N6Pjy</a>&mdash; Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xSisyphus/status/1983458476023251408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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After all, if someone makes a free money machine, the only logical action is to deposit as much as possible. Currently MegaETH trades on pre-markets (on Hyperliquid, woohoo!) at a 4.5 billion FDV valuation, giving depositors a 4.5x on any deposit they make. The main issue is that it’s likely that any depositor can at most hit a 4.5x on the minimum bid amount: $2,650 USD. The MegaETH team has given public information on what allows bidders to receive more allocation, mostly revolving around past wallet interactions, social media presence, as well as some of the new “social credit” platforms like Ethos.



Much like any scenario where there is a free money machine involved, we’ve seen a plethora of Sybil activity. If the minimum bid is $2,650 USD, and you have 450 Echo/Sonar accounts you can make a lot more money, with a higher chance of making money than if you are a good, astute cryptocurrency enjoyer with the right social and DeFi/onchain credentials.



We’ve discussed MegaETH on the podcast plenty of times, generally leaning towards bullishness for the chain. The team have a unique approach to ecosystem building (the MegaMafia is now in cohort 2, with the third on the way), and are focusing on unique applications — not Uniswap, Aave, Morpho or Compound forks (which seem to dominate the majority of other chains).&nbsp;



Kunal Goel, previously at Messari, now at LayerZero, <a href="https://x.com/kunalgoel/status/1983304334835077425">released a valuation model yesterday</a>, with his base case for MegaETH sitting at $14 billion USD. Although some of his assumptions are a bit brave (assuming blocks are always filled because of the existence of MEV/arbitrage bots), it does highlight that the MegaETH team has been thinking more about revenue and value accrual than other L2s have historically.&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">MegaETH&#39;s scale is so impressive that any time you run the numbers, all intuitive projections get blown out. While the market is pricing it as yet another L2, my model finds the opportunity is actually much MUCH larger. I&#39;ve modeled out four scenarios: 🐂 BULLISH &#8211; MegaETH… <a href="https://t.co/uM4DtommkU">pic.twitter.com/uM4DtommkU</a>&mdash; Kunal G (@kunalgoel) <a href="https://twitter.com/kunalgoel/status/1983304334835077425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



No matter your opinion on MegaETH’s valuation, we’ve had two key takeaways on our end these past few months:



A lot of significant returns now come from private public markets (Echo, Sonar etc.), predeposits etc. What was 2021’s whitelists and discord roles (and subsequent Sybilling, buying and selling of whitelists and discord roles) has now evolved into Sonar and Echo (and subsequent Sybilling, buying and selling of KYC’d Sonar and Echo accounts).



There are now chains which are explicit about their focus on revenue and those focused on another narrative (e.g. decentralization). Which offers better returns, still unknown (e.g. XRP vs. Hyperliquid or ETH vs. SOL).



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Stablecoins step into the remittance game

Macauley Peterson

Bitcoin yield hunters have a new vault option in the form of Acre, with an estimated initial APY of about 14%, auto-compounding in tBTC.&nbsp;



Hitting those early return targets will depend heavily on DeFi incentives and come with a built-in, two-week redemption window.



The goal is to abstract away the complexity of generating yield on bitcoin, according to Acre CEO Laura Wallendal. 



“Our first strategy was curated by Re7 Labs and put forth to the Acre Security Council,” Wallendal told Blockworks, describing a BTC-in/BTC-out wrapper that bridges deposits to Threshold Networks’ tBTC on Ethereum and then deploys capital into onchain venues.



For now, 100% of the yield will be generated using tBTC on Ethereum, through activities such as lending, liquidity provisioning in DeFi, and staking, though a portion of assets may be bridged to other networks (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/starknet-making-btc-productive">such as Starknet</a>) to participate in specific campaigns.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109617" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-147.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/1421">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







So, for example, tBTC will be supplied as collateral to borrow stablecoins, which are then deployed to Re7’s Morpho vaults.



All yield from — both native and token incentives — flows back into the vault’s BTC-denominated headline rate.



