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. 

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"/>



Let’s say a “generation” is about 30 years. In that case, Bitcoin has just entered the second half of its first one.



Whether Bitcoin is on track to ubiquity faster than electricity really depends on your mental model of Bitcoin itself.



There’s no question that bitcoin is money. But anecdotally, few people want to spend it, lest they risk missing out on monumental future fortunes.



Of course, it wasn’t always this way. In February 2012 — almost two years after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-pizza-day-price-record-billion">Laszlo’s pizzas</a> — a fertility doctor named C. Terence Lee set about a personal and professional quest to onboard his patients to Bitcoin by accepting BTC for his services. He started with a “Bitcoin accepted here” sign in his window, and then a Reddit post.



“Jumping in to do my part to support the BTC economy. This may be a historic first?” Lee wrote in a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130617014247/https://www.reddit.com/r/BitMarket/comments/pzczn/wtsusa_male_fertility_evaluation/">post</a> on the BitMarket subreddit, titled: “[WTS][USA] Male Fertility Evaluation.”



Lee was offering a 15-minute consultation to discuss fertility questions and a sperm analysis in exchange for 15 BTC, valued at $70 or so at the time. “Actual value over $100,” he wrote.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfaOkew5xucTzm3Hi_0dB_0oG0_WXjiTps_iZctywl_BxccmvOPOvQ9O1KbIAOgI8q8b5pv8QK0AcRT0t4V_jrl4RL6zFplNbZj1I4OBMAZxEMZH7jfTvVf1eIUdYeLE0OCyCBW?key=ke2Vj3Y57wrz-FJ9GrG0Nw" alt="" style="width:692px;height:auto"/></figure>



Within three months, he’d found a Bitcoin customer.&nbsp;



“The patient turned out not&#8230;so much having a burning desire to know about his fertility, but he was a Bitcoin enthusiast, and he liked the idea of participating in history, in this ritual ceremony of what could be perhaps the world&#8217;s first Bitcoin medical transaction,” Lee <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Mqm9F0V30">explained</a> at a 2013 conference in San Jose.



“So we chatted about Bitcoin. He taught me a lot about mining. That&#8217;s how he acquired bitcoin. And we did a sperm test, and it turned out he had really good sperm…after it was done he sent me 15 bitcoins… “



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Bitcoin 2013 conference - C Terence Lee, MD - A Physicians Experiences with Bitcoin" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E4Mqm9F0V30?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



From there, Lee experimented with various ways to attract customers to pay with bitcoin. He’d ask them directly if they’d heard of it, which produced mixed results.&nbsp;



“In some cases, when I brought up Bitcoin they stopped, and they looked at me like I was a telemarketer or used car salesman,” Lee said. “In some cases, when I explained the best that I could about what Bitcoin was, they even started reacting with suspicion or disapproval — as if I had suggested that I wanted to be paid in vials of crack cocaine or something like that.”



Lee changed up his strategy to only quiz his most trusted patients. There was one couple, who, on their fourth attempt at IVF, agreed to pay in bitcoin for a 50% discount, with Lee walking them through exchanging US dollars for bitcoin via CryptoXChange, a now-defunct exchange operating out of Australia.



The sperm stuck, leading <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2013/06/10/technology/innovation/bitcoin-baby/index.html">CNN to reveal</a>, on this day in 2013, “the world’s first Bitcoin baby” — a baby bought entirely with bitcoin. Thirty bitcoin to be exact, an amount then worth $500, or $3 million today.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfPGZcWLgvjBE_d3Y58OJz70P8WhnKhbNzlHG8MZtN2yhxKRgPQM3cj6n_oHfzRWeHTIOJELRalaAJYyL2enL2dLZQMWJRCWL-dgNZxuVORlvXTix8x9atkoMJjGfcMa9goJgt5WQ?key=ke2Vj3Y57wrz-FJ9GrG0Nw" alt="" style="width:642px;height:auto"/></figure>



Lee said in his presentation that multiple other patients paid in bitcoin following that milestone, resulting in more Bitcoin babies. We’ve reached out to his practice for more info about how it’s gone since then.



Still, with the way Bitcoin’s narratives have played out, it’s almost as if the efforts of early adopters like Lee worked too well, too quickly.&nbsp;



Using bitcoin as money today just isn’t as relevant to the uninitiated as buying and HODLing it. (Interestingly, the term “HODL” would be <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0">coined</a> only six months following the announcement of the first Bitcoin baby.)



It’s not impossible for Bitcoin to go full circle and return to its money proposition once more. When it’s done with price discovery, perhaps, in another few generations.



<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>

Bitcoin

The first Bitcoin baby: how a fertility doctor encouraged early adoption

Katherine Ross

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



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



Plasma received $500 million in stablecoin deposits rather quickly yesterday, shocking some and affirming that the token sales appetite is back in full force.&nbsp;



But let me back up for a second. Plasma, which <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/02/13/exclusive-stablecoin-company-plasma-raises-24-million-from-framework-to-launch-its-own-blockchain/">raised</a> $24 million from the likes of Framework Ventures, is gearing up for a sale of its XPL token. Plasma team member Googly was careful to clarify that the sale hasn’t yet happened.&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">Just to be very clear here. The sale has not yet happened. Size will never change: it will be $50m, full stop. There was $500m deposits (initial $250m, raised at $500m to allow more people in) to get points giving you the option, not the obligation to participate in the sale.&mdash; Googly 👀 (@0xG00gly) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xG00gly/status/1932068878718468485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Ahead of the deposits, Blockworks Research penned a subscriber-exclusive <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/xpl-deposit-and-public-sale">note</a> from analyst and 0xResearch podcast host Boccaccio, which dropped before the deposits even went live. If you didn’t already know, Plasma is a stablecoin company building a Tether-focused blockchain.



“We expect Plasma to allow 3-4 rounds of deposits over the deposit phase, with the total deposit reaching $1.5B to $1.75B. At this level, if Plasma launched at $2B TGE, APR on deposits would range between 35-50% if the lock up was for 3 months, and range between 25-40% if the lock up was for 4 months,” Boccaccio wrote yesterday.



His tone in the piece was cautious yet optimistic, he noted that there are “uncertainties” but also told me that he likes Plasma “overall.”



“They are purpose-built and focused on stablecoins, particularly payments, with their zero-fees on payments model. There are a few other stablecoin chains launching, some similarly backed by Tether/Bitfinex/Paolo [Ardoino]. At this point, it&#8217;s really a product, [business development] and [go-to-market] competition between these chains,” he said.



