Ribbita by Virtuals

Katherine Ross

If you haven’t heard, there’s a huge court battle playing out between two HR and payroll services rivals, Rippling and Deel (they’re both <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/25/deel-files-countersuit-against-rippling-as-rivalry-escalates/">suing</a> each other).&nbsp;



So, what does this have to do with our industry? Well, there’s a separate ongoing court case happening between two crypto companies. It’s a little complicated, so bear with me.&nbsp;



In December of last year — so before Rippling filed its suit — Toku <a href="https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Delaware_State_Court_of_Chancery/2024-1334/CONF-WorkCo_Inc._d-b-a_Toku_v._Liquifi_Inc._et_al/">accused</a> its rival firm, Liquifi, and its new general counsel, Benjamin Snipes, of stealing thousands of files containing sensitive business information after Snipes left Toku on not-so-pleasant terms. The lawsuit claims that Snipes wanted a promotion at Toku but didn’t get it, so he quit to work for a firm outside of crypto, only to pop up at Liquifi a couple of months later.



(In Snipes’s affidavit, he confirmed he temporarily left crypto after Toku, calling it a “toxic work environment.”)



Coincidence? Toku doesn’t seem to think so. And, from what I’ve heard, these firms operate in a very small subsection of crypto. There are four big players: Toku, Liquifi, Magna and Pulley. Then there are a few smaller firms that may have some overlap.&nbsp;



Toku is a platform built for tax and payroll compliance through a crypto lens, while Liquifi seeks to automate token vesting (in their words, building the “Carta of crypto”) so you can see where the two compete.&nbsp;



On one hand, we have Toku arguing that it found — through an investigation — that Snipes downloaded company documents before his “heated departure.” Since then, Toku alleges that the two have used the information for their business and engaged in “a campaign of outright lies about Toku in the marketplace.”



A person familiar with the sector told me that Benjamin Snipes also applied for a demo at Magna back in September of last year, which would have been right before Snipes joined Liquifi. According to his LinkedIn, Liquifi officially onboarded Snipes in October 2024.&nbsp;



Snipes confirmed that to me. He added that the demo happened before he spoke with Liquifi, explaining that he was just consulting at the time.&nbsp;



According to court documents, Snipes was “terminated” from Liquifi in the wake of the lawsuit. Toku, he said, “hurt” his reputation, which has since made it difficult for him to find work.&nbsp;



Liquifi, meanwhile, says that Toku’s “claims are all sizzle and no steak.”



Instead, it says that it was once a takeover target for Toku, but the relationship soured after those talks fell through.



Now here’s the thing: The case, while filed back in December, is still in discovery (which is when both sides exchange relevant information ahead of a potential trial to prepare for arguments).&nbsp;



But Toku was handed a defeat on Friday when a judge denied its motion to grant a preliminary injunction, which would have essentially handcuffed Liquifi. However, the case is still ongoing.&nbsp;



“The court&#8217;s verdict speaks loudly: It rejected outright all of the relief sought by Toku against Liquifi at this preliminary injunction stage, validating and confirming what we have always known. Liquifi has always stood for fair competition and innovation over litigation,” Liquifi told me.&nbsp;



“For months, we remained silent out of respect for the legal process. The court has now seen through Toku&#8217;s storytelling and we are pleased to move forward and stay focused on our product, customers and partners.”



Meanwhile, Toku told me: &#8220;The allegations presented in this filing are disturbing and provide shocking documentary evidence of Liquifi and Deel’s behavior in this matter. It’s even more troubling that this information only scratches the surface as we are in early stages of litigation. We will continue to learn about what happened and how files stolen from Toku were used in a failed attempt to destroy our business.”



&#8220;The true nature of their unethical and appalling actions has still not been fully uncovered. We take the protection of our trade secrets and confidentiality very seriously and are committed to pursuing the appropriate steps to deliver justice as the process moves forward,” a Toku spokesperson told me.&nbsp;



Prior to the court decision on Friday, Toku — in its attempt to convince a judge to rule in its favor on the motion — filed a 74-page brief bringing another player into the mix. This is where Deel comes into play. Liquifi and Deel entered into a partnership last year, the court documents claimed.&nbsp;



&#8220;Liquifi is one of the vendor options for the small percentage of Deel’s customers that require token management, a service we do not offer. Working with a skilled vendor to provide complementary services to our product suite is not only standard industry practice, but good business sense,” a Deel spokesperson told me.&nbsp;



Deel and Toku are unlikely competitors: competing not on the crypto level, but as employer of record service providers (which is when a service provider acts as the legal employer for a company’s employees when they’re based in a different country and the company doesn’t have a legal entity).&nbsp;



Deel, according to the filings, sought to “crush” Toku. The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/accused-tech-spy-says-rival-ceo-recruited-him-with-offer-to-be-like-james-bond-793483e1?mod=hp_featst_pos5">alleged spy</a>, Keith O’Brien, was also mentioned in the filing after reportedly applying to work at the firm four times.&nbsp;



“O’Brien’s quest for a Toku position halted approximately when he began his ‘spying’ at Rippling on behalf of Deel,” the filing said.&nbsp;



I asked Deel about O’Brien and its mention in the ongoing case, to which a spokesperson told me: “We cannot comment on another company&#8217;s litigation but understand that the court denied Toku’s request for a preliminary injunction last Friday.”



“Liquifi has many other partners. This is clearly an attempt to attach a months-old lawsuit to a completely unrelated news cycle. And it&#8217;s worth noting that Quinn Emmanuel, the law firm in this case, also represents a company in active litigation against Deel,” they added.



Liquifi, in its response document, didn’t dispute that Deel wanted to “crush” Toku, but noted in a footnote it didn’t mean that Liquifi would use confidential information to do so.&nbsp;



And, according to the filings, “the parties entered into a search-and-destroy Protocol that will wipe all Toku documents from Liquifi’s systems, meaning that there is no risk of Liquifi accessing any documents on a going-forward basis.​​”



As for how this case plays out, it’s early yet. But I’ll be monitoring it <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=social">over on Empire</a>.&nbsp;



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crypto hiring

‘All sizzle and no steak:’ 2 rival crypto firms duke it out in a court case

Jeff Albus

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



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Loopscale Labs had one tough weekend.



Bad actors on Saturday <a href="https://x.com/LoopscaleLabs/status/1916183179469246626">exploited</a> Loopscale&#8217;s pricing functions to make loan collateral seem worth more than it really was, resulting in the theft of approximately $5.7 million in USDC and 1,200 SOL (or around 12% of the platform&#8217;s total assets.)



It’s obviously not ideal to suffer an exploit just <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-defi-protocol-launches-efficiency">two weeks after launching</a>, but this isn’t your typical “DeFi protocol caught with its pants down” moment. On the contrary, many DeFi folks have rallied behind Loopscale&#8217;s response to the exploit, <a href="https://x.com/teethrichards/status/1916490751677972651">applauding</a> the team&#8217;s speed, professionalism and commitment to user recovery.&nbsp;



Loopscale USDC and SOL vault depositors do face losses, though early signs seem to point to a partial or even full recovery.&nbsp;



For those unfamiliar, Loopscale&#8217;s story ‘til now unfolds thusly.&nbsp;



Loopscale is a decentralized finance (DeFi) project that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-defi-protocol-launches-efficiency">automates</a> recursive leverage to make yield farming more efficient. Loopscale’s bread and butter is “looping” — repeatedly borrowing and redepositing assets to amp up yield and capital efficiency. They weren&#8217;t the first team to try to morph this premise into a mainstream financial primitive, but they have quickly become one of the most compelling. Honestly, it&#8217;s pretty neat work.



While the looping process has <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2023/05/25/looping-yields-risky-investment-strategy-automated-defi/">historically been dangerous</a>, Loopscale&#8217;s system offered automation, liquidation protection features, and a user experience that abstracted away many of those perceived risks. Loopscale&#8217;s vaults, known for their attractive yields and tokenized market integrations, became a favorite among farmers looking for structured, lower-friction leverage.&nbsp;



Founded by a small but technically-strong team — including Mary Gooneratne and a handful of early RateX contributors — Loopscale built a reputation as one of the more serious players among Solana&#8217;s DeFi cohort.



At the core of Loopscale&#8217;s recent growth was its adoption of RateX&#8217;s Principal Token (PT) markets. Simply put, Principal Tokens are created by splitting a yield-bearing asset into two components — principal and yield — allowing users to trade, hedge, or lock in fixed returns more flexibly. In Loopscale&#8217;s case, PT tokens were used as collateral in the vaults on the assumption that their pricing would remain tightly aligned to predictable discounting curves.



But then, on April 26, that predictable curve broke.



