Today, enjoy the On the Margin newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.







Welcome to the On the Margin Newsletter, brought to you by Ben Strack and Casey Wagner. Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:




How an eventful weekend impacted markets, and what it could mean for crypto.



You’ve heard about SAB 121. But do custodians really need to do anything differently? 



An overview of this week’s economic calendar and what we are watching. 




Trump’s link to crypto markets



Last month’s presidential debate — despite shaking up election-related Polymarket odds — didn’t move crypto prices much. The June 27 event put on display an at-times-inarticulate incumbent Joe Biden and his challenger who lied consistently, Donald Trump.But after a bullet grazed Trump’s ear during a Saturday evening rally in Pennsylvania, BTC’s price jumped upward. Not critically hurt, Trump could be in an even stronger position to win back the US presidency in November (if crypto prices are any indication.)



BTC was above $63,500 at 1:30 pm ET Monday — up nearly 14% from a week ago. The asset’s price rose roughly 5% not long after the shooting. 



CK Zheng, co-founder of crypto hedge fund ZX Squared Capital, said he indeed sees a “mild positive correlation” between the likelihood Trump is elected and BTC price. 



This GOP-BTC link — a scenario that has picked up steam in only a matter of weeks — may be undeniable at this point. Here’s a quick reminder of why that might be:




Trump’s campaign began supporting crypto donations in May.  



The former president met with bitcoin mining executives on June 11 in what Marathon Digital leaders called a “monumental” meeting for the industry. Trump said in a Truth Social post he wants “all the remaining bitcoin to be made in the USA.”



Joe Biden on May 31 vetoed a resolution that sought to

On the Margin Newsletter: Crypto markets react to Trump assassination attempt

Former President Donald Trump has officially picked US Senator JD Vance (R-OH) as his vice presidential candidate in the upcoming presidential election.



The announcement was made by Trump’s official Truth Social account during the Republican National Convention on Monday and comes just days after Trump survived an assassination attempt.



“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator JD Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote. 



Trump, who in recent months has changed his stance on crypto, picked a running mate who’s also seen as crypto-friendly. Vance, an Ohio Republican, has floated a legislation draft focused on crypto, according to Politico last month. 



The legislation would seek to change how the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission approach crypto. 



Vance was also one of the lawmakers to pen a letter to the SEC over its mishandling of the DEBT Box case. The SEC, as ordered by the court, had to pay $1.8 million in legal fees after a judge ruled that the regulator had made “misleading” statements.



Read more: DEBT Box loss shows SEC ‘overreach and failure,’ Hill says



Ahead of the announcement, crypto prediction market Polymarket had JD Vance leading as Trump’s top potential VP pick. US residents can’t place bets on Polymarket, though the platform is still viewable.



Crypto’s become a big topic in the presidential election so far this year — though not big enough to be mentioned at the presidential debate hosted at the end of last month. However, Trump has vocalized support for the industry and was the first campaign from a major party to integrate crypto donations. 



The Republican party even included crypto in its formal platform earlier this month.



“Republicans will end Democrats' unlawful and

Trump chooses crypto-friendly Senator Vance as VP pick

Today, enjoy the Lightspeed newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Lightspeed newsletter.







Howdy!



What a weekend, huh? Saturday was a “two beers at the neighborhood bar and be generally sad about US politics” kind of night. 



Now it’s Monday, which is a “wonder what the price of air is” kind of morning. Bear with me:







SkyTrade’s air rights marketplace 



What if you could tokenize the air?



The 500 feet above the highest point of a building generally belongs to the property owner. SkyTrade hopes to build a Solana-based marketplace that would let individuals or real estate companies sell these air rights and developers or drone operators buy or rent them. 



Property owners already trade their air rights, just not in a public-facing market. Billionaire hedge fund operator Ken Griffin reportedly paid up to $164 million for the airspace above St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan over the winter. The deal would allow Griffin to build a skyscraper to house Citadel on Park Avenue.



