Liz Coyne

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Digital Asset Summit 2021, New York City — Blockworks&#8217; Digital Asset Summit 2021 is our flagship US-based institutionally focused crypto <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">conference</a> for asset managers and financial services professionals.



Hosted Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 14 &#8211; 15, this in-person event features leaders from the world of finance and digital assets discussing crypto from the perspective of industry practitioners.



While the event is sold out, we are thrilled to be able to bring you all the main stage content via livestream.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/#form0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Follow this link and log-in to watch now.</a>

Blockworks

Digital Asset Summit 2021 Live from NYC

Byron Gilliam

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



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“What the market expects is almost never what happens.”



— Jamie Dimon
</blockquote>



US equities hit all-time highs again this week, and it’s hard to know what that means.



Consider that this is also the week that the president of the United States <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114873827864802531">called</a> the chair of the Federal Reserve a “numbskull.”



Worse than name-calling, the president went on to say that the FOMC should lower interest rates to 1%, expressly so the government could save “One Trillion Dollars a year in Interest Costs.”



That is the definition of “fiscal dominance”: When a central bank keeps interest rates artificially low to accommodate a government’s deficit spending, with unthinkable consequences presumably to follow.



Fortunately, we’re not quite there yet.



Chair Powell still has 10 months on the job and the president hasn’t figured out how to fire him, although he appears to still be trying.



(We live in a bizarre timeline where the <a href="https://x.com/NickTimiraos/status/1946241807563592044">amount of marble</a> included in the facade of the Federal Reserve building is relevant to monetary policy.)



But the leading candidate to take Powell’s place, Kevin Warsh, is openly offering to subjugate the Fed to the White House in return for the appointment — a Faustian bargain for which we would all pay the price.



This seems like something that markets would worry about: Economists have long warned that fiscal dominance is guaranteed to undermine faith in the dollar, government debt and the entire US economy.



But US stocks continue to levitate and Treasury bonds seem generally unperturbed.



The legendary hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller once said that the best economist he knew was the stock market, so maybe that means we can rest easy?



Can we take the market’s sanguine price action as an endorsement of steep tariffs and Fed bullying? Or is it a prediction that he won’t do what he says he’ll do?



Alternatively, could the market have conceded that tariff and monetary policy are currently too volatile to bother predicting?&nbsp;



Or is it a sign that policy doesn’t matter as much as we thought?



I’m probably overthinking it.



Fed Governor Christopher Waller, who doesn’t seem to be campaigning to be Powell’s replacement, said this week that &#8220;with inflation near target and the upside risks to inflation limited, we should not wait until the labor market deteriorates before we cut the policy rate.&#8221;



The market loves rate cuts, so maybe that’s all that matters.



Or could it be that none of this matters because AI is on the verge of changing everything anyway?



This week, Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://x.com/TheTranscript_/status/1945528949867794624">said</a> that Meta is “starting to see early glimpses of self-improvement with [AI] models” and that “superintelligence is now in sight.”



Specifically, he thinks we could be as little as two or three years away from artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence — not just in coding or newsletter writing, but in all fields.&nbsp;



If a world of superintelligent AIs with the capacity to self-improve is less than three years away, should we care whether Fed funds is 1% or 5%? Or whether tariffs are 0% or 50%?



That will be a whole new world, presumably, and the best economist Stanley Druckenmiller knows seems to think it will be a good one.



Let’s hope it’s right. 



Imports are inflating:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfbzl-dhBz2dBBL6yFcGb0TMvr7_-JL7thN8Jr9sFnJBGFJ8Z2N7N15EtSjOvk4aJKhkMgMvTGRNIJ7EUD_7nD7kQaef0qiA9tR4K9wYzfPGjUiX7HVbW58oCtwlvvBiF8QksYI3Q?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



An academic <a href="https://www.pricinglab.org/files/TrackingTariffs_Cavallo_Llamas_Vazquez.pdf">study</a> finds that tariffs have caused the price of imports to rise faster than the price of domestic goods. It hasn’t affected the US economy much as of yet, but Ben Cassleman <a href="https://x.com/bencasselman/status/1945472944534151660?t=m9WO7HaG2grZwkEoLWzmjw&amp;s=19">explains</a> why that doesn’t mean it won’t. <a href="https://pca.st/episode/3a6399a4-8292-4064-8e25-e0509d6df36e">Analysts at Morgan Stanley</a> think the economy should start showing the negative impact of tariffs in the third quarter (which is now).



For now, things are pretty good:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfspY14iokgTv64CipDBb6NQeKPUjvsAJatCVwhS071KsibdZZFmyNirzcEJiAfuo5STYs5ZKKpHBPgmgPjdYhQafAQy7jFIpDQhALcV5Wn3NswpongE1T3bAKkJM9clcHp_zdBdw?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



Ed Yardeni highlights that the “misery index” — the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates — remains well below the long-term average.



Economists have been too worried lately:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfy464vL48HPvEwD8p1q9X5yga3h_5mxUlb_Z1PnzLl0ge5AwXir7tXyyxQjb6C4ufRTFj9C2CAOVh_IU2lEM9SZ-UbcjbaB5bR8_NEQ_HjIZ7jiXAsLYLCbZyqSpiP63a005YdBw?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



<a href="https://x.com/AnnaEconomist">Anna Wong</a> notes that US growth and inflation data have both been better than consensus expectations recently.



It’s been worse than expected for male college grads:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcrZvH3GbEp8fgK8Myb2ipL8ZwLM4dS3iGdUcc9ynmZuFWMx33BN97N68YRKvCzK3PGvdMQ-wJu7WYlsiuVz1wreYN7GBtewV-2g1Sqw_WnH5kZRCPQZrGQIuIXaSk3JjONdfXr4w?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



The FT columnist John Burn-Murdoch <a href="https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1946220407725384136">notes</a> that young men with college degrees are just as likely to be unemployed as young men without degrees. Women college graduates continue to fare better, probably because they&#8217;re more likely to work in health care.&nbsp;



Don’t blame comp sci:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdA4a-gJvvtMqF3ar8kcI4m-Df9Ve4fFiXEX8BBC-Gtylrwe6Y0PTriHKx5lB0vIai41yMwCKN0rCnzfv8Xw2vvVaCaS0qvlfBqNRtFPWf-mrCvx3ddiv4-WXitdv4ms897OWX08w?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



Contrary to popular belief, Burn-Murdoch notes as well that “relative to the pre-generative AI era, recent grads have secured coding jobs at the same rate as they’ve found any job, if not slightly higher.”&nbsp;



US companies are still the best:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe7uilBti9UtrLXhe6bkUsaKHim9-b0e0gYiIsEAZvn0cdO0ePSX2ncnFOV1Nrn33CILEhcLKryrNOB7Ze-rDf257XozO6uOjZsbh_oAsL-BS_4dF6vQspyfBWprFqxZalTley9RQ?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



Goldman Sachs reminds us that big US companies are far more profitable than companies in the rest of the world. They might get even more so: Amazon and Microsoft were both said to be reducing their payrolls by thousands of employees this week, reportedly because they believe they can ask AI to do more of the work.



On the other hand…



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdlLYeoaQ8Zb9YMghhUF8itsTm5v-vmqVS2zc0IiE5z4HgFDOvwUAV9N-NvflGVAmXPeIrr6VNA2AW2WWKWqUGfyFMLLKonBfcyii0mOrMaEW_0U5xURrLBtI8VWRUdkqCmNu1EXA?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



By <a href="https://x.com/avtarsehra/status/1941530489363275957?t=uxKm0hWf7HqBW3lJrIU6IQ&amp;s=19">multiple measures</a>, China has pulled ahead of the US in scientific research. Maybe US mega tech companies will make up the difference. But if we’re in a two-country race to superintelligence, now seems like a bad time for the government to be cutting research grants.



New highs are normal:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeERm154AGQwFF8DeSwyRa575XX0FIuqYC_8rxRksJ2q32kyEdAidpwxCMIfyQBV_vPai-5iVAjsUieZzSy088FG2qBxoBfzpko_3yL44K4vV1MSNa7DQIXe9SFt4BDqUTzwYX6Bg?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



This graphic from @ryandetrick is a reminder that making new highs is the norm for US equities. This year’s total of nine is still pretty modest.



Zimbabwe stocks made a lot of new highs, too:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe74H2ba8WCkzQiH5sqnUVSQa02Yh0-17qyS8g5Wq_tLVB7KzaT8nmMahnlJetP6HhYO9MJj2FCd1OXXgpeLeHUsu0s_WiSYwEFFDZnkZvLY4X5MnkAr82mcah7aTXzqoMc08lg?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



Zimbabwean stock prices boomed during the bout of hyperinflation that started in 2019 — simply because stocks are denominated in the local currency. When the currency was revalued in March, stocks were revalued, too.



