Nscale has expanded rapidly in recent years through multiple rounds of financing, debt instruments, and mergers and acquisitions, and recently agreed to acquire distributed AI software company Anyscale for approximately $1.65 billion. The company is currently advancing an integrated layout of AI data centers, power resources, GPUs, and software capabilities; however, its high capital expenditure and debt levels will remain a key focus for the public market going forward.

After the clawback mechanism was triggered, the final online issuance quantity was 9.7070 million shares, accounting for approximately 30.00% of the issuance quantity after deducting the final strategic placement quantity, and the final online issuance winning rate was 0.01809759%. (Cailianshe)

BGB Staking Pool:

Total Airdrop: 600,000 DOS VIP

User Staking Limit: 50,000 BGB

Regular User Staking Limit: 5,000 BGB

DOS Staking Pool:

Total Airdrop: 100,000 DOS

Individual Staking Limit: 2,500,000 DOS

In addition, the address also holds several large positions, including 63,367 GOOGL long positions, accounting for 17.4% of its open interest; MRVL long positions worth $7 million, accounting for 13.4%; and SPCX short positions worth $23 million, accounting for 8.81%.

The event window for this round is from August 10 to August 16, 2026.

Participation Threshold:

Users who have previously traded contracts can unlock hand eligibility by completing 10,000 USDT in contract trading; the threshold for new contract users is significantly lowered, requiring only 100 USDT in contract trading to participate.

Card reveals are announced every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. The card reveal timing is a key window to adjust hand combinations; users can strategically utilize the community card reveal opportunity to change the game outcome.

编译：AididiaoJP，Foresight News

核心要点

黄金是一个超过 30 万亿美元的资产，却不产生任何现金流。让黄金产生收益的传统方式只有两种：借出去，或者卖掉它的波动率（看涨期权）。看涨策略久经验证，但收益只对机构和资管公司开放，中间要消化管理费、发行人信用风险、固定行权价和定价不透明等一系列成本。

链上黄金在托管和流动性上已领先链下，但在收益这一项上反而落后。借贷需求稀薄，AMM LP 又会因为无常损失侵蚀黄金的上涨敞口。

Enhanced 是一个通用结构化产品基础设施。针对波动率收益，它通过机构做市商之间的竞争性 RFQ 拍卖来执行卖出看涨期权，把资产自身的波动率转化为持续的权利金收益。

PAXG 波动率收益金库是 Enhanced 「Thesis Vaults」系列的首个产品。这类策略金库由 Enhanced 团队创建，用期权（未来还将纳入二元事件仓位）来表达一个明确的收益或结果。对波动率收益金库而言，目标就是让原本不产生收益的资产开始生息。

黄金只是起点。同一套引擎将扩展至代币化股票、商品和更广泛的 RWA 领域，标志着新一代链上结构化产品的开端：把明确结果打包成一键式金库。

黄金一直怎么运作？

黄金历来是最笨重、最懒惰、效率最低的资产。物理上重，流动性上也重，仓储成本高。黄金本身也不像债券或股票那样产生现金流。结果就是，一个超过 30 万亿美元的资产类别，几个世纪以来主要扮演价值存储角色，长期持有意味着要永久承受机会成本。

让黄金变得有生产力的两种方式

当然不是完全没有办法。让黄金产生收益的诚实路径有两条：一条是借出去，另一条是卖掉它的价格波动。借贷市场先出现，卖波动率的市场后来才逐步加深。

租赁：黄金借贷市场

与大约有 300 年历史的伦敦黄金市场一样，黄金租赁是金融领域最古老的实践之一。如今的做法是，央行和大型持有者把黄金借给贵金属银行，银行再把这些黄金提供给有对冲需求的精炼商、珠宝制造商、矿企等工业用户。

借黄金的需求逻辑很简单：用黄金借、用黄金还，来对冲原材料价格风险。用金企业借的是黄金本身而不是用现金去买，还款时只需偿还相同重量的黄金加租赁费。因为负债以黄金重量计价，金价上涨时产品价格也跟着涨，还款压力减轻；金价下跌时，企业可以用更便宜的价格买入黄金来还款。

但这条路径在收益上有天然上限。黄金借贷收入完全取决于借方需求。由于借黄金的需求稀薄且周期性强，租赁利率很少超过 1-2%，在 2009-2011 年零利率时期甚至跌成负值，出借方反而要付钱才能把黄金借出去。

而且这个收益如何定价，从市场外部很难观察。外部人只能通过 GOFO 这类有限的基准指标间接追踪。LBMA 停掉 GOFO 之后，公开追踪黄金远期和租赁利率的窗口基本消失。最终，黄金借贷市场仍被两大瓶颈困住：借方需求稀薄，价格发现不透明。

卖波动率：从远期销售到卖出看涨期权

由于黄金本身没有现金流，能被金融化的只剩价格和波动率。第二种做法就是卖掉这种价格波动。矿企把预期产量按固定未来价格提前卖掉，即使交割时金价下跌也能保住收入，代价是放弃金价上涨时卖得更高的机会。

这套做法久经考验，但问题出在交易量超过持仓或产能的时候。如果生产商预售的量超过实际能交付的黄金，金价上涨时就要直接承担合约价和市场价的差额。

1999 年，Ashanti Goldfields 建立了大规模远期销售头寸，当年欧洲央行达成限制售金协议导致金价暴涨，它的对冲账本亏损超过 5 亿美元，无法满足追加保证金要求，几乎破产。最终存活下来并成为行业标准的，是卖出看涨策略。

卖出看涨，以及它的局限

什么是卖出看涨？

卖出看涨期权是把你已经持有的资产的部分上涨空间交出去，换取权利金。和裸远期销售的区别很简单：你只卖你手里有的量。不是预售你没有的黄金，也不是对冲超出产能的部分，只是把已持有黄金的价格天花板的一部分让给市场。

举例：黄金持有者交出一个权利——如果两周内金价比当前水平上涨超过 4%，对方有权按那个价格买入——然后收到这笔权利的价格（权利金）作为现金。之后结果分两种：

低于 4%：两周后金价没涨过 4%，权利直接过期，收到的权利金全部归你。

高于 4%：涨过 4%，你必须按约定价格交出黄金。即便如此，你仍保留权利金和上涨到 4% 的那部分，只放弃超过 4% 的部分。

无论哪种情况，你卖的都是自己持仓范围内的价格天花板，所以即使金价暴涨、你放弃了超额上涨，亏损也不会超出持仓范围，更不会演变成追加保证金。如果说裸远期销售是空手下注，卖出看涨更像是把自有资产的价格天花板借出去一段时间，收一笔租金。

传统金融把这种更安全的形式包装成了产品。2013 年在纳斯达克上市的 GLDI 是早期黄金卖出看涨产品之一，结构是每月在黄金 ETF 上卖出看涨期权，把权利金作为浮动票息支付。第一年年化收益率在 9% 到 26% 之间波动。需求至今仍在，而且更强。2025 年上市的黄金收益 ETF IAUI，一年内管理资产接近 5 亿美元；仅 2025 年就有超过 60 只新的期权收益 ETF 推出。

卖出看涨的局限

卖出看涨的需求和历史记录都已被充分验证。持有黄金的金库、持有股票的机构、以及财富管理机构在客户组合上叠加期权策略的结构化产品，都依赖同一原理。但卖出看涨并不完美，因为投资者在拿到权利金收益之前，必须先承担相当多的成本和结构约束：

管理费：GLDI 年费率 0.65%，在权利金到达投资者之前就被扣掉。再加上券商账户、KYC、托管、交易所营业时间等接入成本，收益被进一步侵蚀。

发行人信用风险：GLDI 严格来说不是 ETF，而是瑞士金融集团 UBS 发行的无担保票据（ETN）。投资者并不直接持有黄金，而是持有 UBS 承诺支付收益的权利。即便金价和期权策略都正常运行，一旦发行人信用出问题，债权本身也可能受损。

策略简单：卖出看涨产品按固定时间表反复卖出看涨期权。这能产生稳定收益，但在资产价格快速上涨的阶段，上涨空间会被反复切断。更棘手的是，传统金融里大多数这类策略都是月度期限。不灵活，通常会严重削减上涨收益。最有代表性的股票卖出看涨 ETF PBP，过去十年年化回报 7.2%，同期标普 500 年化 15.7%。差距来自把行权价设得接近标的价格，并把期限固定在月度。哪怕小幅上涨也会切掉超额收益，中间如果出现急涨，仓位也很难中途调整。

价格发现不透明：行权价、期限等条件由管理人设定，投资者几乎无法验证期权实际在哪个市场、以什么价格卖出。投资者能看到最终分配，却很难知道权利金是如何通过竞争形成的，或者运营过程中有多少漏损变成了成本。

简而言之，收割黄金波动率的路径确实存在。但那条路径只对机构和资管公司开放，并捆绑着费用、发行人信用、固定行权价和定价不透明等约束。收益存在，但通往收益的整条路都经过中介。

因此，金融自然朝着剥离中介的方向发展。链上正好在这个点上给出了一个有说服力的蓝图。然而逐一检查现有的链上收益来源，至少在收益这一项上，链上黄金落后于链下黄金。

链上黄金在收益上落后于链下

链上承诺了什么，现实又是什么

链上起初承诺了很多：没有中介层就能交易资产、每笔结算都能在链上验证，最重要的是可组合性——像乐高一样把资产和其他金融产品组合。这意味着剥离发行人信用、不透明价格发现和分发成本的未来。但这个承诺只兑现了一半。

以最具代表性的代币化资产黄金为例。链上黄金市场已超过 50 亿美元，2026 年第一季度代币化黄金现货交易量超过 900 亿美元。现在只要有钱包就能 7×24 小时交易黄金，按几美元的分数单位买入，不需要券商账户。仅就托管和流动性而言，链上黄金明显提供了更好的替代方案。

但一旦转向收益视角，故事就反过来了。链下黄金持有人可以通过 GLDI 这类产品拿到双位数的卖出看涨票息。相比之下，在链上持有同样黄金的人，选项要少得多。看看最常见的两种链上收益来源：借贷和 AMM LP。

借贷

有一条路径可以把代币化黄金借出去赚收益，但实际选项非常有限。看 Aave 的 XAUt 市场，供应规模约 4000 万美元，但 XAUt 的可借流动性是 0，最大 LTV 也是 0。出于风险管理考虑，它更接近允许存款但禁止借贷和抵押使用的状态。

原因首先在于清算风险。代币化黄金的订单深度比 ETH 或 USDC 浅，预言机更新也不那么频繁，很难保证大规模清算时能无滑点处理。Aave 因此选择只把 XAUt 作为隔离抵押品，并在保守参数下有限度接受。

更根本的是，借黄金本身的需求就稀薄。ETH 有质押收益、杠杆需求，以及作为 DeFi 基础抵押品的多重角色叠加，借贷需求自然产生。黄金则更接近对冲和价值存储资产，年化波动率大约 10%。几乎没有人愿意付利息、承担清算风险去借它。最终，借贷还没能让代币化黄金变成有生产力的资产。

AMM LP

还有一种方法是把代币化黄金和 USDT 一起放进池子收交易费。Uniswap 的 XAUt/USDT 池显示 APR 约 9%。但这个数字离 LP 实际拿到的差得很远。显示的 APR 只是近期交易费年化，是扣除无常损失之前的数字。

LP 把资金拆成黄金和 USDT，提供双边流动性。AMM 通过卖出价格上涨的资产、买入相对涨得少的资产来调整池子权重。金价上涨时，池子把升值的黄金交给市场，换回 USDT。结果就是，单纯持有黄金本该享受的部分上涨，在 LP 仓位里被稀释成无常损失。

因此 LP 的收益不能只看显示的 APR。2025 年现货黄金上涨超过 60%，XAUt/USDT LP 赚了大约 9% 的手续费，但持有人几乎无法完整捕获价格升值。最终，适合这种做法的人非常有限。对想把黄金当价值存储来持有的人来说，无常损失和管理区间的负担都不合适。LP 更适合那些愿意用部分黄金上涨敞口换手续费收入的投资者。

在链上重新想象结构化产品

借贷和 AMM LP 都没能成为代币化黄金的答案。一个苦于借方需求稀薄，另一个实际上侵蚀了黄金持有人想保护的敞口。如果这个缺失的收益层持续存在，代币化真的升级了链下资产吗？

把真实世界资产上链并不免费。发行、托管、法律结构、储备管理、合约风险都有相当成本。如果付出这些成本换来的只是原子结算和 7×24 交易，很难说收益大于成本。换句话说，收益不是代币化资产的附加功能，而是上链转型成为升级而非降级的最低条件。换个角度看，这其实是在链上重新想象结构化产品——把传统金融用费用和中介包装起来的结果，搬进开放、可验证的金库。

而且，收益层的缺失在不同资产类别上表现并不一样。已经有现金流的资产，比如国债或私人信贷，可以相对容易地把票息搬上链。相比之下，黄金、商品、股票这类没有原生现金流的资产，本来就没有票息可搬，现有收益来源——无论是借贷、交易量还是质押——都稀薄或缺失。

因此链上资产需要一个不同于现有收益来源的层。这个层却不必是全新发明。前面考察的卖出看涨期权就是一种替代方案。正好赶上机构资本上链的时机，能在链上执行这套在传统金融被验证过的策略的基础设施，重要性也在上升。Enhanced 作为收益层的基础设施，正是在这个点上值得关注。

Enhanced：能把波动率变成明确结果的结构化产品层

Enhanced 是面向链上资产的机构级结构化收益基础设施。链上金融早期的任务是发行和移动资产，下一步则转向如何让这些资产被高效运营。Enhanced 要做的，就是用基于衍生品的策略填补这个空缺的收益层，把明确的赔付打包成一键式金库。

核心引擎：RFQ 拍卖引擎

收益策略的核心是期权。用户存入资产后，Enhanced 以该资产为抵押创建期权卖出仓位，并送到机构做市商竞争的拍卖中。给出最优条件的做市商买下期权，权利金回到用户手里。这就是把资产自身的波动率转换为持续收益的结构。

Enhanced 里的每一个期权仓位都从 RFQ（询价）拍卖开始。流程如下：

• Taker（请求方）：Taker（机构、白名单持有人或金库）发起 RFQ，定义想针对持仓卖出的期权。它指定交易条款、标的资产、行权价、到期日、数量、方向和抵押品，价格留空。
• 做市商（报价方）：做市商对这个请求报价。它签署一份报价，把愿意支付的权利金附加到这些条款上，签名锁定所有条款。
• Taker（确认方）：Taker 比较多个做市商的报价，选一个并创建匹配确认签名。
• Operator（执行方）：后端运营商把双方签名中继到链上网关，网关验证签名、打开隔离保证金金库、写出并卖出期权，然后把权利金路由回去。

为了保证拍卖完整性，Enhanced 把 RFQ 设计为许可制做市商集合。只有经过身份识别和审查的顶级机构做市商才能提交报价。每个做市商都经过签名入驻流程，并用唯一签名密钥提交报价。这样每个报价都被签名绑定，且每个报价只能使用一次。在此基础上，活跃做市商名单会随着更多合作伙伴完成入驻和风险审查而逐步扩大。