Currently, SkyTrade lets individuals “claim” the airspace above their property with the promise of passive income earned from drone operators who fly in their airspace (this would only be for drones since airplanes, you would hope, are unlikely to fly that low). It’s currently possible to rent airspace on SkyTrade for $2 in 30-minute increments — though there aren’t very many properties currently live, and the site felt more like a proof-of-concept in my time spent browsing it. 



SkyTrade co-founder Jonathan Dockrell told me the platform is launching an auction house within a couple weeks where investors will be able to list and bid on air rights.



Before founding SkyTrade, Dockrell was working at a delivery company and started thinking about the implications of drone delivery, he told me. He realized that while most people assume the government owns all airspace, property owners

Lightspeed Newsletter: SkyTrade is building a marketplace for air rights

Bitcoin funds in the US raked in more than $1 billion in assets last week, marking a weekly total the category has rarely hit in recent months. 



It’s the segment’s highest weekly inflow amount since the period of June 3 through June 7, during which $1.8 billion entered the funds.    



Net inflows for the 10 US spot bitcoin funds tracked by Farside Investors now stand at $15.8 billion since launching in January. 



“We believe price weakness due to the German government bitcoin sales and a turnaround in sentiment due to lower-than-expected CPI in the US prompted [investors] to add to positions,” CoinShares research head James Butterfill wrote in a Monday report.



Read more: On the Margin Newsletter: Crypto may seem down, but here’s why analysts remain optimistic



Fidelity Investments’ Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) fund hit the $10 billion assets under management milestone last week, becoming just the third such offering to reach that level. 



BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) leads the BTC fund sector with $18.2 billion. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) — with nearly $30 billion in assets when it converted to an ETF and bleeding $18.6 billion since then — stands at about $15.7 billion.



FBTC’s $358 million of net inflows from July 8 to July 12 was second only to IBIT’s $523 million. About $35 million of investor capital left GBTC.  



Read more: Bitcoin ETF Tracker 



Friday was the sixth straight day of net inflows into US spot bitcoin funds — the first such streak since a 19-day inflow streak snapped on June 7.



Fineqia International analyst Matteo Greco noted in a Monday research note that the bitcoin ETFs — with about $51 billion in combined assets — now hold roughly 4.5% of the total BTC supply.



Despite the latest outflows, he added, trading volumes remain below average (but rather high for July) — totaling nearly $7 billion for the week.







Start your day with top crypto insights from David

Bitcoin ETF snapshot: Fidelity fund hits $10B milestone amid big inflow week

Today, enjoy the Empire newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.







Break the cycle!



Are we about to buck the precedent of a volatile four-year cycle? 



Framework Ventures co-founder Michael Anderson thinks so…if and when we get formal SEC approval for ETH ETFs. 



But he noted that the market structure began to change after Grayscale’s court win last August (which also pushed the SEC to approve the spot bitcoin ETFs). 



“In previous cycles, you had bitcoin as the primary asset that people would enter into the ecosystem with, and then they kind of move on to another thing, like Ethereum, or maybe, you know, one of the other kind of alt platforms,” Anderson said. 



“DeFi summer brought everybody into Ethereum, and then they went further and further out the risk curve. But at each one of those moments, they would sell the primary or the initial asset to move to the next level, and then do it again, to move to the next level. But I think what we're seeing now, with the inflows in these ETFs, is there's no kind of ‘sell when you move from bitcoin to ether,’ bitcoin to something else, or ether to something else.”



With that in mind, ETF flows will “dampen volatility pretty drastically,” he added. That could be enough to break the market out of its current cyclical pattern because you don’t have “mass-selling” when folks run from one asset category to the next. 



There are some things that remain unchanged this cycle. The dueling narratives from potential “Ethereum killers,” for example.



Last go around, it was Optimism and Arbitrum, Anderson said. Before that, it was Solana and Avalanche. The two emerging now aren’t necessarily ETH killers, but Berachain (which Framework has invested in) and Monad have caught Anderson’s eye this time.