For me, Plasma also served as an example that pump[dot]fun’s targeted $4 billion valuation through its $1 billion raise — a story <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">Lightspeed’s Jack Kubinec and I broke last week</a> — will have a lot of appetite despite how upset people were on X.&nbsp;



“Pump would not have looked to raise 1B if they didn&#8217;t think they could fill it. I think Pump will fill quickly, and it&#8217;ll get some [of] the ‘it&#8217;s extractive’ people off its back. People want exposure more than they want to philosophize about morality, and this should give them the opportunity to do so,” Boccaccio said.&nbsp;



But Plasma has some big shoes to fill. The stablecoin space is heating up, as we’ve written about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoin-rise-businesses-b2b-transactions">multiple times here on Empire</a>. However, I am curious if Plasma can make a meaningful impact on the space, and perhaps compete with something like Tron.&nbsp;



“It is very difficult to take on Tron. They have probably the biggest moat within crypto at the moment, apart from Tether themselves,” Boccaccio noted. “The chain has been getting more expensive, particularly for payments, but any competitor needs to be very boots-on-the-ground in markets where Tron dominates and build strong contracts and relationships. It will be difficult to get people to switch over.”



The appetite is there, sure, but — as Boccaccio noted yesterday — the chain launch is going to be a very important component here because it creates a “substantial opportunity cost.” So keep an eye on Plasma’s timeline.&nbsp;



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<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>

blockchain

What Plasma’s deposits say about overall demand

Jeff Albus

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



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



Validator clients are the software that nodes run to participate in consensus and maintain the network. They <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-supply-staking-and-validators/solana-validator-clients">validate and vote</a> on blocks, process transactions, and generally just keep the network alive, handling both consensus and execution in a single piece of software.



Historically, Solana&#8217;s entire ecosystem has relied on one implementation, a Rust-based client developed by Solana Labs, and now maintained by Anza under the name Agave. Today, however, the vast majority of stake (90%+) runs on Jito-Solana, a fork of the Agave client with added MEV infrastructure.



The centralization of that effort is a problem, though. If Jito-Solana were to fail, the network risks performance issues or even a chain halt.



Jump Crypto&#8217;s Firedancer is the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-firedancer-testnet">leading contender</a> meant to break that monoculture, and it gets a heck of a lot of lip service in our community. This is not without good reason, of course. Once it&#8217;s live, it&#8217;ll be modular, wicked fast, and capable of handling over a million transactions per second.



But firepower aside, it&#8217;s hardly Solana&#8217;s only client in development. In fact, multiple teams are working on their own clients, with some already live and potentially capable of matching or even outmaneuvering Firedancer&#8217;s ambitions.



Let&#8217;s take a look at a few and compare.



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Jito-Solana was an <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-validators-mev-concerns">early breakaway</a> from Agave and is now the dominant client by stake weight. It&#8217;s not a ground-up rewrite but a fork of the original client with an MEV infrastructure. Jito introduced a bundle auction system that lets validators capture MEV more transparently, and share those rewards with stakers, not just slot leaders. By proving that validators would adopt client software offering new incentives, Jito opened the door for more experimentation and design specialization.</li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Sig is Syndica&#8217;s <a href="https://blog.syndica.io/introducing-sig-by-syndica-an-rps-focused-solana-validator-client-written-in-zig/">answer</a> to Solana&#8217;s performance ceiling. Where Firedancer pushes raw throughput for validators, Sig targets read operations. It&#8217;s written in Zig, a language focused on readability and memory control, and nearly all dapp interactions involve reading data rather than writing it. Sig overhauls the architecture to prioritize reads per second (RPS), resulting in dramatic speed gains for light clients, dapps and anyone syncing with the chain. It also has a more accessible codebase for contributors who find Rust daunting.</li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Paladin is a lightweight fork of Jito-Solana. Like Jito, it originated as a modified version of the original client and claims to <a href="https://buffalu.substack.com/p/understanding-paladin-an-analysis">add new logic</a> to handle MEV more transparently. Its core innovation is the P3 port, a protected lane for token-gated transactions intended to prevent sandwich attacks and curb extractive behavior. While Paladin promotes fairness and aims to redistribute MEV to stakers, it’s also faced <a href="https://buffalu.substack.com/p/understanding-paladin-an-analysis">criticism</a> for introducing fragmentation and reducing validator earnings. When reached for comment, Paladin core contributor Edgar Pavlovsky disputed data showing Paladin validators earn less. He argued that if anything, Paladin is less fragmenting than Jito, which adds extra steps to the transaction process via its block engine and bundler.</li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>TinyDancer is something else entirely. It is Solana&#8217;s first <a href="https://docs.tinydancer.io">open-source light client</a>, offering trust-minimized mobile access. The client supports SPV-style verification, data availability sampling and even fraud proofs, all designed to let users confirm network integrity without relying on third-party RPCs.</li>
</ul>



These clients each approach the problem from different angles. Alone, they&#8217;re targeted solutions to narrow problems, but together, they make Solana stronger, safer and more decentralized. Though most are still in development or early adoption, they reflect a maturing ecosystem where no single team defines our path forward.



<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>

Inside Solana’s expanding client stack

Casey Wagner

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



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Representatives from the US and China kicked off a second round of trade talks in London today at 1 p.m. local time. National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett told CNBC this morning it should be a “short meeting with a big strong handshake.”&nbsp;



Here’s hoping.&nbsp;



President Trump sent his top dogs: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer.&nbsp;



China’s delegation includes vice premier He Lifeng.&nbsp;



It’s the second US-China meeting on neutral ground in less than a month. Roughly three weeks ago in Geneva, representatives from both countries negotiated a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/05/joint-statement-on-u-s-china-economic-and-trade-meeting-in-geneva/">temporary truce</a>: a 90-day pause on retaliatory tariffs from both sides.&nbsp;



The amicability was short-lived, though, and it quickly became clear that the joint pause came with strings attached.&nbsp;



On May 30, Trump (via Truth Social) accused China of violating its half of the agreement. Greer later clarified on CNBC that China was “slow rolling” its compliance to the Geneva deal, specifically when it came to rolling back rare earth export restrictions.&nbsp;



Since April 4 (two days after “Liberation Day”), China has suspended almost all exports of several rare earth metals and magnets. This matters, because China mines 60% of the global supply of rare earths and manufactures 90% of the global supply of the magnets. Rare earth elements are essential for technology; they’re in cell phones, cars, lights, batteries, you name it.&nbsp;



The restrictions are poised to disrupt US supply chains, because the US doesn’t currently have much infrastructure to mine the metals domestically. Solvent extraction (the difficult process of separating rare earth minerals from one another) comes with bad impacts on the environment: high levels of toxic waste, water pollution, etc. The process was actually created in the US in the 1950s, but it’s expensive and unpopular in the States.&nbsp;



China said it implemented the export restrictions because rare earths have significant military applications. Trump and his administration have countered that China was actually retaliating against higher tariffs.&nbsp;



