Unchained - Plasma's Successful Launch, Revenue Over TVL & the Future of Pump.fun - Ep. 910

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

How do stablecoin-first blockchains win distribution? Does TVL actually map to value? And why speculation may become the default language of online culture. In this 3-part episode, we explore three different important stories. Segment 1: CoinFund’s Seth Ginns explains how newly launched stablecoin chain Plasma aims to compete, plus why the “stablecoin race” with Circle and Stripe is just beginning. Segment 2: Solana Foundation president Lily Liu lays out why revenue—not TVL—should be crypto’s north-star metric, whether TVL can be easily gamed, and what a better DeFi metric stack looks like. Segment 3: Figment Capital’s James Parillo makes the case for Pump.fun and “AudienceFi”: how creator coins can financialize streaming, whether token collapses are a feature, and why both perps and memecoins rhyme with gambling. Thank you to our sponsors! TOKEN2049 - Get 15% off with code UNCHAINED Binance Guests: James Parillo, General Partner at Figment Capital Lily Liu, President of Solana Foundation Seth Ginns, Managing Partner and Head of Liquid Investments at CoinFund Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone. Today's episode is a little different. It's a three-part special. First, we hear from coin funds Seth GINS on plasma, the first stable coin-focus blockchain that just launched. Then Salonah Foundation president, Lily Leo, explains why she believes revenue, not TVL, is the best way to measure real value in crypto. And finally, Figment Capital's James Perillo joins to share his personal. provocative thesis on pump fun and how streaming itself could be financialized. Three conversations, three very different fronts of crypto's future. Let's dive in. The crypto world is buzzing.

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and a wide range of digital asset products, finance is the place to buy, sell, trade, and earn crypto. Download Binance today to get started. Being out there probably two, three, four months ahead of the mainnet launch, from the other stable coin-focused chains, I think it's going to be a huge competitive advantage. I'm again joined with Seth Ginn's managing partner and head of liquid investments at Coin Fund.

Welcome, Seth. Hey, Lara. Thanks for having me. So stable coin focus layer one blockchain plasma launched its main net today. Its native XPL token, ultimate live, and is at roughly a $2 billion market cap. I saw a tweet saying investors from the XPL sale on Echo are up already 220X. So why is the market and why is coin fund excited about plasma?

Yeah, thanks, Laura. So it's interesting. And one thing I'd like to point out, seed investors are up a lot, but what's really interesting about plasma is they did an ICO. So it was available for anyone to invest in at a 500 million fully diluted valuation. And right now it's trading at just over a 10 billion fully dilute valuation. valuation. So just stepping back, it's a great example of ICOs in this new regulatory regime allowing broad participation in the gains that for a while had just been left for venture.

But the reason we're excited is there's a really cool phenomenon happening around stable coin chains right now. So the Genius Act passed over the summer. Genius Act kind of gave us that the rules of the road for stable coins. And the dynamics around stable coins are you need a way to move stable coins around in a very low cost fashion in order to make them a viable alternative for existing payment rails. And what stable coin chains are proposing, and plasma is the first one, the first big one to be out there. But there's also tempo, which is stripes, associated stable coin chain. Circle is also doing one. What they're proposing is low transaction fees and then they monetize off of the application layer. This is a little bit of a new

phenomenon, a new structure for monetization. What's really cool about it is you're getting your low transaction fees so you can be competitive with traditional payments or much lower costs than traditional payments. But in order to have a viable business, you need to develop your application ecosystem. So there's a forcing function for all of these stable coin chains to rapidly build partnerships and develop the application ecosystem around them so that they have a way to actually generate value. And plasma coming out first, tons of partnerships. My X feed over the last few weeks has just been dominated by a fantastic social effort by them. And really launching with big exchange partners like Binance, CERN, launching with AVE and a lot of other big protocols. So coming

out of the gate strong, aiming for that application monetization. And then the big component, or the biggest component, they're Neobank, plasma one, which they announced a few days ago as well. Yeah, there's so much there. Like, honestly, when I I was learning about this. I was just like, wow, this, it just like flips everything, you know, if you think about. It really does. Yeah. Like, and it feels, it just feels super innovative and kind of like what this technology is supposed to be about. Talk a little bit because obviously, you know, there is a close tie to tether itself, which is the most dominant stable coins. So talk a little bit about, you know, what the tie in is with tether and how it's used in plasma.

So very, the team is very close to. to the tether team. You know, I think there's some talk that this is the, the tether stable coin chain. I don't think that that's the correct characterization, but they're very close. Look, tether has been a wild success. And I think the next leg of tether with USAAT, which was announced a few weeks ago as well, and Bo Hines joining from the administration to lead that. is a very interesting U.S. onshore genius compliant approach from Tether.

And the team obviously very aligned at Plasma, very aligned with Tether. But I don't think it's exclusively a tether chain. The good thing is all of the benefits of that close alignment with Tether, the 175 billion plus of Tether outstanding, and they continued very strong growth of tether engagement, tether coming on shore. And I think the visibility and the acceptance that it's now seeing in the U.S., whereas in the past it was more of an offshore stable coin.

All of that is very accretive, very synergistic for plasma. but I think plasma also goes well beyond just being the tether chain. Yeah, yeah, and it offers zero-feet transfers for UCT, which allows that, you know, a kind of wine distribution that they already have to kind of help juice liquidity into plasma. So, you know, as you reference, there are so many stable coin focus chains already, or not already, but they're launching. They've been announced. So what sets plasma apart from the likes of tempo or arc or stable or codex or really any of these chains?

That it's mainnet launched, right? It's live. So I think that's the biggest differentiator that this is an extraordinary team. It's a well-capitalized team. Again, while it's not the tether stable coin chain, they have an investment from, from the team, they're very closely aligned. So well capitalized, they've built out a great team themselves. Paul, the founder is fantastic. And they're moving quickly and they've launched first. So being out there with Mainnet before those other stable coin chains, I think really

taking the lead on, as you said, flipping the model where you're not going to have high transaction fees, you keep transaction fees, not at zero, because you want to get rid of spam, but keeping transaction fees at a very low level that still enables things like micro payments and then monetizing at the app layer, that flipping of the script is something new. And being out there probably two, three, four months ahead of the mainnet launches from the other stable coin focus chains, I think it's going to be a huge competitive advantage. As well, will be that close proximity to tether business development, which is incredibly powerful. So you briefly mentioned Plasma 1, which is the stable coin native neobank app.

Explain like some of the features, like, you know, why it is that we were saying that this kind of flips the script. Like, why do you think this is significant and, you know, just flesh out some of the details? Well, so we don't have a ton of details. But, But some of the key elements that were teased were having a way to spend stables through a card, having a savings account that's a high-yield savings account, and having these features available on a global basis, because the installed base of users for Tether right now is predominantly XUS, predominantly developing world.

and having the benefits of a dollarized stable savings account and a way to spend that through traditional payments rails or through payments rails that are crypto-native through the card is incredibly powerful for users who don't have access to those types of banking products from their own countries. So I think the promises kind of break down the frictions and the barriers to establishing a bank that actually gives people a real savings rate, a savings rate that allows them to protect their savings from inflation, to dollarize their savings, give them access to that wherever they live and do that on very low-cost rails. that that's very much the promise of a plasma one. Yeah. I mean, you know, some of the marketing language says that potentially your stables could earn 10% plus yields. And, you know, what has been long talked about in crypto is these countries where there's hyperinflation where they can't trust their local currency, you know, places like Argentina where they've seen hyperinflation multiple times. So I could see that that would really appeal to what is traditionally Tether's user base. Also, I wanted to just dive into some of these defy integrations that we mentioned.

