Adam Efrima is the SSV Core team Co-founder. He has been active in the crypto industry since 2013. Over eight years living in China working in the financial industry and fintech space, Adam has worked in CITIC Bank covering outbound investments for Chinese SOEs, he was also in charge of setting up the eToro Shanghai operation. Since then, Adam has been deeply involved in Ethereum staking, co-founding top performing staking project Bloxstaking as well as co-founding SSV Network, a decentralized validator infrastructure for ETH staking.

Adam Simmons is Chief Strategy Officer at RDX Works, a key contributor to the Radix public ledger. He has over 13 years of experience in building &amp; growing businesses in a range of industries including online video, blockchain &amp; digital marketing. With experience in both senior leadership &amp; hands-on roles, he has repeatedly recruited, managed, and trained highly successful teams within marketing, customer success and operations functions. Adam is also a previous member of the UK Paralympic Sprint Kayaking Team and has competed in multiple World and European Championships.


Adam Swick is the Chief Growth Officer at Marathon Digital Holdings. Prior to joining Marathon, he served as a principal at Refinery Ventures, where he was responsible for identifying and recommending business strategies to accelerate the growth of all companies in Refinery’s portfolio. Before Refinery, Swick was the director of strategic finance at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, where he managed the company’s balance sheet, debt program, investor relations, and all forecasting activities. Prior to Kraken, he founded Swick Capital, a crypto-asset hedge fund, worked at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, and was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group. Swick holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS in finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adrian Brink is the co-founder of Namada and Anoma, where he focuses on building privacy-preserving systems that are resilient to global crises. Previously, he was a core developer at Tendermint (Cosmos) and worked at the Web3 Foundation. He also co-founded Cryptium Labs, which was later sold to Chorus One, and Metastate, where he contributed to major upgrades to the Tezos protocol​.

Adrien Stern is the founder &amp; CEO of Reveel, the omnichain payments infrastructure that enables one-click cross-chain payments to connect people across borders and networks. Before founding Reveel, Adrien led digital transformation efforts at BNP Paribas CIB. He was also previously a venture builder, and owns Bridge Music, a record label and recording studio. Adrien has a Bachelor’s degree in Sciences of Management from The University of Lausanne and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Esade. 

Alex Hoffman is Head of Ecosystem at Superposition Finance. Superposition is revolutionizing DeFi by addressing its core challenges through robust risk management powered by Concordia’s best-in-class risk engine, omnichain functionality, and transparency.

Alexei Zamyatin is a co-founder of BOB, a first-of-its-kind hybrid Layer-2 powered by Bitcoin and Ethereum. He has been a Bitcoin and interoperability research contributor since 2015 and is most known for his work on trustless cross-chain bridges and L2s. Alexei holds a PhD in computer science from Imperial College London.


Alison Haire is the CEO and founder of Lilypad, a serverless, decentralized compute network that democratizes access to computational power by providing scalable infrastructure for AI, machine learning and other high-demand processes. Before founding Lilypad, she held roles at companies such as Filecoin, IBM and Accenture. Under her leadership, Lilypad leverages idle GPU capacity worldwide to fuel an open AI economy, providing cost-effective and scalable compute resources. Her work focuses on making high-performance computing accessible to more developers and researchers, while challenging the dominance of large centralized cloud providers​​.

With over 20 years of experience leading and designing games and tech companies, Alun is well-versed in creating innovative products that tackle experiential and developer challenges. In addition to his stewardship of LAOS Network, he is CEO and co-founder of the company building LAOS, Freeverse, which focuses on building scalable blockchain infrastructure. His history as the co-creator of ‘Barcelona World Race - THE GAME,’ a cutting-edge video game enabling virtual participation in real-world events, and his wider passion for gaming, have fed into his vision for LAOS Network as a solution for the intersection of Web3 tech with both gaming and real-world applications. Alun also led Shar3d.io, a pioneering company enabling collaborative 3D web applications, and served as CTO of Bodypal.com, a virtual garment services company. He holds a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from University College London.



Amanda Cassatt is the founder and CEO of Serotonin. Amanda previously served as Chief Marketing Officer of ConsenSys from 2016 through 2019. Joining one year after the launch of Ethereum, Amanda played a crucial role in defining, creating, and growing the narrative for ConsenSys, Ethereum, and blockchain overall.

Amanda stewarded the ConsenSys brand through its global expansion across enterprises, governments, developers, and consumers. She created and scaled the marketing team to over 50 people, serving both the ConsenSys brand and 50+ portfolio companies such as MetaMask, Infura, Truffle, and Gitcoin; managing teams in product marketing, growth, design, content, community, events, email, analytics and SEO. Amanda’s contributions to some of the most successful product launches, token sales and fundraises landed her on Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016. Amanda is the author of the world's first web3 marketing book, Web3 Marketing: A Handbook for the Next Internet Revolution.

Amanda Keleher currently serves as Chief People Officer at Consensys, one of the largest and fastest-growing companies in the blockchain technology space. A well-rounded business leader with an over 25-year career in the technology space, Amanda is the driving force behind the human element of Consensys where she is responsible for overseeing all of the aspects of people, from building and maintaining the company culture to harnessing human capital as a key driver of business. 

Before joining ConsenSys, Amanda served as the Head of People at ThoughtWorks, a global technology consultancy company, for nearly ten years, where she led the global scale expansion by opening offices around the world and recruiting a diverse workforce at a time when the DevOps movement had just been born and a new skill set were yet to be developed. After her time at ThoughWorks, she served as the Executive Vice President, People &amp; Culture of Index Exchange, one of the world’s premier ad tech organizations; and as VP of People at Little Bits and Intent Media where she excelled in designing effective and creative strategies to attract and retain world-class talent in hyper competitive environments

Andrea Berry is a seasoned online video strategist with 15+ years of experience in transformative media partnerships. 

Her early successes include helping to launch Qello Concerts, the first direct-to-consumer live-music OTT service, later transforming it into Qello Media Services and Vimeo’s OTT channels offering across various industries as their first strategic sales director for their enterprise.

Currently, as the Head of Business Development at Theta Labs, Andrea leverages her expertise in online video and blockchain to drive strategic partnerships and growth opportunities for the company. She helps enterprises take advantage and lean into the opportunities Web3 presents. 

Andrew Redden is the CEO and CTO of Last Network, a blockchain platform focused on sustainable cash flow and reinvestment. Previously, he worked at Gitcoin and has contributed to numerous DeFi and Web3 projects. Redden's career reflects a commitment to developing technologies that prioritize long-term viability and community engagement​.

Andrew Thurman is a Data Editor based in Washington, DC. He previously wrote for CoinDesk and Cointelegraph, and worked in various roles for Chainlink and Nansen. His analysis has been quoted in The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, Reuters, The BBC, CNBC, and elsewhere. Contact Andrew at andrew@blockworks.co.

Andrey Sergeenkov writes educational articles as a freelancer. His works have been published in Coindesk, Cointelegraph, Entrepreneur and CoinMarketCap. He believes that transforming society towards lifelong learning, combined with decentralization in government and business, will lead to exponential social development.

Andy Bromberg is CEO of Beam and Contributor to the Eco Protocol. Eco has raised more than $90 million from an array of leading investors, including a16z Crypto, L Catterton, Activant Capital, Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and others. Prior to Eco, Andy was Co-founder and President of CoinList. Andy is also a founding board member at FreeWorld, a non-profit seeking to end institutionalized poverty in the United States by providing access to living-wage jobs for people with criminal histories. He studied Mathematics and Computer Science at Stanford University and co-founded the Stanford Bitcoin Group.

An established and versatile Financial Executive with over two decades of experience running multiple trading businesses across top-level banks such as HSBC, Barclays, and UBS. After running the top Agency and SSA business for both UBS and Barclays, he took over Emerging Markets macro trading for Barclays. In 2018, wanting to go deeper into Emerging Markets he took a role as Head of Latam local markets trading where he was responsible for trading activities across Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. In 2021 DeMartino moved into Crypto when he became CEO and founder of Coinbase Risk Strategies focused on DeFi and Derivatives trading. More recently he started Trident Digital Group, a crypto-native solutions firm that is focused on lending and safe yield generation and stablecoin adoption.


Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman in 2001. Earlier, he worked in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs &amp; Co.

In 2022, Scaramucci was ranked #47 in Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. In 2016, he was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he received Ernst &amp; Young’s New York Financial Services “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award.  Anthony is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a board member of the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. He is the author of five books.

Scaramucci served on President Donald J. Trump’s 16-person Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, and in 2017 briefly served as Chief Strategy Officer of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and White House Communications Director.

Scaramucci, a native of Long Island, New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Tufts University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

Antoni is a co-founder of Aleph Zero Foundation (Switzerland), an organization overseeing the development of the Aleph Zero blockchain, and a Managing Partner of Cardinal Cryptography (Poland), firm focused on core development of the Aleph Zero ecosystem.

Ari Juels is the Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill Professor in the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion and a Computer Science faculty member at Cornell University. He is a Co-Director of the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3). He is also Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs. He is the author of crypto thriller novel The Oracle (Talos Press), which was released on 20 February 2024.

Austin Alexander is co-founder of LayerTwo Labs, a company focused on advancing the Bitcoin ecosystem through innovative solutions and specializing in the development of Drivechain, a specific type of blockchain sidechain designed to foster creativity and scalability within Bitcoin.

Austin Campbell is the founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Previously, he has run portfolio management at Paxos for the stablecoins as well as being the chief risk officer of Paxos National Trust, has managed fixed income trading desks at JP Morgan and Citi, and has been a portfolio manager and structurer at Stone Ridge, the parent of NYDIG. He holds a BS in Mathematics from CSU Chico and a MBA from NYU Stern.

Ben Mills is the co-founder of Meso, a payments platform connecting banks and blockchains. Prior to Meso, Ben spent a decade building payments products as an early team member at Braintree (acquired by PayPal), as Head of Product at Venmo, and working on Solana Pay at Solana Labs.

Ben Rubin is the CEO and co-founder of Towns, a decentralized messaging platform dedicated to redefining online communication. Rubin has a rich background and a decade of experience in creating digital spaces that build trust and foster human connection. Prior to founding Here Not There Labs, the developer of Towns, Ben founded two venture-backed startups, Meerkat and Houseparty, both of which reimagined how people interact digitally. He scaled his communication products to hundreds of millions of users and raised over $70M in funding from Sequoia Capital and Greylock. After Houseparty was acquired by Epic Games in 2019, Ben went on to found Here Not There Labs, a venture-backed startup with over $30M in funding from a16z crypto and Benchmark Capital.

Ben Strack is a senior reporter covering macro and crypto-native funds, financial advisors, structured products, and the integration of digital assets and 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.