这样看，Enhanced 本身更像一个单一的期权执行引擎，而不是单一产品。引擎通过 RFQ 竞争性拍卖连接机构做市商和链上资产持有人，上面叠加了两个接口：一个给机构和大户的手动 RFQ 接口，一个给普通用户的自动化金库接口。两者共用同一引擎、同一拍卖、同一结算。

手动 RFQ 接口

这是机构和大户直接接入引擎的接口。他们可以直接针对持仓卖出卖出看涨，并按需调整期限、行权价、数量和方向，构建定制化结构。做市商提交报价、交易方选择并签署想要的报价后，交易在单笔原子交易中执行。因为所有条款事先已签名，运营商无法任意更改。卖出看跌和买入期权将在稍后引入。

这个手动 RFQ 接口是为需要自主管理资产空间的一方设计的。基金会金库、成熟投资者、持有大量资产的上市公司加密金库，都有自己调整卖出时机和条款的需求。对像 Metaplanet 或 Sharplink 这类账上堆了大量资产的金库来说，它成了直接把持仓货币化的定制期权执行通道。

这样一来，交易的每一项条款都由双方签名固定，结算在链上验证。运营商无法中途改价格或数量，持有人的资产也绝不会在签名条款之外被移动。这是机构直接面对市场、却不必依赖交易对手或中介信任的结构。

金库接口

这是金库代表存款人调用同一期权执行引擎的接口。金库把一个明确结果变成一键产品：存款人选择策略，引擎在底层处理期权机制。

Enhanced 把这些策略金库称为 Thesis Vaults——一类被创建出来表达单一明确赔付或结果的金库。每个金库把成熟交易台通常手工构建的论点（比如从波动率赚收益，或者未来某个事件以特定方式结算时获得赔付）压缩成一次存款。第一代建立在期权上，二元事件仓位随后跟进。

对 PAXG 波动率收益金库来说，它随后按固定时间表通过 RFQ 拍卖卖出卖出看涨，并把收到的权利金在每个 epoch 分配给存款人。

每个金库创建时带有固定参数，涵盖标的资产、抵押资产、行权计价资产、epoch 长度、存款上限、最低存款和目标行权条件。因为金库 ID 由这组参数的哈希决定，金库一旦创建，条件就不能中途任意更改。代币化黄金被排在这个金库机制应用的第一个资产。

PAXG 波动率收益金库：黄金的波动如何变成收入

PAXG 波动率收益金库是 Enhanced Thesis Vaults 的第一个产品。当然，黄金只是首个应用的资产；Enhanced 瞄准的更大市场是整个链上资产的结构化收益层。

不过，从黄金起步有明确的理由。一是黄金近期的隐含波动率特别适合卖出看涨收益：

2024-2026 年的强势上涨把黄金隐含波动率（GVZ）从 20 多推到了 30 出头。

由于黄金是通胀对冲资产，长期走势相对温和。高权利金和可控价格行为的组合，正是卖出看涨收益最有效的环境。

另一个理由是，它是链上收益面最空的资产。根据 DeFiLlama，约 96% 的 PAXG 和 XAUT 处于闲置状态。这意味着大多数链上黄金被被动持有，没有进入任何专门的收益策略。

金库以存入的 PAXG 为抵押，卖出欧式卖出看涨期权。行权价通常为虚值（OTM），比现货高 3-7%，期限两周。但行权价和期权规模不是固定值，每个周期会在 OTM 范围内动态调整，反映市场信号和价格行为。

目标是动态调整 OTM 范围，在尽可能保留黄金敞口的同时仍获得足够的权利金。这正是它与传统金融产品按固定月度规则行权的区别所在。

更具体地说，这个收益优化会随市场条件切换。当黄金隐含波动率（GVZ）升高时，权利金本身更厚，行权价可以推得更远（更高 OTM 行权价），在保留更多上涨空间的同时仍捕获足够权利金。

反过来，波动率低、价格平稳时，权利金变薄，行权价就会收紧靠近现货，以提高收取的权利金。换句话说，即便在同一个双周期限内，金库也会重新找到权利金和上涨空间之间的平衡，以匹配当前波动环境。

条款定好后，期权直接进入拍卖。机构做市商在拍卖中竞争这个期权，中标权利金预先支付给存款人。用数字走一遍：

存款：假设现货黄金 4000 美元时，用户存入 10 PAXG，价值约 4 万美元。

卖出期权：每两周金库以这笔 PAXG 为抵押卖出卖出看涨。如果本周期行权价是 4160 美元（比现货高 4%），金库就交给做市商一个权利——如果两周内金价超过 4160 美元，对方有权按该价格买入——并预先收到权利金。

未行权：两周后金价没超过 4160 美元，看涨期权过期作废。存款人保留全部 10 PAXG，拿走全部权利金。大多数周期落在这里。

行权：如果金价超过 4160 美元，涨到比如 4300 美元，做市商行使权利。这种情况下存款人拿到权利金和上涨到 4160 美元的部分，只放弃超过部分的 140 美元。因为只结算差额，存款人仍保留大部分黄金仓位。

结果是，如果一个周期的中标权利金是存款的 0.4%，在 4 万美元基础上就产生约 160 美元收益。这个周期一年大约重复 26 次。权利金随黄金隐含波动率变化，在隐含波动率抬到 30% 左右的阶段可以更厚。地缘风险升温的不确定时期，GVZ 甚至突破过 40%。按实际运营预期，权利金收益率大致在年化 4-14% 区间。

复利模式（默认）：权利金自动换成 PAXG，加入下一期本金；如果发生行权，结算收益会用于买回黄金以恢复仓位。适合希望整个周期都持有黄金的长期持有人。

收益模式（可选）：权利金以 USDT 形式累积到单独余额，可随时提取，即使在 epoch 中途。适合想从持仓中抽出现金流、又不想纠结退出时机的人。

协议费不是预先收取，而是按 epoch 结算。金库每 epoch 对存入资本收取 0.019% 协议费，年化约 0.5%。因此用户不必预先付费，而是在金库运行的每个 epoch 结算。没有单独提款费，这个费率在金库创建时固定，可在链上验证。

Enhanced 有什么不同，以及它接受什么

与第一代链上金库的区别

Enhanced 的金库是从当前传统金融所有在运行的黄金卖出看涨 ETF 逆向工程出来的。它的差异化可以列出：管理费与传统金融相当或更低、没有中间分发层、无 KYC 全球接入、7×24 运行、双周期限以更快捕获 theta 衰减、每一笔成交、费用和到期都在链上透明记录。

合在一起，这标志着更广泛的转变：下一波链上结构化产品不会再像传统金融包装或早期加密金库那样运作。它们会聚焦于清晰、明确的结果，隐藏底层复杂性，并以透明执行来运作。

Enhanced 当然不是第一个在链上卖出波动率的金库。2021 年 Ribbon Finance 用 Theta Vault 打开了这个模式，TVL 一度达到 1.7 亿美元。第一代金库证明了结构化收益的需求是真实的，但也留下了明显的弱点，Enhanced 正是为解决这些局限而设计的：

基于拍卖的价格发现：第一代金库按固定时间和规则反复卖出期权。流程一旦可预测，做市商可以在拍卖前压低隐含波动率，便宜买下期权。可预测的单边供给导致权利金压缩。Enhanced 让多个做市商通过竞争性 RFQ 拍卖对每笔交易报价，把竞争转化为存款人的权利金。

与持有人对齐的行权价选择：第一代金库在牛市里偏弱，因为行权价固定。价格快速上涨时上涨空间被切断，持有人不得不反复放弃部分收益。Enhanced 采用更远的 OTM 行权价和双周期限，每个周期根据市场条件调整行权价和期权规模。目标是在策略内尽可能保留黄金敞口。

收益面最空的资产：第一代金库局限于 BTC 和 ETH。但这些资产已有质押、借贷等竞争性收益来源，金库变大后期权卖出流也变得可预测。Enhanced 则从收益面最空的 RWA 起步。黄金既没有质押，也没有深度借贷市场，期权权利金因此成为最直接的收益来源。

卖出看涨期权不是免费午餐

卖出看涨不是免费午餐。它能产生持续权利金，但必须以交易一些风险为代价。

上涨空间有上限：如果金价在一个周期内远超行权价，存款人拿到权利金和上涨到行权价的部分，但放弃超过部分。这是所有卖出看涨策略固有的结构性成本。

无本金保护：这个金库不是本金保护产品。如果金价下跌，存入资产的美元价值随之下降。另外，如果金价远超行权价且期权被行权，周期结束时持有的 PAXG 数量可能减少。即便此时美元价值可能高于开始时，代币数量本身会变化。

依赖波动率：收益与黄金隐含波动率挂钩。如果低波动环境持续，期权权利金压缩，收益优势收窄。当前 GVZ 约 30% 的环境有利，但不能保证这种条件会持续。

交易对手和合约风险：交易对手限于经过身份验证的机构做市商，使用经过验证的合约（Opyn Gamma）。但作为链上产品，合约风险、预言机风险和结算风险仍然存在。审计和 TVL 上限是降低这些风险的机制，并非消除它们。

这些特征说明了这个金库适合什么场景。Enhanced 并不声称卖出看涨策略总能跑赢单纯持有现货黄金。它也远不是给想一路坐到牛市顶部的人使用的产品。它专注于把一个原本产生 0% 收益的黄金仓位，变成在保留大部分底层敞口的同时持续产生收入的资产。

最终，链上资本需要财富管理

最后，Enhanced 最终瞄准的市场是什么？在加密领域，「资本正在上链」的叙事经常被当作单一事件来谈论，但这个流动其实有清晰的顺序，而余额规模——衡量这个顺序的重要变量——经常被忽视。Enhanced 要做的事，也与资本流动深度绑定。

今天的链上活动大多集中在投机。预测市场、永续合约、Meme 币、TCG 平台，核心都是交易。当链上余额单位还小的时候，这很自然。如果你持有 100 美元，更强的激励是把这 100 美元投入高波动、非对称上行的交易中。

但随着用户平均余额增长，人们不再把所有资产只放在稳定币里，也不会把全部都扔进高风险买卖交易。重心从「去哪里赚非对称超额收益」转向「如何管理自己持有的资产」，也就是进入财富管理阶段。在这个阶段，持有黄金、股票、商品等现货资产，并在保留现货敞口的同时让它们产生收益的需求会增长。

因此，链上成熟的下一阶段不是更多交易，而是创新的结构化产品。问题是，这个层今天几乎不存在。

Enhanced 要在这个空白市场里把自己建立为通用结构化产品层。接下来是以明确结果为核心的新一代链上结构化产品。每一个都是 Thesis Vault：把通常只有成熟用户才能使用的机构级策略，压缩成一键表达自己论点的工具。

第一个应用是最近上线的 PAXG 波动率收益金库。链上黄金只是开始，同一套引擎预计将扩展到代币化股票、商品和更广泛的 RWA 领域。黄金的波动率此前只能被忍受，现在第一次开始为持有人工作——那个阶段，就是起点。

Compiled by: Plain Language Blockchain

From a 22-year-old entrepreneurial "rebel" who vowed never to wear formal attire, to a media mogul conversing daily with the world's top financial brains, Scott Melker has witnessed the craziest wealth-creation myths in the crypto industry, and also witnessed the most tragic evaporation of wealth. Facing the increasingly institutionalized crypto market of 2026 with reshuffled rules, do ordinary people still have a chance? Without starting a business or staring at charts, can "boring" investing really achieve financial freedom? In this hearty conversation with the host, Scott unreservedly deconstructs his lessons from failure, institutional insider secrets, and the ultimate philosophy of never being bearish. If you are feeling lost about investing, this conversation is not to be missed.

I. Debunking Trading Myths: Why Dollar-Cost Averaging Bitcoin is the Only Solution for Ordinary People?

Host: If you work hard enough and never give up, what can you achieve in the crypto industry?

Scott Melker: It depends on who you are. I'd love to say everyone will succeed, we will all succeed, but the reality is most people are fools, won't learn from mistakes. So most people won't succeed. I'm not saying this makes me special, I just happen to be passionate about it, able to carve out a business. But if I were just an ordinary guy in the trenches trading crypto assets, I wouldn't succeed either.

Host: Do you think you can succeed in the crypto field without starting a business in 2026 and beyond?

Scott Melker: Yes. How? Buy Bitcoin.

Host: Regarding investing, what is the biggest myth you've learned through your career and all interviews that you most want to help us debunk today?

Scott Melker: I think the biggest myth is that you can beat the market by trading. When trading altcoins early, the biggest shock to me was one day I pressed the button to switch the portfolio display unit from USD to Bitcoin, and found myself after all this trouble, the amount of Bitcoin was the same or even less. You can extrapolate this to investing in the S&P 500 or any asset: how many times does buying individual stocks beat dollar-cost averaging the S&P 500? It's too boring, but too great. Being bored when young is terrible, because you want stimulation; being bored after aging is great, because it liberates a lot of your energy and time. I feel investing in Bitcoin liberates you completely from speculation, deep diving into projects, reading whitepapers, and other futile drains.

Host: But for some reason, many traders in the crypto community love charts and one-minute K-lines. For ordinary families or people with jobs, when seeing crazy volatility like Bitcoin, they still feel "I can buy here, sell there, and buy back at a lower place", trying to time the market. How do you tell these audiences to internalize what you just explained?

Scott Melker: Buy and hold, dollar-cost averaging, do nothing, don't interrupt the compounding process. I think the most dangerous belief in trading and investing is "I'm going to sell and wait to buy lower". Because no matter what your lower target is, when you get there you want to wait lower. If Bitcoin is at 80,000, you think when it hits 70,000 surely buy; when it really hits 71,000, you think "Oh my god, this looks too terrible, it's going to drop to 50,000 or even 30,000". Those who sell and wait to buy lower are exactly the people who FOMO buy at the top and cut losses when they should sell. You are not a genius, you won't time the market better than the smartest people, and you don't have their full equipment and information. You just shouldn't trade this thing.

Host: To summarize, how can ordinary people get rich by investing in crypto assets in 2026 and beyond?

Scott Melker: Do I need to say buy Bitcoin again? I don't think this is a get-rich-quick Game. Those opportunities to get rich quickly by luck in the past won't appear in the same way again. We won't see an altcoin season like 2017, where what you hold rises 20x, sell and buy another and it rises again, throwing darts randomly makes you super lucky. Those days are over. But this doesn't mean opportunities disappear, there are still huge opportunities to be that boring buyer. You just can't treat it like a lottery or casino. And those who got rich quickly in previous cycles, later almost all lost it all. Getting rich and staying rich are two completely different things.

II. From Trench Trader to Media Host: Reconstruction of Crypto and Personal Brand

Host: You mentioned wearing formal attire before?

Scott Melker: When I started my first company at 22, the reason I wanted to start a business was not to wear formal attire. Because I had only done two internships before, wearing that suit, thinking "I can't stand wearing this broken thing". As a result, later when selling business intelligence and data analysis services, still had to wear formal attire. I thought at the time "Damn, my goal of being an entrepreneur wearing hoodies is completely unworkable". Just did that for a few years. Since entering the crypto circle, I decided never to wear formal attire again, only wear my Zara T-shirts.

Host: Yes, you need a tuxedo T-shirt, the kind that looks like a tuxedo, wear it when you need formal attire. How have you been recently?

Scott Melker: Very good, happy, beautiful day, very optimistic. I am always happy and optimistic, this is my normal state. I feel there is no point in being a pessimist.

Host: Where does this consistently super optimistic mindset come from?

