Adam Efrima is the SSV Core team Co-founder. He has been active in the crypto industry since 2013. Over eight years living in China working in the financial industry and fintech space, Adam has worked in CITIC Bank covering outbound investments for Chinese SOEs, he was also in charge of setting up the eToro Shanghai operation. Since then, Adam has been deeply involved in Ethereum staking, co-founding top performing staking project Bloxstaking as well as co-founding SSV Network, a decentralized validator infrastructure for ETH staking.

Adam Simmons is Chief Strategy Officer at RDX Works, a key contributor to the Radix public ledger. He has over 13 years of experience in building &amp; growing businesses in a range of industries including online video, blockchain &amp; digital marketing. With experience in both senior leadership &amp; hands-on roles, he has repeatedly recruited, managed, and trained highly successful teams within marketing, customer success and operations functions. Adam is also a previous member of the UK Paralympic Sprint Kayaking Team and has competed in multiple World and European Championships.


Adam Swick is the Chief Growth Officer at Marathon Digital Holdings. Prior to joining Marathon, he served as a principal at Refinery Ventures, where he was responsible for identifying and recommending business strategies to accelerate the growth of all companies in Refinery’s portfolio. Before Refinery, Swick was the director of strategic finance at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, where he managed the company’s balance sheet, debt program, investor relations, and all forecasting activities. Prior to Kraken, he founded Swick Capital, a crypto-asset hedge fund, worked at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, and was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group. Swick holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS in finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adrian Brink is the co-founder of Namada and Anoma, where he focuses on building privacy-preserving systems that are resilient to global crises. Previously, he was a core developer at Tendermint (Cosmos) and worked at the Web3 Foundation. He also co-founded Cryptium Labs, which was later sold to Chorus One, and Metastate, where he contributed to major upgrades to the Tezos protocol​.

Adrien Stern is the founder &amp; CEO of Reveel, the omnichain payments infrastructure that enables one-click cross-chain payments to connect people across borders and networks. Before founding Reveel, Adrien led digital transformation efforts at BNP Paribas CIB. He was also previously a venture builder, and owns Bridge Music, a record label and recording studio. Adrien has a Bachelor’s degree in Sciences of Management from The University of Lausanne and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Esade. 

Alex Hoffman is Head of Ecosystem at Superposition Finance. Superposition is revolutionizing DeFi by addressing its core challenges through robust risk management powered by Concordia’s best-in-class risk engine, omnichain functionality, and transparency.

Alexei Zamyatin is a co-founder of BOB, a first-of-its-kind hybrid Layer-2 powered by Bitcoin and Ethereum. He has been a Bitcoin and interoperability research contributor since 2015 and is most known for his work on trustless cross-chain bridges and L2s. Alexei holds a PhD in computer science from Imperial College London.


Alison Haire is the CEO and founder of Lilypad, a serverless, decentralized compute network that democratizes access to computational power by providing scalable infrastructure for AI, machine learning and other high-demand processes. Before founding Lilypad, she held roles at companies such as Filecoin, IBM and Accenture. Under her leadership, Lilypad leverages idle GPU capacity worldwide to fuel an open AI economy, providing cost-effective and scalable compute resources. Her work focuses on making high-performance computing accessible to more developers and researchers, while challenging the dominance of large centralized cloud providers​​.

With over 20 years of experience leading and designing games and tech companies, Alun is well-versed in creating innovative products that tackle experiential and developer challenges. In addition to his stewardship of LAOS Network, he is CEO and co-founder of the company building LAOS, Freeverse, which focuses on building scalable blockchain infrastructure. His history as the co-creator of ‘Barcelona World Race - THE GAME,’ a cutting-edge video game enabling virtual participation in real-world events, and his wider passion for gaming, have fed into his vision for LAOS Network as a solution for the intersection of Web3 tech with both gaming and real-world applications. Alun also led Shar3d.io, a pioneering company enabling collaborative 3D web applications, and served as CTO of Bodypal.com, a virtual garment services company. He holds a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from University College London.



Amanda Cassatt is the founder and CEO of Serotonin. Amanda previously served as Chief Marketing Officer of ConsenSys from 2016 through 2019. Joining one year after the launch of Ethereum, Amanda played a crucial role in defining, creating, and growing the narrative for ConsenSys, Ethereum, and blockchain overall.

Amanda stewarded the ConsenSys brand through its global expansion across enterprises, governments, developers, and consumers. She created and scaled the marketing team to over 50 people, serving both the ConsenSys brand and 50+ portfolio companies such as MetaMask, Infura, Truffle, and Gitcoin; managing teams in product marketing, growth, design, content, community, events, email, analytics and SEO. Amanda’s contributions to some of the most successful product launches, token sales and fundraises landed her on Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016. Amanda is the author of the world's first web3 marketing book, Web3 Marketing: A Handbook for the Next Internet Revolution.

Amanda Keleher currently serves as Chief People Officer at Consensys, one of the largest and fastest-growing companies in the blockchain technology space. A well-rounded business leader with an over 25-year career in the technology space, Amanda is the driving force behind the human element of Consensys where she is responsible for overseeing all of the aspects of people, from building and maintaining the company culture to harnessing human capital as a key driver of business. 

Before joining ConsenSys, Amanda served as the Head of People at ThoughtWorks, a global technology consultancy company, for nearly ten years, where she led the global scale expansion by opening offices around the world and recruiting a diverse workforce at a time when the DevOps movement had just been born and a new skill set were yet to be developed. After her time at ThoughWorks, she served as the Executive Vice President, People &amp; Culture of Index Exchange, one of the world’s premier ad tech organizations; and as VP of People at Little Bits and Intent Media where she excelled in designing effective and creative strategies to attract and retain world-class talent in hyper competitive environments

Andrea Berry is a seasoned online video strategist with 15+ years of experience in transformative media partnerships. 

Her early successes include helping to launch Qello Concerts, the first direct-to-consumer live-music OTT service, later transforming it into Qello Media Services and Vimeo’s OTT channels offering across various industries as their first strategic sales director for their enterprise.

Currently, as the Head of Business Development at Theta Labs, Andrea leverages her expertise in online video and blockchain to drive strategic partnerships and growth opportunities for the company. She helps enterprises take advantage and lean into the opportunities Web3 presents. 

Andrew Redden is the CEO and CTO of Last Network, a blockchain platform focused on sustainable cash flow and reinvestment. Previously, he worked at Gitcoin and has contributed to numerous DeFi and Web3 projects. Redden's career reflects a commitment to developing technologies that prioritize long-term viability and community engagement​.

Andrew Thurman is a Data Editor based in Washington, DC. He previously wrote for CoinDesk and Cointelegraph, and worked in various roles for Chainlink and Nansen. His analysis has been quoted in The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, Reuters, The BBC, CNBC, and elsewhere. Contact Andrew at andrew@blockworks.co.

Andrey Sergeenkov writes educational articles as a freelancer. His works have been published in Coindesk, Cointelegraph, Entrepreneur and CoinMarketCap. He believes that transforming society towards lifelong learning, combined with decentralization in government and business, will lead to exponential social development.

Andy Bromberg is CEO of Beam and Contributor to the Eco Protocol. Eco has raised more than $90 million from an array of leading investors, including a16z Crypto, L Catterton, Activant Capital, Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and others. Prior to Eco, Andy was Co-founder and President of CoinList. Andy is also a founding board member at FreeWorld, a non-profit seeking to end institutionalized poverty in the United States by providing access to living-wage jobs for people with criminal histories. He studied Mathematics and Computer Science at Stanford University and co-founded the Stanford Bitcoin Group.

An established and versatile Financial Executive with over two decades of experience running multiple trading businesses across top-level banks such as HSBC, Barclays, and UBS. After running the top Agency and SSA business for both UBS and Barclays, he took over Emerging Markets macro trading for Barclays. In 2018, wanting to go deeper into Emerging Markets he took a role as Head of Latam local markets trading where he was responsible for trading activities across Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. In 2021 DeMartino moved into Crypto when he became CEO and founder of Coinbase Risk Strategies focused on DeFi and Derivatives trading. More recently he started Trident Digital Group, a crypto-native solutions firm that is focused on lending and safe yield generation and stablecoin adoption.


Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman in 2001. Earlier, he worked in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs &amp; Co.

In 2022, Scaramucci was ranked #47 in Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. In 2016, he was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he received Ernst &amp; Young’s New York Financial Services “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award.  Anthony is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a board member of the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. He is the author of five books.

Scaramucci served on President Donald J. Trump’s 16-person Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, and in 2017 briefly served as Chief Strategy Officer of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and White House Communications Director.

Scaramucci, a native of Long Island, New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Tufts University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

Antoni is a co-founder of Aleph Zero Foundation (Switzerland), an organization overseeing the development of the Aleph Zero blockchain, and a Managing Partner of Cardinal Cryptography (Poland), firm focused on core development of the Aleph Zero ecosystem.

Ari Juels is the Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill Professor in the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion and a Computer Science faculty member at Cornell University. He is a Co-Director of the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3). He is also Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs. He is the author of crypto thriller novel The Oracle (Talos Press), which was released on 20 February 2024.

Austin Alexander is co-founder of LayerTwo Labs, a company focused on advancing the Bitcoin ecosystem through innovative solutions and specializing in the development of Drivechain, a specific type of blockchain sidechain designed to foster creativity and scalability within Bitcoin.

Austin Campbell is the founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Previously, he has run portfolio management at Paxos for the stablecoins as well as being the chief risk officer of Paxos National Trust, has managed fixed income trading desks at JP Morgan and Citi, and has been a portfolio manager and structurer at Stone Ridge, the parent of NYDIG. He holds a BS in Mathematics from CSU Chico and a MBA from NYU Stern.

Ben Mills is the co-founder of Meso, a payments platform connecting banks and blockchains. Prior to Meso, Ben spent a decade building payments products as an early team member at Braintree (acquired by PayPal), as Head of Product at Venmo, and working on Solana Pay at Solana Labs.

Ben Rubin is the CEO and co-founder of Towns, a decentralized messaging platform dedicated to redefining online communication. Rubin has a rich background and a decade of experience in creating digital spaces that build trust and foster human connection. Prior to founding Here Not There Labs, the developer of Towns, Ben founded two venture-backed startups, Meerkat and Houseparty, both of which reimagined how people interact digitally. He scaled his communication products to hundreds of millions of users and raised over $70M in funding from Sequoia Capital and Greylock. After Houseparty was acquired by Epic Games in 2019, Ben went on to found Here Not There Labs, a venture-backed startup with over $30M in funding from a16z crypto and Benchmark Capital.

Ben Strack is a senior reporter covering macro and crypto-native funds, financial advisors, structured products, and the integration of digital assets and DeFi into traditional finance. Prior to joining Blockworks, he covered the asset management industry for Fund Intelligence and was a reporter and editor for various local newspapers on Long Island. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in journalism.

Contact Ben via email at ben@blockworks.co

Bessie is a Brooklyn-based reporter covering DeFi and technology. Bessie worked as a tech journalist for The Org prior to joining Blockworks and was a management consultant for KPMG in another life. She is originally from Melbourne, Australia and holds an MA from New York University. She is also the mother of a bratty cat named Mochi. You can reach Bessie at bessie@blockworks.co

Bezalel Eithan Raviv, an ex-member of IDF Cyber Unit 8200, is a seasoned entrepreneur with deep expertise in technology and innovation. He now leads Lionsgate Network, a blockchain analysis firm specializing in professional money recovery services for digital asset investors in the +$2.5 trillion market. Prior to this role, Bezalel founded an investment banking firm supporting AI startups and developed Halleluiah, a pioneering web3 migration pattern for global music copyrights.

Billy Luedtke is the CEO and founder of Intuition, an information protocol powering a more trustful internet. Billy previously served as senior technology advisor at EY, a leading global professional services organization providing assurance, tax, audit, strategy and transactions. At EY, Billy created the company’s blockchain consulting practice, leading the technical development of blockchain-enabled distributed systems. Billy later became a senior token engineer at Consensys, a leading Ethereum developer (MetaMask, Infura, Linea). Billy continues to serve as an advisor at Consensys and MetaMask.

Billy Sebell is the Executive Director of the XDC Foundation and an early contributor to the XDC Network. Since early 2018, Billy has worked to develop the XDC community, focused on ecosystem and network growth and implementing use cases in trade finance. Billy previously spent more than 25 years in manufacturing and consumer products, dealing with the challenges businesses face in capital markets and international trade.