“The majority of that yield is coming in other tokens, across different chains and protocols…those need to be sold for tBTC,” Wallendal said.



Withdrawals requests will be honored on a two-week redemption timeline, to allow risk curators to actively manage the unwinding of DeFi positions responsibly and discourage rapid in-and-out behavior during volatility.&nbsp;



Acre is capping capacity at first and planning to roll out multiple curator-managed vaults, with an eye to keep returns up even as supplied bitcoin rises. The first vault’s initial cap was 5 BTC, shortly being raised to 50 BTC. The longer-term capacity target for the Re7 strategy is “about 200 to 300 million,” Wallendal said.



Midas provides an algorithmic infrastructure and 24/7 portfolio monitoring. Wallendal added that a “kill switch” can pull funds from strategies back to a dispatcher contract, maintained by a 3-of-9 multisig, for user-only redemption in the event of a serious issue.



14% may sound like a lot, but Wallendal framed Acre’s goal as sustainable, risk-weighted returns rather than chasing the richest emissions. “We’re not chasing the most degen [yields],” and said a longer-term target is “above 5% APY overall.”



That would put it in line with competing options for bitcoin yield — a crowded and fast-shifting field. Bitcoin staking via Babylon <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/babylon-protocol?denomination=BTC">has stalled</a> and like many venues pays in non-BTC incentives alongside a newer risk surface. Bitcoin L2 ecosystems like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stacks-sbtc-double-dipping">Stacks</a> (via sBTC), <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hemi-labs-fundraise-crossover-network">Hemi</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/botanix-launches-stbtc">Botanix</a> provide alternatives, each with their own bridging solutions. In principle, Acre could deploy on all of these chains, alongside strategies such as providing liquidity to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/lightning-network">Lightning Network</a>.



In any case, the end user deposits assets directly from a Bitcoin wallet via the L1, and withdraws back to Bitcoin.



On oversight, Acre leans on a nine-member Security Council that sets a deployment policy and vets curators and strategies.



The members of the council are not disclosed, but “there are nine independent members,” Wallendal said, and “only one from the Acre team.” The risk curators do not sit on the council, she added, in a nod to limit conflicts of interest.



Acre chose tBTC from <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/t">Threshold Network</a> given its solid track record, decentralization and connections to the founding team.



The vault competes largely with centralized exchange-based “earn” products, which are easy to use but introduce counterparty risk and often deliver only modest BTC yields unless paired with structured products. Acre’s differentiation is the promise of onchain transparency, balanced against bridge, smart-contract and incentive-dependence risks.



Wallendal knows the crypto-native audience will scrutinize those trade-offs. “We’re looking for sustainability and risk-weighted returns,” she said. “I’m bullish that people are going to like the experience,” even if risk-averse holders need time to get comfortable.



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Acre’s 14% bitcoin yield leans on Ethereum DeFi

Katherine Ross

Accountable raised $7.5 million in a round led by Pantera Capital, Blockworks has exclusively learned.&nbsp;



The round also saw participation from OKX Ventures, Onigiri Capital and KPK.&nbsp;



Accountable, which operates in the undercollateralized crypto credit space, raised $2.3 million at the end of 2024 and seeks to use the new capital to expand its team. Currently, there are 18 employees, but CEO Wojtek Pawlowski hopes to expand several teams, including business development.&nbsp;



He added that now was the right time to seek more funding because the business is “really going [in] a good direction.”



But the raise is about more than just fresh capital.&nbsp;



“We curated the whole list of investors as very much strategic partners that can take this product and adoption to the next level, rather than simply looking for pure cash,” Pawlowski told Blockworks. “We see tremendous demand from institutional counterparties, and everybody&#8217;s looking at it with the hope that if this plays out, then we&#8217;ll have much healthier fundamentals of this industry. And we just need to deliver.”



For Pantera, Accountable offers a “missing layer” from the last time that crypto saw credit gain popularity.&nbsp;



“Every major failure in crypto finance from Celsius to FTX shared one flaw: no way to verify solvency in real time. Recent market turbulence underscored the same point. Proof-of-reserves is a strong start but institutions need full visibility into both assets and liabilities,” said Nihal Maunder, partner at Pantera Capital.&nbsp;



“Less than two years in, it’s already verifying over a billion dollars in assets. We believe it will become the standard that institutions adopt as naturally as HTTPS became standard for the internet.”



