Unchained - The Price of PUMP Is at Its Lowest Since the ICO. Will It Recover? - Ep. 875

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Pump raised $600 million in 12 minutes. Then the token crashed… and sentiment with it. In this episode, Delphi’s Yan Liberman, Jason Pagoulatos, and Simon Smockey unpack what really happened, from the lack of investor lockups to the underwhelming post-ICO communication, and what Pump must do now to win back the market. We also get into whether the “everything app” strategy still makes sense, what decentralization means after this cycle, and what tokens can learn from equity markets. Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Xapo Bank Focal by FalconX Guests: Simon Smockey, Researcher at Delphi Digital Yan Liberman, Co-Founder of Delphi Digital and Managing Partner of Delphi Ventures Jason Pagoulatos, Head of Markets at Delphi Previous coverage on the ICO:  Pump.fun Just Raised $600M. What Does This Mean for DeFi, Solana & Social Media? Pump.fun’s $1 Billion ICO Has Caused Controversy. Can It Succeed? Unchained: Pump.fun Becomes Third Largest ICO, Raises $600M in 12 Minutes  PUMP Traders Make Big Options Bets on the Token Surging Past Its ICO Price Pump.fun Draws Backlash After Confirming PUMP ICO TG Podcast: Alon: Raising $1B, $PUMP Token, Airdrop, and More Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 💥 2:53 How Pump’s months-long hype set the stage, and why it may have backfired 🔓 11:07 Whether the lack of investor lockups hurt confidence in the token 😬 17:13 Why Jason found Alon’s post-ICO interview with Threadguy underwhelming 📉 22:52 Why Yan still sees strong risk-reward in PUMP despite the crash 🔥 24:29 What Pumpfun can do now to reignite interest and rebuild momentum 💸 34:19 Whether buybacks or business reinvestment is the better path forward 📱 36:37 How realistic the “everything app” vision is, and whether M&As can save it 🌍 47:16 What strategies could finally bring normies onchain 🧵 53:22 Whether the PUMP launch proves that decentralization is dead Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think the issue was is mostly not necessarily a lack of vision on their part because, you know, they've shown that they have high aspirations. It's more a lack of conveying it, right? And if you think about what you do as a buying opportunity, I think that is something you'd do right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no high resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin. Here's your chance to be featured on Unchained. Every episode, we, share listener comments. Here's what knowledge had to say on YouTube in response to our recent episode with Udi Wertheimer on his Bitcoin thesis. The capital that is flowing into Bitcoin now is so much stickier compared to previous cycles. It's not just a trade for MSTR and other

tertiary companies. It's price agnostic accumulation, a race to buy the most bitcoins before others get their hands to it. To hear your comment on the show, write a review of the podcast overall or leave a comment on our video on YouTube, Farcaster, or X. This is the July 25th, episode of Unchained. Imagine an AI that speaks crypto and does the work of a team of analysts. Trusted by 80 plus institutions now open to serious traders like you. Visit askfocal.com. One early bitcoiner sold 30,000 BTC too soon, missing out on over a billion dollars.

Don't want to make the same mistake? With Zopo Bank, eligible members can get instant cash without selling their Bitcoin. Check out Zappobank.com slash Unchained for more. Today's show is all about pump fun and the token pump. Today's guests are Jan Lieberman, co-founder of Delphi Digital and managing partner of Delphi Ventures. Jason Pekyllotis, head of markets at Delphi, and Simon. Welcome, Jan, Jason and Simon. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us. It's really fun. So the Pump ICO has been in the news and Pump just generally. Obviously, in the very beginning, we saw like negative sentiment leading up to their ICO. However, they did end up raising $600 million, and it sold out in 12 minutes, including private investment that brought the total to $1.32 billion. After the token listed, the price pumped for a bit, but it's now down. And sentiment on pump also seems down. The founder, Alon Cohen, went on the thread guy live stream yesterday.

And at the start, the price was around the ICO price of four tenths of a cent. Afterward, it dropped to three tenths of a cent. I also noticed it hit its all-time low overnight. And obviously, I know it's only been trading even for just like a few weeks. So it's not like a really long history. But let's just start with like an overview question. Why do you think we have seen this arc with Pump? And why do you think sentiment kind of turn kind of quickly and the price is down?

And why don't we, we'll start with Yon. I think it was a very contentious token to begin with, right? There were a lot of people who believed it was very extractive in terms of what it did as a business. I think that's a separate point we can argue. But going into the ICO, that's one piece of information. The fact that they were raising an insane amount of money while also having. having a massive balance sheet. So altogether, I think they raised 1.3 between this private sale that they did

four to eight weeks before the ICO and then the ICO. And so altogether it was about 1.3. And then they were rumored to have another $6 to $700 million on the balance sheet from proceeds from the business itself. So everyone was confused why this business needed to raise that much. So that also fed into it. The business itself had been really. really booming towards the end of 2024 and then kind of slowed down a bit in 2025.

But that was more a function of mean point markets shifting a bit. And so I think if you compared the trend, right, the trend wasn't necessarily favorable for them. But on an absolute basis, the business was still very strong. And then on top of that, you layer in the fact that it's sold out in 12 minutes. everyone was kind of confused. So everyone assumed, okay, you know, you have, the market is telling you there is basically an insane amount of demand at this $4 billion price level.

And so as after it launched, there was this interesting situation where a lot of these platforms launched perps ahead of the actual token being launched. So you had price discovery before all these people were able to realize any money. And so the market was pricing it at $5 to $6 billion. the token went live, it traded higher. And I think it wasn't a lot of clear in terms of their roadmap and their plans. And so all of these funds that, you know, invested $4 billion just 48, eight weeks ago are now up 25, 50 percent. And it's kind of natural for them to take profits.

It's kind of a bit of their fiduciary duty. And that has a domino effect as you assume that others are going to sell. And so everything kind of went the other way. And then, so we kind of settled out at that $4 billion level. And then we had the interview that I think the market perceived as underwhelming in terms of what they were able to disclose about future plans, ranging from, you know, AirDrop to what they're going to do to kind of reinvigorate the business itself. And I think all of that combined put a, put a floor in and, or not a floor in,

but kind of led to a lot of selling. And, you know, on top of that, you do have liquidations because there was. this big per market that existed before the spot market came into play. And so everyone's confused because, you know, they do have $2 billion on the balance sheet. And, and the token is $3 billion FDB, which, you know, you can't really, it's not Apple's apples to apples because this isn't cash that's owned by the token, but it is cash that will be deployed in one way or another to stimulate the business. So I think what the market wants right now is clarity in terms of what they're going to do.

and that ranges from how they're going to spend the cash to what the future the platform looks like. And the longer I think it takes, the more you kind of see people saying, I'm ready to dump. And then on top of that, I think what was extremely painful was the rest of the market did really well. And so everyone who bought in was suffering from math opportunity costs. And that made them rage sell. And you see a lot of that capitulation on Twitter. Jason, I see you nodding your head. Yeah.