China became less inclined to back off on the rare earth restrictions after the United States’ escalation of its AI chip export restrictions, according to a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/china/u-s-china-trade-truce-risks-falling-apart-over-rare-earth-exports-c36ceb72?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAgx-dmss5tBM6B9oiloLup2S4TUVaOOxisMxNN4LIPyu5Jhtb3qo9Dyc0SeZ0s%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68408745&amp;gaa_sig=ElhNWTewNk-fEkX0uGYrpopTvdHdVcjfye_u_YZAS_2Eep0hO9VkdAEPfwPXlpoaqJj5byON7dRy11laI_hGRw%3D%3D">report</a> from the WSJ. Trump’s crackdown on Chinese student visas surely didn’t help calm the waters, either.&nbsp;



Over the weekend, though, things started looking up. China on Saturday loosened some of its export restrictions, although it did not specify which countries were impacted.&nbsp;



Trump on Friday said he expected today’s London meeting to go “very well,” based on a phone call he had with Xi Jinping.&nbsp;



The meeting also comes after a Chinese <a href="http://www.customs.gov.cn/customs/302249/zfxxgk/2799825/302274/302275/6560408/index.html">report</a> released this morning showed that Chinese exports to the US were down 35% year over year last month. This is the largest annual decline since 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;



US markets were mostly muted Monday as investors waited for word from London. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes were up 0.3% and 0.5% over the day, respectively, at 2 p.m. ET.&nbsp;



Given the general lack of progress (publicly, at least) on the “90 deals in 90 days” front, even the smallest bit of positive news from London today could be a huge catalyst for markets. Keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow for all the updates.



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China

US and China reps meet on neutral ground for a second time

Kate Irwin

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



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Coinbase is taking action to reduce the number of users it’s locking out — and says its efforts are paying off.



“Account freezing has been a major issue at Coinbase for longer than is acceptable,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong <a href="https://x.com/brian_armstrong/status/1931079537686962401">said</a>. “I could list a bunch of the underlying reasons why it got so bad in the first place, but what&#8217;s more important is that we&#8217;ve made it a priority to fix, and we have been making good progress.”



Dor Levi, Coinbase VP of Product, <a href="https://x.com/dorvonlevi/status/1931042048116945247">explained</a> that he joined Coinbase recently with the goal of getting account-lock numbers down.



“Our restriction experience is not meeting my own bar,” Levi said.



Coinbase recently made some technical changes and improvements, including some to its infrastructure, teams, and machine learning models. They’ve been able to fine-tune said ML models to tackle the issue.



“Account freezes should be rare, limited to situations that warrant them, primarily when we&#8217;re legally obligated (e.g. sanctions or court orders) or protecting users (e.g. from scams or account compromises),” Levi wrote.



<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">I joined <a href="https://twitter.com/coinbase?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@coinbase</a> 9 weeks ago with a vital goal: fixing unnecessary account restrictions. If you&#39;re on CT, you know how significant this issue has been for users. I myself am a Coinbase user and our restriction experience is not meeting my own bar. The goal is clear: Account… <a href="https://t.co/zvGuM3QSZi">pic.twitter.com/zvGuM3QSZi</a>&mdash; Dor (@dorvonlevi) <a href="https://twitter.com/dorvonlevi/status/1931042048116945247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Both Armstrong and Levi confirmed that account-lock occurrences are down roughly 82% within the past few months.



Coinbase often restricts user accounts when it’s concerned about what it detects as potentially suspicious activity. This means any activity that could be in possible violation of any nation’s laws, including <a href="https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/other-topics/other/does-coinbase-freeze-accounts">fraud</a>. Locked accounts can result in customers being forced to jump through various ID verification hoops and spend time speaking with support to try to resolve the issue.



Coinbase’s <a href="https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/other-topics/other/does-coinbase-freeze-accounts">site</a> says it “sometimes” places restrictions on user accounts, but claims that only very rarely does it fully “freeze” customer funds.



This change within Coinbase is a step toward keeping more of its users happy, especially as it faces scrutiny following a customer support-related <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-breach-fallout-data-exposed">data breach</a>.



We’re still waiting to see how or whether Coinbase ups its customer data security practices post-breach.



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Coinbase

Coinbase says it’s reduced account lockouts by 82%

Macauley Peterson

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



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Union just set a new record for zero-knowledge infrastructure. Its Groth16 trusted setup ceremony closed with 4,664 verified contributions — surpassing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/manta-network-harmed-by-ddos-attack-during-token-issuance">Manta Network’s</a> 2023 record — and another 4,590 are still in the queue. This establishes the cryptographic foundation for validating consensus and cross-chain messages with succinct <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/brief-history-zk-tech">validity proofs</a>.



Trusted setup ceremonies are crucial to zero-knowledge proving systems. Union enables it to act as a “blockchain of blockchains,” offering verifiable message passing and asset transfers across <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/arbitrum">Arbitrum</a>, Babylon and even <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-zk-rollups-debate">Bitcoin L2s</a> — all without relying on centralized actors.



Union Chief Technology Officer Cor Pruijs emphasized the significance: “Union&#8217;s circuit having the largest Groth16 trusted setup ceremony ever means that it has the smallest honesty assumption of all.”



“Honesty assumption” refers to the minimum number of participants who must act honestly (i.e. not leak or reuse their private randomness) for the resulting cryptographic parameters to remain secure.



Ethereum’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/addresses-helping-ethereum-scale">KZG Ceremony</a> for the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-dencun-upgrade-mainnet">Proto-Danksharding</a> upgrade used to scale rollups holds the record for most participants in any trusted setup. However, that ceremony’s computational demands were far lower, making Union’s scale even more impressive.



Despite the complexity of such cryptographic pipelines, contributors needed only to queue up and complete the computation when their turn came, with each result verified and added sequentially to the setup.



While Ethereum’s KZG setup was limited to data availability for rollups, Union’s underpins full cross-chain consensus verification. The design bears modular features:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>CometBLS, a modified CometBFT, is a data-light consensus mechanism that aggregates validator signatures for efficient onchain verification.</li>



<li>A permissionless prover network, <a href="https://docs.union.build/architecture/galois/">Galois</a>, generates zk proofs in under seven seconds.</li>



<li>Voyager (a decentralized relayer system) moves proofs and state data between source and destination chains.</li>
</ol>



The result is trust-minimized interoperability that works across execution environments — be it <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a>, CosmWasm, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solanas-software-underpins-these-layer-1s">SVM</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/initia-mainnet-launch-appchain-l1">MoveVM</a>. That’s a gamechanger for developers building across chains who want fast finality and unified liquidity without compromising on security.



For comparison, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/wormhole">Wormhole</a> relies on a multisig model governed by a fixed set of 19 “<a href="https://wormhole.com/docs/learn/infrastructure/guardians/">Guardians</a>,” where messages are only valid if signed by a supermajority (13/19). <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/axelar">Axelar</a> uses a validator-based architecture secured by economic incentives, and requires its nodes to run full chain nodes for each connected network.



