Spring Staked SUI

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Caliber, a Scottsdale-based real estate asset manager listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CWD, announced on Thursday that it will adopt Chainlink’s LINK token as the foundation of a new digital asset treasury strategy.



The move <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/08/28/3140686/0/en/Caliber-Establishes-LINK-Token-Digital-Asset-Treasury.html">positions</a> Caliber among the growing ranks of US-listed companies to establish a blockchain-based reserve policy, aiming to leverage LINK for both long-term appreciation and staking yield. The initiative comes as Caliber works to reassure investors amid regulatory scrutiny.



According to a <a href="https://ir.caliberco.com/static-files/75add673-836e-4cd4-b001-e05cbcc678e4">filing</a> with the SEC on August 27, Caliber reported a $17.6 million stockholders’ equity deficit, prompting Nasdaq to issue a compliance notice.



Per Caliber’s release, the firm’s board approved a dedicated Digital Asset Treasury Policy, which sets guidelines for acquiring, managing, and reporting LINK token holdings. In addition, Caliber announced the creation of a Crypto Advisory Board to provide oversight and guidance on its new digital asset policy, according to external reporting.



Chainlink, widely used as a decentralized oracle network that connects blockchains with real-world data, has become a cornerstone of decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. By aligning its treasury with LINK, Caliber is betting on the protocol’s long-term utility and market relevance.



The announcement <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/chainlink-labs-commerce">coincides</a> with Chainlink revealing a new partnership with the US Department of Commerce to bring official macroeconomic indicators such as GDP and the PCE Price Index on-chain. The integration, which also involves Pyth Network, spans ten blockchains and underscores Chainlink’s growing role in bridging public institutions with decentralized systems.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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treasury companies

Caliber adopts Chainlink treasury as stock faces Nasdaq scrutiny

Shaunda Devens

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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Solana’s consensus stack, proof-of-history sequenced with TowerBFT, has always delivered faster block times than competitors. But finality still sits around <a href="https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-commitment-levels">10-20 seconds</a>, far from the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nasdaq-on-solana-opening-bell-sol-strategies">Nasdaq-level</a> latency Solana aspires to.



<a href="https://forum.solana.com/t/simd-0326-proposal-for-the-new-alpenglow-consensus-protocol/4236?utm_source=chatgpt.com">SIMD-0326 (“Alpenglow”)</a> proposes cutting finality to ~100-150ms by moving validator voting off-chain. Today, validators continuously post votes onchain to signal fork choice, and these votes dominate throughput despite carrying no user value.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXep-a2mLDrML2PqhV7_I3cZcXheUNUMCvLGzKzNsibs7NUiDFVpVXsJR5spqn8eQ4GI4iiaRDP7IDBz3JBNePOjlWx8B1i0dDBywoA5NIPArzpJp4X9RKow_rlOo7Fn5q8__6meyw?key=bDbckPlQ3bo3NOrYyaM8OA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://solscan.io/analytics#txs">SolScan</a></figcaption></figure>



Under Alpenglow, validators instead pay a fixed “Admission Ticket” of 1.6 SOL per epoch, burned to the network. Leaders then gather votes off-chain through a component called Votor, compress them into certificates, and write those certificates onchain. The result is a swap: Millions of low-value vote transactions are replaced by one predictable fee per validator, lowering consensus overhead by ~20% and freeing blockspace for user activity.



The design also adjusts fault tolerance. TowerBFT today remains live unless more than 33% of stake is adversarial. Alpenglow introduces a “20+20” model, where the chain stays live with 20% malicious stake and another 20% offline. For applications like DeFi, specifically perpetual exchanges like Drift, sub-second finality transforms Solana from “fast” into a real-time settlement layer.



The economics are still under debate. Smaller validators face a flat 1.6 SOL per epoch fee regardless of stake, while reward flows remain undefined. Governance discussions (epochs 833-842) have emphasized the need for a clear rollout path, including sequencing for Alpenglow’s components. Still, if implemented, SIMD-0326 would represent one of Solana’s most significant structural upgrades.



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0xResearch Newsletter

Solana prepares for Alpenglow

Chainlink has launched a new set of data feeds that deliver official U.S. Department of Commerce macroeconomic statistics directly to blockchains, the company announced on Thursday.



The <a href="https://blog.chain.link/united-states-department-of-commerce-macroeconomic-data/">initiative</a> is part of a broader collaboration that also <a href="https://www.pyth.network/blog/pyth-network-selected-by-u-s-department-of-commerce-to-verify-and-distribute-economic-data-onchain">involves</a> Pyth Network, with both oracle providers confirming they are working with the Commerce Department to bring Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data on-chain.



The program makes government-released indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, and Real Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers available on-chain through decentralized oracle networks.



Initial deployment spans ten blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, Mantle, Linea, Botanix, Sonic and ZKsync.



The integration builds on Chainlink’s broader role as a provider of verifiable data feeds, which already support functions ranging from token price updates to weather insurance claims. By extending this framework to US government economic data, Chainlink and Pyth position themselves as bridges between public institutions and blockchain ecosystems.



The feeds are secured by the same decentralized infrastructure that underpins Chainlink’s price oracles and Pyth’s aggregated data network.



Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week that the department would begin publishing GDP and other statistics on-chain, signaling a potential expansion of the model to additional U.S. agencies.



Primary documentation of the integration, including live contract addresses for the data feeds, is already available on Chainlink’s <a href="https://docs.chain.link/data-feeds/us-government-macroeconomic/addresses?utm_source=chatgpt.com">developer portal</a>. The announcement follows prior expansions into weather and sports data, continuing Chainlink’s strategy of embedding external information directly into blockchain systems.



Updated 8/28/2025 at 10:22 a.m. ET to include Pyth involvement.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Chainlink

Chainlink integrates U.S. Commerce Department macroeconomic data

David Canellis

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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Whether you’re bullish, bearish, or channeling some other animal spirit, you’re forgiven for feeling the pressure right now.



