Sperax focuses on building DeFi products with access across L1 and L2 blockchains. With the Sperax token (SPA) at its core, Sperax has built the first Auto-Yield stablecoin, USDs.

Sperax

Kate Irwin

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



Some early <a href="https://x.com/lizziebutt_poo/status/1932910864866422878">renderings</a> and <a href="https://x.com/Moku_HQ/status/1930460853259702520">art</a> of the game’s environment suggests it may have vertical battler elements in the vein of MapleStory or Super Smash Bros.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Almost 42% of all Mokis are locked in for Grand Arena <a href="https://t.co/LATbaHQaE1">https://t.co/LATbaHQaE1</a> <a href="https://t.co/0YBl2b6o9D">pic.twitter.com/0YBl2b6o9D</a>&mdash; Bruce✨ (@BruceMoku) <a href="https://twitter.com/BruceMoku/status/1933727367413055573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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



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



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



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



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



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The Drop newsletter

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

Donovan Choy

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



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You can finally trade traditional stocks on a blockchain!



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



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



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



But wait…there are nuances.



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



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



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



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



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



But tokenized stocks trade 24/7.



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



What happens to the peg when the trading day closes?



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Nice little <a href="https://twitter.com/xStocksFi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@xStocksFi</a> easter egg added to the Kamino Swap UI Whenever an xStock is selected, you’ll see a brief explainer covering the xStocks basics: ✅ 1:1 Backing ✅ Dividends distribution via rebasing ✅ Zero fees swaps via Kamino <a href="https://t.co/LlpxDOOKCS">pic.twitter.com/LlpxDOOKCS</a>&mdash; Kamino (@KaminoFinance) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaminoFinance/status/1940152382806991052?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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



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



We’ll have to wait and see.



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0xResearch Newsletter

The good and bad of tokenized stocks

David Canellis

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



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



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



All three innovations are echoes of the telegraph.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Bitcoin

What the Sony Walkman and Bitcoin have in common

Katherine Ross

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Empire Newsletter

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

Byron Gilliam

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



We might soon learn if the same applies in crypto.



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



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



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



It might, however, have the best distribution.



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



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



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



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



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



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



But the standard laws of counting might not.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



But what if it’s distribution that really matters?



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



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



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



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



But crypto is a business now.



And distribution might make Robinhood its big winner.



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The Breakdown Newsletter

The new crypto debate: Monolithic distribution vs. modular tech

Jack Kubinec

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



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



Nick Manannikov just graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. Sitting in a restaurant a stone’s throw from his new alma mater, Manannikov is somewhat surprised by this fact.



“Somehow” he graduated, Manannikov told me, but for most of the past year, the long-haired teen has been building a business running Solana RPCs and validators. It involved lots of work calls and business during the school week and, this being crypto, a number of flights to conferences, including two month-long stints at Salt Lake City’s mtnDAO.



But while Manannikov may not be remembered much for his presence in the classroom, he is leaving his high school something it didn’t have before — a dedicated Solana validator.



Manannikov’s crypto company Shark Labs helped BTHS’ crypto club launch the validator, which is meant to give students “hands-on experience with running the nodes.” The high school node <a href="https://solanabeach.io/validator/Ay5AcULBRJznGEEaGm2mWziRbefETRjdfZ1kwsoXS9u">oversees</a> roughly 15,000 staked SOL.



Manannikov came to the US as a political refugee right before high school. His family was forced to flee Russia on two days’ notice after his father refused business demands made by figures with government connections, Manannikov told me.&nbsp;



After moving to the US, Manannikov combined an interest in coding with a flair for making money. He and a couple friends ran bots on the Kick streaming platform to claim giveaways the app was running to boost usage. He also got into crypto, first through NFTs and later through memecoins.



After turning a hefty profit sniping a Solana NFT collection called “Deez Nuts,” Manannikov decided to parlay his earnings into launching an RPC business, which became known as Shark Node. The startup has been successful enough that Manannikov decided to pursue it full time in lieu of college. He shares an office space on Broadway, and the business is profitable, Manannikov told me.



In the fall, Shark Labs decided to start running Solana validators. To get the new business line off the ground, the company would need to get into the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-foundation-pruning-validators-delegation">Solana Foundation Delegation Program</a>, a grant-like program for smaller validators. They narrowly missed meeting with a Solana Foundation connection at <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-developers-are-reaping-vc-rewards">Breakpoint</a>, but Manannikov saw Solana Foundation executive director Dan Albert would be attending <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-boston">Solana Boston</a>.



“​​I was like, shit, I guess I got a hop in a bus, go there tomorrow, try to confront him in real life and be like…‘Answer our Telegram messages, please,’” Manannikov said.



Shark Labs got into the delegation program, and it has now gotten BTHS’ validator a delegation as well. Its validator-as-a-service model won’t stop in Brooklyn, either: Manannikov just <a href="https://x.com/ghostofharvard/status/1940054139192721618">announced</a> his company is partnering with 20 universities to launch dedicated Solana validators. These validators will charge no commission fees.&nbsp;



There are “no limits” in crypto, Manannikov told me. “If you&#8217;re good at what you do and you can actually execute on things, no one cares what your background is.”



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education

Brooklyn teen deploys Solana node for his high school

Casey Wagner

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



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Most trade deals are apparently still in limbo, but the 90-day pause on the majority of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/tariffs">tariffs</a> is expiring soon. July 9, to be exact. 



