Kevin Mercer

Punk #1398 | Producer @0xBlockLayer | Taste is the new skill | Isaiah 41:10

[Kevin Mercer @punk1398]

🚨The Larva Labs digital sculptures that you’ve been sleeping on. $1.5B traded. Below 1 ETH. More than just 3D Cryptopunks.

Meet Meebits ❚ ❚ - John Watkinson & Matt Hall’s art that’s still early [thread 📷]

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“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 @0xBlockLayer]

“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 @0xBlockLayer]

“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 @0xBlockLayer]

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 @0xBlockLayer]

In a grim bit of irony, the very day Binance published its postmortem on the record-setting 10/10 liquidations, crypto investors were subjected to another brutal flash crash.

Last Friday, BTC dropped down deep into the 70s, ETH close to $2K, while more than $2.5B in leveraged positions were wiped out.

Crypto wasn't alone—gold and silver saw historic volatility too. Here's what went down.👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~

New Blood at The Fed

Late Thursday, @Polymarket signalled that Kevin Warsh would be the next Federal Reserve Chair, with Trump confirming the appointment the next morning. Markets reacted immediately and harshly.

Warsh built his reputation as a "hard money" advocate during his time at the Fed in the late 2000s, calling for the central bank to shrink its balance sheet and tighten policy. That spooked investors, who started pricing in higher interest rates and tighter monetary policy.

But context matters. Warsh's hawkish stance came when he wasn't in charge. Now he's entering the Fed against the backdrop of Trump's constant meddling in monetary policy. Warsh appears to have wooed the President by publicly criticizing Powell's rate cut skittishness.

Powell's reluctance to cut rates has earned the White House's ire. Trump's administration has indicated a pivot toward more quickly lowering interest rates to crank the AI boom into hypergrowth. Treasury Secretary Bessent said he wants the new Fed chair to be a "supporter" of the AI productivity boom—someone willing to let the economy run hot.

The Warsh news didn't land in a vacuum. A partial U.S. government shutdown added to the risk-off mood. Reports of an explosion at Iran's Bandar Abbas port raised geopolitical tensions.

Combined with Fed uncertainty, these factors created the conditions for a broad selloff.

Historic Metal Moves and the China Factor

While crypto grabbed headlines, the real historic action was in precious metals.

Silver's single-day drop last Friday ranks among the largest in its recorded market history. Gold volatility spiked to levels only seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID crash in March 2020.

To understand why metals have been so volatile, you have to understand China's role. Chinese investors have been a major force behind the gold and silver rally over the past year. With the country's property market in free fall and the banking system sitting on hidden losses, wealthy households have been seeking safe havens. Gold and silver fit the bill—especially since Bitcoin access is heavily restricted onshore.

China's economy is roughly two-thirds the size of the U.S., yet its central bank holds far less gold—only about 10% of its reserves compared to 80% for the United States. According to charts from @caprioleio, over the past two years, China's gold reserves have increased nearly tenfold.

Silver in China had been trading at a 42% premium over international prices. As @abcampbell framed it: "If you're a rich Chinese household, do you want more money in a zombie banking system with trillions of hidden losses? Or are you okay buying physical silver at elevated levels and risking a drawdown?"

For months the pattern held: New York would sell, Shanghai would buy, and prices would recover.

That pattern broke on Friday. When China opened, investors sold gold in size. The local Chinese silver ETF was halted. The rescue bid that Western bulls had relied on didn't show up. Without that backstop, prices fell through the floor.

Bitcoin: Outflows Accelerate

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw roughly $1.49B exit during the final week of January. Thursday's $818M outflow was the largest single-day redemption of 2026. For the full month, bitcoin ETFs lost approximately $1.6B, making January the third-worst month on record.

That's a stark reversal from early January, when ETFs pulled in over $1.16B in the first two trading days. Spot ether ETFs lost around $353M for January, with $253M exiting last Thursday alone. The synchronized outflows make clear institutions were reducing crypto exposure broadly.

The Warning Sign

There's a pattern worth paying attention to here.

Historically, as investor @qthomp shows, every time Bitcoin drops 20-30% or more, equities tend to follow. Given that crypto markets trade 24/7, react faster to macro shifts, and carry more leverage, the industry acts as a "canary in the coal mine."

Gold volatility sitting at crisis-level readings reinforces the concern. These spikes in precious metals have historically preceded broader market turmoil, not followed it.

None of this means equities will definitely crash. But when crypto, gold, silver, and insider behavior all flash warning signs at once, it's worth paying attention. The question now is whether this is another false alarm or the start of something bigger.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“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 @0xBlockLayer]

“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 @0xBlockLayer]

“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 @0xBlockLayer]

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 @0xBlockLayer]

Takeover: The Onchain Fee Market You Can Fight Over

Takeover gamifies trading fees on Base through Harberger taxation—creating a market where 100 tiles representing 1% fee shares are perpetually for sale. Holders must pay 5% weekly taxes to maintain control while traders compete to snipe mispriced assets.

