Michael Kaplan

Today, we’re announcing Route 66 (a new initiative co-led by @coinbase to make it faster and cheaper to connect to specialized blockchains) and a strategic investment from @cbventures. commonware.xyz/blogs/route-66

@0xBill_ 🚀🙏

@Michael_Kaplan1 Hexicon 2026-04-22 3/7 🟨🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨🟩🟩⬛🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play at hexicon.xyz

It's spring of 2023: I'm in the middle of a 500+ day Wordle streak, and one weekend try to use LLMs to make a version of the game for six-letter words. I don't know JS/React/etc, but am able to get something clunky that somewhat resembles the game put together in a few hours. There are many mishandled edge cases, and it's not functional enough to make it worth the while. It's spring 2026: I no longer play Wordle regularly, but want see how far AI has come on this task. I don't write a single line of code myself, and we have hexicon.xyz. I find playing the game to be almost as hard as it was to create it.

I still don't really know JS/TS/React, but here's the repo for anyone curious: github.com/michaelkaplan1…

It was a fun read, but I refuse to believe we live in a world where Satoshi is alive and continuing to pursue his mission in 2026 by...starting another Bitcoin DAT?

1/ The SEC’s new crypto interpretation says a lot about securities law. But there’s a deeper implication: it reinforces why open, uncensored internet access is foundational to freedom to transact. A return of your Monday 🧵on open, uncensored internet access.

After six and a half years, a few weeks ago I wrapped up my time at Ava Labs. I’m incredibly grateful to have worked alongside such a talented and passionate team and to have been part of the company’s growth. Sitting in a small room in a co-working space in 2019, I never could have imagined the size, scale, or impact Avalanche has grown to. I’m especially proud of what we’ve built as part of the broader Avalanche ecosystem and plan to remain an active member going forward. I’m also thankful for the tremendous opportunities I’ve had, including the chance to work with many amazing coworkers who shaped my experience along the way. It was a very difficult decision to close what was an amazing and formative chapter of my career, but I feel it is the right one for me right now as I take some time off to regroup and reset. As always, there is a lot of meaningful and exciting engineering work underway on Avalanche. In the broader picture, things are just getting started. I’m confident the team will continue to deliver, and I’ll be cheering and following closely. 🔺

A quick note on how I'll operate going forward. My approach is simple: understand conditions before proposing changes. We can’t improve systems without clearly identifying root causes. Here's my process 👇

The industry’s first migration of live digital asset infrastructure has successfully completed. Upgrading the infrastructure powering a live financial asset—while it remains in active use by customers and integrated systems—is not a routine exercise. It requires tight operational controls to manage risk and maintain continuity. Following @Lombard_Finance's acquisition of the wrapped Bitcoin asset BTC.b from @AvaLabs in October, BTC.b continues to operate without disruption and, as of yesterday, is now running on Lombard’s infrastructure. This type of live infrastructure transition mirrors the familiar challenges financial institutions face when modernizing core systems while keeping services running and risk tightly controlled. Cubist’s digital assets operating platform supports Lombard with institutional-grade security and operational controls for BTC.b. CubeSigner, Confidential Cloud Functions, and Bascule Drawbridge enable Lombard’s trust-minimized, multi-layered security model, powering secure self-custody, mint and burn, and cross-chain transfers without institutional gatekeepers. This is what production-grade digital asset operations look like when approached with rigor and accountability.

Tomorrow, BTC.b migrates to Lombard's architecture. It's the industry's first live asset transition. BTC.b remains same token, with the same integrations, soon on Lombard's stack. Here's what to expect...

A $1M builder competition is coming to Avalanche. There has been a lot of conversation around supporting builders on Avalanche. Well, this is your chance to put Avalanche's money where your mouth is. No hand outs. No freebies. Just you, an idea, and $1M at stake.

Galaxy debuts $75 million tokenized CLO on Avalanche to fund Arch Lending facility theblock.co/post/385754/ga…

Spark is incubated under @SkyEcosystem’s Endgame architecture, the rebrand of MakerDAO. With Spark’s move onto Avalanche, stablecoin liquidity flows in at scale, borrowing capacity grows, and TVL compounds across DeFi.