Contact Ben via email at ben@blockworks.co

Bessie is a Brooklyn-based reporter covering DeFi and technology. Bessie worked as a tech journalist for The Org prior to joining Blockworks and was a management consultant for KPMG in another life. She is originally from Melbourne, Australia and holds an MA from New York University. She is also the mother of a bratty cat named Mochi. You can reach Bessie at bessie@blockworks.co

Bezalel Eithan Raviv, an ex-member of IDF Cyber Unit 8200, is a seasoned entrepreneur with deep expertise in technology and innovation. He now leads Lionsgate Network, a blockchain analysis firm specializing in professional money recovery services for digital asset investors in the +$2.5 trillion market. Prior to this role, Bezalel founded an investment banking firm supporting AI startups and developed Halleluiah, a pioneering web3 migration pattern for global music copyrights.

Billy Luedtke is the CEO and founder of Intuition, an information protocol powering a more trustful internet. Billy previously served as senior technology advisor at EY, a leading global professional services organization providing assurance, tax, audit, strategy and transactions. At EY, Billy created the company’s blockchain consulting practice, leading the technical development of blockchain-enabled distributed systems. Billy later became a senior token engineer at Consensys, a leading Ethereum developer (MetaMask, Infura, Linea). Billy continues to serve as an advisor at Consensys and MetaMask.

Billy Sebell is the Executive Director of the XDC Foundation and an early contributor to the XDC Network. Since early 2018, Billy has worked to develop the XDC community, focused on ecosystem and network growth and implementing use cases in trade finance. Billy previously spent more than 25 years in manufacturing and consumer products, dealing with the challenges businesses face in capital markets and international trade.

Blockworks Advisory leverages the curated and tested expertise developed at Blockworks Research to provide comprehensive consulting services rooted in theory and data. We utilize our distribution, conviction, and native understanding of crypto to accelerate our protocol clients' path to success.







Bob Bodily is the Provo, Utah-based CEO and Co-Founder of Bioniq, a BTC Ordinals wallet and marketplace. He has a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and a Ph.D. in educational/instructional technology from Brigham Young University, with 25 articles and 1K citations. He is a data engineer with 100K+ lines of production Python code, and he has two previous software startups, including an EdTech SaaS that sold in 2021.


Senior Research Analyst at Blockworks Research

Bogdan is the Co-Founder and CTO of Tenderly, the full-stack infrastructure solutions provider powering Web3 developer teams with the essential tools and services throughout their development journeys. 

Prior to co-founding Tenderly, Bogdan worked as a software engineer for major software platforms such as MVP Workshop and Go Daddy where he was responsible for constructing and managing the development of distributed cloud systems before realizing the lack of infrastructural support for Web3 developers. With his vast experience in constructing, expanding, and overseeing extensive distributed cloud systems, he is well-versed in the intricacies of blockchain technologies and their practical applications. 

Brandon Truong is lead product contributor for ZetaChain. He previously co-founded social platform Yada (which was acquired in 2020) and spent time building products for BuzzFeed and Udacity. 


 Brian Pak is CEO &amp; Co-Founder of ChainLight, an award-winning blockchain security firm that specializes in smart contract audits and on-chain monitoring. He is also a co-founder of Theori, an established US-based offensive cybersecurity company, since 2016, which he still leads today, having now amassed trusted partners including Microsoft, Google and Samsung. Brian’s early career started when he co-founded and developed Kaprica Security, inventing and patenting the Skorpion Charger, an Android mobile charger that can detect malicious software with no user action required. He has worked on research and development projects with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US. Brian is also a founder of the team PPP (Plaid Parliament of Pwning) which won DEF CON CTF, one of the most prestigious hacker competitions held in Las Vegas, in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. Brian graduated with a Masters Degree in Software Security Research from Carnegie Mellon University.

Three years ago, his act of burning a physical Banksy ignited global discourse on NFTs and Web3, exposing the industry's flaws. Now, through XION, founder Burnt Banksy leads a mission to democratize Web3 to the masses, making ownership accessible to all by removing unnecessary barriers and complications through chain abstraction. To date: XION has raised over $36M in funding with the goal of "making crypto disappear." Ultimately, Burnt Banksy wants to provide the benefits of crypto to people without requiring them to know anything about crypto.

Byron Donalds grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and he is also the proud son of a hardworking and loving single mother. His mother dedicated her time instilling in him that greatness requires sacrifice, which drives him as a devoted family man and United States Congressman.  

Byron is a graduate of Florida State University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and marketing. Byron's career led him to Southwest Florida, where he worked in the banking, finance, and insurance industries. Elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, Byron represented Hendry County and east Collier County in the State Capitol. During his tenure in the Florida House, Byron served as the PreK-12 Quality Subcommittee Chair during the 2018-2019 Legislative Session and served as the Insurance &amp; Banking Subcommittee's Chairman 2019-2020 Legislative Session. While serving in the Florida House, primarily focused on elder affairs, criminal justice reform, and ensuring that each child has access to a world-class education. 

Byron is committed to serving and giving back to the community that gave him so much. He has served Southwest Florida in many ways, including previously serving on the Board of Trustees for Florida Southwestern State College after being appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott. Byron continues to volunteer in his church as a youth leader and a mentor. He also enjoys volunteering as a coach in youth football and basketball leagues.

Congressman Byron Donalds lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, Erika, and their three sons: Damon, Darin, and Mason. Byron has spent his entire adult life serving others, whether it be through volunteering, business, or leadership. He is committed to representing Florida's 19th Congressional District's conservative values in Washington DC to ensure a stronger Florida and a stronger nation.

Byron Gilliam writes The Breakdown newsletter, in which he tries to explain crypto markets to traditional investors and traditional markets to crypto investors (while trying to explain both to himself). Before joining Blockworks, Byron spent 25 years trading international equities for banks and brokers in Frankfurt, London, Paris and New York. He holds a bachelor's degree in History from Binghamton University. Contact Byron at byron@blockworks.co.

Cameron B. Pick is a partner and patent attorney at the Chicago-based intellectual property boutique law firm Marshall, Gerstein &amp; Borun. He prosecutes patents for emerging technologies, including blockchain and crypto, among other innovative areas. He may be reached at cpick@marshallip.com. 

Candace Kelly is the Chief Legal and Policy Officer for the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world's financial infrastructure. She leads the team responsible for SDF’s legal affairs and the policy team that is focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors. Previously, Candace worked for Uber Technologies, Inc., where she helped navigate the company’s response to regulatory investigations and advised on safety, security, privacy, consumer protection, and law enforcement response. Prior to that she served for 17 years at the United States Department of Justice.

Carlos is a Research Analyst based in Guatemala covering Solana and DeFi applications. Carlos previously held a research role at 21Shares. Contact Carlos at carlos.campos@blockworks.co.

Carlos Mercado is a data scientist at Flipside Crypto, specializing in the convergence of data science, cryptocurrency, economics, and open-source research. His expertise spans the Ethereum ecosystem and over 20 other blockchains, where he leverages SQL, R, Python, and Solidity to develop innovative data models and analytics tools. Carlos's notable contributions include the creation of the True Freeze DeFi primitive and leading the production of the 2023 Crypto Users Report, generating significant industry impact. Prior to Flipside, he applied his skills in AI strategy and product development at Guidehouse and offered data science consulting services.


Casey Wagner is a senior reporter on the scoops and investigations team, based in New York. Casey covers crypto regulation, markets and central banks. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported on macroeconomics at Bloomberg News. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies. Contact Casey or send her tips via email at casey@blockworks.co


Charles Hoskinson is a Colorado-based technology entrepreneur and mathematician. He attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Boulder to study analytic number theory before moving into cryptography through industry exposure.

His professional experience includes founding three cryptocurrency-related start-ups – Invictus Innovations, Ethereum and IOHK – and he has held a variety of posts in both the public and private sectors. He was the founding chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation’s education committee and established the Cryptocurrency Research Group in 2013.

His current projects focus on educating people about cryptocurrency, being an evangelist for decentralization and making cryptographic tools easier to use for the mainstream. This includes leading the research, design and development of Cardano, a third-generation cryptocurrency that launched in September 2017.

Chris Barrett serves as the Director of Communications at Chainlink Labs and has been involved with Chainlink since 2017. Chainlink is the only on-chain data and cross-chain platform that enables financial institutions to develop customized, flexible, compliant, and future-proof blockchain applications and tokenized assets. Before this role, he founded a leading PR agency for technology startups, where he worked with over 1,000 innovative companies. Chris is also an avid runner, having maintained a streak of running for over five consecutive years. 

Chris Brooks founded CryptoAssetRecovery.com in 2017 to help digital asset owners recover lost assets. Chris was a programmer at Fidelity Investments, VP of Technology at venture-backed Carescout (which sold to GenWorth, a spinoff of General Electric) and has founded and sold three bootstrapped internet companies. 

Chris Swenor is a seasoned entrepreneur and blockchain pioneer with a 20-year career that kicked off as a self-taught programmer at age 13. He swiftly moved from corporate roles into startups, leading several to successful acquisitions. Chris started venturing into blockchain and cryptocurrency in 2013, founding Reach in 2019, a platform that has since attracted over $13M in funding and onboarded more than 8,000 developers.

In recent years, Chris founded Humble, a decentralized exchange on Algorand, and Alloy, a blockchain gaming platform acquired in 2023. He is currently working on Voi Network, a layer 1 blockchain empowering its community with user-centric governance and economics. 

Christopher Perkins is President of CoinFund, a web3 focused Registered Investment Advisor.  He is also a member of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee and its Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee.

Ciarán Murray is a seasoned veteran of the blockchain industry. Aside from advising on numerous blockchain projects over the years, and releasing a synthetics assets proof-of-concept last year, Ciarán previously worked in the media industry for British Sky Broadcasting. He is not only well placed to understand the issues facing the media industry but also how to apply blockchain and other distributed technologies to remedy them.

Da Hongfei is the founder of Neo, an open-source, community-driven blockchain platform designed to welcome developers into the Smart Economy. Hongfei operates as CEO of Neo Global Development (NGD), the executive arm of the Neo Foundation that is committed to developing the Neo protocol and its supporting ecosystem. He is seen as a luminary in the Web3 space and as a blockchain pioneer in Asia. Hongfei received his education at the South China University of Technology, receiving degrees in technology and English.

Damian Alvarez is a communications professional helping Web3 clients get their stories heard. He is currently the Head of Communications at Aori, an omni-chain logic layer that leverages off-chain data storage to enable high-frequency on-chain trading. He has worked at agencies such as Edelman and YAP Global to assist a variety of emerging and established clients to engage in industry-wide narratives surrounding technology. He may be contacted at damian@aori.io.

Dan Keeler is Editor-in-Chief at Blockworks. Prior to joining Blockworks, he was Frontier Markets Editor at the Wall Street Journal where he managed the Journal’s coverage of smaller emerging markets as well as created a number of high-profile events and a highly regarded newsletter. Before joining the WSJ, he was the Editor of Global Finance magazine. He is also the founder of New York’s FM Network, a group that hosts gatherings of finance professionals focused on smaller emerging markets.

