BlockLayer Podcast

Accelerating Web3, documenting the builders.
Podcast with top guests on conviction, craft, and scaling.
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[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

How to Stop Crypto From Hitting $10 Trillion

Charlie Munger liked to say: "Invert, always invert." Instead of asking how to succeed, ask how to fail. So here are a few reliable ways to make sure crypto never becomes a $10 trillion market.

Today, we're inverting the question to find the path forward.👇

~~ Article by @kenzixbt ~~

Assume the World Cares About Our Chains

Since the inception of crypto, the industry has operated around chains. And for a long time, that was the correct thing to do. Chains are the foundation on which everything else runs. So it's very important that we get that part right.

And that's exactly what we did.

Over the first fifteen years of crypto, blockchains became the most heavily funded category in the industry. The smartest minds, from Satoshi to Vitalik to Anatoly, have spent the prime of their lives building blockchains the way they believed they should be built.

And this practice of building around chains has had lollapalooza effects on how everything else happens in the industry.

Value accrual has long been understood to accrue at the chain layer, popularized by the fat protocol thesis. Chain tokens have been the best performing assets in the history of crypto. From ETH to SOL to BNB, these have provided some of the best returns to investors over the last decade. Wallets became the most widely used interfaces in the industry, tools designed primarily to help users interact with what's happening onchain. Builders and users began organizing themselves around chains, gravitating toward the ecosystem that resonated with them.

This framing has worked really well for us. The industry needed an anchor in crypto's early years. Chains became that anchor. They became flagbearers for different versions of the crypto ethos, each optimizing for a different set of trade-offs. Crypto is now a $4 trillion market.

All of this made sense. But this moment should also mark the beginning of the end of the idea that crypto should revolve around chains. Because today, this same framing is starting to work against us.

And the simple reason is fragmentation.

Fragmentation of liquidity. Fragmentation of capital. Fragmentation of users. Fragmentation of talent. Fragmentation of attention.

Under chain-first thinking, we're fragmented at the core and operate in isolation. We behave as if things happen in isolation in this industry. While in reality, crypto is a tightly coupled collection of small markets, which together operate as a single universal market.

Think about this question posed by a16z crypto's X account: Which chains are you building on? It shows exactly what's wrong with this thinking around chains.

Why does it matter if someone is building on Ethereum or Solana or xyz chain? What matters is that they're building in crypto. It's one market.

Yet because we frame crypto as a collection of separate chains, we allocate resources accordingly. Liquidity, capital, users, and builders are spread thin across different environments, each optimizing its own walled garden. That local optimization comes at the expense of global outcomes.

This is the inversion we need to make as an industry.

We need to stop building for our chains and start building for crypto. Otherwise, we risk optimizing individual pieces while stifling the growth of the market as a whole.

The analogy we can learn from is countries.

Countries are divided into states to improve local execution, but they compete and operate as a single economy on the global stage. The states work together as a united front. No serious country optimizes its states at the expense of its national market.

Crypto needs a similar unification moment.

Chains are the states. Crypto is the country. We're all divided into states like chains, but we're all part of one big country called crypto—and we have to come together as a united front to make crypto a bigger market.

Markets, not chains. That should be the rallying call for the future of crypto.

To the outside world, this is already the truth. When institutions, fintechs, governments, or consumer platforms evaluate crypto, they don't see chains, they see a large, growing market.

If we want the next leg of adoption, we have to align with that reality and be willing to set aside internal incentives, tribal loyalties, and bag bias. That means convincing the world why crypto as a market is a massive opportunity: to rebuild financial rails onchain. Rails that are globally accessible, rooted in transparent public ledgers, and that move value faster and cheaper for everyone.

Build Things and Wait for People to Come

One of the lazier criticisms of crypto is that it hasn't built anything people actually want. I don't buy it.

That narrative is consensus because it's easy to take a shot on crypto. In reality, it starts from the wrong expectations and applies the wrong mental model.

It assumes crypto should have produced consumer social apps, when in reality crypto has been rebuilding the financial layer of the world from scratch—so it's inevitable that we have applications that look financial and speculative by nature.

And I think that's the actual innovation of crypto.

Crypto embeds the ability to move value directly into the internet layer. This was missing from the world and we're changing that. Any crypto application will, in some form, express that property.

Crypto has built a lot of cool things. But the negative outlook comes from the fact that all of them are financial primitives or linked to speculation somehow. But on that point, I'd like to point that the whole world operates on speculation, and crypto is rebuilding the legacy financial system from scratch with new principles.

So it's no surprise that the most widely used crypto applications today include trading terminals, exchange frontends, leverage platforms, and memecoin markets. From the outside, this looks like financial nihilism. But in reality, it's just crypto serving the needs of the world.

In doing so, we've created entirely new markets. Memecoins turn attention and internet culture into tradeable assets. Prediction markets present a way to speculate on the events of the world. NFTs created a native digital form for art and ownership rights. DeFi rebuilt lending and borrowing without credit scores, replacing reputation with collateral and math.

