Sun

co-founder & ceo @veda_labs

[Sun @sunandr_]

AI will make financial intelligence abundant. The harder problem is enabling agents to act safely across financial markets.

They need a harness. Vaults are that harness. https://t.co/Onh8pWu2Zy

[TuongVy Le @TuongvyLe12]

Onchain finance is powerful because it allows users to engage in familiar financial activities without relying on traditional intermediaries. DeFi protocols and vaults, for example, allow users to participate in lending and other onchain strategies while retaining greater ownership and control over their assets, with transparent, enforceable rules limiting what others can do with them.

How these activities are regulated should follow from that.

Today, @veda_labs, @aave, and @kamino released a paper based on our recent submission to the @SECGov explaining how we believe existing securities laws apply to DeFi lending protocols and non-custodial vaults.

TL;DR: Discretion and control matter, but each statute requires its own analysis. Under the arrangements we examine:

(1) Where no person takes on a legal debt obligation, there is no note.

(2) Where users aren't investing in a common business venture whose fortunes they share, there is no investment contract.

(3) Where no separate investment vehicle owns the assets and issues interests in them, there is no investment company.

These distinctions matter for the future of onchain finance. Familiar financial activities can create very different legal relationships when carried out through new technology.

[Sun @sunandr_]

Sensible policy frameworks can only result from collaboration between industry leaders. Regulation must take into account the practical realities of the technology being used widely today.

It's been a privilege to work with @aave and @kamino on a regulatory framework for vaults and onchain lending. These are two of the most important categories in all of onchain finance and it's more critical than ever that we have clear rules of the road

[Veda @veda_labs]

Today, @veda_labs, @aave, and @kamino are publishing a new legal framework for applying U.S. securities laws to decentralized lending protocols and non-custodial vaults. It draws from a joint submission to the @SECGov last month. Here's why it matters for the future of onchain finance: 🧵

[Stani @StaniKulechov]

Together with industry leaders @veda_labs and @kamino, Aave submitted a legal framework for lending protocols and vaults to the SEC.

We are bringing the industry together to advocate for a regulatory framework that reflects how onchain finance actually works.

Kudos to @TuongvyLe12 and @LindaJeng1 for spearheading this initiative.

[Sun @sunandr_]

Brands are more important than ever.

It has become consensus that everything we're building in blockchains should become invisible - infrastructure that "just works" hidden behind the common interfaces that people already use for finance today.

But I believe we do a disservice to our industry and humanity if we don't at least try to build something culturally relevant and project our values onto the world. Freedom, sovereignty, democratization, the right to live and flourish.

It is not technology that accomplishes this (technology is value-neutral) - it is Brand.

It's been a privilege to watch @amillionandback rebuild Veda's brand from first principles. Our new website https://t.co/mtHkaduBWs is just the first step after months of foundation building. I hope it makes you feel at least a little something

[Thomas Malone @amillionandback]

https://t.co/mHVeqmy4Zu

[Sun @sunandr_]

There are two forces working against permissionless DeFi:
1) Most distribution is moving to fintechs through Vaults, and in many cases these products are being whitelisted for the fintech's users
2) The assets and products being issued onchain are increasingly regulated / issued by regulated entities

[TokenizeThis @TokenizeThisNYC]

"Permissionless is totally incompatible with RWAs, and it is frankly an unsolvable problem."

At TokenizeThis 2026, @sunandr_ (@veda_labs), Victor Jung (@hamilton_lane), and Tim Stoddart (@razefinance) discussed vaults as a distribution channel for RWAs.

Sunand’s take: permissionlessness is not here to stay for long.

Moderated by Michal Benedykcinski (@multiliquid_xyz).

[Sun @sunandr_]

@ililic We will not go gentle but we do need to be cleared eyed about the fact that humans will not be the ultimate pattern recongizers.

Plenty of other things to hold onto. Consciousness for example...

[Sun @sunandr_]

This bias for humans exceptionalism is so deeply ingrained that even the great Iain Banks needed to self-correct.

In the first Culture book "Consider Phlebas" Banks introduced the concept of "Referers" who are incredibly rare humans in the Culture civilization (only ~1 per trillion) that have a precognitive ability to predict the future in ways that Minds (AIs) cannot. Minds consult them and study how their abilities work.

Banks later abandoned the idea, himself stating in an interview in 2010: "After thousands of years of artificial intelligence, the idea that the AI couldn’t do all this themselves is silly".

