Search the archive

STRIPE TOUTS STABLECOIN ROLE FOR STRONG 2025 YEAR IN PAYMENTS BUSINESS

Stripe reports stablecoin payment volumes doubled in 2025, shifting from speculation to B2B utility.

OPEN-SOURCE AGENTS NEED TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT PAYMENTS

AI agents face bottlenecks because modern payment systems are bot-hostile.

INDIANA EXPANDS RETIREMENT ACCESS TO CRYPTO

Indiana's HB 1042 would require certain state retirement and college-savings plans to offer a self-directed brokerage account that includes at least one cryptocurrency option.

TERRAFORM LABS SUES JANE STREET FOR INSIDER TRADING PRIOR TO TERRA COLLAPSE

Terraform Labs' liquidation administrator has filed a lawsuit against Jane Street and several employees, alleging they used non-public information from Terraform insiders to front-run trades during the Terra-Luna collapse in 2022 that destroyed over $40 billion in value. The complaint cites a wallet linked to Jane Street that withdrew 85 million TerraUSD from Curve within 10 minutes of Terraform's unannounced 150 million withdrawal on May 7, 2022, and claims Jane Street planted a former Terraform employee to establish insider communication channels. The lawsuit also connects to the administrator's filing against Jump Trading for $4 billion in damages in December, which alleges that Jump leaked information to Jane Street. Jane Street disputes the claims as "opportunistic."

BINANCE DENIES FIRING INVESTIGATORS AFTER REPORTED $1.7B IRAN TRANSFERS

Binance has disputed reports that it fired investigators who uncovered roughly $1.7 billion in crypto flows to Iran-linked entities, saying no one was dismissed for raising compliance concerns. Its internal review found no sanctions violations, and it has sharply reduced direct exposure to Iranian exchanges, even as the media reports allege internal discipline, probe dismantling, and continued scrutiny after documents tied funds to Iran-linked wallets.

NEAR LAUNCHES SUPER APP WITH AI CAPABILITIES AND PRIVATE TRANSACTIONS

NEAR Protocol has launched Near.com, a consumer super app designed for the agentic era. Its features include AI-driven transaction automation and a confidential mode for private on-chain activity. The app simplifies asset management by removing gas fees and private key complexities for users.

MOONPAY LAUNCHES THE ONRAMP FOR THE AGENT ECONOMY

GOLDEN PATH

Crypto has lost its philosophical purpose by celebrating institutional adoption while abandoning its core mission of resisting centralization and preserving individual sovereignty. There are three possible futures – TradFi absorption, government surrender to permissionless systems, or an uneasy coexistence as a parallel walled-off system – with the latter as crypto's "Golden Path." Users should embrace inconvenience as the cost of sovereignty by prioritizing algorithmic stablecoins, enabling privacy, and building censorship-resistant infrastructure that rejects dependence on fiat ramps and centralized chokepoints.

HOW TO FIX TOKENS

Most tokens fail because they incentivize selling over holding, and one fix is giving token holders direct control over 100% of protocol revenue through governance votes on distribution versus reinvestment. This model hasn't been adopted due to insider profitability from token sales and securities law concerns, but a current regulatory window with the SEC's Crypto Task Force under Hester Peirce is exploring registration frameworks and safe harbors. There is urgency for protocols like Aave, Morpho, and Uniswap already merging equity and token holders to proactively demonstrate viable models before the window closes at midterms.

THE QUIET CRYPTO INTEGRATION

Blockchain is becoming the foundational infrastructure for fintech, driven by institutional adoption from BlackRock and Apollo. Legislation like the CLARITY Act validates this shift. Tokenized money market funds and stablecoins now provide efficient, 24/7 alternatives to traditional rails, forcing incumbents to innovate or face obsolescence.

FROM “CRYPTO AI” TO GENERAL: AI AGENTS DREAM OF ELECTRIC LANGOUSTINES?

Agentic commerce leverages x402 pay-per-call protocols and ERC-8004 identity registries to enable autonomous machine-to-machine markets. Frameworks like OpenClaw and DayDreams allow agents to discover, fund, and provide services using stablecoins. This infrastructure supports independent micro-businesses.

