Zcash is a privacy-preserving cryptocurrency providing anonymous value transfer using zero-knowledge cryptography. The protocol provides the option for transactions to be either shielded, in which case they will be completely anonymous, or transparent, in which case they will be visible on the Zcash blockchain. Zcash pays out a portion of its block rewards, called the "Founder's Reward", to fund protocol development. It currently allocates the Founder's Reward to the Electric Coin Company and the Zcash Foundation who develop and steward the Zcash protocol respectively.

Zcash

Jeff Albus

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



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Crypto rideshare has died…again.&nbsp;



Teleport — a decentralized rideshare startup — promised lower prices for riders, higher earnings for drivers and bountiful rewards for early adopters. But on Thursday, the project <a href="https://x.com/teleportxyz/status/1885032072722464785">shut down</a>, run aground trying to make the business work.&nbsp;



Fellow OGs, I sense your déjà vu. <a href="https://x.com/ArcadeCityHall/status/1388669140718731268">Arcade City</a>, <a href="https://x.com/lazoozorg/status/982024458138513408">La’Zooz</a>, <a href="https://x.com/ChasyrDAO/status/1398323214930124805">Chasyr</a>, Ridecoin and more have all attempted to break Uber and Lyft’s stranglehold using blockchain-based incentives. Somehow, each has failed to gain social purchase.



Like <a href="https://x.com/veradittakit/status/1877386098726547838">a lot</a> of DePIN projects, the crypto rideshare concept depends on collective belief and a functional labor market. Projects face an uphill battle when participants can’t be sure who they’re working with, whether incentives will remain stable or whether the system itself will exist in six months. Plus, engagement in an actual ecosystem requires real work and participation. Yuck.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The slow death of usefulness</h2>



Sadly, it seems a lot of folks have lost the love of substance that the blockchain community once prized. An utter lack of social accountability has long transformed trust into a liability and utility into a sucker’s bet. It only takes a glance at crypto&#8217;s timeline to see how we got here.



Bitcoin offered scarce digital money with transparent ownership — real utility with tangible value. Altcoins followed, <a href="https://x.com/SatoshiLite/status/1446159273633800192">building first</a> and assigning value second. Then came ICOs, where mere ideas replaced the need to actually deliver working products, and NFTs, where hype fully eclipsed the promise of any actionable use case whatsoever (beyond feigned social hierarchy).&nbsp;



Identifying problems became more profitable than solving them, and the space shifted from innovation to speculation.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">And then there were memecoins</h2>



Memecoins don’t pretend to have real-world use cases, and that’s the point. They embrace chaos as a form of economic rebellion. Everything down to the puckishness with which participants insist upon calling the people behind these assets &#8220;devs&#8221; is an act of performative irony.&nbsp;



Utility is a liability because it requires belief over time. Meme-based assets, on the other hand, are fully self-aware vehicles, operating in a no-holds-barred race to the exit. They&#8217;re fast, they&#8217;re easy and they make losing fun.



Meanwhile, attempts to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-leaders-insist-on-memecoin-utility">sneak utility</a> into memecoins have flopped. McAfee’s AI memecoin tanked mid-AMA the moment its upcoming product suite was <a href="https://x.com/diosHD_/status/1885067326753546278">mentioned</a>. The Venmo founder’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tech-players-interested-in-memecoins">JellyJelly soared</a>, then cratered 75% the instant its creator <a href="https://x.com/jellyvideochats/status/1885378084712436209">hinted</a> at a roadmap.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Reputation as the missing piece</h2>



So why are promises of tangible value and effort so anathema to the current movement? Well, the optimism of belief is gone. We have so far failed to create sustainable methods of accountability, leaving investors to gamble in the dark. As a result, real builders have become indistinguishable from grifters looking for a quick cash grab.



So why even bother? Just throw another $1000 on Fartcoin and call it a day.



Looking back, we probably should have built Sybil-proof reputation systems in tandem with smart contracts and made blind trust a fundamental cornerstone of Web3 architecture. If we had methods to trace builders&#8217; reputations, reveal asset distributions across a reputability mesh, and flag early mass exits based on transparent behavioral data, we might have preserved faith in long-term utility instead of fueling an endless cycle of speculation.&nbsp;



Anonymity without accountability breeds chaos. And until that balance is restored, utility will always be a losing bet.



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Crypto’s rideshare dreams crash again

Casey Wagner

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



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The Senate has wasted no time in starting the confirmation process for President Trump’s Cabinet hopefuls.&nbsp;



Three of his more controversial nominees faced questions on Capitol Hill yesterday: RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel. They are up for health secretary, director of national intelligence and FBI director, respectively.&nbsp;



RFK Jr.&#8217;s two days of hearings mostly focused on his past comments on vaccinations, highlighting some of his more contentious views that even some Republicans can’t get behind.&nbsp;



“Your past of undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me,” Sen. Bill Cassidy said Thursday, adding at the end of his questioning that he still needs to consider how he’ll vote.&nbsp;



Gabbard, former Democratic congresswoman-turned-MAGA-celebrity, faced criticism from both sides. Dems and Reps alike wanted Gabbard to explicitly denounce Edward Snowden as a traitor, which she refused to do.&nbsp;



Intelligence Committee members also had the opportunity to question Gabbard behind closed doors. The vote to advance her confirmation will also be private, although some Republicans are pushing for a public vote, which, in theory, would pressure the party to support Trump.&nbsp;



Of the three, Patel seems to have the most outward Republican support — or at the very minimum, the least Republican opposition. Democrats however were concerned with Patel’s past comments on a range of right-wing touchpoints, including his praise of Jan. 6 rioters and support of QAnon influencers.&nbsp;



“I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” Patel said in response to concerns that he’d abuse his position. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI.”



