Minh Vo

The investor dinner and the start of something great. 1kx @HeyChristopher @Explorerdfa @karimhelpme 1Confirmation @YekiM_o a16z @Jay_Drainjr Archetype @DannySursock Bitkraft @CegaPereira Blockchain Capital @_Kinjalbshah CMT Digital @OliverJaros_ Compound VC @0xsmac Crucible Capital @Melt_Dem Cyber Fund @Lomashuk Dragonfly Capital @TomhSchmidt Electric Capital @MariaShen Fraction @Tkhoury Frictionless @SolanaLegend @LoganJastremski Hashed @Baekkyoumkim Haun Ventures @Brxckinridge Lightshift @SimaoCCruz Maximum Frequency @Neilhar Multicoin Capital @SpencerApplebau @ShayonSengupta North Island Ventures @GregMRosenthal ParaFi Capital @Anjan_Vinod Portal Ventures @EvanbFish Polychain @codeisnotlaw Reverie @Lsukernik Strobe Ventures @WinnieLaux Yzi Labs @0xRickyW

.@USDC just hit an all-time high of $79.45B in supply. That's a 2.5x growth from March 2024, in just 2 years. But supply growth is only half of the story. We dig into the data to reveal how USDC has become the backbone of onchain capital markets 🧵 birdeye.so/research/detai…

Trying to keep up with new tokens on Base? @davidtsocy demos @tryfomo

The RWA ecosystem continues to show solid growth. What sector and project do you feel will see the biggest growth in this sector?

All you need to do is look at connections. That's what Metcalfe's law says. $LINK is ON TOP, connecting everything together. $ETH follows in a second place. $XRP has a lot of hype, less practical usage though. $ONDO is advancing on Real-World-Assets. $AVAX / $SOL connected to ETFs and DeFi.

🦞 MOLT ECOSYSTEM MAP 🦞 83 projects. 1 chain. 1 framework. [ CORE INFRA ] FOUNDATION ▫️ @openclaw: Core framework for building autonomous AI agents ▫️ @base: Economic settlement layer STANDARDS & PROTOCOLS ▫️ ERC-8004: Onchain identity and discovery standard for agents ▫️ x402: HTTP payment protocol - agents pay for services via USDC micropayments ▫️ ACP (Agent Commerce Protocol): Onchain agent-to-agent transactions by @virtuals_io WALLETS ▫️ @bankrbot: AI crypto banker - wallets, trading, skills, DeFi for agents ▫️ @privy_io: Agentic Wallets - agents hold, sign, transact autonomously ▫️ @wardenprotocol: Agentic Wallet - multi-agent orchestration, one wallet accessible to any agent ▫️ Coinbase CDP: Developer platform - agent wallets on Base ▫️ @MetaMaskDev: Smart Accounts Kit - embedded smart accounts, delegations, advanced permissions via skill SIMULATION & AGENT WARS ▫️ @DXRGai: Massive simulation - 36K+ agents, 2.6M messages, 40B tokens processed. DX Terminal Pro for onchain agent markets on Base ▫️ @ForgeAI_gg: Competitive trading tournaments - agents battle for ROI supremacy and prize pools INFRA ▫️ @clanker_world: Token launch infrastructure for agent launches ▫️ @xmtp_: Decentralized messaging protocol, x402 integration ▫️ @daydreamsagents: Lucid SDK - agents ship x402 paid endpoints with ERC-8004 identities. Commerce skills, inference routing, xgate discovery ▫️ @starkbotai: x402-enabled agent deployment infrastructure ▫️ @FelixCraftAI: Hosted agent stack - text, voice, memory, tools without config ▫️ @neynarxyz: Social graphs and feeds infrastructure COMPUTE & DATA ▫️ @eigencloud: Verifiable computation - TEE execution, deterministic AI inference ▫️ @heurist_ai: Crypto skills - market headlines, research, trending tokens, wallet analysis ▫️ @reppo: Continuous learning - real-time data pipelines for agents using prediction markets ▫️ @AskVenice: VPN for AI models - private/anonymized inference, lower costs ▫️ @ClawCloudx: Cloud platform - autonomous compute purchase on Base ▫️ @ConwayResearch: Permissionless compute - agents buy VMs with USDC, deploy code SECURITY & TRUST ▫️ @Wach_AI: Mandates - deterministic agreements between agents for reputation ▫️ @ChaosClawAI: Trust sentinel - verifies ERC-8004 identity, explains reputation signals ▫️ PromptIntel by @fr0gger_: Threat intel feed - agents report and receive security alerts ▫️ @cybercentry: Security verification and auditing - token, wallet, code, web app verification ▫️ @regent_cx: Unruggable agent safety - dual TEE backup on @eigencloud & @PhalaNetwork PAYMENTS & COMMERCE ▫️ @zauthx402: x402 endpoint verification, trust infra for autonomous commerce ▫️ @b402ai: Private agent payments - Railgun ZK proofs ▫️ @x402_Layer: Agents sell autonomously - create x402 endpoints, set pricing ++ more 🧵🦞