Here’s what we know about where we stand and how tariffs continue to impact markets and monetary policy.&nbsp;



In a Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6375019938112">interview</a> recorded Friday and released Sunday, Trump said that while he doesn&#8217;t intend on extending the pause, he “could.”&nbsp;



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-30/eu-to-accept-trump-s-universal-tariff-but-seeks-key-exemptions">Bloomberg</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/eu-wants-upfront-relief-key-sectors-any-us-trade-deal-sources-say-2025-07-01/">Reuters</a>, both citing sources familiar, reported this morning that the European Union is willing to accept a trade agreement with the US (pending a few adjustments). The European Commission has agreed to a 10% tariff on several industries but asked for lower levies on a few sectors: pharmaceuticals, alcohol, semiconductors and commercial aircrafts, per Bloomberg.&nbsp;



A Canada-US deal is looking more promising after the former said it would abandon a proposed digital services tax (Trump last week called that a “direct and blatant attack” on the US). White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox yesterday that trade talks would resume “immediately.” Reuters reported that the US and Canada plan to have a deal penned by July 21.&nbsp;



China and the US entered a separate agreement in June to pause certain levies until Aug. 9, so next week’s deadline does not apply to Chinese imports.&nbsp;



While much of Washington is busy at the negotiating table, Fed Chair Jerome Powell spent Tuesday morning speaking at the European Central Bank forum in Portugal. The ECB’s Christine Lagarde said she’s very satisfied that the region’s inflation has reached its 2% target.&nbsp;



“I’m not saying mission accomplished, but I am saying target reached,” she said — adding that though there’s increased uncertainty ahead, the central bank is well equipped for the “tormented waters.”&nbsp;



If Powell, who spoke on a panel with Lagarde, is jealous of the EU hitting 2% inflation, he didn’t show it.&nbsp;



The US economy is “healthy overall,” Powell said. “If you ignore the tariffs for a second, inflation is behaving pretty much exactly as we had expected and hoped that it would.”&nbsp;



Speaking of tariffs, the moderator got a chance to ask what we’ve all been wondering: What would the Fed have done if there hadn’t been a “Liberation Day?”&nbsp;



Powell’s response was a bit guarded (did you expect anything different?), but was still fairly interesting. His full response (lightly edited for clarity) is below:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
Moderator: Would the Fed have cut more by now if it weren&#8217;t for the tariffs?



Powell: I think that&#8217;s right. In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs. Essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs. So we didn&#8217;t overreact. In fact, we didn&#8217;t react at all. We&#8217;re simply taking some time.
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>



Trump has continued to ask Powell <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-criticizes-fed-chair-powell">to cut rates</a> and now, in the final months of his term, Powell is biting back.&nbsp;



Keep an eye on your inbox for tariff deals and inflation rate updates in the coming days.



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Donald Trump

Tariff deadline approaches as Powell says trade policies delayed rate cut

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



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During Robinhood’s big <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-l2-staking-us">crypto announcements</a> in France this week, including an Arbitrum L2 chain of its own, the consumer trading app also <a href="https://www.ogcnice.com/en/article/128901/ogc-nice-and-robinhood-announce-multi-year-front-of-shirt-partnership.html">unveiled</a> a multiyear sponsorship with French soccer team OGC Nice that kicks off in the 2025/2026 season.&nbsp;



The Robinhood logo will appear across the front of team shirts, plus training and warm-up kits. Expect branded content and digital collabs, as well.&nbsp;



Robinhood will also be part of a dedicated web series with OGC Nice about financial accessibility, according to a message from a spokesperson.



“France is fast cementing its position as a global fintech hub — and it plays an important role in our international footprint,” said Robinhood Crypto SVP and GM Johann Kerbrat in a statement.&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">L&#39;OGC Nice et <a href="https://twitter.com/RobinhoodApp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RobinhoodApp</a> annoncent un partenariat pluriannuel de sponsoring pour la face avant du maillot ⤵︎&mdash; OGC Nice (@ogcnice) <a href="https://twitter.com/ogcnice/status/1939937014314607057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“This partnership represents a personal and meaningful moment for me as a lifelong football fan who studied and began my career in Nice, but it also demonstrates our commitment to growing our presence as Robinhood expands across the EU. It presents an opportunity to connect with a passionate fan base and introduce new audiences to a cutting-edge suite of financial products,” Kerbrat said.



Robinhood made some big announcements for EU customers this week including over 200 tokenized stocks and ETFs, plus perpetual futures. Prospective perp traders will have to fill out an application to be approved, though.



The duration and financial terms of Robinhood’s deal with the Ligue 1 soccer team haven’t been publicly disclosed.



The soccer and sports worlds more broadly aren’t strangers to crypto partnerships, of course. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fc-barcelona-nft-wallet-barca">FC Barcelona unveiled</a> an NFT avatar and crypto wallet play last month, for instance.&nbsp;



Robinhood has sponsored a few NBA teams in the past including the Washington Wizards, Memphis Grizzlies, and Miami Heat. This year, it sponsored NASCAR team 23XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But I still wouldn’t say crypto sports deals are booming — though maybe it’s unfair to compare the landscape to the frothiness of a few years ago.