According to Loopscale, a person with malicious intent <a href="https://x.com/marygooneratne/status/1916189553494315010">manipulated</a> how its vault system priced the RateX PT tokens, making the tokens seem worth more than they were. As a result, the attacker was able to take out a series of loans that were not fully backed by collateral, managing to withdraw $5.7 million USDC and 1,200 SOL from Loopscale&#8217;s vaults.



The vulnerability was not in RateX itself, as Loopscale has <a href="https://x.com/LoopscaleLabs/status/1916204152318738470">emphasized</a>. The issue was in how Loopscale&#8217;s contracts priced the RateX tokens.



RateX founder Sean Hu <a href="https://x.com/seanhu001/status/1916378332696056270">explained</a>, &#8220;Based on our investigation, the Loopscale incident has been confirmed as an oracle attack. The attacker manipulated the oracle price of collateral on Loopscale to borrow 5.8 million dollars, draining funds from the lending pool. RateX&#8217;s protocol itself has no security issues, and no RateX users suffered losses in this incident.&#8221;



RateX also confirmed it is assisting Loopscale in tracking the hacker and recovering funds.



As soon as Loopscale detected the exploit, it <a href="https://x.com/LoopscaleLabs/status/1916190858463805611">halted</a> all market functions to prevent further damage — disabling new loops, deposits and withdrawals across the platform while working to triage the situation.



In the immediate aftermath, <a href="https://x.com/LoopscaleLabs/status/1916230435291713786">Loopscale&#8217;s handling of the crisis</a> drew frank praise. The team issued a clear initial disclosure, <a href="https://x.com/LoopscaleLabs/status/1916460306219348002">re-enabled critical functions</a> like loan repayments and loop closing by the following day (big for protecting borrowers from unforeseen liquidations), and began coordinating with law enforcement and security professionals.



Then, on April 28, Loopscale announced it had successfully <a href="https://x.com/LoopscaleLabs/status/1916460302704509372">established contact</a> with the attacker. The exploiter had responded to <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0x6dcbf6de26631d18eed84410e06741a1940e7f1fc7b7660bf82796d4d133d646">an onchain message</a> proposing a white hat resolution, agreeing (tentatively) to return a portion of the stolen funds in exchange for a bounty.



While Loopscale initially offered a 10% reward, <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0x98b6a312a4ab4b1d6c397d64b5e33dba1cc0d3cad3b89fb5d7fa28c28383115c">the exploiter countered</a> with a 20% ask, citing frozen assets on crosschain bridges and offering to immediately return part of the stolen funds to prove good faith.



At the time of publication, negotiations remain ongoing. However, the initial signals are positive. A partial return appears to have already occurred, and Loopscale is preparing a detailed post-mortem and structured plan for resuming vault withdrawals. The team has also promised users a clear roadmap for what recovery will look like.



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hacks

Loopscale loses $5.8M in oracle attack

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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After closing out last week in the green, stocks were back on the decline Monday as investors waited for more signs from the White House that trade deals are in the works.&nbsp;



The forces that moved equities last week were 1) Trump’s confirmation that he <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-stocks-retreat-trump-china-trade-deal-uncertain">would not</a> look to fire Fed Chair Powell and 2) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/global-trade-us-china-deal?utm_source=mail.blockworks.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=fed-independence-may-be-the-next-major-loser">“unsustainable” situation</a> with China. So far today, we just haven’t seen similar optimism.&nbsp;



Bessent, during a CNBC appearance this morning, put the ball in China’s court.&nbsp;&nbsp;



&#8220;I believe it&#8217;s up to China to de-escalate, because they sell 5x more to us than we sell to them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;These 125% and 145% tariffs are unsustainable.&#8221;



Unfortunately, I wouldn’t hold my breath. And I imagine traders feel the same way, given the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes lost as much as 1.4% and 1.7%, respectively, intraday Monday.&nbsp;



By 2 pm ET, both indexes had pared some losses but were still well below Friday’s close. The S&amp;P 500 was trading down 0.5% at that time while the Nasdaq Composite had lost 0.8%.&nbsp;



Another big focus this week will be earnings. Four of the Magnificent 7 companies will report this week: Microsoft and Meta on Wednesday, followed by Apple and Amazon on Thursday. In terms of tariff impact on these names, Apple’s reliance on its Chinese supply chain is the most concerning. 



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-equities-china-tariffs-apple-effect-cost">I wrote about this</a> a couple weeks ago, but I think it still applies, so I’ll say it again: If tariffs hit Apple, Trump is going to have a very big problem. My reasoning is that Apple is the largest company in the US, by market cap at least. If iPhones become 145% more expensive, it wouldn’t just anger the masses, it would hit Americans in their retirement accounts.&nbsp;



It took one week and a very <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dollar-treasury-market-selloff-tariff-week">concerning state</a> of Treasury markets for Trump’s first pivot on his Liberation Day policies. Later, he issued what he said will be a “temporary” exemption for most of Apple’s products. Consider this my official bet that those exemptions will not be temporary.&nbsp;



All this to say, we will certainly be listening to Apple’s earnings call for any comments about its overseas operations. We’re also going to have an eye on the White House for any further tech tariff adjustments, especially should Apple shares take a big hit.&nbsp;



Alphabet reported last week, and execs said they were nervous about Trump ending the “de minimis” imports exemption that applies to goods valued at less than $800. The impact to the Google parent company here is ad spend. If retailers have to pay more to get their products, their marketing budgets shrink (so the logic goes).&nbsp;



Tesla, another Mag 7 that reported last week, also admitted that higher tariffs are bad. Still, investors were happy enough to hear that CEO Elon Musk will be reducing his role at DOGE to rally shares.&nbsp;



Keep an eye on your inbox as we follow this story. It’s sure to be a busy week.



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Apple

US equities dip as investors wait for trade deal updates, Mag 7 earnings

Ben Strack

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



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Crypto investment products notched net inflows of $3.4 billion from April 21-25, a CoinShares report highlighted — the largest influx since December and the third-biggest weekly haul ever.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeB4OLtuoZb_KkFlXdSMqCEPSYh9KfmDEWjOIYADeI3fc05criTZUzvlGztiVTo1EbDXJORkK7V1ZkhM9U6zZd8Fli0zkaMwPB0ZkhGvx9iBlipw_3eNZxnRg9jjC2vQS7EHZUocg?key=w_iUrTeVTVGuPWKu9jA-Jnf-" alt=""/></figure>



Nearly $3.1 billion went into US spot bitcoin ETFs, according to Farside Investors <a href="https://farside.co.uk/btc/">data</a>. Their Ethereum counterparts got some love too, as the $183 million of net inflows broke an eight-week outflow streak.&nbsp;



“We believe concerns over the tariff impact on corporate earnings and the dramatic weakening of the US dollar are the reasons investors have turned towards digital assets, which are being seen as an emerging safe haven,” CoinShares’ James Butterfill noted.



The key word is “emerging,” as bitcoin more recently <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/can-btc-sustain-up-only-mode">decoupled from tech stocks</a> (at least temporarily). BTC was trading around $94,130 at 2 pm ET — up 10.5% from a week ago.



It’s difficult to sort out which type of investors these inflows are coming from.



Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas noted the speed at which the bitcoin ETF inflows picked up in an X <a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1915375943851311576">post</a>, adding: “Prob some is basis trade back in effect, that&#8217;s the fast money that tends to come in and out [with] price.”



He’s referring to hedge funds seeking to profit from the “basis spread” — the difference between BTC’s futures and spot prices. We do know from Q1 13F filings that hedge funds represent ~37% of the spot bitcoin ETP assets under management (AUM) that is held by professional investors.   



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdffQqiLJh5qKZl2P9MVUpdck4vEIC2oeQnXucabxeHRp_zUk-VJxlpVEJkqKDRQYfbXxHDxHJaKFfRzVvxaNXr4e6irwQOwAIA79YajC8YiFvw9rNtknvPZfrNTYyW59e9SxdxVQ?key=w_iUrTeVTVGuPWKu9jA-Jnf-" alt=""/></figure>



Outside this pro investor cohort that discloses BTC holdings in filings, however, are individual investors and smaller financial advisors that also represent “a significant portion” of the investment activity we’re seeing, Bitwise research head Ryan Rasmussen told me.



“Given that, I&#8217;d assume the flows this week were primarily driven by long-term investors and a less meaningful portion was driven by hedge funds deploying the basis trade,” he added.



And separately (but ETF-related), two quick clarifications as some XRP product headlines might be misleading readers: 



First, the proposed XRP funds by ProShares are futures-based offerings, not spot. Also, a ProShares spokesperson <a href="https://x.com/strack_ben/status/1916862175425056988">told me</a> that while some have reported those going live on Wednesday, the firm has no plans to launch them then. Keep in mind, too, that CME Group isn’t set to introduce XRP futures contracts until May 19.  



