The Rollup

ARKInvest Digital Asset team Raye Hadi and Lorenzo Valente join us for a state of digital assets special. We debate whether token buybacks actually create value or if the correlation with top performers is just circular logic. They also tackle the trillion dollar question: whether Solana and Ethereum even need to capture fee revenue if they're hosting trillions in assets, and why Hyperliquid's app-layer monetization model might be the smarter blueprint than base-layer fees.

Raye Hadi is a Research Associate in Digital Assets at ARK Invest. Lorenzo Valente is the Director of Research at ARK Invest, a...

Mert Mumtaz and Dev, the Osmosis founder now leading Zcash scaling at Valor Group, join us to explain the massive developments in Zcash as of late.

The two of them break down how over 90% of Zcash's supply migrated out of the Orchard pool following the Ironwood upgrade, addressing the vulnerability fears that spread across the community. They also unpack the upcoming Tachyon upgrade's post-quantum vision, and exactly how Zcash will get there.

Mert Mumtaz is the CEO of Helius, a leading Solana infrastructure provider.

Dev is the Founder of Osmosis and now leads...

Rain Co-Founder Charles Yoo-Naut joins us for a look underneath the exploding neobank sector, which has exploded from $5m/month to $250m+/month in crypto-card volume in less than a year.

He breaks down how Rain went from a stablecoin-backed card issuer for crypto-native DAOs to a platform powering over 200 card programs, including a landmark partnership with Western Union and more.

Charles Yoo-Naut is the Co-Founder and CTO of Rain, a stablecoin-backed card issuing platform that powers programs for Western Union and 200+ other partners.

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Robbie and Andy debate Morpho founder Paul Frambot's controversial take that token buybacks are "shooting yourself in the foot" versus the market's clear reward for programmatic buybacks from Hyperliquid, Lighter, and Pump. They break down Luca Prosperi's corporate finance framework for when buybacks make sense based on market conditions and return on equity, and make the case that too many projects launched tokens before they had a business generating enough revenue to justify one.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

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Joseph Chalom and Kean Gilbert break down why SharpLink staked $200 million in ETH through Lido, making the case that unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is a natively productive asset that treasury companies have a duty to put to work. They unpack why a proposal to cut Ethereum's staking issuance would undermine the risk-free rate anchoring DeFi lending and push institutions toward competitors like Solana, and explain why native yield is becoming the standard institutional playbook for ETH exposure.

Joseph Chalom is the CEO of SharpLink, one of the largest corporate treasury holders of Ethereum. Kean Gilbert is the Head...

Daryl Xu joins us to explain the biggest shift happening in AI. He introduces B3 IQ, a platform that lets anyone rent-to-own AI compute instead of relying on centralized API providers, and makes the case that using decentralized inference has a hidden cost most people overlook: your proprietary data. He also explains why inference demand keeps climbing even as GPU prices depreciate slower than expected.

Daryl Xu is the Co-Founder and CEO of NPC Labs, a core contributor to the B3 ecosystem and creator of B3 IQ, an AI compute ownership platform.

The Rollup is...

Bitwise's CIO Matt Hougan and Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen break down why institutional ETF investors kept buying through the summer's 50% drawdowns and explain why they expect the next bull market to look a lot different than previous ones. They also make the case that ETF flows are expanding, what institutional allocators really want to buy, and the long-term forecasts for top digital assets.

Matt Hougan is the Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, and Ryan Rasmussen is the Head of Research at Bitwise, one of the largest digital assets asset managers with a suite...

Edward Woodford, CEO of zerohash breaks down their new Visa Direct partnership, which lets Visa move value instantly across its 12 billion endpoints in over 190 countries using stablecoins. He explains how zerohash quietly powers stablecoin infrastructure for Stripe, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock's BUIDL fund. He also makes the case that stablecoins are just the first tokenized asset class, and that the real transformation begins once tokenized equities and deposits build on the same rails.

Welcome to the future of finance.

