Latest / The Starting Block / The Staking Race: Ethereum's Queue, Solana's Yield, and Where Institutional Money Is Going

Transcript

The Staking Race: Ethereum's Queue, Solana's Yield, and Where Institutional Money Is Going · The Starting Block

0:08
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
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our interview with CZ four
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weeks ago, all the way
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back when we
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sat down with him for a live
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interview in Abu Dhabi to kick
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off the show. If you wanna check
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afternoon for what promises to be
0:52
a really exciting show.
0:54
We've got a couple of guests joining
0:55
us and some big news
0:57
to break down this Monday
0:59
morning. If of course you're joining
1:00
us in the US, if you're in.
1:02
Europe this side of the world it is
1:04
the afternoon and there are a couple
1:05
of big headlines that have just come
1:07
through So we're going to jump in to
1:09
the block briefing to start off
1:10
today's show Our first
1:12
headline crypto exchange BitMart
1:14
is pulling the plug on its trading
1:16
platform It's already begun
1:18
suspending new signups deposits and
1:20
orders with all spots and futures
1:22
trading set to halt at 1 a.m
1:24
UTC on the 26th
1:26
of August the platform fully shuts
1:28
down at the end of January next year
1:30
The users keep login access to view
1:32
records and withdraw.
1:34
BitMart says the move follows a
1:35
review of its operating conditions
1:37
and strategy.
1:38
The twist here, the exchange's
1:40
global CEO says he wasn't even
1:41
consulted on the decision.
1:43
Users are urged to close positions
1:45
and file withdrawals
1:48
before the deadline.
1:49
I have seen a few concerning tweets
1:50
going around about this and
1:52
some Bitcoin withdrawals from that
1:54
platform.
1:55
So definitely go and check out the
1:57
news, Do your research
1:58
and if you are a user there.
2:00
Act quickly and
2:02
follow the official announcements to
2:04
make sure that you safeguard your
2:05
funds and move forward But another
2:07
big crypto exchange announcing
2:09
that it is closing down It's
2:11
been a busy week last seven
2:13
days for this kind of news in
2:16
the market Our next headline an
2:17
apparent hack of crypto payments
2:19
firm that triple a keeps getting
2:21
worse On-chain investigator specter
2:23
says losses from a compromise
2:25
of the firm's hot wallets have
2:27
climbed to about eleven point eight
2:29
million dollars The drain was first
2:31
flagged Friday evening at over
2:33
$9.3 million with
2:35
the funds swapped and bridged to
2:36
Ethereum.
2:37
By Sunday, another 1.8
2:39
million had been pulled across the
2:41
Bitcoin and Tron networks.
2:42
Most alarming here, 31 hours
2:44
after the first outflows, fresh
2:46
deposits were still landing in
2:48
affected wallets and being swept out
2:50
almost immediately.
2:51
So if you don't know about that,
2:53
just be careful out there.
2:54
AAA hot wallet has
2:57
been hacked and you definitely
2:59
shouldn't be sending funds to that
3:01
platform.
3:02
Our next story, South Korea's
3:03
biggest bank is going on chain for
3:05
cross-border payments.
3:07
KB Cookman Bank plans to launch a
3:09
blockchain-based corporate payment
3:10
service next month using Kinexus,
3:13
which is JP Morgan's payment
3:15
network.
3:16
According to Yonhap, it'll be the
3:18
first Korean financial institution
3:19
to use Kinexis for corporate
3:21
imports and export settlements.
3:23
The service roles are through the
3:24
bank's domestic branches and its
3:26
Singapore branch, initially
3:28
prioritizing US dollar transfers
3:29
across 10 countries.
3:31
It's another sign of major banks
3:33
leaning into blockchain rails for
3:34
real world settlements
3:36
and of JP Morgan's Kinexis expanding
3:39
its international footprint.
3:41
Then decentralized storage project,
3:43
storage is heading to bankruptcy
3:46
court.
3:46
Its storage token dropped around 20%
3:49
in a day to roughly
3:51
six cents after storage labs
3:53
filed for voluntary chapter 11
3:55
protection on July 26
3:57
in West Virginia.
3:58
The company says the filing is about
4:00
cleaning up legacy obligations from
4:02
early acquisitions and non-core
4:03
operations, not shutting down.
