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So I recently sold all my houses, cars, and most of my physical assets. Told some friends and… well they all think I lost my mind lol I’m not saying world’s gonna end tmr. Those who know me know I’m actually annoyingly optimistic. People say we’re already in a recession but I genuinely think the real correction hasn’t even started. And honestly a crash you’re prepared for is just opportunity. Prep the cash flow now and be ready when it hits. Few months ago I tweeted a 1920-1939 side by side with 2020-now and I was like aha this earth simulation game isn’t even trying to be surprising. America First was literally a 1920s slogan. Middle class getting wiped, kids going hard left, the right cashing in on the backlash, yada yada. Same movie. They didn’t even bother changing the lines. But it’s not just the 1930s. This “coincidental” pattern keeps showing up Every time in history you get this specific set of things at once: > “empire” past its prime but won’t admit it > up and coming power that stopped playing nice > new tech nobody has rules for > wealth gap gone cartoonish > globalization reversing > institutions bleeding trust while pretending everything’s fine UNFORTUNATELY, it’s never ended quietly. Crash, war, usually both. Looking back, 1890-1914 literally looked unstoppable. > globalization booming, tech changing everything > markets ripping, rich getting richer, international trade at record highs > everyone convinced world had become too interconnected for a major war BUT then reality arrived. > 1914 WW I, 1918 spanish flu, 1921-1923 Weimar hyperinflation, 1929 great depression 1939 WW II. Just imagine you’re a civilian living in between any one of those events, literally each one felt like the worst thing that could happen until the next one hit. And I know how this sounds. This random green cat on X reads a bit of history and suddenly thinks the sky is falling. i would’ve scrolled past this a year ago too lol. But just look at how familiar the setup feels rn. A debt spiral. A rising challenger. AI detonating entire industries. Institutional trust collapsing. Millions of young people looking at the future and deciding they got sold a lie. You see it too right? That’s usually not when history calms down. And sure, you’ll say the system survived 2008. Central banks have the tools. The world’s too connected to actually break. You know who said basically the same thing? Everyone in 1913. A famous economist Norman Angell wrote a bestseller arguing war between major powers had become impossible because their economies were too intertwined. And guess what? A year later they were at war. The irony is he wasn't even wrong. The thing everyone pointed to as proof the system was safe ended up being what made the fallout global. Look at the positioning now. Stocks at all time highs. And everyone, I mean everyone, priced like things stay calm forever. Markets, governments, companies, all quietly betting on stability while the ground under it gets shakier every year. Trigger? No idea. Nobody ever knows. Franz Ferdinand (the dude who got shot and basically started WWI) wasn’t on a single dashboard in June 1914. So yea, I sold most of my illiquid assets. Still got stocks and crypto. Stocks prob exiting before end of year. Maybe I look crazy for a year or two. But I’d rather be wrong than be the dude on his knees in financial ruins asking God why he saw the train coming and stayed on the tracks anyway. “This time is different” is probably the most expensive sentence in history. And lately it’s the only thing I hear. And before someone says I’ve lost my mind, ask yourself something. Why do so many billionaires keep buying land in New Zealand? Why do people with private jets, intelligence briefings, and more money than they’ll ever spend keep building backup plans? Maybe they’re paranoid. Maybe I’m paranoid. Or maybe ordinary people are always the ones told everything’s fine right before they become fuel.

