August Week 3 - 2025

CRYPTO RESET
Besides BTC & ETH Is ADA The Only “Mature” L1 in the Top 10?

The policy tide is turning in a way that could put Cardano squarely in the sights of big allocators. Congress advanced a “mature blockchain system” standard in the CLARITY Act, which passed the House in July. If that rubric becomes law, regulators get a clearer test for age, decentralization, and security. By that yardstick, Cardano is arguably the only L1 besides BTC and ETH in today’s top 10 that would make the cut, which immediately changes how pensions, RIAs, and ETF issuers size ADA. Add the GENIUS Act’s federal stablecoin framework and you have a broader green light for compliant digital asset rails. The question shifts from “can we allocate ADA?” to “how much ADA should we allocate?”

There is also a real technical wedge. Cardano is the only major smart contract chain built on an extended UTXO model, combining Bitcoin style determinism with full programmability. With the BitcoinOS initiative bringing BTC liquidity onto Cardano, the network can offer trust minimized rails for Bitcoin settled applications without the workarounds that account based chains like ETH require. If that flywheel spins, BTC, the deepest capital pool in crypto, becomes the catalyst for a Cardano led wave of Bitcoin DeFi.

Institutional aperture is widening at the same time. Spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs have proved product market fit and normalized crypto inside retirement accounts and model portfolios. When the mature blockchain framework lands on Wall Street, the list of contenders will get considerably shorter not longer.

Historically ADA has made violent moves to the upside. Last cycle going from $0.03 to $3.06 in very short order. This cycle ADA is set up to surprise once again and this time It has a credible regulatory glide path, a unique technical lane for BTC centric DeFi, and rising institutional mindshare. That combination is rare and definitely under appreciated. If these catalysts click into place, Cardano can move from over looked to over owned real quick!

Remember institutions don’t care about the crypto bros hype coin of the month. They care about the three Rs, Regulation, Reputation & Returns. 😎

BITCOIN RESET
Is There Quiet Civil War Going On With Bitcoin?

Bitcoin’s latest fight isn’t price action, it’s philosophy. A growing rift has opened between two node implementations that both enforce the same consensus rules but take very different views of what the network should relay. Most nodes run Bitcoin Core, which treats any fee-paying transaction as valid to broadcast. An expanding minority run Bitcoin Knots, a stricter build that deprioritizes or filters non-monetary data (think inscriptions, “fake pubkeys,” and other arbitrary payloads) to keep block space focused on payments.

At stake is more than mempool hygiene. One camp argues for protocol “net neutrality”: fees are the market signal, and if you pay them, your transaction is legitimate. Hard-coding lists of what counts as “spam,” they warn, replaces a neutral marketplace with a developer veto and risks choking off innovations we can’t yet imagine. The other camp points to real costs: relentless data stuffing expands the UTXO set, raises hardware requirements, lengthens initial block download, and nudges the network toward centralization. If running a full node drifts from a $200 hobby box to a $1,000+ server, who benefits?

There’s also a cultural undertone. As ETFs funnel institutions into bitcoin, critics fear a slow normalization of “ETF-friendly” trade-offs one relay policy here, one filter removed there, until Bitcoin’s neutrality erodes by inches. Supporters counter that miners and users already price scarce block space, and that bending software to chase or deter fads is a bigger centralization risk than letting the fee market work.

Important context here, this isn’t a new “block size war” and not (yet) a fork. Core and Knots track the same chain, they just differ on what they choose to relay on the way to miners. That leaves agency where it belongs, with users. If you want maximal neutrality, run software that relays it. If you want tighter monetary focus, run stricter policies. Either way, the peaceful revolution still depends on a simple act, operate a node that reflects your values and let the market decide. 💪

AI RESET
When AIs Get Wallets Will be Crypto’s Geopolitical Moment

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how value is created, and crypto gives that value a native way to move. In Peter H. Diamandis’s discussion with Eric Pulier, Dave Blundin, and Salim Ismail, the core claim is straightforward: as AI systems evolve from tools into semi-autonomous agents, they need wallets, programmable settlement, and verifiable identity. Public blockchains supply those primitives, which turns today’s tech narrative into tomorrow’s geopolitical map.

Money is the first pressure point. Programmable dollars and bearer-style assets let machines price, purchase, and prove things without human intermediaries. That enables continuous, cross-border commerce and concentrates soft power where those rails are welcomed. Jurisdictions that greenlight stablecoins and institutional crypto custody will attract agents, capital, and developers. Those that restrict them will be routed around.

Compute is the second battleground. Models crave chips, power, and data. Open crypto markets can meter scarce GPU time with tokens, use staking to deter spam, and fund verified datasets through on-chain bounties. The same incentive design can finance new energy build-outs and edge nodes, letting capital flow directly to capacity instead of waiting on capex committees. If the last era’s moat was proprietary software, the next one is verifiable compute with transparent incentives attached.

Governance is the third collision zone. As synthetic media floods the feeds, provenance matters. Cryptographic receipts, on-chain attestations, and zero-knowledge proofs can prove origins, permissions, and compliance without exposing everything else. That is not ideology, it is operational risk management for CFOs, CISOs, and policymakers who need audit trails that hold up in court as well as in code.

The near-term takeaway for investors and builders is simple. Own the rails and the resources, then treat governance as a product requirement. The timing also matters. The AI curve is steepening, and crypto tooling is finally good enough for mainstream institutions. Give intelligence a balance sheet and a passport, and it behaves like an economic actor. Put those actors on open, auditable rails, and you get the operating system of the next economy.

DISCLAIMER:
This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions or investments. Please be careful and do your own research.