In his last conversation with Blockworks, Pawlowski noted that his firm aims to be “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/accountable-wants-to-be-the-new-celsius">the new Celsius</a>.” But, he clarified, Accountable is seeking to build something “better” than the products offered in 2021 and 2022.&nbsp;



“We&#8217;re materializing the vision exactly the same as…the last time we spoke, and we are at the stage of now the execution layer with those yield options we build on our platform with this underlying trust, but then we still plan to pack them as a product that neobanks, exchanges and so on can use internally and pass it to their users,” he noted.&nbsp;



Accountable launched its testnet a few months ago and aims to launch its “full platform with very tier one financial institutions,” Pawlowski said. Its mainnet, he added, is set for a mid-November launch.



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crypto hiring

Pantera leads $7.5M round for Accountable: Exclusive

Ben Strack

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



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After a decade of fund issuers trying to offer US bitcoin ETFs, those launches in January 2024 were a huge deal. Ether ETFs then hit US markets six months later.&nbsp; Today marks yet another date to remember, with the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) going live on the New York Stock Exchange.



“This is one of the big assets; it’s on the Mount Rushmore of crypto,” Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan told me. “We don’t have that many of these launches, so this is a really exciting moment.”



Solana’s market cap is roughly $110 billion — behind only BTC ($2.3 trillion), ETH ($495 billion), tether ($183 billion), XRP ($158 billion) and BNB ($156 billion).



Before we get into the demand for a US solana ETF, let’s start with launch timing — as Bitwise got to market ahead of competitors. Hougan admitted to me that a legal mind — like that of Multicoin Capital general counsel Greg Xethalis — could perhaps more eloquently explain what went down:



<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">OK, how did we go from Gov Shutdown (probably) means no ETFs to ETFs coming tomorrow? A break it down thread. First, Bitwise now has all five green check marks ✅ below. <a href="https://t.co/GPBuEWhJze">https://t.co/GPBuEWhJze</a>&mdash; Greg Xethalis (@xethalis) <a href="https://twitter.com/xethalis/status/1982936802467225837?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The Bitwise <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2045872/000121390025097494/ea0260657-s1a5_bitwise.htm">S-1</a> filed on Oct. 8 included the necessary language that Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart pointed out (below). That gave BSOL a path to launch 20 days later.&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: YES&#8230; We expect Solana, Litecoin and HBAR to get their first pure spot ETFs here in the US this week as has been reported. But how did this happen? Almost certainly due to language in a guidance letter from the SEC&#39;s division of corporate finance which came in the form of… <a href="https://t.co/WdswvuHh2n">pic.twitter.com/WdswvuHh2n</a>&mdash; James Seyffart (@JSeyff) <a href="https://twitter.com/JSeyff/status/1982928854411878821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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“As an issuer, you can’t let the government being dysfunctional halt your business plans; we don’t know when the shutdown will be over,” Hougan said. “These filings were complete, they were ready and so under the rules set up in the [Investment Company Act of 1940] they sort of marched to market if you don’t have that delaying amendment.”



Bitwise intends to stake 100% of the Fund’s SOL holdings — aiming to maximize exposure to average staking rewards around 7%. BSOL looks to meet redemptions on a T+2 basis given a typical “cooldown” period — to unstake SOL — of 48 hours or less. During extraordinary circumstances, Page 90 of the fund’s S-1 describes what would happen:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large wp-duotone-dark-grayscale"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="282" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109598" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-144.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



With that out of the way, what sort of demand will we even see for SOL ETFs?