But where the industry does face a real challenge now is not application building, but distribution.

Up to this point, crypto could grow by building better technology and assuming users would eventually show up. That phase is over. From here on, growth depends on whether we can reach people who don't already care about crypto.

Hence, crypto has a distribution challenge. Our problem is simple but hard to solve: how do we market to the world that doesn't live on crypto twitter?

Right now, crypto marketing is overwhelmingly inward-facing. We talk to builders, traders, and power users on Crypto Twitter and convince ourselves we're "educating the market." In reality, we're preaching to the same audience over and over again.

I think we need distribution channels that already reach the mainstream. And a lot of you will hate me for saying this but, centralized exchanges have the reach, trust and familiarity to take crypto mainstream:

They have the household name brand recognition already. They have revenues and marketing budgets that allow them to market to the mainstream. They have products that the average investor wants.

Think about it: How many people outside of crypto know about Uniswap? Very few. How many people outside of crypto know about Binance / Coinbase? A lot.

So maybe CEXs become the gateway for onboarding the next wave of users. But the lesson to take from CEXs for crypto's growth is that we need to prioritize distribution and market crypto to the world in simple terms. Build trusted brands and market to the average investor and not just the average crypto bro.

From here on, crypto's success depends less on better protocols and more on better communication. We need to think like marketers, not just builders. If we want adoption, we have to make crypto legible, desirable, and accessible to the rest of the world, and actively bring users in instead of waiting for them to show up.

Sell Our Soul to the Suits

One quick way to make sure crypto fails is to sell out to the suits at the finish line.

After spending fifteen years proving that crypto deserves to be taken seriously, there will be a temptation to make compromises to "close the deal" with institutions. To soften positions in the name of pragmatism. To meet the market where it is.

That would be the biggest mistake we could make.

As institutions come onchain, it becomes even more important for crypto to hold the line on the things that actually make it valuable: self-custody, censorship resistance, permissionless access, and open participation.

Now that crypto has a seat at the table, the worst thing we could do is pretend those principles are negotiable.

If we do this, we will lose. Because if we remove what makes crypto fundamentally better, we'll be left competing with incumbents on their terms.

There are a few obvious ways this can go wrong.

Take stablecoins. They are simply a better way to move value over the internet: faster settlement, lower costs, global reach. Treating CBDCs as acceptable substitutes would undermine the entire point.

Or take private chains. People often push them as a reasonable middle ground to onboard institutions to crypto, but in reality, they're just mid-curving. Private chains sacrifice transparency and composability—and these are not acceptable trade-offs we should be willing to take. If institutions want to build in crypto, they should build things that align with the crypto ethos.

Crypto doesn't need to prove it belongs anymore. That argument is over.

Now we need to preserve the properties that made it worth adopting in the first place.

No trade-offs at the home stretch.

Conclusion

If crypto wants to fail to become a $10 trillion market, the playbook is clear:

Obsess over chains instead of markets. Fragment into walled gardens. Build applications without figuring out distribution. Abandon our ethos.

Instead of going down this forbidden path, we need to prioritize around the right things:

Markets matter more than chains. Applications matter more than infrastructure. Access to crypto as a market matters most. Doubling down on properties that make crypto, crypto.

Crypto doesn't need a miracle to get to $10 trillion. It just needs to stop doing the things that prevent it from getting there.

Invert those habits, and the rest takes care of itself.

Markets usually do.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

For Bitcoin holders, this year’s been a bitter draft — gold blasting to $4.4K/oz with endless all-time highs, while "digital gold" barely scrapes by.

Marketed as a superior store of value, $BTC’s 3x underperformance in a safe-haven surge stings hard.

Is gold’s rally a 70-100 day lead-in to Bitcoin’s boom, or the cycle’s final curtain? Here’s how to decode it.👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~

What's Going on with Gold?

Gold's relentless 2025 performance can be attributed to unprecedented central bank buying, driven by inflation concerns, geopolitical tension, and a fundamental shift in how central banks think about reserves.

Central banks had their second largest Q1 gold purchases on record this year. Poland added 67 tonnes amid the Ukraine conflict. Turkey picked up 19.5 tonnes as its currency weakens. China continues to quietly accumulate amid tensions with the U.S., swapping out U.S. Treasuries, while in Shanghai, gold futures volumes have tripled since early 2024.

Gold is increasingly replacing U.S. Treasuries as the "riskless" asset in global portfolios. With mounting U.S. debt and political dysfunction, central banks are diversifying. Some reports suggest gold has even flipped Treasuries to become the number one central bank reserve asset globally.

Why? Gold doesn't carry counterparty risk and can't be printed or devalued by central bank decisions. In an era where trust in institutions is eroding, that matters.

Still, gold is showing signs of being clearly overbought. Parabolic moves like this rarely end smoothly, which raises the question: what does a gold rally of this magnitude actually signal?

What Have Gold Rallies Meant in the Past?

