Cameron Crowe

I got into crypto because I believe it has the potential to be one of the most equalizing technologies in the world. Progress isn’t a straight line. The internet gave us information. AI gives us reasoning. Blockchains will give us fair access to global markets. This part of the cycle is painful. But it doesn’t change the need for a global trading engine.

@SolomonTesfaye_ oui chef

Over the past 12 months, we have seen increasing regulatory clarity in the U.S. towards digital assets that is fundamentally rewiring the global financial system and giving traditional financial services firms the confidence to fully engage with web3 ecosystems. In July, the CLARITY Act advanced through the House, signaling a clear intent to establish a federal market structure framework for digital assets, while, in parallel, the GENIUS Act’s passage provided a uniform and necessary federal framework for stablecoins—focusing on issuer licensing and rigorous user protection. Regulators have also advanced institutional engagement through clear guidance. In September, the SEC approved Generic Listing Standards, providing a rule-based path for offering commodity-based Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs), opening the door for crypto ETFs without the need for individual, case-by-case approval. Under these new listing standards, one of the ways for a digital asset to be eligible for an ETF is to underlie a futures contract that is traded for at least six months on a CFTC-regulated exchange. Today marks a major step forward for the @Aptos ecosystem. Bitnomial is launching the first-ever U.S. APT futures on its CFTC-regulated Bitnomial Exchange. By bringing APT futures onto a CFTC-regulated venue, this launch starts the six month period to satisfy the SEC generic listing rules for approval of a spot ETF. This isn't just a product launch; it is the formal embedding of Aptos into the regulated US financial infrastructure. With forward-thinking regulatory guidance and growing institutional engagement, crypto is maturing beyond a speculative asset class, with blockchain technology emerging as a critical pillar of our financial system. They are no longer running as parallel, competing systems. We are witnessing a real-time merger of traditional finance and blockchain technology. This is what Aptos is designed for. Aptos wasn’t built for hype cycles and speculation but with security, compliance and stability at its core. We played the long game, often forfeiting short-term wins to focus on building the deep foundation required for a global financial pillar. This momentum across the Aptos ecosystem reflects that focus: - Policy leadership: Aptos Labs founder and CEO, Avery Ching, testified before the House Agriculture Committee on market structure legislation and was appointed to the CFTC's GMAC Digital Assets Subcommittee, directly helping shape on-chain policy. - Institutional trust: The Aptos blockchain reached an ATH of $1.8B in stablecoin market cap (a 3x increase in one year) and attracted over $1.2B in RWA capital from titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. - Ecosystem maturity: From the imminent launch of Decibel, a native decentralized trading platform, to a thriving DeFi ecosystem spanning payments and credit, the Aptos ecosystem is proving that performance and security are the bedrock on which builders innovate. This outcome is the result of deliberate execution. This is what the ecosystem has been building toward since day one. And the moment is now. thestreet.com/crypto/innovat…