Edward Woodford is the Founder and CEO of zerohash, a stablecoin and digital asset infrastructure company...

Matthew Sigel breaks down why the AI buildout looks more like the 19th-century railroad boom than a bubble about to pop, comparing capital scale, financing structure, and multiyear purchase order backlogs. He also explains why VanEck has gone underweight major L1s like Solana in favor of corporate chains from Circle, Stripe, and Robinhood, and why he believes a CLARITY Act relief rally could be "enormous" if disclosure requirements finally arrive.

Matthew Sigel is the Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck and Portfolio Manager of the VanEck Onchain Economy ETF (NODE), one of the most prominent...

Jesse Pollak joins us on CLARITY week to break down how Base is leading in trading, onchain finance, and payments. He also explains how x402 agentic payments and tokenized inference are turning Base into the settlement layer for AI agents, something we've been excited about for a while.

He also gives a real update on the long-awaited Base token, Ethereum and the scaling Base is bringing, and also explains why he's optimistic the CLARITY Act passes and accelerates adoption even further in 2026.

Jesse Pollak is the Creator of Base, Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network powering trading...

CLARITY final countdown special today on the show.We're getting the legal, investor, builder, and the onchain business-impact angles in today's show.

00:00 Intro

05:10 Equities Rally And Earnings Momentum

09:01 SEC's Rulemaking Backup Plan

10:44 Tokenized Deposits Explained

17:48 Open USD And Permissioned Chains

19:39 Base's Internet Exchange Vision

21:23 Tokenizing Equities On Avalanche

26:14 Wrapping Up Tokenization Tower

Partners:

If you run concentrated liquidity positions you know the grind. Price moves, you're out of range, you're rebalancing at, like, 3...

Haseeb Qureshi breaks down why crypto markets have become numb to CLARITY Act headlines, and explains why Western Union partnering with Dragonfly portfolio company Rain signals stablecoins are already eating into legacy payment margins. He also makes the case that tokenized deposits are "basically uninteresting" compared to stablecoins, and questions whether Tempo's Open USD consortium is a real commitment or just a free option for its backers.

Haseeb Qureshi is a Managing Partner at Dragonfly, a leading digital assets venture capital firm with investments spanning stablecoins, infrastructure, and consumer crypto applications.

The Rollup is where...

Cody Carbone breaks down the real vote count behind the CLARITY Act and explains why ethics has become "the whole ballgame" holding up trillions in potential capital inflows. He also draws parallels to the GENIUS Act's rocky path to passage, making the case that history says this bill still gets done.

Cody Carbone is the CEO of The Digital Chamber, a leading blockchain advocacy organization working directly with lawmakers in Washington, DC to pass digital asset market structure legislation.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial...

Eleanor Terrett breaks down the state of play on the CLARITY Act just before the August recess deadline, unpacking the ethics language dividing Democrats and Republicans and why the DOJ-versus-state-AG enforcement fight remains the key sticking point. She also explains why the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act has suddenly become just as contentious, pitting developer protections against law enforcement concerns.

Eleanor Terrett is the Co-Founder and Co-Host of Crypto in America, a leading independent outlet covering digital assets policy and regulation in Washington, DC.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge...

Vladimir Novakovski breaks down why both Lighter Core and Robinhood Chain sit on top of Ethereum, and how ZK proofs let market makers move capital between instances within minutes. He also previews a future where users simply describe their market thesis and let an AI agent execute the trade, plus options on pre-IPO stocks currently in the works. Finally, he lays out why the LIT token carries zero dual structure, it represents 100% of Lighter's equity, with all future value, including quarterly buybacks, accruing directly to token holders.

Vladimir Novakovski is CEO of Lighter, a decentralized perp exchange...

Sam Kazemian makes the case that there's no hidden "dead body" under this digital assets cycle, and he breaks down how GENIUS-compliant stablecoins could power instant business banking, from incorporation to payroll to DeFi, from day one. He also unpacks Frax's new banking partnership with Erebor and why he believes a handful of stablecoin consortiums could become "the next Visa network."

