1/ Putting together a thread of DAS takeaways. If you see anything...

my "state of crypto" thoughts from DAS convos–

everyone is excited about the structural macro opportunity in crypto: bitcoin and stablecoin, and the venture equity companies that will service innovations in both of those verticals esp with focus on market structure infra. this makes sense, because PoW was amazing fifteen years ago, and it remains amazing today; fintech was amazing fifteen years ago, and it looks better now than ever. relatedly, everyone is excited about the regulatory/policy agenda, while embracing wall streets agenda re tokenization. i see unstoppable cheering for these trends, and its so refreshing for once to have policy on our side.

Yet i also couldnt help but sense that this might be a mission-critical moment for the crypto industry to reassert its values for the new entrants, and stand tall, unswayed by the known incentives of wall streets capitalism and governments self-preserving inertia which eats up so many truly radical dreams.

bitcoin was always interesting because it was meant to free you from the sovereign. strategic reserves can be interesting long-term but we will have failed if they front run the very people who must benefit first from the movement. we must not lost that plot.

stablecoins were interesting because it was meant to permit global offshore ownership on pristine collateral (whether its USD or BTC), not because it was meant to be a non-interest bearing payment rail from venmo to zelle to paypal. we must not lose that plot.

tokenization was interesting because it was meant to provide liquidity for long-tail (and hopefully scarce, valuable, hard) assets that historically was shunned by wall street, not because it was meant to replicate MMFs or private equity fundraising interests. we must not lose that plot.

It's amazing to see so much hope and progress for an industry that genuinely has the chance to build really important things which seemed unthinkably improbable until recently, and i understand we need the mentioned foundations first before advancing further. at the same time, it feels important that we simultaneously reassert what the long term mission of the movement is, and ask for FAR MORE from our regulators, policymakers, industry leaders where they must tackle the super hard non-obvious stuff, not avoid confronting what might be a once-in-a-lifetime moment to rewire the global rules of truly decentralized finance. even as we embrace regulatory progress, we must remember the final boss is itself has always been and will always be regulatory capture itself.

heres another more quantifiable way to envision where we are: based on rankings by fees and revenue, the top 4 crypto protocols over the last twelve months are: 1) Tether, 2) Ethereum, 3) Circle, and... 4) Jito (h/t to @buffalu__). if you can see what I can see, there is a a prophetic battle here that is unfolding in front of your eyes.

its an incredible start and im excited. make no mistake the path ahead will get fractious, but i feel more optimistic than ever having seen DAS unleash what i can attest to as the greatest institutional energy ive ever seen in the 10+ years ive followed crypto. congrats @JasonYanowitz @MikeIppolito_ and the entire @blockworks team for advancing the industry forward.

It’s clear from all my conversations at DAS this week that now is the *best time* in history to be building for institutions in crypto

- On the sell side (issuers): The largest financial institutions want to tokenize their own RWAs and they need DeFi rails to create real utility (borrow-lending, trading, vaults)

- On the buy side (investors): Crypto-native institutions & HNWIs are actively hunting for yields beyond crypto, especially now that DeFi & funding rates lag treasuries. Big moves towards higher yield assets beyond treasuries traditionally unavailable to crypto users (private credit, non-US treasuries, etc.)

I haven’t seen so much fervor around institutions x crypto in a while, except this time it’s very much becoming a reality:
- DeFi infrastructure can finally support token issuers that enable token-gating on the asset and protocol level
- On-chain borrow-lend facilities and risk engines in crypto have massively matured to meet TradFi requirements
- The current market’s yield gap makes non-crypto RWAs super appealing

The demand is here, today. DeFi x institutions is inevitable and we will be serving.

I’m so damn proud of how @blockworksDAS is going and all the great feedback we’ve gotten. Pretty special energy here this week :)

Really helps you purge the twitter based crypto cynicism that slowly moves it way into your mind

🚨NEW: President @realDonaldTrump said he will make America the ‘undisputed Bitcoin superpower and crypto capital of the world’ in a recorded address to the crowd at @blockworksDAS.

