IamHarrie

Last year had a political shift that helped bring in a new wave of institutional building. Much of this work has focused on making existing systems reliable, compliant, and usable by institutions, particularly in the areas of stablecoins and payment coordination systems.
Here are five sectors that are likely to see greater focus, liquidity, and adoption going forward.
1. Stablecoins as a Global Payment Layer
One of the developments would be the use of stablecoins as a global payment layer built on crypto infrastructure, while remaining largely abstracted from users.
Over the past two years, stablecoin transfer volumes have exceeded those processed by Visa.
This shows that stablecoins are already operating as a parallel financial system rather than a theoretical alternative.
At the same time, TradFi companies are beginning to integrate crypto-based settlement into their existing payment rails. As this continues, application layers such as wallets, cards, and consumer platforms are likely to remain the primary point of user interaction, while stablecoins handle value transfer in the background.
Several blockchain networks are also beginning to issue their own native stablecoins to capture and accrue value generated by the activities on their networks, and more ecosystems will likely look to internalize settlement and liquidity.

2. Perpetual Markets and Asset Concentration
Perpetual futures markets account for a large portion of onchain trading activity. However, most of this activity is concentrated in a small number of assets.
Roughly 80% of all perps volume comes from Bitcoin. Around 15% comes from other major assets, while the remaining 5% is spread across smaller tokens that tend to experience short periods of activity before fading.
This pattern highlights that while new assets continue to appear, liquidity and sustained usage remain concentrated in established markets.
In addition to crypto-based perpetuals, equity-based perpetual products are beginning to emerge. Some platforms like Hyperliquid, tradexyz , RobinhoodApp and a couple of others have integrated or intend to offer exposure to traditional equities through crypto native systems.

3. Privacy and Confidential Transactions
As institutional participation increases, privacy has become a requirement.
Organizations need to protect sensitive transaction details while still allowing verification and compliance.
Confidential transactions are designed to meet this need. Rather than providing full anonymity, these systems allow transaction data to remain private while still being verifiable by authorized parties.
Several chains like Aptos and Sui have announced plans to integrate confidentiality into their tech stacks. This infrastructure will become an important part of future onchain systems, particularly for enterprise and institutional use.

4. Prediction Markets
Prediction markets continue to grow in usage and activity. A key change is that they are increasingly embedded into existing applications rather than operating as standalone platforms.
This integration makes them easier to access and use. They are being applied as tools to reflect shared expectations and sentiment across a range of topics, rather than as isolated products.

5. AI and Agent-Based Systems
AI agents and automated services are still early in development. Many approaches are being tested, and there are not too many single dominant models yet.
Crypto infrastructure provides tools for coordination, verification, and incentive design within these systems. The efforts of builders right now are focused on building dependable components that support more complex interactions over time, especially in payment and service networks.

A Word for Builders
As these systems mature, attention shifts from infrastructure to application and execution. For startups building in this environment, three objectives remain consistent.
→ Build a product that people want. The product should address problems that matter to users.
→ Second, build a community around the product. A strong community helps with feedback, distribution, and trust. When possible, this community should benefit from network effects, where the product becomes more valuable as participation grows.
→ Third, give ownership to the community. Ownership can help bootstrap early adoption and align incentives between builders and users.
The next phase is likely to be defined less by new ideas and more by how effectively these systems are combined, scaled, and tested in concrete use cases.

The flow of liquidity and revenue into the chain and meme tokens is largely tied to one activity: speculation. And it’s likely to persist for a while, because people will always want to speculate on trends, events, and even the news.
I did a little digging and found that the memecoin market is experiencing a gradual decline. Conservative estimates place trader losses from rug pulls in 2025 at around $8 billion, with most losses occurring when liquidity was removed after launch, making the tokens impossible to sell. Remarkably, 93% of these rug pulls were executed in under one hour.
The risk with speculation is that wrong choices are paid for with one’s portfolio, and consistent wrong choices can burn traders, leading them to pause or seek more stable and sustainable sources of liquidity inflow.
The next question would be, what happens to the token launchpads?

What’s happening with Launchpads?
Initially, what drew people into memecoins was the fact that you could see a promising token on Dexscreener, check its tokenomics, join the project’s Telegram group, and see the stats on holders and the developers themselves before buying in.
It was a good way to explore potential wins.
Today, there is a lot of Insider activity, sniper bots, and other automated strategies that make it easier to get rekt.
This has, in a way affected launchpad activity over the past year. Pumpfun, for instance, has seen fewer graduations and fewer active users daily, which also affects their revenue.

Occasionally, there are spikes in activity, but they are brief and rarely go beyond a certain timespan.

User Sentiment in Memecoins
User participation has also declined. Fewer wallets are actively engaging with new launches, and repeat participation has dropped as many users step away after negative experiences.
And by negative, I mean after getting used as the liquidity exit.
Although people continue to speculate on trends, news, and cultural moments (a whole market was built on that economy; prediction markets), the willingness to take early risks has diminished, so a growing number of users are moving towards more sustainable DEX activities.

It is way harder to find the next 10x or 1000x launch due to insider factors, early coordinated buyers, and automated bots that extract value almost immediately after launch.
To build on this, only a small number of memecoins currently maintain a market capitalization above $1 billion.

Most new tokens struggle to retain liquidity beyond the initial launch phase, and since capital does not remain on-chain long enough, user activity tanks or declines.

What’s next for Degenerates?
I’ll be as candid as possible. Memecoins, as a form of expression and speculation, are unlikely to disappear, as cultural interest continues to exist and new launches tied to events or public figures still draw attention.
However, these moments tend to be short-lived and do not develop into sustained market cycles or narratives.
For the market to stabilize, better structures with protection mechanisms are required.
Without these safeguards becoming common practice, speculative markets will still struggle to maintain trust.
Meaningful changes needs to happen, otherwise, memecoin activity across major launchpads is likely to remain under pressure and continue to decline.

Something remarkable happened in December 2025 that didn't quite get the attention of a lot of people. Fragment, an NFT marketplace built on the TON blockchain and primarily known within the Telegram ecosystem, generated $2.83 million in revenue within a 24 hour period.
During that window, it ranked as the third highest revenue generating protocol in crypto, behind only Tether and Circle, and briefly surpassed Hyperliquid. Its daily revenue was roughly twenty times higher than OpenSea.
This outcome is worth studying in context. Don't you think?
These usernames represent identity within one of the largest messaging platforms in the world, offering direct and practical utility to users who already operate inside that environment.
It is important to acknowledge the structural advantage here. Fragment is tightly integrated with Telegram mini apps and benefits from native demand that already exists at scale.
This is in contrast to how the conventional NFT market has historically formed. For much of its history, attention and liquidity have been largely driven by speculative cycles, often centred on digital art and profile picture collections.
We are now at a point where the NFT market must be more intentional about the kind of attention it attracts and the direction liquidity flows. Getting this right will help determine which digital assets are worth trading in the first place.
That naturally leads to more grounded questions.
→ Which digital assets do people already use in their day to day digital lives?
→ Which of them benefit from being tradable, ownable, and verifiable onchain?
→ And which blockchains are structurally capable of supporting these assets at scale?

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From Speculation to Utility
The decline in global NFT sales from the 2021 peak to more stable volumes in 2025 has shown a period of consolidation. Rather than a rebound, the market entered 2025 in a continued downtrend, with activity contracting across chains and concentrating around a limited set of intellectual properties and a few incentive-driven ecosystems.
Most collections and verticals experienced minimal organic demand, as users became increasingly selective with the collections that drive the flow of their liquidity.

Data shows a total annualized NFT trading volume of approximately $5.5 billion in 2025, with capital and attention increasingly flowing toward assets that demonstrated repeat usage, integration, or relevance within active digital environments.
Within this context, the NFT ecosystem expresses value through distinct asset categories that reflect different usage behaviours:

1. Speculative and cultural NFTs: These circulate through communities and marketplaces, with value shaped by attention, narrative, and social momentum.
2. Functional and utility-driven NFTs: They derive value from use, operating as access tools, identity markers, or programmable components within digital systems.
These categories help explain how attention and liquidity move through the market today. Identity-based digital assets operate within this framework of sustained use.
For example, a premium Telegram username functions as a persistent digital identifier, which supports recognition, and branding within that environment.

One area that showed a clear product-market fit and strong monetization was Pokémon trading cards. Marketplaces like Collector Crypt and Courtyard used crypto to let people trade, own, and play fun games with both real and digital Pokémon cards.

