The key distinction between Plasma (XPL) and mainstream L2s isn’t TPS or transaction fees—it’s the behavior the system is designed to prioritize. Most L2s exist to scale Ethereum while remaining general-purpose. DeFi, NFTs, airdrops, and payments all share the same blockspace. When activity is low, transfers feel fast and cheap. But during peak demand, payments end up competing with higher-value transactions that are willing to pay more for inclusion. Plasma takes the opposite approach. It assumes that stablecoin transfers are the primary workload, and the blockspace is largely reserved for payments rather than mixed use. From this perspective, fees can be abstracted away at the user-experience layer. Users don’t need to hold a native token or think about gas at all—and that’s a meaningful difference in design philosophy. @Plasma #Plasma $XPL
No Safe Havens Left: U.S. Stocks, Bitcoin, and Silver Fall Together
Crypto Winter Started in January 2025 One sentence to sum up the recent crypto bloodbath: this is a winter that got postponed. In early February, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan published an article titled "Crypto Winter Started in January 2025." His analysis concluded that the bull market had ended in January 2025. Matt Hougan
@Matt_Hougan · Feb 3 Crypto Winter Started in January 2025 We have been in a crypto winter since January 2025. Chances are, we’re closer to the end than the beginning. We are in a full-blown crypto winter. Crypto Twitter only started to recognize this... In October 2025, Bitcoin surged to a record high of $126,000, prompting widespread declarations that "$100,000 is just the beginning." Hougan argued this brief rally was artificially sustained. Throughout 2025, Bitcoin ETFs and Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies collectively purchased 744,000 bitcoins, valued at approximately $75 billion. Here's the kicker: in 2025, total new Bitcoin mining output was only about 160,000 coins (post-halving). So institutions basically bought 4.6 times the entire new supply.。 In Hougan's assessment, absent this $75 billion institutional buying pressure, Bitcoin could have declined 60% by mid-2025. The funeral was postponed nine months, but it eventually took place. However, why did crypto decline most severely? Within institutional asset allocation frameworks, an implicit hierarchy exists: Core assets: U.S. Treasuries, gold, blue-chip equities - liquidated last during crises. Secondary assets: corporate bonds, large-cap stocks, real estate - sold when liquidity constraints emerge. Peripheral assets: small-cap equities, commodity futures, crypto - sacrificed first. During liquidity crises, crypto are invariably the first to be liquidated. This derives from crypto's inherent characteristics: superior liquidity, 24/7 trading accessibility, immediate conversion to cash, minimal reputational concerns, and limited regulatory scrutiny. Consequently, when institutions require cash, whether to meet margin requirements, close losing positions, or comply with directives to "reduce risk exposure," crypto are consistently the first assets divested. When U.S. equities, gold, and silver reversed direction and entered downtrends, crypto were sold indiscriminately to fund margin calls. Nevertheless, Hougan believes the crypto winter has persisted sufficiently long, and a recovery is likely approaching. The Shockwave Came From Tokyo Everyone's hunting for who to blame: Was it AMD's earnings miss? Alphabet burning cash? Trump picking a new Fed Chair? The real bomb might've been planted way back on January 20. That day, Japan's 40-year government bond yield broke through 4%, marking the first occurrence since the instrument's introduction in 2007 and the first time any Japanese bond maturity had exceeded 4% in over three decades. For decades, Japanese government bonds functioned as the global financial system's "safety cushion." Yields remained near zero or even negative, providing rock-solid stability. Hedge funds, pension funds, insurance companies worldwide, everyone was running the same play called the "yen carry trade": borrow dirt-cheap yen, flip it to dollars, buy U.S. Treasuries, tech stocks, or crypto, then pocket the spread. As long as Japanese bond yields didn't move, this trade just printed money. How big was this market? Nobody knows exactly, but we're talking at least several trillion dollars, easy. As Japan entered its interest rate hiking cycle, the yen carry trade began gradually unwinding. However, after January 20, this strategy entered crisis mode, transitioning toward forced liquidation. Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi announced snap elections, pledging tax cuts and increased fiscal spending. However, Japan's debt to GDP ratio already stands at 240%, the highest globally. With further tax cuts, how would the government service its debt obligations? Markets reacted violently. Japanese government bonds were sold aggressively, driving yields sharply higher. The 40-year bond yield surged 25 basis points in a single day, a magnitude of movement unprecedented in Japan's 30-year history. When Japanese bonds collapsed, a cascade effect ensued: The yen appreciated. Funds that had borrowed yen to purchase U.S. Treasuries, equities, or Bitcoin suddenly faced dramatically higher repayment costs. They were forced to either immediately liquidate positions or face margin calls. U.S. and European bonds, along with all long-duration assets, were sold indiscriminately as investors scrambled for liquidity. Equities, precious metals, and cryptocurrencies all suffered losses. When even risk-free assets are being liquidated, no asset class remains insulated. This explains why safe-haven assets (silver), technology stocks (U.S. equities), and speculative instruments (cryptocurrencies) all declined simultaneously. This is a pure liquidity black hole.
