TerraUSD

Byron Gilliam

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
&#8220;A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.”



— William James
</blockquote>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/blogs/digital-assets/matthew-sigel-deconstructing-strategy-mstr-premium-leverage-and-capital-structure/?utm_source=veg-m&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=US-Digital-Assets-2025-05-23&amp;cid=24469807/A46B358&amp;mkt_tok=NDEwLVhPUi02NzMAAAGanDVa73q2T8yThoPQBzlGGzfgKo1b1BH9KMN26h48DSGWs8ZtAO5DwtE99Pxg8j69Zy1AfXLK0KBU4r3iNl_3pxKdY3dcO7ZIqtGkX7DKH1bTAQTl#strategy">VanEck explains Strategy</a></h2>



The investment case for bitcoin treasury companies can be confusing, so VanEck has done us a service by writing the definitive explainer on the various ways to invest in Strategy (MSTR, STRF, converts).



The main vehicle, MSTR, is generally viewed as a leveraged bet on bitcoin, but VanEck details why that’s not exactly correct.



Instead, MSTR is a “convexity” bet on the price of bitcoin — because investors are not just exposed to BTC, but to an “increasing BTC position as the price of BTC increases.”



I wonder how many MSTR holders realize that&#8217;s the bet they&#8217;re making.



VanEck is unusually brave about putting price targets on crypto assets, but it declined to do so here and it’s easy to see why: MSTR’s value is driven by the “circular relationship between Strategy’s Premium and its ability to finance more BTC purchases.”



Circular logic doesn’t work well in valuation models, so that should be a red flag to anyone who thinks valuation matters.



MSTR’s raison d&#8217;être is to increase its “bitcoin per share” and the primary way it does that is to sell shares above NAV.



So MSTR’s value is ultimately a function of the valuation that investors assign it.



The result is that MSTR investors are “buying an option on the continued existence of The Premium.”



VanEck’s capitalization of “The Premium” seems to reflect how central it is to the Strategy investment case, which Michael Saylor acknowledges.



But Saylor believes The Premium can persist — Strategy, he says, is a “crypto reactor that can run for a long, long period of time.”



But you can’t model a crypto reactor in a spreadsheet, so how long it might run is anyone’s guess.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trumps-media-company-to-raise-2-5-billion-to-buy-bitcoin-75420822">Trump Media &amp; Technology Group to buy bitcoin</a></h2>



President Trump’s exchange-listed media group announced plans this week to raise $2.5 billion from investors to buy bitcoin.



This prompted the Wall Street Journal to warn that “Trump’s policies toward bitcoin…could potentially affect the value of Trump Media’s bitcoin stash.”



But I’d like to add that Trump’s policies toward the dollar could potentially affect the value of his bitcoin stash.



After the capital raise, I’m guessing the president will end up with roughly a 25% stake in Trump Media’s $2.5 billion worth of bitcoin.



This creates a bizarre situation in which the president would personally profit by debauching the currency that his government issues.&nbsp;



I’m not cynical enough to think he’d deliberately do that — but could it make him a little less concerned about running giant deficits?



Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWecczwSG04">The MicroStrategy of Solana</a></h2>



When Jack Kubinec asked DeFi Development Corp’s Dan Kang what problem his Solana treasury company is solving, Kang said it’s that investors “can’t accumulate SOL fast enough.”



I’m not convinced how pressing a problem that really is, but like Strategy, DeFi Development Corp offers to solve it for you by selling you stock above NAV and investing the proceeds into SOL on your behalf.



The higher you pay above NAV, the faster they will be able to accumulate SOL.



Depending on how willing subsequent investors are to pay above NAV, this might work out as a faster way to get exposure to SOL.&nbsp;



But either way, the investing logic illustrates the circular conundrum of crypto treasury companies.



As with any asset, you don’t want to pay too high of a valuation multiple for treasury companies — surely 100x NAV, for example, would be too much.



But unlike any other asset, you don’t want to pay too low of one, either.



A Treasury company trading at or below 1x NAV won’t be able to grow its crypto holdings on a per share basis at all.



So, for the investment case to make sense, you have to believe there&#8217;s some Goldilocks multiple of NAV — not too hot and not too cold, but just right.



Sounds like a fairy tale to me.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://www.the-independent.com/tech/bitcoin-mining-pakistan-crypto-energy-b2758316.html">Pakistan to mine bitcoin with surplus energy</a></h2>



Pakistan announced this week that it plans to mine as many as 17,000 bitcoin per year using surplus energy from underused coal-powered plants.



I imagine many in Pakistan would be surprised to hear that there’s all this extra energy going unused because the country’s electrical grid is notoriously unreliable.&nbsp;



But I guess it’s possible because the thing about electricity is that it’s not generated on demand.



When you flick a light switch on at home, the reason the room is immediately filled with light is that the electricity had already been generated and was in the grid waiting for you (metaphorically speaking).



Utilities are always guessing how much power they need to generate, so it’s helpful for them to deliver some of it to bitcoin miners that can be turned off when they’ve generated too little.



This is the core argument for why bitcoin mining isn’t as environmentally damaging as it seems.



But that’s probably not what’s happening here — the reference to “underused” power plants suggests that Pakistan will be burning more coal than it otherwise would have.



This makes the term “surplus” a bit misleading; it’s probably not surplus energy that’s being used to mine bitcoin, but surplus capacity to generate energy.



Either way, Pakistan says the bitcoin will be kept in a strategic reserve, which is also kind of weird because the Pakistani government runs persistent budget deficits.



So, the country will effectively be borrowing money to buy the coal required to use its spare power plant capacity to mine bitcoin, which it will HODL.



Just like Strategy!



I imagine Michael Saylor would advise Pakistan that the real play here is to rebrand its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as a bitcoin Treasury company and list it on the stock exchange where its bitcoin will magically be worth twice as much.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trumps-hyped-meme-coin-dinner-might-have-been-a-bust.html">New York Magazine on the Trump dinner</a></h2>



Matt Steib reported that last weekend’s “‘Dinner With President Trump’ didn’t even include a dinner with President Trump.”



Instead, the famously loquacious president reportedly spoke for an uncharacteristically efficient 15 to 20 minutes before departing.



“As diners tucked into their meals,” Steib wrote, “they heard the helicopter taking off back to the White House.”



I doubt anyone was too disappointed, as a 220-person dinner hardly promises to be an intimate affair.



Also, it was pretty cheap.



One attendee told Steib that the cost to attend was only about $1,200 — the fees they paid to buy TRUMP tokens in a digital wallet and short a matching number of tokens on an exchange.&nbsp;



“Most people I spoke to had hedge positions,” the attendee added.



No wonder the president didn’t hang around to chat.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://time.com/7288387/sam-altman-orb-tools-for-humanity/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=editorial&amp;utm_term=_&amp;linkId=825316705">Time magazine on OpenAI and the Orb</a></h2>



Sam Altman’s blockchain-based project to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/worldcoin-biometric-identity-vision">save the internet from AI bots</a> (a problem largely of his own making) is even more ambitious than I thought.



Altman is the chair of Tools for Humanity, which is developing the World project, which aims to “verify” the humanity of every person on Earth.



For Time, Billy Perrigo reported that Tools for Humanity also hopes World will become “the world’s largest financial network, through which it believes ‘double-digit percentages of the global economy’ will eventually flow.”



“If this really works,” Altman said, “it’s like a fundamental piece of infrastructure for the world.”



I’m sold on the need for such infrastructure: “In a best-case scenario,” Perrigo writes, “World ID could be a privacy-preserving way to fortify the internet against an AI-driven deluge of fake or deceptive content.”



Perrigo explains how in helpfully accessible terms: “If I were to use my World ID to access a website, that site would learn nothing about me except that I’m human.”



The way to prove you’re human is to prove you have eyeballs, as an Orb attendant explains: “We need a way to verify that we’re human and not AI. So how do we do that? Well, humans have irises, but AI doesn’t.”



(Irises are not the only thing that separates us from AIs, but they’re the only thing that’s provably unique.)



World has signed up about 12 million users so far, which is probably not fast enough.



“The internet will change very drastically sometime in the next 12 to 24 months,” Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania told Time. “So we have to succeed, or I’m not sure what else would happen.”



What would probably happen first is that the internet will be overrun by AIs.