Union’s approach inherits core principles from the Inter-Blockchain Communication (<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ibc">IBC</a>) protocol but effectively virtualizes IBC through zk proofs. This architecture removes reliance on whitelisting actors, and lets the interop layer scale horizontally across chains without replicating full node infrastructure, according to Union Labs CEO Karel Kubat.



“The key solution here is actually generating a [zero-knowledge proof] for your consensus updates instead of doing it in the contract itself&#8230;So if a network has 100 validators, 1000, or a million, it doesn&#8217;t really matter, because the ZKP has a constant cost associated with it,” Kubat said on <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/f58c1704-d839-11ef-b708-f71a7fba0d49">the 0xResearch podcast</a> earlier this year.



It also allows for permissionless solvers: Any participant can monitor chains, generate consensus proofs and submit them to the network.



For even faster settlement, Union supports intents, enabling solvers to front capital and fill user transactions almost instantly. Partners like <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/0xresearch/b57efaa4-6b1b-11ef-bd7f-0fdf4340563b">Aori</a> route these fills, with solvers taking on the finality risk. That should serve both latency-sensitive apps and more high-value, security-conscious use cases. Importantly, both are possible using one API, thus unifying general message passing and intents in a single integration.



Kubat expects Union will be about as cheap as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-across-cross-chain-swaps">Across Protocol</a>, with only around 20 transfers occurring at the same time. “That&#8217;s actually quite amazing with all of the cryptography happening under the hood,” he said.



After quietly supporting <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/babylon-genesis-launch-l1-bitcoin-liquidity">Babylon Genesis</a> with a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/consensus-mechanisms-guide">proof-of-authority</a> testnet, next up is Union’s mainnet. For crypto natives, the potential implications are frictionless, cross-chain dapps without fragmented UX or trust in multisigs. If Union delivers on its promises, this might be the first interop layer that actually feels like using one unified chain.



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0xResearch Newsletter

Union completes trusted setup to pave the way for trustless cross-chain DeFi

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



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There’s no questioning that Supply Shock is deep in the nostalgia business. Sometimes, it’s meant to be deeper than that.



Maybe you lived the first few years of Bitcoin, and get a kick out of revisiting the major narratives and forgotten side plots. Perhaps you missed out and are now living vicariously as an early adopter through our deep dives.



Today&#8217;s throwback is more an expression of mourning than reminiscence: 



RIP, the age of Bitcoin idealism.



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



Exactly 15 years ago, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/happy-bitcoin-mmo-day-tale-in-the-desert">Andrew “teppy” Tepper</a> started what would become a fateful <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175">thread</a>: “A Heroin Store.”



Teppy wrote: “As a Libertarian, the thing I love most about the Bitcoin project is the chance that it could be truly disruptive. I think that drug prohibition is one of the most socially harmful things that the US has ever done, and so I would like to do a thought experiment about how a heroin store might operate, accepting Bitcoins, and ending drug prohibition in the process.”



It would work like this: A drug dealer sets up a website that accepts bitcoin for heroin. The buyer makes an order, sends BTC and supplies a physical address for shipping. The dealer then mails out the order to the buyer — and another order of the exact same size to a random address.



In that universe, because random packages of heroin would then be regularly arriving at addresses all across the US, simply receiving one would supposedly not imply that someone at the address had ordered the drugs in the first place. There would be plausible deniability.



Sure, the post office could spot a package and inform the police, who then might stake out your mailbox to see who collects the mail, then get a warrant to search the house to see if the package had been opened — confirming intent to buy.



Teppy thought of that: “It would be important for buyers to not open any package that they suspect may contain their heroin, until they wish to consume it: they would only be in danger of possession between when the package was opened and when the contents was consumed.” 



“Can anyone see a way to attack the store?” he asked.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcdjVGylGsGLES8EHNtxhxsb-vov0bCC1ZLlMlsgWs1ztuW63WF1NjK3-nOzJd6Fq7M0cY-5uCTntH3avE9qK20_Od-7GUXdKUNUXbXd0mUKF13h6RnQd7e2mYmBs0K17Bt77nEvg?key=Jaz0Aun0rkI2W5QaLkFANw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Not everyone was interested: A shadow economy doesn’t need to be shady.</figcaption></figure>



Teppy was clear that it was all hypothetical; he was not planning to start a heroin store. It was enough cover for a number of early high-profile Bitcoin users to join in on the experiment, including Laszlo Hanycez, Martti Malmi, Michael Marquadt, Bruce Wagner, Mike Caldwell and more.



Of course, the plan has a number of obvious attack vectors: Police could trace the packages back to certain mailboxes to catch the dealer, which is a common and effective tactic for busting actual dark web drug dealers. Teppy was, however, adamant that it would be practically impossible if the hypothetical store was operating out of a big city like New York.



There’s also the matter of forensics. Even in 2010, authorities could easily intercept and analyze the packages, tracing whatever materials were used back to the vendor and ultimately the dealer themselves.&nbsp;



Such an investigation would likely be prioritized due to the public safety risks of mailing dangerous drugs to random addresses nationwide.



The thread itself is famous for its connection to the case against Ross Ulbricht. Under the Bitcointalk alias “altoid,” UIbricht had taken the opportunity to advertise his then-brand-new Silk Road marketplace.



“What an awesome thread! You guys have a ton of great ideas. Has anyone seen Silk Road yet? It&#8217;s kind of like an anonymous amazon.com. I don&#8217;t think they have heroin on there, but they are selling other stuff … Let me know what you guys think,” altoid wrote.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd8PaTo9nul6i3aJmLSHdK2BUpao-NF5KcNS4BkzutQpfiOQjh9KqntT6eXwvli5G5aTBRkIek-qf5sahCLwH8169yidq2ZhJdtp5-wN7GRKQJSRTQsqtW2E2ZL3XsLYw3ALcKX?key=Jaz0Aun0rkI2W5QaLkFANw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Narrator: It did not take very long.</figcaption></figure>



Investigators ultimately linked Ulbricht to altoid in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html">number of ways</a>, including Ross’ use of a personal email address to recruit developers to help with Silk Road under the pseudonym. Ross’ posts in the thread also led to Bitcointalk receiving its first-ever subpoena.



It’s always difficult to know the true intentions of people on the internet, but I doubt that teppy realized his hypothetical could one day bleed over into real-world consequences.&nbsp;



Luckily, legendary Bitcointalk user Timo Y already captured the complexity of it all in October 2013, about a week after Ulbricht’s arrest in the sci-fi section of a San Francisco library. Authorities had referenced the thread in Ulbricht’s official indictment.



“Back then this forum was a more innocent place, full of dreamers discussing what at the time felt like improbable scenarios out of a William Gibson novel,” Timo Y wrote.



“I was really taken by surprise how soon this fantasy became reality, how soon this whole bitcoin experiment became serious fucking business. Very surreal to read this thread in retrospect.”



