Step Finance

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"/>



Validator clients are the software that nodes run to participate in consensus and maintain the network. They <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-supply-staking-and-validators/solana-validator-clients">validate and vote</a> on blocks, process transactions, and generally just keep the network alive, handling both consensus and execution in a single piece of software.



Historically, Solana&#8217;s entire ecosystem has relied on one implementation, a Rust-based client developed by Solana Labs, and now maintained by Anza under the name Agave. Today, however, the vast majority of stake (90%+) runs on Jito-Solana, a fork of the Agave client with added MEV infrastructure.



The centralization of that effort is a problem, though. If Jito-Solana were to fail, the network risks performance issues or even a chain halt.



Jump Crypto&#8217;s Firedancer is the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-firedancer-testnet">leading contender</a> meant to break that monoculture, and it gets a heck of a lot of lip service in our community. This is not without good reason, of course. Once it&#8217;s live, it&#8217;ll be modular, wicked fast, and capable of handling over a million transactions per second.



But firepower aside, it&#8217;s hardly Solana&#8217;s only client in development. In fact, multiple teams are working on their own clients, with some already live and potentially capable of matching or even outmaneuvering Firedancer&#8217;s ambitions.



Let&#8217;s take a look at a few and compare.



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Jito-Solana was an <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-validators-mev-concerns">early breakaway</a> from Agave and is now the dominant client by stake weight. It&#8217;s not a ground-up rewrite but a fork of the original client with an MEV infrastructure. Jito introduced a bundle auction system that lets validators capture MEV more transparently, and share those rewards with stakers, not just slot leaders. By proving that validators would adopt client software offering new incentives, Jito opened the door for more experimentation and design specialization.</li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Sig is Syndica&#8217;s <a href="https://blog.syndica.io/introducing-sig-by-syndica-an-rps-focused-solana-validator-client-written-in-zig/">answer</a> to Solana&#8217;s performance ceiling. Where Firedancer pushes raw throughput for validators, Sig targets read operations. It&#8217;s written in Zig, a language focused on readability and memory control, and nearly all dapp interactions involve reading data rather than writing it. Sig overhauls the architecture to prioritize reads per second (RPS), resulting in dramatic speed gains for light clients, dapps and anyone syncing with the chain. It also has a more accessible codebase for contributors who find Rust daunting.</li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Paladin is a lightweight fork of Jito-Solana. Like Jito, it originated as a modified version of the original client and claims to <a href="https://buffalu.substack.com/p/understanding-paladin-an-analysis">add new logic</a> to handle MEV more transparently. Its core innovation is the P3 port, a protected lane for token-gated transactions intended to prevent sandwich attacks and curb extractive behavior. While Paladin promotes fairness and aims to redistribute MEV to stakers, it’s also faced <a href="https://buffalu.substack.com/p/understanding-paladin-an-analysis">criticism</a> for introducing fragmentation and reducing validator earnings. When reached for comment, Paladin core contributor Edgar Pavlovsky disputed data showing Paladin validators earn less. He argued that if anything, Paladin is less fragmenting than Jito, which adds extra steps to the transaction process via its block engine and bundler.</li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>TinyDancer is something else entirely. It is Solana&#8217;s first <a href="https://docs.tinydancer.io">open-source light client</a>, offering trust-minimized mobile access. The client supports SPV-style verification, data availability sampling and even fraud proofs, all designed to let users confirm network integrity without relying on third-party RPCs.</li>
</ul>



These clients each approach the problem from different angles. Alone, they&#8217;re targeted solutions to narrow problems, but together, they make Solana stronger, safer and more decentralized. Though most are still in development or early adoption, they reflect a maturing ecosystem where no single team defines our path forward.



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blockchain

Inside Solana’s expanding client stack

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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Representatives from the US and China kicked off a second round of trade talks in London today at 1 p.m. local time. National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett told CNBC this morning it should be a “short meeting with a big strong handshake.”&nbsp;



Here’s hoping.&nbsp;



President Trump sent his top dogs: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer.&nbsp;



China’s delegation includes vice premier He Lifeng.&nbsp;



It’s the second US-China meeting on neutral ground in less than a month. Roughly three weeks ago in Geneva, representatives from both countries negotiated a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/05/joint-statement-on-u-s-china-economic-and-trade-meeting-in-geneva/">temporary truce</a>: a 90-day pause on retaliatory tariffs from both sides.&nbsp;



The amicability was short-lived, though, and it quickly became clear that the joint pause came with strings attached.&nbsp;



On May 30, Trump (via Truth Social) accused China of violating its half of the agreement. Greer later clarified on CNBC that China was “slow rolling” its compliance to the Geneva deal, specifically when it came to rolling back rare earth export restrictions.&nbsp;



Since April 4 (two days after “Liberation Day”), China has suspended almost all exports of several rare earth metals and magnets. This matters, because China mines 60% of the global supply of rare earths and manufactures 90% of the global supply of the magnets. Rare earth elements are essential for technology; they’re in cell phones, cars, lights, batteries, you name it.&nbsp;



The restrictions are poised to disrupt US supply chains, because the US doesn’t currently have much infrastructure to mine the metals domestically. Solvent extraction (the difficult process of separating rare earth minerals from one another) comes with bad impacts on the environment: high levels of toxic waste, water pollution, etc. The process was actually created in the US in the 1950s, but it’s expensive and unpopular in the States.&nbsp;



China said it implemented the export restrictions because rare earths have significant military applications. Trump and his administration have countered that China was actually retaliating against higher tariffs.&nbsp;



China became less inclined to back off on the rare earth restrictions after the United States’ escalation of its AI chip export restrictions, according to a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/china/u-s-china-trade-truce-risks-falling-apart-over-rare-earth-exports-c36ceb72?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAgx-dmss5tBM6B9oiloLup2S4TUVaOOxisMxNN4LIPyu5Jhtb3qo9Dyc0SeZ0s%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68408745&amp;gaa_sig=ElhNWTewNk-fEkX0uGYrpopTvdHdVcjfye_u_YZAS_2Eep0hO9VkdAEPfwPXlpoaqJj5byON7dRy11laI_hGRw%3D%3D">report</a> from the WSJ. Trump’s crackdown on Chinese student visas surely didn’t help calm the waters, either.&nbsp;



Over the weekend, though, things started looking up. China on Saturday loosened some of its export restrictions, although it did not specify which countries were impacted.&nbsp;



Trump on Friday said he expected today’s London meeting to go “very well,” based on a phone call he had with Xi Jinping.&nbsp;



The meeting also comes after a Chinese <a href="http://www.customs.gov.cn/customs/302249/zfxxgk/2799825/302274/302275/6560408/index.html">report</a> released this morning showed that Chinese exports to the US were down 35% year over year last month. This is the largest annual decline since 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;



US markets were mostly muted Monday as investors waited for word from London. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes were up 0.3% and 0.5% over the day, respectively, at 2 p.m. ET.&nbsp;



Given the general lack of progress (publicly, at least) on the “90 deals in 90 days” front, even the smallest bit of positive news from London today could be a huge catalyst for markets. Keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow for all the updates.