It’s been two weeks since bitcoin’s last all-time high and only four days since ether set a new price after almost three years.



Bitcoin could trend sideways and even downward for all anyone would care.&nbsp;



ETH sets the tempo for the foreseeable future. Scary stuff.



<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">top signals are just apparently no longer a thing we had ETF&#39;s &#8211; now we&#39;re trading higher we had Trump election &#8211; now we&#39;re higher we had Trump token &#8211; now we&#39;re higher we had eth volumes flip btc volumes for over a month straight &#8211; now we&#39;re higher now we&#39;re issuing GDP…&mdash; merp (@0xMerp) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xMerp/status/1960790841632678300?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">This is good for ETH</figcaption></figure>



Before we zoom in on ETH, let&#8217;s see the momentum it&#8217;s inherited from bitcoin.



The chart below plots every bitcoin bull market together, as if they all started on the same day. Green dots point to cycle peaks, and each bull phase starts at the previous bear market’s lowest price.



By these (very basic) rules, bitcoin has now been on a bull market for 1,023 days — 2.8 years.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeVutT6n0LXr1uWqXJU0OboUaz2fRFwjZJqXtcC0HENCgLG4oAKSsHolLUIJrdkNCU0zguJQZC68hI7ff6LTnJQQyURFPq45JabxJfjyY7ExFiZPe8k8Q4YiAVCd26VTpWE2PM-og?key=LrYZb3WcbLF2uZa5P-FQPg" alt=""/></figure>



If the bitcoin top is not yet in, then bitcoin is on track to soon enter its longest bull market on record. It took another 40 days or so from here for bitcoin to reach its November 2021 peak.



Returns so far are about what you would expect, considering how large the market cap of bitcoin has grown.&nbsp;



At this point in the past two cycles, bitcoin had posted up to 100x and around 21x, respectively.&nbsp;



Two weeks ago, when bitcoin hit $124,100, that was the equivalent of about a 7x from the late 2022 bottom.



Here’s the same chart, but for ETH.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXev3LTC8Ptqp59Pvpz7CUbYIPhy6ApuYeCrJecljkR2w2zTAr-m7mybN7-YPtNYthREp0I4y5F64s7Hp210jMzzSp2f929SXUGmifQqItECtyVmdOd-YtvYU6cCRL4mcL6WFo9IZg?key=LrYZb3WcbLF2uZa5P-FQPg" alt=""/></figure>



It’s similar. But technically, ETH has now entered its longest bull market on record — or in other words, this all-time high took longer than ever before



What’s glaring is that ETH’s cycle returns are tracking far below the previous bull market.&nbsp;



Perhaps Solana has something to do with that, considering bitcoin has no analogous direct rival.



<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">Yesterday, we published our note on the top holders of Ethereum ETFs. Advisors are dominating the known holders and have pulled away from Hedge Funds. <a href="https://t.co/qvP6ZGN3VI">pic.twitter.com/qvP6ZGN3VI</a>&mdash; James Seyffart (@JSeyff) <a href="https://twitter.com/JSeyff/status/1960726566406651920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The advisoooors have done something</figcaption></figure>



But if it’s true that ETH is the thermometer for where crypto is headed for the next year, year and a half, then the pink line will need to catch up to the purple line, fast.



Updated 8/28/2025 at 10:07 a.m. ET: ETH’s cycle returns and length have been corrected.



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ETH poised to set tempo for the rest of the bull run

Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read more 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">
“He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.”



— Aesop’s Fables
</blockquote>



When President Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in a televised address from the Oval Office, it was met with derision.



Scientists explained that a plan to shoot down Soviet missiles from space using lasers and particle beams was simply impossible with 1980s technology.



The press sarcastically renamed his plan “Star Wars,” because it sounded as fictional as the soon-to-be-released Return of the Jedi.



Only one constituency took it as seriously as President Reagan: the Soviets.



Soviet scientists doubted their American counterparts could pull it off. But they couldn’t rule it out either, and the Kremlin wasn’t willing to take a chance that they might.



The Soviets saw Reagan’s plan as an existential threat — so much so that it forced them to the negotiating table.



“SDI is a key reason that the Soviets have been willing to negotiate cuts in offensive weapons,”&nbsp; the US Secretary of State <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-13-mn-3014-story.html">said</a> at the time.



By taking SDI so seriously, the Soviets transformed Reagan’s idea from sci-fi daydream into political reality.



“If the Russians keep appearing alarmed by SDI,” a <a href="https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1309&amp;context=jleg&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com">contemporary study</a> concluded, “it will be politically impossible for Congress to vote it down.”



In other words, the magnitude of the Russian response to SDI made SDI seem more credible to Americans.



Now, something similar may be happening with stablecoins.



In support of the GENIUS Act, President Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-signs-genius-act-into-law/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">has promised</a> that “stablecoins will play a crucial role in ensuring the continued global dominance of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”



As commonplace as that sentiment has become, there are reasons to be skeptical: The dollar is the world’s reserve currency because of America’s deep capital markets, predictable rule of law, independent central bank and trusted institutions.



If the world were to lose faith in these things, even trillions dollars of demand for US debt wouldn’t keep the dollar afloat for long.&nbsp;



Europe, however, has reacted to the GENIUS Act as if stablecoins are not only a lifeline for the dollar, but an existential threat to the euro.



Last week, the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8ad60169-d1e5-4d2c-b928-d53d668f0ec6">reported</a> that EU officials are now “rethinking plans for the digital euro” because the GENIUS Act makes stablecoins seem more threatening.&nbsp;



Specifically, EU officials are “considering running a digital euro on a public blockchain such as Ethereum or Solana rather than a private one.”



That is no small change for Europe, where some countries limit cash transactions to just €1,000, few object to the idea of CBDCs and law enforcement has long been prioritized over financial privacy.



But now it’s going to put their sovereign currency on Solana? To mix with memecoins???&nbsp;



Europe must really be worried.



