Zilliqa is a smart contract platform featuring a sharded architecture that aims to address the scalability limitations seen in some other blockchains. Its sharded design allows concurrent chains to execute transactions in parallel, thereby increasing the overall capacity of the network. In addition to scalability, Zilliqa provides a smart contract layer to support smart contract creation by way of its native programming language, Scilla. The network reaches a consensus on transactions and contract executions through a hybrid Proof-of-Work-BFT mechanism. In the coming weeks, it will also introduce a staking system to, in its words, increase the distribution of node operators.

Zilliqa

Kate Irwin

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



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



Blockchain gaming has gone through various cycles of sentiment.



These cycles include 2017, with CryptoKitties, and 2018, with games like Axie Infinity, Gods Unchained and Splinterlands.&nbsp;



While some might think crypto gaming is in decline these days, venture capital firm Bitkraft Ventures doesn’t see it that way.



“Not only is it not dead, but its future is as bright as almost any category,” Matt Halstead, a new partner at Bitkraft, told me in an interview.&nbsp;



The firm counts AMGI, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/immutable-ubisoft-tcg-might-and-magic">Immutable</a>, HyperPlay and Yield Guild Games among their 100+ portfolio companies, plus non-crypto firms like Discord and Epic Games. Bitkraft obviously stands to benefit from crypto gaming’s success, but they’re also investing in what they believe the future will look like.



“One bet that I would be, you know, very happy to make is that gaming will not only exist, but it will be multiples bigger than it is today. And I just don’t think you can look at the world and have that level of conviction in too many themes. And so I think to ignore gaming will be proven to be a big mistake,” Halstead added.



After the play-to-earn run subsided in early 2022 — when tokens like Axie Infinity’s AXS token fell roughly 91% in less than six months — some upstart crypto game studios touted a “play-and-earn” narrative.&nbsp;



A number of crypto games studios told me around that time that the industry needed to get away from the farming-focused financialized games, arguing that their games would put gameplay before their economies to “make a good game first.”&nbsp;



Around that time, some game studios and investors held the view that in-game items would become interoperable, and that NFTs would be part of that vision.



But crypto gaming’s once-touted vision of interoperable in-game items as assets on the blockchain hasn’t quite panned out — especially when hype around the metaverse faded in 2023.&nbsp;



Halstead suggested the prevailing sentiment toward crypto gaming is something that’s a problem across crypto: There’s a very short feedback loop where expectations don’t always meet reality.



“I just think there’s a fundamental lack of understanding of games in general,” he added.



So how could crypto organically fit into games, and where will we see future success?



Halstead sees the creator economy, cosmetic items, and the social element of gaming as areas that could do well with blockchain integrations going forward.&nbsp;



But there’s also the obvious, continued fit of more financial-forward games, or “GameFi” titles, wherein a betting element or gambling element is offered with an entertainment layer on top.



Bitkraft General Partner Carlos Pereira predicts that this year, we’ll see a solid AI-native crypto game release. But “risk-to-earn” is also a big subgenre.



Loot Labs is one of Bitkraft’s most successful portfolio companies right now, Pereira told me. Loot Labs offers buyers mystery assets as NFT loot boxes, whereby you spin a wheel and don’t know what you’re going to get.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“And so as long as you acknowledge that there’s this concept of risk-to-earn,” Pereira said, “that’s totally okay. And we’ve had these games for a long time, and there’s fit with crypto. [And] there’s still the space for all the other types of games.”



Bitkraft advises all their portfolio game studios against selling NFTs or launching a token before the game releases because that approach sets high expectations — and puts studios in a bind if they fail to meet those expectations by backing out or adjusting earlier plans.



“We certainly believe that on average, the right decision is not trying to monetize your community too early [&#8230;] and that’s not what the average games have done,” Pereira said. “Of course, we have had things that fail. Of course, we’re in the business of making mistakes, and then hopefully when we don’t make a mistake, it’s a really good thing. But you haven’t seen us attached to the games that raised a bunch of money on a launchpad, or the games that sold $40 million in NFTs.”