No, I mean, like, I have like a list of like five or six things that like I wrote down for myself like over the last couple of days, like why this was such a, underwhelming launch from just like a, you know, a price perspective, right? Like nothing has really changed with the business. So like Yon pretty much nailed all of them. Like I'm looking at the list I have in my notes here, right? Number one on my list is like contentious business, right? Like for weeks and weeks and weeks you always have those debates on Twitter around like

the extractiveness of the business. I know we've had several of these debates, like internally on our, you know, like our weekly research calls talking about pump and like, is it good, is it bad? Like, whatever, right? At the very least, it makes money. So, like, you have that. The pre-market perps I think was really interesting, right? Because a lot of the time you don't have these or when you have had these in the past, they've been super low, like low volume, low liquidity per pair. So you didn't really have much price discovery. Whereas like in this event you had, I believe it was like hundreds of millions of dollars. traded on the pre-market perps before the token went live, which maybe kind of took a lot of that like speculative price action or speculative buying, like all of that potential momentum, like out of the sales. Coms from the team, Jan nailed it, right? Like, you didn't have any real comms since TGE until the interview yesterday.

Besides some, you know, Twitter shit posts that probably were construed as negative. Bonk, obviously, bonk. dot fun. They alter metrics have kind of done extremely well, um, whether or not it's, it's fully organic or not, you know, maybe Bonk is incentivizing some of, some of that, you know, some of those metrics on their end, regardless doesn't really matter. All that matters is, you know, they've kind of been on the ascendancy. At the same time, pump has kind of slowed in its metrics. And then personally, like the, the big one for me, like that kind of caught me is like the opportunity cost aspect that yon nailed. Like, it's one thing being in a,

a position that doesn't do well, like being down 20, 25, 30% on a position in crypto isn't like crazy. It's pretty standard a lot of the time. But being down 20 to 30% while literally every other coin in the market has gone up that much or more is probably the nail in the coffin for a lot of people. And certainly it's been a source of personal pain for myself. So yeah, like, Yon nailed it. It's like that list. It's like you could just like point to five, six things. when you have all of this. And then I guess like one more thing is like consensus before ICO like went live was that like, oh, this is a 12 to 15 billion dollar business. Right. So like if everybody's like expecting this, that like surely it can't be that simple. And it turns out yet again that consensus

is rarely, rarely correct, at least in the short term. But I feel like at the start when it, when it first announced they were now raising up four billion, consensus was like, oh my God, four billion is way too expensive. No way. And then it sort of waited a couple of weeks and then everyone wrapped their heads around like a four billion vow and then they're like oh wow four billion is actually kind of cheap and now like the same the opposite is happening where it's like it's live and now everyone's like oh my god like this is a whatever and it's like not trading well i will say like one thing to add to what yon and jason mentioned is like originally they were only going to raise i think like a much smaller slice

in the institutional rounds but they ended up selling like 33% of the float as opposed to 25 So I do think that is like pretty substantial, especially what is that like an extra 500 or 400 million to the dean the institutional side. And it really seems like most of those guys flipped their allocation after like the 50% gain. So I feel like there's not as many net buyers coming in. And then like yon said, I mean, those guys have sort of like a fiduciary like responsibility. It's just like take that gain. Especially when like as you see like the liquid funds have really struggled. So. It's kind of like who is like the net new buyer at this point when there's already been like 1.3 billion buyers and then super duper active premark. So at least the way I grappled with that was like, all right, well, sold out in 12 minutes. Surely there's more demand to buy this token, right? Surely. Absolutely. Right. But yeah, I guess if you have funds that are, you know, invested mid eight, nine figures into the ICO and you have the chance to kind of lock in 20, 30 plus percent, right? like on massive size, like I probably would too.

Yeah. I think it's just tricky to know how those guys are going to behave and especially with no lockups. It's like maybe as, you know, an investor to expect them to maybe not do that. But at the same time, it's completely rational. Yeah. Well, this is this is like a point that Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly and I were debating in a chat. Because I was like, oh, I feel like the fact that there weren't lockups meant that the bigger investors, you know, had that motivation to try.

to get those quick gains. But he definitely didn't agree with me. He said, he said, oh, you know, six months ago, people were complaining that the problem with ALTS was that they were all low, float high, FDV coins and the tokens are down because the insiders were like slowly selling, you know, as the lockups were getting unlocked. And then he said, now people are complaining there's too much supply and insiders aren't locked up. And he summarizes as my token went down and and I want to blame rich people. But I said to him, I was like, okay, but, but like, let's say that you are a retail person, you only put in a hundred bucks.

Like, you're like for you, $50. It's like not, it's just a gain that like doesn't seem worth it. Whereas like, yeah, if you bought two million, then like a gain of a million might be. But he was like, no, no, no, because if you have a hundred million dollar fund, then like, it's not. It's like the same percentage gain. I don't know. So what do you think of that argument?

I did see other people that were, backing me up. So, you know, but I'm not a VC, so I don't know, like, how you guys think about that. I think, um, price action will dictate narrative, right? And so if it's poor, people will just blame whatever mechanism took place. And, and you could have poor price action with completely, you know, like diametrically opposed mechanisms. And both mechanisms will still be at fault because price action is poor. And so I think, you know, um, in the grand scheme of things, I'd say this is, healthier, right? You're getting a much more accurate reading of what the market thinks this should be worth, right? You have all of this circulating supply out there and now individuals can

size in if they want to and you don't have this fear of selling. I do think there would have been a good amount of appetite for these funds to invest with maybe a year-long lockup. And, you know, if you wanted to do that, that's fine. I don't necessarily think. think that the lockup in the grand scheme of things is to blame because if sentiment was positive and things are going well, then I think these investors would be holding. And so I guess zooming out, the way to think about it is, would the protocol be better off a year or two from now with a lockup without? You could probably make an argument either way, right, in the sense that you say that

lockup probably means price is higher in the short. short term, which means your subsequent airdrops are more valuable and can be more stimulated to the community. I think that's probably one of the better arguments to make as to why the lockup would have made sense. But in the grand scheme of things, everyone knew that there wasn't a lockup. And so it's not like anyone was bamboozled or anything like that. The information was out there and everyone participated knowing and everyone had full

information. Yeah. Well, so one question is like I guess for me it does raise the question. of even like what the point of an ICO is because I mean and granted I know things have changed a lot in this space but you know if we if we are going to think about like you know back when ICOs kind of originally started you know the the pitch was like oh you get your users align with you on this long-term vision you know and it's it's kind of like a very similar philosophy to venture and you know with venture it's like you get these and investors they're locked up because

is there in it with you for the long term and you know, you have aligned incentives for some period of time. So I guess like is it sort of like now it's more the long term incentive doesn't matter as much and it is more helpful to know what the market is thinking or I don't know. Yeah. So sorry, not to just follow up again. I think probably the main calculation, one of the main, you know, calculations you'd make in terms of determining whether or not you want to do a lockup.

is basically, you know, all else Haldiqui, I'd say a lockup is probably healthier for the, you know, six to 12 month trajectory of the project because of the long-term alignment and and all these things. I think it really boils down to would there have been the same appetite for investor capital with the lockup, right? Would they have been able to raise $1.3 billion immediately if they had a lockup? And so then that's really what it boils down to, right? So if there was a lockup, maybe they wouldn't have raised as much. And that would be, you know, that would hinder their ability to grow. Okay.