You know we’ll offer any important crypto ETF updates to you when we have them.



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CoinShares

‘Basis trade’ or HODLers: What’s behind the crypto ETF inflow spike?

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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Ethereum core developers have reached a pivotal decision on the future of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): the EVM Object Format (EOF) will be removed from the upcoming Fusaka fork.



After years of work, EOF faced a new <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/will-appchains-work-this-time">round of attacks</a> ahead of the Fusaka scoping deadline. A final decision was deferred to today’s <a href="https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1nAKEgkDVveJL">Interop Testing call</a>, with broad implications for scalability and developer experience. Developers will continue work on Fusaka focused on PeerDAS and other scaling improvements, but the future of EOF is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-developers-consider-evm-upgrade">once again</a> uncertain.



It was the first time the Interop Testing call attracted over 100 participants, project coordinator Tim Beiko said, thus laying out the stakes. “When we ship something, we cannot revert that, and so we should have a really, really high bar to doing that,” Beiko reminded the group at the start of the call. Despite strong technical support for EOF in certain quarters, the lack of consensus ultimately meant it could not be bundled into Fusaka.



EOF is an upgrade to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a> that aims to clean up longstanding technical debt. It would let developers give new contracts a clear, verifiable layout, remove unpredictable code execution paths, and reduce the risk of bugs and security vulnerabilities by making contract behavior easier to analyze and validate.



Geth developer Marius van der Wijden, initially an EOF skeptic, reviewed the evolution of his own thinking in <a href="https://x.com/vdWijden/status/1916379587317043207">an X thread</a>.



&#8220;Someone said &#8216;if we were to design the EVM from scratch, it would probably look like [EOF]&#8217; and that swayed me to work on it,” van der Wijden wrote.&nbsp;



Proponents argue it would make contracts easier to eventually migrate to new architectures like RISC-V. &#8220;Without EOF, it’s much harder to ever get there cleanly,&#8221; Danno Ferrin, one of EOF’s primary advocates, <a href="https://x.com/shemnon/status/1915798023722119195">wrote</a> ahead of the Interop call.



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



Opposition grew louder in recent weeks, particularly among application devs and members of the Vyper compiler team.



On Monday’s call, Charles Cooper, a core contributor to Vyper, reiterated his view that it shouldn’t even be called an “upgrade.”



“If you&#8217;re going to break backwards compatibility, you shouldn&#8217;t say that it&#8217;s an improvement to the EVM,” Cooper said on the call. “It&#8217;s just like a new VM, and it should be sold to users that way, instead of telling them that it&#8217;s an improvement to the EVM, but it breaks all applications.”



Michael Egorov, whose <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/curve">Curve protocol</a> uses Vyper, has similarly questioned the premises behind EOF. “It really looks like the Solidity compiler trying to solve technical debt by doing something on the EVM level,&#8221; Egorov told Blockworks. He warned that the added complexity could waste valuable resources and potentially slow scalability, as EOFs’ benefits could be addressed through compiler improvements alone.



Tensions also surfaced over the compatibility of major Solidity libraries, like OpenZeppelin and Uniswap. Research from the Ipsilon team <a href="https://x.com/teamipsilon/status/1916495476439818696">confirmed</a> many libraries would require adjustments to compile under EOF. While backward compatibility remains possible, adoption could be uneven.



Ferrin presented a quick review of the top four Ethereum contracts. He showed that EOF would require only minimal changes, if developers opted for “<a href="https://notes.ethereum.org/@ipsilon/eof-option-d-summary">Option D</a>,” a less contentious version that restores code and gas introspection while keeping the core structure improvements.&nbsp;



“If we remove EIP-7069 [the gas introspection ban], most of the problems above here are no longer problems,” Ferrin explained. This compromise would have delayed Fusaka’s Devnet 2 plan by just a couple of weeks, he said. However, it was ultimately not enough to secure consensus for inclusion.



Others on the call noted that as part of any transition, many contracts would likely require fresh audits to ensure full security when revised under the new format. That costs money and time.



Community voices had offered sharply different takes in recent days. Elias Tazartes <a href="https://x.com/ETazou/status/1916756677258354840">pushed back</a> on fears that layer-2 solutions would struggle with EOF adoption. &#8220;The promise of L2s was L1 equivalence, and early benchmarks show EVM with EOF to be easier to prove than without,&#8221; he said. In his view, EOF could even enhance rollup efficiency.



The Solidity team <a href="https://x.com/solidity_lang/status/1916847039784120734">weighed in</a> forcefully ahead of the meeting, defending EOF against common criticisms. They pointed out that EOF has been under active development for over four years, and delaying it further would not significantly improve its &#8220;readiness.&#8221;



Responding to concerns about potential disruption, they emphasized that legacy contracts will continue working, and that users can adopt EOF gradually.



&#8220;EOF is not taking time away from scaling,&#8221; they argued, highlighting that most client work is already complete and that dropping EOF now would squander past investments. Regarding the larger execution layer roadmap criticism, they emphasized that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/vitalik-ethereum-evm-scaling-l1-plan">migration to RISC-V</a> in the future would not make EOF obsolete — instead, it would make such a transition smoother.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The “Nays” have it</h2>



Ethereum core development operates by rough consensus, and the bottom line is, when it comes to EOF, consensus is lacking. As van der Wijden noted:



“We don&#8217;t agree, and we&#8217;re not coming to an agreement about EOF anymore, and so it has to go out,” he said. “I&#8217;m still torn, and I think a lot of people on this call are torn between the two options —&nbsp;and they don&#8217;t really know what the right decision would be — [but] in the past, in these cases, we always defaulted to not changing something, because that&#8217;s the safe option.”



Beneath the technical debate runs a deeper philosophical tension about priorities. Developers debated whether Ethereum’s governance model — modeled after <a href="https://www.ietf.org/about/participate/tao/">the IETF’s</a> (Internet Engineering Task Force) — had failed to catch key issues early enough.



Ethereum&#8217;s governance intentionally differs from, for instance, W3C’s &#8220;priority of constituencies,&#8221; where users are ranked above developers. Even if developer experience sometimes takes precedence in Ethereum governance, it strives for pragmatic decisions.



That’s because core devs are not the ultimate arbiters; each Ethereum node operator ultimately decides what code to run, or not run.



As van der Wijden observed, &#8220;There is a bit of pain with throwing good code away, but that shouldn&#8217;t influence our decision about what’s best for Ethereum.&#8221;



Justin Florentine from the Besu client team was passionate about holding off on a final decision.



&#8220;The idea that we would do an about-face, after a pretty hard-fought decision was reached to go with option A <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-full-eof-despite-dev-friction">about a month ago</a>, I find a little shocking,” Florentine said. “I don&#8217;t know that a vocal minority should be listened to.”



He argued the recent objections of app developers should be taken with a grain of salt. “We are stewards of the protocol and have to be responsible for the tech debt that we are accruing and paying it off,” Florentine said. “We need to stop thinking like product developers and more like platform stewards.”



Beiko acknowledged these governance challenges during the call, in calling for EOF to be reconsidered.&nbsp;



&#8220;The cost of shipping the wrong thing is much higher than the cost of delaying,&#8221; he said. “If we do want to overhaul the EVM in such a way, the thing we should do is to do this in conjunction with smart contract developers and the tooling community more broadly.”



Ultimately, while core dev teams like Geth, Nethermind, Erigon, and Besu expressed varying degrees of support for including a scaled-back EOF (while the Reth team was opposed), the lack of overwhelming consensus on a precise way forward was insurmountable.



Beiko suggested that if EOF is to be revived, it would need to go through a fresh planning process for the subsequent hard fork, code named Glamsterdam.



“I think the rest of the community should expect that EOF developers may not be so enthusiastic to keep working on this if it gets removed and as it has been in the past,” Beiko said, concluding that it was nevertheless a necessary risk to take.



So Fusaka will move ahead without EOF, with a narrowed focus on PeerDAS and critical scalability improvements. Ethereum’s future EVM upgrades remain undecided, but the process questions raised today are likely to shape development for years to come.



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0xResearch Newsletter

Ethereum consensus shifts on EVM upgrade

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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Sky Mavis has accused one of the games using its Ronin chain of “secretly” making a deal with another blockchain in violation of a preexisting agreement.



The game in question, a mobile fantasy title dubbed Ragnarok: Monster World (RMW), uses both the Ronin and Cross protocols.



Sky Mavis co-founder Aleksander Larsen accused RMW of being unable to keep up with increased competition since the Ronin blockchain became permissionless in February. Being a permissionless chain means game developers no longer need Sky Mavis’ approval to build on Ronin.