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Gaming

Why crypto games shouldn’t monetize too early

Ben Strack

One of the SEC’s next <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-grayscale-solana-etf">crypto ETF rulings</a> could prove a milestone for investors seeking to diversify their exposure within the segment.



Hashdex CIO Samir Kerbage pointed to the expected SEC decision in July that could allow <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-filing-optimism-bloomberg">crypto index products</a> to expand the assets they hold.



The Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF (NCIQ), which launched in February, holds both BTC and ETH. Kerbage noted the holdings in that ETFs are “designed to evolve as the market evolves” — referring in part to regulatory developments.



The Brazil-based firm in March sought approval for NCIQ to invest in other assets that the international version of that index <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2031069/000121390025024262/ea0209567-11.htm#T9912">invests</a> in, such as solana (SOL). Other assets include XRP, cardano (ADA), chainlink (LINK), avalanche (AVA), litecoin (LTC) and uniswap (UNI). 



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-media-etf-cryptodotcom">Kerbage told me previously</a> Hashdex ultimately wants to create “the Nasdaq 100 for crypto.”



Grayscale filed last November to uplist its Digital Large Cap Fund — holding BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP and AVA at the time — to an ETF. The SEC’s final deadline to rule on that proposal is July 2. Clarity on that specific offering could extend to products by Hashdex, Bitwise and others.&nbsp;



Scott Johnsson, a general partner at Van Buren Capital, is indeed watching that date. He said in an April X post that because the index products have more undefined allocations, the SEC could adopt a general rule (rather than “case-by-case” rules for the proposed single-asset crypto ETPs).



<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">Most interesting part of upcoming crypto ETF season is going to be the index products. Broader implications for the space and set the tone for what comes next. This is really the event to be watching. (1) They&#39;re first on deck. July 2 is the final deadline for Grayscale Digital…&mdash; Scott Johnsson (@SGJohnsson) <a href="https://twitter.com/SGJohnsson/status/1915619368156762388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 25, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“How they address the security question for each of the non-BTC/ETH allocations will draw the most attention,” Johnsson added.



Kerbage told Blockworks he expects to see the SEC allow US products to hold assets beyond BTC and ETH before approving more single-asset crypto ETFs.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“But this is the big question,” he noted. “If they’re not comfortable with having one specific single asset as an ETP, they still might allow an index to have a small allocation to that specific asset.”



Keep reading for more excerpts from Blockworks’ Q&amp;A with Kerbage.&nbsp;



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



Blockworks: You mentioned in March that Hashdex was about to meet with the SEC. What did you discuss, and how do you expect the agency to proceed with the proposed crypto ETPs in front of them?



Kerbage: Our goal was to share the experience we’ve had outside of the US…and what we’ve seen working and not working. We think the SEC could approach this space by setting up a listing standard that will give more predictability.  



So instead of having more than 100 ETF applications and everyone trying to figure out what the SEC is trying to approve…just set out the rules and we [won’t] need to guess.



We think the SEC has everything they need to make their own decision. They don’t necessarily need to change legislation. Some other aspects are more complicated, like broker-dealer rules, the market structure, what is a security and what is not — so there’s a lot of complicated stuff around crypto. But I think clarity on the ETF side is within the SEC’s current mandate.



Blockworks: How do you view the demand for crypto index ETFs versus existing and future single-asset crypto products? Kerbage: We think that crypto is way bigger than just bitcoin. But we think, at least for traditional investors, it’s too risky to try to pick the winners…especially advisers and financial professionals.



They’re looking for a small allocation in their portfolio — like 1% to 5%. If eventually they’re in a situation [where] they need to decide between bitcoin, ether, solana, XRP, litecoin, all these different assets, it’s just too complicated for a 1% position. So that’s why it just makes sense to go diversified and have an index approach. This is what they do in all the different asset classes. When they decide to invest in emerging markets, they don’t go out to Brazil or South Africa trying to pick out specific stocks. They just buy an emerging market index. We think they should be looking at crypto assets the same. 



