Bankless

Is the Crypto-Native Era Coming to an End? - Lessons...

Bankless ·

2025/12/22

Joey Krug (Founders Fund partner, former Pantera co-CIO, and Augur co-founder) returns to unpack whether the “crypto-native era” is fading as institutions and mainstream apps adopt crypto rails without adopting crypto culture. We dig into prediction markets’ breakout (and why Polymarket finally found product-market fit), the coming regulatory fights around market structure and “insider” edges, and what’s next for founders building in a post-cypherpunk, distribution-first phase of

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ROLLUP: Coinbase Ships | JPMorgan Onchain | Solana...

Bankless ·

2025/12/19

Crypto prices are down, but the most important players are still building. In this week’s Weekly Rollup, Ryan and David break down Coinbase’s push to become a financial super app, JPMorgan’s first tokenized money market fund on Ethereum, and why regulators are quietly opening the door for onchain settlement through DTCC pilots. They also unpack Solana’s Firedancer finally going live, the growing fight over tokenholder rights at Aave and what Uniswap’s unification proposal gets right, and why

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Why Gen Z Will Turn Everything Into a Market | Threadguy

Bankless ·

2025/12/18

Trading is no longer just a financial activity; it has become a spectator sport. In this episode, Threadguy explains how Gen Z’s internet-native fluency, built through sneaker markets, NFTs, and meme cycles, translates into a new kind of market intuition: attention, momentum, and mimetics. We delve into “Entertainment Finance,” where perps, prediction markets, and live trading are starting to resemble streaming and esports more closely than Wall Street. Along the way, we explore why “internet

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The DeFi Report Podcast | Was the Fed Rate Cut a...

Bankless ·

2025/12/17

The Fed cut rates and announced $40B/month in T bill purchases. Is that the signal to buy back into crypto? Mike says no. In this episode, we explain why “QE light” is not real easing, the key indicators Mike needs before flipping risk on, and what Bitcoin’s onchain market structure suggests about where this cycle could go next.---- 📣THE DEFI REPORT | FOLLOW &

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10 Crypto Predictions for 2026: $1M BTC, Wall Street...

Bankless ·

2025/12/16

Bitwise’s Matt Hougan and Ryan Rasmussen return with 10 big predictions for 2026.From the case for $1M BTC (and why the classic four-year cycle may be dead) to a world where ETFs soak up more than 100% of new BTC/ETH/SOL supply. We get into Bitcoin volatility vs. mega-cap tech, crypto equities vs. tech equities, and why Polymarket could smash past its 2024 election-era highs. Plus: stablecoins as an “escape valve” that emerging economies may blame for currency stress, on-chain also known as

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Is Privacy A Winnable Battle? | Andy Yen, Founder of...

Bankless ·

2025/12/15

AI is becoming the most powerful surveillance machine ever built and most people are feeding it their deepest secrets without realizing who can read them. Proton founder Andy Yen joins Bankless to explain how Big Tech captures your identity, why AI chat logs are a privacy disaster waiting to happen, and what a self-sovereign, user-aligned future could look like.We explore how AI models profile you, why subscription business models don’t guarantee privacy, how Proton built Lumo without retaining

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ROLLUP: Rate Cuts! | ZK Breakthroughs | Farcaster’s...

Bankless ·

2025/12/12

The final Fed meeting of 2025 delivered a surprise rate cut, but the real story is how the market is reacting. In this week’s Weekly Rollup, Ryan and David unpack what the new policy shift means for crypto liquidity, why regulators across the SEC, CFTC, and OCC are suddenly embracing onchain markets, and how Tom Lee’s massive ETH accumulation is reshaping sentiment.We also get into Ethereum’s growing momentum from ZK advancements and blob upgrades, the ZKsync Atlas rollout, Base’s bridge drama

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The Return of the ICO | Ryan & David

Bankless ·

2025/12/10

ICOs are suddenly back, but this time the projects are real, the mechanisms are better, and retail isn’t shut out. Ryan and David break down why MegaEth, Monad, Aztec, Zama, and Infinex are launching public sales all at once, how onchain auctions are fixing 2017’s mistakes, and what regulatory clarity means for U.S. participation.They also dive into the rise of internet native capital markets on Ethereum, the shift away from airdrop farming, and why fair price discovery could be a defining

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Inside Gary Gensler’s SEC: A Conversation with Former...

Bankless ·

2025/12/08

What was really happening inside the SEC during the Gensler years? Today, we sat down with Corey Frayer, former senior crypto policy advisor to SEC Chair Gary Gensler and now Director of Investor Protection at the Consumer Federation of America. We dig into how the agency thought about securities law, DeFi, Uniswap, stablecoins, SAB 121, and why platforms like Coinbase and Kraken ended up in the crosshairs. Corey defends the Gensler playbook while responding to the industry’s harshest

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Crypto’s Agentic Future: AI, ZK & Money Networks |...

Bankless ·

2025/12/06

At our Bankless Summit in Buenos Aires, four standout talks captured the frontier of crypto’s next chapter. Lincoln Murr lays out why x402 is emerging as the missing payment layer for the agentic internet. Shay Ketsdever explains how bots already run modern markets, and how programmable auctions and privacy can turn the bot economy into something that benefits people instead of exploits them. Michael Dong shows how real-time ZK proving unlocks a hundred-fold expansion of Ethereum’s computational

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ROLLUP: Buy Signal? | Fusaka Launch | Polymarket...