Not Zimbabwe yet:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfqKO-ffZwElxlYWuHOJ2_sZukQ3NWHJuW6DloJPHfFqhnS-D3LxJ3G_GIikOzpNox6KGRbAHTkZhqpQ5HbQxl37_G1EpqjX85tYc5g-2gumW0DsmdhLrQFKNjIfIMdUuxlUwtl?key=IIs-8ktBLMjMZqvCmeXjXQ" alt=""/></figure>



Despite the rising risk of fiscal dominance, the market for forward inflation expectations implies that US inflation will be just 2.3% in five years’ time — which would be great news for the world.&nbsp;



If the market is keeping its faith in the Fed, shouldn’t we all? Jamie Dimon would tell you that’s not how it works, but let’s hope he’s wrong.



Have a great weekend, predictive readers.



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



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The Breakdown Newsletter

Friday charts: Fiscal dominance and super intelligence

Jack Kubinec

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



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The Solana liquid-staking startup Sanctum has acquired Ironforge in an all-cash deal, Lightspeed has learned exclusively.&nbsp;



Sanctum did not disclose the deal terms. Ironforge’s team, founded by Italo Casas, will join Sanctum, according to a blog post.



Ironforge builds Solana infrastructure, including for landing transactions on the network. With the acquisition, Sanctum plans to add transaction infrastructure as a business vertical.



Sanctum emerged in mid-2024 as a buzzy new Solana startup after going through Solana’s startup incubator. Until now, the project has focused on liquid staking tokens, which are tokenized representations of staked SOL. Its flagship product is INF, a liquid staking token that holds a basket of Solana LSTs.&nbsp;



After a much-talked-about points program gave way to a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-sanctum-airdrop-backlash">somewhat-controversial</a> airdrop, Sanctum has added a couple new business lines. One was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-liquid-staking-startup-trial">creator coins</a>, LSTs which share rewards with creators. Another was what are essentially <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sanctum-adding-binance-bitget-bybit-as-partners">white-label LSTs</a>, starting with Binance, Bitget and Bybit. 



It was while working with these partners that Sanctum realized how difficult it can be to land transactions on Solana. The onchain pain became particularly acute during Donald Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-more-than-a-memecoin">memecoin launch</a>, which left Solana very congested.&nbsp;



“Solving that problem meant either building a solution from scratch ourselves or teaming up with the best developers already working in that niche,” Sanctum said in a blog post, adding: “Ironforge was that team.”



And so, Sanctum has struck out on a non-LST business vertical for the first time.



“[There are] a profusion of transaction landing solutions on Solana and no good way to observe and adjudicate their performance. [We] aggregate and make observability a first class citizen giving developers full control and observability,” Sanctum co-founder FP Lee said.



Ironforge did not immediately return a request for comment.



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



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Lightspeed Newsletter

Sanctum acquires Ironforge, plots transaction infrastructure vertical

Ben Strack

The GENIUS Act is now law.&nbsp;



President Donald Trump on Friday signed the legislation, which provides a first-of-its-kind regulatory framework for US dollar-backed stablecoins.



Growing adoption of stablecoins — tokens pegged to fiat currencies that hold a market capitalization of roughly $250 billion — will have “a profound effect” on dollar dominance and demand for US debt, a senior US Treasury official said on a Friday press call.&nbsp;



More than a crypto bill, the law marks a milestone for payments innovation, the person added — as the federal government is essentially giving an unprecedented vote of confidence to permissionless blockchains.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecon-execs-bullish-stablecoins-financial-revolution">Digesting Stablecon: Execs bullish on imminent financial infrastructure revolution</a>



Trump’s signing of the bill comes a day after the House of Representatives <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/genius-act-passes-house">passed the GENIUS Act</a> in a 307-122 vote. The Senate had advanced the bill last month, when 18 Democrats joined Republicans as part of a 68-30 vote.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1582/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22genius+act%22%7D">bill</a> gives the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) substantial oversight over prospective and approved stablecoin issuers. It requires such entities to keep fully-backed liquid reserves — such as cash and short-term Treasury securities — and ensures that those with more than $50 billion in issued tokens undergo annual audits.&nbsp;



The GENIUS Act also essentially requires state regulators to maintain frameworks that are “substantially similar” to those at the federal level. It offers an alternative to the previous “patchwork of state regulatory frameworks” that stablecoin issuers previously had to rely on, the senior Treasury official noted.&nbsp;



On Thursday, the House also <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-house-passes-clarity-act">passed the CLARITY Act</a>. That bill, which establishes a definition for “digital commodities” and divides crypto oversight between the CFTC and the SEC, now heads to the Senate.&nbsp;



Steve Kurz, Global Head of Asset Management at Galaxy, told Blockworks that these bills represent a huge unlock for not just crypto-native companies but for the larger financial institutions that Galaxy interacts with.&nbsp;



“It really takes what had been a business plan, a [crypto] working group or a check-the-box exercise and it puts it immediately into ‘Wait a minute, this is here, this is now, this is legal, we have to be doing it [because] our competitors are doing it,’” Kurz explained.&nbsp;



“I think this catch-up moment around digital infrastructure within large institutions is going to surprise a lot of people,” he added.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-products-onchain-exec-says">All Franklin Templeton products will one day be onchain, exec says</a>



The bill signing comes as bitcoin has hit a number of new all-time highs this month, peaking around $123,000 this week. 



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-shares-nyse-day-one">Shares of Circle</a> — the second-largest stablecoin issuer behind Tether — were trading around $225, as of 2 p.m. ET — up 13% from a month ago.



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congress

President Trump signs GENIUS Act into law

David Canellis

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



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The pump.fun ICO was a roaring success, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-fun-500m-ico-twitch">raising $500 million onchain</a> at a $4 billion fully-diluted value (FDV). Another $100 million was raised via CEXs.



More than 10,000 addresses took part in the Saturday sale conducted on Solana. In total, 12.5% of the entire supply was sold in 12 minutes — 125 billion PUMP for $0.004 each.&nbsp;



Within two days, PUMP had reached as high as 70% above that initial mark and has since retraced to be 14% ahead with a $4.6 billion FDV.



Such a rapid sale made availability a primary concern for anyone trying to get in — and as it turned out, it was much easier to scoop up tokens on decentralized exchanges than on standard trading platforms.



Blockworks Research analyst Boccaccio told the 0xResearch podcast:



“I  have a very medium, luke-warm take, and it&#8217;s that this is the first time that I can think of [for a sale like this].



“Historically, if anybody gave you the option — either do this [token sale] on a centralized exchange versus on like decentralized rails — you would always do it on a centralized exchange, because it&#8217;s typically more performant; it&#8217;s more stable.



“I think this is the only example that I can think of where, like, you got fucked if you tried to do it on a centralized exchange. And if you did it on a decentralized [exchange] — like on Solana itself — you actually managed to get in. I think the average check size is like 500 as well. So, like, you didn&#8217;t have to be particularly sophisticated to get in.”



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R8h6ucZm_2c?si=uP0dDx4hAY_ErJk_&amp;start=140" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







Ryan Connor, Blockworks Research’s head of research, sees this as something of a fork in the road for token sales moving forward.&nbsp;



Boccaccio agreed: “It dispels the myth that Solana is unstable and you can&#8217;t do anything on it. At least, what a lot of .eth’s have said historically is that you can&#8217;t do anything, you can&#8217;t trust Solana, necessarily, because it used to have outages.



“We saw that it [Solana] outperformed CEXs, and I think it also speaks to Hyperliquid in that it&#8217;s able to capture some volume.”



Catch the full episode on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@0xresearchPodcast">Youtube</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0rGocvZ7oZR6vuy0UHKAON">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/0xresearch/id1651683074">Apple Podcasts</a> and <a href="https://x.com/0xresearch?lang=en">X</a>.



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DEXs

PUMP post-mortem: Breaking down the pump.fun ICO

Donovan Choy

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



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It has often been said that most crypto startups are guilty of making “blockchains in search of a problem.”



Perhaps one segment that defies that stereotype is crypto casinos. The Financial Times pegs this niche market to be <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/66f879c6-e51c-4e9d-91ba-b15eecac45c1?utm_source=chatgpt.com">roughly</a> at $81 billion in 2024.



Consider Shuffle.



Incubated by Fisher8 Capital and co-founded by former Alameda trader Noah Dummett, Shuffle is a casino and lottery platform boasting at least $100 million in annualized “net gaming revenues” — meaning all revenues after VIP rebates and cashbacks.