But, okay. I don't know. I guess I view that as a little dark. It's like, oh, if we dangle this carrot of like you could get your short term gains by dumping on retail. Like, I don't know. I know that's like a very probably the most blunt way I can express that. But do you see how, I don't know, for me. Yeah.

I think the dumping on retail component is more so a function of whether you're doing it in a non-transparent way. If it's known that these are unlocked and you have people, you know, buying at a higher price, then, you know, there are also plenty of funds that participated. I'm not in the camp that this is kind of dumping on retail because it's fully transparent, right? And it becomes just like a risk reward calculus for, I think, the protocol itself is, you know, will we be able to raise this money? Then either way, then maybe we should have gone lock up because it avoids the kind of all the headaches that come with a fully unlocked token. in the short term. But I'm not in a camp that is really dumping on retail because it's,

I mean, a lot of retail participated. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I got dumped on by retail because I couldn't participate being in the U.S. Yeah, it's more dumping on Americans. So maybe I got dumped on here. Okay. Well, let's, because I know we have limited time. So let's move on. Just quickly, I wanted to know like what you thought of the interview with Red Guy yesterday. Like, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the price just dropped during and then for the hour or two after that. You know, I don't know if it was simply like, you know, he said there's no immediate plans for an air drop. Like, I don't know exactly what caused people to, like, if you're just looking at the chart, it's just like a clear drop. So, yeah, what's your theory on that or and just generally,

what did you think of the interview? Yeah, I mean, curious what Simon and Jan think. But like, for me, it was like effectively a, what was it, like an hour long interview where he said nothing of substance. So like, you know, you had like several days of, of pretty, you know, down only price action with people speculating the worst, right? Like, oh, no, no comm. So like it's obviously an exit scam. It's a rug, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then he, um, thread guy or I don't know who announced it, but they, they announced like a day in advance that they were doing this interview. And then you started to see maybe like a little bit of a bid in the token leading into that interview.

Because obviously the market is like, oh, they're going to give us. us some clarity on what their plans are. And then it just seemed like a lot of, a lot of his responses were very like, you know, lawyer crafted to an extent. Like he didn't really, he sent a lot of words without really saying anything of consequence. And so maybe he can't because of, you know, the money they raise and it's all like private details or whatever. Like maybe he legally can't, you know, spill the beans on on what a lot of their plans are and how they're going to use the money they raise to, you know, bolster the ecosystem. He did say that they would inject a significant amount of liquidity into the pump ecosystem. But, you know, that's pretty vague. It isn't really like, you know, a concrete game plan for

what they're going to do. They just said they're, you know, they're committed to winning, whatever that means. So like it just seemed like a very underwhelming interview, kind of to what, you know, Yon said at the top of the show is like market expectations for, you know, communications and clarity around what they're going to do is very high. And this interview was, you know, not that. And then everybody's like, all right, you probably had people taking positions into that, expecting something, you know, some kind of move, some kind of mean reversion after the several days of selling.

Once they realize, you know, no air drop announcement, no real announcement on how they're going to use any of their money, they probably exited. And then you probably had people that were just like holding on for dear life being like, all right, like, here it is. Like here, here he's going to tell. he's going to, you know, assuage the market fears and, you know, make things better with this interview. And then that didn't happen. So you probably just had a bunch of people, you know, exiting based off of the underwhelmingness of the interview and with the high expectations we're heading into it.

I don't know. Me watching it, I was like, you know, like after the first like 20 minutes, like we're not getting anything here. And anything else that comes out of this just sends the token lower because it's just kind of like, you know, the opposite of what the market wanted. and was obviously expecting. But again, the token's only been live for like a week and a half. So maybe there is some hope down the line. I don't know why he would go on and like not give clarity. I almost think it would be better if they just sort of stayed silent,

rolled something out and then went on after the fact. Like, okay, we just introduced XYZ or like this is our plan to like, because Bonk in Radium's launch lab is like now clearly proven itself. It's like a pretty viable competitor at this point. Whereas like before the ICO, it was sort of unclear whether or not they would have like the ability to compete for like a sustained period. So I think when they were originally doing the ICO, the pitch was like, okay, we're going after a completely different market here. But right now it's sort of, I think priority number one is to take take back the crypto native like meme coin flow and then maybe sell that grand vision a bit more. once you are leading within crypto.

And then on the air drop stuff, I think I'm not really sure how bullish like announcing the irdrop. Like an air drop would actually be right now because that would just introduce more flow. And like you'd kind of assume that these guys would just sell. Like that is sort of typical air drop like participant behavior. Like those guys are not introducing you buyers. They're just probably going to sell. So kind of want to get that stuff like.

What do you think like taking back the retail flow? would like look like obviously it seems like most of the runners and stuff are happening like whatever runners are happening are happening um from the bonk launch bat so like yeah how do how do you do that but i mean yeah like you mentioned they have two billion dollars like they can easily like create a few runners themselves unorganically and i think that would do a lot that i'm really like it's i don't think it's even that complicated it's like you just need you need the next useless or the next like Poseyco or whatever to be like launched on pump. And then that that brings back a lot of positive sentiment for sure.

It's very reflexive like you mentioned, the same thing, like the token performance. Right. So yes, the idea is that if you can have memes that actually reach higher highs and, and do pretty well, then that raises the broader ceiling for a lot of these others.

And it extends the degree to which people want to hold and participate in, in kind of these launches and that goes really well to bring you on. And so, you know, there's been some speculation. around the bank side when all the big deployers kind of moved over simultaneously and the chances of that happening, you know, organically are not that high. And so I think that was a big driver of why people were skeptical around, you know,

the bunk stuff. There's obviously no real clarity. I, on the token side, so, you know, I'm disclosure long and I'm a buyer here. I think the issue was, is mostly not necessarily a lack of vision on the, their part because they've shown that they have high aspirations. It's more a lack of conveying it, right? And if you think about what you do as a buying opportunity, I think that is something you view, right?

This isn't some existential new piece of information that is changing the thesis around this. It's more about how the message is being conveyed. And ultimately, I think the same reasons you were buying at four exists now. right it's these other things are more superficial and and relatively correctable and so if you're thinking about you know the reasons for um if like basically you want you want to think about where's the biggest disparity between the reason for a sell off and the actual sell off and i think the reason for it is pretty low but the the magnitude of it is pretty high and then i think those setups are

great on a risk return basis and then you sprinkle in right the kit the cash on top and it it's it's a world where even if you don't think that they can succeed at what they're going to do, the attempt will still be a loud one. And you have to assume that they're going to generate a lot of buzz regardless, right? And so that that kind of also builds into the risk return for quality. Yeah, let's talk about like a few of the sort of different options here. So some of them are kind of like more directly around just like the token price itself. Like obviously people are hankering for this air drop.

they did, you know, originally announced that in, I think it was like May. And, you know, as we can tell, like, people ever since the interview, they've been talking about the fact that he said there was not immediately going to beat one. And I think people seem disappointed about that. And, you know, in the same vein, like, there's a lot been made about the hyperliquid air drop and, like, how successful that was. So that seems like that could be an avenue for them. But, you know, the question would be like, how should it be designed?