“The team behind the game ignored our advice and has since lost favor with the community. To make matters worse, they secretly signed a deal with a separate blockchain, breaching our agreement,” Larsen wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/Psycheout86/status/1916382602329555274">post</a> on Saturday.&nbsp;



“Naturally, this comes as a surprise, given the support we’ve extended to them. The trust has been broken to such a degree that we are ending our professional relationship with 0x&amp;, the team behind Ragnarok Monster World,” Larsen continued.



The Sky Mavis co-founder initially said that the game’s assets would be removed from Sky Mavis products, like Ronin Market, entirely. In a subsequent post, however, Larsen said the assets will remain on the Ronin marketplace but would lose their checkmark there — indicating a lack of endorsement from Sky Mavis.



“This will be our last statement on this matter,” Larsen <a href="https://x.com/Psycheout86/status/1916496438067864037">said</a>.



RMW’s Genesis Land Launchpad and Presale are still prominently featured on the Ronin Market’s homepage as of Monday morning (and its Landverse <a href="https://marketplace.roninchain.com/games/landverse-genesis">collection</a> still has a gold check).&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXde9sGJxJj-G1FwG--axzkBygSA5Ocoyh28ZBi0sG080C60aFZyinjy7ZPX-2bm4JlGPu6j1KbeqAxzzX_-u_I6wVnA3I3wvPxgSomYhcKS9elQ2L2vdWj7nBS-4PU1_pTqtnBE?key=0Gowzhxb6uEgRzFWn-nQ5Z2F" alt=""/></figure>



RMW denied that any “secret agreement” was made and contended that it upheld all “contractual obligations” with Sky Mavis.



“It is unfair to frame this situation as a ‘loss of trust’ based solely on unilateral interpretations,” RMW <a href="https://x.com/RagmonNFT/status/1916399222720762045">argued</a>.



Others have suggested that RMW’s decision was a play to remedy dwindling funds. Blockchain foundations, DAOs or leading labs typically offer substantial grants to game developers to integrate their chains — and RMW may have chosen to go “multichain” to get more funding.



“We&#8217;re going to see this even more,” Moku co-founder Hantao Yuan <a href="https://x.com/Hantao/status/1916519880221942177">predicted</a> in a post about the issue. “Them moving to another ecosystem for a grant just means they have survived for now.”



Blockworks has reached out to 0x&amp; for comment.



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blockchain

Sky Mavis co-founder accuses Ronin game of making secret deal

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 is so much more to Bitcoin than Satoshi. Let’s celebrate!



Today is Satoshi Disappear Day, as <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6730.20">declared</a> by early contributor Kiba on this day in 2011.&nbsp;



“Since satoshi has been confirmed to be not coming back, the bitcoin community now [has] to fend for ourselves,” Kiba wrote.



“I propose we make a bitcoin holiday in honor of our legendary anonymous founder and to observe the fact that the bitcoin community will be just fine after the inventor of bitcoin left. Even if Gavin is hit by the bus tomorrow, we can live.”



Gavin Andresen had <a href="http://gavinandresen.ninja/eleven-years-ago-today">disclosed</a> his impending meeting with the CIA, both privately with Satoshi and publicly on the Bitcointalk forum, only days earlier.



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



What Kiba said turned out to be true. Since Satoshi left, other contributors have worked together to release 73 new versions of the software on bitcoin’s way to becoming a multi-trillion dollar asset.



In that time, developers have pushed upgrades big and small while mitigating bugs and potential <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/09/21/the-latest-bitcoin-bug-was-so-bad-developers-kept-its-full-details-a-secret">disasters</a>. Bitcoin’s creator was otherwise only around for a half dozen or so, even if they conceived and built the original version all by themselves.



We also can’t exactly draw a direct line between Gavin’s CIA visit and Satoshi’s disappearance. A few days before Gavin announced he was to meet with the CIA, Satoshi in an email had already mentioned to another early developer, Mike Hearn, that he had “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/satoshi-correspondence-bitcoin-emails-research">moved on to other things</a>.”&nbsp;



But considering Satoshi apparently never replied to Gavin’s email, at the very least we can assume it helped confirm their decision to never return.



Meanwhile, Bitcoin was attracting mainstream media attention, with Andy Greenberg’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0509/technology-psilocybin-bitcoins-gavin-andresen-crypto-currency.html">article</a> in Forbes, “Crypto Currency,” running in the week leading up to the inaugural Satoshi Disappear Day.&nbsp;



The article is a progenitor of the “super shadowy coder” trope that has plagued political crypto discourse ever since. It mistakenly describes Bitcoin developers as Gavin’s “underground cadre of cypherpunks” working on anonymous money used to buy illegal drugs outside of government oversight — an image against which Satoshi wanted to push back.



“I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle,” Satoshi told Gavin. “Maybe instead make it about the open source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them.”



Gavin wasn’t happy with the “wacky pirate money” theme either, and agreed that more credit for other contributors was a great idea.



“On a completely different subject: I did something that I hope turns out to be smart, but might be stupid,” Gavin said. He’d been contacted by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the CIA that discovers and invests in cutting-edge technologies that would benefit US agencies.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfuaeYzJ_C1A_8cbtETJxHXeAlKf0Yi5XmqVgU0oAAdYxdMRSec76gBdqG7sd73mnZMRrSTHDcMUIAOz7gPSKoEDEF15cDc24IzvwJw-mkbLm8h-KT1P1lMaTa60tnVA8QlZw37AA?key=osbK7nHTSU9FadKSXHA6lcD4" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Gavin’s visit with the CIA was a recurring topic of interest in Bitcoin IRC <a href="https://buildingbitcoin.org/bitcoin-dev/log-2011-06-13.html">channels</a>.</figcaption></figure>



In-Q-Tel had invited Gavin to its annual conference on emerging technologies, with the theme of that year being “Mobility of Money.”



“They asked if I’d be willing to talk about Bitcoin, and I committed to giving a 50-minute presentation and participating in a panel discussion,” Gavin wrote in his <a href="http://gavinandresen.ninja/eleven-years-ago-today">email</a>.&nbsp;



“I hope that by talking directly to ‘them’ and, more importantly, listening to their questions/concerns, they will think of Bitcoin the way I do — as a just-plain-better, more efficient, less-subject-to-political-whims money. Not as an all-powerful black-market tool that will be used by anarchists to overthrow The System.”



Gavin found himself between a rock and a hard place. “It might be really stupid if it just raises Bitcoin’s visibility on [the CIA’s] radar, but I think it is way too late for that; Bitcoin is already on their radar,” he told Satoshi.



He was also transparent about the trip. Gavin shared his presentation on BitcoinTalk shortly after (the full version is still available via <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160303090048/https://s3.amazonaws.com/gavinandresen-bitcoin/GavinAndresenCIATalk.pdf">archive</a>) and quickly appeared on Bruce Wagner’s The Bitcoin Show to discuss the meeting.



“After thinking pretty hard about it, I decided I would do it because it&#8217;s an open-source project. I figured, you know, going to the CIA and talking very openly about what Bitcoin is and what it can do wouldn&#8217;t hurt the project. It&#8217;s not a secret,” Gavin said on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xcMFKfX9ZU">podcast</a>.



The conference itself was a three-day event with the first day unclassified, which meant Gavin could discuss it, while the other two were classified. Gavin said there were people from PayPal and Facebook in attendance, as well as economists from the Federal Reserve.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdsy4Pal5ThIe59pLO34GQzTv1k4JRwr8MrWua3FMHkVvBcpLaLi0tEbfddLDkEEWHQgGE1IEZZfmS4tkvtfTwExZSAlCyFPOvoH6DeZZ3JfKJ_C4-_aq0q0cerdJQnEDU0KMfj?key=osbK7nHTSU9FadKSXHA6lcD4" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Gavin’s presentation offered a tutorial on how Bitcoin works, alongside a rundown on the state of the ecosystem as it was in June 2011.</figcaption></figure>



As for why the CIA might be interested in Bitcoin, Gavin could only speculate, like the rest of us.



“I mean, obviously, you know, paying people covertly is part of what the CIA does, and so a payment system that they could use to [pay] somebody covertly is very interesting to them,” Gavin said.



For those after more intrigue, this might help: Gavin sold bitcoin to a CIA agent at the conference. “I had a couple of people come up to me afterwards and say they thought bitcoin is really cool. One interesting interaction: I actually sold a bitcoin while I was there to one of the CIA people.”



“I had showed <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitbills">Bitbills</a> — I had a couple of Bitbills in my wallet as an example of a physical bitcoin that you can hold. He said it was very cool and wanted to buy one from me so he could show his boss.” Bitcoin traded at around $15 at the time.



So, there you have it. If the CIA “lab leak” <a href="https://x.com/nic__carter/status/1704922555189182784">theory</a> about Satoshi holds any weight (a big “if”), then it took only two and a half years for one of its own to return to headquarters with an actual bitcoin (it’s now worth almost 6,500x more).