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This Bitcoin drugstore thought experiment quickly got out of hand

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



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



We talked a whole lot about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-execution-stablecoins">Circle</a> last week, and I’ve already mentioned that the success of the IPO opened up doors for other firms (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gemini-files-confidential-s1-with-sec">take a look at Gemini</a>, for example, which announced it confidentially filed an S-1 with the SEC earlier this year).&nbsp;



But while there’s a ton of appetite on the public markets, the question has to be asked: Who’s actually ready to premiere on a public stage?



Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick poured some cold water on the hopes and dreams of a crypto IPO season on this <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/0a8df65c-4326-11f0-a24f-870b75d11b1d">week’s Empire episode</a>. He and Haun Ventures’ Diogo Monica noted that most crypto companies are a tad smaller than public markets typically prefer.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="How Venture Is Navigating Crypto IPOs" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ivA7W-8jwE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



To put that into perspective, we’d be talking about hundreds of millions raised in an IPO in comparison to the billion-dollar Circle debut. Hadick said that the IPO market is “definitely open.”



But that doesn’t mean that the firms are ready. Hadick expressed doubt that firms like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan would be advising companies like Fireblocks to go public.&nbsp;



“Fireblocks is not there. And that&#8217;s true of Chainalysis, which is a great SaaS business. That&#8217;s true of most of the other people we talked about. Kraken is a different story. And you know, I expect we&#8217;ll see them [go] public. Maybe not this year, but maybe next year,” Hadick added.&nbsp;



However, because of the appetite, there could be a slew of crypto IPOs that rush to the public markets before they’ve hit the typical maturity points.&nbsp;



Hadick wouldn’t be surprised if firms talk to underwriters who promise to take them public through either a direct listing or go the more typical route like Circle and just aim to raise far lower (eyeing a $100 or $200 million raise versus billions).&nbsp;



And, to be fair, crypto’s not a special snowflake when it comes to massive IPO success. Every industry that sees one company’s success has other players seriously thinking about how they can capitalize on the momentum.&nbsp;



Generally, though, at least in my experience, it’s pretty rare to see firms capture the same fanfare or financial backing when they’re looking to hit copy and paste on another company’s playbook. But crypto thrives on smashing expectations, so perhaps that bodes well.



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Crypto

What crypto firms could go public next?

Jack Kubinec

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



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Earlier this week, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-token-sale">Blockworks first reported</a> that pump.fun has plans to raise $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation via a token sale. 



The potential b-nut would add to a likely already sizable war chest for the memecoin launchpad, which has generated over $700 million in revenue since launching last year. Some have speculated that the fresh funds could go toward the rollout of a pump.fun blockchain, which would capture some of the trading fees that currently go to Solana.  



In this week’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzhd1yWI-XE&amp;t=2271s">Lightspeed podcast roundup</a>, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz said launching a layer-1 without taking any other swings at growing pump’s business would do little else but increase the business’ take rate, which is another way of saying increase its profit margins. Mumtaz thinks this would be money poorly spent.



“​​Do you think that they would raise a billion dollars if what they cared about was increasing their margins from, let&#8217;s say, 80% to 85%?,” Mumtaz mused. “If I&#8217;m their VC, I&#8217;m going to say, ‘What the fuck are you doing? That&#8217;s extremely boring.’”



Rather, the Solana infrastructure CEO said, pump.fun’s fresh billion could de-risk new moonshot ideas to diversify the core business — which is lucrative but obviously quite captive to the whims of memecoin traders. (In fairness, a world does exist where pump.fun both develops new business lines and grows its margins on a new L1, but we’ll leave that aside for now).



That’s the big question for pump.fun: Can it find a second pitch? Pump could try to take the same path as Jupiter, which went on an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_AavGwooLs">acquisition spree</a>, adding a memecoin frontend, NFTs, lending and more after coming to dominate the Solana swap market.&nbsp;



“Historically, what you&#8217;ve seen in crypto M&amp;A is that it has kind of lacked discipline,” Blockworks Research head of research Ryan Connor said on this point. “Seeing what pump does purchase and if it&#8217;s synergistic to the business is going to be pretty critical.” Connor added that pump may have to deal with significant legal costs if it tries to expand its reach more globally.



If pump.fun tries to internally develop its next big idea, streaming may be the top contender. The platform brought back livestreaming earlier this year after facing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-suspends-livestream-feature">content moderation issues</a> in an earlier version. It has tried to create something akin to Twitch with memecoins on this latest iteration, notably onboarding the anonymous trader gainzy, who has gone viral for irreverent rants in between pulls from a vape.&nbsp;



Whatever it looks like, my podcast guests seemed to think pump.fun’s next move would involve something more inspired than creating yet another L1.



“I think a much more attractive proposition is: ‘Look, we&#8217;re literally going to redefine how crypto and media interact, right? We&#8217;re going to look at the entertainment and social aspects of this business and really take big shots and go for the next 10 to 100x,’” Mumtaz said.



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meme coins

Pump.fun may have loftier goals than building an L1

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



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I was watching CNBC yesterday afternoon (and the <a href="https://x.com/caseywagnerr/status/1930643273262964849">French Open</a>, don’t tell my boss) hoping to catch a glimpse of the NYSE exchange floor when <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle started trading</a>, but a bigger story quickly dominated the news cycle.&nbsp;



Fortunately for Circle shareholders, the political drama had seemingly no impact on shares of the newly-public stablecoin company. Trading under the ticker CRCL, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-hits-75-nyse-trading">the stock debuted</a> more than 120% above IPO price. Demand was alive and well today, too, with more than 20 million shares traded before 11 a.m. ET.&nbsp;



Back to that other big story, though. The biggest bromance in Washington is, apparently, imploding.&nbsp;



Yesterday, when speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside German Chancellor Merz, President Trump revealed cracks in his relationship with Elon Musk.&nbsp;



&#8220;Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump said. “I don&#8217;t know if we will anymore.&#8221;



If Merz was upset that his meeting in Washington was completely overshadowed by a public feud, he didn’t show it. I’d imagine he’s just glad he isn’t on the other side of Trump’s wrath.&nbsp;



Trump’s issues with Musk stem from the tech billionaire’s comments about the “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tax-bill-trump-congress-gop">one big beautiful bill” Act</a>, the sweeping tax and budget legislative package Trump is trying to get through Congress.&nbsp;



The bill is the heart of Trump’s platform, but Musk isn’t a fan for a few reasons:&nbsp;



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>The bill cuts electric vehicle tax credits. </li>



<li>The bill doesn’t do enough to curb government spending. </li>
</ol>



On that first point, we’ll never know if Trump would have won without Musk’s support, but I think it’s safe to say it certainly didn’t hurt. In Musk’s opinion, he spent enough time and money to secure some EV credits. Trump says he doesn’t owe the billionaire a thing.&nbsp;