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A Glimpse into the Current Market
Ethereum became the main centre of NFT activity in 2025, accounting for about 74.6% of total trading volume, as remaining liquidity concentrated where infrastructure and tooling were already mature and where assets could be settled and reused efficiently.

Marketplaces, wallets, lending protocols, and social layers on Ethereum are expanding the range of NFT use cases, creating an environment where NFTs can actually sustain value.
Capital no longer just flows in and out of collections; it circulates across applications, moving from trading to lending, to social and utility-driven contexts. This circulation is what allows NFTs to function as an active asset.
Base, Solana, and Polygon form a second tier, each capturing between 7% and 9% of total volume.
At the same time, creators and platforms moved their reliance on NFTs as the sole primitive and business model. Zora, for example, moved away from NFT-based posts toward ERC-20 post assets that can be accumulated, traded, and used as an incentive system.
Major marketplaces, most notably OpenSea and Magic Eden, also began to position themselves as asset venues by expanding beyond NFT listings into token trading and general market features.
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Where are we headed from here?
What continues to compound is the use of NFTs as programmable objects within products, such as ownership, access, identity, inventory, and rights management. The following use cases will thrive this year and moving forward.
→ NFTs as programmable assets
Tokenised positions, evolving content formats, and identity-linked assets all fall into this category. Programmability enables composability at the product layer. NFTs that carry executable logic can interact with multiple platforms without requiring each platform to rebuild integration from scratch.
A character NFT that stores attributes, equipment, and progress on-chain can theoretically be recognised by different games using the same standard. A loyalty NFT from one brand can trigger discounts in another's ecosystem if both honour the same protocol.
So utility becomes the anchor, and price becomes a side effect rather than the purpose. Secondary markets will still exist, but they no longer define how NFTs are designed or why they are used.
→ Gaming as the distribution engine
Gaming remains a good and viable path to scale, for operational reasons rather than narrative ones. It consistently adopts whatever improves retention and monetisation.
By design, games already revolve around ownership, progression, and tradable value. Players understand inventories, rare items, and the idea that what is earned in one session carries forward into the next. NFTs extend these familiar mechanics by making inventories portable, items persistently owned, and progression verifiable outside the game itself.
As standards mature, gaming becomes a major driver of on-chain activity, reflecting where adoption typically emerges first: inside products people already use every day.
→ Identity and access users understand
Crypto-native projects grow from communities already familiar with digital assets and comfortable with the risks involved, but mainstream brand customers, by contrast, understand loyalty programs, limited releases, and fan experiences, but they do not expect these to involve blockchain. As a result, announcements of NFTs from traditional brands can be met with scepticism.
Access-based NFTs can offer a more practical solution. A good use case is a ticket that grants entry to an event, a membership that unlocks content or early access, or a credential that proves status or identity.
These NFTs do not need rising prices or active trading to be useful. They work even if they are never resold. The buyer receives something they already understand: access, proof, or permission.
In this model, the entire blockchain stack is abstracted, and value comes from what the NFT does, not what it might be worth later.
→ IP Strategy and Brand Control
The maturation of NFT projects has brought intellectual property into focus. Prior to this moment, ownership of an NFT did not always include clear rights to the underlying image, character, or brand. Some projects granted full commercial rights to holders, while others reserved all rights for the creators.
Today, projects that aim to create long-term value are adopting IP strategies similar to those used in traditional media. They define who owns what, clarify which rights transfer with token ownership, and outline how the brand can be used commercially.
This means considering licensing opportunities, maintaining narrative continuity, and controlling distribution. It means thinking like a franchise, and we are off to a good start.
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How to Build an NFT Collection That Lasts
The future of NFTs will be driven by utility rather than hype. Collections that survive long term will be the ones that connect directly to real use cases. NFTs should function as tools for access, ownership, credentials, or distribution within products and platforms.

When a token supports practical outcomes instead of speculation alone, it has a stronger reason to exist and a better chance of retaining value.
Longevity also depends on the full user experience. Projects need to design beyond visuals and minting mechanics. This includes secure infrastructure, reliable systems, and ongoing user support.
Each NFT should deliver clear and measurable value to the holder, and that value must remain relevant as the product evolves.
Clear communication is just as important as technical design. Projects must be able to explain what their NFTs do, why they matter, and who they are for. This applies to users, partners, and regulators alike. Trust is built through clarity and consistency. NFT collections that focus on utility, transparency, and real-world relevance are more likely to build lasting communities

Owning a skyscraper or any valuable real world asset does not have to mean buying the entire building. With blockchain technology, you can represent ownership digitally through tokenization.
So what is tokenization?
Real-world asset tokenization means taking something valuable that exists outside the blockchain, such as a building (or our skyscraper 😌), a gold bar, a bond, or artwork, and representing it as a digital token on a blockchain.

Instead of ownership being recorded on paper or inside a private database, it is recorded as a digital token. Each token represents a share of ownership or the right to receive income from that asset.
What matters is that you own it , and there is proof of that ownership.
Once it’s on the blockchain, you can split it into fractions so more people can invest. You can transfer it in minutes instead of waiting days for settlement like conventional traditional finance.

And you can program it with smart contracts so dividends, interest, or income from rents are paid out automatically.
If you’ve spent time in crypto, you may have already used a form of tokenized assets with or without realizing it. Stablecoins like USDT or USDC are digital tokens that represent a real U.S. dollar, backed by reserves such as cash or government bonds.
They are essentially tokenized dollars.
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How assets are tokenized?
Just a few days back, @CZ hostes an Ama session, and while responding to one of the questions he mentioned that minerals like salts, water are right now being tokenized. I'll get to that in another article.

The tokenization process follows a process:
Step 1: Choose Your Asset and Figure Out Its Worth
Everything starts with picking an asset and determining its real value. Say you want to tokenize an office building.
You'd hire experts to inspect the property, check comparable sales in the area, and calculate how much rent it generates each month.
If you're tokenizing a commodity like salt, you'd verify the quantity you have, test its quality, and confirm it's being stored safely. The goal is to nail down an accurate, trustworthy value before creating any digital tokens.

Step 2: Build the Legal Foundation
You need to create a legal structure that officially connects your digital token to the real-world asset.
Typically, this means setting up a special company or trust that owns the asset legally. Your tokens then represent shares in that company; like your receipts proving you own part of that asset.
Legal documents spell out exactly what rights you get as a token holder, your ownership percentage, whether you can vote on important decisions, how you'll receive income, and what happens if things go wrong or you want to cash out.

Step 3: Create the Smart Contract
A smart contract is a piece of self executing code that lives on a blockchain and controls everything about the tokens.
This contract determines the total number of tokens that will exist, sets the rules for who can own them, and defines how they can be transferred from person to person.
The smart contract can also handle payments automatically. Let's say your tokenized office building collects $20,000 in rent this month, and you own 5% of the tokens. The contract can instantly send $1,000 to your wallet without anyone having to manually calculate it, write a check, or process a bank transfer.

Step 4: Secure the Physical Asset
While all of this is happening on the bockchain, someone still needs to look after the actual physical asset. This job goes to a custodian, usually a bank, trust company, or an asset manager.
The custodian is responsible for keeping the asset safe, insured, and well-maintained. If it's real estate, they handle repairs, deal with tenants, and make sure the property doesn't fall apart.
If it's gold bars, they store them in high-security vaults and conduct regular audits to prove everything is accounted for.
The physical asset has to stay safe with the custodian, while your ownership is tracked on the blockchain through your tokens.

Step 5: Distribute Tokens and Track Ownership
Finally, the tokens are created and given out to investors. Once tokens get into your wallet, the blockchain creates a permanent, proof record that you own them.
You can check your ownership balance anytime. You receive income automatically based on your token holdings, and also sell your tokens to someone else.
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Difference between asset tokenization and RWA tokenization
Asset tokenization is a broad term that covers both digital and physical assets. RWA tokenization focuses specifically on real-world assets like property, commodities, or bonds.
In practice, most discussions around tokenization today refer to RWAs because they connect blockchain systems to traditional finance.
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Why Tokenization Is Such a Big Deal

1. It Makes Expensive Assets Affordable:
Tokenization breaks down massive, expensive assets into affordable pieces. Instead of needing $5 million to buy an entire commercial building, you could invest $100 and own a tiny fraction of it.
A $1 million property can be divided into one million tokens worth $1 each, letting ordinary people invest in assets that were previously only available to the wealthy.

