Liz Coyne

In this episode of Blockworks&#8217; podcast &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM64XN3Zkns" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Inflated Expectations</a>,&#8221; Allison Reichel, Economic Strategist, sits down with Russell LaCour, CEO and CTO of Tantra Labs, to talk about causes of the bitcoin crash, re-surging Covid-19 cases, wealth inequality and Austrian economics.



They also cover: 



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>algorithmic trading</li><li>why bitcoin could be worth the price of gold</li></ul>



Watch the full episode below:



<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="Russell LaCour and the long-term case for BTC bullishness" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hdnLSWBkIIE?list=PLvER9nHSRN3zPBLB2-z4qfi0AgmLBMwhe" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



Once a week, Reichel interviews industry experts, exploring the macroeconomic drivers of growth and the potential for the crypto-revolutionization of monetary regimes.&nbsp; 



Reichel is a Washington, D.C., based Economic Strategist, focusing on macroeconomic trends and the shifting crypto environment. In addition to her work at Blockworks, she is a PhD student in Economics, and also holds an M.A. and B.S. in Economics from George Mason University.



Subscribe to &#8220;Inflated Expectations&#8221; today on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inflated-expectations/id1573418099" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3RdI0DKjAbmWS9Cr3Tn7ft?si=iAv_ZaoBThWmpDRtJfmUiQ&amp;dl_branch=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spotify</a>, or watch episodes on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inflated-expectations/id1573418099" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>.

Podcast: Russell LaCour and the Long-term Case For BTC Bullishness

Macauley Peterson

On August 27, 2024, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/makerdao">MakerDAO</a> formally transitioned into Sky, a new identity meant to signal a fresh era of modular governance, ecosystem scaling, and real-world integrations.&nbsp;



One year later, the core pillars of that transformation are in place, but the adoption story remains mixed.



The renamed protocol now oversees over $7.8 billion in <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> liabilities across DAI and its successor <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usds">USDS</a>. But despite heavy investments in marketing incentives and ecosystem spinoffs, Sky’s headline stablecoin metrics have flatlined, or in some cases, reversed. Meanwhile, capital restructuring efforts and a sweeping token migration have begun reshaping protocol governance entirely.



The organizations’ financials are also a bit of a puzzle, Sky co-founder Rune Christensen said during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdtG-ewrp8E">community call</a> Wednesday.&nbsp;



“We have three different ways of measuring this stuff, and none of the three tend to agree,” said Christensen. He described the gap between on-chain PnL estimates, like the Steakhouse <a href="https://forum.sky.money/t/protocol-economics-report-2025-q2/27111">report</a> ($8 million Q2 profit), and dashboard forecasts ($300 million run-rate), as a function of “capital transaction” accounting.&nbsp;



“By not counting capital transactions, we&#8217;re actually lowering profits,” Christensen explained.



Critics like PaperImperium have <a href="https://x.com/imperiumpaper/status/1956719059187212681">questioned</a> the effectiveness of management. “The cumulative cost to design, plan, and launch USDS is pretty high,” he wrote on X. “Around $44M went into it over the last few years… expenses currently run around $100m/year annually.”&nbsp;



He noted that, despite these incentives, USDS has not meaningfully surpassed DAI or other stablecoin competitors in market share, even in a favorable environment.



Blockworks contacted the Sky team with questions but was referred to the community call.



Rajiv, a lead contributor to Sky’s analytics effort, offered some nuance on the community call: “It just feels like the sweet spot for sUSDS is really these large, more institutional-type holders who really value the immediate liquidity.” Crypto funds like Galaxy Digital were cited as recent stakers, even as smaller long-tail users pulled back from Sky token reward participation.



Etherscan <a href="https://etherscan.io/token/0xa3931d71877C0E7a3148CB7Eb4463524FEc27fbD">shows</a> sUSDS, which receives the Sky savings rate (currently 4.75%), is held by a total of 4,656 wallets. That excludes some sUSDS pledged as collateral in certain DeFi smart contracts, but the figure should be fairly representative of the number of individuals or entities making use of the protocol.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcp9eHWoCuDQBGDyXpWbsJf8fzPSpYpqpCNpa3Sx3VuNALHFEPshjSjouu4oLN-888IL9d71VgQ05xszsvcGX0KfFgK1GGcal93Itb5mbrq3_5GV8_tRoKHPNiEBEWMcK-eGOD0Vg?key=zERevXWw5Nm8Lnc9w2d0PA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/virady/sky-multichain-analysis">Dune / Viridian Advisors</a> </figcaption></figure>



Still, the combined USDS and DAI supply ended Q2 2025 essentially flat, with a surprising twist: DAI itself is growing again. “Over the last few weeks, there&#8217;s been a very interesting trend of an uptick in DAI demand,” Rajiv noted.



That observation underscores a broader shift: while Sky is no longer betting on transactional stablecoin PMF, it is leaning heavily into the idea of capital formation through bespoke ecosystem units like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/spark-launch-ignition-airdrop-campaign">Spark</a> and <a href="https://kitchen.steakhouse.financial/p/introducing-grove">Grove</a>. These “Stars” are expected to embed USDS as a super-senior capital layer while onboarding risk capital into higher-return strategies, Christiansen noted.



“Sky is evolving from just offering a stablecoin to offering the more general value of supporting capital formation,” Christiansen said.&nbsp;



He cited Spark as an example: “Sky put in $25 million, and got out $390 million.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">From brand to token</h2>



Another core milestone: the transition from MKR to SKY, now nearing completion.&nbsp;



As of May 2025, SKY has exclusive governance authority, with MKR holders able to convert 1:24,000. The pace of conversion spiked sharply in Q2, as shown in Blockworks Research data, following the announcement of a “Delayed Upgrade Penalty” — the planned 1% decay in the conversion ratio every three months starting on September 18.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXenaLzsy6OJr0LldHATULgt7uMddAZ4ta9SZDXul4r8U9Ln7HAxFAJJ6AfgH6Ew-TdM_jMeIw5V5IdOJ9ZZli9LwgCSSO7TskV9hk6NxJJBV-tHAg-to27DPfOeeMGsFOTFyaPQDg?key=zERevXWw5Nm8Lnc9w2d0PA" alt=""/></figure>



Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/makerdao?dashboard=109">Blockworks Research</a>



“It’s an important step towards eliminating fixed costs and ensuring income flows to SKY holders,” Christiansen <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/the-rev-debate">said</a> of the transition at the time. Sky staking is also a bright spot, enabling rewards in USDS, or compounding back into SKY via <a href="https://yearn.fi/v3/1/0xaF71a4f5d93fb88B24C67760BCF9688a6C3A54D4">Yearn Finance</a> liquid-staking vault.



Looking ahead, Sky’s governance architecture is expected to further evolve via the “Core Council,” and staking reforms could introduce lockups and anti-LST protections. Rune framed that as a “two-year” roadmap item, part of a longer arc toward institutional-grade governance and capital structure management.



So far, the market hasn’t rewarded the protocol with breakout usage, although the architecture is in good shape.



“Sky will grow as an entire economy,” Christiansen said. “More vertically integrated growth… [rather than] USDS being used everywhere for some particular specific niche.”



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One year into Sky, adoption lags behind vision

Kate Irwin

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



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



The metaverse is long over.



And yet, it’s always been here, since the dawn of the internet. You&#8217;re in the metaverse as you read this.



The metaverse in the 2022-era sense of the word was little more than a fancy marketing play around rebranding VR. But every video game, every livestream, and every social media app is arguably all part of the existing metaverse that is the internet.



Paradoxically, the metaverse as corporate executives imagined it never materialized, because it was already here this whole time.



Today we’re unpacking some details about what’s been going on at The Sandbox, one of the OG crypto metaverse projects, and the massive overhaul it now faces.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Sandbox gets slashed, pivots to memes</h2>



Ethereum-based metaverse land game The Sandbox is being gutted and restructured, facing layoffs and executive changes as Animoca Brands reshapes its future.



The crypto newsletter TheBigWhale first <a href="https://x.com/Raph_Bloch/status/1960687502391451716">reported</a> the news on Wednesday. Animoca Brands confirmed to Blockworks that a “restructuring” has occurred.



Animoca Brands has laid off over half of The Sandbox’s 250 employees and moved the game’s co-founders — Sébastien Borget and Arthur Madrid — into new roles.&nbsp;



Animoca CEO Robby Yung was internally appointed The Sandbox’s new CEO about two weeks ago, TheBigWhale notes, with an internal source adding that Borget and Madrid “no longer have executive powers” in their new roles.



In a statement shared with Blockworks, Animoca confirmed the role changes but said that both of The Sandbox’s cofounders “remain deeply involved” with the project.



Borget is taking on the role of “ambassador,” while Madrid is taking a “chairman” role. In a phone call with TheBigWhale, Borget reportedly said: “I remain the person who best represents The Sandbox around the world.”



Borget did not respond to my request for comment.&nbsp;



Animoca suggested in its statement to Blockworks that the layoffs may have been in part due to generative AI.&nbsp;



“The impact of AI advancements in the gaming industry has been well documented: AI allows us to accelerate our deployment of content, features and LiveOps while maintaining a leaner, more agile team,” Animoca’s statement reads.



It continues: “While decisions that impact personnel are always difficult are never made lightly, they are necessary to adapt to technological advances and ensure The Sandbox’s long-term success.”



The Sandbox employees in Argentina, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey and Uruguay are among those most impacted by the layoffs.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Many offices for the metaverse</h2>



It’s currently unclear how many offices The Sandbox has open — but I was able to independently verify that The Sandbox has had offices in at least a half-dozen different cities around the world, with offices reported in at least nine.



TheBigWhale’s reporting notes that the game’s offices in Lyon, France are expected to close. Offices in Argentina, Uruguay, South Korea, Thailand and Turkey are also being closed.



A <a href="https://officesnapshots.com/2024/03/25/the-sandbox-offices-los-angeles/">page</a> on the interior design site OfficeSnapshots published last year details how interior design firm Koko3 decorated The Sandbox’s lavish 8,611 square-foot space in Culver City, Los Angeles. The space features arrangements of plush modern chairs, glass-walled meeting rooms and digital screens displaying Bored Ape NFTs.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdG8XEKzKUPiyEiwt8VdAnDeYP6uwn4lrcsBPECcDTG_rnEqob0c408-waTAvIJz_8WTe7sbTRs5gaZ2fXDYPcBJExHP09I6if9wvfJ7ElwdZaS716XtYLpZhKLA6dlu2LaUx1w?key=Gx6a7qGP8XhsxiVHDplqTw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: A close-up of The Sandbox metaverse map showing land plots for Faze Clan, Atari, Snoop Dogg, OpenSea and many others.</figcaption></figure>



The Sandbox’s <a href="https://docs.sandbox.game/en/about/about-the-sandbox/the-sandbox-team#the-offices">website</a> confirms the game company has a corporate office in Paris, a game development office in Buenos Aires, an office in Maldonado, Uruguay focused on web operations, plus additional offices in Seoul and London, as well as a “presence” in Hamburg, Germany.&nbsp;



But now, at least six of The Sandbox’s many offices are expected to close as a result of the massive restructuring at the company.&nbsp;



Animoca confirmed to Blockworks that four offices have been closed, and says The Sandbox will still have “a formal presence” in 9 locations globally.



As a blockchain gaming publisher and investor, Animoca is one of The Sandbox’s biggest financial backers. It is The Sandbox’s main shareholder, according to TheBigWhale’s report.&nbsp;



Animoca has offices in Hong Kong and Australia, with its Hong Kong office recently <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2024/10/29/as-hong-kong-firms-downsize-animoca-built-a-workspace-the-size-of-10-tennis-courts">becoming</a> “the size of 10 tennis courts” late last year.&nbsp;



Animoca has raised over $860 million in total funding, according to Crunchbase <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/animoca-brands-corporation#financials">data</a>, with its most recent round being a $358.9 million round in 2022 that put it at a pre-money valuation of $5.1 billion.&nbsp;



A source told TheBigWhale that Animoca spent $300 million on The Sandbox in the past eight years, and isn’t impressed with how things have gone. The Sandbox is still believed to have anywhere from $100 million to $300 million, primarily in ETH and stablecoins.&nbsp;



Last year, The Sandbox <a href="https://www.animocabrands.com/the-sandbox-announces-usd20m-funding-at-usd1b-valuation-cap">raised $20 million</a>, putting it at a $1 billion valuation. Crunchbase data shows The Sandbox has raised <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-sandbox-f24f#financials">$115 million</a> to date.