Because it’s 2025, and because Trump and Musk are who they are, the venue for the fight was, of course, social media. While Trump fired off “truths” on Truth Social, Musk took to X.&nbsp;



In (perhaps) a sign that investors are growing more immune to political antics, US markets didn’t move as much as you may have expected. Well, save for Tesla, which lost 14% on Thursday. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes closed 0.5% and 0.8% lower, respectively.&nbsp;



By Friday, though, US markets were back in the green, thanks to a better-than-expected May jobs report. The S&amp;P 500 was trading 1.1% higher on the day at 2 p.m. ET while the Nasdaq Composite had gained 1.4% at that time.&nbsp;



As for the current state of affairs between Trump and Musk, things are still rocky. Trump’s chief of staff told NBC today there are “no plans” for a call between the president and his (former?) bestie. The New York Times is reporting that Trump plans to sell the red Tesla he added to the White House’s fleet back in March.&nbsp;



With midterms quickly approaching and Musk’s government contracts apparently on the line (per one of Trump’s threats yesterday), it seems advantageous for the two to kiss and make up.&nbsp;



We wouldn’t be surprised if they both cool down over the weekend, although I doubt either man can resist posting for too long, so we’ll see. Either way, I’ll be back on Monday to unpack it all.



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Circle

Markets recover on jobs surprise amid political feud tensions

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



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World Network — known for its eye-scanning orb that verifies human accounts for its mobile super app — is launching the next phase of its developer incentive campaign.



World Network is managed by World Foundation and also involves corporate entities such as World Assets Limited and World Chain LLC. For-profit blockchain product developer Tools For Humanity is overseeing the development of the World app.



Collectively, World Foundation and TFH are working with crypto events DAO <a href="https://www.fwb.help/about">FWB</a> to host their next event for builders, <a href="https://worldbuild.fwb.help/">World Build 2.0</a>, in July, according to a release Tools For Humanity shared exclusively with The Drop. Tools For Humanity Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada was one of the first edition’s judges.



The first World Build event ran for five months, from February until May this year. It included an online hackathon followed by an in-person build sprint and ended with a demo day, where builders pitched their apps to VCs and threw their hats in the ring for various grants. The second Build event is expected to have a similar format.



There are a number of different funding opportunities for mini app builders regardless of their participation in World Build. World Foundation is offering a Mini Apps <a href="https://world.org/grants">Grants Program</a> and Mini App Retroactive Rewards.&nbsp;



TFH’s <a href="https://www.toolsforhumanity.com/legal/developer-rewards-terms-and-conditions">Dev Rewards Pilot</a> has a total of $300,000 to give developers over a three-month period ending June 30. Rewards of $25,000 a week are split across multiple dev teams depending on mini app performance.



The World Foundation is also giving out $1 million worth of its WLD token to developers who’ve already shipped something for the World app and saw over 10,000 verified human users by May 16 as part of a retroactive funding effort. Devs have until June 9 to <a href="https://world.org/retro">apply</a> for that one-time WLD token gift.



There are already 300 mini apps so far available within the World mobile app with roughly $12 million in venture capital funding across them, according to data from Tools For Humanity.



The World app uses the World Network blockchain, which is built on Ethereum via the Optimism Superchain.&nbsp;



Monetization <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/world-launches-mini-apps-1-2">isn&#8217;t</a> the main focus of the World Foundation or TFH right now. Instead, they’re pushing for platform growth and user adoption.&nbsp;



The World App has seen over 10 million downloads on Android alone thus far, according to its Google Play Store page.&nbsp;



Based on data from analytics platform AppFigures, it looks like World App for Android is a lot more popular than its iOS version. The Android version has seen over 5.9 million downloads this year alone, while the iOS version has less than a million downloads in that same period.&nbsp;



The top countries downloading World’s Android app this year so far the most are, in order, Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Philippines, and Peru. The US is much further down, in the 19th spot. The top countries data for the iOS app paints a similar picture, suggesting it’s a global app that hasn’t quite breached the US market just yet.



This may be because WLD hadn’t been available to US residents previously until a recent change <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-altman-worldcoin-orb-mini-eye-scan">announced</a> April 30.



Last month, World Foundation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/worldcoin-biometric-identity-vision">raised $135 million</a> in funding from a16z and Bain Capital Crypto. The VCs’ investment came in the form of buying WLD tokens.&nbsp;



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sam altman

World Foundation, Tools For Humanity unveil World Build 2.0

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



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Aave’s new Umbrella staking system <a href="https://x.com/aave/status/1930630754255479080">went live</a> yesterday, replacing the protocol’s once-theoretical insurance model with an onchain, automated safety net tied directly to individual assets.&nbsp;



The USDC and USDT vaults <a href="https://app.aave.com/staking/">currently</a> have yields greater than 10% on offer. But for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-stablecoin-gho-mainnet-launch">GHO</a> — <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/aave">Aave’s</a> bespoke <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> — a mismatched reward structure is creating an odd dynamic for GHO holders in search of yield.



Since 2020, Aave’s Safety Module (SM) has served as a kind of backstop — stkAAVE and AAVE-ETH LPs (stkABPT) could be slashed in theory, but governance votes and political incentives meant that slashing never occurred — even after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-curve-exposure">bad debt events</a> like the 2022 Curve exploit. With Umbrella, Aave introduces an autonomous mechanism that slashes stakers in real time once bad debt in a particular asset exceeds a preset threshold.



The goal: make Aave’s insurance fund more credible, capital-efficient and aligned with real user behavior.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How Umbrella works</h2>



Each Umbrella vault is an <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/erc-4626">ERC-4626</a> strategy for staking yield-bearing assets like Aave-deposited USDC, USDT and ETH, or by staking GHO. Users stake their token and earn both the underlying lending APY and an additional “Safety Incentive” stream. Rewards follow an S-shaped curve, with peak emissions at the vault’s “Target Liquidity” and tapering off above or below.



If a shortfall occurs, the protocol automatically burns the same asset from its vault after a configurable “first-loss offset” (currently 100,000 units per asset). There is no governance vote, no auction and no delay.