But Altman now says that’s not his focus: “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to avoid the bot overrun’ or whatever. It’s just that we can do a lot of special things for humans.”



Perrigo suspects that Altman is changing the narrative on World to better fit the narrative on OpenAI: “Tools for Humanity’s mission may be shifting beyond simply proving humanity, and toward becoming the infrastructure that enables AI agents to proliferate with human authorization.”



Lots of those AI agents will be created by Sam Altman’s OpenAI.



I find that a little disappointing because it muddies the narrative, but World still seems like a worthy cause to me, because what’s the alternative?



One way to contribute to the cause is to buy the World token, which has to have value so that Tools for Humanity can incentivize sign-ups, attract investors and motivate employees.



Time quotes Tools for Humanity CEO Blania as saying that he’s “really excited to make a lot of money.”



That strikes a discordant note for an ostensibly mission-driven company, but if World works, he’ll have earned it.



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Thursday links: Treasury companies and dinner without Trump

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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Kraken announced last week that it would soon list Solana-based tokenized equities, in what looks partly like the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/4-big-questions-following-the-solana-accelerate-conference">exchange’s latest step</a> to lure Solana investors.&nbsp;



This forthcoming xStocks product was developed in tandem with a startup named Backed, and Backed’s ambitions don’t end with Kraken users or the Solana ecosystem.



“The vision is that you can buy an xStock on Kraken, you can withdraw it, and then you can deposit on Coinbase or you can deposit on Orca, you can leverage it on Kamino,” co-founder Adam Levi told me in an interview. Levi said separately that xStocks would be launching on other centralized exchanges, and the product would be available on other blockchains “at some point.”



Levi said Backed originated when he and his co-founder examined crypto’s product-market fit surrounding stablecoins — which are currently basically tokenized US Treasurys — and wondered what asset class could be tokenized next. Four years ago, Levi says, they concluded the answer would be public equities.



Granted, others are asking this same question, and not all are reaching the same conclusion. The buzzy tokenization firm Securitize, for example, has set about tokenizing a private credit fund — essentially offering exposure to elevated yields created by riskier private loans — offered by Apollo Global. The product will be onboarded to Kamino, it was <a href="https://x.com/KaminoFinance/status/1924902594968699179">announced</a> last week.



Still, Levi told me he thinks the upside for tokenized public equity is significant.



“I think it’s going to be bigger than stablecoins, and volumes are almost in a way going to compete with TradFi,” Levi said of the sector. He said demand could primarily come from non-US residents who want easier access to American securities and young people for whom trading tokens may feel more intuitive than opening a brokerage account.



Throughout our interview, Levi cast Backed as being having a similar business model to a stablecoin issuer insofar as it creates and ostensibly collects revenue on a tokenized product that is then exchanged on other venues.&nbsp;



Kraken, which has a large base of crypto users Backed could not easily acquire on its own, becomes the first such venue. Think USDC-Coinbase but for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kraken-tokenized-stocks-tradfi-crypto">tokenized stocks</a>. This also fits into a broader narrative that growth-minded crypto exchanges may begin to offer more traditional bank-like features over time, especially given the friendlier <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-crypto-round-table-execs">regulatory environment</a>.



As for the Solana of it all, Levi told me: “Tokenized equities is a very kind of retail game, and I think Solana is a very retail chain.” He added that the Solana Foundation — which has gone all in on “Internet Capital Markets” branding recently, was very supportive.&nbsp;



“They really want this to succeed,” Levi said.



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kraken

Tokenized equities will be ‘bigger than stablecoins’: Backed CEO

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>.



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In a major blow to the Trump administration’s pursuit of global sweeping tariffs, the US Court of International Trade ruled that tariffs implemented via IEEPA were unlawful. This includes reciprocal tariffs and Fentanyl-related levies placed on certain countries.&nbsp;



The breakdown of what’s been impacted can be seen below: 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="847" height="593" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-103194" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=847 847w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=367 367w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=373 373w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=313 313w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart1.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 847px) 100vw, 847px" /></figure>



On net, this move takes the effective tariff rate from 10.4% to approximately 3.4%, as calculated by Bloomberg Economics.



The Trump administration was quick to appeal the decision. The matter now moves to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The government also said it will seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court to pause yesterday’s ruling should the appellate court not do so.&nbsp;



Peter Harrell, attorney at Carnegie Endowment, broke down some of the nuances around the ruling in a post on X:



<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">Analysis of yesterday&#39;s Court of International Trade (CIT) decision enjoining Trump&#39;s IEEPA tariffs, and thoughts about what might come next: 1. The CIT found that all of Trump&#39;s IEEPA tariffs&#8211;the Canada, Mexico, and China tariffs, and the &quot;Liberation Day&quot; tariffs&#8211;are…&mdash; Peter Harrell (@petereharrell) <a href="https://twitter.com/petereharrell/status/1928087025665855754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 29, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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“The Government,&#8221; said Harrell, &#8220;has 10 days to comply with the ruling, and has already appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Appeals Court may stay the CIT decision pending an appeal, but I expect an appeal to move quickly — weeks, not months. 



&#8220;If the decision is upheld, importers should eventually be able to get a refund of tariffs paid to date. But the government will probably seek to avoid paying refunds until appeals are exhausted. 



&#8220;The CIT&#8217;s opinion was elegantly reasoned and complex. It held that the &#8216;Liberation Day&#8217; tariffs are unlawful because if Trump wants to use tariffs to address the trade deficit — the stated basis for the Liberation Day tariffs — he has to use other provisions of law, including Section 122, which authorizes tariffs to deal with balance of payments issues, but which limits tariffs to 15% and 150 days. IEEPA may allow tariffs, but not tariffs to address the trade deficit.”



That point about there being other routes for the Trump administration to pursue to implement tariffs is crucial, as that is likely where the administration’s next vector of attack will come.



In the table below, we can see there are plenty of esoteric avenues that can be pursued for implementing tariffs if the Trump administration is truly committed to doing so: 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="832" height="697" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-103195" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=832 832w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=307 307w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=312 312w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=261 261w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chart2.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px" /></figure>



Overall, this judicial ruling marks the next leg of trade uncertainty, as opposed to a resolution of it. Markets will now need to digest the following: a tariff implementation fight likely heading to the Supreme Courts, more esoteric legal routes to pursue more tariffs and a potential surge in imports hitting US shores as companies try to get in as many goods as they can while tariffs sit at a (likely) temporary floor of 3.4%.&nbsp;



Where do we go from here? Your guess is as good as mine. Stay nimble.



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Donald Trump

Court of International Trade halts the Tariff bonanza

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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Real estate has long been suggested by crypto fans as an area that could benefit from onchain records, whether it’s a blockchain-based deed or other data.&nbsp;



Real estate startup Mogul is using blockchain tech to bring fractionalized investment to the sector. It recently launched Mogul Clubs, which are user-created real estate investment groups using the Avalanche C-chain.&nbsp;



Now, Clubs are officially out of beta.



Avalanche developer Ava Labs has launched its own Mogul Club and is using the blockchain to power stablecoin-based real estate investments.



The goal of Mogul Clubs is “to give investors seamless access to high-yield, high-return single-family rentals across the US sunbelt—without the typical capital barriers or landlord headaches,” according to a release.



Mogul first launched back in 2023. It currently has over $22 million in assets on its platform. CEO Alex Blackwood told me they’ve already been able to give investors 10-12% cash-on-cash returns so far with an average internal rate of return (IRR) of 18.8%.



<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">💎 Introducing The Celeste, our newest Houston property following the sellout of our previous five. Featuring a pre-growth yield of 8.2% and a levered IRR of 15.1%, The Celeste has seen over $82,000 in investment since its launch today. Invest here: <a href="https://t.co/gw57MtO0YH">https://t.co/gw57MtO0YH</a> <a href="https://t.co/cc4drEdy88">pic.twitter.com/cc4drEdy88</a>&mdash; mogul Club (@mogul__club) <a href="https://twitter.com/mogul__club/status/1903161020278850019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Fractionalized assets can sound complicated. But here’s how this works: When an investor funds a deal using USDT or a wire transfer, Mogul creates “a proprietary on-chain property NFT that represents their fractional membership interest in the LLC that owns the real estate,” according to Blackwood.