A Dune dashboard indicates that The Sandbox has seen <a href="https://dune.com/KARTOD/the-sandbox-main-dashboard">over $100 million</a> in total NFT volume.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Dwindling numbers</h2>



Despite all that cash, however, The Sandbox hasn’t seen many players. A source told TheBigWhale that “many” of the game’s “few hundred” remaining daily users “are bots in South America.”&nbsp;



But even back in the metaverse heyday, reports suggest The Sandbox’s crypto game version had never really seen a userbase that compared to Decentraland or Axie Infinity — and certainly nowhere near the non-crypto metaverse giants like Minecraft, Roblox, and VRChat.&nbsp;



Naavik noted in a January 2022 <a href="https://naavik.co/deep-dives/jan-2022-premium-sandbox/">report</a> that investors were effectively valuing The Sandbox’s <a href="https://medium.com/sandbox-game/we-raised-93m-to-grow-the-sandbox-open-nft-metaverse-a8a2a0411d90">30,000 MAUs</a> reported in November 2021 at $472,000 dollars each — while the game was still technically in alpha.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc8vDgB4qIFAXoo5xNKoDLZw9magcZO5FRQACOvk5JT7Q1hYAKFIxPGdQkE2B9X4XUAzRKtidzq7Aexa1fNugSeHn6Noc-MVc6JmcO2j96dgPQRgUrgSDoWgSoUc64fAjsPLrH3yg?key=Gx6a7qGP8XhsxiVHDplqTw" alt=""/></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe6c7oIbNCDRnwUt2CY6h1kZj0mxj-sHndSnmZIlRZqvhP3YdEUEo2f4t0a8dtitCL1o4CM4TF-YskdYdzkMNOgITayMCpLxlodI--1tia1u8J9QcmbkbyXlaQ9WZ7BzibcBkCyGw?key=Gx6a7qGP8XhsxiVHDplqTw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Images: 2022 data comparing The Sandbox to other metaverse-style games.</figcaption></figure>



So what’s happening now?&nbsp;



The Sandbox is reportedly pivoting to building crypto apps. A pump.fun-inspired memecoin launchpad that uses Base is in the works.



“From the outset we&#8217;ve held to our line on gaming, but you have to take market developments into account,” Borget told TheBigWhale.&nbsp;



It’s unclear what will happen to the game’s SAND token. Its price has remained flat in the past day, and is down 4% in the past month.



Has The Sandbox’s crypto-powered metaverse vision been officially put to rest after so many years? It sounds like it.



But Animoca insists: “The Sandbox is not pivoting away from its core mission, and we are very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.”



Madrid and Yung did not respond to my requests for comment.&nbsp;



I wonder how Snoop Dogg’s metaverse neighbor who paid <a href="https://decrypt.co/87524/someone-paid-450k-snoop-dogg-metaverse-neighbor">$450,000</a> to “live” next to him in The Sandbox feels right now.



Probably not too great.



Updated 8/28/2025 at 2:30 p.m. ET with additional comments.



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The Sandbox co-founders ousted from exec roles amid mass layoffs

Donovan Choy

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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Solana validators have begun voting on SIMD-0326, the governance proposal for its new <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-alpenglow-next-gen-consensus-layer-speed">Alpenglow consensus protocol</a>.



The proposal needs at least 33% of validators to reach quorum. As of this morning, at least 11.8% (135) of Solana’s ~1.3K validators have voted in favor, based on <a href="https://dune.com/kagren0/simd-0326-voting-status">Dune</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe8qXRrteOvrnBbGBNTTt81f6yKynyWZAN1kemQ1T-A85QMfoXg0kKkFi75J-4J3xZq_e3qRx35Cy0ARfrnQdTBFeUvvdQbvN0AnQI_dwgW4XwJQ18BH1zZ1QBK2OArDrejNrui?key=g93vGr6mMwKrQnYKnL2EnQ" alt=""/></figure>



When you send a transaction on Solana today, the chain takes about ~12.8 seconds (32 slots * 0.4s slot time) to reach deterministic finality, though it is also sometimes informally referred to as having a soft/optimistic transaction finality of 500-600ms.&nbsp;&nbsp;



12.8 seconds is fast compared to the 12.8 minute finality of Ethereum’s Gasper consensus, but it pales in comparison to the consensus speed of newer chains like Sui’s Mysticeti, with 390-500ms.



Alpenglow <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-prepares-for-alpenglow">promises to collapse</a> the 12.8-second time window further to 100-150ms, bringing about a 100x improvement, depending on where a validator is geographically located.



It does so by eliminating a few core legacy pieces of Solana’s chain like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-proof-of-history">proof-of-history</a> (PoH), Tower BFT and gossip-based vote propagation.



The average Solana user has no idea what these are, nor do they need to care, so I&#8217;ll try to keep it simple.&nbsp;



PoH and Tower BFT are the twin core pieces of Solana’s architecture today that allow validators to order blocks without having to interact.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Think of PoH as a pre-consensus cryptographic stopwatch that timestamps blocks. Those timestamps serve as a shared clock which the Tower BFT algorithm then serves up to validators for commitments. This way, the Solana blockchain is able to keep producing blocks without requiring a synchronous consensus round as is typical with traditional chains.



This protocol design has served Solana well, but there are trade-offs.



For one, it creates an overhead cost for voting transactions, which makes up something like 70% of Solana’s onchain transactions (see gray chart below). Vote transactions are distinctly separate from the kinds of transactions that ordinary users send to use the chain; they are an attestation that validators have to pay to lock in their commitments for Tower BFT, or a cost of doing business.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdYseNq0kL6YtWTBAaXpsynKarYP0qNRKRVMx6BszJ81PZ7SztPeA91Lo-03As6z_rf6ZAkBp2qFGUXkP2sFgM6Hb0RCDdHoHOZyCq_58jiO0_MKGZmNj4hiPu0ZKoPVrIVjrP-Iw?key=g93vGr6mMwKrQnYKnL2EnQ" alt=""/></figure>



This has created something of a longstanding pernicious problem for Solana validators.



The bigger the stake of a Solana validator, the more earning opportunities they are given to produce blocks. But every validator, regardless of the size of their stake, pays the same fees to vote.



This “fixed cost, variable income” economics results in a situation where large validators end up with a greater stake over time, in effect centralizing network stake from smaller to large validators. Network decentralization suffers because it’s unprofitable to run a validator unless you’re coming in with deep pockets.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd2dpfuDdqfXstqBVAXWT6TUF_jb5rudhGATKOGQGjrm3H4zsnkzfAmXG7o7xGuanieI09GUaaDp7ciIqvqEiQTIdECBbh0MyOdss4kF-y8997cBuVVAZaHwyT_ml_0ZIVzWj4w?key=g93vGr6mMwKrQnYKnL2EnQ" alt=""/></figure>



(That also explains why the Solana Foundation has an <a href="https://solana.org/delegation-criteria">initiative</a> to subsidize smaller validators in their first year of operations.)



Alpenglow aims to nip this problem in the bud by getting completely rid of voting costs. That’s where its new components, Votor and Rotor, come in.



Votor shifts validator voting off-chain, but records the aggregate as a compact onchain certificate. Alpenglow therefore replaces per-slot vote transactions with a fixed fee, compressing consensus into one-two rounds to achieve its target finality of 100-150ms.



Rotor, on the other hand, is an improved block propagation protocol that replaces Turbine. It uses a simpler relay scheme to reduce the number of times data jumps from node to node, shaving off end-to-end network latency.



Votor and Rotor jointly underpin Alpenglow’s promised “20+20” resilience model. Under this new model, the Solana network preserves safety and liveness even with 20% of stake controlled by malicious validators and an additional 20% offline.



If this is still all too confusing, just picture AI Peter Griffin dancing through a Minecraft map — somehow, consensus starts to make sense.



<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">solana alpenglow in less than 100 seconds (brainrot version) <a href="https://t.co/QPtHd5QQct">pic.twitter.com/QPtHd5QQct</a>&mdash; doppelbanger (brainrot lead) (@doppelbanger_gm) <a href="https://twitter.com/doppelbanger_gm/status/1958478061692707100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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Solana validators commence vote on landmark Alpenglow consensus protocol

Lombard Finance has launched its liquid-staked Bitcoin token, LBTC, on Solana, bringing yield-bearing Bitcoin to the high-throughput blockchain.



The token, which represents Bitcoin staked through a decentralized consortium of 14 regulated custodians, has a circulating supply of around 1.5 billion LBTC and generates roughly 1% yield denominated in BTC.



<a href="https://www.lombard.finance/blog/lbtc-comes-to-solana-yield-bearing-bitcoin-meets-high-performance-de-fi/">According</a> to Lombard, the move enables users to deploy LBTC across Solana’s decentralized finance platforms for lending, perpetual trading, and other applications without sacrificing speed or security. The expansion follows LBTC’s rapid growth across Ethereum and other ecosystems, where it has reached more than $2 billion in supply and established integrations with over 70 protocols.&nbsp;



Earlier this month, Lombard <a href="https://www.lombard.finance/blog/yield-bearing-bitcoin-lbtc/">introduced</a> automatic yield accrual, simplifying user experience by embedding staking rewards directly into the token’s value. Partners on Solana include Drift, Jupiter, Kamino, Meteora, and oracle providers such as Pyth and RedStone, positioning LBTC as a base asset in trading and liquidity strategies.



In the release, Solana Foundation growth lead Jiani Chen welcomed the news, saying “Lombard’s LBTC is the first yield-bearing Bitcoin to join the ecosystem, with the scale and liquidity needed to position Solana as a high-performance liquidity hub for BTC. LBTC’s native yield and deep DeFi integrations unlock a new chapter for Solana DeFi.”



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/author/jeffrey-albus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Lombard brings yield-bearing LBTC to Solana

Caliber, a Scottsdale-based real estate asset manager listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CWD, announced on Thursday that it will adopt Chainlink’s LINK token as the foundation of a new digital asset treasury strategy.



The move <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/08/28/3140686/0/en/Caliber-Establishes-LINK-Token-Digital-Asset-Treasury.html">positions</a> Caliber among the growing ranks of US-listed companies to establish a blockchain-based reserve policy, aiming to leverage LINK for both long-term appreciation and staking yield. The initiative comes as Caliber works to reassure investors amid regulatory scrutiny.



According to a <a href="https://ir.caliberco.com/static-files/75add673-836e-4cd4-b001-e05cbcc678e4">filing</a> with the SEC on August 27, Caliber reported a $17.6 million stockholders’ equity deficit, prompting Nasdaq to issue a compliance notice.



Per Caliber’s release, the firm’s board approved a dedicated Digital Asset Treasury Policy, which sets guidelines for acquiring, managing, and reporting LINK token holdings. In addition, Caliber announced the creation of a Crypto Advisory Board to provide oversight and guidance on its new digital asset policy, according to external reporting.



Chainlink, widely used as a decentralized oracle network that connects blockchains with real-world data, has become a cornerstone of decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. By aligning its treasury with LINK, Caliber is betting on the protocol’s long-term utility and market relevance.



The announcement <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/chainlink-labs-commerce">coincides</a> with Chainlink revealing a new partnership with the US Department of Commerce to bring official macroeconomic indicators such as GDP and the PCE Price Index on-chain. The integration, which also involves Pyth Network, spans ten blockchains and underscores Chainlink’s growing role in bridging public institutions with decentralized systems.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Caliber adopts Chainlink treasury as stock faces Nasdaq scrutiny

Shaunda Devens

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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Solana’s consensus stack, proof-of-history sequenced with TowerBFT, has always delivered faster block times than competitors. But finality still sits around <a href="https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-commitment-levels">10-20 seconds</a>, far from the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nasdaq-on-solana-opening-bell-sol-strategies">Nasdaq-level</a> latency Solana aspires to.