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China

US and China reps meet on neutral ground for a second time

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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Coinbase is taking action to reduce the number of users it’s locking out — and says its efforts are paying off.



“Account freezing has been a major issue at Coinbase for longer than is acceptable,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong <a href="https://x.com/brian_armstrong/status/1931079537686962401">said</a>. “I could list a bunch of the underlying reasons why it got so bad in the first place, but what&#8217;s more important is that we&#8217;ve made it a priority to fix, and we have been making good progress.”



Dor Levi, Coinbase VP of Product, <a href="https://x.com/dorvonlevi/status/1931042048116945247">explained</a> that he joined Coinbase recently with the goal of getting account-lock numbers down.



“Our restriction experience is not meeting my own bar,” Levi said.



Coinbase recently made some technical changes and improvements, including some to its infrastructure, teams, and machine learning models. They’ve been able to fine-tune said ML models to tackle the issue.



“Account freezes should be rare, limited to situations that warrant them, primarily when we&#8217;re legally obligated (e.g. sanctions or court orders) or protecting users (e.g. from scams or account compromises),” Levi wrote.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">I joined <a href="https://twitter.com/coinbase?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@coinbase</a> 9 weeks ago with a vital goal: fixing unnecessary account restrictions. If you&#39;re on CT, you know how significant this issue has been for users. I myself am a Coinbase user and our restriction experience is not meeting my own bar. The goal is clear: Account… <a href="https://t.co/zvGuM3QSZi">pic.twitter.com/zvGuM3QSZi</a>&mdash; Dor (@dorvonlevi) <a href="https://twitter.com/dorvonlevi/status/1931042048116945247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Both Armstrong and Levi confirmed that account-lock occurrences are down roughly 82% within the past few months.



Coinbase often restricts user accounts when it’s concerned about what it detects as potentially suspicious activity. This means any activity that could be in possible violation of any nation’s laws, including <a href="https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/other-topics/other/does-coinbase-freeze-accounts">fraud</a>. Locked accounts can result in customers being forced to jump through various ID verification hoops and spend time speaking with support to try to resolve the issue.



Coinbase’s <a href="https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/other-topics/other/does-coinbase-freeze-accounts">site</a> says it “sometimes” places restrictions on user accounts, but claims that only very rarely does it fully “freeze” customer funds.



This change within Coinbase is a step toward keeping more of its users happy, especially as it faces scrutiny following a customer support-related <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-breach-fallout-data-exposed">data breach</a>.



We’re still waiting to see how or whether Coinbase ups its customer data security practices post-breach.



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Coinbase

Coinbase says it’s reduced account lockouts by 82%

Macauley Peterson

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



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Union just set a new record for zero-knowledge infrastructure. Its Groth16 trusted setup ceremony closed with 4,664 verified contributions — surpassing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/manta-network-harmed-by-ddos-attack-during-token-issuance">Manta Network’s</a> 2023 record — and another 4,590 are still in the queue. This establishes the cryptographic foundation for validating consensus and cross-chain messages with succinct <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/brief-history-zk-tech">validity proofs</a>.



Trusted setup ceremonies are crucial to zero-knowledge proving systems. Union enables it to act as a “blockchain of blockchains,” offering verifiable message passing and asset transfers across <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/arbitrum">Arbitrum</a>, Babylon and even <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-zk-rollups-debate">Bitcoin L2s</a> — all without relying on centralized actors.



Union Chief Technology Officer Cor Pruijs emphasized the significance: “Union&#8217;s circuit having the largest Groth16 trusted setup ceremony ever means that it has the smallest honesty assumption of all.”



“Honesty assumption” refers to the minimum number of participants who must act honestly (i.e. not leak or reuse their private randomness) for the resulting cryptographic parameters to remain secure.



Ethereum’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/addresses-helping-ethereum-scale">KZG Ceremony</a> for the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-dencun-upgrade-mainnet">Proto-Danksharding</a> upgrade used to scale rollups holds the record for most participants in any trusted setup. However, that ceremony’s computational demands were far lower, making Union’s scale even more impressive.



Despite the complexity of such cryptographic pipelines, contributors needed only to queue up and complete the computation when their turn came, with each result verified and added sequentially to the setup.



While Ethereum’s KZG setup was limited to data availability for rollups, Union’s underpins full cross-chain consensus verification. The design bears modular features:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>CometBLS, a modified CometBFT, is a data-light consensus mechanism that aggregates validator signatures for efficient onchain verification.</li>



<li>A permissionless prover network, <a href="https://docs.union.build/architecture/galois/">Galois</a>, generates zk proofs in under seven seconds.</li>



<li>Voyager (a decentralized relayer system) moves proofs and state data between source and destination chains.</li>
</ol>



The result is trust-minimized interoperability that works across execution environments — be it <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a>, CosmWasm, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solanas-software-underpins-these-layer-1s">SVM</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/initia-mainnet-launch-appchain-l1">MoveVM</a>. That’s a gamechanger for developers building across chains who want fast finality and unified liquidity without compromising on security.



For comparison, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/wormhole">Wormhole</a> relies on a multisig model governed by a fixed set of 19 “<a href="https://wormhole.com/docs/learn/infrastructure/guardians/">Guardians</a>,” where messages are only valid if signed by a supermajority (13/19). <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/axelar">Axelar</a> uses a validator-based architecture secured by economic incentives, and requires its nodes to run full chain nodes for each connected network.



Union’s approach inherits core principles from the Inter-Blockchain Communication (<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ibc">IBC</a>) protocol but effectively virtualizes IBC through zk proofs. This architecture removes reliance on whitelisting actors, and lets the interop layer scale horizontally across chains without replicating full node infrastructure, according to Union Labs CEO Karel Kubat.



“The key solution here is actually generating a [zero-knowledge proof] for your consensus updates instead of doing it in the contract itself&#8230;So if a network has 100 validators, 1000, or a million, it doesn&#8217;t really matter, because the ZKP has a constant cost associated with it,” Kubat said on <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/f58c1704-d839-11ef-b708-f71a7fba0d49">the 0xResearch podcast</a> earlier this year.



It also allows for permissionless solvers: Any participant can monitor chains, generate consensus proofs and submit them to the network.



For even faster settlement, Union supports intents, enabling solvers to front capital and fill user transactions almost instantly. Partners like <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/b57efaa4-6b1b-11ef-bd7f-0fdf4340563b">Aori</a> route these fills, with solvers taking on the finality risk. That should serve both latency-sensitive apps and more high-value, security-conscious use cases. Importantly, both are possible using one API, thus unifying general message passing and intents in a single integration.