“Those tokens are not AVAX itself but custom ERC-1155 compatible contracts mogul wrote specifically for our platform, so all ownership records, distribution rights, and governance votes are immutably recorded on the chain,” Blackwood added.



Retail investors can join more than 30 different clubs. The startup says it vets every investable property on its platform, with the goal of giving investors the highest ROI possible.



“Mogul has a vetting process even stricter than Harvard’s, with less than one percent of properties we come across ultimately making it to the platform,” Blackwood told me.



Investors who join these real estate clubs can decide whether they want to buy in by themselves or alongside others — and need a minimum of $250 to get started. That price point makes it accessible, so investors can be just about anyone, no license required.



Mogul was founded by two former Goldman Sachs real estate investment group employees. Their site also offers a free rental property calculator, an Airbnb income calculator, a real estate calculator, and an investment property calculator to assess whether a property is worth a second look.



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real estate

Mogul puts real estate investments on Avalanche

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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Crypto MMORPG MapleStory N said it’s banned thousands of accounts and is monitoring the game’s players for suspicious activity such as bot accounts or cheaters.



“With ongoing updates to the automated system, more than 200 detections and corresponding restrictive measures are now being processed every hour,” the game’s team said in a developer’s <a href="https://docs.maplestoryn.io/announcement/updates/developer-notes/ongoing-measures-against-hacks-and-macros">note</a>.&nbsp;



The note, the text of which can also be read on a mirror <a href="https://msu.io/maplestoryn/news/update/2911197">post</a> published last week, continued: “Our team continues to conduct thorough manual reviews based on user reports and submitted evidence. As a result of these combined efforts, a total of 6,503 sanctions were issued over the past 24 hours.”



The MapleStory N team said they’re using security tools to detect cheat programs and those who might try to use multiple devices at the same time via automation tools. They’re also on the lookout for “mass logins, rapid character creation, [and] unusual trading and leveling activity.”



MapleStory N <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/maplestory-n-launch-usa-countries">launched</a> just two weeks ago, and uses its own dedicated Avalanche L1 (also known as a subnet) for its crypto elements.



<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">Dear Maplers🍄, We know how important a fair game environment is to you, and to us. Our team is actively working to address hacks and macros, and we’ve shared an update on our ongoing efforts here: <a href="https://t.co/VECzNOWGTQ">https://t.co/VECzNOWGTQ</a> Thank you for your continued support and patience as we…&mdash; MapleStory Universe (@MaplestoryU) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaplestoryU/status/1926147522549944680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Because crypto games involve financial rewards, some are incentivized to “bot” a game, or automate activity across numerous accounts, to farm rewards in the form of tokens or NFTs that can then be cashed out.



Botting, or other types of cheating, can be present across all types of video games more broadly.&nbsp;



In crypto gaming, though, botters present an issue to game developers because such actors are only playing the game to extract funds — not purchase items for cosmetic purposes or otherwise spend more than is absolutely necessary in a game. This can mean less revenue for the game’s studio, and real players lose out on rewards as a result.



Pixels, a pixelated MMORPG that uses Ronin, has been battling bots in its crypto game for years. For Pixels, ignoring bots would negatively impact their revenue, and may frustrate or even alienate genuine players if botters are the ones reaping most of the game’s rewards.&nbsp;



Pixels’ founder recently <a href="https://x.com/whatslukedoing/status/1925300844758442340">noted</a> that they’ve been able to finally get more deposits of funds into the game than withdrawals for the first time this month, creating a long-term healthier financial picture for the game. That’s come in part as a result of their extensive anti-bot efforts and plans to prioritize genuine players.



Going forward, MapleStory N says it’s looking at reducing the amount of false positives — where genuine players were labeled as bots or cheaters — and will adjust its approach accordingly.



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Gaming

MapleStory N bans 6,000+ accounts for botting, cheating

Ben Strack

Roughly a third of all bitcoin could one day be owned by corporations, Swan Bitcoin Chief Investment Officer Ben Werkman projects.



President Donald Trump’s strategic bitcoin reserve <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/establishment-of-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-and-united-states-digital-asset-stockpile/">order</a> helped clear the path for companies, meaning <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/matt-hougan-crypto-reputational-risk">the risk-reward for adopting bitcoin</a> “has never been better,” he said.&nbsp;



“I won’t be surprised to see 25-35% of bitcoin held by corporations, but keep in mind it seems we’re also going to have some involvement from sovereign wealth funds and central banks,” Werkman told Blockworks in an interview. “I think the pockets of demand are going to get really wide.”



Werkman is a board member of Strive Asset Management, an investment firm that <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/strive-asset-management-to-combine-with-asset-entities-nasdaq-asst-to-form-first-publicly-traded-asset-management-bitcoin-treasury-company-302448623.html">announced</a> earlier this month that it plans to combine with Asset Entities and form a NASDAQ-listed bitcoin treasury company.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, Strive signed a $750 million private investment in public equity with Asset Entities on Tuesday — the proceeds of which would “support the company&#8217;s first wave of Bitcoin acquisitions.” The companies also seek to acquire public companies trading below net cash to then buy bitcoin at a discount.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/corporate-bitcoin-adoption-boom-inevitable-kraken">Why execs say a corporate bitcoin adoption boom is inevitable</a>



Not all companies will become what Werkman called “leveraged bitcoin equities” — the ones that utilize the capital markets to actively accumulate it (like Michael Saylor’s Strategy).&nbsp;



Some could simply choose to make a policy change to allow what they’re holding in US dollars — perhaps 3-5% of corporate reserves — to go toward bitcoin instead, he explained.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



A former equity analyst for firms like Strategy, Metaplanet and Semler Scientific, Werkman has also done consulting for public and private companies exploring how to structure BTC treasury strategies.&nbsp;



“I’ve not yet seen a company that’s been evaluating this where they haven’t been open to starting to have these conversations,” he said. “That tells me they’re realizing they’ve got a problem, and all the uncertainty that’s happened over the last six months has really amplified that for them.”



Keep reading for more excerpts from Blockworks’ interview with Werkman.



Blockworks: What were the main contributors to bitcoin hitting a new all-time high last week?



Werkman: Obviously, on the corporate adoption side, you’re seeing a huge amount of capital start to enter the space. The type of foundational buying pressure from long-only participants — people that aren’t sellers — is really growing, so that’s building a foundational bid underneath bitcoin.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But broader than that, I think you’re seeing a lot of weakness in some of the macro markets. Particularly in Japan, you’re seeing the issues currently rising with the rates over there, and people are starting to get a little scared by that. What we saw when the tariff scare happened was bitcoin essentially made its pivot from a risk-on asset to a risk-off asset. There was tremendous strength that showed up that I don’t think anybody was anticipating.&nbsp;



And people are looking at what’s going to have to come in the US for them to stabilize around rates and the currency, and I think they’re starting to see the path to easing opening back up again.&nbsp;



Blockworks: Kraken CFO Stephanie Lemmerman <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/corporate-bitcoin-adoption-boom-inevitable-kraken">said</a> last month she expects 20% of the roughly 55,000 public companies to hold BTC a couple of years from now. Do you agree? Werkman: I think you’re definitely going to see thousands. Bitcoin got significantly derisked as an asset class when the United States announced a strategic reserve.&nbsp;



When you think about the time and energy you’re putting into building savings in US dollars, only to know that it’s devaluing every year on you, you need to look for an alternative…that has a completely inelastic supply to the demand for it.



It’s maintaining your purchasing power for your corporation and you’ve got a duty to your shareholders to make sure you’re evaluating all the options.&nbsp;



What gets us to the 20% is, you’re going to have a much smaller cohort of these leveraged bitcoin equities, but you’re going to have a broad cohort that just hold bitcoin the asset in corporate reserves to protect themselves.



Blockworks: How do you expect corporate bitcoin adoption to evolve? Werkman: We used to all think it would accelerate over the next three to five years and now we’re seeing it accelerate today. It seems like every week there’s an announcement about a new company doing this.



But you’re going to see a lot of differentiation that starts to happen in the market. When you start getting too many companies that are running the same playbook with the same setup…you’re going to start to see some consolidation in the types of investments. Some will be more successful than others. You can really think about it the way that traditional equities are already structured, where you have value companies, growth companies, and hyper-growth companies. You’re going to see segmentation in this market as well.&nbsp;



Strategy is going to be that value company out there; they’ve achieved scale, they’re safe for institutions to invest in and trade in their products. So they’ve achieved escape velocity on that side, and you’re going to see other bitcoin treasuries grow rather rapidly.