<a href="https://forum.solana.com/t/simd-0326-proposal-for-the-new-alpenglow-consensus-protocol/4236?utm_source=chatgpt.com">SIMD-0326 (“Alpenglow”)</a> proposes cutting finality to ~100-150ms by moving validator voting off-chain. Today, validators continuously post votes onchain to signal fork choice, and these votes dominate throughput despite carrying no user value.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXep-a2mLDrML2PqhV7_I3cZcXheUNUMCvLGzKzNsibs7NUiDFVpVXsJR5spqn8eQ4GI4iiaRDP7IDBz3JBNePOjlWx8B1i0dDBywoA5NIPArzpJp4X9RKow_rlOo7Fn5q8__6meyw?key=bDbckPlQ3bo3NOrYyaM8OA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://solscan.io/analytics#txs">SolScan</a></figcaption></figure>



Under Alpenglow, validators instead pay a fixed “Admission Ticket” of 1.6 SOL per epoch, burned to the network. Leaders then gather votes off-chain through a component called Votor, compress them into certificates, and write those certificates onchain. The result is a swap: Millions of low-value vote transactions are replaced by one predictable fee per validator, lowering consensus overhead by ~20% and freeing blockspace for user activity.



The design also adjusts fault tolerance. TowerBFT today remains live unless more than 33% of stake is adversarial. Alpenglow introduces a “20+20” model, where the chain stays live with 20% malicious stake and another 20% offline. For applications like DeFi, specifically perpetual exchanges like Drift, sub-second finality transforms Solana from “fast” into a real-time settlement layer.



The economics are still under debate. Smaller validators face a flat 1.6 SOL per epoch fee regardless of stake, while reward flows remain undefined. Governance discussions (epochs 833-842) have emphasized the need for a clear rollout path, including sequencing for Alpenglow’s components. Still, if implemented, SIMD-0326 would represent one of Solana’s most significant structural upgrades.



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Solana prepares for Alpenglow

Chainlink has launched a new set of data feeds that deliver official U.S. Department of Commerce macroeconomic statistics directly to blockchains, the company announced on Thursday.



The <a href="https://blog.chain.link/united-states-department-of-commerce-macroeconomic-data/">initiative</a> is part of a broader collaboration that also <a href="https://www.pyth.network/blog/pyth-network-selected-by-u-s-department-of-commerce-to-verify-and-distribute-economic-data-onchain">involves</a> Pyth Network, with both oracle providers confirming they are working with the Commerce Department to bring Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data on-chain.



The program makes government-released indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, and Real Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers available on-chain through decentralized oracle networks.



Initial deployment spans ten blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, Mantle, Linea, Botanix, Sonic and ZKsync.



The integration builds on Chainlink’s broader role as a provider of verifiable data feeds, which already support functions ranging from token price updates to weather insurance claims. By extending this framework to US government economic data, Chainlink and Pyth position themselves as bridges between public institutions and blockchain ecosystems.



The feeds are secured by the same decentralized infrastructure that underpins Chainlink’s price oracles and Pyth’s aggregated data network.



Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week that the department would begin publishing GDP and other statistics on-chain, signaling a potential expansion of the model to additional U.S. agencies.



Primary documentation of the integration, including live contract addresses for the data feeds, is already available on Chainlink’s <a href="https://docs.chain.link/data-feeds/us-government-macroeconomic/addresses?utm_source=chatgpt.com">developer portal</a>. The announcement follows prior expansions into weather and sports data, continuing Chainlink’s strategy of embedding external information directly into blockchain systems.



Updated 8/28/2025 at 10:22 a.m. ET to include Pyth involvement.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Chainlink integrates U.S. Commerce Department macroeconomic data

David Canellis

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Whether you’re bullish, bearish, or channeling some other animal spirit, you’re forgiven for feeling the pressure right now.



It’s been two weeks since bitcoin’s last all-time high and only four days since ether set a new price after almost three years.



Bitcoin could trend sideways and even downward for all anyone would care.&nbsp;



ETH sets the tempo for the foreseeable future. Scary stuff.



<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">top signals are just apparently no longer a thing we had ETF&#39;s &#8211; now we&#39;re trading higher we had Trump election &#8211; now we&#39;re higher we had Trump token &#8211; now we&#39;re higher we had eth volumes flip btc volumes for over a month straight &#8211; now we&#39;re higher now we&#39;re issuing GDP…&mdash; merp (@0xMerp) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xMerp/status/1960790841632678300?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">This is good for ETH</figcaption></figure>



Before we zoom in on ETH, let&#8217;s see the momentum it&#8217;s inherited from bitcoin.



The chart below plots every bitcoin bull market together, as if they all started on the same day. Green dots point to cycle peaks, and each bull phase starts at the previous bear market’s lowest price.



By these (very basic) rules, bitcoin has now been on a bull market for 1,023 days — 2.8 years.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeVutT6n0LXr1uWqXJU0OboUaz2fRFwjZJqXtcC0HENCgLG4oAKSsHolLUIJrdkNCU0zguJQZC68hI7ff6LTnJQQyURFPq45JabxJfjyY7ExFiZPe8k8Q4YiAVCd26VTpWE2PM-og?key=LrYZb3WcbLF2uZa5P-FQPg" alt=""/></figure>



If the bitcoin top is not yet in, then bitcoin is on track to soon enter its longest bull market on record. It took another 40 days or so from here for bitcoin to reach its November 2021 peak.



Returns so far are about what you would expect, considering how large the market cap of bitcoin has grown.&nbsp;



At this point in the past two cycles, bitcoin had posted up to 100x and around 21x, respectively.&nbsp;



Two weeks ago, when bitcoin hit $124,100, that was the equivalent of about a 7x from the late 2022 bottom.



Here’s the same chart, but for ETH.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXev3LTC8Ptqp59Pvpz7CUbYIPhy6ApuYeCrJecljkR2w2zTAr-m7mybN7-YPtNYthREp0I4y5F64s7Hp210jMzzSp2f929SXUGmifQqItECtyVmdOd-YtvYU6cCRL4mcL6WFo9IZg?key=LrYZb3WcbLF2uZa5P-FQPg" alt=""/></figure>



It’s similar. But technically, ETH has now entered its longest bull market on record — or in other words, this all-time high took longer than ever before



What’s glaring is that ETH’s cycle returns are tracking far below the previous bull market.&nbsp;



Perhaps Solana has something to do with that, considering bitcoin has no analogous direct rival.



<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">Yesterday, we published our note on the top holders of Ethereum ETFs. Advisors are dominating the known holders and have pulled away from Hedge Funds. <a href="https://t.co/qvP6ZGN3VI">pic.twitter.com/qvP6ZGN3VI</a>&mdash; James Seyffart (@JSeyff) <a href="https://twitter.com/JSeyff/status/1960726566406651920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The advisoooors have done something</figcaption></figure>



But if it’s true that ETH is the thermometer for where crypto is headed for the next year, year and a half, then the pink line will need to catch up to the purple line, fast.



Updated 8/28/2025 at 10:07 a.m. ET: ETH’s cycle returns and length have been corrected.



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ETH poised to set tempo for the rest of the bull run

Byron Gilliam

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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.”



— Aesop’s Fables
</blockquote>



When President Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in a televised address from the Oval Office, it was met with derision.



Scientists explained that a plan to shoot down Soviet missiles from space using lasers and particle beams was simply impossible with 1980s technology.



The press sarcastically renamed his plan “Star Wars,” because it sounded as fictional as the soon-to-be-released Return of the Jedi.



Only one constituency took it as seriously as President Reagan: the Soviets.



Soviet scientists doubted their American counterparts could pull it off. But they couldn’t rule it out either, and the Kremlin wasn’t willing to take a chance that they might.



The Soviets saw Reagan’s plan as an existential threat — so much so that it forced them to the negotiating table.



“SDI is a key reason that the Soviets have been willing to negotiate cuts in offensive weapons,”&nbsp; the US Secretary of State <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-13-mn-3014-story.html">said</a> at the time.



By taking SDI so seriously, the Soviets transformed Reagan’s idea from sci-fi daydream into political reality.



“If the Russians keep appearing alarmed by SDI,” a <a href="https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1309&amp;context=jleg&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com">contemporary study</a> concluded, “it will be politically impossible for Congress to vote it down.”



In other words, the magnitude of the Russian response to SDI made SDI seem more credible to Americans.



Now, something similar may be happening with stablecoins.



In support of the GENIUS Act, President Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-signs-genius-act-into-law/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">has promised</a> that “stablecoins will play a crucial role in ensuring the continued global dominance of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”



As commonplace as that sentiment has become, there are reasons to be skeptical: The dollar is the world’s reserve currency because of America’s deep capital markets, predictable rule of law, independent central bank and trusted institutions.



If the world were to lose faith in these things, even trillions dollars of demand for US debt wouldn’t keep the dollar afloat for long.&nbsp;



Europe, however, has reacted to the GENIUS Act as if stablecoins are not only a lifeline for the dollar, but an existential threat to the euro.



Last week, the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8ad60169-d1e5-4d2c-b928-d53d668f0ec6">reported</a> that EU officials are now “rethinking plans for the digital euro” because the GENIUS Act makes stablecoins seem more threatening.&nbsp;



Specifically, EU officials are “considering running a digital euro on a public blockchain such as Ethereum or Solana rather than a private one.”



That is no small change for Europe, where some countries limit cash transactions to just €1,000, few object to the idea of CBDCs and law enforcement has long been prioritized over financial privacy.



But now it’s going to put their sovereign currency on Solana? To mix with memecoins???&nbsp;



Europe must really be worried.



One ECB official recently <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2025/html/ecb.blog20250728~e6cb3cf8b5.en.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">warned</a> that “without a strategic response,” stablecoins could undermine Europe’s banking system, threaten its financial stability and even lead to “geopolitical dependency.”



(Note to Europe: Can we call this strategic response the Stablecoin Defense Initiative? Please???)



The ECB’s most senior official, Christine Lagarde, has similarly <a href="https://www.idnfinancials.com/news/55648/christine-lagarde-stablecoins-threaten-national-sovereignty">warned</a> that if stablecoins are left unchecked, “central banks will struggle to influence the economy through monetary policy.”



If you still need evidence of the power of blockchains, I think we now have it.



Blockchain-based dollars have tied the EU in knots, with monetary officials now trying to figure out a digital euro that’s good enough that people will use it instead of dollar-denominated stablecoins, but not so good that they use it instead of bank deposits.



That’s a tough needle to thread — tougher even than hitting an incoming missile with a laser beam from an orbiting satellite.&nbsp;



The EU’s plans for a CBDC have been half-hearted, including ways to limit their usage, and its stablecoin legislation is similarly hedged, requiring issuers to hold deposits with banks.



The economist Luis Garicano <a href="https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/luis-garicano-future-digital-money-and-lessons-learned-history-euro">says</a> that a not-too-good-not-too-bad digital euro is “an unusual design problem” that leaves the ECB in “no man’s land.”



He characterizes the central bank’s position as, “we’re scared of stablecoins, but we don’t want to give a big advantage to a CBDC,” either.&nbsp;&nbsp;



This seems unlikely to end well: A digital euro that’s half-stablecoin, half-CBDC risks the fate of Aesop&#8217;s bat — by trying to be everything to everyone, it will be useful to no one.



But is Europe right to be that worried?



President Trump’s claim that stablecoins will significantly extend the dollar’s dominance sounds no more plausible to me than Reagan’s claims about SDI.



Back then, the scientists were proven right — Reagan’s lasers and particle beams were science fiction.&nbsp;



Even now, 40 years later, President Trump’s plan for a “Golden Dome” is not much more feasible.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But Star Wars still had a real effect.



And it demonstrated that if nothing else, the strength of the reaction to a threat reveals the size of the interests it threatens.



For Europe, we now know, stablecoins are as threatening as lasers from space.



