WhiteBIT Coin

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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We touched on the lending sector a few weeks ago, but I want to plug back in.&nbsp;



I caught up with Ledn’s Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, who told me that last quarter, Ledn did $304 million worth of bitcoin-backed loan originations.&nbsp;



“That&#8217;s three times the originations we did at the peak of the market in 2021,” he added. And “multiples” of what Ledn saw in 2024.&nbsp;



“The demand for borrowing dollars and keeping the bitcoin is growing [at the fastest pace since]&nbsp; it&#8217;s ever grown since we started this business in 2018,” Di Bartolomeo said.&nbsp;



Di Bartolomeo told me that the bulk of their customer base is retail, though they do have some institutional clients.&nbsp;



Demand has increasingly grown amongst individuals who’re sitting on millions of bitcoin — enough to retire — but still want to utilize that bitcoin to have access to the traditional banking system for things like mortgages.&nbsp;



This cycle, Di Bartolomeo says, the bad seeds have been weeded out — and people like former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky are now <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/08/celsius-ceo-alex-mashinsky-sentenced-to-12-years-in-crypto-fraud-case.html">serving time</a> for the crimes committed last cycle. However, he cautioned that folks should still be careful when it comes to lenders.&nbsp;



“I would say it&#8217;s the demand is exploding,” he said, but urged caution and diligence for folks looking to access lending markets. It’s not worth a sweetheart rate if the company doesn’t pass a vibe test.



Zooming out, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ledn">Ledn</a> isn’t the only one to see success so far this cycle. In a different sphere of the lending sector, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/maple-finance">Maple Finance</a> is also seeing success with its institutional lending.&nbsp;



A Blockworks Research note this week said that “SYRUP offers an asymmetrical investment case in lending, driven by compelling valuation metrics relative to peers, solid growth avenues via the successful Syrup pools and the strategic istBTC initiative, a resilient team, and a completed vesting schedule removing early supply overhang.”



Maple and Ledn have very different target audiences, so I’m cautious to avoid any sort of comparisons, but I think they each offer a unique vantage point into the overall health of the lending sector.&nbsp;



The institutional lending bull case Blockworks Research sees as $250 million in loans outstanding by the fourth quarter, while the base case is $200 million by the same time period.&nbsp;



I <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nexos-move-back-us-crypto-lending">wrote a few weeks ago</a> that we’re starting to see a resurgence in the custodial lending market, and that certainly is playing out when looking at the numbers so far. It’s also interesting to gauge how different players in the space are faring — or finding success.&nbsp;



Not to mention that nowadays there are more options in the lending market than in previous cycles. Take, for example, noncustodial choices for bitcoin-backed loans with a DeFi tilt, which include <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/tbtc">tBTC</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/building-better-wrapped-bitcoin-for-defi">iBTC</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/transparency-of-btc-derivatives">LBTC</a>.&nbsp;



The key, for me anyway, is to ensure that there aren’t historical repeats. If this market is going to be successful, it’s going to need to stay away from the shams of the past.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



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



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



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



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



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



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

Empire Newsletter

Ledn’s demand is ‘exploding’: Executive

Kate Irwin

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



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Crypto artist Emily Yang, known online as pplpleasr, hasn’t given up on her plans to make blockchain-powered filmmaking happen.&nbsp;



Her streaming and crowdfunding startup <a href="https://www.shibuya.film/">Shibuya</a> — which raised $6.9 million back in 2022 and counts a16z and Variant Fund among its investors — launched this week.&nbsp;



Shibuya is hosting five pilots as part of its “Season One” and will ultimately let viewers decide if they want to further fund those projects with fiat currency donations that go entirely to the filmmakers (and supporters get refunds if the target amounts aren’t reached).



While Shibuya’s site doesn’t mention crypto, it’s in the process of adding blockchain rails and features, a spokesperson told me in an email. Coinbase’s Base chain <a href="https://x.com/sarahzorah/status/1922663078849593383">sponsored</a> the Season One launch event.



“We built Shibuya to disrupt the traditional studio system and put power back into the hands of creators and fans,” Yang said. “With the launch of Season One, we’re spotlighting bold, original work and inviting fans to decide what comes next.”



Back in 2022, Shibuya released an animated short, White Rabbit, as a proof-of-concept for the platform. It raised $1.2 million in less than 30 minutes. Yang also <a href="https://decrypt.co/99238/pplpleasr-releases-producer-pass-ethereum-nfts-for-cannes">sold</a> “Producer Pass” NFTs for Cannes that year, with NFTs costing anywhere from $14,000 to $19,600 worth of ETH each.



The question: Are successes like that still possible three years later, now that the NFT bubble of that era has popped and Hollywood struggles forward, with filming in Los Angeles at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/26/los-angeles-film-and-tv-production">historic lows</a>?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd8GAvqFxtFVFA5cKhjv0RXkTUPCkGW3gnxIVW3mCZtipT6-x57oprteJBMOdvU3m6IzDgkeIIszAsf-nSYc9ZgpUeeoZRwhtlMkKhgjuEw-1dhusgcNc5QQr0iOqAx7CEhBh60fA?key=con7Iftzl8cCfXaM1wn3eQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Artwork for Shibuya’s five platformed projects</figcaption></figure>



Some of Shibuya’s shorts up for funding are animated, while others are live action, with runtimes ranging from six to about 27 minutes per episode.



Ultrasound, from director Julian Lamadrid, is about a punk rock band in NYC. Every episode will be one shot (in Hollywood, that’s called a “oner”). Oners have been trending recently (like Adolescence on Netflix), and the choice makes sense here, too.&nbsp;



Diaboli, a creepy medieval animated series about demons, religion and family, is about seven minutes long and has a video game-like feel with its dramatic, dark aesthetic and great voice acting. This one is like an episode from Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots, and is also a good watch for Castlevania fans.



Don’t Forget About Me from Elle Mills is a story about teenage siblings who meet their favorite childhood character from TV, while The Funny Thing About Losing Socks from Ben Christensen is about traveling to another dimension to retrieve socks lost in the dryer — but there’s a twist.



Last but not least, Spiritual 100 from director Jordan Cooper is a “satirical anime mini series” with humorous charm. In it, a broke guy joins a TV competition where a total of 100 people compete on a reality show that’ll determine who is the most spiritual.&nbsp;&nbsp;



It’s a great mix of talent — we’ll have to circle back to see which ones get funded.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Gaming

Pplpleasr’s Shibuya streaming platform is back with 5 epic short films

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">
“Sometimes the best investments are precisely the ones you cannot explain and probably make no sense.”  — Richard Toh
</blockquote>



When I started writing this newsletter nearly four years ago, I kept the subject matter high-level — mostly because I didn’t understand the low level.



That’s not what I expected it to be.



