Blockchain

In just seventy-two hours, Anthropic confronted a Pentagon ultimatum, public allegations from Elon Musk, and the withdrawal of its own safety pledges. From refusing to develop autonomous military weapons to revising RSP 3.0 and abandoning the "pause training" red line, this company—positioned as a leader in "safe AI"—is now grappling with a widening gap between its brand and operational reality. This article dissects the political dynamics, valuation pressures, and the unraveling of the safety narrative premium driving this identity crisis.

In a crypto world that emphasizes “Don’t trust, verify,” hiring still largely follows traditional screening logic based on academic credentials and big-tech résumés. Drawing on observations from Ben Wu, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, this article proposes a “verification-first” hiring approach for Web3: using on-chain records, open-source contributions, and verifiable outputs as the primary signals of talent. The goal is to prioritize capability verification upfront rather than relying on background-based inference. In an industry built on transparency and verifiability, talent evaluation should also return to the core spirit of crypto.

From Bitcoin congestion cycles, to the peaks of Ethereum DeFi and NFTs, and the Solana memecoin frenzy, why do L1 fee booms always prove short-lived? Based on on-chain data research from Pine Analytics, this article systematically analyzes the revenue structures of BTC, ETH, SOL, and Hyperliquid, revealing the cyclical mechanism of “demand surge — innovation compression — profit clearing” in open networks. It also raises a key question: when transaction fees no longer support valuations, what can token prices rely on next?

Amid a downturn in crypto market sentiment, Stripe’s 2025 annual letter delivers a markedly different outlook: stablecoins are accelerating toward the core of the real economy. Bridge transaction volume has surged fourfold, Privy enables hundreds of millions of programmable wallets, the payment-focused Tempo chain has launched its testnet, and stablecoins are rapidly penetrating B2B settlements. Collectively, these trends are sketching out a next-generation global payments and financial infrastructure blueprint—centered on stablecoins and AI Agents.

The article begins with Tether's remarkable $13 billion net profit in 2024, analyzing its ultra-high ROE model. It further examines how stablecoins are poised to break through SWIFT's high fee barriers and enable instant global payments in just 30 seconds. The discussion then extends to predictions on the rise of Pay-Fi, Tether's investments in mining, AI, and robotics, and the regulatory tailwinds from GENIUS and MiCA.

This article uses the ANCHORING EFFECT to explain why traditional investors overlook Wall Street’s on-chain wave. It argues that investors should broadly position across PUBLIC CHAINS, DEFI, and INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE rather than attempting to predict a single winner, in order to capture the ALPHA created by the cognitive gap between the “punk narrative” of crypto and its evolution into CAPITAL MARKETS INFRASTRUCTURE. The author draws a parallel to the excess return opportunity he captured in 2018, when lingering perceptions shaped by MT. GOX enabled an early entry into the market.

LayerZero is an omnichain interoperability protocol focused on secure, efficient cross-blockchain communication. Its innovative lightweight architecture and modular design enable native transfers of information, data, and assets between chains—eliminating the need for intermediary tokens or centralized custodians.

This article critiques how the current mainstream token models—from lock-up and unlock schedules, staking rewards, to buyback and burn mechanisms—are merely variations of a game of musical chairs. They shift the dynamic from the team, investors, and users working together to grow the project to a race over who sells first. This ultimately leads to an eight-year cycle of hype followed by market dumps.

The article emphasizes that a true breakthrough application must have an invisible wallet, no terminology, natural language, and AI risk warnings. It predicts that AI Agents will drive stablecoin infrastructure to become a mainstream necessity, transforming consumer perception from using crypto to better financial services.

This article analyzes operational dilemmas: without premiums, financing is impossible; staking yields cannot cover fiat currency expenses. Strategy survives as an exception through reserves and income, while new DATs like BitMine and Forward face the risk of liquidation. It reveals to investors the structural risks of packaging premiums as products and the survival rules during bear markets.

Circle leverages USDC to build a "digital dollar" infrastructure ecosystem, evolving from a stablecoin issuer into the core layer of fintech. Through partnerships with Visa, Intuit, Bybit, and others, it accelerates the integration of payment settlements and cross-border remittances with mainstream finance. Against the backdrop of regulatory tailwinds and market expansion, Circle explores pathways for large-scale stablecoin adoption and value capture capabilities.

CoinGecko's annual data shows that in 2025, DEX perpetual contract trading volume skyrocketed by 346% to $6.7 trillion, while CEX holdings fell by 20.8%. Platforms like Hyperliquid have emerged among the global top ten, accelerating the crypto market's transition from centralized exchanges to on-chain financial infrastructure.

Sky Protocol is a decentralized finance (DeFi) base protocol built with a modular architecture. By separating stablecoins, governance, yield strategies, and application layer features into distinct, composable modules, it allows each component to function independently while collaborating seamlessly. This design significantly increases the flexibility and innovation potential of the entire financial system.

Sky (SKY) is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on a modular financial architecture, aiming to create a scalable, governable, and highly composable on-chain financial system through a multi-layered ecosystem and a dual-token mechanism. In contrast to the conventional single-protocol approach of typical DeFi projects, Sky utilizes its Stars sub-ecosystem and modular design, enabling diverse financial applications to run on a unified infrastructure and share liquidity, governance, and technical frameworks.

SKY is the primary governance token of the Sky Protocol ecosystem, playing an essential role in protocol governance, ecosystem incentives, and value capture. Through token-based voting and on-chain governance mechanisms, SKY holders are empowered to participate in protocol parameter adjustments, vote on upgrade proposals, and shape the ecosystem’s development direction—ensuring that the protocol’s evolution is progressively driven by the community.