Head of Investment Research & Network at @token_ventures | Crypto & Macro | Primary Focus: DeFi, RWA, DePIN & Prediction Markets | Not Financial Advice
Joined July 2012
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For the first time, @colosseum opened its hackathon to every blockchain 🎡
So how did the Crypto World’s Fair go? 2,973 projects 👇
- 1,876 built only on Solana
- 635 built on Solana + other chains
- 462 did not use Solana at all
The strongest chains after Solana: Base (481), Ethereum (365), Robinhood Chain (331), Arbitrum (329) and Hyperliquid (239).
Solana is still home for most builders, but it is no longer the only arena.
(One project can build on more than one chain, so it is counted for each.)
Which chain surprised you the most?
Next stop in the @colosseum Crypto World’s Fair hackathon 🎡 After DePIN, I took a look at two more categories: Enterprise & Compliance + Data & Analytics.
Here is my selection of the most interesting projects:
@NAUT_so - shows who decides at any crypto company, with a verified Telegram to reach them
@SegmentoAI - Google Analytics for Solana, showing what each KOL really brings to a project
@PlotArmorX - verifiable rights for film and entertainment IP, with ownership records on Solana
@reyelapp - AI customer success agents that find your real users and tell you what to ship next
@ConyrAI - real-time Solana intelligence that links wallets, traces funding and flags suspicious activity
@ForgeAI_gg - arena and benchmark where AI agents compete in games and strategy challenges
@myrad_hq - two-sided marketplace for verifiable human data
Which project would you add? Drop it in the comments 👇
The @colosseum Crypto World’s Fair hackathon received 2,973 project submissions! 🎡 Over the next few days, I will share a summary of each category. First up: DePIN.
Here is my selection of the most interesting projects you should keep an eye on: 👇🧵
@openroboto - robot training data with verifiable on-chain provenance and licensing
@uavdotfun - drone prototypes with a dApp that shares drone revenue with the community
@computecompany - verifiable AI chip where anyone can re-check every result, plus a market to rent it
Colpero from @luca_trevisani - one shared map for robots and drones, with camera-based position checks against GPS spoofing
@captur_go - Upwork for physical AI data collection
@sanfdn - live search API for AI agents, powered by a network of real browsers
@Evoracharge - GPU nanoclouds deployed at idle energy sources like biogas plants
Honourable mention:
@HaLoWaveNetwork
@DePin_Chest
@hydrx_protocol
Did I miss a project that deserves a spot? Drop it in the comments 👇
If you want to understand where the stablecoin market is going, start here. Simple, sharp comparison of Circle, Sky and Ethena 👇
As stablecoin yields become commoditized, where do issuers build a durable edge?
Circle, Sky, and Ethena are taking three different approaches:
- Circle: own more of the infrastructure through Arc.
- Sky: keep the base protocol simple and delegate capital allocation to agents.
- Ethena: own the customer relationship through Ethena Pay.
My bet sits somewhere between Sky and Ethena.
Sky is a money-making machine and DeFi’s most battlestested protocol. It earns a spread by extending wholesale credit to Spark, Grove, Obex, etc.
Ethena has demonstrated it can generate yield at scale. Owning the customer relationship will unlock cross-selling and avoid the cost of renting distribution.
Tomas Piskule retweeted
Sanctum Wrapped SOL is a primitive that has been long in development at @sanctumso.
While simple on the surface, there are a lot of nuances and complexities to swSOL that we had to figure out.
1) swSOL is NOT an LST. Wrapped SOL (wSOL) is used in size in some of the largest DeFi protocols. To be a viable replacement, the program needs to be highly optimised from a technical standpoint. @datascraper69 has managed to reduce Compute Units (CUs measure the computational work and resources required to execute a transaction or instruction on Solana) to 6k. What that means practically? Fast swaps, no additional program fat to slow down swaps, making swSOL a defacto worthy equivalent of wSOL.
2) Security. We believe that swSOL will be the defacto replacement for wSOL and its use cases, and if we believe that, it has to be super secure. swSOL has gone through countless rounds of audits, led by @accretion_xyz.
3) Growth. swSOL is just live but the real work starts now - getting every protocol to adopt it. We have some deals in the work that we're excited to announce soon, but it's going to be a multiyear growth story.
Sanctum has grown in SOL TVL for 12 consecutive quarters. We believe that swSOL is a powerful product that will help power our growth for the next 12 quarters.
Very interesting move from Sanctum. Most of that wrapped SOL on Solana is just dead capital. swSOL keeps the same 1:1 redeemability as wSOL, but the backend can actually stake part of it and pay integrators. If DEXes and treasuries start switching over, that’s a lot of unused SOL that suddenly starts working.
I went through all 8,286 projects from five @colosseum Solana hackathons.
140 launched a token. Only 56, roughly 1 in 148, became a real success: a $1M+ FDV token, a proper funding round, or a working business or exit.
Top tokens: @ORESupply, @starpowerworld and @RateX_Dex plus @crediblefin , @weroamxyz , @PayAINetwork , @UmbraPrivacy , @NomuStores and @solrouterai
Not every winner needed a token.
Raised funding instead: @Rakurai_io @Titan_Exchange @reflectmoney @hylo_so @ExponentFinance ...
Working business or exit: @phygitals @decenspace @darklakefi ...