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Europe’s monetary Star Wars moment

Ben Strack

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



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Seeing 112 organizations sign their name in support of the same issue is pretty rare. Chances are it’s probably pretty important.&nbsp;



A Wednesday letter drafted by the DeFi Education Fund called on policymakers to “provide robust, nationwide protections for software developers and non-custodial service providers in market structure legislation.”



It was addressed to Sens. Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren (of the Senate Banking Committee) and Sens. John Boozman and Amy Klobuchar (of the Senate Agriculture Committee). Members of those bodies, which oversee the SEC and CFTC, will have a big role in shaping a final market structure bill.&nbsp;



The latest letter cites Electric Capital data showing the plummeting share of open-source software developers in the US — a decline the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Digital-Assets-Report-EO14178.pdf">vowed</a> to reverse.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1846" height="912" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106728" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1846 1846w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-6.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1846px) 100vw, 1846px" /></figure>



Many attribute this trend to a lack of regulatory certainty. A quote that stood out to me from Solana Policy Institute CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine:&nbsp;



“Public blockchains are neutral infrastructure just like the internet, roads or bridges. The US doesn’t criminalize the engineers who build our highways when someone uses them to commit a crime.”



The thought goes that Congress must apply that same principle to digital infrastructure builders.



Gavin Zavatone, policy lead at the DeFi Education Fund, told me the Keep Your Coins Act and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act are a solid start. Those were included in the CLARITY Act <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dc-embraces-defi-genius-clarity-amendments?utm_source=mail.blockworks.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=monday-july-21">passed by the House</a> last month, as well as the Senate Banking Committee’s more recent market structure discussion <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/majority/scott-lummis-colleagues-release-market-structure-discussion-draft-issue-request-for-information-from-stakeholders">draft</a>.



Those provisions recognize the differences between intermediated finance and decentralized networks, and protect the right to self custody and engage in peer-to-peer transactions. They must remain in the draft legislation, Zavatone explained.&nbsp;



“However, developers need additional robust, nationwide protections from misclassification under securities and commodities laws,” he added.



This is non-negotiable, these organizations are making clear. This is the segment, remember, that put big money toward getting Donald Trump and other pro-crypto policymakers elected.&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 whole point of market structure legislation is to give regulatory certainty to the people building in crypto. The bill must protect developers from a return to Biden-era hostility, full stop.<a href="https://twitter.com/fund_defi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fund_defi</a> + 114 crypto companies to the Senate: no dev protections, no bill 👇 <a href="https://t.co/sd1PIkuUl3">https://t.co/sd1PIkuUl3</a>&mdash; Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) <a href="https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1960692876892897779?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Some of what Chervinsky called Biden-era hostility has been addressed.&nbsp;



You might recall the end of what became known as the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/defi-broker-rule-saga-resolution-25#">“DeFi broker rule” saga</a> in April. I’m referring to the resolution that nixed an IRS rule requiring “certain decentralized finance industry participants to file and furnish information returns as brokers.”



Not all has been rosy for crypto sector advocates, though. The <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/roman-storm-guilty-one-count">partial verdict</a> against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, in my colleague Macauley Peterson’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/opinion-tornado-cash-conviction-raises-alarm">words</a>, “dampens hopes of giving DeFi protocols greater access to the US market by sending chills through the entire open‑source community.”



The called-for protections must make explicit that no individual/entity is subject to regulation for simply engaging in activities core to creating and maintaining blockchains, the letter notes. Legislation must also shield developers from being misclassified or prosecuted as operators of money transmitting businesses.



I wrote a week ago about Sen. Scott’s remarks at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium about the road to passing another crypto bill.



Even after getting the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act to the finish line, Scott called market structure “a far <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/market-structure-bill-complicated">more complicated</a> piece of legislation.” He added that Sen. Warren, for example, standing in the way of some Democrats who might support it is “a real force to overcome.”



The letter also notes the importance of preserving “historical protections afforded to open-source software development.” This relates to what Interop Labs (initial developer of the Axelar Network) <a href="https://www.axelar.network/blog/senate-banking-rfi-letter">submitted</a> to the Senate Banking Committee earlier this month.



Interop Labs compared today’s blockchain infrastructure to the early internet. Composability and open communications protocols can set the stage for an innovation boom in finance, it argued — like the economic transformation the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) framework unlocked at the turn of the century.&nbsp;



I feel lucky to have grown up as the internet evolved to what it is today. Seeing where the financial system goes from here as an adult will be a bonus.



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A deeper look at the industry’s crypto market structure demands

Symbiotic, the universal staking protocol, has launched a new rewards feature that allows protocols to distribute their own native tokens directly to stakers and node operators.&nbsp;



Dubbed External Rewards, the mechanism is live across eight partner networks.&nbsp;



The feature is a shift in the incentive alignment Symbiotic brings to its modular, economic coordination role in multichain networks. Native token incentives are combined with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/symbiotic">Symbiotic</a> Points — presumed to be a precursor to a Symbiotic-specific token — to bootstrap decentralized security and reward participation for networks, without requiring them to build custom staking systems.



“This launch is a pivotal moment,” said Symbiotic co-founder Misha Putiatin. “External rewards are proof that shared security is delivering measurable value — and networks are willing to pay for access.”



Hyperlane, one of the largest partners live at launch, is distributing <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/hyper">HYPER</a> to stakers securing its Warp Routes. Cycle and Tanssi are offering their native tokens as rewards to incentivize capital formation on their networks. <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/spark">Spark’s Overdrive</a> campaign adds SPK staking and points to the mix.



Other use cases include Ditto Network, which rewards keepers who enable trustless automation, and Primev, which compensates validators supporting MEV preconfirmation. Kalypso is using Symbiotic to distribute points in its ZK proof marketplace, while Omni has committed $10 million in rewards to SolverNet participants powering its intent-based execution layer.



The shift, according to Symbiotic, is that shared security is becoming a marketplace. Networks are now competing for validator attention through incentive design, and Symbiotic is positioning itself as the coordination layer where that competition unfolds. The approach echoes a similar strategy from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/babylon-genesis-launch-l1-bitcoin-liquidity">Babylon</a>, which allows emerging chains to bootstrap economic security by letting users stake BTC natively.



Previously, launching a decentralized security model meant building bespoke staking logic. Symbiotic’s approach abstracts that away. Protocols can offer liquid restaked assets (like ETH or LSTs), hybrid models, or their own native tokens, all within a shared staking interface. Points and token rewards from multiple sources are displayed side-by-side, giving contributors a unified view of their rewards across networks.



While EigenLayer’s Permissionless Token Support now lets AVSs (Actively Validated Services) restake with any ERC-20 token — not just ETH or LSTs — broadening the assets that can participate in Ethereum’s shared security pool, Symbiotic’s External Rewards takes that a step further; tokens are not just security collateral, but actively distributed their native token as a reward to stakers and operators.



Both allow restaking to be applied to financial AVSs, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cap-labs-eigenlayer">such as Cap Labs’ credit-underwriting</a> use case.



As more modular chains come online and competition for validator capital intensifies, Symbiotic is betting that unified infrastructure, and flexible reward tooling, will differentiate it among the alternatives for attracting capital.



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Symbiotic launches token-based rewards across eight networks

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DAO governance has long struggled with plutocratic voting, insider problems and voter apathy, among many other problems.



Over the years, several teams in crypto have <a href="https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/11/09/infofinance.html">explored</a> the idea of using futarchy to solve these problems. The MetaDAO team on Solana is at the forefront of this effort.



To date, MetaDAO has onboarded at least a dozen teams creating active proposals, including Drift, Sanctum, Marinade and more.



Futarchy is simply a decision market. Think Polymarket, but rather than betting on an outcome, you’re betting on consequences, or what should happen.



Why would a trader with no stake or relationship to the DAO be incentivized to bet wisely? Simply because they are putting their own money at stake.



Here’s a simplified example of how your average MetaDAO decision market works.



A hypothetical InflationDAO pays out tens of millions in weekly liquidity mining rewards that helped juice the protocol’s early growth but is now unsustainable and draining the treasury.&nbsp;



In a one-token-one-vote DAO, there’s little hope to slash emissions. Economically illiterate token holders don’t give a shit, or entrenched interest groups playing the short-term game don’t want to see their yield rewards disappear.



In a MetaDAO decision market, however, a contributor can take action with a futarchy proposal: “Cut rewards by 70%; Pass threshold: 3%.”



MetaDAO proceeds by opening two conditional markets with two tokens “PASS” and “FAIL.” Traders deposit an underlying asset like USDC and receive both PASS and FAIL tokens. The vote commences.&nbsp;



As the vote goes on, traders who believe InflationDAO’s emissions should stop can express that view by buying PASS tokens, pushing PASS token price up, or selling FAIL tokens, creating sell pressure for FAIL. Same goes for the reverse.



After the vote ends, if the time-weighted average price (TWAP) of the PASS or FAIL token is at least 3% above the other, the vote concludes and only the winning side is able to redeem their tokens for USDC.



Here’s the key point. The pass threshold is simply a “finish line” that traders need to keep the average above.



If spreads are already ~3% on spot, buying more PASS only makes sense if you want to lift the TWAP above 3% (and maintain a buffer that will persist until the market closes); otherwise you’re just subsidizing the outcome with little expected profit.



Unlike prediction markets, decision markets are not zero-sum. Traders are not merely concerned with the directional outcome of the vote, but also with the basic question “Did you own the correctly priced token at an attractive entry price by the time the outcome finalizes?”



Futarchy aligns the wisdom of crowds with governance. It makes it possible for a well-informed minority to steer governance decisions toward socially good outcomes that may be deeply unpopular with the majority.



But whether or not the outcome is “socially good” depends on the objective that the market is encoded for.



Rather than a 3% TWAP spread, the market could use a pass threshold like token price as a rough proxy for company “welfare.”



The design space around decision markets are varied. Yet, futarchy seems to be only useful for significant&nbsp; governance decisions that would move the spread on the market price of the reference assets.



“Should InflationDAO change its mascot from Uncle Sam to Lee Kuan Yew?” is not a variable that traders will expect to influence the price of the underlying reference asset.



What decision markets harness on is the universal profit motive to drive sound decision-making. And if you believe in that theoretical promise, just imagine how it can change the face of ICOs.



<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">high-quality founder I&#39;ve been talking to for 6 months just told his team he wants to do a futarchy ICO 😎&mdash; Proph3t (@metaproph3t) <a href="https://twitter.com/metaproph3t/status/1959294746838573249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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Understanding futarchy on Solana

Former team members behind prediction market platform Polymarket have launched a new venture, The Clearing Company. It secured a $15 million seed round led by Union Square Ventures, according to an announcement on Wednesday.



Other investors <a href="https://www.clearing.co/blog/announcing-our-seed-round">include</a> Haun Ventures, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Compound, Rubik, Earl Grey, Cursor Capital, Asylum and several angel backers.



Co-founder Toni Gemayel <a href="https://x.com/tonigemayel/status/1960727155463348617">emphasized</a> that while prediction markets have existed for centuries, the internet age makes their collective intelligence more powerful. “Polls are too slow and rife with bias,” he wrote, adding that markets incentivize honesty because being wrong carries a real cost.



Scaling, he said, will require making markets “fun to create, seamless to trade and supported by novel structures that unlock liquidity.”



The startup aims to build onchain, permissionless prediction markets designed to meet regulatory standards while remaining accessible to retail users. Prediction markets allow participants to trade contracts tied to real-world outcomes, producing collective forecasts with financial incentives for accuracy.



While platforms such as Polymarket have operated in regulatory gray areas, The Clearing Company suggests that it is positioning itself as a compliant alternative with transparent infrastructure and liquidity mechanisms.



Union Square Ventures, which has previously invested in Web3 firms including Coinbase and Uniswap, is betting that a regulated approach could make decentralized forecasting tools mainstream.



The company has not disclosed a launch timeline for its platform but emphasized its focus on designing products that balance simplicity with compliance.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/author/jeffrey-albus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Ex-Polymarket team launches onchain prediction markets with $15M round

Rich Widmann, head of Web3 strategy at Google Cloud, has outlined details of a new Layer 1 blockchain called the Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL).