4:06
It insists the storage network,
4:08
customer services and day-to-day
4:09
operations will keep running without
4:11
interruption pending court approval.
4:13
It's the latest name in a wave of
4:15
crypto firm shutdowns and
4:16
restructurings washing through
4:18
the industry in
4:20
2026.
4:22
Trading in US spot Bitcoin
4:24
ETFs is cooling off.
4:26
Volume for the week ending Friday
4:27
came in around $8 billion,
4:30
down 14% from the week before,
4:32
and the lowest for a full
4:33
five-session week since October
4:35
2024, according to
4:37
the Blox analysis of SoSoValue
4:39
data.
4:39
But it's a different story for
4:41
Ether. Ether ETFs once again
4:43
led the pack on inflows, pulling in
4:45
fresh capital even as their bigger
4:46
Bitcoin counterparts saw activity
4:49
slow down.
4:49
The takeaway here, summer trading is
4:51
quiet on the Bitcoin side, but
4:53
the ether rotation seems to be
4:55
building.
4:56
Then Robinhood may be about to shake
4:58
up its prediction markets lineup,
4:59
and this is probably the biggest
5:00
story of the day.
5:01
The Wall Street Journal reports the
5:03
brokerage is in talks with
5:04
crypto.com to add its prediction
5:06
market contracts directly into
5:08
the Robinhood app.
5:09
That would let users trade yes or no
5:11
event contracts from crypto.
5:13
Com without ever leaving their
5:15
platform.
5:15
The catch here, it would put
5:17
Robinhood in more direct competition
5:18
with Kelsey.
5:20
Kalshi rather its current partner
5:21
for events contract Robin Hood
5:23
already sources from Kalsi
5:25
interactive brokers forecast X
5:27
and Rothera
5:29
Prediction markets have become one
5:30
of the hottest battlegrounds in
5:32
retail trading and Robin Hood
5:34
clearly wants more of the action
5:36
And is actively looking for more
5:38
partners leading the way in the
5:39
industry and then a big story to
5:42
Finish off the segment and there
5:43
won't be a headline for this one,
5:45
but you can go into X and find the
5:46
story On Monday afternoon,
5:48
Michael Saylor announced that
5:50
strategy has boosted its US
5:52
dollar reserve by $525
5:54
million, giving the company
5:56
about 2.1 years of
5:58
dividend coverage.
6:00
Notably, its Bitcoin stack held
6:01
steady at 843,775
6:06
BTC, so still
6:07
no new buy, while the US dollar
6:09
now stands at $3.75
6:12
billion.
6:13
The TLDR here, strategy looks
6:15
to be shoring up cash to cover
6:17
dividends on its preferred shares
6:19
rather than adding to its Bitcoin
6:21
position right now, right at the
6:22
bottom of the bear market.
6:24
Does seem like a pragmatic approach
6:26
to make sure that investors
6:28
and creditors are
6:30
feeling comfortable that dividend
6:32
payments can continue for
6:34
a fairly long period of time, two
6:36
years worth of roadmap right now
6:37
with this latest beefing
6:39
up of the US dollar cash reserves.
6:41
That's it for the
6:43
block. Briefing, we'll be moving
6:45
into the market pulse.
6:46
And it's a great pleasure to welcome
6:48
another guest from our good friends
6:50
at Bitwise.
6:52
I've got Kam Benbrick, who is
6:54
the head of on-chain research to
6:56
chat to us about a new report that
6:57
they dropped last Friday.
6:59
Kam, first things first, thanks so
7:01
much for joining us on the show.
7:02
How are you doing?
7:03
Of course, I'm doing great.
7:04
Thank you so much.
7:04
For inviting me.
7:06
Yeah, it's good to have you here.
7:08
Talk to us about this report.
7:09
I had a brief one, so I haven't
7:11
had a chance to read the entire
7:13
report, but you were telling me
7:15
that this is obviously a
7:17
quarterly report that Bitwise will
7:19
be putting out from here on out.
7:20
So obviously a very, very big
7:22
interest from institutional clients
7:24
in staking.
7:26
And this is exactly what this report
7:28
is.
7:29
Give us the TLDR of the
7:31
big takeaways from this report
7:32
Yeah, definitely.
7:33
So regarding this report, indeed,
7:35
it's the first ever staking report
7:37
at Bitwise, and the idea is to
7:38
publish that on a recurring basis,
7:40
on a quarterly basis.