Contact Dan via email at dan@blockworks.co

Dan Smith is a Senior Research Analyst based in the United States covering Curve, Convex, Aave, and Compound. Daniel previously worked in tax and valuation at EY and Bennett Thrasher. He is focused on using data visualization tools to better understand the health and profitability of various DeFi protocols. Contact Dan at daniel@blockworks.co

Daniel Batten is a ClimateTech investor, Bitcoin environmental impact analyst, CEO advisor and author. He is most widely known for his data-driven approach to Bitcoin mining research.


Daniel Cawrey has been involved full-time in the crypto space since 2013, including as an editor at CoinDesk. He is author of 2020’s “Mastering Blockchain” and 2023’s “Understanding Crypto” books, both available on Amazon.

Daranee Ganesh is Blockworks' editorial operations manager based in New Mexico. Prior to Blockworks, Daranee worked on several legal and non-profit projects aimed at integrating decentralized solutions in the social justice framework, specifically within immigration and environmental law. Contact Daranee at daranee@blockworks.co.

Darren Kleine is an Alberta-based reporter covering podcast content at Blockworks. Previously reporting for Cointelegraph, he wrote feature content and a weekly series focused on the personal stories of influential figures in the Web3 space. He has been an active participant in the NFT art scene since 2020, creating works on curated platforms including SuperRare and KnownOrigin and hosting an NFT art-focused podcast called NFP with DKleine. Contact Darren Kleine at darren@blockworks.co.

David is an Editor based in the Netherlands focused on data-driven journalism. Previously, he wrote for TheNextWeb's crypto vertical before launching Protos in 2021. He's a reformed hardline Bitcoiner passionate about permissionless and decentralized networks. Contact David at david@blockworks.co

David Schwed serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Halborn, an elite blockchain security firm. Prior to Halborn, he was the Global Head of Digital Assets Technology at BNY Mellon, the world's biggest custodian bank, where he integrated the IT strategy for the company's digital asset services. David was also CISO for Galaxy Digital, where he led the development of information security and IT infrastructure, and served as a risk committee advisor, evaluating emerging threats in financial services. He also founded the Cybersecurity Master's Program at Yeshiva University’s Katz School of Science and Health, sharing his expertise as a practitioner-in-residence.


Delphine Forma is the policy lead for Europe &amp; UK at Solidus Labs, a leading market compliance and market integrity firm in digital assets. With a career spanning roles in major banks and blockchain ventures, she brings extensive experience in compliance and legal across sectors. She is the founder of the crypto compliance and legal TG group with 1,400 members. A Sciences Po Lyon alumna, Delphine also holds advanced degrees in European Criminal Business Law and anti-money laundering.

Denelle Dixon is the CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization focused on working with and supporting changemakers to create equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology. She leads the teams that help maintain Stellar's codebase, support the communities around Stellar, and advocate on behalf of the network with international stakeholders. Before joining Stellar, Dixon served as COO of Mozilla, one of the most successful mission-driven open-source organizations.. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams including the ongoing fight for net neutrality and the global effort to ensure that people can control their personal data.

Dermot O’Riordan serves as a Director at the POKT Network Foundation where he helps steer product development and strategy. From Ireland to Silicon Valley, Dermot’s career ranged from advising tech companies and VC firms to leading marquee industry events. His interest in Web3 was sparked in 2016 with the rise of DAOs, leading him to dive deeper into the blockchain space, where he served as an advisor to projects like Radix and Dusk, and later, spearheading growth at Eden Block.

Donovan is a reporter based in Singapore and the author of the Lightspeed newsletter. He previously worked in editorial at Bankless and is a huge fan of spaghetti Westerns and the Wu-Tang Clan. Contact Donovan at donovan@blockworks.co.

Elena leads product marketing at Hiro Systems, a developer tooling company bringing smart contracts to Bitcoin. She has spent the past six years working in blockchain and cryptocurrency startups. Elena co-founded Blockchain Latinx, an online community that explores what blockchain means for Latinos and for Latin America. She has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Eli Cohen is a corporate lawyer with 25+ years of experience in commercial transactions, financial services and regulatory matters and has worked in Asia, Europe and the United States. He is the General Counsel for Centrifuge, a real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and securitization platform and Chief Compliance Officer for Anemoy Capital SPC Limited a British Virgin Islands fund company issuer of the tokenized Anemoy Liquid Treasury Fund 1. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, has a Masters in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Eli Zeger writes about democracy and its relationship with technology. His work has been published in the Boston Review, Noema Magazine, Strange Matters, Zora Zine, among numerous other publications.

Elliot is the Head of Climate Strategy at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, where he is helping unlock Bitcoin's clean energy potential by bridging sustainable miners and climate-conscious investors. In his role at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, Elliot educates policymakers and NGOs on Bitcoin’s relationship with the energy system. He is a climatetech operator focused on alleviating energy poverty, bridging the digital divide, and promoting financial inclusion through technologies such as Bitcoin. Elliot was previously a Schwarzman Scholar and has served in the military, US Department of Energy, Clinton Foundation, and more. 

Evan Thomas is General Counsel for Alluvial, a software development company supporting the Liquid Collective liquid staking protocol. He was previously at Wealthsimple, Canada’s largest consumer fintech, where he was Head of Legal for Wealthsimple’s crypto trading platform. While at Wealthsimple, Evan helped launch Canada’s first regulated staking product. Before Wealthsimple, Evan was a litigator at Osler, Hoskin &amp; Harcourt LLP for nearly 15 years. Among other notable cases, Evan was hearing counsel to 3iQ Corp. in its appeal securing regulatory approval for Canada’s first publicly traded bitcoin fund in 2019.

Felix Jauvin is the host of the On the Margin podcast. Based in British Columbia, Canada, he lives and breathes where crypto and macroeconomics intersect.

Felix Xu, crypto geek, early adopter, and NFT collector. Felix graduated from NYU Stern and founded two crypto projects, ARPA and Bella Protocol, among the global top 500 by market cap. Felix previously worked at Fosun Investment, Sackler family office, and Vertical Research in New York and Beijing. Felix loves sailing, kitesurfing and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for his NFT collection.

Frank has a diverse career that spans creative writing, day trading, and a 12-year stint in financial planning. After experimenting with blockchain and being an early adapter to the Solana ecosystem, Mathis co-founded GenesysGo in 2021 to create a faster, more reliable and more secure decentralized data storage protocol. Their flagship product, shdwDrive is built on Solana and aims to bridge the gap between blockchain technology and traditional business infrastructure. GenesysGo is powered by a new type of decentralized data storage consensus mechanism, built from the ground up by the GenesysGo team.

Fraser is co-founder &amp; CTO of Cubist and an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. She is an expert in software correctness: her research focuses on systems security, automated bug finding, and formal verification, from verifying (parts of) production systems like browser JITs, to finding exploitable bugs in real codebases. Her tools have found many zero-day bountied bugs and CVEs in the Chrome and Firefox browsers and multiple operating systems. Fraser received her BA in English and her MS and PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.


Garrett Harper is the producer for the Empire podcast. Garrett worked in private equity and product management before jumping into crypto full-time in 2021. His favorite thing about crypto? It conflates art, gaming, finance, software, and psychology into one hyper-growth industry.

Gijs op de Weegh is the CEO and Founder of StablR, where he leads the strategy, business operations, and investor relations. He founded StablR out of his passion for implementing blockchain technology in the financial industry and exploring its possibilities. Before founding StablR, Gijs co-founded Payvision, an e-commerce payment service provider, in 2002. Under his leadership, Payvision grew to over 300 employees and achieved a turnover exceeding €4 billion.

Gísli Kristjánsson is co-founder and CTO of Monerium, the first company to issue fiat onchain. He fell in love with programming at the age of 13. After working as a bonds broker, Gísli saw the inefficiencies of securities settlements firsthand and recognized the potential of Bitcoin. Prior to co-founding Monerium in 2015, Gísli founded and sold a platform to give users access to geo-blocked content. Fun fact: Gísli’s Ethereum address is among the 1% of the oldest addresses.

Haden Patrick is Director of Business Operations of Cordial Systems, a provider of institutional-grade self custody software using a Zero Trust security model.  Haden has executive experience in team leadership, engineering and education originating from his 24 year career as a Naval Officer. After co-founding SoloKeys, the first open-source security key company, he went on to manage projects connecting web3 to traditional finance at a cryptocurrency trading firm before joining Cordial Systems.

Hadley Stern, Advisor to MPCH, has extensive experience in leadership roles within TradFi and digital asset industries. As Global Head of Custody at the Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM) from 2021 to 2023, Hadley spearheaded the creation of the industry’s first bank-grade crypto-custody platform. Hadley also previously served as Chief Operating Officer at Bloq where he was responsible for the P&amp;L, product roadmap, and general operations. Hadley was Founding President of Fidelity Digital Asset Services where he led Fidelity's Blockchain Incubator and Digital Currency group and was pivotal in early product launches, including activating Bitcoin donations to Fidelity Charitable and building and running Fidelity first Bitcoin mining Operation.



Hannah Finnerty is Blockworks' head of media ops and is based in the US. Hannah previously worked in podcast production for The National in Abu Dhabi. She graduated from Bowling Green State University with a degree in multiplatform journalism and Middle Eastern politics. Contact Hannah at hannah@blockworks.co.

Hatu Sheikh is the co-founder and CMO of DAO Maker, the largest on-chain funding platform with 1.5M+ users. The platform's contracts have distributed over $600M, with a cumulative return of around 10x. Hatu has a strong background in marketing and strategy and has played a pivotal role in driving the success of various blockchain-based projects and tokens, crafting effective marketing strategies, and forging powerful synergies within the industry.

Harry Duckworth, a law graduate, embarked on a unique journey that led him to become the youngest trader at global commodities giant Trafigura. He then went on to set up desks for several hedge funds worldwide, accumulating over a decade of experience in trading, hedge funds, and emergent technologies. 

Through his work, he became fascinated by the revolutionary power of blockchain tech soon after the inception of Bitcoin. Years later he founded AgriDex International, to provide digital marketplaces and supply chain information for all participants in the global food chain. 

Hind Kurhan is a Co-Founder of Thesis Defense, a decentralized technology security auditing company whose mission is the facilitation of broad adoption of decentralized technology by improving security and audit consistency throughout the blockchain sphere.


Ian Rogers is the Chief Experience Officer at Ledger, leading the consumer-facing business delivering the world’s #1 way to buy and secure cryptocurrency.  Prior, Ian was the Chief Digital Officer at LVMH for five transformative years, working with a portfolio of nearly one hundred brands across luxury including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Sephora, and Hennessy.  Ian also sits on the boards of Dr Marten’s and Lyst.

Ian spent twenty years bringing digital music to the mainstream, first with Winamp then Yahoo!, Beats, and Apple.  Ian contributed to the 2015 launch of Apple Music including Beats 1, their digital streaming channel. Ian graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science (with honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from Indiana University in 1994.  Ian built some of the earliest music-related Web sites in the early 90s and has been working with Beastie Boys since 1993.