Kubat expects Union will be about as cheap as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-across-cross-chain-swaps">Across Protocol</a>, with only around 20 transfers occurring at the same time. “That&#8217;s actually quite amazing with all of the cryptography happening under the hood,” he said.



After quietly supporting <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/babylon-genesis-launch-l1-bitcoin-liquidity">Babylon Genesis</a> with a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/consensus-mechanisms-guide">proof-of-authority</a> testnet, next up is Union’s mainnet. For crypto natives, the potential implications are frictionless, cross-chain dapps without fragmented UX or trust in multisigs. If Union delivers on its promises, this might be the first interop layer that actually feels like using one unified chain.



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0xResearch Newsletter

Union completes trusted setup to pave the way for trustless cross-chain DeFi

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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There’s no questioning that Supply Shock is deep in the nostalgia business. Sometimes, it’s meant to be deeper than that.



Maybe you lived the first few years of Bitcoin, and get a kick out of revisiting the major narratives and forgotten side plots. Perhaps you missed out and are now living vicariously as an early adopter through our deep dives.



Today&#8217;s throwback is more an expression of mourning than reminiscence: 



RIP, the age of Bitcoin idealism.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">On This Day</h2>



Exactly 15 years ago, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/happy-bitcoin-mmo-day-tale-in-the-desert">Andrew “teppy” Tepper</a> started what would become a fateful <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175">thread</a>: “A Heroin Store.”



Teppy wrote: “As a Libertarian, the thing I love most about the Bitcoin project is the chance that it could be truly disruptive. I think that drug prohibition is one of the most socially harmful things that the US has ever done, and so I would like to do a thought experiment about how a heroin store might operate, accepting Bitcoins, and ending drug prohibition in the process.”



It would work like this: A drug dealer sets up a website that accepts bitcoin for heroin. The buyer makes an order, sends BTC and supplies a physical address for shipping. The dealer then mails out the order to the buyer — and another order of the exact same size to a random address.



In that universe, because random packages of heroin would then be regularly arriving at addresses all across the US, simply receiving one would supposedly not imply that someone at the address had ordered the drugs in the first place. There would be plausible deniability.



Sure, the post office could spot a package and inform the police, who then might stake out your mailbox to see who collects the mail, then get a warrant to search the house to see if the package had been opened — confirming intent to buy.



Teppy thought of that: “It would be important for buyers to not open any package that they suspect may contain their heroin, until they wish to consume it: they would only be in danger of possession between when the package was opened and when the contents was consumed.” 



“Can anyone see a way to attack the store?” he asked.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcdjVGylGsGLES8EHNtxhxsb-vov0bCC1ZLlMlsgWs1ztuW63WF1NjK3-nOzJd6Fq7M0cY-5uCTntH3avE9qK20_Od-7GUXdKUNUXbXd0mUKF13h6RnQd7e2mYmBs0K17Bt77nEvg?key=Jaz0Aun0rkI2W5QaLkFANw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Not everyone was interested: A shadow economy doesn’t need to be shady.</figcaption></figure>



Teppy was clear that it was all hypothetical; he was not planning to start a heroin store. It was enough cover for a number of early high-profile Bitcoin users to join in on the experiment, including Laszlo Hanycez, Martti Malmi, Michael Marquadt, Bruce Wagner, Mike Caldwell and more.



Of course, the plan has a number of obvious attack vectors: Police could trace the packages back to certain mailboxes to catch the dealer, which is a common and effective tactic for busting actual dark web drug dealers. Teppy was, however, adamant that it would be practically impossible if the hypothetical store was operating out of a big city like New York.



There’s also the matter of forensics. Even in 2010, authorities could easily intercept and analyze the packages, tracing whatever materials were used back to the vendor and ultimately the dealer themselves.&nbsp;



Such an investigation would likely be prioritized due to the public safety risks of mailing dangerous drugs to random addresses nationwide.



The thread itself is famous for its connection to the case against Ross Ulbricht. Under the Bitcointalk alias “altoid,” UIbricht had taken the opportunity to advertise his then-brand-new Silk Road marketplace.



“What an awesome thread! You guys have a ton of great ideas. Has anyone seen Silk Road yet? It&#8217;s kind of like an anonymous amazon.com. I don&#8217;t think they have heroin on there, but they are selling other stuff … Let me know what you guys think,” altoid wrote.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd8PaTo9nul6i3aJmLSHdK2BUpao-NF5KcNS4BkzutQpfiOQjh9KqntT6eXwvli5G5aTBRkIek-qf5sahCLwH8169yidq2ZhJdtp5-wN7GRKQJSRTQsqtW2E2ZL3XsLYw3ALcKX?key=Jaz0Aun0rkI2W5QaLkFANw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Narrator: It did not take very long.</figcaption></figure>



Investigators ultimately linked Ulbricht to altoid in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html">number of ways</a>, including Ross’ use of a personal email address to recruit developers to help with Silk Road under the pseudonym. Ross’ posts in the thread also led to Bitcointalk receiving its first-ever subpoena.



It’s always difficult to know the true intentions of people on the internet, but I doubt that teppy realized his hypothetical could one day bleed over into real-world consequences.&nbsp;



Luckily, legendary Bitcointalk user Timo Y already captured the complexity of it all in October 2013, about a week after Ulbricht’s arrest in the sci-fi section of a San Francisco library. Authorities had referenced the thread in Ulbricht’s official indictment.



“Back then this forum was a more innocent place, full of dreamers discussing what at the time felt like improbable scenarios out of a William Gibson novel,” Timo Y wrote.



“I was really taken by surprise how soon this fantasy became reality, how soon this whole bitcoin experiment became serious fucking business. Very surreal to read this thread in retrospect.”



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



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



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



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

Bitcoin

This Bitcoin drugstore thought experiment quickly got out of hand

Katherine Ross

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



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



We talked a whole lot about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-execution-stablecoins">Circle</a> last week, and I’ve already mentioned that the success of the IPO opened up doors for other firms (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gemini-files-confidential-s1-with-sec">take a look at Gemini</a>, for example, which announced it confidentially filed an S-1 with the SEC earlier this year).&nbsp;



But while there’s a ton of appetite on the public markets, the question has to be asked: Who’s actually ready to premiere on a public stage?



Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick poured some cold water on the hopes and dreams of a crypto IPO season on this <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/0a8df65c-4326-11f0-a24f-870b75d11b1d">week’s Empire episode</a>. He and Haun Ventures’ Diogo Monica noted that most crypto companies are a tad smaller than public markets typically prefer.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="How Venture Is Navigating Crypto IPOs" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ivA7W-8jwE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



To put that into perspective, we’d be talking about hundreds of millions raised in an IPO in comparison to the billion-dollar Circle debut. Hadick said that the IPO market is “definitely open.”



