MH

@Further @LeydenVC @VentureMENA

[MH @reachhamdy]

@IAmAdamRobinson Good time to force a decision.

[TFTC @TFTC21]

Ken Griffin went home on a Friday "fairly depressed" after watching AI agents at Citadel do work that used to take teams of PhDs in finance months to complete. Done in days.

His words: "These are not mid-tier white collar jobs. These are extraordinarily high skilled jobs being automated by agentic AI."

This is the head of one of the most successful hedge funds in history saying the people he pays seven figures to analyze markets and structure deals are being replaced by software that works in hours instead of months. Not theoretically. In his own office. Right now.

The Coatue deck we covered earlier this week called agents "the biggest unlock" in AI. Griffin just confirmed it from the buy side. The shift from copilots to agents is not a future event. It is already happening at the highest levels of finance.

[Katie Haun @katie_haun]

The SEC just gave DeFi frontends a meaningful signal: if you're not custodying assets or executing orders, we won't come after you. Most detailed safe harbor yet. But it's not a rule, it expires in 5 years, next administration can pull it, etc. More substance than we’ve seen in a staff statement. Still not a rule. Still expires. But it’s solid progress in the right direction.
https://t.co/q7044OuaJC

[The Rollup @therollupco]

"The CEO of Western Union is here because he realizes onchain settlement can save his firm billions on the float."

"That is the real Institutional FOMO."

@santiagoroel says we’ve transitioned from a retail-driven "buy the coin" market to an institutional "fix the P&L" market.

The pressure is coming from a "basket of public companies" that are already using these rails to outperform the S&P, forcing the old guard to either innovate or be liquidated.

[trade.xyz @tradexyz]

S&P Dow Jones Indices and trade[XYZ] have joined forces to launch the first official S&P 500 perpetual contract, available exclusively on Hyperliquid.

For 69 years, the S&P 500 has been a defining reference point for global finance. Until now, access to that benchmark has been shaped by market hours, intermediaries, and geography. Today, that changes.

The S&P 500 perp is now available 24/7/365, anchored by the official index data required for deep liquidity and institutional confidence at scale. 

SPDJI helped define modern indexing. They are stewards of an iconic benchmark, the standard against which portfolios across the globe are measured. We are honored to bring that legacy on-chain.

Trade[XYZ] is bringing the world's most iconic assets towards a future of global, continuous markets — a future powered by Hyperliquid.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

Some of our best hires were totally unqualified on paper.

They always had the same qualities: entrepreneurial, high agency, smart, mission aligned, and they got shit done.

If you’re hiring, especially in early stages, seek out & bet on these people. Don’t over-index on resumes.

[MH @reachhamdy]

“….enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.”

[jack @jack]

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.

first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.

a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.

we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.

to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.

jack

[MH @reachhamdy]

Investing works the same way: incumbency optimizes the present, conviction builds the future. The edge is backing the latter before it’s obvious.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Andreessen is describing an organizational physics problem that most people misread as a leadership platitude.

Every person inside a company who isn’t the CEO is being evaluated on execution against existing commitments. Their incentive is to protect current revenue, hit quarterly targets, and avoid blame for things that go wrong. New products threaten all three simultaneously. They cannibalize existing lines, they pull engineers off shipping commitments, and if they fail, the person who championed them gets punished while the person who said “we should focus” gets promoted.

This creates a specific organizational gravity. In a 10,000 person company, roughly 9,950 people wake up every morning with the rational incentive to prevent new things from happening. Product managers are measured on shipped features for the current product. Sales wants tools that close this quarter’s pipeline. Finance models next year based on this year’s revenue mix. Engineering leads protect their headcount by showing utilization against existing roadmaps.

The CEO is the only person in the entire org chart whose incentive structure rewards creation over maintenance. They’re the only one who can absorb the political cost of pulling 40 engineers off a revenue-generating product to build something with zero customers. They’re the only one who can tell the CFO that Q3 is going to look ugly because they’re funding a bet. They’re the only one who doesn’t get fired for a failed product launch.

This is why “product-led” companies die the moment the founder leaves. Look at Apple post-Jobs 1985-1997. Look at Microsoft from 2000-2014 under Ballmer. Revenues grew. The stock was flat for 14 years. The company shipped zero new product categories. Ballmer optimized the existing machine. Nadella came in and forced Azure, forced the cloud pivot, forced the GitHub acquisition, forced the OpenAI bet. Every one of those moves had internal opposition. Every one required someone with termination-proof conviction.

The “wills them into existence” framing is the accurate part. Will as in overriding the immune system of a large organization that treats new products the way a body treats a foreign organ. The CEO is the only one with enough immunosuppressant authority to keep the transplant alive long enough to take.

[Christopher Perkins 🦅🌎⚓️NYC @perkinscr97]

A New Year and an exciting new path forward!

I'm eager to join @sethginns and the incredible @coinfund liquid team as we lead these strategies into the future.🚀

Thank you to the team at @coinfund for your support, and I look forward to continued collaboration in the future.

[XMTP @xmtp_]

World Chat just launched, and it's redefining what messaging can be in an AI-saturated world.

Secured by @XMTP_'s protocol, it's the first messenger that combines proof of humanity, global payments, and Mini Apps in one seamless experience.

🧵 Here's what makes it different:

[Kyle Samani @KyleSamani]

There will be many vertically focused stablecoin neobanks

[BridgePort @BridgePortMQ]

📢 MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: BridgePort and @Anchorage Partner to Transform Institutional Digital Asset Settlement! 🚀

We are thrilled to announce that BridgePort is partnering with Anchorage Digital, the crypto platform and federally chartered crypto bank, to integrate our middleware and enhance institutional settlement infrastructure!