The SHFL token’s current FDV of $232 million is about a cheap 2.3x multiple, compared to the range of 10-40x revenue multiples for most other top DeFi tokens. Those revenue numbers would place Shuffle on a list of the top 20 revenue-generating Web3 businesses, yet the project remains largely absent from the so-called “<a href="https://x.com/simononchain/status/1942460321525911857">revenue meta</a>” conversation on Crypto Twitter.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Shuffle’s architecture</h2>



Despite being frequently referred to as a “crypto casino,” Shuffle executes the majority of its gameplay mechanics offchain — largely due to the fact that posting every bet on a public chain would overwhelm even the fast L2 networks.



Additionally, most of Shuffle’s gambling games are outsourced toiGaming content studios like Evolution, Hacksaw Gaming, Pragmatic Play, etc. So while Shuffle provides players with a frontend and bankroll, iGaming studios generates the outcomes on the backend.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeGUlAzRa_bCzwfxYawpZZl9A4SG4e2dqCwTCzhBWIveIFKkDuhnpY6waH-K_MFr14xeTzmxrZjU9blRUfPScu8-Nqb8SIRNatrsfoqeSs5SOjY2JZFQm6MB0EhmHrq0KeVdRrfGw?key=75US7HV7Q6NZkZ3cXZidqA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Shuffle.com</figcaption></figure>



This separation limits Shuffle’s tampering risk but also means revenue cannot be verified onchain.&nbsp;



Yet in a highly commoditized sector like gambling, this may be a conscious decision, where revealing wager volumes would expose strategic information about a casino’s balance sheet, runway, and its ability to take large bets to competitors.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How blockchains come in</h2>



Traditional casino businesses rely on card networks and bank wires that typically treat gambling as a high-risk “sin” vertical. This means that players face various forms of friction such as extremely high fees, frequent declines, chargeback complications, and blocked cross-border deposits.



These problems that plague traditional gaming businesses introduce a lucrative entrepreneurial opportunity for crypto casinos like Shuffle to tackle using blockchains, through which crypto assets can settle globally in seconds without chargeback risks.



This on- and off-ramping of assets is the decisive key selling point for crypto casinos like Shuffle, Stake, Roobet and more.



But then there is also, of course, the SHFL token, an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. This is where Shuffle gets interesting and stands out from its crypto competitors.



While Shuffle originally used a buyback and burn value accrual mechanism, last year it introduced a weekly lottery that pays out USDC rewards to staked SHFL token holders.



15% of Shuffle’s weekly revenues (something like $200k-$300k) are returned through this lottery, which closes at a fixed time every Friday. In APR terms, the team told me that’s about a 48% annual return.



(A new onchain lottery is soon to be <a href="https://shfl.shuffle.com/the-shfl-lottery-the-internets-lotto">launched</a>.)



A further 30% of gaming revenues earned in SHFL continues to be burned, creating a deflationary sink for the token.



To date, Shuffle has burned about 5% of its total circulating supply.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeCUF69cjnV-Msh5xyDGcpoWAGHikpGMcb9yP_LuEaZQ-7CXcFKfuXZ0RuqbAGDgHdtkNzc7nl1W9qK9-wlc13jaYcwJF8rTprnHfdA95NhZccny9YNhb-GklWbhDcRUipSqgzj?key=75US7HV7Q6NZkZ3cXZidqA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://shuffle.com/token">Shuffle</a></figcaption></figure>



This decision was largely motivated by strategic customer retention reasons — because buyback and burns were perceived as an intangible value accrual mechanism, Fisher8 Capital investment analyst Lai Yuen told me.



Because all token movements occur onchain, anyone can track lottery prize funding, draws and burns in real time — levels of transparency that are almost unheard of in traditional gambling.



On Crypto Twitter, gambling businesses seem to be largely left out of the conversation, perhaps for ethical reasons. Other sources I’ve spoken to have also mentioned that some liquid funds generally have a mandate to avoid sin verticals.



But there’s no denying that GambleFi offers a unique insight into the kind of technological innovation that blockchains bring.



Companies like Shuffle have traction precisely because they solve an acute payments-and-access problem for a global customer base that wants to gamble, and is willing to accept regulatory risk in exchange for instant deposits and fast withdrawals.



That regulatory-payments arbitrage is the wedge that lets crypto casino businesses carve out an annual $80 billion gray-market industry despite outright bans or geoblocks in most major jurisdictions.



Shuffle recently announced plans to channel that model into a compliant US offering (ShuffleUSA), signaling growth expansion on the horizon.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">A new era of play is about to land 🇺🇸<a href="https://t.co/Gj7KpvH5Fn">https://t.co/Gj7KpvH5Fn</a> <a href="https://t.co/SJNPR8UHWS">pic.twitter.com/SJNPR8UHWS</a>&mdash; Shuffle.us (@ShuffleUSA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShuffleUSA/status/1941165106626216397?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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How blockchains are changing the traditional casino business

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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!”



— Timothy May, 1988
</blockquote>



<a href="https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/crypto-anarchist-manifesto/">The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto</a>



What would Timothy May think of “Crypto Week”?



If the OG cypherpunk and author of The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto were here to read the <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=410793">statement</a> from the House of Representatives — itself a kind of manifesto — declaring this to be Crypto Week, I expect he’d have mixed feelings about it.



He’d certainly object to the idea of a “Crypto Czar,” appointed by the president of the very government whose authority he hoped to undermine.



(“Cryptologic methods,” he believed, would undermine “government interference in economic transactions.”)



On the other hand, he’d be pleasantly surprised, if not shocked, to learn that the US government is banning itself from issuing a central bank digital currency.



But he’d be most surprised to learn that the US government’s stated aim is to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency.



“The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology,” he wrote in the manifesto.



I guess not!



He’d have reservations, sure.&nbsp;



Markets, he thought, should self-police via mathematics, not laws, and that’s not what’s being promoted this week.



The CLARITY Act, for example, applies the Bank Secrecy Act (public enemy No. 1 for financial cypherpunks) and other KYC/AML rules to most intermediaries.



But “intermediaries” is the key word there: The Act also preserves the right to hold and use digital assets in personal wallets.&nbsp;



May’s vision was that “two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other.”&nbsp;



Insert an intermediary, though, and even May might think the government is right to regulate.



What might shock him most, though, is some of the rhetoric.



“Ensuring the future of the digital economy,” Representative Tom Emmer says in the official House statement, “reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty and free-market competitiveness.”&nbsp;



Privacy and individual sovereignty are cryptoanarchist values, too.



In that sense, Crypto Week feels like a surprising vindication for May and the community of cypherpunks he inspired (Bitcoiners included).



He would, however, take note of the multiple mentions of “protecting consumers” in the House statement and see that as evidence that the State is not surrendering its surveillance powers anytime soon.&nbsp;



May ends his manifesto with a vivid image: governments fencing in citizens like livestock on a barbed-wire ranch.



Even after Crypto Week, I’m sure he’d say the fences remain up.



<a href="https://www.elliptic.co/resources/the-state-of-cross-chain-crime-2025">Crypto remains popular with criminals</a>



In its latest report on crypto crime, onchain analytics firm Elliptic reports that the crypto ecosystem is “increasingly being exploited by illicit actors.”



Specifically, it estimates that the all-time total of “cross-chain criminal and high-risk” crypto transactions has risen to $21.8 billion, including over $2.17 billion in the first half of 2025.



Elliptic attributes 12% of the total to North Korean hackers (which, I imagine, is how Kim Jong Un paid for his new <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/07/05/g-s1-75663/north-korea-beach-resort-wonsan-tourism">beach resort</a>).



Blockchains remain transparent, but the report suggests that following crypto money trails may be getting harder: 20% of money laundering actions, it notes, move crypto across more than 10 blockchains.



The result is that crypto continues to play its role in the disturbing rise of “industrial-scale fraud.”



The most recent example came this week, when the DEA <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-drug-raids-net-10-million-in-crypto-linked-to-notorious-mexican-sinaloa-cartel-officials-say/">announced</a> that it had seized more than $10 million in cryptocurrency from Mexico&#8217;s Sinaloa cartel, in raids that also netted massive quantities of fentanyl.



(Tariffs on fentanyl still aren’t high enough, I guess.)



Timothy May would be unperturbed. “Various criminal and foreign elements will be active users of CryptoNet,” he wrote. “But this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy.”



But the crypto industry still needs to do more to police itself.



After researching the ByBit hack in March, the onchain sleuth <a href="https://x.com/zachxbt">ZachXBT</a> wrote in his Telegram channel that the industry “is unbelievably cooked when it comes to exploits/hacks.”



Attempting to retrieve funds from the ByBit hack was “eye-opening,” he wrote, noting that “several ‘decentralized’ protocols have recently had nearly 100% of their monthly volume/fees derived from [North Korea] and refuse to take any accountability.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Centralized exchanges, he added, are even worse because they take “multiple hours” to respond to his inquiries, which is far too slow: “It only takes minutes to launder.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



The industry, he warned, is so negligent in policing itself that it risks inviting much tighter government regulation.