Howard Lutnick, who’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-nominates-commerce-dept-leader">vying to become</a> commerce secretary, faced senators on Wednesday. The Senate Commerce Committee is set to vote on Lutnick on Feb. 5.&nbsp;



Notably, Lutnick confirmed his firm Cantor Fitzgerald has a convertible bond with cryptocurrency&nbsp; company Tether. It was the first time he has publicly acknowledged the financial institution’s ties to the stablecoin issuer.&nbsp;



Lutnick also said that he would sell “everything,” including his personal assets and business interests, should he be confirmed for the position.&nbsp;



Several Democrats, including Sens. Maria Cantwell and John Hickenlooper, questioned Lutnick about Tether, bringing up concerns about the stablecoin’s reserves and how it could be used by illicit actors.&nbsp;



“Tether <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tether-denies-government-investigation">did no business</a> with anyone that wasn’t KYC appropriate,” Lutnick said, adding that the public nature of the blockchain makes tracking illicit transactions easier.&nbsp;



With Republicans’ 53-47 majority, the GOP can only afford to lose three votes on any confirmation should all Democrats oppose <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-cabinet-selection">Trump’s picks</a>.&nbsp;



Outside of confirmation hearings, senators are also scheduled to address a key pain point for much of the cryptocurrency industry: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-teams-analyze-debanking-narrative">debanking</a>. The Banking Committee next week will host its first <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/investigating-the-real-impacts-of-debanking-in-america">hearing</a> on the topic. On the witness list is Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley.&nbsp;



Over in the House, the Financial Services Committee will host a <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=409451">hearing</a> on Feb. 6 on “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/operation-choke-point-2-0">Operation Choke Point 2.0</a>,” which the industry has taken to calling the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/chokepoint-2-0-efforts-effective">alleged targeted attack</a> on crypto companies and their access to banking services. Witnesses have not yet been published.&nbsp;



Unplug this weekend — there’ll be plenty of political drama to follow next week.



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Trump Cabinet picks face tough questions 

Ben Strack

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



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BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) had more than $60 billion in assets under management on Thursday.&nbsp;



The trust eclipsed $40 billion in net inflows that day — after less than 13 months on the market.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXetmb2QiTK0JPCeRnD0NgYRMr-m9cgN8aPGfG2uR57PpMxL3x_E8edkUGqZ-yUtf1nq34VDZH4lEcBw_Db7xPHGPqX1A5kmXsP69mWtv8Kol8kaEKL_DdcevsfxS46g27vheGRp?key=2QXkUFXnzRfYJiSzRVbKd7QR" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Farside Investors</figcaption></figure>



You may recall the product’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-inflows-streak">71-day net inflow streak</a> out of the gate. And that IBIT attracted 21% of BlackRock’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-q1-earnings-bitcoin-fund-inflows">Q1 2024 flows</a>. The ETF’s ~$34 billion of positive net flows in 2024 made up about 5% of BlackRock’s $641 billion total over that span.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The $60 billion AUM figure puts IBIT at No. 31 on VettaFi’s list of the largest ETFs (albeit with a slightly different total).&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdWb_cJsTa1PITnbP3mCzkdJiG05PAdL6BSoJradvmaDYQj07eLLbl1j3RhPjJuACC2O33_0uKTZK10MDEV0VsPBK-FvQre3otspRTaCbA64kFNuGP7bNa93bRLSSZTxnZTFLYZow?key=2QXkUFXnzRfYJiSzRVbKd7QR" alt=""/></figure>



The five ETFs just ahead of it (Nos. 26-30) have been on the market for an average of ~19 years — putting in perspective how fast this product is climbing the charts.



Another stat: IBIT is the 11th-largest iShares ETF out of more than 400. The biggest is the iShares Core S&amp;P 500 ETF (IVV), with roughly $600 billion AUM. That’s good for third on VettaFi’s list — behind only SPY and VOO, which also offer S&amp;P 500 exposure.



So IBIT remains about 10 times smaller than the world’s three largest ETFs. How high on the list could it get? And in what time frame?



Bitwise research head Ryan Rasmussen wanted to avoid naming specific bitcoin ETFs. But he told me he wouldn’t be surprised to see one such product surpass the largest gold ETF — State Street’s SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), with ~$76 billion AUM — within the next year or two.&nbsp;



IBIT eclipsing GLD would likely put it in the top 20.



But a bitcoin ETF climbing above the biggest broad-based equities ETFs is a much taller task. Those are “a staple” in a majority of portfolios (often commanding an allocation of 20-50%), Rasmussen noted. If included, a bitcoin ETF allocation is typically 1-5%. “It would take a significant increase in bitcoin&#8217;s price, increased <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/2025-btc-adoption-wave">investor adoption</a>, and upsizing typical bitcoin allocations for a single bitcoin ETF to penetrate the top five or 10 ETFs by AUM,” he said. “All three of those things are possible, but that would be many years down the road.”



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BlackRock’s IBIT hits $40B net inflows

Macauley Peterson

The past week has seen a pronounced shift in the level of optimism around Ethereum.&nbsp;



Across sequencing, interoperability and consensus development, teams are working under wartime conditions to standardize, consolidate and deliver on Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap.



The urgency isn’t just about speed, but about coordination: making sure the protocol evolves in a way that’s both extensible and durable.



That was the message from Optimism’s Ben Jones, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake, and others on a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IekfClKumx8">developer call</a>. Although superficially gathering to chat sequencing and preconfirmations, the call was primarily an exercise in ecosystem alignment. That spirit has carried on in the days since, with further team calls centered on interoperability as well as Thursday’s regular All-Core Developers call.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sequencing: From fragmentation to alignment</h2>



Ethereum’s sequencing landscape is chaotic. Today, every rollup builds its own isolated sequencing mechanism, with little interoperability. The push toward Ethereum-aligned sequencing —whether through proposer commitments, shared sequencing or native rollups — is an attempt to solve this.



On the sequencing call, Jones framed the moment: “The idea isn’t just about individual rollups optimizing for their own benefit, but about creating a shared sequencing architecture that aligns incentives while preserving autonomy.”