This XPL drawdown feels unusually grounded. The question isn’t whether it looks ugly on the chart
This XPL drawdown feels unusually grounded. The question isn’t whether it looks ugly on the chart — it does — but whether we should be treating it as a payment network or just another speculative alt. I’ll stick strictly to the observable facts. Let’s pause the emotions for a second When I look at XPL (Plasma) right now, my instinct is this: it looks like a functioning chain being priced by emotion. The price action screams “sh*tcoin,” but the narrative it’s actually pushing is far less hype-driven. It’s not claiming to reinvent DeFi or bootstrap a massive on-chain carnival. Instead, it’s aiming for something far less glamorous and far more difficult to sell: stablecoin payment infrastructure. That’s not sexy — but if it works, it matters. First, the obvious reality: the drop is real Recent market data paints a pretty clear picture: Price hovering around $0.085 24h volume still around $100M+ Circulating supply roughly 1.8B Market cap in the $150M range Down roughly 50%+ over the past month About -34% over 7 days This isn’t strength — pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But calling it “dead” isn’t accurate either. Liquidity is still there, volume is still there. The market hasn’t walked away; it’s just pricing it harshly. Which leads to the real question: what exactly is XPL being valued for? What Plasma is actually trying to sell Plasma’s positioning is very explicit: a high-performance Layer 1 designed specifically for stablecoin payments, especially USDT. The focus is on: Near-instant transfers Extremely low or even zero fees for stablecoins EVM compatibility This distinction matters. It separates Plasma from generic “do-everything” public chains. General L1s chase TVL, memes, ecosystem noise. Payment chains care about stability, predictability, and simplicity — especially not forcing users to understand gas just to send money. “Zero-fee USDT transfers” sounds great on paper, but it’s brutally hard in practice. Someone still pays. Risk still exists. Spam still needs control. These aren’t slogan problems — they’re engineering and incentive problems. How I mentally break down Plasma’s logic Layer 1: Stablecoins are boring — and that’s the point Stablecoins aren’t new. What is changing is regulatory posture and real-world adoption pressure. If stablecoins are going to escape the crypto bubble and become real settlement rails, the infrastructure can’t behave like today’s congested, fee-spiking chains. A purpose-built payment chain suddenly makes sense: You’re serving people who want to move money, not speculate. You optimize for cheap, fast, predictable, not flashy. That’s the pain Plasma is trying to solve. Layer 2: XPL is meant to be the engine, not the money In a real payment system, users shouldn’t need to think about gas tokens at all. Stablecoins are the thing being transferred; XPL is the system fuel — security, incentives, validators. That creates a tension investors can’t ignore: If users don’t feel XPL, value capture becomes indirect. If value capture is poorly designed, the token decouples from usage. Everything hinges on mechanisms: fee subsidies, validator incentives, staking demand, and which behaviors actually require or lock XPL. Done well, XPL behaves like infrastructure equity. Done poorly, it becomes a narrative token with weak linkage to reality. This is the risk I watch most closely. Layer 3: What the price action is really asking I don’t default to conspiracy theories. I look at volume and behavior. Despite the crash, XPL is still heavily traded. That suggests disagreement, not abandonment. You usually see two camps here: Medium-to-long-term believers in stablecoin payment infrastructure. Short-term traders playing momentum, sentiment, and rotations. During downtrends, these two groups talk past each other. And honestly? Neither is wrong. For a payment chain, the ultimate proof isn’t announcements — it’s verifiable usage depth. Right now, the market is clearly saying: “Show me.” It’s not pricing in certainty yet. How I personally evaluate something like Plasma No fancy models — just survival logic. 1) Is the payment experience truly frictionless? Wallet integration, failure rates, congestion behavior. I don’t care if it’s the fastest — I care if it’s consistently cheap and predictable. 2) Is EVM compatibility actually usable? If developers can port payment logic easily using familiar tools, adoption friction drops. For payment chains, this matters more than launching yet another DEX. 3) Does the token structure make sense over time? With a total supply reportedly around 10B and current circulation at 1.8B, future supply dynamics matter a lot. In weak sentiment environments, even expectations of dilution get amplified. I won’t speculate on unlock rumors — but traders should stay aware of structure. A dark but honest analogy Right now, holding XPL feels like owning a machine that might be very useful someday, while the market just wants to know if it can flip it as a toy today. If Plasma manages to make stablecoin transfers feel as effortless as a mainstream app, XPL’s valuation logic changes. If not, it gets lumped in with every other alt when sentiment turns sour. My bottom line, very plainly I like the direction, but I don’t defend the price. The stablecoin payment thesis is solid; Plasma’s focus is clear. Short-term traders shouldn’t pretend this volatility isn’t real. Medium-term participants should size positions they can sleep with. Projects like this don’t usually beat you — your emotions do. Final thought: If Plasma succeeds, it becomes infrastructure. If it fails, it’s just another coin. Decide which risk you’re taking — and size accordingly. @Plasma $XPL #plasma
Should You Invest in XPL in 2026 A Look at Risk vs. Reward
When evaluating whether to invest in Plasma (XPL) in 2026, the first thing to discard is the market’s instinctive habit of chasing narratives. Plasma is not a project that benefits from storytelling, especially in a bull market. It doesn’t rely on shiny new technology, DeFi hype, or sudden re-ratings. If you approach XPL with those expectations, you’re likely to misjudge it from the outset. Plasma is fundamentally different. It is not built to ride market euphoria, but to serve something crypto rarely focuses on: stable, repetitive, cost-sensitive cash flows. Stablecoins are the clearest example. They are not exciting, they don’t generate FOMO, yet they process transaction volumes that exceed most other crypto sectors combined. This places Plasma in a very different category from typical tokens. The potential upside of XPL does not come from “future growth narratives,” but from anchoring itself to an already existing demand. Stablecoins don’t need evangelism—they already exist, they’re already used, and they increasingly suffer from fees, latency, and cost unpredictability as scale grows. Plasma doesn’t try to invent demand; it tries to serve an old demand more efficiently. If that mission succeeds, the value of XPL won’t come from belief—it will come from actual usage. At