Igor Telyatnikov is the CEO and co-founder of the blockchain and financial services technology company AlphaPoint. Headquartered in New York, AlphaPoint supports over 10 million users, powering marketplaces and wallets in over 35 countries. With 15 years of experience in tech and innovation, Igor has empowered over 150 clients, including CME Group and Scotiabank. In 2022, he partnered with the Government of El Salvador to upgrade its Chivo Wallet into a national Bitcoin and dollar wallet, creating the first nationalized crypto ecosystem. Igor previously held roles at Cvetlo, LiftDNA, and Ingersoll Rand/Allegion, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing from Penn State University. He is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Ishan is a University of Texas McCombs School of Business graduate with a BBA in Finance &amp; Marketing. He founded and managed a Private Equity Fund that reached an eight-figure Assets Under Management (AUM) and has also gained experience with many top 200 projects of crypto market cap. In 2022, he helped found SCRIB3, a Web3 Marketing and PR venture. He was notably among the first to raise an alert about potential deceptive and unethical business practices by FTX. Ishan contributes as a DeFi analyst, an active angel investor, and an advisor in projects like Polygon Technologies.

Jack Kubinec is a New York-based reporter and podcast host. He focuses on scoops and investigations at the intersection of money and power in crypto. In 2024, he was awarded Best Impact by a New Journalist by the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers. Jack can be reached for tips (not pitches) at jackkubinec.23 on Signal and jackkubinec@proton.me.













Jag is the CEO and co-founder of re.al, an L2 build to facilitate deep onchain liquidity for tokenized RWAs. re.al seeks to redefine how RWAs are integrated into DeFi, using yield-generating real-world assets as novel building blocks in existing DeFi primitives.

James Cirrone is a breaking news reporter based in New York. Prior to joining Blockworks, James was a reporter and newsletter writer at Bloomberg News. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in journalism. He also played trumpet in the university’s marching band. Contact James via email at james.cirrone@blockworks.co.

Jason Allegrante is the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Fireblocks. He is an experienced Counsel with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry with both large, traditional financial institutions as well as early stage fintech startups.



Jason Dehni is the co-founder and group CEO of Credbull, a leading DeFi platform offering structured high fixed yield solutions in SME private credit. Jason has over 25 years of senior management experience in asset management, private banking, SME lending, insurance, risk management, and crypto across North America, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. His background includes serving as group COO &amp; MENA CEO of a publicly traded crypto asset management company, co-founder &amp; CEO of an SME trade finance platform, and senior leadership roles in asset management, wealth management,  insurance, and management consulting. Jason holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an Honours BA in Economics &amp; Political Science from the University of Toronto. 

Jean-Marie Mognetti is Chief Executive Officer of CoinShares, a publicly listed investment firm that manages over five billion in digital assets on behalf of a global investor base, and an experienced commodities trader with a background in quantitative strategies. A veteran of the Global Advisors group of companies since 2011, Jean-Marie has served in various leadership roles throughout his tenure, most recently as CEO of Global Advisors (Jersey) Limited and director of GABI, the world’s first regulated Bitcoin fund. In addition to his management responsibilities as CEO, Jean-Marie oversees the firm’s proprietary trading arm, capital markets portfolio, and risk management practices – areas in which he has developed unique expertise over his career. Prior to joining Global Advisors, Jean-Marie was a quantitative strategist with Hermes Commodities Fund Managers, and an Energy Trader Assistant at Lehman Brothers. He holds Master of Science degrees in Mathematical Trading and Finance from Sir John Cass Business School in London, and Bank-Finance-Insurance from Université Paris Dauphine in Paris, in addition to a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Finance from Université Paris Dauphine.

Jeff is an editor at Blockworks, based in the United States. He has been a part of the blockchain space for nearly 15 years. His areas of focus include empowering artists and creators through technology, using proof-of-participation methods to reward self-improvement, reducing the effectiveness of Sybil attacks, seeking transparent equity for disadvantaged communities and exploring fairer models of world governance. Contact Jeff at Jeffrey@blockworks.co.


Jesper Johansen is the founder and CEO of NORTHSTAKE, a regulated custodial staking company specialized in building regulatory compliant crypto staking products for institutional investors and financial institutions. The team holds backgrounds from financial institutions, pension funds, large investment companies to consulting, technology and audit firms, such as Accenture, Deloitte, PwC as well as blockchain and crypto projects e.g. DAI Foundation (MakerDao), Ethereum and L1/L2s. 

Prior to NORTHSTAKE, Jesper held leadership positions with Accenture Strategy and Deloitte Consulting advising clients in heavily regulated industries to implement new technologies and drive business transformation. He holds a MBA from Copenhagen Business School and a B.Sc. in International Business. 

Jess is the CEO of Reown, the onchain UX platform and builders of the WalletConnect Network. 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 Sun is an independent writer and content strategist. She loves bringing good ideas to light, helping the people behind them shine, and bridging gaps in understanding. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn. Go to her website to learn about working with her.

Jesse Knutson is the head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, where he is responsible for expanding the platform’s issuance pipeline, overseeing distribution and building its user base while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Prior to this role, Knutson served as vice president of financial products at Blockstream, and held roles at prominent investment banks including Macquarie Group and Barclays.

Jim Myers is an engineer, early-stage investor, and the CTO &amp; Co-Founder of Flipside Crypto, a leading blockchain data analytics and business intelligence platform. Prior to co-founding Flipside, Jim developed the core technology that took products from 0 to 1 at companies such as Mylestone, Pluralsight, and Smarterer. Jim’s journey into the crypto industry began in 2015, eventually co-founding Flipside Crypto in 2017 to help empower crypto communities to create and share data-driven insights on the projects they care most about. Jim's passion for building extends to the broader startup community via his developer event series, Stack Dive, and as an angel investor to several local Boston-area startups, including AdHawk and LinkSquares. In a previous life, Jim developed advanced models to quantify risk and abnormal returns in the market for Financial Transmission Rights, a type of energy derivative.

Blockworks

President Donald Trump plans to tap Michael Selig, chief counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s crypto task force, to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-24/trump-to-pick-michael-selig-for-cftc-chair-amid-crypto-expansion?srnd=homepage-americas">report</a> from Bloomberg.&nbsp;



The appointment marks the administration’s latest step toward unifying federal oversight of digital assets as Congress debates broader crypto market structure legislation.



Selig currently serves as a senior aide to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, where he has focused on aligning the SEC and CFTC’s regulatory approaches to digital assets, swaps, and futures markets.&nbsp;



Before joining the SEC, Selig was a partner at Willkie Farr &amp; Gallagher, advising asset managers on derivatives and financial regulation.&nbsp;



If confirmed by the Senate, Selig would succeed acting leadership at the CFTC, a relatively small but increasingly central regulator of derivatives and crypto markets.&nbsp;



The nomination follows Trump’s earlier failed attempt to install former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz, a16z crypto’s global policy head, whose bid stalled amid industry opposition.



The CFTC, which supervises swaps, futures, and prediction markets, has gained prominence as lawmakers weigh bills clarifying jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC over digital assets.



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



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



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



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



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



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

CFTC

Trump plans to pick Michael Selig to lead CFTC: Report

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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The NEAR L1 blockchain is running into something of a governance debacle.



Since June, NEAR’s community has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/l1s-overpaying-security-tokens-inflation">debated</a> a proposal to halve protocol emissions from 5% to 2.5%.



The original proposal argues that fee burns have fallen well short of expectations, leaving “high inflation without high usage,” which is unsustainable.



The situation for NEAR is stark. NEAR is issuing roughly $140 million of tokens annually to secure a chain with $157 million in TVL and about $3.2 million in year-to-date fees.



For context, Solana’s estimated annual issuance is roughly $5.5 billion, but it supports a far larger, more active DeFi ecosystem with around $11 billion in TVL. From a purely economic lens, NEAR is definitely “overpaying” for security.



That discussion finally culminated in a vote that concluded earlier this week. But though the vote won a simple majority, it failed to clear the 66.67% approval threshold, leaving it technically unsuccessful under NEAR’s governance rules.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1014" height="636" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109508" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=1014 1014w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=410 410w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=416 416w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=349 349w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-121.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1014px) 100vw, 1014px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://vote.linearprotocol.org/">Linearprotocol</a></figcaption></figure>







That’s where the controversy begins. Validator operator Chorus One is criticizing indications that NEAR’s core contributors may still ship a nearcore release containing the change, relying on a subsequent onchain upgrade mechanism to activate it.



<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">Despite this, the NEAR core team decided to proceed with implementing the inflation reduction in the next network upgrade, even though the governance process did not reach consensus.&mdash; Chorus One (@ChorusOne) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChorusOne/status/1981009981026799734?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Louis Thomazeau of L1D fund is <a href="https://x.com/0xLouisT/status/1981334985387757821">pushing back</a> against Chorus One, countering that cutting emissions is “common sense” economics and should take precedence over blind adherence to decentralization ideals. In other words: Sure, there are rules, but a startup’s main job is not to die.



It’s hard to say if there’s a clear right or wrong here; it fundamentally comes down to your philosophical values.



Breaking the rules delivers short-term efficiency, but it risks a dangerous “Fed put” precedent. Following the rules of governance, I guess, safeguards governance integrity, but that’s costly for the network and NEAR in the near term.



Crypto seems to run into the same kinds of problems all the time.



Hyperliquid recently faced a similar <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-liquidation-market-uncertainty">bind</a>.



In March, a trader squeezed the JELLY perps market, saddling the HLP vault with large losses. The team delisted JELLY perps and manually overrode the oracle price to close exposure and stem the damage — an explicit break from crypto’s sacrosanct “code is law” principle to protect depositors.



There are countless examples: Should a chain halt during an exploit (e.g., <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-it-takes-to-halt-a-decentralized-blockchain-like-binance">BNB</a> in 2022)? Should a community hard fork to reverse a hack (Ethereum in 2016)? You get the idea.



If NEAR wants legitimacy, it should probably take the loss and honor its own thresholds. Forcing the outcome through for a “good” outcome today signals that your governance rules are written in sand. But then again, this industry has the memory of a goldfish, so who are we kidding?



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



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



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



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



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

NEAR’s inflation reduction vote fails pass threshold, but it may still be implemented

Polymarket Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Modabber confirmed the prediction market platform will launch a native POLY token and accompanying airdrop following the company’s planned U.S. app rollout.&nbsp;



Speaking on the Degenz Live <a href="https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1DXxyWLbaBvGM">podcast</a>, Modabber said the project’s leadership has been deliberate in timing the token release to ensure “true utility, longevity, and permanence.”&nbsp;



His remarks followed earlier hints from founder Shayne Coplan, who suggested a token launch was in progress in a <a href="https://x.com/shayne_coplan/status/1975994093529690405">post</a> on X.



Polymarket’s renewed U.S. focus comes after regulators permitted the firm to resume operations in the country, which had been suspended in 2022 amid legal uncertainty.&nbsp;



“Why rush a token if we need to prioritize the U.S. app?” Modabber said, emphasizing that the airdrop and broader token rollout would follow once the relaunch is complete.