An important shift came from Steve Goldfeder of Offchain Labs, who admitted that Vitalik’s recent blog post changed his perspective on native rollups:



“Up until a day or two ago, I was pretty bearish on the idea of native rollups, because my understanding was that it was very binary,” Goldfeder said. “But Vitalik spoke about this extendable, expandable version, which I think is absolutely fantastic.”



Instead of forcing every rollup to conform to a single rigid standard, the goal is to find common ground, standardizing what makes sense (e.g., proofs, commitments, core infrastructure) while leaving space for innovation. And getting all relevant stakeholders in a room together to resolve any disagreements that may persist.



It’s a radical change of tone for Ethereum, reinforcing a commitment to solve UX pain points that have fragmented the ecosystem’s user base and capital.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Solving interop and process pain points</h2>



The L2 Interop Working Group is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca1zzrQLnEk">tackling</a> another wartime front: how to make cross-rollup transactions as seamless as same-chain transactions. ERC-7786 is emerging as a standardized cross-chain messaging API, ensuring that rollups can pass data between each other without reinventing the wheel.



But even with shared messaging interfaces, execution must be fast and trustless. The target? Sub-three-slot finality for cross-rollup transactions — meaning interop between Optimism and Arbitrum could settle in as little as six seconds. That would go a long way toward making rollups feel less like islands and more like unified Ethereum extensions.



Ethereum’s base layer isn’t standing still, either. Thursday’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2IWwVKRec">ACD call</a> firmed up the date that the Pectra fork will hit the testnets — Feb. 19 for Holesky’s, followed by Sepolia on Feb. 25 — with mainnet upgrades targeted for mid-March.



Even long-standing debates over planning and alignment seemed to be making progress. Core developers agreed on the need for disciplined feature scoping, and to prioritize fully implemented and tested proposals rather than overloading devnets with speculative upgrades — a course correction of sorts, according to Tim Seiko.



“What we should not do, and what we did wrong with Pectra and caused months of delay, is schedule 10 unimplemented things for inclusion,” Seiko said. Instead, the goal is to move towards a structured development cadence, where each fork is well-defined and tested before new complexities are introduced.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A new mentality</h2>



Ethereum’s roadmap isn’t dictated solely by external competition, but more so the internal drive to build a coherent, durable system. The goal is not just to scale, but to scale the right way — with shared sequencing, deep interop and a resilient neutral L1. But everyone agrees that processes need to accelerate.



As Jones put it: &#8220;The difference between peacetime and wartime Ethereum is whether we assume we can just build without friction, or whether we recognize we’re in an adversarial environment. Right now, it’s wartime.&#8221;



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Ethereum in wartime: Standardize, align, accelerate

David Canellis

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



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Crypto’s “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-tech-vs-money">wartime</a>” shtick isn’t an exaggeration.&nbsp;



It’s brutal out here even in a bull market — as recently-pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has apparently just found out.



As there are very real conflicts happening around the world right now, gaming might be the better analogy.&nbsp;



There are two major types of online multiplayer experience: player vs. player (PvP) — Street Fighter, StarCraft, CounterStrike — and player vs. environment (PvE) — Helldivers 2, Diablo 4, World of WarCraft.



Ulbricht (or at least whoever is in control of his Solana donation wallet) recently suffered a quintessential PvE experience in crypto:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Someone sent the wallet 50% supply of a pump.fun coin, ROSS, worth $15 million.</li>



<li>The wallet moved to sell $12 million ROSS on Raydium but mispriced it after creating the wrong type of liquidity pool.</li>



<li>An MEV bot detected the arbitrage opportunity and intercepted trades, dumping the tokens via the existing liquidity pool for $600,000 and crashing the price by 90%.</li>



<li>Ulbricht’s donation wallet received nothing in return.</li>
</ul>



<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">Ross Ulbricht’s Solana donation address received 50% of the supply of ROSS (Ross Ulbricht Fund) from the developer last week. Ross tried to add single-sided liquidity to sell the coins off passively, but accidentally created a pool with Raydium CPMM (Constant-Product Market… <a href="https://t.co/LxoZMfdebb">pic.twitter.com/LxoZMfdebb</a>&mdash; Arkham (@arkham) <a href="https://twitter.com/arkham/status/1884976067452018844?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



It’s been characterized as a $12 million loss, but that isn’t really true. The tokens were free, so any cash generated from selling would’ve been pure profit.&nbsp;



The wallet still held 10% of the supply as of Thursday evening, currently worth about over $1 million.



And ok, the MEV bot is controlled by a real person. But considering this particular fumble was mostly due to a misconfigured liquidity pool, I’d say this incident was pure PvE.



Meanwhile, in an adjacent corner of crypto, there’s someone going all out on the PvP experience.



Coinbase director Conor Grogan earlier this week pointed to a single address responsible for launching around 18,000 different tokens via pump.fun.



Every day, the person controlling that address appears to “wake up and create on average ~a dozen of tokens an hour until they go to bed, and then do it again, every day. They&#8217;ve done this for months,” Grogan wrote on X, who commented it seems the launches are manual and not automated.



<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">To put it in perspective, this one guy created more crypto tokens by himself than the entirety of all crypto tokens in existence from 2009 when BTC went live, until January 2018&mdash; Conor (@jconorgrogan) <a href="https://twitter.com/jconorgrogan/status/1884986641116275084?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The implication is that whoever controls the address is dumping the coins on whoever might buy them, rugging each time — total PvP behavior.



So far, the address has executed nearly 6.8 million trades with a 55.6% win rate, so they’re probably profitable.&nbsp;



It could also be they’re farming a potential future pump.fun airdrop, in which case the profits would be effectively compounded if they’re eligible.&nbsp;



You might not like it, but this is what peak crypto performance looks like in 2025.



On the other hand, it’s hard to blame Ulbricht, if it really is him controlling the wallet. When was arrested there were just 36 <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20131001/">cryptocurrencies</a> and only 16 had a market cap over six figures.&nbsp;



Something tells me he’ll catch up quickly.