the same time, this design choice exposes Plasma’s main weaknesses. It is not optimized for DeFi composability, permissionless experimentation, or mass developer adoption. Any adoption it achieves is likely to be narrow but deep, rather than broad and noisy. In a market accustomed to valuing chains by TVL, protocol count, or retail participation, this creates a clear short-term valuation disadvantage. From a technical standpoint, Plasma also avoids the “maximally conservative” rollup approach. It relies on off-chain execution, minimal data publication, and exit mechanisms as core safety guarantees. This shifts trust away from full on-chain transparency toward economic incentives and operational reliability. For some users, that trade-off is unacceptable. For others—especially those familiar with payment rails or off-chain settlement systems—it’s entirely reasonable. Importantly, the biggest risk for XPL is not technical—it’s timing. Plasma does not automatically benefit from rising crypto prices. If the next bull market is dominated by leverage, memes, and speculative narratives, Plasma may be ignored entirely. But if the cycle is driven by growing stablecoin volumes, institutional participation, and real payment or settlement demand, Plasma suddenly fits perfectly. Likewise, a bear market is not necessarily hostile to Plasma. When incentives dry up, speculative models tend to fail first. But stablecoin transfers, treasury operations, and settlement flows don’t vanish—they simply become quieter. If Plasma can serve those flows reliably, it may persist without needing loud growth metrics. This makes XPL’s risk profile very different from tokens that are purely cycle-dependent. That said, XPL is not an easy investment. It demands patience: long periods without narrative support, no obvious catalysts, and little market validation. If adoption arrives slowly or at the wrong time, XPL could remain undervalued—or even be mistaken for a failed project—despite functioning as intended. So where does the real risk-reward lie? Ultimately, it depends on whether stablecoins evolve into serious financial infrastructure in the next cycle. If they remain primarily tools for trading and arbitrage, Plasma’s addressable demand will be limited. But if stablecoins increasingly power payments, real-world asset settlement, and institutional cash flows, then the case for a stablecoin-native chain becomes tangible rather than theoretical. Plasma doesn’t need to dominate the ecosystem. It doesn’t need to be the largest L2 or the most popular chain. Capturing even a small, stable share of stablecoin flow could be enough to create long-term value. The real question is whether the market has the patience to wait for that outcome. Viewed as a short-term, cycle-driven trade, XPL’s risk likely outweighs its reward. Viewed as a long-term bet on crypto maturing into financial infrastructure rather than a speculative casino, the risk-reward becomes more balanced—though still uncomfortable. XPL does not reward impatience. It also does not reward belief in narratives alone. In the end, the better question isn’t “Should I invest in XPL in 2026?” but what are you actually betting on. If you’re betting on hype cycles, XPL is probably the wrong choice. If you’re betting on real demand, and you’re willing to accept technical and timing trade-offs, then XPL offers a clear, honest thesis—even if it promises nothing easy. And in a market saturated with grand promises, sometimes the absence of promises is itself the most interesting signal. @Plasma #Plasma $XPL
Grant Cardone confirmed on February 4, 2025, that Cardone Capital increased its Bitcoin holdings as $BTC dropped to the $72,000 level.
Cardone framed the move as a classic buy-the-dip moment, calling out skeptics: “For those who wanted a lower price, now you have it : let’s see if you follow through.”
Another high-profile vote of confidence as institutional-style buyers step in on weakness.
Binance līdzīpašnieks CZ saka, ka Trampa tarifi veicināja 10. oktobra kripto sabrukumu, nevis Binance sistēmas problēmas, neskatoties uz daudziem analītiķiem, tostarp Ark Invest pārstāvi Kati Vudu un Tomu Lī, kuri saka pretējo. $BTC $BNB $ETH
Bitcoin, bailes un ieradums iznīcināt mūsu pašu kompozīciju
Pēdējo četru lielo lāču tirgu laikā—2018, 2020, 2022 un tagad 2025—esmu vērojis to pašu modeli atkārtoties ar gandrīz sāpīgu konsekvenci. Kad bailes sasniedz virsotni, lielākā daļa investoru bēg. Un es būšu godīgs: esmu stāvējis uz šī mala vairāk nekā vienu reizi. Ja paskatāties uz kapitāla plūsmas datiem—no ASV kopfondiem, ETF un akcijām—stāsts nekad nemainās. Vislielākās izņemšanas notiek visnelabvēlīgākajos brīžos. Nevis tāpēc, ka ilgtermiņa pamati pēkšņi izzūd, bet gan tāpēc, ka īstermiņa sāpes pārspēj cilvēku psiholoģiju.
We Scraped 260,000 Records with Claude and Found Epstein's Crypto Network
When Jeffrey Epstein's financial empire collapsed, investigators scrambled through offshore accounts and shell companies designed to disappear. But there was one ledger that couldn't be shredded: the blockchain. Using Claude, we processed 260,000 Epstein contact records and discovered what appears to be a previously undocumented cryptocurrency network with ties to the disgraced financier. (The research methods are attached at the end.) 1. Brock Pierce: Demoing Bitcoin to Epstein in His Restaurant About: Co-founder of Tether, Chairman of Bitcoin Foundation, Co-founder of Blockchain Capital Contacts with Epstein: Multiple face-to-face meetings at Epstein's Upper East Side Manhattan mansion. Issues addressed: Bitcoin demonstration, blockchain discussion, cryptocurrency volatility. When: 2008-2015 We're highlighting Pierce first because his records have the strongest visual detail in the entire database. Records show he demonstrated Bitcoin in Epstein's mansion restaurant, in front of former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. After listening, Summers expressed concerns about investment risk but also "provided opportunities" to Pierce. Epstein wasn't just listening on the sidelines. He actively called Pierce to the front hall for a private conversation, then invited him back to the restaurant to continue. The two also separately discussed cryptocurrency volatility. This wasn't a casual dinner conversation. Results of claude's analysis. An email from March 31, 2015 shows New York Magazine Journalist Alex Yablon specifically wrote to Epstein asking if he had me Pierce to discuss Bitcoin. https://www.jmail.world/thread/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025875?view=inbox Someone was brokering these meetings, meaning they were deliberately organized. During that period, Epstein's Manhattan mansion functioned as an informal pitch venue. Pierce brought his projects there, and the audience included a former Treasury Secretary. For a crypto entrepreneur, such kind of networks barely exists in normal business channels. Conversely, by arranging these meetings, Epstein positioned himself as a connection point between the crypto industry and policymakers. Their relationship extended far beyond these orchestrated