He mentioned he’s calling on Congress to quickly pass stablecoin legislation and criticized banking discrimination against crypto firms and users, aka “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”

Pretty sure by end of tomorrow @blockworks will have solidified NYC as the US crypto capital over Miami and SF

And I’m here for it

Every protocol conversation at @blockworksDAS has led to a discussion of token value capture

So important for fundamental investing, and enabled by the new administration’s positive crypto stance

After ETH Denver it was hard not to question your conviction in crypto for the near term.

After @blockworksDAS I'm cold messaging everyone I know to start adding as much as exposure as they comfortably can.

Institutional direct allcoation is real, tangible and happening very quickly.

Trump speaking at the Digital Asset Summit tomorrow is huge for the crypto-native industry.

It’s the first time an elected US president has ever spoken at a crypto conference - massive moment for the space.

Big shoutout to the entire Blockworks team for making this happen. Hands down the best media and conference team in crypto, and well on their way to leading in data analytics too.

Not many are truly pushing this industry forward, but @JasonYanowitz and @MikeIppolito_ are definitely among them.

The feeling in the room" at the White House's Digital Asset Summit was "an energy we haven't ever had before.

- Rep. Tom Emmer

Being at @blockworksDAS feels like a "we did it" moment. Couldn't be more bullish on where we are and where we're going as an industry! Lots more to do but this is a moment to appreciate.

Join us tonight for RWA Night NYC to keep the convo and momentum going 👉lu.ma/RWA-Night

Will someone please stop my hands 🤣.

But seriously -- @blockworksDAS is so good this year. You can feel the real-world impact coming in a massive way.

DAS is by far the best crypto conference I have attended lately.

The venue and setup
The quality of attendees
The networking opportunities
All the major companies at one place
All the major stakeholders at arms reach

New York needs these types of conferences that unites TradFi, DeFi and the entire crypto ecosystem under one roof.

Reminds me of the early days of pre-COVID Consensus times (without the lambos) where everything happened in NYC!

Well done to the entire @blockworks and @blockworksDAS teams for organizing this conference and having us at one place!

Some thoughts on exchanges, fintechs, and brokerages.

(from dozens of chats with founders and execs at DAS)

1. US exchanges are racing to offer equities

2. Asia exchanges are racing to enter / re-enter the US

3. All crypto exchanges are sitting on a LOT of cash and highly valued equity. They’ll accelerate the above with acquisitions

4. Fintechs are racing to offer crypto assets (top 100, not just a few)

5. Everyone is thinking about launching a stablecoin

6. Even traditional brokerages are now thinking about how to offer crypto tokens

Assuming the market structure bill goes through (should happen by August), all of the above will happen in 2025.

One of my biggest takeaways from dozens of meetings at DAS:

2025 will *actually* be the year we see major crypto M&A

The institutions are now more bullish than the crypto natives

A few big winners this week at DAS:
- @blockworks: contrarian bet on the US paid off
- @Securitize: core of many RWA plays
- @Figment_io: staking = insto onboarding
- @SolanaFndn: huge force getting instos on SOL
- @galaxyhq: NYCs' crypto conglomerate

Early takeaways from DAS

- Institutions are super bullish, but they are unwilling to change their underwriting business. They will continue to underwrite counterparties, not smart contracts.
- Perps are coming to America.
- Onchain balance sheets are non trivial.

main takeaway iIsee from digital asset summit is

current administration allows a shift away from

governance tokens

to

tokens that accrue value

> Going to be a lot of interesting tokenomic experiments

Three major themes at DAS:

- Tokenization
- Stablecoins
- Bitcoin

There's no real demand for anything else in suit world rn. No eth spot etf, no sol spot etf... its very lonely here

Here are a few recurring themes that I observed from DAS:

- People didn't take tokenization for granted and wanted to understand why. What is the value of tokenizing stocks when by definition it doesn't need to be tokenized? The value derives from standardization and fungibility. Operational efficiency.

-Private credit seems to be an asset class where multiple people see easily realized efficiency. However, the details still need to be figured out.

-Optimism that stablecoin legislation will get done by August.

-Beta + Alpha. Investors want to get alpha from managers, but also capture long term price appreciation.

And of course, the main recurring theme is that it is awesome to see folks in person!

The big takeaway from DAS is that things are about to massively accelerate: stables, payments, FX, tokenized equities — everything onchain this year.

Funds are ready to allocate to those who will win them (+ macro chills) — but will demand real utility and direct value flows.