Instead, I expected it to be like the morning notes I sometimes wrote for clients in my previous job as an equities trader — notes that were mostly just a rundown of news taken from a Bloomberg terminal that the clients also had but were too lazy to look at (people used to get paid for doing some surprisingly basic things in TradFi).



I figured that’s what this newsletter would be, too, because what else is there to talk about every day other than that day’s news?



But when I sat down to write the first newsletter, I quickly realized I had no idea what counted as “news” in crypto.&nbsp;



At that point, I had only really heard of Bitcoin, Ethereum and a few others — and I had never once heard the term “DeFi.”



I might have pretended to know a little more than that when I applied for the job but I didn’t need to know a lot more because Blockworks was looking for someone who knew TradFi better than DeFi.



So the newsletter became, more or less, me taking readers along as I learned about crypto.



I started with high-level questions like, what makes a security a security? What makes money, money? What makes protocols different from companies? What makes tokens different from stocks?&nbsp;



These were the kinds of things I could research in the evening and write about the next day, no matter what the news happened to be.



And that’s what I still do now because the high-level stuff turned out to be what’s most interesting to me — crypto is an attempt to reinvent finance and that makes writing about crypto an opportunity to relearn it from first principles.



But I also had to learn what is and isn’t news in crypto, and one of my first go-to sources for that was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW">The Breakdown</a> with NLW.



His podcast (already popular enough that NLW could go just by his initials) curated the day’s crypto stories, interpreted them for me, and put them into the macro context that I was more familiar with — all in an efficient 15 minutes or so that fit neatly within my limited span of attention.



I learned a lot.



So, about a year into listening, when NLW unexpectedly read <a href="https://nlwcrypto.libsyn.com/bitcoin-prehistory-and-a-warren-buffett-ai-bot">two of my newsletters</a> for one of his Sunday podcasts, I felt like I had arrived.&nbsp;



If NLW thought my writing was worth sharing with his audience, maybe, I thought, I could stop feeling like I was faking it.



(Full disclosure: I still kind of feel like I’m faking it.)



For that reason, it’s very fun for me to share that this newsletter is being rebranded as <a href="https://blockworks.co/brand/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a> and paired with NLW’s podcast as one of Blockworks’ expanding roster of media brands. 



Nothing much will change content-wise — I’ll still be taking you along for the ride as I try to make sense of crypto, markets and investing. 



But you can expect some thoughtful updates to both the podcast and the newsletter that reflect our shared mission to figure out the future of finance.



Should be fun.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Crypto pilled?</h2>



I&#8217;ve learned more about finance in my four years writing about crypto than I did in my 25 years working in finance.



When I was an equities trader and an analyst pitched me a stock idea, my first question wasn’t &#8220;Is this stock a security?” Nor was it my last question — before crypto forced me to think about what makes something a security, I had never even heard of the Howey test.



Now I can recite all four prongs of Howey from memory.



(Yes, I’m available to liven up your next dinner party conversation, thanks for asking!)&nbsp;



Nor had I given much thought to what makes something money before bitcoin forced me to think about that, too.



It’s pretty intuitive: Money is whatever you use to pay for things (just being a store of value doesn’t qualify, sorry).



But how money is created turns out to be a deep mystery.



When the economist <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001070">Richard Werner</a> went to a one-branch bank where he could personally observe every step of the loan process in hopes of proving that banks create money “out of thin air,” he failed to identify the exact moment of creation.



Money, it turns out, is emergent, like consciousness.



I stumbled upon a similar mystery when trying to determine whether token holders own the protocols they believe they’re invested in.&nbsp;



I’m still unsure on that one: Protocols are just software, so maybe they can’t be “owned” in the traditional sense — but if token holders can vote to change the software, maybe they can.



More intriguingly, though, asking that question has made me unsure whether shareholders own the companies they’re invested in.



Shareholders think of themselves as owners, of course, but the corporate law scholar <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders-Corporations-ebook/dp/B007PIZ8IO/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QDPGQ1YLNWJI&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.T6bT88qClDz57NOO66PSxexg6auowSCPKTwgedcHDw-eyhYO9Aj3Ogey2ZwKpGhs936XmuML4k8mC3bWVaXna_XshQWMXswxAdXjxFyLA-C_hLdLq7GtadlfNNsf-GjkrtNerqrE89XmgKFRbIMm1aJs1l0An4mhBLoZkO__prPef-DQk9zmGSG1Rb52T9lSx82aIuGLtZtdn5CsB7A0bhQUf_GDlUXhx-jjbqyZ6y8.sYQcr2BmQIXaX_cmYlCvjhZ_Wv-nNgjBQinPAlCmuqc&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lynn+stout&amp;qid=1747237929&amp;sprefix=lynn+stout%2Caps%2C171&amp;sr=8-1">Lynn Stout</a> says they’re not (she convincingly argues that corporations own themselves).



Traditional investors may dismiss these questions as academic — the system works just fine for them, whatever its philosophical underpinnings.



But crypto might soon force them to start philosophizing.



Last week, Hester Peirce <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-iismgd-050825">said</a> the SEC is considering an exemption that would allow securities to trade on blockchains; and this week her colleague, Mark Uyeda, <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/uyeda-remarks-crypto-roundtable-tokenization-051225?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery">said</a> that tokenization has “the potential to dramatically change how financial markets operate.”



If so, it might dramatically change how people think about financial markets, too.



It’s already happening, to some degree.



Matt Levine, for example, attributes the phenomenon of memestocks to the emergence of bitcoin, which “broke everyone’s brains” about why assets might have value.



More recently, The Economist’s <a href="https://x.com/Birdyword">Mike Bird</a> speculated that retail investors may have been such enthusiastic buyers of the crash in equities because they’ve been influenced by the HODL culture of crypto.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The Breakdown Newsletter

A new look, and the crypto-ization of finance

Jeff Albus

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



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What a beautiful Wednesday. The sun is shining, the flowers are in bloom, and SOL (for a moment at least) was back above $180. How sweet it is.



After lagging behind its own fundamentals for months, Solana’s markets are finally playing catch-up. We&#8217;ve had a <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">roughly 21% rally</a> so far this week, with the asset reclaiming territory not seen since Q1, following a sudden spike in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nasdaq-on-solana-opening-bell-sol-strategies">retail risk appetite</a>.



Solana&#8217;s total value locked (TVL) <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana">is up 52%</a> month over month, now at $9.5 billion — about 23% short of its all-time high.



Data from deBridge <a href="https://app.debridge.finance/analytics/dln?start=07-05-2025&amp;end=14-05-2025">shows</a> that about $27.9 million has moved from Ethereum to Solana in the past seven days, while $29.1 million moved in the opposite direction. In other words, Solana posted net bridge outflows to Ethereum of roughly $1.2 million over the week.