@AveryChing let's ride

It’s been >15 years since the launch of Bitcoin, and the market is more focused than ever on real products solving real problems for real people. Real-world adoption has early signs of success and will grow exponentially in the coming years. In the past years since Aptos mainnet launch in 2022, we’ve built best-in-class infrastructure - the most scalable, fastest, and cost-effective blockchain ever created. We created products like Aptos Keyless to enable smooth Internet adoption and Geomi to accelerate builders. We made powerful strategic partnerships with builders to drive scale and adoption. During these same years, we also rushed and messed up the airdrop. We focused on the wrong metrics, like TVL. Alongside many incredibly valuable strategic partnerships, we also made some bad business arrangements that didn’t deliver value to the ecosystem we were expecting. We have learned much from these mistakes, made significant leadership changes and have done a lot of clean up this year. Difficult, out of the spotlight hard work, but necessary. These necessary changes laid the groundwork and strengthened our ability to execute much more in the future. My passion has always been the mission: unlocking financial freedom and financial equality. Historically, we’ve been conditioned to think of global equality in terms of the legal system and human rights. It’s not enough. Perhaps, the 1776 Declaration of Independence says it best that we are all “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” True global equality requires inclusive access to the world’s financial systems, from capital markets and money movement to wealth-management tools and stable stores of value. More powerful financial tools for everyone. It can be odd to think of fair and equitable global trading as a societal accomplishment, but the opportunities are not equal today. IPOs and private funding have limited access. Many other investment strategies have limited access, especially globally. A global trading engine can be built on a highly-customized and decentralized technology stack. It can be accessible to all with all the rules and operations codified. It can offer fair features not found in any centralized market today - such as protection against front-running, sandwich attacks, and hidden costs. Trading tools like delta-neutral strategies can be available for anyone to deploy and understand. No more hidden agendas and a level playing field. Ultimately, everyone having the same access to financial markets, global currencies, investment opportunities, and more is going to change this world for the better. We’ll look back at this time as the path to how we unlocked financial freedom. Our thesis-driven bets toward our mission are as follows: * Equitable and advanced global markets: Decibel, incubated by Aptos Labs, is the first fully decentralized exchange that will match the Binance/Coinbase speed and ease of use. At the same time, Decibel is innovating with new trading primitives, user protections, assets, and markets. With a successful Testnet underway, Decibel is accelerating toward a Q1 Mainnet and will iterate on the product quickly. * Next-gen cloud, data & AI: Shelby is the first hot decentralized storage protocol. It solves the data lifecycle challenge (i.e., hot, warm, cold) for AI use cases, creator use cases, and enterprise cloud infrastructure. Not only cheaper due to reduced egress fees when compared to traditional cloud infra, Shelby is cloud failure resistant, programmable, yet with full creator control. * Aptos Internet expansion with Namespaces: Namespaces offers turnkey, tailor-made blockchain infrastructure built on Aptos’ proven tech stack for any bring any enterprise or institution to bring its users into crypto and expand the Aptos ecosystem, similar to the way the Internet was built. The new Archon architecture fully enables fast and reliable connectivity for namespaces internally and across them. While it is still early for these products and protocols, the response from investors, partners, and the community has been strong and validating. Building the product vision, not just a tech narrative, is what sets Aptos apart. Our strategy is to deliver utility that drives organic revenue in every product and sustains the mission. This is a significant change to the previous years in how we have operated and we’ve been realigning and rebuilding for nearly a year now. The Aptos Foundation is working with us on how to best allocate resources to support these changes. The market continues to evolve rapidly and APT isn’t reflecting the fundamentals, ecosystem growth or progress in the mission. I continue to hold every token that was granted to me as a co-founder because I believe it's the right thing to do to serve this mission. Not many founders can say that more than 3 years post token launch. Mission not yet accomplished. And while we’ve done a lot of learning from and cleaning up past mistakes, we will look at every option to ensure our mission will be sustainable and successful. Looking back, we’ve learned from our mistakes, rebuilt, aligned, and are now executing on thesis-driven bets toward the mission. Our world-class team has never been as focused and effective as it is today. The world needs financial freedom and equality more than ever, especially in a world where AI is creating more information asymmetry and inequality. Let’s level the playing field for the future generations of humanity.

@caseywagnerr @raincards They’re lucky to have you!! G’luck!

Some professional news! I joined @raincards as a content strategist. Very excited to work with this talented team and continue learning & writing about the space. Looking forward to this next chapter!

@jacqmelinek @aptAlix @aave CREW

BELIEVE IN SOM(ETH)ING

@DecibelTrade make some noise 🔊🔊🔊

Testnet is live. Decibel is the fully onchain trading engine built for programmable markets. Built with speed, transparency, and capital efficiency at its core. No more idle capital. No more fragmented UX. Let’s trade loud.

@NickGCat @Aptos save some aura for the rest of us 🔥

gm ❤️‍🔥 aura of @Aptos Experience is forever

@SolomonTesfaye_ oui chef

Business as usual.

@aptAlix i got chills

Congrats to our upstairs neighbors

@jacqmelinek @tokenrelations bullish

Got upgraded on my flight to NYC this morning and everyone in 1st class was on their laptops, reading @tokenrelations I looked back into the rest of the plane - sleeping and movies. Was just a very interesting observation.

it's not every day you get to launch web3's first cloud grade infra welcome to the world @shelbyserves

@realjaysneezy @consensus2025 @easya_app @kwok_phil @dom_kwok @ApersonLyeque @TheBAFNetwork great hangin' @realjaysneezy!