Hougan himself said at DAS London earlier this month that many institutional investors driving this bull market <a href="https://x.com/strack_ben/status/1977725150456909840">“can’t pronounce solana.”</a> BlackRock’s Matt Kunke told me on stage at the same event that the world’s largest asset manager was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-crypto-etf-focus">holding off on pursuing a SOL ETF</a> given many institutions still need education on BTC and ETH.&nbsp;



What a bunch of institutions/financial advisers do want to invest in, though, is stablecoin and tokenization growth, Hougan argued. It’s hard to find people bearish about the potential of those segments. Stablecoin market cap is nearing $300 billion, while the tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) market stands at roughly $35 billion.   



While ETH is the dominant player here, Solana has a material and growing share. Solana Policy Institute president Kristin Smith labeled the blockchain as “critical financial infrastructure for the future of the digital economy.”



This chart from <a href="http://rwa.xyz">RWA.xyz</a> chart shows the value of stablecoins/tokenized RWAs on each chain:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="742" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109599" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-145.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



 “It’s hard to know over the next five years who will win,” Hougan said. “So I think from the traditional audience, they’re going to want to own both ETH and solana.”



US bitcoin ETFs had unprecedented success out of the gate. ETH products initially saw underwhelming interest — though flows have picked up in recent months, Blockworks Research <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/crypto-etfs">data</a> shows:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1039" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109597" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=396 396w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=402 402w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=337 337w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-143.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Narrative and timing are critical for ETF launches to be successful. BSOL comes to market when this <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/das-day-2-tokenization">stablecoin/tokenization theme</a> is more defined. ETH ETFs didn’t have that tailwind back in July 2024.



Thus, Hougan said of solana products: “Adjusted for size, I think it may be the most successful ETP launch of all time.”



Not necessarily anywhere near the $38 billion or so of net inflows <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/one-year-since-bitcoin-etf-approval">bitcoin ETFs saw in their first year</a>, he clarified — calling that an “absurd comparison.” But flows that represent a larger percentage of the much smaller SOL market cap.&nbsp;



While we focused on SOL today, it’s worth noting that Canary Capital’s hedera (HBAR) and litecoin (LTC) ETFs also went live today on the Nasdaq. The government will likely need to reopen before we get <a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1980775078922166338">the full flood of crypto ETF launches</a> the market ultimately expects. When that happens is anyone’s guess.



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Bitwise

Inside Bitwise’s milestone solana ETF launch

SharpLink Gaming plans to deploy $200 million worth of ether onto Linea, ConsenSys’ zkEVM Layer 2, in a multi-year program that pairs ether.fi staking with EigenCloud restaking rewards and ecosystem incentives.



The public company frames the move as a way to turn an <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sharplink-adds-177m-eth">already large ETH treasury</a> into productive, onchain capital while keeping institutional controls under <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/anchorage-digital">Anchorage Digital</a> custody.



Both Linea and Ether.fi are offering meaningful incentives, according to Ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze.



“SharpLink’s $200 million is just a starting point — the intention is to scale that up,” Silagadze told Blockworks.



Mechanically, staking occurs on <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> mainnet, with a receipt token bridged to Linea for DeFi activities, Silagadze explained.



“Restaking happens in the background — it doesn’t matter where the token sits,” he said, noting that Ether.fi has been available on Linea for over a year.



Anchorage is integrating with ether.fi so qualified-custody clients like Sharplink can mint and allocate directly from custody, according to a person familiar with the plans.



A SharpLink spokesperson declined to offer details on the net yields, other than to say the plan is “designed to generate risk-adjusted yields well above the native ETH staking rate.”



Regarding related-party considerations tied to ConsenSys founder and SharpLink chairman Joseph Lubin, the spokesperson said, “SharpLink manages all corporate governance matters with the rigor and transparency expected of a Nasdaq-listed company.”



The deployment is similar to <a href="http://ether.fi">Ether.fi’s previous partnership with ETHZilla</a>, which saw $100 million in ether deployed into its staking infrastructure.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">ETHZilla sheds some ETH</h2>



The Sharplink announcement comes the same day as social media is atwitter over a different treasury move: ETHZilla said it sold roughly $40 million of ETH to repurchase shares trading below measured NAV after an investor’s open letter urged buybacks.