Happy Satoshi Disappear Day!



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Bitcoin

Satoshi Disappear Day: CIA agent bought bitcoin from former lead developer

Why DePINs need an industry-specific layer-1 blockchain

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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This morning’s Empire podcast was all things BlackRock.&nbsp;



Empire co-host Jason Yanowitz <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/2e961ca8-21f4-11f0-9cd1-c355842eeb4c">chatted</a> with BlackRock’s Samara Cohen. There’s a lot of insight to be gleaned from Cohen, who’s a powerhouse in her own right, and she certainly delivered.&nbsp;



It’s no secret at this point that bitcoin’s not really acting the way some folks think it should — that is, being a safe haven like gold during market downturns. 



“This is an important moment to play out in terms of how Bitcoin&#8217;s price performance does show up. I mean, this environment of market volatility is really induced by cross-border tension, and supply chain complexity like this should be Bitcoin&#8217;s environment,” Cohen noted. 



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/61XGfxAgKUc?si=A1MD1MFppq3Qsbhg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







Cohen added that, if anything, bitcoin’s just increased its correlation with equities.&nbsp;



And yet, BlackRock’s bitcoin ETP IBIT hasn’t seen the level of outflows one might expect. For Cohen, this shows that the price action was focused on retail and speculative positions held by institutions, since IBIT can’t be levered in the same way bitcoin can be.



She added: “ Bitcoin hasn&#8217;t had the volatility in the downtrade. It continues to have this kind of positive skewness to its volatility.”



But it’s not just bitcoin that Cohen or BlackRock are focused on. They’re also quite bullish on tokenization and how it can improve capital markets.&nbsp;



“We  are very much focused on the path to more tokenization in markets. We are very focused on the utility of bridges to investors,” she told Yanowitz.&nbsp;



My takeaway? BlackRock can’t stop, won’t stop its crypto journey. This is just the beginning.



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BlackRock

Bitcoin continues to have ‘positive skewness to its volatility’: BlackRock’s Cohen

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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Crypto lender Nexo — one of the few survivors from the collapse of the lending sector — is returning to the US. 



The announcement took place at an “exclusive” event with Donald Trump Jr. and represents yet another sign the Trump administration wants to open the US back up to crypto.&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">Nexo returns to the U.S. market. We are embracing renewed optimism and entrepreneurial momentum to deliver our full products to American clients in a supportive environment. 🧵 <a href="https://t.co/WWF624Dr4f">pic.twitter.com/WWF624Dr4f</a>&mdash; Nexo (@Nexo) <a href="https://twitter.com/Nexo/status/1916749283795030263?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



&#8220;The key to everything crypto is going to be the regulatory framework,” Trump <a href="https://nexo.com/blog/nexo-reenters-the-us-market">said</a> in a press release.&nbsp;



Nexo says both retail and institutional customers will be able to access its products suite, which includes “high-yield crypto savings accounts, asset-backed credit lines, advanced trading, and institutional-grade liquidity solutions.”



Back in December 2022, Nexo announced that it would “gradually” exit the US, citing an unclear regulatory environment. BlockFi, FTX, Celsius and Voyager had all collapsed by then.&nbsp;



“Our decision comes after more than 18 months of good-faith dialogue with US state and federal regulators which has come to a dead end,” Nexo <a href="https://nexo.com/blog/nexo-announces-gradual-departure-from-the-united-states">said</a> at the time, adding that it had attempted to “provide requested information and to proactively modify its business in response to their concerns.”



Fast-forward to now, and we’re in a totally different environment.&nbsp;



Nexo isn’t the first to capitalize on that — OKX said just a few weeks ago that it was opening up OKX US in California. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pantera-paul-veradittakit-crypto-unicorns-fund-v">As I wrote on Friday</a>, Pantera’s also aiming to expand the amount of capital it invests in US-based projects.&nbsp;



It was a significant statement from Paul Veradittakit, given that a large portion of Pantera’s capital has gone to global projects, and because one of the earliest approaches to crypto from Veradittakit and Dan Morehead was to identify firms that adopted Coinbase’s approach to non-US markets.



Here’s the thing: Nexo’s announcement isn’t just another crypto company coming back to the US. My early take on this is that it shows the potential resurgence of the crypto lending market, which has pretty much been dead on arrival since 2022.&nbsp;



If that sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because Galaxy <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cefi-defi-lending-market-galaxy">first noted the potential resurgence</a> earlier this month, when it reported that CeFi lending is up 73% following the collapse.&nbsp;



Overall, the resurgence of crypto lending is healthy, but Nexo’s move is simply a step. More regulatory work is needed to ensure that nothing like 2022 happens again.



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crypto lender

What Nexo’s move back to the US means for crypto lending

Byron Gilliam

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



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Have markets been obsessing over the wrong Minsky?



After Liberation Day, we seemed to be headed for a “Minsky moment” in which global investors suddenly lose faith in the US dollar, triggering the kind of market collapse that economist Hyman Minsky warned about.



But after a big rally this week, the Nasdaq is back to within 1.4% of where it was before President Trump shocked the world with his &#8220;reciprocal&#8221; tariffs.



1.4% hardly seems like a disaster.&nbsp;



Stocks may have recovered because the president seems to be having second thoughts on tariffs — especially after the CEOs of three major retailers <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/04/23/trump-economy-tariffs-china-powell">warned</a> that their shelves would soon be bare if the trade war doesn’t resolve itself more or less immediately.



That may have prompted the president to tell <a href="https://time.com/7280114/donald-trump-2025-interview-transcript/">Time magazine</a> on Tuesday that President Xi had called him seeking a deal on tariffs.



On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Bessent also hinted at de-escalation, saying “there is an opportunity for a big deal” with China.



But even an immediate deal, however big, might not come soon enough, according to Bloomberg’s Chief Economist Anna Wong.



On this morning’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBQiJQQtsB0">Odd Lotts podcast</a>, Wong warned that, due to the long lead times in retail supply chains, “there’s a high probability that we’ll be seeing some empty shelves in the holiday season.”



Also this morning, China clarified that trade talks with the US haven’t even begun — in fact, they’re not even talking about talking as of yet.



The president seemed to disagree, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_wHHVnBhgE">telling a reporter</a>, “They had a meeting this morning. It doesn’t matter who they is. We may reveal it later.”



Maybe “they” did have a meeting, who knows.&nbsp;



But none of this seems concrete enough to explain this week’s rally in equities.



So perhaps something else is afoot?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">AI developments</h2>



One concrete bit of news this week was the good earnings report from Alphabet, which CEO Sundar Pichai <a href="https://x.com/TheTranscript_/status/1915498165182353468">attributed</a> to the company’s “full-stack approach to AI.”



That’s only one quarter of earnings from one company (whose stock was only up small today).



But it might serve as a timely reminder that what’s happening in AI right now is probably far more important than what’s happening with tariffs.&nbsp;



To name just a few recent developments: An <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.23674">academic study</a> found that large-language models like ChatGPT now pass the Turing Test; Tyler Cowen <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/04/o3-and-agi-is-april-16th-agi-day.html">believes</a> artificial general intelligence (AGI), by his definition, is here; AI-empowered robots are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/19/asia/china-first-humanoid-robot-half-marathon-intl-hnk/index.html">running marathons</a> and working as <a href="https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/1903381889957998881">cameramen</a>; and you can now buy your very own <a href="https://www.unitree.com/h1">humanoid robot</a> for less than the cost of a compact car.



Most impressively, an <a href="https://www.pi.website">AI startup</a> announced that it’s made great strides towards a “generalized physical intelligence&#8221; that will give robots “the ability to figure out how to correctly perform even a simple task in a new setting or with new objects.”



To get a sense for what that means, check out <a href="https://www.pi.website/blog/pi05?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">this video</a> of a robot cleaning up houses it&#8217;s never been in before.&nbsp;



All of this was anticipated by the father of artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky (no relation to the economist Hyman Minsky).



Marvin predicted way back in 1994 not only that robots would “inherit the earth” but also that they would do so peacefully — as our “children.”



That’s looking more and more prescient.



How good will the world be when the cost of a humanoid, house-cleaning robot gets so cheap that nearly everyone can afford one? That is a Minsky moment to look forward to — and it may be nigh.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Future sight</h2>



Let’s check the charts.