Scott Melker: I just feel things will always get better. Optimistic people eventually always win, just like bulls in the market eventually always win. If you want to be a bear, you must have super strong timing sense, and you will only be right briefly. Even if you are temporarily right, when you are wrong in the end you still look like a fool, because the market overall goes up and to the right. I feel life overall is also becoming better. Would you rather be a medieval king, or an ordinary person in 2026 with a job, healthcare, antibiotics, air conditioning, plumbing system? So I feel the evolution of things is always towards a positive direction.

Host: Is there anything in your life that didn't develop according to plan at all, never got better, and ultimately had to be given up?

Scott Melker: A million things. Most things I tried failed. Everyone only sees the part where you succeed, but like the old saying goes, becoming a "overnight success" requires 30 years. Others say you are lucky, but don't see all your failures along the way. I opened countless small businesses and ideas, some only lasted one or two months and failed completely; some medium success but never really took off. In my music career I also tried many painful failed projects, songs originally thought would be particularly successful, spent a lot of money and energy, as a result didn't even have a chance to see the light. Endless. But I view these all as "falling forward". Just push the hockey puck, this is what truly matters.

Host: Who are you?

Scott Melker: I'm just an ordinary person. Everyone always asks this, quite funny. They say "The Wolf Of All Streets" this name is so self-centered. I say that's a joke. I'm just a guy with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), doing many things simultaneously since childhood. Once finding something worth focusing on, I can super focus, it becomes everything for that stage, until the next thing appears. Corely, I'm a quite optimistic person. I like people, like chatting. So this job we have now is the best job in the world. Others ask me: "Don't you feel exhausted talking?" I say no. This is like going to university, but you are getting paid instead of paying, and you can chat one-on-one with the top professors in that field for an hour, the other party will also answer any of your questions, then you go to the next class. Who doesn't want this opportunity? I feel it's great.

Host: I actually discussed this with Pomp (Anthony Pompliano) too. He understood podcasts around 2018 or 2019, many podcasts really took off during the pandemic. But think about it, simple equipment—several cameras, two microphones, one chair, two tables. If done well, this thing can let you rush to the top layer within a few years through long-term compounding.

Scott Melker: Actually makes a lot of sense, it compounds like anything else. You just need one person who agrees to be interviewed to endorse you, to gain credibility to invite the next person. Ultimately, people like listening to themselves talk, this is definitely an ego game. I absolutely don't mean negatively. Although you and I both like sitting here asking questions, learning, but people also very much enjoy the opportunity to teach you what they love, or expand conversation on this.

Host: You were a DJ before, later did crypto media. I noticed many DJs entered the crypto field very early between 2017 to 2020, I myself was a DJ for five years. Why did DJs fall into the crypto rabbit hole so early?

Scott Melker: Because DJs are naturally more prone to tinkering. Work mainly at night, large amount of free time during the day, earned cash the night before. For me, it was because the DJ circle I knew had a strong trading culture, and at that time crypto happened to be the trend of the season. I entered end of 2016, early 2017, that was the first real altcoin season and ICO boom. Someone did it first, then said "I bought Bitcoin, sent to Bittrex, bought this thing called Ripples". People were making money, news spread. And for me, trading inexplicably clicked the same string in the brain as music production. Drawing charts, drawing lines, I can do endlessly, it has a formulaic feel, just like making music in Logic, Ableton or Pro Tools.

Host: Did you really make money trading? Or realized you actually fell from speculation into the technology rabbit hole, thereby wanting to build, become part of this industry?

Scott Melker: I made a lot of money trading, but mainly because timing was lucky. First you think you are making money trading, then look at Bitcoin balance, realize just holding Bitcoin all along, rises more. But trading doesn't suit me, this isn't saying I did badly, but I don't have that 24/7/365 day staring at charts brain. I have family, children and other things to do, can't always stare at charts. It is a real obstacle to life, very stressful.

Host: At what moment did you decide to go all in, do something other than trading?

Scott Melker: No specific moment, everything happened organically naturally. I was trading at the time, so started talking about my trading on Twitter. Those who followed me because of music unfollowed one after another, I lost half my fans. But I found from the base fans left from the music era there were enough people interested in crypto. I also had Blue V (at that time Blue V still had meaning), everyone thought I got Blue V because of crypto, started believing I was some kind of expert. One tweet was too short, I started writing free Newsletter, from twice a week changed to writing every day. Then someone suggested starting podcast, opening YouTube channel. Because of my personality, I now work 18 hours a day in this industry, I find it hard to say "no" to new things.

Host: When did you realize building personal brand is a game changer?

Scott Melker: Building brand is certainly important, but more important is building "high quality brand" and "good reputation". We have seen many people explode spectacularly in front of everyone. You have to be like Bitcoin doing honey badger, endure all terrible periods, endure bear market, continue appearing every day. After 2022 bear market I realized, your reputation and brand is almost everything. Too many cartoon avatars on Twitter, completely willing to blow up their integrity for remuneration. But if you want to stay here for a long time, must be very careful, this is a minefield.

Host: What is your media company goal?

Scott Melker: My goal for a long time has been unchanged, bringing Bitcoin into the mainstream. I truly deeply believe people should hold Bitcoin. I won't tell them at what price to buy, but I really think it is the most important financial asset in history.

III. Structural Upheaval: 2026 Industry Real Ecology and Institutional Era

Host: Is crypto still relevant in 2026?

Scott Melker: More relevant than ever. Just now it's very interesting, things finally really happened, people instead are super bearish. Too absurd. I feel they are bearish because what they hold and believe in dropped. But this proves there is a huge disconnect between Tokens people hold and fundamentals, and what is truly happening is mostly hard to invest in directly. It turns out most projects don't need Tokens, and those that might need Tokens, didn't design Token economics correctly to let value accumulate to Tokens. What you hold in hand might just be a lottery ticket written with project name, project or shareholders are making money, but value didn't accumulate to Token holders. Structurally there are problems. But crypto isn't dead, it is just changing, next round iteration will rebuild in a way that lets value accumulate more to actual Tokens and utility.

Host: What do you do personally? You have a thriving business, can indirectly benefit from industry fundamentals. But for people with ordinary jobs, don't want to start a business, just want to invest, how to participate?

Scott Melker: I think you just buy Bitcoin, then live your life. I never was a Bitcoin extremist, but I think that is minimalist and most effective way. Take out a portion of cash flow—because you know inflation is real, printing money is real—buy some Bitcoin, give it time. Most people came in through Dogecoin, NFT or meme coins, but those things vast majority won't last.

Host: How do you allocate the money you earn each month specifically?

Scott Melker: Buy Bitcoin, just Bitcoin. Actually I run an algorithm called Arch Public (I am a shareholder), it is basically algorithm buying dips better. It will help you get that day or that week's best price, smarter than ordinary dollar-cost averaging. My current asset portfolio is roughly 80% Bitcoin, 10% Ethereum, 10% Solana. These three things have institutional buying orders, have institutional adoption. I think now industry is have and have-not differentiation: either have institutional adoption and capital entry, or it's rank 75 inferior Token. So I generate cash flow through business, then buy and hold these assets long term. For Ethereum and Solana, I will use yield generation strategies (buy dips, sell pumps), create cash flow then put earned money into Bitcoin. New Layer1 and technology disruption too much, you cannot claim they are "forever assets", but Bitcoin has already crossed that chasm. This is why I have opinions on those "Bitcoin Treasury Companies"—you cannot beat Bitcoin by buying Bitcoin, you need to take cash flow generated from business operations to buy Bitcoin, not rely on financial engineering dragging down the market.

Host: What about yield? How do DeFi and yield products look now?

Scott Melker: I was once one of Voyager's major creditors, deeply harmed by yield traps, everyone has serious PTSD about these yield products. This depends on where yield comes from, product architecture and risk disclosure. DeFi these years too many hacker events and security vulnerabilities, past year hundreds of billions funds flowed out from platforms, just because fearing system risk. In environment where bad guys and AI attack surface too wide, putting large capital into high risk to earn meager yield is not cost-effective.

Host: How do you bring crypto media business to next level?

Scott Melker: A few years ago I made a decision: focus primarily on crypto and Traditional Finance (TradFi) bridge, focus on institutional level adoption. I turned content towards interviewing institutional executives, industry giants. This let my audience change from twenty-something Degen traders, to high net worth individuals with families, jobs, buying ETFs, wanting asset allocation. For example I now own and host the network's first daily crypto program on Yahoo, Yahoo traffic volume is much larger than CNBC. They want fewer people wearing suits reporting news, more personality and real viewpoints.

Host: Among people who often watch our program, 71% haven't subscribed yet. If you want to help us continue making quality content, please help me and team click the subscribe button. It was Ran who helped us connect, right?

Scott Melker: Oh yes, long time ago. He also joked: "Oh my god, now she also always reads but doesn't reply to me."

IV. Bear Market Lessons and Ultimate Philosophy: Bitcoin and Chill

Host: What deep memories did the crazy bear market of 2022 leave you? What did you learn in 2022?

Scott Melker: Everything I do now is result of 2022 lessons. Most lessons I learned are what I already knew, but finally truly accepted: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true. Past chasing CeFi platform high yields? No interest anymore. Slow down, dollar-cost average, mainly focus Bitcoin. I am now 49 years old, have small children, I no longer have that appetite for high volatility from before. I want to make life very boring, align investment and life.

Host: Doing much better financially this way?

Scott Melker: Yes. Biggest problem when people psychologically compare portfolios is: always measure themselves against the highest peak the portfolio once reached. If you start from $100,000, become $1 million in one week, then crash to $200,000 one week later, human psychology will feel you "lost $800,000", instead of "doubled earned $100,000". I quit, I even no longer track portfolio, deleted all bookkeeping software. That number isn't real. I only care about how much cash flow earned each month, how much Bitcoin can buy with that money, then continue living life.

Host: What was your most unexpected but best interview?

Scott Melker: Probably my first interview with Michael Saylor, September or October 2020, exactly when MicroStrategy bought Bitcoin for the first time. We did a two-hour exclusive interview, he said many things that shocked me. I asked him: "You are already a billionaire, why choose this?" He said this is about belief system and historical legacy decision, not simple financial decision. He saw the future, and built it.

Host: What is your goal for your media and investment?

Scott Melker: My goal for a long time has been unchanged: bring Bitcoin into the mainstream. It is the most important financial asset in history. When you understand central banks, US government and nature of money creation, that price volatility suddenly doesn't feel like a problem. It is a superior store of wealth way. You don't need to guess what the next hot thing is in meme coin casino. Just like Netflix and chill, directly Bitcoin and chill. Buy some Bitcoin then relax is good, not that hard. Go chat with girls.

Host: Bitcoin and chill, this advice is too great. What is your ultimate goal in life today?

Scott Melker: Goal is always freedom. I can work very hard, but must be on my own conditions. This means I can be very involved as a parent and husband. If I want to go skiing, travel, or pick children up from school to go ride bicycles, I possess the power to control time. My child is only six years old, I don't miss any of their games or recitals. Being your own boss unlocked this freedom. My goal is to never stop working, because I love what I do.

Host: For people who don't own Bitcoin, what is the biggest risk faced?

Scott Melker: Continue trapped in life's hamster wheel, against inflation and irresponsible monetary policy imposed predation on you. If you don't hold some kind of hard asset, all effort you do is being outrun by inflation. No matter how government claims inflation controlled, you just can't save money. You must jump out of that hamster wheel. Even if monthly $10, $20, buy some Bitcoin or hard assets, let yourself benefit from reality of monetary expansion.

Host: Give those feeling depressed in the market some reasons to remain optimistic about the future.

Scott Melker: Many people feel current adjustment is "experienced the worst", this is completely recency bias. If you experienced collapse of 2021, 2022 that kind of doubting whether industry will still exist, current market is simply playful. We have Bitcoin ETF, BlackRock's Larry Fink, even Jamie Dimon are talking about blockchain and Bitcoin. We possess comprehensive institutional adoption, strategic Bitcoin reserve discussions and Tokenization wave. This is industry's best timing in history. Pull back perspective, Bitcoin most of the time is sideways boring, one year roughly only 10 days concentrated complete all gains. You just need to stay in the field, Bitcoin and chill.

Host: Thank you very much Scott for doing this interview, you are really good at this.

Scott Melker: Thanks, very interesting, too great!

In response, hotel industry insiders stated that this news is authentic, and the photos circulating online are notifications from the Douyin Laike backend, "Commissions are now being charged for hotels recommended by Doubao."

As of now, ByteDance has not yet responded. (Sina Technology)

Translated by: AididiaoJP

The best storyteller in the Bitcoin circle has once again left everyone stunned.

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), sees his net worth fluctuate violently with the price of Bitcoin. According to the latest estimates from Forbes, his current net worth is approximately $4 billion. In 2020, he completely transformed this company, originally focused on enterprise software, into a Bitcoin accumulation machine, and since then, his wealth curve has almost entirely followed the price of the coin.

Over the past six years, Strategy has cumulatively purchased nearly 850,000 Bitcoins, with a current market value slightly exceeding $50 billion. The company's Bitcoin reserves on its balance sheet once approached $55 billion. The vast majority of these coins were not bought with profits from main business operations, but were acquired through continuous issuance of bonds, stocks, and preferred shares.

Now, Saylor directly attributes the most critical financing round of the past year—approximately $15 billion—to artificial intelligence.

On August 6, he told host Steven Bartlett on the popular podcast "The Diary Of A CEO": "I made $15 billion using AI last year."

As soon as these words were spoken, the crypto circle instantly exploded.

Saylor immediately added an explanation: this $15 billion is not profit he personally pocketed, nor is it book profit for the company, but rather funds truly raised from the capital market through a series of Bitcoin-backed preferred stock products. Almost all of this money was used to continue buying Bitcoin.

He broke down the numbers specifically: one preferred stock product alone raised approximately $10.5 billion (initial IPO about $2.5 billion, subsequent shelf issuance sold another about $8 billion), while several other related products contributed a combined approximately $4 billion, adding up to exactly around $15 billion.

This is what truly stunned both Wall Street and the crypto circle—these preferred stock products were "chatted" out bit by bit by Saylor himself leading the team using ChatGPT.

Traditional Financing Routes Reached Their Limit

By early 2025, Strategy had become one of the largest issuers of convertible bonds globally.

The convertible bond route had basically reached its limit, and continuing to issue common stock would severely dilute shareholders.

The company already held Bitcoin worth approximately $30 billion at the time, but to continue adding positions on a large scale, it had to find entirely new financing tools.

Saylor did not hold brainstorming sessions with investment banks again, but instead directly opened ChatGPT.

He later recalled: "We asked AI: Can you design a security between common stock and traditional debt? AI said, of course, do this, do that, and then do that..."

ChatGPT helped him sort out a structure that no one had ever truly implemented—variable dividend preferred stock.

The core design is: the dividend rate can be flexibly adjusted monthly (later adjusted to bi-weekly), with the goal of keeping the market price of this preferred stock stable near the $100 par value in the long term.

In this way, it neither fluctuates violently like common stock nor has the repayment pressure upon maturity like traditional bonds, while simultaneously continuing to supply the company with funds to buy coins.

Bankers and lawyers initially objected collectively: "No one has ever done this in history."

Saylor's response was hardcore: "Is it illegal? No. Why has no one done it before? Because no one had the reason to do it before."

