Jason Yanowitz

Many of today’s unicorn crypto companies started as a dream — entrepreneurs who took a leap of faith on a small internet phenomenon called Bitcoin.&nbsp;



Throughout my time in this space, I&#8217;ve been fortunate enough to meet hundreds of founders building this new financial system. Everyday, we hear the announcements, the fund raises, and the product launches.



But I wanted to hear the real stories –&nbsp;the stories that usually aren’t publicly shared.



On Empire, I’ll reveal the personal struggles, bold moves, and tough decisions that these individuals have gone through to build this new industry. For any NPR or Guy Raz fans out there, you can think of Empire like a &#8220;How I Built This&#8221; for the Bitcoin and crypto industry.



Empire launches on Thursday, March 4th, 2021.



Episodes will be released every Thursday morning. Early guests include Muneeb Ali of Blockstack, Mike Belshe of BitGo, Bobby Ong of CoinGecko, and Joe Lubin of ConsenSys. 



Subscribe to Empire today on <a href="https://apple.co/389JSpL">Apple</a> or <a href="https://spoti.fi/3uVnxpC">Spotify</a>. Watch the episode on <a href="https://youtu.be/EolJbJC8zZ0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>.

New Podcast from Blockworks Showcases the Personal Stories of Crypto Founders

Byron Gilliam

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



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.” — Steve Jobs
</blockquote>



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcV3kLIRva-_oRY1fjMdlO1HuKiv4B9XH2Of4YZ059fpLU0-M-5aDH9wtG2iVtkuXA_05gvzMj3wG2dksL82rjPgnrjhGMlgqQ0oMw5iPpISLWVTWlRBp2aus_ER4YNBC9H-Pih-A?key=jAbiypjm3gXzOvW6tKo1fw" alt="" style="width:612px;height:auto"/></figure>



Steve Jobs <a href="https://youtu.be/njYciFC7mR8?si=jDinkTcfmeVGT2Df">liked to tell a story</a> of a “slightly scary” old man from whom he did odd jobs as a kid, including, one time, gathering some rocks out of the yard.



The man put the rocks into a tumbler in his garage, added some liquid and grit, and told Jobs to come back the next day to see the result.



Jobs says he was amazed as the rocks emerged from the tumbler as smooth, shiny objects of desire.



Later in life, he found this works with people, too.



“A group of talented people, bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise. By working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas.” In other words, put a group of people in a room together and they’re all likely to look smarter when they come out.



Unlike rocks, however, they do have to be the right kind of people.



As individually visionary as Steve Jobs was, he <a href="https://pca.st/episode/26dcb911-925b-4fae-b13c-9c7ccc50688c?t=1697">attributed his success</a> at least in part to the people he chose to be around:&nbsp; “I think I consistently figured out who the really smart people were to hang around with. You must find extraordinary people.”



One place to find extraordinary people is at conferences.



The magic of an innovation cluster like Silicon Valley is the critical mass of tech people constantly bumping into each other.



Conferences create temporary innovation clusters, like a pop-up version of Silicon Valley.



“One way to think about an industry conference,” Byrne Hobart <a href="https://x.com/ByrneHobart/status/1800537690787471849">explains</a>, is that it “synthesizes high real estate prices by charging an entry fee (and plane tickets plus hotels are also going to have the same economic effect); they make time more expensive, so they raise the relative value of the highest-utility interactions.”



Translation: the high cost of attending conferences weeds out the riff-raff.



If you’re still wondering why people incur the cost of attending a conference in person that they could watch for free at home, I think that’s pretty much it.



You get to meet the kind of people you’d want to be tossed into a rock tumbler with.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A panel on crypto’s current meta: Treasury Asset Companies</h2>



I’m a skeptic of crypto treasury companies (to put it mildly), simply because I think companies should be in the business of making things, not just holding them.&nbsp;



I still feel that way after listening to this morning’s panel with three enthusiasts for companies that mostly just hold crypto, but there was more nuance to the story than I had expected.



Dan Kang notes that DeFi Development Corp also runs validators, which allows it to grow its Solana stake independently of the NAV multiple that investors assign to its stock (DFDV).



Could they earn enough Solana by running validators to service their dollar-denominated debt if their stock fell below 1x NAV? I expect we’ll find out, eventually.



In the meantime, DeFi Development Corp “gives you the ability to accumulate crypto even faster than you could on your own.”



I’d like to see the math on that for people paying <a href="https://defidevcorp.com">3.1x NAV</a> for DFDV today, but that’s the service they provide to investors.



Thomas Lee rationalized the seemingly inexplicable valuations that crypto companies command by saying it’s “similar to how oil companies trade on a premium to its proven reserves.”



“MicroStrategy will probably become the biggest stock in the US,” he predicts. “And it’s not valued on earnings, it’s valued at a premium to its bitcoin reserves.”



Call me old-fashioned, but I’d prefer the biggest stocks in the US be valued on earnings — because earnings are a measure of how valuable a company’s product or service is to their customers.



Lee says the crypto treasury companies with the highest NAV multiples have effectively turned their investors into customers.



That’s true, but I’d bet that most of these “customers” still think they’re investing, which could cause problems.



David Grider injected a welcome note of caution, predicting that “several of these will go bankrupt.”&nbsp;



He didn’t sound particularly concerned about it, but I think people should be, because how is this meant to end?



Treasury Asset Companies “equitized tokens,” as Thomas Lee phrased it, and earlier this week, DeFi Development Corp <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/23/3103316/0/en/DeFi-Development-Corp-Partners-with-Kraken-to-Tokenize-DFDV-Stock-on-Solana-Becoming-the-First-U-S-Listed-Crypto-Treasury-Strategy-to-Go-Onchain.html">announced</a> that its stock will soon be tradable as a token on Solana.



Tokenizing a Crypto Treasury Company is the equivalent of tokenizing equitized tokens.



If that’s worth doing, it’s only a matter of time until someone starts a Crypto Treasury Company that will equitize the tokenized equity that equitized tokens.



This, I fear, risks a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wrEEd1ajz4">Ghostbusters moment</a> in which the streams will be crossed and the crypto world comes to an end — and maybe take the rest of the world with it.



I see no other logical end point because, as Joe Lubin said on another panel, there’s a “race to acquire the highest-power money” (bitcoin and ether, in his view).&nbsp;



Whatever the risks, Crypto Treasury Companies are one way to run it.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">One newsy panel</h2>



Speaking this morning, Joe Lubin casually filled in some recent crypto history — from his well-informed vantage point, at least.



Explaining why Ethereum seemed to have fallen behind over the last couple of years, Lubin shared his suspicion that “Gary Gensler was given a mandate, probably from Elizabeth Warren, to kill or slow Ethereum.”



In particular, “It appears they had secretly decided to reclassify ether as a commodity.



“They were trying to pin it on people who were responsible for The Merge,” he explained. “When we saw a bunch of researchers were getting subpoenas, we decided to sue the SEC.”