In a LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rich-widmann-a816a54b_all-this-talk-of-layer-1-blockchains-has-activity-7366124738848415744-7idA/?utm_source=social_share_send&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop_web&amp;rcm=ACoAAArYlAQBgjZ0JxkM-B1fF7CpOUlCHxNbfjk">post</a> on Aug. 26, Widmann said the network is designed for financial institutions and that it combines performance, neutrality and Python-based smart contracts. Widmann emphasized that GCUL is already being tested by CME Group, one of the world’s largest commodities exchanges, to explore tokenization and payments.



CME <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cme-group-will-introduce-tokenization-technology-to-enhance-capital-market-efficiency-using-google-clouds-new-universal-ledger-302410343.html">confirmed</a> earlier this year that it had completed an initial phase of trials with GCUL and planned further testing with market participants in 2025. The project is aimed at modernizing settlement, collateral, and fee processes across institutional finance.



Unlike Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc, which are closely tied to their respective payment stacks, Widmann presented GCUL as a “credibly neutral” infrastructure layer that any bank or payments firm could adopt.



It is as yet unclear whether a permissioned blockchain controlled by a US corporation can be considered neutral in the same sense as public networks like Ethereum or Solana.&nbsp;



CME has said a broader rollout could come in 2026, though Google has not yet published a timeline.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Google’s Rich Widmann describes Universal Ledger blockchain plans

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Camp wants to prove that an IP-focused chain can work long-term.&nbsp;



The Camp mainnet has been officially deployed as of this morning, along with its native CAMP token. The team worked with crypto infra firm Gelato and is using the <a href="https://docs.abundance.xyz/abc-stack-architecture/key-features">Abundance</a> rollup L1 stack, which is built on Celestia.



The CAMP token is expected to facilitate creator royalties and AI-agent monetization, in addition to functioning as a gas and governance token.



“We&#8217;re going to continue to see growth in AI, but without the proper infrastructure or the technology to protect IP and creativity, we’re going to see a really sort of value-destructive relationship between AI and IP,” Camp Network cofounder James Chi told me in an exclusive interview.&nbsp;



Chi has a TradFi background, and previously worked in investment banking at RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs. He was then at Figma before ultimately starting Camp in 2023.&nbsp;



“AI is going to eat creativity as we know it, and there’s not going to be the right guardrails to protect creativity as a whole,” Chi said, echoing concerns felt by creatives across gaming, film, visual art and media.&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 another brick in what will be a permanent battle between AI and IP copyright law First started with <a href="https://twitter.com/ChatGPTapp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ChatGPTapp</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Reddit?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Reddit</a> Second was <a href="https://twitter.com/StabilityAI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StabilityAI</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/GettyImages?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GettyImages</a> Third was <a href="https://twitter.com/SunoMusic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SunoMusic</a> And all the record labels Now Hollywood and <a href="https://twitter.com/midjourney?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@midjourney</a> Media tends to follow… <a href="https://t.co/PJXr3IgYbZ">https://t.co/PJXr3IgYbZ</a>&mdash; Nirav Murthy ⛺ (@niravmurthy) <a href="https://twitter.com/niravmurthy/status/1933163310414794888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The vision is that Camp could help solve the problems AI creates for creators and IP owners by allowing brands, creators and licensors the ability to quickly tokenize their content to establish ownership onchain. Then, AI agents can license and train on that content, and creators can then be compensated via royalties for use of their work.



There’s a lot of mission overlap here with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/story-protocol-world-ai-future">Story</a>, Camp’s biggest competitor at the moment.



“Most new IP generated will all be done via AI,” Camp cofounder Nirav Murthy told me. “And we envision blockchain being the mechanism by which that’s done.”



Camp is working with teams spanning the entertainment, gaming and consumer categories, including <a href="https://thedrop.beehiiv.com/p/no-usa">Black Mirror</a> (which has been making crypto plays through licensor Banijay UK), Japanese IP firm Minto, and comic book creator Rob Feldman.



“The ecosystem is what matters at the end of the day. We don&#8217;t want to build the ghost chain,” Chi said.



He emphasized that Camp is trying to give creators, licensors and brands a reason to stick around long-term.&nbsp;



“Our ethos is, we don&#8217;t want to lean into the pay-to-play model, right? We&#8217;ve seen that play out in crypto. People are paying, you know, upwards of eight figures of revenue to try to get big IP to launch with them,” Chi said.&nbsp;



“And while that might be exciting for two to three months, after that the IP holder is not incentivized to actually build a meaningful program, because they already got paid out.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdb5icSA09ZQAISNi3jljm-6yuDns7-gVWAYlFgUoIUzMcHbHD-gETcEE-pyjUaJn4hcwqEGiYkgV7d7OZ7rNn8UjMmAD29itmJSq3JmuZEBy6fX9CBvYXrktB1EZeaHANIL40QJQ?key=G0xaMQz1a05qXDrk0wsBqw" alt=""/></figure>



Camp previously raised $4 million in seed funding a year ago, and raised <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jameschi94_exclusive-camp-network-raises-25-million-activity-7323068093402951681-L96C?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAABKdI6YBVCnELgEXIz0Jo0Q13EHkptJChqw">$25 million</a> in Series A funding in April.



Perhaps Murthy is right, and AI will be a wellspring for new and interesting IP. The threat of AI indeed feels stronger than ever before for creatives concerned that their work has already been stolen — and that they’ll lose out on jobs and income if clients opt to churn out AI-generated products.



Ownership can also be complicated, and licensing often benefits larger corporations and studios more than individual artists (who, for example, might have worked on a film, but don’t own the rights to license their work).



Licensors will ultimately have to decide if they’re ready to offer up their libraries to countless new AI models — or whether they might want to wait it out until the slew of active lawsuits against AI firms set a new standard.



While IP-focused blockchains have been tried in the past, we’re not in 2018 anymore. Although, that hasn&#8217;t stopped prediction markets, a sector borne of the ICO era, from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polymarket-culture-chasm">finally finding traction</a> with the mainstream.&nbsp;



Tokenized IP on the blockchain may just be taking a longer route.



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Exclusive: Camp Network launches L1 mainnet, token

This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/author/jeffrey-albus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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



The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that it will begin using Nasdaq’s SMARTS surveillance platform to monitor trading in digital asset derivatives and prediction markets.



The move <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9110-25">expands</a> the regulator’s toolkit as it looks to better detect misconduct in fast-evolving crypto markets. SMARTS, one of Nasdaq’s flagship monitoring systems, is already deployed by dozens of global exchanges and regulators to flag irregular trading patterns, including signs of manipulation and abusive practices.



By extending the technology to digital assets, the CFTC aims to address growing concerns about wash trading and other forms of misconduct that have accompanied the rise of onchain prediction markets and complex trading strategies.



Observers have drawn comparisons to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s reliance on surveillance-sharing agreements when approving spot bitcoin and ether ETFs, suggesting that US financial regulators are converging on a common approach to market monitoring.



While the CFTC’s mandate remains centered on maintaining orderly derivatives markets, expanded surveillance could pave the way for broader enforcement, and decentralized platforms may face heightened scrutiny if the agency applies these tools beyond traditional venues.



<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/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </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/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</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/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



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

CFTC to adopt Nasdaq surveillance to monitor crypto markets

Join global sovereigns, endowments, pensions, foundations, and family offices as they explore this new asset class.


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Engage with banks, brokerages, credit unions, payment processors, fintechs, and insurance providers as they develop internal digital asset strategies.


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Speakers

Chris is a passionate advocate for the potential of technology and the benefits of diversity and inclusion. His core policy focus is on digital technology for the public good with a particular interest in technologies such as AI and blockchain.



In Parliament, he specializes in legislation that deals with technology. He is a member of the House of Lord’s Digital and Communications Select Committee and was appointed to the Special Bill Committee considering Digital Asset legislation. He introduced a private members’ bill that proposed the regulation of artificial intelligence and was integral to the passing of the ground-breaking Electronic Trade Documents Bill.



On technology, he has previously co-authored House of Lords Select Committee Reports on: Democracy and Digital Technologies [2020], Artificial Intelligence [2018], and Digital Skills [2015] and under his own auspices published an influential report encouraging government testing of blockchain solutions for policy delivery, DLT for Public Good: leadership, collaboration and innovation [2017] He is also adviser to several tech and fintech companies.



On inclusion, and again under his own auspices, he has published influential reports on accessibility in the public realm and support for disabled students as well as Lords reports on Financial Exclusion [2017], Social Mobility [2016] and, for the Cabinet Office, The Lord Holmes Review on opening up public appointments to disabled people. He continues to advise the government on diversity and inclusion.



An ex-Paralympic swimmer, Chris won nine gold, five silvers and one bronze medal across four Games, including a record haul of six golds at Barcelona 1992.

Lord Holmes of Richmond MBE

Robbie Mitchnick serves as the Head of Digital Assets for BlackRock. He is a member of the Corp Exec-COO Executive team. Robbie is responsible for driving BlackRock's digital assets strategy, including working with internal business units to develop and execute on strategic initiatives around digital assets.



Prior to joining BlackRock, Robbie spent time at CPP Investment Board in Public Markets and Private Investments, and at Ripple. During his time at Ripple, Robbie co-authored 'A Fundamental Valuation Framework for Cryptoassets' along with John Bates Clark medal winner Susan Athey.



Robbie has BA &amp; BCOM degrees from Queen's University and an MBA from Stanford, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar and the Robichek Award winner in Finance. He holds a Blockchain Technologies Certification from MIT Sloan and is a CFA Charterholder.

Robbie Mitchnick

Joseph Lubin is a co-founder of Ethereum, the founder and CEO of <a href="https://consensys.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Consensys</a> and Chairman of SharpLink. Since 2014, Consensys has played a foundational role in Ethereum’s growth, from pioneering products like MetaMask and Infura to shaping protocol development and staking infrastructure.



Born and raised in Toronto, Lubin graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He worked in the Princeton Robotics Lab, at tomandandy music developing an autonomous music composition tool, and at private research firm Vision Applications Inc. building autonomous mobile robots.



As a software and AI consultant, Lubin worked with eMagine on the Identrus project and was involved in the founding and operation of a hedge fund with a partner. He held positions as Director of the New York office of Blacksmith Software Consulting, and VP of Technology in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. Through these posts, Joe focused on the intersection of cryptography, engineering, and finance.



In 2014 he met Vitalik Buterin, a Canadian programmer, writer and Founder of Ethereum and joined the Ethereum Project as a co-founder. After the Project was launched, Joe established Consensys. Since 2014 Joe and the Consensys team have been working on the foundational software for web3, the next wave of the internet for a decentralized future.

Joseph Lubin

Mathew has more than 25 years of industry and leadership experience, having previously held several leadership positions at Goldman Sachs globally and across different functions. As Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, Mathew is responsible for leading the firm’s cross-divisional digital assets strategy, which includes a wide range of client-led tokenization activities, crypto-linked product offerings and blockchain investments.

Mathew McDermott

Samantha is RockawayX's Partner &amp; Chief Growth Officer. Samantha invests across stages and is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. She also oversees the firm's post-investment engine and portfolio management, and its growth efforts across operating divisions.



Samantha previously spent four years as Head of Growth at DCG (parent company of CoinDesk, Grayscale, Luno, Foundry, Genesis and Tradeblock.) In that position, Samantha oversaw the firm's 250+ company venture portfolio and ran strategic growth and corporate development initiatives on behalf of DCG and its network of businesses. Prior to DCG, Samantha led business development efforts at Elder, a London-based health tech company, and spent four years at Orbis Investments, the global asset manager, working on its emerging market equity fund and spearheading the roll-out of an innovative online retail investment platform.

Samantha Bohbot

Daniel is the Chairman, Founder and largest shareholder in CoinShares International Limited, Europe’s largest digital asset manager with $6 Billion USD under management. He serves on the Board of the Tezos Foundation, StableMint, GTSA, Satohshi pay, and a number of CoinShares' affiliates. Since engaging initially in 2012 in crypto he has made numerous investments across the infrastructure powering crypto from data to blockchains to wallets, defi, mining, custody and crypto banks. He was formerly the global head of energy trading at JP Morgan and ran two successful commodity hedge funds. He holds three degrees: Physics, Management Science, and Applied Statistics.