Bob Bodily is the Provo, Utah-based CEO and Co-Founder of Bioniq, a BTC Ordinals wallet and marketplace. He has a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and a Ph.D. in educational/instructional technology from Brigham Young University, with 25 articles and 1K citations. He is a data engineer with 100K+ lines of production Python code, and he has two previous software startups, including an EdTech SaaS that sold in 2021.


Bogdan is the Co-Founder and CTO of Tenderly, the full-stack infrastructure solutions provider powering Web3 developer teams with the essential tools and services throughout their development journeys. 

Prior to co-founding Tenderly, Bogdan worked as a software engineer for major software platforms such as MVP Workshop and Go Daddy where he was responsible for constructing and managing the development of distributed cloud systems before realizing the lack of infrastructural support for Web3 developers. With his vast experience in constructing, expanding, and overseeing extensive distributed cloud systems, he is well-versed in the intricacies of blockchain technologies and their practical applications. 

Brandon Truong is lead product contributor for ZetaChain. He previously co-founded social platform Yada (which was acquired in 2020) and spent time building products for BuzzFeed and Udacity. 


 Brian Pak is CEO &amp; Co-Founder of ChainLight, an award-winning blockchain security firm that specializes in smart contract audits and on-chain monitoring. He is also a co-founder of Theori, an established US-based offensive cybersecurity company, since 2016, which he still leads today, having now amassed trusted partners including Microsoft, Google and Samsung. Brian’s early career started when he co-founded and developed Kaprica Security, inventing and patenting the Skorpion Charger, an Android mobile charger that can detect malicious software with no user action required. He has worked on research and development projects with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US. Brian is also a founder of the team PPP (Plaid Parliament of Pwning) which won DEF CON CTF, one of the most prestigious hacker competitions held in Las Vegas, in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. Brian graduated with a Masters Degree in Software Security Research from Carnegie Mellon University.

Three years ago, his act of burning a physical Banksy ignited global discourse on NFTs and Web3, exposing the industry's flaws. Now, through XION, founder Burnt Banksy leads a mission to democratize Web3 to the masses, making ownership accessible to all by removing unnecessary barriers and complications through chain abstraction. To date: XION has raised over $36M in funding with the goal of "making crypto disappear." Ultimately, Burnt Banksy wants to provide the benefits of crypto to people without requiring them to know anything about crypto.

Byron Donalds grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and he is also the proud son of a hardworking and loving single mother. His mother dedicated her time instilling in him that greatness requires sacrifice, which drives him as a devoted family man and United States Congressman.  

Byron is a graduate of Florida State University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and marketing. Byron's career led him to Southwest Florida, where he worked in the banking, finance, and insurance industries. Elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, Byron represented Hendry County and east Collier County in the State Capitol. During his tenure in the Florida House, Byron served as the PreK-12 Quality Subcommittee Chair during the 2018-2019 Legislative Session and served as the Insurance &amp; Banking Subcommittee's Chairman 2019-2020 Legislative Session. While serving in the Florida House, primarily focused on elder affairs, criminal justice reform, and ensuring that each child has access to a world-class education. 

Byron is committed to serving and giving back to the community that gave him so much. He has served Southwest Florida in many ways, including previously serving on the Board of Trustees for Florida Southwestern State College after being appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott. Byron continues to volunteer in his church as a youth leader and a mentor. He also enjoys volunteering as a coach in youth football and basketball leagues.

Congressman Byron Donalds lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, Erika, and their three sons: Damon, Darin, and Mason. Byron has spent his entire adult life serving others, whether it be through volunteering, business, or leadership. He is committed to representing Florida's 19th Congressional District's conservative values in Washington DC to ensure a stronger Florida and a stronger nation.

Byron Gilliam writes the Blockworks Daily newsletter, in which he tries to explain crypto markets to traditional investors and traditional markets to crypto investors (while trying to explain both to himself). Before joining Blockworks, Byron spent 25 years trading international equities for banks and brokers in Frankfurt, London, Paris and New York. He holds a bachelor's degree in History from Binghamton University. Contact Byron at byron@blockworks.co.

Cameron B. Pick is a partner and patent attorney at the Chicago-based intellectual property boutique law firm Marshall, Gerstein &amp; Borun. He prosecutes patents for emerging technologies, including blockchain and crypto, among other innovative areas. He may be reached at cpick@marshallip.com. 

Candace Kelly is the Chief Legal and Policy Officer for the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world's financial infrastructure. She leads the team responsible for SDF’s legal affairs and the policy team that is focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors. Previously, Candace worked for Uber Technologies, Inc., where she helped navigate the company’s response to regulatory investigations and advised on safety, security, privacy, consumer protection, and law enforcement response. Prior to that she served for 17 years at the United States Department of Justice.

Carlos Mercado is a data scientist at Flipside Crypto, specializing in the convergence of data science, cryptocurrency, economics, and open-source research. His expertise spans the Ethereum ecosystem and over 20 other blockchains, where he leverages SQL, R, Python, and Solidity to develop innovative data models and analytics tools. Carlos's notable contributions include the creation of the True Freeze DeFi primitive and leading the production of the 2023 Crypto Users Report, generating significant industry impact. Prior to Flipside, he applied his skills in AI strategy and product development at Guidehouse and offered data science consulting services.


​​Casey Wagner is a Senior Reporter based in New York. Casey covers crypto regulation, markets and central banks. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported on macroeconomics at Bloomberg News. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies. Contact Casey via email at casey@blockworks.co

Charles Hoskinson is a Colorado-based technology entrepreneur and mathematician. He attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Boulder to study analytic number theory before moving into cryptography through industry exposure.

His professional experience includes founding three cryptocurrency-related start-ups – Invictus Innovations, Ethereum and IOHK – and he has held a variety of posts in both the public and private sectors. He was the founding chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation’s education committee and established the Cryptocurrency Research Group in 2013.

His current projects focus on educating people about cryptocurrency, being an evangelist for decentralization and making cryptographic tools easier to use for the mainstream. This includes leading the research, design and development of Cardano, a third-generation cryptocurrency that launched in September 2017.

Chris Barrett serves as the Director of Communications at Chainlink Labs and has been involved with Chainlink since 2017. Chainlink is the only on-chain data and cross-chain platform that enables financial institutions to develop customized, flexible, compliant, and future-proof blockchain applications and tokenized assets. Before this role, he founded a leading PR agency for technology startups, where he worked with over 1,000 innovative companies. Chris is also an avid runner, having maintained a streak of running for over five consecutive years. 

Chris Brooks founded CryptoAssetRecovery.com in 2017 to help digital asset owners recover lost assets. Chris was a programmer at Fidelity Investments, VP of Technology at venture-backed Carescout (which sold to GenWorth, a spinoff of General Electric) and has founded and sold three bootstrapped internet companies. 

Chris Swenor is a seasoned entrepreneur and blockchain pioneer with a 20-year career that kicked off as a self-taught programmer at age 13. He swiftly moved from corporate roles into startups, leading several to successful acquisitions. Chris started venturing into blockchain and cryptocurrency in 2013, founding Reach in 2019, a platform that has since attracted over $13M in funding and onboarded more than 8,000 developers.

In recent years, Chris founded Humble, a decentralized exchange on Algorand, and Alloy, a blockchain gaming platform acquired in 2023. He is currently working on Voi Network, a layer 1 blockchain empowering its community with user-centric governance and economics. 

Christopher Perkins is President of CoinFund, a web3 focused Registered Investment Advisor.  He is also a member of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee and its Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee.

Ciarán Murray is a seasoned veteran of the blockchain industry. Aside from advising on numerous blockchain projects over the years, and releasing a synthetics assets proof-of-concept last year, Ciarán previously worked in the media industry for British Sky Broadcasting. He is not only well placed to understand the issues facing the media industry but also how to apply blockchain and other distributed technologies to remedy them.

Da Hongfei is the founder of Neo, an open-source, community-driven blockchain platform designed to welcome developers into the Smart Economy. Hongfei operates as CEO of Neo Global Development (NGD), the executive arm of the Neo Foundation that is committed to developing the Neo protocol and its supporting ecosystem. He is seen as a luminary in the Web3 space and as a blockchain pioneer in Asia. Hongfei received his education at the South China University of Technology, receiving degrees in technology and English.

Damian Alvarez is a communications professional helping Web3 clients get their stories heard. He is currently the Head of Communications at Aori, an omni-chain logic layer that leverages off-chain data storage to enable high-frequency on-chain trading. He has worked at agencies such as Edelman and YAP Global to assist a variety of emerging and established clients to engage in industry-wide narratives surrounding technology. He may be contacted at damian@aori.io.

Dan Keeler is Editor-in-Chief at Blockworks. Prior to joining Blockworks, he was Frontier Markets Editor at the Wall Street Journal where he managed the Journal’s coverage of smaller emerging markets as well as created a number of high-profile events and a highly regarded newsletter. Before joining the WSJ, he was the Editor of Global Finance magazine. He is also the founder of New York’s FM Network, a group that hosts gatherings of finance professionals focused on smaller emerging markets.

Contact Dan via email at dan@blockworks.co

Dan Smith is a Senior Research Analyst based in the United States covering Curve, Convex, Aave, and Compound. Daniel previously worked in tax and valuation at EY and Bennett Thrasher. He is focused on using data visualization tools to better understand the health and profitability of various DeFi protocols. Contact Dan at daniel@blockworks.co

Daniel Batten is a ClimateTech investor, Bitcoin environmental impact analyst, CEO advisor and author. He is most widely known for his data-driven approach to Bitcoin mining research.


Daniel Cawrey has been involved full-time in the crypto space since 2013, including as an editor at CoinDesk. He is author of 2020’s “Mastering Blockchain” and 2023’s “Understanding Crypto” books, both available on Amazon.

Daranee Ganesh is a publishing and production manager based in Washington, DC. She holds an LLB with a focus on emerging technologies. Prior to Blockworks, Daranee worked on several legal and non-profit projects aimed at integrating decentralized solutions in the social justice framework, specifically within immigration and environmental law. Contact Daranee at daranee@blockworks.co.

Darren Kleine is an Alberta-based reporter covering podcast content at Blockworks. Previously reporting for Cointelegraph, he wrote feature content and a weekly series focused on the personal stories of influential figures in the Web3 space. He has been an active participant in the NFT art scene since 2020, creating works on curated platforms including SuperRare and KnownOrigin and hosting an NFT art-focused podcast called NFP with DKleine. Contact Darren Kleine at darren@blockworks.co.

David is an Editor based in the Netherlands focused on data-driven journalism. Previously, he wrote for TheNextWeb's crypto vertical before launching Protos in 2021. He's a reformed hardline Bitcoiner passionate about permissionless and decentralized networks. Contact David at david@blockworks.co

David Schwed serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Halborn, an elite blockchain security firm. Prior to Halborn, he was the Global Head of Digital Assets Technology at BNY Mellon, the world's biggest custodian bank, where he integrated the IT strategy for the company's digital asset services. David was also CISO for Galaxy Digital, where he led the development of information security and IT infrastructure, and served as a risk committee advisor, evaluating emerging threats in financial services. He also founded the Cybersecurity Master's Program at Yeshiva University’s Katz School of Science and Health, sharing his expertise as a practitioner-in-residence.


Delphine Forma is the policy lead for Europe &amp; UK at Solidus Labs, a leading market compliance and market integrity firm in digital assets. With a career spanning roles in major banks and blockchain ventures, she brings extensive experience in compliance and legal across sectors. She is the founder of the crypto compliance and legal TG group with 1,400 members. A Sciences Po Lyon alumna, Delphine also holds advanced degrees in European Criminal Business Law and anti-money laundering.

Denelle Dixon is the CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization focused on working with and supporting changemakers to create equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology. She leads the teams that help maintain Stellar's codebase, support the communities around Stellar, and advocate on behalf of the network with international stakeholders. Before joining Stellar, Dixon served as COO of Mozilla, one of the most successful mission-driven open-source organizations.. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams including the ongoing fight for net neutrality and the global effort to ensure that people can control their personal data.

Dermot O’Riordan serves as a Director at the POKT Network Foundation where he helps steer product development and strategy. From Ireland to Silicon Valley, Dermot’s career ranged from advising tech companies and VC firms to leading marquee industry events. His interest in Web3 was sparked in 2016 with the rise of DAOs, leading him to dive deeper into the blockchain space, where he served as an advisor to projects like Radix and Dusk, and later, spearheading growth at Eden Block.

