Liz Coyne

In this video Blockworks’&nbsp;“<a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvER9nHSRN3wZX2tI3JrCLOAzMBgUJtBo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Forward Guidance</a>” podcast host Jack Farley sat down with Copper.co&#8217;s CEO Dmitry Tokarev, at Blockworks&nbsp;<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/das-london/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Digital Asset Summit in London</a>&nbsp;to talk about the risks in the digital assets space.



Tokarev started his career as a Quant, having graduated from Imperial College, London, with a Distinction in Risk Management and Financial Engineering. He later helped to build an asset management firm as its CTO and as a partner. It was there he observed a gap in the market for Copper.co, as he found there were no feasible options available to institutional investors in the crypto space that allowed for the necessary security, control and speed of storing crypto assets.



Watch the full interview below.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Three Pillars of Risk in Digital Assets | Copper.co CEO Dmitry Tokarev" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TBez48lAI-M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



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Copper.co CEO: Three Pillars of Risk in Digital Assets

Macauley Peterson

Ethereum’s latest All Core Devs dwelled on process, not just code: whether to honor a previously stated 30-day window between client releases and the first testnet fork as the Fusaka upgrade inches forward. Some participants pushed to reaffirm the commitment so infrastructure and app teams have time to adapt; others argued for flexibility to avoid broader roadmap slippage.



The debate unfolded against a backdrop of mixed devnet results. On Devnet-3, a planned non-finality exercise ran long, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4p0Ha_M_oE">per</a> Barnabas Busa from the Dev Ops team. “We wanted to do approximately two days first, and now we&#8217;re hitting day five,” he said, noting how participation dipped and then crept back above 50%. Finality requires greater than two-thirds of the total effective stake agreeing.



By contrast, a separate testnet recovered quickly after a coordinated restart: “The chain has recovered within, I think two hours,” Busa said. The drill pressure-tests how variables interact in a live incident, which can help <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> recover in a crisis.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-fusaka-upgrade-delay">Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade may face delay</a>



With fixes landing in the coming days, the near-term plan is to restore Devnet-3 to full health, rerun the test and then spin up Devnet-5.



But the larger flashpoint was scheduling discipline for public networks. Lightclient underscored the standing promise: “It does say 30 days before the first testnet.” He warned against moving goalposts as a matter of convenience, based on core devs’ assessment of the time needed by other teams not present on the call.



The practical concern is how to improve the cadence of hard forks. Compressing gaps between testing can accelerate forks, but increases the risk that downstream teams ship rushed updates. The counterargument is that prolonged pipelines delay everything else in the queue, which the broader Ethereum community might be unhappy with.



“I don&#8217;t think we should choose timelines based on what the community necessarily wants,” Lightclient said. “The people who are shipping the software said they want 30 days to deliver high quality software that the community is going to use.”



Even so, the somewhat testy exchange drifted toward upholding the written process unless stakeholders explicitly ask for a change.



There was also frustration with revisiting the same question each cycle. “I just think it&#8217;s a really bad precedent to keep letting decisions change,” Lightclient said, noting that app developers and L2s aren’t typically on core calls and rely on predictable windows to schedule their own releases.



For now, the consensus is to proceed as if the 30-day buffer remains in force, while proactively soliciting fresh input, coordinator Tim Beiko said. “We should prep the schedule with what&#8217;s in the [process] document and then in parallel check with the stakeholders that are affected.” If a faster track truly has broad support, the group would formalize that in writing.



For builders who don’t attend ACD calls — such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollup</a> teams, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/intrastructure">infra</a> providers and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/wallets">wallets</a> — the takeaway is straightforward: Now is the time to weigh in. The window between client releases and testnet forks materially affects integration work, and core developers are explicitly inviting feedback before dates are locked.



One other housekeeping note also surfaced: The planned <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-upgrade-testnet-hiccup">Holesky deprecation</a> will follow the Fusaka testnet fork at the end of September, with an announcement imminent. “Expect a blog post in the next week or so,” Beiko said. So, any teams depending on Holesky should plan their migrations accordingly.



In short, the code will be ready when it’s ready, and efforts are being made to keep the process predictable. All things equal, core devs signaled that predictability still wins, but a general sense of urgency is bubbling under the surface.



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Ethereum core devs spar over process, Fusaka timeline

Ben Strack

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



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As the crypto market (and the investor base within it) continues to evolve, the latest demand for derivatives can help us define some broader segment trends.&nbsp;



With CME Group’s crypto derivatives lineup breaking records of late, I thought it was worth catching up with Giovanni Vicioso, the company’s crypto products head.



You already know that increasing institutional adoption and a clearer regulatory environment has fueled more trading activity this year. Investors might use derivatives (over spot trading, for example) to try to amplify returns and/or hedge risk.



