Crypto

• Part 2 is long, it discusses the dragons guarding the promise of Chain Street. I cover blockchains transformation of counterparty risk into technical risk.
• I highlight the hyper competitive nature of Chain Street and the emerging topic of token holder rights.
• I point out that Chain Street’s problem isn’t technology anymore, its a lack of quality assets that leave some of Chain Street’s best services underutilised. 

• Ethereum is at an important moment as two new technical advances, PeerDAS and zkEVMs, move into live implementation, positioning the network to resolve the blockchain trilemma. The core debate now is how Ethereum’s growing usage and ultra-low gas fees translate into value capture for ETH as an asset.

• Zcash suffers a near-20% sell-off after a high-stakes governance split, despite no changes to the protocol itself. A reminder that as real economic value rises (ZEC is up 700%+ YoY), long-standing governance tensions once seen as manageable, can quickly escalate into open conflict.

• Ledger’s recent data leak, while not compromising wallets or private keys, exposes users to heightened social engineering and even physical “wrench attack” risks.

• Sky operates a synergistic model comprising the SKY governance token and USDS stablecoin, functioning as a decentralised central bank that captures value from a portfolio of RWAs and on-chain lending.
• The protocol’s flagship Sky Savings Rate (SSR) currently offers a 4% yield that tracks the U.S. Treasury Notes, effectively establishing USDS as the on-chain equivalent of a risk-free dollar instrument.
• With over 86% of the legacy supply successfully migrated, Sky represents a fairly defensive investment that offers diversifying returns. 

• Sport.Fun is a skill-based fantasy sports platform that combines elements of prediction markets and blockchain economics.
• Players buy and trade shares of real athletes, build squads, and earn rewards by accurately predicting performance over short or long timeframes.
• Unlike traditional fantasy or betting platforms, assets persist across seasons and are priced by market demand.

• The recent turbulence in the crypto-native stablecoins, marked by de-pegging and liquidations, exposes vulnerabilities in reserve management and a lack of capacity to handle “bank runs”.
• These vulnerabilities are a replica of the “wildcat banking” that occurred during the “free banking era” in the US.
• This era was characterized by state-chartered banks issuing notes with diverse and inconsistent practices, leading to discounts on notes circulated outside the issuing state, and instability from fraudulent or under-reserved banks.

• ZKsync is evolving from a technical ZK-rollup project into a settlement layer built for banks, institutions, and even governments.
• Its core value is that it offers high speed, strong security, and privacy on demand — all while staying connected to Ethereum.
• Recent progress includes major banks testing Prividium, a hyper-fast exchange (GRVT) doing over $70B in volume, and sovereign adoption like the UAE’s ADI Chain and U.S. economic data going on-chain.

• Render is one of the earliest real-use utility tokens with a functioning marketplace for GPU compute, and adoption is expanding beyond crypto-native users.
• Its migration to Solana and support for AI/ML workloads positions Render to benefit from rising demand for decentralised GPU resources, although competition from hyperscalers remains a structural risk.
• As increasing real-world usage and transparent tokenomics provide upside optionality, but liquidity and regulatory uncertainties warrant conservative sizing.

• Cross the Ages (CTA) exemplifies the transmedia IP practice in the gaming sector by establishing literary content as its foundational asset and expanding it across interactive and physical formats.
• The game originated from a seven-volume dystopian novel saga and began development in 2020, leading the team to secure a $12 million Series A investment in March 2022.
• The Trading Card Game (TCG), the flagship product, is designed to translate narrative elements into interactive gameplay. The TCG has achieved over 400,000 cumulative worldwide downloads and maintains robust engagement with approximately 148,000 monthly active users.

• Cosmo Giang, partner at Pantera Capital, discusses the investment thesis behind digital asset treasury companies (DATs) and their role in the crypto ecosystem, particularly highlighting Solana as their largest position.
• Giang compares DATs to traditional financial companies, emphasizing how they can generate yield on assets like Bitcoin and Solana, similar to how banks generate returns on deposits.
• Giang reveals how Solana’s smart contract platform offers more sustainable yield potential compared to Bitcoin, leading to Pantera’s bullish stance on the cryptocurrency.

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• 4Q for the last two years has seen strong performance for cryptocurrencies. BTC was up more than 45% in 4Q23 and more than 65% in 4Q24.
• Given the strong institutional interest in crypto after the US passed the GENIUS Actand the amount of capital going into digital asset treasury (DAT) companies, we could see a similar strong performance in 4Q25.
• There has been significant interest in DAT companies, particularly those focusing on coins other than Bitcoin and those adding return enhancers to their models, DAT++ companies.

• This report argues that the August 2025 Executive Order allowing Bitcoin inside 401(k) plans is a structural breakthrough — potentially more transformative than the ETF approvals.
• While ETFs made Bitcoin easy to buy, 401(k) integration ties BTC to the U.S.’s largest savings engine: $9.3 trillion in employer retirement plans funded automatically every paycheck.
• Unlike ETF flows that rise and fall with sentiment, 401(k) contributions are programmatic, recurring, and extremely sticky — with 95% of participants never changing allocations.