But that doesn’t mean that the firms are ready. Hadick expressed doubt that firms like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan would be advising companies like Fireblocks to go public.&nbsp;



“Fireblocks is not there. And that&#8217;s true of Chainalysis, which is a great SaaS business. That&#8217;s true of most of the other people we talked about. Kraken is a different story. And you know, I expect we&#8217;ll see them [go] public. Maybe not this year, but maybe next year,” Hadick added.&nbsp;



However, because of the appetite, there could be a slew of crypto IPOs that rush to the public markets before they’ve hit the typical maturity points.&nbsp;



Hadick wouldn’t be surprised if firms talk to underwriters who promise to take them public through either a direct listing or go the more typical route like Circle and just aim to raise far lower (eyeing a $100 or $200 million raise versus billions).&nbsp;



And, to be fair, crypto’s not a special snowflake when it comes to massive IPO success. Every industry that sees one company’s success has other players seriously thinking about how they can capitalize on the momentum.&nbsp;



Generally, though, at least in my experience, it’s pretty rare to see firms capture the same fanfare or financial backing when they’re looking to hit copy and paste on another company’s playbook. But crypto thrives on smashing expectations, so perhaps that bodes well.



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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>

Crypto

What crypto firms could go public next?

Jack Kubinec

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



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Earlier this week, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">Blockworks first reported</a> that pump.fun has plans to raise $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation via a token sale. 



The potential b-nut would add to a likely already sizable war chest for the memecoin launchpad, which has generated over $700 million in revenue since launching last year. Some have speculated that the fresh funds could go toward the rollout of a pump.fun blockchain, which would capture some of the trading fees that currently go to Solana.  



In this week’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzhd1yWI-XE&amp;t=2271s">Lightspeed podcast roundup</a>, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz said launching a layer-1 without taking any other swings at growing pump’s business would do little else but increase the business’ take rate, which is another way of saying increase its profit margins. Mumtaz thinks this would be money poorly spent.



“​​Do you think that they would raise a billion dollars if what they cared about was increasing their margins from, let&#8217;s say, 80% to 85%?,” Mumtaz mused. “If I&#8217;m their VC, I&#8217;m going to say, ‘What the fuck are you doing? That&#8217;s extremely boring.’”



Rather, the Solana infrastructure CEO said, pump.fun’s fresh billion could de-risk new moonshot ideas to diversify the core business — which is lucrative but obviously quite captive to the whims of memecoin traders. (In fairness, a world does exist where pump.fun both develops new business lines and grows its margins on a new L1, but we’ll leave that aside for now).



That’s the big question for pump.fun: Can it find a second pitch? Pump could try to take the same path as Jupiter, which went on an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_AavGwooLs">acquisition spree</a>, adding a memecoin frontend, NFTs, lending and more after coming to dominate the Solana swap market.&nbsp;



“Historically, what you&#8217;ve seen in crypto M&amp;A is that it has kind of lacked discipline,” Blockworks Research head of research Ryan Connor said on this point. “Seeing what pump does purchase and if it&#8217;s synergistic to the business is going to be pretty critical.” Connor added that pump may have to deal with significant legal costs if it tries to expand its reach more globally.



If pump.fun tries to internally develop its next big idea, streaming may be the top contender. The platform brought back livestreaming earlier this year after facing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-suspends-livestream-feature">content moderation issues</a> in an earlier version. It has tried to create something akin to Twitch with memecoins on this latest iteration, notably onboarding the anonymous trader gainzy, who has gone viral for irreverent rants in between pulls from a vape.&nbsp;



Whatever it looks like, my podcast guests seemed to think pump.fun’s next move would involve something more inspired than creating yet another L1.



“I think a much more attractive proposition is: ‘Look, we&#8217;re literally going to redefine how crypto and media interact, right? We&#8217;re going to look at the entertainment and social aspects of this business and really take big shots and go for the next 10 to 100x,’” Mumtaz said.



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



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



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



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

meme coins

Pump.fun may have loftier goals than building an L1

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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I was watching CNBC yesterday afternoon (and the <a href="https://x.com/caseywagnerr/status/1930643273262964849">French Open</a>, don’t tell my boss) hoping to catch a glimpse of the NYSE exchange floor when <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle started trading</a>, but a bigger story quickly dominated the news cycle.&nbsp;



Fortunately for Circle shareholders, the political drama had seemingly no impact on shares of the newly-public stablecoin company. Trading under the ticker CRCL, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-hits-75-nyse-trading">the stock debuted</a> more than 120% above IPO price. Demand was alive and well today, too, with more than 20 million shares traded before 11 a.m. ET.&nbsp;



Back to that other big story, though. The biggest bromance in Washington is, apparently, imploding.&nbsp;



Yesterday, when speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside German Chancellor Merz, President Trump revealed cracks in his relationship with Elon Musk.&nbsp;



&#8220;Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump said. “I don&#8217;t know if we will anymore.&#8221;



If Merz was upset that his meeting in Washington was completely overshadowed by a public feud, he didn’t show it. I’d imagine he’s just glad he isn’t on the other side of Trump’s wrath.&nbsp;



Trump’s issues with Musk stem from the tech billionaire’s comments about the “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tax-bill-trump-congress-gop">one big beautiful bill” Act</a>, the sweeping tax and budget legislative package Trump is trying to get through Congress.&nbsp;



The bill is the heart of Trump’s platform, but Musk isn’t a fan for a few reasons:&nbsp;



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>The bill cuts electric vehicle tax credits. </li>



<li>The bill doesn’t do enough to curb government spending. </li>
</ol>



On that first point, we’ll never know if Trump would have won without Musk’s support, but I think it’s safe to say it certainly didn’t hurt. In Musk’s opinion, he spent enough time and money to secure some EV credits. Trump says he doesn’t owe the billionaire a thing.&nbsp;



Because it’s 2025, and because Trump and Musk are who they are, the venue for the fight was, of course, social media. While Trump fired off “truths” on Truth Social, Musk took to X.&nbsp;



In (perhaps) a sign that investors are growing more immune to political antics, US markets didn’t move as much as you may have expected. Well, save for Tesla, which lost 14% on Thursday. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes closed 0.5% and 0.8% lower, respectively.&nbsp;



By Friday, though, US markets were back in the green, thanks to a better-than-expected May jobs report. The S&amp;P 500 was trading 1.1% higher on the day at 2 p.m. ET while the Nasdaq Composite had gained 1.4% at that time.&nbsp;



As for the current state of affairs between Trump and Musk, things are still rocky. Trump’s chief of staff told NBC today there are “no plans” for a call between the president and his (former?) bestie. The New York Times is reporting that Trump plans to sell the red Tesla he added to the White House’s fleet back in March.&nbsp;



With midterms quickly approaching and Musk’s government contracts apparently on the line (per one of Trump’s threats yesterday), it seems advantageous for the two to kiss and make up.&nbsp;



We wouldn’t be surprised if they both cool down over the weekend, although I doubt either man can resist posting for too long, so we’ll see. Either way, I’ll be back on Monday to unpack it all.