<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">6/ Yesterday I urged <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24ETHZ&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$ETHZ</a> to start selling part of their Ethereum to buy back shares while they trade at a discount to mNAV. They replied by saying they have already started and bought back 600.000 shares at $20/share. This alone increased NAV by $0.26/share already.&mdash; Capybara Stocks (@capybaraReborn) <a href="https://twitter.com/capybaraReborn/status/1983221348534047214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Silagadze called that decision “about signaling,” aimed to close a steep discount rather than a retreat from DeFi and said ether.fi has seen “no withdrawals” tied to the buyback.



Read against the broader digital-asset-treasury (DAT) landscape, SharpLink’s program underscores two diverging playbooks this cycle: sell ETH to close a market discount, or keep ETH productive onchain to compound staking, restaking and partner incentives. SharpLink is explicitly choosing the latter — and doing so on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/linea-previews-eth-first-roadmap">a specific L2 with a growing institutional pitch</a>.



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitmine-adds-200k-eth">ETH DAT King Kong</a> — BitMine Immersion (BTMR) — meanwhile, has yet to take steps into onchain yield.



Risk management sits at the heart of whether more public treasuries follow. On the protocol side, the hazards span L2 bridge and sequencer assumptions, smart-contract vulnerabilities, and the slashing conditions of the specific <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eigenlayer">EigenCloud</a> AVSs SharpLink elects to back.



Like the ETHZilla deal before it, Silagadze said, AVS selection and risk curation sit within Ether.fi’s remit.



The Sharplink spokesperson confirmed “a collaborative partnership with Etherfi” and added, “we pre-review AVS terms and define clear de-risk triggers.”



A separate source of confusion for equity markets is how to read “mNAV” — the ratio investors use to judge whether a DAT trades above or below its underlying portfolio value.



There are four ways to track mNAV, said Blockworks Research’s Dan Smith, “and the ‘best’ depends on the company.” For instance, prefunded warrants can make outstanding mNAV diverge from fully diluted, while cash-heavy balance sheets argue for enterprise value-based measures.



Smith pointed to ETHZilla selling ETH when outstanding mNAV was below 1 but fully diluted was above 1 — suggesting it manages to the outstanding figure. By contrast, BitMine has sold stock even while its outstanding mNAV was less than 1, implying it makes its determination based on the fully diluted metric, Smith said.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109603" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-146.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/3762">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







For now, SharpLink’s move jives with an approach of putting ether to productive use, staking and restaking at institutional scale, with token incentives sweetening initial economics.&nbsp;



Whether that approach becomes the default for public ETH treasuries will hinge on what matters most to boards and investors: closing today’s market discount, or compounding tomorrow’s onchain yield to maximize ether.



Updated 10/28/25 at 3:30 pm ET to reflect comments from SharpLink.



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ConsenSys

Sharplink takes its ETH onchain, as ETHZilla trims its stash

Kate Irwin

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



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How will we find new AI agents to use in the near future? What could a decentralized, more open AI ecosystem look like? And how will AI agents make payments for us?



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-foundation-team-ai-integration">ERC-8004</a>, a new Ethereum technical standard first unveiled <a href="https://medium.com/survival-tech/the-story-behind-erc-8004-next-steps-ec46c18d1879">this summer</a>, aims to be an answer to all that. The <a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8004">standard</a> is being peer-reviewed, and its smart contracts were launched on the Ethereum testnet this month. MetaMask AI Lead Marco de Rossi, Ethereum Foundation AI lead Davide Crapis, Google engineer Jordan Ellis, and Coinbase Developer Platform engineering lead Erik Reppel co-created the protocol, which also incorporates feedback and contributions from a slew of other crypto companies and projects.



