Great perspective on the best way to have invested in this crypto cycle, @LorenzoARK: follow the developers, as always, and get as close to the end user as possible!

5 years asking why. 10 months building how. Now it’s time to find out if reality agrees.

Good lord. It turns out that a16z, the same people who told us "Why Decentralized Matters" 8 years ago, now don't think it matters. Sure, they hedge by making a meek "parallel path" argument between actual DeFi and whatever the suits are doing, but the fact that they now take all this "enterprise blockchain" nonsense seriously tells me they've lost faith. Or rather they believe decentralization matters for DePIN that enables DeSci for agentic inference, but not for finance. "Peer to Peer Electronic Cash" breaking up Wall Street is now a bridge too far! Allow me to reframe what is actually happening with TradFi adoption of blockchain: the rent seeking intermediaries for whom friction and delays is a primary source of profits are not into actual crypto (shocking, I know). They prefer fake crypto, because it allows them to hijack the narrative, delay progress, and use lawfare in Washington to kill true innovation. This isn't some conspiracy theory. The very same banks who are lobbying to kill stablecoins as I type are claiming to use fake internal blockchains to offer services they could have rolled out 20 years ago using SQL. Also, the same HFT trading firms who have been lobbying to kill DeFi for years are the biggest holders of dubious coins tied to "permissioned networks" supposedly used by COBOL jockeys to do post trade settlement. Before that, they used fax machines. None of this should come as a surprise. Incumbents fight change. Highly regulated incumbebts who haven't had to innovate for decades fight the hardest. What does come as a surprise is that the smartest VCs out there (and I mean this genuinely) are falling for their slight of hand. No wonder this industry is in such a low place. Our once fearless leaders are full of doubt and bending the knee to archaic orgs like...SWIFT? Like, it took the Society over a decade to try to move cross-border payments that take 3 days to a new messaging standard, but a16z thinks they'll build a viable "blockchain" for real-time payments soon. Sigh. Since they end their article with advice for founders, I am going to do the same: Proof of Authority is not a viable consensus mechanism, inside a bank or on CNBC. Neither is Proof of Press Release. A founder who doesn't think the institutions of tomorrow will be fundamentally different from the dominant ones today proably shouldn't be one.

We aren’t building @CazasHQ around transactions. We’re built around identity. Today we’re designing the architecture that connects travel / investment history, credentials, community & future ownership into a single member record. Optimizing for continuity. Memory = utility

I think it’s time to revisit the accredited investor laws in the US. Companies are staying private longer, where only accredited investors (aka rich people!) can invest. Retail investors can only come in after IPO, when much of the upside has already been captured. These rules were created with the best of intentions, to protect regular people from scams - a noble idea. Unfortunately, in practice they've often made it illegal to get richer, unless you're already rich. A regressive tax! We have to judge policies based on their outcomes, not on their intentions. These are two possible routes I see: 1) Replace the rule with something merit-based, like a financial literacy test. Pass it and you're accredited. Having a qualification based on competency rather than your bank balance or income seems far more fair. 2) Remove the rule entirely. Let consenting adults assess their own risk. Disclosure requirements stay and fraud enforcement stays to punish bad actors.

Three days ago I became a dad. My son, Soren was born with a rare heart defect and is fighting for his life. I've given 10 years to this space & never asked for anything. Today, humbly, I'm asking. Anything you can do helps. 5qTKp44FvKsBZakm5YWihqVG2UMeQZp1pDRbLMbApump

An ETF that just holds assets is leaving utility on the table. Sandy Kaul, on why tokenized ETFs can be so much more than a wrapper. @iandebode x @OndoFinance x @therollupco x @andyyy x @robbieklages x @blockworksDAS x @Blockworks

Before I began building @CazasHQ I thought this was how institutions were eventually going to plug in. Not quite. Nice to see @mcagney pushing for new rails.

Brian Chesky's vision for an AI-first world is miles ahead of the Silicon Valley narrative. Haven't seen it this clearly since Steve Jobs.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 SEC Chair Paul Atkins says now is the "right" time to open the $12.5 trillion 401k retirement market to crypto.