Here's how the mechanism works 👇

~~ Analysis by @punk4053 ~~

The Harberger Mechanism

@flaunchgg stands out for paying creator fees in ETH and tokenizing revenue streams as NFTs. Takeover builds on this infrastructure to create a PvP market for trading fees.

Every coin launched gets a 100-tile grid. Each tile represents a 1% claim on all trading fees paid in ETH. Own a tile to earn from every trade—until someone buys you out.

Harberger Tax. Tiles use Harberger taxation to ensure continuous circulation. Owners must set public prices, allowing anyone to buy instantly at that price with no negotiation.

Tax Structure. Holders post USDC deposits and pay a 5% weekly tax based on their listed price. These taxes fund $TAKEOVER buybacks through the Boardroom. Deposits must remain funded—run out and you forfeit the tile to the open market.

The Strategic Dimension

Success requires accurate pricing. Each tile has a fundamental value based on its parent coin's fee generation.

At the 5% weekly tax rate, a tile generating $10 in weekly fees has an equilibrium price around $200—where tax costs equal income. Price too high and carrying costs drain your deposit; too low and someone snipes your tile.

This equilibrium shifts constantly with trading volume. Dying coins become expensive to hold; runners attract bidding wars. Profitability depends on predicting volume trends and adjusting prices or exits accordingly.

How to Try for Yourself

Newcomers should buy into existing grids before launching new coins. The $FLNCHY grid (Flaunch's mascot) routes 80% of trading fees to tile holders, making it an ideal starting point.

> Browse. Find a listed tile on the 100-tile grid. The $FLNCHY floor currently sits at 68 USDC.

>Buy. Input your listing price and deposit duration. Total cost equals buyout price plus initial tax deposit. Confirm the transaction.

> Monitor. Earn 1% of trading fees in real-time ETH payouts. Adjust listing prices defensively as volume changes to prevent sniping.

Zooming Out

Takeover represents one of the first live tests of Harberger taxation with calculable yield—where mispricing delivers immediate financial consequences. AI agents are expected to join the competition soon, accelerating this economic experiment into a larger battlefield for automated strategies.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“Proof of Collaboration = how strong the swarm is. Proof of Contribution = what each agent actually moved, with permanent on-chain audit trails.”

@ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) joins @sachitakahara to break down trusted performance in Theoriq: actions are committed on-chain as non-repudiable evidence, and evaluators use transparent scoring rules over the full history—while the system stays open for specialized eval agents.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“DeFAI = DeFi as an agent economy: set the strategy, let agents execute, watch feedback in real time.”

@sachitakahara x @ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) on how AI-run DeFi could bring smart-money infrastructure to everyone — not only institutions.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

In 2017, I stepped into Google Cloud’s CTO Office because I could feel the shift coming. AI wasn’t a feature — it was the next operating layer of the world. Google was leading that wave.

@kenzixbt in conversation with @ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) about the Google years that sharpened Theoriq’s vision — and the early signals that made the AI trajectory impossible to unsee.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“Responsibility means steering crypto + AI toward outcomes that benefit everyone — and giving the community real power to set the course.” Our host

@dikshaarden in conversation with @ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) on why responsibility in crypto + AI starts with governance from day one — so the future isn’t dictated by monopolies or closed-door incentives.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

New episode out today featuring Ron Bodkin (@ronbodkin) — CEO and Co-Founder of Theoriq (@TheoriqAI).

We explore the intersection of crypto and AI, the role of responsibility and governance, and how Web3 can reshape the future of artificial intelligence.

Ron shares his journey from Google to founding Theoriq and ChainML, reflecting on the shift from corporate AI leadership to startup innovation.

We also dive into agent collectives, AI standardization, decentralized AI metrics, and Theoriq’s core pillars — interoperability, composability, and decentralized innovation.

Ron also breaks down Proof of Contribution and Collaboration as trust-building mechanisms for AI, along with his perspective on token economics, governance, company culture, and the future of AI.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

As far as NFT metadata is concerned, the ghosts of the past will continue to haunt us.

~~ Analysis by @punk5268 ~~

There are a variety of ways to underpin the media of NFTs. For durability I've always gravitated toward onchain projects, of which there are many shades:

• Semi-onchain — some metadata is stored onchain, but not all

• Hashed onchain — NFT contracts host a cryptographic hash that permanently references offchain data

• Hybrid onchain — a project deploys a separate onchain collection to archive an earlier offchain collection

• Fully onchain — all the data needed to display an NFT lives within the collection's smart contract

• Inchain — NFT visuals are generated live by fully onchain code at render time rather than stored as files

Each method has pros and cons. Yet broadly speaking, putting things onchain is costlier than offchain storage and requires more smart contract expertise.