@kckellycs have a great trip

Get ready for Consensus Hong Kong, If you have not bought ticket, this is promo code with 20% discount: NOTALONEVN If you are in HK 8th -14th between 8-14th Feb, let’s meet. Link to book ticket as below go.coindesk.com/hk26-notalonevn

There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts: * L2s' progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected * L1 itself is scaling, fees are very low, and gaslimits are projected to increase greatly in 2026 Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path. First, let us recap the original vision. Ethereum needs to scale. The definition of "Ethereum scaling" is the existence of large quantities of block space that is backed by the full faith and credit of Ethereum - that is, block space where, if you do things (including with ETH) inside that block space, your activities are guaranteed to be valid, uncensored, unreverted, untouched, as long as Ethereum itself functions. If you create a 10000 TPS EVM where its connection to L1 is mediated by a multisig bridge, then you are not scaling Ethereum. This vision no longer makes sense. L1 does not need L2s to be "branded shards", because L1 is itself scaling. And L2s are not able or willing to satisfy the properties that a true "branded shard" would require. I've even seen at least one explicitly saying that they may never want to go beyond stage 1, not just for technical reasons around ZK-EVM safety, but also because their customers' regulatory needs require them to have ultimate control. This may be doing the right thing for your customers. But it should be obvious that if you are doing this, then you are not "scaling Ethereum" in the sense meant by the rollup-centric roadmap. But that's fine! it's fine because Ethereum itself is now scaling directly on L1, with large planned increases to its gas limit this year and the years ahead. We should stop thinking about L2s as literally being "branded shards" of Ethereum, with the social status and responsibilities that this entails. Instead, we can think of L2s as being a full spectrum, which includes both chains backed by the full faith and credit of Ethereum with various unique properties (eg. not just EVM), as well as a whole array of options at different levels of connection to Ethereum, that each person (or bot) is free to care about or not care about depending on their needs. What would I do today if I were an L2? * Identify a value add other than "scaling". Examples: (i) non-EVM specialized features/VMs around privacy, (ii) efficiency specialized around a particular application, (iii) truly extreme levels of scaling that even a greatly expanded L1 will not do, (iv) a totally different design for non-financial applications, eg. social, identity, AI, (v) ultra-low-latency and other sequencing properties, (vi) maybe built-in oracles or decentralized dispute resolution or other "non-computationally-verifiable" features * Be stage 1 at the minimum (otherwise you really are just a separate L1 with a bridge, and you should just call yourself that) if you're doing things with ETH or other ethereum-issued assets * Support maximum interoperability with Ethereum, though this will differ for each one (eg. what if you're not EVM, or even not financial?) From Ethereum's side, over the past few months I've become more convinced of the value of the native rollup precompile, particuarly once we have enshrined ZK-EVM proofs that we need anyway to scale L1. This is a precompile that verifies a ZK-EVM proof, and it's "part of Ethereum", so (i) it auto-upgrades along with Ethereum, and (ii) if the precompile has a bug, Ethereum will hard-fork to fix the bug. The native rollup precompile would make full, security-council-free, EVM verification accessible. We should spend much more time working out how to design it in such a way that if your L2 is "EVM plus other stuff", then the native rollup precompile would verify the EVM, and you only have to bring your own prover for the "other stuff" (eg. Stylus). This might involve a canonical way of exposing a lookup table between contract call inputs and outputs, and letting you provide your own values to the lookup table (that you would prove separately). This would make it easy to have safe, strong, trustless interoperability with Ethereum. It also enables synchronous composability (see: ethresear.ch/t/combining-pr… and ethresear.ch/t/synchronous-… ). And from there, it's each L2's choice exactly what they want to build. Don't just "extend L1", figure out something new to add. This of course means that some will add things that are trust-dependent, or backdoored, or otherwise insecure; this is unavoidable in a permissionless ecosystem where developers have freedom. Our job should make to make it clear to users what guarantees they have, and to build up the strongest Ethereum that we can.