Sam Kazemian is the Founder of Frax, a protocol behind frxUSD and one of the earliest and longest-running stablecoin projects in digital assets.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance...

Rebecca breaks down the 600-page CLARITY Act, from its unprecedented ethics language to the extensive new rulemaking powers it hands regulators, and explains why full implementation could take years even after passage. She also unpacks hidden riders in the bill and a lesser-known fight brewing between prediction markets and the gaming industry.

Rebecca Rettig is the COO at Jito Labs, a Protocol Labs company, and a veteran digital assets policy voice who previously worked on DeFi regulatory issues during the early days of centralized exchange dominance in Washington.

The Rollup is where the leaders of...

Sergej Kunz breaks down 1inch's new Aqua protocol, built on research showing liquidity providers left over $150 million in fees on the table, and explains how it lets users earn yield without giving up custody, governance rights, or capital efficiency. He also traces 1inch's evolution from intent-based swaps and Fusion.

Sergej Kunz is the Co-Founder of 1inch, a leading DeFi aggregator and liquidity infrastructure protocol he built starting from an Ethereum hackathon in 2019.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

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Paul Frambot breaks down how Morpho's new Midnight protocol lets curators price risk directly, unlocking under-collateralized lending onchain for the first time, and explains why he believes DeFi is finally ready to capture a slice of the $200 trillion global credit market. He also makes the case against aggressive token buybacks, arguing that reinvesting in growth beats shrinking the float.

Paul Frambot is the Founder and CEO of Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol powering onchain credit for Coinbase, Robinhood, and other major institutions.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live...

Leo Fan breaks down why the real bottleneck in AI isn't model intelligence but a persistent GPU shortage driving up inference costs, even as open-source models from China close the gap. He also unpacks the financialization of compute and why some believe it could become one of the largest derivatives markets in the world.

Leo Fan is the Founder of Cysic, a full-stack compute network turning GPUs, ASICs, and spare hardware into verifiable AI infrastructure, and a Cornell CS PhD researcher in zero-knowledge systems and AI.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets...

Johann Kerbrat breaks down Robinhood Chain's explosive first three weeks and explains the strategy behind bringing tokenized equities, DeFi, and stablecoin yield onchain. He also unpacks the Base vs. Robinhood Chain rivalry and Robinhood's broader vision to become a true financial super app.

Johann Kerbrat is the General Manager of Crypto at Robinhood, leading the launch of Robinhood Chain and the company's push into tokenized equities, DeFi, and onchain finance.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

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Maredith Hannon breaks down why WisdomTree built its own end-to-end tokenization platform rather than relying on partners, and explains why she believes regulatory clarity from the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts will unleash a "tidal wave" of onchain asset growth. She also makes the case that privacy and identity are the next must-solve primitives for institutional adoption of tokenized assets.

Maredith Hannon is the Head of Business Development at WisdomTree Digital Assets, a division of the $170+ billion global ETF and ETP sponsor building tokenized money market funds, stablecoins, and real-world asset products.

The Rollup is where...

Salman Banaei breaks down the state of play in DC on the CLARITY Act, from the ethics fight holding up Democratic support to the DeFi and conflicts-of-interest provisions still being negotiated, and puts the odds of passage this cycle at 40-50%. He also explains why Title IV's bank provisions and the bill's token fundraising framework could be some of the biggest unlocks in digital assets regulation yet.Salman Banaei is the General Counsel at Plume, a blockchain built for real-world asset finance, and a former SEC and CFTC policy advisor who has testified before Congress on digital asset regulation...

Andre Cronje breaks down why he believes decentralization is dead as a design goal, and unpacks how Flying Tulip is rebuilding DeFi composability. He also explains the security-versus-UX tradeoffs behind circuit breakers, upgradable contracts, and Flying Tulip USD's delta-neutral staking design.