Then there’re going to be new strategies being deployed where they’re going to focus on how fast they’re incrementing that bitcoin per share.&nbsp;



Blockworks: Strategy currently owns 580,250 BTC. How much more do you expect them to accumulate, and can anyone catch up? Werkman: Strategy really defined the initial playbook that a lot of these companies can follow. That was a really important role for them to fill, because the one thing that really needed to happen was the markets needed to be proved out for each of these different types of offerings, and you needed to really get a sense of who your buyer was on the other side of these transactions.



It’s going to start getting a lot harder to put up the same [acquisition] numbers, because now you’re starting to see the demand’s coming and the part that gives is the price. So you’re going to have to keep buying it at a higher price, which means you’re going to be getting less bitcoin.&nbsp;



So achieving a reserve stack like Strategy has is going to be very difficult for any other company; they’ve got a significant moat because if a buyer came in and started to try to buy [580,000] bitcoins right now, that market’s going to move.



I think [Strategy] is probably targeting a million BTC, but it’s going to become a lot harder to get there because there are so many people who are buying and not selling.&nbsp;



Blockworks: Have you seen situations where it might not make sense for a company to deploy a bitcoin treasury strategy? Werkman: To deploy the active strategy, yes. But most companies always have an ability or a business case for creating a bitcoin treasury strategy. It could be something as small as creating an insurance policy for yourself. You don’t want to be the last person that decides to make the change; that’s not a good look for your company.



This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.



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Bitcoin

Corporations could one day own a third of all BTC: Swan Bitcoin CIO

Donovan Choy

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



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World is the one crypto project that you either love or hate.



Since launch, the Sam Altman-backed World (previously Worldcoin) has been roundly <a href="https://x.com/DefiSquared/status/1790075349373694174">criticized</a> for its “low float” tokenomics and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-worldcoin-reputation-problem">faced scrutiny</a> from regulators stemming from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/world-coin-temporarily-blocked-spain">data privacy concerns</a>.



Yet, World continues to stand out in the industry for trying to do something uniquely innovative.



Despite the WLD token’s 88% slump from its 2024 highs, the team announced last week an undiscounted <a href="https://x.com/worldcoin/status/1925253926929997841">sale</a> of $135 million in WLD to Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto. Mirana Ventures and Selini Capital also participated in the sale, the latter of which <a href="https://x.com/SeliniCapital/status/1925560024614805974">claimed</a> that it “wrote its (by far) largest-ever check.”



Which made me question: What do some of the world’s top institutional investors see in a project almost universally vilified by Crypto Twitter?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">World ID</h2>



At the heart of World’s business model is the distribution involved with World ID, the team’s open-source digital identity product.



Why sign up? In exchange for registering their biometric data at an Orb (World’s signature <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-altman-worldcoin-orb-mini-eye-scan">iris-scanning device</a>), users are offered WLD token incentives.



It’s (almost) as simple as that.



To date, <a href="https://world.org/">12.6 million</a> unique humans have Orbed. To put World’s distribution into rough perspective, Coinbase has something like <a href="https://www.theblock.co/data/crypto-markets/public-companies/coinbase-monthly-transacting-users">10 million</a> monthly active users, while Telegram has a billion (note these aren’t quite apple-to-apple comparisons).



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">World App and World Chain</h2>



World’s distributional funnel has helped fuel about 27 million users to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-altman-worldcoin-orb-mini-eye-scan">onboard its World App</a>, an ecosystem hub of hundreds of “<a href="https://www.miniapps.world/">miniapps</a>” ranging from DeFi (Morpho), lottery games (PoolTogether), messaging, minigames like Wordle, payments, etc.



Miniapps are deployed on World Chain, the team’s Ethereum L2 built on the Optimism stack. The chain has seen some <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/markets-defy-logic">growth lately</a>.



What makes World Chain different is how the chain’s execution layer ties in with World ID.



For instance, users with a verified World ID can receive priority transaction inclusion over arbitrage bots on World Chain, or what the team calls “<a href="https://world.org/blog/engineering/introducing-pbh-priority-blockspace-for-humans">Priority Blockspace for Humans</a>.” The team also codifies rules that redirect transaction fees from bots to <a href="https://docs.world.org/world-chain">subsidize</a> gas costs of World ID users onchain.&nbsp;



World Chain isn’t all that interested in competing with dominant chains though, as Liam Horne, Optimism co-founder and advisor to World, told me.



What World wants to do is “to own the end-to-end user experience and ultimately the distribution of millions of people with World ID and World App,” Horne said.



“Our framing is not &#8216;Check out this app built on World Chain.’ Instead, it is &#8216;Tap into the millions of World ID users that want to use digital assets for their day-to-day financial and consumer needs.'&#8221;



It all hinges on World ID adoption. The north star is to build a “human hub,” and World is leveraging the tool of token incentives to do so.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">World’s business model</h2>



World ID is freely available for other teams to leverage today, though monetization will kick in later.



Today, World ID is integrated on World Chain, Ethereum, Optimism and even <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-worldcoin-id-solana">Solana</a> (via Wormhole).



<a href="https://www.globalgovernmentfintech.com/malaysia-mimos-worldcoin/">Governments</a>, Web3 companies (<a href="https://world.org/ecosystem/app_74ee4e7a7d9f20328aba68a5ec72996a">DSCVR</a>, <a href="https://world.org/ecosystem/app_8b24dbefe1f3e6c41350f5e9b61f41d6">Galxe</a>) and traditional companies like Razer, Match Group and Shopify have also integrated World ID to better their services.



These companies have business models that are negatively impacted by bots. World ID represents the solution for them to curb this value leakage.



Match Group for instance, will probably give World ID-verified Tinder users some kind of checkmark or user privilege, which in turn improves the overall user experience (and spurs more users to seek out an Orb).



Or to use a more crypto-native example, dapps can better tune their growth campaigns to target real users with points/airdrop rewards. An uncollateralized lending product, for instance, could more efficiently reward real human users, making the multi-wallet practice of airdrop farming obsolete.



World eventually <a href="https://world.org/blog/announcements/introducing-world-id-fees">plans</a> to charge fees to apps for using World ID (full details out by Q3 2025).



That’s where the consistent demand sink for WLD token comes in — institutions paying to use World ID, instead of speculative interest from retail.



But can demand for WLD outpace the rapid unlocking of its token supply?



WLD has had rather hefty inflation — 600% in just the last 12 months, according to Delphi Digital’s <a href="https://members.delphidigital.io/reports/world-a-trillion-dollar-opportunity-or-just-another-low-float-high-fdv#tokenomics-4f4f">estimates</a>. For context, in the early days of WLD’s token, WLD had an enormously low float of merely <a href="https://x.com/DylanLeClair_/status/1683513205224534016">1%</a>, though that has increased to about 15% today.&nbsp;



In an age of infinitely AI-generated content, the need for humanness is growing. World is primed to tackle this head on.



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0xResearch Newsletter

World’s biometric identity ambitions draw $135M in fresh funding

David Canellis

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



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



Until now, no Bitcoiners have stepped foot on the actual moon, considering Satoshi wouldn’t write the white paper for another 36 years after the last astronaut returned home.



Maybe 50 people, tops, have been shot into space since the white paper came out, including on suborbital flights like the Blue Origin trips, which probably don’t count. Perhaps there were Bitcoiners among them.



We do know this for sure: Chun Wang is the first Bitcoin billionaire to ever enter Earth’s orbit.&nbsp;



The F2Pool co-founder spent three and a half days in space last month, only to land on stage with Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian, at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas this week.



“Space was great. I already read a lot about space all my life, and I just went there for verification. So, don’t trust, verify. I verified space,” Wang told Rizzo.&nbsp;



He’d privately funded the expedition for an undisclosed sum after pitching SpaceX on the idea of operating humanity’s first ever space flight over Earth’s poles. Wang commanded the mission, which SpaceX operated with a Crew Dragon spacecraft, which are partially reusable.



Wang spent three months over a 14-month period training exactly as an astronaut would.&nbsp;



“The only difference…we pay ourselves, and professional astronauts, their respective countries pay for that… ours is kind of a newer private commercial space flight, that’s a difference, but we go through the same training process.”