Like the legacy module, staked tokens remain locked for 20 days once withdrawal is requested, with a two-day window to exit.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Migration: New names, new risks</h2>



The shift to Umbrella brings some changes for existing stakers:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>stkAAVE and stkABPT remain active, but with slashing disabled. They now serve primarily as governance power with residual yield.</li>



<li>stkGHO, a staking vault introduced last year, was automatically migrated into a new token: sGHO. Slashing risk and cooldowns were removed, but Aave’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-rewards-program-airdrop">Merit program</a> continues to stream rewards — currently ~7% APY.</li>



<li>A new stkGHO-Umbrella vault was launched for those willing to take on slashing risk.</li>
</ul>



Umbrella’s stkGHO deposits currently earn a ~5% APY — lower than the risk-free sGHO. That’s sparking user complaints and a governance forum discussion. Here’s the status quo:



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table class="has-fixed-layout"><tbody><tr><td>Token</td><td>Liquidity</td><td>Slashing</td><td>Cooldown</td><td>APY (as of June 6)</td><td>Funding</td></tr><tr><td>sGHO</td><td>Instant</td><td>None</td><td>None</td><td>~7%</td><td>Merit/ASR</td></tr><tr><td>stkGHO</td><td>20d lock</td><td>Up to 100%</td><td>Yes</td><td>~5%</td><td>Umbrella emissions</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



Due to overfunding of the GHO vault and absent a redirection of Merit rewards, stkGHO currently earns less than its risk-free counterpart.&nbsp;



But the opportunity in sGHO will be short-lived. Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) drafts are circulating to fix this by either shifting Merit rewards or raising the vault’s emissions cap.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Assessing the risks</h2>



Umbrella introduces a higher probability of slashing compared to the legacy SM, since there’s no governance barrier. But the scope of slashing is narrower: You only lose funds if there’s bad debt in the specific asset you’ve staked, and only above the offset buffer.



Compared to holding AAVE (a volatile token backing generalized risk), staking stablecoins in Umbrella offers a more targeted risk-return profile. Still, liquidity lock-ups and smart contract risk remain.



Stakers chasing yield can rotate into under-target vaults (waUSDT or waWETH) for better APY. GHO holders could opt for sGHO now and switch over to stkGHO once the emissions patch lands.



Umbrella deployments on L2s are also on the roadmap. Long term, the legacy Safety Module may be retired entirely.



For now, Umbrella marks a shift from “opt-in protection” to credible, real-time insurance — a more tailored approach to putting staker skin in the game.



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Umbrella reshapes Aave staking

Gemini announced that it filed a confidential draft S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.&nbsp;



The filing is one of the first steps for the crypto firm to go public through an initial public offering.&nbsp;



The S-1, however, isn’t public yet, but Gemini said that it expects its IPO to move forward following the review process from the SEC.&nbsp;



The move comes just a day after Circle debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO that was pretty successful. The stock was priced at $31 at an offering of 34 million shares, but started trading at $69 a share. It <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">closed</a> up over 160% at $83 a share on Thursday.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-execution-stablecoins">Did Circle execute its IPO ‘perfectly’</a>



Industry watchers noted that the success of an IPO as big as Circle could spur others to quickly follow in the stablecoins footsteps.&nbsp;



“I suspect we’ll be seeing several crypto companies accelerating their IPO plans now that Circle has revealed Wall Street’s appetite,” GSR’s Carlos Guzman told Blockworks.



Empire co-host and Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz said that he spoke to a couple of firms in crypto that were pulling their IPO timelines forward because of the stablecoin issuer.&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">More true than ever Speaking with founders this week, the demand for Circle / <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRCL&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$CRCL</a> just pulled forward the IPO timeline for several other companies. <a href="https://t.co/HMbSC4434B">https://t.co/HMbSC4434B</a>&mdash; Yano 🟪 (@JasonYanowitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz/status/1930587713909956769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-07/winklevoss-twins-gemini-is-said-to-file-confidentially-for-ipo">reported</a> in March that the Winklevoss-led firm was considering going public, saying that it could hit the public markets as soon as this year.&nbsp;



Both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been supporters of President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto administration, and were also in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/inauguration-weekend-crypto-ball">attendance</a> at the Crypto Ball earlier this year.&nbsp;



Gemini didn’t immediately return a request for comment.



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Gemini

Gemini files confidential S-1 with SEC in road to IPO

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It’s nice to imagine a world where the price of bitcoin didn’t matter. Sadly, it can never be so.



Perhaps in a vacuum, maybe, in an alternate dimension where human brains are hardwired — like an ASIC miner — to only ever transact in bitcoin and nothing else. Not with <a href="https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html">shells</a>, gold or livestock. Only bitcoin and barter, forever.



<a href="https://hyperbitcoinization.com/">Hyperbitcoinization</a> or bust.



In boring reality, bitcoin needs reference points. The ones we currently have may well be trending to zero, but Bitcoin could never fulfill its true calling — payments and storing value — without knowing exactly how much it’s worth relative to something else at any given moment.



Tracking exchange rates quickly turns into an obsession, and for good reason: That’s how fortunes are made.&nbsp;



Few know that better than Mark Cuban, my muse for today’s retrospective.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Money Is Speech</h2>



It’s been eight years exactly since <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/mark-cuban-calls-bitcoin-a-bubble-price-falls.html">this banger tweet</a> about Bitcoin from the former majority Mavs owner Cuban:



“I think it’s in a bubble. I just don’t know when or how much it corrects. When everyone is bragging about how easy they are making $=bubble.”



It was June 2017, and bitcoin had been rallying for about six months straight to cap off a 10x run over two years — from $250 to $2,800 around the time of Cuban’s post.



Bitcoin would push 600% higher over the next six months until the cycle’s peak in December, before retracing by more than 80% across the following year.



Was that a bubble? It really depends on how loose your definition is, but for what it’s worth, bitcoin never returned to $2,800 again after Cuban’s post.



So, anyone who bought bitcoin as he sent that tweet would have never lost money, and would today be up by 3,600%.



<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">Look at Bitcoin. As long as everyone stays in their comfort zone , btc is never more than a SOV driven by supply and demand. Unless everyone drops fiat, no one drops fiat&mdash; Mark Cuban (@mcuban) <a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1268663448847765515?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Nods in Jack Nicholson: “Unless everyone drops fiat, no one drops fiat.”</figcaption></figure>



Cuban’s opinion about bitcoin and crypto has indeed evolved over time — the same guy who <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/04/mark-cuban-on-the-value-of-bitcoin.html">said</a> “I’d rather have bananas than bitcoin” in October 2019 (when bitcoin was at $8,000) has more recently <a href="https://x.com/mcuban/status/1908344893862269417">said</a> “btc is probably a better buy right now” over stocks, even amid the buyback craze and with bitcoin at $84,000.



It’s not totally fair to surmise Cuban’s personal views from just his tweets and media spots. But I’ll do it anyway.



Cuban’s tendency is to consume Bitcoin through the very narrow lens of prices and profits, and he has certainly agreed with bitcoin’s potential as a store of value, even if it’s really a euphemism for “number go up.”



His most telling <a href="https://x.com/mcuban/status/1426920428237434888">tweet</a> is this, from August 2021, peak bull market: “BTC is a great SOV. Far better than gold. I own a bunch. But it is what it is. It doesn’t have all the special powers Maxis try to assign to it.”



Calling it now: If Bitcoinization is anything like the Apocalypse — 15 signs and all — then let the moment Cuban finally sees the magic of Bitcoin, beyond its price, be undeniable.