Some stats that Vicioso said stood out to him include:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Year-to-date average daily volume for full crypto derivatives suite is 230,000 contracts — up 158% year over year.</li>



<li>YTD average open interest (the number of contracts held by market participants at the end of the trading day): 243,000 contracts — up 80% YoY.</li>



<li>The crypto futures lineup, for the first time, reached $30 billion in both notional volume traded and open interest — led by BTC ($16 billion) and ETH ($10.5 billion).</li>



<li>The 985 large open interest holders (LOIHs) for crypto futures on Aug. 11 marked a new record.</li>
</ul>



The last metric is key for measuring institutional interest, as LOIHs hold at least 25 contracts open.



With those general stats out of the way, we can pinpoint the demand for specific products and what it means — starting with renewed enthusiasm for the second-largest crypto asset.



CME Group’s ETH futures LOIHs hit a record of 118 during the week of Aug. 19 — signaling “a strengthening of the professional ecosystem around ether,” Vicioso said.&nbsp;



The company’s micro ether futures complex hit an all-time high of ~490,000 contracts on Aug. 22. Year-to-date micro ETH futures volumes have roughly quadrupled on a year-over-year basis.



“As far as broader trends around the surge…increased network activity, corporate treasury accumulation of ether and positive regulatory developments have further contributed to a broad-based rally around ether and ether-based derivatives,” Vicioso noted.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1290" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106893" style="width:749px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=319 319w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=324 324w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=272 272w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-14.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



In a Monday update, BitMine Immersion said it held about 1.7 million ETH (today worth around $7.5 billion). That crypto treasury is the largest one focused on ether and second in size only to Strategy’s bitcoin stack worth ~$71 billion.&nbsp;&nbsp;



BitMine said Monday it added 190,500 tokens over the prior week alone. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tom-lees-price-predictions">Fundstrat’s Tom Lee</a> (also BitMine’s chair), said the firm is leading crypto treasury peers “by both the velocity of raising crypto NAV per share and by the high trading liquidity of our stock.”



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="880" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106892" style="width:769px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-13.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Others are choosing to get ETH exposure via the US spot ETFs. Net inflows into those products (since their July 2024 launches) hit $13.7 billion on Thursday. That’s about a quarter of the $54.3 billion of net inflows that the US bitcoin ETFs have seen — roughly matching the ratio of those assets’ respective market caps.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Nearly $9.5 billion of the net inflows into ETH products have come since July 1 — outpacing bitcoin ETF inflows of $5.4 billion over that span.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="884" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106891" style="width:770px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-12.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



We also have an update on CME Group’s newish solana and XRP futures — launched in March and May, respectively. Those piqued industry interest — in part given that CME futures launches historically precede <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-etf-launch-timelines-sec">SEC approval</a> of respective spot ETFs.&nbsp;



Not to mention these tools — like ETFs — help create the necessary infrastructure (and credibility) for TradFi to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/altcoin-autumn">dive into such altcoins</a>. The prices of SOL and XRP are up 35% and 31%, respectively, from three months ago.&nbsp;



XRP futures crossed the $1 billion in open interest in just over three months — faster than any other CME crypto futures offering, Vicioso noted.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">CME Group says xrp futures contracts have crossed over $1bil in open interest… Fastest-ever contract to do so (took just over 3mos). There’s already $800+mil in futures-based xrp ETFs. Think people might be underestimating demand for spot xrp ETFs.&mdash; Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateGeraci/status/1960399351420772358?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Roughly five months after SOL futures debuted, those had open interest rise to a record 11,600 contracts on Aug. 26. That same day, XRP futures open interest eclipsed 8,000 contracts (also an all-time peak).&nbsp;



About 410,000 solana contracts ($17 billion notional volume) and 316,000 XRP contracts ($13.7 billion) have traded since the respective futures launches.&nbsp;



“This growth reinforces the importance of regulated, transparent markets for managing risk and accessing opportunities in the evolving crypto landscape,” Vicioso told me.



Vicioso didn’t want to comment on CME’s product pipeline, and I don’t blame him. But perhaps the company will again <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cme-group-considering-sol-xrp-futures">mistakenly release its plans</a> before a formal announcement; in crypto, anything seems possible.



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



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



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



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supply-shock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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How CME crypto futures records reflect broader altcoin demand

Casey Wagner

US Senators plan to consider a new version of a crypto market structure bill at the end of September, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke with Blockworks under the condition of anonymity.&nbsp;



The Senate Banking Committee is currently eyeing September 30 for a markup hearing of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025, the person said. The bill primarily focuses on clarifying the Securities and Exchange Commission’s role in overseeing crypto markets.&nbsp;



The markup hearing gives Committee members the opportunity to present amendments to the bill for consideration. The Committee can then recommend the legislation to the full Senate.&nbsp;



The Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is expected to release its draft market structure bill in early September, a second person familiar with the matter told Blockworks.&nbsp;



Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — along with Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) — released a <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/senate_banking_committee_digital_asset_market_structure_legislation_discussion_draft.pdf">discussion draft</a> of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act in July, shortly after the US House passed the CLARITY Act. Senators will release an updated version of the legislation ahead of the markup hearing.&nbsp;



Lawmakers are now tasked with turning the two pieces of legislation into one. Lummis, earlier this month at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxVj-Lxj2Sk">said</a> she hopes to have a crypto market structure bill on President Donald Trump’s desk by Thanksgiving.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr3633/BILLS-119hr3633eh.pdf">CLARITY Act</a> passed the House in a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-house-passes-clarity-act">294-134 vote</a>. 78 Democrats voted in favor of the measure.&nbsp;



The Responsible Financial Innovation Act is a significantly pared-down version of the House’s plan. The latest draft spans 35 pages, while CLARITY exceeds 250 pages.&nbsp;



The Senate’s bill requires the SEC to revisit how it defines investment contracts. The bill proposes a new five-part test, as opposed to the four elements currently used in the Howey test. The legislation stipulates that investment contracts require an investment in an enterprise, but not necessarily a common enterprise, as determined by Howey.&nbsp;



The CLARITY Act establishes a definition for “investment contract assets,” which are digital asset commodities that are sold to raise capital, similar to what is currently considered an initial coin offering. These assets, under CLARITY, would be considered securities and fall under the SEC’s purview.&nbsp;



Congress returns next week after the August recess with a tight budget deadline. Should lawmakers not pass a budget by September 30, the Senate Banking Committee is expected to push its crypto market structure bill markup hearing to the week of October 6, one person said.



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</ul>

US Senate eyes end of September for crypto market structure bill markup: Sources

Donovan Choy

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



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Liquid staking is a winner-takes-all game.



Users want staking yield and instant liquidity; the first is an easy commodity to provide, the second is a tough distribution problem.&nbsp;



Each liquid staking token (LST) has to bootstrap deep pools and win listings across money markets, perps, routers and wallets so it can behave like “money.” 



But liquidity begets liquidity — hence why Ethereum’s LST market has long been dominated by Lido’s stETH, followed by a long tail of smaller unsuccessful LSTs.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1270" height="668" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106871" style="width:672px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=1270 1270w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1270px) 100vw, 1270px" /></figure>



That same dynamic, however, does not play out in Solana, which has literally <a href="https://app.sanctum.so/explore">thousands</a> of LSTs. That’s largely due to Sanctum, the team responsible for inverting the economics of LSTs on Solana.



How does Sanctum do it?



Sanctum (formerly Socean) provides a white-label issuance service for anyone to launch their LST, and a shared liquidity reserve that any LST issuer can plug into.&nbsp;



This shared reserve enables anyone with SOL to launch their own branded LSTs without worrying about having to raise a giant SOL buffer to meet redemptions.



Sanctum’s co-founder FP Lee told me: “Liquid staking on Solana works differently from liquid staking on Ethereum due to some technical reason with state accounts.”



“I saw a future whereby, as long as you build a unified liquidity layer, that the marginal cost of creating your LST will be zero, and therefore there&#8217;ll be a thousand LSTs eventually.”&nbsp;



To facilitate swapping between thousands of LSTs is where Sanctum&#8217;s own AMM “Router” comes in.



Swaps on Sanctum’s Router don’t rely on liquidity depth as is typical on AMMs. It simply moves underlying stake positions at intrinsic values, similar to how a bank’s clearing network works, letting Sanctum net a small fee. That effectively allows the swapping between LSTs without bonding curves or impermanent loss.



When necessary, swaps can tap into its reserve or the “Infinity” shared pool where thousands of LSTs sit. Here Sanctum takes a small fee and routes it to INF, Sanctum’s yield-bearing product that consists of a basket of whitelisted LSTs.&nbsp;



This additional revenue stream is why INF’s yield has historically outperformed even the yield of Solana’s dominant LST, JitoSOL.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1288" height="880" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106872" style="width:674px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=1288 1288w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=376 376w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=382 382w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=321 321w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-11.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1288px) 100vw, 1288px" /></figure>



INF is commonly referred to as a “LST-of-LSTs,” but it is really more akin to a yield-bearing strategy that involves trusting Sanctum’s curation.&nbsp;



In sum, Sanctum socializes the hard parts of the LST business (depth, redemptions, routing) so everyone can launch an LST and ride the same liquidity engine. Then it builds a superior yield-bearing product on top of everything. Voila.



You wouldn’t guess it from the price action of its CLOUD native token (don’t look), but Sanctum is one of the rare few revenue-generating teams in the industry. Sanctum’s vertically integrated liquid staking product suite has generated substantial revenues, about $5.9 million annualized off this month.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1270" height="668" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106870" style="width:672px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=1270 1270w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-10.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1270px) 100vw, 1270px" /></figure>



Now the team is expanding beyond liquid staking. Sanctum’s v2 <a href="https://x.com/sanctumso/status/1960727723716084084">revamp</a> yesterday unveiled officially a broader push into Solana’s transaction-delivery layer.