meetings. According to Decrypt's reporting on newly released DOJ documents containing over 3 million pages, their email correspondence ran from 2011 all the way to spring 2019. Pierce excitedly messaged Epstein that "Bitcoin broke $500!" He pulled Epstein into plans to acquire Mt. Gox before it collapsed, and proactively offered to connect Epstein with Bitcoin billionaires the Winklevoss twins. Epstein said he didn't know the Winklevoss brothers but wanted to send someone to understand their crypto activities. A screenshort from a deleted X post. The connection traces back to early 2011, when Pierce attended a small invitation-only conference called "Mindshift" in the Virgin Islands. The conference's purpose was to help Epstein repair his image after his 2008 sex crime conviction. After the conference, Epstein's executive assistant Lesley Groff marked Pierce as one of the people Epstein "liked" and passed along his contact information. Pierce's behavior pattern reveals more than opportunistic networking. He proactively reported market movements to Epstein, sought his involvement in major acquisition deals, and offered to broker introductions to key industry figures. This looks more like an ongoing strategic partnership rather than periodic social contact. As for what Pierce gained from Epstein's network access, the mansion meetings with figures like Summers provide part of the answer. 2. Blockchain Capital Fundraising Deck About: Crypto venture capital fund founded in 2013, headquartered in San Francisco. Co-founders Bart Stephens, Brad Stephens, and the aforementioned Brock Pierce. One of the industry's earliest professional crypto VCs. Contacts with Epstein: Complete investment memorandum for CCP II LP fund appears in Epstein's document archive. Issues addressed: Complete investment portfolio, service provider system, investment strategy. When: The fundraising deck dated October 2015, investment records covering 2013 to 2015. In the entire Epstein public database, there are 82 records related to Blockchain Capital. These aren't scattered name mentions. It looks more like a complete fundraising document broken down into structured data. Blockchain Capital's investment target list is extremely detailed: Coinbase Series C Kraken Series A Ripple Series A Blockstream Series A BitGo, LedgerX, itBit, ABRA, etc. Even the fund's service provider system is recorded: legal counsel Sidley Austin, banking relationship with Silicon Valley Bank, crypto asset custody with Xapo and BitGo. Results of claude's analysis. In finance circles, there's only one conventional explanation for why a fundraising memorandum appears in someone's files: That person was approached as a potential LP. Considering Pierce is both a co-founder of Blockchain Capital and demonstrated Bitcoin in Epstein's dining room, these two threads are probably connected. 3. Jeremy Rubin: Bitcoin Core Dev Seeking Funds from Epstein About: Bitcoin Core contributor, author of BIP-119 (OP_CTV) proposal, affiliated with MIT's Digital Currency Initiative. Contacts with Epstein: emails on Bitcoin. Issues addressed: Bitcoin regulations, Bitcoin political speculation, teaching Bitcoin courses in Japan. When: 2015-2018 In December 2015, Rubin directly emailed Epstein requesting funding for his crypto research, according to DL News reporting based on DOJ files. Epstein's response was specific, offering three funding options: one, pay Rubin directly; two, Rubin starts a company and Epstein invests (requires more paperwork); three, fund Rubin's research (with tax benefits). A Bitcoin Core developer proactively requesting funds from Epstein, and Epstein providing a systematic response. In April 2015, DCI was launched as a research project by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, specifically for Bitcoin and digital currency academic research. It later participated in early work on infrastructure like Lightning Network. In the Bitcoin technical community, DCI isn't a fringe academic institution. Its research directly influences Bitcoin protocol-level development direction. Rubin was one of the developers affiliated with this project. According to a website built to visualize all contacts of Epstein, Rubin has been in contact with Epstein since 2016. Epstein was the one who reached out to Jeremy first with a Skype invite. In 2016, Rubin also updated Epstein about the Ethereum DAO hack where $73M was stolen. https://www.jmail.world/thread/EFTA02364729?view=inbox Jeremy Rubin reporting to Epstein on the Ethereum DAO hack issue. (From a deleted post) On February 1, 2017, Rubin discussed "Bitcoin regulatory outlook" and "Bitcoin regulatory and political speculation" with Epstein. Three days later, he reported to Epstein about his progress teaching Bitcoin courses to engineers in Japan. This set of records has the highest information density in the entire database. Their email covered more regulatory direction and political maneuvering, indicating Epstein had moved past the Bitcoin education phase by 2017. Results of claude's analysis. In 2018, they had some exchanges about Blockstream's business model. Their exchanges were mainly concentrated in 2018. But after 2018, they abruptly stopped. Kyle Torpey @kyletorpey · Feb 1 Replying to @kyletorpey Also found this email where Epstein tells Bitcoin developer Jeremy Rubin he has ethical concerns regarding pumping crypto tokens, which I just found kind of funny. Not sure if this email was already out there. Rubin's behavior pattern is somewhat suspicious when you think about it. He proactively reported work progress to Epstein. This looks more like an ongoing information exchange relationship rather than a one-time social contact. As for what Rubin got from Epstein, we have no way of knowing. 4. Joi Ito: MIT's Digital Currency Initiave Founder with Epstein's Funds About: Former director of MIT Media Lab. Resigned in 2019 after being exposed for accepting Epstein funding. Contacts with Epstein: funding acceptor, direct communication. Issues addressed: Funding for MIT Digital Currency Initiative. When: April 2015 (DCI launched) - 2017. Ito accepting Epstein funding was already reported by The New Yorker and other outlets in 2019; but the database records reveal a detail that wasn't entirely clear in the original reporting: the specific destination of that money. The database directly notes "Joichi Ito used gift funds to finance MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative." So Epstein's funding didn't flow into the Media Lab's general operating budget. It was earmarked specifically for crypto research. Results of claude's analysis. This directly connects to the Rubin thread. Rubin is affiliated with MIT Digital Currency Initiative, and this project received Epstein's money. While we can't definitively establish that Rubin met Epstein through Ito, both threads converge on the same conclusion: Epstein's involvement in the crypto industry extended beyond social networking. Through academic research funding, he secured access to core developers in the crypto technical community. Epstein's money went into DCI. DCI is a significant