So I'm just going to put a few things out there. and you can kind of answer any of these or like, you know, mention any of these in terms of how you think they should address this. Buybacks, you know, is another one, which they've already been doing, but, you know, it hasn't really stemmed the drop in price. So, you know, and just generally like any other utility around the token. And then the last couple, or the last main thing that I would want to talk about, maybe it's just like, it seems like, you know, as you were talking about,

like just generating more demand. for usage of the product because obviously we're in this phase where, you know, Let's Bonk is really taken a lot of market share as of like an hour ago or 30 months ago or whatever. They now have 77% market share versus 19% for Pump fund. That's for tokens graduating. So, you know, but the last thing I was just going to mention is in the last few days, Pump did announce this community takeover feature. or not an house, but they rolled it out.

And this is for when tokens whose creators have kind of exited or even rugged or, you know, whatever, whatever the situation was. And the community, you know, wants to keep that meme coin going and, you know, is able to not have the fees just like going to this person who's sort of a deadbeat. So anyway, yeah, just curious for, like if you, like if you were in pump funds shoes and you're looking at sort of these different options, like, what would you? you be thinking? And there's probably others as well. I think you mentioned, yeah, you mentioned the hyperliquid air drop. I think those are like completely two different. Like, they did the air drop like so differently where like they gave pretty much the entire like unlocked flow right now to the air drop people. So that's like one of those. Yeah, like that, like it's really hard to replicate. And then clearly when you're doing an ICO, like that's that's out of the question in terms of

like having an hyperliquid-esque thing. And also again, like on past, completely different goodwill factor like it's that that's i don't think that yeah and they also even announced when they do the air job i think it'll be like cap to i forget it was like two thousand dollars per um or something so who knows it just seems like it's a small slice but yeah i i interrupted you if you have more on that no no no uh jason yeah i mean i mean it's tough right like i think uh i think like the best thing they could do is probably something along the lines of what we like discussed a little bit ago is like they effectively in my opinion right like they need to like kind of get the eco humming again like and whether or not that's incentivizing a couple runners themselves

which again like isn't the most organic thing but i guess like if you look at like you know bonk and and what yon was talking about with most of the deployers moving all at the same time it's obviously not probably an organic thing either i don't really think the market generally cares at least in the short term about that. Like what what matters is people are are talking about the eco. There's things going on. There's coins running. So people are, you know, making money. People are talking about it. People are deploying on pump getting, you know, kind of clawing back some of that market shares. Probably like the best thing that they could do, at least in the short term. I'm not so like, I know they talk about this whole streaming thing, but like for me like it seems like a very

tough, tough, tough, tough, tough business to to break into. Seems like it would, take a ton of money and it's still not really guaranteed that that would really necessarily drive the attention to back to the eco and the way that they wanted to you mentioned like the buybacks aspect of like hyper liquid versus pump right like i guess yeah pump like they bought back for a couple hours on like the first day or second day or whatever it was and then they did like one transaction like one 30 thousand dollar transaction since that or something like that right like so it's not really like a buyback compared to Hyperliquid, which I think is like a huge difference, right? Like, Hyperliquid has the the assistance fund that effectively buys back hype every day. And there's,

you know, there's plenty of dashboards out there. But like even, even in the last couple days when there hasn't been too, too much, you know, going on on that side of things, they've still bought back millions of dollars of hype. So it kind of like constantly puts in a price floor. At least it did post post air drop. So like you had a bunch of different dynamics at play. like, you know, the goodwill, the air drop that Simon was talking about, the assistance fund, buying back significant amounts of money. I'm pretty sure the team was also buying hype as well on the open market in the aftermath of the, the air drop in, I think it was like November, late November, 2024. So like, it's just like completely different in that respect. And I'm not

really sure like that would be the best use of pumps cash. I mean, like it would signal something to the market to, you know, like it'd be to an extent, but it would probably be more short term than anything. Like, I think they, they have so much money that they, they, they should focus on if, you know,

if, you know, we'll win at all costs, whatever that means, like, seems like the ego needs some help. Um, that's where I would be focusing, uh,

my efforts right now and not, you know, doing like these odd buybacks that occur like once every three days. Like very, you know, random or seemingly random intervals with seemingly random amounts of money. Yeah. Kind of my take.

So, On the buyback side, I agree. I'd make it programmatic. Just get that discretionary element out of it. It just creates confusion and there's just fuel for ammunition, you know, for people to farm some negative engagement. So, you know, realistically, you probably even want to just do something where you accrue all of the buyback funds and let them sit there and then deploy them later on, right?

The market will appreciate it twice, basically. They'll see that accruing and then they'll start to price that in. And then actually when those funds start getting deployed and bought into the market. So I think you kind of gets a double dip a little bit. And that way you also don't have to deal with the potential of these bybacks being kind of the minimis relative to the market cap and that being a source of negativity. But you can just have them accrue and then deploy them later. On the market share point between Bonk and Pump, I think market share is this is probably the most fluid space in terms of market share. I think it can easily go either way.

Bonk did a great job, bringing all the all the big launchers on the. to their platform. I think the recent thing they announced also is really compelling, right, where they're basically sending 1% of revenue to, I think, is the top five tokens. And, and, you know, that goes back to what really helps the market grow, which is seeing these tokens go to, you know, try and break that, that billion dollar market cap because then the appetite and the animal spirit really come back because everyone sees, okay, if I can figure out what the next meta or narrative is going to be, I have, there's a massive amount of ups. to be had. And so I think it's important and that's a really great way to do it. The streaming component,

both in Web 2 and Web 3, it's a bit of a loss leader. And I think, you know, it does make sense to, it's a really good accelerant once you do have a decent base and get things going. And so the idea would be that you can bring on some non-crypto streamers and tap into this massive audience that isn't really participating as much right now. And so, you know, you want to do that. when things are going well, otherwise it can fall flat on its face. And then the market just perceives it as spend that's tough to rationalize. So I think you create a bit of momentum internally within crypto. And then you try and tack on this external audience.

And then obviously the crypto users will also see that and think, all right, there's a whole rush of new people coming in. So now participating in this eco is higher EV than it was a week ago. And that kind of plays into the whole really fluid market share component. Yeah, those are really good points. We're going to talk a little bit more about that kind of like ecosystem stuff and frankly just business model stuff. But first we'll take a quick word from the sponsors to make this show possible. Looking for your next big trade? Want to track every move in your portfolio, news unlocks, price action and open interest in one place. Meet Focal, your personalized AI assistant for crypto. Built for institutions now open to serious traders like you. Focal surfaces high signal insights. websites, automates your workflows, and helps you move faster in 24-7 markets. Find out why the smartest desks use Focal to stay ahead. Sign up at askfocal.com.

Here's another comment responding to the recent episode with Udi Wertheimer and is quite bullish prediction of 400K Bitcoin in a few months. On X, Rick Amor Fati wrote, I do feel like sentiment around 120K has been sort of meh. Perhaps there will be a point this year when people decide to pile in $2002.50k, and the price increase is crazy from there. Again, if you want to hear your comment featured on the show, please write a review or leave a comment on an episode on YouTube, Farcaster, or X.