How to understand anything via @curiousmin

🟦 Base DeFi Ecosystem Weekly Wrap Here is top 10 based on UAW and Volume: 1. @AerodromeFi : Remains the central marketplace, holding $1.35B in TVL and capturing nearly 50% of all DEX volume on the chain. 2. @Uniswap : Institutional adoption is visible here, with the protocol recording 40% TVL growth on Base recently while processing massive daily volumes globally. 3. @1inch : Aggregation activity is rising. Facilitated $400M in trades on Base this week (up 15%), optimizing execution across fragmented liquidity pools. 4. @JumperExchange : A key infrastructure piece for interoperability, aggregating over $300M in cross-chain swaps to move capital efficiently between 20+ chains. 5. @PancakeSwap : Has solidified its position as the #2 DEX on Base by volume, processing over $200M weekly backed by its deep multi-chain liquidity. 6. @SynFuturesDefi : Derivatives demand is outpacing spot. Recorded $250M in perpetual futures volume (+20% WoW) as traders increase onchain hedging activity. 7. @SushiSwap : Continuing to retain sticky capital with $150M TVL and over $100M in weekly volume, driven by concentrated liquidity incentives. 8. @RangoExchange : Solving liquidity fragmentation with $120M in cross-chain volume, seeing a 10% volume uptick via new network integrations. 9. @deBridge : Experienced a significant short-term liquidity injection, recording an 87% daily increase in Base volume for instant settlements. 10. @zerion : Growing as a primary interface for portfolio management, now tracking over $80M in managed assets directly on Base.

If you think crypto is complicated, wait till you find out the US Dollar works

🇻🇳 JUST IN: State Securities Commission of Vietnam begins licensing crypto-asset trading markets from Jan 20, 2026.

If you want to understand where the future is headed, start here: Big Ideas 2026. Download: ark-invest.com/big-ideas-2026

Ministry of Finance Issues Procedures for Crypto Asset Exchange Licensing The Ministry of Finance has officially released Decision No. 96/QD-BTC dated January 20, 2026, outlining the administrative procedures for crypto asset exchange licenses. This information has been publicly updated on the State Securities Commission (SSC) website. To implement Government Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP dated September 9, 2025, regarding the pilot program for the crypto asset market in Vietnam, the Minister of Finance signed Decision No. 96/QD-BTC. This decision introduces three new pilot administrative procedures under the Ministry's management: Issuance of licenses for providing crypto asset trading market organization services. Adjustment of licenses for providing crypto asset trading market organization services. Revocation of licenses for providing crypto asset trading market organization services. The Ministry will begin accepting applications starting from January 20, 2026. Interested organizations and individuals can find detailed information in the Appendix attached to Decision No. 96/QD-BTC, available on the State Securities Commission's official portal at ssc.gov.vn.

Today, NYSE is proud to announce the development of a platform for trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities. NYSE’s new digital platform will enable tokenized trading experiences, including 24/7 operations, instant settlement, orders sized in dollar amounts, and stablecoin-based funding. Its design combines the NYSE’s cutting-edge Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade systems. Learn more: businesswire.com/news/home/2026…

🇺🇸 JUST IN: NYSE is moving toward 24/7 stock trading, powered by an on-chain tokenized exchange.

Now that ZKEVMs are at alpha stage (production-quality performance, remaining work is safety) and PeerDAS is live on mainnet, it's time to talk more about what this combination means for Ethereum. These are not minor improvements; they are shifting Ethereum into being a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network. To see why, let's look at the two major types of p2p network so far: BitTorrent (2000): huge total bandwidth, highly decentralized, no consensus Bitcoin (2009): highly decentralized, consensus, but low bandwidth - because it’s not “distributed” in the sense of work being split up, it’s *replicated* Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small portions of the network using it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high bandwidth The trilemma has been solved - not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is *on mainnet today*, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is *production-quality on performance today* - safety is what remains. This was a 10-year journey (see the first commit of my original post on DAS here: github.com/ethereum/resea… , and ZK-EVM attempts started in ~2020), but it's finally here. Over the next ~4 years, expect to see the full extent of this vision roll out: * In 2026, large non-ZKEVM-dependent gas limit increases due to BALs and ePBS, and we'll see the first opportunities to run a ZKEVM node * In 2026-28, gas repricings, changes to state structure, exec payload going into blobs, and other adjustments to make higher gas limits safe * In 2027-30, large further gas limit increases, as ZKEVM becomes the primary way to validate blocks on the network A third piece of this is distributed block building. A long-term ideal holy grail is to get to a future where the full block is *never* constituted in one single place. This will not be necessary for a long time, but IMO it is worth striving for us at least have the capability to do that. Even before that point, we want the meaningful authority in block building to be as distributed as possible. This can be done either in-protocol (eg. maybe we figure out how to expand FOCIL to make it a primary channel for txs), or out-of-protocol with distributed builder marketplaces. This reduces risk of centralized interference with real-time transaction inclusion, AND it creates a better environment for geographical fairness. Onward.

The “A+++++ economy” narrative is getting old. In this thread: 🔹 Why the US looks fine on the surface 🔸 4 pressure points underneath 🔹 Why BNPL is a hidden accelerant 🔸 The forced bid propping markets up Your guide to the US debt pressure cooker.👇