Frontier teams to watch: @crowdbrainai @Multihopper @Deriverse @craftsdev @myStableCorp
solana:Grass7B4RdKfBCjTKgSqnXkqjwiGvQyFbuSCUJr3XXjs is making a very smart move here: transitioning from static pre-training datasets to building a live web layer for inference.
Using current pre-training revenue to build out a Search & Contents API for AI agents is a super logical flywheel. Solid read. 👇
There are dozens of lists of active crypto VCs. I couldn't find a single one for Liquid funds, the ones buying tokens on the market. So here's a start:
@3iq_corp
@arca
@asvacapital
@Sigil_Fund
@plaintext_cap
@TheiaResearch
@triton_liquid
@cybercapital
@F5CryptoCapital
@HivemindCap
@hodl_funds
@L1D_xyz
@LaserDigital_
@SyncracyCapital
Who's missing? Add them below!
I would definitely like to add:
of course us @token_ventures
@Modular_Capital
@NeoclassicCap
@coin_ix
@w3_fund
@fisher8cap
@Node_Cap
Tellurian Capital
IVBF
Holland Park Capital
Hybrid big VC+Liquid funds
@a16zcrypto
@paradigm
@PanteraCapital
@polychain
@multicoincap
@RockawayX
@DigiAssetFund
@TheSpartanGroup
@paraficapital
@DFG__Official
I'll be at the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona on 16–17 September.
If you're raising or you're a fellow investor, I'd be glad to meet.
Tomas Piskule retweeted
Excited to officially join as supporting partners for Zero to Hero 2.0 powered by @superteam! 🚀
The Czech & Slovak Solana builder scene is leveling up.
Zero to Hero 2.0 powered by @superteam is live.
We finally have one place with everything you need to know about the next weeks:
- Pre-events across Czechia & Slovakia
- Mini Ideathons
- 5-day Build Station in Prague
- Mentors & Office Hours
- Technical, product, GTM and security support
- Demo Day
- $10,000+ local prize pool
- Colosseum Crypto World’s Fair
- Solana + AI developer tooling
No team? No idea? No Web3 experience?
That’s fine. Start somewhere and we’ll help with the rest.
buildstation.cz/
Learn. Connect. Build. Ship.
No other ecosystem besides Solana can pull off 3 massive Demo Days almost simultaneously @colosseum , @SuperteamBLKN and @mtndao with different projects presenting at each, while keeping the quality bar high across the board.
Undeniably the ultimate builder ecosystem 🧱⚡️
Tomas Piskule retweeted
Tokenized stocks are becoming the battlefield for CEXs.
@krakenfx has @xStocksFi
@binance has bStocks
@Backpack has stocks and ETFs @solana
@RobinhoodApp has Stock Tokens on its L2
Now @coinbase launches its own version of tokenized stocks on @base.
What's the difference?
1. Coinbase B20: You get a claim on shares held by Alpaca under ADGM. The structure is bankruptcy-remote from Coinbase. But only KYC’d “Vested Holders” can redeem or vote. Everyone else can trade but can’t redeem directly.
2. Binance bStocks: ADGM certificates that can be wrapped and unwrapped 1:1 with the underlying shares, with zero fees. $100M AUM in 15 days.
3. Kraken xStocks: Jersey tracker certificates. You’re a creditor of the issuer rather than a direct shareholder. Still, xStocks has built the biggest DeFi presence, with $10B+ in volume.
4. Robinhood: Stock Tokens are Jersey debt securities with no shareholder rights. They also settle on Robinhood Chain, giving Robinhood control over the issuer, venue, and chain.
5. Backpack: US broker-dealer structure using UCC Article 8 entitlements. Holders get dividend and corporate-action rights similar to regular shares. $1.06B in July volume.
A few things stand out.
The competition now is around who controls redemption, where the token can trade, and whether it can be used as collateral or earn yield onchain.
Dividends are another wrinkle. Coinbase and Binance use balance-neutral multipliers. Kraken and Ondo rebase, which can create problems for lending pools.
Ondo still has ~70% of the market, with $1B+ across 430 tickers.
But now major CEXs have their own tokenized wrapper. That could change quickly.
Who's next?
Finally had the time to dive into the @SuiNetwork Overflow hackathon submissions. Check out my top picks: 👇
@diepsprotocol - on-chain, intent-based liquidity engine for the Sui ecosystem.
@Sup_Wallet - self-custodial wallet, it lets an AI agent research, trade, pay, and settle on its own, but only inside limits you set once and without holding your private key.
@AetherHardware - lets AI agents discover real hardware capabilities, pay or authorize actions, dispatch commands to ESP32, Jetson, and robotic endpoints, and receive verifiable execution proofs.
@taliseio - gasless dollar account, sign in with Google, hold dollars, and send them to a name instead of a wallet address. No seed phrase. No gas token.
Tapp & Rails by @zoraclelabs - Decentralized settlement infra converting stablecoins into local fiat across emerging markets.
@guardianOnSui - non-custodial liquidation-defense layer for DeepBook Margin.
@SonarkonSui - strategy platform for Deepbook Predict. Configure, backtest, deploy, and copy automated strategies with full visibility into what you are running and why.
@noderails - comprehensive crypto payments infrastructure that gives you everything you need to accept, manage, and settle payments.
trycallit.xyz/ - Onchain prediction markets with fixed premium and fixed payout, powered by DeepBook Predict.
Explore the full project library here: deepsurge.xyz/projects?hacka…