Predictions are hard (especially about the future):



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcNOv1W4xRBrL8Q_qD9m1b_rLwxIVQynT2LK0u4Pg9Q80OIr3SRrDcLEa5gYBZdqmyPwhEShUer41TgXPaRD4MviN9hMbGH2pDFq1LJJZuj82zZOdbFCz6YUtZNgtv268IjnuPeEQ?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



Despite all the news this week, the Polymarket odds of a recession are about unchanged at 55%. But you can take your pick of predictions: Bank of America thinks the odds of a US recession are still only <a href="https://x.com/MikeZaccardi/status/1915726624986652988">35%</a>; Ed Yardeni sees a <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/overly-bearish-investors-risk-writing-off-2025-too-soon-these-strategies-offer-upside-and-downside-protection-77ab3c61">45%</a> of “stagflation/recession”; and Torston Slok sees a <a href="https://www.apolloacademy.com/probability-of-vtrr-90/">90% chance</a> of a “Voluntary Trade Reset Recession.”



Own goal?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfEufoFiJVNGYQa04A_iEMUGG3_BI5rocV_RjCY95BBmwddXXmNPTa_309Bql3kWJ11-UmFocRg_1OHKGtYnJ84XDtTIDqJMZYi301zLLlq_KZkig2jdnOFt4qVdd64ZTp1h9UN7g?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



New forecasts from the <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2025/04/22/the-global-economy-enters-a-new-era">IMF</a> suggest that the “supply shock” for the US (GDP down, inflation up) will be worse than the “demand shock” is for China (GDP down less, and inflation down, too).



The supply shock is underway:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeAP26x-m14hnr4Mjv9iFgieTkNI6Qacyq0WCDCVZtBkvkHK7_WCfv_b2-PYxfJSLITDIPpSoa-Xtjwy-0ruD3g_MRzIr9fKHTua8lmA4ni5BZuQYOduo3N4pE0CPcqrqmbxbbhbw?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



A <a href="https://x.com/albertocavallo/status/1914163836241772878">study</a> of daily prices at retailers across the US finds that the price of goods from China rose immediately after the April 2nd announcement of tariffs and have continued to rise since. The price of goods from Mexico and Canada, however, have fallen (because of exemptions and chances of a trade deal, they think).



As bad as the last guy?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfb4EOwZocM2ZPI5iK4WMhc7EyTEebetiVxj0wEezf8s3HZC2lWvgtWYUTakesfd0-QqQ-8heTn6I08e--SFjQ8a8P0D8lfe9bIC277DYZ-L2j3oH_qQ0whkAvr_JTpPKDcs3zZlA?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



A Reuters/Ipsos poll out this week shows that President Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy is all the way down to, well, Joe-Biden levels.



What is this? A Minsky moment for ants?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe4PB2t3TvkZRZcZo8zp8PSZ6vZb47HW4mnHDQ-2J5h1_5qpJHSIA6oTGXZH3iBRjzFJR-DLzu7yAVXhXuxOzOFOCLhL-vDtpGtUMCtbatQUDOAh6HFKfKAl3SJjK93iG_5v9OojA?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



As recently as a week ago, the biggest concern in markets was that foreign investors had lost faith in the US dollar and would therefore be selling all of their US assets. But TIC data shows that foreign selling of US equities has been “moderate.”&nbsp;



Not much has happened — yet:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfTfy8VP1TKX2hURXKDn7EfY5h8RSLGX0g7HeiSFFA1SfrkgNINAu-1dan4ol1oQuIYlBv0xi-T-9Y9MxSfW2vtAQL5uc-fwujOp4CLsu_1y97RU4ZTrIz2ITCC2osAPpwakY2CtQ?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



&#8220;The softness in US soft data [eg, sentiment surveys] still has not spilled over to hard data,” <a href="https://x.com/AugurInfinity">Augur Infinity</a> writes. “Based on our calculation, soft data is now implying a meaningful contraction, while hard data continues to indicate above-trend growth.&#8221;



The canary in the Korean coal mine:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc_AkL0U2pL__LPv9Kt4TwR1x-TIgIJtD7uLqMX1fIeLlryzxC8h9UjGzDTBqqxX7btHX214wJ4HWFjJFADxqUMuWYfHLO9EZlxBjQb3UQ_jnJoRr865w2ENpxKUt5url7mg6e3?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



Exports from South Korea to the US are considered a leading indicator for global GDP. In April, they fell 14% from the year before.



Everything on hold?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeYl9S1LVLxxR1cBBsBOUrvSg8JHD3QX0m-2CC_A3GBmUkbX-Fz7ko3475vV4r9-yuWqbiD-lii2hwtwV7GfMsq1Cmn4vl12G2ojCCG5phBHr8WRcg3wcBE2V68rQhN-PlVun2rGw?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



Citadel CEO <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/23/2025/citadel-ceo-ken-griffin-trump-is-eroding-us-brand-and-making-the-country-poorer">Ken Griffin</a> opined this week that, thanks to the tariff turmoil, the US “has devolved into a nonsensical place” where business leaders spend all their time worrying about supply chain disruptions. “People are not going to raise [money] to build manufacturing in America,” he added, “because with the policy volatility, you actually undermine the very goal you’re trying to achieve.” The above survey data on capex intentions suggests he’s right.



Zooming out:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdvOZLq7s7Zbfhyaf1cUSz7THwQaLjuL5IAnh-aJaPSlXsWpMfDYHi-dAm3uU8lDWn6xSaz1503-xtM97XzP211N57AgGAsuZ_jVKj50J8juqYMdzdlAEIAxk7ESlCCviCq5bvfqw?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



The S&amp;P 500 has outperformed gold by about 4,700% since 1980 — which makes the recent trend reversal seem a little less foreboding.&nbsp;



The contrarian indicator:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcj8VZpxn7y7cMIt-uc-QdDMJeC_5yAbItxewkqGZXHYjj-dcrNv8GmxWZxyRJTTW5-axkzCHeWjjfP9S0icK9JHMoS68K_eFM-tzi3wY32pzmECgXFLSpiPQIV8u1ERkUPK6nebw?key=KVlXbNbXBSz_98fXNpqv5OMY" alt=""/></figure>



The “Magazine Cover Indicator” (which is real enough to have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_cover_indicator">Wikipedia entry</a>) was flashing green at the start of the week after the Economist ran an unprecedented fourth straight cover story that was bearish on the US and its currency.



That’s probably the real reason stocks were up this week: When everyone’s worried about the same thing at the same time, it probably won’t turn out as bad as everyone thinks.



So maybe we should get back to thinking about AI again — and hope it will be better than everyone thinks.&nbsp;



Have a great weekend, Minsky-moment readers.



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Donald Trump

Friday charts: The Marvin Minsky moment is here

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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One of the best parts of traveling is getting to meet new people, unless you’re traveling to a crypto conference.&nbsp;



Solana Crossroads kicked off today in Istanbul, so a number of Solana builders decamped from New York and San Francisco to sip stale coffee halfway around the world while talking with the same people they see at Solana events in New York and San Francisco. Many attendees stopped by the Step Finance-sponsored community conference on their way to Dubai for TOKEN2049 next week before shipping off to New York City for Solana Accelerate in May.



Crypto itself may still be struggling to find product-market fit, but crypto conferences seem to have inelastic demand.&nbsp;



After a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/how-solana-became-the-peoples-chain">year of explosive growth</a> for Solana, Crossroads attendees didn’t seem too concerned with other ecosystems. Some complained that the yearly Ethereum conference ETHDenver <a href="https://x.com/PrimordialAA/status/1895894318927528350">talked too much</a> about Solana and other ecosystems. At Crossroads, it almost felt like those other smart contract ecosystems didn’t exist.&nbsp;



Solana teams hawked their wares on the conference’s expo floor. I held a prototype of the Solana Seeker phone. It wasn’t production-ready, so all I could really do was look at a promotional display on the screen, but I can now vouch for the fact that its casing exists, at least.&nbsp;



The internet filtering startup DoubleZero had some conference buzz. One Solana founder said market makers offered up their connection with the network as a way to pitch their services.&nbsp;



I caught DoubleZero co-founder Austin Federa near the media room and asked him some vague question about the state of high-throughput blockchains.



“Imagine if the sun disappeared,” he began before explaining the importance of being able to broadcast data.



While Crossroads is filled with many of the usual suspects, a number of locals showed up as well.&nbsp;



“I’ve been impressed with frankly just the number of local Turkish people who’ve shown up,” Framework Ventures partner Brandon Potts said. “A lot of the conversations with locals I’ve had are just practical ones around stablecoins and like, ‘Hey … which one should I hold?’”



I chatted with a Turkish Solana developer who filled me in on the history of the land. He told me that coins were invented in Lydia, an ancient kingdom located in modern day Turkey. His father collects coins, he added.



“You collect coins, too. Shitcoins,” his friend shot back.



