Ahead of Legends4Legends 2025

We are very much looking forward to seeing many of you next week at our Legends4Legends event in Amsterdam (visit the website here ). We are humbled by the interest from allocators, making that for the first time we have reached full capacity long before the event. We are equally humbled by the willingness for the top thought leaders to come over and to join us in our effort to offer a full day of education and discussion of what the blockchain revolution really entails. I have no doubt that it will be our best event yet as both the speaker line-up and the quality of the audience have further improvied. The title of the conference is: Blockchain goes Mainstream: Stablecoins & Beyond, and one of the topics that will be discussed at length is this week’s Weekly Satellite View topic.

The end of free deposits for banks?

For a long time banks have quite frankly had it pretty easy: pay depositors parking their money with them close to zero and lend or reinvest at much higher rates. For decades, this spread has been tolerated because depositors didn’t really have any alternative. That isn’t a given anymore once customers see they can earn real yield with stablecoins and tokenized deposits. What a depositor expects, will change. According to Stripe's CEO Patrick Collison, "everyone is going to have to share yield". Indeed.

The Genius Act in the US, passed to create regulatory clarity around stablecoins, has become a flashpoint. It prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield on their stablecoins. This clause was clearly pushed for by the banking lobby for obvious reasons. It should be noted distributors and intermediaries like crypto exchanges are not directly restricted by this part of the Act and may still offer rewards. That's why some banking lobbies are currently pushing to even further restrict any kinds of rewards associated with stablecoin deposits in a last-ditch effort to preserve their cheap funding base. But the pressure is building to scrap the yield prohibition altogether: Coinbase already shares yield with USDC holders, and big tech platforms such as Apple, Meta, or Google are poised to offer stablecoins embedded in apps, with better UX and higher returns.

The principle is simple: yield should belong to the user. In an open financial system, hiding the spread under the carpet no longer works. Banks may soon have to do something they haven't done in decades: compete for deposits.

Also this week

• Polymarket valued at $9 billion after NYSE owner invests $2B in prediction market
• Coinbase applies for US banking license, joining growing pack of crypto firms
• Grayscale enables staking for its spot Ethereum ETFs in the US
• Morgan Stanley sets 4% crypto cap for ‘opportunistic’ portfolios, aligning with BlackRock, Grayscale
• S&P Global to launch first hybrid index combining cryptocurrencies and crypto-related stocks
• Citi invests in stablecoin startup BVNK as banks deepen crypto ties

Relevant financial updates

• Polymarket*, a decentralized prediction market platform that allows users to trade on the outcomes of various events, including politics, sports, and current affairs, has raised $2bln in a Strategic funding round with investments from Intercontinental Exchange
• Kalshi*, a CFTC‑regulated predictions market that enables users to buy and sell binary event contracts on real-world outcomes, has raised $300mln in a funding round with investments
• Meanwhile*, a company offering life insurance policies based in Bitcoin, providing a fixed payout, tax-free compounding savings, and the option to borrow against the policy, has raised $82mln in a funding round with investments from Pantera Capital, Haun Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Stillmark and Apollo Global Management
• Bee Maps*, a provider of map data and fleet intelligence built from Hivemapper Network contributions and Bee in-vehicle cameras, has raised $32mln in a funding round with investments from Pantera Capital, Borderless Capital, LDA Capital and Ajna Capital
• Coinflow*, a payment solution for merchants enhancing customer retention during transactions, has raised $25mln in a Series A funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, CMT Digital, Jump Capital, Reciprocal Ventures and 1 other
• TransCrypts*, a blockchain-based company that offers solutions for digital document management and verification with end-to-end encryption to ensure privacy and security, has raised $15mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Techstars, Pantera Capital, Protocol Labs, Alumni Ventures Group, Faction VC and 9 others
• CipherOwl, a compliance infrastructure platform for digital assets, providing APIs and modular tools for onchain address screening, AI-assisted risk analysis, and automated reporting, has raised $15mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures, General Catalyst, Flourish Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and 3 others
• BlockStreet*, a DeFi platform enabling tokenized stocks, decentralized lending, leverage, and yield strategies, has raised $11.50mln in a Strategic funding round with investments from DWF Labs, Hack VC, Jane Street Capital, Generative Ventures, Point72 Ventures and 3 others
• Grass*, a platform that allows users to earn rewards by sharing unused internet bandwidth, has raised $10mln in a funding round with investments from Polychain Capital and Tribe Capital

*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 10/10

Interesting things to read

• “Corporate Blockchains for Payments Are Unlikely to Work” by Columbia Business School’s adjunct professor Omid Malekan
• Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin lays out why ETH is becoming the backbone of the next financial era on the Milk Road podcast

Upcoming events

• Legends4Legends 2025, Amsterdam