institution for Bitcoin core technical research. Developer Rubin, affiliated with DCI, was directly discussing regulatory politics with Epstein and reporting work progress. This funding chain surfaces an uncomfortable question: Did Epstein, through academic research funding, establish access channels to Bitcoin core developers and potentially exert indirect influence over research direction at the Bitcoin infrastructure level? Epstein Himself: From Bitcoin to Libra, Tracking for At Least a Decade Arranging Epstein's own crypto-related records chronologically reveals a clear progression: 2008 or earlier: Brock Pierce demonstrates Bitcoin at mansion 2015: Blockchain Capital fundraising materials appear in files 2017 Feb: Discusses Bitcoin regulatory outlook with Jeremy Rubin 2018 Jan: Discusses crypto alongside John Kerry and Qatar in geopolitical context 2019 Jun 24: Writes detailed analysis of Facebook's Libra whitepaper (published Jun 18) 2019 Jul 6: Arrested Looking at this timeline compressed together, two patterns emerge. First, Epstein's crypto interest wasn't sudden curiosity in a particular year. The earliest records date to 2011, just a few years after the Bitcoin whitepaper was published. Globally, people paying serious attention to crypto at that stage probably numbered in the thousands at most. His ability to access Bitcoin during that period indicates his information network reached the field's earliest cohort. Over the following eight years, crypto-related records appear continuously. This is an unbroken thread. Second, his engagement level kept deepening. 2011 was "listening to someone demo." 2017 was discussing regulatory politics with developers. 2018 was incorporating crypto into geopolitical discussions alongside John Kerry and Qatar. By 2019, he could produce detailed analysis within six days of Libra's whitepaper release. This is no longer the trajectory of a casual observer. You can see he was someone attempting to build influence in the crypto industry. The timing of that final Libra analysis is particularly striking. He completed the analysis on June 24, 2019, and was arrested on July 6. In the last two weeks of his freedom, he was still analyzing Facebook's stablecoin proposal. For someone in that position to remain so focused on crypto feels oddly absurd. Names Not in the Database Recognizable faces such as CZ, SBF, Brian Armstrong, Vitalik Buterin, the Winklevoss twins have no direct contacts with Epstein within the known files. Vitalik Buterin actually has one entry "authored What is Ethereum," but it's citing public materials in the documents, not involving personal relationships. Connecting the Threads Epstein wasn't an investor in the crypto industry. At least there's currently no evidence showing he deployed actual capital into any crypto projects. He also wasn't a technical participant. He never wrote code, issued tokens, or built on-chain infrastructure. But he clearly wasn't a passive observer either. After working through these records, we think what he did resembles the role of an information broker. He had Pierce demo Bitcoin to a former Treasury Secretary in his dining room. He possessed Blockchain Capital's complete fundraising materials. He discussed regulatory politics with a Bitcoin Core developer. He funded MIT's digital currency research. He was analyzing Facebook's Libra two weeks before his arrest. These actions share a common characteristic: He consistently positioned himself at the intersection of information flows, functioning as the connector between crypto entrepreneurs, policymakers, and academic researchers. This aligns with his operational patterns in other fields. Epstein didn't conduct scientific research directly, but he funded scientists. He didn't shape policy directly, but he orchestrated meetings between politicians and business figures. Crypto was simply another domain he penetrated using the same methodology. The possible difference is that the crypto industry from 2011 to 2019 existed in a critical transition window from underground to mainstream. During this phase, the industry particularly depended on informal networks to access policy intelligence and capital channels. And that's precisely what Epstein specialized in providing. Still, there's a big gap between "these people were in contact" and "this actually influenced anything." We can't prove Epstein's introductions changed regulatory outcomes or shifted capital flows. What the records do show is someone systematically inserting himself into an industry's vulnerable transition phase, using the same predatory pattern he deployed everywhere else. Whether his presence corrupted specific decisions or compromised individuals who should have known better remains unknown. But the fact that an industry built on transparency and trustless systems welcomed someone whose entire operation depended on opacity and leverage says something uncomfortable about crypto's early years. The technology promised to eliminate corrupt intermediaries. It got one anyway.
FYI: How We Found All This With Zero Code We started with a GitHub repo called "Epstein-doc-explorer" and fed it to Claude. After scanning the project structure, Claude told us the core data lives in a SQLite database file called document_analysis.db, with a table called rdf_triples. Each record follows a "who-did what-to whom-when-where" structure. Like this: The problem: this database contains over 260,000 records covering the entire network of public figures from the Epstein files. We needed to extract only the crypto-related ones. Our approach was keyword filtering, but we hit two bottlenecks. First bottleneck: the file was fake. We downloaded the project zip from GitHub, extracted it, and tried opening the database. Nothing. After Claude helped troubleshoot, we discovered what we'd downloaded was just an index file, not the actual database. We had to return to GitHub and manually download the complete 266MB file. Second bottleneck: keyword selection. Our first query used 25 keywords: direct terms like Bitcoin, Crypto, Blockchain, plus tangentially related names and institutions like Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Goldman Sachs. The logic was to cast a wide net. Result: 1,628 records, most of them noise. Searching Goldman Sachs returned 90% economic forecasts. Searching Virgin Islands pulled up tourism data. We ran three filtering rounds with Claude: Round one: Broad keywords. 1,628 records. Heavy noise, but it established the landscape and identified key names. Round two: Claude reviewed round one and caught gaps in our search terms. We'd missed crypto-specific vocabulary like Libra, Stablecoin, Digital Asset. We added those and reran the query to ensure nothing slipped through. Round three: Reverse search. Instead of searching names, we filtered for records where the action field contained Bitcoin, Crypto, or Blockchain. Round three was the breakthrough. Filtering by action rather than entity meant every result had strong relevance. We cross-referenced all three rounds, stripped out weak connections, and what remained became this investigation.
