I find it funny that $ETH was supposed to benefit from the stablecoin boom: - It's the settlement chain for stablecoins - Where the TVL for yield bearing stablecoins live - Where the infra for hosting stablecoins via DeFi is hosted But of course, that's not where the value lies for $ETH the token. In fact, ETH was able to capture nothing from all of the above. It's one of the reasons it's traded so poorly, it's just not been able to monetise well of any of the above well enough. That's despite there being 160 billion in stables sitting on ETH mainnet. Instead, there's another chain that makes $200-250m annualised in real revenue that accrues to 1 token because of stablecoins and not even anywhere near 160b, just a tiny fraction of that at 6b. It's real USDC value and it comes from pure negotiating power to get the most for them and it's token. Hyperliquid

DeFi is in a sad place - Volumes/Revenues are down - Protocols are closing down - Exploits happening every week - Yields have compressed - Innovation isn’t being rewarded - Retail have been gone a long time - Incentives have dried up - Valuations have compressed - Smart contract risk has never been higher This is arguably the most critical time our industry has faced (outside of black swan events). Despite this all, the core fundamentals for why DeFi exists continue to be the reason I use DeFi. 1. Permission-less 24/7 access 2. Innovative financial economies and programmability 3. Transparent systems There will always be a need for DeFi. These times will pass.

Just in the last 18 months. $1 Billion How many of the below are winners? The ones that launched a token: Eigen Layer - $170m total raise! $500m Series B val → EIGEN now at FDV $350m Layer Zero - $55m token buy + earlier rounds, $3B Series B val → ZRO now at FDV $1.9b Babylon - $15m token sale → BABY now at FDV $130m Walrus - $140m token sale → WAL now at FDV $400m Jito - $50M strategic raise → JTO now at FDV 270m Equity: Phantom - $150m Series C, $3B val Talos - $45m Series B, $1.5B val Daylight - $15m Series A/B: XMTP - $20m Series B Halliday - $20m Series A Towns - $10m Series B Seeds: Kairos - $2.5m Seed Cork Protocol - $5.5m Seed Votre - $3.75m Seed Seismic - $10m + $7m Seed ZAR - $12.9m + $7m Seed Inference - $11.8m Seed Bastion Platforms - $14.6m Shield - $5m Seed Reflect - $3.75m Seed TACEO - $5.5m Seed Poseidon - $15m Seed PrismaX - $11m Seed Catena Labs - $18m Seed KYD Labs - $7.1m Miden - $25m Seed Inco Network - $5m Strategic ORO - $6m Seed Glider - $4m Mahojin - $5m Seed Cambrian Network - $5.9m Seed Ambient - $7.2m Seed Legend - $15m Seed Universal - $9m Pod - $10m Seed Merit Systems - $10m Seed vlayer labs - $10m Pre Seed OpenLayer - $5m Seed OpenTrade - $7m Strategic Loop Crypto - $2m Strategic Launcher Capital - $4m Seed Rumi - $4.7m Pre Seed Oncade - $4m Seed Sekai - $3.1m Seed Scrypted - $1.5m Pre Seed Mbd - $3m Pre Seed Future Primitive - Strategic Axal - $2.5m Pre Seed