2. It Turns Frozen Money Into Liquid Assets:
Real estate and private equity are notoriously illiquid, meaning they're hard to sell quickly.
Tokenization changes that by creating smaller, tradable units.
Instead of waiting months to find a buyer for an entire property and going through complicated legal processes, you can potentially sell your tokens in minutes, just like trading stocks.

3. It Cuts Out the Middlemen:
Blockchain technology automates record-keeping, ownership transfers, and settlements.
This reduces the need for banks, brokers, lawyers, and other intermediaries who traditionally take fees at every step.
Fewer middlemen means lower costs and faster transactions.

4. It Makes Everything Transparent:
Every ownership change and transaction gets recorded on a shared blockchain ledger that anyone can verify.
This transparency makes it much harder to commit fraud and easier to prove who owns what.
No more digging through file cabinets or trusting that some bank's database is accurate.
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The Risks that lie in tokenization
Tokenization is not exactly perfect. Like any emerging technology, it comes with real challenges and risks that investors need to understand before getting involved.
One major issue is regulation. Regulation and compliance differ from country to country, and in many places, the laws around crypto assets are still developing.
A tokenized asset may be treated as a security in one jurisdiction, which means it must follow strict financial regulations similar to stocks and bonds. This can require registration with authorities, regular reporting, and strong investor protection measures.
These processes are often expensive and slow. In some regions, the legal situation is so unclear that companies avoid tokenizing assets because they do not want to risk breaking laws that are not yet clearly defined.
Another challenge is legal ownership. Just because a blockchain shows that you own a token does not automatically mean the legal system recognizes that ownership. A token represents rights, but those rights must be enforceable outside the blockchain.
If a dispute happens, such as a custodian failing or someone contesting ownership, courts must recognize the token as valid proof. In many countries, this is still uncertain.
The strength of your ownership depends on how well the legal documents connect the token to the real asset. If those documents are weak or untested, the token may not hold much weight in a legal case.
There are also technical risks. Smart contracts and wallets are not risk-free. Smart contracts are written by people, which means they can contain mistakes. If there is a flaw in the code, attackers can exploit it and steal funds. This has happened many times in the crypto space.
Wallets can also be compromised if users lose their private keys or fall for phishing attacks. Unlike banks, blockchain systems cannot reverse transactions. Once tokens are stolen, they are usually gone permanently.
Liquidity is another concern. Tokenizing an asset does not guarantee that it can be sold easily. Liquidity depends on having enough buyers and sellers. If the asset is something with limited demand, such as a small commercial building in a less active market, there may be very few people willing to buy the tokens.
In that case, the investor may still be stuck holding an asset that is difficult to exit. Tokenization can improve liquidity, but only when there is real market participation.
Privacy is also an issue. Most blockchains are public, which means transactions and wallet balances can be viewed by anyone. While this improves transparency, it also exposes financial activity.
If a wallet address is linked to a real person or company, others can track what assets they own and how they trade. Which explains the tweet CZ made yesterday.

For some investors, especially large institutions or high-net-worth individuals, this level of visibility is not acceptable. Privacy-focused blockchains exist, but they are not widely used and can limit access to markets and platforms.
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Today, the total on-chain RWA value is estimated at approximately $21.35 billion, with some projections suggesting it could reach $50 billion by the end of the year if current trends persist.
Anyone considering tokenized assets needs to understand both the opportunities and the limitations before making decisions.
You can check out the ecosystem map below to see platforms that can help you tokenize a real world asset, or buy already tokenized assets.

Thanks for reading through, do leave a like. ✨

This might come as a shock, but I just discovered a chain where 99.47% of all NFT collections are dead, and by dead, I mean not a single one has crossed 1,000+ trades in the last three months.
The popular claim around CT is that 96% of NFTs are worthless. That’s a cold statement if you ask me.
So I decided to dig deeper, and what I found was wild 👇🏻
→ Polygon: 31 active collections
→ Base: 102 active collections
→ Arbitrum: 10 active collections
→ Ethereum: the “healthiest,” with 111 active collections, yet those few alone account for 63.17% of all ETH NFT trading volume.
Generally, it might not look so good, but I also found some collections worth checking out.

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Let’s start this way, the analysis was done across five major chains: Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon.
A few of these chains have strong use cases and impressive daily trading volumes. But then, as much as Solana pulls in a lot of volume daily and some really good MVP launches almost every other week, its NFT space still has a lot of work to do.

Out of 399,981 NFT collections, not a single one has crossed 1,000 trades in the last 90 days. In fact, the highest trade count on Solana doesn’t even reach that mark.
The stats on the other chains are slightly better — but only just.

I'll leave a disclaimer here, this article is in no way trying to fud any project or chain, but to simply show you what the data says and how to do it better.I also have an article ready for how to build NFTs that last, and how to spot thosse kind of NFTs. I'll probably put it up tomorrow.
But let's get back to this. 🙂
Now, even though a vast majority of these collections are dead, a few are still doing quite well, accounting for most of the volume in the entire sector.
Two chains, in particular, stand out in terms of the depth of liquidity flowing in:
→ Ethereum: $730.2M
→ Base: $171.7M
That’s a lot of money if you as me. 🤧
Taking a deeper look, you’d notice something, Base’s top collection, “DX Terminal,” recorded over 2.57 million trades, generating $64.69M in volume.
However, Base’s average sale prices for these high-volume collections are significantly lower compared to that of Ethereum (for example, $20.06 for DX Terminal).
Almost seems like a farming activity, perhaps for an airdrop.

And whenever you start noticing that kind of flow and attention, it usually means there’s more to it than the obvious.
One of the collections leading the charge in liquidity flow right now is Moonbirds.
A few days before the end of April, its floor was around 0.7 ETH, and now it has already crossed 3 ETH.
We can break this price move into three stages:
~ After the Doodles token launch, Orangecaps and the Moonbirds team dropped a few hints that a Moonbirds token might be on the way.
~ By August, the floor climbed to around 1.4 ETH. Then came the official token confirmation and a listing on the Kaito leaderboard, which pushed the floor to roughly 1.7–2 ETH.
~ About two months after the Kaito launch, the floor doubled again — that’s when they finally announced the token ticker: $BIRB
They currently have three NFT collections: Moonbirds, Moonbird Mythics, and Moonbird Oddities.

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Now I also spotted a rare event. The idea of an NFT collection staying quiet for a while and then suddenly coming back to life rarely happens.
I checked for collections that had less than 100 trades in the previous two months but started showing strong activity in the last 30 days. Only a few made the cut.
One that really stood out was Art Blocks, it went from 0 trades to 530 in just a month, with over $4M in volume.

In conclusion, most NFTs are not exactly dead. The truth is that a lot of them were launched mainly on speculation. Because of that, it was easy for them to rise during a particular period and then tank after a while.
However, the new NFTs coming out now and those ones that have stood strong amidst the bear market, have specific use cases, and because of those use cases, they tend to last beyond the normal conventional rise and drop time.
I will speak more about this in my next article. Look out for it.

The largest blockchain success story you've probably overlooked is processing more daily transactions than most layer 1s combined. It has had zero downtime since inception, holds about 42% of all USDT supply, and settles close to eight trillion dollars every year.