[will depue @willdepue]

i don't think nearly anyone, myself included, has truly internalized there'll soon be a machine better than us in every single intellectual & physical capacity
deep down we all share a feeling that our 'entrepreneurship' or 'taste' or... is special & safe. it isn't. it's over

[Sun @sunandr_]

@joshkessler_ Perhaps in micro-niche areas that are only of interest to humans

[Sun @sunandr_]

@cryptographicas @Morpho This can't be real

[Sun @sunandr_]

This is massive news but most people don't fully understand the moat that @Ondo has built and why Blackrock might want to do this.

Ondo has created a unique (and today, arguably the only) structure that allows them to distribute tokenized securities widely outside of the US.

For example if you're a platform with customers in LatAm, Asia, Europe, and other countries and want to offer exposure to US treasury yield, you don't have a ton of options.

USDY is one of the few or only assets that is available in most of the relevant geographies. Presumably, it's this structure that made Blackrock excited to partner.

There is a race happening to provide financial services to those who are underserved globally and doing so on crypto rails (stablecoins, tokenization, etc.) has become table stakes.

[Ondo Finance @Ondo]

Introducing Ondo Intelligent Portfolios, the first three portfolios powered by BlackRock.

Ondo Intelligent Portfolios introduces a new onchain product category: curated investment portfolios delivered as single onchain transferable tokens.

The first three portfolios are based on portfolio strategies developed by BlackRock for Ondo, marking the first time eligible onchain investors can access exposure to such strategies through a single token.

1. BLKHIon: Ondo High Income Powered by BlackRock

2. BLKDIGon: Ondo Diversified Growth Powered by BlackRock

3. BLKGRWon: Ondo High Growth Powered by BlackRock

Diversified, professionally constructed strategies have historically required brokerage accounts and traditional fund structures. Now, delivered as peer-to-peer transferable tokens from Ondo, these onchain portfolios become accessible to eligible non-US investors in permitted jurisdictions through the wallets, exchanges, and DeFi applications they already use.

“Tokenization creates new ways for portfolio strategies to be delivered through digital infrastructure. Diversified portfolio strategies can be incorporated into tokenized investment products, enabling eligible investors to access diversified allocations through a single instrument. It shows how established portfolio construction approaches can be delivered through new channels and technologies.” - Lisa O’Connor, Global Head of the Model Portfolio Solutions team and Co-CIO for Global Solutions within the Multi-Asset Strategies group at BlackRock

Ondo Intelligent Portfolios can unlock novel capabilities:

→ Programmatic rebalancing
→ Full composability with DeFi
→ Complete transparency onchain
→ Multiple asset classes in a single token

This is just the start for Ondo Intelligent Portfolios. The infrastructure is now in place for leading financial institutions to bring their asset allocation expertise onchain.

[Sun @sunandr_]

@PaulFrambot Agreed there's a spectrum and that it's worth distinguishing between different types of vaults - we've seen too many people lose money to bad products with poor safeguards

[Sun @sunandr_]

There is a good discussion to be had here, but it is wrong to claim non-custodial vaults are "solved".

Let's think through some of the features of Morpho Vaults V2 and their costs / tradeoffs:

- Timelocks: this is more of a security mechanism than it is a non-custodial feature. The argument goes that if users don't like new collateral markets being whitelisted, they have sufficient time to withdraw.
But when you consider that most users (1) are coming through fintech platforms and (2) have no idea how to evaluate the risk of different collateral, there is very clearly still a major trust assumption. A user on Robinhood is not studying the collateral composition. They are trusting some combination of Robinhood, Steakhouse, or Morpho to protect them.

- In-kind redemptions: Morpho Vaults V2 use a queue-based system where the caller can choose which markets to take ownership of. This creates an adverse selection problem: if there is an issue with one of the collateral markets, the least sophisticated users are the ones left holding that position while the more sophisticated users escape with only exposure to the safe markets.
Allocation of liability is a complicated problem and letting the market fend for itself has tradeoffs.

- Onchain accounting: it is uncontroversial to say that vault accounting should be as transparent and auditable as possible. It is a motte-and-bailey argument to suggest that doing all accounting onchain is the solution to this.
The vast majority of exploits in the history of vaults has been due to manipulation of onchain accounting systems. When there is immediate feedback between an onchain action and the vault's canonical exchange rate, that system becomes a clear target.
On top of that, we've historically seen dozens of scenarios where a collateral market is exploited, rendering the capital lent on that market never accessible (why would a borrower repay?). Those assets continue to be treated at 1-1 creating a bank run incentive and again leaving the most unsophisticated users holding the bag.