The full schedule for #Web3Festival# 2026 is here. Connect with @VitalikButerin, @heyibinance, @_RichardTeng, @LennixOKX, @justinsuntron, @calilyliu, @joechalom, and 200+ industry leaders from traditional finance, tech giants, and Web3 companies. 🗓️20–23 April |📍HKCEC 🎫 🎋Day 1: April 20 🌄Mainstage (Opening Ceremony) – Features distinguished representatives from Hong Kong SAR government and acclaimed professors from top-tier universities. 🌄Mainstage (TradFi x Crypto Finance: Convergence,) - Guest speakers from @binance, @HashKeyGroup, @okx, @Sharplink, @jpmorgan, etc. 🌬️Stage 1 dives into Web3 x AI: Value Reconstruction in the Intelligence Age. ☁️Stage 2 explores Tokenisation: Bridging the Real World with the Digital Economy. @AnvitaFlow ⛵️Open Stage - Institutional Convergence: From Compliance to Commerce. @boundless_xyz 🎋Day 2: April 21 🌄Mainstage (10:00-12:25, AI x Crypto: The Next Financial Infrastructure) - Features representatives from @SolanaFndn, @Mysten_Labs, @meet_48, @trondao, @alt_layer, etc. 🌄Mainstage (14:00-17:00, Get to the Bottom of RWA) - A deep dive into Real World Asset tokenization, featuring speakers from @BlackRock, @galaxyhq, @OndoFinance 🌬️Stage 1 (10:00-12:10): New Trends of Crypto-Equity Synergy @Solana_Company 🌬️Stage 1 (14:00-17:10): Smart Hardware: The Physical Interface and Extended Applications of Web3 @arkreen_network ☁️Stage 2 (10:00 -17:40): Stablecoins and Web3 Payment Revolution @RD_Technologies ⛵️Open Stage - @tcgzoneofficial, @K_Prop_Official, @happyplanetAI, @EcoSyncVenture, @DeltaCapitalHK 🎋Day 3: April 22 🌄Mainstage - Ethereum Applications Gathering @EthAppsGuild 🌬️Stage 1 - Web3.0 Standardization and Globalization Summit by W3SA-HK ☁️Stage 2 - HashKey Exchange Asia Connect Forum @HashKeyExchange ⛵️Open Stage - @DesunHK, @0G_labs 🎋Day 4: April 23 🌄Mainstage - Bitfire Day: Institutional Digital Wealth Management Summit 2026 @_BitfireGroup 🌬️Stage 1 - TON Day: AI Builders on Telegram Ecosystem by TON Foundation @ton_blockchain ☁️Stage 2 - Web3 Scholars Conference 2026 @DRK_Lab ⛵️Open Stage - HashKey On-Chain Finance Summit 2026 @HSKChain For more information, please visit:

We’ve had lots of questions from our investor community looking for thoughts on OUSD, and so I thought I’d share my direct views here for anyone. Stablecoin networks are platform and network effect businesses that are established over a long period of time, tend towards winner-take-most market structures, and resemble other internet platform utility markets. There are several layers that drive this. First, stablecoin networks effectively act as public protocols and software layers on the internet and their network strength is a matter of the number and range of applications and services that integrate to the network. Every time a developer or service provider integrates to the network, it brings more network effects. This attracts more developers and adds more utility and more network effects. This then drives demand for the digital currency itself, which then reinforces these network effects through liquidity network effects. We have realized this at a massive scale with the USDC network today — thousands upon thousands of services integrate with our network, which in turn provides immense utility not just to each application, but to users as a whole who benefit massively from the reach and interoperability that exists. This drives user and developer preference further. We’ve invested in building that ecosystem over nearly a decade, and now it’s accelerating as mainstream institutions come onto the network, connecting their customers and users. We add to that utility by building software stacks that further expand and strengthen the network — protocols like CCTP and Gateway, which promote interoperability, safety and liquidity around the world. This expands the target surface area for app builders and developers, making it easy for them to tap into the liquidity and network effects that already exist. We are now seeing that stack get pulled into all kinds of chains, permissioned L2s, networks being built by governments, and so much more. The second layer is that of liquidity network effects. This is fundamental. Liquidity begets liquidity. For a stablecoin to achieve scale and utility, it needs to be highly liquid, both on a primary basis (e.g., through all the major financial market centers in the world, with world class direct banking liquidity) and on a secondary basis both by being available and tradeable for retail and institutional clients in every geography and against every fiat instrument in the world. People who want to access and move value need to be able to easily get in and out of that digital currency. Here, we’ve invested nearly a decade in building out that liquidity, and it is now entrenched in exchanges, DeFI venues, and with PSPs, payments firms, regional exchanges, and so many others. Establishing these liquidity network effects also involves building global regulatory infrastructure and ensuring that the stablecoin is available under various regimes around the world. Today, USDC is in the top 3 most liquid digital assets in the world, and it falls off sharply after that. BTC, USDT and USDC have extraordinary liquidity. The closest other dollar stables are like 10x smaller and that liquidity tends to be concentrated in promotional books in a single exchange, whereas USDC liquidity is dispersed widely across dozens and dozens of surfaces. Building this liquidity has been a nearly decade-long task that we continue. A third layer of network strength comes from the deep integration with the policy and regulatory environment — in many cases, years of effort to build licensing (e.g., USDC is the only large global stablecoin currently available in all of Europe or Japan), and more regimes for stablecoins are coming online, with Circle leading the way in ensuring that USDC is officially recognized, registered, licensed