Of the arriving capital, though, much is landing in the throes of a memecoin supercycle that&#8217;s retaken Solana&#8217;s DEX ecosystem. $MOODENG is up 562%, $GOAT 190%, and $PNUT 158% on the week. DEX volume hit $9.8 billion on Sunday, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-dex-activity-2-0">highest in three months</a>, with memecoin trades accounting for ~30%. Interestingly, yesterday marked the first time that tokens launched via pump.fun <a href="https://x.com/defi_kay_/status/1922655220653260897">accounted</a> for less than half of launchpad-sourced memecoin volumes on Solana. Could this signal the start of a true “launchpad war” on the network, with challengers like BonkFun and Believe finally breaking through? While Jupiter, Solana&#8217;s flagship aggregator, had spiked to over 72% of all aggregator volume as recently as Monday, its share has since settled to around 55.5% at the time of publication. That&#8217;s still more than 1inch, CowSwap, and OKX DEX combined.



But how much of that action is driven by bots? Photon, BullX, and Trojan alone have <a href="https://dune.com/sliceanalytics/sol-trading-bot-market">generated</a> over $750 million in revenue across Solana&#8217;s DEXs, with full bot revenue over $1.03 billion. Memecoin pumps drive LP demand. LPs boost TVL. TVL boosts protocol rankings and surface area for trading. Bots swarm, DEX metrics rise and Solana appears super duper busy, even if little net-new capital is arriving.



This all works beautifully, until it doesn&#8217;t.



But let&#8217;s not catastrophize too heavily over inevitable (?) future nosedives. We&#8217;re back in the good ol&#8217; days for now, with fee revenue <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-onchain-activity">rising</a> (+108% over 30 days), aggregator usage off the charts, and ecosystem apps like Raydium, Jito, and Kamino <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/solana">nearing</a> or surpassing local highs. Even amid falling stablecoin supply, internal network velocity has more than compensated.



Zooming out, the goings-on at macro aren&#8217;t exactly hostile either. The S&amp;P 500 has rebounded sharply since April and is now trading <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-500/#overview">just under 5,900</a>, buoyed by cooling inflation and renewed optimism over US-China trade dynamics. The dollar, meanwhile, has softened following <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/inflation-april-rose-less-tariff-impact">lower-than-expected</a> CPI data, easing pressure on risk assets. Bitcoin is <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">holding</a> above $103k, just 4.9% short of its all-time high.



Bottom line? Treasure these moments, friend. It&#8217;s a rare week where equities, crypto and the broadest of macro sentiment all lean in the same direction.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Lightspeed Newsletter

SOL is up and memes are back

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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Thanks to the early signs of a trade deal with China and a better-than-expected <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/inflation-april-rose-less-tariff-impact">April CPI print</a>, Big Tech (and just about everything else) is up this week.&nbsp;



The S&amp;P 500 North American tech sector index is up 8.4% over the past five trading days. The Nasdaq Composite has gained 6.3% in that time.&nbsp;



Even Microsoft and Nvidia — despite their respective headwinds (which we’ll get into later) — are in the green. They’re up 3% and 13%, respectively, in the past five days.&nbsp;



The way I see it, there are two main forces poised to significantly impact Big Tech: tariffs and AI. These two forces just so happen to be intertwined.&nbsp;



In an overgeneralized nutshell, higher tariffs mean many Big Tech companies may have to raise prices. While most consumer electronics are currently exempt from tariffs, Trump insists the relief is temporary.&nbsp;



On the AI side, tariff-fueled <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tariff-supply-chain-effects-summer">supply chain disruptions</a> for semiconductors and other infrastructure also make investing in AI more expensive. Still, the biggest names in the space say they’re forging ahead with massive AI budgets.&nbsp;



Alphabet plans to spend $75 billion on AI and data center infrastructure, marking a 43% increase from 2024. Meta similarly upped its AI budget by 44% — bringing its 2025 target range between $60 billion and $65 billion.&nbsp;



Microsoft, which revealed on Tuesday it would cut ~3% of its global workforce, said it will have spent $80 billion on AI expansion by June (when the company’s fiscal year ends).&nbsp;



Grain of salt here. If tariffs make the tools to build out AI operations more expensive, of course the budgets will have to increase. But the budgets are growing by a lot. This signals companies are still on the offensive and see scaling AI models as an essential part of their businesses, even though this now costs much more.&nbsp;



Nvidia shares have gained more than 10% since Monday’s open, on news that the US and China had reached a temporary truce in the trade war. The chipmaker’s market cap is back above $3 trillion for the first time since February, even as its AI server maker, Foxconn, <a href="https://www.foxconn.com/en-us/press-center/press-releases/latest-news/1595">downgraded</a> its 2025 outlook.&nbsp;



A prominent theory in recent years has been that AI will improve productivity, and a new <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/may/industry-level-growth-ai-use-us-postpandemic-recovery">report</a> published by the St. Louis Fed yesterday backs this up.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXesxtiaEEbxAw5-yYJXc6LKLo3Dxx20dphVOAQd2iszJVWxGczZL3cO9ZBimoozh3EKIURqWaAjNYKsZKoPqPa-5I4A6-rSWyzCOGG9_JQTvQtlP7j3W29AjT2223zmBOf0CeyZQQ?key=hXsPwiTivyY4kmJktT1tYg" alt=""/></figure>



See “Information” on that chart? That’s technology, and according to the St. Louis Fed, the industry has become about 5% more productive each year between 2019 and 2024.&nbsp;



But what about the labor force? Isn’t AI coming for jobs? Yes and no. General consensus seems to be that AI will both create and destroy jobs. For now, I’d argue the biggest impact the Big Tech push into AI has had on the labor market isn’t that humans are being replaced by machines. It’s that their salaries are being redirected to fund those machines.&nbsp;



The St. Louis Fed’s report notes that manufacturing jobs now make up a smaller share of overall employment, but productivity has increased. Economic growth happens when either more people are employed or when productivity increases. In a perfect world, we get both.&nbsp;



Also, in a perfect world, ChatGPT doesn’t come for this journalist’s job. Here’s hoping.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Big Tech stocks extend rally on Chinese tariff pause

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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Once a behemoth in the NFT world, Yuga Labs has been gradually selling off the IP it owns. It’s already said goodbye to the Meebits, Legends of the Mara, and HV-MTL.



The latest? Yuga has sold the CryptoPunks to a new foundation, dubbed the Infinite Node Foundation, roughly three years after acquiring the rights from Larva Labs in 2022.



Last month, Node was created and got <a href="https://nodefoundation.com/blog/founding-grant">$25 million</a> to put toward its mission — and NFTNow <a href="https://x.com/nowmedia/status/1922344283455066187">reported</a> yesterday that Node acquired the CryptoPunks for about $20 million. A Node spokesperson declined to comment on that figure.