They have more than 100, apparently. Some of the ones mentioned are Ave, Athena, Fluid, Oiler, you know, I think I saw Pendle. Like there were just this curve, I think I saw. There were so many that were listed. So just talk about like, you know, why that's so. significant and, you know, how that, yeah, will affect their, you know, their strength in the market. Well, look, I think all of those integrations that you mentioned are very popular products, whether it's borrow lend, whether it's a savings and yield product, whether it's yield trading.

And the idea of being able to use these products that people love, but on a very, a very, a very very low-cost fast finality chain is very appealing. Being able to do it in a stable coin that they're familiar with, that they're very comfortable with and like using in Tether, very appealing. So I think the launch integrations reflect the seriousness that people are taking this team and what they've built and how well, how mature they've fleshed out the protocol going into Mainnet launch.

And again, the idea is really a lot of the users that are using these protocols, these DeFi protocols on other chains, will actually benefit greatly from having a rich ecosystem of applications on a very low-cost short finality or quick finality stable coin chain. So I think it shows really strong commitment and buy-in to Paul's vision for plasma. So you did also mention the ICO briefly. And they used that in an interesting way to also bootstrap a lot of stable coin deposits on the network before launch. Talk about how they did that and why that was, you know, why you think that was a smart strategy. It was actually, it was a really cool, different type of ICOs.

So because they're a stable coin chain, they said, we're going to have you submit stable coins into a VATA Vault. And your percentage of the overall stable coins that are submitted will be the percentage of the $50 million raise at a $500 million valuation that you'll be able to buy. And because they're a stable coin chain, they got a lot of people submitting stables to participate in. the ICO and that that then created kind of this bootstrapping mechanism where were they they kind of had a a warm start to to the ecosystem so they opened up we didn't know at the beginning how many how many stable coins they were going to accept they started out by saying we're going to accept 500 million dollars in stable coins and they got that submitted in two minutes so it sold out incredibly quickly. It showed how much demand there was for the ICO. And then a few days later,

they said, okay, we're opening up another 500 million. And that sold out in 20 minutes. So it really didn't take long for them to get a billion dollars of stables. And I think they accepted Tether and USDC. And then they converted the USDC into Tether. But a billion dollars of stables that was then unlocked for a number of months going into the sale. And I'm just looking at the dashboard here. So right now they have $1.1 billion in deposits. So continuing to see a healthy amount of deposits, even as those deposits have now unlocked, and people are able to claim their ICO purchase.

Wow. Yeah, that's so smart. Definitely aligned incentives. So as we mentioned, you know, today was also the line. launch of the XPL token, the native token, what is the use for XPL token? So at this point, I think we're waiting to get more clarity on the full tokenomics around the XPL token, but the expectation will be that it will participate in revenue off of the application part of the ecosystem.

So I think when people look at comparables for the XPL token, the view very much is as we see applications gain more activity on plasma, there will likely be a degree of revenue share into the token. Okay. Yeah. And like, you know, it's not uncommon for kind of like the purpose of these tokens to be fleshed out as time goes on. So, you know, as we've been talking about, like, plasma seems to be focused on Tether's traditional user base. And I wondered if you could talk about like what you thought the launch of this would mean for people in those countries.

like just talk about, I guess, the geopolitics of this innovation that we're seeing. So it's really interesting. So the geopolitics of an expansion of dollarized stable coins, and plasma is one component of that, are very interesting. You're basically circumventing capital controls around the world where historically, countries have tried to prevent their citizens from being able to dollarize their assets. So when you mentioned earlier, you have people in countries that have high inflation that are in a position where they lose a lot of their savings to inflation. They can capture the yield on from the plasma one neobank. Another big aspect of protecting their savings is being able to

dollarize those savings by holding tether or other dollarized stable coins so blockchains like plasma make it easier for people to get access to dollarize savings and uh that really breaks down the ability of countries if you have an internet connection you uh and in some cases if you have a a VPN, you'll be able to dollarize your savings. And with the, the Genius Act, you'll also have assurances around the backing of the stable coin. So you'll, you'll have essentially a dollar that you know is money good as a result of a legislative framework in the US. And you'll have access to it as long as you have an internet connection and in some cases of VPN. So it really, it really, really it drives a very strong push for dollarization globally, certainly of savings.

And that's why when I look at, you know, Treasury talked about two trillion of stable coins outstanding by 2028. Not a venture firm, but the Department of Treasury talked about that a few months ago, which is pretty wild. I actually think that's going to massively undershoot where we end up by 28. I think it takes less than a year for us to be at a trillion dollars. And I think it just compounds from there. Because as you have more uses for stable coins in the U.S., as you have more interest in dollarizing assets abroad, I think the network effects of money and the strength of the dollar and end up being one of the strongest network effects you can find. And we blow through that $2 trillion target very quickly.

Yeah, I did want to also ask about Tether launching USAT in the U.S. Explain. Like, it feels like they have so many different irons in the fire right now. So I'd be curious to hear, you know, I don't know, does that work with plasma? Are these entirely separate? Like, how do you see the go-to-market for both of these or just whatever the regulatory restrictions are? So USAAT, I think, will be coming over the next few months. And I think the advantage of USAAT is really saying we're going to take a look at everything that is laid out.

in the Genius Act and we're going to make sure that we have a stable coin that is exactly what our traditional corporate business development partners are going to one. So I think a big component of USAT is to make sure that there is no argument for a company that is a large multinational based in the U.S. to not work with Tether on their stable coin. I think you have, while Tether has been incredibly successful offshore and has an incredible brand, it's been around now for six, seven years. And it's, it's been around now for six, seven years. It has gone through periods of time where there wasn't a clear regulatory framework. Now they're doing a fantastic job of converting the business into shifting the business toward a fully compliant stable coin,

which they've really done over the last few years with their attestations around reserves and providing more transparency over the years. But I think USAT is really saying, don't worry, don't focus on the fact that we were around through this unregulated or less regulated period. We're just going to start from a point of providing exactly what you need in exactly the framework that's laid out by the Genius Act. And And I think that's a, it's, it probably wasn't a necessity because I think tether would have been absolutely viable and it would have seen incredible engagement with onshore business development in the U.S. But I think by issuing a new stable coin and making it fully in the, the, the

constraints of the Genius Act, it just makes the business development. push that much more straightforward. Okay. And for Plasma, do you feel like USAT and Plasma are just going to address different geographies? I think Plasma will actually be a blockchain that USAT transacts on quite a bit. We don't have a ton of color on the relationship, but from some retweets and comments on X, It seems like there's likely to be a close relationship. So I think we'll see USAT transact on plasma over time. That's probably much more of a 2026 dynamic.