I imagine few Permissionless attendees would find any of that surprising, but it hasn’t been part of the official record, so I think we got to hear it first.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Day III Quotes</h2>



“It’s the ultimate meme.” — Santiago Santos on the bull case for bitcoin



“The highest-power money is bitcoin and ether, because they’re permissionless.” — Joe Lubin&nbsp;



“Ethereum got their shit together. The Ethereum Foundation is firing on all cylinders now.” — Joe Lubin



“MSTR is so big it has a sovereign put.” — Thomas Lee



“The meta-narrative is: Tokens need to make money.” — Michael Anderson, Framework Ventures



Overheard: “The product is how to get rich quick.” — Anonymous, on crypto’s true product-market fit



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Permissionless IV Newsletter Awards:</h2>



Best elevator pitch: <a href="http://zeoapp.com">zeoapp.com</a> — WeChat + Pinduoduo with crypto rewards. (IFKYK.)&nbsp;



Best merch: personalized coin purses, Aptos



Wackiest moment: Jason Yanowitz interviews Dennis Rodman (I hear he had alpha)



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdQgeUBE6PywnaJSMNrY5eaPgRR2IQ2FDH910Td-IfuRR03ioa_8wPB-RQ608mIWY2tQZlo8tJYkBleWI9IL98oJ1vuXtg75_RpVMj810zcXh-1XFLrkdYrlHxpyyKRxYfDr0Qd?key=jAbiypjm3gXzOvW6tKo1fw" alt=""/></figure>



Best guerilla marketing: Uniswap posters on construction walls blocks from the venue



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdSjvJPriQ0t-IRcPhZYBUZu4okDaO0VZdbc8jQvgcmJqEqXEc-4YFDacolDWXXSUGrVd30wtnvEJs_HcBmAUE_PivPcFX_Wo5Dv6bzw3e6yhTFjC8DJI32y3fRg3uhiE1IDJC14g?key=jAbiypjm3gXzOvW6tKo1fw" alt=""/></figure>



The color-coordinated bicycle appeared to be serendipitous, unlocked, and there all week. Who says New York City has a crime problem?



Most mind-bending experience: The <a href="https://www.ryanoakes.com/?doing_wp_cron=1750957031.5636379718780517578125">magician/mentalist</a> in the Aptos lounge who made me question the laws of physics.



Most degen branding: “One App. 150x Leverage. 113% APR” — Merkle Trade.



Final Permissionless takeaway: It’s good to get off the sofa and see people for real.



And that’s a wrap for Permissionless IV.



Thanks for following along this week and I’ll see you at the next one.



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



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



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



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



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



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

Permissionless

Permissionless IV, Day 3 takeaways

Felix Jauvin

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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Economic data is rolling over.&nbsp;



After an artificial bounce in economic data due to tariff front-running, the underlying economic data is beginning to roll. What comes next?



A couple of months ago on the Forward Guidance Roundup, we discussed the idea of an economic “mirage” forming, driven by the front-running of incoming tariffs.&nbsp;



The argument went like this:



Since the threat of tariffs was dangled for so long before they went live, companies were able to import as many goods as they could beforehand.



Because of this, net exports cratered, since that metric is computed as imports − exports, which mechanically leads to a lower GDP calculation. This is why we saw a very negative GDP print last quarter despite the actual economy being mostly fine.&nbsp;



This also led to a major acceleration in the trade balance:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeTNVEzrcqQoO7Tx_xU77qMJfkmzsH2dCRJtI8F3SrhjpJMn7wNXaIGjkmydPNXpZMVdWjZlqZesaCUd9paQayfF4dhvSR2f1i08cQo2uM81C6h9htPP0YvwuNkwD1O6jyASc1Znw?key=jflsIHXMPKozAm1AwT1nrQ" alt="" style="width:579px;height:auto"/></figure>



Since companies had front-run all their imports, this dynamic reversed, where imports were minimal once the tariffs were actually implemented. 



This led to a huge positive reversal in GDP nowcast:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfY4eDY3rZkoh3TkgKQwfxY6x58eFc4QClgjF-Skna7aQ5kKfqNB0_766g1P042XPZYhP9OmdzCUEJtvlgeHfn1lA4ynWrVncqsnm2fn-wXWTOTo02IWV0Zt4dkBSrbh60AP906Ng?key=jflsIHXMPKozAm1AwT1nrQ" alt="" style="width:708px;height:auto"/></figure>



Mechanically, this reversal in the other direction has trickled through the economy and led to a strong bounce in the soft data:



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdpoJ5Z-g1g7D_okb-gkRIXIT4c6EA5i9FEEszk4WILIHiFt7sYijyjK6BcFplXaEzkETfY2oA7b16gHXjI1PFgY2NwcF3S2-bypgEtX7sqYqPATB3qfbplL-R-0S9WWws-U9YZBQ?key=jflsIHXMPKozAm1AwT1nrQ" alt="" style="width:731px;height:auto"/></figure>



We’re now beginning to see early signs that this mechanical bounce in growth is beginning to head back lower.&nbsp;



In the labor market, although the topline data like the unemployment rate hasn’t increased, leading labor indicators are continuing their march higher:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdXInmmz6KVlmKM-Wu3ZeVHESHadghmM3xwN_oQ6wjsk5EdUGzP9oUarr3-XIGX1y2p2OUe7Q2mmCM2ZYiQ5Cuj8Bh2uMByKpW9jJPRoBt_0rriClpuNGvQlKKEgPdXJQ_aIPtdmw?key=jflsIHXMPKozAm1AwT1nrQ" alt="" style="width:674px;height:auto"/></figure>



Further, it looks like the housing market is beginning to deteriorate after being frozen in place for the last year:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1218" height="952" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-104452" style="width:556px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=1218 1218w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=329 329w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=334 334w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=280 280w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-4.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1218px) 100vw, 1218px" /></figure>



Overall, with the FOMC committed to being as late to restart rate cuts as possible, the risks are building up.



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



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



<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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Forward Guidance newsletter

Is the ‘mirage’ of reassuring economic data ending?

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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At least one VC thinks Coinbase’s “Just Coin It” strategy is a bad, bad idea.



This week, Coinbase exec Jesse Pollak <a href="https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1937959125461487756">called</a> BaseDrop, which is powered by rapper Waka Flocka Flame’s memecoin, “the new creator economy.” He described <a href="https://x.com/BaseDrop">BaseDrop</a> as an “onchain record label, where value for songs accrues back to $FLOCKA.”



Framework Ventures cofounder Vance Spencer hit back with a takedown, arguing that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/base-coinbase-content-coin-crash-pump-memecoin">Coinbase’s “content coin” push</a> is “destroying broad swaths of the [crypto] industry.”



The idea that everything should have a token harms retail because said retail buyers are losing money on lowcaps and memes and will be alienated from crypto as a result, he argued.&nbsp;



Spencer also took aim at Coinbase’s decisions around its wallet, likening it to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/farcaster-blockchain-onboarding">Farcaster</a> and saying it’s “not what anyone wants or needs.”&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">The Just Coin It Ethos is what is destroying broad swaths of the industry and burning retail badly to the point where they will never re-engage with crypto. Instead of focusing on a few coins that have legitimate PMF and generate real business metrics, people like Jesse are on… <a href="https://t.co/jUpBM6zU0a">https://t.co/jUpBM6zU0a</a>&mdash; Vance Spencer (@pythianism) <a href="https://twitter.com/pythianism/status/1937961002622222685?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 25, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Coinbase recently overhauled its wallet to include a slew of social media-like features in a move that turns it into more of a consumer superapp than a crypto wallet. The overhauled version remains in beta, and hasn’t been fully released yet.



My question is: Are we sure “retail” is actually who is buying these? More likely yes, in the case of celebrity-backed coins. But I suspect there’s also a lot of crypto-native degens and builders participating in the “Just Coin It” trend.



Coinbase’s head of Base and Coinbase Wallet responded, unsurprisingly, by <a href="https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1937976222438592528">rejecting</a> Spencer’s argument and calling what’s happening innovative for crypto.



“Tokenizing content is a powerful way of letting the market value content and then drive value back to creators and consumers,” Pollak <a href="https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1937976222438592528">said</a>.&nbsp;



“I think it&#8217;s cool that a large, well-known artist is literally pushing the boundaries of what can be done onchain with value accrual,” he added.