Danny Masters

Ray Hindi is the co-founded L1D and currently acts as the CEO/CIO. Ray has an investment background in venture, hedge funds and interest rate trading. Ray holds a BEng from UCL and an MSc in Finance from Imperial College. He previously acted as the CIO of Bellegarde Capital AG an independent investment group with activities focused in fintech, blockchain and other alternative investments. Also previously at Swiss Capital (StepStone Group) responsible for the firm’s macro outlook, macro hedge funds and event driven coverage. From 2005 to 2011 Ray was part of Harcourt Investment Consulting AG, a USD 6 bn fund of hedge funds firm in Zurich, and responsible for USD 2 bn of investments (rates, macro and distressed). He started his career at Bloomberg LP in London and subsequently left the firm to trade interest rates for a London based proprietary group. Ray holds a BEng from University College London (UCL) and an MSc in Finance from Imperial College.

Ray Hindi

Mike Higgins is an early Partner and acting, International CEO and Global Head of Corporate Development at Hidden Road. An experienced Director with two decades of active engagement within financial markets, Mike possesses expertise in market structure across the full spectrum of Global Financial Markets, including Digital Assets, FICC and Synthetic Swaps. A strong emphasis on electronic trading technologies, methodologies and workflows. His specific skills in E-Commerce, APIs, GUI, price generation algorithms, risk management and hedging strategies to a diverse group of market participants prove invaluable as Hidden Road network continues to expand. Prior to joining Hidden Road, Mike successfully built, managed and commercialised a number of businesses within financial markets which included solutions in technology, trading and brokerage. Having started his career in New York on Wall Street, Mike moved with his family to London in 2009. Mike earned a bachelors degree in economics and statistics from Fordham University in New York.

Michael Higgins

Ben founded ParaFi in 2018 as one of the earliest investment firms focused on the blockchain and digital asset ecosystem. Prior to founding ParaFi, Ben spent the first 10 years of his career in institutional investing roles at leading asset managers including KKR and TPG. While at KKR, Ben served as a Director in the credit business, investing across a wide array of industry sectors and parts of the capital structure, including distressed special situations, private credit, and opportunistic and liquid credit. Ben also led KKR's blockchain research as part of the firm's Innovation and Disruption Council beginning in 2016. Prior to KKR, Ben served as a Vice President with TPG’s former credit business, Sixth Street Partners. As one of the first investment professionals to join the platform, Ben helped scale its private credit vehicle, TPG Specialty Lending, which went public in 2014. Earlier in his career, Ben was a member of the private equity team at Littlejohn &amp; Company and investment banking team at Rothschild &amp; Co. Ben has a passion for capital markets, behavioral economics and game theory, all of which drew him to the blockchain space. He grew up playing chess competitively and continues to play actively to this day (peak ELO 1871). He graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ben Forman

Sandy Kaul is senior vice president, Franklin Templeton, providing advisory consulting for the firm and thought leadership as part of the Franklin Templeton Institute. She delivers actionable intelligence and insights on the future of the investment and wealth management industry for the firm and its clients. Ms. Kaul has cultivated deeply informed insights and has an extensive background in driving market leading research, thought leadership and predictive models centered on the evolution of the investment and wealth management industry. She identifies and champions opportunities to address industry advancements and drive transformation, with a focus on innovative distribution trends and digital disruption. She delivers strategic insights to inform the firm's decision-making on partnerships and investments, including within Franklin Templeton's growing digital asset business. Ms. Kaul has over 25 years of well-rounded industry experience and is a frequent speaker at industry events and a widely published author. She combines her unique blend of sell-side, buy-side and consulting insights to drive her research and thought leadership around what constitutes best practices and where innovation is occurring. Ms. Kaul joined Franklin Templeton in 2022 from Citi, where she served as Managing Director and Global Head of Business Advisory Services, and launched and built out the Citi's Business Advisory Services practice, a market leading provider of industry thought leadership spanning Citi's Markets and Global Wealth organizations. Ms. Kaul rejoined Citi in 2009, after originally starting her career there in 1985 as a Futures Research Analyst covering the soft commodities markets with Citi's predecessor firm, Shearson Lehman Brothers. She joined Commodities Corporation/Goldman Sachs Asset Management in 1995 as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) and Portfolio Manager. After managing money for nearly six years, Ms. Kaul shifted her attention to consulting where she led the strategy practice within the Financial Services division of the renowned dot.com firm, Scient, and then went on to become a Partner at the capital markets niche management consulting firm m.a.partners/Detica. Ms. Kaul holds a bachelor's degree in history and political science from Colgate University.

Sandy Kaul

Jeff Park is the CIO of ProCap. He also serves as an advisor to Bitwise Investments.

Jeff Park

Nikita is a Managing Partner and Head of Fasanara Digital, the crypto division of Fasanara Capital, a $5 billion hedge fund based in London. He oversees the investment strategies and strategic direction of Fasanara Digital. He originally started The Quant Group from his dorm room, building quant strategies for digital assets. In 2018, the team joined Fasanara Capital and became Fasanara Digital, which has since grown into one of the leading and best-performing digital asset funds in the space.



Additionally, Nikita is the founder of The Digital Asset Conference, an annual event aimed at advancing industry adoption, and hosts the Speaking to Legends podcast. He’s a regular speaker at major crypto conferences and has been recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30 and Financial News’ Rising Stars in Finance. Nikita is also a Young Leader Circle (YLC) at the Milken Institute, and holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of St Andrews.

Nikita Fadeev

Meltem Demirors is Founder and General Partner at Crucible, an early-stage fund investing in the foundations of our digital future. Before launching Crucible in 2024, she served as Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares, Europe’s largest and longest standing digital asset investment firm which oversees $7B in AUM. Meltem started her crypto career on the founding team at Digital Currency Group, which grew from 40 to 200 portfolio companies and 2 to 4 subsidiaries during her tenure. Beyond her corporate positions, Meltem has lectured at MIT and Oxford and is an active angel investor in over 100 startups. She leverages her vast network – ranging from major institutions to builders at the fringe – to find and fund unique opportunities for Crucible. Before joining the crypto industry in 2015, Meltem began her career trading and working in the oil and gas industry. She studied math and econ at Rice University and has an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. When she isn’t talking about data centers, the energy grid, or forward curves she can be found reading, wandering in the woods, or scheming with her magical internet money friends.

Meltem Demirors

Melvin Deng is the Chief Executive Officer of QCP, one of the first digital asset trading firms in Singapore and global market maker in digital asset derivatives. As the CEO, Melvin leads the company’s rapid growth and expansion towards its vision to partner the next generation of investors to unlock institutional opportunities in digital assets. Under his leadership, he has built the company’s institutional-grade experience, research and infrastructure into a compelling proposition for clients, in addition to overseeing all operations and risk management. He is a believer in the immense growth potential of digital asset derivatives, to unlock future adoption by traditional and institutional players. Inspired by the opportunity to disrupt financial services through digital assets and blockchain technology, he left a more than 15 year career in banking to join QCP in 2021. He was previously the Head of Treasury for a global bank, where he was a member of the Singapore management team, responsible for business and balance sheet strategy. In addition to oversight of all the bank’s Treasury-related activities, he also led balance sheet optimisation initiatives, and launched the first SORA bond in Singapore, deepening the local financial market. Melvin holds a Bachelor of Engineering with honours from the National University of Singapore, and speaks four languages.

Melvin Deng

Amy is the head of emerging markets equity, a member of the Morgan Stanley Investment Management Operating Committee, the Morgan Stanley Investment Management Equity Technology Council, the Morgan Stanley Innovation Council and the Morgan Stanley Arts and Culture Committee. She manages digital asset initiatives at MSIM and has held roles in equity and FX trading, portfolio management support, product development and strategy. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2001, Amy managed business development at Arc Worldwide. She has over 25 years of financial services experience.

Amy Oldenburg

Tony Ashraf, Managing Director, is globally responsible for Digital Asset Transformation at BlackRock. In this role, he partners both internally and across the industry to leverage blockchain to disrupt traditional operating models, with a focus on partnerships, scale creation and product innovation. His work includes the firms efforts around DLT to redefine market infrastructure, tokenisation and our efforts to develop institutional grade cryptoassets solutions.



Tony’s experience spans across both the buy &amp; sell side, having worked in various Operational, Technology, Project Management, Business Management &amp; Client Service roles in the UK, Japan, China, Singapore &amp; Hungary.

Tony Ashraf

Michael Howell is CEO of CrossBorder Capital, a London-based FCA registered, independent research and investment company that he founded in 1996. The firm provides asset allocation and capital markets advice to institutional investors, and manages US$1 billion of assets. Michael is involved with educational charities and currently advises a major educational foundation on its investment strategy. He brings 40 years finance experience and is a regular international conference speaker, and a media and social media commentator. He has also advised the World Bank on capital flows, co-authoring their publication Opportunities in Emerging Markets (World Bank, 1995), served as board director of a listed Japanese investment trust and recently authored the book Capital Wars (Macmillan, 2020). Previously he was Head of Research for Baring Securities and board member, where he focussed on Emerging Markets, and Research Director of Salomon Brothers Inc, the US investment bank. Before entering finance, Michael worked as Group Economist for Blue Circle Industries plc. He holds a Phd. in financial economics from London University, specialising in Fixed Income, and is a SEC-qualified US Supervisory Analyst. Michael lives in Oxford, England, and is married with four children.

Michael Howell

Jess is the CEO of WalletConnect, the connectivity layer for the financial internet. 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 Houlgrave

Dan Tapiero is a renowned macro-focused investor with over 25 years of investing and entrepreneurial experience. He is the Founder, CEO and CIO of 1Roundtable Partners (1RT) and 10T Holdings (10T), which collectively manage over $1.4 billion of investments in 24 active companies across the Digital Asset Ecosystem (DAE). 1RT is a growth equity fund focused on mid-to-late stage companies in the DAE. Dan serves on several boards including Ledger, LEDN, Futureverse, and Quicknode. Before founding 1RT and 10T, Dan was Managing Partner of DTAP Capital Advisors, a global macro investment fund that he founded in 2003. He is Co-Founder of Gold Bullion International (GBI), a physical precious metals platform for the wealth management industry. GBI expanded into the cryptocurrency business through its integration with Uphold (fka Bitreserve) in 2014. Prior to GBI, he was formerly Co-Founder of the Agricultural Company of America (AGCoA), one of the largest farmland REITs in the U.S. at the time of its sale to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in 2013. Previously, from 1992-2012, Dan was a macro-focused portfolio manager and analyst at Duquesne Capital Management, SAC Capital Advisors, Tiger Management and Steinhardt Management Co. Dan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University, where he earned his B.A.'90 and M.A.'91 in European History. Dan has been on the Board of Trustees of the Lawrenceville School for the past 15 years and currently leads the Investment Committee for its endowment.

Dan Tapiero

Santiago Roel Santos (CryptoPunk #9159) is an investor focusing at the intersection of DeFi and the Web3 metaverse (NFTs/gaming). Most recently was a Partner at ParaFi Capital, one of the largest crypto funds specializing in DeFi. Prior to that, he was at Sageview Capital investing in Internet and software and, before that, at JP Morgan investment banking. Santiago began investing in crypto in 2012.

Santiago Roel Santos

Nicolas is a Founding Partner of Numeus, a global digital asset investment and trading firm founded by a team of finance, blockchain and technology professionals. Nicolas leads the firm's asset management division, Forteus, that is backed by Schroders and offers institutional funds for investors seeking exposure to the digital asset ecosystem. Nicolas brings over twenty years of professional experience in a career spanning crypto, traditional finance and consulting industries. Before co-founding Numeus, Nicolas was a founding partner of Argentière Capital, a volatility-focused multi-strategy hedge fund where he was a Senior Portfolio Manager focusing on volatility strategies across equities and FX. He was a member of the firm’s Risk Management Committee and was instrumental in building many of the tools and processes employed by the firm across investment and risk management functions.