Back to my conversation with Jan, Jason, and Simon. I don't know if you guys saw this, and this might be controversial. Hopefully, people won't be upset that I'm mentioning this person, but Suu tweeted something about what's going with Pump. And he wrote, But the issue with the thesis that pump will put existing treasury back into the token is that part of the point of the token is to placate equity investors in exchange for not having to give them pre-TGE cash revenue. Using said cash to then buy the token would defeat this purpose. Simple dividends would be easier.

I was just curious for reactions to those comments. Yeah, there's no way for us to really know what they're going to do with that cash. Right. So there's a world where some of it can go to equity investors, but it's, yeah, I honestly, it's hard to really comment on that. I think, you know, you can't argue that if they were to buy back the token below the ICO price, that that could be accretive to the balance sheet if then they want to, you know, sell it later on. I don't know if that's necessarily the game that they should be playing, but you can make the argument that that would be something increative. And I think that's why there was a lot of shade thrown their way when they were, doing the buybacks at $6 billion right after the ICO at four.

And so they're basically, you know, selling it four and buying back at six. I think that the question becomes, you know, what's the source of that capital? And, you know, to some degree, the money is fungible. But I think if you're directing revenue from the protocol towards the buybacks, it's a bit different than using funds from the raise towards the buybacks. I think that doesn't really make a lot of sense. The idea is, you know, each dollar that you'd deploy into the buyback, you'd ideally be able to generate more value to the protocol by deploying it in a more strategic way, right? And that's kind of the same thing happens with traditional equities, right?

When they're deciding whether to reinvest the capital or buy back their shares, it's more function of, okay, we don't think we can do something more creative at the moment. And we think the value is there to buy back our stock. And so I think you can draw parallels here. But ultimately, I think at this stage, particularly above the ICO price, they should be using that capital to grow the business rather than buyback. Okay. So let's talk about this ecosystem stuff that we kind of started trending into. And I just want to also point out, like, I mean, it's just as I'm watching everything happen, it sort of feels like there's multiple teams kind of going after this sort of like everything app or some mixture of like a trading app and social app. And obviously we're seeing that. you know, Pace very clearly has even stated that that's what their new, the new incarnation of their app is supposed to be. We saw the, I don't know if she actually has already stepped on, but if she hasn't, then the soon to be departed, CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino has said in

interviews that X is also aiming to be that. You know, who knows maybe Robin Hood is even, you know, pushing in that direction because obviously they're going to have this Robin Hood. chain and that could be like a first step. They were at the center of the whole GameStop mania. Like that seems like a fit, but obviously all that social stuff was happening like on Wall Street bats. Then we also have Pump Fun. They could be positioned somewhat similarly.

You know, as you heard in the interview yesterday, like Lawn was talking about wanting to help creators a lot. And, you know, obviously the streaming component of Pump Funn has been talked about. Obviously, when it started, maybe it didn't get off to a great start. But I was just curious to hear your thoughts. Like when you look at kind of the whole space, not even just like what pump could do, but you sort of see the competition. Like what do you think their best niche will be?

Like what do you think would be their best path at, you know, competing to be that app? Yeah, just yeah, within that context, the wider context, what do you think would work for them? I mean, I guess that's like the $4 billion question, right? But like again, I think like Jan and I mentioned earlier, like definitely. going back and like taking the crypto native flow first. I think that's got to be like top priority right now. But I think a lot of people have definitely, you know, rumored acquisitions like Axiom owning like the trading terminal getting closer to like the user would be big. I don't know if that one would make sense just because I mean at this point Axiom would be pretty expensive to buy

maybe building something out. I do think that they need a better acquisition than KOL scan. like it's cool that they're like thinking about like the acquisitions and stuff. I just don't think the market like clearly is just not very excited about that. You heard like Alon talking about it yesterday and like people were like really like this is this is the one. and then when they pressed it more on like oh what do you like any other plants like pretty much just like flopped on that question too. So I don't know. I think there are some interesting ways they could do like maybe like a buying like sort of competitor to like a finance launch pool for example. like whether or not they launched their own exchange or partner with other exchanges to basically

help graduated pump tokens get like quicker listings or something like that could be interesting or just like more incentives to hold to like pump like their token too there's a lot there's a lot they could do but yeah I think it all really boils down to like sort of at least trying to claw back some of that market strength the streaming the streaming seems a bit like farther out for now maybe and even like Alon mentioned, it didn't seem as maybe immediate. Yeah, I saw some people mentioning like they could use this huge amount of capital that they amassed to try to lure some of the bigger streamers. But I don't know, it seems like a little bit of a gamble. Jason, Jan, what are your?

Yeah. And they'd have to roll that out really meticulously too because you don't want to like spend all that money, have one of these guys come in and then just be complete like shit show where it just doesn't, doesn't, doesn't. not go well and like stains the whole pump fun thing again so like even that's kind of a gamble and yesterday on like the thread guy's dream you heard I mentioned like oh we want to like create like crypto native I show speed or kysnatt where before we're sort of thinking like oh you're going to sign one of these guys like the big traditional kick or twitch whatever uh deal so maybe that's not throughout they're going to go and they they want more like organic like born from the trench because I will see.

I agree. MNA is certainly something that they need to kind of shed some light on. And I think just broader plans need to be established to get people confidence. So, you know, all the mishaps, right, or the perceived mishaps are, I think, correctable, right? So I think the, theirdrop component, those terms will probably be changed because there's nothing really that invigorates the community more than an air drop. And so I think they can come forward and say, listen, you know, we're receptive to feedback and realize there are some corrections that need you made. In the grand scheme of things, you're investing in them for, for their ability to kind

of ship and, and their hunger and their vision. And so I think adding this element of, you know, reflection and ability to adjust course based on new information is also going to be well received by the market. It's not going to be something that would be seen as, you know, for Limousie. because ultimately it's all about landing on the correct decision rather than just being set on one path. So the streamer component is an interesting one, that's how I mentioned. Because initially, you know, the assumption was, okay, they're raising so much money. They are going to go after one of these Kaysanaat, Sisho speed guys.

But, I mean, the amount that they make is kind of insane. It's like low nine figures for some of these guys a year. It's actually kind of mind-blowing. So I think there's, you know, in the same way that acquisitions, acquisitions need to be strategic. Finding one of them that you can bring over is also going to be strategic. There is a lot of appeal to trying to elevating one of the trench heroes into one of these, you know, crypto-native massive streamers is really appealing. But I think in order to get there, you do need to bring in this larger audience that is then looking to find, okay, this guy has been

right on so many calls that I want to follow him. And so it's kind of the timing of the two, right, where you can simultaneously elevate a streamer while increasing the audience that he can tap into. So I think you can almost think of the streamer signings as some kind of strategic M&A because financially it'll be a similar expense. Yeah, the one thing I would say is when you said that like this person has to have had a number of right calls. I mean, James Wynn got a big following by not necessarily. And then it was more like a rubber necking situation. People just couldn't take their eyes off the, you know, the disaster unfolding in front of them.