Similar rallies have signaled different outcomes. Sometimes gold's parabolic moves have preceded major crises. Other times, they've set the stage for broader risk-on rallies, with Bitcoin following months later.

The Bear Case: Late-Cycle Behavior

Gold surges often coincide with late-cycle uncertainty. From 2007 to 2008, gold spiked as the subprime crisis unraveled. In 1999 and 2000, gold shot up ~34% as the dot-com bubble burst and recession followed.

While today is different, there's a parallel level of unease against the backdrop of geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty. Steep climbs tend to end in sharp corrections. Gold experienced this in 2010 and 2011 when it surged 70% before collapsing 45%.

But is this really a late-cycle warning? Gold similarly rallied during 2020's COVID crisis, but that surge led to recovery, not prolonged downturn. Central banks are now accumulating over 1K tonnes per year amid a structural shift away from dollar reserves.

The Bull Case: Gold as a Leading Indicator for Bitcoin

Evidence suggests that when gold breaks out, Bitcoin has followed, usually with a lag of 70-100 days.

The clearest example is 2020. Gold surged to $2,075 amid pandemic uncertainty. About 85 days later, Bitcoin began its climb from $5K to $10K, then exploded 590% to hit $64K by early 2021. A similar situation happened last August, with gold ripping to new all time highs while Bitcoin lagged for about two months before surging come November.

If the historical pattern holds, gold's rally could be setting up Bitcoin's next leg higher. Once gold peaks, capital could flow into Bitcoin as investors shift from defensive positioning to offensive plays.

The key is recognizing that gold moves first in debasement trades, and Bitcoin follows once the narrative crystallizes. While past performance doesn't dictate future results, gold's run is not a death sentence for Bitcoin.

Things to Consider

Whether you believe gold's rally signals late-cycle risk or sets up Bitcoin's next move, it's worth understanding what these assets do in a portfolio.

Gold is a preservation tool that maintains purchasing power. It can't be printed or manipulated by central banks, providing an anchor when other assets fail.

Bitcoin is functioning as a growth store of value. As @JustDeauIt's analysis shows:

➢ A portfolio with 5% gold and 95% S&P 500 returned 152% since 2018
➢ A portfolio with 5% Bitcoin and 95% S&P 500 returned 199%
➢ At 10% allocations, gold delivered 155% while Bitcoin hit 253%

Gold provides stability during uncertainty. Bitcoin, still growing into this role, behaves with more volatility but significantly outperforms. If your goal is wealth preservation, gold makes sense. If you're willing to stomach volatility for outsized returns, Bitcoin remains the better bet.

So, while Bitcoin holders might feel frustrated watching gold gains, if history repeats itself, that frustration could be short-lived.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

Crypto's privacy revival is firing up projects old and new, with Zcash's ZEC leading at +560% in 30 days and +980% YTD.

Beyond hype, UX upgrades like the revamped Zashi wallet are enabling seamless shielded transactions that keep most coins in the dust.

Here’s why Zashi is nailing private crypto UX and how to use it👇

~~ Guide by @punk7487 ~~

What is Zashi?

Created by @Zcash's developers at Electric Coin Company, @zashi_app is a non-custodial mobile wallet built around shielded ZEC payments.

Zashi prevents you from transacting with transparent ZEC. You must shield any funds here before you can spend them. Fortunately, there's a simple in-app widget that makes shielding fast.

The wallet is also jam-packed with other useful features, like:

➢ A built-in Tor client
➢ An in-app Coinbase onramp
➢ Decentralized onramp and offramp flows
➢ A @FlexaHQ integration for spending ZEC at IRL retailers
➢ Private crosschain payments (in ETH, BTC, SOL, etc.)

At the heart of Zashi's crosschain swaps and onchain ramps is @NEARProtocol Intents, an interoperability protocol that lets users streamline transactions across any of the chains NEAR supports thanks to a network of specialized "solvers."

For example, with intents you can swap BTC into shielded ZEC in Zashi without losing privacy through a centralized exchange. Or you can privately donate to a cause you support by paying in shielded ZEC and having the recipient receive ETH on Ethereum.

Zashi's utility isn't just siloed to ZEC. You can use the wallet as an onchain privacy base while tapping its support for NEAR Intents to make transactions beyond Zcash. That's powerful.

Getting started

If you're curious to explore this further, download the Zashi wallet from the Apple App Store or Google Play.

From there:

➢ Once you've opened the app, you'll be asked if you want to "Restore Existing Wallet" or "Create New Wallet."

➢ If you opt to start fresh, you'll immediately be taken into a new account without having to write down a recovery phrase first (you can always backup your recovery phrase later from the "Advanced Settings" menu).

➢ Now fund your account: If you already own some ZEC, press Zashi's "Receive" button to copy and get a QR code for your account's shielded or transparent addresses. Alternatively, press the "More" button to bring up the "Buy ZEC with Coinbase" and "Swap with Near Intents" options.

