Kartik Swaminathan

Jun 18

Could Robinhood / Kraken bringing stocks on chain kill meme coins? I’ve never believed in the ‘memecoin super cycle’ but I do own some. Memes represent human storytelling, culture and psychology. They distill down basic ideas and caricature them for amplification and mass adoption. They equa...Read more

Could Robinhood / Kraken bringing stocks on chain kill meme coins? I’ve never believed in the ‘memecoin super cycle’ but I do own some. Memes represent human storytelling, culture and psychology. They distill down basic ideas and caricature them for amplification and mass adoption. They equally represent greed, degenerate gambling and risk. What if this is better expressed through GameStop? A stock - whichever it is - would be Liquid, permissionless and (much) better understood than a meme launched by anons with an invisible captable?

Jun 18

JPM is now in the stablecoin business. Time to come out of the cave, institutions are here.

Jun 17

Token distribution mechanisms are changing - for the better. T1 exchange listings - exorbitantly expensive - are being devalued by DEX listings and increasing volume onchain. Airdrop and points meta is dead if not dying. Not that anyone hates a good airdrop but the confusion around point values ...Read more

Token distribution mechanisms are changing - for the better. T1 exchange listings - exorbitantly expensive - are being devalued by DEX listings and increasing volume onchain. Airdrop and points meta is dead if not dying. Not that anyone hates a good airdrop but the confusion around point values and elongation of the farming period has caused a necessary backlash against protocols taking their communities for granted. Lock drops are getting interesting and chains like Katana are innovating to attract attention with their Gacha mechanism. Fair(er) launches with large projects like Plasma selling tokens at VC valuations to the public are gaining traction and ICOs are making a come back to democratise access to hot deals. TradFi is wading in fast - Robinhood's acquisition of BitStamp and Revolut's moves to hire for crypto derivatives functions show the appetite to reach crypto consumers. Stripe's aggressive moves in the stablecoin stack speaks for itself. This is priming the market for a more traditional fintech UX and onboarding experience and will have a ripple effect on the benchmark for CEX listings. Whether you think the token is the product, a customer acquisition tool or internal budget to spend the landscape is changing to force a relook.

Jun 16

Why does crypto love stablecoins? First product with true pmf. And because users deserve stability, speed, and transparency as much as they deserve face-melting, life-changing epoch-defining token performance. With stablecoins, our Demether can offer predictable returns and real-time settlemen...Read more

Why does crypto love stablecoins? First product with true pmf. And because users deserve stability, speed, and transparency as much as they deserve face-melting, life-changing epoch-defining token performance. With stablecoins, our Demether can offer predictable returns and real-time settlements—no matter the network. The future of finance is programmable. #DeFi #Stablecoins #Yield

Jun 16

Is it just me or is Privy everywhere post the Stripe acquisition?