One ECB official recently <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2025/html/ecb.blog20250728~e6cb3cf8b5.en.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">warned</a> that “without a strategic response,” stablecoins could undermine Europe’s banking system, threaten its financial stability and even lead to “geopolitical dependency.”



(Note to Europe: Can we call this strategic response the Stablecoin Defense Initiative? Please???)



The ECB’s most senior official, Christine Lagarde, has similarly <a href="https://www.idnfinancials.com/news/55648/christine-lagarde-stablecoins-threaten-national-sovereignty">warned</a> that if stablecoins are left unchecked, “central banks will struggle to influence the economy through monetary policy.”



If you still need evidence of the power of blockchains, I think we now have it.



Blockchain-based dollars have tied the EU in knots, with monetary officials now trying to figure out a digital euro that’s good enough that people will use it instead of dollar-denominated stablecoins, but not so good that they use it instead of bank deposits.



That’s a tough needle to thread — tougher even than hitting an incoming missile with a laser beam from an orbiting satellite.&nbsp;



The EU’s plans for a CBDC have been half-hearted, including ways to limit their usage, and its stablecoin legislation is similarly hedged, requiring issuers to hold deposits with banks.



The economist Luis Garicano <a href="https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/luis-garicano-future-digital-money-and-lessons-learned-history-euro">says</a> that a not-too-good-not-too-bad digital euro is “an unusual design problem” that leaves the ECB in “no man’s land.”



He characterizes the central bank’s position as, “we’re scared of stablecoins, but we don’t want to give a big advantage to a CBDC,” either.&nbsp;&nbsp;



This seems unlikely to end well: A digital euro that’s half-stablecoin, half-CBDC risks the fate of Aesop&#8217;s bat — by trying to be everything to everyone, it will be useful to no one.



But is Europe right to be that worried?



President Trump’s claim that stablecoins will significantly extend the dollar’s dominance sounds no more plausible to me than Reagan’s claims about SDI.



Back then, the scientists were proven right — Reagan’s lasers and particle beams were science fiction.&nbsp;



Even now, 40 years later, President Trump’s plan for a “Golden Dome” is not much more feasible.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But Star Wars still had a real effect.



And it demonstrated that if nothing else, the strength of the reaction to a threat reveals the size of the interests it threatens.



For Europe, we now know, stablecoins are as threatening as lasers from space.



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Europe’s monetary Star Wars moment

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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Seeing 112 organizations sign their name in support of the same issue is pretty rare. Chances are it’s probably pretty important.&nbsp;



A Wednesday letter drafted by the DeFi Education Fund called on policymakers to “provide robust, nationwide protections for software developers and non-custodial service providers in market structure legislation.”



It was addressed to Sens. Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren (of the Senate Banking Committee) and Sens. John Boozman and Amy Klobuchar (of the Senate Agriculture Committee). Members of those bodies, which oversee the SEC and CFTC, will have a big role in shaping a final market structure bill.&nbsp;



The latest letter cites Electric Capital data showing the plummeting share of open-source software developers in the US — a decline the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Digital-Assets-Report-EO14178.pdf">vowed</a> to reverse.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1846" height="912" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106728" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1846 1846w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1846px) 100vw, 1846px" /></figure>



Many attribute this trend to a lack of regulatory certainty. A quote that stood out to me from Solana Policy Institute CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine:&nbsp;



“Public blockchains are neutral infrastructure just like the internet, roads or bridges. The US doesn’t criminalize the engineers who build our highways when someone uses them to commit a crime.”



The thought goes that Congress must apply that same principle to digital infrastructure builders.



Gavin Zavatone, policy lead at the DeFi Education Fund, told me the Keep Your Coins Act and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act are a solid start. Those were included in the CLARITY Act <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dc-embraces-defi-genius-clarity-amendments?utm_source=mail.blockworks.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=monday-july-21">passed by the House</a> last month, as well as the Senate Banking Committee’s more recent market structure discussion <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/majority/scott-lummis-colleagues-release-market-structure-discussion-draft-issue-request-for-information-from-stakeholders">draft</a>.



Those provisions recognize the differences between intermediated finance and decentralized networks, and protect the right to self custody and engage in peer-to-peer transactions. They must remain in the draft legislation, Zavatone explained.&nbsp;



“However, developers need additional robust, nationwide protections from misclassification under securities and commodities laws,” he added.



This is non-negotiable, these organizations are making clear. This is the segment, remember, that put big money toward getting Donald Trump and other pro-crypto policymakers elected.&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">The whole point of market structure legislation is to give regulatory certainty to the people building in crypto. The bill must protect developers from a return to Biden-era hostility, full stop.<a href="https://twitter.com/fund_defi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fund_defi</a> + 114 crypto companies to the Senate: no dev protections, no bill 👇 <a href="https://t.co/sd1PIkuUl3">https://t.co/sd1PIkuUl3</a>&mdash; Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) <a href="https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1960692876892897779?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Some of what Chervinsky called Biden-era hostility has been addressed.&nbsp;



You might recall the end of what became known as the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/defi-broker-rule-saga-resolution-25#">“DeFi broker rule” saga</a> in April. I’m referring to the resolution that nixed an IRS rule requiring “certain decentralized finance industry participants to file and furnish information returns as brokers.”



Not all has been rosy for crypto sector advocates, though. The <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/roman-storm-guilty-one-count">partial verdict</a> against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, in my colleague Macauley Peterson’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/opinion-tornado-cash-conviction-raises-alarm">words</a>, “dampens hopes of giving DeFi protocols greater access to the US market by sending chills through the entire open‑source community.”



The called-for protections must make explicit that no individual/entity is subject to regulation for simply engaging in activities core to creating and maintaining blockchains, the letter notes. Legislation must also shield developers from being misclassified or prosecuted as operators of money transmitting businesses.



I wrote a week ago about Sen. Scott’s remarks at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium about the road to passing another crypto bill.



Even after getting the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act to the finish line, Scott called market structure “a far <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/market-structure-bill-complicated">more complicated</a> piece of legislation.” He added that Sen. Warren, for example, standing in the way of some Democrats who might support it is “a real force to overcome.”