Andre Cronje is the Founder of Flying Tulip and a veteran DeFi builder known for creating Yearn Finance, Sonic, and several other foundational protocols in decentralized finance.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

00:00 Intro

Alex Shevchenko breaks down Confidential Intents, NEAR's new privacy layer that brings bank-level confidentiality to every DeFi primitive, and explains why a dollar that becomes payroll onchain tends to stay onchain. He also unpacks NEAR's "practical privacy" design and how it differs from Zcash and Tornado Cash. He also shares his personal bull case for Zcash and NEAR's own token economics.

Alex Shevchenko is the GM at NEAR Intents, a universal liquidity layer that has processed over $23 billion in volume and helped power adoption of the Zcash ecosystem.

The Rollup is where the leaders of...

Hanson Birringer breaks down why Hyperliquid is the purest way to express the bull case on perps, tokenization, and stablecoins all at once, and unpacks the mechanics behind the Grayscale ETF and Hyper Holdings' push to bring institutional capital onchain. He also explains why Hyperliquid's revenue could grow exponentially as HIP-3 markets and USDC0 stablecoin flows scale.

Hanson Birringer is the Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Hyperdash, a global brokerage and trading data analytics platform built on Hyperliquid, and a core contributor to Hyper Holdings Global.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital...

Joseph Chalom makes the case that Ethereum has the license to win and is finally going on offense to prove it, backed by ETH Labs, Ethereum Institutional, and dominant market share across stablecoins, tokenization, and DeFi. He argues ETH is the trust commodity behind trillions in future onchain asset flows, and that the risk-reward for holding it has never been better.

Joseph Chalom is the CEO of SharpLink, one of the largest corporate treasury holders of Ethereum, and a key steward behind the launch of ETH Labs and Ethereum Institutional.

The Rollup is where the...

Lincoln Murr breaks down why Coinbase is building toward a post-AGI economy where autonomous agents hold their own financial accounts and transact using digital assets rails. He also unpacks the geopolitics of AI regulation, from potential government stakes in frontier labs to the rise of cheaper Chinese models challenging U.S. dominance.

Lincoln Murr is the Head of AI Product at Coinbase, leading the company's x402, Coinbase for Agents, and Coinbase Advisor initiatives at the intersection of artificial intelligence and digital assets.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live...

Michael Egorov breaks down why FX markets are slowly but inevitably moving onchain, driven by real demand from crypto-native fintechs rather than a big institutional push.

He also explains how Curve is evolving its concentrated liquidity design to support currency pairs beyond stablecoin-to-stablecoin swaps, and why dollars that enter the chain tend to stay there.

Michael Egorov is the Founder and CEO of Curve, one of DeFi's most foundational protocols and a pioneer of stablecoin liquidity infrastructure since the earliest days of decentralized finance.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets...

Niklas Kunkel breaks down the strange divergence between record institutional bullishness on digital assets and the apathy in digital asset-native circles. He also details Chronicle's path to becoming the leading oracle, the mechanics of an upcoming token, and why the next phase of tokenization is just beginning.

Niklas Kunkel is the Founder and CEO of Chronicle Labs, the oracle infrastructure that spun out of MakerDAO and now secures over $16 billion in onchain assets for institutions including BlackRock and BNY.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial...

Gracy Chen breaks down how Bitget evolved into a universal platform offering tokenized stocks, ETFs, bonds, forex, and pre-IPO positions, shares the 10% vision she pitched to BlackRock CEO Rob Goldstein, and explains why stablecoin issuers and Solana's RWA positioning are the biggest winners of the tokenization wave. One of the most globally-minded CEO perspectives we've had on the show.

Gracy Chen is CEO of Bitget, one of the world's largest global digital assets exchanges offering crypto, tokenized stocks, ETFs, bonds, and pre-IPO assets.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge...

Amos joins us to break down why inference is the new oil and companies will hedge inference costs the same way airlines hedge jet fuel, why AntSeed is open router without open router in the middle, and why all network revenue goes to buy and burn with no company capturing value. 14 years in crypto. This is what he's building next.