AI not only provided the structural design but also helped the team come up with arguments to address regulatory and legal challenges.

Ultimately, these products were implemented one after another in the first half of 2025.

The most core products are:

• STRK (Perpetual Strike Preferred Stock): 8% fixed dividend, payable in cash or common stock, convertible into common stock, with certain upside elasticity.
• STRC (Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock): Variable dividend (currently adjusted to 12% annualized), paid bi-weekly, designed to keep the price as close to the $100 par value as possible, focusing on stable returns.
• STRF (Perpetual Strife Preferred Stock): Non-convertible, more geared towards fixed income, higher priority, targeting conservative investors.

STRC is the most controversial among them and also the one with the largest financing scale.

It once fell from near par value to about $75 by the end of June, but rebounded strongly in recent weeks, approaching the $100 target price again.

Saylor's team even publicly made "getting STRC back to the $99-100 range" one of the current most important operational goals.

Common Stock Halved Brutally, Yet Company Is Hoarding Cash

While preferred stock financing marched forward triumphantly, Strategy's common stock crashed along with the Bitcoin price.

Over the past year, the market value of common stock evaporated by approximately 80%.

The company also began actually selling Bitcoin—the most recent public disclosure was selling 1,638 coins within a week, cashing out approximately $104.7 million, part of which was used to pay preferred stock dividends, and part to buy back its own preferred stock.

Saylor's explanation for this was straightforward: on one hand, it was "vaccinating the market," letting everyone get used to Strategy selling coins in advance; on the other hand, it was genuinely covering debt and dividend expenditures.

Currently, besides Bitcoin worth approximately $55 billion, the company has also hoarded approximately $4 billion in cash reserves.

According to management, this money is sufficient to support approximately two years of dividend and interest expenditures, without needing frequent financing.

Some Call It "Terrifying," Others Praise It as "Genius"

After the news broke, tech investor and All In podcast host Jason Calacanis fired directly on X: "Is this Saylor's terrifying confession, or a brilliant use of AI?"

But others stood in a completely opposite position.

Bill Barhydt, CEO of Bitcoin and crypto wealth platform Abra, immediately replied: "History will prove this is an absolutely brilliant piece of financial engineering at the end of the US debt cycle.

If you can borrow US dollars and then invest the money into an asset with a fixed supply and fast adoption speed, you should do this.

Saylor legally cannot invest this money into securities (because he is not a company under the Investment Company Act of 1940), so only Bitcoin and gold remain.

He will definitely make some mistakes, but the strategy itself is smart."

Saylor himself elevated this matter to a methodological level: "Don't learn those things AI already knows how to do.

What you really need to learn is how to let AI do something that no one has ever done before.

If you want to achieve earth-shattering success, you must find that magical opportunity."

This is not the first time he has publicly thanked ChatGPT.

In May 2025, at the company's developer conference, he said he used ChatGPT's deep research mode to design the company's convertible preferred stock products.

AI + Bitcoin, Saylor Is Writing a New Playbook

From transforming the company into a Bitcoin vault in 2020 to reinventing financing tools with AI in 2025, Saylor has once again proven: in the crypto world, the most expensive thing has never been Bitcoin itself, but the people who dare to use entirely new tools to amplify Bitcoin.

$15 billion is not money spit out directly by AI, but an old-school entrepreneur using new tools to pry open a gap in traditional financial rules, and then pouring money continuously into Bitcoin.

As for where this money will ultimately take Strategy and Bitcoin, no one dares to conclude now.

But at least in this summer of 2026, Saylor has once again firmly pinned everyone's attention on "what AI can help people do that no one has ever done before."

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

Last year, the focus of my personal market research gradually shifted towards commodities. At that time, a very clear reality was: the crypto market was oversupplied, and price performance was weak; meanwhile, except for a few sectors like Hyperliquid, industry innovation was scarce. Compared to other markets, the crypto field lacked attractiveness, thus creating a demand-side problem of absorbing massive supply. In the second half of last year, small-cap coins surged, and gold also saw a strong rally. I originally thought Bitcoin would have a decent rally, but the final result was disappointing. In the few trading days before October 10, Bitcoin's upward breakout failed. In January this year, I further reduced my personal Bitcoin position. At that time, the market characteristics were extremely similar to the bear market of 2022.

Frankly speaking, this year has not been easy for those following Bitcoin and crypto as a whole. Although looking at the drawdown from highs, this Bitcoin decline is milder than previous ones,但从很多层面来看 (but from many levels), this bear market is even harder to endure than 2022. At least in 2022, the causes of the decline were clear: rising interest rates, market leverage and fraudulent project clearance, FTX collapse. At that time, the market could form a consensus: if these external conditions changed, by the end of 2022 the market had reached a position where it was hard to deteriorate further, then Bitcoin would likely be a quality long-term buy point.

In contrast, currently, there is no such clear reversal logic. Of course, Crypto Asset Treasury Companies (DATs) and quantum computing risks are two variables, which will be discussed later. In my opinion, some risks have shown signs of mitigation. Bitcoin ETF assets under management reached $50 billion, setting a record for capital inflows, but earlier this year, this record was surpassed by memory chip ETFs. Large traditional institutions have also started launching crypto lending products. Last year, driven by central bank reserve allocation needs and the "de-dollarization" narrative, gold had a brilliant performance. This should have been a window period for Bitcoin to shine. Nowadays, almost all individuals and institutions intending to allocate Bitcoin have access channels, but the reality is disappointing: in the past year, Bitcoin ETFs overall saw a net outflow of $5 billion, whereas DRAM-related ETFs achieved $10 billion capital inflows in a single month.

Network Fundamentals

Talking about Bitcoin fundamentals, we do not use traditional finance valuation metrics, but observe the operating state of the network itself. I will not pile up all data, only focus on two core points. In today's world, economy and markets are increasingly intervened by state powers, and large tech companies also bring highly centralized technical power. In this environment, decentralization itself has unique value.

Readers unfamiliar with Bitcoin's underlying mechanism need to distinguish between miners and nodes. Miners are well-known; nodes can be built by anyone, responsible for executing network rules and completing transaction verification; miners rely on large-scale computing power investment to provide security for the network. Bitcoin nodes are spread across the globe, and there are many nodes difficult to track. The public statistical list alone covers nearly 200 countries.

Data Source: https://bitref.com/nodes/

We can observe mining pool data, but mining pools cannot control individual miners. Wanting to track every miner is very difficult. However, we can measure the computing power scale supporting the entire network through hash rate. Objectively speaking, Bitcoin hash rate has entered a downward channel.

After 2022, industry competition intensified, energy costs rose, squeezing miner profit margins; more critically, many publicly listed mining enterprises turned to AI business. For these enterprises, this business decision has proven to be a wise choice. Bitcoin underperformed AI assets, and the computing power demand pattern changed, further exacerbating this trend.

This matter can be interpreted from two angles, positive and negative.

Negative perspective: From the level of computing power security, Bitcoin network security has declined; as a digital commodity, the energy input and production cost corresponding to each token decreases accordingly. It is worth noting that Bitcoin has a difficulty adjustment mechanism: the system automatically adjusts mining rewards every two weeks based on hash rate. When computing power declines, it will incentivize new miners to enter to maintain the network. The network itself will not collapse.

Positive perspective: Although almost all publicly listed miners have laid out AI, the overall hash rate merely fell back to the level of mid-last year. This shows there are still many entities holding cheap energy continuing to mine on the market. Combined with node global distribution data, it is sufficient to prove that the Bitcoin network still possesses good distributed characteristics and operates healthily.

In short, the degree of decentralization and health of the Bitcoin network has not diminished compared to the past.

Valuation System and Current Market Signals

Bitcoin itself does not generate cash flow, but there are several sets of unique valuation methods that can compare current market conditions with historical cycles.

From a technical perspective, Bitcoin is currently oscillating and consolidating near the 2021 historical high, price slightly below the 200-week exponential moving average; weekly RSI indicator has walked out of the oversold zone, forming a bullish divergence. The last time this oversold state appeared was at the bottom of the previous bear market. Reviewing history, the 200-week moving average is an important reference position. Reaching this zone, one can start considering allocating spot Bitcoin.

Among valuation models based on on-chain data, Market Value to Realized Value ratio (MVRV) is the most effective indicator. This indicator compares Bitcoin's current market trading price with the comprehensive holding cost of all network tokens. Holding cost is statistically derived from wallet clusters where tokens last transferred.

When this indicator value goes high, it represents market trading price is far higher than the network average holding cost. Large amount of book floating profits will spawn market profit-taking momentum. When the indicator falls below 0, it represents the market overall is in a loss state. From historical experience, this is a suitable zone for allocation.

It can be observed that in the 2024-2025 cycle, this indicator did not walk out the extreme fanaticism peak reading of past big bull markets. This reflects assets are moving towards maturity, volatility has narrowed. Each bull market high point gradually lowers, while bear market bottom readings lift slightly. Based on this pattern, this round does not necessarily need MVRV to fall to negative zone for the market to bottom. Wanting to precisely bottom fish is almost impossible. Core conclusion is: Bitcoin is already at the lower edge of the historical valuation zone.

Observing from on-chain data, long-term holders completed a round of selling in mid-to-late 2025, and have started large-scale accumulation again. This shows at current price levels, long-term investors see value.

Spot market trading volume has extremely shrunk. Charts released by @n3ocortex show Bitcoin spot turnover rate relative to market cap ratio fell to historical lowest level. ETF, DATs product trading volume is similarly low.

Options market short-term implied volatility came to multi-year lows. Market pricing reflects a view: Bitcoin has become a "dead asset" with no market trends. At the same time, option skew data shows, throughout the past whole year, the market has been continuously buying put protection, guarding against price downside.

There is another signal in derivatives dimension: Bitcoin futures basis (spread between forward futures contracts and spot) has been declining continuously for many years, even difficult to catch up with short-term US Treasury yields. This phenomenon means two points: First, large amount of funds participate in futures basis arbitrage; Second, the market has not given forward futures contracts a premium significantly higher than spot.

Combining all signals can objectively summarize: market is nearly stagnant. Futures, options markets both don't see traders' bullish expectations. Market pricing also predicts Bitcoin volatility will continue to maintain low levels. But the contradiction point is, multiple valuation indicators show Bitcoin has entered deep value zone, long-term holders are continuously hoarding coins; meanwhile past 52 weeks, Bitcoin ETFs recorded $5 billion net outflow. Traders' behavior and long-term holders form a sharp contrast.

Crypto Asset Treasury Companies (DATs) and Potential Threats of Quantum Computing

The biggest risk in the 2023-2025 bull market comes from Crypto Asset Treasury Companies (DATs). This type of product's design logic, theoretically, is through diluting ordinary shareholder equity, raising funds to continuously buy Bitcoin, pushing up shareholder value. But after MicroStrategy, Japan's Metaplanet achieved success, track participants became many, funds were largely diverted, directly leading to product premium relative to net assets being compressed.

In recent months, multiple news shows multiple treasury companies are slowing down Bitcoin buying pace. Some institutions directly sell Bitcoin, minority subjects even thoroughly adjust business strategy. In my opinion, this is a positive signal of market self-repair. Recently even appeared interesting phenomenon: Saylor announced MicroStrategy selling Bitcoin news spread out, Bitcoin price instead welcomed rise; corresponding company latest earnings conference call, MicroStrategy is optimizing capital structure, turning focus to STRC. This and past "official announcement buy coin market rise, sell coin market fall" old model completely opposite. Standing looking forward, DATs causing selling pressure to market, already no longer like 6-9 months ago that prominent, especially current coin price distance high point already fell over 50%.

Quantum computing risk, I think is a real existing hidden danger. Stretching time to over 5 years, threat cannot be underestimated. Past few months, I participated in investment analysis work at STIX, contacted many early startups, communicated with industry personnel, had certain understanding of quantum computing, but absolutely not an expert in this field. My point is: risk should be seriously treated. However now Bitcoin price about 60,000 USD, compared to high point halved, underperformed large amount other assets, this risk largely already priced into current price.

Even existing extreme disaster scenario, currently market publicly fully discussed quantum risk, subsequent risk will only marginally ease. Bitcoin more because quantum risk underperforms other assets, large holding institutions, and relying on Bitcoin trading, custody, lending profitable enterprises, the more have motivation to fund developers, pushing industry bring out solutions. Just like previous round ETF landing, market will ahead of time gamble risk being solved possibility. Waiting until risk completely resolved, investors already very hard to get extremely low entry price.

Potential Bull Market Logic

Even agreeing Bitcoin already came to good long-term allocation position, standing mid-short term asset allocation perspective, putting funds into Bitcoin, will face extremely high opportunity cost. Past few months, everyone has been asking a core question: This year gold strong, high-beta equity assets market hot, Bitcoin but couldn't sync rise, exactly need what conditions, Bitcoin can walk out independent market trend?

Forefront data already explains: On-chain data shows long-term holders are heavily buying; DATs selling pressure cleared, but ETFs still significant net outflow. Reviewing history, Bitcoin bear market end, often is seller power thoroughly exhausted, rather than appearing some strong brand new demand catalyst.

Standing several months above big cycle perspective, putting aside macro, geopolitical brought one-time crash risk: DATs risk, quantum risk, underperforming market pessimistic expectation already fully fermented. Still who can continue large scale sell, selling pressure exceed past 6-9 months level? Admittedly, doesn't have very clear good catalyst, CLARITY Act perhaps will bring some changes, but I don't think it will give Bitcoin decisive push. And bear market bottom characteristics often are like this. Investors need to weigh: Future market continue deteriorating probability, whether already by current price fully priced; This and bull market inside, gambling market better than expected happens exactly opposite.

I don't exclude within year still will welcome last round decline, but comprehensive look, past one year, vast majority risks already by market priced.

A potential drive comes from large institutions continuous passive buying. ETF just online stage scale explosion, but since last year October after, total management scale continuous fall, heat already faded. If large asset management institutions decide, in portfolio inside uniformly allocate a small proportion Bitcoin, will bring to price insensitive incremental funds. Listening up this perhaps like wishful thinking, but past one year Bitcoin and most assets correlation lower, for pursuing disperse risk large managers, allocate a small part Bitcoin possesses portfolio level value.

Summary: How to Do Asset Allocation Afterwards

I think Bitcoin already is at "low valuation" zone, but within year still possible welcome last fall. Network fundamentals overall healthy, vast majority risks already by market priced, those because various risks want to sell subjects, high probability already completed selling. Wanting to precisely buy absolute bottom almost impossible.

In my opinion, currently have several allocation thoughts:

• First, future several months, to spot conduct Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA), also is simplest strategy.
• Second, wait market complete last fall, or wait market appear clear warming, momentum signal after then enter market.
• Third, now directly complete allocation; current implied volatility at low level, can borrow options hedge subsequent decline, avoid be pullback wash out position.

I personally haven't actual entered market, but high probability very soon will with some way start allocation. Four years one round cycle, sometimes makes people feel world seems like a simulation program. But next few months, for this orange coin, worth closely monitor.

Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News

"When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done." — John Maynard Keynes, 1936

The crypto industry is heavily criticized, with the outside world generally believing it is driven entirely by speculation, many calling it a casino with no fundamental support. But many fail to realize: speculation is often the leading signal of market evolution. A group of speculators despised by mainstream circles gather together, converging to form liquidity, and future mature compliant businesses are built upon this liquidity.

