Shielded balances on @Starknet have been climbing since launch, and this new release for builders should serve to bring the next leg up. STRK20 and other initiatives have unlocked privacy at the protocol level, removing the historical friction of using separate apps, pools, or mixers.

For the last 2 years, the RWA market has measured progress by what got issued onchain. Another fund tokenised, another asset manager onchain. The next phase is about what those assets are used for. That's why we sat down with @Theo_Network to discuss their FILQ integration 👇 Theo invested $20M into Fidelity International’s tokenised USD digital liquidity fund (FILQ) through Sygnum, adding FILQ as a second institutional underlying asset within their existing product, thBILL. Whilst direct holding is the familiar starting point, once a fund is onchain, the more interesting question is where else it can sit: inside a stablecoin, a Treasury product, a collateral system, a lending market, a vault, or a settlement workflow. “Most investors don’t want a money-market fund. They want the yield, in a form they can actually use.” @evanberrylover, GTM & Chief of Staff at Theo, said, “holding the fund directly gets you the return and nothing else. Wrapping it into a composable product lets the same dollar earn and move at once... The tokenised fund makes it institutional-grade. The onchain product makes it useful.” thBILL already had exposure to Wellington’s tokenised Treasury fund. The addition of FILQ now brings Fidelity International as a second institutional manager. That gives thBILL a broader base, but it also shows that the structure can add new managers without rebuilding the whole product each time. If tokenised funds remain standalone wrappers, the market will simply compete on issuer brand, AUM, and chain support. However, if they become inputs for more customisable onchain products, competition moves to what additional value can be built around them. Emma Pecenicic, Head of Digital Assets Distribution at Fidelity International, agrees, saying the firm sees tokenisation as “a foundational shift in how global financial markets will function,” and that combining investment expertise with digital-native infrastructure can bring “regulated, institutional-grade liquidity onchain for markets that operate around the clock.” So what is this shift we are expecting? Theo’s view is that “direct holding is the first step because it’s the familiar one. It maps to how funds work today. But the value of putting an asset onchain is what you can do with it next: use it as collateral, route it into strategies, settle against it instantly.” The target destination for these assets is clearly utility. Can they sit inside a Treasury product? Can they back a stablecoin? Can they be used as collateral? Can they move through lending markets, vaults, or structured products without being a compliance headache? The addition of FILQ inside thBILL is a small but useful example of that shift. The fund is not the final product. It is a balance-sheet item for Theo, strengthening their product and readying it for growth and expansion into places Fidelity cannot easily reach. The next wave of tokenised fund adoption will be driven less by direct holders of these institutional assets, and more by their embedded use in onchain products.

Stablecoins are the most revenue-generating business, making more issuers try to compete in this category. At the same time, multiple stablecoins have depegged recently, surfacing the risks in allocating to newly launched stablecoins. However, supply keeps on rising ⬇️

The largest stocks in the world are now accessible onchain, regulators are designing policy for blockchains, banks are accessing onchain yield & capital, & AMM designs are evolving to handle new flows This week's newsletter dives into all ft. @tradexyz @AerodromeFi @Morpho @Stacks

The largest stocks in the world are now accessible onchain, regulators are designing policy for blockchains, banks are accessing onchain yield & capital, & AMM designs are evolving to handle new flows This week's newsletter dives into all ft. @tradexyz @AerodromeFi @Morpho @Stacks

Crypto is a winner-takes-all industry. Across most categories, the top 2 protocols capture >80% of revenue. In some categories, such as Stablecoin issuers, this number reaches 98.6%.