After your Zashi account is loaded up, you'll have a new onchain privacy base at your disposal.

Use the wallet's "Send" tab to send a private ZEC transfer or message to another Zcash account. There's also the "Pay" tab that lets you offramp ZEC into any NEAR-supported crypto, so you can move funds elsewhere without revealing where they came from.

Zooming out

All in all, Zashi is quite a slick wallet.

It doesn't track any of your personal data. It makes it easy to use shielded ZEC, including in payments to IRL merchants via Flexa. And you can move money into and out of Zashi simply and privately without going through CEXs.

The bottom line? Privacy can fit naturally into modern crypto UX, and Zashi's a case study in how this meld can work well.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“What happens when someone inside one of the most iconic retail platforms of the last cycle sees its limits up close?”

@kenzixbt speaks with @jayendra_jog, Co-Founder of @SeiNetwork, to trace the path that took him from the early days of Robinhood in Palo Alto — through hypergrowth, the IPO era, and the shock of the GameStop moment — to building in crypto.

They discuss how witnessing the mechanics and constraints of traditional financial infrastructure firsthand reshaped his thinking, why the suspension of buys during one of retail’s most defining episodes left such a lasting impression, and how that experience ultimately pushed him toward systems designed to be more open, more resilient, and less dependent on centralized control.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“High-performance infrastructure only matters if it expands what users can actually do onchain — and makes that experience accessible at scale.”

@sachitakahara sits down with @jayendra_jog, Co-Founder of @SeiNetwork, to examine why parallelized execution is becoming increasingly important for the next generation of onchain applications.

From trading and DeFi to high-frequency user activity that simply breaks in low-throughput environments, they discuss how lower fees and greater execution capacity can fundamentally reshape the user experience — especially for smaller participants who are otherwise priced out.

They also explore how this plays out in practice through projects like Bancor’s Carbon DeFi, where Sei has emerged as the ecosystem driving the strongest activity and volume, underscoring how performance advantages translate into real adoption.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“Virtual machines are like cities — once they reach critical mass, they become magnets that are incredibly hard to displace.”

@dikshaarden catches up with @jayendra_jog, Co-Founder of @SeiNetwork, to unpack this idea at a deeper level — why systems with flaws can still dominate simply because that’s where the activity, liquidity, and people already are.

From New York and San Francisco to onchain environments like the EVM, they explore how network effects compound over time, why newer ecosystems struggle to pull users away even with better tech, and what it actually takes to break that inertia.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

This week’s episode features Jayendra Jog (@jayendra_jog), Founder of @SeiNetwork.

We dive into Jay’s journey from traditional finance at Robinhood to building Sei Network, and unpack how his view of markets, users, and product feedback shaped the way he thinks about blockchain infrastructure.

The conversation explores the parallels between established cities and virtual machines: why dominant systems like the EVM are so difficult to displace, what makes developers stay, and what it actually takes for a new ecosystem to earn attention.

We also dig into the need for higher throughput in Web3, how parallelization can help solve today’s performance limits, and why scalability matters if crypto applications are going to serve real users at a much larger scale.

Jay also reflects on the role of memecoins, not just as speculation, but as community-driven movements that can reveal how culture, attention, and network effects form onchain.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

@virtualbacon @growthepie_eth 👍

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

Last week, Ethereum’s ecosystem (L1 plus rollups) blasted through a new high, briefly hitting 24,000 transactions per second.

From 0.7 TPS in 2015 to regular spikes above 10,000 TPS today on @growthepie_eth, the modular bet is delivering explosive gains after a decade of building.

Welcome to Ethereum’s exponential age.👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~

To be sure, the bulk of this current TPS surge is stemming from Lighter, the newer perps L2 whose custom appchain architecture minimizes what data touches Ethereum.

@Lighter_xyz just posts compressed state diffs and proofs to the L1 while keeping its high-frequency order flow offchain. This zk appchain design is unique in the rollups scene today, but more teams will experiment with this model and extend it in new directions.

Beyond this design evolution, Ethereum's roadmap has plenty of ecosystem-wide advances on the way that will help push performance gains. Foremost to mind is PeerDAS, which the Fusaka upgrade will bring to mainnet next month.

PeerDAS will be a powerful upgrade, as it's projected to facilitate around an 8x increase in Ethereum's blob capacity. With improved data availability, rollups are set to march past 1 million in ecosystem TPS in short order.

For instance, @base hit 1,500 TPS in June 2025 with Ethereum's current blob limits. Blob capacity going up 8x makes 10,000+ TPS feasible for the L2 at some point next year.

This math applies to zk appchains like Lighter, too. If Lighter can handle ~45,000 TPS today, it can potentially pass 350,000 TPS in 2026. Of course, there will be impactful project-level advances as well. ZKsync's upcoming Atlas upgrade has the potential to facilitate 15,000+ TPS for ZK Stack L2s. And that's just one stack and one upgrade.

