John Egan

Thrilled to announce our $15M Seed Round co-led by General Catalyst and Flourish Ventures, alongside Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures, Enlight Capital, Sancus Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Road Capitals, and Predictive. Ming Jiang and I left Coinbase in 2024 to build CipherOwl because the future of finance will run on-chain and the U.S will lead it. Blockchains are already rewiring payments and markets; stablecoins move trillions on-chain, and asset tokenization is accelerating. After years of running Coinbase data, we learned a simple truth: institutions need provable, interpretable views of on-chain activity to power both humans and agents. That’s the foundation we ship. Together, we’re building the intelligence layer for institutional crypto so compliance, risk, and automation can operate on shared evidence rather than fragmented data. That’s the future we’re working toward. None of this would be possible without the collaboration of our investors, customers, early partners, and team. Thank you for being a part of the CipherOwl Family. If you believe blockchains are the new rails and that humans + AI agents deserve auditable, real-time intelligence, follow CipherOwl and build with us. It is day one, let's get back to work!

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Dealwire.TECH Deal of the Week — Mesh ($75M Series C, $1B valuation) https://www.meshpay.com/ Crypto’s next chapter isn’t about speculation — it’s about payments infrastructure. Mesh’s $75M Series C at a $1B valuation signals a clear shift in investor conviction: capital is rotating from trading and token-centric narratives into real-world transaction rails. Mesh is building what many in the industry have talked about, but few have executed: a global crypto payments network that connects exchanges, wallets, and payment providers into a single interoperable layer. Consumers can pay with any supported digital asset, while merchants settle instantly in stablecoins or local fiat — no volatility risk, no wallet management, no fragmented integrations. The company’s asset-agnostic SmartFunding technology abstracts away blockchain complexity, routing “any-to-any” payments across chains and liquidity pools. The result is a horizontal payments layer that targets embedded deposits, remittances, and high-value cross-border commerce — areas where legacy card rails struggle with FX leakage, chargebacks, and delayed settlement. Led by Dragonfly, with participation from Paradigm and Coinbase Ventures, the round reflects strong alignment around an infrastructure-first thesis. Mesh’s ambitions — $1B in revenue and $1T in transaction volume — place it firmly in the category of next-generation global payment networks, not fintech tooling. Bottom line: If crypto is going to reach mass adoption, it won’t look like exchanges — it will look like invisible, instant payments embedded everywhere. #DealOfTheWeek #DealWire #CryptoPayments #Fintech #PaymentsInfrastructure #Stablecoins #Web3 #DigitalAssets

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Big update for the crypto industry: The California Assembly has passed AB 1052, a bill that would regulate digital assets under the state’s unclaimed property laws. It now moves to the Senate. What's happening: California is moving to explicitly include crypto assets in its unclaimed property laws. If signed into law, it would rewrite how crypto companies need to escheat abandoned digital assets to the state, just like banks and brokerages do today. Why this matters: To date, most Californians have not had their crypto escheated. The legal framework has been vague, and enforcement limited. If this bill becomes law, it would trigger a wave of escheatment for inactive crypto accounts across the state. Who’s affected: This will impact: - Crypto exchanges: Binance.US, Coinbase, Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, Gemini - Crypto custodians: BitGo, Anchorage Digital, Fidelity Digital Assets - Crypto payment processors: Bridge, BitPay, MoonPay, Circle, Ripple These companies will need to: - Track dormancy and last contact across millions of wallets and balances - Attempt due diligence outreach after 3 years of inactivity - Remit unclaimed crypto assets to the state One key improvement: Unlike most states that require liquidation to fiat, California’s bill would allow crypto to remain in-kind. The state would even accept BTC for redemption - avoiding forced sales and preserving asset value for owners. At Eisen, we’ve been supporting Binance.US with their escheatment program and have seen a surge in interest from other crypto companies as states begin to act. The message is clear: States are moving on crypto escheatment. It’s time to prepare. Credit: Bitcoin Laws on Twitter

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Huge news, especially for anyone running events or building social clubs and offline communities. A better alternative to Luma now exists - and it’s bitcoin native.

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Building "Fractionalized" Real Estate Tokens | Tokenized RWA Bootcamp: Made in Chainlink Labs. I recently watched a video by a member of the Chainlink technical team explaining property tokenization (I recommend it). The technical breakdown of smart contracts was precise and highly useful. 💯 However, there’s an important distinction that needs to be highlighted: the way the concept of ownership and tokens was presented can be confusing from a financial and legal perspective. Each token represents a personal economic right over an investment, not a direct ownership right over the underlying property. Structuring the smart contract correctly is essential, but equally important is communicating clearly what each token legally represents. Misunderstandings can lead investors to believe they hold property when, in fact, they have participation rights, which creates unnecessary financial risk. Chainlink has a large and highly engaged audience, with content viewed thousands of times and visibility in high-level government and regulatory discussions, including meetings with U.S. legislators and interactions with the #SEC. This underscores the responsibility of teams and communicators to ensure that the conceptual message aligns with legal and financial realities. Technical precision is necessary but not sufficient. Clear, legally informed messaging is critical to protect investors and strengthen the credibility of tokenized real-world assets. Thank you to Chainlink Labs and to its CEO Sergey Nazarov for the work they are doing to advance the conversation around tokenization and regulatory engagement. Here’s the link. The technical part is fine; what it actually represents is explained in the first comment. 👇 #blockchain #bitcoin #tokenization #rwa #chainlink https://lnkd.in/dqYG3c-B