SpaceX, the largest IPO in history, just made its first print at $150, an 11% premium on the IPO price, briefly pushing the company's valuation to roughly $1.96 trillion We pulled live order books across the majority of venues offering Pre-IPO $SPCX exposure: - onchain perps - CEXs - locked pre-IPO notes What you'll see across each image: - open interest and 24h volume - book depth within 1% of mid - spread & the real cost of executing $100k - PLUS how each product actually settles once the stock is live A few things stand out: - @tradexyz holds the largest SPCX position book anywhere ($315M OI, ahead of Binance's $300M) - Binance still tops the volume at $1.65B traded in 24h. - execution quality is diverging, with small players unable to offer great execution quality on a size of $100k On price: - the IPO was set at $135 last night - Nasdaq's initial indication was $175 - the index price pre-first print across 14 perp venues was at roughly $157, a full 10% below the indication - the perp venues called the lower price, with the first print coming in at $150 and quickly rising to $165 Settlement is where the products differ most, which is why the locked notes traded at a discount to the perps

SpaceX, the largest IPO in history, just made its first print at $150, an 11% premium on the IPO price, briefly pushing the company's valuation to roughly $1.96 trillion We pulled live order books across the majority of venues offering Pre-IPO $SPCX exposure: - onchain perps - CEXs - locked pre-IPO notes What you'll see across each image: - open interest and 24h volume - book depth within 1% of mid - spread & the real cost of executing $100k - PLUS how each product actually settles once the stock is live A few things stand out: - @tradexyz holds the largest SPCX position book anywhere ($315M OI, ahead of Binance's $300M) - Binance still tops the volume at $1.65B traded in 24h. - execution quality is diverging, with small players unable to offer great execution quality on a size of $100k On price: - the IPO was set at $135 last night - Nasdaq's initial indication was $175 - the index price pre-first print across 14 perp venues was at roughly $157, a full 10% below the indication - the perp venues called the lower price, with the first print coming in at $150 and quickly rising to $165 Settlement is where the products differ most, which is why the locked notes traded at a discount to the perps

Privacy does not scale if users have to think like privacy power users. Our north star for @0xprivacypools v2 is embedded privacy: wallets, neobanks, crypto cards, and the broader app layer on Ethereum and beyond. Thank you @castle_labs for the conversation with @0xmikemcc.

Privacy is normal It is no longer just a cypherpunk ideology. It’s becoming necessary onchain infrastructure for both user protection and institutional adoption. Crypto has always had a financial privacy problem. Public blockchains made finance auditable, but they also made financial behaviour permanently observable. Wallet balances, counterparties, payroll, treasury movements, order flow, strategy, liquidations, swaps, transfers. All of it is part of a public data trail. As chain analytics and AI make that data cheaper to process, an open, transparent ledger starts to look like surveillance infrastructure. Usable privacy in crypto cannot just mean hiding everything from everyone; that much is clear. The more realistic path is selective disclosure: systems that can hide sensitive information from the public while allowing users, institutions, auditors, and regulators to prove specific facts when required. We had the chance to sit down with @0xmikemcc from @0xprivacypools, one of the Ethereum-aligned protocols building in the post-Tornado Cash era, to discuss how they are approaching the landscape. Mike framed the protocol’s V1 as “an MVP to test whether there was demand for compliant privacy.” The early numbers are modest: roughly $20m in volume and around 5,000 individual deposits, but the team is keen to get V2 out and begin a new wave of growth. Privacy Pools aims to preserve user privacy while preventing addresses linked to exploits, scams, or hacks from using the pool to privately break the onchain link. The protocol also allows each user to share their transaction record with others for reporting and compliance purposes. On legal liability for privacy protocols, Mike said the team “looked at the Roman and Alexey lawsuits and took every point they were indicted on, then modified our protocol to mitigate that indictment point.” For a protocol like Privacy Pools to grow, it needs distribution, and more importantly, distribution that feels seamless. Privacy does not scale if users have to leave their wallet, open a separate app, pay extra, and think like a privacy power user. Privacy Pools V2 is being built with the opposite in mind: embedded privacy through wallets, bridges and transaction surfaces. Mike’s north star is simple: deprecate Privacy Pools’ own front end, and let regular, everyday interfaces route the traffic. This aligns with our recent report’s broader conclusion: privacy is no longer only about hiding transactions. It is becoming a requirement for usable financial infrastructure. The first wave of crypto privacy was ideological. The next one is practical.