“This transition isn’t about ownership, but liberation. Freed from corporate friction and limitations, the Punk ethos can now thrive through a decentralized, community-driven future,” states Node’s <a href="https://x.com/nodefnd/status/1922291376533995555">post</a> about the news.



Node is new. It was “made possible through the generosity” of VC Meyer “Micky” Malka of Ribbit Capital and Becky Kleiner. Node’s advisory board includes Yuga Labs and Bored Ape Yacht Club co-founder Wylie Aronow, Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon, and Larva Labs co-founders Matt Hall and John Watkinson —&nbsp;all prominent names in the crypto art world. Phil Mohun — who previously worked on crypto AI art group Bright Moments — is Node’s executive director. We don’t yet know whether Node has any other members.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250512398123/en/The-Infinite-Node-Foundation-Acquires-CryptoPunks-IP-from-Yuga-Labs">announcement</a> revealed that Node will have a 12,000 square foot “permanent exhibition space” in Palo Alto, CA. The nonprofit plans to show off the entire CryptoPunks collection of 10,000 NFTs there.



Node won’t be the first NFT art gallery in the game, though. The Superchief Gallery has been around for years, with locations in Los Angeles and NYC.



Node’s purpose is to preserve and elevate digital art and onchain culture like the CryptoPunks. The Punks are its primary focus now, but long term it aims to create a space for digital art more broadly.



Punks are sometimes seen as the most “historic” NFT collection because they were launched on Ethereum back in 2017 (and now exist fully onchain). The Punks are believed to have inspired the ERC-721 standard, which is what most NFTs use today.&nbsp;



But are CryptoPunks a part of many mainstream modern art conversations these days? I’m not so sure — though I think Node wants to change that.



“With BAYC&#8217;s sudden success, we felt an owed responsibility to Matt, John and the wider crypto community to step up and become stewards, to help preserve what had started everything,” Aronow wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/GordonGoner/status/1922291657564946951">post</a> about buying and then selling the Punks.&nbsp;



“I also believe this deal gives Yuga some additional space to refocus on what it set out to build in the first place,” he added.



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



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



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

Yuga Labs sells CryptoPunks to new nonprofit in focus shift

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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New forms of bitcoin liquidity are finding their way into emerging blockchain ecosystems, with recent integrations of Lombard’s LBTC and Stacks’ sBTC expanding opportunities for BTC holders in cross-chain DeFi.



On Starknet, a new <a href="https://x.com/Starknet/status/1922623296001946012">partnership</a> between the Starknet Foundation and Lombard Protocol will introduce LBTC, a fully <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/navigating-stbtc-maze">bitcoin-backed liquidity token</a>. LBTC maintains a 1:1 backing by native BTC reserves, which is bridged into Starknet DeFi.



Lombard, a protocol built on top of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/babylon-genesis-launch-l1-bitcoin-liquidity">Babylon</a>, receives BTC deposits, stakes them via Babylon and issues LBTC as a liquid representation of staked BTC. LBTC is intended to be multichain: available on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Sui, Genesis (Babylon) and others.



Led by <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/starkware">Starkware</a> CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, Starknet has positioned itself as a performant execution layer for Bitcoin, in addition to Ethereum. &#8220;Moves like this invigorate a whole new class of builders and users — people who want the credibility of Bitcoin and the creativity of DeFi,” he said.



The phased rollout of LBTC will initially focus on bridging and liquidity provisioning, followed by the introduction of staking options in Lombard-powered vaults. These vaults will enable LBTC holders to generate yield without surrendering custody of their underlying bitcoin.



While Babylon’s BTC staking is trust-minimized, LBTC introduces additional trust assumptions tied to how Lombard mints and manages tokens and bridges, according to Cubist co-founder Riad Wahby. Cubist provides threshold signature tooling for Lombard and other Babylon ecosystem participants.



Having said that, Wahby added, “I feel more comfortable with LBTC, but that’s because we know a lot about their security.”



Meanwhile, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sui">Sui</a> is preparing <a href="https://x.com/Stacks/status/1917866976829145156">to integrate</a> sBTC, the bitcoin-backed token native to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stacks">Stacks</a> ecosystem.



The token uses a threshold-signature multisig secured by a set of 15 reputable institutional signers, with plans to gradually decentralize by integrating directly into Stacks&#8217; consensus mechanism.



The expansion will enable new opportunities for lending, borrowing and trading without compromising Bitcoin’s decentralization, according to Stacks founder Muneeb Ali.



Bypassing centralized custodians, “sBTC will be bridged to Sui via a trust-minimized, non-custodial process that preserves Bitcoin’s native security,” Ali told Blockworks.



“This collaboration lets us bring bitcoin to where the people are, and introduce more users to the growing bitcoin economy,” he said. Holders of sBTC on Sui will benefit from dual-yield opportunities: a base ~5% BTC reward merely for minting and holding sBTC, plus additional incentives from deploying the asset in Sui DeFi protocols.



The decision to integrate sBTC positions Sui as a new alternative hub for institutional BTCfi use cases — the network is already capturing significant bitcoin liquidity, with over 10% of Sui’s total TVL now originating from Bitcoin-derived assets, according to the Sui Foundation.



Both integrations signal a growing trend toward major L1s and L2s actively competing to onboard BTC liquidity to enrich their homegrown DeFi offerings. They are part of a trend shifting away from bitcoin derivatives relying on centralized custodians in cross-chain deployments. This should appeal to a subset of bitcoin holders who want to maintain self-custody while reaching for yield.



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



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



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



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



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



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

0xResearch Newsletter

Bitcoin derivatives hit Starknet and Sui

Michael McSweeney

Blockworks is excited to announce a major step forward in the evolution of two of the most trusted names in crypto and macro content. <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/thebreakdown">The Breakdown podcast</a> and the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">Blockworks Daily newsletter</a> are coming together under a single unified identity: The Breakdown.



This rebrand is more than a new name — it’s a powerful convergence of formats, voices and audiences. Following the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blockworks-acquisition-the-breakdown">acquisition of The Breakdown podcast</a> by Blockworks, this move reflects a broader vision: to deliver high-level, insightful crypto macro content under one cohesive banner.