At the center is Gateway, a “transaction delivery aggregator” that builds on its acquisition of the DevOps <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sanctum-acquires-ironforge">infrastructure platform Ironforge</a> last month. Gateway is designed to improve transaction inclusion with full-stack transaction observability of RPC providers.



Gateway works by routing through multiple providers (RPCs, Paladin, Temporal, etc.) and will use pay-as-you-go pricing with tips, rather than an upfront subscription.



The goal is to become the “de facto entry point” for Solana, Lee told me.



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Sanctum V2 expands to Solana’s transaction delivery layer

David Canellis

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



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



First, the really bullish stuff.



Pantera Capital managing partner Paul Veradittakit just put out a State of Crypto Venture Capital report with plenty to prick up your ears.



First, the industry is on pace to break 2021’s fundraising record of $29.17 billion. Crypto companies this year have raised over $16 billion — which is already more than the total deal value of 2024.



(BTW: Very cool that <a href="https://www.veradiverdict.com/p/e4aa8be1-52e2-477f-b687-7239522cde79?free_preview=false">Veradittakit’s report</a> is grounded in <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/deal-flow">Blockworks Research data</a>, which covers all things deal flow, including fundraising, M&amp;A and debt financing.)



Veradittakit characterizes this year’s fundraising as a game-changer fueled by record M&amp;A and IPO activity.&nbsp;



He wrote: “2024 was a record year for acquisitions with over 100 mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A) totaling $1.73 billion and 2025 is set to surpass 2024 in deal count. From January to July of this year it is already at 76 deals and $6.23 billion, which is 3.6× 2024’s full-year dollar volume and is on pace for 130 deals if the current run rate holds.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeqPJRPFKp5dO52iaq-GCg7cW-EdajU8JDyCB3oqCbxT-b8Y8pJJlyP1mEHF4aLDtVTDKa0NBEzjd2XSWaP7g5Kcq7NF34XP9vkKSAFv99l46kgsvGZgtY2eCaJo27Fy5N6qfEs?key=VUdjECCR-IQTKGtKSIld6A" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Nice big green candles. Source: VeradiVerdict</figcaption></figure>



“The momentum in 2025 is less about unleashing pent‑up demand and more a sign of the industry’s natural maturation,” Veradittakit added.



Crypto IPO successes like Circle and Bullish, as well as others coming up (including Figure and BitGo) are making new entrants more comfortable with investing in the blockchain industry.&nbsp;



“This is a pattern seen in other major technological shifts, where a multi-decade build-out precedes explosive growth,” per Veradittakit.



Over on the Empire podcast, Rob Hadick, general partner at Dragonfly Capital, floated the notion that raises like M0’s $40 million and Rain’s $58 million Series Bs were probably the “tail end of the fervor” that came just before the Genius Act rolled out in June.



“I can tell you right now, there&#8217;s definitely some fatigue,” Hadick said.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Stablecoins &amp; Prediction Markets, Nothing Else | Weekly Roundup" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XuiL_EyEiEc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



Interestingly, Hadick pointed out that the level of entrepreneurs that are now building in stablecoins is increasing.&nbsp;



One deal that Dragonfly is looking at right now involves founders that were executives at “some of the largest payment companies in the world and they just know how money flows — we haven’t seen that level of entrepreneur before.”



“And so I think we&#8217;ll see this kind of dip in the market, and then we&#8217;re going to see new novel, awesome entrepreneurs, an acceleration into maybe the end of the year [and] next year,” Hadick said.



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Crypto industry on pace to break 2021 fundraising record

Byron Gilliam

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



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Creatures crawl in search of blood / To terrorize y&#8217;all&#8217;s neighborhood” — Michael Jackson, Thriller
</blockquote>



<a href="https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FinCEN-Notice-CVCKIOSK.pdf">Crypto remains the best money to steal&nbsp;</a>



When Bitcoin Depot went public via a SPAC in 2023, investors marvelled at its ability to charge as much as 25% to use its ATMs.



Now we know why: Bitcoin ATMs are elder-fraud machines.



A recent FinCEN notice details how “convertible virtual crypto kiosks” (CVCs) enable crime by giving scammers a quick way to cash out.



“The speed and difficulty of reversing CVC transactions makes CVCs an attractive payment mechanism for scammers,” it reports. “This generally differs from traditional bank or wire transfers where a payment transaction can remain pending for one to two days before settlement.”&nbsp;



Two-day wire transfers seem like archaic technology, but they’re also a useful deterrent to fraudsters who want their money instantly and irrevocably.



The risk of a bank compliance officer blocking or reversing a transfer is such that fraudsters go through the trouble of convincing their targets to withdraw cash from their bank account, find an ATM and convert the cash to crypto.



