Eli5DeFi

Saying this publicly is unreal.

Stripe paid $1.1B for Bridge. Mastercard is paying $1.8B for BVNK. $33T cleared through stablecoins in 2025. The layer beneath all of this just opened for business. This isn't a crypto news story anymore. It's the largest restructuring of payment rails. And while everyone

And do check my HIP-4 Ecosystem Map here:

Check out the WP here:

This is a pretty good stack if you want to capture the privacy narrative upside. Combine it with AI, RWA, and perps, and I think you’ll nail almost all of the major runners this cycle.

It's probably not related to $BASE 🤣

— And weekly spotlight here:

— Check out our weekly bookmark here:

Spoke with my friend, who was recently laid off due to an efficiency- and AI-focused direction. I think startups in 2026 are committing the Doorman Fallacy at industrial scale. They look at the “doorman,” decide he “just opens doors,” fire him, install automatic doors, and

If you have some spare money + opportunity, instead of a material stuff like luxury car or watches, you should buy these imo: - A good mattress (better sleep) - A good PT + nutritionist, and a gym membership - More organic foods / minimally processed foods - Relocate to a place

Check it here →

ICYMI, Nova just recently launched their NLP Vault with $1M for whitelisted users which filled very fast.

Besides AI, this week perps has been dominating the timeline and sparked new interest with Variational’s $50M Series A raise (led by Dragonfly, with Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures). The on-chain perpetual futures space is heating up fast. Let's quickly dive in three

Who Gonna Tell Em.

Updated my list of 2026 protocol exploits. The numbers from January to May are grim, imo: → 52 incidents so far (roughly 2 protocol hacks/week) → $1.7M+ median loss per incident → $835M total stolen → $577M stolen by DPRK state-sponsored hackers → $165.4M frozen or seized

Hyperliquid

This is like Jeff working for Phoenix, 🤣

I just late about 2 hrs opening my e-mail. Kek.

Let me explain in plain English why this is big. Formal verification is a very strong way to check security. Normally, people test code by trying a bunch of examples and seeing if it works. The issue is: tests only cover the cases you think to try. Bugs can still hide in the

I’m sharing this because last week I met with a TradFi Sharia specialist, and my jaw dropped at how much untapped potential there is. It’s also clear that the RWA narrative will likely be what brings Sharia products on-chain, along with a new set of primitives, such as: -