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Circle

Markets recover on jobs surprise amid political feud tensions

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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World Network — known for its eye-scanning orb that verifies human accounts for its mobile super app — is launching the next phase of its developer incentive campaign.



World Network is managed by World Foundation and also involves corporate entities such as World Assets Limited and World Chain LLC. For-profit blockchain product developer Tools For Humanity is overseeing the development of the World app.



Collectively, World Foundation and TFH are working with crypto events DAO <a href="https://www.fwb.help/about">FWB</a> to host their next event for builders, <a href="https://worldbuild.fwb.help/">World Build 2.0</a>, in July, according to a release Tools For Humanity shared exclusively with The Drop. Tools For Humanity Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada was one of the first edition’s judges.



The first World Build event ran for five months, from February until May this year. It included an online hackathon followed by an in-person build sprint and ended with a demo day, where builders pitched their apps to VCs and threw their hats in the ring for various grants. The second Build event is expected to have a similar format.



There are a number of different funding opportunities for mini app builders regardless of their participation in World Build. World Foundation is offering a Mini Apps <a href="https://world.org/grants">Grants Program</a> and Mini App Retroactive Rewards.&nbsp;



TFH’s <a href="https://www.toolsforhumanity.com/legal/developer-rewards-terms-and-conditions">Dev Rewards Pilot</a> has a total of $300,000 to give developers over a three-month period ending June 30. Rewards of $25,000 a week are split across multiple dev teams depending on mini app performance.



The World Foundation is also giving out $1 million worth of its WLD token to developers who’ve already shipped something for the World app and saw over 10,000 verified human users by May 16 as part of a retroactive funding effort. Devs have until June 9 to <a href="https://world.org/retro">apply</a> for that one-time WLD token gift.



There are already 300 mini apps so far available within the World mobile app with roughly $12 million in venture capital funding across them, according to data from Tools For Humanity.



The World app uses the World Network blockchain, which is built on Ethereum via the Optimism Superchain.&nbsp;



Monetization <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/world-launches-mini-apps-1-2">isn&#8217;t</a> the main focus of the World Foundation or TFH right now. Instead, they’re pushing for platform growth and user adoption.&nbsp;



The World App has seen over 10 million downloads on Android alone thus far, according to its Google Play Store page.&nbsp;



Based on data from analytics platform AppFigures, it looks like World App for Android is a lot more popular than its iOS version. The Android version has seen over 5.9 million downloads this year alone, while the iOS version has less than a million downloads in that same period.&nbsp;



The top countries downloading World’s Android app this year so far the most are, in order, Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Philippines, and Peru. The US is much further down, in the 19th spot. The top countries data for the iOS app paints a similar picture, suggesting it’s a global app that hasn’t quite breached the US market just yet.



This may be because WLD hadn’t been available to US residents previously until a recent change <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-altman-worldcoin-orb-mini-eye-scan">announced</a> April 30.



Last month, World Foundation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/worldcoin-biometric-identity-vision">raised $135 million</a> in funding from a16z and Bain Capital Crypto. The VCs’ investment came in the form of buying WLD tokens.&nbsp;



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sam altman

World Foundation, Tools For Humanity unveil World Build 2.0

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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Aave’s new Umbrella staking system <a href="https://x.com/aave/status/1930630754255479080">went live</a> yesterday, replacing the protocol’s once-theoretical insurance model with an onchain, automated safety net tied directly to individual assets.&nbsp;



The USDC and USDT vaults <a href="https://app.aave.com/staking/">currently</a> have yields greater than 10% on offer. But for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-stablecoin-gho-mainnet-launch">GHO</a> — <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/aave">Aave’s</a> bespoke <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> — a mismatched reward structure is creating an odd dynamic for GHO holders in search of yield.



Since 2020, Aave’s Safety Module (SM) has served as a kind of backstop — stkAAVE and AAVE-ETH LPs (stkABPT) could be slashed in theory, but governance votes and political incentives meant that slashing never occurred — even after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-curve-exposure">bad debt events</a> like the 2022 Curve exploit. With Umbrella, Aave introduces an autonomous mechanism that slashes stakers in real time once bad debt in a particular asset exceeds a preset threshold.



The goal: make Aave’s insurance fund more credible, capital-efficient and aligned with real user behavior.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How Umbrella works</h2>



Each Umbrella vault is an <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/erc-4626">ERC-4626</a> strategy for staking yield-bearing assets like Aave-deposited USDC, USDT and ETH, or by staking GHO. Users stake their token and earn both the underlying lending APY and an additional “Safety Incentive” stream. Rewards follow an S-shaped curve, with peak emissions at the vault’s “Target Liquidity” and tapering off above or below.



If a shortfall occurs, the protocol automatically burns the same asset from its vault after a configurable “first-loss offset” (currently 100,000 units per asset). There is no governance vote, no auction and no delay.



Like the legacy module, staked tokens remain locked for 20 days once withdrawal is requested, with a two-day window to exit.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Migration: New names, new risks</h2>



The shift to Umbrella brings some changes for existing stakers:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>stkAAVE and stkABPT remain active, but with slashing disabled. They now serve primarily as governance power with residual yield.</li>



<li>stkGHO, a staking vault introduced last year, was automatically migrated into a new token: sGHO. Slashing risk and cooldowns were removed, but Aave’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-rewards-program-airdrop">Merit program</a> continues to stream rewards — currently ~7% APY.</li>



<li>A new stkGHO-Umbrella vault was launched for those willing to take on slashing risk.</li>
</ul>



Umbrella’s stkGHO deposits currently earn a ~5% APY — lower than the risk-free sGHO. That’s sparking user complaints and a governance forum discussion. Here’s the status quo:



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table class="has-fixed-layout"><tbody><tr><td>Token</td><td>Liquidity</td><td>Slashing</td><td>Cooldown</td><td>APY (as of June 6)</td><td>Funding</td></tr><tr><td>sGHO</td><td>Instant</td><td>None</td><td>None</td><td>~7%</td><td>Merit/ASR</td></tr><tr><td>stkGHO</td><td>20d lock</td><td>Up to 100%</td><td>Yes</td><td>~5%</td><td>Umbrella emissions</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



Due to overfunding of the GHO vault and absent a redirection of Merit rewards, stkGHO currently earns less than its risk-free counterpart.&nbsp;



But the opportunity in sGHO will be short-lived. Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) drafts are circulating to fix this by either shifting Merit rewards or raising the vault’s emissions cap.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Assessing the risks</h2>



Umbrella introduces a higher probability of slashing compared to the legacy SM, since there’s no governance barrier. But the scope of slashing is narrower: You only lose funds if there’s bad debt in the specific asset you’ve staked, and only above the offset buffer.



Compared to holding AAVE (a volatile token backing generalized risk), staking stablecoins in Umbrella offers a more targeted risk-return profile. Still, liquidity lock-ups and smart contract risk remain.