🔺 Super excited to announce that I’ve joined @AvaLabs as Director of External Media. Avalanche is a sleeping behemoth, and I’m going to help set off the alarm to awaken it. The opportunity for community, economic, and global awareness growth is enormous. Avalanche L1s take a unique approach to scaling, and that design philosophy makes it particularly suited to serve a blue ocean of new prospects from a different target audience than today’s average blockchain user, especially as we enter a modern and legitimized era of utility for cryptocurrency. Avalanche is best positioned to be the #1 enterprise blockchain solution because: - Risk-averse institutions and brands can insulate themselves from potential network spikes and congestion cascades caused by hot new token or app launches. Celebrity just launch a token? That’s not going to become a problem for your users. - If Nasdaq, Visa, and/or Nintendo wanted to move all their activity onchain, Avalanche could actually handle it TODAY. Can your favorite blockchain say the same? (Whatever you do, don’t ask Grok). Horizontal scaling = unlimited custom economies. - And if Nasdaq, Visa, and Nintendo did launch on Avalanche, they’d be able to launch their own L1s, giving them full control over their own sovereign network. Avalanche L1s let you make your own rules. Everything from custom fee structures (payable in your own native token or zero fees at all), privacy, compliance for those who need it (native KYC, freezes, clawbacks, public or permissioned validators and whitelists for SEC/OFAC screening, etc.), you name it. Launching a sovereign L1 is as quick, easy, and cheap. - On top of all that, you can also still build on the main chain, or, utilize interchain messaging to communicate with it. Many chains, that feel like one. In other words, all the benefits of launching your own blockchain, plus the blazing fast, cheap, decentralized, and secure L1. - Avalanche L1s are consensus independent, which means full sovereignty over block production rules, MEV priority, etc. - Avalanche also uses a leaderless consensus model, which avoids the centralized sequencer dilemma and potential regulatory risks of L2s, as well as the admittedly more resilient, but similarly flawed, predictable scheduled leaders/rotating sequencer issues of competing L1s, the targeting of which have directly resulted in many of their network issues (a non-starter for major institutions and brands who need predictable stability and reliability). - Avalanche L1s are VM agnostic by design. Want to build with tools from SVM? EVM? Move? ZK proofs? Hyperliquid? With your own L1, the choice is yours. Zero compromise. Unlimited customization. - EVM compatibility specifically also means that Avalanche can enjoy direct compatibility with Ethereum tools, apps, and developer talent, while also paying tribute by contributing to EVM adoption and development as they both grow in tandem. That also translates to a direct low-friction line to hundreds of apps and billions in liquidity. Professional enterprises like Toyota, FIFA, and Maplestory, already proving out the benefits of Avalanche for big brands in the real world today, and this is only the beginning. It was important to me that whatever I do next I genuinely believe in, and Avalanche fits the bill and then some. It’s a privilege to be able to contribute to a project like this at such a critical stage. Add that to the pleasure of reuniting and working with @__arielle__ who was imo the top of the top talent during my time at Solana, and this was a no-brainer. Looking forward to this next chapter. 🔺 Avalanche. Build something serious.

Interchain Messages (ICMs) on the @avax c-chain surpassed 50K last week - the most since June. Increased ICM usage indicates a rise in cross-chain interoperability and activity across the ecosystem -more L1s talking, trading, and building together Avalanche - many chains that feel like one 🔺

People keep asking “what are @avax's real use cases?” Here you go ⬇️ Tokenization: Dinari, Frontier stable token, KRW1, Inversion, Apollo, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, KKR, Diamond Standard, Republic Note, Wine Capital, Homium, Intain, Citi, Watr, Littio, ParaFi, Balcony, Misyon Bank, Lemonade, Re. Payments: StraitsX, Fonbnk, Visa card, Nonco. Enterprise: CA DMV, Deloitte, Chainlink/Balcony, Bergen County, Kinexys/JPM, Blockticity. Consumer: OTG, Maplestory, Zero One, Uptop, Youmio, film, SI Tickets, Tixbase, SK Planet, FIFA, Bowmore/Suntory, Fanhub. Real. Live. Today. 🔺

Tesseract - Monthly Recap #11 🧵 Catch up on @Tesseract_avax’s November. 🔺 Thanks to the Granite upgrade Tesseract is even faster. 🔺 @amichainORG shipped a new bridge with Tesseract. 🔺 And more. The "many chains feel like one" vision just keeps getting better.