As promised here is the photo dump from @consensus2025 @easya_app hackathon week! A huge shout out to @kwok_phil and @dom_kwok from Easy A and to all the amazing builders that turned out to take part of such a great event! Another huge shoutout to our fantastic friends at @TheBAFNetwork who had the builder house on point in the penthouse and the sky lounge pitch night! Was amazing getting to see @david_wolinsky keynote the hackathon and present at protocol village, @Greg_Nazario on stage at multichain day and present to the hackers at Easy A and @ASHAWONN at the University Builders night! Even got to hang out with the @AptosCollective - @ApersonLyeque and @AlphaTeamAptos -@PatrickAmnis! Still have 100’s of new chats I’m working through but looking forward to nurturing all the epic connections made last week! Can’t wait to do it again! PS I still found time to mint my @penguinonaptos 🫶

@jacqmelinek my favorite city 😍

hello from istanbul if you’re heading to Solana Crossroads DM me :)

@itsNikkiLOL @itsNikkiLOL for president!

you’re making me blush!!!!

Slowly, slowly, and then all at once.

@laurashin health is wealth. hope you feel better soon @laurashin!

Many of you know I'm dealing with health issues. My healing goes better if I'm relaxed and not stressed out, so I'm taking the rest of the week off and logging off from now until next week. (Though I will still do this Friday's show.) Till then, have fun, everyone! 👋

@0xAmol @ASHAWONN @JupiterExchange Great take @0xAmol

Love the vision, Ash. imo to really level up Aptos, here’s what needs to happen—learning from the best teams & actually using the products on a daily basis, here's my 2c 1/ Deep liquidity isn’t just about incentives – look at @JupiterExchange on Solana. They built a killer aggregator that made Solana the go-to chain for trading. Aptos needs a native liquidity hub that brings seamless swaps, order flow, & MEV efficiency. e.g I've tried LiquidSwap, decent experience but can be better. Find the winners and make them get better. 2/ DeFi UX needs to be frictionless – @DriftProtocol & @HyperliquidX nailed on-chain trading by making it CEX-like smooth. If Aptos wants real traders, you need deep order books, low latency, & on-chain perps that don’t feel clunky. Additionally the onboarding process really needs to work seamlessly. e.g I've been trying to use Merkle Trade but it's so difficult to even deposit USDC. Should've been native wallet Deposit right w/ a single click. 3/ Retail adoption won’t come from DeFi alone – I'm building @solanaspaces and our thesis is showing how real-world branding & IRL activations onboarding normies is important. Aptos should back physical crypto adoption w/ easy-to-use wallets, fiat on-ramps & real-life touchpoints. - i dug through a ton of your projects, haven't found anything standout. 4/ NFTs need more than JPEGs – Look at @MadLadsNFT . They turned NFTs into social identity & trading hubs. Aptos should elevate NFT utility, in-game assets, token-gated access, & creator monetization that makes sense. 5/ DePIN is the next big thing – @helium & @RenderNetwork @doublezero proved on-chain physical infra works. Aptos needs DePIN-friendly tooling: reward mechanisms, lightweight nodes, and easy staking for real-world asset networks. 6/ RWA & tokenization are just starting – @parcl built real estate derivatives, while @OndoFinance brings private credit to the blockchain. Aptos should target institutional RWA, making tokenization cheap, fast, & easy to integrate. 7/ AI x Web3 is still untapped – Base @virtuals_io or Sol's @ionet are pushing AI inference & compute on-chain. Even Bittensor style big-brained builders are what you want to bring in to Aptos. decentralized AI training incentives, AI data models as tokens, & plug-and-play ML tools for devs - good ways to elevate all AI products to build on Aptos. 8/ SocialFi will win if it’s actually social – @friendtech failed bc it was just speculation. But @MatricaLabs & @saydialect are building real on-chain identity & messaging. Aptos needs SocialFi infra that’s seamless & rewarding. 9/ Move is great, but dev adoption needs work – Solana had @solhackathon & @superteamearn creating non-stop dev momentum. Aptos needs regional accelerators, better dev rewards, & a clear pipeline from hackathons to ecosystem funding. 10/ Big picture: Builders > incentives – Solana didn’t just throw money at problems, it built playbooks that scaled projects. Aptos needs to back long-term, high-impact builders and make the ecosystem sticky, not just funded.

@0x_kyle bruh u good?

Market is down. Supercycle not here yet. Girlfriend left me. Moved back with parents. Refocus. Build. Onboard. Better together 🤝

@bdanweiss @dlnews @FortuneMagazine @jeffjohnroberts @leomschwartz @CatMcGrath5 huge. congrats @bdanweiss!!

hello! friday was my last day at @dlnews, and today is my first day as a crypto reporter at @FortuneMagazine! looking forward to being back in the saddle with @jeffjohnroberts @leomschwartz and working with @CatMcGrath5. pitch me at benjamin.weiss@fortune.com