These are usually older people: “More than two of every three dollars reported lost to fraud using CVC kiosks was lost by an older adult.”



People like to say crypto is bad to steal because blockchains are transparent, but crypto ATMs provide a vivid counterexample: criminals converting fiat to crypto, because that’s the only way to steal it.&nbsp;



In theory, transparent blockchains should be bad for crime, but revealed preference proves the opposite. Instant, irreversible payments are so helpful to criminals that they pay ATM fees as high as 25% to get their stolen money onchain.



Their money is safer there, even without taking price risk: “Scammers will also often quickly swap scam proceeds into a stablecoin,” FinCEN reports.



Happily, many states have <a href="https://www.governing.com/policy/fearing-scams-states-add-regulations-to-crypto-atms">started regulating</a> crypto ATMs, making them less useful for fraud.



But the revealed preference of criminals paying 25% to use them remains instructive.&nbsp;



<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d06f66c0-aaf0-42b3-89ad-7db0d0e73946">Crypto dad logic</a>



Financial historian Brendan Greeley reminds us that “over the long run you can’t force people to use a deflationary currency; they either come up with a local workaround or they revolt.”



The founding principle of crypto is that fiat money is inflationary and people should be able to opt out of it.&nbsp;



Greeley thinks of crypto as “finance as if the past never happened.”&nbsp;



He doesn’t mean it as a compliment, but that happens to be my favorite thing about crypto — a chance to rethink finance from first principles.



One thing that doesn’t need rethinking, however, is hard money.&nbsp;



Greeley says he is frequently confronted by “crypto dads,” who have made money in bitcoin and therefore think that hard money is a good form of currency: “To them, an idea can be tested with a bet. If it pays off, they were right.”



By that logic, hard money is good because bitcoin is hard money and the price of bitcoin has gone up.



But hard money, Greeley explains, has only ever benefited pre-modern merchants who traded across oceans and creditors collecting on loans. “For everyone else, hard deflationary standards have been a grinding punishment.”



William Jennings Bryan accusingly labelled the gold standard a “crown of thorns” and a “cross of gold” because hard money favors creditors over debtors and the rich over the poor.



That’s not an indictment of bitcoin — bitcoin is a much needed way for people to voluntarily opt out of fiat. 



But it’s an illogical leap to then conclude that hard money should replace fiat money.



Greeley concedes that if he were a betting man, he would buy bitcoin.



But his focus is elsewhere: “As an American academic who worries about deflation…all I want is for bitcoin to stay the hell away from the dollar.”



I get the logic: I’m an American newsletter writer and occasional betting man who has bought bitcoin because I’m worried about inflation.&nbsp;



But I, too, want it to stay away from the dollar — because the only thing worse than inflation is deflation.



Fiat remains the worst form of currency, except for all the others.



<a href="https://mcga.com/news/trump-media-group-cro-strategy-to-acquire-cro-digital-asset-treasury">The inverted logic of DAT investing</a>



Crypto.com is investing in a digital asset treasury company that will buy tokens issued by Crypto.com.&nbsp;&nbsp;



This creates some unusual incentives.



Investors typically want to buy an asset as cheaply as possible, but Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, seems to be taking the opposite approach — his <a href="https://x.com/kris/status/1960502232362967214">public enthusiasm</a> for his new DAT, co-founded with the Trump Media Group, suggests he’s attempting to pay as much as possible for the CRO tokens the DAT plans to buy.&nbsp;



CRO is the native token of Cronos, a nominally decentralized blockchain that <a href="https://www.cryptoninjas.net/news/crypto-com-sparks-chaos-pushes-vote-to-re-mint-70-billion-cro/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">remains controlled</a> by its developer, Crypto.com.



In addition to the $200 million already committed for that purpose, “the company will also have access to a further $5 BILLION LINE OF CREDIT from Yorkville to, yes, you guessed it right, acquire even more CRO.”



Telling everyone how much you’re going to buy something before you can buy it is an unorthodox investing strategy that would seem to benefit the asset (CRO, partially owned by Crypto.com) far more than the buyer of the asset (the CRO DAT, also part-owned by Crypto.com).



It also seems like a tacit admission that Marszalek knows he’s playing a greater-fool game.



Despite its integration with Crypto.com, the Cronos blockchain has not gotten much traction: The chain collected just <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/cronos?tvl=false&amp;chainFees=true&amp;groupBy=monthly">$58,000 in fees</a> last month.&nbsp;&nbsp;



That appears to give CRO very little value, so it makes sense for Marszalek to focus on doing something about its price: “The mission of Trump Media Group CRO Strategy,” he <a href="https://x.com/kris/status/1960321095309144508">explained</a> on X, is to enhance shareholder value by maximising THE FLYWHEEL EFFECT: more funds raised, more CRO bought, prices appreciate, allowing for more funds to be raised and more CRO to be bought.”