In this article, I will combine recent phenomena in the crypto market to analyze this evolution path: a public chain originally intended for stock trading launches a Meme coin issuance platform; a perpetual contract trading platform transforms to build commodity trading infrastructure; and a brokerage firm relies on funds brought by frog-themed tokens to support its own on-chain stock trading system construction.

The story unfolds here...

In the crypto field, speculation has many synonyms: market noise, bubbles, casinos. But people almost never face one point: in the process of the industry moving towards maturity, speculation can become the cornerstone upon which upper-layer business models grow.

But it must be clarified: not all bubbles can be transformed into foundations. Bubbles that stay at the level of pure hype for a long time will eventually burst quickly. But if bubbles can combine with sustainable trading scenarios and continuously generate trading activity, they can become a foundation, carrying more business implementation.

This is not a new phenomenon; it has been repeated many times in the long history of financial development.

Let us review the Chicago grain market in the 1840s. The Chicago Board of Trade launched the futures market, originally intended to help farmers with uncertain harvests lock in selling prices in advance and minimize losses. But every farmer who wanted to sell grain forward needed a counterparty willing to take the long forward position and bear price risk. Speculators filled this gap. The risk transfer market can operate, essentially because speculative capital actively takes on the price risk that farmers want to strip away.

The key to the birth of the futures market was the separation of "physical grain" and "grain as a traded commodity." American historian William Cronon called this process grain abstraction. After grain trading was simplified into warehouse receipt notes, ownership could circulate freely, and speculators participated in trading on a large scale. Massive speculative trading created sufficient liquidity, and farmers could find counterparties at any time. Abundant liquidity ultimately allowed Chicago to grow into the global wheat pricing center.

Interestingly, at that time, a large number of people resisted and hated this type of trading. The Grange Movement publicly attacked exchange speculators, accusing them of profiting from farmers' labor. But this mechanism eventually evolved into indispensable price discovery infrastructure for the global agricultural economy. If there had been no speculators acting as counterparties in the 1870s, the global wheat market today would simply not have a mature pricing system.

Economist John Maynard Keynes's arguments on speculation are well known, and his complete view reveals the dual role of speculation more clearly. Keynes divided market activities into two categories: enterprise investment, which is predicting returns generated during the long-term life cycle of an asset; speculation, which is predicting the next trading behaviors of the market public. He worried that in a market with sufficient liquidity, speculative behavior would undermine enterprise investment.

Studying his arguments in depth reveals that speculation has two sides.

"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done."

Speculation that exists independently of underlying assets is extremely risky; but if speculation is anchored to underlying assets with value, it can play a positive role.

As early as the first securities market work in history — "Confusion of Confusions" written by Joseph de la Vega in 1688, the author mentioned that the Amsterdam Exchange attracted both investors and gamblers. The vast majority of existing exchanges started this way. But as time passed, this history was gradually forgotten, and people formed a stereotype: serious investment demand was the original intention of the exchange's birth. This is not the case.

Looking Back at the Present

On August 5, the crypto industry's largest decentralized exchange Uniswap launched the Pools issuance platform, allowing users to issue and trade Meme coins on Robinhood Chain. This blockchain was built by the brokerage firm of the same name, with the initial goal of serving the platform's 30 million funded accounts to conduct tokenized stock trading.

The story goes far beyond this. Before the Pools platform officially launched, traders dug up unpublished smart contracts and completed over $150 million in transactions through the contracts. This forced Uniswap to be compatible with both beta and formal version contracts simultaneously and postpone the launch plan. The platform's top token FRONG, named after the filename of the frog video used by Uniswap to warm up the product, was minted six days in advance relying on the same set of contracts; on the day the platform officially opened, the number of holders of this token reached 12,141.

Everyone can interpret this matter themselves: a fund of about $150 million traded a frog-themed token on infrastructure that was not yet officially enabled, and this public chain was originally built for securities trading. Now FRONG has also become the unofficial mascot of the Pools platform. It is hard not to guess that this was an intentionally planned action, aimed at driving traffic to Uniswap's latest V4 version public chain. Even if not deliberately arranged, the on-chain Uniswap V4 single-day trading volume surged from $86.2 million to $228.3 million, almost tripling.

But as stated at the beginning of the article, not all bubbles and speculation can spawn sustainable business models. Whether a speculative business can survive for a long time depends primarily on what underlying asset it speculates on. We can refer to shturl.c.

For many years, shturl.c has taken speculation as its core product and is now the largest Meme coin issuance platform. Seventy percent of Meme coins on the platform have a life cycle of less than one day, and only a very few can survive for more than a month.

@Coingecko

From January–July 2026, the protocol's fee revenue nearly halved compared to the same period last year, with only $420 million. Even so, it remains one of the protocols with the strongest revenue generation capabilities in the crypto industry, with full-year revenue of $620 million last year and net profit of $584 million.

There is also a similar platform, Hyperliquid. The platform initially focused on high-leverage cryptocurrency trading to meet traders' directional betting needs. Afterwards, the platform expanded the leverage trading model to various all-weather trading assets unrelated to crypto. Relying on the HIP-3 governance framework, the platform has now launched perpetual contracts for varieties such as Nvidia, Tesla, Nasdaq tracking targets, gold, crude oil, silver, and stock indices. Whenever breaking news about crude oil occurs on Sundays, traders can immediately establish positions, while traditional markets have to wait until Monday to open.

In early July, the platform's real asset perpetual contract trading volume surpassed cryptocurrency trading for the first time in history, accounting for 52% of the total trading volume.

Although Hyperliquid's overall trading volume shrank by nearly half compared to the 2025 peak, the growth in real asset trading scale offset the decline in crypto trading pairs. This is exactly the value that speculation can create: Hyperliquid migrated the leverage speculation model that attracts native crypto users to categories such as gold, pre-IPO enterprise equity, and stock indices, building an all-weather pricing layer, and now many traditional trading platforms are emulating this model.

Robinhood Chain is replicating this development path in real time.

Although the team positions this public chain as underlying infrastructure for on-chain stock trading, CEO Vlad Tenev is very happy to see the traffic brought by Meme coin traders.

"We built Robinhood Chain with the goal of becoming the best public chain for real asset trading... But using it to trade Meme coins, the experience is equally excellent."

Relying on the Meme coin trading boom, this public chain's daily active users surpassed the Base chain three weeks after launch. The traffic and funds brought by Meme coin trading are the seed capital for the future development of the on-chain stock trading system.

Of course, this does not mean that speculation will definitely upgrade to mature business eventually. Whether the transformation can be completed depends on the platform's own choices.

Robinhood holds 30 million funded users, has multiple business lines, and strong distribution capabilities are expected to convert the traffic brought by Meme coin trading into a user base for on-chain securities trading. We can see that its Q2 prediction market revenue surged more than ten times year-over-year, reaching $156 million, accounting for 20% of the platform's total trading revenue.

The Essence of Speculation

Many people still cannot understand speculation. Speculation itself has no absolute good or bad. Stripping away all additional labels, speculation is just one of humanity's oldest instincts.

When people convert their own views into financial bets, speculation is born naturally.

From the most primitive form, speculation is looking everywhere for liquidity of pricing targets; wherever liquidity flows, it will price that target. The target can be a bag of wheat, Nvidia stock, a frog video named frong.mp4, the result of a football match, or the probability of a presidential candidate winning.

The attributes of the underlying asset itself determine the development direction and boundaries of speculation. Once supported by valuable underlying targets is lost, the hype spawned by the same sum of funds will ultimately be difficult to precipitate long-term, valuable results. This rule runs through the history of financial development, and the crypto industry is walking on the same path.

Hyperliquid bound leverage trading with targets such as gold, building a new pricing system in just two years; Robinhood borrowed the unexpected traffic brought by Meme coin speculation to simultaneously build underlying channels for on-chain securities trading.

What kind of system speculation can ultimately build depends on how much value the underlying targets can carry.

TL;DR:

• Overall cooling of financing: In Q1 2026, Crypto VC funding amount decreased by approximately 50% quarter-over-quarter, with capital further concentrating on mature projects with existing customers, revenue, and transaction volume.
• Stablecoin payments receive investment against the trend: Projects such as Rain, OpenFX, RedotPay, Mesh, and Conduit have successively secured large financings, covering bank cards, cross-border payments, FX liquidity, wallets, bank access, and clearing links.
• VCs are betting on infrastructure: Stablecoins can provide 24/7 cross-border settlement, and related companies can generate revenue through transaction fees, FX spreads, bank cards, and API services, forming a relatively clear fee model.
• Heat still needs to be viewed cautiously: On-chain stablecoin transaction volume does not equal real payment volume, and financing is mainly concentrated in a few top projects; compliance, fiat on/off ramps, local bank relationships, and homogeneous competition remain major challenges.
• Future opportunities: Capital may continue to flow towards cross-border B2B payments, stablecoin bank cards, bank-stablecoin connections, multi-chain payment orchestration, and AI Agent payments.

In the first quarter of 2026, risk financing in the crypto industry cooled down significantly. According to Galaxy Research data, Crypto VCs invested $4 billion into approximately 355 transactions, with funding amount decreasing by about 50% quarter-over-quarter and transaction count decreasing by 16%. During the same period, the number of newly established crypto venture capital funds fell to the lowest level since Q3 2020.

However, this cooling does not mean all projects simultaneously lost financing capabilities. Galaxy Research pointed out that the decrease in total funding mainly stems from a reduction in super-large late-stage financings, while seed and early-stage financings continue. Meanwhile, 57% of capital flowed to late-stage projects, indicating that investment institutions are becoming more cautious: compared to projects relying on tokens and market sentiment, they are more willing to provide funding to companies that already have customers, revenue, and payment scale.

Strictly speaking, stablecoin payments are not yet the sector receiving the most funding from Crypto VCs. In the first quarter of 2026, trading, investment, lending, and exchange projects combined received approximately $2.6 billion, still occupying absolute dominance. A more accurate positioning for stablecoin payments is: one of the few directions that can still continuously see large financings and rapid successive financings under the situation of overall financing difficulties.

Stablecoins Move from Trading Tools to Payment Infrastructure

VCs' interest in stablecoin payments is first built on the basis of the continuous expansion of stablecoins themselves.

Research released by the Federal Reserve in April 2026 shows that as of April 6, 2026, the total market value of stablecoins was approximately $317 billion, an increase of over 50% compared to the beginning of 2025. Data using adjusted methodologies from Visa and Artemis shows that within their corresponding statistical windows, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume over the past 12 months was approximately $10.2 trillion, a year-over-year increase of 63%. However, about 36% of this in 2025 came from centralized exchange deposits and withdrawals, so this data still cannot be directly equated to goods and services payments.

In the past, stablecoins were mainly used to transfer funds between exchanges or serve as temporary safe-haven tools during crypto asset price fluctuations. Now, startups are attempting to connect this on-chain liquidity to the real financial system, including cross-border B2B payments, remittances, payroll distribution, corporate treasury management, bank card spending, bank accounts, and FX settlement.

This has also changed the financing structure of stablecoin projects. Investors are no longer just investing in stablecoin issuers, but are looking for opportunities along the entire payment chain: underlying payment blockchains, stablecoin issuance and orchestration, wallets, on/off ramps, FX liquidity, bank cards, bank access, clearing, and final redemption have all become independent startup directions.

Recent Overview of Stablecoin Payment Related Financings

The following projects are not a complete industry statistic, but representative financing cases since 2025. They cover different links in the stablecoin payment chain, so they cannot be simply categorized as the same business model.

From these projects, it can be seen that what investors call "stablecoin payments" actually includes multiple directions with significant differences.

Rain, RedotPay, and Félix Pago are closer to the application and distribution layers, directly solving how users remit, hold, and spend stablecoins; OpenFX, Conduit, and Noah are responsible for cross-border payments, FX liquidity, and fund settlement between different countries; Mesh and Crossmint provide wallet and payment orchestration tools; Stablecore and Ubyx connect banks, issuers, and stablecoin clearing systems; projects like Plasma attempt to redesign the stablecoin payment environment from the underlying blockchain.

Therefore, this round of funding is not simply betting on a certain stablecoin, but is betting on a whole set of infrastructure demands generated after stablecoins become payment tools.

Capital Prefers Projects That Have Already Showed Business Data

Different from previous Crypto projects that mainly talked about future visions, stablecoin payment companies that recently secured large financings generally disclose transaction scale, customer count, or revenue data.

Rain completed a $250 million Series C financing in January 2026, which was only about 4 months after its Series B financing and about 10 months after its Series A financing. The company stated that its number of active bank cards grew 30 times within a year, annualized payment scale grew 38 times, and it currently processes about $3 billion in annualized transaction volume for over 200 partners.

OpenFX completed a $23 million seed financing in 2025, and raised another $94 million about 10 months later. The company told Reuters that its annualized payment scale has grown from $4 billion a year ago to over $45 billion, more than 98% of transactions can be completed within 60 minutes, while traditional FX settlement usually takes 2 to 5 business days.

RedotPay stated that as of November 2025, its registered users exceeded 6 million, covering over 100 markets, with annualized payment scale exceeding $10 billion, annualized revenue exceeding $150 million, and has already achieved profitability.

Most of these data come from company disclosures, are not necessarily audited, and various companies have different calculation methodologies for "payment scale," "transaction volume," and "annualized revenue," so they cannot be directly compared horizontally. However, they still reflect an obvious change: stablecoin payment projects are attempting to prove their value using metrics of traditional fintech companies, rather than just telling growth stories using on-chain address counts, token prices, and community scale.

Why Are Stablecoin Payments Receiving VC Attention?

1. Cross-border Payments Have Real and Long-term Efficiency Problems

Traditional cross-border payments often need to go through remitting banks, correspondent banks, clearing networks, receiving banks, and local payment institutions. Different institutions have their own business hours, ledgers, and compliance procedures, leading to funds potentially taking several days to complete settlement.

If payment companies wish to provide instant transfers to multiple countries, they also need to deposit funds in bank accounts in various locations in advance. Although the funds are not truly used, they must stay in different countries for a long time to ensure users can withdraw in time, which generates high capital occupation costs.

Stablecoins cannot automatically solve all problems, but they can provide a unified settlement asset that operates 24/7. Payment companies can first complete fund transfers on-chain using stablecoins, and then local partners convert the stablecoins into local currency. For cross-border B2B payments, remittances, global payroll, and internal corporate fund transfers, shortening settlement time and reducing pre-deposited funds both have direct commercial value.

2. Revenue Model of Payment Infrastructure is Relatively Clear

Stablecoin payment companies usually do not rely on token appreciation for revenue, but instead charge transaction fees, FX spreads, bank card issuance fees, account management fees, API subscription fees, or on/off ramp fees.

This type of revenue model is not new, essentially similar to traditional payment service providers and fintech companies. The difference lies in that stablecoins are used as backend settlement tools to reduce friction between different countries, currencies, and financial institutions.

For VCs, this means projects can be valued using traditional metrics such as payment scale, net income, gross margin, customer retention rate, and cost per transaction. Compared to projects relying on market cycles and token prices, their business models are easier to evaluate and also easier to explain to traditional financial investors.

3. Stablecoins Are Becoming Backend Tools Users Do Not Need to Perceive

The typical path of early stablecoin payments was: users buy stablecoins, transfer them to wallets, and then find merchants supporting crypto to spend. This model requires users to understand blockchain, wallet addresses, networks, and Gas fees, with a high usage threshold.