Amos Meiri is Co-Founder of AntSeed, an open-source P2P marketplace for AI inference, and a 14-year crypto veteran who helped build colored coins alongside Vitalik before Ethereum existed.

The Rollup is...

Yesterday Robinhood hosted their “The World is Flat” event where they announced the Robinhood chain mainnet & deepened relationship with Lighter, amidst many other digital asset focused initiatives. Lighter was named the official perps partner of Robinhood and will be directly integrated within the Robinhood wallet.

Vladimir Novakovski is CEO and Co-Founder of Lighter, a decentralized perpetual exchange with an institutional-grade security-first architecture.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps

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VirtualBacon Dennis Liu breaks down why Bitcoin at 58K is deep value territory, why the four year cycle has repeated exactly as expected and isn't going anywhere, and why HYPE and Lighter are the cleanest expressions of the tokenization trade while ETH wins the underlying technology stack. Plus his hot take on MicroStrategy's real liquidation level and why the $1.25B Bitcoin sale is barely a rounding error.Dennis Liu is a digital assets trader and content creator widely known as VirtualBacon, one of the most followed technical analysis voices in the digital assets space.The Rollup is where the...

MoneyGram CEO Anthony Soohoo breaks down why launching MGUSD was a vertical integration play straight out of Apple's microprocessor playbook, why MoneyGram's 500,000 physical locations are an unbeatable moat in a stablecoin world, and why their new Kraken partnership lets anyone cash out crypto at a MoneyGram or Walmart location worldwide.

Anthony Soohoo is Chairman and CEO of MoneyGram, a 500,000-location global payments and remittance network now building stablecoin infrastructure across Stellar, Solana, and Tempo.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the...

Evan Fisher breaks down why blockchain is more analogous to legal technology than financial technology, why AI-proof moats in crypto are network effects, liquidity, and trust rather than code, and why momentum investors who mistake good metrics for durable value will be this cycle's biggest losers.

Evan Fisher is Founder of Portal Ventures, a pre-seed blockchain investment firm managing $120M across two funds.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps

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Se Yong Park breaks down why FOMO is building the trading app for the rest of us... any chain, any asset, never miss out again, why AI will commoditize content but can never commoditize money and risk, making social the most defensible moat in on-chain finance, and why FOMO raised $75M from Benchmark, Robinhood, and Coinbase without touching a single venture dollar before closing the round.

Se Yong Park is Co-Founder of FOMO, a social trading app for on-chain assets built for everyone.

The Rollup is where the leaders...

Jess Houlgrave breaks down why 2026 is the year of non-USD stablecoins with USDC losing Mica compliance, 30 European banks now issuing a euro stablecoin, and HKD, JPY, SEK and CHF versions all coming to market. She covers WalletConnect's $6B per week in stablecoin volume, why broad asset support is the key to reducing merchant and much more.

Jess Houlgrave is CEO of WalletConnect, the leading financial connectivity layer powering stablecoin payments across 700 wallets and hundreds of thousands of applications.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital...

Bernardo Brites breaks down why the Brazilian real is uniquely positioned for a stablecoin, why being pro-banking rather than anti-banking is the only path to the next hundreds of millions of stablecoin users, and how Trace processed $10B of payment volume on just $4M in seed capital before closing a $32M Series A.Bernardo Brites is Co-Founder of Trace Finance, a cross-border payments and stablecoin infrastructure platform for companies in Brazil, LatAm, and beyond.The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.Timestamps00:00 Intro01:27 Ten Years In...

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce breaks down the state of digital asset regulation in the USA. She joins us to talk through the Rule 611 trade-through proposal that's been 20 years in the making, why the innovation exemption is deliberately narrow, her views on synthetic tokenized securities, and why self-custody and financial privacy are non-negotiable principles she wants embedded into every regulatory regime that follows.

Hester Peirce is an SEC Commissioner and founder of the SEC's Crypto Task Force, widely known in the digital assets industry as 'Crypto Mom'.

The Rollup is...