While some might be more open to taking Ls on content coins than others, Waka Flocka specifically has been accused of promoting questionable tokens, including his Solana memecoin, in the past:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd262ycotF0Ty7hxM-uRz-SwPw3GiLd-Tl8RgkKyMEvF6f9Pqn_yLMzBw8GBcNN-fv1mKwSCc5mKtPXOpte8brDeoqdufU5GI9W60mDwZuveq3TBTMrOVUbmIACzVTVuuF4112LnQ?key=a8-j85qSk8vPZxeUFTrtNg" alt=""/></figure>



When the rapper was <a href="https://youtu.be/C8IgNaz2Yfc?feature=shared&amp;t=366">asked</a> last year if his <a href="https://www.geckoterminal.com/solana/pools/7EcvDoojcej6aC99VPWwJcdZSw7fYTDNqwkbhLrrmRGh">FLOCKA</a> coin on Solana had a fair launch in light of ZachXBT’s findings that 40% of its supply was sniped beforehand, Flame claimed there had been an “Operation Take Down Flocka” against him.&nbsp;



Pollak <a href="https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1938028341631893535">said</a> he’s also spoken with the rapper and believes Flame, whose real name is Juaquin James Malphurs, was “convinced” to launch a coin by a team that then “rugged him.”&nbsp;



“Do I wish he had been able to see through the scammers in the first place and not made the mistake? Absolutely,” Pollak said.



“But do I think we should blackball an earnest, talented creator and musician who someone else scammed [&#8230;] and who, rather than giving up, doubled down on figuring out how to use onchain to do good in our space? Absolutely not.”



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The Drop newsletter

Coinbase is ‘destroying’ retail crypto: Framework Ventures cofounder

Donovan Choy

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



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If you’ve been to crypto conferences, you know you’re not “supposed” to actually be at the panels. They’re recorded anyway — networking is priority. Opportunity costs abound!



To cope with my FOMO from Permissionless, I listened to every panel (almost) on Day 2. So ironically, I probably got more out of Permissionless from halfway around the world than most attendees.



Here are several choice quotes from Day 2 panels.



Konstantin Richter, founder of BlockDaemon, was asked how his investors would feel if he IPO’d onchain rather than on the NYSE. He responded:



“If my investors feel like the return they would get is a lot better, then I think it’s a fairly easy conversation in this regulatory landscape, (assuming) we could get the right legal structures to avoid ending up in an orange jumpsuit.”&nbsp;



Wen World Liberty Financial token?



Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, said: “I don’t want to give away too much, but if you pay attention over the next couple weeks, everyone who wants to know ‘wen World Liberty?’ is going to be very, very happy. We’ll leave it at that.”



Cryptic.



Brendan Eich, co-founder of Brave, on what he thinks of his Javascript creation: “Javascript&#8217;s over 30 now, so it should get out of my basement. It&#8217;s doing fine.&#8221;&nbsp;



How should crypto purists feel about DeFi today integrating with centralized finance?&nbsp;



Here’s Kain Warwick’s excellent answer, paraphrased from the DeFi Renaissance panel:&nbsp;



“If you look at the history of fintechs over the last two decades, it&#8217;s kind of disastrous, because they’re dealing with a ton of regulation and legacy systems that aren&#8217;t interoperable. That&#8217;s the big difference between DeFi and fintech: in fintech, if you want to do something, you got to go to a bank, beg for access to an API which you probably won&#8217;t get. Whereas in DeFi, anyone can turn up and use it.&nbsp;



“A hybrid CeFi-DeFi system at least means that the rails are still interoperable in an environment where any new entrant can come in. The barriers to entry are lower. And that, to me, is the win. Even if we didn&#8217;t get ‘pure’ DeFi replacing the world, I think we’ve still won.”



A masterclass in marginal thinking if you ever find yourself reminiscing about the good ol’ cypherpunk days…



What are the biggest impediments to adoption today?



Privy co-founder Henri Stern: “Onramping and moving from fiat to crypto remains the single biggest hurdle for adoption today.”



What’s the most important scaling decision Ethereum has to make in the next year?



Dan Robinson of Paradigm: “Increase the gas limits on L1. I’d love to see some progress on latency by then, but I’m doubtful that we will.”



Unfortunately, the percentage of Ethereum validators signaling for a higher gas limit has slowed in recent weeks. The last time gas limits were <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/starkware-has-a-new-prover">raised</a> from 30m to 36m was in February 2025.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdC4470nvn4lkBc_JQjhJ2rtEOzhOgK3HDNOUwCJ6eP97XAPp4JAgh1BspyqUIbDAL8xPywWerUHIU3zmH5fMQGXhUcumukx2JGqvxXuZh63bOSOUGCpTG04cs3GTZjep06tGtZdw?key=mZseu0WZI1kaGIeSaOtTiw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://gaslimit.pics/">gaslimit.pics</a></figcaption></figure>



Why would apps not just go off and build on their own chain?



Max Resnick of Anza: “If you want users, you should stay on Solana — that’s where they are. If you want to bring your own users and have them use a product, frankly, I don’t really know why you’re building on the blockchain.”



<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">if you want users, you should stay on solana, that&#39;s where they are. If you want to bring your own users and have them use a product, like, frankly, I don&#39;t really know why you&#39;re building on the blockchain. &#8211; max resnick <a href="https://t.co/WpjuYY4OpX">pic.twitter.com/WpjuYY4OpX</a>&mdash; Permissionless (@Permissionless) <a href="https://twitter.com/Permissionless/status/1937970915092140178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 25, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Here’s another spicy one from DBA fund’s Jon Charbonneau: “If I had to take a bet, I would bet Base would not continue paying 10-15% (to Optimism), because I don’t think they’re getting sufficient value in return. My gut is the same for most rollups with their relationship to Ethereum. There just isn’t pricing power there.”



How is AI being used for ZK? Uma Roy from Succinct: “There was a fun example of a big Hyperliquid whale with zero formal programming background that vibe-coded an SP1 application over the weekend. The app proved he owned addresses with ~25m of HYPE across accounts and bootstrapped an anonymous X account without revealing his addresses.”



Finally, some dunk tank action from the folks over at Blockworks Research.



<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">We just dunked <a href="https://twitter.com/defi_kay_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@defi_kay_</a> 🤣 Courtesy of <a href="https://twitter.com/_dshap?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@_dshap</a>! Come dunk more <a href="https://twitter.com/blockworksres?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@blockworksres</a> employees! <a href="https://t.co/odlg4T7hy6">pic.twitter.com/odlg4T7hy6</a>&mdash; Marc Arjoon | Blockworks Research 🟪 (@marcarjoon) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcarjoon/status/1937979336390304129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 25, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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0xResearch Newsletter

Breaking down Day 2 of Permissionless IV

David Canellis

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



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Bitcoin is full of catchphrases.



“BTC is a store of value” just means that you can buy it, and if the price remains steady, you wouldn’t have lost any money.



That Bitcoin protects against “currency devaluation” is only a brainy way of saying that it might go up, while the foreign exchange rate for whatever fiat currency you use in everyday life could go down.



My favorite of all is that bitcoin is a &#8220;hedge against global instability.”



So how does that play out in real life?



Around this time in 2016, the UK was reeling: the people had just voted to leave the European Union. Brexit was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-36620375">happening</a>.



The British pound had been trending down against the US dollar since mid-2014, but this was different. On Friday, June 24 — the day after referendum day — GBP fell more than 8% to a 31-year low.&nbsp;



It was the pound&#8217;s largest one-day fall in history, per <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/23/british-pound-given-boost-by-projected-remain-win-in-eu-referendum">the Guardian</a>, which was extended by another 3% on the following Monday.



Meanwhile, bitcoin’s price against the dollar was on the up, rising 70% between the last week of May and the week before the Brexit vote, from about $440 to nearly $760.



BTC briefly corrected by 20% in the days leading up to the referendum. But once it was done, bitcoin continued to grind higher as the pound sunk deeper over the following months.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcJxrsABoMtQJEQqUIPn2EuiUMyapyNiKE1S0HkXzCotFm71_NuLEmtLvRS28zdMQGTlaOIFYRILmztfjLPYeBKgiw8Rdi6Uj5pjcCPtkVkGb7fI9UmGqnYfXxBVI5teo6JU2kIiA?key=ymCxxPMjKOBJWuNIbHpTuw" alt=""/></figure>



It’s always difficult to directly prove that bitcoin going up has anything to do with macro events like Brexit.&nbsp;



Looking back and zooming out, BTC/USD was clearly in an uptrend that started almost 18 months before the Brexit vote.&nbsp;



That uptrend, while not a straight line, went on for another year and a half, culminating in the December 2017 all-time high close to $20,000. The devil’s advocate might say it was a coincidental correlation.