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Ross Ulbricht donation wallet enjoys perfect PvE moment

Katherine Ross

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



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



“I think all of the traditional equities markets are now looking at crypto over the weekends because it’s the only market that’s open,” Empire’s Jason Yanowitz <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/e27aee20-df36-11ef-82c1-033ecb7498ff">said</a> on the Round Up this week.



And you know what? I agree.&nbsp;



Crypto markets, especially now that they’re trading more in line with traditional equities data, are a good tell for traders who are trying to gauge market moves before Monday’s opening bell.&nbsp;



For anyone who hasn’t been active in equities — either watching, reporting or trading — you might not know that, at least in the past, folks would eagerly wait to see how premarkets for major indices (which opened late on Sundays) handled weekend events. Just a few years ago, it was one of the only strong tells in how to prepare yourself for Monday morning outside of staying awake for the European markets.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">The funniest part of all this is that Crypto and Bitcoin were meant to be anti-establishment and now we’re literally trading FOMC, cpi, looking at institutional flows and words from the president and all the other whack shit that tradfi guys focus on.&mdash; Mayne (@Tradermayne) <a href="https://twitter.com/Tradermayne/status/1884701212575952993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 29, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



So the change to crypto is, subtly, a big deal and shows just another layer of adoption.&nbsp;



Specifically, Santos and Yanowitz were talking about the crypto market’s reaction to DeepSeek, which started well before the open this past Monday.&nbsp;



Analysts told us earlier this week that much of the crypto-related selling pressure really bubbled down to “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ai-selloff-too-much-excitement">too much excitement</a>.” But it’s not hard to make the connection that crypto getting caught up in an AI-related selloff could be bad for a company like Nvidia without putting all of the context clues together.&nbsp;



Yet I’m curious to get your take: Is this another crypto use case or just a sign of the times? I’m personally torn.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Why DeepSeek Disrupted Markets &amp; How Tokens Are The New GTM | Roundup" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QHwIqwvKoII?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">And now you know.</figcaption></figure>



Speaking of adoption, I have an <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apollo-and-securitize-announce-partnership-and-launch-tokenized-access-to-credit-fund-on-aptos-avalanche-ethereum-ink-polygon-and-solana-networks-302364212.html">announcement</a> to bring up. ICYMI Thursday, Securitize and Apollo Global announced Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED), which essentially gives a “tokenized access point” to Apollo Diversified Credit Fund, as Apollo partner Christine Moy told me.  “It&#8217;s a multi-asset approach that leverages Apollo&#8217;s expertise across corporate direct lending, asset-backed finance, performing credit, dislocated credit and structured credit, with the ability to scale allocations up and down based on the market environment for the best risk-reward,” she explained.



Basically, it’s opening a door for the more crypto-native institutional base. And they’re doing it with Securitize, who helped bring BUIDL to life alongside BlackRock. Apollo, which has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/apollo-global-management-hires-its-first-head-of-digital-assets-strategy">plenty of experience</a> dipping its toes in crypto, is looking to take advantage of the changing environment to team up with crypto talent. 



For Securitize’s Michael Sonnenshein, it’s showing that the bigger institutions are getting pretty comfortable with RWA tokenization.&nbsp;



At this point, Sonnenshein said, it’s becoming clear to asset managers that “crypto as an asset class is not going away” and it’s starting to evolve toward previously existing asset classes instead of crypto just hanging out in its own little bubble.&nbsp;



Moy noted that there’s been “market demand” and “strong interest” in tokenizing private credit, which then democratizes said market.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s a higher yielding complement to the stablecoins, tokenized treasuries markets, but it&#8217;s also a diversifier for the higher, more volatile crypto-native yield products,” she said.



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Why Apollo and Securitize’s new partnership is a win for institutional adoption

Jack Kubinec

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Following a string of high-profile collapses and bad press in 2022, crypto largely felt like its own market sector from which the rest of the tech world kept a cautious distance. With a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-memecoins-rock-solana">memecoin-brandishing</a> President Trump now in office, that seems to be shifting: The techies like memecoins.&nbsp;



Since Trump came to office, several more-mainstream tech players have either launched or endorsed memecoins —&nbsp;a couple of which have seen major price drawdowns, like the TRUMP token. It’s perhaps a sign that animal spirits are back in crypto, and tech players want a seat at the table, past qualms be damned.



Last night, Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail launched a token for his new startup, a kind of TikTok-meets-FaceTime app called JellyJelly. The token launched on the Solana memecoin launchpad pump.fun and quickly raced to over $230 million in market capitalization. Less than a day later, it crashed to under $100 million in market cap.&nbsp;



Magdon-Ismail <a href="https://x.com/JakeGagain/status/1885024521121398931">said</a> today on a podcast that one of Solana’s co-founders texted him expressing excitement about the launch, and he was in talks with someone at the Solana Foundation as well.



Sam Lessin, general partner of Slow Ventures, which invested in both Venmo and Solana, then <a href="https://x.com/lessin/status/1885032200904859849">posted</a> a clip of himself waxing poetic about how money is just a form of communication, and memecoins are the expression of a viewpoint. Lessin promoted the memecoin on his X account, and it’s not clear how much of the token he owns, if any.



The saga came shortly after a co-founder of the defunct video sharing app Vine launched a memecoin of his own, which also saw its market cap spike before quickly retracting. Nikita Bier, an entrepreneur who has launched multiple viral social media apps, posted and then deleted a meme saying he would be launching a memecoin, too.&nbsp;



Silicon Valley’s new memecoin apologists tend to talk about such tokens using terms like “fun” and “community,” but not everyone thinks memecoin as a capital formation tool will prove auspicious for startups.



“I do not believe that startups launching memecoins will gain any real traction over any reasonable length of time,” Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick said. He cited attention dilution, the negative feeling investors get from losing money and significant regulatory risk as marks against startup coins.