7:42
And what we are doing
7:44
myself on
7:46
the on-chain side is we're also
7:47
supporting staking services.
7:49
So we are offering staking for four
7:51
different type of providers.
7:53
And the idea behind this report is
7:54
really that on the daily
7:56
basis, we have questions
7:59
from different clients.
8:00
On the different networks that we
8:02
support, that bitwise we were
8:03
supporting a bit more than 50
8:04
networks, Ethereum, Solana,
8:07
Hyperliquid, and many others.
8:10
And those clients want to understand
8:11
a bit what's happening on
8:13
chain, what's the
8:15
evolution of the staking yield over
8:17
time.
8:17
And they also want to know a bit
8:19
about the impact
8:21
of upgrades or
8:24
changes that
8:26
will happen that happen that are
8:28
happening on the network.
8:29
To understand a bit more what's the
8:30
impact on the network itself, but
8:32
also the impact on staking.
8:35
And for this report, we are covering
8:37
six networks.
8:38
So we're covering Ethereum, Solana,
8:41
Hyperliquid, Avalanche,
8:42
Nier, and Tempo.
8:44
And really the big takeaway from
8:46
this report is that we've seen
8:48
a big divergence between
8:51
network fundamentals and
8:54
the market sentiment.
8:55
Because obviously, you know,
8:57
prices...
8:58
Are down compared to 2025.
9:01
But what we're seeing on chain is
9:03
first that blockchain becomes
9:05
cheaper, and second is that
9:06
the on-chain activity is actually
9:08
increasing.
9:09
So we're seeing this big divergence
9:11
and this is on
9:13
most of the networks that we're
9:14
covering on that report.
9:17
And to give you some examples,
9:21
we've seen activity increasing on
9:23
Ethereum, We've seen activity
9:24
increasing on Solana,
9:26
activity increasing on networks like
9:28
Avalanche.
9:29
And we've seen block space
9:31
becoming cheaper.
9:32
And to give you some numbers,
9:34
the cost of transactions on
9:37
a network like Ethereum
9:39
was divided by three in one
9:40
year.
9:41
The cost of a transaction on the
9:43
network like Solana was divided six
9:45
in one years.
9:47
For a network, like Avalanche, it
9:48
was divided 20.
9:49
So there is a lot of engineering
9:52
work being done
9:54
at the moment for the networks
9:56
to become more scalable.
9:57
For the networks to be able to
10:00
handle more transactions per second.
10:02
And really, the idea is just to
10:04
offer a better on-chain experience
10:05
for users so that
10:07
when more and more users
10:09
are coming on-chains, those networks
10:11
will be ready to
10:13
handle the activity.
10:16
Yeah, I mean, looking at the key
10:18
takeaways from the report,
10:20
obviously, these staking ratios
10:22
are high across all the networks
10:24
that you've mentioned.
10:25
So like 68% on Solana, 45%
10:27
on Nia, 44% on
10:29
Hyperliquid, Avalanche at 41%.
10:31
We've got a record 40.2
10:34
million ETH, which is 33%
10:37
of the supply, which is now
10:38
staked.
10:40
My big question here, especially on
10:42
ETH is, Where do you see a
10:43
lot of institutions leaning here?
10:45
Is it into staking ETFs or,
10:48
you know, some of these big
10:49
corporate treasury companies like
10:50
Bitmine and Sharp Link?
10:53
Is the bulk of money going into the
10:54
staking ETS now or is it gonna
10:56
be a real battle between staking
10:58
ETFs and the likes of Bitmime
11:00
and SharpLink?
11:01
Yeah, so it's really both.
11:03
In the case of Ethereum, as you
11:04
said, right now, we have one third
11:06
of the two-type supply being staked,
11:07
and this is the highest ratio
11:09
ever.
11:10
And when we looked at
11:12
where the inflows are coming from
11:14
on-chain, it's coming from
11:15
institutions and it's coming from
11:18
both entities
11:20
like SharpLink or
11:21
Bitmine that are just
11:23
staking directly on-chains, or
11:26
also from asset managers like
11:27
Blackhawk that launched their
11:29
staking ETF this year.
11:31
That also via
11:34
this ETF are staking.
11:36
So it's really coming from both.
11:39
Yeah, this is what we're seeing on
11:40
chain.