Maybe not this week, though.



<a href="https://x.com/leereiners/status/1944528985712394729">Stablecoins won’t save the US dollar</a>



<a href="https://x.com/leereiners">Lee Reiners</a> takes exception to all of the “techno-utopian soundbites” DC politicians have been using to promote stablecoins recently.



The idea that stablecoins will extend the reign of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency has been repeated so often that it’s become received wisdom both in and out of crypto circles.



But Reiners takes the opposite view, arguing that stablecoins will have “no impact on the dollar’s status as a global reserve currency.”



“By imposing stricter requirements,” he argues, the GENIUS Act “could actually diminish dollar dominance if it drives stablecoin users and issuers toward non-USD alternatives that remain unregulated or offshore.”



In other words, he thinks stablecoins will lose their appeal for “bad actors” once they’ve been regulated.



(I doubt it, though. They’ll still be dollars that are not subject to KYC checks.)



But even if dollar-pegged stablecoins are used more frequently, he continues, “that growth would likely cannibalize existing dollar instruments…rather than expand the overall footprint of the dollar.”



I still think stablecoins could help at the margin by encouraging more international transactions to be done in dollars, basically.



But if the US government so debases the dollar that people question its value, stablecoins won’t be nearly enough to save it.



<a href="https://x.com/TheOneandOmsy/status/1945280399946420527?t=70HVVyNl5C_s6YE993EFdQ&amp;s=19">Citi stablecoin plans</a>



The one thing that Citi is truly good at is global payments: Its Trade and Treasury Services business, which moves money around for large customers, is the world’s biggest.



So I think it’s telling that Citi has advanced plans to issue a stablecoin and integrate it into its global payments offering.



CEO Jane Fraser noted that only 6% of stablecoin volume is related to payments, which she attributes to the high cost of on- and off-ramping them into and out of fiat — costs that add up to 7%, she says.



Citi expects to change all that, offering to move stablecoins across borders and in and out of fiat at near-zero cost, she implied (“without incurring that transaction cost”).



She also suggested, however, that it&#8217;s more likely to use tokenized deposits than stablecoins.



Tokenized deposits might prove difficult for the crypto industry to compete with.



The GENIUS Act, Fraser added, levels the playing field for banks to get involved in digital assets and Citi is enthusiastic about it.



Of that, I’m certain Timothy May would not approve.



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Anarchy, crime and stablecoins

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As issues with Solana’s code have been ironed out over the years, block times — or how long it takes the network to produce a new block of transactions — have <a href="https://x.com/steviez_sol/status/1894482387406319962">declined</a>, even dipping under Solana’s putative level of 400ms.



But over the past month, an interesting trend has emerged: Median block times spiked, and Solana was adding new transactions to the blockchain slower than before. At fault was a new meta among Solana validators that showed it can be lucrative to produce blocks slowly. Anza, Jito and Marinade appear to be weighing fixes to the problem, Blockworks has learned.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfXqJmWLpKAEI12nVQH6IfRYyMVCgZ4a9Gpvb_kpRMHc10X0VBFPnOWpvhcCSsgN4dn6rbbqyyn4MCWd8cfDabSdgWa3EKtteNsHr3oCZTKlBNj_oYFUxj7-r07SrX3tQveb7pAPA?key=LFAZsqUetGzUNwFhKYUlxQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Solana epoch lengths spiked in June. Source: <a href="https://risk.kamino.finance/Epoch_Slot_Durations">Kamino</a></figcaption></figure>



Every Solana block has a validator who serves as leader — meaning they collect transactions, create a block and broadcast it to the network. Leaders collect transaction fees from the blocks they create. More order flow means more fee opportunities, so it can be more lucrative for validators to see and process 500ms worth of transactions as opposed to 300ms, for instance.&nbsp;



At a basic level, some Solana validators appear to be waiting as long as possible to pack blocks with transactions in hopes of maximizing their yield, which has caused Solana’s epoch lengths to increase.&nbsp;



This isn’t ideal for a network focused on being <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nasdaq-on-solana-opening-bell-sol-strategies">as fast as the Nasdaq</a>. Plus, fewer epochs per year means fewer opportunities for staking rewards to compound for stakers, Sol Strategies chief technology officer Max Kaplan noted.



Solana offers something called “grace ticks,” which is a late period wherein leaders can still successfully submit blocks. This prevents validators in far-flung locations from being unfairly penalized, but it also opens the door for validators to be late on purpose.&nbsp;



The alternative Solana client Frankendancer also recently released a revenue-maximizing scheduler, and validators running the client appear to be packing their blocks a bit more slowly than normal, Kaplan said.&nbsp;



Kaplan added that the Frankendancer delay is minimal compared to more egregious delayers, and that he wouldn’t portray it as a “bad thing.” Plus, block delaying isn’t a new concept on proof-of-stake blockchains. Firedancer’s upgrade may have brought this strategy to light on Solana, however. Jump did not immediately return a request for comment.



Interestingly, Firedancer software engineer Michael McGee described the phenomenon on this week’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbY0vLjQO9A">Lightspeed podcast episode</a>.



“One of the things we&#8217;ve seen with our current validator…[is that validators] can often make a more profitable block by delaying execution of transactions,” McGee noted.



Solana validators who are more noticeably delaying blocks tend to be running modified versions of the Agave-Jito client, Blockworks Research analyst Victor Pham noted.&nbsp;



For example, during epoch 802 in mid-June, Galaxy and Kiln’s median block time was higher than 570ms each. A number of unlabeled validators were also slow, and Temporal’s validators had 475ms median block times, according to Solana Compass <a href="https://solanacompass.com/statistics/block-times?epoch=802">data</a>.



Kiln co-founder Ernest Oppetit admitted the validator — Solana’s sixth-largest by stake — had been delaying slots “for a period” but said it has stopped doing so.



“At Kiln we pride ourselves in offering the top staking APY in the market without compromising on security. We have been doing R&amp;D on different parts of the stack, including timing games, and are in constant discussions with our customers, client teams and the foundation on this. At this point we are following the spec and not delaying blocks, but many actors are still doing so. We believe the incentive issue (fast block production leads to lower rewards) ultimately needs to be addressed at the protocol level,” Oppetit said.



“I will say that we are not the reason that people know about this,” Temporal engineering director Ben Coverston said when reached for comment about the validator’s <a href="https://solanacompass.com/validators/Haz7b47sZBpxh9SwggGndN3fAyNQ1S949BPdxWXS3ab6">apparent</a> participation in the slow block trend.



“We, as a service provider, support validator configurations that prioritize maximizing staking rewards for our clients. On Solana, that may mean proposing slightly slower blocks to ensure higher reward capture. Galaxy also remains responsive to community feedback and have since increased block times to within an agreeable threshold,” a Galaxy spokesperson said.



The Solana validator community doesn’t find slowing the network down to be kosher, and slow validators are now facing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-underperforming-validators">public backlash</a>.



They may soon face more material punishments. Blockworks has learned that Jito plans to blacklist slow validators from its stake pool, which is Solana’s largest.



Jito Foundation president Brian Smith said the organization is “drafting a governance proposal that empowers a committee to remove laggards from the JitoSOL delegation set. This should be available for community discussion within a few days.”



Michael Repetny, co-founder of the third-largest stake pool in Marinade, said the pool provider is “[considering] putting it to a governance proposal to discuss pros and cons of introducing [slow validators] as a hard rule/offense of the delegation strategy.”



Help is on the way at the protocol level, too. Anza’s GitHub repository <a href="https://github.com/anza-xyz/agave/pull/6982">shows</a> a new proposal to shrink Solana’s grace tick period by half. Plus, Solana’s proposed consensus overhaul should fix things.



“Alpenglow will solve this by enabling skip votes,” Anza vice president of core engineering Brennan Watt said.



Watt said on a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN5Novxjybs">Lightspeed podcast episode</a> that Anza hopes to have Alpenglow live on mainnet by Solana’s Breakpoint conference in December. 



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blockchain

Behind the scenes of Solana’s slow validator problem

Felix Jauvin

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With a flurry of economic data out today, it’s evident that the US economy is in pretty good shape, churning away despite the ever-unfolding stop-start tariff saga.