So anyway, it's not all. It doesn't have to be like up only for it to work. Anyway. It's kind of unrelated, but it's like an interesting side know. It's like it's not a streamer, but like bonk guy is kind of like that for like the let's bonk side where this guy had a number of good calls with super bonk aligned. Like the community is completely like it's very like crypto native. Like everyone loves bonk, whatever.

whereas pump is sort of the opposite. But like if someone with like a past history of great calls is like, okay, not only is the pump bottom in, but like this pump coin like just evangelizes like a bunch of pump coins, like that might be an interesting strategy too. Or like that sort of did work for the runners on bonks so far. So that could be something to maybe keep an eye up for. I don't know who that would be. I don't think Alon is really shown to be that guy right now.

But we'll see. Jason. Yeah, like I'm not I don't think I'm as bullish on on the streaming aspect as maybe some of these guys like historically in at least in like web two like paying streamers 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollars plus to to move over has I don't think it's it's generally worked ever. And obviously as Jan mentioned, streaming isn't a I guess running like a streaming service like, you know, Twitch or or kick or whatever. Like it's not. not it's it's it's it doesn't make money it's it's a lost leader right so like in terms of like paying i don't know a kai or somebody or speed or whoever maybe somebody like a tier below it's still going to cost you know to yon's point it's still like going to be effectively the same expense as as an acquisition and i just don't think you're getting nearly as much as you would by actually, you know, acquiring some synergistic business or something to, to Simon's point,

you know, like getting closer to the user via something like an axiom or or photon or whatever, right? Like, I've just, you know, I've kind of growing up as like a somebody who played a lot of games, like I've seen the streaming battles unfold for, for, I don't know, over 10 years at this point. And it just never, it, I guess like, just because it hasn't worked doesn't mean it can't work. but like I've seen so many examples of it just not working and that money effectively being lit on fire into the streamers pocket. And then after, you know, the streaming doesn't pan out

the way that kick or whoever envisioned, right? You know, notably, I guess it was like with Ninja and Trout being paid, you know, mid-eight-figure deals and eventually going back to Twitch just a few months later after that whole thing fizzled out. I could, you know, I could see that happening here as well, because it's not like, it's like weird. Like you would think there would be overlap in, you know, like the Twitch audiences versus, you know,

crypto native people. And there is to some extent, especially as, as the years go by. But like, there still is like a pretty big bifurcation and, and people in, in like the streaming world that just like dislike crypto for one reason or another, whether it's, you know, disliking NFTs, disliking, you know, crypto in general, whatever it is. Like there is an overlap. It's just not something like I get super, you know,

excited about when I hear them talking about like their streaming deals like maybe down the line it could work but to yon's point i think you need to like get your house in order first and then once that's all good you can expand into things that are slightly you know a little bit more outside your you know your bread and butter and i'm just kind of skeptical it seems like the easiest way to light a lot of money on fire and get minimal back for it so i'm just like kind of yeah yeah i was feeling like it like sort it puts all your eggs and not in one basket, but not even all your eggs, but like a huge, like one of your a lot of your eggs. A lot of your eggs. Yeah. So, so it's very risky. I did want to ask, well, actually, no, before we move on to the next topic, I just did also want to ask about, you know, now I feel

like we're seeing like different strategies in the crypto space where there are some that are kind of sticking with like doing something that's very crypto native and just like getting a toehold in that audience. And then I feel like now we're also seeing other players that are like trying to move beyond. And I think that's why like sometimes Jesse Pollock of base gets like made fun of on Twitter. It's like he's clearly trying to go beyond and it's not even him. I'm sure it's like Coinbase. They're trying to go beyond like people who are already into crypto. But I was just curious if you had thoughts on like which of those. And I know we're so now you know when I asked you before to look at the wider context in which pump is operating,

Like, I'm just curious for your thoughts on like, everybody clearly wants this prize. They're trying to go after something where they become the breakthrough app that isn't only getting crypto-native people, but like everyday people who maybe don't really understand that it's even a crypto app. And I just was curious if any of you had thoughts on like what was going, which strategy was going to work out better or which player, you know, attempting to play in that space might have more of an advantage over the others. I mean, yeah, base definitely has a distribution, and especially with like this new mobile first base app. I will say like on that front, I think the market and like largely within crypto, we don't realize. But Palm actually does have a like a mobile app that is like doing pretty well based on some of like the app store like download metrics. Yeah, I don't know.

I do think like the base roll out is really impressive. I think a lot of crypto natives sort of maybe faded that and just sort of like you mentioned just like tired of Jesse or whatever. But yeah, I think distribution is really key. And like those guys are much closer again to like the end user and also retail outside of just our our crypto bubble. So I think base is probably looking good here. Yeah. I mean, in terms of, you know, being that like killer app that has crypto native people, tradify people, just, you know, normal people who don't have the crypto illness type stuff. I mean, it's tough, right?

like there isn't like a huge overlap between those like three cohorts like when I talked to like I was actually at dinner with with a bunch of my friends from from college um last night and like they they just don't give a shit about crypto like bluntly like and this is this is with me like trying to like pill them on crypto for 10 years maybe that's an indictment of me but like you know it's it's the same for me. But like real friends are yeah. Yeah, they just don't care. So like how can you like to your point, you have to effectively abstract everything away and anything crypto, you know, native away to get that group of people.

But doing that do you kind of like alienate the crypto native people that like do enjoy quote trenching or whatever it is. And then, you know, the tradfai folk don't really care about trenching either. Right. Like they're here to buy big assets that'll go up a couple X and do it with size and liquidity. And so like to me like there isn't like a huge like when I look at the vendai like there isn't like a huge overlap in these three circles. So it's like really tough. And I think that's why everybody's finding it difficult to like, you know, break into that and become that like one stop shop. I think like somebody like I mean, a company like Twitter or like Robin Hood or I guess X or like Robin are probably the best position to do that given that they have some crypto, you know, they have crypto native flow.

They have normie people buying GME and whatever. whatever they're buying it now and they have, you know, traffic people that understand those businesses and stuff. So like I could see it evolving or, you know, emerging from like something like that. I'm not sure like a crypto native company is going. But do you think those guys would even want to touch? Yeah.

Sorry. What was that? Would a Robin or Twitter really touched like a meme coin launch? Yeah. Because it's just so like they have infinite tokens. So it's too cyclical. to where it's like, yeah, it's just like the big, the spiral where the circle gets smaller every time. I don't know if they would go into that as much.

I don't know. It doesn't. But I do agree. Like those, they have like, yeah. But actually, I mean, we have like a almost an existing, you know, company that is like moving into that space. Like when Coinbase announced that all the base dexes, those tokens would be immediately treated. Like, that's like a version of that. You know, because Coinbase, I mean, they're in the S&P 500.

Yeah. So I think it's easier to go from like a tradfai company into this than it is to go from a crypto native company back out and capture the other groups in my opinion. I think like a coin base like a Robin Hood. I mean, I guess coin base is a crypto native company, but effectively it's like a, you know, it's a publicly traded tradify company. I think it's probably like again, like those are the companies that have access to Simon's point the most amount of users.