11:41
And right now the
11:43
entry queue on the Ethereum is at
11:45
40 days.
11:47
So it means that if ever
11:49
you want to natively
11:51
stake some ETH, you have to wait
11:53
40 days to start receiving
11:55
staking rewards.
11:56
It shows that there is a lot of
11:58
demand right now for staking
12:01
Is that not a bit of a problem for
12:03
Ethereum and maybe a reason why some
12:04
institutions are looking to
12:06
invest in Solana and some of these
12:08
higher
12:11
utility alternative
12:13
chains like Hyperliquid, Avalanche,
12:14
Nier, just because
12:16
the queue is way shorter to actually
12:18
start staking tokens and earn some
12:20
rewards.
12:21
Yeah. So in the case of
12:22
institutions, given that, you know,
12:24
it depends on the clients, you know,
12:26
some institutions like Bitmine and
12:28
SharpLink are very bullish in ETH,
12:30
so they will just, you know, keep
12:32
staking.
12:33
For the ETFs, it depend on the
12:35
demand as well.
12:36
And what we're seeing right
12:38
now on Ethereum is just that,
12:42
even though there is an entry queue
12:43
of 40 days, you still have some
12:45
alternatives, especially for people
12:47
that...
12:48
That are doing activities on chain
12:50
that would like to get exposure to
12:52
the staking yield, you can use
12:53
some different protocols.
12:55
You can get exposure through
12:57
liquid staking protocols as well
12:59
so that you can at
13:01
least get some rewards because
13:03
rewards on liquid
13:05
stake protocols are socialized and
13:07
even though the yield
13:09
is decreasing because there's just
13:11
so much demand for
13:12
staking, you can
13:14
still get exposure to some rewards.
13:17
And then you also have
13:19
institutions that are looking
13:20
elsewhere as well.
13:22
But as you said,
13:24
the staking ratios are quite high
13:27
on multiple networks.
13:29
In the case of Solana,
13:31
the stacking ratio is extremely
13:33
high. It's at 68% at the
13:35
moment. And the reason for that is,
13:37
first of all, because the stacking
13:38
yield is very high on Solana.
13:41
So the stacking is decreasing.
13:42
But you can still get
13:44
around a bit more than 6%
13:46
right now annualized on your soul.
13:48
So it's quite attractive.
13:50
That's why the staking ratio is very
13:52
high.
13:53
On networks like NIR,
13:55
we've seen in one year
13:57
the stake in yields
13:59
decreased by 50%, but
14:01
we still see a lot of very
14:04
high staking ratios, which means
14:06
that people that are staking
14:08
believe in the network.
14:09
And want to get exposure to offer
14:11
economic security to this network
14:13
and get exposure to to
14:15
the network and gets us technical
14:16
rewards.
14:17
Yeah, I was actually going to
14:19
just about to probe this a little
14:21
bit more because I do think at the
14:22
end of the day, the actual yield
14:24
percentage has a big
14:26
impact in who
14:27
puts their money where.
14:29
Is it more a case of just that,
14:31
like people chasing the yields, or
14:33
do you think that there are a lot of
14:34
savvy institutions now that actually
14:36
care about the protocol that
14:38
they're staking value in and want
14:40
to be a part of that?
14:41
Is that also an important
14:43
consideration?
14:44
Yeah, it's definitely an important
14:45
consideration.
14:47
So based on what
14:49
we're seeing right now coming
14:51
from our clients, usually
14:53
our clients are
14:55
staking, yes, because there is a
14:57
yield. And it's also
14:59
to offer an additional economic
15:00
security to the network.
15:03
And if ever they don't
15:04
stake, they will be deleted, meaning
15:07
that they are losing
15:08
on tokens and on the rewards.
15:10
So we were saying
15:13
a structure that is kind of both.
15:15
We see clients that
15:18
want to get exposure to staking
15:20
mostly because they want to secure
15:21
the network and get exposure for the
15:23
yield. But we're also seeing
15:25
people that would like
15:27
to get the exposure to both the
15:29
staking yield, but also get exposure
15:31
on-chain activity and would like
15:33
do actions on-chains.
15:36
And for those types of clients,
15:38
you have solutions like liquid
15:39
sticking. They can
15:41
get exposure to the underlying
15:43
staking yield, but they can also
15:45
use that token to
15:47
do different things
15:50
on DeFi.