“Fewer and fewer people will be transacting on ETH mainnet going forward, is the general

Empire Newsletter: How crypto could break its four-year cycle

A former executive at Charles Schwab has joined bitcoin financial services firm Onramp as president of its managed wealth division.



Rich Kerr spent the past 31 years at the traditional finance giant, he told Blockworks. He was most recently Charles Schwab’s managing director of income and wealth solutions, according to his LinkedIn profile.



He also worked as director of Schwab Wealth Advisory and helped lead the giant’s client services and support unit.



"His vast experience and proven track record in wealth management align perfectly with our mission to support advisers and their clients with bitcoin financial services,” Onramp CEO Michael Tanguma said in a statement. 



Also naming a new president (and CEO) this week was Canada-based investment firm Cypherpunk Holdings. 



Leah Wald co-founded Valkyrie Investments and served as its CEO for several years. CoinShares acquired Valkyrie’s ETF business in March, with Wald staying on to oversee the company’s private funds.



She now moves on to lead Cypherpunk — a publicly traded firm that invests in blockchain-related businesses and crypto assets such as BTC and SOL.



“My first priority is to assess the business and how everything is going, and then look for those new opportunities,” Wald told Blockworks.



Read more: Cypherpunk seeks more crypto investments after SOL buy, new CEO says



Another C-suite addition came from bitcoin miner Ionic Digital, which on Thursday appointed John Penver as its chief financial officer. Penver was previously the CFO of TSS, Inc. 



The Austin-based company seeks to go public, it noted in a news release.



"Having worked in data centers for nearly 20 years, I am excited to combine my expertise in technology infrastructure and finance to ensure Ionic Digital’s corporate strategy and financials are aligned on the same level,” Penver said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the team to foster innovation and unlock Ionic Digital’s

Crypto Hiring: Schwab veteran joins Bitcoin-focused platform

A little under a hundred million dollars was raised by the funding rounds mentioned in this week’s roundup.



The biggest round came from blockchain payment network Partior, which raised $60 million in a Series B. The blockchain payment network’s round was led by Peak XV Partners and also saw contributions from Jump Trading Group and Valor Capital Group.



The network is a joint venture between founding shareholders JPMorgan and Temasek — which both participated in this round as a previous investor — as well as DBS. Standard Chartered is also part of the joint venture, and an investor in this round. 



Read more from our opinion section: The future of finance? TradFi plus DeFi



“Improving liquidity management for both corporate and financial institutions is imperative in a world where many companies operate ‘round the clock globally,” the company said in a press release. Standard Chartered, JPMorgan and DBS all use Partior. 



“This new round of funding will enable the advancement of new capabilities like Intraday FX swaps, Cross-currency repos, Programmable Enterprise Liquidity Management, and Just-in-Time multi-bank payments. The investment will significantly support Partior’s international network growth and the integration of additional currencies,” the release continued. Right now, Partior supports USD, SGD and EUR. 



Speaking of traditional financial players, let’s take a look at a pre-seed round from Tread.Fi.



Read more: How the latest TradFi blockchain trial could mark the ‘five-yard-line’ for mass adoption



The crypto-native algorithmic trading infrastructure company is helmed by former Morgan Stanley VP of quantitative research, David Jeong. 



Earlier this week, the firm announced a $3.5 million pre-seed investment round led by New Form Capital. Aquanow and Varys Capital also participated in the round. 



Tread.fi, which includes portfolio management tools and various features such as advanced execution algorithms,

Funding Wrap: Partior raises $60M to support ‘international network growth’

This week, crypto descended on Brussels for EthCC.



Given that Ethereum popularized smart contracts and was the home of NFTs during the space’s 2021 craze, it seems like consumer applications could have been prominently featured at the yearly Ethereum gathering. But some attendees felt that apps were too muted at the conference — and that crypto’s infrastructure era has overstayed its welcome.