But I would expect USAT to be the primary stable coin that U.S. enterprises use on plasma. But a little bit of TBD on that. Okay, I see. Okay, so I guess the last question is just, you know, Tether obviously is starting at this point in time when we'll call this moment in time the beginning of the great stable coin race, maybe, because we're just seeing so many new chains launching, so many, you know, new ventures and stable coins. You know, clearly they are like in first place at this moment. But, you know, going forward, I wonder if you have a any thoughts on like how you think this big competition is going to play out? So I think there's, I think there's definitely a network effect, as I mentioned earlier. I think money has one of the strongest network effects out there. Now, obviously, we're talking predominantly here about dollarized stable coins. And the dollar is kind of the basis of that network effect.

But if you look at the way that the stable coin market has kind of delineated, Tether has very much seen its market share be resilient and expands. So I think the base case would be that Tether's distribution. Now, this is the base case, let's say, XUS. And then I think so the base case XUS is the network effects that they have and the momentum probably continues and they're probably. the dominant stable coin outside of the U.S. I think for U.S.AT, there's very much the question of how effectively they can drive business development, because I think the U.S. engagement with

stable coins is going to be around payments. It's going to be around equity security token settlement. So when we're trading equity security tokens 24-7, how are you going to settle those? when you have Coinbase stock as an equity security token and you're trading on the weekend, you're going to settle that in stable. So I think that's going to be about getting out there and building the business development relationships for USAT for things like security settlement, commodity settlement, payments, rails. And I think Bo Heinz is incredibly well positioned to do that business development.

but I think you're also going to see some pretty intense competition out of circle with USDC. So I think it's a little bit more of an open competition. And obviously, Stripe has a very big installed base. And that will be another business development vector for engagement, particularly on the payment side. So I think the U.S. will be a little bit more of a green field. competition, but I think you'd have to say that there's some degree of bootstrapping advantage to the positioning that the Tether already has abroad. And with plasma launching early, that should be or being the first main net to launch from

a stable coin chain perspective, that should be a little bit of a head start for use cases onshore as well. But again, definitely more of a greenfield dynamic with U.S. enterprise business development versus the ex-US playing field. Yeah. It's like a tiny bit of a head start. It's not quite the same head start they enjoyed in 2014, but it's something. That's true. And 2014, so 11 years, It's not seven years. All right. Well, it's been so great chatting with you. Thank you so much for coming on and change.

Laura, thanks for having me. And now we're going to shift gears to a pre-recorded interview with Lily Liu, the president of the Salana Foundation. The reason it's pre-recorded is because she was in Korea when we wanted to have her on for Korea Blockchain Week. And so she obviously couldn't make this time. But we had a great discussion. She made the case that Revenue.

not total value locked is the best metric for evaluating crypto protocols. She explains why she thinks TVL is often gained and what revenue really tells us about adoption and utility. And also discusses whether focusing in revenue too early could actually stifle innovation. So here's my conversation with Lilly. TVL is not a metric that tells you how much value that liquidity is actually bringing to the broader ecosystem. We've got to start to complete the picture here. How does TVL? What is the mechanism for how TVL actually results in protocol value capture?

Today's guest is Lily Liu, president of the Salana Foundation. Welcome, Lily. Hi, Laura. It's good to be back. Good to see you. Nice to see you, especially because I know you're in Korea for Korea Blockchain Week. So thanks for taking the time for this. You recently tweeted that you thought revenue was the North Star metric, as you call it, for protocols.

Explain your reasoning. Well, I think it's got to be. be thus far, what is one of the critiques that we always got as an industry? Where's the fundamental value? How do I value these things? How do I know the price should be 10,000, a thousand, a million? And it's honestly something that our industry has papered over, not really wanted to talk about for a really long time.

And I think that now there's overall the spifurcation where you've got Bitcoin the asset and everyone else is trying to, is trying to competing to be financial infrastructure. So I think now you can be just clear as an industry. There's digital gold, and what is evaluation metric for that? I don't know. How do you want to value gold? So you can apply that logical framework to digital gold, store value asset,

a little bit one of a kind, sort of the non-sovereign store value. And I think that's something that people fundamentally understand, and there's on that pedestal room for one. And then on the other side, which is blockchains as financial infrastructure, I think there's also going to be a power law, but then the question is, do you value financial infrastructure, a financial infrastructure platform, a technology platform, the same way that you value, that you value, store a value asset? Of course you don't. Now, what we do have as precedents in different ways that we can start to think about this is, well, if your infrastructure, then the value of that infrastructure should be derived from some version of its utilities. So the kind of question has always been, how does usage and usage, utility actually flow through into token holder value creation, right? And let's call let's put value creation aside for a second. Let's just talk about price creation right now. Those are two different things, value and price. And so what we've anchored on as an industry for the last

five years, once people started to move on beyond, move beyond, okay, there's this thing which is digital gold and then the everyone else category. We've been talking about TVL for a really long time. And that's fine to talk about TVL starting in Defy Summer in 2020 when this thing was so new, so interesting, and so impactful to be able to do Defy on chain, that it was fine as a metric back in 2020 when you needed something to normalize these new phenomena that were popping up almost overnight. And we have a precedent for that as well. Back in the 90s, we would look at what? app downloads, or you would look at installs, you would look at signups, MAUs, or DAUs, and then MAUs.

Yeah, monthly active users and daily active users. Right. And many of those metrics, people still talk about all the time, but they talk about them in the context of these are important upstream metrics that ultimately are going to flow into value creation and then value capture, price creation, price capture. And that is the kind of evolution of the discourse that we have not had as an industry. And so we're still sort of stuck on this 2020 TVL comparison. But if you actually think about how TVL flows through, first of all, it's an easily game to metric.

But then if you think about how does TVL actually lead to value and price creation for holders? Well, explain that mechanism, right? So then what people typically say is, well, if you have a lot of, of TVL, then it means that there's trust in the system, and that is a precursor to economic activity taking place, and that transaction volume of continued activity is going to be the precursor of fee revenue, so on and so forth, that will eventually accrue, right? So let's finish that sentence, and let's finish that thought. What is the mechanism for how utility and usage of a blockchain actually flows through to value creation, price creation for holders and stakers, right?

Well, the way is if you look at chain revenue, let's just talk about L1 protocols for a second, before we can talk about apps as well, DAPs and DAP chains, right? But generally speaking, the way that utility flows through is you've got kind of generally three sources of revenue for holders. So the first is inflation, and that is a protocol parameter that gets set with many different considerations that it's set differently for every protocol. There's inflation. In the case of Solana, that's around 6% today, reduces every year on a set curve. Within the Ethereum world, it's around 2 to 3%, depending a number of factors in there.

But category one is inflation. Category 2, in our case, is a base fee, which is basically a fixed fee for any transaction that you put through the, that you put through the, that you put through the, network that's fixed. And then there's also a priority fee, which is a variable fee, that people can choose to pay more or less in order to prioritize their transactions. So you've got inflation, you've got a base fee, let's call a fixed fee, and you've got a variable fee. And the sum of those is revenue that accrues. And those are block rewards that, you know, the allocation of those is also, you know, obviously an ongoing discussion whether it accrues to validators or to stakers. But over time, that is going to be split between validators and stakers.