People in crypto and tech tend “to overreact to short-term market dynamics. We saw very similar discourse about NFTs in 2021, which turned out to be almost entirely wrong,” Hadick said.



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Silicon Valley wants in on memecoin craze

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Former SEC senior counsel Adrienne Gurley yesterday gave her take on how the SEC could approach the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-position-new-crypto-etf-proposals">influx of crypto ETF proposals</a>. She had a few other things to say.&nbsp;



For one, the Venable LLP partner told me she’s expecting token classification guidance and custody rule revisions to be key near-term priorities for the securities regulator.



President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-vs-biden-crypto-orders">executive order</a> laid out 30-, 60- and 180-day deadlines for the SEC and others. The dates to watch appear to be:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Feb. 22, by which agencies identify regulations/guidance/orders affecting the digital assets sector. </li>



<li>March 24, by which each agency submits recommendations related to those. </li>



<li>And finally, July 22, by which the working group sends a report to the president.</li>
</ul>



“Clear guidance will increase confidence in the market, encourage innovation (something that is a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-chair-nominee-crypto-past">focus of [Paul] Atkins</a>), and allow for larger financial institutions to consider entering the crypto custody business,” Gurley said.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-reveals-sab-121-rescission">Getting rid of SAB 121</a> was a start. Galaxy Digital execs wrote in a Wednesday <a href="https://www.galaxy.com/insights/perspectives/2025-investment-outlook-gam/?utm_campaign=Galaxy%20Research&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=2025%20Investment%20Outlook">report</a> they expect traditional banks to provide crypto custody and trading — “starting a process that could see them gradually transform into self-custodial neobanks.”



The next step: the world’s top custody banks safeguarding digital assets. This could help spur the SEC to allow spot bitcoin and ether ETFs to perform in-kind creations and redemptions, they add. “Banks could also begin offering lending and financing services for digital assets, such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tradfi-firms-btc-margin-loans">margin trading</a> backed by bitcoin collateral or the creation of innovative structured products that provide bespoke exposure to the underlying digital assets,” the Galaxy pros noted.



As for the SEC’s enforcement strategy, any matters involving fraud (related to crypto or not) will remain a priority, Gurley explained.



But, she noted, the commission is likely to step away from investigating crypto cases purely based on registration violations. Particularly after an appeals court again <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-sec-appeals-decision">called out the SEC</a> for “arbitrary and capricious” behavior.



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Ex-SEC counsel expects token classifications, custody guidance soon

Felix Jauvin

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The FOMC meeting was yesterday, and not a whole lot happened.&nbsp;



The Fed committed to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-holds-interest-rates-steady">pausing rate cuts</a> for this meeting, as has been priced into the SOFR curve for many months now.&nbsp;



As is always the case for FOMC meetings, the statement comes out first before Fed watchers comb through it to sort out what new changes have been made.&nbsp;



Interestingly, a shift in language was made around how they’re viewing inflation: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeIlLAfLSWQcL2IBRiIfSTzHUjZEoYs_b1d1CkxjDXmaOr-0bDU7GKSN0IGeYSf6HrBVONPUu-LEgBuj8a0H-h2r47lN-EEazwri0EHnyQeCUiDf8zJrvIGegtf1Hs7cAYdgMBGsg?key=edPN4LwnCuFKP2YW88OM0sqy" width="624" height="55">



Initially, this sent risk assets lower on the interpretation of a more hawkish Fed. Shortly after however, during the press conference, Chair Powell mentioned that this was simply them cleaning up language and shouldn’t be taken as a change in policy stance. This then sent risk assets in the opposite direction — higher. What a whipsaw!&nbsp;



This whipsaw showcases just how important it is to discern which side of the dual mandate the Fed is prioritizing at any given time. So with that in mind and no meeting until March, let’s take a look at where the economic data stands:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Labor market</h2>



Today we received the weekly initial jobless claims data, some of the most up-to-date and high frequency labor market data that we can get our hands on. Notably, we saw a major down-move in claims: 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1008" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-96855" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=408 408w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=414 414w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=348 348w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-5.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Further, we saw continuing claims continue to flatten out:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1200" height="721" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-96856" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=1200 1200w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=434 434w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=364 364w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unnamed-1-2.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /></figure>



Overall, these data points hint at a labor market that continues to remain in balance and has no cause for concern from the Fed.&nbsp;



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



Achieving solid economic growth without inflation being its driver is the golden goose of central banking. When it happens, it&#8217;s magic.



Today, we received preliminary GDP growth data that shines a light on an economy that remains solid.&nbsp;



Although the print came in at 2.3%, below the consensus of 2.6%, the underlying drivers remain solid.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfVw-djYj4Lbq4U9muneH7y_ngvOj7t1s-r41CRUB4aTV_pqX3VLUEb5VKvrG8-tPdOhdi7uve_Wue4Njo-uOD9tZfLqyfmqouo3AsnHiqK9r_uNT6aBXKYpNn0XQ36IO_ZBkg5gA?key=edPN4LwnCuFKP2YW88OM0sqy" alt=""/></figure>



Consumption remained the primary driver of the growth, at 4.2%. The consumer is the engine of the US economy; so as long as this remains strong, there’s little to worry about in terms of the growth outlook.



Notably, however, fixed investment saw its first contraction since 2023 — of -0.6%. It’ll be interesting to see how the Fed digests this dispersion in growth between the investment sector and the consumption sector. Overall, however, there’s nothing of major concern yet.



Piecing it all together and contrasting it with the Fed’s dual mandate, we have a labor market that is in solid balance and no major concern of deterioration. Further, we have a consumer that remains strong and spending that doesn’t hint at major worries of a growth slowdown at the moment.&nbsp;



This all sets the stage to validate the Fed opting to pause cutting rates here as it takes time assessing how its 100-basis point cuts during this cycle so far impact the economy.&nbsp;



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The Fed committed to pausing rate cuts. Why?