For years, both the podcast and the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">newsletter</a> have built loyal, engaged communities who turn to them for clear perspectives and curious analysis. Now, with their strengths combined, The Breakdown is becoming more than just a podcast or an email update — it’s becoming the central hub for smart, daily crypto macro insights.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What’s changing — and what’s not:</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>One unified brand: The podcast and newsletter will now share the same name — The Breakdown — creating a stronger, more recognizable identity across platforms.</li>



<li>Same trusted focus: Expect the same daily, high-quality crypto and macro coverage you know and rely on.</li>



<li>Evolving formats: While the core mission stays the same, we’re refreshing how we deliver stories — from inbox to audio to YouTube.</li>



<li>Bigger, better reach: Whether you’re a longtime listener, a daily reader, or both, we’re meeting you where you are.</li>



<li>New energy, same depth: The podcast is entering a new era with fresh perspectives and potential new voices — while still honoring its foundation.</li>
</ul>



This is just the beginning. As we unify <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a> into a single, powerful brand, we’re building something even more dynamic — a trusted destination where curious minds come to understand the financial world of tomorrow.



Stay tuned. Big things ahead.



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



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



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



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



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



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Blockworks

The Breakdown just got bigger: Podcast and newsletter unite under 1 name

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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We’re still early when it comes to crypto, that much is clear.



Some are just earlier than others. That goes for investors, users and, if we’re being generous,&nbsp;blockchain networks themselves.



Today’s newsletter remembers one of the most expensive bets in Bitcoin history, at least only counting bets made outside of trading and investment contexts.



Seven years ago, Bitcoiner Jimmy Song and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin made their famous <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/astanley/2018/08/28/remember-that-joe-lubin-jimmy-song-bet-from-consensus-were-still-waiting-on-the-specifics/">gambit</a> on whether Ethereum apps would gain a certain amount of traction over the next half-decade (with an end date of May 2023).



All things considered, Lubin would’ve lost. Has anything changed in the last two years?



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



The bet went like this:



If a handful of Ethereum apps had an amount of active users on par with a mildly popular iPhone app, then Song would have to pay $500,000 ETH to Lubin.



Otherwise, Lubin would need to pay an equivalent amount of bitcoin to Song.



For Lubin to win, at least five Ethereum “dapps” would need to reach 10,000 daily active users and at least 100,000 active users per calendar month, for at least six calendar months in any one 12-month stretch.



Nobody really uses the term “dapp” anymore, though, so we’ll just call them apps. The real kicker was that the prize money was meant to be pegged to the prices of ETH and BTC at the time of the bet, in May 2018.&nbsp;



So, Song would’ve had to put up 810.8 ETH, worth more than $2.1 million right now, while Lubin had to pledge 69.74 BTC, or $7.25 million in today’s money.



Granted, there’s no real way to determine how many active users any blockchain app really has, Ethereum or otherwise, due to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-evaluating-blockchain-metrics">how unreliable</a> the active addresses metric is.&nbsp;



As <a href="https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1838992475249414501">Blockworks Research puts it</a>, active address counts are not a measure of user growth, so the bet was really doomed from the start.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeG1Pl789pK--oRBzCeHu58fQznQDHeaCrbvCOUtj0QZkNiJeCsf4a6Dgn6vihPTTwxstrv7atWZkt34BpdFkqHH2XJTSbLBkUuYJY4Rjt1CwHwzhGdSEsZZDm0EJDAYBefiMUj6w?key=lJ4-Y5qIYYaPaRNpWLX8yQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">These lines plot the value of both bets over the past seven years. BTC in orange, ETH in purple.</figcaption></figure>



Still, let’s suspend the disbelief to see how the bet would’ve played out had Song and Lubin actually followed through, arbitrator and all.



We already know that Lubin would’ve probably lost. <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/05/31/5-years-after-the-500000-ethereum-wager-between-joe-lubin-and-jimmy-song-who-won">CoinDesk</a> found there were indeed five applications on Ethereum that had the required level of usage at the time: Circle, OpenSea, Tether, Uniswap and wrapped ETH.



Are Circle, Tether and wrapped ETH really “dapps”? Not really, so it was safe to say that Song was the winner, which would’ve put Lubin millions of dollars in the hole.&nbsp;



Then again, the bet was never officially on to begin with. Sad!



As for whether Song would’ve won if the bet spanned seven years instead of five: not really. Uniswap still meets the minimum threshold, but apps like Banana Gun, 1inch and MetaMask aren’t yet maintaining above the 10,000 active address minimum to qualify, per <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/application-activity/ethereum/">Artemis</a> data.



Not to mention, Ethereum layer-2s such as Base, Optimism and Arbitrum were not around in 2018, so perhaps the bet would look different if it were made today.&nbsp;



In any case, Song’s original thesis was that if a popular app were to exist on Ethereum, then eventually, a similar app on a more centralized platform (“cheaper, faster, more scalable, more maintainable and upgradable”) would come along and steal those users.



Seven years later, those threats still exist, even if the pie that’s up for grabs is much larger.



Updated May 14, 2025 at 12:30 pm ET: Corrected value of bet. 



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Ethereum

7 years after the Lubin-Song bet, is Ethereum doing better?

Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner Summer Mersinger is joining the Blockchain Association as its new CEO.&nbsp;



Her last day at the CFTC will be May 30, and she’ll start at the lead crypto trade organization on June 2.&nbsp;



“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Commissioner Mersinger as Blockchain Association’s new CEO,” Marta Belcher, president of the board of Blockchain Association, said in a statement Wednesday. “This is a pivotal moment for crypto policy, and we are confident that she is the ideal leader to take Blockchain Association, and the industry, to new heights.”



Mersinger, who has served on the CFTC since 2022, has long been seen as one of the more crypto-friendly commissioners. In 2024, she issued a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cftc-uniswap-settlement-dissenting-opinion">dissenting opinion</a> after the agency entered into a settlement agreement with Uniswap Labs, a move Mersinger called “regulation by enforcement.”&nbsp;



The Uniswap settlement ultimately made “sweeping statements” about the broader crypto industry and inappropriately employed “legal theories” outside of a courtroom setting, Mersinger added.&nbsp;



In 2023, speaking at an industry event, Mersinger said crypto can only exist in the US if Congress passes policy.&nbsp;



“Until we offer some sort of clarity, we’re going to see this activity…move away from the US,” she said. “We could lose out on a lot of innovation and opportunities in our financial markets.”&nbsp;



Before being nominated to the CFTC by President Biden, Mersinger served as a top aide to current Senate Majority Leader John Thune.&nbsp;



Sen. Thune earlier this month voted not to advance the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act through a key procedural vote, but said he did so in order to allow Senators to revisit the bill at a later date.&nbsp;



“Stablecoins should be made in the USA,” he added.&nbsp;



Current Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith will be departing the agency on Friday after almost seven years leading the advocacy group. Smith will join as the president of the new Solana Policy Institute later this month.