Is Plasma a Bitcoin sidechain or an independent Layer-1? Many people refer to Plasma as a “Bitcoin sidechain,” likely because the name recalls the earlier Plasma concept. But when you examine how the system actually functions, that label doesn’t hold up. Plasma is not a Bitcoin sidechain. It doesn’t inherit Bitcoin’s security model, nor does it depend on Bitcoin’s block time or consensus for day-to-day transaction processing. Instead, Plasma is designed as an independent Layer-1, complete with its own consensus, validator set, and security assumptions. The reason Plasma $XPL is often mistaken for a sidechain is its use of other blockchains as anchoring layers in specific edge cases — such as withdrawals, dispute resolution, or final settlement. These anchors serve as safeguards rather than as the chain’s operational foundation. Plasma therefore doesn’t run on Bitcoin. It operates autonomously, while recognizing that anchoring to a larger chain can provide added assurance in critical moments. This separation, in my view, is what allows Plasma to remain operationally flexible while still preserving a credible trust anchor when it matters most.
For years, crypto has been accused of solving problems that don’t exist. That criticism almost always comes from people who live inside systems that mostly work. Stable banks. Fast domestic payments. Easy access to markets. If that’s your world, finance feels “good enough.” sluggish sometimes. Expensive sometimes. But functional enough that you don’t stop and question the foundations. If money has always shown up when it’s supposed to, it’s easy to think everyone else is whining. But that perspective collapses the moment you step outside it. For billions of people and for most global businesses, money doesn’t move cleanly. Transfers fail. Settlement drags on for days. Fees appear out of nowhere. Capital gets stuck mid-transaction with no one able to tell you where the fuck it is. Accounts get frozen first and explained days later after hours of live chat customer service. Cross border payments feel like black boxes rather than systems you can actually understand or trust. When money is unreliable, everything built on top of it becomes fragile. And if finance has always worked “well enough” for you, that fragility is invisible. Access Was Always the Point When I first got into crypto, I thought the vision was obvious. With hindsight, it’s clearer what we were actually reaching for. The promise was never meme coins. It wasn’t speculative tokens with no connection to real economic activity. And it sure as hell wasn’t the wave of scandalous high-FDV, low-substance infrastructure slop that flooded the market in 2024. That era did real damage. Projects launched at insane valuations with no real users, no real flows, and zero accountability. People weren’t being onboarded into better systems, they were being farmed. That trained an entire audience to associate “crypto” with extraction rather than improvement. At the same time, legacy finance carried on hiding behind opaque rails, slow settlement, and layers of intermediaries no normal person can see, question, or opt out of. If something breaks, good luck finding who’s responsible. Both sides fucked it up in different ways. What actually mattered and still matters is access. Access to money that moves when it’s supposed to. Access to markets without bullshit friction. Access to financial infrastructure that works globally, continuously, and digitally without begging permission from a dozen invisible gatekeepers. That’s where Neo Finance fits. Neo Finance isn’t about replacing banks or declaring war on traditional finance. It’s about ripping out decades-old plumbing that no longer matches how the world actually works. Regulation still matters. Compliance still matters. Custody and legal clarity still matter. What doesn’t need to stay is slow settlement, opaque pricing, endless intermediaries, and capital sitting idle for days because the rails were designed in a different century. Trust Is Broken on Both Sides Everything here comes down to trust. And it’s hard to trust a financial system when your lived experience includes account freezes, failed transfers, unexplained delays, and fees that magically appear after the fact. For millions of people and businesses, banks don’t feel like a service. They feel like a power imbalance. But crypto hasn’t earned blind trust either. Anyone being honest knows the industry has been a fucking mess at times. Scams. Hacks. Frauds. Collapses. Bridges draining overnight. Promises evaporating the moment things got hard. That didn’t come from nowhere. So we’re dealing with two broken trust stories at once. People aren’t skeptical because they’re stupid or resistant to change. They’re skeptical because they’ve been burned. Sometimes by banks. Sometimes by crypto. Often by both. When people hesitate, it’s not because they “don’t get it.” It’s because experience taught them not to be naive. They’ve watched banks lock accounts without warning. They’ve watched payments disappear into compliance black holes. They’ve watched crypto platforms implode while everyone blamed “market conditions.” Trust wasn’t lost in theory. It was lost in practice. Any system that claims to improve finance but ignores that scar tissue will fail. Neo Finance only works if it accepts that reality and builds around it, not over it. Maybe Crypto Was Never the Product Zooming out helps. Maybe crypto was never meant to be the thing everyone uses directly. Maybe it was never about turning the whole world into traders or forcing people to care about blockchains. Maybe the real value was always the rails. Global settlement without borders. Programmability without reconciliation nightmares. Shared infrastructure that moves value the way the internet moves information. You don’t need ideology to justify better rails. You don’t need maximalism. You don’t need to shout that “crypto fixes everything.” You just need infrastructure that quietly makes existing workflows cheaper, faster, and more transparent and then gets the fuck out of the way. Old Rails, New Interfaces, Same Problems Traditional financial rails were built for a different era. Banking systems grew up around paper, physical branches, national borders, and batch processing. Money moves slowly because it was designed to. Settlement takes days because it always has. Fees exist because intermediaries were once unavoidable. Neobanks polished the interface, but not the rails. Underneath, it’s still correspondent banking and SWIFT messages. The app looks modern. The plumbing is ancient. Crypto wallets flipped the equation by changing the rails, but often ignored usability, regulation, and legal reality. DeFi is powerful, but for most people it’s brutal. One mistake and you’re done. No recourse. No helpdesk. No undo button. Meanwhile, the real world moved on. Money now flows between businesses, software platforms, APIs, and increasingly AI agents. The infrastructure never caught up. That mismatch between how the world operates and how money settles is exactly where Neo Finance lives. Why Tokenization Confuses the Hell Out of People Tokenization is where people really get lost. A tokenized asset isn’t just a normal crypto token with something real slapped on top. It’s a structured financial instrument encoded onchain. Two tokens can look identical in a wallet and represent completely different realities underneath. Different issuers. Different legal rights. Different custodians. Different redemption rules. Different transfer restrictions. That’s why one tokenized equity behaves nothing like another. And why one fund token isn’t interchangeable with the next, no matter how much people want it to be. Most tokenized real world assets are not designed for permissionless liquidity pools or retail exchange listings. That’s not a failure. That’s finance when legal rights and investor protections actually matter. The Neo Finance Stack This is why tokenization on its own doesn’t mean shit. “Putting an asset onchain” only matters inside a broader system. That system is the Neo Finance stack. At the base are blockchains acting as global settlement rails. Above that are stablecoins, designed as settlement assets that remove multi day delays and trapped capital. On top of that sits the boring but essential layer: onramps, offramps, accounts, cards, treasury tools, and compliance engines that connect onchain money to the real economy. Only then does tokenization sit on top, backed by legal structures, custodians, and smart contracts that enforce the rules. Once money and assets move efficiently, yield and credit products emerge naturally from capital efficiency, not from incentives, emissions, or financial engineering bullshit. Over time, automation and AI start running treasury, managing risk, and moving funds quietly in the background. That system, not any single app or token, is Neo Finance. Where the Real Impact Starts: B2B Money This is where things actually get serious. Consumer payments mostly work “well enough,” which makes them hard to disrupt. Businesses are different. They care about cost, speed, and working capital. Today, a massive chunk of global B2B and cross-border payments still runs through correspondent banking. We’re talking tens of trillions of dollars every year. Once you factor in fees, FX spreads, delays, and opportunity cost, the friction adds up to several percent of value. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a hidden tax on global commerce. When businesses move even part of that flow onto better rails, the impact is real. Settlement shrinks from days to minutes. Capital stops rotting in transit. Pricing becomes transparent. Working capital improves. For some firms, that alone improves margins without firing anyone, raising prices, or changing what they sell. Being Honest About the Limits Let’s be clear. Neo Finance removes friction, not risk. Assets can still default. Issuers can still fuck up. Custodians can still fail. Jurisdictions still matter. Legal structures still matter. Tokenization doesn’t eliminate complexity. It drags it into the open where you can’t ignore it anymore. Not everything needs to be tokenized. Some assets don’t benefit enough to justify the overhead. Some systems are already efficient. Tokenization should be driven by outcomes, not ideology. UX is still a nightmare. Wallets scare people. Key management is unforgiving. Mistakes are permanent. Most people don’t fear blockchains, they fear fucking something up and having no way back. Adoption only accelerates once that complexity is hidden behind interfaces that feel normal. Why This Takes Time This is where I’m blunt about my own position. I’m a realist. None of this changes overnight. Talking about it is easy. Building it is hard as hell. People have to form legal entities, work with regulators, get licenses, integrate with banks and custodians, pass audits, and operate across jurisdictions that all treat this stuff differently. That work is slow, expensive, and mostly invisible. That’s why this space feels overwhelming. Neo Finance isn’t just new tech. It’s new workflows, new responsibilities, and new mental models. For crypto natives it feels restrictive. For traditional finance it feels unfamiliar & that tension is unavoidable. Conclusion There’s a long road ahead. Anyone pretending otherwise is either naive or selling you something. When better infrastructure exists, it replaces worse infrastructure. Not because of narratives. Not because of slogans. But because businesses and users choose systems that cost less, move faster, and make more sense. That’s how financial change actually happens. Neo Finance isn’t a rebellion against the real world. It’s a response to it. A slow, painful, unglamorous rebuild of the rails that move money underneath everything else. Right now, a lot of my work is still text-first. My laptop’s been in the shop, so I haven’t been able to go as deep into the data and visuals as I normally would. That’s coming. There’s far more here to back this up with numbers, flows, and real comparisons. For now, the point is simple. If money moves better, the system improves. If the system improves, trust can slowly be rebuilt. And when that happens, Neo Finance won’t need convincing. It’ll just be how money works.
🇺🇸THE U.S. GOVERNMENT WILL CONTINUE TO HOLD BITCOIN
Scott Bessent told lawmakers the U.S. will keep holding Bitcoin obtained through asset seizures, but cannot force private banks to buy $BTC during market downturns.
2020 with a $70 billion valuation and saw its share price double on the first day. As Databricks is larger and growing faster than Snowflake was at its peak, market expectations are significantly higher. 5. Stripe: The One in No Rush Estimated Valuation: $91.5 Billion to $120 Billion Estimated Timeline: First Half of 2026 (Signals only) Stripe is arguably the most unique case in this cohort: it is the most qualified for an IPO, yet the most reluctant to pull the trigger. The company is a financial juggernaut with a $91.5 billion valuation and annual revenue exceeding $18 billion. Unlike many of its peers, Stripe is already profitable. It processes $1.4 trillion in global payments annually, powering the backends of industry leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, Shopify, and Amazon. However, founders Patrick and John Collison have consistently sidestepped the IPO question. During their appearance on the All-In podcast in February 2025, they laid out a clear defense for staying private: Stripe is profitable and generates enough cash to fund its own operations without public capital. They pointed to financial giants like Fidelity, which have remained private and successful for decades. They argue that employees and early investors can achieve liquidity through regular share buybacks rather than the public markets. Despite this stance, the clock is ticking. Sequoia Capital has already begun exploring ways to distribute Stripe shares to its Limited Partners (LPs), a move typically interpreted as a signal that venture backers are hungry for an exit. Furthermore, Stripe’s early employees hold 10-year stock options that are beginning to expire, creating a massive "cash-out" pressure that is difficult to satisfy solely through private buybacks. If the IPO market remains white-hot through 2026, Stripe may finally succumb to the momentum. However, if the market cools, the Collisons have the capital and the control to continue waiting. Unlike almost any other unicorn, Stripe truly holds all the cards. 6. Canva: The Lowest-Risk Prospect Estimated Valuation: $50 Billion to $56 Billion Estimated Timeline: Second Half of 2026 Source: https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/canva-statistics Compared to the $100 billion giants mentioned earlier, Canva appears much more understated. The Australian design-tool powerhouse currently carries a valuation of $42 billion, with annual revenue exceeding $3 billion and a proven track record of profitability. Canva lacks the geopolitical risks and the massive cash-burn of the "AI arms race." Its business model is elegantly simple: selling subscriptions for its design software. In November 2025, Blackbird Ventures informed investors that Canva is expected to be ready for an IPO by the second half of 2026. While CEO Melanie Perkins has historically resisted going public, the growing demand for employee liquidity is likely to shift her perspective. If you are looking for the safest option among this wave of IPOs, Canva is likely the closest match. It may not be as glamorous as SpaceX, but it also lacks the same volatility. The 2026 Mega-IPO Surge The trend of major tech companies preparing for a 2026 debut is no coincidence. The AI arms race requires an immense amount of capital. For example: OpenAI expects to commit $1.4 trillion over the next eight years toward infrastructure and data centers. Anthropic has pledged $50 billion for its own data center developments. ByteDance continues to spend billions annually on high-end chips. Private markets simply cannot provide the level of funding required to sustain these expenditures. For retail investors, however, these IPOs represent a shift from previous eras. These companies have remained private long enough to become massive, mature organizations. By the time they hit the public exchange, they are no longer "early-stage" opportunities. The most significant growth phase has already been captured by private equity and venture capital firms. Retail investors get what's left.