They have the distribution. So at that point, it's a, it's a function of like integrating these things and maybe, you know, doing a strategic acquisition here and there, partnering with something here and there, here and there. It just seems like intuitively to me, it seems easier to go from that way in than to go from crypto-native and branch back out and try to capture the groups that genuinely don't really care that much about. Yeah, you know, something I just realized right when you talked about Coinbase is that

Coinbase, during the years when it seemed crypto-native was technically actually more like a fintech company because it was. was just providing the banking rails. And then now, like when, you know, because they've just been around so long, we would call them crypto-native, but actually their business wasn't for so long. And it's only now that they're trying to be more crypto-native, but now they have that distribution. So it's like in a way you could say that they've sort of played this game perfectly,

which isn't to say they will definitely be successful, but that they have positioned themselves well for this moment. So we're like basically out of time, but there is just one last question. I don't know if any of you want to cover this just briefly, but, you know, it sort of harkens back to the comments I made at the beginning about how, like, ICOs started a certain way where, you know, there was a white paper. Like, you knew the function of the token. It was like this whole kind of thing. Like, like, you could be part owner and like, you know, you would be part of the governance and like it was collectively community owned. And here we are, you know, it's like pump is a centralized company. They did this ICO. So I was just wondering, you know, and we are already seeing there's a lot of people talking about how, like, the foundation model is broken. So I was just curious, like what you thought the future of tokens was going to look like and whether or not the space is sort of just giving up on like decentralization theater. And it's hilariously, it's happening at the moment when the SEC is saying like there's a path to do this.

So I'm just curious for your thoughts on that. Yeah, I think the fact that this was already an existing business, right? So you have less of this immediate need to provide a, you know, A to Z. the business model and vision, although I think, you know, the market is punishing them for not having that post-ICO. And I think, you know, the silence can be a bit deafening on that front. You know, the appetite for launching tokens is rampant right now in crypto, just because the regulations have eased.

You know, from what I understand, there isn't really going to be anything passed anytime soon in terms of a framework for how to have. how to get these live in a compliant way. So anyone trying to hold their breath for that moment to launch, it's probably a bit unwise because it seems like it's out of the stamp sale right now. But at the same time, there doesn't seem to be any kind of recourse if you're potentially doing it in a nefarious way. I think that the biggest form of recourse right now is just the market telling you how it feels.

So, you know, this is a bit more akin to the old ICO vision, but I do think they need to shed some light on it. And then on the value accrual side, there needs to be something more cemented, I think, in place. Right now, right, the number float around was 25% of revenues, and that might be the case. But I think the sporadic buybacks have created a bit of uncertainty in the market. And so there should definitely be some clarity. there and then you kind of do have this dichotomy between, you know, the value that goes to the equity holders versus the token. And that's always been a bit of an issue in crypto. And so I think just creating some certainty around that in some form, what would be appreciated in the market.

Jason or Simon, do you want to add anything? Yeah. I mean, I think like the decentralized theater thing, like you mentioned going away, it's probably a good thing. And like hopefully there is like a path to where these sort of tokens look maybe a bit more like equities and that like you can pass value back to buyers in a way maybe that's like not a buyback so just like like like a dividend or some sort of distribution maybe but yeah I think like yon mentioned in the pump case like they there's some interesting stuff going on there but uh all adjacent to yeah no I mean I think these guys I think these guys kind of hit it I mean I think yeah getting rid of like the theater around decentralization is probably good. But like I don't think like the actual, you know, ethos of crypto with

decentralization is going anywhere. Like I think, I think like right now we're just in a moment where you've seen like such such like a big like upheaval and like the regulatory landscape that it almost feels like, you know, anything's, you know, game right now. You can kind of do whatever you want. And I think that's more of a function of like, you know, the prior four years being so miserable to to do anything in crypto from like a, you know, like a good faith standpoint that like everybody's like, okay, like now you can kind of just do whatever you want. I think it kind of like plays out over time once you get some of some of these more ironed out frameworks. Like I don't think like the decentralized aspect is going to go anywhere. I think like to your point, you're just like,

people are just like not really, you know, pretending anymore, which like is good. And I think it will probably be better for in the long run for the protocols and things that actually do kind of embody those types of principles because it is important for crypto to kind of keep that ethos intact. And it's fine. You know, not everything needs to be fully decentralized. Not everything needs to be partially decentralized. Some things are better off, you know, being centralized and that that's okay. It's just that for years we kind of had like this whole, you know, fake decentralization thing going on.

But I think now that, you know, everything's like kind of more out in the open, it is generally better for both decentralized and decentralized players. So like, I don't know, I'm excited to kind of see how things play out. I think it'll be a generally good several years for crypto going forward, given, you know, the upheaval and stuff. All right. Well, thank you guys so much. It's been so fun chatting with you all.

Thanks for having us. Thank you. Don't forget. Next up is the weekly news recap. Stick around for this week in crypto after this short break. Selling your Bitcoin just to get cash? One early Bitcoiner did and missed out on over a billion dollars. With Zappo Bank, you can access up to $1 million instantly without selling a single set.

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And your Bitcoin stays safe, never re-hypothicated, relent, or pooled. It's securely held until your loan is repaid. Check them out at sapobank.com slash unchained. Welcome to this week's crypto roundup. In today's recap, Tether sets sites on a U.S.-based stablecoin, while Wall Street Titans embrace blockchain with tokenized money funds and crypto lending. Solana's new treasury venture aims to raise, $1.5 billion, and Polly Market re-enters the U.S. market with stable coin plans of its own.

A major lawsuit targets Solana and Gito execs over meme coin trading. Trump media shifts $2 billion into Bitcoin, BitGo, and Bullish prepare for IPOs, and Gito revamps Solana's block infrastructure. Plus, Telegram brings crypto wallets to 87 million American users. Let's begin. Tether, the issuer of the work. world's largest stable coin is preparing to launch a new U.S. domestic stable coin designed for institutional use, marking a major step in its return to the American market.

The move follows the passage of the Genius Act, which establishes strict requirements for fiat-backed digital assets. Speaking to Bloomberg, Tether CEO Paulo Arduino said, we are well in progress of establishing our U.S. domestic strategy and confirmed that the company plans to announce it in the next couple of months. The forthcoming stablecoin will be distinct from USDT, which serves global markets and currently holds a market cap of over $162 billion. Tethers' U.S. specific token will focus on institutional payments and interbank settlements.

Arduino acknowledged competition from major financial firms entering the stablecoin space, but noted, we have a much better understanding of this market than anyone else. That brings us to a broader trend among traditional financial powerhouses, embracing blockchain infrastructure in a big way. Institutional adoption of blockchain technology accelerated this week as major U.S. financial firms unveiled a series of crypto-focused initiatives. Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon will launch tokenized money market funds on Goldman's digital asset platform backed by U.S. Treasuries. These funds will be available via BNY Mellon's liquidity direct platform, allowing institutional clients

to manage liquidity and rebalance portfolios around the clock using programmable smart contracts. Early participants include BlackRock, Fidelity, and Goldman itself. The tokenized U.S. Treasury market has grown nearly 500% year-over-year to $6.75 billion. J.P. Morgan is exploring lending directly against Bitcoin and Ether holdings, marking a shift from its earlier stance. The move would involve using third-party custodians to manage crypto-collateral and reflect broader institutional engagement under lighter regulatory conditions. Western Union is developing stablecoin on and off ramp services within its digital wallet.