and accepted in the most important markets in the world. On the back of this is the work of building global banking, reserve management and treasury and liquidity management that can operate this on a nearly 24/7 basis in markets and banking systems globally. This globalization effort is a massive investment that we have made over the years. All of these investments by Circle and our global ecosystem of thousands of partners have delivered the net result of providing the world’s most trusted and available digital dollar infrastructure—a utility that any user, developer, or business can freely and easily tap into. And we do not intend to slow down. All of this compounds and shows in the numbers. In Q1 2026, according to third-party analysts (Artemis) who track stablecoin adoption, USDC handled nearly $30T in onchain transactions, representing 80% of all dollar stablecoin transactions on blockchains. USDT handled the remaining 20% of transactions. All of the combined remaining dollar stablecoins handled a total of 0% of transactions (i.e., < 0.5%). While other stablecoins may have some circulation, most of that is through promotions and incentives, the actual usage is extremely limited—because of the extremely limited liquidity and network utility that exists for these coins. But my thoughts on the competitive landscape are not just about the strength of our network—there are also considerations around any new initiative. Several perspectives and positioning have been shared about how something like OUSD improves on something like USDC. 1) Free mint and burn. The argument suggests that existing stablecoins charge burn fees, and payments firms should not need to pay these (despite the fact that the entire payment industry is built on small bps fees on various ingress and egress points on their networks). There are structural market realities built around the fact that some stablecoins impose very large redemption fees and have limited redemption facilities – the impact of this is that stablecoins with strong redemption facilities, good liquidity and no fees become the offramp for their competitor stablecoins. It may seem easy to say one will offer unlimited and free redeems, however market reality likely forces other behavior. This can be addressed – and is addressed by Circle – through contractual mechanisms vs. a blanket fee exemption. 2) Everybody wins and shares. While this sounds good in principle, the reality of the market and market opportunity is quite different. Today, Circle shares the majority of its income with its distribution partners, and we continue to lean hard into expanding those partnerships with leading companies across every sector of the market. However, we also retain significant income that allows us to invest in the massive market infrastructure that makes this such a powerful and valuable utility for the world to build on. Giving away all the income is a recipe for starving an infrastructure, systematically underinvesting and ensuring that your platform will remain limited in scope. Furthermore, Circle believes that the future stablecoin market is likely several orders of magnitude larger than it is today. We’re actively bringing partners into the USDC ecosystem through a diverse and growing set of partnership models that span our work with exchanges, custodians, payments firms, asset issuers and more. We are excited to continue to build with a “big tent mentality” where the entire ecosystem can grow value together. 3) A consortium where everybody has a voice. Perhaps I have a cynical view, but the track record of consortium products achieving scale, P/M Fit or even basic product agility is absolutely dismal, and while there are examples of financial consortia that operate utilities, they are predictably slow moving. Large groups of large companies coordinate poorly, have misaligned incentives, slow things down and rarely create the space for real durable innovation and competitiveness. They also typically, out of their own self-interest, starve the consortium itself on an operating basis. We actually tried this in the early days of USDC, and even with a very small group, ran into endless challenges and complexity. Smaller, tighter strategic collaborations and commercial partnership arrangements with product and platform builders that can drive forward independently will almost always outcompete large consortiums. But oftentimes when these get formed, everyone feels like they should put their logo on the list, kiss the ring, and make noise about openness. But typically those same firms will turn to their operating units and make the best decisions for their customers, which often means partnering with the market leader and building durable win-win partnerships. There’s also been a bunch of commentary on Circle's partnership with Coinbase and what this all means. Our stablecoin partnership with Coinbase remains as strong as ever, and I think we both see that enormous opportunity ahead to expand the USDC network. A final comment: Circle remains committed to supporting a wide range of different products and infrastructures, even when we might compete with different aspects of those partners’ products in other areas of our business. With OUSD, we work closely with many of the founding members, and we expect that those same members will remain large USDC partners and customers. At the same time, as Circle has diversified our product and platform stack, expanding across Arc, CCTP, CPN, StableFX, Agent Stack and many other areas, we continue to expand the partnerships and collaboration with many other stablecoin issuers — dozens of them — to help them launch on Arc, leverage our interoperability infrastructure, get supported in our Wallets and become settlement and FX options on CPN and StableFX. We are huge believers in growth in the stablecoin ecosystem and welcome OUSD as a new member of the community!