15:51
They can provide liquidity,
15:53
they can deposit and borrow against
15:55
that collateral, so we're
15:57
definitely seeing both.
15:59
For those that don't necessarily
16:01
want to take too much risk,
16:03
they will only get exposure on the
16:04
staking, and that's it.
16:06
But for those that like to get
16:07
additional yield on top of the
16:09
stacking yield.
16:10
We're definitely seeing activity
16:12
on-chain and clients doing
16:14
additional activity on
16:16
chain.
16:18
We had a Solana ETFs kind of
16:20
rollout a few months back and I
16:22
remember chatting to Matt Hugen
16:23
about how big an unlock this
16:25
was, especially for institutional
16:27
investors.
16:28
Do you think that there is kind of
16:30
like a clear cut winner here or is
16:32
Ethereum still leading the pack when
16:33
it comes to institutions wanting to
16:36
stake value on any specific
16:38
network?
16:38
Yeah, so I think both
16:41
cases are interesting.
16:43
So in the case of Ethereum, we're
16:44
definitely seeing demand and
16:47
interest coming from institutions,
16:49
mostly because Ethereum right now
16:51
is doing a lot of work to
16:54
scale a bit further.
16:56
So we've seen, for example,
17:00
I would say the unit
17:02
of gas per block
17:04
increasing from 30 million to
17:05
60 million.
17:06
And the reason for that is for
17:09
the Ethereum blockchain itself to
17:10
handle more transactions per second.
17:12
And the target is to increase that
17:14
even further to 200 million
17:17
units of gas per block so
17:19
that they can process more
17:20
transactions per second, you know,
17:22
we're seeing companies building
17:25
on top of the Ethereum Blockchain.
17:27
And we have clients that are
17:29
asking questions. We're seeing now
17:31
the Robinhood chain that launched
17:33
this month. So there's definitely
17:34
some interest in Ethereum.
17:36
And Ethereum has this
17:38
idea to become credibly
17:40
neutral.
17:41
So we have two upgrades that are
17:44
coming later this year and early
17:46
2027 to make
17:48
the network even more decentralized
17:50
and censorship resistant, and
17:52
companies like that.
17:53
In the case of Solana,
17:56
it's a bit different in the sense
17:58
that Solana really
18:00
wants to focus on trading.
18:03
Currently processing, there's a lot
18:05
of trading activity happening on
18:07
Solana. And what we've seen in
18:10
Q2 of 2026 is
18:12
that there is a lot of volume right
18:14
now coming from tokenized equities.
18:16
So in one year, the volume
18:18
coming from tokenized equity
18:20
went from one million
18:22
in June 2025 to
18:24
more than three billion in June
18:26
2026.
18:27
So we are definitely seeing a lot
18:29
of trading demand and
18:31
trading activity on Solana.
18:34
And we are seeing
18:36
just the internal
18:39
capital market thesis
18:40
just live in
18:43
front of us.
18:44
So yeah, these are two
18:46
different, I
18:48
would say strategies, but that
18:50
can fit for different types of
18:52
clients.
18:53
Well, you have to extend the
18:55
research report next quarter
18:57
to include chains like Robinhood
18:59
chains and some L2s that are really
19:01
pumping up the volume because, I
19:02
mean, this is something that I asked
19:04
Joe Lubin about a couple of years
19:05
ago when Ethereum really
19:07
leaned in hard to the L2
19:10
space and I was kind of like, why
19:11
would I stake 32
19:14
ETH at the base there when I can
19:16
earn way much, way more, way
19:18
higher percentage interest
19:20
as a validator on
19:22
an L2.
19:23
And it does kind of seem like if
19:24
there's that much network
19:26
usage and fees being generated
19:29
by protocols like Robinhood chain,
19:31
you have to look very carefully at
19:32
them as well and throw them in the
19:33
mixer.
19:34
Yeah. Yeah.
19:35
So we're definitely planning to
19:37
cover Robinhood chain in the next
19:39
quarter. We've already seen a lot of
19:41
questions from our clients about the
19:43
Robinhood chain. So this is
19:44
definitely something that we will
19:45
cover.
19:46
And regarding the staking yield on
19:48
Ethereum, it's really, you know,
19:50
Ethereum is this base layer that
19:52
wants to be credibly neutral.