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



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Advance Q4 GDP <a href="https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/gdp4q24-adv.pdf">estimates</a> show growth slowed more than expected at the end of 2024, but annual growth still came in at a healthy level.&nbsp;



The Bureau of Economic Analysis says the US economy grew by 2.8% in 2024, down slightly from 2023, which saw a 2.9% increase. 2% is the accepted threshold for developed countries.&nbsp;



Inflation-adjusted GDP for the final months of 2024 came in at 2.3%, lower than projections of 2.4%. Q3 GDP was adjusted to 3.1% growth.&nbsp;



Personal spending in Q4 was up again, coming in at 4.2% annualized. Consumers spent the most on healthcare and recreational goods and vehicles, the report showed.&nbsp;



While the figure may show consumer resilience, some argue the boost in spending is just a reflection of higher prices.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Q4 GDP rose at an annualized rate of just 2.3%, powered by a 4.3% surge in personal spending. My guess is that higher spending resulted from price increases that were well in excess of the 2.2% deflator used to calculate real GDP. Underreported inflation is masking a recession.&mdash; Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1884965321603207263?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The figures come on the heels of the latest FOMC decision to hold interest rates. Chair Powell yesterday took a more dovish stance, reiterating that central bankers are in no hurry to lower rates.



Looming tariff policies also contribute to economic uncertainties, Powell added. Duration, size, targeted nations and consumer impact are all up in the air, making forecasting a challenge.&nbsp;



Imports were down slightly in the fourth quarter, BEA data showed. Inventories also fell, subtracting from GDP. Both will be key figures to watch as Trump’s tariff plans take shape.&nbsp;



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Q4 GDP declined, consumer spending grew 

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After two years of development, five independent audits and a rigorous code competition, Symbiotic officially <a href="https://x.com/symbioticfi/status/1884266642416492713">launched</a> on Ethereum mainnet yesterday. As the first feature-complete shared security protocol with slashing, Symbiotic provides an immutable, decentralized framework that eliminates single points of failure and external risks for networks looking to secure their ecosystems.



&#8220;The logic behind Symbiotic was quite simple,&#8221; one of its co-founders, Misha Putiatin, <a href="https://x.com/defi_dad/status/1884698966731706443?s=46&amp;t=yjAdM2ddX0KgGQimu7jcDQ">explained</a> on The Edge podcast. &#8220;How do we do this protocol in a way that has the least amount of drawbacks?&#8221; The result is a security layer that is immutable and permissionless.



&nbsp;&#8220;The core is immutable, we can&#8217;t gatekeep, we can&#8217;t change politics, add fees, do break-offs. Do any stuff that can be hurtful, and people should calculate before they choose Symbiotic,” Putiatin said.



While blockchain infrastructure has become more modular and accessible, security implementation around new networks has been a cutting-edge design space. Traditionally, these networks faced a difficult trade-off: either invest heavily in building bespoke security solutions or compromise sovereignty by adopting pre-packaged security frameworks.



Symbiotic resolves this dilemma by offering a neutral coordination framework that allows networks to define every aspect of their security model — from collateral selection and operator management to slashing mechanics — while maintaining full control. Its non-upgradeable core contracts ensure an immutable security foundation,&nbsp; <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/symbiotic-seed-round-shared-security">like Uniswap</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/liquity-v2-staked-ether">Liquity</a>, preventing governance takeovers and external interventions.



With its mainnet launch, Symbiotic has already integrated 13 networks spanning a wide variety of blockchain use cases. To give just a few examples: Capx is an Ethereum layer-2 for AI agent deployment, secured through Symbiotic. HyveDA is a high-throughput decentralized data availability protocol leveraging Symbiotic’s restaking infrastructure. <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/expansion/9861c7a8-4979-11ef-b690-b3dbcd2508c2">Hyperlane</a> is a cross-chain messaging framework for seamless interoperability. And iBTC (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/building-better-wrapped-bitcoin-for-defi">formerly DLC.Link</a>) uses Symbiotic restaking to secure its Attestor Network, enabling trust-minimized bitcoin-backed DeFi participation.



Symbiotic cites nearly 50 networks, 78 operators and 55 vaults already integrating the protocol.



The architecture is centered around Vaults — smart contracts that facilitate stake delegation, ensuring economic security through configurable accounting and slashing mechanisms. Stakers deposit assets, operators receive delegations and networks access the security they need, enabling efficient capital utilization across multiple ecosystems while preserving decentralization.



Post-mainnet launch, Symbiotic’s focus is shifting to enhance user experience and tooling for network integrations. By standardizing shared security primitives, Symbiotic is positioning itself as the foundational layer that enables networks to achieve self-sovereignty while benefiting from a robust, shared security model.



&#8220;In the future, I see absolutely anybody being able to tap into this kind of shared network to build app chains or verify anything onchain that they need, on demand,” Putiatin said.



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Can Symbiotic revive the restaking narrative?

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We’ve been talking a lot about institutions and their interest in crypto now that the environment is more crypto-friendly.



Or, perhaps we should say more crypto-tolerant based on Fed chair Jerome Powell&#8217;s tone shift.&nbsp; He acknowledged yesterday that banks can serve crypto customers so long as risks are managed.&nbsp;



Anyway, there’s another angle I wanted to dig into after Powell’s press conference and Trump Media’s announcement that it’ll potentially put money to work in crypto.



Maple CEO Sid Powell told me that one potential area for institutional entry is lending. He says he’s receiving a lot of calls from TradFi firms exploring the possibility.&nbsp;



“I think the reason lending and borrowing works for them is that private credit is one of the fastest growing sectors in TradFi. It&#8217;s worth over one and a half trillion dollars and … they understand loans and borrowing as products, so it&#8217;s less of a leap” for them to enter crypto, Powell explained.



It’s likely we see more activity in the bitcoin margin loan space given the contraction that happened after so many lenders failed, and the familiarity that TradFi firms have with the space.&nbsp;



The market is “very liquid” and therefore “very manageable from a risk perspective.”