The social lead of the Milk Road newsletter wrote that it “[f]eels like we've come to a consensus that we don't need more infra. We just need usable apps.”



2077 Collective director Emmanuel Awosika said “one of those things I'm excited about is people finally (!) acknowledging consumer apps are necessary.”



Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs’ A.J. Warner said he “heard 10x the number of interoperability/crosschain proving ideas compared to novel user applications” at the conference.



Crypto may still be lacking in compelling consumer apps, but EthCC exit reviews definitely showed that the desire is there. This wishful thinking has shown up in other places too: The Arbitrum DAO notably is aiming to pour $215 million into crypto gaming projects.



Source: EthCC


Read more: The crypto infrastructure is here, but where are the apps?



This week, Electric Capital general partner Maria Shen released a “market map” categorizing over 1,500 crypto projects. Interestingly, more than one-third of the projects were labeled as apps. 



There’s also a case to be made that insisting on more apps might be putting the cart before the horse. Celestia Labs CEO Mustafa Al-Bassam said that crypto should focus on mastering its original use case of payments before it moves on to more complex applications.



Read more: Helio upgrades its Solana Pay plugin for Shopify



There are also crypto apps with real users, even if they don’t currently compete with the titans of Web2. Telegram has a lot of users, and the loosely-associated TON blockchain is drawing

Web3 Watch: EthCC attendees ask: “Where are the apps?”

They say a hallmark of a mania is the rapid rise in the rate of fraud. 



The exact same can be said of crypto adoption. In fact, fraud is inevitable.



Normie media is ablaze with the latest in crypto-tinged true crime. An online pastor in Colorado dumped a worthless token on his flock, screwing them out of millions of dollars because “God told him to.”



It’s the sort of Schadenfreude that just rolls off the tongue to coalesce as viral internet traffic. Hence the rush from dozens of outlets in all different languages to run with their own quirky headlines, including the Washington Post.



But this sad tale is not a crypto story. It’s a simple fraud story posing as commentary about crypto.



Separating the concept of fraud from crypto will come easy through mass adoption. Like the hyperbitcoinization that will price the whole world in disgustingly expensive satoshis after price discovery goes parabolic, mass adoption of crypto more broadly would encrypt our entire modern consciousness on blockchain rails.



Your passport metadata would exist on a blockchain. As would your presidential vote. Bank deposits are tokenized and lent out to the highest bidder. Your smart fridge feeds directly from a supermarket price oracle that tells it when your favorite kombucha is on special and orders it for you right away — with all payments settled in crypto.



Read more from our opinion section: Crypto phishing attacks are everywhere. It might not get better anytime soon 



At this point, blockchain would thrum beneath every facet of our lives. The jury is still out on whether all that is even beneficial. Still, if everything ran on crypto, then the self-styled Colorado holyman dumping a useless crypto on his followers would be a run-of-the-mill affinity scam and nothing more. Other than really boring.



Over a long enough period, all fraud stories become crypto stories, on account that a stupidly high percentage of fraud would interact with crypto and

All fraud will eventually be ‘crypto fraud.’ And that’s okay.

Today, enjoy the On the Margin newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.







Welcome to the On the Margin Newsletter, brought to you by Ben Strack and Casey Wagner. Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition: 




The Senate questioned four Biden nominees up for agency roles. Crypto got a mention, albeit a small one. 



Crypto stock performance was mixed this week. We unpack why. 



We made it to the end of another busy week. Read on for our recap. 








Senate seems poised to push Biden nominations through 



Fortunately for the nominees, yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearings were largely uneventful. 



SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, up for another term at the securities regulator, flew mostly under the radar. Committee members posed more questions to Christy Goldsmith Romero, President Biden’s pick to chair the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. 



Kristin Johnson, put up to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Gordon Ito, nominated to be a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, also faced questions Thursday. 