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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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Blockchain Association

CFTC’s Summer Mersinger to take helm of Blockchain Association

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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Squads, which <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-squads-smart-accounts">developed</a> a multisig protocol on Solana, has a fun announcement: They’re launching Altitude. Basically, it’s a stablecoin-native account that allows companies to open and fund a dollar account without having to rely on traditional banks or a US entity.&nbsp;



Squads CEO Stepan Simkin thinks of stablecoin-native as an account that exists “on a decentralized blockchain, and as long as the blockchain is running the program, the protocol will continue running. And so that gives you very different guarantees, where it&#8217;s true ownership, it&#8217;s true programmability, and it&#8217;s real transparency.”



As part of the unveiling, Altitude also received a strategic investment from Haun Ventures, though Simkin declined to give me exact figures.&nbsp;



However, this isn’t just a new development, and the team isn’t just looking to capitalize on how hot <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoins</a> are right now (though, it’s an added bonus that they’re launching Altitude at this time).&nbsp;



Simkin told me that he initially met Haun’s Chris Ahn two years ago, but they started to mull the concept of Altitude roughly a year ago.&nbsp;



With the launch out of the way, where does Simkin see Altitude in a year?



“I think in a year, I would like us to have a consistent user base of real businesses that rely on Altitude to manage their financial operations,” he said.



“It&#8217;s very achievable, particularly in the way things are progressing today, both in terms of things we&#8217;re able to build, partners we&#8217;re able to work with, but also what we talked about before, right? We’re a tech firm, and the [adoption of stablecoins] around the world is happening right now.”



The goal for Simkin — outside of Altitude — is to “shift the conversation towards figuring out how we can make general-purpose blockchains work for institutions and work for payments as opposed to [launching on special purpose] chains […] and then have this segregated system.”



This post was updated at 10:30 a.m. ET with corrections to transcribed audio.



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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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Exclusive: Squads unveils stablecoin account for businesses

In the early days of crypto, wallets were the gateway to freedom. Today, they often feel like a hurdle: endless popups, constant transaction approvals, and fragmented experiences. Every action demands user input. Every transaction risks becoming a bottleneck.



The explosion of onchain applications has stretched this friction to the breaking point. If we are serious about scaling blockchain adoption beyond the crypto-native crowd—to institutions, enterprises, and billions of retail users—we need a fundamental shift.



At WalletConnect, we believe that shift is here. It’s called&nbsp;Smart Sessions, a new standard designed for the AI-powered future of the internet. With the rise of intelligent agents, Smart Sessions are poised to ignite the next phase of growth for our network and ecosystem.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Less Wallets. More AI.</h3>



Smart Sessions redefine the onchain experience. Instead of endless wallet popups, users connect once, set clear rules, and delegate permission to an app or, increasingly, to an&nbsp;AI agent&nbsp;to transact on their behalf within secure, predefined guardrails.



In practice, it means:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Automated trading strategies (like DCA, arbitrage bots)</li>



<li>Fully autonomous onchain games</li>



<li>Subscription payments that work like Stripe, but onchain</li>



<li>AI agents managing assets and strategies in real time</li>
</ul>



Imagine replacing &#8220;App → Wallet → Blockchain&#8221; with &#8220;App → AI → Wallet → Blockchain.&#8221;



Agents become first-class citizens in this model. They operate within parameters you define, combining the security of crypto with the usability of Web2.



Smart Sessions create the foundation for a seamless, intelligent onchain world.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A New Layer of Protocol Utility: $WCT</h3>



Smart Sessions aren&#8217;t just a UX upgrade. They fundamentally reshape the economic dynamics of WalletConnect.



Each Smart Session represents a new stream of onchain activity. As sessions proliferate, powered by AI agents in apps, wallets, and custodial solutions,&nbsp;transaction volume is expected to grow exponentially.



Looking ahead, we envision a model where&nbsp;transaction fees&nbsp;will be introduced, creating a new revenue layer for the network.



Importantly, these future fees are designed to be paid using $WCT, WalletConnect&#8217;s native token.



This would bring a new dimension to $WCT’s utility. It’s not just a governance token; it becomes critical infrastructure, capturing real economic value as Smart Sessions scale across the network.



The more autonomous agents transact, the greater the anticipated demand for $WCT.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Institutions Are Already Building</h3>



WalletConnect isn&#8217;t just consumer-facing. We power the experiences custodial wallets deliver to institutions worldwide.



Smart Sessions will transform these environments, upgrading today&#8217;s basic custody flows into&nbsp;onchain-native AI investment agents.



Institutions are seeking:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Better security (delegated permissions reduce key risk)</li>



<li>Higher automation (24/7 onchain execution)</li>



<li>Lower friction (eliminating endless human approvals)</li>
</ul>



With Smart Sessions, custodial wallets can offer a future-proof solution: secure, automated, and built for the era of AI-driven crypto investing.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Mobile Is Unlocking New Growth</h3>



Recent changes to Apple’s App Store policies mark a turning point for mobile crypto adoption. For the first time, apps and wallets will have more freedom to guide users toward decentralized payment options, external wallets, and onchain transactions.



WalletConnect pioneered the original standard that enabled&nbsp;secure connections between mobile apps and wallets. Now, with regulatory and platform barriers easing,&nbsp;mobile-first crypto experiences&nbsp;can finally scale to their full potential.



Smart Sessions — or what we increasingly see as&nbsp;Permissioned Sessions&nbsp;— will be critical in this mobile world, enabling seamless, trusted interactions between users, apps, and autonomous agents.



As mobile access expands, WalletConnect is uniquely positioned to power the next generation of decentralized, AI-driven applications — everywhere users are.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Future: An Onchain Internet, Powered by Sessions</h3>



We are standing at the beginning of a profound shift:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Users will expect wallets that &#8220;just work&#8221; in the background.</li>



<li>Apps will integrate AI agents by default.</li>



<li>Sessions will replace manual transactions as the dominant mode of onchain interaction.</li>



<li>$WCT will sit at the heart of this new transaction economy.</li>
</ul>



Smart Sessions aren&#8217;t just a feature. They are a new primitive for an AI-powered, mobile-native, onchain world.



This is a future where you don’t work to be onchain. Onchain works for you.



Enabled by wallets.



Empowered by AI.



Built with Smart Sessions.



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



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



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WalletConnect bets big on AI and mobile adoption to power next phase of protocol’s growth

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.”



— Josh Billings
</blockquote>



If you’ve ever tried meditation, you’ll know that doing nothing for more than about 10 seconds is weirdly difficult.



If you haven’t, you might not realize just how much the human mind rebels against inactivity — an evolutionary inheritance from when doing nothing meant starving on the savannah (or getting eaten), I guess.



These days, our bias for taking action is nowhere more evident than in financial markets, where the headlines are always imploring investors to take action: Something is happening, they tell us, and we’d better do something about it — now.



Only the most stoic among us can resist for long — traders, investors, gamblers and even business people are constantly reacting to events and placing bets on their consequences.