The last time we really saw tons of them was when <a href="https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2022/12/13/Technology/ftx-timeline-collapse-sam-bankman-fried-cryptocurrency-sports-sponsorships/">FTX sponsored</a> TSM esports, the MLB, two stadiums, Mercedes’ F1 team, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, and others (which felt like a bit much, even at the time). Around that time in 2021, Crypto dot com reportedly paid $700 million to sponsor an LA-based stadium that’s now the Crypto dot com Arena.&nbsp;



Coinbase, arguably Robinhood’s biggest crypto competitor, has continued to sponsor NBA basketball. It also announced an esports <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-sponsor-riot-games-league-of-legends-esports">partnership with Riot Games</a> earlier this year.



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International

Robinhood sponsors French soccer team OGC Nice

Ben Strack

The SEC is set to allow an index ETF holding crypto assets beyond bitcoin and ether to start trading in the US, marking another regulatory win for issuers in the segment.



NYSE Arca <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/11/04/2024-25529/self-regulatory-organizations-nyse-arca-inc-notice-of-filing-of-proposed-rule-change-to-adopt-new'">filed</a> last year to list shares of Grayscale Investments’ Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) as an exchange-traded product. The securities regulator on Tuesday essentially <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nysearca/2025/34-103364.pdf">approved</a> that proposal.



GDLC launched as a private placement in 2018 and began publicly trading on OTC Markets the following year; it has roughly $775 million of assets under management. While 91% of the fund’s assets are allocated to bitcoin and ether, it also holds XRP, solana (SOL) and cardano (ADA).&nbsp;&nbsp;



Spot crypto ETFs have so far been limited to holding the two largest crypto assets. US spot bitcoin and ether ETFs launched in January 2024 and July 2024, respectively. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-updates-signal-regulatory-evolution">Products holding a combination of BTC and ETH</a> — issued by Hashdex and Franklin Templeton — hit the market in February.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="http://v">Crypto indexes offer ‘biggest opportunity’ as SEC decision looms: Hashdex CIO</a>



Various industry observers and executives expected this approval.&nbsp;



Grayscale ETF head David LaValle said on Nate Geraci’s Crypto Prime <a href="https://cryptoprimepodcast.com/talking-crypto-etfs-with-grayscales-david-lavalle/">podcast</a> in May that he anticipated a multi-token offering would be the next crypto ETF to launch — noting “good conversations” with the NYSE and SEC.



Bloomberg Intelligence analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas wrote in a note last month that they expected the SEC to greenlight the conversions of GDLC — as well as the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW) — to ETFs by the July 2 deadline.



BITW, which holds 10 crypto assets, also has a heavy combined weighting (nearly 90%) to BTC and ETH.&nbsp;



“Having only small allocations to alternative coins might help their conversion bids even if the SEC hasn’t individually approved each asset for an ETF,” the Bloomberg analysts previously explained.&nbsp;



Geraci, president of The ETF Store, had shared a similar view in an X post earlier this week.&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">One other thought… SEC now allows private assets in ETFs (up to 15% of holdings, though an issuer has gotten creative to exceed that). No reason to not allow 10% weighting to crypto assets besides already approved btc &amp; eth. 33 Act vs 40 Act. But still. Would be incongruent.&mdash; Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateGeraci/status/1939464284574036251?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



It does not appear the SEC has made a ruling yet on whether the Bitwise fund can convert.&nbsp;&nbsp;



While the Grayscale crypto index fund conversion has received an initial regulatory nod, the SEC will next have to deem the product’s registration statement effective before it can uplist to an ETF.&nbsp;



The regulator is also weighing planned single-asset products that would hold SOL, for example — as well as ones that would invest in XRP, ADA, litecoin (LTC), dogecoin (DOGE), polkadot (DOT) and others. The SEC has until October to rule on a number of those.



This is a developing story. 



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SEC greenlights Grayscale crypto index fund conversion to ETF

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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The below picture of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was from a recent NATO summit.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcQpDmiCMb16Fq-gF22r9AYwjBxS92otQyClfWO_GXPNYYBPOSK7NZZN2LIIzE6gsMI5wyMUt9RhBPClbUxBOj0vkIXxJ8bRw12VIh1pR-8PNUan6V6uP1GsxfosDheNh9ccGDd3A?key=AnwRqr6vCbGnGEl0xq39XA" alt="" style="width:483px;height:auto"/></figure>



Is that a suit Zelenskyy is wearing?



The <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/06/25/world-news/volodymyr-zelensky-dons-suit-for-donald-trump-meeting-at-nato-summit/">New York Post</a> called it a suit, <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/14560567/zelensky-new-look-suit-trump-nato-summit/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">The Sun</a> called it a “slick black suit”, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/zelenskiy-opts-more-formal-calibrated-wardrobe-ahead-trump-meeting-2025-06-25/">Reuters</a> called it a “suit-style jacket”.



But ChatGPT disagrees:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
Under a narrow, traditional definition (tailored jacket with lapels + matching trousers made of the same suiting fabric), this outfit would not be called a suit. The jacket’s collar, patch pockets, utilitarian cut, and overall “field” or “workwear” styling put it outside classic suiting.
</blockquote>



Anyway, the answer to that incredibly inane question is key — there&#8217;s a <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/will-zelenskyy-wear-a-suit-before-july?tid=1751288477194">Polymarket bet</a> (&#8220;Will Zelenskyy wear a suit before July?&#8221;) with $12 million of open interest riding on it.



Unfortunately for bettors, mainstream media opinion is not the final resort of resolution on Polymarket — that decision lies with UMA token holders.