Goldsmith Romero stands to take over the FDIC as the agency faces controversy. A May report uncovered allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the FDIC, raising questions about whether Chair Martin Gruenberg should continue in the role. 



The nominee told Senators Thursday she plans for a “complete overhaul” of the agency should she be approved, including firing employees who have harassed or abused others and implementing a new system for registering complaints. 



Somewhat surprisingly, the few crypto mentions were directed at Goldsmith Romero, not Crenshaw. During prepared remarks at the start of the hearing, Virginia Senator Mark Warner cited Goldsmith Romero’s track record of engaging with the crypto and AI industries. 



“Having…a technology-based knowledge

On the Margin Newsletter: Biden's SEC nominee appears safe

The Senate Banking Committee gathered on Thursday to hear from four of President Joe Biden's nominations for positions at federal agencies.



US Securities and Exchange Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, nominated for another term at the securities regulator, mostly flew under the radar. Committee members directed more questions to Christy Goldsmith Romero, President Biden’s pick to chair the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. 



Kristin Johnson, put up to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Gordon Ito, nominated to be a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, also faced questions Thursday. 



Mentions of cryptocurrencies or digital assets were sparse, as committee members largely opted to use their allotted time to discuss recent cultural issues at the FDIC. 



Goldsmith Romero stands to take over the FDIC as the agency finds itself embroiled in controversy. A report from May uncovered allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the FDIC, raising questions about whether current Chair Martin Gruenberg should continue in the role. 



Goldsmith Romero told Senators Thursday she planned for a “complete overhaul” of the agency should she be approved. This would include firing perpetrators of harassment or abuse and implementing a new system for registering complaints. 



Read more: FDIC lacks ‘clear procedures’ for crypto-related risks, report says



In a show of support, during prepared remarks at the start of the hearing, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., highlighted Goldsmith Romero’s track record with engaging with the crypto and AI industries. 



“Having knowledge, a technology-based knowledge about how AI is going to change our systems and our banking regulations, and blockchain and the whole realm of digital assets, this is exactly the kind of experience we need at this troubled agency at this point,” Warner said. 



Having support from Warner, a moderate Democrat, could prove invaluable to Goldsmith Romero, who

Biden nominees emerge from Senate confirmation hearings unscathed

Today, enjoy the Lightspeed newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Lightspeed newsletter.







Howdy!



Against my better judgment, I ventured out after work yesterday in pursuit of a free 7-Eleven slurpee. Upon entering the store, I beelined for the slurpee machine, at which point a haggard-looking employee frowned at me and said: “No more slurpees.”



I hung my head and walked out of the store back into the heat, my July 11th ruined. 



But today is July 12th, and I interviewed a rapper:







Hard in Da Drip



Waka Flocka Flame, the artist who gave us “Hard in Da Paint,” is taking another spin at the crypto world. 



He’s been promoting his memecoin on X alongside “Block Squad Monopoly,” an onchain “talent finding platform” that lets users stake Flame’s memecoin. Then on Wednesday, he released a single on the NFT collecting platform Drip. 



Waka Flocka Flame told me in an interview that he decided to launch his memecoin after seeing the online provocateur Andrew Tate launch a memecoin using the n-word. He likened himself to a figurative Batman in the Gotham City of memecoins. 



“Batman don’t look good in the beginning, he don’t always look good in the middle, but he always wins in the end,” the rapper said of his memecoin and his plans to have a more positive impact than people like Tate.



In this Batman timeline, a bunch of insiders seem to have bought up most of the Wayne Enterprises stock: Flame’s memecoin was alleged to have seen one whale buy up 40% of the supply before the rapper announced its existence. (Waka Flocka denied involvement in the early buying in an interview with Decrypt, saying the token was “sniped” by traders outside of his team.)



Waka Flocka Flame, or Juaquin James Malphurs, has been involved in crypto for years. In 2021, he made headlines after $19,000 was drained from his OpenSea account.



His new track “4th Quarter”