Donovan is a reporter based in Singapore. He previously worked in editorial at Bankless and is a huge fan of spaghetti Westerns and the Wu-Tang Clan. Contact Donovan at donovan@blockworks.co.

Elena leads product marketing at Hiro Systems, a developer tooling company bringing smart contracts to Bitcoin. She has spent the past six years working in blockchain and cryptocurrency startups. Elena co-founded Blockchain Latinx, an online community that explores what blockchain means for Latinos and for Latin America. She has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Eli Cohen is a corporate lawyer with 25+ years of experience in commercial transactions, financial services and regulatory matters and has worked in Asia, Europe and the United States. He is the General Counsel for Centrifuge, a real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and securitization platform and Chief Compliance Officer for Anemoy Capital SPC Limited a British Virgin Islands fund company issuer of the tokenized Anemoy Liquid Treasury Fund 1. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, has a Masters in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Eli Zeger writes about democracy and its relationship with technology. His work has been published in the Boston Review, Noema Magazine, Strange Matters, Zora Zine, among numerous other publications.

Elliot is the Head of Climate Strategy at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, where he is helping unlock Bitcoin's clean energy potential by bridging sustainable miners and climate-conscious investors. In his role at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, Elliot educates policymakers and NGOs on Bitcoin’s relationship with the energy system. He is a climatetech operator focused on alleviating energy poverty, bridging the digital divide, and promoting financial inclusion through technologies such as Bitcoin. Elliot was previously a Schwarzman Scholar and has served in the military, US Department of Energy, Clinton Foundation, and more. 

Evan Thomas is General Counsel for Alluvial, a software development company supporting the Liquid Collective liquid staking protocol. He was previously at Wealthsimple, Canada’s largest consumer fintech, where he was Head of Legal for Wealthsimple’s crypto trading platform. While at Wealthsimple, Evan helped launch Canada’s first regulated staking product. Before Wealthsimple, Evan was a litigator at Osler, Hoskin &amp; Harcourt LLP for nearly 15 years. Among other notable cases, Evan was hearing counsel to 3iQ Corp. in its appeal securing regulatory approval for Canada’s first publicly traded bitcoin fund in 2019.

Felix Jauvin is the host of the On the Margin podcast. Based in British Columbia, Canada, he lives and breathes where crypto and macroeconomics intersect.

Felix Xu, crypto geek, early adopter, and NFT collector. Felix graduated from NYU Stern and founded two crypto projects, ARPA and Bella Protocol, among the global top 500 by market cap. Felix previously worked at Fosun Investment, Sackler family office, and Vertical Research in New York and Beijing. Felix loves sailing, kitesurfing and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for his NFT collection.

Frank has a diverse career that spans creative writing, day trading, and a 12-year stint in financial planning. After experimenting with blockchain and being an early adapter to the Solana ecosystem, Mathis co-founded GenesysGo in 2021 to create a faster, more reliable and more secure decentralized data storage protocol. Their flagship product, shdwDrive is built on Solana and aims to bridge the gap between blockchain technology and traditional business infrastructure. GenesysGo is powered by a new type of decentralized data storage consensus mechanism, built from the ground up by the GenesysGo team.

Fraser is co-founder &amp; CTO of Cubist and an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. She is an expert in software correctness: her research focuses on systems security, automated bug finding, and formal verification, from verifying (parts of) production systems like browser JITs, to finding exploitable bugs in real codebases. Her tools have found many zero-day bountied bugs and CVEs in the Chrome and Firefox browsers and multiple operating systems. Fraser received her BA in English and her MS and PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.


Garrett Harper is the producer for the Empire podcast. Garrett worked in private equity and product management before jumping into crypto full-time in 2021. His favorite thing about crypto? It conflates art, gaming, finance, software, and psychology into one hyper-growth industry.

Gijs op de Weegh is the CEO and Founder of StablR, where he leads the strategy, business operations, and investor relations. He founded StablR out of his passion for implementing blockchain technology in the financial industry and exploring its possibilities. Before founding StablR, Gijs co-founded Payvision, an e-commerce payment service provider, in 2002. Under his leadership, Payvision grew to over 300 employees and achieved a turnover exceeding €4 billion.

Gísli Kristjánsson is co-founder and CTO of Monerium, the first company to issue fiat onchain. He fell in love with programming at the age of 13. After working as a bonds broker, Gísli saw the inefficiencies of securities settlements firsthand and recognized the potential of Bitcoin. Prior to co-founding Monerium in 2015, Gísli founded and sold a platform to give users access to geo-blocked content. Fun fact: Gísli’s Ethereum address is among the 1% of the oldest addresses.

Haden Patrick is Director of Business Operations of Cordial Systems, a provider of institutional-grade self custody software using a Zero Trust security model.  Haden has executive experience in team leadership, engineering and education originating from his 24 year career as a Naval Officer. After co-founding SoloKeys, the first open-source security key company, he went on to manage projects connecting web3 to traditional finance at a cryptocurrency trading firm before joining Cordial Systems.

Hadley Stern, Advisor to MPCH, has extensive experience in leadership roles within TradFi and digital asset industries. As Global Head of Custody at the Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM) from 2021 to 2023, Hadley spearheaded the creation of the industry’s first bank-grade crypto-custody platform. Hadley also previously served as Chief Operating Officer at Bloq where he was responsible for the P&amp;L, product roadmap, and general operations. Hadley was Founding President of Fidelity Digital Asset Services where he led Fidelity's Blockchain Incubator and Digital Currency group and was pivotal in early product launches, including activating Bitcoin donations to Fidelity Charitable and building and running Fidelity first Bitcoin mining Operation.



Hannah Finnerty is Blockworks' editorial operations manager and is based in the US. Hannah previously worked in podcast production for The National in Abu Dhabi. She graduated from Bowling Green State University with a degree in multiplatform journalism and Middle Eastern politics. Contact Hannah at hannah@blockworks.co.

Hatu Sheikh is the co-founder and CMO of DAO Maker, the largest on-chain funding platform with 1.5M+ users. The platform's contracts have distributed over $600M, with a cumulative return of around 10x. Hatu has a strong background in marketing and strategy and has played a pivotal role in driving the success of various blockchain-based projects and tokens, crafting effective marketing strategies, and forging powerful synergies within the industry.

Harry Duckworth, a law graduate, embarked on a unique journey that led him to become the youngest trader at global commodities giant Trafigura. He then went on to set up desks for several hedge funds worldwide, accumulating over a decade of experience in trading, hedge funds, and emergent technologies. 

Through his work, he became fascinated by the revolutionary power of blockchain tech soon after the inception of Bitcoin. Years later he founded AgriDex International, to provide digital marketplaces and supply chain information for all participants in the global food chain. 

Hind Kurhan is a Co-Founder of Thesis Defense, a decentralized technology security auditing company whose mission is the facilitation of broad adoption of decentralized technology by improving security and audit consistency throughout the blockchain sphere.


Ian Rogers is the Chief Experience Officer at Ledger, leading the consumer-facing business delivering the world’s #1 way to buy and secure cryptocurrency.  Prior, Ian was the Chief Digital Officer at LVMH for five transformative years, working with a portfolio of nearly one hundred brands across luxury including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Sephora, and Hennessy.  Ian also sits on the boards of Dr Marten’s and Lyst.

Ian spent twenty years bringing digital music to the mainstream, first with Winamp then Yahoo!, Beats, and Apple.  Ian contributed to the 2015 launch of Apple Music including Beats 1, their digital streaming channel. Ian graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science (with honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from Indiana University in 1994.  Ian built some of the earliest music-related Web sites in the early 90s and has been working with Beastie Boys since 1993.

Igor Telyatnikov is the CEO and co-founder of the blockchain and financial services technology company AlphaPoint. Headquartered in New York, AlphaPoint supports over 10 million users, powering marketplaces and wallets in over 35 countries. With 15 years of experience in tech and innovation, Igor has empowered over 150 clients, including CME Group and Scotiabank. In 2022, he partnered with the Government of El Salvador to upgrade its Chivo Wallet into a national Bitcoin and dollar wallet, creating the first nationalized crypto ecosystem. Igor previously held roles at Cvetlo, LiftDNA, and Ingersoll Rand/Allegion, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing from Penn State University. He is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Ishan is a University of Texas McCombs School of Business graduate with a BBA in Finance &amp; Marketing. He founded and managed a Private Equity Fund that reached an eight-figure Assets Under Management (AUM) and has also gained experience with many top 200 projects of crypto market cap. In 2022, he helped found SCRIB3, a Web3 Marketing and PR venture. He was notably among the first to raise an alert about potential deceptive and unethical business practices by FTX. Ishan contributes as a DeFi analyst, an active angel investor, and an advisor in projects like Polygon Technologies.

Jack Kubinec is a Solana ecosystem reporter based in Brooklyn, New York. Jack previously interned at Blockworks before joining full-time. He graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University with a degree in sociology. Contact Jack at jack.kubinec@blockworks.co.

Jag is the CEO and co-founder of re.al, an L2 build to facilitate deep onchain liquidity for tokenized RWAs. re.al seeks to redefine how RWAs are integrated into DeFi, using yield-generating real-world assets as novel building blocks in existing DeFi primitives.

James Cirrone is a breaking news reporter based in New York. Prior to joining Blockworks, James was a reporter and newsletter writer at Bloomberg News. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in journalism. He also played trumpet in the university’s marching band. Contact James via email at james.cirrone@blockworks.co.

Jason Allegrante is the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Fireblocks. He is an experienced Counsel with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry with both large, traditional financial institutions as well as early stage fintech startups.



Jason Dehni is the co-founder and group CEO of Credbull, a leading DeFi platform offering structured high fixed yield solutions in SME private credit. Jason has over 25 years of senior management experience in asset management, private banking, SME lending, insurance, risk management, and crypto across North America, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. His background includes serving as group COO &amp; MENA CEO of a publicly traded crypto asset management company, co-founder &amp; CEO of an SME trade finance platform, and senior leadership roles in asset management, wealth management,  insurance, and management consulting. Jason holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an Honours BA in Economics &amp; Political Science from the University of Toronto. 

Jean-Marie Mognetti is Chief Executive Officer of CoinShares, a publicly listed investment firm that manages over five billion in digital assets on behalf of a global investor base, and an experienced commodities trader with a background in quantitative strategies. A veteran of the Global Advisors group of companies since 2011, Jean-Marie has served in various leadership roles throughout his tenure, most recently as CEO of Global Advisors (Jersey) Limited and director of GABI, the world’s first regulated Bitcoin fund. In addition to his management responsibilities as CEO, Jean-Marie oversees the firm’s proprietary trading arm, capital markets portfolio, and risk management practices – areas in which he has developed unique expertise over his career. Prior to joining Global Advisors, Jean-Marie was a quantitative strategist with Hermes Commodities Fund Managers, and an Energy Trader Assistant at Lehman Brothers. He holds Master of Science degrees in Mathematical Trading and Finance from Sir John Cass Business School in London, and Bank-Finance-Insurance from Université Paris Dauphine in Paris, in addition to a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Finance from Université Paris Dauphine.

Jeff is an editor at Blockworks, based in the United States. He has been a part of the blockchain space for over a decade, most recently working as US news editor at Cointelegraph. His areas of focus include empowering artists and creators through technology, using proof-of-participation methods to reward self-improvement, reducing the effectiveness of Sybil attacks, seeking transparent equity for disadvantaged communities, and exploring fairer models of world governance. Contact Jeff at Jeffrey@blockworks.co.

Jesper Johansen is the founder and CEO of NORTHSTAKE, a regulated custodial staking company specialized in building regulatory compliant crypto staking products for institutional investors and financial institutions. The team holds backgrounds from financial institutions, pension funds, large investment companies to consulting, technology and audit firms, such as Accenture, Deloitte, PwC as well as blockchain and crypto projects e.g. DAI Foundation (MakerDao), Ethereum and L1/L2s. 

Prior to NORTHSTAKE, Jesper held leadership positions with Accenture Strategy and Deloitte Consulting advising clients in heavily regulated industries to implement new technologies and drive business transformation. He holds a MBA from Copenhagen Business School and a B.Sc. in International Business. 