The letter also notes the importance of preserving “historical protections afforded to open-source software development.” This relates to what Interop Labs (initial developer of the Axelar Network) <a href="https://www.axelar.network/blog/senate-banking-rfi-letter">submitted</a> to the Senate Banking Committee earlier this month.



Interop Labs compared today’s blockchain infrastructure to the early internet. Composability and open communications protocols can set the stage for an innovation boom in finance, it argued — like the economic transformation the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) framework unlocked at the turn of the century.&nbsp;



I feel lucky to have grown up as the internet evolved to what it is today. Seeing where the financial system goes from here as an adult will be a bonus.



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congress

A deeper look at the industry’s crypto market structure demands

Macauley Peterson

Symbiotic, the universal staking protocol, has launched a new rewards feature that allows protocols to distribute their own native tokens directly to stakers and node operators.&nbsp;



Dubbed External Rewards, the mechanism is live across eight partner networks.&nbsp;



The feature is a shift in the incentive alignment Symbiotic brings to its modular, economic coordination role in multichain networks. Native token incentives are combined with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/symbiotic">Symbiotic</a> Points — presumed to be a precursor to a Symbiotic-specific token — to bootstrap decentralized security and reward participation for networks, without requiring them to build custom staking systems.



“This launch is a pivotal moment,” said Symbiotic co-founder Misha Putiatin. “External rewards are proof that shared security is delivering measurable value — and networks are willing to pay for access.”



Hyperlane, one of the largest partners live at launch, is distributing <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/hyper">HYPER</a> to stakers securing its Warp Routes. Cycle and Tanssi are offering their native tokens as rewards to incentivize capital formation on their networks. <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/spark">Spark’s Overdrive</a> campaign adds SPK staking and points to the mix.



Other use cases include Ditto Network, which rewards keepers who enable trustless automation, and Primev, which compensates validators supporting MEV preconfirmation. Kalypso is using Symbiotic to distribute points in its ZK proof marketplace, while Omni has committed $10 million in rewards to SolverNet participants powering its intent-based execution layer.



The shift, according to Symbiotic, is that shared security is becoming a marketplace. Networks are now competing for validator attention through incentive design, and Symbiotic is positioning itself as the coordination layer where that competition unfolds. The approach echoes a similar strategy from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/babylon-genesis-launch-l1-bitcoin-liquidity">Babylon</a>, which allows emerging chains to bootstrap economic security by letting users stake BTC natively.



Previously, launching a decentralized security model meant building bespoke staking logic. Symbiotic’s approach abstracts that away. Protocols can offer liquid restaked assets (like ETH or LSTs), hybrid models, or their own native tokens, all within a shared staking interface. Points and token rewards from multiple sources are displayed side-by-side, giving contributors a unified view of their rewards across networks.



While EigenLayer’s Permissionless Token Support now lets AVSs (Actively Validated Services) restake with any ERC-20 token — not just ETH or LSTs — broadening the assets that can participate in Ethereum’s shared security pool, Symbiotic’s External Rewards takes that a step further; tokens are not just security collateral, but actively distributed their native token as a reward to stakers and operators.



Both allow restaking to be applied to financial AVSs, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cap-labs-eigenlayer">such as Cap Labs’ credit-underwriting</a> use case.



As more modular chains come online and competition for validator capital intensifies, Symbiotic is betting that unified infrastructure, and flexible reward tooling, will differentiate it among the alternatives for attracting capital.



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staking

Symbiotic launches token-based rewards across eight networks

Donovan Choy

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



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DAO governance has long struggled with plutocratic voting, insider problems and voter apathy, among many other problems.



Over the years, several teams in crypto have <a href="https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/11/09/infofinance.html">explored</a> the idea of using futarchy to solve these problems. The MetaDAO team on Solana is at the forefront of this effort.



To date, MetaDAO has onboarded at least a dozen teams creating active proposals, including Drift, Sanctum, Marinade and more.



Futarchy is simply a decision market. Think Polymarket, but rather than betting on an outcome, you’re betting on consequences, or what should happen.



Why would a trader with no stake or relationship to the DAO be incentivized to bet wisely? Simply because they are putting their own money at stake.



Here’s a simplified example of how your average MetaDAO decision market works.



A hypothetical InflationDAO pays out tens of millions in weekly liquidity mining rewards that helped juice the protocol’s early growth but is now unsustainable and draining the treasury.&nbsp;



In a one-token-one-vote DAO, there’s little hope to slash emissions. Economically illiterate token holders don’t give a shit, or entrenched interest groups playing the short-term game don’t want to see their yield rewards disappear.



In a MetaDAO decision market, however, a contributor can take action with a futarchy proposal: “Cut rewards by 70%; Pass threshold: 3%.”



MetaDAO proceeds by opening two conditional markets with two tokens “PASS” and “FAIL.” Traders deposit an underlying asset like USDC and receive both PASS and FAIL tokens. The vote commences.&nbsp;



As the vote goes on, traders who believe InflationDAO’s emissions should stop can express that view by buying PASS tokens, pushing PASS token price up, or selling FAIL tokens, creating sell pressure for FAIL. Same goes for the reverse.



After the vote ends, if the time-weighted average price (TWAP) of the PASS or FAIL token is at least 3% above the other, the vote concludes and only the winning side is able to redeem their tokens for USDC.



Here’s the key point. The pass threshold is simply a “finish line” that traders need to keep the average above.



If spreads are already ~3% on spot, buying more PASS only makes sense if you want to lift the TWAP above 3% (and maintain a buffer that will persist until the market closes); otherwise you’re just subsidizing the outcome with little expected profit.



Unlike prediction markets, decision markets are not zero-sum. Traders are not merely concerned with the directional outcome of the vote, but also with the basic question “Did you own the correctly priced token at an attractive entry price by the time the outcome finalizes?”