The confirmation solidifies months of speculation that Polymarket would reward its most active users. Community members anticipate allocations based on trading volume, a model similar to those used by decentralized exchanges and derivatives protocols.&nbsp;



Modabber, on the podcast, praised the Hyperliquid team and noted that teams that take the right approach will be around “forever.” He added that his team is focused on a successful launch focused on longevity.Bloomberg previously <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-23/polymarket-is-seeking-funding-at-a-valuation-of-up-to-15-billion">reported</a> that Polymarket is pursuing new funding that could value the firm as high as $15 billion, following earlier <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/intercontinental-exchange-polymarket">investments</a> by Intercontinental Exchange and Founders Fund.



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 <a href="https://blockworks.co/author/katherine-ross">Katherine Ross</a> before publication.



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



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



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Polymarket

Polymarket CMO confirms POLY token and airdrop plans amid U.S. relaunch

Macauley Peterson

Ethereum developers are moving ahead with a Dec. 3 mainnet fork for the long-awaited Fusaka upgrade, following strong client team support during Thursday’s All Core Devs (ACD) call.



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fusaka-rollout-glamsterdam">timeline remains</a> technically conditional on Hoodie testnet finalization next week, but with no major issues reported on the first two testnets and all client teams signaling approval, the dates are effectively locked in.&nbsp;



Release candidates for mainnet clients are expected Nov. 3, giving node operators one month to make the switch.



The progression to Blob Parameter Override (BPO), will get a schedule tweak, however.



“BPO one and two on December 9 and then on January 7, respectively,” Alex Stokes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In1-paNfjzQ">said on the call</a>. “We did a temperature check last call, we’re generally on board, so I wanted to do the same thing here.” All major client teams present gave a green light.&nbsp;



Blobs were <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-dencun-upgrade-mainnet">introduced with Dencun</a> (March 2024), specifically through <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-improvement-proposal-4844">EIP-4844</a> (proto-danksharding), but the BPO staging is a new mechanism being introduced with Fusaka to dynamically adjust blob parameters post-fork, unlike Dencun’s static blob configuration.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109497" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-119.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Blob utilization is one Ethereum metric that’s been up and to the right | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/659">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







The advantage of BPOs is that they lower risk, Gabriel Trintinalia noted, an engineer on the Consensys team that maintains LFDT&#8217;s <a href="https://www.lfdecentralizedtrust.org/projects/besu">Besu</a> client.



“It lets us grow blob capacity step by step, based on real network data and performance,” Trintinalia told Blockworks. “And of course, in the unlikely event that we observe any performance degradation, BPOs can be used to safely reduce the number of blobs as needed.”



The Sepolia fork continues to progress smoothly.&nbsp;



“We have 99% [validator participation]. Every single combination is just fine now. We rolled out the latest stage and that solved all of our bugs,” said Barnabas Busa, who coordinates Ethereum testnets. “Everything went smooth.”



The next Sepolia BPO activation is scheduled in four days, ahead of the Hoodi fork. If those proceed as planned, mainnet confirmation is expected during next week’s call.



“Client teams have done extensive work to ensure the network can handle the blob increase unlocked by PeerDas, including multiple benchmarks, bandwidth analysis, instability simulations, and more.”



Holesky, which has already seen its last fork with Fusaka testing, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-hard-fork-updates">will be deprecated</a> next week. “We’ll be officially shutting it off next Friday,” Busa said.



Fusaka introduces Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS), allowing nodes to verify data through sampling instead of full downloads. Infrastructure providers expect <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-ethereum-tps">PeerDAS</a> to lower costs by more than 90%, paving the way for lower blob fees, cheaper rollup operations, and faster oracle updates across the L2 ecosystem.



Formal confirmation of the fork date is expected soon after Hoodi’s fork activation on Oct. 28, barring any unforeseen issues.



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Ethereum

Fusaka upgrade on track as devs eye December mainnet fork

The rapid slide in US Treasury yields is prodding some stablecoin treasuries to diversify.&nbsp;



This week, Spark — the DeFi lending protocol and core “Star” within the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/makerdao">Sky</a> (formerly MakerDAO) ecosystem — allocated $100 million of its stablecoin reserves to Superstate’s USCC fund, a regulated crypto carry product that earns yield from futures basis trades instead of solely interest on government debt.



The move comes just as the 10-year Treasury yield dipped below 4% for the first time since April, closing at 3.976%. Lower yields have squeezed protocols that rely on short-duration Treasuries to fund operations and incentives. Spark’s pivot marks one of the first large-scale moves by a major stablecoin issuer away from Treasuries into regulated, crypto-derived yield.



“Access to stable, diversified yield is increasingly critical as Treasury returns compress,” <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/24236f98-1f88-11ee-8f36-3b1c045b48bd">Superstate</a> CEO Robert Leshner said. “The investment allows Spark to maintain exposure to yield opportunities uncorrelated with Federal Reserve rate policy while operating within a compliant institutional framework.”



Sam MacPherson, CEO and co-founder of Phoenix Labs — which developed <a href="https://blockworks.com/analytics/spark">Spark</a> — said Superstate’s USCC fund enables the protocol to “diversify its reserves while maintaining the same level of safety and compliance Spark always prioritizes.”



USCC uses basis trading strategies that exploit the spread between spot and futures prices on assets such as bitcoin, ether, solana, and XRP. It currently reports a 30-day yield of 8.35%. The strategy benefits from busy derivatives markets, which provide the pricing gaps the fund harvests. CME alone logged more than $900 billion in futures and options volume in Q3, led by ETH.



The product is custodied by <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/anchorage-digital">Anchorage Digital</a>, audited by Ernst &amp; Young, and calculates its NAV through NAV Fund Services.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Rate compression meets tokenomics overhaul</h2>



The USCC allocation comes amid broader changes in <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sky-dao-adoption">the Sky ecosystem</a> as it adapts to a lower-rate environment. A fresh governance proposal would shift staking rewards from being paid in <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usds">USDS</a>, Sky’s flagship stablecoin, to the SKY token itself. The plan would direct 500 million SKY to the treasury and raise daily buybacks to $300,000 in USDS, with rewards transitioning fully to SKY after 90 days. The change would be reversible if market conditions shift.



This tokenomics revamp follows Sky’s introduction of stUSDS, its first risk capital token. The new instrument is designed for advanced users and institutions willing to take on more protocol risk in exchange for a higher share of system rewards. stUSDS yield is derived from the stability fees paid by borrowers minting USDS against SKY collateral, linking capital formation more directly to protocol revenues.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rune-christensen">Rune Christensen</a>, co-founder of Sky, said stUSDS is part of a strategy to bring “maximum effectiveness and efficiency to capital formation” as the protocol scales beyond its original MakerDAO model.



Christiansen is also the top user of the new borrowing option, which could strain liquidity in a crisis.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">We already see the risk-reward for depositors deteriorating, with yield (still subsidized) down to 15%. Similarly, the cost to borrow is reduced from 20% to 15%, which should save Rune around $2m a year in borrowing costs. With borrowers paying 15%, and utilization around 33%,… <a href="https://t.co/wVvz2ZspS7">https://t.co/wVvz2ZspS7</a>&mdash; PaperImperium (@ImperiumPaper) <a href="https://twitter.com/ImperiumPaper/status/1978796127953580395?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Sky’s ecosystem has expanded through its autonomous Stars — Spark, Grove, and Keel — which deploy stablecoin reserves into DeFi markets. Spark alone has grown to over $11 billion in total volume locked.&nbsp;



Grove has secured <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/janus-henderson-clo-token-1b">$1 billion in allocations</a> for institutional credit strategies, while <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/bellcurve/e52e1726-a071-11f0-9ade-f7dada941856">Keel</a> is set to bring $2.5 billion in capital to Solana’s on-chain ecosystem.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Spark’s evolving yield mix</h2>



Spark’s own Savings product has been expanding in parallel. Its V2 launch this week brings support for USDC, USDT, and ETH, while maintaining a conservative risk framework. Spark Savings currently offers 4.75% APY — about 75 basis points above <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/aave">Aave’s</a> comparable stablecoin yields — primarily from lending against BTC, ETH, and liquid staking tokens.



<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">Stablecoin composition on SparkLend has seen big changes over the past couple months. USDT and PYUSD have quickly become the dominant stablecoins on the platform, replacing USDS and DAI as both the 1st and 2nd most deposited and borrowed stablecoins on the platform. DAI, and… <a href="https://t.co/gXe8y5TJPA">pic.twitter.com/gXe8y5TJPA</a>&mdash; Jack 🟪 (@JackMandin) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackMandin/status/1981349953969516941?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The USCC allocation represents a measured step into basis-driven, crypto-native yield that remains market-neutral and regulated — a combination DeFi protocols increasingly seek as Treasury returns slide. For Sky, which oversees more than <a href="https://info.sky.money/supply">$9 billion</a> in circulating USDS and DAI across multiple chains, the shift shows how the DAO can maintain flexibility in its treasury strategy, positioning for a lower rate environment where yield will have to come from new sources.



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MakerDAO

Sky pivots beyond treasuries as yields dip, staking overhaul looms

Ledger is recasting its companion app from a portfolio viewer into the primary interface for its hardware.



Ledger Live is becoming Ledger Wallet, with native dapp logins (starting with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/1inch">1inch</a>) and integrated cash-to-stablecoin rails.



Front and center is the goal is to remove <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ledger">Ledger</a> owners’ need to use a third-party wallet like Rabby to as an interface for their signer.



At the same time, Ledger is targeting institutional workflows with Enterprise Multisig. The new offering is “built on Safe’s open source tech, but with Clear Signing natively integrated,” Sebastien Badault, Ledger&#8217;s VP of Enterprise, told Blockworks.



The company says it will be simple to migrate from <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a> to Ledger Multisig to make use of Clear Signing features not yet available in the Safe Wallet.



“The industry told us they want Multisig, but the last year of hacks told us they also need Clear Signing (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bybit-attack-institutional-grade-security">see Bybit</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/p2p-eth-staking">Swissborg</a> etc), so we built it,” Badault said.



Ledger <a href="https://shop.ledger.com/pages/ledger-multisig-terms-of-use">charges</a> a &#8220;multisig fee&#8221; per transaction, automatically bundled into the transaction’s “priority fee,” however.



For Safe, it’s “a validation” of the infrastructure provider’s role as “the industry standard,” according to Lukas Schor, President of Safe Ecosystem Foundation.



“We are collaborating with Ledger as well as the wider ecosystem on making clear signing the standard,” Schor told Blockworks, noting that the feature should make its way into “all products build on Safe,” soon.



On the hardware side, Ledger is pitching its new Nano Gen5 signer as a step-up for budget conscious users looking for features found in the company’s pricier hardware.



“The goal was to offer the experience of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ledger-new-touchscreen-focused-offering">Ledger Flex</a> and Ledger Stax at a more affordable price point,” Ledger spokesperson Ariel Wengroff told Blockworks. The device lists at $179/€179 and includes Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and an E Ink touchscreen.