Blockworks: Hashdex also offers a US ETF that only invests in bitcoin. Are investors still interested in that one now that you have the BTC/ETH option?&nbsp; Kerbage: I would say 90% of the conversations we have are around indexes.&nbsp;



If you want to buy bitcoin, that’s fine, we have a bitcoin product and there [are] a lot of different bitcoin ETFs out there. But when you’re investing only in bitcoin, you’re making a decision to short the crypto market.&nbsp;



The biggest opportunity we see right now is getting exposure to the space with the optionality that crypto is bigger than just bitcoin.



Blockworks: How much more interest do you see from clients in a product like NCIQ when BTC and ETH prices are up, versus when they’re down? Kerbage: Most of the advisers understand that this asset class is here to stay and they need to have a strategy around it. So they’re all looking at the space and studying it.



Of course, as we have positive price action, it helps. Because they have more questions from clients, and as they have more questions from clients, they’re more inclined to take action.



Blockworks: How might the latest vote against the stablecoin-focused <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/waters-crypto-congress-block-hearing-trump">GENIUS Act</a> impact broader crypto regulatory progress and the timeline for more crypto ETF approvals?    



Kerbage: It’s hard to talk about the timeline. In the executive branch, there’s definitely a strong guidance towards giving clarity to the industry and doing this fast.



So you can have some discussion in Congress, with Democrats fighting back, and they might argue [President Donald] Trump getting involved in crypto and building his own crypto business is controversial.



But even with the chairman of the SEC [speaking] publicly about this, this is one of the priorities of his administration…to give clarity to this industry.



This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.



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ETFs

Crypto indexes offer ‘biggest opportunity’ as SEC decision looms: Hashdex CIO

Donovan Choy

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



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



The following is the third and final part of a multi-part series on the state of crypto liquid markets, based on several conversations with liquid funds. You can find part <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-liquid-funds-bitcoin-target-this-cycle">one</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-liquid-funds-fundamentals">two</a> here.



Which crypto sectors are the most reviled by the average person in the industry? Anecdotally, gaming and crypto x AI projects seem to make the easiest punching bags. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “crypto games aren’t fun…”



The liquid funds I spoke to, however, had much more lukewarm and varied feedback. Though some were uninterested in gaming, others expressed optimism.



“The Web3 gaming space is very challenged at the moment and is most overlooked or under-owned,” Spartan co-founder Kelvin Koh told me.&nbsp;



“We need a big hit game for people to pay attention to Web3 gaming again. Off the Grid, Maplestory Universe and FIFA Rivals are three games we are watching closely.”



Off the Grid in particular has continued to average about <a href="https://flipsidecrypto.xyz/yasmin/gunzilla-network-metrics-explorer-kbgQ38">552k</a> daily players after its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/off-the-grid-blockchain-gaming-experience">big bang launch</a>. Its active player base has cemented the GUNZ chain as a top 10 chain based on active addresses and transaction count, according to <a href="https://x.com/pierskicks/status/1906626745794519419">Delphi Ventures</a>, an investor in the game.



1kx was another fund that <a href="https://x.com/pet3rpan_/status/1887140527310864481">expressed</a> greater optimism for Web3 gaming.



Traditional free-to-play mobile games have an incredibly high entry barrier and require millions to breakeven. But a Web3 game that leverages the power of token incentives can greatly reduce that barrier of user acquisition, 1kx partner Peter Pan told me.



“A game like Pixels raised $4 million in their first year and was able to go to market within 18 months. They spent $70 million in token incentives on user acquisition and made about $25 million back — that’s roughly a 30% return on spend that would never be possible for a Web2 startup managing the same budget.”



Despite the early days of crypto x AI, a few funds also expressed hopefulness for the sector. At the very least, most acknowledged that in the long run, blockchain would enable AI in some specific use cases.



For instance, one crucial way that blockchain tech can support AI is in the area of “identity,” Pantera’s Cosmo Jiang said.



&#8220;Infinite agents and bots will exist thanks to AI. So there will always be a demand to know what is truly human. What better way to create a global, permissionless, censorship-resistant identity solution than using a blockchain? World [formerly known as Worldcoin] is doing something critical here.”