Bankless ·

2025/12/05

Bitcoin hit a rare signal this week, dropping to its cheapest level relative to gold in nearly 15 years. Is that a buy signal or something deeper in the macro picture? Ryan and David break down what the BTC–gold anomaly really means, how liquidity, rates, and Trump’s surprise Fed Chair pick factor in, and whether the market is entering a shallow cycle instead of a true winter.We also cover Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade, Vitalik’s push to bring builders back to L1, Polymarket’s mainstream breakout

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Ethereum’s Next Decade | Tomasz K. Stańczak, Ansgar...

Bankless ·

2025/12/04

This episode showcases four of the most important talks from our Bankless Summit event in Buenos Aires for Devconnect, each capturing how Ethereum is evolving as it enters the real world. Tomasz K. Stańczak reveals the EF’s new priorities around developer acceleration, founder support, institutional engagement, and unifying the L2 ecosystem. Ansgar Dietrichs explains why Ethereum is shifting from long-term exploration to near-term execution, detailing the plan to 3x L1 scale annually and accelerate

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Why Prices Are Crashing & What's Next—How Mike Nadeau...

Bankless ·

2025/12/03

Michael Nadeau called the top before the 10/10 crash. In this episode, he sits down with Ryan to explain why. They break down the onchain data that flipped him risk off, Bitcoin’s decisive break below the 50-week moving average, and why global liquidity and rate cuts may not rescue this cycle. Michael shares the price zones where Bitcoin becomes compelling again, how long-term holder behavior maps to past tops, and the framework he’s using to build a high conviction watch list for the next

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The Private World Computer | Aztec Co-Founders Zac...

Bankless ·

2025/12/02

If crypto wins without privacy, did we actually win?In this episode, Ryan sits down with Aztec co-founders Zac Williamson and Joe Andrews to unpack their eight-year quest to build a private world computer for Ethereum, covering the Aztec ignition chain, zero-knowledge-powered “private intents,” and how you can route trades across L1 and L2s without exposing your strategies or balances. They dive into ZK Passport (turning your NFC e-passport into a proof of personhood), the coming breakdown of

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The Holy Grail of Crypto Privacy: Encrypted Ethereum,...

Bankless ·

2025/12/01

Ethereum is transparent by design, and that’s a problem if you don’t want your entire financial life on display. Rand Hindi, co-founder of Zama, joins us to explain how fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) can turn Ethereum into an encrypted, confidential blockchain where contracts stay composable and UX feels exactly the same. We get into why blockchains were public in the first place, why “anonymous addresses” were never enough, how FHE compares to ZK and MPC, and what a world of private DeFi,

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ROLLUP: Ethereum’s Big Week | Supercycle Debate |...

Bankless ·

2025/11/27

Happy Thanksgiving! Ethereum is heading into one of its biggest upgrades of the year. In this week’s Weekly Rollup, Ryan and Anthony Sassano break down the Fusaka hard fork, what it ships for L2 scaling and gas limits, and why Justin Drake’s real-time ZK proving demo could reshape Ethereum sooner than expected. They revisit the four-year cycle debate, unpack Tom Lee’s “supercycle” conviction, and catch up on Monad’s mainnet launch, the CFTC clearing Polymarket for U.S. users, and growing concern

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Do We Need Another L1? - Inside Monad’s Parallel EVM...

Bankless ·

2025/11/25

Monad just launched Mainnet!That’s why Ryan sits down with Monad co-founder Keone Hon today. We ask the blunt question: do we really need another general-purpose L1? Why not just build this as an Ethereum L2 instead? Keone explains how Monad’s parallel, pipelined EVM works under tight consumer-hardware constraints (32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 100 Mbps), delivering ~500M gas/sec, 400ms blocks, and fast finality while preserving decentralization. Enjoy the episode! ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED

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The Real Crypto Cycle: What Happens When Global...

Bankless ·

2025/11/24

Global liquidity veteran Michael Howell joins to map out the “master variable” driving asset prices: a 65-month global liquidity and debt refinancing cycle that underpins booms, busts, and the recent “everything bubble.” He breaks down the coming debt maturity wall, rising repo stress, the shift from Fed QE to “Treasury QE,” and a new capital war between a US dollar stablecoin system and China’s gold-backed strategy. Plus, what all of this means for Bitcoin, gold, equities, and how to position as

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Is It All Over? What The Markets Are Saying For 2026

Bankless ·

2025/11/21

We analyze the crypto market's turbulence as Bitcoin falls below $90k, signaling potential bear market conditions. Also, it’s DevConnect! We discuss investor sentiment, and examine key updates like Vitalik Buterin's roadmap for Ethereum and Aave's new app. Tune in for essential market updates!------ 📣 BLACK FRIDAY | BANKLESS PREMIUM https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM,

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Defensive Investing for an AI Bubble | Ruchir...

Bankless ·

2025/11/19

America isn’t just leading the AI race; it’s increasingly built on it. Investor–author Ruchir Sharma joins Bankless to unpack why U.S. growth, stock gains, and even debt complacency are now tethered to a single story, and what a sensible hedge looks like. We trace how U.S. dominance happened, what could puncture the current euphoria, and where the real diversification lives: quality stocks that have lagged, broad ex-US exposure with currency tailwinds, and selective bets in India, China, and reform

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