The firm is also assessing ways to offer stablecoin products to global users for cross-border payments and value storage. Meanwhile, PNC Bank has partnered with Coinbase to provide crypto access through the exchanges, crypto-as-a-service platform. The collaboration will allow PNC's 12 million customers to buy, hold, and save. hold and sell cryptocurrencies, further bridging traditional banking with digital assets. Speaking of institutional moves, a major Solana Treasury Initiative is taking shape, led by a familiar name. Joe McCann, founder of the Crypto Hedge Fund, Asymmetric Financial, is set to take the helm of a new

Solana-focused Treasury company called Accelerate, according to pitch materials obtained by Unchained. The firm aims to raise up to $1.5 billion and go public via a SPAC merger with Gore's X holding. Despite Asymmetrics Liquid Fund reportedly falling 80% this year, McCann announced its closure on X, writing, I've notified our LPs that we are, shifting away from liquid trading strategies. He offered investors the option to exit or roll over capital into an illiquid strategy. Accelerates financial model outlines plans to raise $800 million via a pipe. $358.8 million through the SPAC vehicle, $250 million in convertible debt, and $103.2 million from warrants. If successful, Accelerate would surpass EPEXE to become the largest sole treasury firm,

with plans to acquire over 7 million sole tokens. Another company making headlines this week is Polymarket, which is planning a return to U.S. users after years on the sidelines. Crypto prediction market, Polymarket, is preparing to, re-enter the U.S. after acquiring QCX, a licensed derivatives exchange and clearinghouse. The $112 million deal gives Polymarket access to a Commodity Futures Trading Commission license, resolving prior regulatory barriers tied to unregistered trading activity. The platform had previously agreed to block U.S. users in 2022 as part of a CFTC settlement.

But recent investigations by the CFTC and the Department of Justice have now concluded. concluded. Alongside the acquisition, Polymarket is also considering a move into the stablecoin space. The company may either launch a platform native stablecoin or pursue a revenue sharing agreement with Circle, the issuer of USDC. A person familiar with the plans told CoinDesk, Polymarket is locking a lot of stable coin value in their betting pools, and so they want some kind of mechanism to get the yield. But while some companies are returning to US markets, others are heading into legal trouble. A A newly amended lawsuit is putting serious pressure on some of Solana's biggest names.

A class action lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York has accused Pump. Dot Fund and its infrastructure partners of running a $5.5 billion unlicensed gambling operation through meme coin trading. The amended RICO complaint names top executives from Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, Gito Labs, and the Gito Foundation as co-conspirators. Incidents include Solana co-founders, Anatoly Yaakovenko, and Raj Gokal, Foundation leaders Dan Albert and Lily Lou, and Gito Labs, CEO Lucas Bruder, and C.O. Brian Smith. The plaintiffs allege the firms, engineered and maintained, a system resembling a digital casino,

using bonding curve pricing and anonymous wallets to simulate gambling. They are not bystanders to fraud. They are its architects, beneficiaries, and co-conspirators. The complaint states. Additional claims include wire fraud, unlicensed money transmission, and securities violations. Meanwhile, a high-profile media company is going all in on Bitcoin. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, has acquired approximately $2 billion in Bitcoin and related securities, marking a major step in its transition to

a crypto-Tresuary model. The purchase represents about two-thirds of the company's $3 billion in liquid assets, an additional $300 million has been allocated toward Bitcoin options, which the firm may convert into Bitcoin depending on market conditions. CEO Devin Nunes said the move aims to, help ensure our company's financial freedom and support future token initiatives tied to truth social. Elsewhere, the crypto IPO pipeline is starting to flow again. Two major players in the crypto sector have filed for public listings, as the industry benefits from renewed market momentum. Crypto-custody firm BitGo has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

The Palo Alto-based company, which recently surpassed $100 billion in assets under custody, has not yet disclosed its target valuation or offering size. Meanwhile, bullish, the Digital Asset Exchange, backed by Peter Thiel, filed publicly for a $100 million IPO with plans to list on the New York. York Stock Exchange under the ticker BLSH. Despite reporting a $348.6 million net loss in Q12025, the firm highlighted over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume since launch. The deal will be underwritten by a consortium of major banks, including JPMorgan and Citigroup. Next, we turn to a major infrastructure change coming to the Salana network. Gito Labs, which powers most of Salana's network activity, has introduced

a major upgrade called the Block Assembly Marketplace, or BAM. The new system changes how transactions are organized before being added to the blockchain, with the goal of making Solana more fair, secure, and efficient for users. BAM is basically decentralizing ourselves, said Gito CEO Lucas Bruder, describing the shift as a way to give more control back to the broader network. Instead of relying on a single system to sort transactions, BAM uses a network of trusted computers to do the job privately and securely. This helps prevent unfair trading practices

and creates a visible audit trail. BAM will also let apps earn revenue and share it with users, developers, or token holders. Gito plans to expand the system throughout 2025 and make its code open to the public later this year. In related news, Solana developers are testing a 66% increase to the network's processing limit per block, aiming to support heavier traffic from complex apps,

like Defi Order Books and NFT mince without slowing down transactions. Now to Washington, where a new crypto bill is taking shape in the Senate. Senate Republicans have introduced a discussion draft aimed at reshaping crypto market regulation by building on the House-past Clarity Act. Led by Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, the proposal defines a new category of ancillary assets, crypto tokens that are not classified as securities. Ancillary assets are described as intangible, tradable assets sold without offering equity or ownership rights. While not regulated as securities, issuers would still need to disclose information such as project details, supply metrics, insider activity, and leadership background,

unless they raise less than $5 million in their first year or remain below that in daily trading volume. The bill instructs the SEC to adjust its rules for digital asset activity and would also permit banks to, to custody crypto, make crypto-backed loans, and run blockchain infrastructure. It does not address CFTC oversight, which is expected in a separate bill from the Send Agriculture Committee. Finally, we wrap up with a major rollout from one of the world's most used messaging apps. Telegram has rolled out its crypto wallet, ton wallet, to its 87 million users in the United States. Integrated directly into the messaging app, the wallet allows users to send, receive, and manage

cryptocurrencies without needing additional downloads or logins. Developed by the Open Platform and powered by the Open Network blockchain, TonWallet is self-custodial, meaning users control their own private keys. Features include peer-to-peer token transfers, crypto swaps, staking, and zero-fee purchases via Moon Pay, using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or debit cards. A split-key system links wallet access to a Telegram account and email, streamlining security and recovery. TUNW wallet had previously launched internationally in 2023, with over 100 million activations by 2024. The U.S. launch had been delayed due to regulatory

uncertainty, but is now backed by the TN Foundation. Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about Pump Fun, the Pump Token, and Jan, Jason, and Simon, Chek of the Showness for this episode. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Matt Peltjard, Juanio Ranovich, Pamma Jumbar, and Marka Curia. Thanks for listening. Thank you.