When it came to more mature token sectors within DeFi (DEX, lending liquid staking), there was general agreement among the funds I spoke to that these were markets with proven PMF and ways to perform valuations.



This however also crucially means that token valuations in DeFi were increasingly tethered to financial reality and less susceptible to speculative valuations than, say, memecoins, as one investor told me.



This is in stark contrast to L1/L2 tokens, which saw more disagreement on how they should be valued.



The valuations of most existing L1 tokens (on a P/E ratio basis) were far beyond what a fundamental analysis would explain, and poised for a harsh correction to the downside, one investor told me.



Another believed that L1 tokens were still erroneously being valued as a comps to bitcoin, which has become more of a store of value.



Here’s what Blockworks head of research Ryan Connor had to say on L1 valuations:



“The reason, all else equal, for the higher valuations for L1 and L1-like things is because they are platforms, and platforms can be money-making machines. So all else equal, theoretically, you&#8217;re pricing in higher growth. Solana, for example, can 5x its revenue in the next 12 months to above 10b. That&#8217;s incredible earning power. You can&#8217;t say the same for AAVE.”



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0xResearch Newsletter

Liquid funds remain optimistic about Web3 gaming and blockchain uses for AI

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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Bitcoin has its enemies.



Environmental alarmists, stubborn central bankers and out-of-touch politicians would surely count, even if their ranks have thinned in the past few years.&nbsp;



There’s also the odd boomer economist who would still jump at the chance to suggest that bitcoin has no intrinsic value and embodies the greater fool theory, if it meant extra engagement.



All those archetypes are great heels that routinely serve as sounding boards for Bitcoin discourse.&nbsp;



There are also those who’ve attacked Bitcoin out of boredom, curiosity or just for fun. Which I suppose is somewhat cooler.



This is the tale of one such punk hellbent on disrupting Bitcoin as best they could.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">On This Day — Bitcoin gets Stoned</h2>



This story starts all the way back in 1987, more than two decades before Bitcoin.



It’s believed that an unknown student at the University of Wellington in New Zealand had developed malware known as Stoned, one of the first ever computer viruses.



Stoned was an early boot virus, a category which infects the boot sector of a hard drive or removable media (mostly floppy disks back then), altering how computers initially load their operating systems and run other necessary start-up functions.



It was <a href="https://www.computerarcheology.com/Virus/Stoned/">technically</a> a novel virus, but in reality, Stoned was more of an elaborate prank.&nbsp;



An infected machine would have a one in eight chance of loading a screen that would simply display a pro-pot message:&nbsp;



“Your PC is now stoned! LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfgDBc_6qcRlLNpcqzSBOt47t-3WutWG_iX-KXJA-F_G8uNCvgZI3QOw2oBn69IlWLf932_iwjpMS-Hqw5xoVcMqR9-rktlCAwWsWBV4XRFKDgL4fUP_686qE0Z39hqnL1VRDNfOQ?key=cjdYwqDPndWtenbHiMRJ1A" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Check the bottom right corner — you’ve been Stoned!</figcaption></figure>



Twenty-seven years later, on May 15, 2014, a pseudonymous Windows 7 user <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170219103210/https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/mse-protect_updating/microsoft-security-essentials-reporting-false/0240ed8e-5a27-4843-a939-0279c8110e1c?tm=1400189799602&amp;auth=1">reported</a> a worrying false positive from their Microsoft Security Essentials package.



Microsoft&#8217;s built-in antivirus software had detected Stoned’s virus signature in Bitcoin’s blockchain data, leading to constant annoying popups and even deletion of all relevant files.



That included removal of the complete copy of the chain’s history required to sync nodes, which was almost 19 GB large at the time, data that would be automatically re-downloaded by the Bitcoin client.



It didn’t make any sense for Stoned to have really infected Bitcoin Core. The virus’s code would be completely benign, even if it were somehow written to the chain in its entirety.&nbsp;



The running theory was that perhaps by some statistical anomaly, Bitcoin’s hash function for its block headers had somehow generated enough of Stone’s hexadecimal byte sequences for Microsoft’s malware scanner to recognise it as the actual virus.



Microsoft then quickly patched Security Essentials to ignore the curiosity.