Let’s recap the data and what it all tells us.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Retail sales</h2>



Retail sales came out the gate swinging today, beating most expectations:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Retail sales month over month: Actual: 0.6%; expected: 0.1%</li>



<li>Retail sales control group MoM: Actual: 0.5%, expected: 0.3%</li>



<li>Retail sales (ex autos) MoM: Actual: 0.5%, expected: 0.3%</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeAO1hOv56DocuBWKYPddPFHhZbqqQ4g7ngfS4G_DQt13DJAIiUlNJTaKQBELAI-BVFug2xhGq_PchZqa8hDKN7_nyFuHsWYxHSjTxs6AzS4LREmPSOPYC243kr0_ncb9hH_8H4?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



It’s important to remember that retail sales are a nominal metric and therefore include inflation. In an era of persistently above-target inflation, this becomes increasingly pertinent.&nbsp;



Despite the nominal good news, you can see how consumers’ purchasing power continues to decline in real terms. For example, this chart from economist Parker Ross:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcq7_Lftb25B6X9Bmmb_XEMk0bV9gJxt3kBG5W3e5l7ljUy8len08LNPhKAL5jmKBnkZQB92_B1rFdYX6tv742_r75qru_xkPayMp1CbQlxL0AGD984kbtIqcR9me34A9hKNrUu?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



This vignette shows why significant recession is so difficult to trigger in a regime of higher inflation.&nbsp;



A recession could occur on a “real” basis —&nbsp;whilst nominal GDP continues to churn higher — in which the net effect is a decrease in purchasing power, as opposed to a nominal decrease in spending and incomes across the economy.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Philly Fed survey</h2>



Setting aside the hard data, we received updates to the Philly Fed survey, which has been exceptionally accurate in recent years.



This soft data shows clear signs of an economy rebounding from Liberation Day uncertainty and adapting to where tariffs stand today.&nbsp;



Across the board, every metric continued higher:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Philly Fed CAPEX index: Actual 17.10, previous: 14.50</li>



<li>Philly Fed employment: Actual: 10.3, previous: -9.8</li>



<li>Philly Fed new orders: Actual: 18.4, previous: 2.3</li>



<li>Philly Fed prices paid: Actual: 58.80, previous: 41.40</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXernSbjHBLUvPqmx-QcxvXydt0O1FPcnI3tayR8Zy6EIfR5VoY_CSlswk9UCHlcWfzjIiC9Th5gSZIyqkY5zOhfTd3LueDR3sT4BL77-vQimU-ilnqmQ_pHqpVvxmmdTPrU0Rxu?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jobless claims</h2>



We see further validation of a surprisingly strong economy in the weekly jobless claims data.



Initial claims surprised to the downside and continued their decline:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdUoUtebtTOeaTBrBG9sVpOUVsMuVb4SaALKZPVZRVgm7PkdxEYh1WRGfZBGn5QEQBsTXZ_hivvgF9rVNORotGhEBjRcDjd0Y4yR3Qax0HFp7bdnI8BkT8o4a-ARZoQu6DhN6uStw?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



Continuing jobless claims also surprised to the downside, showing signs that the recent surge over the last month has stalled:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdHcwsC9PHpZeM9VSCtGPC_hWPeidlphxAHXZLA5SWQPGJFmLmPigiWFOC-H0ZnWfWeB6GrEQTtRlijcB9EYAqNEKaBYR67kSEwA-tKIBbLo1wksBZ3o3U0NatVOmC5uS0IE9MQPw?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



This contrast between initial and continuing claims is crucial for understanding the state of the labor market. The economy is solid enough to avoid triggering a meaningful layoff cycle, but weak enough so that those who do become unemployed are having a hard time finding a new job and thus remaining on continuing claims for longer.&nbsp;



Putting this all together, it’s clear the soft and hard data are beginning to rebound and improve.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdJK23Q5iQxmxLKhLgi0gO4oK5W35-L0DuoqSCEV14jMK-mdl47aMo4HYubx6RyqJND3ztmKT3EGPVL4HTqgTovbTjQLNChvgFy3wq-Ci-x2KmoPrhSDGQiDEZ-n332OAUjDVCcmQ?key=0jMFv4_hiMBO-rq2BjHb_g" alt=""/></figure>



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Economy

Recapping the latest US data: Philly Fed, retail sales and more

Casey Wagner

The US House on Thursday passed the GENIUS Act in a 307-122 vote. The landmark stablecoin legislation will now advance to President Trump, who is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



The Senate passed the GENIUS Act last month with a 68-30 vote. 18 Democrats voted in favor.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1582/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22genius+act%22%7D">bill</a> requires stablecoin issuers to maintain fully-backed reserves of US dollars or “similarly liquid” government-issued assets, such as bonds. Issuers with more than $50 billion in issued tokens must complete annual audits.&nbsp;



The law also affords more authority to state regulators, which will be required to maintain regulatory frameworks that are “substantially similar” to those at the federal level. Issuers who exceed $10 billion in issuance must be overseen by federal regulators or apply for an exemption.&nbsp;



Rep. Bryan Steil, who chairs the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, hailed the GENIUS Act as an important milestone for US crypto policy.&nbsp;



“It encourages the innovation and development of Web3 businesses here in the United States,” Steil said during the debate on Thursday morning. “It establishes clear rules to ensure that consumers are protected and businesses have clear regulations to responsibly participate in the digital asset ecosystem.”



Other Representatives insisted that the GENIUS Act does little to protect consumers and prevent runs on stablecoins.&nbsp;



“Central bankers last week issued a warning that stablecoins threaten global financial stability and need a much more restrictive regime than traditional finance,” Democrat Sean Casten said during Thursday morning’s debate.&nbsp;



“The GENIUS act ignores all those experts and instead ties stablecoins into our financial system, but without the safeguards that are required by banks and investment companies,” he added.&nbsp;



The passage comes after a dramatic few days for crypto policy.&nbsp;



After initially failing to pass a procedural vote on Tuesday, Trump met with GOP holdouts to come to an agreement to get the GENIUS Act over the finish line.&nbsp;



In a follow-up vote on Wednesday morning, the measure once again failed before eventually passing late in the evening after hours of vote-flipping and behind-closed-doors debate, according to people familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



Much of the holdup was due to two other crypto bills Representatives are currently considering: the CLARITY Act, which focuses on crypto market structure, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act. Some Republicans wanted to combine the GENIUS and Anti-CBDC Acts, but the faction of the party that insisted on keeping the legislation separate ultimately prevailed.



This is a developing story.



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GENIUS Act passes House

The US House on Thursday passed the CLARITY Act, a first-of-its-kind cryptocurrency market structure bill that has divided the industry.&nbsp;



The bill passed in a 294-134 vote with 78 Democrats voting in favor of the measure. 



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-bills-in-congress">Move over, big, beautiful bill: Crypto Week is coming</a>



The CLARITY Act divides authority over digital assets between the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.&nbsp;



The legislation also establishes a formal definition for “digital commodities.” These would fall under the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cftc">CFTC</a>’s purview while cryptocurrencies classified as securities would be the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a>’s responsibility.&nbsp;



Representatives who voted against the bill argue it does not provide enough oversight of the industry and leaves gaps that could harm cryptocurrency users.&nbsp;



“Let me be clear, I support the growth of digital assets, blockchain innovation and the promise crypto holds for expanding financial access and economic justice, but this bill is not clarity,” Democrat <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=1e37bafbf7b08436&amp;rlz=1C5GCEA_enUS953US953&amp;q=Sydney+Kamlager-Dove&amp;si=AMgyJEt32eZTIgICHpuyQ6jv7FxcAqGka2TT2wt4tUSnSUs0hH1zXxXuBwVTPacDLozS2WvqTxrGJn-EwTnoPNmyzronwM0uhKmGrdtlwWwjh2xS3YE9b0T_5tNDepmrQG7RMhOCnPsLyWoHHJrQucE6X72e6sHOtg%3D%3D&amp;sa=X&amp;sqi=2&amp;ved=2ahUKEwi-gcLewsSOAxUOE1kFHYVSIaYQ_coHegQIEBAB&amp;ictx=0">Sydney Kamlager-Dove</a> said during debate Thursday morning. “It is confusion cloaked in legislation.”&nbsp;



Some in the industry have taken issue with decentralization in the bill. Sufficiently decentralized blockchains — defined in the legislation as transparent chains with no person or individual in control — are considered commodities.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-week-bills-debate">The bills up for debate as ‘Crypto Week’ continues</a>



Others support aspects of the bill, but insist that it still needs more work to fully close existing regulatory gaps.&nbsp;



“As drafted, CLARITY does not extend federal preemption to the ‘exclusions for decentralized finance activities,’ leaving states free to create different, inconsistent rules,” crypto advocacy group DeFi Education Fund wrote in a recent <a href="https://www.defieducationfund.org/post/defi-scores-meaningful-wins-in-clarity-act">blog</a> post.&nbsp;



“It’s important to close this gap and ensure that after all of the hard work Congress is doing to create clear laws for the industry, we don’t end up with a patchwork of 50 state laws taking differing positions.”&nbsp;



The bill succeeds in other ways, though, DEF added, such as allowing for self-custody and excusing certain protocols and software engineers from some reporting and regulatory requirements. 