But there are hints that the connection ran deeper, regardless of how short-lived. Fintech payments app TransferWise (now Wise) <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/23/bitcoin-surges-past-650-as-brexit-result-sends-uk-pound-tumbling-to-30-year-low/">warned</a> users of volatility for the pound around the Brexit vote, and even cancelled all GBP transfers that weren’t fully processed by 8pm UK time on referendum day.



Those moves are in and of themselves perfect advertisements for Bitcoin.&nbsp;



Before Brexit, the 2013 banking crisis in Cyprus had shown there was an appetite to hedge against instability by escaping into BTC. The price of bitcoin rose almost 350% in two months as local banks <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/bitcoin-hits-record-exchange-values-with-cyprus-banking-crisis/">teetered</a> on collapse.



It happened again two years later, in 2015, when bitcoin jumped 10% to break out of middling price action as the broader Greek debt crisis spiralled. But it was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/29/greek-crisis-stokes-bitcoin-prices-higher.html">never</a> really clear just how much of that could be attributed to Greeks dumping euros for bitcoins.



Ten years later, the situation feels different. The US dollar reached three-year lows this morning as bitcoin continues to trend more-or-less sideways, as it’s done the past month and a half, sans some brief volatility around the renewed Israel-Iran conflict.



One read would be that bitcoin’s price is holding strong because US dollars are currently worth less. Another would be that Bitcoin’s hedge-case is clearly intact. Both are good for Bitcoin.



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Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s best slogan: It’s a ‘hedge against instability’

Casey Wagner

A federal judge on Thursday denied a joint motion from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple Labs seeking to dissolve an injunction against the blockchain infrastructure company.&nbsp;



Ripple and the SEC in May submitted a settlement agreement to the court, requesting the judge vacate a prior ruling against Ripple and reduce its civil penalties from $125 million to $50 million. In the SEC’s initial lawsuit, it sought a $2 billion payment from Ripple.&nbsp;



Judge Analisa Torres, who issued the summary judgment in the case in 2023, denied the settlement proposal, citing Supreme Court precedent that judgments cannot be determined solely by private litigation between parties. 



“The parties must show exceptional circumstances that outweigh the public interest or the administration of justice,” Torres wrote in the ruling.&nbsp; “They have not come close to doing so here.”



The implications of this case are significant, Torres added, and the SEC and Ripple cannot erase a ruling simply because they have come to a private understanding.&nbsp;



“The Court respects the freedom of parties to amicably resolve their disputes,” Torres wrote. “It is also true that the SEC, like any other law enforcement agency, has discretion to change course after an enforcement action is initiated.&nbsp;



“But the parties do not have the authority to agree not to be bound by a court’s final judgment that a party violated an Act of Congress in such a manner that a permanent injunction and a civil penalty were necessary to prevent that party from violating the law again.”&nbsp;



Thursday’s ruling is the latest development in a years-long legal battle between Ripple and the securities regulator. The SEC filed a suit against Ripple in December 2020, alleging the blockchain firm sold its XRP token without registration.&nbsp;



The court eventually sided with the SEC in part, ruling in a summary judgement that while the institutional XRP sales constituted as an unregistered securities offering, its retail sales were not.&nbsp;



The SEC pursued an appeal under former Chair Gary Gensler, but issued a joint motion with Ripple to pause the appeal after Gensler left the agency in January. The Second Circuit granted this motion, issuing a 60-day pause in the case while the Southern District of New York reviewed the settlement motion.



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</ul>

regulation

Federal judge denies Ripple, SEC motion for indicative ruling

Katherine Ross

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



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“It&#8217;s the first time in US history, since the Great Depression, that you really can financialize anything,” Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said yesterday during a Permissionless panel.&nbsp;



His talk, which was moderated by Paradigm’s Charlie Noyes, covered a range of topics from the rise of prediction markets to Kalshi taking on the CFTC and winning.&nbsp;



&#8220;The reason why [the legal fight against the CFTC] was important is, I never thought that there would be institutional adoption the way that we&#8217;re seeing today if we didn&#8217;t get regulated,” Mansour explained.&nbsp;



The fight, which he clarified started before Coinbase even took on the SEC, opened doors for both Kalshi and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/07/polymarket-plans-to-return-to-the-us-founder-says-.html">other prediction markets</a>.&nbsp;



And then, just a few hours after the two were on stage, we got some news.&nbsp;



Kalshi raised $185 million in a Series C led by Paradigm. Other investors included Sequoia and Multicoin. The raise, according to Mansour, puts Kalshi at a $2 billion valuation, making yet another crypto-related unicorn.&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">I’m excited to announce our $185M Series C valuing Kalshi at $2B. The round was led by Paradigm with participation from Sequoia, Multicoin, Peng Zhao, Neo, and Bond Capital. People choose to work at Kalshi not because of the money we&#39;ve raised, but because of our ambition:… <a href="https://t.co/OGgZSwOPvj">pic.twitter.com/OGgZSwOPvj</a>&mdash; Tarek Mansour (@mansourtarek_) <a href="https://twitter.com/mansourtarek_/status/1937947818276339734?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 25, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Polymarket is in a similar boat, with a recent Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-24/polymarket-is-set-to-raise-funding-at-1-billion-valuation">report</a> claiming that Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is leading a round that would put Polymarket’s valuation over $1 billion.&nbsp;



Is the $2 billion valuation for Kalshi a bit much? Actually, based on Mansour’s comments yesterday, I don’t think so. Prediction markets have really hit a mainstream audience — and are akin to stablecoins in that everyone acknowledges there’s a need and a product-market fit for them. Then there’s also the fact that Mansour, yesterday, said that Kalshi’s doing roughly $1 billion in monthly volume.&nbsp;



“We have around 1500 markets live today, up from 80 back in October. So, yeah, I think in terms of broader asset classes, I think prediction market is definitely the fastest one,” he said.&nbsp;



Mansour also alluded to where Kalshi — and prediction markets in general — may be going.&nbsp;



“Imagine a world where basically any difference of opinions can be settled on prediction markets, like you debate about something on a dinner table, and, whether this is the price of an asset or something happening in the future, and you can basically trade it actively on a prediction market,” he explained.&nbsp;



Getting a payout for a debate at the dinner table…and getting bragging rights…sounds pretty good to me.&nbsp;



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Empire Newsletter

Why Kalshi’s new $2B valuation makes sense

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



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on Earth.”



— Charlie Munger
</blockquote>



The only thing I miss about being an equities trader is being around other traders, because the trading desks I worked on were a lot of fun.



They always have been: “Horse-play starts over nothing, and sometimes infects all but the staid oldsters,” a 1920 account of the outdoor “Curb Exchange” on Wall Street reported. “One irrepressible youth furtively knocks off another&#8217;s hat. The indignant victim grabs and throws the hat nearest to his clutching hand, and in a minute the air is full of sailing head-gear.”



Crypto, by contrast, isn’t nearly as lighthearted — partly because it’s a WFH industry (it’s difficult to knock off a colleague’s hat over Zoom).



But, it’s also because the founding ethos of crypto is that it&#8217;s “money for enemies.”



It’s difficult to have fun around someone you consider an enemy.



Bitcoiners in particular often come across as a bit humorless; perhaps more inclined to mansplain money and banking than they are to go for a laugh.



The rest of crypto, too, can feel like an adversarial, player vs. player and negative-sum place.



That is fun while you’re winning, but most of the time, most people aren’t.



This matters because fun is important in finance.



Even in <a href="https://x.com/MaxfieldOnBanks/status/1920569223509602378?t=sjxSuzc99arSp6NjGdHlTQ&amp;s=19">staid commercial banks</a>, going for laughs helps build the kind of trust that the finance industry runs on.&nbsp;



Nothing would happen in TradFi if people didn’t trust each other.