Projects that recently secured financing attempt to hide these links. Félix Pago users only need to initiate remittances in WhatsApp; Rain and RedotPay connect stablecoins to bank cards; Mesh allows users to pay with one crypto asset while letting merchants receive another stablecoin; OpenFX's customers are mainly fintech and remittance companies, and end users may not even know stablecoins were used in the settlement process.

This means VCs are not necessarily betting on consumers actively choosing to "pay with stablecoins," but rather on stablecoins replacing part of traditional payment and clearing processes in the backend. What users see may still be bank cards, bank accounts, local currency, or chat apps.

4. Regulatory Changes Expand Potential Customer Base

Regulatory uncertainty previously limited banks and large payment institutions from accessing stablecoins. In 2025, the US passed the GENIUS Act, establishing a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins; the OCC also confirmed that US national banks and federal savings institutions can conduct certain stablecoin, digital asset custody, and blockchain network activities, and cancelled some previous additional regulatory "non-objection" procedures.

Regulatory requirements will increase reserve, audit, AML, and licensing costs, but also make it easier for banks, enterprises, and payment companies to determine which businesses can be conducted. For companies like Stablecore, Ubyx, and Rain that face institutional clients, clear regulation means potential customers expand from Crypto companies to banks, fintech platforms, and traditional enterprises.

This also explains why recent investor lists not only include Crypto VCs such as Dragonfly, Galaxy Ventures, and Paradigm, but also traditional tech or fintech investment institutions like ICONIQ, Accel, Lightspeed, QED Investors, and Norwest.

5. Acquisitions by Traditional Payment Companies Provide Exit Expectations

In February 2025, Stripe completed the acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, with media reports stating the transaction scale was approximately $1.1 billion. Bridge helps enterprises issue, manage, and transfer stablecoins, and Stripe subsequently integrated relevant capabilities into its own payment products.

In March 2026, Mastercard announced plans to acquire stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments. BVNK's business is connecting stablecoins, fiat, banks, and different blockchains, providing cross-border payment and settlement services for enterprises.

For VCs, these two transactions have significant meaning. The exit paths for stablecoin payment companies no longer remain only issuing tokens or waiting for an IPO, but may also be acquired by card networks, payment companies, banks, and large fintech platforms.

At the same time, this also indicates that licenses, local bank relationships, and mature customer networks have high value. Traditional payment companies can develop blockchain technology themselves, but if they want to establish compliance systems and liquidity networks in multiple countries, it may take several years; directly acquiring companies that have already completed this work is faster.

Why Might the Hype Be Overestimated?

Stablecoin payments have clear opportunities, but the current financing narrative also has parts that are amplified.

1. Stablecoin Transaction Volume Does Not Equal Real Payment Volume

On-chain stablecoin transactions include exchange transfers, market making, arbitrage, DeFi, smart contract interactions, institutional fund transfers, and ordinary payments. Even excluding some bot and repetitive transactions, not all remaining transactions can be viewed as goods and services payments.

Visa once pointed out that as of March 2025, retail-sized transactions accounted for less than 1% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume over the past 12 months.

Therefore, stablecoin on-chain transaction volume exceeding card networks does not directly prove that their payment business has exceeded Visa or Mastercard. The two measure different types of activities and cannot be simply compared.

2. Financing Heat is Concentrated in Few Projects

Rain's single round of financing reached $250 million, RedotPay cumulatively raised $194 million in 2025, and OpenFX raised $94 million in one round. A few large transactions can significantly raise the financing scale of the entire track, but does not represent that all stablecoin payment startups easily obtain funding.

Rain, RedotPay, and OpenFX all disclosed relatively fast-growing business data; investors are betting on companies that have already shown scale. Early projects lacking licenses, local payment channels, and actual customers still face a difficult financing environment.

In other words, this is more like capital concentrating towards top projects, rather than a comprehensive prosperity of stablecoin payment startups.

3. Basic Services May Rapidly Homogenize

The technical thresholds for wallets, stablecoin on/off ramps, cross-border transfers, and payment APIs are declining. More and more companies can provide similar functions, and banks, exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and traditional payment companies are also building their own products.

If multiple platforms can all complete USDC or USDT transfers, simply providing on-chain payment interfaces is hard to form long-term barriers. What projects ultimately need to compete on are still licenses, local bank channels, FX quotes, payment success rates, risk control capabilities, customer service, and costs.

As competition increases, transaction fees and FX spreads may decline. Even if payment scale continues to grow, it does not necessarily automatically translate into higher profits.

4. Global Expansion Still Requires Landing Market by Market

Blockchain can operate across borders, but bank accounts, licenses, and fiat currency cannot automatically cross borders. Every time a stablecoin payment company enters a new market, it still needs to find local banks, payment institutions, and liquidity providers, and meet local KYC, AML, sanctions screening, data, and consumer protection requirements.

If local banks stop cooperation, or on/off ramp channels have problems, even if on-chain funds have arrived, they cannot be smoothly converted into the fiat currency users need. Therefore, what stablecoins mainly solve is the intermediate settlement link, rather than completely eliminating the traditional financial system.

5. Traditional Financial Institutions Are Both Customers and Competitors

Banks and card networks currently invest in or acquire stablecoin infrastructure companies because they need to quickly obtain relevant capabilities. However, as technology and regulatory frameworks mature, these institutions may also build systems themselves and integrate stablecoin capabilities into existing products.

Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and large banks possess merchants, accounts, brands, and regulatory resources. Startups may become their suppliers or acquisition targets, or may be compressed into lower-profit backend service links.

Where Will Investment Go in the Next Stage?

From recent financings, it can be seen that investment focus is shifting from "issuing more stablecoins" to "letting stablecoins truly enter bank, enterprise, and user accounts".

In the near future, the following directions may continue to receive attention:

First is cross-border B2B payments. Compared to ordinary consumption, enterprise cross-border payment amounts are larger, more sensitive to settlement speed, capital occupation, and FX costs, and more willing to pay for efficiency improvements.

Second is the connection between banks and stablecoins. The opportunity represented by Stablecore and Ubyx is enabling banks to receive, send, clear, and redeem stablecoins from different issuers and on different blockchains.

Third is stablecoin bank cards and local payments. Users do not need to find merchants accepting stablecoins, but spend through existing bank cards and acquiring networks. The successive financings of Rain and RedotPay indicate that this remains one of the most direct paths for stablecoins to enter daily payments.

Fourth is the orchestration layer for multi-stablecoin and multi-blockchain. Enterprises usually do not wish to integrate USDT, USDC, different blockchains, and on/off ramp services of various countries separately; platforms that can uniformly handle asset selection, routing, fees, compliance, and exchange may gain more institutional customers.

Fifth is AI Agent payments. Processes such as verification codes, bank card verification, and manual authorization in traditional payment systems are usually not designed for AI Agents; stablecoin wallets and programmable payments may provide new settlement methods for them. However, this direction currently remains mainly focused on infrastructure construction and expectations; real payment demands and revenue scale still need further verification.

Conclusion

Stablecoin payments receiving VC attention does not mean the crypto investment and financing winter has ended, nor does it mean stablecoins have already replaced traditional payments on a large scale.

More accurately, after the financing environment tightened, investors began looking for projects that can decouple from token prices, solve actual financial problems, and generate continuous revenue. Stablecoins provide 24/7, programmable global settlement assets, and the opportunity for startups is to bridge the connections between stablecoins and bank accounts, FX markets, bank cards, local currencies, and compliance systems.

What determines project value in the next stage is no longer just financing scale and on-chain transaction volume, but how much of it belongs to real customer payments, how much net income can be generated, how many compliant markets entered, and whether profitability remains after deducting liquidity, channel, and compliance costs.

What VCs are currently betting on is not that a certain stablecoin will inevitably win, but that in the process of stablecoins entering the real financial system, there are still some key infrastructures waiting to be established and perfected.

Compiled: TechFlow

TechFlow Editor's Note: The fatal flaw in DAO treasury management is being exposed—most assets are concentrated in native tokens. Once the market turns, protocols must simultaneously withstand the triple hit of plummeting token prices, sharp revenue declines, and collapsing on-chain activity. Spencer Hallarn, GSR's Global Head of Markets, breaks down the survival rules after the bull market tide recedes, which is extremely important for everyone holding DAO tokens or participating in protocol governance.

Nearly 70% of DAO treasury assets remain concentrated in native tokens, structurally exposing protocols to the risk of simultaneous declines in treasury value, revenue, and on-chain activity.

Key Takeaways

• The industry remains highly concentrated. Nearly 70% of DAO treasury assets are held in native tokens, leading many projects to face a single source of risk during downturns.
• Crypto treasuries are structurally procyclical. Because most projects keep the majority of reserves in their own tokens, their treasury value, protocol revenue, and market activity often decline in sync.
• Projects always hedge too late. Our OTC desk observes that demand for downside protection surges after prices fall, at which point option premiums have already risen, and any floor price set by projects is far below the token's starting point.
• Protection does not require selling. Collar strategies pay for downside protection by sacrificing some upside gain rather than consuming stablecoins, allowing projects to retain both positions and operational reserves.
• Treasury structure is more important than timing. Separating operational reserves from long-term holdings and setting risk management policies before the market deteriorates is what extends operational runway.
• GSR is an active participant in the crypto treasury and risk management markets. Our activities include providing OTC execution, block trades, and structured derivatives, including collar strategies and other hedging structures, for foundations, protocols, and other market participants.

At GSR, we witness the same story playing out repeatedly in every market cycle.

Crypto treasuries are structurally procyclical because most DAO treasuries remain highly concentrated in their own tokens. Overall, more than 70% of treasury assets are held in the project's own tokens, with a relatively low proportion allocated to stable assets or diversified reserves.

We see the consequences of this allocation during every downturn.

When the cycle reverses and token prices fall, the treasury originally intended to fund the roadmap suddenly becomes the project's biggest source of risk.

Given the current environment, we are having more of these conversations with clients than ever before. Clients are not only suddenly asking when the market will recover, but also whether the project has enough operational runway to continue building until the market recovers.

Activity Shrinks as Prices Fall

The second challenge is structural.

As treasury value declines, protocol activity weakens, fee generation slows, and liquidity deteriorates in sync. The treasury becomes least valuable exactly when it is needed most.

We see this in every cycle. Teams think they have a treasury that can support them in difficult markets, but both sides of the balance sheet are exposed to the same underlying risk.

Costs do not fall with token prices. Salaries, audits, infrastructure, and grants are all denominated in USD, so projects financing through token sales must sell more tokens to raise the same amount. Selling more supply in a weak market further depresses prices, which in turn increases the number of tokens needed for the next quarter. Treasuries deplete much faster than simple drawdowns indicate.

This is exactly the first question we ask every client: If the market falls for another 12 months, can your treasury still fund the roadmap?

Protection is Cheapest Before It Is Needed

This is a clear pattern observed at our OTC desk.

In a bull market, very few projects are willing to hedge because paying option premiums feels like sacrificing upside gain. Then the market sells off, and the conversation changes almost overnight. Suddenly everyone wants protection.

Unfortunately, that is also exactly when protection is most expensive.

As shown in the chart above, implied volatility usually rises after market declines, which drives up the cost of downside protection, precisely when demand is highest. Financially, this is equivalent to buying insurance only after the storm is already overhead.

We have witnessed this scenario time and again. Every client wishes they had hedged when volatility was low. But no one can go back and do it.

Hedging should be viewed as an ongoing treasury policy, not a last-minute call out of fear. You do not need to predict where prices go next, only ensure that known liabilities are funded regardless of how the market moves.

There is also more than one way to pay for protection. Since volatility on crypto assets is typically more expensive than on traditional assets, the structure we execute most is the collar strategy. Projects sell a call option above the current price and use the premium received to buy a put option below the current price. Ultimately, this sets a defined range for the project token. Value is protected below the put strike price, and in exchange, the project forfeits gains above the call strike price. If structured properly, the two legs can offset each other, and the trade can be completed at zero cost. This makes the collar strategy the preferred hedging tool for many projects, because directly buying put options consumes the very reserves the hedge aims to protect.

A collar strategy is not a sale, because the project retains exposure within the chosen range. It exchanges gains above the call strike price for a known floor price. When USD cost budgets are set a year in advance, collar strategies can convert volatile assets into a range upon which finance teams can plan.

None of this undermines the reason to act early. A collar strategy is a tool that provides protection from the token's execution price on the day. Projects setting a floor price when the token is $10 protect most of the value. A project that waits until the token falls to $4 to act will have a floor price close to $4. The structure is usable in both scenarios, but it cannot recover what has already been lost.

Treasury Structure Determines Operational Runway

Projects that successfully navigate multiple cycles have treasuries with separate components, each with a clear purpose.

Operational reserves are held in cash or stable assets to pay salaries and operating expenses. Longer-term crypto holdings remain invested but are supplemented with appropriate hedges where necessary. Strategic positions remain intact without threatening the organization's survival.

The chart above shows the difference. A treasury held entirely in native tokens may lose years of operational runway in a single significant drawdown. Separating reserves and protecting long-term holdings preserves much more operational runway, even without assuming any market recovery.

Survive first, then seek growth.

How GSR Can Help

This is exactly the area where we devote our energy.

Every treasury is different. Liquidity, governance structure, vesting schedules, operating budgets, jurisdictional restrictions, and token concentration all affect how a treasury is structured and the risks and trade-offs involved.

GSR works with foundations, DAOs, and protocols to provide OTC execution, collar strategies and other custom derivatives, structured hedging solutions, and block trades. These transactions can be used to manage treasury concentration, market risk, and liquidity according to the specific circumstances of the relevant treasury.

GSR's activities in these markets include execution and structure design of treasury transactions under different market conditions.

Our industry remains cyclical. The projects that ultimately stand out will be those that never stop building, because their treasuries were built from the start to withstand the trough.

This material is provided by GSR ("the Company") for information purposes only. It does not constitute advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment mentioned. Investors should form their own views on any proposed investment.

This material is directed only at sophisticated institutional investors and does not constitute an offer or promise, an invitation to offer or promise, or any advice or recommendation to enter into or conclude any transaction (whether on the terms shown or otherwise), or to provide investment services in any state or country if such offer, invitation, or service is unlawful therein. The Company is not and does not act as an advisor or fiduciary in providing this material.

This material is not independent research and has not been prepared in accordance with any legal requirements imposed by any regulatory authority (including FCA, FINRA, or CFTC) to promote independence in investment research.

This material is not independent of the Company's own interests, which may conflict with the interests of any of the Company's counterparties. The Company may trade the investments discussed in this material for its own account, may engage in transactions contrary to the views expressed in this material, and may hold positions in other related instruments. The Company is not subject to any restrictions on trading prior to the dissemination of this material.

The information contained herein is based on sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy or completeness is not guaranteed. Any opinions or estimates expressed in this material reflect the judgment of the authors as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. The Company does not plan to update this information.

Trading and investing in digital assets involves significant risks, including price volatility and insufficient liquidity, and may not be suitable for all investors. The Company is not responsible for any direct or indirect losses resulting from the use of this material. The copyright of this material belongs to GSR. This material or any copy thereof may not be obtained, copied, or redistributed directly or indirectly without prior written permission from GSR.