Running at that scale and still keeping users loyal is impressive. But how was it built, and how did it keep growing?
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The First Mover Advantage
Tron’s rise as the dominant network for USDT and stablecoin payments is rooted largely in timing and execution. It was founded around 2017 and became a mainnet Layer 1 blockchain closer to 2018, and integrated USDT around the same time which have it a powerful first mover advantage.
But first mover advantage alone doesn't explain Tron's sustained success.
What truly set Tron apart was the strategic decision to put digitized dollars (USDT) directly in front of the masses of merchants across Asia Pacific.
This grassroots approach allowed people to send money across borders using a liquid dollar reserve, and the organic traction from this specific deployment naturally spread to other emerging markets.
The formula was to combine the tech stack with proper business development and marketing execution.
To do this, execution has to be right.. or somewhere largely close to getting it right.
Now that had its costs, but it was well worth it. It ended up creating stickiness and adoption that has proven difficult for competitors to replicate, even till date. The result is a network that processes billions of dollars in settlement transactions on a monthly basis, with continuing growth trajectory year over year.
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Solving Real World Payment Friction
The global payments industry is massive, with hundreds of trillions of dollars flowing through business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer, and consumer to business corridors.
Yet legacy payment rails are largely expensive, slow, and inefficient, particularly for cross border transactions.
The prefunded bank account problem alone represents approximately $5 trillion in locked capital.
Consider a typical cross border payment scenario. A payment service provider processing a transaction from Nigeria to Turkey must maintain prefunded bank accounts in both countries.
They need to convert Nigerian Naira to US dollars, transfer those dollars, and then convert to Turkish Lira.
Now each step of this process involves fees, delays, and capital requirements. If the transaction occurs over a weekend, the delays multiply. The labour, slow settlement times, and risk appetite requirements of legacy institutions make this process prohibitively expensive.
You would notice that the typical Tron user is not a speculative trader, they're basically using stablecoins for payments and access to financial services.
The chain has a recurring user base, with demographics largely in:
Africa Asia Pacific (APAC) &Latin America (LATAM)
These users rely on Tron based stablecoins to bypass slow and costly banking systems. This is less about trading and more about utility.
I wrote out five lessons from all of my study on these strategies, and utility is the second. You'll find them all at the last section of the article, do read through. ✨
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Beyond US Dollars: The Future of Tokenized Assets
While US dollar denominated stablecoins will naturally maintain bias due to the dollar's status as the global reserve currency, Tron is actively working to introduce other types of real world assets. This includes non US dollar stablecoins and additional non fiat real world assets.
The strategy recognizes that foreign exchange markets are enormous, with the ten most active currency pairs doing hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars in volume annually.
The use case for tokenized local currencies becomes clear when examining foreign exchange sourcing and hedging.
If someone wants to send money from the United States to Nigeria, they likely want the recipient to receive Nigerian Naira, not US dollars.
Using USDT as the liquid intermediary layer makes sense because of its natural liquidity, but the last mile payment still requires local currency conversion. Foreign exchange companies that provide these local exchanges are increasingly gaining access to USDT on Tron, receiving digital dollars and providing paper cash in local denominations.
This model can extend to non US dollar backed fiat stablecoins, particularly for moving money faster between currency pairs that lack direct market liquidity.
The future roadmaps integrates not just multiple stablecoin types, but deeper DeFi integration and expanded partnerships with payment service providers who are naturally beginning to examine how they can incorporate tokenized assets into their business models.
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A Record Breaking Year and the Road Ahead
Tron broke $1 billion in revenue in a single quarter, and it seems like the first protocol ever to achieve this.

The price of TRX increased 22.75% year over year, one of the few coins that posted positive returns in a year when the total crypto market cap declined approximately 10%.

Stablecoin market cap on Tron grew roughly 40% year over year, reflecting the continued organic adoption of the network for real world use cases.

Perhaps most significantly, TRX has maintained a deflationary trend for an extended period, with only a minimal reversal in the fourth quarter. This deflationary pressure, combined with increasing usage metrics, suggests a network that is genuinely being utilized rather than simply speculated upon.

Strategic integrations with companies like Revolut and Ledger Live have made TRX and USDT more accessible than ever before. Revolut, operating as a neo bank serving web2 focused individuals, eliminated fees up to a certain cap for USDT to USD conversions, saving significant money for larger clients and everyday users alike. Ledger's integration extends to their business platform, improving the user experience for those delving into cryptocurrency and web3.
Now let's go to the lessons to learn, which is more like my favourite part. 😌👇🏻
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The Lessons to Learn
→ Lesson One: First Mover Advantage Only Matters If You Execute
Being early gave Tron a foothold, but execution is what turned timing into dominance. Many projects had similar timing and even had an edge, but because of certain factors, they were not able to max bid on it.
Execution has to be right, or at least close to getting it right.

→ Lesson Two: Build Products That People Actually Need, Not Just Problems You Can Solve
The typical Tron user is not a speculative trader. They are mostly using stablecoins for payments and access to financial services. It tells you that their activity is more about utility.
When you are building products, it is important that you build products that people actually need, not just products that solve problems. You can solve a problem, yes, but it might not be the problem people truly need solved.
So ensure that every product you are building is the kind of product people need and solutions people actually want. This is something you have to study. You need to check, run surveys, and talk to users to get the right idea of what you want to build.

→ Lesson 3: Distribution Matters, but User Experience Must Come First
Getting your product into the hands of users requires strategic partnerships, true, but let's consider this.
When you are building Web3 apps, it is important to clearly define your audience. If your audience is mostly crypto native users, then most of your users will also be crypto native.
But if your audience is global, then there is a lot of abstraction you need to do and a lot of user experience you need to work on.
For instance, most people are not familiar with infrastructure wallets or key tech stacks that crypto users are used to. These are not things they are largely familiar with. So there has to be abstraction. There has to be social logins instead of saving seed phrases and dealing with wallet setups.

→ Lesson 4: Focus on Sustainable Metrics
When trying to build and scale your product, it is important to pay attention to the right metrics. There are conventional metrics like TVL and market cap. These metrics are useful, but only to a level.
If you are not measuring scalability, adoption, and user segmentation, then you are missing what truly matters. You need to track retention.
There are users who use your product for thirty days and then stop. There are users who use it for sixty days and never return. There are users who only come on the first day because of an incentive like an airdrop and then ghost you afterwards.
So you need to measure retention over thirty days, sixty days, one year, two years, and even three years. Do you have a core user base that keeps coming back?
It is also important to understand that having many wallets does not mean having many users. You need to define what a real user is. Is there a segmented demographic that consistently interacts with your product?
Once you define this user segmentation, you can prioritize and iterate your product to properly fit that specific market and demographic.

→ Lesson Five: Optimize and Iterate Through Continuous User Feedback
While building products, it is important to actively reach out to users. Without doing this, you will not clearly understand their pain points or what they want to see added to your app.
If you do not listen, someone else can come with a better solution that feels cheaper and more useful to them.
A user will not pay two dollars for something when they can pay fifty cents elsewhere.
Loyalty can be fragile. If users find something better, they will move.
That is why feedback matters. By getting feedback from users, you can iterate your product and scale it in a way that improves product market fit over time. This is how you build something people depend on daily.

Thanks for reading through. Kindly drop a like. 🙂✨

The popular claim that human attention spans are shrinking to less than that of a goldfish is a convenient narrative, yet it does not withstand scrutiny, because the evidence suggests not that our capacity for focus has diminished, but that we have become increasingly selective about what deserves our time and focus.
This adaptability creates attention capital markets, where human focus becomes the new form of value instead of money.
It has been unfolding for years as the internet learned how to price human focus. Social platforms like TikTok make this visible, turning captured attention into revenue with industrial efficiency. Yet the window for engagement has compressed to mere seconds. As AI lowers content production costs, attention paradoxically becomes scarcer, driving its value higher.

From Cash Flow to Attention
Traditional finance recognises two core asset types:
Cash Flow Assets — equities and bonds generating investor returns through earningsSupply & Demand Assets — commodities and currencies whose prices respond to market dynamics.
Crypto has added a third category of assets to markets: one valued on attention. These attention assets such as NFTs, creator coins, and memecoins act as cultural focal points, with prices rising and falling alongside public interest and narrative momentum.
The value of any such asset is determined by two forces: fundamentals and attention. In the case of memecoins, almost all of the value comes from attention, with little or no underlying fundamentals. They matter culturally but lack financial depth or structure.
A more mature form of Attention Asset would provide direct exposure to measurable human focus and reward traders for identifying when that focus is mispriced.
If markets could trade attention itself, they would begin to aggregate collective beliefs about what will capture human interest next.
Over time, this would turn fragmented opinions into shared forecasts about attention flows. Properly designed, Attention Assets could grow beyond memes and speculation and emerge as a credible new asset class built around one of the scarcest resources of the digital age.
Memecoins already offer a primitive version of this idea by enabling speculation on attention. Market capitalisation tends to follow engagement: when a token trends socially, its price usually follows. While insiders and market structure create distortions, the relationship between visibility and valuation generally holds.
As attention spans shrink, speculation accelerates. Early memecoin cycles lasted months or even years; Dog Wif Hat sustained relevance for six months. Other tokens, like Libra, reached billion-dollar valuations and collapsed within hours. This mirrors broader internet dynamics, where engagement windows continue to compress and capital rotates faster.
Token creation is approaching an inflection point.