In the past through of that to stakers, and right now about 60% of holders are stakers, the password of that to stakers is how as a token holder, you are participating in the revenue, the value creation of usage of the network. And so this is something that is not talked about very often. and I would say one of the reasons why it's not talked about very often is because it's not been a metric that any protocol has really been able to demonstrate up until more recently for a number of reasons. One is just because it takes a while to actually drive real-world adoption of this new sort of this new fingled blockchain technology. And then also another reason is because a number of the sort of the number of the chains that have the most mind shear don't actually. have the ability to capture this business model and this value creation pass through to holders.

Because if you break that down, inflation-based fee priority fee, the priority fee is high margin. It's like being in a grocery store where you want to be selling your most high-margin products. And the highest margin product that you can offer in a chain setting is execution transactions. And if you take those execution transactions and distribute them across any number of, of sovereign execution environments, call it L2s, whatever you want to call it, then what you've done is you've taken your most profitable, your most profitable transactions, and you've given up that value capture, right? And that you see exact, and that's on top of the well-known critiques

that we've heard over and over again about fragmenting liquidity and the impact of that on overall capital markets, capital markets on a system where liquidity is always important. So in addition to that sort of well- acknowledged fact, what that also means is

it reduces value capture for token holders. And so this is something that is not often talked about, right? You'll see so many charts in our industry, which is TVL rankings. But then if you take the TVL rankings and you marry that up with protocol revenue rankings, what you can

see is you can see a number of examples where someone will be like, I've got $2 billion of TVL. Yes, but your protocol revenue is $2,000. So you're saying like this, this like people are just gaming that particular metric. Right. And and the reason why TVL is, uh, in indicative, it's, it's not unimportant, but the reason why it doesn't, uh, it's not an automatic carry through to actual value creation and capture is because you can imagine a situation. where, you know, I could be, I could have a million dollars of TVL. Let's call it for large numbers, 100 million dollars of TVL.

And I could literally put that into, call it a lend borrow once and touch it once a year. Now, that is important because on one hand, it is creating market depth that other market participants can trade against. And then the idea is that is providing some baseline of liquidity that others will be able to access and, and create transactions against, and that will generate fee revenue, right? So absolutely that is part of it, which is why TVL is important. It's just not the end-all, be-all metric, which everyone knows at this point. But it's also because if I touch that $100 million once, I pay fees on the way in,

and I pay fees on the way out. That means I pay fee twice, fees twice over the course of an entire year, right? So that $100 million of liquidity's sort of fee generation could be twice a year. It could be twice a minute. And TVL is not a metric that tells you which one of those it is. And therefore, it's not a metric that tells you how much value that liquidity is actually bringing to the broader ecosystem in this case to the protocol. So obviously, I understand a lot of what you're saying.

And some of that, you know, I think makes a lot of. lot of sense. But I do think that, like, you know, there would be people who would look at what you're saying that you would say. For instance, Salon of people used to always promote R-A-V, real economic value, which is measured by transaction fees out of protocol tips. But that now that it's down on Salana, it's not being talked as much. So I wondered what you would say, somebody who said, no. Yeah, what I'm saying is pretty much R-A-V. It is. And so, look like this is not something where talk about it in the months that it's good and then think that it's and then stop talking about it in the months that are no like this is we we have a

core interest in that metric always have um and uh and that is not a 2025 phenomenon that is actually a 2018 phenomenon 2020 phenomenon so this has been uh this has been uh a is this is not a new thing And when you say that, you know, you feel like TBL can be gamed, there are also ways that revenue could be gamed, you know, wash trading, artificial volume, even like incentive programs and grants can, like, influence it in an artificial way. So I wondered how you would, you know, like, address those criticisms. Every metric can be gameed, especially in the world of fairly competitive trading participants on chain. So nothing is perfect. But the thing is that if you're actually paying for transaction, so to actually game TVL, it's basically free, right? because obviously you have to have the stock of that asset or that sort of quantity,

the inventory of that asset. But then to actually put that on chain, let's say dollar, putting dollars, or in this case, let's call it minting a money market fund and putting that on chain, is things that people can actually do pretty easily first party. Whereas to actually be regularly paying fees, that is a cost. And so to put assets into a different form of inventory is much less costly for people than for people to actually be paying fees. It's a cost. But I mean, there's also opportunity costs.

So if someone feels like they could be earning more money by putting their money into a different protocol, then like don't you feel that that alone shows, especially like TVL over time, shows a certain level of stickiness or confidence or trust. in a protocol. So wouldn't you say that, like, if you're looking at TVL over time, then that's especially, it's less gamable. It's in the same way that people still look at app downloads, people look at users, people look at clicks, and people look at monthly actives and daily active. Those are all still metrics that people look at in the tech world 25, 30 years on, right? Those are seed stage metrics. Those are series A metrics. And then once you get to series B and series C, you've got to demonstrate something that is downstream of those metrics. And as an industry, we are a seed series in 2000. And when it comes to sort of defy an actual real utility emerging

on chain rather than just... You said 2000. Did you mean 2020 or... Oh, sorry, 2020, yeah, with Defi summer. And so that was when Defi just kind of like as an industry in terms of, in terms of its maturity seed stage. And now as an industry, we're getting to Series A and into Series B, and then you've got to evolve the way you think about those things into actual value creation. And so I think what we're as an industry, what we should be doing is finishing the sentence, which is not to say that you don't care about TVL,

which is a way of talking about market depth, right? It's not to say market depth is not important. Of course it's important. In the same way that app downloads and users and clicks are important because those are all upstream metrics of eventual value creation, but we've got to start to complete the picture here. How does TVL, what is the mechanism for how TVL actually results in protocol value capture? Let's just talk about kind of like this focus on revenue.

you know, since crypto is basically a newer, a newer industry, someone argue that focusing on revenue could hamper innovation. I'm sure you know the long history of assertives that have succeeded by not focusing on revenue too early, Uber, Amazon, or some examples. So what would be your response to those critics? I think we already have the answer for that in Amazon, which famously said We expect to be lost making for a long time. We want to have no profits for a long time, but they had plenty of revenue. And also with so many of these very high growth companies that were innovating on entirely new tech and entirely new markets and entirely new business models. And I think what we proved out is primarily in a place like the United States.

There's permanent capital formation that was also highly patient and willing to take a bet on innovation. and that's why you see so much innovation coming out of the United States in places that are able to price and value innovation in human capital. So I think the critique would be disproven by the success of high innovation economies with tons of venture capital, which has primarily been in the United States and then also on the other side of the world. So I don't think that is a critique. All right. And so you've made a strong case for revenue. Are there any other metrics that you find useful or that you like to consider in addition?

Yeah. Well, I think that generally I think these blockchain ecosystems, I think there's sort of three components. You could call them stacked on top of one another. There's the network. It's called the chain. There's the applications. And oftentimes as applications themselves have their own tokens. They're not protocols quite in. the same way as a chain is like a layer one protocol. And those applications, oftentimes they will have a token attached to them, typically call them a governance token. But those applications, the profitable ones are typically those that are going to be taking a cut of transaction revenue. So there's application revenue. And then I think, so there's like network applications and there's the asset layer. And assets are what is now really coming to the floor right now with certainly Sablecoin issuance, tokenization. I really see Sablecoins as being V0 of tokenization. And so there's, I think, kind of like the three components of how these ecosystems are starting

to come together. And so I think about those three things kind of being distinct. So, for example, on the Defi Lama page, for example, they're aggregating revenue at the asset layer, which is T-bills, for example, and revenue at the application layer, which is typically cut of trading revenue and then the revenue that goes to the L1 protocols and the business model for that, or let's call it the revenue model for that is fundamentally different. That is a function of priority fees, you could conflate inflation in there as well, right? And so I think you got to disagree with those three. And in those three different parts of an ecosystem actually make money in different ways, right?

