A+

[A+ @aplus]

🧵 1/
On-chain markets don’t scale without an antifragile stablecoin backed by real collateral. Anything else is just cope.

[A+ @aplus]

Congratulations to the @eth_systems team: Bringing A+ confidential systems for institutional Ethereum.

[EthSystems @eth_systems]

Today we're launching EthSystems.

We build confidential systems for institutional Ethereum.

Institutions want to use Ethereum, but one of the biggest problems is the lack of built-in, modular privacy tools.

We were the Ethereum Foundation's Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF) for the past year. We had hundreds of conversations with central banks, regulators, tier-one banks, and asset managers, shipping open source work the whole time.

Wall Street has found crypto as an asset class, but not yet as commercial infrastructure. Institutions want to run real flows on Ethereum: stablecoins, tokenized assets, settlement. These are businesses with billions of dollars on the line, and no bank will operate in full public view. On a public ledger, confidentiality is the hard part: each party to a transaction should see what it has a right to see, and nothing more.

We have a year of proof of work: private bonds, confidential stablecoin transfers, private settlement across chains, the Ethereum Privacy Map, and more. All with protocol specs and security properties, at our website.

We've spent a decade working on privacy in crypto. We know there's no silver bullet. Different use cases need different systems, each designed, specified, and hardened properly, and someone has to do that work. That's why EthSystems exists.

We're an independent, for-profit company, backed by long-term Ethereum-aligned investors. This is a decade-long transition, and we aren't going anywhere.

If you're an institution that wants to build on Ethereum, talk to us. We're hiring: BD in New York, protocol engineers, ops: [email protected]

[A+ @aplus]

The A+ team is in Tokyo this week for @WebX_Asia 🇯🇵

If you're around and want to learn more about $USDA+, our DMs are open.

[A+ @aplus]

🫡

[Josh Stark (0xstark.eth) @0xstark]

@ethereum @GovTechSG @0xsequence @TornadoCash @SnapshotLabs @cabindotcity @gitcoin @0xbowio @useteller @AnonAadhaar @ETHGlobal @hatsprotocol @safe @tallyxyz @OndoFinance @usualmoney @artblocks_io @reclaimprotocol @zkp2p @BungeeExchange @rodeodotclub @base @AgoraGovernance @centrifuge @syncswap @zksync @LineaBuild @Scroll_ZKP @LiquityProtocol @focustree_app @Starknet @getclave @MorphoLabs @VenusProtocol @Azuki @manifoldxyz @SuperstateFunds @butterygg @Optimism @EdgeEsmeralda @OctantApp @Sophon @Zyfi_org @due_network @arbitrum @signinethereum @0xCurvy @SoFi 193. @aplus is a stablecoin project plus the infrastructure that makes it possible for many issuers to join the project.

New issuers (i.e. banks) benefit from pre-existing compliance, liquidity, and yield opportunities instead of launching their own whitelabel stablecoin.

[Bluechip @bluechip_org]

@Snapcrackle Read the full report here. ⬇️

[James | Snapcrackle @Snapcrackle]

Stablecoin on-ramps are broken in four fundamental ways.

New report by @bluechip_org

The Geography Tax

> US/EU on-ramping: 0-0.3%
> Central Africa: 15-20%

Same dollar. Same stablecoin. 50x price difference.

Why: Licensing is fragmented across jurisdictions. Local liquidity is thin. Banks treat these markets as afterthoughts. Operators must maintain exotic currency inventory in uncertain regulatory environments. No direct issuer relationships exist, so users rely on informal networks and local telco agents who set their own spreads.

The Broken Funnel:
Global card on-ramp completion: 21%

Africa: 6%
Asia: 7%

Why: Failed KYC from document verification issues. Card declines from banks blocking crypto purchases. Session timeouts from complex multi-step flows. Poor localization. Lack of local payment method support. The journey was designed for crypto-native users, not first-time buyers.

Cards Are Structurally Incompatible
Emerging market card on-ramping: 7-10%
US/EU: 3-5%
Bank transfers: 0-0.3%

Why: Card networks charge 1-3% MDR on every transaction. In e-commerce, merchants hide this in product margins. Stablecoins are pegged 1:1. There's no margin. You can't inflate the price of a dollar. Ramps must also price in chargeback risk and fraud losses. The cost has nowhere to go except to the user. This gap will not close.

Remittance Corridors Are Broken

Tanzania to Kenya traditional: 59.7%
Stablecoin: 5-6%
South Africa to China traditional: 22.8%
Stablecoin: 1.2%

Why: Correspondent banking adds layers of intermediaries. Each one takes a cut. Limited competition in smaller corridors. Weak FX liquidity. Cash-heavy payout networks. Settlement takes 1-5 days because every leg requires reconciliation.

Stablecoins bypass all of this.
Settlement in under an hour.

But without accessible on-ramps, the technology sits behind a wall most users can't climb.

[A+ @aplus]

The #1 most important thing to understand about stablecoins in 2026

https://t.co/cdpma4sWME

Courtesy of @enteronchain research

[James | Snapcrackle @Snapcrackle]

Wall Street demands neutrality.

They need infrastructure no one can capture.

They need infrastructure no one can own.

[A+ @aplus]

@BlockEnthusiast @zksmarts meant in the current financial system definition of the word

[A+ @aplus]

@pcaversaccio https://t.co/mnY0ZoDaPI

[A+ @aplus]

14/15) Back in the day everyone hated Coinbase. "Not cyperpunk - centralised!!" screamed the devs, "Bitcoin is a scam, backed by nothing, should be regulated" said the establishment.

[A+ @aplus]

13/14) The goal is ironically to move the overton window so that it is not CATEGORICALLY worse in web3 than web2 vsv financial censorship. We don't want any one entity to control fork choice, or our money.