Why does Plasma choose stability over explosive growth?
At some point, I noticed that @Plasma behaves very differently from most blockchain projects. It doesn’t aggressively chase TVL, doesn’t rush to stack endless use cases, and doesn’t try to manufacture rapid growth through short-term incentives. At first glance, this can feel… slow. But the more I examined it, the clearer it became that Plasma is optimizing for something else entirely: behavioral stability, not headline growth metrics. Most new chains grow by pulling in capital. High incentives, strong narratives, attractive yields—TVL spikes, transactions surge. But this kind of growth is usually cyclical. When market conditions shift, capital exits just as fast as it entered. Plasma seems to accept this reality upfront and deliberately refuses to compete in that arena. The reason lies in its target use case. Stablecoin payments are not DeFi. They don’t need hype. They need consistency. Users don’t want a payment rail that is “growing fast.” They want one that works the same today, next week, and six months from now. Rapid growth often introduces volatility: fees fluctuate, parameters change, user experience becomes unpredictable. In payments, that volatility isn’t a feature—it’s a risk. Plasma is built on the assumption that the most important behavior is repeat behavior. A transfer made today should feel identical tomorrow. To make that possible, the system has to remain tightly controlled. Blockspace can’t be opened recklessly. Fee abstraction, paymasters, gasless transfers, and resource limits all require careful calibration. If growth accelerates too quickly, that balance breaks before user habits can properly form. Another key belief behind Plasma’s design is this: It’s less important to prove that the system can handle perfect peak conditions than to prove it doesn’t fail when conditions deteriorate. That’s why Plasma emphasizes predictable finality and consistent behavior over flashy performance benchmarks. For a payment network, the most critical moment isn’t when everything is fast—it’s when users don’t feel anxious. This philosophy also shows up in how Plasma treats tokens and incentives. XPL isn’t forced into the center of the user experience. Users don’t even need to hold XPL to send USDT. That reduces speculative excitement, but it aligns with Plasma’s long-term goal: a payment system should run on usage, not price expectations. Stability-first thinking also shapes how Plasma manages centralized risk. Fast-growing chains are often forced to expand rapidly—more validators, more partners, more infrastructure. Each step introduces operational risk. Plasma deliberately moves slower to maintain control. The ecosystem may look small in the short term, but the chance of systemic failure is lower. Of course, this strategy has real trade-offs. Slower growth means less attention, fewer developers, and weaker narratives in a market obsessed with speed. Plasma is easy to underestimate when success is measured in short-term momentum. But that may be the cost of avoiding a far bigger risk: losing trust after overheating. A payment layer can’t “experiment” with user funds the way DeFi protocols sometimes do. Every disruption leaves a lasting memory. Plasma appears to believe that sacrificing a year of growth is better than losing credibility once. From a cycle perspective, this also gives Plasma resilience in bear markets. When speculative capital dries up, incentive-driven systems quickly hollow out. But if Plasma is still being used for real payments, it still serves a purpose. Plasma isn’t anti-growth. It simply refuses to grow before stable behavior is proven. That distinction matters. It wants the system to expand with habits, not with expectations. The real question is whether the market has the patience for this approach. Crypto rarely does. But payments demand it. Plasma is betting that one day, stability will be rarer than growth. And when that happens, the systems that don’t run the fastest—but run the most consistently—will endure. So Plasma prioritizes stability over hot growth not because it lacks ambition, but because it’s playing a different game. A game where success isn’t decided in months, but by whether users send money for the hundredth time without even thinking about the system underneath. For a payment layer, that’s the only metric that truly matters. @Plasma #Plasma $XPL
The Stablecoin Breakout in 2026 and Why Plasma Matters It increasingly feels like 2026 will be the year stablecoins fully step into the mainstream. Among the projects aiming to support that shift, Plasma stands out as a serious contender for becoming everyday financial infrastructure in crypto. From what I’ve seen, stablecoins are no longer mainly about chasing yield. They’re being used for very practical purposes: storing value, sending money, and handling cross-border payments. In this phase, what users care about most isn’t upside—it’s reliability, low friction, and predictability. That’s where general-purpose blockchains start to show their limits. On multi-functional chains, simple payments are forced to compete with DeFi trades, NFT mints, and speculative activity for blockspace. The result is variable fees, congestion, and uncertain settlement times—none of which are acceptable for everyday money. Plasma is designed specifically to address this gap. Rather than trying to be everything at once, it focuses on making stablecoin transfers intentionally “boring”: fast, inexpensive, and mentally effortless. If stablecoins truly scale in 2026, Plasma’s bet is clear—and compelling. In a world where stability is the product, being invisible and unobtrusive may be the real advantage. @Plasma #Plasma $XPL