Jess is the CEO of Reown, the onchain UX platform and builders of the WalletConnect Network. Previously she led Crypto at Checkout.com, a global fintech company. Jess was also a member of the Bank of England CBDC Engagement Forum and a member of UK Finance New Digital Money Steering Group, Innovate Finance Fintech Strategy Group and Department for International Trade Fintech Group.

Jess Sun is an independent writer and content strategist. She loves bringing good ideas to light, helping the people behind them shine, and bridging gaps in understanding. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn. Go to her website to learn about working with her.

Jesse Knutson is the head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, where he is responsible for expanding the platform’s issuance pipeline, overseeing distribution and building its user base while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Prior to this role, Knutson served as vice president of financial products at Blockstream, and held roles at prominent investment banks including Macquarie Group and Barclays.

Jim Myers is an engineer, early-stage investor, and the CTO &amp; Co-Founder of Flipside Crypto, a leading blockchain data analytics and business intelligence platform. Prior to co-founding Flipside, Jim developed the core technology that took products from 0 to 1 at companies such as Mylestone, Pluralsight, and Smarterer. Jim’s journey into the crypto industry began in 2015, eventually co-founding Flipside Crypto in 2017 to help empower crypto communities to create and share data-driven insights on the projects they care most about. Jim's passion for building extends to the broader startup community via his developer event series, Stack Dive, and as an angel investor to several local Boston-area startups, including AdHawk and LinkSquares. In a previous life, Jim developed advanced models to quantify risk and abnormal returns in the market for Financial Transmission Rights, a type of energy derivative.

JJ is an advisor, mentor and co-founder working across Bitcoin, mining and web3. He currently mentors for Outlier Ventures new Bitcoin Base Camp program and has co-founded a new protocol operating in stealth mode.

Joey is ranked by Chambers and Partners as one of the top 12 lawyers in the world, advising many of the largest platforms around the globe in the space. He co-chaired the Gibraltar Government’s working group on Blockchain for 3 years, which was established to develop the infrastructure to accommodate a DLT regulatory framework. Joey is also a specialist consultant to the United Nations and trains and assesses authorities primarily around South East Asia in virtual asset developments, DeFi and regulation. He is a member of several think tanks including the prestigious global ‘Wharton Reg@Tech’ initiative, the Blockchain Industry Parliamentary Roundtable on Blockchain Technologies at Parliament in the UK, and also contributed to the UK Law Society on the Blockchain Legal and Regulatory Guidance publication. He was the Xapo Representative on the Libra/Diem Association and has also contributed to various stablecoin and CBDC developments. 

Joeyz Yu is an entrepreneur with over 18 years of experience in product design and development. He co-founded Sending Labs to revolutionize communication protocols and social applications for Web3, leading the development of their flagship products SendingMe and SendingNetwork. Previously, Joeyz co-founded MoboTab, where he created the Dolphin Browser, used by over 200 million users and later acquired by ChangYou. Joeyz's passion for empowering users and building exceptional teams drives his mission to shape the future of the internet. 

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"/>



A recent <a href="https://institutional.fidelity.com/app/proxy/content?literatureURL=/9919383.PDF">report</a> by Fidelity Investments proposes valuing blockchains on the basis of GDP:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“&#8230; it is more appropriate to compare decentralized blockchains to sovereign nations and their economies rather than web2 companies or products because of the embedded currency.”
</blockquote>



Here’s the GDP formula: C + I + G + (X-M)



C is consumption, I is business investment, G is government spending, X is exports and M is imports, so X-M is net exports.



Fidelity uses ETH as an example. So, when you transpose the GDP formula onto Ethereum blockchain metrics:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>C = What users are spending as gas, to use Uniswap or mint an NFT.</li>



<li>I = The quantity of staked assets or capital in liquidity pools.</li>



<li>G = Ethereum Foundation expenditure, issued ETH to validators.</li>



<li>X-M = How much stablecoins are minted/burned, bridge flows to/from other chains and DePIN rewards.</li>
</ul>



You can see the entire table here:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfyTJf0piPqpmVIcMBsyMfofyMbY6wWS1zKLD6mgrA-h-svRVRnh5hRnSEJYXVFUim1lp0NZkQ-GjoXtZ2i7ij_vDcgkBpCB-Wg5hxDGE9_5Z7HI58hmVhh6vA2YDeRMNakHG-Dkw?key=H7PIMkWaKDi-W3xgFCjV2w" alt="" style="width:691px;height:auto"/></figure>



It’s a comprehensive effort by Fidelity, but it provokes some questions.



GDP is a measure of domestic production. Think “the value of everything made here.” When a country exports, that’s domestic production. When it imports, that’s spending. That’s why we “net” imports for GDP.



But if millions of stablecoins are bridged onto (import) or off of (export) Ethereum, that bloats a blockchain’s “GDP” even though nothing productive occurs onchain.



Contrast that to when a stablecoin is minted onchain, or when a Helium miner is paid in tokens for providing a useful mobile cellular service. These are productive “imports” that would rightfully count toward a blockchain’s “GDP.”



So measuring “net exports” by bridge flows is conceptually sound, but it needs to account for CEX cold-wallet sweeps, as Blockworks’ Dan Smith aptly pointed out.



<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">Fidelity’s buildout of blockchain GDP in its recent report is interesting, certainly the most robust I’ve seen I think the biggest challenge id net exports. This category is heavily impacted by CEX cold wallet rebalancing, and it’s very unclear how impactful this truly is on… <a href="https://t.co/k5IV0FS0hE">pic.twitter.com/k5IV0FS0hE</a>&mdash; Dan Smith (@smyyguy) <a href="https://twitter.com/smyyguy/status/1942942668079652922?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Explicit in Fidelity’s valuation model is also the claim that L1 tokens should be valued on the basis of “money,” or more specifically: a medium of exchange and store of value.



Fidelity argues: “Ether is the dominant trading pair on exchanges and serves as a primary asset to borrow against.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcDt-cXfhDnuFXFxkEUEn7ADy2AVyXIjhEdaXOGPyVctA3Lmk7tMmSPwie4EQIP8iDAZ6Sfj8t6SKgMCyaUqBfu2_afJrpShwMKAAthpPRtEWuQf4wjsvLsLvqiJon8fuf4v5G1cA?key=H7PIMkWaKDi-W3xgFCjV2w" alt=""/></figure>



I think that at best justifies the “medium of exchange” aspect of money, but is silent on the “unit of account” aspect.



Early crypto investors have questioned the ability of L1 tokens to serve as a unit of account. As John Pfeffer <a href="https://hostingfilesonline.co.uk/An%20Investor%27s%20Take%20on%20Cryptoassets%20v6.pdf">wrote</a> back in 2017:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“It is thus overly simplistic to assume that people will hoard that which they use to make payments as opposed to converting their store of value via the payment rail at the time of payment in the exact amount needed and for as little time as possible.”
</blockquote>



Account abstraction (ERC-4337) even formalizes this reality, since it enables paying gas fees in any ERC-20 token. That vastly improves the user experience but it removes the need to hoard ETH, thereby undermining the “monetary premium” of the L1 token.



<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">wow, we&#39;re really peddling the eth = digital oil narrative at a time when account abstraction is taking off and ETH is being disintermediated by stablecoins as payment and trading asset practically everywhere?&mdash; Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) <a href="https://twitter.com/hasufl/status/1942928343495508027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The final aspect of why I think the GDP analogy is somewhat strained looks to accounting for staked ETH under the “Investment” bucket of GDP.



Staking locks up existing assets, but no new productive capacity is created.



In economist jargon, it doesn’t push the “production possibilities frontier” in the same way investment does in the real economy.



So the “I” in blockchain GDP loses its predictive link to future growth.



Even worse: LP deposits can migrate and earn purely extractive airdrops or MEV.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

0xResearch Newsletter

Fidelity is valuing ETH as money

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"/>



Remix, which began under the name Farcade, has closed a seed funding round led by Archetype bringing its total funding thus far to $6.75 million, Blockworks has exclusively learned.&nbsp;



Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Lemniscap, and Zynga cofounder Justin Waldron also participated in the $5 million seed round.&nbsp;



Remix is part vibe-coding gaming tool, part consumer-facing game platform. The mini app has seen over 570,000 players so far across 800 live <a href="https://x.com/NeonCrypto8/status/1939206160898498702">games</a> that have been played over 17 million times, the team says.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Farcade began about eight months ago when its cofounders initially thought they wanted to build a Mario Party-style experience.&nbsp;



“We built this tool internally to help us build games. And we ended up building about five or six games in the first day,” Remix cofounder Charlie, who prefers not to share his last name publicly, told me in an interview.



“The craziest part was, like, how little hand-holding we needed to do. The AI basically wrote all of the code. And so there was basically this, like, epiphany moment where we just thought that was gonna be the future of gaming,” he said.&nbsp;



“That really inspired this idea of building a social network for games, or a TikTok for games, where instead of scrolling a feed of videos, you&#8217;re scrolling a feed of games, and you can just instantly play those games as they come into your feed.”



Last week, the startup officially <a href="https://x.com/RemixGG_/status/1940136705086132259">rebranded</a> to Remix in part because the platform itself has expanded beyond just Farcaster (and isn’t affiliated with the Farcaster team).&nbsp;



Game creators using <a href="https://remix.gg/">Remix</a> can type in their own prompts or, ultimately, “remix” others’ games by combining elements together or making modifications to “ship” a new version. Charlie described the process as a bit like a game of telephone.



This turns mobile game development into something fast and fun, not to mention virtually free, for creators. Of course, the final products are AI-reliant and could have bugs or might feel repetitive for players if they encounter many in a row that are the same style.&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">last week we hosted our first game jam with @farcade_ai and the results are in: &#8211; 110+ games submitted &#8211; 150,000 sessions in &lt;1 week &#8211; 2,700+ hours played Doodles is everywhere. new formats = new ways to experience the Doodleverse. grab the 🍿 &amp; get ready for what’s next. <a href="https://t.co/5KSBDEUn8a">pic.twitter.com/5KSBDEUn8a</a>&mdash; doodles (@doodles) <a href="https://twitter.com/doodles/status/1932129588911460648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



But Remix is tapping into the current vibe-coding trend that’s gained attention across crypto and AI.



Remix plans to eventually monetize by taking a cut from ads and in-app purchases in the games it hosts.&nbsp;



On the creator side, game makers will be given the ability to sell in-game items and pay to boost the discoverability of their games in the Remix feed.&nbsp;



“When anyone can build apps,” Charlie said, “we think the demand for eyeballs is really just going to go exponential from here. And that demand for eyeballs is already extremely high. And so if you can have a platform that solves that for people — or if you&#8217;ve created a game and Remix is the best place for you to get your first 100 gamers or 1,000 gamers — we think there&#8217;s a lot of opportunity to monetize it from that side.”



<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">Imagine if Remix was 1,000 apps Today we’re launching Snap Apps, individual apps for our best games It&#39;s a new way for creators on Remix to release their games across many platforms like World, Farcaster, Base, and more. <a href="https://t.co/N2gtFR9rEb">pic.twitter.com/N2gtFR9rEb</a>&mdash; Remix (formerly Farcade) (@RemixGG_) <a href="https://twitter.com/RemixGG_/status/1942632356508229977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Currently, Remix’s main onchain element is that users can connect their Farcaster and World identities to the mini app. But their onchain monetization toolkit is slated to launch in a few weeks.&nbsp;



Remix is available on Telegram (using TON) and the EVM-powered World app as well. It will also launch on Coinbase’s new wallet app, right now referred to as TBA, when that goes live.&nbsp;



Based on the upcoming Coinbase event next week on July 16, it’s likely the Coinbase Wallet overhaul will be unveiled then. This bit supports what we’ve heard and seen about the new Coinbase Wallet so far — that it goes far beyond just trading tokens and has social and gaming elements.



“Remix comes at a pivotal moment at the intersection of rocket-speed AI capability, endless digital distribution, and robust token mechanisms that allows users to totally own the ways they engage,” said Archetype Principal Katie Chiou.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Gaming

Exclusive: Remix raises $5M in seed funding to become ‘TikTok for games’

Byron Gilliam

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



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.”



— Jensen Huang, on building resiliency
</blockquote>



The history of the world’s most valuable company is a study in how improbable its survival was, let alone its success.



