Blockchain replaces the middlemen

If you are an investor who, amongst the barrage of news, is trying to make sense of blockchain technology, a good way to think about it is this: blockchain technology is all about replacing intermediaries. The result is that we are eliminating friction and boundaries. In other words, blockchain is not just another financial product, it is an infrastructure shift. Finance, payments and markets are built upon layers upon layers of middlemen (I was one of them!). They actually prefer to introduce friction and boundaries, because that is after all how they get paid. Blockchain networks are getting rid of these layers, opening up a truly global, frictionless economy. Our CIO Ruud Smets wrote an excellent blog post on this: Beyond Bitcoin – how blockchain unlocks the impossible

.

Okay, so why don’t most people see it like this, investors included? We think the answer is twofold. Firstly, paradigm shifts are invisible at first. People assume that change comes from within the existing system. But blockchains are a completely new way of doing things, without needing the existing system at all. Think email, but for the overall economy. Secondly, there is far too much noise one has to look through. Blockchain’s efficiency revolution is drowned out by wild speculation, scams and complexity. This gets amplified by the media and drowns out the real story.

Decentralization, token incentives and open-source finance require a complete rethink of fundamental economic assumptions. Most people haven’t internalized the mental model for it yet, but to quote the head of Onyx, JP Morgan’s internal Digital Assets group, Tyrone Lobban, who spoke at our Legends4Legends conference: “once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it”.

I’ll leave you with a clear example of how blockchain transforms financial infrastructure. Today, sending money across borders comes with an average cost of 6.5%, driven by layers of intermediaries each taking a cut. Blockchain eliminates these inefficiencies, allowing direct, near-instant transfers at a fraction of the cost. This is not just about reducing fees—it’s about replacing a slow, fragmented system with a more secure and automated infrastructure. The networks enabling this shift are what we invest in.

Also this week

• Apollo, the $730b investment firm, unveils tokenized private credit fund
• Scott Bessent is confiremed as US Treasury Secretary, replacing Jenet Yellen, where he will help shape U.S. crypto policy. Bessent is known as a digital asset enthusiast
• Jerome Powell, Fed Chair says US Banks “perfectly able” to serve crypto customers
• Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has reintroduced staking services for U.S. customers, which was previously halted by the SEC
• Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the company behind Truth Social, is moving into financial services with the launch of Truth.fi
• Coinbase has expanded its Global Advisory Council with four strategic appointments, including Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita

Relevant financial updates

• Accrue*, a company leveraging blockchain and stablecoins to unlock financial services across the African continent raised a $1.8mln Seed round with the participation of Maven11, Lattice and Lava (read more )
• Humanity Protocol*, a startup seeking to integrate palm recognition and blockchain technology to provide a less invasive alternative for proof of humanity raised a $20mln Series A co-led by Pantera Capital and Jump Crypto (read more )
• Pod*, a Layer-1 blockchain designed to provide low-latency decentralized systems raised a $10mln Series A co-lled by a16z and 1KX. (read more )
• The community of Azuki (one prominent NFT collection in the space) launched the $ANIME token network, which currently trades at $440mln FDV
• Jupiter a leading aggregator in the Solana ecosystem recently acquired Moonshot, a platform that simplifies user onboarding into crypto (read more )
• Symbiotic* has launched its mainnet and token at a 1.88 billion TVL (read more )

*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 31/01

Interesting things to read

• Founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin published a blog post on the layer 2 roadmap
• Blackrock’s crypto plans for 2025
• A deeper discussion on what drives a crypto VC with Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi
• Breakout of the executive order by Pantera’s Paul Veradittakit: Crypto Executive Order - by Paul Veradittakit
• Head of a16z Crypto Chris Dixon talks about recent momentum and what he is excited about on Unchained: Chris Dixon on Why We Will Finally See New App Innovation in Crypto - Ep. 773 - Unchained | Podcast on Spotify

Upcoming events

• Consensus, Hong Kong
• ETHDenver 2025, Denver
• Legends4Legends 2025, Amsterdam