The smoking gun only came about six weeks later, by way of IT professional Didier Stevens. It was not a hoax: Someone had intentionally attempted to bring down Bitcoin nodes.



Stevens had <a href="https://blog.didierstevens.com/2014/06/30/update-stoned-bitcoin/">discovered</a> a series of transactions from April 4, 2014 featuring outputs containing identical byte sequences to ones inside Stoned’s code.



<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">Bitcoin &amp; Stoned Computer Virus: I found the smoking gun! <a href="http://t.co/PIGqktn8Gf">http://t.co/PIGqktn8Gf</a>&mdash; Didier Stevens (@DidierStevens) <a href="https://twitter.com/DidierStevens/status/481174370317242368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2014</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Meanwhile, two days earlier, a <a href="https://pastebin.com/ct2WHUK5">Pastebin</a> post by an anonymous author had outlined a method of spamming the Bitcoin specifically to trigger false-positives from antivirus software.



They wrote: “Spamming the bitcoin database with virus signatures will cause havoc. Some antivirus-programs will delete the database locally, others will deny their bitcoin-client access to the databases.”



“Some won&#8217;t be able to start their bitcoin-clients again (and can&#8217;t understand why). Some will format and reinstall their computer&#8230;to once again get ‘infected&#8217; when they get a bitcoin client again.”



Next, panic would strike “computer n00bs” alongside rumors that Bitcoin is spreading viruses. Then, chaos, with the media dramatizing the situation.&nbsp;



“The value of bitcoins will drop hasty…Please help spamming the bitcoin database with virus signatures :)”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd82-YC2LPCPeVRyuVgboN-lyyXnOEKoW_QMPdb_sIvramcSRzS4jmd-qiBtjrEzhCVO74WEndA0A0WsuX7r7grnTOMt90UG8vhB7xKLoz_JmA4feSAgST07Wrv3ZclkUw_X5QsKw?key=cjdYwqDPndWtenbHiMRJ1A" alt=""/></figure>



Stoned bytecode was injected into Bitcoin’s chain data within about a day of the post.



Of course, there was no widespread panic. The price of bitcoin never crashed in relation to the prank, and there wasn’t a noticeable drop in hash rate due nodes being knocked offline.



But there were forum threads about it, as well as <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2014/05/18/bitcoin_user_stoned_on_virus_warnings/">media headlines</a>, blogs and other posts, including this one, 11 years later. That’s gotta count for something.



— David



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



These days, Bitcoin is increasingly divided over whether spam, not unlike the Stoned bytecode, is, in fact, a virus.



“We’ve always been hostile to the shitcoiners when they invade. Make no mistake, they are invading right now and we should be hostile to them again.”



Those are the passionate words of Chris Guida, a Bitcoin ecosystem developer in favor of stopping non-standard data from ever making it to the chain via the ever-polarizing OP_RETURN field. 



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4CdPv-herxA?si=-t3mW8HYwyn0x7rM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







In today’s epic two-hour episode of Supply Shock, Guida and host Pete Rizzo cover the spam filter debate, miner incentives, the realities of decentralization in modern day Bitcoin and other spicy topics.



“It’s called a filter and not a wall because some things are going to slip through. That’s okay, the point of spam filters is to raise the cost of spamming so that the worst offenders, things like BRC20s that had huge transaction volume at the peak, can&#8217;t happen.” Check out the full episode on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CdPv-herxA">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoins-last-stand-the-op-return-invasion-chris-guida/id1558223079?i=1000708560827">Apple Podcasts</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2yFL2nSsQucf1rzdEKbFZY">Spotify</a>.



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Bitcoin

Bitcoin gets Stoned: How one anonymous prankster tried to crash BTC

Katherine Ross

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



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



We 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/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

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



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



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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<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>
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Pplpleasr’s streaming platform is back with 5 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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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



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



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



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



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

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">
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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>

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>.



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



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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<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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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.



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.



Updated, May 15, 2025: Edited for clarity.



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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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Blockworks

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

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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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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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.



WalletConnect is making it real. The next wave of growth is just getting started.



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



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<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>
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