In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+nvidia+way&amp;crid=N16XBIMZV1DG&amp;sprefix=the+nvidia+way%2Caps%2C179&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss_1">The Nvidia Way</a>, Tae Kim tells the story of how Nvidia, founded in 1993, emerged from the small and volatile market for graphics chips — an industry in which everyone was always &#8220;thirty days from going out of business,&#8221; as Jensen Huang constantly reminded his employees.



That was more or less true for much of Nvidia’s existence, not only because money was tight for most of its existence, but because graphics chips were so interchangeable that one poorly designed product could sink the company.



After Nvidia’s first two chips were poorly designed, the company really was just weeks away from insolvency.



“We were just bad at our jobs,” Jensen told Kim, who refers to Huang by his adopted first name throughout.



(Born in Taiwan, Jen-Hsun Huang anglicized his first name because his parents sent him to a reform school for juvenile delinquents in Kentucky under the mistaken impression it was a boarding school for high achievers.)



Nvidia’s third chip only happened because Jensen took what little venture capital the company had left and gambled it all on an accelerated production process to get it done while he could still make payroll.



It was a hit and the company survived another cycle.



No one was more surprised than the industry leader at the time, 3dfx, which was forming plans to buy Nvidia out of bankruptcy.&nbsp;



But shortly thereafter, Nvidia was the industry leader and 3dfx was bankrupt.&nbsp;



(Nvidia bought 3dfx’s patents out of bankruptcy and hired 100 of their engineers.)



Nvidia would continue to &#8220;oscillate between near-death experiences and market-defining success,” Kim writes, which does much to explain the company’s culture — the world’s largest company still operates as if it’s 30 days from going out of business.



Much of that is a reflection of Jensen’s personality.



As Kim documents, the billionaire tech founder spends nearly all of his waking hours working, including weekends and holidays.



“Work is how I relax,” he explained to employees who asked why he was bombarding them with emails from a beach.&nbsp;&nbsp;



He expected his employees to do the same and they mostly did: Local competitors took notice that the employee parking lot at Nvidia’s Santa Clara headquarters was typically full on nights and weekends.



Even so, Jensen was tough on them.



His method of managing people, in his own words, was to &#8220;torture them into greatness.&#8221;



That wasn’t always appreciated.



Jensen used to save his most scathing performance reviews for all-company meetings, believing that a public dressing-down was an opportunity for everyone to learn from someone’s mistake.



(“Feedback is learning. For what reason should you be the only person to learn from this?”)



Many talented engineers left the company because of that kind of treatment: “It was the most embarrassing, humiliating thing I’ve ever seen,” an executive told Kim of one such incident.&nbsp;



But Jensen was equally hard on himself: &#8220;I look in the mirror every morning and say, ‘You suck.’&#8221;



Nvidia adopted that harsh personality — the “Nvidia way” of Kim’s title is essentially the mindmeld between Jensen and the company he co-founded with two friends.



(One co-founder quit the company in 2000 and sold his entire stake for about $30 million. His 3.5% of the company would be worth about $140 billion today.)



That may have made Nvidia the most unpleasant place to work in Silicon Valley, but it’s made it a survivor.



Even when Nvidia had survived long enough to IPO in 1999, people doubted its chances of holding on much longer.



“Why would we invest in a graphics company?” one investor asked. “You would be the 40th we’ve backed, and all the others have gone out of business. Why would we do this?” The reason, Kim’s story makes clear, was Jensen.



His maniacal work habits, adopted by the whole company, kept Nvidia alive in the early years, and his uncanny ability to see around corners kept Nvidia at the cutting edge of technology.



Jensen was among the first to recognize that PC gaming would be a bigger market for graphics chips than business workstations.



He was among the first to recognize that graphics chips, like CPUs, could become programmable “general processing units” by running software, which Nvidia went on to invent.



(Nvidia contracted Mythbusters to create a <a href="https://youtu.be/Ge-g3xZ5bb8?si=SPTyEY68TD6unfYd">fun explainer</a> on the difference between GPUs and CPUs.)



Most importantly, he was among the first to recognize that GPUs would become the enabling technology of AI.



The same GPUs that Nvidia had optimized to do the math behind the arc of an arrow in Zelda turned out to be uncannily well-suited for the matrix math that powers today’s AI models.



From afar, it seems like Nvidia lucked into it: GPUs just happened to be good for AI and Nvidia just happened to make them.



But Kim&#8217;s account shows that Jensen spotted the breakthrough progress in deep-learning AI while it was still an academic curiosity.



It’s hard to imagine any other CEO being that early to such a deeply technical trend — and impossible to imagine any of them betting their company on it.



“Deep learning is going to be really big,” he told Nvidia executives in 2013, nine years before the release of ChatGPT. “We should go all in.”



Only with hindsight was that an obvious thing to do.



At the time, Nvidia sales were stagnant, its market capitalization was just $8 billion and its shares traded on 10x P/E, net of cash.



Nvidia’s own investors were so low on the company’s prospects that they badgered Jensen into spending $1 billion of the company’s cash buying back shares; they thought there was nothing else to do with it.&nbsp;



Fortunately, Jensen was simultaneously investing billions in getting Nvidia ready for the AI moment that hardly anyone else saw coming.



In many ways, Jensen created that moment.



Without the billions that Nvidia invested in optimizing its chips and software for AI (years before they could show investors any return on it), the ChatGPT phenomenon would not have happened how and when it did.



Nvidia’s GPUs made large-scale deep learning feasible and they wouldn’t have made them with any other CEO.



“Jensen Huang is surely the only person who could have gotten Nvidia to where it is today,” Kim concludes.



There was a lot of pain and suffering along the way.



But there’s no other way a graphics chip startup becomes the world’s most valuable company.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The Breakdown Newsletter

The first $4T company

Katherine Ross

Jack Kubinec

Pump.fun plans to share 25% of platform revenue with holders of its token, four sources familiar tell Blockworks. 



The team allegedly told insiders about the arrangement leading up to its public announcement, multiple people said.



Earlier Wednesday, pump.fun said that the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-fun-token-ico-date">initial coin offering for its PUMP token</a> would go live on Saturday, July 12.&nbsp;



Dragonfly Capital’s Haseeb Qureshi posted on X regarding the PUMP revenues, noting that it’ll be “one of the highest gross revenue tokens in crypto.”&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Wow, this video&#8230;<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24PUMP&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$PUMP</a> is going to be getting 25% of Pump revenues, so beyond one of the largest ICOs ever, this will be one of the highest gross revenue tokens in crypto. (not an investor) <a href="https://t.co/MYS0NlUxiY">https://t.co/MYS0NlUxiY</a>&mdash; Haseeb ＞|＜ (@hosseeb) <a href="https://twitter.com/hosseeb/status/1942948311545307303?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



In June, 6th Man Ventures’ Mike Dudas <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozFYpCovPdY">told</a> Blockworks’ Lightspeed podcast: “So I would imagine there&#8217;s going to be some element of putting revenue to work on behalf of token holders. I won&#8217;t get too specific about that and that there&#8217;s also going to be some component of a token that rewards folks who use the platform.”



6MV is an <a href="https://x.com/mdudas/status/1942951510742016109">investor</a> in pump.fun.



Pump.fun didn’t immediately return a request for comment.



According to the tokenomics shared by the team, 33% of PUMP will be sold in the ICO, while 13% was allocated to existing investors. In total, the fully diluted value is around $4 billion.&nbsp;



Of that 33%, an initial 18% goes to institutional purchasers, with 15% going to a public sale.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gate-publishes-removes-pump-fun-token">Gate publishes then removes pump.fun token sale page</a>



“Both private sale and public sale purchasers are on the exact same terms,” the team said. Doing some napkin <a href="https://x.com/whosknave/status/1942956245331370390">math</a>, that works out to be $720 million from private investors at the $4 billion FDV.



<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"><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24PUMP&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$PUMP</a> will have a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000,000 and will be distributed as follows: 33% will be sold in the Initial Coin Offering 24% reserved for community and ecosystem initiatives 20% to the team 2.4% to the ecosystem fund 2% for the foundation 13% to existing investors… <a href="https://t.co/0SmmEK16O9">pic.twitter.com/0SmmEK16O9</a>&mdash; pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) <a href="https://twitter.com/pumpdotfun/status/1942947291083493495?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“While the token will be fully functional at launch, we’re giving thorough consideration to utility mechanisms like fee rebates, token buybacks, or other incentives and promotions,” the pump.fun team said in the announcement on X.&nbsp;



US and UK investors will not be able to participate in the ICO, the team added.



Blockworks <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">previously reported</a> that pump.fun planned a $1 billion token sale at the $4 billion valuation.&nbsp;



Jack Kubinec contributed reporting.



Updated Wednesday, July 9 at 4:13 pm ET: Added additional source confirmation.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Pump.fun plans 25% revenue share with token holders: Sources

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"/>



It’s July 9. The 90-day pause on most of President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs was supposed to end today, but the start date has once again been pushed back. Color me surprised.&nbsp;



The White House now says most countries have until August 1 to secure trade agreements, or else the new levies go into effect. For real this time.&nbsp;



Investors seem decently optimistic that deals will materialize. Markets were modestly in the green this afternoon, with the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite up 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively, at 2 p.m. ET. Similarly, BTC was flat, up 0.1% at that time.&nbsp;



To recap the current tariff situation: Trump posted copies of letters he sent to 14 countries — including Japan and South Korea — on Monday. He said that seven more letters should go out today.&nbsp;



During yesterday’s cabinet meeting, Trump also revealed a new tariff on copper of 50%. The president did not specify when, exactly, this rate will go into effect.&nbsp;



US copper prices had already been on the rise on expectations of higher levies, but Tuesday’s announcement sent premiums to new highs. The US price premium over the global benchmark reached 138% yesterday.&nbsp;



US copper prices closed Tuesday 13% higher, the largest single-day increase in decades.&nbsp;



We <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tariff-changes-market-volatility">wrote about copper</a> in the lead-up to Liberation Day as analysts speculated about what new tariffs could mean for metal markets.&nbsp;



As a reminder: The US currently produces about half the amount of copper it consumes annually — meaning around 1 million metric tons are imported, according to the US Geological Survey. Copper is in virtually everything: wiring, plumbing, motors, medical devices, personal electronics, you name it.&nbsp;



The tariffs have so far had a limited impact on inflation, and there are a few theories as to why. First, companies were expecting tariffs, so it’s likely they increased inventories to prepare (in which case they have not had to raise prices for consumers yet). Many sectors have also experienced lower demand, making price increases less likely.&nbsp;



That said, I think we could see a bigger impact on consumer prices from these copper tariffs. Domestic copper production has remained relatively steady over the past few years. Glencore, a top international producer, expects global demand for the metal to rise going forward.



The problem with bringing production onshore is that it’s a slow process. It takes, on average, about 18 years for a copper mine to move from discovery to production, according to S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence. That’s assuming rich deposits are found in the first place.&nbsp;



We’ll be keeping an eye on metal markets and how they’re impacting equities and crypto assets.&nbsp;



Stay tuned.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Donald Trump

Tariff deadline comes and goes, copper feels the pressure

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"/>



Story, an IP-focused EVM L1 blockchain, is adding Tools for Humanity’s World ID tech in a move to increase transparency around who’s human on its <a href="https://portal.story.foundation/">IP Portal</a> licensing database currently in open beta.



“We’re just coming out of an age where the big AI companies, right, basically scraped the whole internet, and rather than ask for permission, they’re just asking for forgiveness,” Story Foundation President Andrea Muttoni told me in an interview.&nbsp;



“We haven&#8217;t really fully understood the magnitude of it. You know, the whole concept of like, the dead internet theory, right? It&#8217;s going to be so challenging in the future — the better the AI models get, the more content is being produced by AI models — to distinguish what is human and what is not,” he added.



The upcoming integration means users can connect their World IDs to verify their crypto wallets when they engage with the platform. They can then register a piece of content and set it up for fee-based or royalty-based licensing, including by adding a legally-binding Programmable IP License (<a href="https://docs.story.foundation/concepts/programmable-ip-license/overview">PIL</a>).



The goal is that the World ID tie-in can add an extra layer of verification and trust that creators are who they say they are on Story. World currently has 13 million verified humans, meaning people with accounts who got their irises scanned at an Orb.