Futarchy aligns the wisdom of crowds with governance. It makes it possible for a well-informed minority to steer governance decisions toward socially good outcomes that may be deeply unpopular with the majority.



But whether or not the outcome is “socially good” depends on the objective that the market is encoded for.



Rather than a 3% TWAP spread, the market could use a pass threshold like token price as a rough proxy for company “welfare.”



The design space around decision markets are varied. Yet, futarchy seems to be only useful for significant&nbsp; governance decisions that would move the spread on the market price of the reference assets.



“Should InflationDAO change its mascot from Uncle Sam to Lee Kuan Yew?” is not a variable that traders will expect to influence the price of the underlying reference asset.



What decision markets harness on is the universal profit motive to drive sound decision-making. And if you believe in that theoretical promise, just imagine how it can change the face of ICOs.



<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">high-quality founder I&#39;ve been talking to for 6 months just told his team he wants to do a futarchy ICO 😎&mdash; Proph3t (@metaproph3t) <a href="https://twitter.com/metaproph3t/status/1959294746838573249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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DAO governance

Understanding futarchy on Solana

Former team members behind prediction market platform Polymarket have launched a new venture, The Clearing Company. It secured a $15 million seed round led by Union Square Ventures, according to an announcement on Wednesday.



Other investors <a href="https://www.clearing.co/blog/announcing-our-seed-round">include</a> Haun Ventures, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Compound, Rubik, Earl Grey, Cursor Capital, Asylum and several angel backers.



Co-founder Toni Gemayel <a href="https://x.com/tonigemayel/status/1960727155463348617">emphasized</a> that while prediction markets have existed for centuries, the internet age makes their collective intelligence more powerful. “Polls are too slow and rife with bias,” he wrote, adding that markets incentivize honesty because being wrong carries a real cost.



Scaling, he said, will require making markets “fun to create, seamless to trade and supported by novel structures that unlock liquidity.”



The startup aims to build onchain, permissionless prediction markets designed to meet regulatory standards while remaining accessible to retail users. Prediction markets allow participants to trade contracts tied to real-world outcomes, producing collective forecasts with financial incentives for accuracy.



While platforms such as Polymarket have operated in regulatory gray areas, The Clearing Company suggests that it is positioning itself as a compliant alternative with transparent infrastructure and liquidity mechanisms.



Union Square Ventures, which has previously invested in Web3 firms including Coinbase and Uniswap, is betting that a regulated approach could make decentralized forecasting tools mainstream.



The company has not disclosed a launch timeline for its platform but emphasized its focus on designing products that balance simplicity with compliance.



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



This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/author/jeffrey-albus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Coinbase Ventures

Ex-Polymarket team launches onchain prediction markets with $15M round

Rich Widmann, head of Web3 strategy at Google Cloud, has outlined details of a new Layer 1 blockchain called the Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL).



In a LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rich-widmann-a816a54b_all-this-talk-of-layer-1-blockchains-has-activity-7366124738848415744-7idA/?utm_source=social_share_send&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop_web&amp;rcm=ACoAAArYlAQBgjZ0JxkM-B1fF7CpOUlCHxNbfjk">post</a> on Aug. 26, Widmann said the network is designed for financial institutions and that it combines performance, neutrality and Python-based smart contracts. Widmann emphasized that GCUL is already being tested by CME Group, one of the world’s largest commodities exchanges, to explore tokenization and payments.



CME <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cme-group-will-introduce-tokenization-technology-to-enhance-capital-market-efficiency-using-google-clouds-new-universal-ledger-302410343.html">confirmed</a> earlier this year that it had completed an initial phase of trials with GCUL and planned further testing with market participants in 2025. The project is aimed at modernizing settlement, collateral, and fee processes across institutional finance.



Unlike Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc, which are closely tied to their respective payment stacks, Widmann presented GCUL as a “credibly neutral” infrastructure layer that any bank or payments firm could adopt.



It is as yet unclear whether a permissioned blockchain controlled by a US corporation can be considered neutral in the same sense as public networks like Ethereum or Solana.&nbsp;



CME has said a broader rollout could come in 2026, though Google has not yet published a timeline.



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



This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Google

Google’s Rich Widmann describes Universal Ledger blockchain plans

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>.



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



Camp wants to prove that an IP-focused chain can work long-term.&nbsp;



The Camp mainnet has been officially deployed as of this morning, along with its native CAMP token. The team worked with crypto infra firm Gelato and is using the <a href="https://docs.abundance.xyz/abc-stack-architecture/key-features">Abundance</a> rollup L1 stack, which is built on Celestia.



The CAMP token is expected to facilitate creator royalties and AI-agent monetization, in addition to functioning as a gas and governance token.



“We&#8217;re going to continue to see growth in AI, but without the proper infrastructure or the technology to protect IP and creativity, we’re going to see a really sort of value-destructive relationship between AI and IP,” Camp Network cofounder James Chi told me in an exclusive interview.&nbsp;



Chi has a TradFi background, and previously worked in investment banking at RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs. He was then at Figma before ultimately starting Camp in 2023.&nbsp;



“AI is going to eat creativity as we know it, and there’s not going to be the right guardrails to protect creativity as a whole,” Chi said, echoing concerns felt by creatives across gaming, film, visual art and media.&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">Just another brick in what will be a permanent battle between AI and IP copyright law First started with <a href="https://twitter.com/ChatGPTapp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ChatGPTapp</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Reddit?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Reddit</a> Second was <a href="https://twitter.com/StabilityAI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StabilityAI</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/GettyImages?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GettyImages</a> Third was <a href="https://twitter.com/SunoMusic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SunoMusic</a> And all the record labels Now Hollywood and <a href="https://twitter.com/midjourney?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@midjourney</a> Media tends to follow… <a href="https://t.co/PJXr3IgYbZ">https://t.co/PJXr3IgYbZ</a>&mdash; Nirav Murthy ⛺ (@niravmurthy) <a href="https://twitter.com/niravmurthy/status/1933163310414794888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The vision is that Camp could help solve the problems AI creates for creators and IP owners by allowing brands, creators and licensors the ability to quickly tokenize their content to establish ownership onchain. Then, AI agents can license and train on that content, and creators can then be compensated via royalties for use of their work.