“We&#8217;ve also spoken with a couple of alternative credit shops … bigger names from traditional finance, who&#8217;ve also expressed interest in the sector,” Powell continued.&nbsp;



“I think that&#8217;ll be one of the first places they start for those reasons: bitcoin is a very large asset that you can use as collateral. It&#8217;s very liquid, and it&#8217;s very similar to traditional equities margin lending.”



Just like the TruthFi announcement yesterday, interest is great. But we need to see money at work before we get really bullish.



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Why TradFi firms could turn to bitcoin margin loans: Maple CEO 

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Can you still be in crypto “for the tech?”



The idealist in me would like to say yes — but it’s an increasingly tricky question to answer.



Cryptocurrency and blockchain, in the most general sense, are money technologies. That’s quite different from something like media software, where being in it “for the tech” can be more easily expressed by keeping the software free to use.



Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the creator of VLC media player, has over the years <a href="https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/kempf-interview-vlc-videolan">refused tens of millions of dollars</a> from advertisers in order to do exactly that.&nbsp;



In crypto, it’s not so clear. If you’re in crypto for the “tech,” you’re also in it for the “money.”



Take Bitcoin. Those who’ve built out the protocol have helped provide uncensorable technology to send and receive money peer-to-peer.&nbsp;



And it would be impossible to send “money” peer-to-peer if bitcoin was worth zero in fiat terms. The money is the technology and vice versa.&nbsp;



Ethereum is slightly different. Its smart contracts can support non-financial use cases, so someone developing on Ethereum might be building software as a public good — like VLC media player — with no intention to make money from it.



That culture is fast becoming untenable with modern crypto markets. Vitalik, for instance, has faced renewed pressure to morph into a “wartime CEO” whose primary purpose is to maximize tokenholder value (i.e. pump the price of ETH).&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">gm <a href="https://t.co/3w3uX9wgpJ">pic.twitter.com/3w3uX9wgpJ</a>&mdash; vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) <a href="https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1882784657202458647?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Vitalik’s new Milady profile picture is wartime coded</figcaption></figure>



To <a href="https://x.com/not_qz/status/1881300604313842106">some</a>, Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation have focused too much on “the tech.” Prioritizing decentralization and a commitment to onchain public goods — nifty use cases with no obvious path to value accrual at the base asset, such as Fileverse, Ethereum’s <a href="https://x.com/ethereum/status/1884646531489247562">answer</a> to WeTransfer, which doesn’t have its own native token.



Maximizing value for Ethereum tokenholders would otherwise look more like funneling all energies towards apps that have a better shot at boosting the price of ETH, which has lately lagged rival SOL.



A difficult task in the Ethereum world. The most profitable apps in the current meta (launchpads, DEXs and prediction markets) have mostly been pushed onto layer-2s like Base and Polygon, a sidechain — too far away to directly impact ETH.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Not trying to defend Vitalik or EF, but just remind people of some facts. Vitalik got incredibly burned early on in Ethereum by people who were almost solely focused on money and willing to sacrifice decentralization for it. This went against his ideals. Maybe he swung too far…&mdash; Laura Shin (@laurashin) <a href="https://twitter.com/laurashin/status/1881703644812206266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The Cryptopians’ Laura Shin weighs in</figcaption></figure>



Still, Ethereum has clearly made Vitalik <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-chain-billionaires-buterin-nakamoto">wealthy</a>, perhaps similarly so to Linux founder Linus Torvalds, another superstar dev with legitimate <a href="https://ideas.ted.com/the-wisdom-of-linus-torvalds/">cred</a> when it comes to “being in it for the tech.”



It’s this divide that’s fast becoming a chasm. A <a href="https://www.salon.com/2002/04/02/stallman/">Richard Stallman-esque stubbornness</a> for FOSS sensibilities is a tough sell to a crypto market trained to hunt for the next 1000x, especially coming from those who have already “made it,” so to speak.



There’s no easy fix. The reality is that focusing on tech — functional use cases over money-making ideas — may simply come at a cost of less market attention.



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Ethereum holds the line between ‘in it for the tech’ and ‘for the money’

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The Solana NFT marketplace Tensor will now split revenue from its social trading app, Vector, between the TNSR treasury and Tensor’s developer shop.



Vector is a mobile social trading app with a built-in crypto wallet that lets users broadcast their trades to other users. With Vector adopting TNSR, the Tensor Foundation — which oversees Tensor’s token — will “steward” the protocols powering Vector, although Tensor’s labs entity will build the product.&nbsp;



50% of Vector’s revenue is set to go to the TNSR treasury, which can be used for things like airdrops and grants. The other half of the revenue will go to Tensor.



Vector is a bit like if Robinhood and X had a baby that loved memecoins. The app is still invite-only, but it is currently earning more than $90 million in annualized revenue from a 1% trading fee, which would be 10x the revenue Tensor earns from its NFT marketplace, Tensor said. A Flipside dashboard <a href="https://flipsidecrypto.xyz/pine/vector.fun-solana-metrics-1rL0A3">suggests</a> Vector has between 4,000 and 5,000 daily returning wallets.&nbsp;



Tensor co-founder and CEO Ilja Moisejevs told me the company launched Vector because it saw the NFT sector dying out and wanted to pivot to a “1000x larger market” in memecoins.&nbsp;



For context, Tensor’s NFT platform earned $9 million in marketplace trading revenue over the past year, according to NFT Pulse. Memecoin launchpad pump.fun made $9 million in revenue yesterday.