So the asset issuer will typically make money off of AUM. And so the AUM folks, they are going to be the most sympathetic to TBL because it looks a little bit like AUM, right? It's kind of like a UM of a protocol. And then the applications are typically going to look at trading volume because they get a cut of trading volume. That's how exchanges work. That's how decentralized exchanges work as well.

That's their business model. And these chains are kind of like these funny new things. things that don't have a great corollary to something that we already see in either the financial world assets or in the tech world applications. And these chain is kind of like this, that's the new thing that we, I think we need to develop our shared language around. And what is the business model that a change should have? Okay. Yeah. Well, it's been great getting your thoughts on this topic. Thanks so much for sharing them from Korea. All right. Thanks. Thanks. for catch me all later eric trump donald trump jrmior tom lee blad tenive paolo ardoinoe balsgis sreeni vason

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Disclaimer, Binance is not available in certain countries, including the U.S. Check its terms for more information. Binance.com slash E.N. slash terms. The difference between curb trading and mean coins to me is like, it's all gambling. For perks trading, it has this like essence in this like this, this feeling of being like poker. Mean coins sort of look like slot machines in my mind. But they're both gambling.

I'm here with James Perrello, general partner at Tape and Capital. Welcome, James. Thank you for having me, Laura. A long-time listener, first-time caller guest. Yeah, I'm excited in chat. So this, by the way, you guys, was not planned. But we invited James to talk about a little Twitter. that he wrote on Pump Fun. And we actually had thought we were going to start streaming on Pump on

Tuesday and it didn't happen. So it's just maybe it's kismet. It was meant to be that the very first interview we were going to stream on Pump is about your essay about Pump. And I'll just quote from it, you said, Pump is laying the groundwork for an internet economy of a terminally online new generation, one in which culture and speculation are not adjacent but inseparable. With streaming returning to their product suite, they now set their sights on becoming the entertainment gateway for viewer financial participation. So explain what your thesis is. I don't even know what that means like viewer financial participation. So yeah, explain what you what you wrote. Yeah. So I've been trying to think, like I had if I didn't know that first of all, I didn't know that you're going to be

streaming on pump and that this would be the first one. What, what an honor. Hey, Dougie, please buy some of those tokens. Let's let's get some performance. in this token. Let's see how it goes. It'll be interesting to see whether that's a reflection on like whether people like the guests or don't like the guests. It's made a cool, interesting experiments to do. You actually are going to blow out all the questions I had for you because I was going to ask you some questions about streaming. But yeah, I've been trying to think about what the, I had this article. I wrote it very quickly, honestly. I wrote it like over the weekend. And I did it mostly as like your inspiration, honestly, or you and your interview with Noah.

and then I keep reading all these like endless articles on prediction markets. Like it's all I see in my timeline all the time and how this is like a better form of like audience participation or I guess we'll call like audience five. I don't really know what to call it, right? But it's sort of the idea of like blurring the lines between passive observer and like active participant. And we see a little bit of it. today you see like on certain streaming like platforms like Twitch you can like tip the streamer like

five dollars right if you like something that they're doing you can send them a tip or you can buy an emoji if it's like the bachelor or some like some reality television show you can vote you can call in and you can vote on like who the winner should be or who you like or who you want kicked off of Love Island or whatever and i assume you pay for that as you're doing it and so these are These are just like very small ways of like people financially participating in the outcomes of the shows, the entertainment that they enjoy and that they consume. And I think that what I was trying to suggest is that there can be a much closer link between the host, the entertainment, and the viewers. Not only one where they pay for something, but where they actually potentially participate. They can pay the content creator simply by buying the coin in Pumps case, right?

You don't need to have any sort of like expectation of profit from that. That can be your contribution. But at the same time, there are things that tokenization opens up. And we've seen it and we'll continue to see it. And so, and at the same time, I think there are going to be a new generation of like streamers that come out, of influencers that come out. of influencers that come out, content creators that come out, and they are going to find ways to actually have,

on their rise to fame and on their rise to potential fortune, that their audience also gets to participate in some of that upside, for being early and for supporting someone who they saw, like when they were just at 100 streamers, audience members, and now they have 10,000 every stream. And so I think it's really just like showing the evolution of like where this medium is going to go. And like, and there's been an evolution in social media to a point where it's entertainment. Yeah, I actually, while you were talking, I was like, oh, maybe it should be called attention phi.

Because it's like about, yeah. Attention. Well, okay. So in your essay, you kind of surveyed the current landscape and the two incumbents that you picked out were Twitch and kick. So explain like what you think the issue is with them. And by the way, you know, there are other streaming platforms as well. Like over the years, we had actually been approached by a number of them. And just because like, you know, my whole thing was just doing cause,

I didn't like really seriously consider it. And now I'm realizing because crypto news is changing so quickly that our standard model of doing two podcasts that we can covering like kind of two big topics or, you know, one big news story when it could be news. or like another topic, it just doesn't make sense anymore because there's so much news now that like we're just going to have to leave too many stories on the cutting room floor and just not cover them. So that's why we're realizing we have to start streaming because also it makes the news cycle for any particular story shorter. And so if we can stream, then we can get things in more quickly,

just like have more stuff, you know, and try to do it like same day or day after before the story moves on. So that's another reason why I hadn't really been open to it before, but it definitely am now. Oh, as you say, like attention spans are shorter, news cycles are shorter. Like a meta that, you know, that's created even within like the crypto markets, right? It used to last like a couple months or maybe a whole cycle, then a couple months, then a couple weeks. And now it's like, you know, by Saturday or Sunday, you see these like prices go up. And then by Monday, like the prices are crashing down. And everyone is sort of like onto the next new thing.

And, and I think even I'm a little older, as we probably see from the gray hair I have. But I think even younger generation, like Gen Z, for example, are, you know, where are they consuming their media? They're consuming media through like TikTok, right? They're consuming media through streaming. And I think streaming has like, you know, there are literally kids who like, instead of going on on Friday nights, like stay home and stream. Some of them are hosts and some of them are, are,

are watching. And when I was a younger person, like, when really young, like, I would either go out. And when I was super young, I would, like, stay at home and I would watch television with my family on Friday nights. And now you have kids, like, just watching streams, right? So everything is moving a lot faster. It's like it feels very, very reactive to, like, what's happening in the world at this very minute. And I pointed out Twitch and I pointed out Twitch and kick, because, like, they're kind of the big names that everybody sort of associates with streaming. Of course, there's been other platforms. But I think, like, what I was trying to point out mostly was I think that this is like an inflection point.

And this is a change in like a shift in like how streaming entertainment is going to be like consumed, which is mostly like financial participation or like audience fire or attention fire whatever we want to call it. And like, but if you look at it, it's really mostly about like if you look at like the individuals, the creators, it's mostly about personal branding and about the. evolution of personal branding from maybe like 20 years ago. It was like I would call like the self promotion era. And so I used to work at like KPMG, right? I had like an account and very very.