UMA whales are disputing that Zelenskyy was wearing a suit, so the market has currently cratered to a 3% implied probability of resolving to a “YES” vote now.&nbsp;



That has, hilariously, sparked activist <a href="https://x.com/Addict9Nft/status/1938912728506343441">Twitter</a> pages like “ZELENSKYY WORE A SUIT,” accusations of oracle capture, and what some are calling “Suitgate.”



I’m not here to referee Zelenskyy’s wardrobe debate.



I only wish to point out that newer prediction markets are catching on to this problem and innovating new ways to mitigate this “buy-the-truth” problem that can emerge on UMA.



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



Take XO Market, an upcoming prediction market built as a sovereign appchain using Celestia for data availability.



To eliminate oracle capture, XO Market’s oracle system is designed to be AI-first. The oracle queries “trusted APIs” and “uses algorithmic data retrieval and machine learning to quickly determine objectively verifiable outcomes,” according to its <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-jVRlM2zNQ8jlwlmX2MW1nORoM0tcpJM/view">whitepaper</a>.



Only in the event of a rare dispute does the resolution kick up to a similar jury system, where staked XO token holders are randomly selected to decide. Quadratic voting mechanisms are also implemented to deter the influence of any single large token holder from dominating a market’s outcome.



Then the market resolves in accordance with majority vote. Minority token holders are slashed.



XO Market also wants to be permissionless, in contrast to Polymarket or Kalshi where markets are subject to approval from central gatekeepers.



Think a marriage between pump[dot]fun and Polymarket, Ali Habbabeh, co-founder of XO Market, tells me.



Any user with a hot take can draft a question, define resolution criteria, choose any collateral, and set a fee to earn on all trades, so good questions become a revenue stream.



Allowing creators to use any token they wish leads to liquidity fragmentation, but it also enables different communities to introduce utility to their own tokens through what Habbabeh likes to think of as “conviction markets.”



To bootstrap liquidity for a long tail of niche markets, XO depends on a kind of adaptive liquidity AMM, or what some may remember as Augur’s Liquidity-Sensitive Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule (LS-LMSR).



The general idea is that creators start by seeding a market for a few dollars, then graduate to deep liquidity over time as trading volume increases.



This design lies in contrast to Polymarket’s liquidity model that relies on professional market-makers. Niche markets are therefore ignored until makers are convinced it is worth their capital.



“LMSR was very compute intensive and that&#8217;s why Augur died,” Habbabeh tells me, “It&#8217;s the best pricing algorithm for prediction markets and nobody&#8217;s using it.”



An orderbook may be eventually used for when adoption scales, he added.



XO Market is launching open alpha this week.



The team recently emerged as one of the winners at Celestia’s Mammothon hackathon and subsequently closed a $500,000 pre-seed round led by Cyber Fund and Delphi Ventures.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">💭 <a href="https://twitter.com/xodotmarket?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@xodotmarket</a>: A social media-powered prediction market via <a href="https://twitter.com/privy_io?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@privy_io</a>. <a href="https://t.co/D4QvoPZOh2">pic.twitter.com/D4QvoPZOh2</a>&mdash; Celestia 🦣 (@celestia) <a href="https://twitter.com/celestia/status/1902752214558621865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The prediction markets landscape</h3>



XO Market’s alpha launch comes in the backdrop of both Polymarket and Kalshi achieving unicorn status.



Bloomberg reported last week that Polymarket was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-24/polymarket-is-set-to-raise-funding-at-1-billion-valuation">raising</a> $200 million at a $1 billion valuation. Kalshi, on the other hand, recently closed a Paradigm-led $185 million round at a $2 billion valuation.



Polymarket’s open interest has held generally steady at the $100 million-$120 million mark in the last several months.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXddJXqCeULzxZ0l7t1L_F-ydx93eJyLVahKtLG9JhViU4ayTdexiSt9wBOPBkKgPSLm-4KQZJYErsARj7ty4nqdgGc2iSpalV4TkijJxE0TZKmSEsItzkmYcIRVLKc0dVS0E-n6ag?key=AnwRqr6vCbGnGEl0xq39XA" alt=""/></figure>



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Permissionless prediction market XO Market raises $500K in pre-seed round

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The Mount Rushmore of Bitcoin. Who’s on it?



Definitely Hal Finney. Jack Dorsey, probably. Adam Back? Maybe Tim Draper, or Ross Ulbricht.



Whoever you choose, there had better be room for Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.



For the real Mount Rushmore, each of the four presidential heads is meant to represent one of the following: the founding of the US, its expansion, its development, and its preservation.



The Winklevoss twins would best fit into the second slot of the Bitcoin version. Expansion.



Whereas Thomas Jefferson <a href="https://americanexperience.si.edu/historical-eras/expansion/">brokered</a> the Westward Expansion — buying the Louisiana Territory from France for a cool $15 million, instantly doubling the size of the country — the Winklevoss twins sought to rapidly broaden Bitcoin’s influence with its first ETF.



Exactly 12 years ago today, the brothers <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/07/winkelvoss-bitcoin/">filed</a> for what they called the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust — a first-of-its-kind exchange-traded fund sponsored by the twins’ firm, Math-Based Asset Services, to the tune of $20 million in bitcoin (200,000 BTC).



One percent of BTC was about $11 million in July 2013, when each coin was worth $120, putting the Winklevoss’ unit count at around 100,000 BTC ($10.65 billion today).