Investors are not betting on tokens as much anymore, and we have been thinking why. There are three kinds of assets that have accrued value in the past 18 months. 1. Assets that commit revenue to buybacks. Hyperliquid is an instance of this. 2. Assets that commit to governance through tokens requiring institutional partners to purchase the token to own a stake in the network. Morpho is an instance of this. 3. Ones that do not issue tokens but issue equity directly to private investors. Deribit, Privy, Rain fall in this camp. The market has wised up and is no longer willing to pay ridiculous multiples for low-revenue tokens without a great future. Pre AI crypto was the hot asset class. In 2026, AI takes that crown. So where does value go? Tokenisation is the trend that has been winning. Stablecoins were the first attempt at it. On-chain stocks are the second iteration. Blockchains will become the infrastructure layer where the world’s assets will be traded and settled. These assets will not be issued by foundations and labs with funny piecharts for token distributions, but more often than not by large institutions. The assets represented would be on-chain equivalents of traditional assets alongside native ones. 1. Ondo has 438 assets represented on chain. 2. Blackrock’s BUIDL has $2.3B represented on-chain. 3. Similarly, Centrifuge has scaled to $1.62B in TVL by focusing on treasury funds ($870M ) and a AAA corporate fund ($686M). None of these are what would be considered “tokens” in the conventional realm of digital assets. But in 2026, they are all digital asset representations of where the industry is headed. If you are into issuing tokens, pivot to capturing value from tokenisation. The reason for this secular trend is fairly simple. In 2022, there was the hope that radical decentralisation and DAO-native models that are run by token holders will upend traditional firms. And tokens represented a meaningful premium. In 2025, that premium turned into a discount as most asset Users see the value in tokenised representations of real world assets due to improvements in accessibility and cost. They do not value the 50th dex on the 18th L2 Tokenisation is the easiest mechanism to export the best assets from mature markets like the US and Korea to the world. It gives a mechanism for financial primitives to communicate with the marvel that globalisation itself was. The rails on which these assets move, settle and are stored will be valuable. We think, for investors and founders, this really just means four things 1. Crypto has reached a level of maturity where moats and network effects matter. The players that have emerged and dominated in the last 24 months were capital-intensive, walled IP ecosystems that spoke to finance at scale. Both Ethena and Hyperliquid had moats of capital and networks that can’t be rivaled. 2. Value accrual will increasingly be in the equity side of the equation. If you are trying to raise, seeing where tokenisation unlocks new markets or business models may be far easier an answer to find than to compete with being the 50th iteration of a Hyperliquid trading interface 3. Geo-specific markets are not as mature as the ones in the US. Tokenisation unlocks fintech primitives that were not possible earlier in emerging markets. Cracking distribution, UX and business models can lead to economies of scale in these new markets 4. Lastly - question what can be tokenised and why?. USDAI tokenised the debt markets around GPUs. There are players tokenising energy markets. A good place to start is to revisit the graveyard of dead startups in 2017 and explore what could come on-chain today due to changes in regulation and infrastructure not just beacuse it can but because there is demand. Blockchains are capital rails, but the new winners among startups will be ones that redefine what forms of capital can be pushed in these rails Where tokens allow anyone to be an asset issuer, tokenisation focuses on bringing productive assets to the masses. It creates a pathway to retain the benefits of DeFi - be it composability, 24/7 markets or global access, without the risks of buying into a random token. As consumers look towards better alternatives to hedge their own savings and diversify asset classes, tokenisation will become the common trend. For founders and investors, the fork in the road ahead asks a simple question: do you bet on a private, equity-native vehicle or do you bootstrap a network from scratch with a token? Right now, we are leaning away from tokens and towards equity.