Launch volumes rise steadily, resembling the early trajectory of platforms like YouTube as they moved from gradual to exponential content production.
These conditions favour speculative consumer applications built on attention assets. Platforms illustrate this convergence by linking token performance directly to viewer engagement, turning any stream into a tradable signal of interest and blending entertainment, speculation, and product design.
Because of this, competition between platforms increasingly revolves around capturing and sustaining attention. Growth becomes a contest for mental real estate rather than physical resources. Platforms no longer monetise only transactions; they monetise participation, time, and focus, treating attention with the seriousness once reserved for commodities.
________________
Capturing Attention is Not the Same as Keeping It
Sustained engagement depends on balancing activation, retention, and reactivation. Capturing attention is not the same as keeping it.
Retention data reveals this. A six-month creator retention rate of 67% appears healthy at first glance, yet closer inspection shows that many creators remain active only out of necessity and not conviction.

These creators repeatedly launch new tokens in search of a breakthrough. This behaviour becomes visible in graduation data, which has been declining over time.
At the same time, the number of tokens launched per creator reached record levels, peaking at 3.25. Token graduation marks the moment a token attracts community and liquidity. When graduation rates decline while creation accelerates, it suggests that buyers are becoming cautious as creators grow more aggressive.
Market contraction produces high-churn behaviour that resembles gambling more than sustainable product building.
Market sentiment ultimately governs these cycles. Periods of rising SOL prices and abundant liquidity align with spikes in token creation and speculation.
________________
Creator Capital Markets
Creator Capital Markets turn influence into an asset. They give streamers and influencers tools to tokenize their audiences so engagement can be owned and traded.
Streamer tokens tie value to fan interaction, allowing supporters to buy into a creator’s growth rather than merely watch it.
Early results show strong demand. Some streamer tokens reached market caps in the tens of millions, while creator activity increased after launch. Daily earnings from these tokens now compete with platforms like Twitch and Kick, and the payout structure favours creators instead of middlemen.

For fans, this changes what participation means. Instead of being passive viewers, they become stakeholders who benefit when a creator grows. As popularity rises, token demand increases, rewarding people who supported the creator early.
Loyalty, attention, and financial incentives become part of the same loop, making it possible to invest in emerging creators before they become mainstream.
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Building Attention Oracles
Attention, as valuable as it is, is also difficult to measure accurately. To trade it as an asset, markets need attention oracles—tools that convert engagement data into tradable values for long and short positions.
Without reliable measurement, attention-based markets cannot function, and prices can be vulnerable to manipulation.
Social media metrics alone are insufficient.
They can be easily gamed, and raw follower counts, likes, or mentions do not scale linearly with actual engagement. Global fanbases are spread across multiple platforms, making it hard to capture attention comprehensively.
Goodhart’s Law highlights the risk: once attention becomes a target for trading, the very metrics designed to track it can be distorted.
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Prediction Markets as a Solution
One effective approach is to use binary prediction markets to build attention oracles.
Markets can be created around specific events or milestones, such as follower counts, awards, or other high-profile achievements, and then aggregated into an attention index.
Each market is weighted by liquidity, significance, and time to resolution to approximate the overall attention level.
Prediction markets also allow hedging. Traders can balance short positions on an attention index with long positions in its constituent markets, creating more stability and reducing arbitrage opportunities.
Design Considerations
Constructing a robust attention oracle requires balancing four factors:
Input relevance – Does the data accurately reflect attention?Acquisition practicality – Can it be collected efficiently?Manipulation resistance – Can the metric be gamed?Aggregation methodology – How should diverse inputs be combined?
Prediction market approaches work best for high-profile subjects with active and liquid markets, such as celebrities or public figures.
However, attention often flows unpredictably: LeBron losing a championship might spike discussions about age or performance, increasing attention even as the index falls. Real-world attention is dynamic, and markets must account for these discrepancies.
Hybrid Approaches
Optimal attention oracles likely combine multiple sources. Social metrics, Google Trends search volumes, and LLM analysis of news and trending content can all feed into the index. Machine learning can filter spam or irrelevant signals, producing a cleaner measure of actual focus.
____________________
Real-World Platforms and Attention Capital Markets
Platforms like KaitoAI quantified quality CT attention, which led to the rise of InfoFi, where market forces determine where attention should flow instead of traditional social media algorithms.
Similarly, Wallchain is building for AttentionFi, and Noise.xyz will leverage Kaito’s mindshare data, allowing anyone to long or short attention trends.
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The Everything Social App
This right here is why I am particularly have my eyes on @Binance Square Official
The next generation of social applications is converging streaming, feeds, tipping, and interactivity into a single onchain ecosystem.
Every interaction can connect to token flows and digital wallets, linking social identity with economic participation. In this landscape, attention is the ultimate scarce resource, creating defensible advantages for platforms that can capture and sustain it.
Mechanisms that once fuelled speculation now support circular creator economies, turning engagement into measurable value.
Attention capital markets are driving verticalisation, similar to how fintech unbundled banks. Consumer applications will fragment into specialised verticals—idea-focused launches, music platforms, and creator-specific systems.
While memecoins and attention assets persist, integration of focus into consumer products is deepening. AI and low-code development reduce production costs, making token-coupled app launches viable.
Attention → Emotion → Action → Retention
Applications can achieve viral growth, generate attention and revenue, and then gracefully exit, which is a repeatable and economically sustainable cycle.
__________
Investment and Market Implications
For investors, the rise of creator capital markets marks the next frontier after DeFi and tokenisation: the tokenisation of human capital. These markets allow both retail and institutional participants to gain exposure to cultural production, turning creators into investable assets.

If this model scales, it could expand across music, gaming, sports, and other creative industries, with tokens representing fractional ownership of influence, intellectual property, or digital revenue streams. Essentially, it is a high-beta bet on the financialization of creativity itself.
Risks remain, from regulatory scrutiny to speculative saturation, but the trajectory is clear: attention has emerged as an asset class, and infrastructure is developing to support its trading and monetisation.

Building a payment product for stablecoins requires a sharp focus on the US dollar. Unlike other digital assets, stablecoins are primarily used as a proxy for cash, and their value proposition hinges on trust, liquidity, and speed.
Institutions are drawn to stablecoins not for speculation alone but because they provide immediate settlement, transparent transaction records, and lower costs for cross-border payments.

They are particularly attractive in markets where access to traditional US banking is limited, offering both efficiency and inclusivity.
Stablecoins democratize access to the US dollar, creating a bridge for underbanked populations. They allow users to hold dollar-denominated assets while also tapping into yield opportunities in decentralized finance markets.
This dual function—access to stable value and potential returns—positions stablecoins as both a financial utility and a strategic instrument, aligning with broader economic interests. As demand grows, it could also strengthen the global influence of the US dollar.
Within the stablecoin economy, two major players dominate:
USDC and Tether.
While USDC primarily serves domestic markets in the United States and Europe, Tether has emerged as the global standard. Its widespread adoption in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia highlights the importance of network effects in payments.
Institutions seeking a reliable and broadly accepted digital dollar often find Tether’s reach and liquidity unmatched. For a global stablecoin payment product, focusing on USD-denominated assets is not optional—it is essential.
Existing blockchain infrastructures, however, pose limitations for payment-focused applications. Ethereum, while secure and decentralized, is often too costly and slow for high-volume transactions.

Tron offers faster and cheaper transfers but has legacy constraints and uneven trust among users. These gaps motivated the development of Plasma, a purpose-built blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin payments.
________________________________

Plasma prioritizes fast, low-cost, and gasless transfers for USDT, ensuring that sending money is seamless and efficient. Beyond speed and cost, the chain addresses privacy, regulatory compliance, and liquidity management. Its architecture separates transaction validation into specialized validator sets, enabling smooth and secure payment flows while preventing network spam.
Plasma also leverages Bitcoin’s security through bridging and state proofs, providing an added layer of trust and immutability.
The path to adoption is deliberate and strategic. Plasma targets both crypto-native users and local payment infrastructures, especially in regions with high stablecoin usage. By embedding itself into existing financial flows and building strong partnerships, Plasma seeks to become a practical alternative to legacy systems without relying on a broad but superficial deployment of protocols. Its goal is not merely to exist but to deliver meaningful value to users and institutions alike.
The business model emphasizes decentralization over profit extraction. Plasma is designed to be governed by the community, gradually transitioning control to users while maintaining network integrity. This approach mirrors the broader philosophy of blockchain: value creation through utility, trust, and distributed governance rather than centralized control.
Looking ahead, @Plasma is positioned to redefine how stablecoins are used for payments. By combining speed, privacy, global reach, and a user-centric architecture, it addresses key limitations of existing chains while unlocking new opportunities for institutional and retail users.
The project shows that purpose-built infrastructure, when aligned with a clear use case and market need, can drive both adoption and innovation in the stablecoin economy.