Privacy is normal It is no longer just a cypherpunk ideology. It’s becoming necessary onchain infrastructure for both user protection and institutional adoption. Crypto has always had a financial privacy problem. Public blockchains made finance auditable, but they also made financial behaviour permanently observable. Wallet balances, counterparties, payroll, treasury movements, order flow, strategy, liquidations, swaps, transfers. All of it is part of a public data trail. As chain analytics and AI make that data cheaper to process, an open, transparent ledger starts to look like surveillance infrastructure. Usable privacy in crypto cannot just mean hiding everything from everyone; that much is clear. The more realistic path is selective disclosure: systems that can hide sensitive information from the public while allowing users, institutions, auditors, and regulators to prove specific facts when required. We had the chance to sit down with @0xmikemcc from @0xprivacypools, one of the Ethereum-aligned protocols building in the post-Tornado Cash era, to discuss how they are approaching the landscape. Mike framed the protocol’s V1 as “an MVP to test whether there was demand for compliant privacy.” The early numbers are modest: roughly $20m in volume and around 5,000 individual deposits, but the team is keen to get V2 out and begin a new wave of growth. Privacy Pools aims to preserve user privacy while preventing addresses linked to exploits, scams, or hacks from using the pool to privately break the onchain link. The protocol also allows each user to share their transaction record with others for reporting and compliance purposes. On legal liability for privacy protocols, Mike said the team “looked at the Roman and Alexey lawsuits and took every point they were indicted on, then modified our protocol to mitigate that indictment point.” For a protocol like Privacy Pools to grow, it needs distribution, and more importantly, distribution that feels seamless. Privacy does not scale if users have to leave their wallet, open a separate app, pay extra, and think like a privacy power user. Privacy Pools V2 is being built with the opposite in mind: embedded privacy through wallets, bridges and transaction surfaces. Mike’s north star is simple: deprecate Privacy Pools’ own front end, and let regular, everyday interfaces route the traffic. This aligns with our recent report’s broader conclusion: privacy is no longer only about hiding transactions. It is becoming a requirement for usable financial infrastructure. The first wave of crypto privacy was ideological. The next one is practical.

The Full-Stack Privacy Ecosystem: Privacy as Infrastructure for User Protection and Institutional Adoption Featuring @octra @fhenix @ambire @RAILGUN_Project @0xprivacypools @Arcium @encifherio @Starknet Read the complete report for free here:

Ethena is going after the distribution it could not achieve on its own. Firstly, with @coinbase and now @JanusHenderson, a $480bn asset manager. Both of these partnerships are mutually beneficial 👇 - USDe becomes accessible to a wider range of users and investors, along with strategic investments in - Coinbase secures another client for its Custody & Institutional Lending, reduces its reliance on Circle and gains a potential new savings product in sUSDe - Janus Henderson gains capital in its JAAA fund For Ethena, new initiatives and partnerships have been commonplace over the past year. Ultimately, they want USDe and its use cases to grow and expand, serving as a yield-bearing dollar product distributed through exchanges, wallets and institutional rails. So as expected, they are pushing in every direction they can, with Coinbase and Janus Henderson the latest expansion surfaces. However, not all of their endeavours have achieved strong starts. - Ethena’s Hyperliquid push has not really worked yet and, given @TradeXYZ’s dominance, may never succeed. @hyenatrade was meant to be a strong player in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, giving traders access to yield on their collateral, but Blockworks’ HIP-3 data from @shaundadevens shows HYENA producing just 0.4% deployer APR, barely above Felix Perps at 0.3%, with Felix announcing their HIP-3 deployment shutdown just yesterday. - @Convergeonchain, Ethena and @Securitize’s chain, purpose-built for onchain finance, also remains a roadmap mystery, with no word from the X account or blog for nearly a year. - MegaUSD (USDm) has had some success, using Ethena’s USDtb rails to direct reserve yield toward sequencer costs. This was an example of Ethena experimenting with whitelabel stablecoin infrastructure that other ecosystems can package. MegaUSD now sits at around $200m in circulation, down from highs of more than $560m one month ago. Ethena’s first few distribution experiments outside of Binance and Bybit, while credible, have been patchy in outcomes. But that could well change with these two partnerships. They are more intentional and mutually beneficial, providing access to a much larger TAM.

Crypto has no shortage of products people can technically use. But can they be distributed at a level that competes with CEXs and TradFi? In this week's newsletter, we share why we think so. ft. @ethena @l2beat @tethergold @0xprivacypools