This, I think, further explains his pay-as-much-as-you-can investing strategy: When price is the only source of an asset’s value, the more you pay for it, the better.



That appears to be his plan.



The SPAC’s fundraising, Marszalek notes, “will add up to an UNPRECEDENTED amount of DRY POWDER for any Digital Asset Treasury company, exceeding the total market cap of<a href="https://x.com/search?q=%24CRO&amp;src=cashtag_click"> $CRO</a> as of the time of announcement.”



Smart!&nbsp;



Promising to spend more on an asset than its entire market cap is a surefire way to make the price of the asset go up.



CRO has in fact doubled this week, so mission accomplished, I guess.



Even more remarkable, however, is CRO’s fully diluted valuation (FDV), which is now up to $31 billion — 43,000x its annualized revenue!&nbsp;



In addition to doubling this week, CRO’s FDV recently tripled when Crypto.com <a href="https://unchainedcrypto.com/burned-tokens-are-gone-forever-right-for-70-billion-cro-maybe-not/">decided</a> to re-issue 70 billion CRO tokens that were “burned” in 2021.



Projects typically burn tokens by sending them to an address from which they are unretrievable, thereby permanently reducing the maximum supply of the token.



Cronos, however, appears to be a magical place where deceased tokens can rise from the grave.



Token holders were understandably <a href="https://x.com/Wyll_BBK/status/1896452917722296775">unhappy</a> to have their investment diluted by 70%.



But the CRO token traded up on the news — so maybe crypto really is a magical place where normal investing rules don’t apply?



If the new DAT really does have $5 billion to spend on CRO tokens, I guess that could work out for all of its holders — for a trade at least.



But here’s some old fashioned investing advice: Beware of tokens that come back from the dead.



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Thursday links: ATMs, dad logic and zombie tokens

21Shares today filed a form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to register the 21Shares Sei ETF, a trust offering direct exposure to SEI, the Sei Network’s native token.



The filing names Coinbase Custody Trust Company as the ETF’s custodian, with Coinbase, Inc. acting as prime broker. Net asset value would be calculated using the CF SEI-Dollar Reference Rate — New York Variant, published by CF Benchmarks, which aggregates prices across multiple spot venues to ensure transparency and reduce reliance on any single market feed.



The filing also allows for discretionary staking of SEI if regulators and tax authorities determine it would not compromise compliance.



21Shares is a crypto-native ETP provider that pioneered the world’s first physically-backed crypto exchange-traded product (ETP) — dubbed “HODL” — on the SIX Swiss Exchange.&nbsp;



By the end of 2024, it was one of the largest global issuers of crypto ETPs with 44 listed products in numerous currencies. The company <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/21shares-parent-company-valued-at-2b-after-marshall-wace-led-fundraise">raised</a> funding in 2022 at a valuation of around $2 billion and is now part of the 21.co Group.



If approved, the Sei ETF would join bitcoin and ether ETFs already trading, alongside pending SEC applications for Solana and XRP.



This is a developing story.



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



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



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21Shares files for spot Sei ETF

Rain announced on Aug. 28 that it raised $58 million in a Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures, underscoring its ambition to become the leading enterprise-grade stablecoin platform.&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.rain.xyz/resources/rain-raises-58m-series-b-led-by-sapphire-ventures-to-become-the-enterprise-stablecoin-platform-of-record">funding</a> follows the company’s direct integration with Visa’s network. Rain became a Visa Principal Member in March 2025, a move that underpins its ability to directly issue cards on the Visa network.



The company positions itself as an API-first infrastructure provider, enabling fintechs, corporations, and financial institutions to build stablecoin-linked cards and settlement tools across multiple jurisdictions. Rain claims its platform can connect to more than 1.5 billion users through a single integration, making it one of the most broadly connected providers of stablecoin payments.



This raise adds to Rain’s active 2025 funding year. In March, the company secured $24.5 million in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners to expand its stablecoin-powered card issuing globally.



By combining blockchain-native settlement with traditional payment rails, Rain is pursuing a dual track that targets both enterprise infrastructure and consumer-facing use cases.



The timing coincides with expanding regulatory clarity around stablecoins, with Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) law now fully in effect and the U.S. GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, entering its implementation phase.



This is a developing story.