The legislation now moves to the Senate, where its path to becoming law could stall. Senate Democrats have expressed concern that the legislation does not include enough consumer protections and paves the way for President Trump’s crypto <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-wallet-magic-eden">business interests</a> to flourish.



Updated at 3:32 p.m. ET to reflect final vote count.



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Crypto market structure bill passes US House

Macauley Peterson

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



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Interchain Labs (ICL) has charted a new course for <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a>.



The core team, which has been behind the ecosystem’s strategy and development since the start of the year, announced that it’s shelving plans to make the Cosmos Hub a smart contract platform <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-canonical-evm">hosting an EVM layer</a>. Instead, it will double down on the Cosmos Stack’s role as an infrastructure toolkit for sovereign L1s, targeting businesses, institutions and developers looking to launch their own chains.



The decision wasn’t easy. ICL leadership admitted in a candid townhall that the push to add its EVM directly onto the Hub was pulling resources in too many directions, according to ICL co-CEO Barry Plunkett.



In recent weeks, “we got a lot of confidence that we were going over a cliff,” Plunkett said on a livestream.



Despite early enthusiasm, ICL found the pitch simply wasn’t landing with new developers and investors outside of Cosmos’ existing base. Meanwhile, rising costs and a rapidly fragmenting market for blockspace made competing as yet another general-purpose contract platform increasingly untenable.



Instead, ICL says it wants to focus on what Cosmos does best: helping others launch customizable, sovereign chains connected by IBC. It’s betting big on institutional demand — from banks to stablecoin issuers — who want dedicated L1s with selective interoperability and full control over their infrastructure. The Cosmos Hub is seen as a service marketplace to route assets and provide bridging via products like IBC Eureka.



“We&#8217;re not trying to be someone else,” said ICL co-CEO Magmar. “We&#8217;re going to be Cosmos — except we&#8217;re going to do it on overdrive.”



But that vision raises difficult questions. How exactly will the Cosmos Hub&#8217;s role as a service marketplace drive concrete demand for <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/atom">ATOM</a>? The team insists ATOM remains the “monetization layer” for Cosmos, but specifics remain vague. They point to transaction fees, routing services and potential institutional payments that could buy and burn ATOM, or use it as collateral. Yet ATOM holders have heard variations of that promise before.



There’s also the question of the builders who invested months preparing Hub-native deployments. How will ICL support those teams left in the lurch?



<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">To be honest, we were very surprised by this news. We&#39;ve been 100% locked in on the Cosmos DEX for 4-5 months, working very closely with the ICL on product and GTM. The DEX is even about 80% done &#8211; we thought the EVM was going to launch in the next couple months. That said, I… <a href="https://t.co/GVqrZEWNhz">https://t.co/GVqrZEWNhz</a>&mdash; Aidan | Stride (@aidan0x) <a href="https://twitter.com/aidan0x/status/1944892026962551100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Leadership says in some cases it will help them migrate to other Cosmos chains (like Neutron) and continue any prior funding commitments. But after this flipflop, will developers trust the next promise?



Strategic consistency has been a presumed advantage to the ICF <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-ecosystem-changes-after-skip-acquisition">acquihire of the Skip team</a>. Cosmos has long been infamous for its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-ecosystem-will-soon-vote-on-atom-2-0-revised-white-paper">ideological malleability</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-fork-jae-kwon">governance drama</a>. ICL will need to work to contain damage to builder and investor confidence. Its answer is apparently to narrow scope, prioritize institutional customers and stop trying to serve everyone at once.



“There’s already a conglomerate of Japanese banks using Cosmos and IBC to transfer data and assets, collaborating with SWIFT to offer a seamless SWIFT-to-IBC bridge,” Plunkett said. “That happened without our involvement, which is a very good sign.”



The challenge will be to balance the role as an open infrastructure provider with accountability to the ATOM community. Cosmos is arguably more than just its stack; it’s a social contract with the people and capital that have faithfully bet on ATOM’s centrality.



ICL says it’s entering “startup mode” — iterating fast, testing customer needs and refining the long-term strategy. For Cosmos, this could be the beginning of a sharper, more sustainable vision. Or it might be one pivot too many.



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Cosmos drops Hub-native EVM in sudden pivot

Katherine Ross

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



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We’re over halfway through the year, so let’s do a little recap, shall we?



I mentioned K33’s H1 report in an <a href="https://empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com/p/d7b9ce97-94a1-4902-8655-39efc986574f?draft=true&amp;last_resource_guid=Post%3A48d23733-dc25-48fd-b8ed-eb7e32a16956&amp;utm_campaign=you-can-handle-the-truth&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_source=empire-blockworks.beehiiv.com">intro the other day</a>, but there’s a lot of interesting data to digest.



Such as the fact that the bitcoin treasury companies acquired a whopping 244,991 bitcoin by the end of June, which marked the official transition from H1 to H2.&nbsp;



Not to mention that the number of treasury companies, perhaps unsurprisingly, almost doubled by the end of the first half. At the beginning of the year, there were 70 firms with bitcoin on their balance sheet, but that quickly ballooned to 134.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeZ3wASDGIv118NxJmfY415bKaIH7oUZxuj9-HrlzoqTM1B8XfFFBO1OWT8F_JCkIYaZUl06xxb7rjUIRcYYRqyPpj3EQAAZCb9C3T1TEADffy5sLhKD9BnSIQjIqGywvNBp8VN?key=9V9NlQxCwTD4hZgXpoDROQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



Companies from the US, Canada, Japan and UK are at the top of the list when it comes to companies pivoting to a bitcoin treasury strategy, but the total sum is made up of companies from 27 countries, according to K33. That gives you a rough idea of how global this is, though the US tops the chart with 41 public companies.&nbsp;



But it’s not all about bitcoin treasury firms or even just bitcoin. A lot has happened this year, as both <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/rwas-35b-securitize">Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitwise-daily-attestations-bitcoin-etfs">Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley</a> were eager to point out to us just this week.&nbsp;



In the first half of the year, USDT and USDC’s circulating supply grew by $38 billion as folks flocked to the stablecoin narrative.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdWOBCE11Y7_qRs3EafJFG9mpU31MefeNRaQP9rruEDTP-puaB2zdXaix9Ye6OVhezRPMevq-GugxUD10iyMNk20cemaC_OKVX2tFalSHewfnI-0jdkFu9HqKCG8P22zya7w2GL?key=9V9NlQxCwTD4hZgXpoDROQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



Unfortunately, if you take stablecoins out of the mix, then only nine of the top 50 cryptos saw positive returns in H1, showing that altcoins are still struggling to find their footing in a market dominated by bitcoin and stablecoins.&nbsp;



Of that nine, K33 noted that three specifically outperformed bitcoin: XMR, HYPE and SKY. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeP-4iTVsMBcpP36_WH7FrTOI1dExDhLQaKzKEkN8W1Z3EImvX8ZCFYk4kyL9GqYcUsfczk_Md_rZdguwXFpP7HLAha0bkmIJwOV-bGUO8_hj-hWA9w3WXNeOYhS8rR8A7l4uo9aQ?key=9V9NlQxCwTD4hZgXpoDROQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: K33</figcaption></figure>



So it looks like the momentum still isn’t there for an altcoin season. Looking ahead though, there may be some hope on the horizon if some of these altcoin ETFs are approved, which could happen by the end of this year, as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-etf-sec-forms">we previously reported</a>.&nbsp;



K33 noted that H2 tends to be the stronger half for bitcoin seasonally, and we have other tailwinds such as more crypto IPOs to follow in Circle’s footsteps and we could get some more information on the proposed US strategic bitcoin reserve.



Not to mention the role that regulation could play, especially as lawmakers on the Hill discuss the crypto bills this week.&nbsp;



So there’s still a lot of gas left in the tank — let’s see where it takes us.



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Empire Newsletter

Bitcoin treasury companies acquired 244,991 BTC in the first half of 2025: K33

Canary Capital proposed a product offering exposure to the native token of the Injective blockchain as it continues its crypto ETF filing spree.



The New York-based fund group’s latest ETF proposal comes as interest in staking-based products accelerates, Canary notes.