#Plasma $XPL

Like the internet is a protocol for connecting all computers and a way for them to communicate, LayerZero is a protocol establishing a way for blockchains to communicate or send state data between each other.
The core design principles at the root of every design decision made within LayerZero are that this infrastructure must be
ImmutableCensorship resistantFully permissionless.
Anyone can interact directly with LayerZero. Any smart contract and any user can use it without restriction.

The protocol has a permanent on-chain state. Even if all current operators shut down their infrastructure, new participants can take over and run it. It will always remain available to be operated by anyone.

One of the cool use cases is seen in bridges.

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The Crosschain Use Case
Historically, bridges became highly valuable because they allowed goods and services to coordinate across regions, which naturally led to financial systems forming around them.
Cross-chain infrastructure follows the same pattern. Developers and users must make trade-offs based on which chain they interact with, and each chain would usually have factors like finality, block time, and transaction costs come into play. While transferring assets from one chain to another looks like movement, in reality, it is simply a change in ledger state. In a cross-chain setting, this process becomes complex because each blockchain operates independently and has no visibility into the others.

To move assets safely, the system must verify that funds were deducted on the source chain before instructing the destination chain to credit them. If a receive call can be executed without confirmation from the origin chain, the protocol can be compromised. This risk led to tightly controlled bridge designs, centralized operators, or trusted intermediary chains. When those fail, every application that depends on them also fails.
Let's look at it like this..
Think of cross-chain like two islands in the ocean that cannot see or talk to each other. When you move assets from Island A to Island B, nothing is actually travelling across the water. What really happens is that the balance on Island A is reduced, and the balance on Island B is increased. For this to be safe, Island B must be sure that the assets were truly deducted on Island A.
If Island B allows anyone to say “the funds were removed” without proof from Island A, the system can be abused, and the assets can be created out of thin air. That is why early bridges relied on a single harbour master, a small group of trusted guards, or a central checkpoint to confirm movements between islands. When that checkpoint fails, every village that depends on it is put at risk.
Cross-chain is like two isolated islands connected by a fragile dock. If an attacker controls the dock, the second island can be drained. And if the dock can be changed or destroyed, the island’s survival is also threatened.

LayerZero replaces this centralized bridge gateway with a distributed, permissionless, and verifiable network that guarantees cross-chain messages are secure, reliable, and resistant to censorship or single points of failure.

________________________________
Understanding the Stack
Every blockchain that connects to LayerZero hosts an endpoint, essentially a smart contract that communicates with the protocol. Endpoints act as the entry and exit points for messages on each chain. They are responsible for passing instructions and data between different blockchains, enabling a seamless flow of information across the ecosystem.
Attached to each endpoint is a Message Library, or MessageLib. These libraries manage how messages are sent and verified across chains. Once a MessageLib is deployed, it remains permanent, which allows LayerZero to introduce updates without removing older versions. Developers can choose whether to use the older or newer libraries, providing flexibility similar to how software updates are handled in traditional applications.
While endpoints and message libraries manage onchain communication, LayerZero relies on off-chain components for verification:
The oracle andThe relayer.
The oracle retrieves essential transaction data from the source chain, such as block headers or events, and forwards it securely to the destination chain. The relayer, in turn, provides cryptographic proof that the data delivered by the oracle is accurate. This two-step verification ensures that no single party can tamper with messages, as both the oracle and relayer would need to collude to compromise a transaction.
It is important to clarify that oracles in LayerZero are not used for external data like price feeds or APIs. Their only job is to fetch transaction details from the source chain. Relayers do more than pass along messages; they independently confirm the integrity of the information as it travels across chains.
Here is how the process works in practice. When a user initiates a transaction on one chain, the oracle retrieves the relevant data and delivers it to the destination chain. The relayer separately sends cryptographic proof confirming the data’s authenticity.
The LayerZero endpoint on the destination chain then compares both inputs. If the oracle’s data matches the relayer’s proof, the message is executed. This approach ensures that cross-chain transactions are only finalized when independently verified, preventing fraud and exploits.

LayerZero V1 introduced this framework with the intention of fully decentralized verification

______________________________
The Security Layer
In V1, theoretically, anyone could run a relayer, allowing the network to operate trustlessly. In practice, however, running a relayer required massive infrastructure, including handling billions of calls per month and ensuring real-time secure execution. As a result, most applications relied on LayerZero Labs’ relayer and trusted oracles such as Chainlink.
Also, the relayer was responsible for both verification and execution. This setup created a single point of potential failure; if the relayer went down, transactions couldn't be processed, leading to bottlenecks, and it would also compromise the trustless vision of the protocol.

LayerZero V2 addressed this limitation with Decentralized Verifier Networks, or DVNs.

Which is the crux of this article, and my most fav part..
Let's get back.

Decentralized Verifier Networks, or DVNs, are the entities responsible for verifying messages sent across chains by applications using LayerZero.
Any system capable of cross-chain data packet verification, including native bridges, third-party bridges, middle chains, and oracles, can register as a DVN in V2. Applications can then choose a unique combination of DVNs to secure their messages, giving them full control over how verification is handled.
Most bridges have some method for listening to the source chain, tracking its state, and writing that state to the destination. DVNs expand on this by offering application flexibility and future-proofing. If a new verification method emerges that is faster, cheaper, or more secure, developers can add it to their applications without being forced into a one size fits all model. This means applications can configure any number and type of verification, ensuring that when improvements arise, they do not need to redeploy contracts or rebuild infrastructure from scratch.
One of the biggest shifts in V2 is the separation of liveness and security. Security now operates as a customizable structure of X of Y of N. For example, an application might define 15 DVNs and set a threshold of nine out of 15 signatures required for a message to be sent across chains.

Applications can also retain veto rights, ensuring that a single verifier or group of colluding networks cannot compromise their messages. This structure gives maximum security by balancing authority and fallback, letting the application owner safeguard their operations while leveraging a decentralized verification network.
With this approach, security in LayerZero V2 becomes completely permissionless. Previously, in V1, running decentralized verification was technically possible but complex and difficult to implement. Now it is implicit in the protocol itself, extremely easy to configure, and compatible with any existing third-party validation network.
Any validator set, messaging protocol, or native bridge can serve as a verifier, making LayerZero V2 a flexible and resilient foundation for cross-chain messaging.

_________________________________
The Big Unlocks
An average observer might consider LayerZero to be just a bridge, but it is gradually becoming the most important infrastructure protocol in crypto. Here is why I think so.
→ Over 150 million messages have moved across the network, connecting more than 130 blockchain networks. With Starknet integration in January 2026, this now covers over 150 ecosystems. LayerZero has facilitated over one hundred billion dollars in digital asset transfers, with $6B moving each month. The network handles roughly 75% of all cross-chain messaging, processing about 1.5 million messages per month. This accounts for nearly three-quarters of all crosschain activity. Competitors like Wormhole and Chainlink CCIP cover fewer chains and operate with very different architectures.

→ LayerZero V2 introduced a modular security model using Decentralized Verifier Networks, or DVNs. Applications no longer rely on a single oracle-relayer pair. Developers can now choose how many verifiers must confirm a transaction, such as two-of-three or three-of-five, and each chain can have its own set of verifiers.
New chains can join without changing the core protocol, and security settings can be customized at the application level. This flexibility allows developers to future-proof their apps without redeploying contracts or altering underlying infrastructure.
→ Efficiency and user experience have also improved. V2 reduces latency and resource costs for cross-chain messaging. For users, this means faster and more reliable interactions. For decentralized applications, it enables smoother onboarding, higher engagement, and stronger retention. Protocols can grow confidently, knowing that their infrastructure scales with both users and transactions.
→ Institutional confidence is also building. A16z's $55M ZRO token purchase also shows a belief that omnichain messaging is becoming foundational infrastructure.
__________________________________
LayerZero 2026 Outlook
LayerZero aims to capture the omnichain boom, connecting over 500 chains and facilitating more than $500 billion in cross-chain transfers. Key areas of focus include zero-knowledge verifiers, sustainable economic incentives, and modular cross-protocol interoperability.
Omnichain Pivot
As chain abstraction grows, LayerZero scales through zero-knowledge proof verifiers, enabling trustless, high-speed cross-chain messaging. By 2026, this could add over 50% more chains, surpassing 200, and drive $200 billion or more in transfers via enhanced Stargate and Somnia integrations. These developments enable seamless asset flows for autonomous DeFi protocols and gaming ecosystems.Sustainable Incentives
Post-token unlock, LayerZero is stabilizing the ecosystem through strategic buybacks that tie fees to $ZRO scarcity. Staking yields are targeted at 8 to 10%, encouraging relayer participation and supporting modular network growth. Estimated relayer engagement could increase by 15%, further strengthening crosschain reliability.Interoperability
LayerZero is evolving toward modular messaging similar to IBC, creating synergy across bridges and integrating securely with networks like Wormhole and Axelar. This hybrid model positions LayerZero as a verification layer for broader ecosystems, potentially increasing total value locked by 30% by the end of 2026.Risks and Mitigation
Regulatory oversight, from the SEC to MiCA, presents challenges for cross-chain messaging. LayerZero is proactively addressing these through compliant APIs aligned with Singaporean and EU frameworks, AML tools, and ESG-focused verifiers. If unmanaged, regulatory risks could reduce volume by up to 10%.