19:54
And in order to have
19:56
a decentralized and safe
19:58
network for those companies
20:00
like be able to build
20:02
on top of it.
20:03
You need to have some
20:04
sort of security guarantees and
20:07
a network to be decentralized.
20:09
And that's why, you know, companies
20:11
like Coinbase with base or Robinhood
20:13
with Robinhood chain
20:15
decided to build on top of it.
20:18
Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
20:21
When you're looking at your next
20:23
quarterly report,
20:25
what do you think institutions are
20:26
going to be looking at?
20:28
And how much do you some of these
20:29
stats will change?
20:30
Because as you mentioned, the
20:32
metrics alone of the
20:34
protocols have improved
20:36
drastically in terms of the
20:38
reduction in fees and the
20:41
fees of the blockchains.
20:43
Do you see any big
20:45
changes happening in terms network
20:46
usage? Because I think.
20:49
Between Hyperliquid, NIA,
20:52
and Avalanche alone,
20:54
especially Avalanche, I guess, their
20:56
RWA tokenization.
20:58
There's gonna be a real head-to-head
21:00
here between the likes of Avalance
21:01
and Solana, perhaps going forward.
21:04
How do you see this playing out?
21:05
Yeah, so on those different
21:07
blockchains, we see a lot happening
21:09
over the coming months, and we
21:10
expect a lot of questions from our
21:12
clients. In the case of Ethereum,
21:16
we want to know more about
21:18
the upgrades.
21:19
So, we have GlamsterDAM
21:21
that is happening later this year,
21:23
and the idea of GlamesterDAM is we
21:25
have this proposer-builder
21:28
separation on Ethereum.
21:29
So you have builder on one side that
21:30
are creating the blogs.
21:32
And then they send that to
21:34
validators and validators are
21:35
processing the transactions.
21:38
And the element that link the
21:39
builders to the validators is
21:41
the relay.
21:42
And that component is centralized.
21:45
So with Glam-Stardom, the idea is to
21:46
implement ePBS, which will be a
21:48
decentralized version that is
21:50
happening on chain to connect
21:51
builders with validators.
21:53
So we have clients
21:55
who will be interested in learning
21:57
more about that upgrade.
21:58
We'll have EGOTA happening
22:00
early 2027.
22:02
So we also have questions about
22:04
this. In the case of Solana,
22:06
definitely our clients are
22:08
interested in learning more about
22:09
the Appenblot upgrade,
22:11
which is this new consensus on
22:14
Solana and the idea is to
22:16
reduce time to finality.
22:18
So right now for a transaction
22:20
to be finalized on Solona,
22:22
it takes around the 12 seconds.
22:24
It will be in the order of
22:26
100 seconds. Few 100 milliseconds
22:29
with App and Glow,
22:31
which will be massive.
22:33
And we will also have a new
22:35
upgrade as well, which is
22:37
to decrease the slot time on Solana.
22:39
So right now, it's 400 milliseconds.
22:42
The idea is to increase that to 200
22:43
milliseconds, so that it
22:45
improves the trading experience.
22:48
And hopefully, with those
22:50
changes, we'll see even more
22:52
activity happening on Solona.
22:53
In the case of Hyperliquid, our
22:55
clients are more interested in
22:56
learning more about, you know,
22:57
HIPFOR, which is this new prediction
23:00
market component on HyperliQUID.
23:02
Right now, it's a permission, but it
23:04
will become permissionless over the
23:05
coming months.
23:06
And also, this
23:08
new line of
23:10
revenue coming from USDC.
23:12
You know, right now, there is around
23:13
5 to 6 billion sitting
23:15
on HyperLiquid in USDC, and
23:18
the idea is with this partnership
23:19
with Circle and Coinbase.
23:21
To use up to 80%
23:24
of the underlying yield
23:26
to buy by hype.
23:28
So that's a new revenue line that
23:30
is completely different from trading
23:31
activity and that will be used to
23:34
buy and burn hype.
23:36
So our clients will also be
23:37
interested in that.
23:38
In the case of Avalanche, definitely
23:40
real world assets.
23:42
You know, the traction of LWA is
23:44
on an ecosystem
23:46
like Avalanche.
23:47
We're seeing Progma,
23:49
which is the largest tokenized
23:52
platform in Japan,
23:54
that decided to create their own
23:55
Avalanche layer one.
