Legends4Legends 2025 was a blast!

Legends4Legends 2025 was a blast!

Yesterday we hosted our 9th annual Legends4Legends conference, titled “Blockchain goes Mainstream – Stablecoins & Beyond”. We have never seen so much interest. Over 350 allocators attended the sessions from all over the world, showing a willingness to be educated for a day on exactly what is happening on the ground and which innovations in blockchain technology are starting to see mainstream adoption.

To help us separate the signal from the noise, we curated a unique program with many of blockchain’s tier 1 VCs and founders who all made a fantastic effort to come over to join us. We are incredibly grateful as because of their thought leadership, the feedback we are receiving is that Legends4Legends has become the most high signal event in Europe for investors.

In the coming weeks we will share a few insights from the speakers we thought were most interesting, and we are looking forward to sharing all the recordings of the event as soon as they’re ready.

Amongst the many interesting topics, the name that was mentioned most was Polymarket – one of the clearest examples of the mainstream adoption we are starting to see. Maybe another reason was that we had 4 of Polymarket’s seed investors on stage!

In short, Polymarket is a ‘prediction market’ where anyone can express their views on anything from politics to sports. Prediction markets are built on a simple idea that’s older than the internet: the wisdom of the crowd. When information is scattered across millions of people, prices can reveal more truth than any single expert. By being completely onchain Polymarket is lifting this concept to a totally new level. Anyone in the world can now express their views 24/7 and for any amount using stablecoins.

The big recent news was that Polymarket has received an investment of $2bln from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. The round values Polymarket at $9bln post money. This is an incredible signal of blockchain entering the ‘real economy’.

That idea was discussed in detail yesterday, where ParaFi’s Ben Forman framed 2025 as the year prediction markets transition from experimentation to infrastructure. Volumes are now driven less by crypto traders than by mainstream participants using markets to express and aggregate beliefs in real time, making Polymarket a more truthful news outlet than most media companies. One of blockchain’s earliest use cases, is undisputedly showing product market fit.

We will come back with an exact date for the 2026 conference. For institutional allocators looking to get educated, attending Legends4Legends is a must.

Also this week

• U.S. BTC Reserves nearly double to $36B after record-breaking DOJ seizure
• BlackRock developing tokenization tech amid Bitcoin, Ethereum ETF success
• RWA giant Securitize eyeing public listing via Cantor Fitzgerald SPAC at unicorn valuation
• Trump-allied Erebor gains Federal Charter for crypto bank, shaking up Stablecoin Wars
• Crypto market structure bill may need to wait until after the midterm election
• BlackRock expands stablecoin push with fund to manage reserve assets

Relevant financial updates

• Rated Labs*, an explorer that provides comprehensive analytics and ratings for Ethereum validators, was acquired by Figment for an undisclosed amount
• The Small Exchange, a U.S. designated contract market providing futures products that are smaller in scale, standard in specifications, and simpler to trade, was acquired by Kraken for $100mln
• Inference, a platform that trains, hosts, and serves custom AI models via APIs, enabling enterprises to deploy task‑specific models with optimized inference, lower latency, and reduced cost, has raised $11.80mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Multicoin Capital, Mechanism Capital, Santiago R Santos, Crypto Startup School (CSX), Anatoly Yakovenko and 12 others
• Crown*, a fintech company that issues institutional‑grade stablecoins denominated in Brazilian real (BRL), has raised $8.10mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, Framework Ventures, Valor Capital Group, Paxos, Norte Ventures and 1 other
• CoinDCX*, a mobile crypto investment application focused on the Indian market, has raised an undisclosed amount in a Strategic funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, valuing the company at $2.45bln
• Better Payment Network, a payments infrastructure on BNB Chain enabling cross‑border, multi‑stablecoin transactions with hybrid clearing, liquidity aggregation, FX markets, remittance, merchant settlement, and treasury functionality, has raised $50mln in a funding round with investments from YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs)
• Daylight*, a decentralized energy network that uses DeFi to finance solar installs, reduce energy costs, and bring new yield onchain, has raised $75mln (including a $60mln project development facility) in a funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, Framework Ventures, Escape Velocity (EV3), Lerer Hippeau, M13 and 3 others
• Temple, a capital markets infrastructure provider for digital assets, enabling compliant, private trading via Canton network APIs, liquidity programs, and non‑custodial execution with KYC/AML controls, has raised $5mln in a Seed funding round with investments from YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), GSR Investments, CMT Digital, Sfermion, Selini Capital and 8 others
• Jito*, a protocol on Solana offering MEV‑optimized infrastructure, non‑custodial liquid staking, restaking, and mechanisms for distributing MEV rewards, has raised $50mln in a Private Token Sale with investments from Andreessen Horowitz

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

Interesting things to read

• Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether and CTO of Bitfinex, reveals how he built one of the most profitable companies in history on the When Shift Happens podcast
• How banks can access emerging credit markets with blockchain infrastructure, a paper by Visa and Allium

Upcoming events

• No upcoming events