That is a feature, not a flaw, of both finance and humans.&nbsp;



The evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich <a href="https://pca.st/episode/3101c90c-96ad-4c40-86d1-cb0239478b2e?t=1301">explains</a> that “humans haven’t succeeded because of our raw intelligence. Humans have succeeded because they cooperate.”



In other words, the reason humans made it to the moon and not, say, alligators isn’t because we’re individually smarter than alligators, but that we’re collectively smarter..&nbsp;



Henrich <a href="https://pca.st/episode/b724ebb0-b896-405f-bd6f-cfc21e0731d1?t=1411">notes</a> that human brains have been shrinking over the millennia as we’ve been naturally selected for our willingness to trust one another, not for our raw computing power.



As our individual brains have shrunk, our “collective brain” has grown.



But trust doesn’t scale over fiber-optic cables alone.



As Henrich puts it, “the collective brain requires trust in strangers,” and <a href="https://www.iese.edu/standout/face-to-face-conversations-power/">trust</a>, research shows, is built through real-life, face-to-face interaction.



That, I think, is why conferences are more valuable than they might seem.



Despite the industry&#8217;s dour reputation, crypto conferences are surprisingly fun.&nbsp;



Dunk tank, after parties, free merch and, most importantly, an abundance of actual people to talk to — not just Twitter handles.



I think that’s good news, because if crypto wants to fulfill its promise, it might need a little more trust and a lot more fun.



One good talk: Leo Dorlöchter, <a href="https://www.peaq.xyz">Peaq</a>



To the oft-asked question about crypto’s purpose, Peaq founder Leo Dorlöchter offers a sci-fi answer: Crypto will be “the computer of the machine economy.”



Specifically, Dorlöchter sees a near future in which autonomous self-driving taxis recharge their batteries with a “tokenized EV charger” that, in turn, sources energy from “tokenized solar panels.”&nbsp;



Humans might not have much gainful employment in that world (“machines will do most of the work”), but we will be able to invest in the machines.



DePIN, Dorlöchter says, is “creating a new asset class” by allowing people to “earn from autonomous machines.”



We’ve never been able to invest directly in a machine, he points out — only in the companies that own the machines.



That could change with “initial machine offerings,” in which crypto investors have the opportunity to finance the critical infrastructure needed for the fully autonomous machine economy to emerge.&nbsp;



(Don’t tell Eliezer Yudkowsky, though, he might want to <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-expert-bomb-datacenters">bomb</a> us.)



Beyond DePINs, the “good news” for crypto is that “the machines will go onchain” — for payments, identity, sensors, user interfaces and data.



Dorlöchter categorizes these activities as a “trust infrastructure” where autonomous machines will need to cooperate with each other.



Perhaps ironically, it’s only trustless crypto that can provide it.



Another good talk: Tarek Mansour, <a href="https://kalshi.com">Kalshi</a>



Kalshi isn’t a crypto company, but its founder Tarek Mansour thinks that’s a distinction that won’t matter for much longer.



“Any kind of fintech company is inevitably going to be a crypto company,” Mansour predicted this morning.



Kalshi, he said, will increasingly do business on crypto rails “because they work better.”



To my surprise, they’re doing a lot of business: $1 billion a month in prediction market betting volume, with millions of active customers and 1,500 live markets, according to Mansour.



I expected that prediction markets would remain a once-every-four years phenomenon, but it’s starting to look like people want to bet on more than just presidential elections.



Mansour thinks it will get a lot bigger, too: “In 10 years, I don’t see any reason why prediction markets wouldn’t be bigger than the stock market.”



I’m not sure that would be good news for the world.



Mansour says prediction markets are the fastest growing “asset class,” but if so, they are a weird kind of negative-sum asset — different in kind from positive-sum stocks, bonds and real estate.&nbsp;&nbsp;



If investors put money into prediction markets instead of productive assets, it seems like that would be a net negative for the world.



But Mansour asks us to “imagine a world where any debate can be settled in prediction markets.”



That might make them a net positive, because one thing I agree with Mansour on is that “financial markets see the future better than anything else.”



If prediction markets help us see the future better, we can all make better decisions.



Also, the markets will be settled in crypto, so that will be fun.



Miscellaneous quotes:



“We really want to reverse engineer into a Pizza Hut franchise.” — Konstantin Richter, Blockdaemon, in satirizing the current craze for crypto SPACs



“USD1 will be the biggest stablecoin…World Liberty Financial will be a household name.” — Zak Folkman, World Liberty Financial (in a moment of Trumpian understatement)



“The first thing in crypto that’s starting to work.” — Ali Yaha, a16z, on stablecoins



“If you want to do great things, you should reach out.” — Luca Prosperi, M0



“Be a human. Write and read code.” — Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript, after arguing that LLMs will never be as smart as humans



“We just ate shit for longer than anyone else and worked out.” — Tarek Mansour on the success of Kalshi



“If you sue a regulator, make sure you win.” — Tarek Mansour



“In the next five years almost all financial transactions will be driven by agents.” — Ali Yaha, a16z



Overheard: “I went to a cypherpunk meet up in 1994.”



Crypto conference innovation: Giant beanbags in lieu of chairs. (Bonus tip: Find one up against a wall, it’s less awkward.)



Today’s takeaway: Two slices and a Coke.



See you tomorrow for day three!



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Permissionless IV, Day 2 takeaways

Jeff Albus

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



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It&#8217;s been a wild week out there, with liquidations rocking the market over the weekend and into Monday.&nbsp;



While Solana volumes spiked, memecoins <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/solana/solana-dex-activity-2-0">still held the top spot</a>, defying expectations of a risk-off shift.



The shifting market sands came into clearer focus <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/6/24/fragile-iran-israel-ceasefire-calms-oil-markets">following</a> the fragile ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel. The deal, unexpectedly brokered by US President Donald Trump, seems to have pulled global markets out of a nosedive.



On <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">Solana</a>, that détente unleashed a wave of forced liquidations, according to <a href="https://solanafloor.com/news/defi-sol-liquidations-market-crash">reporting</a> from SolanaFloor. Over $31 million in SOL perps were wiped onchain, surpassing even CEX liquidations for the second day in a row. Onchain liquidations exceeded centralized volumes by 96%, clearing the decks for a structural rebound.



While centralized markets found their footing, Solana validator revenue <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">continued to cool</a>, and net staking yields held steady at 7.23%. Supply dynamics began to shift as liquid staking tokens (LSTs) crept upward again, hinting at renewed confidence in passive yield strategies.



Risk is still here. But capital is learning where it wants to live. And increasingly, that seems to be Solana.



The chain has <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/l1">remained the top performer</a> across all L1s and L2s in network revenue for more than 13 weeks now. Developer activity has stayed elevated. And while SOL&#8217;s price action remains tethered to macro chop, the fundamentals are quietly diverging.



Bitcoin, meanwhile, retraced from its recent highs, briefly <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">dipping</a> below $100,000 for the first time since early May during the weekend selloff. However, it reclaimed key levels after the ceasefire without triggering a cascade of further liquidations. Capital appears to be rotating within crypto, not exiting it.



This week&#8217;s activity exposed a deeper rotation in how capital behaves under stress. In the face of macro risk, Solana mostly saw reallocation rather than outflows. Liquidity stayed onchain, stablecoin volume surged and perp infrastructure absorbed volatility faster than centralized markets did.



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Donald Trump

Risk-on in Solana, even as ceasefire cools tensions

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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Fed Chair Jerome Powell, tight-lipped while facing questions from lawmakers, didn’t say whether the Fed would cut rates in July (or even this summer).