The brothers had, three months earlier, <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/first-name-in-the-first-fund-for-bitcoins-winklevoss/">disclosed</a> that they’d quietly accumulated 1% of bitcoin’s circulating supply via their family office, Winklevoss Capital.&nbsp;



“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” Tyler told the New York Times. Initially, each share would be worth 0.20 BTC, worth about $24 at the time and $21,000 currently.



Under the surface, the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust would’ve mirrored SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), with in-kind redemption, fees paid in BTC, and private keys to the Trust’s coins held under physical custody in bank vaults.&nbsp;



The bitcoins were to be managed by a unit of Delaware Trust Company before the Winklevoss’ own Gemini was named in later filings.&nbsp;



It was a bold first attempt at bringing bitcoin out of the more obscure financial fringes of the internet and into everyday brokerage accounts, or as the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579346/000119312513279830/d562329ds1.htm">prospectus</a> dryly put it: “The Shares are designed for investors seeking a cost-effective and convenient means to gain exposure to Bitcoins with minimal credit risk.”



The SEC took four years to formally <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/03/10/sec-rejects-winklevoss-bitcoin-etf-sending-price-tumbling/">reject</a> the Winklevoss proposal. Any exchange offering bitcoin ETFs would need “surveillance-sharing agreements with significant markets for trading the underlying commodity or derivatives on that commodity. And second, those markets must be regulated,” the SEC said in March 2017. The move sunk the price of bitcoin by 18% at worst, but it quickly recovered and then some.



Bitcoin-backed ETFs would only <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-1b-inflows">arrive</a> on US exchanges seven years later, in January 2024, almost eleven years after the original Winklevoss proposal.



A long time, to be sure, but it’s still three years faster than it took to sculpt Mount Rushmore nearly a century prior.&nbsp;



And while the Winklevoss brothers never ended up launching their own ETF, Gemini is the <a href="https://www.gemini.com/blog/gemini-named-as-custodian-on-vanecks-newly-launched-spot-bitcoin-etf">custodian</a> for VanEck’s bitcoin ETF, HODL, and has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gemini-files-confidential-s1-with-sec">recently</a> confidentially filed for an IPO.



All good news for the Winklevosses. Now, all we need is to bring back “Math-Based Asset Services” — easily the coolest name for a Bitcoin company we’ve ever known.



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Why the Winklevoss bros should be on Bitcoin’s Mt. Rushmore

Macauley Peterson

Botanix Labs has officially launched its mainnet, introducing what it calls the first fully decentralized, EVM-equivalent Bitcoin layer-2.&nbsp;



Live today, Botanix promises Bitcoiners access to DeFi features familiar to Ethereum users — such as trading, borrowing, lending, staking, LPing — but denominated natively in Bitcoin, with transaction finality in five seconds and average fees around $0.02.



Unlike typical federated sidechains or custodial bridges, Botanix relies on a novel security model called <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/spiderchain-bitcoin-l2-multiverse">Spiderchain</a>. This design uses BTC-staked Orchestrator nodes, selected via randomness sourced from Bitcoin block hashes, to manage a rotating multisig peg-in/peg-out system. State transitions are also anchored back to Bitcoin itself.



This combination of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/proof-of-stake/">proof-of-stake-style</a> incentives with direct <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin">Bitcoin</a> anchoring, aims to provide a middle ground between Ethereum’s flexibility and Bitcoin’s security principles.



Earlier this week, Botanix finalized its <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/fixing-token-holder-protections">founding 16-node federation</a>, featuring <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/galaxy-digital">Galaxy</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/fireblocks">Fireblocks</a>, and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/alchemy">Alchemy</a>, among other recognizable names. The governance transition removes operational control from Botanix Labs, distributing consensus and custody among independent operators. The network is designed to expand into a permissionless set of over 100 nodes by next year.



For users, the Spiderchain peg offers a crucial promise: fast exit back to Bitcoin itself, according to Willem Schroé, CEO and co-Founder of Botanix Labs:



“One of the interesting things about the Spiderchain is you can immediately withdraw back to Bitcoin, so you won&#8217;t have any liquidation or redeemability risks,” Schroé told Blockworks.



That design choice directly addresses longstanding criticisms of wrapped bitcoin models on Ethereum, which depend on either centralized custodians to process redemptions, opaque validator sets, or multi-day unbonding periods. Botanix’s rotating multisig aims to make these risks transparent, economically secure, and Bitcoin-native, in the sense that you can exit to Bitcoin permissionlessly.



Beyond bridging, Botanix aims to distinguish itself via a mainnet-ready DeFi ecosystem. For example, at launch, <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/gmx">GMX</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/dolo">Dolomite</a> are live, enabling spot and perp trading, lending, and borrowing, as are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/chainlink-integration-bitcoin-l2-spiderchain">Chainlink feeds</a>.



The network also supports novel Bitcoin-native protocols like Rover and Palladium. Rover enables liquid staking of BTC itself, with yields funded directly by network gas fees. Unstaking remains possible without delay.



“All our gas fees are in Bitcoin,” Schroe said. “50% of all the gas fees go to a singular staking vault where you can stake your Bitcoin.”



Jerry Pio, head of partnerships at Rover developer Hydrogen Labs, was attracted by Botanix’s bitcoin-focus.



“It&#8217;s the least ruggable of all Bitcoin L2s, given the peg-in/peg-out mechanism, the Spiderchain architecture,” Jerry told Blockworks.