Plasma is a new Layer 1 blockchain built specifically for stablecoins and is going after a trillion dollar opportunity. It is already backed by major names like billionaire Peter Thiel and Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether. Their goal is to build a stablecoin infrastructure for the entire global payment system.
What makes Plasma different and why is it positioned for a big win?
It all comes down to stablecoins, their market opportunity, and the early traction Plasma is already showing.
Plasma chain is purpose built for stablecoins and for creating the infrastructure of a global payment network. It is extremely fast, with around one thousand transactions per second, zero USDT transfer fees, and block times under one second. Being able to move any amount of money across the world for zero dollars is a major technological achievement.
It is EVM compatible, meaning it can plug directly into Ethereum, which has the largest total value locked of any blockchain. This allows Plasma to build a strong DeFi ecosystem immediately. Projects like Aave, Ethena, and Fluid are already committing to building on Plasma.
Plasma can also be thought of as a Bitcoin sidechain because it includes a native Bitcoin bridge. This allows it to access Bitcoin liquidity and bring it into Plasma, enabling users to earn yield and participate in DeFi more easily than before.
It currently supports over one hundred countries and over one hundred currencies, allowing users to send funds globally at zero fees.
One of the most important features is confidential payments. Blockchains are powerful because of their transparency, but that does not fit the use case of a global payment network. Payments need privacy. Plasma is bringing private transactions to blockchain based payments.
____________________
Stablecoins and the Market Opportunity
The question is whether stablecoins are truly a trillion dollar opportunity. I believe they are, and that we are already there. Stablecoins are becoming one of the largest global payment networks in the world. In the last twelve months alone, stablecoins moved over thirty three trillion dollars, more than PayPal and Visa combined.
Stablecoin companies mint one digital dollar for every real dollar deposited and invest those dollars primarily in Treasury bills. This has made them some of the largest holders of US government debt.
Stablecoins succeed because they allow money to move in seconds with very low fees. Compared to traditional systems, which still take days and charge unnecessary costs, stablecoins already feel like modern financial infrastructure.
______________________
Traction and Ecosystem
Plasma’s mainnet went live a couple of months back and is already among the largest blockchains by total value locked, reaching over seven billion dollars. This is remarkable when compared to chains like Base, Arbitrum, and Avalanche.
Before even discussing DeFi or token economics, Plasma’s fundraising model is worth noting. They sold 10% of the supply in a public sale at the same valuation as investors and capped individual participation.
This allowed everyday participants to benefit, not just venture capital. Many early contributors and community members also received significant airdrops, reinforcing community ownership and alignment.
Looking at the Plasma ecosystem, many major protocols are already preparing to deploy. These include leading lending platforms, major stablecoin issuers, and liquidity protocols like Curve and Pendle. Most of these projects operate at the intersection of DeFi and stablecoins, which aligns with Plasma’s purpose built design.
Users can already bridge into Plasma through existing infrastructure and deposit stablecoins into protocols earning yields around 25%. In a volatile market, this is one of the highest yield opportunities available on relatively low risk assets.
@Plasma 's token distribution allocates ten percent to the public, forty percent to growth and investors, and the remainder to team and long term incentives. Public sale participants received immediate liquidity outside the United States, while US participants have a twelve month lockup.
Despite its early traction, Plasma is still ranked outside the top fifty projects by market capitalization. Given its scale, backing, and adoption, it is difficult to justify its current position relative to many older or less relevant projects. This suggests there may still be time to build exposure before broader market recognition.
____________________
Moving Forward
Plasma is not only infrastructure for stablecoins. It is also evolving into a digital bank. Users will be able to hold stablecoins, earn yield on balances, receive cashback, and spend globally through a card, all with zero fee transfers and support across more than one hundred fifty countries.
The most important takeaway is that stablecoins are already the number one real world use case for crypto. Plasma is building the blockchain designed specifically for that reality.
$XPL #Plasma

Whether you are building, investing, or networking, these are the major conferences that can define narratives in 2026.

February 2026
February 9–11: AIBC World
February 10–12: Consensus2026
February 17–21: EthereumDenver
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March – April 2026
Mar 30 – Apr 2: Eth CC
April 15–16: Paris BlockWeek
April 27–29: The Bitcoin Conference
April 29–30: Token2049
____________
May – June 2026
May 5–7: Consensus2026
June 1–3: AIBC World
______________
July – August 2026
July 21–22: Futurist Conference
August 20–2: Coinfest Asia
August 27–28: The Bitcoin Conference
______________
September – October 2026
Sept 29 – Oct 1: KBW Official
October 7–8: Token2049
______________
November – December 2026
November 2–5: AIBC World
November 9–12: WebSummit
November 15–17: Solana Conference
December 2026: The Bitcoin Conference
_______________
2026 (To Be Announced)
2026 – BinanceBC Week
2026 – EFDevcon
_______________

Which ones are on your calendar?
Which events should be added to this list?
This can help you plan your year in crypto, save it and share it with someone who needs it.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are trading in what looks like a correction and reaccumulation phase rather than a clear market top or a deep bear market bottom. Bitcoin is down about one third from its October 2025 all time high of $126,100 after a correction of roughly 36%, but it is still up around four to five times from the 2022 low near $16,000.
2025 ended slightly negative for Bitcoin, which was unusual for a post halving year. This supports the idea that the old four year halving cycle is no longer the main driver of price. Onchain valuation shows Bitcoin trading above its realized price, meaning the average holder is still in profit. This kind of environment is usually linked with consolidation or late cycle pullbacks rather than with major bottoms.
Network activity and fees are both low compared to the past two years. Addresses are still active, but transaction fees in both $BTC and USD are near multi year lows.
Long term holders have slowed their profit taking and only small pockets of capitulation have appeared. Mid sized whales have been selling, while very large holders and corporate treasuries have been more stable.
ETF flows were strongly negative from late 2025 into January 2026, with more than six billion dollars leaving Bitcoin spot ETFs. In early February, there was one very large single day inflow, which may be an early sign that selling pressure is easing.

For Ethereum, usage is high but cheap. Daily active addresses and transactions are close to two year highs, while fees are much lower than average. This is mainly due to network upgrades and the migration of activity to layer two networks.

Almost half of all $ETH is now staked, and another large share sits in institutional funds and corporate treasuries. This locks up a big part of supply and reduces what is freely traded.
Layer two networks such as Base and Arbitrum are growing fast and driving most of the activity, even though they pay relatively little to Ethereum mainnet in fees.
Ethereum still dominates stablecoins and tokenized Treasury assets, but low fee burn has led some traditional finance analysts to question how much value the base layer captures in the short term.
Social and narrative sentiment around ETH remains generally positive, but its price still moves mainly with Bitcoin.

________________________________
How the cycle works today
Bitcoin cycles used to be shaped mostly by the four year halving schedule. That pattern is weaker now because most Bitcoin has already been mined and the reduction in new supply is much smaller than in earlier years. This means demand and market structure matter more than the halving date.
ETFs and institutions have become major forces. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have taken in tens of billions of dollars since launch and now move price through creations and redemptions. Public companies also hold a meaningful share of total supply. Ethereum is following a similar path, with ETH ETFs, staking products and corporate treasuries growing in size.
Macro conditions are also central. The US dollar weakened through 2025 and global liquidity has been improving, which has usually helped risk assets. At the same time, Federal Reserve policy remains a key short term driver. Tightening pushes crypto risk premiums higher, while easing supports demand. In this environment, macro and ETF flows matter more than halving cycles.