But he also never definitively said it wouldn’t.&nbsp;



Odds of a 25-basis point interest rate cut at the FOMC’s late-July meeting increased from 18.6% to 20.7% today, per CME Group <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html?redirect=/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html">data</a>. It’s a small move, but a move nonetheless — one that signals investors are reading between the lines when it comes to Fed-speak.&nbsp;



“If it turns out that inflation pressures do remain contained, we will get to a place where we cut rates sooner rather than later,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. “But I wouldn’t want to point to a particular meeting.”



It’s similar to what Powell <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/june-fomc-meeting-takeaways">said last week</a> after the FOMC concluded its June meeting and announced it would <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-fomc-rates-june-2025">hold interest rates</a> for now.&nbsp;



Powell’s comment comes days after two Fed governors — both appointed by President Trump — said it may make sense to cut at the July meeting. Christopher Waller on Friday said the FOMC needs to have a rate cut on the table next month. Michelle Bowman agreed on Monday, adding that unless there’s a major uptick in inflation, a July cut should be in order.&nbsp;



Analysts had predicted tariffs would be impacting prices by now, weighing on recent progress on the inflation front. But economic readings so far have been contained. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cpi-print-softer-than-expected/">May’s headline CPI</a> increased 0.1% over the month, less than projections of a 0.2% increase.&nbsp;



Annual inflation is still reading higher than the Fed’s 2% target (annual headline CPI for May came in at 2.4%), but it hasn’t jumped too much since President Trump’s “Liberation Day” in April. Headline PCE (the Fed’s preferred gauge) came in at 2.1% in April, a decrease from March (2.3%).&nbsp;



We’ve <a href="https://forward-guidance.beehiiv.com/p/geopolitical-shock">written before</a> about why this may be. Businesses were expecting tariffs, so they proactively increased inventories. Trump’s tariff policies are also prone to revisions, so it’s understandable that companies are hesitant to immediately raise prices.&nbsp;



Oil prices have stabilized since their initial jump earlier this month, but the situation in the Middle East is precarious. Should things escalate, a surge in oil could derail progress on inflation.&nbsp;



Powell resumed his two-day congressional testimony this morning in the Senate, making similar comments about a need to monitor the economic situation before adjusting policy.&nbsp;



Stocks were mostly flat during the first half of the trading session, but both the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes were modestly in the green. After closing on Tuesday just 1% off from a new all-time high, the S&amp;P 500 may be poised for a breakout.&nbsp;



Looking ahead, Friday’s PCE report will be the biggest tool for investors looking to predict the Fed’s next moves.&nbsp;



Keep an eye on your inbox, as we’ll unpack that at the end of the week.



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



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



<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>

Federal Reserve

Powell says Fed will continue to monitor inflation before cutting rates

Ben Strack

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



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Before writing about crypto, I spent a couple years covering the traditional asset management industry (mutual funds, ETFs, etc).&nbsp;



Janus Henderson was one of the companies on my beat. So when I saw the investment firm’s name in my crypto-centric inbox this morning, I was once more reminded of the ongoing TradFi-DeFi intersection.



The announcement dealt with the launch of a credit infrastructure DeFi protocol called Grove, which allocated $1 billion from the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/maker-rebrands-as-sky-dai-will-be-changed-to-usds">Sky ecosystem</a> to the newly tokenized Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Strategy (JAAA).



Janus Henderson partnered with Anemoy and Centrifuge to launch its first tokenized fund — offering access to short-term US Treasury bills — last September.



Nick Cherney, Janus Henderson’s innovation head, noted at the time that “bringing robust institutional collateral pools into decentralized autonomous organizations and stablecoin ecosystems” is a big piece of the TradFi-DeFi bridge.&nbsp;



Now, Janus Henderson has a tokenized version of the CLO (Collateralized Loan Obligation) ETF it launched in 2020. The fund, which seeks income via collateralized loan obligations of various maturities, has more than $20 billion assets under management.&nbsp;



“CLOs are just one of the many assets ripe for movement into DeFi due to their attractive yield profile and structure,” Grove Labs co-founder Sam Paderewski argued.&nbsp;



Janus Henderson moving funds onchain reflects the firm “preparing for the possibility that blockchain technology will transform traditional finance in the long term,” Cherney said in a statement today.



It’s early days, with stablecoins’ market cap around $240 billion. Tokenized private credit and tokenized Treasury products have grown considerably over the past year, but are only valued around $14 billion and $7 billion, respectively.  



So this tokenized CLO offering represents just another development in what many expect to be <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">a massive space</a>. We’ll continue to monitor.



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Newly tokenized Janus Henderson CLO strategy sees $1B inflow

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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Moca Foundation — the group behind the MOCA token affiliated with Animoca Brands’ Moca ID and Mocaverse — is launching <a href="https://moca.network/blog/what-is-moca-chain/">Moca Chain</a>.



The namesake L1 blockchain is focused on being a cross-chain identity layer and verification system. The MOCA token will be the chain’s native token.



In an X Space Wednesday morning, Animoca Brands cofounder and Chair <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/animoca-brands-yat-siu-crypto-gaming-comeback">Yat Siu</a> explained that for crypto users, Moca Chain can be an alternative to giving your personal data — and therefore identity — to big tech firms like Google and Meta. 



For businesses, it can be a way to reach target audiences without needing to see or store all of their personal data.&nbsp;



“Our digital identity is all over the place right now,” Siu said, adding that he sees Moca Chain as a way for crypto users to own and control their own digital data. In the future, he expects more “walled gardens” or closed tech/data ecosystems, like those belonging to Apple or Meta, to be forced to open up.&nbsp;



The blockchain’s testnet is <a href="https://x.com/MOCAFoundation/status/1937859074907144537">expected</a> to launch this year in Q3, with a mainnet launch near the end of this year in Q4. Moca Foundation <a href="https://x.com/MOCAFoundation/status/1937859068074590390">describes</a> the blockchain as both EVM-compatible and chain-agnostic, as well as modular.&nbsp;



Moca Chain will also offer decentralized data storage, a feature we’ve seen recently with the launches of protocols like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mysten-labs-walrus-decentralized-gaming">Walrus</a>. On the tech side, the Moca blockchain is also planning to use ZK proofs, zkTLS and an oracle for user identities.



These adds aim to keep user data private. Third-party Moca Chain issuers will be the verifiers of user identities, earning as they provide that service.&nbsp;



To me, Moca’s plans here sound like a crypto-powered alternative to Google’s single sign-on (SSO) offering that’s spread across the industry lately. For crypto firms like Immutable and Abstract, SSO has been an answer to the clunky legacy wallet onboarding processes of the past.&nbsp;



But not everyone necessarily wants to tie all their Google Search history, cloud storage and email account to a crypto wallet.&nbsp;



While we won’t be able to claw our data back from the big tech giants without substantial US regulation (similar to what the EU has done), I’d say an easy-to-use, decentralized digital-identity option that puts privacy first is always welcome.



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



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Animoca

Animoca-linked Moca Chain plots Q4 mainnet launch

With capital pouring into spot bitcoin and ether ETFs in recent weeks, a fast-approaching SEC decision could spur the next wave of crypto fund launches.&nbsp;



Though filings for single-asset ETFs have multiplied in recent months, products holding a basket of tokens could be the next to get the regulatory nod.&nbsp;



Specifically, the securities regulator is set to rule on Grayscale Investments’ proposal to convert its Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) to an ETF. Its deadline to do so is July 2.