Palladium, meanwhile, is launching as a CDP-style protocol, based on <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/1766969a-7aa9-11ef-8787-df917c89931b">Liquity</a> V1, where users can borrow a stablecoin, PUSD, interest-free, backed by BTC collateral. That opens up the kind of composable credit layer that has defined DeFi on Ethereum, but without introducing a non-Bitcoin collateral.



As for adoption, Botanix is rolling out a large-scale promotional campaign that pays homage to Bitcoin’s early culture. Users can claim free <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-faucet">BTC via faucet-style</a> giveaways and explore “Bitcoin 2100,” a retro-futuristic video game world that introduces the dapps live on Botanix.



Seeing is believing, as Schroé put it:



“The moment you see your Bitcoin move at 5-second block times [and] you see these applications, that&#8217;s when you start to realize, damn, things are actually happening.”



By combining Bitcoin’s security model with Ethereum’s virtual machine, Botanix is betting that its architecture facilitates a DeFi ecosystem that Bitcoiners will actually use, seeing it as a way to do more with their BTC without sacrificing the principles that made Bitcoin worth building on in the first place.



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Botanix, a Bitcoin-based EVM chain, reaches mainnet

The experience users have when interacting with onchain apps and wallets is one of the biggest barriers to crypto adoption. The tools exist, the infrastructure is maturing but what we’ve lacked is alignment. A shared understanding of what “great” actually looks like.



That’s why we launched WalletConnect Certified.



Since Round 1 debuted at DevCon 2024, Certified has become a benchmark for wallet quality, a clear, community-driven standard for user experience, integration, and security. Think of it as the “DappRadar for wallets”: a signal users can trust, and a framework developers can build toward. And with the launch of Round 2, we&#8217;re raising the bar again.



WalletConnect Certified is not just a recognition program, it’s a movement to improve how users onboard, transact, and engage across the onchain ecosystem. It reflects a simple belief: if we want to scale trust and usability, we need shared expectations and consistent experiences.



Round 2 welcomes 9 new Certified wallets, including, Fireblocks, CTRL, Blockchain.com, Rakuten, BitPay, xPortal, Bitcoin.com, Bifrost, and Best alongside returning leaders like Safe, Trust Wallet, Zerion, Ledger, Binance Web3 Wallet, and many others.



Each Certified wallet has met rigorous criteria, including:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Top 50 ranking by users and activity on the WalletConnect Network</li>



<li>Support for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana (where applicable)</li>



<li>Link-mode integration for instant mobile connections without QR codes</li>



<li>One-click wallet authentication (1wCA) for secure, passwordless logins </li>
</ul>



These features aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re the foundation of a better user experience. And they represent the kind of usability that will unlock the next wave of onchain adoption.



Certification is more than a badge. It&#8217;s a commitment to building wallets that are not only secure and performant, but intuitive for everyday users. For developers, it’s a reference point, a practical checklist for excellence. For users, it’s a mark of confidence when choosing where to custody their assets or sign in to apps.



The most important part? Certified is community-first. The standards are shaped in collaboration with wallet teams, developers, and partners across the ecosystem. And as we grow, that collaborative spirit will remain central.



Round 3 is already in motion. We&#8217;re inviting all wallets to apply and contribute to the evolving standard. Improving onchain UX isn&#8217;t something any single team can solve. It takes all of us.



If we want crypto to scale beyond early adopters and bring in the next billion users, we need to make wallets and apps that feel effortless, familiar, and safe. WalletConnect Certified is one step in that direction and a signal that the industry is ready to move forward together.



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Raising the standard for onchain UX with WalletConnect certified

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“We are the best place in the world to fail.”



— Jeff Bezos
</blockquote>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1438" height="762" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-104617" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=1438 1438w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-5.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1438px) 100vw, 1438px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Crypto markets can win by frequently failing</h2>



Charlie Munger once said that in 50 years of reading Barron&#8217;s, he had found just one investable idea.



It was an unusually good one, though.



After a Barron’s article caught Munger’s eye in 2020, he spent just 90 minutes researching the auto parts company Tenneco before investing around $5 million.



Two years later, Tenneco was taken private at 15 times the price Munger had paid.



Munger then rolled his $80 million windfall into a fund managed by his friend, Li Lu, who more than quadrupled his money from there.



“So I have made $400 or $500 million reading Barron&#8217;s for 50 years and following one idea,” Munger concluded.



The twofold moral of the story, he implied, is that 1) it only takes one great idea to make it big, and 2) you should ignore all the others while you wait for it.



“The trick in investing,” Warren Buffett liked to say, “is just to sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot.”



I&#8217;m not sure how actionable that advice is for us mere mortals of investing; few of us will be able to pick out the one winner in 50 years of Barron&#8217;s articles.



But we can take heart in the idea that one big winner can more than offset a lot of our inevitable losers.



This is even more true in business.



In baseball, to extend Buffett’s analogy, swinging for the fences can only ever earn you four runs.



In the stock market, you might get the occasional “10-bagger” (or maybe even a 15-bagger, like Munger’s Tenneco investment), but not much more.



In business, however, “that upside isn’t really capped,” as Jeff Bezos explains. “Every once in a while in business, you step up to the plate, you swing as hard as you can, and you get 1,000 runs.”



Bezos was always swinging as hard as he could.



Unlike Munger, he usually struck out.



Worse yet, many of the pitches he swung and missed on seem a bit ridiculous in hindsight.&nbsp;



At one point, Bezos hired staff jewelers to craft custom rings over an open flame on the mezzanine of an Amazon fulfillment center in Kentucky because he briefly believed that the retail jewelry market was the key to Amazon’s future.