It could also be seen as a replacement for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ledger-nano-s-support-ending">the aging Nano S line</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109481" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-118.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">DEX trading volume, which was steady throughout the summer, has spiked sharply in October. | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/2164">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







Currently, few dapps offer direct Ledger connections, and many users prefer connecting <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cold-wallets-secure-crypto-custody">hardware signers</a> through a browser-based wallet such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/metamask">MetaMask</a>, Rabby or <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/phantom">Phantom</a>. On-ramping from fiat rails is getting a boost via global payments firm Noah, to provide instant USD/EUR top-ups into USDC with no additional fees from Ledger.&nbsp;



Under the hood, Ledger continues to emphasize its audit posture and the maturity of its secure-element stack, which has a spotless record in an increasingly crowded hardware signer market.



Rival Trezor just unveiled its Safe 7 (no relation to Safe Wallet), an all-wireless, “quantum-ready” device using Tropic Square’s TROPIC01 open, auditable chip with a $250 price, <a href="https://thedrop.beehiiv.com/p/crack-it-open">according to my colleague Kate Irwin at The Drop</a>.



While Ledger’s hardware has remained secure, its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ledger-victims-being-made-whole">software connections</a> and customer data have been the target of hackers in the past, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-class-action">a persistent industry problem</a>.



Competition beyond incumbents like Trezor, Keystone, GridPlus and Keycard, include a new wave of mobile-first signers — such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/seeker-review-solana-mobile">Solana’s Seeker</a> and the Ethereum-focused <a href="https://x.com/EthereumPhone">dgen1</a>. These devices target a bespoke dapp experience, for users on-the-go.



For Ledger users, the Nano Gen5 pairs with Bluetooth 5.2 for signing and NFC for Ledger Security Key (FIDO2 passkeys) for logins, alongside USB-C when you want a wired link.



Under this paradigm, the hardware becomes less a dongle and more an identity-and-approvals layer that spans uses from retail swaps to policy-gated multisig.



Updated October 24, 2025 at 4:13 am ET: Added info about Ledger Multisig fee



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Ledger

Ledger Nano Gen5 feels like Flex for less

Casey Wagner

Democrats and Republicans hosted dueling roundtables with crypto industry executives on Wednesday in an effort to advance cryptocurrency market structure legislation.&nbsp;



More than three months after the House passed the CLARITY Act, the bill has yet to make meaningful progress in the Senate. According to people familiar with Wednesday’s discussions, both parties are pointing fingers.&nbsp;



Democrats, gathered by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday morning, are growing frustrated with the crypto industry’s tendency to align itself with Republicans.&nbsp;



“Don’t be an arm of the Republican Party, they used you all and your megaphones to f*** us,” Democrat Sen. Ruben Gallego told industry members and fellow Democrats during the roundtable discussion, according to two people in attendance.&nbsp;



Senate Banking Committee Chair Sen. Tim Scott, who hosted fellow Republicans and industry voices Wednesday afternoon, disagreed, saying Republicans have been waiting for Democrats to come to the table.&nbsp;



“Despite repeated requests for edits and redlines from Democrats, they have yet to provide formal feedback or agree to a markup date,” a spokesperson for Sen. Scott told Blockworks.&nbsp;



The roundtables come after Senate Banking Committee Republicans released a <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/senate_banking_committee_digital_asset_market_structure_legislation_discussion_draft.pdf">second discussion draft</a> of the legislation last month. Democrats responded with a list of <a href="https://www.gallego.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Market-Structure-Framework-Final.pdf">principles</a> they’d like to see in the legislation. An additional Democratic proposal focused on DeFi was <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Ws48Myk5E_iwaBrhjgZmxFUnhPG0KdQ/edit">leaked</a> earlier this month, furthering the divide between the two parties.&nbsp;



The industry’s public — and widely negative — response to this leaked document derailed negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, a person familiar with the matter told Blockworks. Democrats specifically warned industry members that the reaction thwarted the bill’s progress, the person added.&nbsp;



Committee Republicans originally wanted to markup the legislation in late September, but delayed “to give Democrat colleagues additional time to come to the table and substantively engage on legislative text,” the spokesperson added.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Republicans have not ruled out scheduling a markup amid the government shutdown, which has now entered its fourth week, a person familiar with the matter said.&nbsp;



Several Democrats are still concerned about President Trump and his family’s crypto business dealings, a person in attendance noted.&nbsp;



Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who attended both the Democrat and Republican meetings, told reporters Wednesday that these ethical concerns are “much broader than crypto.”&nbsp;



The industry is still waiting on the Senate Agriculture Committee to release its market structure bill draft. This version of the legislation will focus primarily on the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission’s role in overseeing crypto markets.&nbsp;



The bill was “close” to the finish line before the government shutdown, a person familiar with the matter said, but with CFTC staffers who work with Congressional committees now furloughed, it’s unclear when progress could be made.



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Capitol Gains

Capitol Gains: What’s the market structure holdup? Depends who you ask

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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Less than two years ago, Jupiter was “just” a DEX aggregator. Today, the company looks more like a DeFi conglomerate, or a “superapp.”



On top of its flagship spot aggregator, the team runs perps, a memecoin launchpad, the JLP liquidity pool, lending, liquid staking, a portfolio tracker, a RFQ venue (JupiterZ), developer APIs, a token verification system (Verify) and the third-largest Solana validator.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1166" height="1263" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109473" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=1166 1166w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=277 277w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=945 945w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=237 237w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=241 241w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=202 202w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-117.png?w=74 74w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1166px) 100vw, 1166px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://docsend.com/view/bihwsdikxcpnv3kt">Jupiter</a></figcaption></figure>







Too many? That’s not yet including the pipeline of emerging products: a jupUSD stablecoin, a prediction market in partnership with Kalshi, an ICO launchpad (Jupiter DTF), and its “omnichain” network JupNet. I’m probably still missing some.



Jupiter’s suite of products is not inactive shelfware, either. Almost every product stands on its own. In its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBZ1N7cOddY">Q3 token holder update</a> yesterday, the team pegs Q3 revenue at ~$45 million — ~$180 million annualized. 



For a crypto business, that’s real money.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="503" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109470" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=922 922w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-114.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jupiter’s DEX aggregator dominates Solana DeFi</figcaption></figure>







But while Jupiter is firing on all cylinders, there’s an uncomfortable truth: The JUP token hasn’t kept up. JUP sits at around a $1.1 billion market cap today, down from $3 billion at its peak earlier this year, or a ~6.2x P/S.



In my conversations with Solana traders and investors, everyone has a different explanation for why the token of Solana’s most prominent protocol hasn’t performed well this year.



Some cited the token’s lack of utility. One liquid fund told me that JUP was perceived as too “safe” for speculative money; others pointed to the fact that JUP’s buybacks were too small relative to its FDV.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1179" height="579" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109471" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=1179 1179w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-116.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1179px) 100vw, 1179px" /></figure>



The pseudonymous founder of Elemental, Moo, gave me a simpler take: “Jupiter had an ‘Avengers’ moment where all the hype the team built culminated in last year’s Catstanbul event.



“Given the level of hype, a correction was inevitable. And when prices drop, people start questioning everything. The community’s main concern now seems to be whether Jupiter&#8217;s growth plans will be enough to reignite interest in the token. Jupiter has a grand vision, but it will take time to execute.”



Jupiter also has something of a complexity tax, a similar problem that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-elevator-pitch">Ethereum</a> suffers from.&nbsp;



When a company spans a dozen interrelated businesses, the story gets harder to model, and markets often apply a discount until the value capture is obvious.&nbsp;



I’d love to see an investment analyst brave enough to publish a sum-of-parts model for Jupiter’s product zoo.



To the team’s credit, they seem to recognize these problems and are taking steps to rectify it.



In the team’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBZ1N7cOddY">Q3 token holders update</a> last night, the Jupiter team called for a “fresh start for JUP” and outlined moves aimed at tighter focus: scaling back DAO voting to only &#8220;major tokenomics and treasury decisions&#8221;, cutting the JUP unstaking period from 30 days to seven, and — pending governance — burning 121 million JUP (~$42 million) from the Litterbox strategic reserve.



“Some of the mechanics around [the] JUP token were preventing people from getting engaged. We want to fix that. Some of the overemphasis and overfocus on the comms side around the DAO was turning people off and creating a negative attention flywheel. Don&#8217;t want to do that anymore,” Dhanda said on the livestream.



Jupiter has built a rare thing in crypto, an operating business that throws off cash across multiple product lines.&nbsp;



Markets are for now pricing the token like a safe, sprawling operator rather than a single, spicy bet. If Jupiter can make the value path to JUP simpler, maybe it can change the fate of its token, too.&nbsp;



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DEXs

Jupiter wants to turn its token’s fate around

US President Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former chief executive of Binance.



Zhao, widely known as “CZ,” pleaded <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/binance-and-ceo-plead-guilty-federal-charges-4b-resolution">guilty</a> in 2023 to violations of U.S. anti-money-laundering laws and was serving a four-month prison sentence following a $4.3 billion settlement between Binance and the U.S. Department of Justice.



The Wall Street Journal first <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-pardons-convicted-binance-founder-7509bd63?mod=breakingnews">reported</a> the news.&nbsp;



The pardon removes all remaining legal penalties against Zhao, who had stepped down from Binance as part of the plea deal, according to the report.&nbsp;



White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the WSJ that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.&nbsp;



“The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”



Zhao, a Canadian citizen born in China, founded Binance in 2017 and built it into the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume. His conviction stemmed from failures to implement anti-money-laundering controls and violations of U.S. sanctions.



This is a developing story.



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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">Michael McSweeney</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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



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



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



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

Binance

Trump pardons Binance founder Changpeng Zhao: WSJ

Kunal Doshi

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>.



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



GM, everyone. These markets are definitely not the easiest to trade. Bitcoin and major indices continue to bleed, and on the altcoin side, only 24% of the top 100 tokens have outperformed bitcoin in the last 90 days. However, there are still pockets of outperformance, and we believe MegaETH&#8217;s public sale will be one of them.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Indices</h2>



The market remained under pressure yesterday, with the S&amp;P 500 (-0.62%), Nasdaq (-0.97%), and BTC (-0.63%) all closing lower. Despite the sharp selloff earlier this week, gold has continued to attract safe-haven flows, rising 0.78% as buyers stepped in amid a weaker dollar and growing expectations of rate cuts.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="854" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109455" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Much of the recent sentiment has been shaped by developments in US-China trade talks, but Q3 earnings are adding to the caution. Both Netflix and Tesla reported softer-than-expected results, while Texas Instruments issued a weak revenue outlook for the fourth quarter, citing tariff-related headwinds.