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Lightspeed Newsletter

Now dominant in crypto, Solana community gathers in Istanbul

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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While dozens of public companies currently hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, a world where thousands — yes, thousands — more follow suit is inevitable. At least according to panelists at Bitwise’s Bitcoin Standard Corporations Investor Day.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“To everyone wearing an orange tie…It’s good to be on the team with you,” Strategy founder Michael Saylor told the Thursday event crowd.



He then wanted the Pier 59 window shades lowered to prevent light from obfuscating his PowerPoint presentation. As if the bitcoin Gods heard him, they started coming down a moment later.



It was Saylor’s typical spiel, one you might have heard before: Most asset classes don’t beat monetary inflation. Bitcoin allows an Uber driver in Nigeria to outperform the smartest money managers in NYC. It’s a better version of gold that he expects to hit $13 million a coin by 2045. Yada yada yada.&nbsp;



Strategy owns 538,200 BTC. (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/strategy-rebrand-and-2025-targets">Here’s</a>, in a nutshell, how they plan to keep buying.)&nbsp;



“I don’t say this to brag, because the truth is the way we did it was so brainless,” Saylor said. “Everything that all these companies do is extremely complicated — we could not create NVIDIA chips or create iPhones. Every one of you could copy me.”



But will they?



Bitwise, in a Q1 report, put the number of public companies holding BTC at 79.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfwHp_uNJls6agN49K8ZFkZhs0xOaKU-fgRh4idUenynjMhaPGhTnWNhbKKGs5L7GqxOU7hRGNenhTbq78SltLs-l8qoh_N-rdQ7ObJhksL1cKvkpb1D_FAxbrh6YG7i7ExEHadRQ?key=MCe-UR43chjQn9nz5kI1iVjY" alt=""/></figure>



Kraken CFO Stephanie Lemmerman made perhaps the most interesting prediction. She expects about 20% of the roughly 55,000 public companies to hold BTC a couple years from now.



That’s a lot of companies. Like 11,000.



A key piece of the nebulous “broader adoption” narrative you hear plenty about, companies jumping in can move prices while offering additional endorsements.&nbsp;



Semler Scientific Chair Eric Semler noted how the medical tech provider — sitting on plenty of cash — was facing challenges within its core business. The company first bought BTC last year and now owns 3,303 BTC.&nbsp;



While it took the old SEC months to approve Semler’s first at-the-market (ATM) offering to help it buy more bitcoin, Semler said, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-actions-timeline">the new-look agency</a> quickly greenlit its <a href="https://ir.semlerscientific.com/news-releases/news-release-details/semler-scientificr-announces-updated-btc-atm-activity-purchased">latest one</a>.



There are possibly “thousands” of what the executive called “zombie” companies in a similar situation that would benefit from a BTC treasury strategy, he added.



Then there are those looking to go bigger. Twenty One Capital — a new entity backed by Tether and Softbank that is combining with Cantor Equity Partners — looks to launch with roughly 42,000 BTC. That would be behind only Strategy and bitcoin miner Marathon Digital.&nbsp;



“There’re a lot of smaller-scale…bitcoin treasury companies, which have a role to play,” Cantor Fitzgerald’s Robert Harrington said. “But I think this market demands scale.”&nbsp;



Once one of the Magnificent 7 companies starts buying BTC, many more will follow, panelists noted throughout the day. You might remember Microsoft shareholders <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microsoft-btc-shareholder-proposal-vote">rejected</a> a related proposal in December.&nbsp;



We know, of course, that bitcoin is volatile. An audience member asked what happens if BTC’s price falls below the price at which a company acquired it.



Establishing “board alignment” that this is a long-term play is crucial, said <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/public-crypto-company-nasdaq#">Fold</a> General Counsel Hailey Lennon. She added: “Unless the fundamentals of bitcoin change, the goal is not to sell.”



Lemmerman noted too: “It’s not necessarily where you came in but where you expect [BTC] to be and what you’re forecasting.”



Fundstrat Capital CIO Tom Lee argued, too, that there’s “a lot more to the [bitcoin] treasury story” than buying a speculative asset that can appreciate. It’s a new accounting standard of sorts — “the idea that you don’t have to have cash holdings only in the US dollar.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Put another way, Kinetics Mutual Funds co-founder Peter Doyle said BTC is an off-ramp to “playing financial Whack-a-Mole” as governments continue to print money. That’s why he said all companies will ultimately adopt bitcoin.



Saylor “woke up” in 2020 when he realized what was happening to his cash and his business, Doyle noted.&nbsp;



“They don’t feel that yet,” he added of others. “But they’re going to feel that.”



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Why execs say a corporate bitcoin adoption boom is inevitable

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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The period drama television series Peaky Blinders has been licensed for a blockchain game, Banijay Entertainment and crypto startup Anonymous Labs announced on Thursday.



The game will have an in-game cryptocurrency and a mix of “interactive experiences” and action sequences, according to a <a href="https://www.banijay.com/blog/2025/04/24/anonymous-labs-partners-with-banijay-rights-to-launch-peaky-blinders-web3-game/">blog post</a>.&nbsp;



The game will be set in the post-World War I era in Birmingham, England, like the show.



The show follows the gang known as the Peaky Blinders and stars Irish actor Cillian Murphy. It aired from 2013 until 2022 on BBC networks and is streamable on Netflix.&nbsp;



While the game’s title and further details have not yet been revealed, the game is slated to launch in 2026.



Anonymous Labs is trying to bring “Web2” IP into crypto. It previously launched a token for the animated character and comic book cat Simon’s Cat, but that token is <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/simonscat/">down</a> 89% from its all-time high four months ago.



David Christopher, group director of licensing and merchandising at Banijay Rights, brokered the Peaky Blinders crypto game deal. Banijay Rights <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/peaky-blinders-producer-acquired-banijay-uk-caryn-mandabach-productions-1235915683/">acquired</a> Peaky Blinders’ production company, Caryn Mandabach Productions Limited, last year. Banijay previously <a href="https://www.banijay.com/blog/2022/05/23/banijay-brands-strengthens-peaky-blinders-licensing-portfolio/">struck</a> Peaky Blinders deals with CMPL in 2022 before ultimately acquiring the company.



This won’t be the first time the world of Peaky Blinders has appeared in a game, though.&nbsp;



In 2023, narrative VR game Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom released to mixed reviews on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903670/Peaky_Blinders_The_Kings_Ransom_Complete_Edition/">Steam</a> and didn’t grab much attention. Peaky Blinders: Mastermind is a puzzle game that was released in 2020 and got better reviews (and more of them), but it was ultimately discontinued on Steam in late 2022.



More recently, Banijay facilitated <a href="https://www.banijay.com/blog/2025/03/18/world-of-tanks-partners-with-banijay-rights-to-launch-peaky-blinders-battle-pass-season/">a deal</a> for Peaky Blinders with the (non-crypto) MMO World of Tanks. Themed characters and a special tank were available in-game as part of a unique battle pass season from March 20 until March 31 last month.&nbsp;



There have been a handful of traditional media licensing plays in the crypto gaming space lately — though most have been with older IPs that are not as known among contemporary Western gaming audiences.&nbsp;



SEGA has licensed Code of Joker and Sangokushi Taisen for different crypto games, and Ubisoft has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/immutable-ubisoft-tcg-might-and-magic">built one</a> based on its retro Might and Magic game franchise for Immutable. 



In years past, Hollywood studios like Warner Bros. have <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ready-player-one-metaverse">explored</a> crypto plays, but none have made a major splash with audiences.



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Gaming

Peaky Blinders crypto game slated to launch next year

Donovan Choy

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



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When you see pro-crypto people declaring on Twitter that “blockchains will replace TradFi,” what that specifically means is the disruption of the DTCC (Depository Trust &amp; Clearing Corporation) as the canonical post-trade clearing and settlement house for US securities markets.



The DTCC is owned by a consortium of the world’s biggest banks. The company has a monopoly on securities settlement, clearing something like $9 trillion to $11 trillion in value daily.



The idea that the DTCC would use a blockchain would’ve been laughable just several years ago. It was expected that the incumbents would be too slow or too skeptical of the tech to adapt.



Well, not anymore.



The Depository Trust &amp; Clearing Corporation (DTCC) <a href="https://www.dtcc.com/news/2025/april/02/dtcc-announces-new-platform-for-tokenized-real-time-collateral-management">announced</a> earlier this month that it was creating a new platform, “Collateral AppChain,” for “tokenized real-time collateral management.”



<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 Depository Trust &amp; Clearing Corporation (DTCC) Announces New Platform For Tokenised Collateral Management Umm, this is kind of a big deal.&mdash; ◢ J◎e McCann 🧊 (@joemccann) <a href="https://twitter.com/joemccann/status/1907509320897503430?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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In the DTCC’s “Great Collateral Experiment” hands-on demo, they explained how its Collateral Appchain could be used to mobilize treasuries, equities, tokenized money market funds and even cryptoassets globally in real time – free of settlement or liquidity constraints.



