Kurt Hemecker

1/ This week’s reading list: The thesis is playing out. Bitcoin was called “digital gold” long before tokenized gold took off. A strong week for the RWA / tokenized gold narrative. Thread 👇

9/ And a little self-promotion to cap it off. An article by @khem for @allnews_ch. In 🇫🇷 allnews.ch/content/points…

@a16zcrypto Gold accounts for more than 90% of the commodities category.

@MacroMate8 @buffalu__ Could not have said that better myself! :) I think you are spot-on about Asia.

@buffalu__ lets pamp

big personal update : i have relocated to Singapore 🇸🇬 and will be actively pushing Solana in Asia over the last few years i have become convinced that this is the asian century this is confirmed by the fact that majority of trading activity and tvl in crypto is asia based. my goal now is to bring these flows to Solana looking forward to the meeting everyone here and making singapore my home

Tokenized assets crossed $34B last month. 10x in under two years. Inside the commodities slice, gold is basically the whole thing. $5B out of $5.1B. Silver, oil, ag, rounding errors. Which makes sense. Gold's globally standardized, doesn't spoil, and people already trade paper claims on it. Smallest possible leap to put it onchain. Bitcoin's been "digital gold" for a decade, so the demand was already sitting there. The part of a16z's piece I keep coming back to is the composability gap. Only ~5% of tokenized bonds are actually deployed in DeFi. Precious metals look similar. Most of what we call tokenization right now is really just digitization. Records onchain, not building blocks. That's where we are. Infrastructure's in place, assets are there, and the shift from "put it onchain" to "make it composable" is the next leg. Slow at first, then probably very, very fast. Every major forecast (McKinsey, BCG, Ark, Standard Chartered) implies ~100x growth from here. They disagree on scope, not direction. Trend's your friend. Getting from digital receipt to programmable finance is a different problem than getting the asset onchain. That's the hard part, and it's starting now. Read the full report from @a16zcrypto here a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/…

as debasement fears grow the sound money movement rises gold is back but now, it's tokenized: transferable, programmable, 24/7 tradable

Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day to everyone celebrating the most expensive "add extra cheese" in human history. Quick math: 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, worth about $41 at the time. $41 of gold back then = roughly 0.034 oz, worth about $153 today. The same 10,000 BTC? About $770 million. Tiny difference. Rounding error. Very normal lunch. Had Laszlo paid in gold, today he'd have… about enough for more pizza. Had he kept the Bitcoin, he'd have enough to buy Papa John's, rename it "Proof of Sauce," and tip the driver in generational wealth. Gold is less volatile, sure. It doesn't moon, crash, or fork. That's not a bug. That's the feature. Tokenized gold. For people who like digital assets but also like sleeping at night.

@jpickett713 A panel : “Capital Markets 2030: Tokenization, RWAs, and the Future of On-Chain Treasury.” @khem will join @bnbhargava of G-20 Group, @FraFabracci of @tether, and Daniel Coheur of @ApexGlobalGroup for a panel moderated by @lornah111 of @partnerspenrose.

It seems like everybody agrees these days... "Tokenization is taking over."

Platinum price supported by a three-month supply of above-ground stock ow.ly/Uf3650Z1Brl

Week-ends are for reading. This week's is intense: RWAs, tokenization, DeFi, stablecoins, yield and macro stuff. This is the last cold week-end of the year wets the outdoors (let's hope). Nothing else to do than read. Thread 👇

Voltaire was not that candid.

@DGLD_Official @thecryptovalley @bnbhargava @tether Looking forward to it!

@thecryptovalley @bnbhargava @tether Hey @khem see you there 👀

Capital markets are going on-chain. Who is building the future? Panel at CVC 2026: "Capital Markets 2030: Tokenization, RWAs, and the Future of On-Chain Treasury" 🎙 @KurtHemecker, @DGLD_Official 🎙 @bnbhargava , G-20 🎙 Francesco Ranieri Fabracci, @tether 🎙 Daniel Coheur, @ApexGlobalGroup 🎙 Mod: Lorna Hutchman, Penrose 📅 May 28, Zug. Tickets: luma.com/CVC26

ICYMI: CoinGecko published its RWA Report 2026 last week. The tokenized gold data stood out: $90.7B in Q1 spot volume, already ahead of all 2025. Gold onchain is becoming one of the clearest RWA use cases. This is the direction we’ve been building toward at DGLD (@DGLD_Official) coingecko.com/research/publi…

@DGLD_Official @thecryptovalley @rbriffod @antoine_svc Looking forward to it!

The gold is in Ticino. But we'll be in Zug. Let's chat at the CVC26 by @thecryptovalley on May 28. We'll participate in a panel, host a workshop and share the shine of tokenized swiss gold on the legendary Lake Zug boat cruise! @khem @rbriffod @antoine_svc will be there. Will you?

@thecryptovalley Really happy and honored to conttibute. We'll be there in force with @khem @rbriffod and @antoine_svc!

@business LIFE HACK: When the government tells you to stop buying gold is exactly when you better be buying it.

Weekends are for reading. Sit back, relax, have some tea. Read on. This week on tokenization of all things, euro stablecoins, vaults and the AI job apocalypse.

+8 metric tons Or +257,206 $DGLD worth of gold.

@clairekart Excellent advice.

Crisis comms is one of those things most teams think they’ll 'figure out if it happens' and that is a massive mistake. You can't have a playbook for what you'll say, but you can prepare yourself to act fast and with clarity when it happens. A few things every team should have in place before there is a crisis: 1. Know a crisis comms person Even better: get some free advice before you need them. Most teams do not need an agency retainer, but they do need someone smart they can call when things get weird. 2. Create a dedicated internal channel Something like # potential-crisis-flag. Anyone on the team should be able to post anything they see: a weird tweet, customer complaint, exploit rumor, media inquiry, angry investor thread, etc. Not everything is a crisis. But everything should have a place to be evaluated quickly. Your team are your eyes and ears, having them 'monitoring the situation' and bringing you issues is very valuable. 3. Have a sign-off process before you need one. Know who needs to be consulted during a crisis: Legal? CEO? comms? product? security? investors? Decide what happens if someone is unreachable. Make a DRI for fielding and triaging a crisis so it's not being passed around like a hot potato. 4. Prioritize responsiveness without overclaiming. A lot of teams wait until they have a complete answer. But we live online. Narratives cement fast. Competitors come for you. Rumors evolve. Silence makes you look clueless and leaves everyone guessing. You do not need to say everything, but you often need to say something. For example: “We’re aware of the issue and actively investigating. We’ll share more as soon as we can confirm details.” or “We’ve seen the speculation. We don’t have enough verified information to comment fully yet, but we are looking into it and will update here.” Never say anything you are not sure of. Do not speculate. Do not minimize. Do not blame users. Do not make promises you may not be able to keep. Do not be dismissive. The goal is to be responsive, accurate, and credible — in that order. 5. Do not compound a crisis Individual team members should not be replying, under any circumstances, in a crisis situation. Why? Because getting the facts straight, using incredibly clear language and an appropriate tone, is the only way to navigate successfully. Well-meaning, but poorly explained responses cause more harm than good. You then start digging your hole deeper. In a crisis, people are not just evaluating the incident, they are evaluating whether you are competent, honest, responsive and in control.