There’s a lot of mission overlap here with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/story-protocol-world-ai-future">Story</a>, Camp’s biggest competitor at the moment.



“Most new IP generated will all be done via AI,” Camp cofounder Nirav Murthy told me. “And we envision blockchain being the mechanism by which that’s done.”



Camp is working with teams spanning the entertainment, gaming and consumer categories, including <a href="https://thedrop.beehiiv.com/p/no-usa">Black Mirror</a> (which has been making crypto plays through licensor Banijay UK), Japanese IP firm Minto, and comic book creator Rob Feldman.



“The ecosystem is what matters at the end of the day. We don&#8217;t want to build the ghost chain,” Chi said.



He emphasized that Camp is trying to give creators, licensors and brands a reason to stick around long-term.&nbsp;



“Our ethos is, we don&#8217;t want to lean into the pay-to-play model, right? We&#8217;ve seen that play out in crypto. People are paying, you know, upwards of eight figures of revenue to try to get big IP to launch with them,” Chi said.&nbsp;



“And while that might be exciting for two to three months, after that the IP holder is not incentivized to actually build a meaningful program, because they already got paid out.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdb5icSA09ZQAISNi3jljm-6yuDns7-gVWAYlFgUoIUzMcHbHD-gETcEE-pyjUaJn4hcwqEGiYkgV7d7OZ7rNn8UjMmAD29itmJSq3JmuZEBy6fX9CBvYXrktB1EZeaHANIL40QJQ?key=G0xaMQz1a05qXDrk0wsBqw" alt=""/></figure>



Camp previously raised $4 million in seed funding a year ago, and raised <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jameschi94_exclusive-camp-network-raises-25-million-activity-7323068093402951681-L96C?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAABKdI6YBVCnELgEXIz0Jo0Q13EHkptJChqw">$25 million</a> in Series A funding in April.



Perhaps Murthy is right, and AI will be a wellspring for new and interesting IP. The threat of AI indeed feels stronger than ever before for creatives concerned that their work has already been stolen — and that they’ll lose out on jobs and income if clients opt to churn out AI-generated products.



Ownership can also be complicated, and licensing often benefits larger corporations and studios more than individual artists (who, for example, might have worked on a film, but don’t own the rights to license their work).



Licensors will ultimately have to decide if they’re ready to offer up their libraries to countless new AI models — or whether they might want to wait it out until the slew of active lawsuits against AI firms set a new standard.



While IP-focused blockchains have been tried in the past, we’re not in 2018 anymore. Although, that hasn&#8217;t stopped prediction markets, a sector borne of the ICO era, from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polymarket-culture-chasm">finally finding traction</a> with the mainstream.&nbsp;



Tokenized IP on the blockchain may just be taking a longer route.



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Exclusive: Camp Network launches L1 mainnet, token

This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/author/jeffrey-albus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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



The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that it will begin using Nasdaq’s SMARTS surveillance platform to monitor trading in digital asset derivatives and prediction markets.



The move <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9110-25">expands</a> the regulator’s toolkit as it looks to better detect misconduct in fast-evolving crypto markets. SMARTS, one of Nasdaq’s flagship monitoring systems, is already deployed by dozens of global exchanges and regulators to flag irregular trading patterns, including signs of manipulation and abusive practices.



By extending the technology to digital assets, the CFTC aims to address growing concerns about wash trading and other forms of misconduct that have accompanied the rise of onchain prediction markets and complex trading strategies.



Observers have drawn comparisons to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s reliance on surveillance-sharing agreements when approving spot bitcoin and ether ETFs, suggesting that US financial regulators are converging on a common approach to market monitoring.



While the CFTC’s mandate remains centered on maintaining orderly derivatives markets, expanded surveillance could pave the way for broader enforcement, and decentralized platforms may face heightened scrutiny if the agency applies these tools beyond traditional venues.



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CFTC

CFTC to adopt Nasdaq surveillance to monitor crypto markets

Boccaccio

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BTC sits at $110K as of this morning, with the vast majority of tokens down – except for Hyperliquid (up 14% from yesterday’s $43 lows) and Solana (up 4% today).&nbsp;



We’ve already covered Hyperliquid twice this week, so I’ll spare the details. Here’s a quick recap:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Perpetuals volumes are up and to the right.</li>



<li>Spot volumes are up and to the right.</li>
</ul>



More interestingly, we saw (potentially) His Excellency, Justin Sun, make an appearance in the pre-launch order books on the platform. A <a href="https://t.co/3GwjI3FdHb">wallet</a> associated with Justin Sun longed millions of XPL on Hyperliquid, clearing the entire order book and liquidating many who thought they were safe to hedge their pre-deposit allocations at a 10x. A good warning for future “safe 1x shorts” who want to lock their profits in.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfsf8N00E3NbsM_SVy-o1ShzsUvTnRo3IgwApT6LnqGrBhEjWcqmhsYd-irsjBsBivzL7ALFuG8_88j_YCEwvDQ2BvzISKD-Zvs81n6MAn1sVOeBCnLoTL8mB3Po1R69lFFADNcNw?key=24jEXQBKGptAXbEYHVO1JQ" alt=""/></figure>



We’re also finally seeing some relief on Solana after months of underperformance against ETH. Recent DAT announcements seem to have not been particularly private and were sold into pretty heavily (likely also due to the market downturn). Since then, the wunderkind of 2023-2024 has rebounded. We’ll have to see if the treasury companies will lead to any open market buys, or if they’re mostly in-kind. Even if they are mostly in-kind, given that SOL’s market cap is much smaller than that of ETH, we might see some positive price action if:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The SOL DATs can put forward a figure who can compete with Mr. Thomas Lee.</li>



<li>They are putting in at least a little bit of cash into the vehicles.</li>
</ul>



Unfortunately, despite being bullish on SOL throughout most of 2023 and 2024, it is difficult to not feel like the tide has moved against it, especially with memecoin activity increasingly taking the attributes of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster">euthanasia roller coaster</a> (Trump into Melania into Milei into <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/yzy-memecoin-last-thing-crypto-needs">Kanye West</a>). We’ll have to see who wins:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Ethereum, Thomas Lee and DATs</li>



<li>Solana, memecoins and gambling</li>



<li>Hyperliquid and infinite buybacks</li>
</ul>



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Hyperliquid

Memecoins’ ‘euthanasia coaster’ and a new Telegram bot entrant

This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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



A coalition of 112 crypto organizations, including Coinbase, a16z crypto, Paradigm and the Blockchain Association, has sent a joint letter to the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees urging lawmakers to include explicit protections for software developers and non-custodial service providers in upcoming digital asset market structure legislation.