.@blockworksDAS was incredible but also a bit bittersweet

increasingly institutional and feels like market is moving away from cryptonative/cypherpunk

the idea is instead "better settlement" and "faster than traditional rails" as opposed to "decentralized" finance

My top take aways from @blockworks DAS in NYC last week, great job @JasonYanowitz and team thank you

1. In all the 6 years of countless events and conferences, DAS New York 2025 was something else. It was like a 10x on anything that came before. The USA finally opening the doors with positive regulation in the pipeline and Real World Asset Tokenization (RWA) taking the spotlight as one of the leading real use cases for crypto made it feel like a turning point.

The growing onchain data and tangible adoption of tokenized RWAs made it clear that institutions will only work with those who are committed to building compliant and robust tokenization services.

a few takeaways from DAS 2025

first off, big congrats to @JasonYanowitz, @MikeIppolito_, and the @blockworks crew for pulling off the #1 institutionally focused crypto conference on the planet, hosted in the crypto capital of the world—NYC

1/ institutions are showing up, but it’s mixed. some are testing crypto products to offer clients, others are just exploring or experimenting internally—more curious than committed. it’s early steps, not a full dive. we’ll see a lot more here in the coming year, but I walked away feeling that it’ll be more nimble players than the real big institutions that innovate. privacy is also a major concern. the analogy I received was “often times we’re playing poker, and I don’t want to be playing while showing all my cards”.
2/ RWAs [mostly private credit/private equity] picking up. protocols like @plumenetwork, @RedbellyNetwork, and @ChintaiNetwork are working on it, and it’s rough around the edges—nothing polished yet. the draw is efficiency. a friend at a major pe/pc firm described the pain of capital calls and distributions for these large deals—smart contracts could solve that. bigger experiments are happening too, with Plume and Goldfinch partnering with Apollo, Ares Management, Golub Capital, and KKR - things are starting to happen. this isn’t about degens taking over—it’s institutions streamlining using defi/smart contracts/on-chain collateral/etc… still unclear where the value settles: protocols, chains, funds, or elsewhere. thoughts?
3/ BTC yield is a hot topic, with L2s and side chains heavily holding the narrative as an answer. I’m skeptical—there’s no solid demand around the products yet outside, well, “it gets me yield”. BTC as an EVM playground feels off. and financialized products like covered calls or carry trades seem more likely to keep growing than side-chain hype. watching this one closely and hoping it works out, but no one could explain to me what they do on any of these chains outside of getting yield.
4/ NYC’s pulling everyone in. protocols, funds, and even international VCs are setting up shop, drawn to getting into the deals led by American founders. one of our port cos is opening a 6,000 sqft office right in flatiron. that sense of American exceptionalism in the space is growing. I didn’t speak with one person who wasn’t giga bullish on the future for crypto in the USA.
5/ zkTLS came up in a few discussions but seems to still be flying under the radar. seems like there is some experimentation with it for leverage—think verifying off-chain collateral like treasuries without going public. something to watch here, but still really early. I think we'll have some type of on-chain/off-chain hybrid in the future and it'll be a critical component.

overall the vibes were great, side events were well orchestrated, and it brought together an interesting mix of tradFi, DeFi, modFi, and degens - very excited to see where we're at DAS 2026

I had 20+ 1-1s at DAS last week, here is what I gleaned:

1/ DAS is for Wall Street coming into crypto. And they showed up. Every big Wall Street firm was present.

2/ This time felt different. It's not the first merry-go-round of the "institutions are coming." But they all acknowledge they now have / expect to get the regulatory clarity required.

3/ "Institutions coming" means tradfi trading firms first. I met with all of the big ones. They all have plans to market make and possibly trade prop. That's a required first step in institutional adoption. Second, will likely be banks custodying and later trading assets. Third, and further out, is wall street firms buying tokens.

4/ Widest divergence in opinions on BTC price targets and what happens in crypto markets I've noticed in years.

5/ Protocol teams want to speak to liquid fund managers. That wasn't the case a year ago. Now they realize they need a business model and tokens needs value accrual. That's a sign of a maturing market.

6/ Best organized conference. Most valuable thing @blockworks did was allow participants to DM each other in advance to set up productive meetings.

Kudos to @JasonYanowitz and @MikeIppolito_ on advancing our industry.