So yes, Ethereum is scaling horizontally, and the prospects here are impressive. But Ethereum also has considerable vertical scaling potential. There are ongoing efforts, like EIP-7938 and "Lean Ethereum," that can help the L1 reach 10,000 TPS in its own right.

With this "all of the above" approach, we can dream big. We can build a new substrate for all the world's commerce and culture. And all of that builder potential is possible precisely because Ethereum is going tall and wide in its scaling.

This is the endgame: many chains spreading out to the horizon in every direction for any need, all anchored around an incredibly secure and robust network that's worthy of powering an entire civilization.

The progress here is clear. Meanwhile, the Ethereum community will continue to create its own destiny, just as it always has. We know the path forward, and nothing can stop us now.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

It's been one month since Hyperliquid's HIP-3 went live, letting anyone stake 500K $HYPE can now launch custom markets backed by the platform’s deep liquidity.

The result is an exchange where you can long or short anything: stocks via Trade or Felix, commodities, bonds via Aura, pre-IPOs via Ventuals, even Pokémon cards via Trove.

Learn how HIP-3 works and how it make impact Hyperliquid 👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~

The upgrade works like this: a deployer stakes 500K
$HYPE (~$19.3M at time of writing). They can then list three markets for free before entering an auction process to secure additional slots.

For each market they launch, the deployer sets leverage limits, configures the oracle, and manages key technicalities. To ensure acceptable standards, deployers risk having their stake slashed, though Hyperliquid notes this mechanism is temporary and expected to fade as standards and tooling improve.

Once live, the deployer earns 50% of the fees from their markets, with Hyperliquid taking the other half. To balance revenue, HIP-3 market fees are set at double those of standard markets, keeping @HyperliquidX's take roughly equivalent.

While most deployers are still building, early activity from just one HIP-3 market already live — to the tune of $1.3B in volume — paints a positive picture that the upgrade's potential may match its hype.

What Will the Impact of HIP-3 Be?

As a result of how it's designed, HIP-3 introduces new supply crunches on $HYPE, additional revenue for buybacks, and potentially increases rewards earned by stakers and traders.

➢ Locking up $HYPE: Each deployer must stake 500K
$HYPE, effectively removing that amount from circulation. The result is persistent buying pressure as new deployers acquire $HYPE to secure their slots. For example, Trove raised $20M to purchase $HYPE for its launch. Further, Hyperliquid Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) like @HyperionDeFi and @HypeStrat have already begun exploring how to get involved in HIP-3, alleviating the threat of these vehicles dumping their tokens as we're seeing more DATs do.

➢ Additional revenue for buybacks: The 50/50 fee split on HIP-3 markets provides a new inflow to the protocol Assistance Fund, which uses 97% of all fees to buyback its token. Because HIP-3 market fees are set higher than standard ones, this stream will not be reduced by the split in fees with the deployer, potentially offering a significant source for $HYPE buybacks if even a handful of markets achieve sustained volume.

➢ Incentive Wars: A likely next phase is direct competition among deployers for trader flow, especially given the success of @tradexyz's XYZ100 HIP-3 market, which generated $100K in fees before it even reached two weeks. Expect escalating incentive programs — liquidity mining, fee rebates, staking boosts — as providers fight to draw and retain users. These will likely extend to $HYPE stakers too as validators vie for stake to participate in secondary economics like "exchange-as-a-service" models, where staking providers like @kinetiq_xyz
essentially crowdsource $HYPE to lower the cost of launching a market.

Together, these dynamics tighten HYPE's supply, expand its buyback base, and create new competitive layers across the ecosystem.

How Could HIP-3 Fail?

HIP-3's success will depend on two things: quality markets launching, and those markets generating sustained demand.

Permissionless listings don't guarantee quality. A HIP-3 market is only as strong as its deployer — how they configure leverage, oracles, and risk parameters. Deploying non-crypto or thinly traded assets like stocks or bonds requires continuous data and stable pricing. Without that, markets face thin liquidity, wide spreads, and erratic execution that will quickly drive traders away.

Oracle providers like @redstone_defi are building hybrid systems that blend onchain and offchain data, maintaining live pricing even when the base asset isn't trading. HIP-3's architecture allows deployers to implement proper oracles into individual markets and tailor risk parameters accordingly.

But demand remains the harder part. As @felixprotocol's founder Charlie (@0xBroze) notes, the lion's share of Hyperliquid's volume comes from five markets, mostly composed of major assets like $BTC, $ETH, and $SOL. Smaller assets tend to be left with little natural flow, meaning nascent, niche assets launched via HIP-3 will face a cold-start problem. Without early liquidity, traders hesitate; without traders, liquidity providers leave.

If simply introducing novel markets isn't enough to spark activity, deployers will need to experiment with market structures and pairs, introducing new collateral for perps or unique pair-markets like $BTC / $GOLD. Incentive programs should help smooth the initial launch, but in the end, these markets will have to stand on their own.