The Canary Staked INJ ETF would hold INJ directly and stake a portion of the assets it holds, according to a Thursday <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2073616/000199937125009309/canaryinj-s1_071725.htm">filing</a> submitted to the SEC. The filing did not specify the amount it would stake or the staking provider.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The Injective layer-1 blockchain focuses on letting developers create financial applications. INJ’s market capitalization sits at roughly $1.3 billion — ranking it 89th largest among crypto assets, according to CoinGecko.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXecUh7ocz9ccRJUGidfXlxU_emZ0P4QpEqlsXkNy52mamnFVfxKEjsZYftTgozDnYTS7agTM1lFNLKZXEWy9rB5Iz_nEwBhnH92OXsBBLlZBKj1LGtSHiAGvloO30kJ-FIFHvYBjg?key=X6MR8vqUb1FBghI7mSYuaA" alt="" style="width:646px;height:auto"/></figure>



Founded by former Valkyrie CIO Steven McClurg, Canary has filed for a number of crypto ETFs in recent months — including those that would hold litecoin (LTC), solana (SOL), XRP, HBAR and Sui (SUI).&nbsp;



Canary also <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2059693/000199937125002883/canarypengu-s1_032025.htm">filed</a> for a PENGU ETF — to hold both the Pudgy Penguins token and NFTs&nbsp; — as Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit was taking place in March.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/execs-das-crypto-futures-etfs">Executives noted at the time</a> that while the SEC (under a new chair and with its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/new-sec-crypto-task-force">crypto task force</a>) is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-on-sec-priorities">more willing</a> to actively engage about products, the bevy of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-plans-abound">altcoin ETF filings</a> isn’t necessarily a sign issuers are being told they have a good shot.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



A person close to the altcoin ETF filings, who was granted anonymity to discuss non-public information, told Blockworks earlier this month that the SEC might wait to develop “generic listing standards” before greenlighting any more single-asset crypto ETFs.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-launch-timelines-sec">Why crypto ETF launch timelines remain up in the air</a>



Injective Labs, in a July 9 <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/ctf-wrriten-input-noah-axler-injective-labs-inc-070925.pdf">letter</a> to SEC commissioner Hester Peirce, made several recommendations to the agency’s crypto task force.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdfMFUkooNMdjepUSXVs629Oo85_i-_RHqTxriTWdDyzgQVzFoyFBBNf2sj5uI1WlDSgstxh6ozp_09G_s5QrZh42oRIkKLtvxig6qYBvgheiqhEkppa8QZBciE-8mcLGlqD_EI?key=X6MR8vqUb1FBghI7mSYuaA" alt=""/></figure>



Injective CEO Eric Chen told Blockworks this week that he’d be closely monitoring the crypto bills Congress is considering.&nbsp;



“With the CLARITY Act, basically what happens is we get to iterate extremely quickly because there’s no more [ambiguity] when it comes to the different profile design [or] different decentralization design that might create compliance issues,” Chen said.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Regularity clarity would help Injective form a “very predictable growth plan,” he added — particularly as the blockchain looks to bring liquidity and use cases to real-world assets within the Injective ecosystem.



“Because one of the biggest problems right now within the RWA ecosystem is that it’s pretty much a certificate of ownership that’s recorded on a blockchain with no mobility or real on-chain utility — or very limited, to that extent,” Chen said.&nbsp;



The breadth of assets to be democratized will be what “truly shines” as the RWA space evolves, the Injective CEO explained.&nbsp;



Chen noted: “Finding liquidity, congregating capital and finding an investor base on a very scarcely traded asset or an exotic asset and then being able to locate them and create capital formation all across the world … [is] the most exciting part.”



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ETFs

Canary continues filing spree with staked Injective ETF proposal

Jeff Albus

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



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After months of little ado about everything, the markets are finally seeing some of their old momentum.



As BTC <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">surged</a> above $122,000 on Monday, Solana was pulled along in the gravity tail of bitcoin&#8217;s inflation-cooled rebound. SOL jumped 13% to <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">reach</a> $174.45 — its highest level in weeks — likely buoyed by the excitement around pump.fun&#8217;s recent, <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/pumpfun/pump-fun-ico">highly successful</a> ICO.



On macro, this week&#8217;s backdrop gave just enough breathing room for risk assets to stretch.&nbsp;



While the CPI came in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/">hotter</a> than expected at 2.7% year over year, the PPI cooled to 2.3%, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/latest-numbers.htm">below</a> forecasts. In short, the split was just soft enough to soothe the market&#8217;s anxiety over imminent Fed tightening, even if the July 30 <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/calendar.htm">FOMC meeting</a> remains priced for a hold.



Meanwhile, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to <a href="https://x.com/BoHines/status/1945146377933078559">urge Republicans to support</a> the GENIUS Act and a broader package of digital asset legislation, including stablecoin regulation and an outright ban on a Fed-issued CBDC.



While the House initially <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-week-bills-debate">failed to pass</a> the resolution, a motion to reconsider passed 215-211 the following day.&nbsp;



Back yonder in crypto land, the news spurred continued ETF inflows, thin but directional conviction from institutional buyers and a modest uptick in leverage.



Bitcoin&#8217;s price <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">hovers</a> just below a cluster of liquidity between $119k and $121k, with market makers circling a $120k target before month&#8217;s end.



Solana is showing signs of independent strength. Transaction activity <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=131">holds steady</a> at 100+ million per day, excluding validator votes, while staking <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=202">remained</a> healthy at a 66.43% participation rate and a net 7.17% yield.



Network revenue <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=15">continues</a> its uptick from a post-May lull, and app-level earnings showed similar resilience, with consistent fee generation from DEXs, token vending platforms and staking derivatives sustaining developer and validator income.



Predictably, the <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/pumpfun-tge">standout</a> this week was pump.fun. Despite challengers like letsbonk.fun drawing attention, pump.fun saw nearly 30 million trades and over $1.7 billion in DEX volume, according to recent insights from Blockworks Research. 94% of this was <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/pumpfun-tge">concentrated</a> in meme tokens. That said, Bonk is still winning on overall trading volume.



Pump also <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-fun-500m-ico-twitch">completed</a> its blockbuster token generation event that targeted up to $1.3 billion across public and private allocations, with a $720 million private raise confirmed and a 25% discretionary <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-revenue-sharing-token-holders">buyback commitment</a>.



With BTC defying gravity again and the Solana rabble growing louder, it&#8217;s looking like those who patiently waited out the lull may finally find themselves back in action.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Solana rallies as risk appetite returns

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



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M&amp;A hasn’t slowed as Congress mulls crypto legislation and efforts to get more real-world assets onchain continue.



I chatted with Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman last month about the RWA space ahead of the company’s tokenization platform launch slated for this summer (Ondo doesn’t yet have a go-live date).&nbsp;



Saying the vast majority of regulated financial assets will ultimately settle on blockchain rails is “not a crazy prediction” anymore,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-iceberg-rwas-mature-ondo"> Allman told me</a>. Others agree,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-fink-bitcoin-dollar"> including Larry Fink</a> (the man leading the world’s largest asset manager) and Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul (check out<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-products-onchain-exec-says"> my Q&amp;A with her</a> here).&nbsp;



Fast forward to Monday and Ondo said it acquired Strangelove, which focuses on designing and deploying open-source infrastructure across multiple blockchains. This deal was done “strategically” ahead of the aforementioned tokenization platform launch, said Ondo chief strategy officer Ian De Bode.&nbsp;



Called Ondo Global Markets, it’ll initially offer access to 100+ stocks and ETFs — starting on Ethereum and expanding to BNB Chain and Solana.



Strangelove CEO Jack Zampolin said his company’s work on cross-chain communication protocols, permissioned/unpermissioned validator frameworks and modular consensus architecture (that’s a lot of big words) will help Ondo’s platform evolve from a centralized one to a distributed network where institutions can participate in tokenized asset ops.&nbsp;



All told: What stablecoins did for dollars, Ondo is looking to do for securities, De Bode added. At least for the most liquid ones, to start. Others, like Apollo Global Management, are focusing on tokenization<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next"> </a>within <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">less liquid segments</a> like private credit.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeOpUiGvz1SYg-1VMWoUAw0-fWdRG2UsaDtz5Zazoy_xhyH3_-d2GzkTf6jCFRhKJyrEa7ZbrAnwA96VLnEJuqe8AtncdzNSMjZvbCcfqvz0PdKGn3zmi4Jqic0G_IfPBnC_BINyQ?key=4yS2jUSrAEbpfqLBgJNLuA" alt=""/></figure>



It’s worth noting that Ondo earlier this month said it would buy Oasis Pro, gaining access to its SEC-registered broker-dealer, alternative trading system and transfer agent. We know how coveted US digital asset licenses are.&nbsp;



Speaking of which, Nasdaq-listed BSGM this week detailed plans to acquire a FINRA- and SEC-registered broker-dealer to one day offer gold-backed tokenized assets for US investors.&nbsp;



It’s not hard to see why companies want in on this space given some of the projections thrown around (like from that April Ripple/BCG report above).&nbsp;