Wang initially got into Bitcoin after coming across a Slashdot feature in 2011. Bitcoin’s most famous Slashdotting was its February <a href="https://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/online-only-currency-bitcoin-reaches-dollar-parity">post</a>: “Online-Only Currency BitCoin Reaches Dollar Parity.”&nbsp;



Luckily, he started mining soon after, and actually sold some of his bitcoin to fund the space adventure.



Rizzo asked: “There’s a lot of people here who don’t want to spend bitcoin, and maybe they don’t want to spend bitcoin to go to space. You spent bitcoin to go to space. Can you talk about why you wanted to spend bitcoin to go to space?”



“I think, you know, you cannot just stack that for no reason. Bitcoin, it can help humanity. And I think space is one of the next big things,” Wang said.&nbsp;



“&#8230;It’s very well worth it. Because eventually humans have to be — like Elon said, humans have to be multiplanetary. We cannot be stuck here.”



As for whether Wang thought to make a Bitcoin transaction from space, not so much. “Nobody asked me. Because, you know, payment, you have to pay from one person to another. We only had four people up there, I didn&#8217;t have to pay my colleague.”



“But yeah, we did have internet. I think future flyers, future space travelers, once we have a sizable community up there, they’ll have a reason to make a payment — they’ll make a payment.” Catch the rest of the interview <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/3e3KE40r_WM?feature=shared&amp;t=11388">from Bitcoin 2025’s livestream video</a> (link is timestamped).



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Why the first Bitcoin billionaire in space sold bitcoin to do it

Katherine Ross

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



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The stablecoin company Circle is a highly anticipated IPO, and we know now that BlackRock’s very interested, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-28/blackrock-is-said-to-plan-to-buy-shares-in-circle-internet-ipo">per a Bloomberg report,</a> and we have an idea behind potential pricing. This one is an interesting hybrid of crypto and TradFi. 



On Tuesday, I wrote that the stablecoin issuer is <a href="https://empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com/p/meme-to-mainstream?_bhlid=ae8ff9f4587d7becb731092a20ad1600bbabdb5b&amp;last_resource_guid=Post%3Ae12c0195-6707-494d-9dcd-963bdc706fd9&amp;utm_campaign=meme-to-mainstream&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com">really close to the finish line</a>, but I hadn’t realized just how close until I caught up with Jay Woods, Chief Global Strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.&nbsp;



I know Woods from my days as a reporter on Wall Street, and he’s quite familiar with the ins and outs of IPOs, having worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for many years.&nbsp;



First of all, let’s address the rumors of a potential acquisition ahead of the IPO: Woods told me it’s “very rare” for that to happen at this stage.&nbsp;



“We are at a point where the bankers have been named, the price has been set, and a timetable has been given. The timetable is for the week of <a href="https://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPO-Center/News/111163/Stablecoin-issuer-Circle-sets-terms-for-$600-million-IPO">June 2</a>, so that&#8217;s next week. Once you get this far along in the process, I can&#8217;t think of anything off the top of my head … where a company has not made it to the finish line,” he said.&nbsp;



Basically, the banking teams have done their due diligence, investors have been talked to, and everything is humming along.&nbsp;



“So to me, unless somebody comes in with a ridiculous offer and wants to stop this from happening and buy them before they go public, it looks like they&#8217;re a go. And we&#8217;ve got another, say, 10 trading days or less to figure it out,” Woods added.&nbsp;



Generally speaking, you don’t see IPOs on Mondays or Tuesdays. In my experience, Thursday seems to be a popular pick for companies.&nbsp;



While Woods wasn’t totally sure why Thursday seems to be such a hit, he did note that it gives the teams three days to prep for the IPO and then one full day of trading (at least) before the weekend. But that’s not to say we couldn’t also see Circle go public next Wednesday.&nbsp;



We’ll know pretty quickly next week what the timeline will be, given that we get pricing the night before the stock opens for trading. So, we’ll get pricing Tuesday night if they aim for Wednesday, and Wednesday night if they choose Thursday.



I asked Woods for a read on the market conditions to give a better sense of how the IPO could fare, and he noted that the overall conditions are starting to get better, though they’re not necessarily ideal. But, hey, retail is definitely interested and so, clearly, are institutions.&nbsp;



ICYMI: In that <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000119312525126208/d737521ds1a.htm">SEC filing</a> from earlier this week, Circle noted that Cathie Wood’s ARK had expressed interest in purchasing up to $150 million in shares.&nbsp;



What will be interesting to see is the appetite for the stock, especially amongst crypto folks. COIN is clearly a popular pick nowadays, but can CRCL join it?



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Circle

Why an acquisition of Circle may be off the table as its IPO approaches

In its purest form, money is information — a common language —&nbsp; designed to move with minimal friction.



But in the system we inherited, information has been built slowly, creeping through layers of analog corporate and regulatory machinery. Meanwhile, the economy, the actual web of relationships it exists to serve, moved on. While the world accelerated — commerce going global, rails turning digital, information liquefying — money stayed behind, still hierarchical, still bounded by legal jurisdiction and batch settlement. The last analog layer in an otherwise digital world.



So-called fintech tried to fix this, but only from the edges. It smoothed the user experience, patching latency with nicer interfaces. Yet, the engine, the convoluted assemblage of institutions and gatekeepers, remained intact. Then, almost serendipitously, stablecoins emerged from the early days of the crypto revolution. Fiat money wrapped in code and moved onto open-source, distributed software — freely storable, transferable, composable. It felt, for a moment, like money had finally found a way to match the speed and structure of the world it was meant to serve.



But beneath the surface, most stablecoins remain a hybrid compromise: large, centralized actors riding decentralized rails. By benefiting from the undeniable advantages of a digital form factor, their architecture risks reinforcing the very dynamics they claimed to transcend: concentrating power within walled gardens, gate-keeping innovation, fractioning the monetary base, ultimately at the expense of the users.



<a href="http://m0.org/everything?utm_source=blockworks&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=everything_is_a_bank&amp;utm_content=banner03?utm_source=blockworks">M0</a> wasn’t born to wrap old systems in prettier code. M0 wasn’t born to hand legacy finance a new tool to further entrench its market position. We reject the supposed inevitability of power laws. We reject that a small handful of actors should monopolize the benefits of financial infrastructure while everyone else builds the layers that make the infrastructure meaningful. Money is — arguably — one of the most consequential pieces of infrastructure in human society. And we believe its architecture should serve builders, not extract from them.



M0 remains driven by the radical belief that <a href="http://m0.org/everything?utm_source=blockworks&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=everything_is_a_bank&amp;utm_content=banner03?utm_source=blockworks">financial coordination should be simpler</a>, that access to financial infrastructure should be more open, that systems should be more transparent. We’re not here to redesign yet again the interface. We’re here to rewire the core.



M0 intends to place programmable monetary infrastructure directly into the hands of the builders of software, products, services, and communities.



<a href="http://m0.org/everything?utm_source=blockworks&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=everything_is_a_bank&amp;utm_content=banner03?utm_source=blockworks">M0 exists</a> to empower those laying the deep financial substrate of a new world — not yet another cosmetic layer, but the foundational fabric to serve new possibilities. For them, we are developing the most advanced, code-native, liquid, open, interoperable money infrastructure in existence.



Every paradigm carries the seeds of its own obsolescence. As its edges begin to fray — when the outliers, the innovators, the misfits can no longer be captured by its logics — the rupture begins. The old frame cracks. And a new one emerges.



That moment has arrived.



This is why we exist.



This content is sponsored and does not serve as an endorsement by Blockworks. The veracity of this content has not been verified and should not serve as financial advice. We encourage readers to conduct their own research before making financial decisions.



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Taking back control: M0 is rewiring money for a digital world

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Money and banking, in the end, is a confidence game, and our job at the Federal Reserve is to preserve confidence.”



— Richard Fisher, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (2005-2015)
</blockquote>



In Michael Lewis’ Wall Street classic Liar’s Poker, the phrase “equities in Dallas” is wielded as an epithet — a catch-all term for the least competent people at Salomon Brothers doing the firm’s least desirable jobs.