GDLC has about $730 million of assets under management. While more than 90% of the fund’s assets are allocated to bitcoin and ether, it also holds XRP, solana (SOL) and cardano (ADA).&nbsp;&nbsp;



Rival fund manager Bitwise also looks to convert its BITW crypto index fund. And <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">Hashdex is vying to add assets</a> to its Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF (NCIQ), which currently only holds BTC and ETH.&nbsp;



The SEC could decide that XRP, SOL, ADA, etc. represent such a small amount of the index that it’s going to let the products through, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart said at Blockworks’ Permissionless conference on Tuesday. Or the agency could choose to first develop a comprehensive set of rules.&nbsp;



“If they’re not approved on this first date, it’ll only be because the SEC isn’t ready with a full framework,” Seyffart said.&nbsp;



The SEC gave the greenlight to US spot bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 before then permitting ether ETFs to launch that July.&nbsp;



The BTC offerings, led by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), have so far notched $47 billion of net inflows, Farside Investors <a href="https://farside.co.uk/btc/">data</a> shows. The category has seen inflows on each of the last 11 trading days, with $589 million entering the funds on Tuesday — the highest daily total in June.&nbsp;



Ether ETF inflows, which stand at $4 billion, have accelerated recently. The segment has totaled roughly $1 billion of inflows in June alone.&nbsp;



But offering investors broader crypto market exposure is the bigger opportunity, argued Hashdex CIO Samir Kerbage. He <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-media-etf-cryptodotcom">previously told Blockworks that</a> his firm ultimately wants to create “the Nasdaq 100 for crypto.”



“When you’re investing only in bitcoin, you’re making a decision to short the crypto market,” Kerbage added at the time.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">Crypto indexes offer ‘biggest opportunity’ as SEC decision looms: Hashdex CIO</a>



Last month, Grayscale ETF head David LaValle said on Nate Geraci’s Crypto Prime podcast that he expects a multi-token offering will be the next crypto ETF to launch.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“We have been having good conversations with the NYSE and with the SEC to get to a place where we think we can bring that product to market in an exchange-traded product wrapper.”



The SEC is also considering single-asset spot crypto ETFs focused on litecoin, solana, XRP, dogecoin, cardano and others. The agency <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-etf-sec-forms">asked prospective Solana ETF issuers to amend S-1 forms</a> earlier this month, sources told Blockworks.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Bloomberg Intelligence analysts have said they expect these single-asset products to be approved by the end of the year. The SEC’s deadline to rule on a number of those doesn’t come until autumn.&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">NEW: <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EricBalchunas</a> &amp; I are raising our odds for the vast majority of the spot crypto ETF filings to 90% or higher. Engagement from the SEC is a very positive sign in our opinion <a href="https://t.co/5dh8G8rK6Y">pic.twitter.com/5dh8G8rK6Y</a>&mdash; James Seyffart (@JSeyff) <a href="https://twitter.com/JSeyff/status/1936117896347803748?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">SEC commissioner Hester Peirce has asked for patience</a> on crypto-related progress, including in the ETF arena. She noted during a Trillions <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwBZbTh39w">podcast</a> last month that a comment letter from an exchange recommended “generic listing standards” for crypto ETFs.&nbsp;



“That is a request that really resonates with me too, so I think there’s a lot of work to do and we have to think about how to do it most efficiently,” Peirce explained.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Van Buren Capital general partner Scott Johnsson <a href="https://x.com/SGJohnsson/status/1915619368156762388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1915619368156762388%7Ctwgr%5E00d4fbd43a5d291f9b959e2f9ff743febce506e2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fblockworks.co%2Fnews%2Fhashdex-crypto-etfs-index-sec-interview">said</a> on X that because the proposed crypto index products have a more undefined universe of allocations, the SEC could adopt a general rule instead of a case-by-case rule application.



He told Blockworks: “Once the basket products are approved, [it] should be a straightforward application to single-asset spot products like SOL.”



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ETFs

More crypto ETFs coming? A key SEC deadline is one week away

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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Sei is a L1 blockchain launched in August 2023.



A confluence of positive tailwinds have given its native SEI token a monster pump of 85% over the past week.



Earlier this week, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission announced the selection of Sei (and Aptos) as the final two candidates for its WYST stablecoin pilot, the first initiative of its kind by a US state.



<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">Sei Network was one of only two blockchains selected in the last round by the Wyoming Stable Token Commission. A monumental proposal for the first US state-issued stablecoin. Sei will be the money chain. This is a major step forward as Sei continues to lead crypto innovation in… <a href="https://t.co/AX9fiL2NVc">https://t.co/AX9fiL2NVc</a>&mdash; Sei 🔴 (@SeiNetwork) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeiNetwork/status/1935846324932325857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Two other factors are possibly contributing to SEI’s price action.&nbsp;



First, momentum around <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Circle’s recent IPO</a>, which based on its <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000119312525070481/d737521ds1.htm">S-1 filing</a>, holds 6,250,000 SEI ($1.9 million today). Second is a pending SEI ETF <a href="https://blog.sei.io/sei-ecosystem-continues-momentum-with-landmark-etf-filing-in-the-u-s/">filed</a> by Canary Capital back in May.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdXk6GB-aVIVT6hzIrk29tPzaHGpw48MR6o3xL9eQHRVwDOb---ilRFNnUJwVELOr13wodkhlbelRlRXq3H4qFCyfk0edRqXjOSUHwe-HOlm-5cPRQHv5BXamAQzWckhdqtbTTj?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Circle <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1876042/000119312525070481/d737521ds1.htm">S-1</a>.</figcaption></figure>



How does Sei’s onchain economy look beyond buzzy news headlines?



TVL is on the up. It’s at about $564 million today, of which $418 million sits on Yei Finance money market. In the last seven days, Sei is the fourth-largest chain by net inflows, at <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/flows">$4.9 million</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfet1vVDELDKpV6zBek8EM7Bj55KF6jNrewTVO8Jtu0Fr6U6580lBZXs76W-Y8MerS1mIMFvbvHWvh6nuGjM9yjuoqfB9nXSTqmLAhjHg26W51fXfJcbTSrCqTd-zOrrBJzZ_PmCw?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/sei/sei-network-overview">Dune</a>.</figcaption></figure>



Most of Sei’s usage is driven by gaming. Based on DappRadar, Sei has about 34% (7.38 million) of the Web3 gaming market share by unique active wallets in the last 30 days.



(For context, Ronin has about <a href="https://dappradar.com/rankings/chains?category=chains_gaming&amp;range=all&amp;sort=dappCount&amp;order=desc">718k</a> active wallets in the same time period.)



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcMkwSeDhcw3fXuT7v6Uue8SdsndfFFCvhFD-S68WhClYy3jUskTNRdAOn4BmAjJg6xLHpt0opTS1IqMGocK8NlFx0TD9BOWbxqhcKtiuc82jyGhh18vfoSmQWH4jFCrVdsn-PINA?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://x.com/DappRadar/status/1934639669058392390">DappRadar</a>.</figcaption></figure>



Granted, active wallets are a <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/3-blockchain-metrics-that-suck?_bhlid=e7ec9d125f96db219eb346b82d394dbd8574633a&amp;utm_campaign=3-blockchain-metrics-that-suck&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=blockworks-research.beehiiv.com">notoriously gamifiable metric</a>, but it does point to the considerably strong niche that Sei has carved out for itself in Web3 gaming.



Dominant games include the World of Dypians MMORPG on Epic Games, as well as mobile games like Archer Hunter and Hot Spring — both on the App Store and Google Play. All three games rank in the top 10 most active games on Sei in the last 30 days.



Finally, the tech.



Sei is already a pretty fast chain today, processing roughly <a href="https://docs.sei.io/evm/differences-with-ethereum">100 Mgas per second</a> (12.5k TPS) with a time-to-finality of 500ms.



Its upcoming “Giga” upgrade is set to ramp this even higher, to a target of 5 Ggas per second, targeting 200k TPS and a sub-400 ms finality.&nbsp;



These gains come from a radical architectural overhaul:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Autobahn is a multi-proposer consensus protocol that replaces the current single-proposer Tendermint model.</li>



<li>Decoupling consensus and execution will allow transactions to be ordered independently of execution, unlocking asynchronous execution.</li>



<li>Parallel execution — using Block-STM-style techniques familiar from Move-based chains — accelerates transaction processing across multiple cores.</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfeVK5QxMFzNycQmFW5oJWtL4_dC65QvYO_S9Azm1GFjxzQgC4hP9t89TJbAC7BCBpVXzmfS3HfAdUJhcDUJi6wvUPKEqPvaCewE2m0eQA05ysXUSE5Dx9ug6xUwbMbNmi3H_Y6?key=9OLbdw-AKQ_MhlP4TKXp6Q" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Blockworks Research.</figcaption></figure>



Blockworks Research’s Loso told me: “Wyoming’s consideration of Sei as one of the top options for its stablecoin initiative shows a strong vote of confidence in [Sei’s] technical capabilities.”&nbsp;



For a comprehensive explainer on Sei’s upcoming Giga upgrade and how it compares to other chains, see Blockworks Advisory’s <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/inside-sei-giga-autobahn-architecture-and-ecosystem-outlook">report</a> on Sei.