WHY PRIVACY MATTERS MORE THAN EVER IN 2026

Public blockchains expose user balances and behaviors, driving a shift toward privacy-centric infrastructure.

BALAJI ON CRYPTO AS A CODE-BASED ORDER

Crypto's purpose is building a code-based order to replace the collapsing rules-based international order, guaranteeing property rights, smart contracts, privacy, and identity across borders even in the face of debanking and denaturalization.

BITCOIN TESTS $63K AS CRYPTO SENTIMENT FALLS TO “EXTREME FEAR”

Bitcoin fell below $63,000 amid “extreme fear” as macro headlines and thin liquidity drove a 3 to 4% pullback.

POLYMARKET PRICES METEORA AS TOP SUSPECT IN INSIDER TRADING PROBE

Polymarket traders are pricing Meteora as the leading suspect in ZachXBT's upcoming insider-trading investigation.

price increases from $11 after February 26.

STABLECOINS COULD CREATE $1T IN NEW T-BILL DEMAND BY 2028

Standard Chartered projects stablecoin market cap could reach $2 trillion by 2028, generating $0.8 to $1 trillion in incremental demand for short-term US Treasury bills as regulated issuers accumulate high-quality liquid assets under frameworks like the GENIUS Act. If realized, that demand could allow the US Treasury to shift issuance toward bills and potentially suspend 30-year bond auctions for up to three years.

WHY TRADFI IS BUYING DEFI TOKENS

BlackRock, Citadel Securities, and Apollo Global Management disclosed DeFi token purchases, with BlackRock buying UNI, Citadel acquiring ZRO tokens, and Apollo entering a 48-month agreement to acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens representing 9% of supply. Investors broadly characterize these moves as "vendor alignment, not portfolio allocation" as firms tokenizing products need DeFi venues for distribution, facilitated by regulatory tailwinds including SAB 121 repeal, SEC dropping investigations into Uniswap and Aave, GENIUS Act passage, and the four-tier token taxonomy signaling most governance tokens aren't securities. Token prices remained muted despite the announcements as sophisticated holders await actual economics showing up in protocols, with the DeFi token disconnect from strong fundamentals persisting due to historical lack of revenue capture, VC unlock sell pressure, and L1/L2 fragmentation. Investors identify fee switches, tapering unlocks, CLARITY Act passage, and potential DeFi ETF approvals from Grayscale and Bitwise as catalysts needed before governance tokens function meaningfully like strategic equity with enforceable shareholder-style rights.

HOW DECENTRALIZED AI IS LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD

There is a clear opportunity when comparing the $12 trillion centralized AI enterprise valuation versus the $12 billion decentralized AI market cap, with the blockchain AI market projected to grow from $6 billion to $50 billion by 2030 at 42.4% CAGR, as agentic AI demands truly autonomous, privacy-preserving architecture that centralized platforms structurally cannot provide. Decentralized AI unlocks enterprise data vaults sealed from centralized LLMs due to competitive, regulatory, and fiduciary concerns, enabling pharmaceutical research, medical imaging, and financial data to safely contribute to model training through cryptographic verification of data sovereignty rather than vendor trust promises. Platforms like Bittensor, Akash, and Venice.AI aggregate idle distributed GPU capacity to deliver lower-cost inference that reportedly outperforms centralized benchmarks while open-source collaborative models enable faster iteration than proprietary systems locked behind Big Tech walls.

ETHER.FI IS MIGRATING TO OPTIMISM

ether.fi is migrating from Scroll to OP Mainnet, bringing 300,000+ accounts and $160M+ TVL at a critical moment as Base's potential exit from the Superchain threatens to eliminate 94% of Optimism's ecosystem revenue. The crypto neobank, which represents 83% of Scroll's total TVL and processes $1-2M in daily spending volume across ~23,000 transactions, would increase OP Mainnet's DeFi TVL by 75% and become its largest dApp at 3x Aave's current $56.3M. The migration underscores an emerging thesis that crypto neobanks have become essential infrastructure for L2s, as single applications in this category can simultaneously drive TVL growth, transaction volume, real-world utility, and user acquisition.