Prior to launching Argentière, Nicolas was a Portfolio Manager in JPMorgan Chase’s Equity Proprietary Trading Group in London. He previously spent nine years at Bain &amp; Company, where he was a Manager running consulting projects in the areas of corporate strategy, M&amp;A, private equity and operational improvements for clients in Europe, US and Japan.



Nicolas obtained his BA / MA in Mathematics from the Ecole Polytechnique of Lausanne in Switzerland.

Nicolas Vanhoutteghem 

Eric Chen is the CEO of Injective Foundation. Eric has worked within the crypto industry for over six years with his latest project, Injective, garnering interest from leading professionals across hedge funds, venture capitals and blockchain projects, including but not limited to Pantera Capital, Mark Cuban, Hashed and Binance.



Eric was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2024 for his work on Injective.

Eric Chen

Rebecca Rettig is the Chief Legal Officer at Jito Labs, where she leads legal, compliance, and policy strategy. She previously held the same role at the Aave Companies, a DeFi software developer, and Polygon Labs, a blockchain technology company; at both, she built the policy function and managed all legal and compliance matters. Ms. Rettig is a pioneer in shaping legal and regulatory frameworks for blockchain systems and applications, advising on matters including decentralization, token launches, and mechanisms. DeFi, structuring, and decentralized governance. She has liaised with policymakers and regulators globally on how DeFi systems operate and the appropriate intersection of law with this novel technology. Ms. Rettig began her legal career at Cravath, Swaine &amp; Moore LLP, litigating complex financial disputes, as well as a landmark peer-to-peer file-sharing case and one of the largest airline mergersin history. She was a partner at Manatt, Phelps &amp; Phillips and currently is Of Counsel at Arktouros pllc, a boutique law firm specializing in cutting-edge technology companies. She has been recognized as one of Crain’s Top Women Lawyers in New York City.

Rebecca Rettig

Hadley is the Chief Commercial Officer at Marinade Labs, the web3 software development team behind Solana liquid and native staking protocol Marinade. He previously founded and led Fidelity’s digital assets division, after serving as SVP of Fidelity Labs where he led several divisions to research and pilot several emerging technologies, including wearable computing, VR/AR, mobile applications (including the company’s first-ever app and app brokerage), AI, and others. He also led global digital asset custody for the Bank of New York Mellon, where he launched the industry’s first bank-grade platform for digital asset custody on bitcoin and Ethereum. He also served as COO at blockchain infrastructure company Bloq, and previously led Amazon Web Services’ AWS Innovation Lab.

Hadley Stern

Jakob is the President of GSR, he previously served as the Global CEO of GSR for over 2.5 years. Prior to joining GSR, he was Head of EMEA business at Two Sigma Investments and a board director of Two Sigma International. He has 18 years of experience developing business and investment solutions in systematic investment management, including roles at Winton Capital Management and Barclays Global Investors (BGI). Jakob earned a BSc in Economics from Lund University where he also completed the MSc coursework in Economics (without dissertation). He also holds a Ships Officers Degree, Class VIII from Chalmers University of Technology.

Jakob Palmstierna

Prior to joining the Board of the Algorand Foundation, Staci ran the Global Market Development practice at the Milken Institute, where she led its work on capital market development, crypto/blockchain solutions, and innovative finance to promote the sustainable development goals. Prior to Milken, Staci ran JPMorgan’s EMEA public sector practice out of London. Before JPMorgan, she led the Nasdaq’s two markets for microcap companies, and in the public and non-profit sectors had senior roles at the U.S. Treasury Department, the Center for Global Development, and the Harvard Institute for International Development. Staci has done business in more than 50 countries and has advised and spoken widely on the potential for cryptocurrencies and blockchain to solve real-world problems, and for financial innovation to improve inclusion and reduce global poverty. In addition to the Algorand Foundation, she sits on the Boards of the Global Blockchain Business Council, the Rwandan Capital Market Authority, and the Energy for Growth Hub. She also serves on the advisory committees of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the European Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee (STOA), the U.S. Financial Technology Association, and Evolution Environmental Asset Management.

Staci Warden

Matt Hougan is one of the world’s leading experts on crypto, ETFs, and financial technology. He is Chief Investment Officer for Bitwise Asset Management, a pioneer in cryptoasset index funds with more than $1.2 billion in assets under management. He was previously CEO of ETF.com, where he helped build the world’s first ETF data and analytics system, the leading ETF media site, and the world’s largest ETF conference, Inside ETFs. Hougan is co-author of both "A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds" and "Cryptoassets: The Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies for Professional Investors" from the CFA Institute’s Research Foundation. He is a crypto columnist for Forbes, and a three-time member of the Barron’s ETF Roundtable.

Matt Hougan

Xiao-Xiao J. Zhu currently serves as Digital Operating Partner at KKR where he leads technology-driven value creation, innovation and digital transformation at the board and top management level of European private equity portfolio companies such as Axel Springer, GfK and Roompot Landal. He also leads KKR’s global Digital Assets &amp; Blockchain strategy, driving investments in foremost Crypto VCs such as Dragonfly Capital and Ethereal Ventures as well as Digital Assets companies such as Anchorage Digital. He is a regular speaker at key Digital Assets &amp; AI conferences, and is an angel investor in fast growing early stage technology companies such as Fuse Energy or Anagram. Prior to joining KKR, he was General Manager at BCG Digital Ventures in London and Beijing where he founded, launched and scaled new digital companies such as Heycar.com (backed by Volkswagen &amp; Daimler) or Tracr.com (backed by DeBeers). He began his career in management consulting advising Fortune 500 companies at the Boston Consulting Group in London. Notably, in an earlier life, he performed as a professional concert pianist on some of the world’s most prestigious concert venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, and played for global leaders such as George H.W. Bush, Helmut Kohl or Mikhail Gorbachev. He holds a MSc in Managerial Economics &amp; Strategy from the London School of Economics, a BA in Philosophy &amp; Economics from the Humboldt University Berlin, and a Masters in Concert Piano from the Berlin University of Arts.

Xiao-Xiao Zhu

Konstantin Richter is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and advisor. He has been active in the blockchain ecosystem as an advisor and contributor since 2015, with the likes of Gem, <a href="http://po.et/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Po.et</a>, and MadHive. In 2017, he created Blockdaemon in order to bring institutional-grade infrastructure to blockchain protocols, crypto native and traditional financial institutions. Subsequently, Konstantin has helmed Blockdaemon through three major funding rounds raising $400M to date. The most recent being a Series C raising $207M at a $3.25B valuation led by Sapphire and Tiger Global with previous backers SoftBank, Goldman Sachs, and Citi Ventures. Blockdaemon is the world’s largest blockchain infrastructure company for node management, MPC tech, and staking.

Konstantin Richter

Ryan is based in London and heads up Digital Assets globally and Strategic Investments across Europe and Asia at Barclays. The DA team is responsible for digital asset strategy, governance and the establishment of new asset, money and tokenisation initiatives across the bank. The SI team is responsible for originating, executing and portfolio managing all strategic principal equity investments made by Barclays in external companies.  Ryan joined Barclays in 2011 as an M&amp;amp;A advisor in the investment bank and moved to the Strategy and Corporate Development team in 2013, where he acted as a principal in originating and executing M&amp;amp;A transactions.Prior to Barclays, Ryan was at Nevsky Capital, a $7bn long/short equity asset manager, where he covered a range of sectors including oil &amp;amp; gas, chemicals and agriculture and before that worked at Deutsche Bank as a corporate finance advisor in the Industrials practice across Europe. Ryan holds a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford and also holds an MA (Oxon) from the University of Oxford.

Ryan Hayward

Leading Strategy and Partnerships for Digital Assets in Citi's Treasury and Trade Solutions Business. Working with a truly dynamic global team serving 140 countries, 160 currencies while regulated in 95 countries.

David Cunningham

Jonathan Cheesman

David Mercer is the Chief Executive Officer of LMAX Group, a global, high-growth financial technology company based in London. A former City banking executive and currency specialist, he joined LMAX Group in 2011 and after a successful management buyout, rapidly built LMAX Group into the leading operator of institutional FX and cryptocurrency exchanges with offices in 11 countries and global client base. An outspoken industry commentator, David is a long term champion of the UK’s fintech sector and passionate about supporting entrepreneurship in the UK.

David Mercer

With 7 years of experience across investment banking, hedge funds, and private equity, Guy has built a strong foundation in the financial sector. Prior to founding Ethena, he spent 6 years at Cerberus Management, a firm with $60 billion in assets under management, where he focused on investing in financial services businesses across the capital structure.

Guy Young

Sid Powell is the CEO &amp; Co-Founder of Maple Finance and with his Co-Founder Joe Flanagan founded Maple in 2019. Sid comes from a background in debt capital markets and institutional banking. During his career in traditional finance, he participated in $3BN+ of corporate bond issuance,and served as Treasurer for a commercial lending company in Australia. Maple has originated more than $5b in institutional lending since inception and currently holds over $550m in assets on the platform. We aim to be the global leader in tokenized private credit and first choice for institutional borrowers.

Sid Powell

Vivek Raman

Michael Bucella is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Neoclassic Capital, a digital asset investment firm with a strong focus on Asia. Prior to Neoclassic, Michael served as General Partner with BlockTower Capital from 2017 to 2022, growing the firm near inception to managing in excess of $1B in AUM across hedge fund, venture, and credit strategies. Previous to BlockTower, Michael spent nearly a decade with Goldman Sachs in New York across both the Asset Management (GSAM) and Securities Division.

Michael Bucella

Lekker Capital is a global macro hedge fund with a particular focus on the emerging digital asset industry. Prior to founding Lekker, Quinn served as the Head of Capital Markets for two institutional lending businesses in the digital asset ecosystem, most recently at Maple Finance. Quinn spent five years in fixed income and capital markets at Guggenheim Partners in New York before his full-time foray into crypto.

Quinn Thompson

Diogo is the co-founder of Anchorage Digital, where he served as President prior to joining Haun Ventures and where he currently serves as Executive Chairman. Anchorage Digital is the first federally chartered crypto-native bank in the US. Prior to founding Anchorage Digital, Diogo served as Platform Security Lead at Square (now known as Block). At Square, Diogo worked on the infrastructure security platform (including identity, access management, and responses systems) that is now used to move over $200B in annualized gross payments volume. Diogo also served as Security Lead at Docker, where he and his team wrote code that helps secure one of the core underpinnings of modern computing infrastructure: containers. Diogo serves as the Chairman of the NEAR Foundation. He previously served as an advisor to Airtable and StackRox.

Diogo Monica

David Karney

Anatoly is an investment professional with 30 years of experience in investment management and hedge fund industry. Nickel Digital is a regulated multi-PM quant hedge fund specialising in market-neutral strategies in digital assets, providing institutional-grade access to this nascent market. In co-founding Nickel Digital in 2019, Anatoly leveraged his prior experience with investment management divisions of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan in London, where he was dealing with asset allocation and portfolio construction. Anatoly earned an MA degree in International Business from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia and an Executive MBA degree from the University of Oxford in 2009. He returned to Oxford in 2018, to become part of the pioneering cohort of global investment professionals to graduate from the Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme, which played a pivotal role in the decision to transit from traditional finance into digital assets. Anatoly is an avid sailor who has crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on a single-hull racing sailboat and a catamaran, respectively.

Anatoly Crachilov

Marc Vanlerberghe is the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Algorand Foundation. Marc brings more than 20 years of experience in executive marketing positions, with a strong background in entrepreneurial, hyper-growth business environments. Prior to Algorand Foundation, he was the CEO of Rulai, a startup in the nascent conversational AI space. Before that, he was CMO at Medallia, the leading SaaS platform that enables companies to capture actionable customer data in real time. At Google, Marc was Vice President of Marketing for Access and Energy and anadvisor to CapitalG. Marc is known for launching Android and developing the brand into the most popular mobile operating system. In addition, he led marketing for Google Play and Google’s hardware and retail organizations. Marc lives in Sunnyvale, California. He sits on several boards and enjoys advising startup entrepreneurs. Marc received his MBA from Stanford University and his MS degree in engineering from the University of Ghent, Belgium.