This partnership is a huge step forward for institutional crypto adoption, solving the critical challenges of capital inefficiency and fragmented infrastructure.

What This Means for Institutional Trading:

💹 Enhanced Capital Efficiency: Our combined solution allows institutional market participants to benefit from seamless pre-order asset allocation without the need for pre-funding on execution venues.

🔏 Secure & Compliant Access: By bridging Anchorage Digital's institutional custody platform with BridgePort's credit allocation and settlement solution, we are providing a coordinated management layer for collateral. This expands how custody clients can access liquidity while staying within the guardrails of a federally regulated platform.

🛣️ Access to New Venues: The integration will facilitate access to traditional and non-custodial execution venues for Anchorage's Atlas Network clients.

As Anchorage Digital CEO @nathanmccauley said, this integration is "another step toward making institutional crypto infrastructure work the way it should".

BridgePort CEO @NirupRam added, "By bridging custody and execution platforms, we're creating the seamless, capital-efficient trading experience institutions expect from traditional markets".

We are committed to building the most robust, secure, and efficient infrastructure to accelerate the institutionalization of the digital asset market.

Read the full press release for all the details!

[Haun Ventures @HaunVentures]

Portfolio company @theclearingco announced today it has filed its application with the @CFTC to become a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO). If approved, they would operate the first stablecoin-native clearinghouse purpose-built for prediction markets.

You can read more about @tonigemayel's vision in the @WSJ today (link below) 🥳

[hong.grvt @hong_grvt]

Grvt, leveraging Atlas to become Ethereum’s market layer.

[Christopher Perkins 🦅🌎⚓️NYC @perkinscr97]

Really great chat with the always thoughtful @ramahluwalia, CEO and Founder of @LumidaWealth on the @wealthion pod.

Short term volatility aside, the market set up remains constructive.

Worth a listen.

[MH @reachhamdy]

IBM got its Digital Asset upgrade.

[DFNS @dfnsHQ]

🚨 Breaking News 🚨

@IBM launches a new blockchain wallet offering, and it’s powered by @dfnsHQ.

After years of building behind the scenes, we’re thrilled to announce that enterprise tech giant IBM has chosen to whitelabel Dfns for their new digital asset platform offering.

🏛️ IBM is one of the greatest institutions of the modern world.

Roughly 70% of the world’s transactions go through IBM mainframes 🤯

For over a century, they’ve shaped how the world computes, transacts, and secures its data.

So when IBM decides to make blockchain a strategic priority for their core infrastructure, LinuxOne and IBM Z, they’re not following the trend. They’re setting it.

And that changes everything.

“With IBM Digital Asset Haven, our clients have the opportunity to enter and expand into the digital asset space backed by IBM’s level of security and reliability. This new, unified platform delivers the resilience and data governance they have been asking for, empowering governments and enterprises to build the next generation of financial services.” — Tom McPherson, General Manager of IBM Z and LinuxONE.

Over the past year, Dfns and IBM worked side by side to merge cryptography, engineering, security, compliance, and infrastructure into one coherent stack, a platform we now call IBM Digital Asset Haven.

At its core lies Dfns:

✅ Wallets-as-a-Service (WaaS) unifies wallet operations across all chains, assets, users, and orgs through one secure interface.
✅ Transaction Management Service (TMS) automates routing, signing, monitoring, and settlement across 50+ public and private networks.
✅ Wallet Entitlement Management (WEM) centralizes access control, compliance checks, policy enforcement, and approvals with configurable multi-party workflows.
✅ Third-Party Integrations enables faster deployments and efficient operations with pre-integrated apps for exchanges, treasury, payments, compliance, and market data.
✅ Key Deployment Service (KDS) enable key orchestration from one interface using either Dfns’ MPC and/or IBM’s HSM, with secure enclaves for regulated offline storage and quantum-safe support.

📅 IBM Digital Assets Haven is expected to be available as SaaS and Hybrid SaaS in Q4 2025 and is planned for on-premises in Q2 2026.

For Dfns, this milestone is one of the biggest accomplishments in our history. For the industry, today’s announcement is concrete evidence that blockchain has now joined the core stack of finance.

And it’s just the beginning. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to making this happen 🙏

🖇️ Read the full story: https://t.co/1mnEdwVr5Y
📚 For more information, visit https://t.co/Xgvw3qrl6T
📰 Full press release: https://t.co/LXOon9rKTz

[MH @reachhamdy]

Static pricing creates artificial stability. Oracle price masking hides volatility and compromises risk management.

[Alex Krüger @krugermacro]

Ethena's USDE depegging from USDT had a big impact in today's crypto liquidations cascade.

Can tell so as names not actively traded in CEXes didn't suffer as much -- with some coins actually having already fully recovered the dump.

USDE is extensively used as collateral across CEXes and DeFi. But in DeFi land, Aave had USDE's peg to USDT hard-coded at 1.0.

Not the case with CEXes such as Binance and Bybit 👇

[Nirup R @NirupRam]

Appreciate the coverage of the partnership between @BridgePortMQ and @CryptoFinanceAG off-exchange settlement.

BridgePort is "...a middleware company that aims to build open custody by connecting reputable custodians and execution venues, giving trading firms the choice of using any custodian and using any venue without artificial limit constraints".

[mert @mert]

this is so sick

I just bought some GLXY stock natively on Solana with @SuperstateInc

This is not a mirror asset; this is the onchain native version of the GLXY stock from the NASDAQ!

From native NASDAQ to the decentralized NASDAQ

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