The letter, dated August 27, was <a href="https://www.defieducationfund.org/post/def-110-partners-submit-coalition-letter-on-developer-protections-in-market-structure">addressed</a> to Senators Tim Scott, John Boozman, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, reflecting the bipartisan focus of ongoing negotiations.



The signatories argue that without nationwide protections, developers risk being misclassified as money transmitters under federal law, potentially stifling open-source innovation. The letter claims the share of open-source software developers in the U.S. has fallen from 25% in 2021 to 18% in 2025, attributing the drop to regulatory uncertainty.



It also cites the July 2025 President’s Working Group Report on Digital Asset Markets, which <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-the-presidents-working-group-on-digital-asset-markets-releases-recommendations-to-strengthen-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/">stressed</a> the importance of reversing this decline to maintain U.S. leadership in blockchain technology.



The coalition welcomed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1747">inclusion</a> of the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act and Keep Your Coins Act in draft <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4841/text">legislation</a>, but called for additional clarifications and federal preemption to avoid a patchwork of state laws. The groups warn that, absent such measures, blockchain infrastructure development may increasingly migrate overseas.



The campaign builds on the bipartisan <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3633">passage</a> of the CLARITY Act in the House, where 294 members supported protections for developers and non-custodial providers. Advocates say that expanding those safeguards is necessary for the US to retain its position as a global leader in financial technology, echoing similar concerns raised in the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4763">passage</a> of FIT21 in 2024.



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</ul>

Crypto industry coalition presses Senate for developer protections

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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Like all good things, it turns out that killer apps come in threes.



Polymarket, Hyperliquid, pump.fun. These are the voyages of modern-day crypto enterprise.



And before you tell me that stablecoins are crypto’s fourth killer app, thereby ruining this airtight metaphor: No.&nbsp;



Stablecoins are a tool. Wallets are apps (but only barely). I will die on this hill.



For the sake of being pedantic, let’s separate Circle, with its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-execution-stablecoins">wildly successful IPO</a>, into a separate category: “fintech on the blockchain.”



There’s suddenly no question that Polymarket, Hyperliquid and pump.fun are the sole victors of this cycle.&nbsp;



Hyperliquid won perps, pump.fun won memecoins (although Bonk.fun <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/launchpads">made it close</a>), and Polymarket won the concept of betting on random stuff. Polymarket had its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polymarket-performs-smoothly-on-election-day">breakthrough moment</a> during the US election, so it tracks that Donald Trump Jr’s 1789 Capital recent investment has cemented its status.&nbsp;



CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/polymarket-secures-investment-from-trump-jr-backed-1789-capital.html">reports</a> the deal ranged in the double-digit millions, with Don Jr. also joining the firm’s advisory board.



<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">Pleased to announce that my fund <a href="https://twitter.com/1789Capital?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@1789capital</a> has invested in <a href="https://twitter.com/Polymarket?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Polymarket</a> and that I will be joining the team as a Strategic Advisor. Prediction markets have completely changed the way people follow the news. I&#39;m proud to support the industry and look forward to helping… <a href="https://t.co/C3QlMEKQFe">https://t.co/C3QlMEKQFe</a>&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1960367380724351416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



A longstanding criticism of the crypto space is that it’s too insular. That it’s all decentralized infrastructure for degenerate gambling apps, in one form or another. Crypto’s endless servicing of speculation largely overshadows the utility of peer-to-peer payments and freely accessible tokenized dollars.



Now, I don’t agree with that summation, but it exists, persistently so. And the fact that the current breakthrough apps express different degrees of degeneracy won’t do much to change that perception — Hyperliquid with its leverage of up to 40x; pump.fun with its gamified memecoin launches; Polymarket with its pop-culture wagering.



I have a theory that crypto is, for the most part, years ahead of the mainstream. Crypto knew that blockchain-powered prediction markets were interesting seven years ago, when Augur launched on Ethereum in 2018, causing <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/welcome-augur-cryptocurrency-death-market-where-you-can-bet-donald-trump-1043571">moral panic</a> over the potential for assassination markets and so on.



<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">Not a very consequential thing, but kinda funny: a Polymarket user named &quot;romanticpaul&quot; (yes, his real username) started aggressively buying Taylor Swift to be engaged starting yesterday afternoon around 3pm. He nearly doubled the price from a 25% chance (this year) to 45%. You… <a href="https://t.co/IXVRqj0eB6">pic.twitter.com/IXVRqj0eB6</a>&mdash; Domer❤️‍🔥 (@Domahhhh) <a href="https://twitter.com/Domahhhh/status/1960394729176105077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Do we need to bet on celebrity romance? No. Is it fun? Yes.



Bookies have obviously been taking bets on obscure stuff like the next James Bond or celebrity deaths long before crypto. But Augur, Polymarket and all the others have added immediacy to the mix — letting the public open the markets rather than the bookies themselves.&nbsp;



Anyone paying attention to sports betting would know that gambling on anything and everything would be the next evolution. And perhaps Bored Apes re-primed the normie-sphere for its next big arbitrary collectible in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/labubus-succeeded-nfts-failed">Labubus</a>, some three decades after Tomagotchis and Beanie Babies ran wild.