Hey, accounting is important, right? Warren Buffett said accounting is important. So accounting is important. Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. No, it's okay. I was on the tax side. It was incredibly dry. But it was just September 15th.

please do your taxes. You have a few more weeks if you're in the U.S. But the self-promotion era was like 20 years ago. And what that meant for like social media, like as social media started to like build up and become like more ever present in our daily lives. And what you would do is like you were told to build your personal brand as a professional. And most professionals that meant like posting on LinkedIn, right? It meant like going to these like professional conferences. It meant like going golfing with your boss like on Saturdays, even if you hate golfing. And going to like happy hours, even though you hated drinking, if you didn't like drinking.

And essentially the idea was like promote yourself, promote your business, and get a promotion. And that's how you'll work your way up through the ranks. And that's like that's like the personal branding, right, and building your personal brand. And then like 10 years ago, it was like kind of like the influencer era. And all of a sudden, like these younger people were like, I don't want to do that. I'm posting on Twitter. I'm posting on Instagram. I'm posting on YouTube or Snapchat.

at amassing this huge audience. And this is short clips, right, of, like, my daily life of whatever I'm doing. I'm hoping to amass this, like, kind of huge following on these platforms. And eventually, eventually people started to kind of get paid for it. And content, this is sort of like also the content era, right? Like, now all of a sudden content is like the word that everybody had in their vernacular that didn't really exist like 20 years ago. And so content,

became like every aspect of culture, like there was content about it. Like if you weren't on a vacation, there wasn't content. Like what did you really even go on a vacation, right? If you could post it on Instagram. And so like lines for donut shops and ice cream shops became incredibly like overcrowded. And like young people just wanted to take pictures and post it as content. And so social media companies essentially became ad tech and content creators. The source was like their source of revenue and free advertising for the companies and

something that they could sell. And this is also working for your bags, right? This is also working towards some sort of like benefit for the individual through maybe being able to sell goods and services or something of that nature. And so I think streaming like kick and Twitch are sort of at the later stages of like the influencer content, like the influencer era where until very recently content creators weren't paid anything. And then Twitch and Kick kind of view it at, I view it more as entertainment than it is social media, right? It's very much like here, I'm streaming, I'm providing entertainment, you're watching it.

And then what wound up happening was that these companies were able to sell advertisements, like on, sell advertising space on the streams. And as a result of that being able to like share that revenue or subscriptions and we're able to share a person and they're sharing a percentage of that revenue. for like with their most popular creators. But for most people, if you have 100, if you have like 100, if you have less than 100 viewers, you're making nothing, like literally nothing. You're just doing it for the love of the game and because you're hoping, or maybe you're hoping to like get big one day. For the largest streamers, it's like very, very lucrative.

But that's like 0.1% of like all streamers. And everyone else is sort of just doing this and, and, really not seeing any financial upside from it at all, despite maybe even having good at content. And so what I was kind of trying to show is that like, kick takes a very, I had it in the five percent, I know exactly the numbers,

but I think kick takes like- You said they take 5 percent and Twitch takes 50 percent. Five percent. And Twitch takes 50 percent, right? And it's a little bit more beneficial with some of the other, like, there's some other like nuances, but that's like the main sources of revenue. you know, these companies are, like Noah said, are not profitable, right?

They are paying out to creators and creators aren't making that much. And then the kind of, this was the, the inspiration was, you know, that podcast that you had or that podcast you had with, with Noah where he's like, look, like, we're profitable. We're very profitable. And we're not, not only are we profitable, but we're so profitable that we're actually sharing, like, you know, $21 million. over the last month with streamer, with content creators. And they're making more money than they've ever made before.

And so it's sort of starting to pull the monetization forward. It gives these early creators an opportunity to make some money early on. And ideally, in time, they build a big audience and they're able to invest in themselves and their personal brands and actually make these streaming, them as a streamer and them as a content creator more successful. Yeah. One thing that you said got cut out a little bit. Did you say, you said if you have less than some amount of viewers and you basically make almost nothing? Was it like a thousand or what was the number that you said? Yeah. So I think the number, I was looking it up. Like if you have like under 50, you're like every time that you stream, you have under 50, like you're making like almost nothing. Got it.

And I think if you have like under 100, you're making roughly like $600 to maybe $1,000 a month, maybe. And so I think it's very small. Once you get over 100, I think it starts to look a little better. But you're also streaming quite a bit. You're streaming quite frequently. It's almost like a full-time job. And, you know. Okay.

One other question for you is, so I actually don't know for Twitch and Kick, are they making money, like, from ads that they're running on the streams or where is the money coming from? Well, I guess from KIC gets coming from steak. So the way it works is there's there's two parts. There's the subscriptions. So people pay subscriptions to to watch some of the streamers. And in addition to that, there's advertising. There's way more advertising on Twitch than there is on Kik. So the ad revenue is like lower on Kik. But I think the content is a little bit more free on KIC. And so it's a little bit more, let's call it, racy, for lack of a better word. The moderators are a little bit more lenient, let's say, as they're trying to grow and

are trying to expand. But the subscription revenue is split 50-50 on Twitch, and it's split 70-30 in favor of the content creators on KIC. Trying to, like, kind of, I think, eat into Twitch's business. Oh, okay. I thought you wrote 95-5. But anyway. So, you In your essay, you gave as an example, the Trump meme coin, but I couldn't help but think, well, okay, that coin has been pretty much down only since the inauguration, which was basically a few days after launch. Obviously, it had that little spike for the Trump dinner, but, you know, it's kind of interesting that that also happened to be timed around when the token unlock was

happening for them. So basically, insiders, you know, they enjoyed a little bump when they were going to sell. But like when you, you were trying to give that as an example of like this future that you're talking about or you know, how you think that this world is going to look. But I don't know if it's like an example that inspires people. So just talk about why you think that that particular example is like a paragon, even though, I don't know, it doesn't look so great chart wise. So it's the only thing that Trump token holders have gotten out of it. But I mean, it's a, it was a big thing, right? I think like you were able to I go down to, I think, his golf course and have dinner with the president. And then for like the

top, top echelon, there was like a, there was like a ceremony or some sort of event at like the White House that like you were invited to. And so what I was trying to do, I mean, price excluded, right? Like ignore the price for a second. Like regardless of what your political affiliations are, one way or the other, is like it does show that there can be utility. And it also shows, I think. And you're right, like, there were insiders on this, on this token that like, they, I think they raised for the token, which is usually a little unusual for some of these. Although maybe in the future, streamers, like more popular streamers do rates for, like, before they launch on, on, on Pomp. I don't know. It's a thing that could exist and could happen.

But there's really no additional benefit into owning the Trump token now than there was a, month ago, but in February, there was like certainly a benefit to owning some. And if you were on the cost, like I wonder whether or not you would have bought more. My guess is that you would have been. And if you did, like, you did have a once in a lifetime experience that like you otherwise probably would never have again. So I think what I was just trying to demonstrate was like that it provided access to someone, a person, that people cared enough about to buy the token and spend time. And I think that that just is like a more.

