Alex

EthCC 2026: Cannes recap Great to be back on the Riviera. The proximity to DAS in NYC clearly split attendance, a lot of US folks opted for one over the other, and in a few cases, DAS won. What I'm seeing: Companies changing: M&A in staking/restaking is accelerating. Protocols are consolidating or shrinking. Foundations and infrastructure-only plays are struggling. The data backs this: crypto M&A hit 267 deals worth $8.6B in 2025, and consolidation is expected to intensify in 2026. The restaking narrative peaked but sustainable revenue models didn't follow. What's working: Payments, stablecoin infrastructure, and consumer products that generate revenue and scale. @raincards raised $250M Series C at $1.95B valuation. @KASTxyz raised $80M Series A at $600M. Real businesses with real cash flows. The VC thesis: Bigger cheques into revenue-generating products. Less appetite for seed rounds into copycat B2B plays. Higher focus on new niches and genuine consumer capture. The bar for Series A has moved, ARR expectations set, clear traction, institutional readiness. The narrative shift: Away from "amazing tech" and toward "how does this protocol produce revenue and scale as a business?" Bottom line: The filter is on. If you're building with real unit economics and a path to revenue, capital is there. If you're still leading with technology and tokenomics, it's going to be a long year. S/o Good Mate for best caps ☕

@Bfaviero Are we cooked?

Claude Mythos might actually be AGI

@lou3ee @shivst3r @HooCrypto Which cups did you leave with

this is your sign to go Monaco with the boys

EthCC 2026 Takeaways 👇 VC and Fundraising: • Extremely low VC attendance, used to be the biggest crypto VC event just 1-2 years ago • >90% of founders are out of touch with valuations (still) - hurting their fundraises • We're in the early innings of startups and VCs not being able to come back to market expect another 6-12 months of this • VCs with Fund 2 and above are raising relatively well in Europe, LP interest is still here Founders and Builders: • Many OGs have left. The ones still around are either building or involved with the most interesting projects • The best teams are uniquely balancing an ambitious long-term vision with a practical bear market GTM • Tech and first-mover advantage are not moats anymore - I still get pitched this by a lot of founders • People are extremely bearish tokens - tend to agree although some of the best products that haven’t been built yet will still have tokens imo, pessimism seems overblown Crypto x AI • Agents are still early but showing promising signs of generating higher yield than regular DeFi products • Critical infrastructure is being built that is necessary for its future growth Ethereum ecosystem: • There’s still a lot of people building startups in the Ethereum ecosystem - remains to be seen if these builders are business-oriented enough to make it work • DeFi in Ethereum is clearly working and is here to stay long-term - almost all of the best early-stage teams are working in this category • EF Founder success team has done a great job with providing ecosystem support - the foundation needs to focus more on this or else projects will migrate Overall, I’m cautiously optimistic on the Ethereum ecosystem. Only serious people are left. The market is forcing better ideas and more valuable / sustainable products. The best teams are taking the biggest swings, hungry to win, look / feel institutional and are finding early traction with extremely limited resources - good signs of long term durable businesses. If I missed you at @EthCC and you’re keen to pitch us @frachtisvc, send me a DM

@0xave @frachtisvc Good take

@0xave @frachtisvc @virtuals_io Great event 🤝

Ripper turn out at the @frachtisvc X @virtuals_io founder circle event this morning! 🇫🇷🥖 Thanks to those who made it for coming Great to hear about some novel user-facing products being built the EVM ecosystem is alive and kicking

@0xkatienarain @EspressoSys @Celo @redstone_defi @EthCC @MetaMask @hackenclub @HarryHorsfall_ @JolyOnChain @0x_LCS Okayy, Katie on her KOL Influencer vibe, good work

cheeky review of ethcc day1 in cannes ty to everyone who hosted! what’s on the agenda today? @EspressoSys @Celo @redstone_defi @EthCC @MetaMask @hackenclub

@lou3ee Doom scrolling LinkedIn

at DeFi day the person next to me is scrolling LinkedIn it’s real

@grahamfergs @PulchraMens @Securitize @NYSE Huge

The importance of @Securitize recent partnership with @NYSE cannot be overstated. All it takes is one major issuer to decide to tokenize their shares and then the rest will follow. We're entering a new golden age of crypto.

I am working with a ton of start ups, protocols, and institutional partners in the web3 world. One thing almost all of them have in common is that they want to hire cracked rust engineers. If you consider yourself a connoisseur in the art of rust, I’d really like to speak with you. We have a lot of opportunities for you @Blocksource_co

@jinglejamOP Difficult decision but well managed. Anyone who is effected feel free to DM, we have open roles across a range of verticals.

Today we shared difficult news with the OP Labs team. Our priority was to communicate with the impacted people & give the team time to process the news before sharing publicly. This decision reflects a narrowing of our focus, not our runway. I’m sharing the note I sent to the team earlier today, and I strongly encourage teams across the ecosystem to reach out to the people leaving OP Labs because they are talented engineers, operators, and builders who helped build Optimism into what it is today. If you are genuinely hiring, feel free to shoot me a DM with your open roles and I will make introductions (with dual consent).

@lou3ee Beans stock going skyhigh

@behrin Its true

If you are in London/Cape Town time zone you can basically work 24hrs a day

If you’re in AI, pivot to crypto.

Seeing more vertical integration and M&A across crypto lately. Feels like the move from survival mode → durability mode. “Cool tech” alone isn’t enough, owning more of the stack = control over revenue, users, margins and distribution. This is usually what maturing markets look like. Net positive signal.

@0xgaut @NoCodeJac bet you can relate

running out of tokens and having to go outside

Seeing a big push for Designers (especially Product Designers) lately. Anyone else noticing this? Feels like teams are spinning up new verticals to adapt to market shifts and need people who can quickly translate complex engineering into user experiences.

@behrin @Neutrl Lfg gNeutrl

Big joiner at @Neutrl next week. Founding trader/quant at one of the larger defi protocols. We keep building.

🥹

@AlexOnchain Nietzschean Penguin

time to leave the mountains and go home