The young investment bankers in Lewis’ class of Salomon trainees lived in fear of being assigned to the equities division in Dallas — a fate considered only marginally better than being fired.



In their eyes, Dallas, TX — an incomprehensible 1,547 miles removed from Salomon’s New York City headquarters — was a financial backwater of provincial irrelevance.



But Dallas was a financial center in its own right — and its distance from New York is what made it an important one.&nbsp;



Dallas is home to one of the 12 regional banks of the Federal Reserve, many of which were strategically placed in financial backwaters as a means to decentralize the US banking system.&nbsp;



The idea was to distribute the Fed’s power across regions — not just to reflect economic diversity, but also to insulate monetary policy from concentrated political or financial influence.



That may seem like an anachronism in today’s world of megabanks and seemingly all-powerful Fed chairs.&nbsp;



But the threat of centralized power is neither theoretical nor historical, as has been illustrated by the president’s recent threats to fire Chair Powell for failing to cut interest rates.



Last week, however, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a966_1b8e.pdf">ruled</a> that the president does not have the power to remove the Fed chair or any other board members of the Federal Reserve.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Instructively, the same ruling found that the president likely does have the authority to fire appointees at federal agencies like the NLRB and MSPB.



But the Federal Reserve is exempt, the majority reasoned, because the central bank is “a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”



This was always the plan.



What makes the structure of the Federal Reserve “unique” is that it&#8217;s not one bank, but many — and with several in places like Dallas.



The Federal Reserve was designed as a group of semi-independent regional banks to better resist the centralization of financial power, be it in New York or DC.



Putting some of those banks in economic backwaters like Dallas wasn’t an accident; it was a way to hardwire decentralization into the system.



In 1914, when Dallas was chosen as a site for a regional Federal Reserve bank, its population of 131,278 made it the 58th-largest city in the US.



The <a href="https://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2012/fs120626?utm_source=chatgpt.com">lobbying pitch</a> for why Dallas should be chosen ahead of larger cities included the proud statement that it “leads the world in the manufacture of cotton gin machinery and in the manufacture of harness and saddlery.”&nbsp;



If that helped its cause, I can only imagine it was because the pitch illustrated just how different Dallas is from New York.



Once established, the Dallas Fed hired a staff of 27 (at an average pay of $30 a month) whose primary task was to provide centralized check-clearing for the region — bundles of checks would arrive at the bank during the day and Dallas Fed employees would spend the night sorting them by hand.



The bank also supplied currency and coins to the region — to this day, banknotes ordered and circulated by the Dallas Fed prominently feature the letter “K” on the front (K being the 11th letter of the alphabet and Dallas being the 11th of 12 regional Fed banks).



More consequentially, the Dallas Fed also set local interest rates.



In the beginning, regional Federal Reserve banks were so independent that they each set their own lending rates for banks in their region.



Imagine 12 Fed banks…all setting their own monetary policy!&nbsp;



Fun, I imagine, but it didn’t last long.



Regional interest rates proved unwieldy and the practice ended in 1935 when the Banking Act of 1935 granted the Board of Governors in Washington DC the authority to set a single interest rate for the entire country.



But regional banks retained a say in rate decisions.



All 12 Federal Reserve bank presidents attend FOMC meetings to represent their region’s interests, and a rotating group of four regional presidents (New York excluded) have a vote on the FOMC.



In short, even though it often seems like Chair Powell is setting interest rates himself because he’s the face of the Fed, his is only one of 12 votes in FOMC decisions.



Importantly, this semi-decentralized structure limits the ability of a president to bully the Fed.&nbsp;



It’s true that seven of the 12 FOMC members are presidential appointees, but their staggered, 14-year terms are explicitly designed to limit the influence of any single president over monetary policy.



This has never been more relevant.



Last week, the president bullied the House into passing a “big, beautiful bill” that the Congressional Budget Office <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61187">estimates</a> would put the US on the path to adding $56 trillion of federal debt over the next 30 years.



Perhaps the Senate will impose some fiscal responsibility before the bill becomes law, but the political will to rein in deficits appears to have evaporated in recent years.&nbsp;



If so, that leaves the Federal Reserve as the last bastion of economic sanity and the last line of defense for the US dollar.&nbsp;



It might not hold.



Last week’s Supreme Court ruling demonstrates the power of the Federal Reserve’s decentralized structure.



But the Fed ultimately reports to Congress, which could rewrite the law that grants it independent control over monetary policy — and even the most responsible monetary policy may be overwhelmed by today’s increasingly irresponsible fiscal policy.



Hence the recent strength in gold and bitcoin — if the semi-decentralized Fed isn’t able to hold the line on dollar devaluation, a fully decentralized currency might take its place.



In the meantime, though, the House budget and Supreme Court ruling are reminders that we should all be thankful that there is, in fact, “banking in Dallas.”



New York’s young investment bankers most of all.



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The monetary power of the periphery: How Dallas defends the dollar

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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Not many of crypto’s top 15 tokens by market capitalization were first issued after FTX’s collapse. Two exceptions are SUI, which began trading in mid-2023, and HYPE — which has risen to over $11 billion in market capitalization since being airdropped in November 2024.&nbsp;



HYPE, which is the native token of the Hyperliquid layer-1, has more than tripled in price since a local bottom on April 6, outpacing SOL’s roughly 70% gain over that time span. For crypto investors seeking the next layer-1 token that could capture Solana-like returns, HYPE is generating a lot of hype. Even Galaxy’s Mike Novogratz is <a href="https://x.com/stevenyuntcap/status/1923368561671606595">on board</a>.



Hyperliquid’s core layer-1 appchain, called HyperCore, is purpose-built for Hyperliquid’s order book exchange, which generates fees and leads to token buybacks. This product is very popular: Hyperliquid accounted for 77% of onchain perpetuals trading volume in April, <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/sectors">according</a> to data from Artemis. Hyperliquid also has an Ethereum Virtual Machine network called the HyperEVM, but its adoption is so far more <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/hyperliquid-not-done#valuation">muted</a> than HyperCore.



So, there is some confusion on HYPE: Should it be valued like a perps DEX that is maxing out demand in the perps DEX market, or like a layer-1 that could compete with the likes of Ethereum and Solana?



HYPE is priced somewhere in the middle. Ryan Watkins of Syncracy Capital — which has positions in both HYPE and SOL — posted a chart showing in early March how Hyperliquid was trading at a lower fee multiple than other L1s, including Solana.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXftPe5-9rbUN50TMy8G-KUgjTgJB6AKVge5iklezPSJoAXt8p9d5RyxtESy329JFuPrjQE45aE_mJN3AfUfWIOX4qrVpGtOadRoApRcQ3cO3djv1bhWxRjHtpnuk-T5RsDVlbk_?key=ec3LIWV_Fs75WjSNR7Pdyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://x.com/RyanWatkins_/status/1897302205327401167">Ryan Watkins on X</a>.</figcaption></figure>



But as Blockworks Research analyst Boccaccio <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/hyperliquid-not-done#valuation">has pointed out</a>, Hyperliquid trades at a higher fully diluted valuation (FDV) to fees ratio relative to competitor perps DEXs in Drift and dYdX, indicating it is more valuable to investors compared to simple perps DEXs.&nbsp;



Bitwise Research analyst Danny Nelson said Hyperliquid aims to create a vibrant blockchain economy like Solana’s, but it’s “not quite there yet.”



“That said, the ecosystem’s flagship perpetual contracts exchange has become an industry juggernaut. The market is pricing HYPE accordingly, and, I would argue, attempting to account for a future where Hyperliquid hosts yet more winners,” Nelson added.



There are other idiosyncratic factors at play as well. Hyperliquid’s validator set is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-decentralization-validator-put">not as decentralized</a> as some other L1s. Hyperliquid does not require know-your-customer (KYC) checks, and most centralized exchanges such as Binance do, and maybe that’s a valuable feature to some traders that is being priced in as well.



For dopamine-deprived token investors, HYPE may look like the kind of opportunity that has been fewer and further between in recent years, but it’s likely too soon to call it the next SOL.



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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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Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid valued between layer-1 and perps DEX

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>.



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



Nvidia will report its first quarter earnings after the bell today, closing out the Q1 season for the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/meta-microsoft-earnings-q1-stocks-higher">Magnificent 7</a>. 