Ultimately, HIP-3's trajectory depends on the competence of its deployers. The framework is in place, but its outcome will hinge on whether deployers can build markets that trade well and sustain activity.

Final Thoughts

HIP-3 represents another structural bet on decentralization — a next step for Hyperliquid shifting responsibility for growth from the protocol to its participants.

Whether it succeeds will come down to the quality of the markets that launch, the liquidity they attract, and the flywheel effects that follow. If deployers can navigate those early hurdles, HIP-3 could define the next phase of onchain market design.

It doesn't need scale in the traditional sense to succeed. As Charlie noted, just a few high-performing markets could validate the model and materially impact both Hyperliquid's growth and $HYPE's price, with one firm,
@FalconXGlobal, estimating $.8B in additional fees if HIP-3 captures less than one percent of Mag7 derivatives trading.

For the platform that keeps defying expectations, rising from a fully-bootstrapped team to become a protocol responsible for earning 35% of all blockchain revenue some months, the success of HIP-3 wouldn't be something I bet against.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“We focused on four core areas: finance, gaming, social, and entertainment — but DeFi on @Aptos has seen the strongest traction.”

@sachitakahara sits down with @averyching to unpack Aptos’ real-world use cases and why DeFi has emerged as the breakout category: the safety of Move, the composability that allows products to plug into larger protocols, and an ecosystem that is now beginning to hit meaningful momentum.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“Bitcoin was the first distributed systems paper I read with an economic layer built into it — and that changed everything.”

@kenzixbt catches up with @averyching, Co-Founder & CTO of @Aptos, to trace his journey from high-performance computing and supercomputers, to scaling data infrastructure at Meta, to discovering Bitcoin and realizing that crypto was distributed systems with incentives natively embedded — the insight that ultimately led him to co-found Aptos Labs.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“What inspires you to get up and build every day? For me, it’s pushing Web3 forward — making blockchain a true public utility for everyone.”

@dikshaarden sits down with @averyching (Co-Founder & CTO of @Aptos) to talk about what drives him: building the next era of the internet where blockchain brings ownership back to users and enables permissionless, trustless transactions that connect people globally.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

New episode out today featuring @AveryChing - Co-Founder & CTO of @Aptos.

We explore the intersection of crypto and Al, Aptos' fundraising journey, how the network compares to other Layer 1s such as Solana and Ethereum, and what lies ahead for the Move programming language.

Avery also shares his perspective on decentralized use cases, Aptos' long-term ambitions, and how more than a decade spent scaling distributed systems at Meta — including his work on the Diem blockchain — continues to shape his vision for the future of Web3 infrastructure.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

Private speculators are FOMOing into billion-dollar raises for platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi at nosebleed valuations, but they're overlooking the real profit play hiding in plain sight: DraftKings.

This betting behemoth is primed to dominate with its massive retail reach and sports edge.

Here’s why DraftKings could rule the prediction playground.👇

~~ Opinion by @dikshaarden ~~

Prediction Market King?

DraftKings, a popular online multi-national sports gambling platform, went public on the Nasdaq Exchange via SPAC in April 2020 under the ticker symbol DKNG.

At market close on October 29, DKNG carried a $15.2B market capitalization, only a hair more than the $15B private market valuation that prediction market upstart Polymarket was reported as pursuing just the week prior.

DraftKings Background

DKNG stock had been performing well off the January 2023 broad market bottom, registering gains of over 400% as company revenues swelled alongside economic optimism. DraftKings' fortunes took a sharp turn last month as shares shed one-third of their value into late October as pronounced fears of prediction market competition compounded on widespread weakness plaguing gambling sector stocks.

In an obvious attempt to combat this share price decline, DraftKings announced last Thursday that it had acquired Railbird Technologies Inc. and its CFTC-regulated exchange subsidiary, a move that will enable DraftKings to directly compete with prediction markets by offering its own regulated event contracts.

Along with the acquisition, DraftKings is slated to release a mobile app that allows users to trade regulated event contracts spanning finance, culture, entertainment, and more. The platform will integrate across multiple exchanges (including Polymarket) to provide bettors access to the broadest suites of prediction markets available, with Polymarket serving as DraftKings' designated clearinghouse.

Prediction Market Context

The launch of legal prediction markets throughout the United States was made possible by Kalshi's landmark September 2024 legal victory against the CFTC, which cleared the way for registered prediction markets to self-certify event contracts for trading nationwide without prior CFTC approval.

Prediction markets may have first achieved widespread recognition during the 2024 U.S. general election, but they blossomed in 2025 with their adoption of sports event contracts. Sports gambling has become big business on Polymarket and Kalshi, which respectively process upwards of 30% and 90% of their weekly trading volumes as sporting event contracts on a consistent basis.

Sports Contract Legality

Prediction markets have freely listed sports event contracts under self-certification powers, but there's no clear legal basis for it.

Under the Commodity Exchange Act, the CFTC can prohibit contracts "contrary to the public interest" and explicitly deems "gaming" contracts as prohibited. While the term was contested in Kalshi v. CFTC, that court wasn't tasked with determining whether sports contracts involve gaming, leaving the matter open.