But events are rarely as consequential as we expect.



One measure of investors’ propensity to overreact to events is options pricing: An academic <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=375784">study</a> from 2003 found that traders so overpaid for put options on the S&amp;P 500 that they’d need equities to experience a 1987-sized crash once every nine months just to break even.



That hasn’t worked out so well: 22 years later, there has still only ever been one 1987-sized market crash.&nbsp;



(Mercifully, Black Monday’s vertiginous drop of 22.6% remains the biggest of all time.)



Another measure of our tendency to overestimate the probability of unlikely outcomes is found at the horse track.



Two researchers studying the “favorite-longshot bias” <a href="https://eriksnowberg.com/papers/Snowberg-Wolfers%20Risk%20Love%20or%20Decision%20Weights-NBER.pdf">concluded</a> that “longshots are overbet, while favorites are underbet.”



Betting on horses with odds of 100:1 or greater, they found, resulted in losses of 61% — far greater than the 23% loss that bettors would have incurred by placing their bets randomly.



A <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/218538/1/EJ2012.pdf">study</a> of prediction markets similarly found a “long-shot bias” among bettors causes high-likelihood events to be underpriced and low-likelihood events to be overpriced.



The long shots do sometimes hit, of course.&nbsp;



When Leicester City won the English Premier League in 2016, for example, it turned <a href="https://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/15447052/chalk-tales-bettors-bet-leicester-city-win-premier-league-season">one fan’s £5 bet</a> into a £25,000 payout — at 5:000:1, it was probably the longest-odds bet on a single sporting event ever to hit.



(Other 5,000:1 bets available at UK bookies implied that Leicester City winning the league was exactly as likely as Elvis being found alive or Barack Obama playing cricket for England.)



It’s fun to bet on something like that happening — it scratches our itch to believe that 1) extraordinary things happen more frequently than they do and 2) we have an ability to anticipate them.



Most of the time, though, you want to bet against things happening.



For example: One <a href="https://x.com/Polymarket/status/1911874780678009202?t=zN2GJ2pb0J3bupm5GnaFiA&amp;s=19">Polymarket bettor</a> recently made about $2.1 million betting “no” on seemingly everything.



When you look at some of the bets on offer, you can see why that might be a profitable strategy: Polymarket betting implies there’s a <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/will-canada-join-us-as-51st-state-in-2025?tid=1747153630203">4% chance</a> that Canada will be the 51st US state by the end of 2025 and that there’s a <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/what-will-happen-before-gta-vi?tid=1747153869987">13% chance</a> that Jesus will return before the release of Grand Theft Auto VI.



I imagine the people betting “yes” on those are doing it just for laughs (surely Grand Theft Auto won’t take that long).



But these “yes” bettors could be doing us a favor by illustrating the power of betting “no.”



Prediction markets show that people bet in anticipation of things happening far too often.



Horse racing shows that people anticipate extraordinary things far more frequently than they occur.



And financial markets show that, even when extraordinary things do occur, they’re typically less consequential than we expect — how else to explain US equities being unchanged on the year despite all the unprecedentedly dramatic news on tariffs?



Liberation Day turned out to be far less consequential than feared — not quite a nothing burger, but seemingly unimportant for long-term investors.



In the meantime, traders betting that the dramatic tariff headlines were inconsequential — betting as if nothing would happen — would have cleaned up.



This is not unique to tariffs — there have been enough such instances that “nothing ever happens” has become a modestly viral <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nothing-ever-happens">meme</a>.&nbsp;



“Nothing ever happens” isn’t meant literally; it captures the idea that despite a non-stop drumbeat of headlines about dramatic events, markets (and life) often stay surprisingly stable.



Polymarket even lets you bet on it: As it defines it, the probability of “nothing” happening in May has risen to <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/nothing-ever-happens-may?tid=1747154136094">78%</a>.



Even at those odds, it might still be a good bet because people so optimistically overestimate their ability to predict what will happen.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



This “optimism bias” is a good thing for society — if founders correctly assessed their chances of success, no companies would ever be founded.



But their success rate might improve if they spent less time thinking about what’s going to happen and more time thinking about what won’t happen.&nbsp;



Jeff Bezos notes that he frequently gets the question, “What&#8217;s going to change in the next 10 years?” and “almost never” gets the question: “What&#8217;s not going to change in the next 10 years?”



That’s unfortunate because the second question, he says, “is actually the more important of the two.”



Bezos says founders and business executives should think more about what won’t change because it’s easier to build a business around “things that are stable in time” (like Amazon customers wanting low prices and fast delivery, for example) than it is around things that will be different in time.



But investors, too, should probably spend more time thinking about what’s not likely to change — effectively betting “no” on the constant drumbeat of predictions about what’s going to happen — and how that will change everything.



It’s a better bet than we’re hardwired to think.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



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



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



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



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



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



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

Why investors should say ‘no’ more often

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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Investors are going to have to wait a bit longer for a Solana ETF.



In a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nysearca/2025/34-103030.pdf">filing</a> earlier today, the SEC said it had not “reached any conclusions” on the NYSE’s 19b-4 filing to list Grayscale’s spot SOL ETF. This was an expected outcome: The SEC has 240 days from when it first acknowledges a 19b-4 filing to reach a final decision. In Grayscale’s case, that would <a href="https://x.com/JSeyff/status/1887623038918660290">set</a> a final deadline sometime in October.



Like anyone with a deadline, the SEC appears likely to get closer to the due date before finishing its work.



The Polymarket odds for spot Solana ETFs’ approval in 2025 fell from 89% to 80% a little before 8:00 am ET. Interestingly, this trading swing came several hours before news aggregators started posting about the SEC filing. The ETF approval odds were back up to 82% at the time of publication.&nbsp;



SOL was unaffected by the news and is up 5% on the day.



Spot Solana ETF filings began emerging in the waning months of the Biden presidency, where a Gary Gensler-led SEC <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/312031/the-sec-rejected-cboes-19b-4-filings-for-solana-etfs-source">reportedly</a> rejected 19b-4 filings, which are filed by exchanges. Analysts <a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1887623284692271554">portrayed</a> the fact that Trump’s SEC acknowledged the filing for an ETF containing Solana — which the prior regime called a security — as newsworthy.



Trump has promised to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-digital-asset-summit-address">make America</a> the “crypto capital of the world.” Many believe a Solana ETF fits squarely into that vision — and SEC approval is only a matter of time.