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



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



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



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



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



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

Gaming-focused chain Sei surges 85% on the week — why?

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



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Bitcoin is everything, everywhere, all at once.



Yes, Bitcoin has reshaped the financial order. It has also altered the way money and value move in developing economies, either directly or indirectly. But Bitcoin is also pragmatic in its simplicity, compared to other blockchain networks and the projects built on top of them. 



Those hardboiled sensibilities are at odds with what could be Bitcoin’s endgame — a global, trustless settlement layer and eventually, hyperbitcoinization. 



At Permissionless IV in Brooklyn, Pete Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian, sat down with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/peter-todd-legend-bitcoin-brain-wallet/">Peter Todd</a> to hear how he squares these dynamics and more.



Todd is a veteran Bitcoin developer, having worked on Bitcoin Core on and off since as early as 2011, still the Satoshi era.&nbsp;



He’s also played key roles in RGB (a tokenization protocol built on top of Bitcoin), Zcash and enterprise blockchain platform R3. Todd founded <a href="https://opentimestamps.org/">OpenTimestamps</a>, a leading example of a non-financial use case for Bitcoin.&nbsp;



So who better to contextualize innovation within the Bitcoin and blockchain space?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Polymarket success</h2>



Todd pointed to Polymarket as one example of a successful crypto app outside of Bitcoin. “Well, it&#8217;s a successful application because they managed to use things about blockchain tech to navigate the regulatory arbitrage necessary to stay in business. And I don&#8217;t think you can deny that Polymarket as a business is successful.”&nbsp;



“Now, you know, did they go build on Bitcoin? No, but I&#8217;m still not likely to say it&#8217;s not a success. I mean, the amount of money bet on Trump is an example.”



Todd highlighted that this does come with downsides. Polymarket is not as actually as decentralized and self-custodial it could be. But in assessing those characteristics, it’s important to look at it from Polymarket’s perspective.



“They&#8217;re trying to run a business that does something specific. Because they&#8217;re running a betting market, a lot of that is very inherently centralized, because in reality all the bets go through a relatively small number of people in a relatively centralized way.



“Now they may disagree with me, but, you know, that&#8217;s kind of the truth of how this really works. And their client-side software, the way you get it, is relatively insecure. It&#8217;d be very cool to build all this in Bitcoin, but it requires so much more engineering effort to do well.”&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"><a href="https://t.co/Me91Ms0smZ">https://t.co/Me91Ms0smZ</a>&mdash; Blockworks (@Blockworks_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Blockworks_/status/1937493411025588366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Rizzo and Todd’s chat starts at around 1:15:00 into this video.</figcaption></figure>



In terms of Bitcoin’s primary utility — peer-to-peer payments — Todd sees Lightning as the default mode to achieve that, rather than direct onchain transactions. “Matter of fact, I just had a talk two days ago by someone from Costa Rica talking about their main point-of-sale payment solution — basically, they’re just dropping onchain Bitcoin support because it’s pointless. Everyone uses Lightning, end of story. There’s just no reason to do anything else.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Global Tether</h2>



But stablecoins on other more centralized networks have grown to be more ubiquitous in many places, particularly tether.



“I think Bitcoiners often underestimate how popular USDT is…A couple of years back I was in Macedonia, the capital, just visiting, and sure enough, every single currency exchange booth, they accept USDT or similar things,” Todd said. “And I actually wound up sitting down at one of them for a good half hour, because the guy behind the booth was new at his job and just interested in how Lightning worked and we struck up a conversation. And sure enough, every five minutes he had another person coming in, either selling cash or buying cash. And most of them were just using Binance.”



Rizzo asked: “But that’s competitive against Bitcoin, right? These are transactions that could otherwise have been in bitcoin.”



“Well, but the point is: All these people, they don&#8217;t care about Bitcoin — they care about moving value around. And what they care about is that they&#8217;re moving something that’s fairly stable,” Todd replied.



“Another more recent example is Kiev. Someone I know was buying a new laptop, and it just happened [that] the easiest way for them to buy a laptop was to give USDT to the laptop store — which is actually a very standard thing these days in that part of the world. And I&#8217;m sure the laptop store turned around and sent the USDT straight off to one of their suppliers the next day. You know, could they have done that with Bitcoin? Yeah, sure. But right now USDT is a more stable currency with regard to laptop prices.”



You can play back the rest of the chat, which covers the development arc of Bitcoin layer-2s, DeFi and more, via the <a href="https://x.com/Blockworks_/status/1937493411025588366">Permissionless IV day one livestream</a> on X.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Peter Todd tells Permissionless why people don’t care 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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“We’ve seen a huge influx of demand for our stablecoin infrastructure in general,” Paxos Head of Strategy Walter Hessert told me.



So perhaps the Monday <a href="https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/stories/2025/mastercard-stablecoin-utility-and-scale.html">announcement</a> that Mastercard was joining the Global Dollar Network wasn’t totally surprising.&nbsp;



“Mastercard is bringing the power of its global franchise to support a growing portfolio of regulated stablecoins from issuers around the world,” Mastercard said.



Hessert noted that Paxos has had a “long relationship” with the credit card company, and has been behind the scenes “powering some of the innovations that they’ve brought to market for their customers, leveraging stablecoin blockchain, etc.”



He noted that firms like Mastercard are recognizing that there’s a need for stablecoins, and that’s why we’re seeing a pickup in both the demand and firms finding ways to get involved.&nbsp;



Speaking of the demand, though, “the current… stablecoin models are not really meeting the needs of the market.”



The conversations Paxos is currently having with TradFi firms — not just Mastercard — focus on how institutions can utilize stablecoin rails, especially since Hessert noted that it’s “extremely low-cost and virtually free.”



The focus is on figuring out “the right kind of technology and tooling to be equally compliant, in some cases even more compliant, than other types of rails for money. And so they want to start to leverage the rails. And so maybe they have commercial clients. They want to allow those commercial clients to [move money using stablecoins the] same way they would allow them to move a payment using a wire or some RTT system,” he said. 



The other big conversation happening behind the scenes (and this shouldn’t be a terribly big surprise) is that banks specifically are trying to figure out how they can safely and successfully issue stablecoins.&nbsp;



Admittedly, one aspect I’m particularly curious about around Paxos is where it sees itself as stablecoin adoption picks up.&nbsp;



The Global Dollar Network, which promotes enterprise adoption of stablecoins through USDG, has given some firms a chance to have “shared ownership and shared economics,” as well as helping firms figure out product-market fit, Hessert said. And that helps them stand out against Circle’s USDC.&nbsp;



“We’ve also issued $150 billion as a firm on a gross basis of stablecoins today,” he noted.&nbsp;



So, what’s next?



While the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/genius-stablecoin-act-passes-senate-vote">GENIUS Act that passed the Senate</a> isn’t supportive of yield-bearing stablecoins, Hessert said that he’s noticed interest pick up in a different area.



“I do think that there is a large interest from banks in tokenized deposits. And this has been part of the conversation now for several years, and I think that there is a kind of renewed interest in this, with the draft of the GENIUS act…for banks to start to explore what it means to tokenize deposits and how those then interact with stablecoins,” he said.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Paxos is seeing an ‘influx of demand’ for stablecoin infrastructure

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