The Trump-era CFTC is unlikely to block prediction markets, but sports contracts have angered entrenched interests. Gaming lobbies and tribal groups are pressuring to quash sports event contracts, while state gambling commissions have issued cease-and-desist orders, arguing prediction marketplaces operate as unlicensed gambling venues.

Prediction marketplaces claim federal regulation supersedes state law under the Constitution's supremacy clause. Still, without clarity on whether sports contracts constitute prohibited "gaming," prediction markets without state licenses appear to rely on unproven legal theory.

Undervalued Opportunity?

Amid billion-dollar venture checks chasing prediction markets, it's ironic to see DKNG getting sold off while up-and-comers command premium valuations.

DraftKings already holds state gambling licenses across the U.S., a regulatory advantage difficult for Polymarket and Kalshi to match. It operates on clear legal footings and boasts four times as many users as both combined, yet trades at a similar valuation.

Whether sports prediction markets are ultimately legalized may have minimal bearing on DraftKings' staying power, as it already controls around one-third of the U.S. sports gambling market.

If sports event contracts are banned, DraftKings falls back on traditional gambling. If state licenses become required, it entrenches its regulatory moat. If mania persists unchecked, DraftKings has scale to capture demand.

Global sports betting markets were ~$100B in 2024 and are expected to reach $187B by 2030, implying 11% annual growth.

While this analysis focused on DraftKings, the largest sports gambling venue and only company with declared prediction market intentions, many arguments apply to similarly beleaguered sports books like FanDuel parent Flutter.

Additionally, while regulated sports books appear poised to outperform prediction markets without state licenses, this doesn't guarantee good absolute returns, particularly given sector-wide weakness.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

Last week you might have seen Jesse's post about an agent called Oracle by Noice.

It read: if you like this tweet, you buy Oracle. Whether it worked for you isn't important — it's what Oracle envisions that you should pay attention to.

But first let's understand exactly what Oracle is and how it works.

~~ Analysis by @punk4053 ~~

Developed by the @noicedotso team (the same group behind the viral tipping app on Farcaster), the oracle @noiceagent is a new solution for buying predetermined amounts of whitelisted Internet Capital Markets (ICM) tokens across Base and Solana directly on Twitter by simply liking or replying to a tweet from oracle agent which mentions a specific ticker.

(Tokens are whitelisted when the agent tweets about them, and can be submitted for consideration via DM.)

Of course you need to set the agent up first which can be done on their website:

- You connect your Twitter
- Fund your wallet on Base or SOL
- Set the default buy amount, just like you would with Noice previously
- Start liking Oracle's tweets to buy tokens

There are two types of buys: regular spends, triggered by liking tweets, and super aligned buys, triggered by commenting "aligned" under an Oracle tweet.

The platform also has its own token, ORACLE, which is paired with NOICE. The Noice team has stated that the ORACLE token is simply meant to be a proving ground for the platform, rather than the central component of it. However, it does operate from a $20K treasury, charges a 1% swap fee on both likes and "aligned" buys, and uses all realized profits and fees to buy back and burn ORACLE.

While eliminating friction may be interesting to some, what has my attention here is how Oracle looks set up to be an emerging curation layer.

In its vision, Oracle details an upcoming scout program, where users can tag Oracle to identify new founders for Noice and earn from successful referrals. Selected founders, in turn, would be able to launch tokens directly through Oracle and embed buy actions into their own timelines, just like we can now do with Oracle.

Further, given the @jessepollak beta trial, I expect this could extend to not just founders, but also to CT personalities, though I could very much be wrong.

Closing Thoughts

While Oracle is a fun mechanism, I still hold skepticism, given that similar experiments, most notably Solana Blinks, tried to embed blockchain-native actions into Twitter and failed to take off.

Granted, Blinks did depend on stricter user requirements, including Phantom installation and specific feature toggles, which may have limited its reach. Oracle's simplicity could give it a different trajectory.

That said, beyond taking a shot on a bigger court, a defensible instinct, I'm still unsure why Noice prioritized Twitter over @farcaster_xyz, which feels structurally better suited to this behavior and is also where Noice has already shown traction.

Overall, Oracle reads as a proof of the (seemingly) most promising development trends in crypto right now: AI and internet-capital markets. It emerges from genuine momentum and demonstrates the expansion a team can pursue once they've developed a product actually in demand. I'm excited to see what will come.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

Amid Venezuela's suspicious Polymarket win, Rep. Ritchie Torres is fast-tracking his bill to bar officials from trading on nonpublic info.

Here's why getting prediction market rules right could shape their future as trusted tools — or exploits for our political elites.👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~

The Political Case

The argument for restricting public officials is straightforward: if politicians can legally profit from bets on outcomes they directly influence or have advance knowledge of, it twists incentives and erodes the already near-record low public trust in the U.S. government.