The bigger question now, I suppose, is how popular spot SOL ETFs will wind up being. The Solana investment vehicle du jour is currently treasury plays like DeFi Development Corporation, which has already <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/05/12/3079065/0/en/DeFi-Development-Corp-Purchases-Record-172-670-SOL-Surpasses-100M-in-Treasury-Holdings.html">purchased</a> more than $100 million in SOL a few weeks after launching.&nbsp;



When I <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/janover-to-receive-kraken-staked-sol">interviewed its new executives</a>, the publicly-traded real estate software company that now buys a ton of Solana said it sees the Strategy-like play as superior to ETFs. That’s partly because even if staked SOL ETFs gain regulatory approval — which is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-sol-etfs-unlikely-to-be-approved-soon">no guarantee</a> — they would likely not be able to stake their entire balance and may also have to pay Coinbase validator fees.&nbsp;



Multiple other companies have now followed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-strategies-is-solanas-microstrategy">Sol Strategies’ lead</a> in trying to capture Michael Saylor’s bitcoin magic on Solana.



So while the SEC takes its time on deciding whether Solana ETFs should trade in the US, the investment landscape may be shifting beneath its feet.



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



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



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



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



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



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

ETFs

SEC not ready to decide on Grayscale Solana ETF

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



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The consumer price index for April rose 0.2% over the month and 2.3% over the year — marking the lowest annual inflation rate in more than four years. Core CPI (excludes food and fuel prices) also increased 0.2% in April, coming in at 2.8% annually.&nbsp;



If you’re wondering how April’s inflation figures could have been so tame in the wake of new tariff policies, there are a few reasons.&nbsp;



First, there historically has been a lag between tariff implementation and inflation rising. In May 2019, tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports were raised from 10% to 25%. A quick note that the increase was supposed to start in January 2019, but was delayed five months. Something to keep in mind as we try to predict what will happen today.&nbsp;



The May 2019 headline CPI report came in 0.1% higher month over month, compared with a 0.3% increase the month prior. Not too bad. The June 2019 core CPI, however, came in 0.3% higher on the month — the largest monthly increase since January 2018. Used car and truck prices — a decent proxy for tariff impact — increased 1.6% over the month in June 2019.&nbsp;



The anticipation of higher tariffs also had businesses stocking up their inventories in recent months, which could help delay any price increases passed on to consumers. How long that delay may last, though, is anyone’s guess.&nbsp;



Plus, a tariff-related decrease in consumer confidence and retail spending likely also contributed to lower prices.&nbsp;



Markets are still anticipating that the Fed will hold interest rates at its next meeting in June. That indicates traders expect the other “tariff shoe,” if you will, to drop. 



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



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



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



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



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



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

Economy

Inflation in April rose less than expected, but tariff impact remains to be seen

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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A day after the SEC’s tokenization-focused roundtable, an asset manager launched its first tokenized fund. We just saw stablecoin-related M&amp;A, too.



First, SEC Chair Paul Atkins reiterated Monday that SEC policymaking “will no longer result from ad hoc enforcement actions.” (Yes, the agency italicized “ad hoc” in the transcript.)



On tokenization, he likened securities moving onchain to the transition of audio recordings from vinyl records to cassette tapes to digital software.



“Blockchain technology holds the promise to allow for a broad swath of novel use cases for securities, fostering new kinds of market activities that many of the commission’s legacy rules and regulations do not contemplate today,” Atkins said.&nbsp;



But SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/industry-opinions-on-sec-commissioner-crenshaw">not exactly known</a> for her crypto support — essentially told everyone to proceed with caution.&nbsp;



She questioned how great instant settlement actually is, noting the delay between trade execution and settlement provides for “core market functionalities and protection mechanisms.”



Crenshaw also asked why the SEC — a “tech-neutral regulator” — would focus on blockchain over other types of distributed ledger technologies?&nbsp;



“And we seem to be doing so before the technology has even been demonstrated as fit for purpose,” she added.



On that point, Crenshaw’s colleague Hester Peirce last week <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-iismgd-050825#_ftn2">noted</a> the SEC crypto task force is considering an exemptive order to let firms issue, trade and settle eligible tokenized securities. So-called sandboxes “can help regulators think about how existing rules could be adapted to accommodate trading tokenized securities at scale,” Peirce explained.



Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul urged “practical sandboxes” that don’t just test what the tech can do (we know that already) — but that inform legislation/regulations. She stressed too that “consumer opportunity” is as important as consumer protection.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Kaul joined execs from BlackRock, Nasdaq, Fidelity and others. A second panel included some smaller, DeFi-centric players.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXde_hrGBxwBD8jvc5FHvXSdcIoWgejLCCzj4fNr6sH8Pih9yuvY3sTrPWC6mpF-DvPPiSSAoj92eZBiwhC6NsFI21vRWcRGVG78mXk0xvKQ06xMB0Ke3p8kG1wf9tolu0B-s1phhQ?key=hmUspgZPRMV_GCM1SWKGJg" alt=""/></figure>



Philipp Pieper, co-founder of RWA protocol Swarm, said in an email that while the SEC’s engagement with TradFi titans validates this segment’s potential, DeFi founders must advocate for permissionless protocols and programmable assets to ensure regulations don’t sideline startups.



“We must prove RWAs’ value with tangible use cases, such as fractional ownership and liquid supply chain assets, to win over regulators and users,” Pieper said. “The sector must build compelling RWA platforms which demonstrate clear cost savings and liquidity solutions.”&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Anchorage, VanEck making moves</h2>



Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley (after the news his company would buy Mountain Protocol) said: “Stablecoins are becoming the backbone of the digital economy.”



If stablecoins (with a $230 billion market cap) are like checking accounts (as Tokenized Asset Coalition executive director Johnny Reinsch put it during the roundtable), yield-bearing tokenized money market funds are like savings accounts.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc4ABPKNgKoX2Bnw_m7cAjoT1Krl7mrGdjkanwv0VRCdWea1fApd7wcYpd2r5IPx-gpdUu5ucBHb0KsMpWf5TigLP93Jl-MANglTEURuSjBXi8QfC0qKOZ-cHg_mNg1ozunwGtu?key=hmUspgZPRMV_GCM1SWKGJg" alt=""/></figure>



Speaking of which, VanEck is the latest to offer onchain access to US Treasury-backed assets via its new VBILL fund. Available across the Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana blockchains, VBILL facilitates atomic liquidity via Agora’s USD stablecoin (AUSD).



BlackRock’s BUIDL is perhaps the best known tokenized yield fund now. Its assets under management (as you see above) make up roughly 40% of the nearly $7 billion tokenized Treasury space, <a href="http://rwa.xyz">rwa.xyz</a> data shows.&nbsp;



Then there’s the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">opportunity to tokenize</a> public stocks, as well as private equities and credit.



Though stablecoin bill progress has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/legislative-speed-bumps-genius-act-sec">hit a snag</a> in the US, these ongoing SEC talks — even if not Earth-shattering — signal the industry is getting closer to clarity.&nbsp;



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

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