THE MARKET IS DEAD, BUT DRAGONFLY JUST RAISED $650M. WHY?

Dragonfly raised $650M for its fourth fund targeting stablecoins, DeFi, RWAs, prediction markets, and infrastructure as 2025 crypto funding hit $25B – a 160% increase from 2024 – with average deal sizes tripling to $31.5M and 46 deals exceeding $100M versus just 12 the prior year. Payments funding surged 424% to $1.88B and RWA funding skyrocketed 802% to $1.1B, and Polymarket and Kalshi capturing mega-rounds while retail AI agent hype failed to attract institutional capital. VCs pivoted from early-stage infrastructure bets to mature, revenue-generating applications with clear exit paths through IPOs (Circle, BitGo) and strategic acquisitions (Robinhood, Stripe), signaling a "quality over quantity" consolidation phase focused on real financial use cases over speculative innovation.

$AERO THESIS: BASE'S CASH COW

Aerodrome generates $85-98M annually in organic swap fees with 100% flowing to veAERO lockers, trading at 4-5x dilution-adjusted P/E on trough volume with 1.6-1.9x upside to 2025 average Base DEX volumes at current $0.30 price. Coinbase's involvement extends beyond its $20M market buy (reportedly Coinbase Ventures' largest liquid token investment) to active governance, cbBTC liquidity steering, and Coinbase One feeless trading integration. The thesis hinges on Base's announced migration from OP Stack to a unified stack, with a potential $BASE token launch representing the largest volume catalyst, though bull case projections of 3-4x at ATH volumes face structural headwinds from AERO-denominated emissions that scale linearly with price.

THE US IS GOING ALL IN ON TOKENIZED ASSETS

The US has strong economic incentives to push tokenized dollars and tokenized securities, as global onchain access could expand the buyer base for Treasuries and equities, lower government borrowing costs, raise corporate valuations, and reinforce dollar dominance. This would create macro tailwinds for stablecoin issuers and RWA-focused blockchains as a global tokenization race accelerates.

SEC CHAIR PLANS TO FAST-TRACK TOKENIZED SECURITIES

SEC Chair Paul Atkins is implementing a fast-track approval process for certain crypto products, with plans to temporarily permit trading of select tokenized securities while the commission develops comprehensive long-term regulatory frameworks. This is in line with the current friendly SEC approach, prioritizing market access and innovation over waiting for complete rulemaking.

STRATEGY BUYS 592 MORE BTC, HOLDINGS REACH 717,722

Michael Saylor's Strategy purchased another 592 BTC for $39.8M at an average price of $67,286, bringing total holdings to 717,722 BTC, or over 3.4% of Bitcoin's 21 million supply.

B2B STABLECOINS COULD HIT $7T BY 2027

B2B stablecoin transaction volume increased ~582.6% in 2024 from $23B (vs. ACH's $58T and +8.6% growth) to $157B.

JUPITER CHOOSES BUYBACKS OVER EMISSIONS

Jupiter's governance voted 73.9% to eliminate all emissions and redirect roughly $848M in annualized fees into pure buybacks with zero dilution, making JUP structurally deflationary (about 800M tokens are staked).

THE TOMB WE BUILT

Standard four-year monthly token unlock schedules create destructive recurring sell pressure.

SEC ALLOWS BROKER-DEALERS TO COUNT STABLECOINS AS REGULATORY CAPITAL

The SEC issued new guidance allowing US broker-dealers to count stablecoin holdings as regulatory capital with just a 2% haircut, effectively treating 98% of these digital dollar assets as cash equivalents on balance sheets. This marks a significant departure from previous treatment of crypto assets, which typically faced much higher capital charges or were excluded entirely from regulatory capital calculations. The policy shift could accelerate adoption of tokenized securities and on-chain settlement infrastructure among traditional financial institutions by removing a major capital efficiency barrier for firms holding stablecoins to facilitate blockchain-based transactions.