And who happens to be the president of the most powerful country in the world, but anyway. Yeah, of course. But I mean, you could use any sort of celebrity, right? And I think like if you can pay for access to them, like, and you have the means to do so, you could do that. And I think that like whether it's streaming, whether it's like, you know, maybe special streams, maybe it's in person like meetings, whether it's, uh, like literally like revenue share for ads or rev share for like maybe the creator

new the creator revenue goes back into buying a percentage of the token I mean I think there's like a lot of different ways that like you can add value and like what's valuable to one person what's valuable to another is it's like entirely different some people want cash flow and other people want an experience you know like I have my my nephews want money in there like for Christmas and my parents don't want money they want like an experience for Christmas, right? And so one gets a hot, like we do a hot air balloon ride with one and we write a check for the other. And both think that that was an amazing gift. And so I just think that like it opens up for the first time, this like, not the first time, but it does feel like

you can participate, you can, you can buy the token if you want, and maybe there's going to be some added benefit. Maybe it's a discount. If you own a certain number of tokens, maybe it's access, early access to tickets to a concert or an event, it can literally it's as creative as you want to be. And I think like one of the things that this points out and that I didn't talk about is that like right now we're in like very early stages of this, right? Like we assumed that this is like we thought it was really interesting. It really kind of caught fire. The Mango Girl, like tweet video where she sort of said like, yeah, I've made like, $30,000 this week or something like that.

And it was like on the streets and she was being interviewed by like another streamer. I saw that video in the morning on like Saturday morning. I was like, this is this is powerful enough like give people to pay attention to it. And it's going to have a lot of like opportunistic individuals come in and try to like run the same playbook and probably try to profit. And and that's generally how the first way of adoption comes. Right. It's like speculation.

And like and really very. very little substance. And these are people who aren't thinking about the token. They're not thinking about the creator coin at all. All they're thinking about is like, I think I can get paid. I can make money really quickly doing this. I should do this. And like that's going to happen.

It happens. There's denticoin and then there's hot. Right? And they both did ICOs. And so there's like plenty of examples of this like throughout history. But I do think that one of the areas that hasn't been thought about yet. And maybe will eventually is like creator coin token. And like what do token, what should tokenomics look like for creator coins?

And maybe there's different tiers, depending on how big you get. But I do think it's like an area of like exploration that's actually kind of interesting. And the more that creators view their token as a product, because the token is a product. Anyone who builds a product and then watch the token has two products, the token. And the actual thing that people want, they would think people want to use. And I think if the more thought that goes into that and the more care that goes into that, the more likely this has a real, like this could have legs. Yeah.

I will just say, you know, what you described, I feel like reminds me a little bit how, you know, when you go to see a celebrity that you love, like, like, let's say it's like a music performer or something, they will have, you know, levels of access, you know, like you can buy a VIP ticket and, you know, whatever. Or it's similar to like, you know, back when Kickstarter was. a thing or it might still be but but like a big thing um you know i i had like creator friends who were doing things and yeah it was like i wanted to support them at like a high level and then you know i was going to get like extra special you know like things that they would send me or you know whatever

um and so yeah it's similar to that and i think that's like what the tokenomics thing is that you described um but yeah the the one piece and and we'll try to keep this short this is maybe just the last bit here is like you wrote you know collapse is not disqualifying and you're trying to about the tokens that these creditor coins are saying collapse is not just qualifying it's a narrative climax a rug no longer marks the end of someone's career it's a ritual that cements an anti-hero's lore so that that i don't know that like raised my eyebrow a little bit so just explain briefly and then we'll have to wrap but but that was the one thing because like i'm sure you know like most people have lost money and pump fund it's like 60% or more um so that's like another the thing why

Yeah, your thesis is very interesting. I understand where you're going, but also just where we are now. It's not the most savory experience for everybody. We have, okay, so what I would say about meme coins in general versus perps, perps are sitting on this like this pedestal right now, right? And it is, when you're trading 100x perps, you are gambling, right? And most people are losing money and losing their shirts on perk trading. The difference between perp trading and meme coins to me is like,

it's all gambling. It's all you know what you're signing up for. And if you think you're going to get rich trading either of them and you're just like some random person that walks into the casino, like guess what? You're the mark. Like the difference is, is that for perps trading,

it has this like essence in this like this feeling of being like the world's like poker. And meme coins sort of look like slot machines in my mind. But they're both gambling. And generally speaking, most people walk away, not making a lot of money. And when you look at the two products that have really had some sort of product market fit and the applications that have made the most money over the last two years, it's been

perps trading, perps taxes, and mean quarts. And so I sort of, you know what you're getting yourself into. And when I meant by the rug part is like, I think, I think Gainesie like maybe accidentally sold his whole bag. And, you know, it was a bit of like, and he's still street. Right. I mean, and so it was entertainment. And there's all these like P&L cards that exist. And while people and like there's Reddit's like Wall Street bets where people are like posting lost, they call lost porn, right? And it's just like, oh my God, look at how much money I lost today. People are trading zero date options, right? Like it's all it's all sort of the same thing and different flavors for different types of users. And I don't know whether everyone expects to make money when they're trading these. I think they hope. they do, but I do view a lot of it as like kind of like lottery tickets. And there's plenty of people who have made their entire like their entire fortunes off of mean coins. Like fart coin was worth like

over a billion dollars. And everybody was like, and a lot of people I know like made quite a bit of money trading. And that was a pump coin. So I think it's like it's easy to look and say like a bunch of people lost money. But I think like mean coins are generally, it seemed like this cycle. the first sort of wave of like people coming back into the into like investing in crypto. It was sort of like we started to see like a heartbeat out of the out of the bulk bear market. And it was people buying mean coins, having them run up. And then some of those people made a lot of money. And then maybe they moved over to something else because they thought they had a better opportunity there.

But I think it was literally like the first thing that kind of suggested that there was life again in cryptos. investing and trading after 2023 from my perspective. It was like the first time I heard people make it. All right. Well, we'll have to see how this plays out. I really enjoy chatting with you about your thesis. I do agree there is something there, this attention-fi world or whatever we end up calling it. But anyway, thank you so much for coming on. My pleasure. Thanks for having for having. Thanks for tuning in to the weekly news recap. Let's begin. Tether Explores. 500 billion dollar valuation in private raise. Tether, the issuer of the world's largest stable coin, USDT, is in talks with investors about raising up to $20 billion in a private

placement that could value the company between $500 billion and $600 billion, according to Bloomberg. The proposed deal would involve selling roughly a 3% stake, with Cantor Fitzgerald acting as lead advisor. Chief Executive Paolo Ardwano said that, company is considering bringing in, quote, a group of high-profile investors to maximize the scale of the company's strategy across all existing and new business lines, unquote, including stable coins, artificial intelligence, commodity trading, and communications. Tether reported $4.9 billion in net profit in the second quarter and says it holds $162.5 billion in reserves against $157.1 billion in liabilities.

While insiders caution that valuation targets could shift, a $500 billion figure would put Tether in the same tier as SpaceX and OpenAI, far ahead of rival Circle's $30 billion market value. At Unchained, we are working on evaluating whether Tether is actually worth this much. Be sure to subscribe to our Bits and Bips newsletter so you don't miss the story. Circle Considers reversible U.S.D.C. Transactions to attract Tradfai. Stablecoin issuer Circle is exploring ways to make transactions in its USDC token reversible in cases of fraud or disputes.