You can watch it <a href="https://youtu.be/TrdTXI_80_8">here</a> for yourself. It reminded me of some of the earliest “enterprise blockchain” efforts like JPMorgan demoing <a href="https://consensys.io/blog/consensys-acquires-quorum-platform-from-jp-morgan">Quorum</a> back in 2016. Except this time, it’s more than a proof of concept.



The DTCC team demonstrated how its Collateral Appchain would improve upon its antiquated T+X settlement processes to a real-time model where firms no longer face liquidity bottlenecks due to constraints around market hours or needing to hold extra collateral as a buffer while waiting for settlement.



Translation: We recognize the merits of blockchains, we are updating our outdated technology to blockchain rails, and you don’t have to use Ethereum.



Or, as Galaxy Research’s Thad Pinakiewicz <a href="https://glxy.galaxy.com/weekly-research-brief-house-passes-the-stable-act?ecid=ACsprvvGEK3ge3uoTj9-KmFpPBqetENayuWL27M8dOCZQaxrx__iH44b4r6S1-yFkh-WgSA9RlID&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8klkyju-pg7AUWRzmyjPfVYmvSwinqAcmwvtPR3txhrR0bRJ0EG1vgfH6tCl1xq7IrTTPreEuUxY1FfzBs_cutHcnp7A&amp;_hsmi=355254964&amp;utm_content=355254964&amp;utm_source=hs_email">notes</a>: “The DTCC is trying to avoid having their position usurped by co-opting the only tech that can feasibly threaten them.”



But what does this mean for crypto?



It’s not so surprising that the DTCC has come around to blockchain technology. Many financial institutions are already embracing the tech.&nbsp;



What is surprising is that the DTCC has proven a lot more nimble than crypto-natives would’ve expected.



Should the DTCC’s Collateral Appchain come into reality quickly, it does bring into question the remaining value proposition of public blockchains.



Yes, the DTCC’s Appchain validator set is probably going to be centralized. Assets are still going to remain in traditional custodial systems to remain regulatory-compliant. It’s built on the <a href="https://besu.hyperledger.org/">Hyperledger Besu</a> Ethereum client, so it’s likely going to be a permissioned system and non-composable with DeFi.



But the DTCC Appchain will have other crucial advantages.&nbsp;



The DTCC Appchain will be unencumbered by the complexities and costs that public blockchains require to facilitate onchain securities trading.



The Appchain will also have the liquidity to enable trillions in daily trading that public blockchains do not currently possess.



There’s a reason why the DTCC has stuck to its suboptimal <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tplus1.asp">T+1 netting settlement process</a>, and that reason is because it’s more efficient than having to process every transaction like a public blockchain does.



What does that mean for crypto-native efforts (such as Ethena’s Converge chain) who have been building a similar settlement layer for TradFi clients?



Guy Young, founder of Ethena, believes the DTCC’s developments are a “strong validation” of its Converge chain thesis.



“However, these purpose-built settlement layers for TradFi need real products or assets to be delivered alongside the infrastructure otherwise it will be just more empty blockspace. This is where Ethena and Securitize are uniquely positioned to provide our existing 10b+ AUM asset base and product set to these pools of capital.”



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The DTCC Collateral Appchain wants to rewrite the rules of TradFi settlement

Pete Rizzo

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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Imagine being in an industry where a yellow piece of paper is one of your most iconic symbols.&nbsp;



Well, that’s Bitcoin, and today’s legend is none other than Christian Langalis, better known as Bitcoin Sign Guy.



Langalis is the young man in a suit who held up a sign that read “Buy ₿itcoin” while Janet Yellen, then-Chair of the Federal Reserve, stood her ground in front of Congress in 2017.



Today’s story is about much more than just his viral moment, however.



Before he became a meme, Christian was just another 25-year-old working at a global macro fund.&nbsp;



But he wasn&#8217;t your typical Wall Street junior analyst. He was the “young Bitcoin kid.” A man that nobody took seriously when he talked about cryptocurrency.&nbsp;



For Langalis, being dismissed had an unexpected effect. Instead of discouraging him, it opened his eyes to something crucial: The markets weren’t what they seemed.&nbsp;



They were, in his view, artificial constructs propped up by central bank policies. So he did what any self-respecting skeptic would do. He started buying bitcoin.



And like many bitcoiners before and after him, Christian didn’t just buy bitcoin; he wanted to understand the system he was rebelling against. What do you do when you realize the world is only serving the interest of the few? You dive into alternative economics.



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">3/ Christian became a fierce Libertarian He started reading everything he could about Austrian economics He read the classics by Schumpeter and Rothbard 😍 <a href="https://t.co/jnhrFZZvh7">pic.twitter.com/jnhrFZZvh7</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986273317957663?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Nowadays, Keynesians rule the world, at the behest of the late John Maynard Keynes.



But others are becoming favorites again, with Schumpeter, Rothbard and Mises staging a comeback. These authors had a deep effect on Langalis, and they pushed him into the Cato Institute, a world-renowned libertarian think tank.



Under the guidance of George Selgin, one of the world’s utmost authorities on money, Christian began developing his own economic thesis on Bitcoin. But he wasn’t content just to profit from bitcoin — he wanted to understand its potential to reshape the financial world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stage set</h2>



Then came July 2017.&nbsp;



Christian was asked to attend the annual Federal Reserve report to Congress. As Janet Yellen droned on about monetary policy, a bored Christian had an idea. He grabbed his notepad and wrote two simple words: &#8220;Buy ₿itcoin.&#8221;



The price was $2,300 at the time, and bitcoin was in the midst of an epic run that would eventually take it to $20,000. Christian figured he&#8217;d flash the sign and maybe grab a screenshot later. For the LOLs. He had no idea he was about to create a moment that would define Bitcoin culture.



With the price now ~$93,200 per coin, everyone who listened is up almost 4,000%.



<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">5/ There, Christian was asked to attend the Fed report to Congress Bored, Christian decided to write &quot;Buy Bitcoin&quot; on his notepad He figured he&#39;d flash the sign, then collect the screenshot later&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/cynSy9UADg">pic.twitter.com/cynSy9UADg</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986424585458041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Within seconds, security descended. Christian was escorted out of the hearing. You can actually see him being removed on the livestream. But by then, it was too late.



We can safely call it the Bitcoin photobomb seen around the world.



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



The Bitcoin community’s response was immediate and overwhelming.&nbsp;



Christian received over 7 BTC ($16,100 then, $650,000 now) in donations from supporters who appreciated his bold statement. Overnight, he had become an icon.&nbsp;



Instead of getting drunk with fame, Christian’s conviction only deepened — luckily! He later revealed he was holding 99% of his net worth in bitcoin, and declared he “won’t be converting it back into US dollars.”



Did someone say skin in the game?



In the years following his famous stunt, Christian has used his newfound celebrity for good.&nbsp;



He’s appeared at numerous events, always in his trademark suit and tie, raising money for organizations like Coin Center, a non-profit that helps defend Bitcoin&#8217;s interests in Washington DC. Years later, he called it a &#8220;new financial substrate&#8221; and predicted that one BTC will eventually be worth over $1 million.&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">10/ In the years to follow, Christian used his celebrity to raise money for charities Here he is with his trademark suit and tie, raising money for Coin Center The non-profit helps defend Bitcoin in D.C. ✊ <a href="https://t.co/IMM9OfFF0S">pic.twitter.com/IMM9OfFF0S</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986518202327149?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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But Langalis isn’t like most of you talking heads. He’s also building. Christian has founded a new Lightning startup that&#8217;s currently in stealth mode, working to advance the Bitcoin economy he believes in.



In a fitting twist of fate, Christian recently auctioned off the original “Buy ₿itcoin” sign for over $1 million. The piece of paper that once photobombed the Federal Reserve Chair had become a piece of Bitcoin history.



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



Christian Langalis&#8217;s story is more than just a tale of a viral moment.&nbsp;



It’s about having the courage to challenge the status quo, even when nobody takes you seriously, in the status quo’s arena. It’s about understanding that sometimes, the simplest actions can have the biggest impact.



All things that made him CoinDesk’s Most Influential person in Bitcoin in 2017.



For those who bought bitcoin when Christian held up his sign, the returns have been spectacular. But perhaps the real value of his gesture wasn’t in the investment advice, but in the message it sent: that Bitcoin represents a peaceful revolution against the traditional financial system.



Have a great weekend, And remember, sometimes the best investment advice comes on a piece of paper held up behind a Fed chair.



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Christian Langalis: From meme to bitcoin millionaire

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Daniel Shapiro

Research Analyst

Ethena: Evolving into an Institutional DeFi Chain

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Marc-Thomas Arjoon, CFA

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