For now, the Tensor Foundation treasury will only accrue value from Vector, but Moisejevs told me that in the future the platform’s community could vote to do something like buy back and burn tokens, as the DEX aggregator <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/value-accrual-matters-for-tokens">Jupiter just did.</a>



In any event, TNSR holders will hope the new revenue stream can help turn around the token’s trajectory. TNSR launched at $1.70 in April 2024, according to CoinGecko, and it now trades at $0.39 — despite the whole crypto president <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-declared-president-2024-election">being elected</a> thing that happened in between.&nbsp;



Key to that turnaround will be Vector cracking the code of social trading, which has been attempted before in crypto to limited success.&nbsp;



“What we think is different this time is a) memecoins are inherently social and b) we found a form factor for shared trades that people actually like,” Tensor co-founder and CTO Richard Wu said in a statement.



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Tensor’s memecoin app to send 50% of revenue to TNSR treasury

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Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan last week said that the US banking industry will have to adapt their businesses to allow for crypto payments, should regulations progress.&nbsp;



“If the rules come in and make it a real thing that you can actually do business with, you’ll find that the banking system will come in hard on the transactional side of it,” Moynihan told CNBC at the World Economic Forum.&nbsp;



Crypto exchange Kraken today launched a new payments platform — <a href="https://blog.kraken.com/product/kraken-pay#:~:text=Kraken%20Pay%20is%20available%20for,in%20the%20world%20for%20free.&amp;text=Geographic%20restrictions%20apply.,another%20when%20making%20a%20transfer.">Kraken Pay</a>, which allows customers to transfer assets directly from their exchange accounts. Kraken Pay supports more than 300 fiat currencies and crypto tokens. Sending assets is free, but converting assets from one currency to another when making a transfer will come with fees.&nbsp;



​​“Crypto isn’t just the future of finance — it’s the now,” Kraken global head of consumer Mark Greenberg said. “We’re eliminating the barriers of slow payments and outrageous fees while bringing real-world utility to your fingertips.”&nbsp;



Kraken Pay is only the latest product in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/moonpay-acquires-solana-payments-startup">growing</a> crypto payments landscape.&nbsp;



Payment service Venmo dipped its toe in the crypto pool back in 2021. Ripple says its <a href="https://ripple.com/insights/crypto-momentum-in-the-us-whats-next-for-ripple-payments/">payments</a> product is getting a facelift this year.&nbsp;



The payments space, from cross-border and remittances to peer-to-peer transactions, has long been an area crypto fans insist is ripe for disruption. 



With more crypto-friendly federal regulators in charge and increased retail and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-inevitable-institutional-digital-assets-involvement">institutional</a> investor interest, 2025 just may be the year we really start to see this sector of crypto take off.



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US crypto firms expand offerings as Trump takes over

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I know it’s a Fed rate decision day, but let’s also take a moment to go over the latest crypto ETF filings.



Solana and XRP ETF proposals appeared not long after the milestone US spot bitcoin and ether ETF launches of 2024.



Movement on a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-crypto-etfs-approval-outlook">litecoin fund plan</a> preceded REX Shares and Osprey last week <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1771146/000199937125000494/rexosprey-485apos_012125.htm?utm_source=forward-guidance.beehiiv.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=46-for-47&amp;_bhlid=ef92a76978d08f6fd573ae2de8a8083020c36a9b">proposing</a> ETFs that would hold assets including DOGE, BONK and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-launch-not-mass-onboarding-event">Trump’s memecoin</a>. Tuttle Capital Management — further testing the limits — more recently <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1771146/000199937125000689/crypto-485apos_012725.htm">floated</a> leveraged ETFs linked to 10 different crypto assets.&nbsp;



And just yesterday, Bitwise <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2053791/000121390025007545/ea0228742-s1_bitwise.htm">filed</a> its S-1 for a <a href="https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1884351102335721671">dogecoin ETF</a>. Cboe also <a href="https://x.com/JSeyff/status/1884354998231769411">re-filed</a> its 19b-4s for solana ETFs from Bitwise, 21Shares, VanEck and Canary Capital. The Gensler-led agency was <a href="https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/1864874666445152672">reportedly</a> not interested in considering those.



<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">Politics aside, it’s wild how much the party in control determines investment products everyday investors can access… Look at these crypto ETF filings over past week. We’ll see what happens, but message from ETF issuers is “we now think SEC is open for business”. Big shift.&mdash; Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateGeraci/status/1884409898244473225?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 29, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Some have <a href="https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1884352025682694385">theorized</a> that Elon Musk’s backing of DOGE could help fast-track approval of Bitwise’s latest proposal, for example.&nbsp;



A person close to the filings told me it remains to be seen how the SEC will approach the so-called “Winklevoss standard.” The name reflects the agency’s interpretation of the Exchange Act when it rejected the Winklevoss twins’ bitcoin ETF proposal in 2018 — requiring the existence of “a regulated market of significant size.”



The SEC has historically wanted to see such a regulated futures market in particular, for which only BTC and ETH currently exist. Whether CME Group will soon launch SOL and XRP futures contracts is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cme-group-considering-sol-xrp-futures">up in the air</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“How the SEC changes, or doesn&#8217;t change, its view on this specific interpretation is the key for these new filings,” the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity amid issuer conversations with regulators.&nbsp;



The SEC has not yet publicly signaled whether or not it’s open to changing its stance on this matter. But the person pointed out that SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce — now <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/new-sec-crypto-task-force">leading a crypto task force</a> — “notably” <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-dissent-34-83723">dissented</a> to the SEC’s interpretation in the first order that established this requirement.



Mark Uyeda is serving as acting SEC chair after Gary Gensler’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gary-gensler-resigning">departure</a>. The senate must still confirm Trump’s nominee to lead the agency: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-chair-nominee-crypto-past">Paul Atkins</a>.&nbsp;



Adrienne Gurley, an ex-SEC senior counsel and partner at Venable LLP, labeled Atkins as “pro-innovation” and “not in favor of onerous requirements that are cost-prohibitive for companies.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Ultimately, she expects there will be “a case by case evaluation” of the proposed crypto products.&nbsp;



“Further, the SEC will have to coordinate with the CFTC on certain guidelines,” Gurley told me. “So I don’t expect an overnight response to this, [but] rather a slow rollout of approvals.”



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