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Edited by: TechFlow

TechFlow Editor's Note: While the crypto world continues to debate "real yield," a Singapore department store is using century-old gold leasing to provide tangible revenue sources for on-chain protocols. This article breaks down how the assets behind thUSD and thGOLD flow from Mustafa Centre's jewelry counters to the chain, making it a must-read for anyone concerned with RWA and stablecoin yield sources.

Theo's protocol channels demand from physical gold retailers like Singapore's Mustafa Centre into on-chain yield, connecting the leasing market that has existed for over a century with thUSD and thGOLD.

Mustafa Centre, with just one store in Singapore, sells about 1,100 pounds of gold jewelry monthly. By their own account, inventory on hand at any time is close to one ton, valued at over 100 million USD at current prices. But they bear almost no risk from gold price fluctuations. This sounds contradictory, but it is standard practice in physical gold trade, and explains why more and more on-chain gold yield actually originates from here.

The Rule of Constancy

We spent a whole afternoon in their store observing operational processes. The detail that impressed us was not the astonishing sales volume, but how they manage positions. Inventory is constant. Today sell 110 pounds of jewelry, buy back 110 pounds of gold the same day. Tomorrow sell more, buy back more. The gold stock in the store is treated as a constant rather than a variable. As a result, this business only earns profit from each sale, nothing more. Even if gold prices rise 20%, Mustafa will not earn an extra 20% from that one ton of inventory; if gold prices fall 20%, they will not lose because of it. Their income depends on how much jewelry is sold, not how gold prices move.

Retailers who let inventory follow the market, whether intended or not, end up making leveraged bets on gold prices. Businesses that can operate for decades often choose not to do this, because running a jewelry business and trading commodities require different balance sheets and different investors.

The Unit of Account is Key

Holding one ton of gold requires putting up one ton of gold in real money. At current prices, this means tying up nine-figure assets in the retail business. Direct buyout would consume capital that should be invested in stores and working capital. Therefore, what retailers do is no different from what refineries, processors, and mints have done for over a century: borrow gold, then pay for using it. This is the demand side of the gold leasing market. Lessors with access to physical inventory provide gold, lessees pay a certain rate to hold and use this gold, using inventory and forward orders as collateral. Lessees get gold without tying up capital or bearing price risk, while lessors earn returns on an otherwise idle asset. We explained this mechanism in detail in "The Gold Leasing Credit Market Behind thUSD". The key point right now is: this demand is not speculative. It comes from operating businesses with real order books, and exists in any market condition, because whether gold prices are high or low, people will buy jewelry.

Not Out in the Open

The gold leasing market is indeed very opaque, and it is necessary to frankly face the limitations of public information. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) stopped the Gold Forward Offered Rate (GOFO) benchmark on January 30, 2015, therefore, forward rates and leasing rates can no longer be calculated publicly as they were for the previous twenty years. GOFO was published daily since 1989 and was the basis for pricing gold swaps, forwards, and leases. When compiling official gold reserve sequences, the World Gold Council directly excludes gold used as collateral, deposits, and swaps, but does not publish the specific quantity excluded. There is no public data on the overall leasing balance. What can be observed is the size of this peripheral market. According to World Gold Council data, in June 2026, the daily trading volume of gold across OTC, exchanges, and ETF channels totaled about 373 billion USD. And in London's settlement system, the daily net settled gold between four market maker banks exceeds 20 million ounces, according to LBMA settlement data, the value of these transfers in February this year was about 87 billion USD per day. This figure also excludes a large amount of real trading activity, because these statistics are net data, and according to London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL) itself, several types of transfers are omitted. Currently, the above-ground gold stock is about 219,900 tons, of which central banks hold about 36,500 tons.

Anyone claiming to know the exact figure of the leasing market size is actually estimating. We are no exception, and we would rather state it clearly than pretend otherwise.

The Other End of the Lease

A lease always has two ends. Retailers want gold without price risk. On the other end, someone must own gold and be willing to lend it. Historically, this end belonged to gold banks and a small number of funds, which have vault relationships, credit teams, and can audit business conditions of enterprises in physical trade. The barrier was never yield, but access qualifications. We accessed this market through Libeara. This is a tokenization platform incubated by Standard Chartered Bank's venture capital department SC Ventures, and jointly developed the "MG 999 On-Chain Gold Fund" with FundBridge Capital. MG 999 is a structured secured private credit fund: while tracking gold spot performance, it lends against physical inventory, and Mustafa Gold was listed as its first borrower when the fund was established in December 2025. Libeara first helped us connect with Mustafa's team. This structure is the focus, not a footnote. Counterparty due diligence, fund governance, and regulatory packaging are all handled by institutions specializing in this. Precisely because of this, this income stream can be recognized by non-commodity trading departments.

thUSD and thGOLD are built on this market. The counterparties are enterprises like Mustafa: real order books, routine credit assessments, and demand that exists without relying on crypto risk appetite.

What Gold Leasing Means for On-Chain Yield

The gold leasing market has provided financing for physical gold trade for over a century. Retailers borrow gold, pay leasing rates, and do not bear gold price fluctuation risk. Lessors earn returns on otherwise idle gold.

The purpose of building thUSD and thGOLD is precisely to channel this leasing income to token holders. Always, the constraint was never yield, but access qualifications.

Compiled by: TechFlow

TechFlow Editor's Note: Figma's stock price plummeted 17% after earnings, but analysts believe the market is wrong—with the rise of product engineers and AI agents taking over design workflows, Figma's TAM (Total Addressable Market) is much larger than Wall Street expects. This is no longer a story about "selling a few more designer seats," but a fundamental transformation of the entire software production method.

On August 5, 2026, Figma (NYSE ticker: $FIG) released its Q2'26 earnings report. A quick review:

• Revenue $370.1 million (year-over-year growth 48%)
• Net Dollar Retention Rate 136%
• GAAP Gross Profit $309.6 million; GAAP Gross Margin 84%
• GAAP Net Loss $112.2 million, primarily driven by stock-based compensation costs of $147.6 million
• 15,964 paid customers with annual contract values exceeding $10,000 (year-over-year growth 34%)
• 1,635 paid customers with annual contract values exceeding $100,000 (year-over-year growth 46%)

The data is strong, but Figma dropped 17% after earnings. I was curious about what happened, and after digging deep, I realized:

I believe Figma will become the design layer for all software creators and AI agents.

Before AI emerged, the workflow was simple:

Designer → Figma → Engineer → Code → Software

Now the workflow has become:

Designer / Engineer / PM / Product Engineer / AI Agent

↓

Figma / Design Systems

↓

Software

The following three points support my view.

1. The Rise of Product Engineers

The term "Product Engineer" was popularized by Sherif Mansour, Jean-Michel Lemieux, Gergely Orosz, and others, shaping our understanding of this role today.

What is a Product Engineer?

Product engineers are those who write code, understand customer pain points, and help shape the product.

AI makes software development simpler. As the cost of writing code decreases, engineers are starting to take on more product and design work. These boundaries are blurring.

I think this is important for Figma because historically engineering teams have been much larger than design teams. One of Figma's largest customers now has more engineer seats than designer seats, and this will become more common in the future.

I was curious if people were searching for "Product Engineer". Google Trends confirmed my hunch. This term has been searched significantly over the past few years.

If this trend continues, I believe product engineers will become one of Figma's key growth drivers.

2. Every Employee Will Have an Agent (Figma Agent)

In 2026, everyone is talking about AI agents. Figma's next direction for expansion is from humans to agents.

Traditional SaaS monetization is simple:

Cost Per Seat ✕ Number of Seats

I believe in an agent-driven world, every employee will have one or more agents working on their behalf. These agents will help iterate products (editing components, turning designs into code). These operations will naturally consume inference and compute resources.

The future SaaS business model will look like this:

(Cost Per Seat ✕ Number of Seats) + (Credits Consumed ✕ Cost Per Credit)

I believe Figma will continue to charge for people using the product (seats), and also for work completed through the product (agents).

3. Margin Expansion

AI is expensive. Compute and inference are costs for every enterprise wanting to enable AI.

When Figma launched Figma Make, gross margin dropped from 90% to 80% because inference became part of the cost of revenue. In Q2 '26, non-GAAP gross margin rebounded to 85% because Figma started charging for AI usage via credits.

What I (and everyone on Wall Street) thought would become a cost for Figma instead became an additional revenue source.

I truly believe that as Figma continues to charge for its AI product suite (Figma Make, Figma Agent, Figma Weave, and Figma MCP), their margins will continue to expand.

AI Tools Like Claude/OpenAI Will Replace Figma

The biggest risk to this thesis is that these AI tools become so good that the entire "design-to-code" workflow collapses. If users can describe the look and feel of a product in natural language and then deliver it end-to-end, Figma might be done.

Mitigating factors: I think this is far from reality (or won't happen in the short term). Figma already has customers. Customers are familiar with current tools and have built workflows around them. Additionally, years of design systems are embedded in Figma, which is a huge moat.

Why Is the Market Pricing It Wrong?

Figma's stock price has fallen 80% since its first closing price (July 31, 2025 $115.50).

In my view, three things indicate Figma is mispriced:

Q2 '26 revenue continues to grow year-over-year by 40% (meaning even if Claude tools explode, people are still using Figma)

NRR (Net Dollar Retention) is 136% (seat expansion is still high, the market is extremely pessimistic about software stocks)

EV/ARR trades at 7.3x, near historical lows (not cheap, but considering Figma's growth rate, I think the pricing is reasonable)

The market still treats Figma as a software company serving designers.

I think this misses the bigger opportunity.

As role boundaries continue to blur (new roles emerge: product engineers) and agents help build software, Figma has the opportunity to become the de facto design layer connecting everyone.

The bull case narrative is no longer just more designers paying for more seats:

More creators using Figma

More agents operating through Figma

More AI usage monetized on top of this

When this happens, Figma's TAM will be much larger than what the market is pricing in today.

Kang also announced that the government will simultaneously provide 5 trillion won in trade financing to support export-oriented suppliers, and strive to promote the passage of the "Special Act on Ultra-Large Special Industrial Complexes" within the year to accelerate permit approvals, environmental assessments, and infrastructure construction in relevant areas. In addition, the government plans to guarantee 650,000 tons of water supply for semiconductor projects in the Honam region by 2030, while the Yongin semiconductor cluster will receive a planned power supply of 14.7 billion watts by 2041.

• August 11, 2026 10:00 (UTC+8): KUAISHOUUSDT USDT perpetual contract
• August 11, 2026 10:05 (UTC+8): MEITUANUSDT USDT perpetual contract
• August 11, 2026 10:10 (UTC+8): CSOPSKHYNIX2LUSDT USDT perpetual contract
• August 11, 2026 10:15 (UTC+8): CSOPSAMSUNG2LUSDT USDT perpetual contract

Core Operational Data Grows Steadily, Circulation Scale Expansion Accelerates

According to the data disclosed in the report, USDD achieved significant expansion in circulation scale within July. The new circulating supply reached 221 million USD, and the total circulating supply by the end of July was approximately 1.58 billion USD. Among them, the circulation volume on the TRON network grew by 18.7%, indicating that the TRON ecosystem's capacity to absorb USDD continues to strengthen. As TRON DeFi Summer enters its second season, USDD, as an important contributor to stable yields in the DeFi sector, sees its market recognition continuously improving and demonstrates excellent utility.

Additionally, ETH Savings TVL rose from 210.7 million USD to 227.3 million USD, an increase of 7.9%; BNB Savings user scale continued to expand, with the number of participating wallets growing by 4.6%, and the average daily number of participating wallets growing by 4%. This demonstrates that USDD's multi-chain layout and expansion strategy is continuously achieving results, and based on this, it is becoming one of the accessible choices for users in different scenarios.

In terms of asset security, as of July 31, the USDD collateralization ratio remained at 142.98%, providing sufficient excess collateral buffer for the stablecoins in circulation. The report emphasizes that USDD adopts a diversified reserve portfolio and dynamic collateral adjustment mechanism, effectively mitigating the impact of volatility from single assets, and enhancing its stability and risk resistance during market fluctuations. All USDD reserve assets are deployed in on-chain public addresses on TRON, Ethereum, and BNB Chain, accessible for query and verification at any time, ensuring 100% on-chain transparency. This mechanism continues USDD's consistent principle of "real-time verifiability," further consolidating the trust foundation of users regarding the authenticity of reserves.

Smart Allocator Scale and Earnings Increase Simultaneously, Regular Incentives Show Results

The report highlighted the operational progress of Smart Allocator. At the end of July, Smart Allocator has invested funds totaling 854.9 million USD, an increase of 15.9% compared to 737.6 million USD at the end of June. Cumulative earnings reached 23.72 million USD, with monthly new earnings of 273,085 USD, a month-over-month increase of 12.65%, reflecting the protocol's continuous optimization in earnings strategies and improvement in capital efficiency.

At the same time, the regular incentive plan is gradually being implemented, providing sustainable earnings support for ecosystem participants. USDD supports users to participate in ecosystem earnings by staking USDD or holding sUSDD to obtain interest returns. Incentivized by this revenue-sharing mechanism, mining participation in July increased significantly, with total mining TVL rebounding strongly by 39.0% month-over-month, and average daily mining TVL growing by 23.8%.

These developments indicate that USDD is not only expanding steadily in scale but also maintaining stable output in earnings generation and incentive mechanism design.

Revenue Structure Optimization and Ecosystem Expansion Continue to Gain Momentum

USDD also achieved dual positive progress in revenue structure optimization and ecosystem expansion within the month. Especially the continuous month-over-month improvement of various data indicators indicates that the underlying ecosystem continues to expand, and ecosystem use cases are also increasing.

It is worth mentioning that the TRON DeFi Summer event continues to attract user participation. Within 48 hours of the event launch, the relevant TVL net growth exceeded 100 million USD; USDD TVL on the JustLend platform simultaneously exceeded 450 million USD.

Additionally, the reward campaign jointly launched by USDD and Gate DEX on BNB Chain and Ethereum continues; the Binance Wallet wealth management campaign has progressed to the seventh phase; the sUSDD market on Pendle has also received a new round of reward support.

The continued promotion of these activities not only reflects that USDD can provide users with stable and sustainable earnings opportunities but also highlights the actual usage demand and liquidity depth of USDD in various DeFi scenarios.

"Yield + Utility" Dual-Drive Lays Foundation for Long-term Sustainable Development Path

USDD officials stated in the report that in August, they will continue to deepen cooperation with DeFi protocols, improve the regular incentive system, and expand more on-chain earnings scenarios for users. At the same time, they will also accelerate the implementation of practical application scenarios such as payments and transfers, especially in actual use by consumers and merchants.

Through the "Yield + Utility" dual-drive, USDD is committed to consolidating the ecosystem foundation, further expanding the usage boundaries of stablecoins, and promoting the long-term sustainable development of the ecosystem, while maintaining high transparency and high collateral security.