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



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



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Rain raises $58M to expand enterprise stablecoin platform

Felix Jauvin

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



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To the keen observer, there are many crosscurrents hitting the Federal Reserve right now —&nbsp;and those currents are beginning to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-independence-in-question">erode Fed independence</a>.&nbsp;



The idea of a Fed independent from political influence has ebbed and flowed over the years.&nbsp;



During World War II, the Fed was entirely subservient to the Treasury and was not independent by any means. It existed mostly to fund the war and ensure Treasurys were well bid.&nbsp;



In 1951, the Fed Treasury accords formally established the Fed as independent from the Treasury and, therefore, the executive branch.&nbsp;



In the 1970s, Chair Paul Volcker solidified this independence by hiking rates to tame inflation despite pressure from the president at the time. Someone even showed up to the Federal Reserve building with a loaded gun to try and stop them from raising rates.&nbsp;



In the 40 years since, we’ve seen a steady, secular downshift in interest rates and peacetime for the Fed.&nbsp;



Now, that era is changing. President Trump, referring to his own nominees on the Fed’s board of governors, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/trump-fed-majority-cook-interest-rates.html">said</a> Tuesday: “We’ll have a majority very shortly.”&nbsp;



The idea of viewing the composition of the FOMC as one party’s majority vs. the other is new.&nbsp;



Historically, governor appointments were seen as apolitical, although bias still naturally trickled in through the lens of academic perspectives on monetary policy leading more left or right, depending on their background.&nbsp;



With the attempted firing of Governor Cook — (setting aside how valid it was, that’s for the court to decide tomorrow) — it now opens the door to Trump being able to get a majority among Fed governors as well as a heavier hand in deciding which regional Fed presidents are elected. For a better explanation of these dynamics, check out Quinn’s explanation in last week’s roundup: 



<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">Trump wants to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, but there&#39;s a lot more to his takeover plan.<a href="https://twitter.com/qthomp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@qthomp</a> breaks down how Trump could soon control a majority of the Fed’s voting power ↓ <a href="https://t.co/ClcwsYLoLc">pic.twitter.com/ClcwsYLoLc</a>&mdash; Forward Guidance (@ForwardGuidance) <a href="https://twitter.com/ForwardGuidance/status/1960344759224172599?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



So, where does that shift bring us and how can we quantify this emerging tail risk?&nbsp;



One method I’ve found helpful is the chart below, which contrasts five-year inflation swaps with the price of oil. Oil is one of the primary contributors to expectations of inflation on a medium-term basis, since it’s a large driver of headline inflation. It’s also a key input cost into nearly everything that is consumed.&nbsp;



Typically, when the price of oil rises, inflation expectations also rise.



What’s interesting about 2025, however, is we are seeing five-year inflation swaps grinding higher while oil does the opposite.&nbsp;



My read is that the market is beginning to price in a new risk premium associated with tail risks around the Fed. Specifically, the Fed losing control of prices and inflation expectations becoming unanchored due to the erosion of independence.&nbsp;



Whether this risk premium is warranted or not is a story for another day. Regardless, it&#8217;s evident that the market is beginning to worry about this dynamic.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1200" height="725" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106818" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=1200 1200w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=425 425w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=432 432w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=362 362w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-7.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /></figure>



When long-held correlations like this diverge, they can be explosive. The last one was in 2022, when we saw gold meaningfully decouple from its long-held inverse correlation with real yields.&nbsp;



That divergence is only increasing as the market digests new variables, like concern for fiat currency stability.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="966" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-106819" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=426 426w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=432 432w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=363 363w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-8.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Keep an eye out for these correlations over the next 12 months — I think it’s going to become very important to do so.



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What does a Trump takeover of the Fed look like?

On Aug. 28, 2025, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued Staff Letter 25-27 — an advisory affirming that offshore derivatives exchanges, including those listing crypto products, can legally be accessed by US participants if they register as a foreign board of trade (FBOT) under Part 48.



This <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9111-25?utm_source=govdelivery">clarifies</a> that “located in the U.S.” refers to physical presence, not legal domicile, and that these exchanges need not become designated contract markets (DCMs) to serve US traders.



This advisory builds on CFTC’s July 2024 final rule amendment to Regulation 48.4, which added introducing brokers (not just FCMs or CPOs/CTAs) as permissible intermediaries. That change has enabled more nuanced routing of US customer orders through global venues.



For Web3, decentralized trading, and crypto-native platforms, this represents a critical turning point. By lowering structural hurdles and codifying a clear on‑ramp through FBOT registration, the CFTC is effectively signaling that offshore platforms can integrate into US markets under defined conditions, without resorting to broad geographic blocking or being forced into full domestic exchange registration.



The agency is also positioning FBOT registration as a tool to shift trading activity into a more transparent and compliant environment, reducing the reliance on regulatory enforcement after the fact.



In recent months, the agency has rescinded old crypto‑specific staff advisories, including those on digital asset derivatives and clearing risks, and prioritized regulatory clarity over punitive action.



This dovetails with Acting Chair Caroline Pham’s vision of supporting responsible innovation, as seen in initiatives like the crypto CEO forum and digital asset sandbox ambitions.



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



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CFTC opens door for Web3 exchanges via FBOT registration

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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One year into Sky, adoption lags behind vision

Kate Irwin

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



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The metaverse is long over.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



So what’s happening now?&nbsp;



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



Probably not too great.