Marc Vanlerberghe

Omar is a digital asset expert, investor, and consultant active in the space since 2016. As Chief Business Development Officer at SecondLane (Web3 native investment bank and asset manager with $100 M+ AUM) Omar leads strategic partnerships and oversees complex deal execution with a focus on legal and operational integrity.



In addition to his role at SecondLane, Omar is a LP in several leading crypto venture funds, including Multicoin Capital, Alliance DAO, and Topology Ventures, backing the next generation of protocols and infrastructure across Web3. His investment focus also spans the convergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence, with recent backing of frontier tech companies such as Figure AI and Apptronik.



With deep involvement at both the operational and capital levels, Omar operates at the intersection of institutional adoption, capital formation, and regulatory evolution in digital assets. He is driven by his deep belief in blockchain’s potential to drive long-term, meaningful social impact on a global scale.

Omar Shakeeb

Rob Hadick is a General Partner at Dragonfly, a ~$4bn crypto focused investment firm. Previously, he helped lead multi-stage investments into crypto companies and protocols at GoldenTree Asset Management ("GTAM"), a ~$50bn multi-strategy hedge fund. Prior to GTAM, Rob invested in and advised fintech, technology, and crypto companies while at Heritage Partners, Goldman Sachs, and PJT Partners. He holds a MBA from Columbia Business School, and a Bachelors in Economics and Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis.

Rob Hadick

Chris is the CIO of Digital Assets at Amitis Capital. In his early career, Chris worked at several major institutions including CIBC World Markets, Société Générale Barr Devlin, Antarctica Asset Management and ING Investment Management. In 2010, he joined SAIL Advisors (the family office of the founder of Duty-Free Shoppers) as Head of Research for Tactical Trading and Relative Value Strategies. He later joined Cliffwater LLC as Managing Director covering global macro and relative value strategies on the hedge fund research team. Most recently, Chris was the CIO of Digital Assets at Forest Road, where he oversaw a digital assets-focused venture capital fund of funds. Chris has a BA in Economics and Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MComm in Finance from the University of New South Wales, where he was a Federation Scholar. Chris holds the CFA, CPA, and CAIA designations. Chris has broken 9 Guinness World Records and has run marathons on all 7 continents and in all 50 US states.

Chris Solarz

Seth Ginns is a Managing Partner and Head of Liquid Investments at CoinFund, and a key member of the Venture Investment Committee. He has 20 years of Wall Street experience and has been deeply involved in the crypto community since his angel investment in Coinbase in 2012. He is also an angel in Starkware, Chainalysis, participated in the Ethereum ICO in 2014, and loves traveling globally to developer events as a way to keep a finger on the pulse of the market. His angel portfolio also includes Instacart, BillionToOne and DoorDash, and many earlier stage, high growth startups.



Prior to CoinFund, Seth invested in public growth equities over 18 years at Jennison Associates. He holds a BA in Mathematics and South Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves on the International Advisory Board of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the School of Arts and Sciences and served as an Overseer at the School of Nursing and Co-Chair of the Innovation Committee.

Seth Ginns

Ryan Rasmussen is the Head of Research at Bitwise Asset Management. Prior to Bitwise, he held a variety of corporate finance roles at Cetera Financial Group, a network of independent broker-dealers with over 8,000 financial advisors and $300 billion in assets under administration. Before Cetera, Ryan was a business analyst at Oakley and spent time as a research associate at UK Trade &amp; Investment in Sydney, Australia. He is a graduate of the Argyros School of Business &amp; Economics at Chapman University, with a B.S. in finance and a secondary focus in graphic and web design.

Ryan Rasmussen

Paul Faecks is the Founder and CEO of Plasma, a high-performance, scalable, and secure blockchain built for stablecoin payments. At Plasma, Paul is leading the team building a blockchain tailored for stablecoin transactions from the ground up. Before founding Plasma, Paul served as the CEO and Co-Founder of Alloy, a platform for institutional digital asset operations, beginning in August 2021.

Paul Faecks

Michael Sonnenshein is an executive with over 15 years experience across financial services. As the current President of Securitize, Michael is bringing compliant digital security solutions to institutional and individual investors, bridging the traditional and decentralized finance worlds.



 Prior to Securitize, Michael Sonnenshein was CEO of Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager. With over a decade in the crypto industry, Michael established Grayscale as the definitive leader in crypto investing, offering a wide range of investments including single-asset and diversified products. Under Michael’s leadership, Grayscale paved the way for the approval of Bitcoin ETFs in the US market. Michael is regularly featured on CNBC and Bloomberg and was honored in 2021 as one of 100 People Transforming Business by Business Insider and in 2018 as one of the publication’s Rising Stars of Wall Street. Prior to joining Grayscale, Michael was a financial advisor at JP Morgan Securities, covering HNW individuals and institutions, and an analyst at Barclays Wealth, providing coverage to middle‐market hedge funds and institutions. Michael earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his Master of Business Administration from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.ork University.

Michael Sonnenshein

Richard Green

Alwyn Clarke is a Director on Galaxy Digital’s investment banking team. Prior to joining the firm, Alwyn worked at Fenchurch Advisory Partners and Barclays Capital in London and New York, advising businesses on M&amp;A, capital raising and other strategic initiatives. He has worked with businesses across the full financial services landscape, with a core focus on financial technology and asset management. Alwyn holds a B.A. in Jurisprudence (Law with French Law) from the University of Oxford.

Alwyn Clarke

Ian brings over 20 years of experience in capital markets and fintech and is widely regarded as one of the UK’s foremost experts in blockchain and digital assets. He most recently led KPMG’s UK Crypto &amp; Digital Assets practice, and previously served as Executive Director and Board Advisor to CryptoUK, the UK’s digital asset trade association.

Ian Taylor

Avi Felman is a Principal and Head of Digital Assets Trading at&nbsp;GoldenTree&nbsp;Asset Management. Mr. Felman is also a General Partner of&nbsp;GoldenChain, a wholly owned subsidiary of&nbsp;GoldenTree&nbsp;that manages the Firm’s funds focused on digital assets. Mr. Felman is one of the longest tenured traders in digital assets and has held several prominent positions, including most recently as Co-Portfolio Manager and Head of Trading for&nbsp;BlockTower&nbsp;Capital where he grew the flagship fund portfolio from $40mm at time of joining to over $800mm. Previously, Mr. Felman was Lead Trader at Wave Financial where he co- led the development of the first SEC-regulated Bitcoin fund and he also was responsible for the derivatives strategy and trading execution. Prior to joining Wave Financial, Mr. Felman founded Ledger Capital, a firm focused on cryptocurrency trading and investments. Mr. Felman received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering&nbsp;from&nbsp;Washington University.

Avi Felman

William joined Marshall Wace in May 2022 to oversee Fintech and Digital Assets investments for MW Digital Finance Fund.



Prior to joining Marshall Wace, William worked at Candy Capital, a family office where he was responsible for various investments across the technology sector. Prior to Candy Capital, William worked for HSBC and Greyspark Partners, were he was heading Fintech Investment Advisory. William is also an active seed investor across digital assets and fintech.

William Benattar

James is General Partner – Fund Manager &amp; GP at Republic. Prior to this, James worked in a wide variety of investing, business building and operating roles across the Alan Howard ecosystem. Originally hired into Brevan Howard, his focus was Principal Investing across Crypto, Web3, Fintech &amp; Frontier Technologies. James was also one of the founding team at WebN Group, the well-known incubator for Fintech &amp; Web3 innovation, where over 18 months significant equity value was created. Twinstake, TruFin, Libre, Geometry and Soter are a few of those companies. Due to James’s extensive experience, he additionally spent 6 months restructuring, realigning and putting into place operational policies and scaling procedures at Elwood, a market leading EMS &amp; PMS provider backed by Goldman Sachs, Citi Bank, and Barclays. Having been heavily involved in Web3 &amp; Digital Assets Markets for over 8 years, James started his career with ~15 years of investment banking experience across multi-asset trading, derivative, sales and structuring desks at top tier banks. His deep understanding of the intersection between digital assets, financial technologies and traditional finance has been crucial to creating robust investment thesis’s, venture builds and implementing operational policies, scalable processes and go-to-market strategies in portfolio companies. Outside of work, James is an advisor to various companies, including Saltford FC and has published numerous quantitative, financial and regulatory papers across both traditional and digital markets, most recently for the Digital Economic Initiative. As a qualified Chartered Financial Analyst®, James holds a Masters in Finance (Distinction) &amp; graduated with an Honours Degree in Economics from Durham University.

James Newman

Jordi Alexander is the Founder of Selini Capital, a leading firm within Digital Assets trading and investing. Selini has its roots in traditional markets and High-Frequency Trading, but is currently one of the most active firms in onchain DeFi as well as early stage venture investing. Jordi is an advisor to projects innovating in the space including Mantle, and is cohost of the weekly Steady Lads podcast.

Jordi Alexander

Haseeb is a Managing Partner at Dragonfly. He was previously a partner at Metastable Capital, and has a background in software engineering at Airbnb and Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase).

Haseeb Qureshi

Serafin Lion Engel is the Founder and CEO of Yield.xyz (formerly StakeKit), the ultimate Web 3 yield infrastructure Backed by Multicoin Capital, Yield.xyz provides customers access to over 1,000 self-custodial yields across staking, stablecoins, and DeFi. The platform facilitates over $100 million in monthly volume and powers more than 50 of the leading companies in Web3 and Fintech, including wallets like Ledger and neobanks like DeBlock.



 Before Yield.xyz, Serafin founded Omni in 2021, one of the first mobile multichain wallets. Omni was acquired by Paxful via Echo Base in 2024. Serafin entered the crypto space in 2014 through Draper University and began building on Ethereum in 2016, pioneering data sovereignty technologies and early data marketplaces.

Serafin Lion Engel

Karl-Martin Ahrend

Hong Sun joined Core as institutional contributor after serving as the VP of BD at Paxos, where he focused on infrastructure and stablecoin partnerships. He has led efforts to introduce Core’s dual staking solutions, which unlock sustainable Bitcoin yields at scale for institutional investors. Hong actively educates stakeholders on Core’s innovative staking mechanisms, helping drive institutional adoption of Bitcoin DeFi.

Hong Sun

Michael Ippolito is a co-founder at Blockworks in charge of content and finance.&nbsp; Previously to co-founding Blockworks, Michael was a consultant where he advised mid-market manufacturing-focused companies on operational and capital efficiency as well as M&amp;A strategy.

Michael Ippolito

Felix Jauvin

Carolina

Ben Strack is a Denver-based reporter covering macro and crypto-native funds, financial advisors, structured products, and the integration of digital assets and decentralized finance (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.

Macauley was an editor and content creator in the professional chess world for 14 years, prior to joining Blockworks. At Bucerius Law School (Master in Law and Business, 2020) he researched stablecoins, decentralized finance and central bank digital currencies. He also holds an MA in Film Studies; film credits include Associate Producer of the 2016 Netflix feature documentary, "Magnus" about World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. He is based in Germany.

Macauley Peterson

David Rodriguez

Marc-Thomas Arjoon

Dan Smith

Boccaccio

Hear from the world's most sophisticated investors about how liquidity, interest rates and economic drivers are shaping their digital asset portfolios.

Macro Case for Digital Assets

Institutional investment will continue to drive this crypto cycle. At DAS you'll hear from investors on strategy, portfolio allocation, and more.

ETFs & Institutional Investment

Hear allocator's perspectives from the top funds in the world on how they are navigating the expanding public & private digital asset markets.

Allocator's Perspective

This year's programming will explore the evolution of global standards and regulatory frameworks that policy makers are crafting for the maturing digital asset ecosystem.

US & Global Digital Asset Policy

The largest financial institutions like Blackrock & JPMorgan are moving onchain to settle treasuries, collateral, and other securities. At DAS, these partnerships and innovations will be at the forefront of conversations.

Tokenization & Real World Assets

DAS will delve into the evolving landscape of stablecoins and digital asset payments. Consumers and institutions alike will gain from their insight into these payments innovations.