The banks are PISSING THEMSELVES. They’ve just realized that some autistic crypto startup in a WeWork with $20 million in T‑Bills and a React front-end is about to nuke the entire $17 trillion U.S. deposit base… …by offering 4.9% yield on a stablecoin while JPMorgan gives you 0.01% and a debit card that expires in two years. “BUT THAT’S NOT FAIR” – every bank lobbyist ever Now the banking system, this Godzilla made of soy, duct tape, and 11,000 physical branches, is whining to Congress like: “This isn’t fair! If people can earn yield on dollars outside the bank… they might leave the bank!” No shit. That’s the point. You locked everyone into a zero‑yield Ponzi for a decade while printing $7 trillion, and now you’re shocked people want out? What’s next, are you gonna sue water for being wet? This is a regulatory street fight between code and bureaucracy, between global liquidity that settles in five seconds and the rotting husk of Bretton Woods wearing a suit made of FDIC pamphlets. And guess what? The White House is hosting peace talks. Yes. Trump’s team just invited Circle and Coinbase to sit down with Jamie Dimon and tell him that the future of dollars may not involve Jamie Dimon. Can you imagine the mood in that meeting? “Hi Jamie, meet Brian from Circle. He tokenizes T-Bills with six engineers and a Discord server. He’s taking 3% of your deposits and none of your regulatory costs. Thoughts?” The reality is that every time one of these banks says “we’re concerned about financial stability,” what they mean is: “Please don’t let these crypto goblins disrupt our ability to harvest yield off the lower-middle class with 18% credit cards and 0% checking accounts.” They want protection rackets codified into law. Like “you can’t offer yield on stablecoins unless you’re a licensed bank,” aka: “We missed the boat, so let’s blow up the dock.” Banks can’t compete. Let’s model it: A bank: 11,000 branches, 75,000 tellers, legacy core systems from 1982, and a CFO who thinks Solana is a fish. Circle: 25 people, 100% T-Bill backing, 24/7 redemptions, yield streamed on-chain like Netflix. Now let me make this brutally simple... Who wins? The guys with marble lobbies or the protocol that turns dollars into yield-bearing bearer assets? The banks are playing defense against stablecoin yield... but what happens when it clicks that stablecoins are just a transition vector to full monetary exit? What happens when people use stablecoins to bootstrap into Bitcoin treasuries with self-custody? You go from “5% yield off Circle’s T-Bill stack” to “30% CAGR in purchasing power in a bearer asset that can’t be diluted and lives outside the IMF death loop.” That’s endgame stuff. The banks are scared of USDC + USDT. Wait until every mom in Omaha is yield farming STRC dividends from their Roth IRAs using a Lightning app. We’re replacing the entire fiat architecture with a monetary black hole. reuters.com/sustainability/b…

Flip the switch!

Big things are coming in 2026. “Tokenization is a home run.” “We will see a ton of acceleration.” “Digital assets will go full mainstream.” Why major institutions like Standard Chartered and Mastercard see tokenization as the future of capital markets ↓

Tokenization is shaping the next evolution of global markets. In @TheEconomist, Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein discuss how tokenization can modernize market infrastructure, enhancing efficiency, transparency, and access by connecting traditional and digital finance. Read more:

Real-world assets (RWAs) — traditional assets such as U.S. Treasuries, money-market funds, private credit, and real estate that are represented onchain (“tokenized”) — bridge crypto and traditional finance. The total market for tokenized RWAs sits at $30 billion, up nearly 4x in the last two years.

Legacy financial institutions built empires on fees. Then came @RobinhoodApp, capturing the hearts—and wallets—of Millennials and Gen-Z. Now, it's on track to become the first consumer finance super-app and target a $600B+ TAM. This blog unpacks the $HOOD playbook in 3 Acts 🧵

Securitize, the leading tokenization platform, to become a public company at $1.25B valuation via business combination with Cantor Equity Partners II. Tokenize the World.

A classic 👌🏻

🚨STRATEGY ANNOUNCES $STRC (STRETCH)🚨 You're about to understand a financial engineering move so insane, it makes traditional equity look like Monopoly money.👇