With this in mind, 1789 Capital’s bet is clearly a solid one, even if Polymarket is what Russ Hanneman would call “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo">pre-revenue</a>,” in that it doesn’t collect any fees (yet), apparently subsisting only on venture capital money like the cash just raised from Don Jr, now amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.



And for all of its pesky <a href="https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/bettors-say-some-polymarket-prediction-outcomes-are-gamed/">problems</a> with market resolutions, it’s certainly fitting that a crypto-native outfit in Polymarket could be a primary venue for mainstream degeneracy moving forward.&nbsp;



It all begs the question: Is there more money to be made by looking outward from crypto rather than inward, like Hyperliquid and pump.fun?&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXexJwFpr4mDV_hj8_jhEL05r_khSbMNJg33Ox-udU4moa1kZo3dmECJs1wqMy0m11gEwlc8fLQRmd0mcbCDTzN1va-qmcrjoLUq5b6WFeBX2hoqmFUFstbVjOxe4C1s5bzw3O7Szw?key=cfCdTcmo1Yyyag1GX4K42Q" alt=""/></figure>



Hyperliquid has averaged more than $55 million onchain monthly revenue over the past six months and pump.fun nearly $33 million, per <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/application-comparison">Blockworks Research</a> data.&nbsp;



That’s far below a mainstream app like <a href="https://ir.roblox.com/news/news-details/2025/Roblox-Reports-Second-Quarter-2025-Financial-Results/default.aspx">Roblox</a> (currently about $360 million per month), but about in line with <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/">Discord</a> (around $50 million per month in 2023). Polymarket has otherwise seen over $1 billion in monthly trading volume for three months running, and is on track for a fourth in August. A hypothetical 5% fee would give it $50 million in monthly revenue right away, although perhaps a withdrawal fee might be easier to stomach.



In any case, it’s easy to make the argument that crypto and blockchain are worthwhile regardless of whether they only ever amount to reconstructing the traditional financial system to be more transparent and trustless, outside of the penchant for gambling.&nbsp;



But Polymarket is getting close to crossing the culture chasm in a way that Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana never have. Those may be household names, but they’re still “crypto.”&nbsp;



Polymarket might just be “Polymarket.”



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dApps

Polymarket is close to crossing the culture chasm

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read more 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;What&#8217;s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.&#8221; — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
</blockquote>



The thing about pancakes is that they’re really just cake: flour, eggs, sugar, and butter, topped with more sugar.&nbsp;



But because they’re flat and branded as breakfast, it’s socially acceptable to eat them in the morning.



This is kind of weird: Even your anything-goes dad wouldn’t serve you leftover birthday cake for breakfast, but he wouldn’t think twice about making you pancakes.



Lawyers and accountants recognize this as a question of substance vs. form: The form of pancakes is breakfast food, but the substance is dessert.



In the Roman Storm trial, for example, the prosecution asked jurors to ignore the form of Tornado Cash — non-custodial, immutable smart contract code — and instead focus on the substance of what it enabled: money laundering.



The economic reality and true intent of an arrangement, they essentially argued, matter more than the technical form it takes.



In short, prosecutors accused Storm of using a technical innovation to cleverly sidestep the law.



This is what the rest of crypto is often accused of, too.



In substance, skeptics say, tokens are stocks, protocols are companies, labs entities are c-suites, staking yields are dividends, token burns are buybacks, airdrops are sometimes IPOs, DAOs are general partnerships, and stablecoins are bank accounts.



It’s often hard to argue with.



Crypto people commonly talk about their tokens as if they’re shares in for-profit companies, for example, and expect those profits to be returned to them in staking yields or token burns.&nbsp;



But they don’t want their tokens regulated like stocks…because they’re tokens.



Lab entities first get their tokens onto exchanges via an airdrop, but don’t want to file an S-1 with the SEC.



Many DAOs choose not to incorporate, but they all want the corporate benefit of limited liability.



Stablecoins are celebrated as a means for anyone, anywhere to have a US bank account, but we don’t want them subject to KYC checks.



This begs the questions: Is the form of crypto just a way to do the same, old finance things but without the rules?



Or is crypto something substantively new?



There’s no one answer, of course.



BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE, AAVE and UNI, for example, are genuinely something new: tokens that accrue value from networks that are not controlled by anyone.



The VC firm a16z crypto helpfully <a href="https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/defining-tokens/#section--4">categorizes</a> these as “network tokens,” and contrasts them with “company-backed tokens,” which “derive value from an offchain application, product, or service operated by a company.”



These, it notes, “have historically mostly been used in the US to unlawfully circumvent securities laws.”



In other words, some tokens really are unregistered securities.



a16z’s distinction supports the substance-over-form view: Just because something takes the form of a token doesn’t make it exempt from securities or banking laws.



A further crypto category they list — “security tokens” — makes this point even more distinct: A tokenized security is still a security, even when it takes the form of a token.



By that logic, tokens that are substantively stocks should be regulated as such, stablecoins should be regulated like bank deposits, some airdrops should register with the SEC, and — most importantly — pancakes should only be served for dessert.



Pancakes remain cake, whatever name you call them by and whatever form you serve them in.&nbsp;



But when it comes to the law, sometimes form is substance.



Roman Storm’s many defenders argue that Tornado Cash’s form is what really matters: Because the code was autonomous and permissionless, Storm wasn’t “transmitting” anything and had no practical ability to stop or redirect transactions.



His attorneys would likely say the government mischaracterized the substance of Tornado Cash by shoehorning a peer-to-peer protocol into the legal definition of a financial middleman.



The defense might even have argued that the government implicitly conceded this point when it chose to prosecute Storm not for writing code, but for operating the Tornado Cash protocol.



Storm said the jury’s partial verdict was “a big win” for him, and that he expects his conviction of operating a money transmitter to be overturned.



But the guilty verdict might serve as a warning that crypto will ultimately be judged by the substance, and not just the form, of what it creates.



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