WHITE HOUSE SETS MARCH 1 DEADLINE ON STABLECOIN REWARDS DISPUTE

The White House set a March 1 deadline to resolve the stablecoin rewards dispute, currently the primary obstacle blocking passage of the Clarity Act. The administration held its third closed-door crypto meeting with industry stakeholders, including Ripple, the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation, and major banking trade associations. Lawmakers remain split on whether stablecoins should be permitted to offer yield to holders, with the issue now representing one of the last major sticking points in comprehensive crypto legislation.

DFLOW MCP: INSTANT TRADING ACCESS FOR AGENTS

DFlow launched an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI agents structured access to its complete Solana trading API documentation, replacing search-based integration with direct canonical queries across Trading, Metadata, and Proof APIs. Agents can now programmatically detect prediction market arbitrage opportunities (such as YES + NO asks totaling less than $1), stream websocket data for automated execution, and debug trade failures by inspecting live API specs. The server integrates with OpenClaw, Claude, Cursor, and other AI development environments, enabling agents to route orders through specific DEXes, track outcome token balances, and build automated trading strategies without manual API documentation parsing.

A NEW, UNIFIED STACK FOR BASE CHAIN

Base is evolving from the OP Stack to a unified, Base-operated tech stack, with node operators needing to migrate to Base's client releases instead of following Optimism's releases in the coming months as part of the transition. The move aims to achieve three objectives: doubling the upgrade cadence from three to six hard forks annually for faster shipping, reducing cognitive overhead by simplifying the codebase to be understandable by a single developer rather than maintaining complex external dependencies across multiple teams and repositories, and accelerating deployment of high-impact changes ahead of Ethereum's L1 to inform the mainnet roadmap. The upcoming Base V1 hard fork will implement client consolidation requiring node operator migration, transition from Optimistic proofs to TEE/ZK proofs for faster finality, and support Ethereum's Fusaka upgrade, with future releases including Block Access Lists, new transaction types, op-code repricing, and economic changes aligned with Ethereum's roadmap.

HOW TO FIX TOKENS: PROFIT FROM HOLDING, NOT SELLING

Crypto tokens are structurally misaligned because holders profit by selling into others rather than by holding, creating an exit game of insider unlocks and retail dilution. There should be a model where 100% of protocol revenue is governed by tokenholders and distributed directly, shifting incentives toward long-term ownership and revenue growth. With improving infrastructure and a rare regulatory window in 2025, explicit revenue-sharing tokens (rather than buybacks, burns, or inflationary staking) should define the next era of crypto design before policymakers lock in rules around the current extractive model.

IS YOUR PAYMENT INFRASTRUCTURE READY FOR AGENTIC PAYMENTS?

AI agents could drive $500 billion in US commerce by 2030, requiring payment systems to evolve from manual clicks to autonomous delegation. Success depends on ledger-grade guarantees to prevent double spending and ensure auditability during high-concurrency automated retries.

OPTIMISM'S UGLY YEAR

Coinbase is moving Base from the OP Stack to an independent unified stack, jeopardizing the Optimism Superchain. Base generates 97% of Superchain revenue, leaving the ecosystem financially vulnerable. The OP token is down 97% from its peak, and ether.fi recently committed to migrating 300,000 accounts.

‘THIS IS WRONG,' VITALIK BUTERIN SLAMS WEB4 VISION OF SUPERINTELLIGENT AI

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin rejected Sigil Wen's Web4 vision, citing its reliance on centralized providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. Buterin argues that removing humans from AI feedback loops risks irreversible anti-human outcomes. He emphasizes that technology should prioritize human agency over autonomous, self-replicating systems.

AGENTIC COMMERCE LANDSCAPE

Artemis maps the current agentic commerce landscape with an infographic covering the major protocols and infrastructure layers enabling AI agent-to-agent transactions.

OPENAI INTRODUCES EVMBENCH

OpenAI's EVMbench is a new benchmark that measures how well AI agents can detect, exploit, and patch high-severity smart contract vulnerabilities.