<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">In a world where AI can generate content at scale, Story is building the infrastructure to prove who created what with <a href="https://twitter.com/worldcoin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@worldcoin</a> . Authorship matters more than ever—and Story is where verified human identity meets programmable IP. Proud to partner with <a href="https://twitter.com/worldcoin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@worldcoin</a> to bring… <a href="https://t.co/7exkzJulTD">https://t.co/7exkzJulTD</a>&mdash; S.Y. Lee (꧁IP꧂) (@storysylee) <a href="https://twitter.com/storysylee/status/1942965345100443759?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Muttoni sees Story as a place not only for licensing all types of art, but also for real-world assets and data for AI training and even individual people, too.



“We&#8217;re definitely going to see humans scaling themselves,” he said. “Anyone who has a name, image, and likeness that might want to be licensed, I think, is a huge untapped IP angle.”



Tools for Humanity is the primary for-profit builder working on the World blockchain, which was cofounded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while the World Foundation is behind the WLD token.&nbsp;



Ajay Patel, Head of World ID at TFH, told me that he met the founders of Story about six or eight months ago and saw a potential for collaboration.&nbsp;



“It’s really this underlying primitive of the internet,” Patel said of World ID.



World ID’s profit mechanism is still in development at the moment, with plans to roll out a fee system at some point next year.&nbsp;



“The key problem to solve there is tying utility to the economics. And so what’s going to happen is that any relying party to World ID, based on their usage of World ID, will end up paying back into the protocol. And so that’s kind of how the system would work,” Patel told me.



“That entire kind of infrastructure for how that would work is something that we&#8217;re actively working on right now,” he added.



When asked, he said TFH did not receive any kind of grant from Story in exchange for the integration.&nbsp;



TFH has increasingly ramped up its blockchain-powered software push this year, from updates to its World app to adding World ID to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/world-id-verification-gaming">Razer accounts</a> to unveiling the “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-altman-worldcoin-orb-mini-eye-scan">Mini Orb</a>” and a US launch.



The integration with World ID is slated to go live at some point this fall.&nbsp;



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The Drop newsletter

Story Protocol, World prepare for AI-saturated ‘dead internet theory’ future

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"/>



Phantom wallet announced yesterday that it was integrating Hyperliquid perps right into its wallet interface.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Introducing: Phantom Perps 👻 ♾️ Go long or short in just a few taps. 100+ markets. Up to 40x leverage. All in your pocket. Powered by <a href="https://twitter.com/HyperliquidX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HyperliquidX</a> <a href="https://t.co/YDKjUGBdEn">pic.twitter.com/YDKjUGBdEn</a>&mdash; Phantom (@phantom) <a href="https://twitter.com/phantom/status/1942628993636917311?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



This is <a href="https://x.com/hyperliquidbull/status/1942630523408351446">surprising</a>, mainly because Phantom is Solana’s marquee wallet and far ahead of competing wallets like Solflare or Backpack, with 15 million monthly active users (MAUs).



If Phantom wanted a cut of the perps market, I suppose one would’ve naively expected it to partner up first with a native Solana perps DEX like Drift or <a href="https://x.com/DefiSolar/status/1942657673994068081">Jupiter</a>.



But though Drift or Jupiter might be hometown favorites, Hyperliquid is where the money already is.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcFE4l4Km4H4mpQpTG8JLhnqumZMyAFqEgNLpMaiAKAF0towGfMZANz_aUCNsS6FI74YF77MmZLj-O3C7wY6vq8uxf-plujUo1HLgHr7uG85vviI-iyDQgiyYoxiFVFNDBrA03dvg?key=D8S8VRimuiNq_D7bNzCT1w" alt=""/></figure>



Source: <a href="https://dune.com/uwusanauwu/perps">Dune</a>



So the wallet that onboarded millions to Solana is now shepherding flow to a rival venue, which doesn’t boost Solana fees or TVL at all.



Just this morning, Kraken and Backed announced that xStocks would also be launching on BNB Chain.



<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">Welcome Kraken, Backed and xStocks to the <a href="https://twitter.com/BNBCHAIN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BNBChain</a> ecosystem. 🤝<a href="https://t.co/gg2k8SEsgE">https://t.co/gg2k8SEsgE</a>&mdash; CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) <a href="https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1942933592541110398?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Soon, eligible Kraken customers will be able to deposit and withdraw those BEP-20 stock tokens straight from the exchange.



xStocks is Kraken and Backed’s tokenized stock product that debuted on Solana less than two weeks ago (I wrote about it <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-stocks-good-bad">last week</a>).



Tokenized stocks may have been Solana-first, but they will be fiercely multichain. <a href="https://x.com/Bybit_Official/status/1939626244728840498">Bybit</a> is also integrating xStocks.



xStocks’ move to BNB Chain is no surprise, given Backed co-founder Adam Levi’s <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250522493630/en/Kraken-Partners-with-Backed-to-Launch-xStocks-on-Solana-Bringing-Tokenized-Equities-to-the-Masses">stated goal</a> for the product to “be a neutral, public good asset class” and eventually “expanding xStocks to other exchanges and chains.”



What investor mental model do these pieces of news affirm?



The Phantom x Hyperliquid news seems to simultaneously affirm both the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/battle-for-wallet-supremacy">Fat Wallet</a> thesis and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-infrastructure-bloat">Fat App</a> thesis.



<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">This Phantom x Hyperliquid integration is: • Bullish for Phantom (validation of fat wallet/super app thesis) • Bullish for Hyperliquid (validation of fat protocol thesis) • Bearish for Solana (they have no good perp dex, distribution moat is much smaller than perceived)&mdash; Uma Roy (@pumatheuma) <a href="https://twitter.com/pumatheuma/status/1942669033771536640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Build a great wallet like Phantom, because wallets, not apps, own the users.



Or build a great app like Hyperliquid, because users follow the app, not the underlying chain.



But if you can, you should most definitely build a Fat Exchange like Robinhood or Kraken, because then you can take your users to whichever chain you want.



Kraken is a Fat Exchange, but it’s not quite as Fat as Robinhood’s 14 million MAUs.&nbsp;



That may explain Kraken’s decision to go multichain fast and cement its position on each respective blockchain.



There was never really a reason to believe that wallets, apps or CEXs would be loyal to any particular chain to begin with.



Time to totally disabuse that notion.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The winners and losers of Phantom’s Hyperliquid integration

Ben Strack

An overhaul of financial market infrastructure is set to occur, according to Franklin Templeton innovation head Sandy Kaul&nbsp; — and likely faster than many people expect.&nbsp;



“I think our entire product suite will be onchain at some point in the future,” she told me. “It is simply [about], ‘What is the migration path to getting there?’”



Financial institutions, central banks and corporations using account-based infrastructure are set to move to wallet-based systems on top of blockchains for efficiency and other benefits, Kaul argued.&nbsp;



Estimates that the roughly $240 billion stablecoin market could increase by 10 times over the next several years might be conservative, Kaul argued. But she made clear that it won’t be the crypto-native players driving this growth.



“I think banks are going to realize their future is going to be wallet-based, and they’ll begin to issue their own stablecoins and different versions of tokenized cash in an effort to remain competitive,” she said. “That is where trillions and trillions of dollars of deposits sit, so I think it will grow very, very quickly.”&nbsp;



As stablecoins (checking account equivalents, as Kaul labeled them) become “a foundational piece of financial infrastructure,” she explained, tokenized money market funds — acting like savings accounts — will take off in tandem.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-yield-funds-complement-stablecoins">Tokenized yield funds, stablecoins a “powerful” combo</a>



Franklin Templeton launched its OnChain US Government Money Fund in 2021. Its assets under management were $740 million as of June 30.



Illiquid, difficult-to-process assets — like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/janus-henderson-clo-token-1b">CLOs</a> and private credit — are heading onchain to create operational efficiencies, Kaul said. More <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-iceberg-rwas-mature-ondo">public equities and ETFs</a> will be tokenized too — and in a less convoluted way than some of the “wrapped workarounds” currently available, she added. 



“And if you move an ETF onchain, in essence you almost eliminate the need for the ETF wrapper over time,” Kaul noted. “Because the smart contract does all the work that the ETF wrapper does today.”



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



Blockworks: So you expect Franklin Templeton’s whole product suite will end up onchain. How far into the future could that be? 



Kaul: I think within a decade. I don’t think this is decades away.&nbsp;



One of the really amazing attributes of technology innovation in the last 20 years has been how rapidly it is speeding up. If you think about the fact that Ethereum is just 10 years old, I think things will happen much more quickly than people anticipate. Our CEO is on record saying [she thinks] we will see more transformation in the financial market infrastructure in the next five years than we’ve seen in the last 50. People are going to be surprised, because I think a lot of people are skeptical that it’s going to happen at all.



Blockworks: What is it like to be at a traditional financial company that is also leaning into a disruptive technology like blockchain?&nbsp;



Kaul: We’re very fortunate in that we have a CEO, an executive team and a board who are highly supportive and enthusiastic about the opportunities that we’ve uncovered, the infrastructure we’ve built and the opportunity they see ahead of them.



Now that we’ve reached the point of maturity in the infrastructure we’ve built — where we can issue and program our own tokens, where we have our own transfer agent on blockchain, where we can administer our shareholder records and offer brand new functionality like intra-day yield and peer-to-peer transfers — we’re identifying the spots where we’re integrating it into our own ecosystem.



We’re talking with our vendor management group and our treasury group about ways that we can start to experiment and show the use cases around tokenized money market funds. We’re looking at ways that we can work with our fund boards to see if we can’t introduce new innovations into the way they manage their cash in our traditional mutual funds.&nbsp;



It may take us 10 years to move onto these new rails, but we will do it one step at a time, one set of products at a time, one set of use cases at a time. But that infrastructure that we need to compete in the future, I think we’re one of the first asset managers to really have that in place.



Blockworks: What do you view as the biggest hurdle to overcome in ensuring continued progress in this segment?&nbsp;&nbsp;



Kaul: There’s been a very long, established way of doing know-your-customer and anti-money laundering screening of clients. That is at such foundational conflict with this whole idea of a permissionless ecosystem, and I think the final answer is going to sit somewhere in between. It’s not going to be the same rigidity with which we have to do and maintain and affirm KYC and AML today in the traditional world, where every firm has to do it itself and maintain their own. But I don’t think it’s going to be permissionless either.&nbsp;



“What is the right blend of protection required to ensure that this new financial ecosystem works in a way that protects consumers and discourages bad actors?” is the piece that I don’t see people doing enough work and thinking on.



Blockworks: You were a speaker at a May SEC <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/meetings-events/tokenization-moving-assets-onchain-where-tradfi-defi-meet">roundtable</a> focused on tokenization. What was your <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/van-eck-crypto-tokenization-sec">takeaway from that event</a> and from broader conversations with the SEC?



Kaul: There’s a much more receptive environment for the many, many people within the SEC who have been trying to drive responsible, effective policy for these crypto ecosystems for years. But they weren’t getting the support organizationally to bring all that great thinking and recommendations to the forefront. What we’re most excited about is really defining the regulatory pathway to being able to intermix both securities and tokens. I think that’s where the distribution really opens up. There still has not been the regulatory clarity that’s going to allow someone to just distribute an ETF or just distribute a mutual fund on a blockchain set of rails.



Blockworks: When you mention mixing securities and tokens, what exactly are you envisioning?



Kaul: Why wouldn’t I have Apple stock…and Ethereum in the same portfolio? They’re basically providing very similar, kind of competitive services — and if I was a relative-value trader I might want to trade Ethereum versus Apple.&nbsp;



Right now, I couldn’t put a portfolio together like that unless I got the exposure to Apple in a very convoluted way. But all I need is some regulatory clarity from the SEC and I would be able to do that.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Franklin Templeton

All Franklin Templeton products will one day be onchain, exec says

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>.



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



Adoption does not follow a straight line.



At least, not at the local level. But definitely, if you <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ict-adoption">amalgamate</a> the world’s adoption rate for mobile phone subscriptions and the internet, the line will indeed go straight up.&nbsp;



Zoom into individual countries, though, and you’ll soon see that the road to widespread usage can be rocky — but the result is still the same.



Greece in July 2015 was in the midst of an all-out banking crisis.



The European Central Bank had declined to further prop up Greek banks with emergency debt. By this point, Greece was only just <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/greece-meets-imf-payment-deadline/a-18371436">scraping</a> together repayments for a 1.6 billion euro ($1.9 billion) loan from the IMF which had fallen into arrears at the end of June.