With things relatively quiet (hopefully I didn’t just jinx it) on the trade war front, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/nvidia">Nvidia</a>’s report is poised to move markets. 



Analysts polled by FactSet are calling for Q1 revenue to come in at $43.3 billion, which would be a 66% year-over-year increase. Not too shabby — though the chipmaker’s year-over-year revenue growth was 262% in Q1 2024.&nbsp;



This time around, investors will be just as interested in what Nvidia isn’t selling.&nbsp;



In April, the chipmaker said it would be taking on a charge of up to $5.5 billion in the first quarter after regulatory changes rendered a portion of its inventory unsellable. Nvidia’s H20 chips — designed specifically for Chinese buyers — now require a license to sell, so the company will be eating costs associated with purchase commitments.&nbsp;



NVDA futures slid 6% on April 15, when Nvidia revealed the news in a regulatory filing. Shares have since pared losses, and as of 2 p.m. ET Wednesday were trading 31% higher than their mid-April low. Still, NVDA is down 1% year to date.&nbsp;



Just days ago, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the restrictions on H20 chip sales to China “deeply painful” and “enormously costly.” Two phrases shareholders never want to hear.&nbsp;



We’ll see what execs have to say about the Q2 forecast this evening. As always, keep an eye on your inbox for the breakdown tomorrow.



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earnings

Nvidia earnings in the spotlight

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>.



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



Apparently, it’s a controversial take in crypto to ask for more single-player games (and fewer multiplayer games).&nbsp;



When juicing up an in-game economy with crypto elements, a multiplayer game seems like the obvious choice. Players can flex their purchasing power to others in the game. They can crush others with their NFT that cost $1,000, showing other players that they are, indeed, willing to spend that much on a single game item.



But is that use case worth the cost? And can most crypto game studios — most of which are technically “indie” game developers — even make successful 3D multiplayers with complex but balanced crypto economies that live up to their (and our) expectations?



Ronin cofounder Aleksander Larsen <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-gaming-biggest-hurdles">previously told me</a> that every crypto game studio can only pick two of these three options: graphics, gameplay, and game economy. (For Axie Infinity, they chose gameplay and economy.) The reason not every game can have all three shining bright is partly because of budget, but also because of the time it would take to perfect all three (therefore costing more money).



I wrote a <a href="https://x.com/pixiekate13/status/1927412004039389302">thread</a> about this single-player versus multiplayer issue yesterday that went, surprisingly, viral. If you want to crack the X engagement algorithm, by the way, just write an essay of 1,000 words or more in a single tweet (xeet?) about something on which you have a strong opinion and years of experience. People will read it and some will probably get mad at you. But that’s okay, because now people are thinking about it.



When it comes to single-player, 53% of gamers actually prefer single-player games, <a href="https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/most-gamers-prefer-single-player-games">according</a> to a 2023 Midia Research study.&nbsp;



The whole CS:GO-and-DOTA gray markets argument came up a few times, with critics saying, I love trading skins in these games, of course we need more games that have this natively with crypto!



<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">Stop making multiplayer crypto games. Stop making crypto battle royales and multiplayer FPS titles. Stop making crypto MMORPGs. Unless you&#39;re making them all AI-controlled bots OR have over $100M and a plan to market to mainstream gamers and somehow overcome the longstanding… <a href="https://t.co/ixoZAkoWbR">https://t.co/ixoZAkoWbR</a>&mdash; Kate Irwin (@pixiekate13) <a href="https://twitter.com/pixiekate13/status/1927412004039389302?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Those brands were built with more money than most crypto game studios have — and building those brand-name games to what they are today took many, many years (CS has been around since the actual year 2000).



So if you’re willing to wait 10-plus years — and help fund such games — then be my guest.



The first major challenge ambitious multiplayer games in crypto face is the ping-and-player-count problem for immersive, 3D games. <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/games-industry-lens/live-ops.html#:~:text=Live%20Operations%20(Live%20Ops)%20is,experience%20for%20the%20player%20community.">Live ops</a> video games offering multiplayer experiences like first-person shooters require the use of many different servers around the world. The server needs are substantial for any game that requires low latency (ping) like FPS games, MOBAs, or even some MMORPGs. Apex Legends, for example, previously had over 15 different servers for US-based players alone for years (before it switched to AWS recently).&nbsp;



But because players need low enough ping in these types of games in order to actually play and compete against others without being at a disadvantage, that means there needs to be enough of a playerbase in their precise region connecting to each server and pressing “Play” at the same time to sustain decent matchmaking times (less than 10 minutes, preferably less than three minutes).



That’s one of the reasons why, I think, we’re only seeing one <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/6558f55c-a09f-11ef-aae9-2b3740fcea67">Off The Grid</a> right now. That, and the fact that building a game like that takes tens of millions of dollars, many years, and some star power to get more funding and bring it to market.



<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">Tough to see &#8211; the brutal truth is many games won&#39;t cut it. With 60% of playtime going to titles 6yrs or older only, and more content (TikTok/social, Steam&#39;s 19k games/yr) vying for attention than ever &#8211; games need a reason for players to stay. Just adding web3 is not enough. <a href="https://t.co/dbYD6JWRqM">https://t.co/dbYD6JWRqM</a>&mdash; soro.eth (@soro) <a href="https://twitter.com/soro/status/1927494051491619023?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Crypto games, for many years and likely for a number of years into the future, also have a smaller number of interested players by default. Blockchain games are not going to surpass Fortnite, Roblox, or Call of Duty anytime soon for many reasons that should be obvious, and I touched on above. Many gamers also still take issue with NFTs, and have decried every single mainstream game studio’s attempt at launching a crypto integration or game.&nbsp;



The reality is, we just don’t have enough interested players in this <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/why-live-service-games-are-dropping-like-flies/">already-oversatured</a> gaming market to make piles of pricey, live-ops multiplayer games. The broader gaming industry is having a difficult time, too, as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/animoca-brands-yat-siu-crypto-gaming-comeback">Animoca’s Yat Siu</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-games-shouldnt-monetize-early-nfts">VCs</a> have recently pointed out.



Thankfully, crypto game development has been trending toward mobile, which typically involves lower development costs and games that don’t require low ping. Naavik and Game7 research <a href="https://naavik.co/digest/web3-gaming-2024-year-in-review/">found</a> that mobile titles made up 30% of all crypto games last year, with Telegram games making up another 20%. Most crypto game developers are also technically “indie” based on their funding amount and budgets, meaning they simply don’t have the cash to make the next Call of Duty for crypto.



Maintaining games that use mobile or have a single-player focus will be less of a lift for developers, many of whom are also finding it difficult to raise more money right now.&nbsp;



Single-player crypto games can have asynchronous marketplaces, meaning one player can list something for sale, keep playing the game, and then eight hours later someone else on the other side of the world buys that item. There are many reasons why players would want to buy items for a single-player game, and they do already (the third-party site Nookazon is a good example of Animal Crossing trading, and people buy items for The Sims all the time). What if CyberPunk 2077 let you buy glitzy NFT items? What if NFT game cosmetics or items from single-player titles had other use cases or perks, too?



Crypto gaming has potential. There will be successful games that break through the noise. But many are on hopium, and need to come back down to earth with regard to what’s actually possible with the money that’s going around.&nbsp;



We’ve seen three multiplayer-focused crypto game studios close in the past month. If that isn’t a wake-up call that the existing strategies aren’t working, I don’t know what is.



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Opinion: We need more single-player crypto games

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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Polygon Labs and GSR are teaming up on Katana. The new DeFi-optimized blockchain, set to launch next month, has a clear mission: Stop fragmenting liquidity and start redirecting value back to users. 



It’s built on Polygon’s new OP Stack-based cdk-opgeth framework, powered by <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/conduit-gigagas-throughput-sequencer">Conduit’s G2 sequencer</a>, and uses zk finality via Succinct’s SP1 prover. Good tech — but Katana’s true innovation isn’t technical, it’s economic.



This isn’t another “chain for everything” play. Katana is focused on DeFi — a purpose-built appchain designed to concentrate liquidity and maximize real yield. Think of it less as another rollup and more like a high-performance DeFi venue with protocol-aligned incentives, productive TVL and a built-in emissions flywheel, said <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/polygon">Polygon</a> Labs CEO Marc Boiron.