BITDEER SELLS ITS LAST BTC, TREASURY DROPS TO ZERO

Bitdeer sold its remaining 943.1 BTC in one week (while mining 189.8 BTC and selling that too), completing an eight-week drawdown from roughly 2,000 BTC at year-end.

SPECIALIZED AI DETECTS 92% OF REAL-WORLD DEFI EXPLOITS

Specialized AI agents detected 92% of vulnerabilities in 90 exploited DeFi contracts, totaling $96.8 million.

APEX GROUP TO PILOT WLFI STABLECOIN FOR TOKENIZED FUNDS

Apex Group, which oversees $3.5 trillion in assets, announced a partnership with Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial to pilot the USD1 stablecoin for fund subscriptions, redemptions, and distributions across its tokenized fund ecosystem. The collaboration will also explore making WLFI's tokenized real estate and infrastructure assets available on the London Stock Exchange Group's Digital Market Infrastructure platform, pending regulatory approval. Apex has been expanding its tokenization capabilities through recent acquisitions of Tokeny and Globacap, and is well-positioned to serve institutional clients seeking blockchain-based settlement efficiency and cost reduction.

UNISWAP EYES PROTOCOL FEES EVERYWHERE

Uniswap governance is voting on a temp check to activate protocol fees across all remaining v3 pools and roll fees out to eight additional chains (Arbitrum, Base, Celo, OP Mainnet, Soneium, X Layer, Worldchain, and Zora). They are also voting to introduce a tier-based adapter to auto-apply fees by LP fee tier, and route collected revenue through chain-specific TokenJars back to Ethereum for conversion and UNI burns under the post-UNIfication fee-and-burn framework.

5 STEPS TO MAKE ETHEREUM LLM-DRIVEN

There is a five-step roadmap to make Ethereum the first LLM-driven blockchain, spanning the full governance stack from validator delegation of upgrade decisions to AI agents, through LLM-assisted EIP authoring and review, to ultimately AI-generated client codebases that are formally verified and fully test-covered. Ethereum holds a structural advantage given that its EIP corpus, ACD call transcripts, and open governance discussions constitute high-quality training data already embedded in frontier models. The Ethereum Foundation has signaled institutional alignment by hiring tooling coordinators and forming a dedicated dAI team.

PRIVATEX402: PRIVACY-PRESERVING PAYMENT CHANNELS FOR AI SYSTEMS

PrivateX402 introduces privacy-preserving payment channels for multi-agent AI systems, concealing individual payment details from on-chain observers while enabling users to allocate budgets across multiple agents. The protocol requires only two onchain transactions – setup and settlement – with all intermediate payments occurring off-chain at no additional cost. By replacing centralized payment facilitators with a verifiable computation layer and integrated dispute resolution, PrivateX402 makes high-frequency AI agent micropayments economically viable.

VITALIK ON ETHEREUM'S PERMISSIONLESSNESS AND VALUES

Vitalik Buterin drew a sharp distinction between Ethereum as a permissionless, censorship-resistant protocol and the separate obligation of people and communities to hold and articulate clear principles. Protocol-level neutrality does not extend to individuals, and criticism within the ecosystem is not censorship. Using Linux as an analogy, open neutral infrastructure can still serve corporate ends, meaning those who care about user empowerment must proactively build full-stack ecosystems consistent with those values rather than assuming protocol neutrality alone is sufficient.

THE X402 WALLET PROBLEM

x402's payment rails function correctly, but wallet onboarding is broken across three dominant patterns – plaintext local keys with no recovery, per-app embedded wallets that fragment funds, and managed wallets that lock users inside a single provider's infrastructure. The proposed fix inverts the current model: rather than applications provisioning wallets, users should bring a single portable wallet to every x402-compatible service, with one identity and one key set universally accessible. Para is a reference implementation of this architecture, where users own keys, email recovery is native, and the wallet is fully decoupled from the application layer.

VENICE AI'S VVV: TOKENIZED COMPUTE MEETS PRIVACY