Personalized “zShops,” auto retailing, partnering with Toy“R”Us, and no-checkout stores are among Bezos’s other passing enthusiasms that failed to get anyone else enthused.&nbsp;



His investing track record wasn’t much better.



Bezos used money raised in Amazon’s 1997 IPO to make venture-capital investments in Drugstore.com, Pets.com, Gear.com, Wineshopper.com, Greenlight.com, Homegrocer.com, and Kozmo.com, all of which, perhaps predictably, turned out to be losers.



(A seed-round investment in Google was a giant winner, but he made that one with personal money.)



In other cases — such as auctions, search engines, and mobile phones — he picked a reasonable pitch to swing at, but whiffed.



He never regretted the misses, however, because if he wasn’t so willing to swing hard at seemingly every pitch, Amazon wouldn’t be anything more than an online bookstore.



From the beginning, he was always looking for opportunities to become much more than that.



When an employee suggested a subscription service for unlimited free shipping, for example, Bezos not only adopted the idea, he committed Amazon to losing an unknowable amount of money to make it not just a big bet, but a transformational one.



Similarly, when Amazon engineers began working on an early version of cloud computing — while they were still unsure it could work — Bezos demanded that they think bigger: &#8220;This has to scale to infinity. Infinity!&#8221;



Amazon Web Services does now effectively scale to infinity, which makes Bezos look like a prescient tech genius.



But he was equally high-conviction on all of his misses, too, which suggests that his real genius was in his willingness to always swing so hard — just in case he hit something.



That strategy won’t work for most of us; we’d all quickly go bust if we invested as aggressively as Bezos.



But the best financial markets encourage this kind of risk taking — where would we be without business founders willing to take irrational risks?



We’re fortunate that every entrepreneur wildly overestimates their odds of success because society captures the uncapped upside of all that risk-taking without bearing any of the downside risks.



At its best, crypto will enable more of this.&nbsp;



During Permissionless last week, I heard, for example, that “AI arbitration” would be a perfect use case for crypto; that crypto will turn data into an asset class; that decentralization is the only way to audit artificial intelligence; and that “DeSci” might accelerate the development of personalized medicine.



Whatever the investment merits of these ideas may be, I find it notable that they’re being floated at all, because the stock market, with all its centralized gatekeepers, is unlikely to encourage these kinds of bets.&nbsp;



Not that “permissionless capital markets” are perfectly decentralized. Far from it.&nbsp;



But they are permissionless in the sense of allowing anyone to take a swing at building something significant, and allowing anyone to back them.



It might be a long wait still for the next big crypto hit, of course.



In addition to finding just one investable idea in 50 years of reading Barron’s, Munger also said he read Fortune magazine for 60 years without finding any at all.



No one has that kind of patience in crypto.



But Permissionless capital markets could be well suited to the Bezos model of swinging hard at every reasonable pitch that comes by, no matter what the odds of connecting.



Like Amazon, crypto could win by being the best place to fail.



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Crypto markets can win by frequently failing

Jeff Albus

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



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



On Friday, the SEC <a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1938752099564560864">informed</a> REX Shares and Osprey Funds that it had “no further comments” on their solana staking ETF filing.



In ETF regulatory parlance, industry watchers often view that phrase as the SEC’s implicit greenlight. It’s the same wink-and-a-nod that preceded the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-approves-bitcoin-etf">launch</a> of spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity and others.



Essentially, the review is done. Fire when ready. According to <a href="https://x.com/REXShares/status/1939724797111304346">a post on X</a>, the fund will begin trading this Wednesday, July 2.



The product, officially titled the REX-Osprey Solana and Staking ETF, would be the first US ETF to offer investors exposure to Solana’s price movements alongside native staking rewards.



Unlike traditional crypto trusts, this ETF is <a href="https://www.rexshares.com/rex-osprey-etfs/">structured</a> under the Investment Company Act of 1940 using a C-corporation format, which allows staking income to flow through to investors without triggering regulatory red flags around yield, taxation or custody.



That structure was the hurdle.



When treated as ordinary income, staking rewards had proven incompatible with trust-based fund models, which couldn’t easily distribute variable staking yields.



On May 30, the SEC asked REX and Osprey to delay the effective date of their registration statements, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-staking-etf-objection-implications">citing unresolved concerns</a> over whether the proposed fund structures met the definition of an “investment company” under the 1940 Act.



Bloomberg’s James Seyffart <a href="https://x.com/JSeyff/status/1928543214530683328">noted</a> at the time that the funds’ “unique” C-corp format could bypass the typical 19b-4 rule-change process, and the SEC’s silence on the C-corp workaround now appears to validate it as a compliant solution.



REX Shares, stretching for its victory lap, has already begun <a href="https://x.com/REXShares/status/1938719417258647982">publicly teasing</a> the ETF as “coming soon.” Meanwhile, analysts like Eric Balchunas weighed in: “They are good to launch it looks like. Wow,” he <a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1938752099564560864">posted</a> on X.



Until now, <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-supply-staking-and-validators">access to staking</a> meant handing tokens over to a crypto exchange or configuring your own validator setup. This ETF dramatically lowers that barrier.



For the first time, traditional investors may gain passive Solana exposure plus staking yields using the same brokerage account they use for stocks or index funds.



