BREAKING: Over $500,000,000 liquidated from the cryptocurrency market in the past hour.
• $BTC: $61,100
• $ETH : $1,620
• $BNB: $570
• $XRP: $1.10
• $SOL: $64
I've been building DeFi for almost a decade and we went from zero to here:
- Over 300b stablecoins issued onchain
- Protocols that actually make revenue, all verifiable onchain
- Billions in stablecoins yielding interest directly onchain
- More safer ways to trade or lend (no ftx custody risk)
- Embedded wallets that bring more users and are easy to integrate (i.e. Privy)
- Fintechs and e-commerce platforms issuing stablecoins (PyUSD, SoFi, Western Union, Moneygram)
- Big fintech involvement (Stripe with Tempo)
- Fintechs integrating defi (i.e. Whop integrating Aave)
- Almost all relevant major banks and asset managers have digital asset teams and also working on tokenization, stablecoins and defi (Fidelity, BlackRock etc)
- Genious act regulating stable coins and removing uncertainty to enable fintechs and TradFi to participate
- Clarity act coming, creating more certainty for crypto and defi
- AI tools for defi security hardening and improved overall development process since early days
- EU has MiCA certainty and UK following up
- Banks banking crypto (Erebor etc) and better onramping
The industry progress has been real, and will take of course years to come to see full adoption. We are closer now than ever before, yet moving 8 billion people onchain will take time.
I think that we are in front of a moment where underlying tech is starting out-phases the crypto-native assets. It make sense for stablecoins to have bigger market caps that Bitcoin and Ethereum as world is moving onchain over time. Same thing will happen with trading and lending as more assets are tokenized and will grow directly onchain. This is net good for the ecosystem.
It seems that fintech and tradfi is doubling down on blockchain like never before.
The best way to progress is by building, and we have some of the smartest builders in the space, true believers that build with a real mission are still here.
At some point crypto, defi, stablecoins, rwas are doing to be just called finance. No tribalism, no drama just boring tech that works and scales.
The market cap of Tether will soon surpass the market cap of Ethereum. It will eventually surpass the market cap of Bitcoin too. The only question is how long it will take.
A new kind of onchain asset live on Solana via @sunrisedefi, $SV151 is the first Dynamic Asset by @MeteoraAG.
Tokenized shares of sealed Pokémon packs, backed by real packs in audited custody by @BedrockFndn.
The Ethereum not ETH stuff is the mental fallacy that triggered me into writing and podcasting in the first place.
There is no strong Ethereum without an ETH worth trillions. Without ETH as a global store of value, Ethereum is a failed project. Full stop.
ETH is economic bandwidth for DeFi. It is the only asset maximized for CROPs, fail at high value ETH, fail at CROPs, fail at Ethereum.
Saying you’re bullish Ethereum not ETH is like saying you’re bullish America not the American economy. They are one and the same - economic engines.
Better to admit Ethereum is a failed project than “Ethereum not ETH”.
So spew that weak blockchain not crypto stuff out of your mouth, it doesn’t make sense for BTC, ZEC, ETH, or any truly crypto native project.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, says "fiat is a sham, the banking class is corrupt."
"Decentralized digital currency and the blockchain are the inevitable future."
Some smart people tell me there is an earnest smart developer community in Solana, and now that the awful opportunistic money people have been washed out, the chain has a bright future.
Hard for me to tell from outside, but I hope the community gets its fair chance to thrive🦾🦾
Welcome to 2026! Milady is back.
Ethereum did a lot in 2025: gas limits increased, blob count increased, node software quality improved, zkEVMs blasted through their performance milestones, and with zkEVMs and PeerDAS ethereum made its largest step toward being a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of blockchain (more on this later)
But we have a challenge: Ethereum needs to do more to meet its own stated goals. Not the quest of "winning the next meta" regardless of whether it's tokenized dollars or political memecoins, not arbitrarily convincing people to help us fill up blockspace to make ETH ultrasound again, but the mission:
To build the world computer that serves as a central infrastructure piece of a more free and open internet.
We're building decentralized applications. Applications that run without fraud, censorship or third-party interference. Applications that pass the walkaway test: they keep running even if the original developers disappear. Applications where if you're a user, you don't even notice if Cloudflare goes down - or even if all of Cloudflare gets hacked by North Korea. Applications whose stability transcends the rise and fall of companies, ideologies and political parties. And applications that protect your privacy. All this - for finance, and also for identity, governance and whatever other civilizational infrastructure people want to build.
These properties sound radical, but we must remember that a generation ago any wallet, kitchen appliance, book or car would fulfill every single one of them. Today, all of the above are by default becoming subscription services, consigning you to permanent dependence on some centralized overlord.
Ethereum is the rebellion against this.
To achieve this, it needs to be (i) usable, and usable at scale, and (ii) actually decentralized. This needs to happen at both (a) the blockchain layer, including the software we use to run and talk to the blockchain, and (b) the application layer. All of these pieces must be improved - they are already being improved, but they must be improved more.
Fortunately, we have powerful tools on our side - but we need to apply them, and we will.
Wishing everyone an exciting 2026.
Milady.
$RLUSD is institutional-grade infrastructure for payments and tokenization.
Through @wormhole’s Native Token Transfers (NTT), $RLUSD can now move natively across multiple blockchain ecosystems, supporting cross-border payments, institutional on/off-ramps, and tokenization use cases.
For developers and institutions building onchain, that expands access to compliant, USD-backed liquidity across supported networks.
🚨NEW: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon took aim at the Senate's crypto market structure bill today, arguing it "doesn't do anything for AML/BSA" and provides "almost no legal protections."
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for @SenLummis told me:
"The banks can’t deal with a bipartisan compromise on stablecoin yield and are making completely false claims about BSA/AML as a last ditch attempt to poke holes in a solid piece of legislation that protects consumers. Fear of competition always brings out an interesting side of people and that’s all this is.”
$BMNR will issue $300 million in preferred shares. Borrowing a page from @Saylor's Ponzi playbook, @fundstrat will offer a 9.5% yield to raise money to buy more Ethereum. But with $MSTR's preferred yielding over 12%, and $ETH tanking, this offering will blow up on the lauch pad.
Capital markets are funding the AI buildout at historic scale: ~$400B over 6 months. Bitcoin ETFs have seen ~$4B of outflows since May 14, pressuring $BTC. This is a capital rotation, not a Bitcoin impairment. Volatility creates opportunity.