The Financial Times reported. Circle President Heath Tarbert said, quote, We are thinking through whether or not there's the possibility of reversibility of transactions, right? But at the same time, we want settlement finality. The idea aims to align stablecoins more closely with traditional finance, where refunds are possible, potentially boosting institutional adoption. But it challenges one of blockchain's core principles, immutability. Currently, Circle can freeze or blacklist addresses, but cannot reverse completed transfers.

USDC has a market capitalization of $74 billion, second only to Tethers USDT. Circle, which went public earlier this year, is also developing its ARC blockchain designed to support stablecoin applications with sub-second settlement speeds. FTX pursues billions as a state prepares new creditor payout. The FDX bankruptcy estate is pushing forward on multiple fronts this week. On Monday, the FTX Recovery Trust filed a lawsuit against Bitcoin mining firm Genesis Digital Assets, seeking to recover $1.15 billion, allegedly, invested with misused customer deposits.

Lawyers argue that former CEO Sam Bankman Freed rooted the funds through Alameda research, with more than half going directly to Genesis co-founders Rashid Makot and Marco Crone. At the same time, FTX confirmed its third major distribution to creditors, totaling $1.6 billion and set to begin September 30th. US claimants are expected to reach 95% recovery

based on November 22nd. prices. While international customers stand at 78%. Payment processors, BitGo, Cracken, and Pioneer will handle the disbursements. Adding to the week's drama, Bankman Freed's verified X account briefly posted, quote, GM sending FTT tokens soaring 32%. The account later clarified that a friend manages the posts as the former FTX chief serves his 25-year sentence. Cloudflare introduces NET dollar stablecoin for AI web. Cloudflare has announced plans to launch the net dollar, a U.S. dollar-backed stable coin designed to support transactions in the emerging AI-driven internet. The company said the token will power instant and global micropayments,

enabling personal AI agents to handle tasks like booking travel or ordering groceries, while business agents could automate supplier payments. CEO Matthew Prince described the initiative as an effort to create, quote, financial rails, unquote, that match the speed of the modern web, supporting fractional payments to reward originality and sustain creativity. Developers and creators would be able to monetize content, APIs and applications, while AI companies would be expected to compensate sources. Cloudflare is also contributing to open standards, including the agent payments protocol and X402 to ensure interoperability.

The announcement follows a wave of stable coin launches after the U.S. passed the Genius Act, which provided new regulatory clarity. Proposal seeks to slash hype token supply by 45%. Crypto investment firm DBA's co-founder John Charbano and FlashBott's strategist Hasu have introduced a proposal to reshape hyperliquids tokenomics by cutting hypes supply nearly in half. The plan would revoke authorization for unmented tokens allocated to community rewards, burn tokens held in the assistance fund, and remove the current supply cap,

together reducing supply by about 45%. According to the authors, the problem lies in how fully diluted valuation, or FDV, is calculated, since it often includes tokens that will never circulate. They argue this inflates supply metrics and distorts valuations, even though existing holders would see no change to their ownership share. The proposal has sparked debate in the community, with supporters calling it a fix for misleading metrics, and critics warning that removing the cap could unsettle supply expectations.

Charbano also appeared on Unchained this week to discuss the rationale behind the plan. Kieln prepares to stake $6 billion in Ethereum. Staking provider Kieln is preparing to redeploy 1.6 million ether, worth about $6 billion after abruptly withdrawing the assets earlier this month. The firm had unstaked its holdings on September 9th as a precaution following a security incident in its Solana operations, which raised fears that Ethereum wallets could also be affected. Quote, we target early next week to re-enable new ETH validators, Kieln Co-founder and C.O. Thomas DeFuac said in an email to Unchained. The move marks the first step before restaking can begin,

as most of the ether remains in the network's exit queue. The withdrawal caused a backlog in Ethereum's validator queue, where weights now stretched beyond 40 days. Analysts noted that Kiln's return could coincide with billions in additional staking from ETFs, treasuries, and retail demand, heading into the fourth quarter. Delay in Quintan's nomination puts Clarity Act at risk. A stalled nomination at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC, is raising alarm across the crypto industry, according to a report from Unchained.

President Trump's nominee for CFTC chair, Brian Quintenz, has yet to receive a confirmation vote, leaving the agency with just one commissioner at a critical moment. The uncertainty threatens progress on the Clarity Act, legislation that would make the CFTC, the lead regulator for spot crypto markets. Quote, how does a market structure bill work if the vast preponderance of crypto lands in the jurisdiction of the CFTC, but there's nobody home? Asked Coin Fund President Chris Perkins.

Sources told Unchained, the White House delayed the vote following a request from Gemini founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who previously clashed with Quintens. With Senate Democrats also pressing for more commissioners from their party, industry leaders warned that the leadership vacuum

could imperil both the act's passage and its rollout. Aster overtakes hyperliquid in perpetual trading race. Decentralized exchange. Aster has surged past rival hyperliquid in daily perpetual futures trading. On Thursday, Aster recorded $29.5 billion in 24-hour trading volume, compared with hyperliquids $10 billion, according to DeFi Lama. Open interest on Aster also jumped nearly 600% in under a week,

rising from $142.7 million on Friday to $1.03 billion by Wednesday, data from coin glass shows. Despite the milestone, hyperliquid maintains deeper liquidity, with $2.17 billion in open interest and $299 billion in 30-day volume, far exceeding Aster's $48 billion. Astor's rapid assent follows a public endorsement from Binance founder, Chang Peng Zhao, whose family office, YZ Labs, is a major backer. Skeptics have questioned Astor's decentralization.

Quote, they claim to be a Dex, but that's misleading. One Hyperliquid investor wrote on X, pointing to the absence of validators or on-chain execution. Originally APX Finance, Aster rebranded earlier this year and launched its ASTER token in September. Meanwhile, Hyperliquid introduced its native stable coin, USDH on Wednesday, attracting nearly $2 million in trading within hours of launch. USDA is the ticker that sparked a competitive process that was eventually won by the ecosystem-aligned startup native markets. Just nine hours after deployment on Hyper EVM, USDAH surpassed Circles USDC in Market Share, reaching 8.9% and more than $24 million in circulation, according to Dune Analytics. Allium Data shows 57 active addresses hold USDAH with an average balance of $425,000,

and the top two wallets exceeding $10 million each. CZ rejects report of YZ Labs fundraising plans. Binance co-founder Chang Peng Zhao has pushed back against a Financial Times report claiming his $10 billion venture firm, YZ Labs, is preparing to raise external capital. Quote, complete false news from FT with fake slash wrong slash made up info and negative narratives. Zhao posted on X, adding that YZ, quote, has not sought a single external investor. The FT cited remarks from YZ Labs, CEO Ella Zhang, suggesting the firm could eventually open to outside investors after building expertise in sectors like AI and biotech. Zhao denied this, saying the company operates independently and was not spun out of finance.

Quote, there is no demo. WTF is a demo for a fund, Zhao added, criticizing the report. In related news, YZ Labs expanded its investment in Athena Labs as the firm aims to go. grow its synthetic dollar, USDE, on the BNB chain, and strengthen institutional partnerships. Unchained is produced by Laura Shin, with help from Matt Pilchard, Juan Aranovich, Margaret Curia, and Pam Majumdar. The weekly recap was written by Juan Aranovich and edited by Stephen Erlich. Thanks for listening.