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



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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">solana alpenglow in less than 100 seconds (brainrot version) <a href="https://t.co/QPtHd5QQct">pic.twitter.com/QPtHd5QQct</a>&mdash; doppelbanger (brainrot lead) (@doppelbanger_gm) <a href="https://twitter.com/doppelbanger_gm/status/1958478061692707100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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



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Solana validators commence vote on landmark Alpenglow consensus protocol

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Lombard brings yield-bearing LBTC to Solana

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Caliber adopts Chainlink treasury as stock faces Nasdaq scrutiny

Shaunda Devens

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Solana prepares for Alpenglow

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Speakers

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



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



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



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



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

Lord Holmes of Richmond MBE

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



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



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



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

Joseph Lubin

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

Mathew McDermott

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



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

Samantha Bohbot

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

Danny Masters

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

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

Ray Hindi

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

Michael Higgins

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

Ben Forman

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

Sandy Kaul

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

Jeff Park

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



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

Nikita Fadeev

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

Meltem Demirors

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

Melvin Deng

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



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

Tony Ashraf

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

Michael Howell

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

Jess Houlgrave

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

Dan Tapiero

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

Santiago Roel Santos

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



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



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

Nicolas Vanhoutteghem 

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



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

Eric Chen

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

Rebecca Rettig

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

Hadley Stern

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

Jakob Palmstierna

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

Staci Warden

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

Matt Hougan

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

Xiao-Xiao Zhu

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

Konstantin Richter

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

Ryan Hayward

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

David Cunningham

Jonathan Cheesman

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

David Mercer

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

Guy Young

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

Sid Powell

Vivek Raman

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

Michael Bucella

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

Quinn Thompson

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

Diogo Monica

David Karney

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

Anatoly Crachilov

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

Marc Vanlerberghe

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



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



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

Omar Shakeeb

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

Rob Hadick

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

Chris Solarz

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



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

Seth Ginns

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

Ryan Rasmussen

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

Paul Faecks

Richard Green

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

Alwyn Clarke

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

Ian Taylor

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

Avi Felman

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



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

William Benattar

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

James Newman

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

Jordi Alexander

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

Haseeb Qureshi

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



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

Serafin Lion Engel

Karl-Martin Ahrend

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

Hong Sun

Jeremy Ng is the Founder and CEO of OpenEden Group, a leading real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform. He brings over 20 years of experience in institutional finance, fintech, and digital assets, and leads the company's strategic direction and growth as it builds compliant, tokenized RWA products that bridge traditional finance and Web3. Prior to founding OpenEden, Jeremy served as the APAC CEO of Gemini Exchange, establishing it as Singapore's leading fiat on-ramp exchange. He also held senior leadership roles at tier-1 investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, Leonteq, and Morgan Stanley.

Jeremy Ng

Alex is a software architect with over 15 years of experience in engineering and startups. He is the co-inventor of ZKsync and currently serves as the co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs. At Matter Labs, he leads a talented team focused on addressing blockchain scalability challenges using zero-knowledge proofs. Alex's passion lies in using technology to advance personal freedom, self-ownership, and decentralization

Alex Gluchowski

Stephen Hess is the founder of Metaplex, the leading protocol for digital assets on Solana. As a Director of the Metaplex Foundation, he drives strategy, product and ecosystem growth, supporting thousands of applications and millions of users who rely on the protocol. Metaplex now powers 99% of tokens and NFTs on Solana, and through its Genesis protocol is opening the Internet Capital Markets, giving projects and entrepreneurs the ability to launch onchain and access global capital from day one. Previously, Stephen served as Head of Product at Solana Labs, where he helped scale the application layer of the network and introduced the first liquid staking programs, bridges, stablecoins, games, token standards and ecosystem integrations.

Stephen Hess

Ruud Smets is the Managing Partner and CIO at Theta Capital Management, one of theworld’s largest fund of funds allocators in blockchain-native VCs, having deployed a $650 million into early-stage strategy across 45+ specialized managers since 2018. Under Ruud's stewardship, Theta has secured early, private-stage exposure to 80% of successful blockchain projects, leveraging its unique relationships with top VCs. With Master’sdegrees in Information Technology and  Investment Theory and as a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst, Ruud combines deep financial acumen with blockchain expertise. Ruud joined Theta in 2005 and has positioned the firm as a pioneering, AIFMD licensed fund manager, offering unmatched access to blockchain’s investment potential.

Ruud Smets

Evgeny has 15+ years of experience growing fintech businesses. He has consistently grown market share in Europe’s top fiat exchanges, developed and executed ambitious expansion projects and led agile cross-functional teams. Prior to founding Wintermute, Evgeny built and ran the Optiver’s European ETF business (HFT and OTC) – one of the largest in the EU. Evgeny holds MSc in Finance and EMBA from London Business School.

Evgeny Gaevoy

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

Carolina

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

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

Macauley Peterson

David Rodriguez

Marc-Thomas Arjoon

Dan Smith

Boccaccio

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

Macro Case for Digital Assets

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

ETFs & Institutional Investment

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