<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">LIVE NOW: AI Agents can discover and trust each other without a central intermediary. This lays the foundation for open agent economies. ERC-8004 v1, co-authored with <a href="https://twitter.com/DavideCrapis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DavideCrapis</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ethereumfndn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Ethereumfndn</a>), <a href="https://twitter.com/jordan0ellis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jordan0Ellis</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/Google?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Google</a>) and &#8211; welcome Erik! &#8211; <a href="https://twitter.com/programmer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@programmer</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/coinbase?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Coinbase</a>) is now… <a href="https://t.co/purYaxWk1P">pic.twitter.com/purYaxWk1P</a>&mdash; Marco De Rossi (@marco_derossi) <a href="https://twitter.com/marco_derossi/status/1976257886390002116?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



ERC-8004 lets builders and users mint AI agents like they’re NFTs and delegate them using those ERC-721 rails. It makes AI agents discoverable, and can hold agent reputation scores onchain. The AI agents can use <a href="https://docs.cdp.coinbase.com/x402/welcome">x402</a>, a new open payment protocol developed by Coinbase.&nbsp;



Agent developers could ultimately charge for access to their tools and agents, who could be deployed for a range of use cases around user productivity, trading, payments or even reshape consumers’ <a href="https://clam.capital/blogs/future-of-media-is-a-bank">subscription diets</a>. At some point, perhaps AI agents could even hire each other to complete different tasks, like a more open version of what Google has developed with <a href="https://developers.googleblog.com/en/a2a-a-new-era-of-agent-interoperability/">A2A</a>.



“Maybe it’s early to think about the business model fully, even if x402 is clearly the best monetization source for AI agents, but we should focus a lot on use cases and not just on the infra,” De Rossi told me in an interview.



<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">x402 will unlock pay-per-use models that save users real money Many of us today pay $100+/month across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok &#8211; rarely hitting limits Future: Imagine paying only $20 for what you actually use Add streaming, articles, content sampling platforms, and the…&mdash; Jake Hiew (@jakehiew) <a href="https://twitter.com/jakehiew/status/1983099386038190152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The agents themselves aren’t being stored on Ethereum because, as De Rossi explained, running AI agents in such a way is very complicated and would require “a lot of overhead.”&nbsp;



So it’s not going to be that decentralized. But there’s definitely a middle path that 8004 unlocks for developers between a completely closed ecosystem and something completely open and decentralized.&nbsp;



In this vision, users or companies host their own AI agents on their own devices or servers. Then, they use the blockchain, via 8004, as an open app store of sorts to share their models with others and receive ratings and feedback.&nbsp;



For this to have broad consumer appeal, AI agent explorers of sorts — pretty frontends with checkout integrations — would have to be built for humans. De Rossi said that roughly half a dozen teams in crypto are already working on making something to this effect a reality.



“The current situation is that you see stuff on the [block] explorer which is totally unusable,” he said.&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">Everyone’s hyped about x402 right now. Most haven’t realized it’s just one piece of something way bigger. The real shift that will define Crypto × AI is Agentic Commerce. AI agents autonomously trading, negotiating, and executing with minimal human input.<a href="https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@a16zcrypto</a>’s state… <a href="https://t.co/NTgNsMjjaR">pic.twitter.com/NTgNsMjjaR</a>&mdash; Soubhik Deb (@soubhik_deb) <a href="https://twitter.com/soubhik_deb/status/1982823993645445359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Building something that anyone can use can be a difficult line to walk, though, if various platforms decide to restrict the visibility of certain types of AI agents.



But maybe this will happen in a more organic way if the crypto community is able to, collectively, give agents feedback and therefore shape their reputations. Agents with better reputations could get more visibility, while questionable agents with lower scores fade into the background (but remain accessible).&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="653" height="611" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109580" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png?w=653 653w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png?w=275 275w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png?w=279 279w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png?w=234 234w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-141.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px" /></figure>



“The bad outcome is we have many different silos, like app stores, [and] that’s it,” De Rossi said of the future of AI agent discoverability. “That’s just worse for consumers.”&nbsp;



“If we want to make this happen in an interoperable way, there are two possibilities, probably. The US government,” De Rossi said with a laugh, “or the infrastructure owned by nobody, which is the blockchain.”



Pushing some vague ideals of whatever “Web3” is supposed to be isn’t going to spur blockchain adoption in the AI industry, De Rossi argued.



“Who cares? The point is, how can we have an infra that is neutral, and this is understandable to everybody. It’s public infrastructure.”



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