Stakers chasing yield can rotate into under-target vaults (waUSDT or waWETH) for better APY. GHO holders could opt for sGHO now and switch over to stkGHO once the emissions patch lands.



Umbrella deployments on L2s are also on the roadmap. Long term, the legacy Safety Module may be retired entirely.



For now, Umbrella marks a shift from “opt-in protection” to credible, real-time insurance — a more tailored approach to putting staker skin in the game.



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Umbrella reshapes Aave staking

Gemini announced that it filed a confidential draft S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.&nbsp;



The filing is one of the first steps for the crypto firm to go public through an initial public offering.&nbsp;



The S-1, however, isn’t public yet, but Gemini said that it expects its IPO to move forward following the review process from the SEC.&nbsp;



The move comes just a day after Circle debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO that was pretty successful. The stock was priced at $31 at an offering of 34 million shares, but started trading at $69 a share. It <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">closed</a> up over 160% at $83 a share on Thursday.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-execution-stablecoins">Did Circle execute its IPO ‘perfectly’</a>



Industry watchers noted that the success of an IPO as big as Circle could spur others to quickly follow in the stablecoins footsteps.&nbsp;



“I suspect we’ll be seeing several crypto companies accelerating their IPO plans now that Circle has revealed Wall Street’s appetite,” GSR’s Carlos Guzman told Blockworks.



Empire co-host and Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz said that he spoke to a couple of firms in crypto that were pulling their IPO timelines forward because of the stablecoin issuer.&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">More true than ever Speaking with founders this week, the demand for Circle / <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRCL&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$CRCL</a> just pulled forward the IPO timeline for several other companies. <a href="https://t.co/HMbSC4434B">https://t.co/HMbSC4434B</a>&mdash; Yano 🟪 (@JasonYanowitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz/status/1930587713909956769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-07/winklevoss-twins-gemini-is-said-to-file-confidentially-for-ipo">reported</a> in March that the Winklevoss-led firm was considering going public, saying that it could hit the public markets as soon as this year.&nbsp;



Both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been supporters of President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto administration, and were also in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/inauguration-weekend-crypto-ball">attendance</a> at the Crypto Ball earlier this year.&nbsp;



Gemini didn’t immediately return a request for comment.



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</ul>

Gemini

Gemini files confidential S-1 with SEC in road to IPO

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>.



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



It’s nice to imagine a world where the price of bitcoin didn’t matter. Sadly, it can never be so.



Perhaps in a vacuum, maybe, in an alternate dimension where human brains are hardwired — like an ASIC miner — to only ever transact in bitcoin and nothing else. Not with <a href="https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html">shells</a>, gold or livestock. Only bitcoin and barter, forever.



<a href="https://hyperbitcoinization.com/">Hyperbitcoinization</a> or bust.



In boring reality, bitcoin needs reference points. The ones we currently have may well be trending to zero, but Bitcoin could never fulfill its true calling — payments and storing value — without knowing exactly how much it’s worth relative to something else at any given moment.



Tracking exchange rates quickly turns into an obsession, and for good reason: That’s how fortunes are made.&nbsp;



Few know that better than Mark Cuban, my muse for today’s retrospective.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Money Is Speech</h2>



It’s been eight years exactly since <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/mark-cuban-calls-bitcoin-a-bubble-price-falls.html">this banger tweet</a> about Bitcoin from the former majority Mavs owner Cuban:



“I think it’s in a bubble. I just don’t know when or how much it corrects. When everyone is bragging about how easy they are making $=bubble.”



It was June 2017, and bitcoin had been rallying for about six months straight to cap off a 10x run over two years — from $250 to $2,800 around the time of Cuban’s post.



Bitcoin would push 600% higher over the next six months until the cycle’s peak in December, before retracing by more than 80% across the following year.



Was that a bubble? It really depends on how loose your definition is, but for what it’s worth, bitcoin never returned to $2,800 again after Cuban’s post.



So, anyone who bought bitcoin as he sent that tweet would have never lost money, and would today be up by 3,600%.



<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">Look at Bitcoin. As long as everyone stays in their comfort zone , btc is never more than a SOV driven by supply and demand. Unless everyone drops fiat, no one drops fiat&mdash; Mark Cuban (@mcuban) <a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1268663448847765515?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Nods in Jack Nicholson: “Unless everyone drops fiat, no one drops fiat.”</figcaption></figure>



Cuban’s opinion about bitcoin and crypto has indeed evolved over time — the same guy who <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/04/mark-cuban-on-the-value-of-bitcoin.html">said</a> “I’d rather have bananas than bitcoin” in October 2019 (when bitcoin was at $8,000) has more recently <a href="https://x.com/mcuban/status/1908344893862269417">said</a> “btc is probably a better buy right now” over stocks, even amid the buyback craze and with bitcoin at $84,000.



It’s not totally fair to surmise Cuban’s personal views from just his tweets and media spots. But I’ll do it anyway.



Cuban’s tendency is to consume Bitcoin through the very narrow lens of prices and profits, and he has certainly agreed with bitcoin’s potential as a store of value, even if it’s really a euphemism for “number go up.”



His most telling <a href="https://x.com/mcuban/status/1426920428237434888">tweet</a> is this, from August 2021, peak bull market: “BTC is a great SOV. Far better than gold. I own a bunch. But it is what it is. It doesn’t have all the special powers Maxis try to assign to it.”



Calling it now: If Bitcoinization is anything like the Apocalypse — 15 signs and all — then let the moment Cuban finally sees the magic of Bitcoin, beyond its price, be undeniable.



— David



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A Historian’s View</h2>



To pull a quote from Harry Suddock, when it comes to Bitcoin —&nbsp;“price is the product,” but I’ll add my own twist. It’s also the marketing. Since David has regaled us with a tale of just how late Mark Cuban has been to Bitcoin, I thought it would be nice to provide a reminder that we’re still early.



Take this quote from Zooko Wilcox, written 14 years ago:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc0FiUG4XAVIQ8SZCpf8nc3AA0gdYt7HN-uRl_wMZq91hwFgqD4YRpYarV_nAiY6BLTELV01MSbrZ47kF9NE4nIoQH8ApyvLM_HI5gAcNMtE7GtgrrpvwUp-O8ZV-9jiYuAoE4n1w?key=2bRz0-TRqtndVWoTllE4yw" alt="" style="width:528px;height:auto"/></figure>



An off-the-cuff remark from a renowned cypherpunk (with his own fascinating crypto story), it’s a 14-year-old observation that rings true today.



It makes you wonder how high the price will be when the number of economists supporting BTC is over 10%.



— Rizzo



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What Mark Cuban still misses about Bitcoin

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



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



I know we’ve been talking a lot about <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle</a>, but let’s be honest…whether you love or hate the firm, it’s a huge success story this week.&nbsp;



The stablecoin issuer finally debuted on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, jumping as high as $103 before closing around $83. Quite a ride if you were watching it in real time, but if you weren’t, it closed up over 160% after pricing at $31 Wednesday night. 