The full report has been released on official channels, users can refer to the original text for comprehensive information:

https://medium.com/@usddioCN/2026%E5%B9%B47%E6%9C%88-usdd%E6%9C%88%E5%BA%A6%E9%80%8F%E6%98%8E%E5%BA%A6%E6%8A%A5%E5%91%8A-ba27e8540728

Specifically, in July USDD's new circulating supply reached $221 million, total circulating supply at month-end reached $1.58 billion, collateralization ratio maintained at 142.98%; USDD circulating supply on TRON grew by 18.7%; Smart Allocator cumulative earnings reached $23.72 million; 2026 Q2 Treasury data was disclosed during the month, with a total Treasury balance of $21.54097 million;

The report fully disclosed reserves, earnings, Treasury and ecosystem progress, underscoring USDD's continuous optimization in over-collateralization, on-chain verifiability and multi-scenario applications. Various data indicators showed continuous month-over-month improvement, routine incentives continued to be implemented, providing stable support for users and ecosystem partners.

Meanwhile, the foundation stated it will continue to advance work according to the established roadmap, collaboratively driven by the Board of Directors, management, and the technical and senior business development team, focusing on enterprise adoption and continuing to promote the connection between Cardano and the real world.

Last week, the crypto market did not see an across-the-board rise. Bitcoin dominance remained above 56%, capital remained concentrated in top assets, but some small and mid-cap assets showed independent trends. According to Huobi HTX platform data, from August 2 to August 9, the BSC Meme sector performed most prominently, with TUT rising as high as 733% in a single week, while the DeFi sector continued its strength from recent weeks.

BSC Meme: TUT, MUBARAK, TST Rise Together

All three were issued on the BNB Chain Meme platform Four.meme, long regarded as assets of the same series within the community, and showed strong correlation last week.

• TUT (Tutorial): This week's gain reached 733%. TUT originated from a tutorial demonstration of token issuance; after the test token was moved to the mainnet, community consensus gradually formed, and the price hit an all-time high last week.
• MUBARAK: This week's gain reached 72%. The name MUBARAK is taken from the Arabic word for "blessed," making it a Meme asset with Middle Eastern cultural elements on BNB Chain.
• TST: This week's gain reached 41%. TST also started as a test token and is one of the longer-existing assets in this sector.

Price fluctuations of Meme assets lack predictable patterns, and the rhythm of rises and falls has low correlation with project progress, but significant profit-making effects can still form in specific stages. It is also important to note that the drawdown speed of this sector is comparable to the rise speed, and participants should fully understand the relevant risks.

AI: SKYAI Ends Three Months of Consolidation

• SKYAI: This week's gain reached 291%. SkyAI is a data infrastructure project on BNB Chain; its MCP Hub acts as a routing layer, enabling AI Agents to access structured on-chain data across multiple Model Context Protocol servers. The asset entered consolidation in early May, broke upward last week, and discussion volume on social platforms has also risen significantly since August.

DeFi: BICO, BMT Rebound from All-Time Lows, BTW Lists for Third Consecutive Week

The activity in the DeFi sector has continued for several weeks. Previously, assets such as BANK, EUL, and DIA strengthened successively, driven by the landing of institutional products and the advancement of the RWA narrative. The three assets that performed excellently last week were a different case: both BICO and BMT started from the lowest price since listing, belonging to valuation repair after being oversold; BTW's upward movement was supported by continuous heat in the BTCFi direction, with a rhythm different from the former two.

• BICO (Biconomy): This week's gain reached 240%. Biconomy focuses on account abstraction and smart accounts; the ERC-8211 standard launched jointly with the Ethereum Foundation can merge multi-step on-chain operations into a single transaction, providing support for AI Agents executing DeFi processes.
• BMT (Bubblemaps): This week's gain reached 110%. Bubblemaps does on-chain holding visualization, converting wallet associations and token distribution into bubble maps; "bubble map" has become a common term within the industry, and this tool was previously integrated into the Binance Web3 Wallet.
• BTW (Bitway): This week's gain reached 153%. Bitway is a Bitcoin-compatible PoS Layer 1 public chain; BTC holders can participate in financing, staking, and lending without cross-chain bridging or giving up self-custody. This is the third consecutive week BTW has appeared on the gainers list, with increases of 10% and 17% in the previous two weeks respectively.

Repricing of Dormant Assets

Multiple assets listed last week experienced a long period of sluggishness before launching. SKYAI consolidated for three months, BICO and BMT just hit their lowest prices since listing, TUT was just a test token for tutorial demonstration before becoming a hot asset, and BTW also accelerated last week after strengthening for three consecutive weeks.

During phases of quiet market conditions, capital attention contracts towards top assets, and the pricing of small and mid-cap assets often deviates from their actual activity for long periods. After market sentiment warms up or specific triggering factors appear, the speed and magnitude of price repair for such assets usually exceed expectations.

Therefore, the value of assets cannot be judged solely by current trading heat. Huobi HTX maintains a long-term perspective in asset selection and maintenance, allowing projects at different development stages to obtain a stable trading environment, thus enabling users to find corresponding targets when the market launches.

Compiled by: TechFlow

TechFlow Editor's Note: Stablecoins are no longer just on-chain numbers; you can now swipe a card to buy coffee. Crypto payment card monthly transaction volume exceeded $750 million, up 2.5 times in a year. Behind nearly 9 million transactions, USDC and USDT account for 84% of the share, with Visa emerging as the biggest winner. This card allows people without bank accounts to spend US dollars; stablecoins are penetrating the payment system in the most traditional way.

The scale of consumer spending using stablecoins via card is growing rapidly.

Crypto payment cards have evolved from a novelty into a business with monthly transaction volumes exceeding $750 million. These cards allow people to pay with cryptocurrency anywhere traditional card networks are accepted. The underlying mechanism is that cryptocurrencies (mostly stablecoins) are instantly converted into local currency at the time of payment, so for merchants, this transaction is no different from a regular card swipe.

Crypto cardholders do not need traditional bank accounts. Depending on the project, users either deposit stablecoins with the card issuer or self-custody directly on-chain. Crypto cards expand access to US dollar accounts for people globally and provide a convenient transaction method for stablecoin holders.

July Single Month Card Swipes $759 Million, Up 2.5 Times in a Year

Crypto payment card monthly transaction volume reached $759 million in July, an increase of about 2.5 times compared to $306 million a year ago, while it was less than $1 million when tracking began in October 2023. These figures reflect on-chain activity of card projects tracked by Paymentscan. (For the largest project by transaction volume, RedotPay, spending data is self-reported by the issuer rather than obtained through on-chain observation.)

The growth trend in the number of purchases using crypto payment cards is similar to the growth in transaction volume. The number of purchases using crypto payment cards in July approached 9 million, higher than about 5.2 million a year ago.

This means the average amount per transaction is approximately $86.

Optimism, Solana, Base Share the Market

At the beginning of 2024, crypto card spending was concentrated on a single chain: Gnosis, the home of Gnosis Pay (the first Visa card directly connected to a self-custodied wallet). With the launch of new card projects, the number of card settlement chains has expanded.

According to Paymentscan data, as of July, Optimism accounted for about 29% of crypto card spending volume, Solana about 19%, and Base about 19%. Gnosis has dropped to about 2%.

USD Stablecoins Completely Dominate, USDC+USDT Account for 84%

Euro-backed stablecoins once dominated spending: at the beginning of 2024, about 88% of crypto card transactions were settled in EURe, most of which were on Gnosis. As of July, EURe's share has dropped to about 2%.

USD-backed stablecoins have taken dominance. USDC processes about 58% of card spending, and USDT about 26%, up from about 48% and 7% respectively a year ago. Crypto payment card spending is now almost entirely conducted in digital dollars.

Visa Almost Takes All Share

Compared to traditional card networks that process trillions of dollars monthly, crypto payment cards remain a small market.

But as stablecoins make greater progress in the global financial system, including by leveraging the rails of existing major card networks. For the tracked projects, this occurs almost entirely through Visa.

Crypto payment cards are part of the broader crypto acceleration following GENIUS, which we have been tracking here. This includes the rapid adoption of stablecoins and tokenized assets.

It has been a long time since Silicon Valley collectively used the term "Mafia."

The last time was more than twenty years ago. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. A group of young people who had experienced the company's journey from 0 to 1 became financially free overnight and then scattered.

The subsequent stories are well-known. Musk founded Tesla and SpaceX, Peter Thiel founded Palantir, Hoffman founded LinkedIn, Steve Chen and Karim founded YouTube...

Silicon Valley calls them the PayPal Mafia.

"Mafia" is not derogatory; it is a certification, certifying that you come from that winner and have the ability to create another winner.

This term has been quiet for a long time. The conditions required are too harsh: a company successful enough to win, a concentrated distribution of wealth, and a group of people who have seen the world and have not yet been worn down. Google did not spawn a Mafia, nor did Meta. Until recently, it began to be frequently used on another group of people.

Those who left OpenAI and Anthropic.

More than half of 2026 has just passed. The number of people who have left these two leading AI companies to turn around and start new companies is already large enough to list a long roster:

Former OpenAI VP of Research Jerry Tworek founded Core Automation, former Anthropic researcher Behnam Neyshabur and others formed Mirendil. Among the researchers who just left, some are working on verifiable mathematics, some on AI that truly belongs to individuals, and others want to rebuild personal computers at the hardware level...

This path has been walked before. Anthropic itself was founded five years ago by people who left OpenAI. Now valued at $380 billion, it has become the most troublesome opponent for its former employer.

The list is still growing. These leavers are using their respective expertise to prune the branches and leaves of the AI tree.

When the Mafia Starts Claiming Territory Outside Large Models

Let's look at a question first. Why is it that almost no one from this group leaving OpenAI and Anthropic in 2026 is building large models again?

The answer is very realistic: because there is no room left on the main trunk. Training a frontier model costs billions of dollars. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are fighting hand-to-hand themselves. For a startup to enter head-on is equivalent to committing suicide.

But the stronger the model, the larger the open space around it.

Today's models are already smart enough, smart enough that the industry bottleneck is no longer "whether it can." Looking at this group of leavers together, you will find that they are actually focusing on "getting work done," and using their expertise to fill places where the large model's tentacles have not yet reached.

For example, can AI actually land on the level of getting work done? Once the work starts, trust becomes an issue. Once trusted, control remains an issue.

Large companies cannot attend to these layers of trouble, and some are not suitable for them to answer themselves. Almost all the companies on this 2026 list are growing on these patches of open land.

The most radical patch of open land is letting AI research AI itself.

Former OpenAI VP of Research Jerry Tworek and several colleagues founded Core Automation, creating an automated research laboratory that lets models read papers, propose hypotheses, and run experiments themselves.

The judgment behind it is quite cold: the bottleneck of AI progress is no longer algorithms, but manpower for research.

And Mirendil, formed by former Anthropic researcher Behnam Neyshabur and others, just raised $200 million. It is another extension of the same logic: a self-accelerating system that lets models participate in improving the models themselves. The human role has retreated from the subject of research to the supervisor.

Once the work starts, new trouble follows: how to confirm that it is done correctly.

Thus, another patch of open land focuses on AI trustworthiness.

In most fields, verifying an answer given by an AI is much more expensive than generating one. Math Inc is targeting this most expensive link. Former OpenAI researcher Jesse Han left to found it, with the direction of turning mathematical proofs into a form that machines can verify line by line.

Mathematics is one of the few fields where right and wrong can be thoroughly tested. Only by running verification through here is it possible to move the same capability into other industries. When AI starts making decisions for people, proving it is right is probably more valuable than letting it do it.

One layer further back is turning intelligence into "daily routine."

Between a model that can answer questions and a model that can do things for you, there is a whole set of dirty work: calling tools, breaking down tasks, remembering context, doing one thing from start to finish... These actually also need the support of auxiliary tools.

Rational and Zavify, founded by former OpenAI and Anthropic employees respectively, are focused on agent workflows, handing over business processes to agents for enterprises;

Coincidentally, former xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin founded River AI, also wanting to create AI that truly belongs to individuals and is shaped by individuals.

There is also an outlier in this group. Blackstar, built by former OpenAI Codex engineer Daniel Edrisian, is starting directly from hardware, wanting to build a personal computer redesigned for the AI era.

After all the work is done, someone still has to watch over it.

There is a subtle opportunity here. When AI companies announce "our model is very safe" themselves, no one believes it. Players cannot serve as referees. Thus, safety has become a business that can be done independently. Those doing this business are mostly people who have personally researched AI safety in the two laboratories.

To put what they do in plain language, one is finding faults. Syntony, founded by a former Anthropic team, specializes in finding ways to induce AI to make mistakes and trick it into crossing boundaries, testing out the system's flaws before bad actors make a move.

Another is scoring. Resolution, founded by former OpenAI researchers, studies how to confirm that an AI is truly working according to human intent, and also needs to mark the degree of this certainty. Another is setting rules. Guidelight, also from former OpenAI employees, defines what practices count as safe for the entire industry, and then pushes everyone to follow them...

This batch of companies does not touch the upper limit of AI capabilities; they guard the bottom line of AI. The more capable the model, the better their business might be.

And if you ask what the difference is between this group of "AI Mafia" and the PayPal Mafia, the answer is probably dispersed vs. convergent.

The group that left PayPal did everything: payments, social, aerospace, intelligence analysis, because that was an era full of opportunities;

This new group of Mafia members is much more convergent in direction, because there are only these few patches of open land for AI. The group of people who understand models the deepest in the world have voted with their feet on the location of the next bottleneck.

Why Now?

There is a key prop in the PayPal Mafia script: a concentrated liquidity event. eBay's acquisition allowed a group of people to get money at the same time and regain freedom at the same time; only then could the Mafia gain momentum.

In the AI industry of 2026, the prop is in place.

Last autumn, OpenAI arranged a round of secondary share transfers. Employees cashed out a total of $6.6 billion, and the company valuation stood at $500 billion. Bigger events are yet to come. OpenAI and Anthropic are both preparing for IPOs, landing as early as this year. For early employees, the eve of the IPO is the best time to leave. The paper wealth in hand is about to turn into real money. If they leave later, they will be bound by golden handcuffs for a few more years.

The money is in place, and those grabbing people arrived long ago.

Silicon Valley VCs have formed a convention, staking out the exit channels of the two major laboratories. OpenAI's first head of sales, Aliisa Rosenthal, simply changed careers to become an investor, publicly saying she would rely on former colleagues' networks to find projects. Former head of consumer products Peter Deng also joined the venture capital firm Felicis.

Mira Murati mentioned in the previous chapter could raise $2 billion without a product; Mirendil just took in $200 million upon debut... Money is chasing people, to an exaggerated extent.

The risk account for the leavers themselves is actually easy to calculate. The worst result is nothing more than returning to a major tech company to get another million-dollar annual salary.

The Cost of Crowding

Currently, dozens of companies founded by the AI Mafia are crowded on the same few patches of open land. On every path stand opponents who are equally smart, equally well-connected, and equally well-funded.

Another way to say crowded is that most will lose.

The story of the PayPal Mafia is moving because we only remember Tesla and LinkedIn, forgetting the dozens of companies that fell during the same period. This list will likely be the same. Looking back in a few years, perhaps no more than five names will be recognizable.

There is also a more hidden problem. The business of these new companies is either letting AI do the work or watching AI do the work. Customers and prospects are tied to the same premise: model capabilities must continue to improve rapidly. Once this premise slows down, many patches of open land will disappear simultaneously.

But even counting all this, this list is still worth keeping.

The true legacy of the PayPal Mafia is not certain companies, but a principle: when the most important talents of an era start walking out from the same place, following them is usually not wrong.

Twenty years ago, that group defined the second half of the internet. Today, this group is gathering around this AI tree.

Those who have planted the tree know earliest which direction the tree will grow.