— David



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A Historian’s View</h2>



To pull a quote from Harry Suddock, when it comes to Bitcoin —&nbsp;“price is the product,” but I’ll add my own twist. It’s also the marketing. Since David has regaled us with a tale of just how late Mark Cuban has been to Bitcoin, I thought it would be nice to provide a reminder that we’re still early.



Take this quote from Zooko Wilcox, written 14 years ago:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc0FiUG4XAVIQ8SZCpf8nc3AA0gdYt7HN-uRl_wMZq91hwFgqD4YRpYarV_nAiY6BLTELV01MSbrZ47kF9NE4nIoQH8ApyvLM_HI5gAcNMtE7GtgrrpvwUp-O8ZV-9jiYuAoE4n1w?key=2bRz0-TRqtndVWoTllE4yw" alt="" style="width:528px;height:auto"/></figure>



An off-the-cuff remark from a renowned cypherpunk (with his own fascinating crypto story), it’s a 14-year-old observation that rings true today.



It makes you wonder how high the price will be when the number of economists supporting BTC is over 10%.



— Rizzo



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What Mark Cuban still misses about Bitcoin

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



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I know we’ve been talking a lot about <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle</a>, but let’s be honest…whether you love or hate the firm, it’s a huge success story this week.&nbsp;



The stablecoin issuer finally debuted on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, jumping as high as $103 before closing around $83. Quite a ride if you were watching it in real time, but if you weren’t, it closed up over 160% after pricing at $31 Wednesday night. 



What was clear today was that retail was just as interested as institutions (ICYMI: Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-04/circle-ipo-is-said-to-be-likely-to-price-above-marketed-range-mbi24hhn?embedded-checkout=true">reported</a> that the offering was 20x oversubscribed earlier this week).&nbsp;



Speaking of institutions, Cathie Wood’s Ark disclosed that it bought nearly 4.5 million Circle shares, an amount worth over $373 million. Ark <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-ipo-price-listing-demand">previously said</a> it was interested in roughly $150 million, per a Circle filing.&nbsp;



As my colleague (and <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance newsletter</a> author) Ben Strack <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">wrote</a>: It makes sense for folks to be interested in both COIN and CRCL.&nbsp;



“Coinbase is the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-circle-amazon-of-crypto">Amazon of crypto</a> — trading, derivatives, custody, staking and, of course, stablecoins,” Bitwise’s Ryan Rasmussen told Strack. “Circle now offers pure-play exposure to stablecoins. I suspect investors will want both in their portfolios.



“With stablecoin legislation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/senate-advances-genius-act">likely to pass this year</a>, that growth is only going to accelerate. So they smash the buy button on Circle.”



But, on the Empire podcast today, co-hosts Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Santos talked not only about COIN and CRCL but also Robinhood. When Santos asked Yanowitz which stock he’d choose if he could only pick one, Yanowitz responded that he’s “gigalong HOOD at this point.”



What was perhaps more surprising — to me at least — was that Yanowitz said if he were to recreate his equity portfolio from scratch, he’d include <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/coinbase">Coinbase</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/robinhood">Robinhood</a> but not Circle.&nbsp;



“I think we’re nearing a local top in sentiment for stablecoins,” Yanowitz explained. “I think Circle hit this IPO perfectly.”



But it’s not enough to get him to buy the stock.



Meanwhile, GSR’s Carlos Guzman told us: “Such a high degree of investor interest reflects significant optimism about the potential for stablecoins, especially as US legislation gets close to the finish line. As market structure legislation advances in Congress, we could see this interest extend to the rest of the industry, as clearer regulation sets the stage for broader adoption. I suspect we’ll be seeing several crypto companies accelerating their IPO plans now that Circle has revealed Wall Street’s appetite.”



What I’ll be watching now is whether or not Circle can keep the momentum. Hype’s great, but it doesn’t always last, and is $83 a fair price for the stock? We’ll have to see.



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



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



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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Did Circle execute its IPO ‘perfectly’?

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



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Solana’s real economic value, app revenue, and DEX volumes were <a href="https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1930337683039236215">all up</a> on the order of 20-30% in May, but one noteworthy figure didn’t keep pace: stablecoin supply.



Today, there are 15% fewer stablecoins on Solana than a month ago, per Blockworks Research <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=159">data</a>. Stablecoins are often an important source of liquidity for doing things like swapping in and out of SOL, although Solana’s stablecoin dip comes after the gray swan that was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dinner-with-trump-memecoins-lobbyists">Donald Trump’s memecoin</a>.



Solana’s stablecoin supply doubled essentially overnight when Donald Trump’s memecoin was paired with USDC, meaning investors essentially had to buy TRUMP with Circle’s stablecoin. Interestingly, the fresh stablecoin supply didn’t evaporate when TRUMP investors flocked for the exits, and it even hit a fresh all-time high in April when the presidential memecoin was far from its initial highs.



So given that context, some in Solana find the decline in stablecoin supply unconcerning.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXePty3KuGwKcUnApEIzazGWN961pTfwhuZIygF9eC5Ti4Bt_x2AExHqGvhkXjA1JBnn-nyIqOiiHGO9_xFwTHrdq1l-oGLPhRQr-NTohI7-Pb1Gk6FmBmt8gs2sS-LFqaBREbXsvg?key=MiWNmfJsUfYxuRKsiPBVtQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Blockworks Research</figcaption></figure>



“[Y]ea this chart looks a lot better than the SOL price chart lol,” Lulo co-founder Jesse Brauner said when I asked him about the stablecoin supply dip.



In any event, the stablecoin exodus has been led by USDC, which saw its market cap on Solana shrink by some $1.8 billion in May, according to Blockworks Research analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo. Perena founder Anna Yuan speculated that the sudden drop in supply could be funds shorting the dollar in a topsy-turvy macro environment.



Non-USDC stables actually grew last month, notably including PayPal’s PYUSD, which saw its supply grow 48%.



PYUSD is one of several newer stablecoins vying for a piece of USDC’s 70% market share on Solana. It’s joined by USDG — a Paxos-issued stable that pledges to share revenue with its network partners, which include Robinhood and Kraken — and USX, a forthcoming basis-trade token that its developer company <a href="https://x.com/ben_solstice/status/1927809303827644557">dubbed</a> “Solana’s stablecoin.”



I have <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-stablecoins-stickier-than-anticipated">speculated previously</a> that Solana may look to drive adoption on non-USDC stablecoins, since a significant portion of Circle’s revenue goes to Coinbase, which is possibly building Solana’s chief competitor in Base. On a permissionless network, however, disincentivizing usage of a product that users want is pretty difficult.



Gonzalez Campo noted how alternative stablecoin growth strategies have so far mainly revolved around shelling out incentives for users, but paying for adoption is ultimately unsustainable.



The analyst added he’d like to see a B2B model where upstart stablecoins like USDG share revenue with DeFi protocols to create a vested interest in supply growth.



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<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>