23:57
And they're bringing around $2
23:58
billion in tokenized
24:01
assets on the Avalanch ecosystem.
24:03
So, yeah, these are the kind of
24:07
questions that we have over the
24:08
coming weeks and months, and we're
24:10
planning to
24:12
report on the next quarterly
24:14
report.
24:16
My final question to you, when it
24:18
does come to all of the clients a
24:20
bit wise and the questions that
24:21
they're asking you, do you
24:23
ever get that sort of question of,
24:26
where do we invest our money and
24:27
which protocol do we support and
24:29
which has the most likelihood of
24:31
winning this race?
24:32
I mean, I'm sure you guys try to be
24:33
as balanced as possible in the
24:35
advice that you're giving them, but
24:37
everyone's probably going to be
24:39
some sort of a protocol maxi.
24:40
I mean it's no secret, I love
24:42
Bitcoin. And you can see my studio
24:44
around me, but.
24:45
How do you go about navigating this?
24:47
Because I don't think that
24:50
it's a zero-sum game and it's
24:51
winner-take-all mentality.
24:53
How do balance what you're giving
24:55
your clients? And is it a case of
24:56
producing reports like this?
24:58
So here's the stats, here's the
24:59
metrics, you decide what
25:01
you want to support.
25:02
Yeah, so that's a great question.
25:04
So I will just talk about
25:06
the staking side and what I'm seeing
25:08
on my side.
25:09
So usually, the type of
25:11
clients that are staking, they
25:12
already have a quite strong
25:14
conviction on the
25:16
tokens that they want to
25:18
stake.
25:19
And it's more about they would
25:21
like to learn more about the network
25:23
itself and get more insight and get
25:24
more data.
25:26
And on our side, given that we are
25:27
running data infrastructure,
25:29
given that we're able to collect a
25:31
lot of data.
25:33
It's a way for us
25:35
with the client to collect the data,
25:37
get some insight and share that
25:39
insight with them.
25:40
And then they can just based
25:42
on that insight, they decide what to
25:44
do. But usually they already have
25:46
a conviction into one specific
25:48
ecosystem.
25:49
They stake because they
25:51
believe in that ecosystem for
25:53
major long-term, but they want
25:55
to keep receiving data and insights.
25:58
And those are mostly the
26:00
best. People place to
26:02
get that inside are those that are
26:03
running the infrastructure and see
26:04
what's happening on chain.
26:06
So, yeah, this is usually what we
26:07
do. Beautiful.
26:09
Cam, thank you so much for taking
26:10
the time to join us today.
26:11
We've dedicated a lot of time to
26:12
talk to this. I actually just had a
26:15
brief back and forth with the team
26:16
from Alpaca and we're only gonna
26:18
have Yoshi with us on Friday.
26:20
So we're gonna, we've dedicated the
26:22
show to the report and we
26:24
gonna leave it at that.
26:24
So I wanna thank you and the Bitwise
26:26
team for joining us today Thank you
26:28
so, much. Thank you for your time.
26:29
It was a pleasure joining.
26:31
Thank you. Thank you, thank so much,
26:32
Cam. And thank you for joining this
26:34
afternoon.
26:35
Wherever you are, I hope you have a
26:36
good Monday. We've got a jam pack
26:38
show.
26:39
A week of shows coming up
26:41
with some big-name guests joining
26:43
us. I'm just going to bring up our
26:44
guest list very quickly so I can
26:45
have a quick reminder.
26:48
We've got Alex Fanevic from Nansen
26:49
joining us tomorrow.
26:50
I'm really looking forward to that.
26:51
It's been quite a few months since
26:53
Alex and I last spoke.
26:54
He is, of course, the co-founder of
26:56
Nansen AI,
26:58
one of the big protocols and
27:00
infrastructure providers in
27:02
the space for traders to
27:04
find alpha. So we've got him coming
27:05
tomorrow. And then we've got Sergey
27:06
Kunz from.
27:07
One Inch joining us on Wednesday.
27:09
And then we will have Yoshi Yokokawa
27:11
on Friday joining us from Alpaca
27:13
to talk about this $435 million
27:16
raise.
27:17
And they've raised over half a
27:18
billion dollars in 2026 alone.
27:20
So really looking forward to that
27:21
show on Friday.
27:22
That's what we've got coming up.
27:23
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27:28
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