That leap in accessibility is precedent-setting. Several Ethereum-staking ETFs are queued behind this one, and Solana’s approval now offers them a roadmap. Though let&#8217;s be clear — Ethereum’s staking mechanics (like slashing and its longer unbonding period) will add complexity.



I think we can now also say that, at least under the present administration, the SEC was never trying to block staking outright. It just needed the right wrapper: one that could handle yield, taxes, custody, and compliance in a way that TradFi understands.



And while REX and Osprey aren’t quite household names in the way that <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1920909692563239283">BlackRock</a> is, they now hold the first-mover advantage in what could become a multibillion-dollar ETF category.



The timing also coincides with a rise in staking momentum, with Jito, the Solana-based liquid staking and MEV protocol, <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">up 5.7%</a> today. Meanwhile, Robinhood just <a href="https://x.com/0xMert_/status/1939720784185839810">launched</a> its own in-app SOL staking, offering retail investors a direct alternative.



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



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



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



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



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

ETFs

SEC clears way for first Solana staking ETF

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



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In the 1980s, Ric Edelman started what is now called Edelman Financial Engines — a registered investment adviser that had $287 billion assets under management at the end of Q1. He’s now recommending a 10% allocation to crypto for conservative investors.&nbsp;



That should go up to 25% and 40% for those with moderate or aggressive risk appetites, respectively, he advised in a report earlier this month. An excerpt is below:&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfJI_umRSaqZhtBgPATTc1J2FsaZ89W4yQs5ufpSnKlTRSG8qZ6RgPzFxHFXX3akaA8Z7nDTf_E4fPbG3mO83cBdtGueASM4DbRpXTAwfahj1L44rBjhUkXSxrz9Z-jhCXFkU-d?key=CQQjHWZiLz6MTvfVBls3nA" alt=""/></figure>



Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas labeled Edelman “Mr. RIA” in an<a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1939647937472053509"> X post</a> — calling his statement “arguably the most important full throated endorsement of crypto from TradFi world<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-fink-bitcoin-dollar"> since Larry Fink</a>.”



It’s worth noting that Edelman has been bullish on crypto for years, creating the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals in 2018. He said this month he expects BTC to hit $500,000 by 2030.&nbsp;



Still, it’s a dramatic increase from when Edelman, in his 2021 book The Truth About Crypto, recommended a 1% allocation. We had heard of<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/advisers-bitcoin-etfs-client-portfolios"> adviser allocations to bitcoin ETFs</a> ranging from 1% to 10%, and BlackRock in February started allocating 1-2% of the assets in its alternatives-focused model portfolios to its IBIT offering.



Unlike four years ago, there’s no risk the US government could ban crypto (and it actually supports the space), Edelman told me. Bank and brokerage firms can also now trade and custody crypto, allowing the adviser community to participate. Crypto has survived scandals and institutional engagement has begun, he added.



“A 40% allocation today is actually safer than a 1% allocation was four years ago,” Edelman said.



The financial pro has lots of chats with advisers, senior firm management and individual investors.&nbsp;



“Some are crypto-curious with no established view,” Edelman explained. “Others are skeptics, and some are downright hostile.”



As he put it, there are those who stubbornly resist (i.e. anti-MAGA folks who frame crypto in a political way, or those who don’t understand modern portfolio theory). But much of the “hostile” group can be converted by simply shifting their focus away from crypto and toward their business.



“Demonstrating that crypto can help them attract more clients, AUM and referrals is powerful commentary,” Edelman noted. (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tradfi-crypto-vanguard-stands-apart-bitcoin">He has told me</a> he expects crypto skeptic/fund giant Vanguard to ultimately reverse its anti-crypto policy position, too.)



When following up with Edelman on his latest allocation advice, I wanted to clarify what type of crypto exposure he was referring to. He leaves that to the adviser or investor, he said, as preferences range (BTC only, a mix of several tokens, crypto-linked equities, etc).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Digital asset investment products notched net inflows of $2.7 billion from June 23-27, CoinShares data<a href="https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-240-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-35a6ac1da67c"> shows</a> — marking an 11th straight inflow week for the segment. While the bulk of that capital flowed into bitcoin products ($2.2 billion), $429 million went to ether offerings.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcOQsEF1RArSQprqX23mMQPh-heMuGVVk-FadYF0ADLeghiI2NjzN7elYqp_O8yNvRPEA632coGB47d8e8Ged47qiCAwdTV-DwLLmA9EDYsnLeUGcgHvXLLqawlWBdnwbDEMlNjxA?key=CQQjHWZiLz6MTvfVBls3nA" alt=""/></figure>



On the crypto stock front,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one"> Circle’s IPO</a> earlier this month clearly piqued both institutional and retail interest (its stock price was ~$180 this afternoon. There’s Coinbase, Strategy and Robinhood too, of course — with COIN, MSTR and HOOD having seen year-to-date gains around 37%, 34% and 134%, respectively.&nbsp;



HOOD stock was up 11% on Monday, as of 1:30 p.m. ET, after sharing some tokenized stock news.



A related update: Kraken, which signaled it would soon<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kraken-tokenized-stocks-tradfi-crypto"> offer tokenized US stocks and ETFs</a> to non-US investors, went<a href="https://blog.kraken.com/product/xstocks/tokenized-equities-now-available"> live</a> with that today.If you missed my Permissionless/tokenization piece from Friday,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenization-superpowers-access-permissionless"> here you go</a>. Until next time.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



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



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



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



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



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



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

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