If you are an institutional allocator, it is not always easy to cut through the noise and educate yourself on blockchain. You are unlikely to attend a full-on crypto conference (most which are more resemblant to a circus) and there’s only so much a news outlet will tell you. What made yesterdays annual Legends4Legends conference so special is not only that there are no wild sponsors, or that nobody pays to speak and the proceeds go to charity. What makes it such a high signal event is that the best blockchain VC operators, founders, government officials and some of the largest institutional allocators in the world, cut through the noise to tell you exactly why blockchain is so relevant and what to focus on.
Two points came up in almost every session. The first is that blockchain is turning into infrastructure for finance. Around $40bln of real-world assets already sit onchain, and that’s before you count stablecoins. The reasons for putting them there are practical: they’re cheaper to move 24/7, faster to settle, can be pledged as collateral in one click, and anyone can build a product on top of it without asking anyone’s permission.
The second point is that AI needs the same infrastructure, for two reasons. The data centers, chips, and energy behind AI have to be financed, and stablecoins and onchain credit markets are starting to supply part of that money. The other reason is the agents. AI agents are software that will pay for things and trade on their own behalf, so they need infrastructure that runs around the clock, belongs to no single company, and moves money as easily as it moves data.
We look forward to sharing the recordings of the conference over the coming weeks.
This week’s market
- BGCI Index 2.39%
- Bitcoin 3.10%
- Ethereum 2.22%
- Solana 0.26%
All figures are week-to-date as of today 15:30 CET
Theta Blockchain Ventures content
- Ruud Smets, Managing Partner and CIO Theta Capital, with a brief update on what we believe is an important shift in blockchain adoption (watch here)
Blockchain news
- SEC staff says token buybacks do not make crypto a security once the network is functional (learn more)
- OUSD stablecoin goes live with Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase*, and Shopify as founding partners (learn more)
- SEC proposes framework allowing investment advisers and funds to self-custody crypto (learn more)
- Lloyds and Visa settle $750,000 using USDC in live cross-border pilot (learn more)
- Citi expands Coinbase* partnership to power stablecoin payments for businesses (learn more)
- Coinbase receives DCO approval from CFTC, completing full derivatives stack (learn more)
- Hyperliquid Policy Center and Circle* press EU on perps and stablecoin reserves in MiCA review (learn more)
- RedotPay completes financial audit as it presses ahead with US IPO plans (learn more)
Relevant financial updates
- Jeeves*, a stablecoin-native financial operating system for global enterprises, has raised $110mln in an equity round led by CoinFund, with participation from AllianceBernstein, a16z, Coinbase Ventures, CRV, GIC, Global PayTech Ventures, ParaFi, Vista, Wintermute, Y Combinator, and others
- World*, the proof-of-human network behind World ID and World Chain, has raised $49mln through a series of locked WLD OTC sales to private institutional investors
- Grass*, a decentralized network that crawls and indexes public web data for AI, has raised an undisclosed amount through an investment from Multicoin Capital’s hedge and venture funds
- Limited, a global business financial platform, has raised $18.5mln in a Seed round with investments from Third Prime, North Island Ventures, Collab+Currency, ParaFi Capital, Digital Currency Group, and 4 others
- Raven, an institutional market maker providing liquidity across prediction markets and crypto venues, has raised an undisclosed amount in a strategic round from Coinbase Ventures and CMCC Global at a $90mln valuation
- PERPTools, an AI-native decentralized perpetuals trading platform, has raised $5mln in a Seed round at an $80mln fully diluted valuation, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, NEAR, Animoca Brands, Sfermion, and Shima Capital
- Walapay, a global payments infrastructure platform for account issuance, collections, FX, and payouts, has raised $4.6mln in a Seed round with investments from Generative Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, and others
- Rip Cars*, a collectibles platform offering randomized packs redeemable for physical Hot Wheels cars, has raised $475k through OTC sales of CARS tokens to DBA, and 2 others
*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 02/10
Interesting things to read and listen to
- The State of Tokenization Report, from Pantera Capital (read here)
- Why not every tokenized stock is a real share, with Backpack founder Armani Ferrante on the Frictionless podcast (listen here)