What was clear today was that retail was just as interested as institutions (ICYMI: Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-be-likely-to-price-above-marketed-range-mbi24hhn?embedded-checkout=true">reported</a> that the offering was 20x oversubscribed earlier this week).&nbsp;



Speaking of institutions, Cathie Wood’s Ark disclosed that it bought nearly 4.5 million Circle shares, an amount worth over $373 million. Ark <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand">previously said</a> it was interested in roughly $150 million, per a Circle filing.&nbsp;



As my colleague (and <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance newsletter</a> author) Ben Strack <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">wrote</a>: It makes sense for folks to be interested in both COIN and CRCL.&nbsp;



“Coinbase is the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-circle-amazon-of-crypto">Amazon of crypto</a> — trading, derivatives, custody, staking and, of course, stablecoins,” Bitwise’s Ryan Rasmussen told Strack. “Circle now offers pure-play exposure to stablecoins. I suspect investors will want both in their portfolios.



“With stablecoin legislation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/senate-advances-genius-act">likely to pass this year</a>, that growth is only going to accelerate. So they smash the buy button on Circle.”



But, on the Empire podcast today, co-hosts Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Santos talked not only about COIN and CRCL but also Robinhood. When Santos asked Yanowitz which stock he’d choose if he could only pick one, Yanowitz responded that he’s “gigalong HOOD at this point.”



What was perhaps more surprising — to me at least — was that Yanowitz said if he were to recreate his equity portfolio from scratch, he’d include <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/coinbase">Coinbase</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/robinhood">Robinhood</a> but not Circle.&nbsp;



“I think we’re nearing a local top in sentiment for stablecoins,” Yanowitz explained. “I think Circle hit this IPO perfectly.”



But it’s not enough to get him to buy the stock.



Meanwhile, GSR’s Carlos Guzman told us: “Such a high degree of investor interest reflects significant optimism about the potential for stablecoins, especially as US legislation gets close to the finish line. As market structure legislation advances in Congress, we could see this interest extend to the rest of the industry, as clearer regulation sets the stage for broader adoption. I suspect we’ll be seeing several crypto companies accelerating their IPO plans now that Circle has revealed Wall Street’s appetite.”



What I’ll be watching now is whether or not Circle can keep the momentum. Hype’s great, but it doesn’t always last, and is $83 a fair price for the stock? We’ll have to see.



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Did Circle execute its IPO ‘perfectly’?

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



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



Solana’s real economic value, app revenue, and DEX volumes were <a href="https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1930337683039236215">all up</a> on the order of 20-30% in May, but one noteworthy figure didn’t keep pace: stablecoin supply.



Today, there are 15% fewer stablecoins on Solana than a month ago, per Blockworks Research <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=159">data</a>. Stablecoins are often an important source of liquidity for doing things like swapping in and out of SOL, although Solana’s stablecoin dip comes after the gray swan that was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dinner-with-trump-memecoins-lobbyists">Donald Trump’s memecoin</a>.



Solana’s stablecoin supply doubled essentially overnight when Donald Trump’s memecoin was paired with USDC, meaning investors essentially had to buy TRUMP with Circle’s stablecoin. Interestingly, the fresh stablecoin supply didn’t evaporate when TRUMP investors flocked for the exits, and it even hit a fresh all-time high in April when the presidential memecoin was far from its initial highs.



So given that context, some in Solana find the decline in stablecoin supply unconcerning.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXePty3KuGwKcUnApEIzazGWN961pTfwhuZIygF9eC5Ti4Bt_x2AExHqGvhkXjA1JBnn-nyIqOiiHGO9_xFwTHrdq1l-oGLPhRQr-NTohI7-Pb1Gk6FmBmt8gs2sS-LFqaBREbXsvg?key=MiWNmfJsUfYxuRKsiPBVtQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Blockworks Research</figcaption></figure>



“[Y]ea this chart looks a lot better than the SOL price chart lol,” Lulo co-founder Jesse Brauner said when I asked him about the stablecoin supply dip.



In any event, the stablecoin exodus has been led by USDC, which saw its market cap on Solana shrink by some $1.8 billion in May, according to Blockworks Research analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo. Perena founder Anna Yuan speculated that the sudden drop in supply could be funds shorting the dollar in a topsy-turvy macro environment.



Non-USDC stables actually grew last month, notably including PayPal’s PYUSD, which saw its supply grow 48%.



PYUSD is one of several newer stablecoins vying for a piece of USDC’s 70% market share on Solana. It’s joined by USDG — a Paxos-issued stable that pledges to share revenue with its network partners, which include Robinhood and Kraken — and USX, a forthcoming basis-trade token that its developer company <a href="https://x.com/ben_solstice/status/1927809303827644557">dubbed</a> “Solana’s stablecoin.”



I have <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-stablecoins-stickier-than-anticipated">speculated previously</a> that Solana may look to drive adoption on non-USDC stablecoins, since a significant portion of Circle’s revenue goes to Coinbase, which is possibly building Solana’s chief competitor in Base. On a permissionless network, however, disincentivizing usage of a product that users want is pretty difficult.



Gonzalez Campo noted how alternative stablecoin growth strategies have so far mainly revolved around shelling out incentives for users, but paying for adoption is ultimately unsustainable.



The analyst added he’d like to see a B2B model where upstart stablecoins like USDG share revenue with DeFi protocols to create a vested interest in supply growth.



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Lightspeed Newsletter

Solana stablecoin supply dip led by $1.8B USDC outflow

Ben Strack

Circle shares surged during their first day trading on the New York Stock Exchange as interest in the stablecoin issuer spilled over to retail investors.



The company’s stock opened around $69 — more than double the upsized IPO price of $31 per share. CRCL shares peaked at $103.75 before settling at $82 when the market closed, up 167% from the IPO price and about 20% from the opening price.



Institutional demand for Circle was evident when the company on Monday <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-upsizes-ipo">increased both the number of shares</a> it planned to offer and the price range. Circle <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-price-before-nyse-debut">revealed further upsizing</a> — 34 million shares at $31 each — Wednesday evening after a Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-be-likely-to-price-above-marketed-range-mbi24hhn?embedded-checkout=true">report</a> indicated the offering was roughly 25 times oversubscribed.



GSR research analyst Carlos Guzman told Blockworks that Circle’s “impressive pop” as shares hit the NYSE is “further evidence of the market’s substantial demand for crypto equities as both institutional and retail investors rush to scoop up shares.”



The stock pared gains but held up despite a broader crypto selloff. Bitcoin’s price was about $102,000 at 4 pm ET — down 2.5% from 24 hours prior.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle</a>’s listing marks a milestone for the industry, giving equity investors another access point for crypto exposure. It comes roughly four years after Coinbase’s arrival on the Nasdaq in April 2021 — a direct listing different from the IPO route that Circle chose.