- Immutable contracts: Making contracts immutable does not mean that the system cannot change under you. Smart contracts that are modular (e.g. use external adapters) can still change their security assumptions / functionality.
The benefit of immutability is that these changes theoretically happen in a more predictable and transparent way.
However, there are tradeoffs. If there is a bug in core smart contract logic, immutability makes it impossible to fix.

My point here is not that these are bad features. I think directionally these features are attempting to address important problems in consumer protections.
But these problems are nuanced and we shouldn't pretend like know the best structure to address them.

[Paul Frambot 🦋 @PaulFrambot]

https://t.co/2trbI9AMO6

[Sun @sunandr_]

@A_Leutenegger Big fan of the system you built

[Sun @sunandr_]

@White_Shoals "Non-custodial" does not have a universal definition.

Thats another reason we shouldn't be drawing hard lines in the sand without nuance

[Sun @sunandr_]

@A_Leutenegger Who is the guardian / sentinel?

If it's expected to be the user, it's certainly not a consumer participating through a fintech platform

If it's some other 3rd party, that's better than unilateral authority but still requires some trust

[Sun @sunandr_]

@PoppyPancho The curator is always the entity that is explicitly responsible for whitelisting new collateral. That role can be gated by approvals from the distributor, infra provider, etc. but it still requires a primary owner who is initiating and underwriting, and that is the curator

[Sun @sunandr_]

This acquisition makes a ton of sense if you think about it.
There's a gap in the market for credible risk ratings of onchain products. A major part of that ratings process is assessing smart contract and technical risk.

S&P has the brand and has already demonstrated appetite in this category. The thing that's missing is deep onchain technical expertise.

The future of vaults has never looked brighter

[OpenZeppelin @OpenZeppelin]

Today we are announcing that S&P Global has entered an agreement to acquire OpenZeppelin.

Onchain finance is growing from an emerging market into core financial infrastructure, and the standards and rails our team and community built are becoming the rails of global finance. OpenZeppelin smart contracts facilitated over $37 trillion in value transferred, with the vast majority of the largest DeFi protocols, blockchain networks, stablecoins and tokenized funds relying on them.

With S&P Global, we expect to accelerate the impact of onchain finance, backed by more than a century of trust in global markets, benchmarks, and risk frameworks.

To our clients and to all the users of OpenZeppelin open source tools:
• OpenZeppelin Contracts and all our open source applications and tools remain open source, free, and publicly maintained on GitHub. Building open source standards stays a core priority.
• Audits, engineering work, and ecosystem programs continue with the same team, brand, quality, and customer experience, with what will be the added benefit of S&P Global's research capacity, market data, and institutional reach.

For the last decade, OpenZeppelin has set the security standard for onchain finance. Today begins a new chapter for that mission, together with one of the most trusted names in global markets.

Read the full announcement: https://t.co/lxBUWkWVUK

[Sun @sunandr_]

I'm bullish on @arc. USDC is the dominant asset onchain and there is a massive opportunity to internalize that ecosystem to a purpose-built chain for payments, RWAs, etc.

Getting Blackrock, the DTC, etc. to actually invest and have skin in the game was genius and is a clear indication that Arc is a deep strategic priority for Circle.

No, it is not going to compete with Robinhood Chain on memecoin trading. Dream bigger

[Arc @arc]

Arc Mainnet is live.

Arc launches as the Economic OS for the internet: an open platform for global markets, real-time value movement, tokenized assets, and agentic economic activity.

Arc is more than a blockchain.

It launches as a full-stack financial platform with assets, applications, interoperability, developer infrastructure, and Circle platform services live from day one.

Arc delivers USDC as native gas, deterministic sub-second finality, EVM compatibility, and institutional validators.

It integrates with Arc Studio, App Kits, Arc Portal, Circle Agent Stack, CCTP, Gateway, CPN, and StableFX.

A complete economic platform at genesis.

Arc launches with infrastructure for:

→ Agentic economic workflows
→ Lending and borrowing
→ Trading and liquidity
→ Onchain FX
→ Payments and settlement
→ Tokenized assets
→ Exchanges, wallets, custody, compliance, data, and developer tooling

190+ institutional and ecosystem builders are building across Arc.

[Sun @sunandr_]

The long term bull case for memecoins is that AI eliminates the need for humans to do any productive work in the economy, so all that's left is entertainment.

People love gambling and memes.

Still, not the most inspiring use of our technology

[Sun @sunandr_]

CLARITY may not have passed but the underlying momentum that got us to this point is unchanged.

Crypto will continue to become an everyday part of people's lives. We will get clarity sooner or later, one way or another. Until then we just keep building