“When you ask users what they actually want from DeFi, the answer is always the same: deep liquidity and high yields,” Boiron told Blockworks. “General-purpose chains just don’t deliver that.”



Where most <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/layer-2-2">layer-2s</a> treat DeFi as one vertical among many, Katana makes it the main event. Core protocols like <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/morpho">Morpho</a> (lending), <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sushi">Sushi</a> (spot DEX), and <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/bd00fff0-3b58-11ee-9796-5fbaffa9ad85">Vertex</a> (perp DEX) serve as foundational infrastructure, not one of many apps doing the same thing. In a radical break from the usual DeFi sandbox model, Katana ensures these key partners face no competition within their category on the chain.&nbsp;



That’s by design and is expected to benefit the user experience. “You&#8217;re actually substantially worse off having $100 million split across three protocols than $175 million in one,” Boiron said.



Katana plans to channel activity through these few “core apps,” and supercharge them with yield sourced from five different streams: protocol emissions, KAT incentives, bridged asset yield (via <a href="https://polygon.technology/blog/introducing-vaultbridge-a-new-revenue-lego-for-evm-chains">VaultBridge</a>), sequencer fee redistribution and native stablecoin income (via Agora’s AUSD).



The VaultBridge directs bridged ETH, USDC and WBTC into Morpho vaults on Ethereum. It generates real returns before those assets even reach the chain, then compounds them further once they do. Even the sequencer revenue — which most chains keep for themselves or future validators — is redirected into user incentives and protocol-owned liquidity.



That’s an advantage of the rollup design space, according to Conduit founder Andrew Huang. “We worked with the Katana team to create a custom fee redistribution mechanism for the chain’s sequencer revenues,” Huang told Blockworks.



Thus, with yield transparently flowing from multiple sources and emissions guided by vote-escrowed KAT governance (à la Curve Wars), Katana is aiming for long-term sustainability, not short-term yield farming.



Boiron describes this approach as a response to DeFi’s persistent inefficiencies: fractured liquidity, unsustainable yields and duplicated assets. “If you’re not going to differentiate your blockspace,” he says, “don’t build [it].”



It’s also Polygon’s most serious bet yet on its <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/lightspeed/e14b89fa-e5f0-11ee-94eb-d754c5abecb8">AggLayer vision</a> — the idea of a network of tightly integrated chains stitched together via zk bridges and shared liquidity. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polygon-and-matter-labs-compete-on-zkevm-rollups">Polygon zkEVM</a>, once slated to fill that role, struggled to gain any user adoption, with activity and REV <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/polygon-zkevm">on the decline</a> since the spring of 2024. (Blockworks Research is a data partner for Katana.)



Katana aims to showcase what the AggLayer can do as “a chain with very deep liquidity that every other chain can tap into,” Boiron said.



While most OP Stack rollups still rely on fraud proofs and treat tokenomics as an afterthought, Katana integrates zero-knowledge finality from the start. This evolution of the Polygon CDK — now known by the more brand-neutral Agglayer CDK, uses the OP Stack for developer familiarity, but replaces its core infrastructure with Polygon’s AggLayer bridge and execution proofs generated by Succinct’s SP1 prover.



That means no long fraud proof withdrawal windows on canonical bridges, Boiron noted, “and because we’re using OP Stack, users also get all the innovation from Base and Optimism, just ported onto Katana.”



Katana is also aiming for L2Beat’s Stage 1 compliance, meaning users will be able to safely exit without relying on any centralized operators. While Katana’s forced inclusion mechanisms won’t be live on day one, the project is committed to reaching full Stage 1 status shortly after launch. Conduit is working on a product expected later this year that will enable rollups to launch at Stage 1 from the get go, Huang said.



Pre-deposits are now opening in the run-up to launch with a lootbox-style reward mechanic, rather than a more nebulous points system. Public mainnet is scheduled for June 23.



Whether it becomes DeFi’s new liquidity hub or just a clever experiment remains to be seen, but at least it’s not “just another L2.”



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Polygon preps a DeFi-focused chain to showcase AggLayer

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Why did nobody build Bitcoin before Satoshi?



Cryptographers had toyed with the idea of decentralized digital currencies since the late ‘90s. It took two whole decades more for someone to figure out how to actually do it at scale.



Perhaps some technical limitation at the node level held it back, like low memory or disk bandwidth. Or maybe it was that the slow pace of dial-up wasn’t exactly conducive to internet-based distributed computing before the dot-com boom.



Gwern, the pseudonymous internet brainiac, wondered as much in a 2011 blog — a post which immediately summoned legendary bit wizard Nick Szabo to respond.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">On This Day – Szabo defends Bitcoin</h2>



In their May 27, 2011 essay, “<a href="https://gwern.net/bitcoin-is-worse-is-better">Bitcoin is Worse is Better</a>,” Gwern suggests that Bitcoin “involves no major intellectual breakthroughs.”



Bitcoin was mostly a collection of prerequisite technologies, ranging from the hash tree from 1979 to Adam Back’s Hashcash and Wei Dai’s B-money, until finally Szabo’s bit gold in the early 2000s.



The next day — 14 years ago today — Szabo <a href="https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-ye-so-long.html">replied</a>. “Bitcoin, what took ye so long? So asks gwern in a spectacular display of hindsight.”



Szabo had only really publicly commented on Bitcoin twice before, at least by my count.&nbsp;



<a href="https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2009/05/liar-resistant-government.html">Both</a> <a href="https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/01/tech-roundup-012211.html">instances</a> involved comparisons to bit gold, and he went so far in January 2011 as to say that Bitcoin was “an implementation of the bit gold idea.” Which in many ways is, of course, true.



In 1998, Szabo proposed a concept for a decentralized digital currency, bit gold, which is widely regarded as Bitcoin’s closest ancestor. Bit gold has many of Bitcoin’s hallmark features, including proof-of-work mining and time-stamped blocks.



Bit gold was never formally implemented into a working public prototype, leading many in the early years to wonder whether Szabo was actually Satoshi Nakamoto himself. (Nick has denied creating Bitcoin on multiple occasions.)



“The short answer about why it took so long is that the bit gold/Bitcoin ideas were nowhere remotely close to being as obvious gwern suggests,” Szabo wrote. “They required a very substantial amount of unconventional thought, not just about the security technologies gwern lists (and I&#8217;m afraid the list misses one of the biggest ones, Byzantine-resilient peer-to-peer replication), but about how to choose and put together these protocols and why.



“Bitcoin is not a list of cryptographic features, it&#8217;s a very complex system of interacting mathematics and protocols in pursuit of what was a very unpopular goal.”



The whole post is worth the read, especially after going over Gwern’s entire original post beforehand (Gwern even shows up in the comments, replying to Szabo’s criticism. Szabo’s <a href="https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/">blog</a> is also worth revisiting, although he hasn’t posted since March 2018.



Most interestingly, Szabo mentions a private mailing list he’d founded in the late ‘90s, “libtech,” where he and Wei Dai both detailed their ideas for bit gold and b-money. Szabo later <a href="https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-mating-of-economic-ideas-and-bitcoin/">stated</a> that Hal Finney, free banking authority Larry White, and economist George Selgin were also on the list.



Anyone who knows if an archive of those emails still exists, hit me up.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Did You Know?</h2>



Wei Dai’s b-money proposal is the first citation in the Bitcoin white paper. And while he may not be Satoshi, Wei did mine bitcoin in early 2011, when it traded for less than a dollar.&nbsp;



“&#8230; My understanding is that the creator of Bitcoin, who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, didn&#8217;t even read my article [<a href="http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt">proposing b-money</a>] before reinventing the idea himself,” Wei <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ijr8rsyvJci2edxot/making-money-with-bitcoin?commentId=hbEu9ue9eymNzaF2J">wrote</a> on LessWrong, a forum for discussions about rationality, philosophy and so on.&nbsp;



“He learned about it afterward and credited me in his paper. So my connection with the project is quite limited.”



Wei continued: “BTW, thanks to the discussion you started, I bought a Radeon 5870 and started mining myself, since it looks likely that I can at least break even on the cost of the card. (Of course I heard about Bitcoin earlier, but in my version of the idea, nobody can make large profits by mining/minting, so I didn&#8217;t look into the possibility.)”



The 50 BTC earned by mining just one block in 2011 would now be worth more than $54 million.



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