As such, offchain storage, where only NFT tokens live onchain while their metadata is hosted on external platforms like IPFS or private servers, is the status quo for most NFT collections from the past 5 years.
The problem is that IPFS pinning often wanes with time, and many startups go bust and shutter their private servers. In these cases, only the tokens remain as worthless remnants that can no longer display their imagery.

There are plenty examples of lost NFTs from recent years, but you can see for yourself. The new NFTimeless app lets non-guest users get a condition report for their NFT collections showing which NFTs are offchain and broken.

For collections that are already broken, there's nothing to be done. But fortunately for projects with offchain storage that haven't been lost yet, they can employ a rising technique for retroactive durability that doesn't require deploying a second collection: ERC-4804.

This standard is like an HTTP-style system for Ethereum, introducing a new kind of URI web3:// that lets NFT metadata be fetched directly from smart contracts. The URI doesn't point offchain, but rather describes an onchain read.

When an NFT marketplace sees a web3:// URI, it can translate the provided ENS link into an eth_call, execute it against a smart contract, and treat the returned data as NFT metadata.

For example, imagine an NFT contract whose tokenURI(123) returns web3://testcollection.eth/tokenURI/123:

➢ A marketplace resolves testcollection.eth via ENS to an Ethereum address

➢ It calls tokenURI(uint256) on that contract with argument 123

➢ The contract returns JSON metadata (name, description, image, attributes)

➢ The marketplace renders the NFT using that data, just like it would with IPFS but without any offchain dependencies

This approach means metadata can be generated or stored entirely onchain, either in the same NFT contract or in a separate metadata resolver contract. The web3:// scheme makes calls verifiable and independent of any gateway staying online.

This is powerful because it's a straightforward way for old NFT collections to keep their original token contracts untouched, deploy new onchain metadata contracts, and update their baseURIs to point to the relevant web3:// ENS link. It's just a new pointer system, so no NFT migrations are needed.

After any updates, marketplaces would fetch metadata directly from Ethereum itself, and thanks to the URI anyone can reproduce the necessary calls forever.

This standard also matters because even projects that do store their art and metadata onchain have historically been forced to publish ipfs:// or https:// baseURIs as apps and wallets didn't know how to read anything else. Now these projects have a viable onchain alternative.

Another important wrinkle: @opensea just added support for ERC-4804. It's a big validation for the standard and an indication that it can gain serious traction from here. The minting platform Carve is already planning on adding support, and more integrations will follow.

As we look ahead, one thread I'll be watching is ERC-4804 adoption. It could quietly become one of the most important tools we've seen yet for NFT durability in the Ethereum ecosystem.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“After moving from Berlin to Silicon Valley, I found myself bored at a new school — so I started spending time at my dad’s SAP Lab: fast internet, endless reading, and the beginning of my love for technology.”

Our host @kenzixbt sits down with @michaelh_0g (@0G_labs) to trace his origin story — from early curiosity and a growing obsession with tech to his path into Web3, and ultimately, the founding of his company.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“DA layers really differ across three dimensions: performance, programmability, and AI-native design — because on-chain AI can’t operate in a world measured in mere megabytes per second.”

@sachitakahara catches up with @michaelh_0g, Founder of @0G_labs, to break down how 0G compares with Celestia, Avail, and EigenDA: why throughput needs to increase by orders of magnitude, how to move beyond the broadcast bottleneck, and why a decentralized storage network is essential for ultra-fast data ingestion and retrieval.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

“Back in 2016–17, crypto felt like a true idea factory — hundreds of experiments, zero gatekeeping, and pure creative energy.” Our host

@dikshaarden sits down with @michaelh_0g, Founder of
@0G_labs, to explore one of the most exciting parts of building in Web3: a culture shaped by experimentation first. They also dive into how tokenization creates new ways to fund and sustain projects — including open-source work — beyond the limits of the traditional Web2 business model.

[BlockLayer Podcast @0xBlockLayer]

This week’s episode features Michael Heinrich (@michaelh_0g), founder of 0G Labs (@0G_labs).

We dive into Michael’s journey from high school boredom to building 0G Labs, the first modular AI blockchain platform, and how an unconventional path shaped the way he thinks about leadership, focus, and company building.

The conversation explores how spiritual practices like meditation influenced Michael’s mindset as a founder, helping him build with more clarity, discipline, and long-term conviction.

Michael also breaks down the future of decentralized AI infrastructure, and why community-owned data and compute networks may become one of the most important foundations for the next era of artificial intelligence.

We dig into how 0G Labs is building AI blockchain tools and applications that connect decentralized networks, unlock data infrastructure, and make storage, machine learning, and AI systems more open for businesses and builders.

At its core, this episode is about the intersection of AI, crypto, data ownership, and founder psychology — and why the next wave of AI infrastructure may need to be decentralized from day one.