Crypto markets mirrored the broader pullback, with all sectors closing in the red. Still, a few pockets of resilience stood out. The AI sector, down -0.28%, and DeFi, down -0.27%, both outperformed BTC on the day. The AI index held up, mainly thanks to TAO, which accounts for 17.5% of the sector, supported by renewed optimism ahead of its halving event in two months.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="847" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109459" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-113.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



At the other end, Launchpads and Memes were the weakest sectors, down -4.6% and -3.4%, respectively, reflecting fading risk appetite across the market. All eyes now turn to tomorrow’s CPI print, which could set the tone for inflation expectations and determine how quickly rate cuts follow.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Market Update</h2>



Despite $615 million in ETF inflows Tuesday, overall flows have flipped negative again, underscoring the market’s uncertainty. Much of bitcoin’s recent weakness has been driven by OG whales taking profits, with one notable trader, who pocketed $197 million during October’s crash, building a massive $230 million short position against BTC. But even he has now <a href="https://x.com/lookonchain/status/1981024032074957176">closed</a> his short, a move that’s being read as a subtle signal of renewed confidence and a possible shift in sentiment.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="797" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109454" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-109.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The bulk of the recent moves have also come from the uncertainty of US-China trade relations and questions surrounding whether the presidents of both these countries will be meeting to discuss these issues. But there is a high chance of a resolution here, with markets on Kalshi pricing in a 70% chance of both the presidents meeting by the end of October. Any small positive development here is enough to push the market higher.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="876" height="616" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109452" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=876 876w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=365 365w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=371 371w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=311 311w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-107.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px" /></figure>



The Altcoin Season Index paints a similar picture of consolidation. We’re sitting near 90-day lows, with only 24 of the top 100 tokens outperforming bitcoin, including exchange tokens such as BNB and MNT, perp DEX names like ASTER and MYX, and privacy coins including ZEC and XMR. These pockets of strength reflect the recent narratives that have run. Periods like this, when exuberance fades and dominance consolidates, often form the base for the next market leg higher.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1502" height="671" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109456" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=1502 1502w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-111.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1502px) 100vw, 1502px" /></figure>



With three rate cuts <a href="https://kalshi.com/markets/kxratecutcount/number-of-rate-cuts/kxratecutcount-25dec31">expected</a> in 2025 and a potential Trump-Xi Jinping meeting on the horizon, there are clear short-term tailwinds building for a relief move. But remember, markets rarely reward complacency. Stay patient, stay nimble, and accumulate projects you’d want to own even if the market takes one more leg down.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">MegaETH’s public round</h2>



MegaETH’s public sale could offer outsized returns for early buyers.&nbsp;



This is the third round open to the community, after the Echo community round (priced similarly to VC investors including Dragonfly and Vitalik) and the Fluffle NFT round, which implied roughly a $532 million FDV. This follows MegaETH&#8217;s recent buyback of around 4.75% <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/375090/megaeth-buys-back-equity-token-warrants-pre-seed-investors">equity and token-linked warrants</a> from early pre-seed investors.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="854" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109457" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-110.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The public sale of $MEGA starts at 9 a.m. ET on Oct. 27, 2025 and will run for 72 hours. Key details of the upcoming sale include:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Date: Oct. 27-30, 2025 (72 hours)</li>



<li>Payment Method: USDT on Ethereum mainnet</li>



<li>Supply: 10 billion MEGA tokens (5% allocation, totaling 500 million tokens)</li>



<li>Sale Format: English Auction (FDV range approximately $1 million-$999 million)</li>



<li>Bid Limits: Minimum $2,650 / Maximum $186,282</li>



<li>Lock-up Terms: Mandatory one-year lock-up plus 10% discount for US investors; optional lock-up for non-US investors</li>
</ul>



While the public sale initially opens at an implied FDV as low as $1 million, recent raises strongly suggest it will reach the maximum valuation of around $1 billion (and quickly). Meanwhile:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The MEGA-USD premarket perpetual on Hyperliquid currently prices $MEGA at a $5 billion FDV, with $17 million in trading volume over the past 24 hours.</li>



<li>Polymarket, despite lower volume ($147K traded), forecasts an 89% likelihood that MEGA trades above a $2 billion FDV and a 50% chance it surpasses $4 billion FDV within 24 hours post-launch.</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1262" height="686" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109458" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=1262 1262w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-112.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1262px) 100vw, 1262px" /></figure>



But why would MegaETH intentionally launch below its potential valuation ceiling?



Historically, public sales conducted via English auctions suffer from a common problem: The sale price lands exactly at the valuation acceptable to the final marginal buyer. When the token becomes liquid post-sale, buying pressure evaporates, often triggering a price collapse. Dutch auctions (where price starts high and lowers) have a similar problem; the marginal buyer buys at the highest price acceptable to them. Oftentimes the subsequent price action leads to the project being dead out of the gates.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="501" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109453" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png?w=740 740w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png?w=380 380w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png?w=386 386w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png?w=323 323w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-108.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /></figure>



Therefore, recently some projects have deliberately chosen to underprice their public sales (think Plasma at $500 million FDV), guided by the following ideals:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>The best way to build a community is to reward them early and give them something to believe in.</li>



<li>Long term, the market is a weighing scale and prices will adjust close to fair value. </li>



<li>If the fair value of a token is $5 billion, it&#8217;s better that the token re-rates upwards from $1 billion, rather than repricing from $20 billion to $5 billion.</li>
</ol>



Raising a small community round at an attractive valuation appears to be an effective go-to-market strategy, almost becoming a necessary “community tax” similar to airdrops for building positive public sentiment. Overall, I believe the MegaETH public sale will be worth a punt.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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

ETFs

MegaETH’s public sale looks MegaCHEAP

Katherine Ross

Paxos is rolling out the ability for employees to receive part of their salaries in USDG due to a Toku integration, Blockworks has exclusively learned.&nbsp;



The integration will utilize the same payroll platforms — ADP and Workday — but allows employees to receive USDG straight to their wallets.&nbsp;



For employees who opt to receive USDG, the settlement, unlike with traditional paychecks, will be immediate. There won’t be a waiting period to receive the stablecoin.&nbsp;



“By adopting USDG payroll for our team, Paxos is showing the most direct path for users to access and experience USDG in everyday life. As more companies plug into Toku’s payroll rails, USDG becomes accessible to thousands of employees globally, right at the source of their income,” Paxos noted in a press release.&nbsp;



Stablecoins are the biggest way that employees across the industry are being paid in crypto, per a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-salaries-2024-pantera-survey">Pantera survey</a> conducted at the end of 2024.&nbsp;



“USDC (63%) and USDT (28.6%) collectively account for over 90% of crypto salaries, cementing their status as the go-to choices for payroll stability and liquidity,” the report found.



For Toku, this move is the first step to opening up a new way for employees to be paid.&nbsp;



Toku CEO Ken O’Friel told Blockworks that he wants to broaden the horizon for employees and make it so folks don’t have to receive a payment to a checking account, but instead can receive salaries “directly to where you want.”



He believes Paxos is just one of the first companies to implement this type of option for employees, but that we’ll start to see more companies — even traditional institutions — roll out this option as part of their payroll in the future.&nbsp;



“People really discount how entrenched a lot of these enterprise software solutions are to the entire organization. And then there are people behind those tools that have been doing things a certain way for fifteen to twenty years [or] their whole career. And so forcing change on that in that big enterprise that’s resistant to change is really, really hard,” O’Friel noted.&nbsp;



So Toku developed an API that works inside payroll software to “coordinate and orchestrate [receiving stablecoins] between the payroll provider and the company,” he explained.



O’Friel told Blockworks that this is the “gateway” to a broader adoption. The technology, he added, is finally ready in ways it wasn’t even four years ago.&nbsp;



“From our standpoint, I think when you start being in that flow of funds, like, there’s a lot of optionality in terms of what you can do from a product standpoint, but we’re just really focused on getting the institutions on board. And so for us…we can also pay people and tokenized money market funds; it’s really anything. We can pay people in Bitcoin if they want, or any token we’re able to support. So it doesn’t just stop at stablecoins,” he said.&nbsp;



Updated 10/23/2025 at 10:23 a.m. ET to reflect Toku&#8217;s software integrations.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

employees

Exclusive: Paxos to allow employees to be paid in USDG

As markets melted on October 10, and many centralized exchanges stuttered, Aave didn’t flinch.



The protocol automatically liquidated over $200 million in collateral, preserving solvency without disruption, as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/aave">Aave</a> founder Stani Kulechov told a DAS London audience last week during a panel on DeFi rate markets.



“It was scary because of the size of the protocol today,” Kulechov said. “But things ended up well. DeFi really proved itself.”



That resilience followed from a Q3 marked by steady deposits, healthy lending demand, and normalized rates. But looking ahead, Kulechov sees an even bigger shift coming: global rate cuts could reignite yield flows — and widen the rate spread between TradFi and DeFi.



The quarter ended with Aave’s lending machine looking sturdy and, increasingly, boring — in the good way. The protocol’s revenue stack was led once again by net interest income, with flash loans and liquidations a comparatively small slice. That’s exactly how the system is supposed to behave in a normalized rate regime.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109432" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-104.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Blockworks Research financials dashboard makes it easy to see the mix in one view | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/3394">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







A calmer rate backdrop also showed up in stablecoin supply APYs on Ethereum, which settled into the 3%–5% range after the late-2024 spikes. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109435" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-106.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/3443">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







That normalization coincided with a steady climb in total deposits and outstanding loans, pushing Aave’s footprint back toward cycle highs across deployments.



“What’s powerful about DeFi is transparency — you can actually see where the yield is coming from,” Kulechov said.



All together, that added up to a record quarter for the protocol, topping Q4 2024 and reversing a two quarter slide.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109431" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-103.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/3871">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







Kulechov was pleased with how DeFi dapps handled the bout of extreme volatility.



“They get stress tested based on the parameters and risk assessments done before events like this,” he said. “We liquidated over $200 million worth of collateral — that’s the native way the protocol keeps solvency in turbulence.”



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109433" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-105.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Liquidation fee revenue, while modest, hit a 4-month peak | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/3394">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







Euler, by contrast, saw fewer liquidations, CEO Michael Bentley explained on the panel, citing a difference in the typical borrower mix.



“People build bespoke credit markets [on Euler] — some use just-in-time liquidity to market make or provide instant redemption for RWAs [and] every market on Euler has a unique use case,” Bentley said.



On product roadmap and Q4 direction, Bentley pointed to “more integrations with fintechs — and new products coming online.”



“We’ve been working a lot on fixed rate products, so we’re going to keep innovating and pushing out new products for integrators using Euler,” he said.



Kulechov’s focus heading into year-end is on macro.



“I’m super eager for central bank rates to go down. Historically, when that happens, financial innovation accelerates. Rate cuts could create big arb opportunities between TradFi and DeFi. If DeFi remains safe, we’ll see more traditional participants — neobanks, fintechs — plugging in for yield.”



When policy rates drift lower, spreads between on-chain funding and TradFi tend to widen, setting up the kind of basis-style flows that supported lending during prior easing cycles.



The quarter is also expected to see <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-v4-roadmap">the launch of Aave V4</a>, which aims to streamline the protocol’s architecture and expand its product surface for both crypto-native and institutional users.



Armed with granular data, DeFi watchers can track the same protocol levers Kulechov highlighted — deposits vs. loans, revenue composition, liquidation activity, and rate volatility — and judge whether the coming macro shift turns into the “arb opportunities” he expects.