This dynamic already plays out in traditional securities markets, where the STOCK Act of 2012 was supposed to address congressional insider trading. The results have been underwhelming. Despite the law's existence, examples of suspicious trading by members of Congress have continued to surface with regularity:

- Senator Richard Burr sold $1.7M in stock immediately following a classified COVID-19 briefing; the DOJ later dropped the investigation without charges.
- Senator Kelly Loeffler offloaded millions in assets after the same confidential pandemic warning, yet faced no legal consequences when federal probes concluded.
- Senator Tommy Tuberville traded millions in defense contractor stocks and violated the STOCK Act's reporting deadline 132 times, yet faced no significant consequences.

Since the STOCK Act passed in 2012, not a single member of Congress has been prosecuted under its provisions, while the penalty for concealing trades is a trivial $200 fee, which ethics committees routinely waive.

Prediction markets present an even more direct temptation. Unlike stock trading, where connections between policy decisions and price movements can be complex and deniable, prediction markets offer explicit bets on government actions. Will a military intervention occur? Will a bill pass? The path from insider knowledge to profit proves incredibly clear.

While the specifics are still unclear, @RitchieTorres bill reportedly extends STOCK Act principles to prediction markets, hopefully with greater, more meaningful enforcement. Legal frameworks matter and must be established. Without clear rules explicitly covering prediction markets, prosecuting suspicious trades becomes even harder.

Why It Matters for Prediction Markets

The broader issue extends way beyond politicians.

Prediction markets generated over $44B in combined trading volume in 2025. They've proven their value as information aggregation tools — Polymarket's accuracy during the 2024 election cycle demonstrated what these platforms can do when they function properly.

Functionally, insider participation doesn't necessarily break these markets. The transparency of blockchain-based platforms means suspicious positions are visible. Traders can tail wallets showing unusual activity. Information still gets priced in, even if the source is questionable.

But reputation is a different matter. Prediction markets are still fighting for legitimacy with regulators, institutions, and the broader public. If the prevailing narrative becomes that these platforms are just another vehicle for connected insiders to profit from privileged information, the policy progression and mainstream adoption get harder when every major market move triggers headlines about who knew what and when.

There's also a pragmatic concern: if today's broadly crypto-friendly regulators don't work with platforms to address these issues, hostile administrations of the future could do so with a much heavier hand. The window for self-regulation and productive collaboration is now.

The Path Forward

None of this means prediction markets need heavy-handed regulation across the board. Skepticism toward regulatory overreach is warranted. But there's a meaningful difference between resisting regulatory capture and acknowledging that certain narrow restrictions serve everyone's interests.

Legally barring public officials from betting on outcomes they can influence falls squarely in the latter category. Few believe politicians should have new avenues to monetize their positions. The broader crypto community, which arose in part as a check against establishment abuse, has reason to support exactly this kind of accountability.

We don't yet know the full details of Torres's bill. The specifics will matter. But the direction is right. Prediction markets work because they aggregate dispersed information into prices, and that function can survive some insider activity. The bigger risk is reputational: repeated incidents of apparent insider trading invite the kind of regulatory scrutiny that could constrain the industry far more than targeted rules around public officials ever would.

The honest reality is that this behavior will likely continue regardless of what rules get passed. Enforcement is hard. Proving intent is harder.

But there's much to be said for establishing clear norms and for the transparency that blockchain-based markets provide. Every trade on Polymarket is visible. Wallet activity can be tracked. The same infrastructure that enables suspicious trades also enables scrutiny of them. Researchers and journalists can monitor for patterns. Communities can call out suspicious activity in real time.

These are formative years for these technologies, which, if stewarded well, will reshape how we aggregate information about uncertain futures. Getting the foundations right matters. Ensuring that government officials can't exploit these tools for personal profit seems like a reasonable place to start.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“If researchers join because of incentives, you're already losing.”

@sachitakahara talks with @ethan_myshell, Founder & CEO of @myshell_ai, about the AI talent crisis in crypto, why many researchers view the industry as speculative, and how open-source releases, real product-market fit, and world-class audio models helped build a community focused on technology rather than tokens.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“Oxford, computer vision, VR, gaming, crypto, AI — one founder arc across every major tech wave.”

@kenzixbt catches up with @ethan_myshell, Founder & CEO of @myshell_ai, to unpack how skipping classes at Oxford led him from frontier research into consumer products and eventually AI x crypto: why researchers often miss mass adoption, why consumer instinct matters more than ever, and how the next generation of crypto AI products can break out beyond the niche.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayerPod]

“I mined Bitcoin in 2011, but I completely missed why it was important.”

@dikshaarden sits down with @ethan_myshell, Founder & CEO of @myshell_ai, to unpack why AI and crypto may finally be converging: Ethereum's shift from static ledgers to programmable applications, the infrastructure breakthroughs behind account abstraction and social login, and why years of progress in AI, machine learning, and robotics are now colliding with a crypto ecosystem that may finally be ready for real-world products.