_________________________________
Bitcoin cycle position
Bitcoin fell from its October 2025 peak after a strong rally driven by ETFs and macro conditions. Even after the correction, it is still far above the 2022 low. On chain valuation shows Bitcoin trading moderately above its cost basis, not extremely cheap and not extremely expensive.
Network usage is stable, but fees are very low. This suggests demand is present but speculative intensity is reduced. Holder behaviour shows that short term holders are close to break even and long term holders are mostly still in profit but are no longer selling aggressively.
Mid sized whales have reduced holdings, while very large holders and corporate treasuries have stayed fairly steady.
ETF flows were heavily negative into January, which matched falling prices and very weak sentiment. Recently, a large inflow appeared, which may signal a pause in the outflow trend. Social sentiment has swung to extreme fear, and narratives now focus on institutional adoption, currency weakness and skepticism about old cycle models.

Putting this together, Bitcoin looks more like it is in a mid to late cycle correction and reaccumulation zone rather than at a fresh peak or a deep bottom. Further downside is possible, but much of the excess from the previous rally has already been worked off.

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Ethereum structure inside a Bitcoin led cycle
Ethereum shows strong usage but weak direct revenue. Transactions and active addresses are high, while fees and burn are low. Upgrades increased capacity and reduced costs, and most activity now happens on layer two networks.
Despite this, Ethereum’s supply structure is becoming tighter. Nearly half of ETH is staked, and large amounts are held by institutions and corporate treasuries. Staking queues remain long, showing steady demand to lock ETH rather than sell it.

Regulatory clarity and new products have made staking accessible to funds and asset managers.
Layer two networks now drive much of Ethereum’s growth. Some are profitable, while many generate little fee revenue. Ethereum still plays a central role in stablecoins and tokenized Treasuries, which ties it closely to real world financial use.

Sentiment around ETH is constructive. Many see accumulation by medium sized wallets, continued layer two growth and institutional adoption as positive signs.
At the same time, concerns remain about how much value the base layer captures when fees stay low. In the next few months, ETH is likely to follow Bitcoin’s path but with larger swings, supported by staking and real world usage.
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Three possible paths over the next three to six months
Re accumulation and renewed advance

This path assumes a weak or stable dollar, improving liquidity, steady Federal Reserve policy and a return of consistent ETF inflows. On chain metrics would slowly improve without overheating. Bitcoin would grind higher from current levels and could challenge previous highs over time. Ethereum would likely outperform because of staking, layer two growth and ETF adoption.Prolonged digestion

This path assumes mixed macro signals and ETF flows that move in and out without a strong trend. Bitcoin would trade in a wide range as valuation and activity stay near neutral levels. Ethereum would mostly track Bitcoin, with short rallies on network news that fade back into the range. Staking and real usage would provide support but not a strong push higher.Deeper cyclical drawdown

This path assumes renewed macro stress or a new wave of ETF outflows. Bitcoin valuation would compress toward its cost basis and long term holders would begin selling at a loss more often. Usage and fees would likely fall further. Ethereum would probably fall more than Bitcoin in price terms, even though its structure remains strong. Right now, the data lean more toward the first two paths than toward an immediate deeper drawdown. ETF selling has already been heavy, valuation is moderate, and profit taking by long term holders has slowed. Macro conditions remain uncertain, so risk is still present.

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What to watch going forward
For Bitcoin, the main things to monitor are valuation relative to realized price, behaviour of short and long term holders, changes in network fees and transactions, ETF inflows and outflows, and the direction of the dollar and global liquidity.
For Ethereum, the key points are the share of supply being staked, validator queues, institutional and corporate holdings, the balance between layer one and layer two economics, ETH ETF flows, and Ethereum’s role in stablecoins and tokenized assets.
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Conclusion
From a cycle perspective, the current environment looks like a correction and reaccumulation phase within a market driven by institutions, ETFs and macro conditions. Bitcoin shows signs of meaningful cleansing after its 2025 peak but not of full capitulation.
Ethereum rests on strong structural foundations in staking, layer two usage and tokenized assets.
Whether a durable bottom is already in place will depend mainly on macro conditions and ETF flows. Much of the excess appears to have been removed, but the market remains sensitive to policy shifts and liquidity changes.
Tracking the indicators above provides a way to update this view over the next three to six months without relying on old halving based cycle models.

Over the last few months, we have seen a strong rise in onchain perp DEXs, with a good number of them developing their own competitive moats and capturing market share.
In 2025, trading volume on perp DEXs reached a record $12.09 trillion, having reached 65% of total lifetime volume within a single year.
At the most basic level, perpetuals allow people to trade with more money than they hold by using leverage. Someone with $10 can open a position as if they had $200. That is why perps became popular in crypto. They literally give small traders more exposure.
Decibel is one of those DEXs. Although it is currently in testnet, it is one of the products an entire chain is bullish on, and there are a couple of amazing things up its sleeve.
If you have been around Aptos for a while, you will most likely be familiar with the term Global Trading Engine. The idea is that anything you can do in the world can potentially be done more efficiently if everything is handled in a composable onchain way. Over time, Aptos has proven to be a good stack for onchain throughput and latency, which is an edge for products being built on top of it, Decibel being one of them.
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What’s the onboarding like?
This right here is one good reason, aside from having not so good products, why most people do not interact with certain apps. Some apps and products are built mainly for crypto native users, so a normie or someone who trades stocks and wants to try perps may experience friction at first.
While trying it out, I noticed one thing that was intentionally done to improve the user experience.
Normally, you need to download or have a specific wallet, since some wallets are chain specific. You also need to get some native token to pay for gas. So it is usually not as easy as just logging in and starting to use the app. It can take at least a couple of hours, or even a couple of days, if you do not already have an exchange set up to buy crypto.
But on Decibel, there are several wallet options to choose from. For normies, you can simply use Google sign in, and a wallet will automatically be created for you, tied to that particular social login.
A lot of users on chains like Solana or Ethereum, or any other chain, might not have an Aptos wallet. But they can just connect Phantom or MetaMask the same way they would connect to any other native dApp, and an Aptos wallet will be created for them.
You don’t need a new wallet to trade on Decibel. Fund from Aptos, Ethereum, Solana, or directly from a CEX. Cross-chain accounts on Decibel make it simple to position capital where you already are. Here’s a quick guide on how
When transferring USDC, you can move it across chains. Your USDC is burned on Solana and deposited on Aptos. In the same way, if you want to withdraw your USDC from your Decibel Aptos account, you transfer it back to your Solana wallet. This allows you to move funds easily between both chains without much being lost, and with most of the process abstracted away.
Also, Decibel works for both advanced traders and everyday users. You do not need to understand the technical side to use it. To make things easier, the team shares simple tutorial videos that show how the product works. These videos are posted on Decibel’s X account.
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Trade Execution Speed
I mentioned earlier that Aptos is a good tech stack for building products that depend heavily on speed and efficiency. Across their timeline, there are upgrades aimed at beating previous records in sub second finality.
This feature right here is another edge Decibel is leveraging.
Personally, I am not a fan of leverage above 20x or 30x. If you are going to trade with 50x, 100x, or more, execution has to be extremely fast, because a literal second can mean blowing up your portfolio. Your PnL card could look really good or really nasty because of this.
Speaking of which, the PnL card is really cool. I took a trade on BTC, and it is green right now.

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User Interface
Who does not love good design?
I would give the design team their flowers. The frontend design is impressive and runs without lag.

If there is one tab that does not work properly, it is the Points tab, which is a sub tab under “More”.
That would probably be integrated somewhere close to mainnet launch.
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Feedback and Iteration
Successful Web3 products do not grow only by having amazing features. They grow through people who feel involved in the product. Decibel is being developed in public, with early testers, builders, and traders invited to try it out.
This creates feedback loops that help the team build a better product that people love and iterate toward a higher level of utility.
A few weeks back, I noticed a bug in one of my market orders. The liquidation price was not consistent before and after executing the trade. A different liquidation price would show up once my trade was executed.
Here it is.

I gave the team feedback, and it has now been corrected.

It has been rectified
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Final Takes
Perps today mostly cover crypto assets, but long term, the same trading model on Decibel can apply to real world assets and traditional markets. Imagine idle liquidity on Decibel earning yield. It is all part of the plan.
This is what it looks like when infrastructure, user experience, and composability are treated as one system.