VanEck’s Matthew Sigel <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand">told Blockworks Tuesday</a>: “If Coinbase is one of the main storefronts in the onchain economy, Circle could be the payments pipework running beneath it: less visible, but still essential to the flow of capital and trust.”



Bitwise research head Ryan Rasmussen said it makes sense for investors with a positive outlook on the long-term growth of crypto to hold both COIN and CRCL.&nbsp;



&#8220;Coinbase is the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-circle-amazon-of-crypto">Amazon of crypto</a> — trading, derivatives, custody, staking and, of course, stablecoins,” Rasmussen said. “Circle now offers pure-play exposure to stablecoins. I suspect investors will want both in their portfolios.”



Circle’s USDC stablecoin has a market cap of roughly $62 billion — about a quarter of the broader stablecoin market (~$230 billion). Tether (USDT) leads the category with a market cap above $150 billion. Public market investors examining the stablecoin space notice that Tether generates more profit than Goldman Sachs, Rasmussen noted. The company posted an operating profit exceeding $1 billion during the first quarter. 



<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">Why are people shocked by the CRCL price action? Circle is going after the same market as Tether, which generates more profit than Goldman Sachs (and Goldman&#39;s worth $187 billion). Circle is currently valued at $17 billion&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/vtxSY2KIxT">pic.twitter.com/vtxSY2KIxT</a>&mdash; Ryan Rasmussen (@RasterlyRock) <a href="https://twitter.com/RasterlyRock/status/1930698675527078391?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“They want to invest in it, but they can&#8217;t; they know that Circle is the second-largest stablecoin issuer today and is growing rapidly,” the Bitwise executive told Blockworks. “With stablecoin legislation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/senate-advances-genius-act">likely to pass this year</a>, that growth is only going to accelerate. So, they smash the buy button on Circle.”



While Circle labeled “intense and increasing competition” and “fluctuations in interest rates” as risk factors in IPO filings, industry watchers have pointed to tailwinds for the company. Aside from regulatory clarity, we have seen many traditional financial companies exploring more ways to use blockchain technology.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“To say that stablecoins are simply a new form of payment or a new digital currency would be like saying that the internet is a better version of the fax machine,” Circle executive Spencer Spinnell said at last week’s Stablecon conference.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecon-execs-bullish-stablecoins-financial-revolution">Digesting Stablecon: Execs bullish on imminent financial infrastructure revolution</a>



Circle’s public debut follows the Nasdaq listings of fellow crypto-focused firms Galaxy Digital and DeFi Technologies last month. Segment observers had predicted 2025 to be a year of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/2025-crypto-stocks-to-watch">more crypto public listings</a>, as well as mergers and acquisitions.



Guzman noted: “With this IPO surpassing everyone’s expectations, we’ll likely see greater institutional and retail attention directed toward crypto and stablecoins, along with more crypto companies looking to go public.”



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Circle ends NYSE debut up 167% from IPO price

Felix Jauvin

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



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



This week is all about the labor market! With the jobs report coming out tomorrow, let’s dive in and get a state of play on where things stand.&nbsp;



My favorite way to get a high-level pulse on the labor market is taking a look at Atlanta Fed’s labor market spider chart:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdl_1-GmyBgNjNKdMUI41Ss4x5RPqT4t08Uex5Jx3wCK_fbt03yG7IT1k2y38ZZUsrF7-hrb-toq0F36TE9K2wIRxCa3etSggRf5_ciRgz2Jnwu_y4DBx8tKX76rrr2Z6rLrTld?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



Compared to both one year ago and to the pre-Covid trend, we can glean a few general trends:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The private sector is quite weak and continues to be. Hiring rates are very low, causing people to hold onto their jobs and avoid quitting at all costs.</li>



<li>Wage growth, one of the key drivers of the huge inflation we saw in 2021-2022, continues to soften as the labor market returns to being in balance.</li>



<li>Generally, it’s a bad time to look for a new job, but as long as you don’t quit, it’s unlikely you’ll be laid off either.</li>
</ul>



With the stage set, let’s dig into all the labor market data we’ve received this week.



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



On Monday, we received the JOLTS report for April, which came in quite strong.



Job openings rebounded higher to 7.39 million, above consensus expectations of 7.10 million.



However, when contrasting it to higher-frequency data like Indeed Job Postings, this is likely to be an outlier bounce higher that is likely to return to a downward trend next month.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfBLuU8ER87COjuMY2STgxWLLa1pR8h2QV1-j9yOTXixfzXPbYXtBuPWj3ewJYrMxKS4YcbX1OOa72QaiXVKnY7rhq4ydawC7g3TkVMBN0gV4hXB3yYvfWvanqwu36Hz9G1vNy0Xg?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



One of the key insights for understanding slack in the labor market is comparing the number of job openings to unemployment.&nbsp;



One of the big reasons the Fed was able to hike so aggressively in 2022 without hurting the labor market is because the huge amount of job openings acted as a buffer so that the unemployment rate wouldn’t tick up. The Beveridge curve is the best way to view this dynamic.&nbsp;



As we can see from this week’s print, we held steady at the low end of the job vacancy rate where there’s just enough slack in the labor market to avoid an acceleration in unemployment:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcSdKL_HEL6fJSwlBhzctWOajhBfV5c8z0tH1hNNrlB2u_J1QwsASelwvXytOvwaQpZsvHd7GPfjfayskXSWCxMeFz8GNYrbZWv5FGdx09TVvAfULwWE1Asj4_xnz4F2WP0fjc1vQ?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Claims data</h2>



Today we received the claims data, which provides one of the more high-frequency labor market data points we can see every week.&nbsp;



Interestingly, continuing claims — which saw a new cycle high last week — were revised lower and are now back within the range:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXenzw1VeKvGYZ88zL4N-8gQ5nHapVUXpPJNr7oDCMrFJpSyd8j-6D8Pd-NiHF3kGHQZs9CsGI-rR4U88xjPrSwPh53c6gIb3W-TB0n2PdEHzU8tOO6eXsb3ulxCt4jpw8DknsMvvg?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



Finally, we receive the jobs report tomorrow, which will provide a good look into how the labor market is digesting the impact of tariffs:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe-zrs5X2pKIR76pN7AxCxGGTH7N0tEMvkTsnSaHd5j7GsfujQwfvUHpUQyn4EOXdlKQ5k8QPs56AYw58ykx3eelJpDFdgWwdkJLJfnDjt68oW_EVU4ieB5Pqa8uVPiB6rJnMF9?key=P1xUCJRImdAC8G2rHgJigA" alt=""/></figure>



Overall, according to this week’s data, a picture of a labor market that remains on thin ice emerges.&nbsp;



Not quite bad enough to crack the ice — but still strong enough to hold up the economy.



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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>

Step FinanceSTEP

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