There’ll be plenty of competition here from both crypto-native and TradFi giants, so grab your proverbial popcorn. Better yet, throw an actual bag in the microwave.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Forward Guidance newsletter

RWA-related M&A picks up as companies hunt for US licenses

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



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US equities were in the red midway through Wednesday’s trading session, after inflation data may have started to reflect tariff-related price hikes and President Trump renewed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-criticizes-fed-chair-powell">threats to fire</a> Fed Chair Jerome Powell.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies were mostly flat as the industry continues to monitor the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-week-bills-debate">status of three bills</a> in the House.&nbsp;



There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s get started.&nbsp;



First up: inflation and tariffs. June’s CPI report showed the headline figure increased 0.3% month over month. The 12-month rate is now 2.7% — in line with expectations but higher than May’s 2.4% reading.&nbsp;



A grain of salt here: The Bureau of Labor Statistics <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/2025/collection-reduction.htm">announced</a> last month that it was reducing its sample collection areas across the US. The change is due to staffing shortages at the agency. Fewer workers on hand to check prices means more estimating and guessing in the data.&nbsp;



The department <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/imputation.htm">based 35%</a> of its missing prices on other regions of the country or different products in June. Prior to staffing shortages, around 10% was typical.&nbsp;



Sectors most exposed to tariffs, like household furnishings and appliances, were up over the month, increasing 1% and 1.9%, respectively. Prices for new and used cars, on the other hand, declined 0.3%.&nbsp;



Odds of interest rates staying the same later this month increased to 97.4% after the print, per <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html?redirect=/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html">data</a> from CME Group.&nbsp;



Speaking of Fed policy brings us to our second topic: Trump is apparently back at it again with threats against Powell.&nbsp;



The president last night showed a draft letter firing the chair to a group of House Republicans, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-fire-fed-chair-powell-8e33497e">WSJ</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/us/politics/trump-powell-firing-letter.html">New York Times</a> reported. Trump on Wednesday, however, told reporters “we’re not planning on doing anything.” 



“I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely,” Trump added. “Unless he has to leave for fraud.”&nbsp;



That last comment comes after the White House alleged Powell either made false statements to Congress about the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of its offices, or failed to comply with permit requirements. The challenge came via a letter sent last week from Trump budget director Russell Vought.&nbsp;



Trump did admit to meeting with House Representatives on Tuesday night, which brings us to topic number three: What’s going on with crypto policy?&nbsp;



In a Truth Social post yesterday evening, Trump wrote:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc8iwquD2MrnNNvCJRx7QPHXOhoZmJ871c2ywt9d7nH4eSpUV-pMyRQLRqWDapsV-JBOlqN3E-J3FN82Niqtec1eVqDtGAD8VoNmYuuk6JFIVJqbzKgBmpZdVC9eXyznlj43vT7AQ?key=4yS2jUSrAEbpfqLBgJNLuA" alt=""/></figure>



The post came after the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/genius-act">GENIUS Act</a> failed to pass a procedural vote Tuesday. A group of GOP Freedom Caucus members refused to vote in favor of advancing the bill, citing concerns over the GENIUS Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act being separate pieces of legislation, a person familiar with the matter told me.&nbsp;



Representatives gathered on Wednesday to reconsider the rule, but the deal President Trump struck with hardliners on Tuesday did not appear to be effective. The drama was still playing out at time of publishing, so keep an eye on Blockworks’ <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/congress">congressional coverage</a> for updates.&nbsp;



The holdup comes as lawmakers and industry members alike insisted the bill was poised to pass. I’ve been told the White House has already scheduled time in the Oval Office for Trump to sign the bill into law on Friday.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Donald Trump

Inflation data, firing threats and policy updates: What’s moving markets

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Shaunda Devens

Research Analyst

Pear Protocol : Hyperliquid Pivot

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Meet with VCs, hedge funds, private equity, global investment firms, and the likes as they build crypto strategies across their portfolios.


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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

Dan founded Pantera Capital Management in 2003, managing over $1 billion of institutional investor assets in its global macro strategy. He previously served as Head of Macro Trading and CFO at Tiger Management with Julian Robertson. Dan began his career at Goldman Sachs as their first Asset-Backed Securities trader. Dan graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and received the Carmichael Prize for his thesis.

Dan Morehead

Chris Rayner-Cook, CIO, leads Brevan Howard’s Digital investment team. Over a 20+ career, Chris has held senior roles including at Coinbase, where he was Global Head of Trading and Financing, managed capital at large hedge funds including Brevan Howard, Citadel and Millennium, and founded and successfully sold a tokenisation business. Chris started his career at Merrill Lynch in 2000. He obtained his BSc in Pharmacology from the University of Bristol in June 2000.

Chris Rayner-Cook

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

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

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

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

Nathan Allman is the founder and CEO of Ondo Finance, a blockchain technology company building platforms, assets, and infrastructure to bring financial markets onchain. Prior to founding Ondo Finance, he previously worked at Goldman Sachs on the Digital Assets team, and has a background in private credit investing at Prospect Capital Management.

Nathan Allman

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

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

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

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

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

Jeff Park is the Head of Alpha Strategies and Portfolio Manager at Bitwise Asset Management, one of the world’s largest crypto-specialist asset managers. Bitwise provides a range of investment solutions, along with industry-leading research and a nationwide team of relationship managers, to help clients navigate the opportunities in crypto. Prior to Bitwise, he was a Partner at Corbin Capital Partners, a multi-billion alternative asset management firm that specializes in multi-strategy hedge fund and opportunistic credit investing, where he led the firm’s digital asset investing efforts. Before Corbin, Jeff was a Senior Associate at the Harvard Management Company focused on US Corporate Credit, and before that, was an Exotic Equity Derivatives trader at Morgan Stanley in New York. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations, and is a CFA charterholder since 2013.

Jeff Park

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

Jonah Van Bourg is a professional crude oil and cryptocurrency trader with 18 years of experience managing trading teams and running risk in volatile markets. Most recently, he was Global Head of Crypto and Precious Metals Trading at DRW. Prior to this, Jonah spent 7 years as a partner and oil trader at Vitol. In his early career, he ran the global oil trading desk at Goldman Sachs. Jonah graduated with a BA in Economics and Statistics from Columbia University.

Jonah Van Bourg

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

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

Hadley is the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Marinade, a leading company in the Solana DeFi ecosystem that has built the chain’s first and most robust non-custodial native staking protocol. He helps TradFi institutions explore, then decide how to benefit from the innovation happening on Solana. Hadley has been working in crypto assets and blockchain (for institutions and for startups/scaleups), since 2014 when he was SVP of Fidelity Labs. This is Fidelity’s in-house technology incubator where, from 2007 onwards, he led the design, development and product management teams to research and pilot several emerging technologies for the business divisions, including wearable computing, VR/AR, mobile applications (including the company’s first-ever app and app brokerage), AI, and others. He knew then that blockchain and cryptocurrencies would become increasingly relevant to global finance, and, at the behest of senior management, he began the company’s blockchain-specific incubator and digital currency group as SVP of the newly minted Bitcoin Incubator. Here, they developed Fidelity’s earliest digital asset products, including the ability to donate bitcoin to Fidelity Charitable, as well as launching Fidelity’s first bitcoin mining operation. These early successes put Fidelity on the map as one of the only institutions embracing crypto, which led him to join and help build Fidelity’s Digital Asset Services division in 2016. This brought the firm fully into the web3 world with several digital asset-related products and services, including the trading and custody of digital assets. Eager to bring more institutions on board, he jumped to the service side in 2018 to become COO at the blockchain infrastructure company Bloq, where he helped the firm significantly boost its revenue and diversify its product roadmap for enterprises. After Bloq, he headed up the AWS Innovation Lab, which allowed him to work with global brands on technological experimentation and deployment - and re-explore other emerging technologies, including AI, quantum computing, and others. From there, he was recruited to lead global digital asset custody for the Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM), where they launched the industry’s first bank-grade platform for digital asset custody (on bitcoin and Ethereum). While his day job remains focused on crypto assets, he also advises emerging technology businesses and startups in other sectors, including data storage/security (as well as blockchain analytics, institutional DeFi, and other web3 areas). This allows him to combine his other professional experiences, including the 17 years he spent at Fidelity and his training in product and design, to help new companies grow. Society-shifting technologies, like blockchain, require innovation of all types to thrive - not just in software &amp; hardware, but business ops, marketing, regulatory, risk, compliance, security, design mindsets, too. He received a B.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design as well as from Concordia University, where he studied Western civilization, culture, and design (which is why he firmly believes an understanding/appreciation of the liberal arts is critical for anyone (indeed, everyone) working on societal-shifting technologies!)

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

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

Head of Capital Strategy at Room 40

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

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

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

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

Jason Yanowitz

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

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.