Greece’s government scrambled to secure alternative financing but failed. Having judged the terms of the ECB’s deal as politically <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31055069">toxic</a>, the then-prime minister instead called a snap referendum over whether to accept.



Initial deal <a href="https://content.fortune.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/draft16h.pdf">terms</a> ranged from indefinite austerity to further cuts to pensions to forced pre-approval of domestic laws to the placing of 50 billion euro ($58.5 billion) in national assets into a fund supervised by EU representatives.



Greeks <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/third-greek-atms-empty-saturday-tsipras-declares-referendum">rushed</a> to ATMs to withdraw cash as soon as the referendum was called, resulting in an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33305019">emergency</a> bank holiday and capital controls. Withdrawals were restricted to just 60 euros ($70) per day, international transfers were mostly barred and the local stock exchange was closed.



Three days later, Greece became the first developed country to ever default on an IMF loan obligation. This effectively isolated Greece financially until votes were counted.



<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">Greece almost left the euro at 6am this morning <a href="http://t.co/xDCYXouFaZ">http://t.co/xDCYXouFaZ</a> <a href="http://t.co/BiQsArYs1d">pic.twitter.com/BiQsArYs1d</a>&mdash; Matt O&#39;Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) <a href="https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/620565071039627264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 13, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Citizens <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/05/greek-referendum-no-vote-signals-huge-challenge-to-eurozone-leaders">voted</a> against the deal (61.3%), plunging the Eurozone into another two weeks of deliberations, which almost resulted in Greece leaving the eurozone altogether, as shown above. The government eventually approved austerity measures later in July. The situation would continue to play out for the rest of the year.



When we talk of Bitcoin’s true value proposition — the one underneath the price talk and financial tinkering — it’s hard to find one better than this precise example: Banks and the stock market have effectively locked you out of your value, and even when they can access it, you can only ever get less than $100 cash at a time.



Bitcoin obviously fixes this. If Satoshi had launched Bitcoin in 2015 instead of 2009, perhaps they would’ve buried a headline about the Greek debt crisis in the genesis block instead of one about the UK.



And certainly, people in Greece did turn to Bitcoin. One exchange <a href="https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/198934/fearing-return-to-drachma-some-greeks-use-bitcoin-to-dodge-capital-controls/#:~:text=New%20customers%20depositing%20at%20least,quadrupled%20to%20around%20700%20euros">reported</a> thousands of new users and locals shared tips on how to buy bitcoin on Reddit and the Greek-language <a href="https://bravenewcoin.com/insights/bitcoin-in-greece#:~:text=Nevertheless%2C%20signs%20of%20Bitcoin%20adoption,lately%2C%20coinciding%20with%20recent%20events">version</a> of Bitcointalk.&nbsp;



Their efforts were frustratingly hamstrung by capital controls — banks blocked most transfers, including potential deposits to crypto exchanges for buying bitcoin.



<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">Nothing like capital controls to focus the mind! First Bitcoin Meetup in Greece <a href="https://t.co/fFiYKxpFtR">https://t.co/fFiYKxpFtR</a> v/<a href="https://twitter.com/RedditBTC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RedditBTC</a> <a href="http://t.co/ly3aRQJfnX">pic.twitter.com/ly3aRQJfnX</a>&mdash; Jon Matonis (@jonmatonis) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonmatonis/status/621346504280829952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“If Greeks already have cash in hand, bitcoin is unnecessary. If they don’t, then bitcoin is unattainable. It’s a bank liquidity crisis,” Andreas Antonopoulos <a href="https://x.com/aantonop/status/615571506630905856">tweeted</a> as local banks were closing.



Still, the price of bitcoin did rise somewhat during the ordeal, but it would only really start to take off toward the end of the year, when the worst of it was over.



The Greek debt crisis showed the world what happens when the fiat system fails a population. But when push comes to shove, it’s clear that Bitcoin as a safety net works best when you’ve planned ahead.



After all, it’s tough to build a doomsday bunker on the day after doomsday.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Euro

What the Greek debt crisis taught us about Bitcoin, 10 years on

Pump.fun’s initial coin offering is set to take place on Saturday, July 12.&nbsp;



While there’s been speculation and reporting around a potential PUMP token, the announcement Wednesday is the first official communication from the team. Blockworks <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">previously reported</a> that pump.fun planned to raise $1 billion through a token sale, which would put the valuation at $4 billion.&nbsp;



The PUMP ICO will not be made available to US or UK investors, the platform said.



The tokens will be sold for $0.004 apiece. With a maximum supply of one trillion tokens, that means the public sale will happen at a $4 billion fully diluted valuation. Only 49 tokens currently hold that high of an FDV, per CoinGecko.



Large tranches of the token are also set to be allocated to pump.fun’s team, investors and community. While the account promised that an airdrop is “coming soon,” it was not immediately clear when it would take place. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd9y21ShFLmbNNO9RLZgV8cj2EKE-qeE4mzO-JV9zYP9CcbwunGvwl1vV1fs6qYQU7Fa2uIpG7RNjp-ItgFKP6FL-YfnUu5kfKFR3cpo7WUl4bGbzZmGsZ-J-lRFlDr1V6pbWPpSw?key=i6UIN611kc9XH_9PAND4Ng" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Pump.fun’s X account&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>



According to the announcement, Kraken, Kucoin, Bybit, Bitget, Gate and MEXC are all launch partners.



“[P]ump fun invented a completely new way to launch tokens, owned this crypto cycle, and became one of the most successful startups ever. now, we’re aiming to kill legacy social media platforms,” pump.fun’s pseudonymous co-founder alon wrote on X. “$PUMP will fuel our domination of crypto and social media.”



This is a developing story.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Pump.fun formally announces token, sets ICO date

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"/>



The Monad Foundation has acquired Portal, a stablecoin infrastructure provider, the team exclusively told me.&nbsp;



Portal will continue to operate as an independent entity, though it’ll be able to leverage Monad’s technology to serve customers. Portal’s founder, Raj Parekh, will transition to become the Head of Payments and Stablecoins at the Monad Foundation.&nbsp;



The team declined to give financial terms about the acquisition, but Monad Foundation co-founder Keone Hon told me that they’ve “been thinking about how to grow the onchain economy for quite some time.”



The two noted that they have natural synergies and will leverage them to collaborate on things such as bridges and stablecoin wallets.&nbsp;



“When we at the Monad Foundation thought about this acquisition, we were excited both about the opportunity to partner really closely with [Parekh] and the team that he built, as well as to really grow the adoption of this product, and, more generally, to utilize the product to grow the adoption of crypto,” he continued.&nbsp;



The goal for Monad — which is still in testnet, though Hon told me that the team is preparing to launch mainnet “very soon” (he unfortunately wouldn’t give me more than that) — is to become the “blockchain of choice” for stablecoin transactions.



“There&#8217;s obviously maturity from a volume standpoint, circulating supply standpoint. The infrastructure at the developer tooling side is improved with things like what Portals built. Newer architectures like Monad now actually allow some of the sharp edge of the blockchain that existed before to now be removed as well. So I think it was a natural maturation phase of the infrastructure layer,” Parekh said.&nbsp;



All of this is aided by the fact that the regulatory shift is supporting stablecoins and the interest in them as well, such that stablecoins have come out on top as the defining narrative this year.&nbsp;



“Now I think folks are starting to see real volume, and use cases like banking…Some of the more boring use cases that you see in payments are starting to proliferate with stablecoins,” Parekh noted.



But for Monad and Portal, it’s about utilizing the groundwork that’s been built to “push the limits of what’s possible in terms of money moving globally,” Parekh said.



If you pay attention to headlines as much as I do, then you’ll know stablecoins aren’t the only trend we’re seeing pick up in the space. M&amp;A activity is on the rise, as you can see in the chart below from Blockworks Research.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdxfNm_vb4atMlrSYS8Y-9EeUCY15vyu-nhqV0RCfjYx9S890nCvYjQOX03Z84VX0WrB9xdBJ1_FHjW_49PhJRSf3Z6-AyPunivNQz3Zzuym2d1_BgUedF2qFEplUJDndNMDnQInA?key=YXcSYbpdce2AIX5nwHJgww" alt="" style="width:588px;height:auto"/></figure>



Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of the deals were for projects in the financial sector of crypto.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc1ZrNCkTDVGNRXxPbpDfOPRkpGmZFCLSOitssegwJGDic1lidtjSqGzImxRPLmop9vqOf4tdry85RwbLPc8tyzqP0gvytkLsM5PZzUZ7Nt8ThKPKlhkFX4Y6Dc6G9Dac1tld5eUA?key=YXcSYbpdce2AIX5nwHJgww" alt="" style="width:591px;height:auto"/></figure>



But consumer has also seen a pick-up in activity. Take OpenSea’s acquisition of Rally yesterday, for example. Thesis, Worldcoin and Stripe also made consumer-focused acquisitions.&nbsp;



Not to mention that Coinbase made yet another acquisition just last week when it announced it was buying LiquiFi for an undisclosed amount.



Consolidation is a good sign in this space, and shows just how much various sectors are heating up.&nbsp;



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Empire Newsletter

Exclusive: Monad Foundation acquires stablecoin infrastructure project Portal

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



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Since health, well-being, and security are proper concerns of Government, scientific progress is, and must be, of vital interest to Government.”



— Vannevar Bush, godfather of government research spending
</blockquote>



Should the US government spend money on scientific research? It’s a fair question to ask: Critics worry that government-funded R&amp;D may crowd out private-sector investment and that we’ll never truly know to what extent because the government, unrestrained by profit-and-loss statements, is not accountable for its results.



So let’s look at some results.



A 2015 <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20889/w20889.pdf">study</a> of NIH grants found that virtually every new drug the FDA approved between 2010 and 2016 benefited either directly or indirectly from NIH support — and that every $10 million of NIH funding resulted in a net increase of two to three private-sector patents.



You might not care about drug patents, sure.&nbsp;



Maybe you think <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/04/1034364/altos-labs-silicon-valleys-jeff-bezos-milner-bet-living-forever/">Jeff Bezos</a> or <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/24/retro-biosciences-backed-by-sam-altman-is-raising-1-billion-to-extend-human-lifespan/">Sam Altman</a> will single-handedly solve longevity for all of us, or that AI will do <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91363911/googles-ai-drug-company-says-human-trials-are-very-close">drug discovery</a> now.



Those are reasonable opinions to have.



But what if I told you the government earns a high and quantifiable return on those grants?



A congressional committee <a href="https://www.ott.nih.gov/sites/default/files/documents/policy/wydenrpt.pdf">report</a> once estimated that the government earns an annual rate of return of 25% to 40% on the money it spends on NIH grants, because they reduce the economic cost of illness in the US.



It’s not just about being healthier, though. It’s about being wealthier, too.



A recent <a href="https://www.dallasfed.org/%7E/media/documents/research/papers/2023/wp2305r2.pdf">study</a> published by the Dallas Fed found that non-defense government R&amp;D spending has accounted for at least one-fifth of business-sector productivity growth since 1945.



Productivity is the most important driver of long-term economic growth, so that’s a significant return on investment.



Another <a href="https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/papers/2025/wp2519.pdf">Fed study</a> found that the R&amp;D increases authorized under the CHIPS Act, if fully appropriated, would raise US productivity by as much as 0.4%.



That seems underappreciated because even the proponents of the CHIPS Act pitched it mostly for the investments it would make in physical infrastructure.&nbsp;



But the innovation policy expert Heidi Williams <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d5fe0bfb-4c3f-4aa2-b57f-51295f4a30e2?utm_source=chatgpt.com">cites studies</a> estimating that the return on government R&amp;D spending (in terms of economic growth) is 20x greater than the return on infrastructure spending.



Pretty much everyone is in favor of infrastructure spending, so why wouldn’t they be in favor of research spending too?



In Williams’ own <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fjep.33.3.163&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com">study</a>, she finds that R&amp;D is probably the most impactful policy the government has to raise both innovation and productivity in the US economy.&nbsp;



Still, you might be a de-growther, and unmoved by the prospect of the US government growing its deficit problem.&nbsp;



Or uninterested in people living longer, wealthier lives.



But what if I told you that government research grants helped develop something really important? Like Bitcoin.



Cryptocurrency didn’t spring fully formed from Satoshi’s white paper; instead, it built on decades of academic work in cryptography and distributed systems, much of which was funded by the US government.