If it does, Aave’s metrics should tell the story quickly: spreads widen, utilization grinds higher, and net interest continues to climb alongside deposits.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/skZoQuC5tAg?si=FlOnwwnEz_pXcF3D" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>



Watch the panel here:



<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skZoQuC5tAg">The Next Generation of Rate Markets | DAS London 2025</a>



<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 Next Generation of Rate Markets | DAS London 2025 | Day 2 | Investor" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/skZoQuC5tAg?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>



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Aave

Aave’s Q3 showed resilient revenue and calmer rates — and Stani is eyeing a Q4 macro tailwind

Prediction market operator Kalshi is receiving investor offers valuing the company at more than $10 billion, according to a Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-22/prediction-market-kalshi-fields-investor-offers-at-over-10-billion-valuation?srnd=phx-crypto">report</a>.&nbsp;



That valuation would make Kalshi one of the largest prospective valuations yet for a regulated event-trading platform.&nbsp;



The offers come just weeks after Kalshi closed a $300 million round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, which pegged the New York-based startup at around $5 billion.



Founded in 2018, Kalshi lets users trade contracts tied to real-world outcomes — from U.S. elections and economic data to sports contests and government shutdown durations.&nbsp;



The company operates under a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) license, distinguishing it from crypto-native venues such as Polymarket, a major rival. After a court victory in October 2024 allowed Kalshi to list presidential-election contracts, trading volumes surged to new highs.&nbsp;



Chief executive Tarek Mansour said this month the exchange has reached an annualized volume of $50 billion.



<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">Kalshi recently raised $300M+ at $5B from Sequoia, a16z, Paradigm and others. Since then, we&#39;ve grown over 3x, hit $50B of annualized volume, and became the largest prediction market in the world. And today…Kalshi goes global. 140+ countries. 1 liquidity pool. <a href="https://t.co/Z2myzRw9bA">pic.twitter.com/Z2myzRw9bA</a>&mdash; Tarek Mansour (@mansourtarek_) <a href="https://twitter.com/mansourtarek_/status/1976641515549348160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The competition in prediction markets is intensifying. Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, recently pledged up to $2 billion in Polymarket at an $8 billion valuation. The National Hockey League became the first major sports league to partner with both Kalshi and Polymarket under multiyear agreements announced this week.



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">Michael McSweeney</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Kalshi

Kalshi attracts investor offers valuing platform above $10 billion: Report

Senators involved in crafting crypto market-structure legislation may not be communicating much with one another, but they are talking to the industry.&nbsp;



Democrats and Republicans hosted dueling roundtables with crypto industry executives on Wednesday after negotiations between the parties stalled earlier this month. A bipartisan agreement appears to be a long way off, one source says, particularly if the industry continues to align itself with Republicans.&nbsp;



“Don’t be an arm of the Republican Party, they used you all and your megaphones to f*** us,” Democrat Sen. Ruben Gallego told industry members and fellow Democrats Wednesday morning, according to two people in attendance.&nbsp;



Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was involved in bipartisan efforts to pass stablecoin legislation earlier this year, hosted the Democrats’ roundtable. Attendees included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Solana Policy Institute president Kristin Smith, Paradigm regulatory affairs VP Justin Slaughter, and Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty.&nbsp;



All Democrat Senators in attendance said they are committed to passing a crypto market structure bill, a person familiar with the matter said. Members added that Republicans themselves are not completely aligned on their draft.



The Republican meeting, which kicked off Wednesday afternoon, was hosted by Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott and Cynthia Lummis, who worked closely with Gillibrand on stablecoin legislation and previous versions of a crypto market structure bill.&nbsp;



Some invited industry voices, including Armstrong and Smith, attended both meetings, but as of Wednesday afternoon, party leaders had no formal plan to meet with one another, according to a person familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



The roundtables come as industry members grow skeptical that market structure will pass this year – or even this session – of Congress. Increasing concern from Democrats about President Trump and his family’s involvement in the industry, coupled with internal disagreements between crypto companies about what should be in the bill, are posing challenges, one person involved in lobbying efforts told Blockworks.&nbsp;



The House passed the CLARITY Act in July. The Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees have since been working on their own versions of the bill, which will eventually have to merge with each other and CLARITY.



Senate Banking Committee Republicans released a <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/senate_banking_committee_digital_asset_market_structure_legislation_discussion_draft.pdf">revamped version</a> of their bill last month. Democrats responded with a list of <a href="https://www.gallego.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Market-Structure-Framework-Final.pdf">principles</a> they’d like to see in the legislation. An additional Democratic proposal focused on DeFi was leaked earlier this month, furthering the divide between the two parties.&nbsp;



Senate Banking Committee Republicans are eager to markup their draft, but are growing frustrated with Democrats and their proposals. Republicans want Democrats to come to the table with a complete draft so negotiations can continue, according to two people familiar with the matter.&nbsp;



Wednesday’s roundtables come as the government shutdown continues, now in its third week and officially the second-longest in US history. Committee leadership will move ahead with crypto market structure legislation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/capitol-gains-shutdown-blues">even if the shutdown continues</a>, three people familiar with the matter told Blockworks.



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Cynthia Lummis

Democrat tells crypto execs Republicans ‘used them’: Sources

Blockworks Advisory

Raydium

Raydium Token Holder Report Q3 2025

Marc Arjoon

Sam Schubert

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Hi all, happy Wednesday. Markets are treading water as traders balance fading momentum with solid structural support. BTC holds near $108K, ETF inflows have softened and positioning looks cautious but orderly. Meanwhile, after years of neglect, BTC mines are having their time in the spotlight.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Indices</h2>



Equity markets traded mostly sideways this week as risk assets consolidated following recent strength. The S&amp;P 500 (+0.3%) and Nasdaq 100 (+0.4%) held modest gains, while Gold (-0.2%) stayed rangebound. Crypto equities lagged broader markets despite stabilizing late in the week and ended flat after recovering from midweek lows near -5%. The overall tone leaned neutral-to-risk-off, with investors waiting for fresh catalysts amid quiet macro data and earnings-driven positioning.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="845" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109354" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-76.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Crypto subsectors diverged sharply. AI-linked tokens were the standout, briefly surging midweek before closing the week near even. L2 and modular ecosystems underperformed, falling roughly 10-15% from the week’s open, reflecting cooling momentum after recent rallies. Solana ecosystem names also slipped, tracking broader altcoin softness, while crypto miners extended their slump, under pressure from declining BTC hash price and weaker sentiment in energy-sensitive assets. The pullback suggests selective rotation rather than a wholesale exit from risk.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="845" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109356" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-79.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Macro conditions offered little directional impulse. Treasury yields eased slightly, but risk appetite remained muted ahead of upcoming inflation and GDP data. With earnings season and key inflation prints ahead, short-term reactivity could rise. Crypto’s relative weakness vs. equities may persist until clearer macro or onchain catalysts emerge.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Market Update: Rotation without conviction</h2>



BTC holds ~$108K as ETF flows wobble and rates dip, while perps positioning looks cautious but not capitulated. The broader market seems hesitant to chase strength at these levels, with traders opting to protect gains rather than add risk. However, funding rates remain neutral, suggesting no extreme leverage buildup or panic selling despite softer sentiment.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="826" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109363" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-83.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



The tape says “buy the dip, sell the rip” and spot is resilient around $108K, but weekly ETF flows softened and options skew implies demand for downside protection into Friday. This pattern points to a range-bound environment driven by short-term positioning and liquidity rotations rather than conviction buying. Still, structural support from longer-term holders continues to underpin price action, limiting the depth of pullbacks for now. Similarly, we also saw ~$500 million of net inflows into BTC ETFs yesterday. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1124" height="624" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109352" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=1124 1124w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-75.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1124px) 100vw, 1124px" /></figure>



Derivatives positioning looks cautious. Open interest has cooled and rallies stall quickly, consistent with fading impulse rather than trend reversal. Macro’s not helping either, as higher-for-longer rate chatter, tariff concerns and wobbly financials have kept risk appetite uneven. For now, traders appear content to stay light and reactive, with volatility compressing as markets wait for a clearer catalyst to define the next leg.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="838" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109355" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-78.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The megawatt trade: Are bitcoin miners just getting started?</h2>



A sudden outage at AWS’s US-EAST-1 region on Oct. 20 reminded everyone that the internet’s backbone still runs through a handful of centralized choke points. The issue stemmed from DNS resolution failures inside an internal network subsystem, knocking millions of users offline for hours. The incident underscored just how critical resilient, distributed compute capacity has become in an era increasingly shaped by AI.



It’s moments like these that highlight why interest in more distributed forms of compute is growing, where power and resiliency matter as much as scale. Bitcoin miners, facing margin pressure since the halving as hash price falls and network hash rate climbs, are leaning into that shift. With access to cheap energy and industrial-grade infrastructure, they’re finding the next frontier isn’t more bitcoin: It’s more compute. Many are already recasting themselves as power-first infrastructure businesses built to serve future demand. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1593" height="487" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109360" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=1593 1593w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-81.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1593px) 100vw, 1593px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://hashrateindex.com">https://hashrateindex.com</a></figcaption></figure>







Crypto miners have left nearly every other sector in the dust this year. Our Crypto Miners Index is up roughly 130% year to date, far outpacing both traditional crypto equities and broader benchmarks like the S&amp;P 500.&nbsp; As data-center demand soars and power capacity becomes the new currency, miners are no longer priced as just “bitcoin plays” but as critical infrastructure providers. That re-rating has pulled capital back into the sector, setting the stage for the next wave of deals and build-outs.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1482" height="834" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109357" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=1482 1482w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-80.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px" /></figure>



Activity across the mining sector is heating up as the AI-compute trade accelerates. CleanSpark recently brought on Jeffrey Thomas, formerly of Humain, to lead its new AI data center division. Bitfarms raised $500 million through convertible notes to expand its power and HPC footprint. CoreWeave’s proposed ~$9 billion all-stock acquisition of Core Scientific, set for a shareholder vote on Oct. 30, has become the industry’s main event. Recently, proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended that shareholders vote against it, with critics arguing the offer undervalues Core Scientific. However it plays out, it’s a reminder that miners’ real advantage lies in the power they already control.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="421" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109362" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-82.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://hashrateindex.com">https://hashrateindex.com</a></figcaption></figure>



 Zooming out, capital is starting to value megawatts. <a href="https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2025/macquarie-asset-management-to-lead-sale-of-aligned-data-centers-at-an-enterprise-value-of-us-40-billion.html">Macquarie’s ~$40 billion sale</a> of Aligned Data Centers to a BlackRock-led group values ~5GW of operational and planned capacity at an implied ~US$8 million per MW. For listed miners, the market is drifting toward a megawatt lens but it is still early days. The leaders are already turning megawatts into AI cash flows (higher revenue per MW and steadier, longer-dated contracts), setting the pace for the re-rate. IREN illustrates the trend — guiding to >$500 million in AI-cloud ARR by Q1 2026 and now standing out as one of the best-performing miners YTD. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1480" height="819" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109353" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=1480 1480w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-77.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1480px) 100vw, 1480px" /></figure>



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