Foundational things like public-key cryptography, cryptographic hash trees and tamper-proof time-stamping were developed at university research labs with funding from government agencies like the National Science Foundation and DARPA.



If that sounds like ancient history to you and therefore irrelevant, I get it — now that we have crypto, what else could we possibly need from the government?&nbsp;



But consider that a government agency — the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) — is leading a multi-agency effort to encourage the development of the quantum-resistant algorithms that will soon be necessary to protect Bitcoin from a quantum-enabled hacker.



It’s not an immediate risk: Dr. Michele Mosca, CEO of the quantum software security firm <a href="https://www.evolutionq.com/company/about">evolution q</a>, assured me in a call that quantum computers are currently too small and error-prone to break Bitcoin’s cryptographic defenses.



But a <a href="https://globalriskinstitute.org/publication/2024-quantum-threat-timeline-report/">survey</a> Dr. Mosca conducted among fellow cryptographers found they estimate a 10% chance that quantum computers will be powerful enough to threaten Bitcoin within five years, rising to a 27% chance within 10 years and an 85% chance within 30.



Fortunately, the NIST is on the job — evaluating, vetting and standardizing the quantum-proof algorithms that will hopefully make Bitcoin quantum-resistant.



(Not to mention the global financial system, everyone’s emails and all of our login passwords.) Unfortunately, the NIST is facing a <a href="https://fedscoop.com/quantum-industry-leaders-voice-support-for-nist-other-science-agencies-following-trumps-requested-budget-cuts/">$325 million</a> cut to its annual budget.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The cuts, part of the president’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf">proposals</a> for discretionary spending, haven’t been passed by Congress just yet, so perhaps the White House will be dissuaded — possibly by its many Bitcoiner friends.



Or maybe the NIST’s quantum efforts will be spared (the White House <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf">says</a> the cuts are punishment for the NIST pursuing “a radical climate agenda”).



But I’m not sure why we’re risking it because government research appears to pay for itself.&nbsp;



Especially for a government that’s long bitcoin.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The Bitcoiner’s case for government R&D

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>.



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



The crypto exchange Gate briefly <a href="https://x.com/whosknave/status/1942313027493073003">published</a> a webpage yesterday showing that pump.fun’s reported forthcoming token would go on sale early Saturday morning. Within a few hours, the page had been taken <a href="https://x.com/SolanaFloor/status/1942339492909666802">down</a>.



It’s the latest twist in a token rollout that has seen information come from just about anyone but pump.fun itself. Gate and pump.fun did not comment on the token sale webpage or whether the Saturday morning presale date was correct. The snafu went down as a BONK-themed launchpad commands impressive revenue figures compared to pump’s.



In early June, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">we first reported</a> that pump.fun had plans to raise $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation via a token sale. Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-03/solana-based-memecoin-platform-pump-fun-plans-1-billion-raise-via-token-sale">confirmed</a> the news, as did The Block — which also <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/357359/pump-fun-will-distribute-protocol-revenue-to-pump-token-holders-sources">scooped</a> that the platform plans to distribute revenue to token holders.



But in the month since, pump.fun has remained tight-lipped about the whole situation — no founder podcast circuit, no points program, no other pageantry that typically revolves around a token rollout. In talking to sources, I get the sense the specifics of pump.fun’s TGE plan is not very well known, even to relative insiders.



<a href="https://x.com/whosknave/status/1942657755740864670">Gategate</a> underscores what has always seemingly been pump.fun’s PR strategy: Don’t say anything unless you absolutely need to. The exchange and its founders rarely, if ever, get involved in the multiple controversies that have sprung up around the project — with the only exception to wit being when it <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-suspends-livestream-feature">disabled its livestreaming feature</a>.&nbsp;



So far, that strategy has worked out pretty well for consumer crypto’s revenue <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/pumpfun/?dashboard=127">behemoth</a>. Still, some believe a credible challenger to pump.fun’s dominance has finally emerged. Letsbonk.fun, a launchpad built with Raydium’s LaunchLab, has bested pump in revenue each of the past three days, taking 61% of Solana launchpad market share yesterday compared to pump.fun’s 19%, according to Blockworks Research <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=339">data</a>.



But I really wouldn’t bet on it. Pump.fun could just announce a token airdrop based on trading activity if it wanted to, and I bet the platform’s volume would spike right back up.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Lightspeed Newsletter

Gate publishes then removes pump.fun token sale page

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"/>



Let’s take a few minutes to address the latest developments in crypto ETF land.&nbsp;



Yesterday, the SEC <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/cboebzx/2025/34-103393.pdf">delayed</a> its decision on Fidelity’s spot solana ETF proposal. Not surprising — but a reminder that the regulator needs to sort out more before approving those.



The SEC’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-etf-sec-forms">engagement with issuers</a> last month spurred optimism of possible ahead-of-schedule rulings (before October deadlines). And I confirmed with a person close to the filings that the SEC got back to the asset managers about their latest amendments — giving them until July 31 to respond to the agency’s new questions about “how the product will be structured.”



But that person also told me the SEC could very well be waiting to develop the anticipated “generic listing standards” before greenlighting SOL funds. Though SEC staff has asked exchanges to offer feedback on those drafts, the person said, their current expectation is for those to come closer to (or in) October — not sooner.&nbsp;



No one I’ve spoken to is particularly confident on timelines, given we’re essentially in uncharted territory. It’s worth noting, however, that SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">has urged patience</a> on several occasions. So I doubt the SEC will rush to judgment.&nbsp;



Switching gears, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-greenlights-grayscale-crypto-fund-etf">I had written</a> last week about the SEC approving NYSE Arca’s 19b-4 to list the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) on its exchange as an ETF.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But a corresponding July 1 letter — from the SEC’s deputy secretary to NYSE Group’s senior counsel — said that order was “stayed” until the regulator says otherwise.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXccuVlPo3-afCTP-xAy9yNjQVyBsqELtyEUqhOZKXBf6Ww3pD6uwtnu7rNkw3fAHBBa52MqV2tYhxQq-DqlWglYlZsfIWQ3yFdXRIQXpPfgJVlIOYQNJS5KT5osl6KC5AFX2Go3vQ?key=ROBUtjyr-_Zh-GXDJ-w23w" alt="" style="width:704px;height:auto"/></figure>



In case you missed it, a Grayscale spokesperson <a href="https://x.com/strack_ben/status/1940822809175101581">told me</a>: “While this development was unexpected, it reflects the dynamic and evolving nature of the regulatory landscape surrounding a first-of-its-kind digital asset product like GDLC.”



The firm is still pursuing the GDLC listing. Just as Bitwise still looks to convert its Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW) to an ETF and Hashdex wants to add assets to its Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF (NCIQ).&nbsp;&nbsp;



We don’t have an update on the Bitwise and Hashdex proposals. So we’re in a bit of a holding pattern.



That didn’t stop Yorkville America Digital (in partnership with Trump Media and Technology Group) from <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2075457/000110465925066296/tm2519799-1_s1.htm#tCOI">filing</a> for a Truth Social Crypto Blue Chip ETF on Tuesday. That fund’s expected holdings would be bitcoin (70%), ether (15%), solana (8%), cronos (5%) and XRP (2%).&nbsp;



A spokesperson did not immediately comment on the rationale behind those proposed allocations (or cronos’ inclusion), though we do know Crypto.com (a partner of Trump Media) developed the Cronos blockchain. CRO’s market cap this morning ranked 44th among crypto assets, according to CoinGecko.



To summarize, the paperwork progress hasn’t yet led to launches. Well, except for the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-rex-osprey-first-solana-staking-etf">REX-Osprey SOL Staking ETF</a> (a product structured differently than traditional crypto trusts).&nbsp;



As for the spot crypto ETFs trading, the US bitcoin products have been on an inflow tear. Those funds have seen net inflows on 18 of the last 19 trading days (totaling $5.6 billion over that span). The segment sits on the $50 billion net inflow precipice, according to Farside Investors.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcgQPOLAsoUoMYiZ4KtUgiVSB335B9t5Np6LdMPPFsibiz8mVWNtrKhFZVZdF1NkcghcC3ijJTBld1EJoCftdce3Id0TYqTn4X2oJMnfLsJZDjD67t9ipJCbY9Xn6vHYtlczqV0wA?key=ROBUtjyr-_Zh-GXDJ-w23w" alt="" style="width:570px;height:auto"/></figure>



What about US ETH ETF inflows from June 9 to July 7? A respectable $1.1 billion.&nbsp;



Overall, we’re up to 12 straight weeks of inflows for crypto investment products, CoinShares data <a href="https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-241-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-0c44f0a06577">shows</a> — pushing AUM to a record $188 billion.&nbsp;



I’m curious what sort of demand we see for other single-asset crypto ETFs once they go live in the US. Some believe the bigger opportunity is those <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">crypto index funds</a> — tailored for investors who don’t want to spend the time trying to pick individual winners.&nbsp;



I’d say that take makes sense, but we’ll see what the market thinks soon enough.&nbsp;



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

ETFs

Why crypto ETF launch timelines remain up in the air

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"/>



President Trump’s sweeping Liberation Day tariffs were broadly expected to go into effect tomorrow, July 9. But things have changed.&nbsp;



After seeing various updates and changes to Trump’s trade policies — both on rates and timing — we can’t say we were shocked by yesterday’s news. Traders appeared relieved by the prospect of deals, with US stocks recovering early in today’s session after dipping Monday.&nbsp;



The moves come after Trump signed an executive order Monday delaying the start of all “reciprocal tariffs” (announced in April) to Aug. 1. More than a dozen countries also got updated levies.&nbsp;



Imports from Japan and South Korea will have a 25% tariff. Japan’s Liberation Day rate was 24%, while South Korea’s was 25%.&nbsp;



South Korea has said it plans to negotiate this figure down in the coming weeks. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Tuesday called Trump’s decision “extremely regrettable.” Even so, Ishiba hopes to come to an agreement with the US as well.&nbsp;



Other countries that received letters yesterday include Malaysia, which will now face a 24% rate — vs. the 25% levy unveiled in April. In his letter to Cambodia, Trump declared a 36% rate, compared to 49% on Liberation Day.&nbsp;



Wondering if Aug. 1 is a hard deadline? Trump essentially told reporters yesterday: Maybe.



“I would say firm, but not 100% firm,” he said.&nbsp;



Trump is hosting a Cabinet meeting today to discuss the trade situation, among other things. He also faced questions about the war in Ukraine (“it’s turned out to be tougher”) and Fed Chair Jerome Powell (“I think he’s terrible”).&nbsp;



Check back tomorrow for insights into the meeting.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Trump delays tariff deadlines

Eigen Labs has laid off 29 employees as it reorients its EigenCloud product, Blockworks has learned.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The product, which was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eigencloud-launch-a16z-eigenlayer">unveiled last month</a>, is a developer platform focused on off- and onchain verification. As part of the announcement at the time, a16z unveiled a $70 million investment. In total, the firm has raised $220 million — including <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/03/28/staking-protocol-eigenlayer-raises-50m-amid-crypto-winter">$50 million</a> in a Series A in 2023.&nbsp;



The decision to reduce the headcount — which impacts 25% of employees — was not motivated by financials, and the project still has financial runway, an Eigen Labs spokesperson confirmed to Blockworks.&nbsp;



The goal, as outlined by a note seen by Blockworks from Eigen Labs CEO Sreeram Kannan, is to reorganize “resources around the product and key user scenarios and streamlining our teams and leadership to give us years of runway to concentrate on building and growing EigenCloud.”



Employees from various roles and departments were impacted as part of the decision. No further reductions are planned at this time.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/a16z-series-b-eigenlayer-investment">A16z injects $100M into EigenLayer</a>



“Restructuring our organization and saying goodbye to a number of our teammates, who have given so much to the project, is incredibly painful. This morning, I spoke with impacted team members, shared my immense gratitude for their contributions, and laid out how Eigen Labs is committed to supporting their next chapter with empathy, respect, and concrete resources,” Kannan’s message said.



“These changes enable us to sustainably pursue our long-term objectives with renewed focus and energy. While today’s reorganization is painful, I’m extremely optimistic about our future. Demand for verifiable compute is growing as developers build software for the AI era, and EigenCloud is uniquely positioned to service this market need with a cloud platform backed by billions in stake and thousands of operators around the world.”



Impacted employees who’ve been with the project for more than a year were given accelerated vesting on tokens, as well as three months’ base pay. Additionally, Eigen Labs is offering career support.



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



Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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