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💥 Metropolis Technologies Raises $𝟭.𝟲𝗕 💥 Funding comes in 2 rounds: $500M equity round led by LionTree and $1.1B from J.P. Morgan. Metropolis is now 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 $𝟱𝗕. With the fresh funding, the plan is to take their "recognition and payment-automation" tech beyond parking assets. This would include retail stores, drive-throughs, gas stations, hotels and partnerships with real estate/asset owner. Congrats to Alex Israel, Peter Fisher, Courtney Fukuda, Travis Kell, Ryan Hunt,Chris Sherman, Robert Bland, Paul Rooney, Lookman Olusanya and the rest of the Metropolis family. #fundraise #parkinginvestment #parking #parkingindustry #metropolois Parking Today Media Parking Network B.V. National Parking Association International Parking & Mobility Institute (IPMI) Tim Maloney Advisory Tim Maloney Reservations Lab

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🚨 Big news from the SEC! SEC Chair Paul Atkins has unveiled Project Crypto, signaling a potential greenlight for ICOs, airdrops, and more Web3 innovations in the U.S. 🇺🇸 This could be a major turning point for crypto regulation, unlocking clearer pathways for compliant token launches and broader adoption. Builders and investors—pay attention. Let’s see how this shapes the next chapter of Web3. #CryptoRegulation #ProjectCrypto #SEC #Web3 #Blockchain #ICOs #Airdrops #CryptoNews #TokenEconomy #DigitalAssets #FinTech

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With recent advancements in x402 and ERC-8004 protocols, crypto and AI are converging around a shared primitive: tokens. As AI agents proliferate, crypto infrastructure is becoming the backbone for identity, payments, coordination, and incentive alignment at machine scale. This reframes crypto from speculative rails into core infrastructure for autonomous economic actors. To make this shift more concrete, here are eight practical takeaways from pieces I’ve read recently, primarily for builders and investors watching the AI and crypto stack converge. 🤖 AI Needs Crypto to Scale Economically AI agents need native, programmable money to transact autonomously. Crypto is the only global payment rail that works at machine speed and granularity, making blockchains critical infrastructure rather than optional add-ons. 🧠 Tokens Are the New Atomic Unit of Value Tokens increasingly represent money, identity, access, context, memory, and expertise. As systems become more machine-readable, control over high-value tokens becomes a source of durable economic leverage. 🏭 Token Factories Will Define the Winners Onchain businesses are becoming suppliers, builders, or orchestrators of token factories. These systems convert raw inputs into higher-order intelligence and trusted outputs. 🔐 Identity and Proof of Human Become Scarce As AI-generated content floods the internet, verifiable identity and proof-of-human systems become foundational. Crypto-native identity layers are positioned to capture outsized value as trust infrastructure. 💸 Stablecoins Were the Prototype Stablecoins preview a future where agents hold balances, pay each other, and manage assets autonomously. Onchain payments are expanding beyond human-facing apps to machine-native protocols. 🧾 Provenance and IP Tracking Become Investable Blockchains can track data lineage, model inputs, and intellectual property at scale. This supports new licensing markets and revenue models for data owners and creators. 🌐 Decentralized Compute Keeps AI Open AI capability is concentrating among a small number of hyperscalers. Decentralized compute networks offer a counterbalance through permissionless participation in AI infrastructure markets. 🧑‍💻 Talent Is Rotating, Not Leaving Crypto Some crypto talent has moved to AI startups, while a comparable wave from other industries has entered crypto. The result is a more technically mature sector aligned with AI-native use cases. Builders and investors will likely coalesce where trust, data, and distribution compound into durable token moats. The AI era does not make crypto obsolete. It makes crypto more necessary. Some of the most valuable companies of the next decade will likely operate token factories, systems that continuously generate, refine, and monetize scarce, trusted tokens. Tokens are becoming the connective tissue between intelligence, trust, and value transfer.

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🚀 U.S. House Passes 3 Landmark Crypto Bills All 3 U.S. crypto bills just passed. 1️⃣ GENIUS Act: Stablecoin regulation locked in. 2️⃣ CLARITY Act: Ends SEC vs. CFTC confusion. 3️⃣ Anti-CBDC Act: Blocks surveillance coins in U.S. policy. Every Republican: YES. Every Democrat: NO. The message? Crypto is reshaping U.S. politics, and the Republicans are leading the charge in this new business friendly environment. Why this matters: 1️⃣ GENIUS Act: Creates a federal framework for stablecoins, paving the way for secure DeFi growth. 2️⃣ CLARITY Act: Clarifies digital asset oversight, giving developers the confidence to build. 3️⃣ Anti-CBDC Act: Protects decentralized finance from centralized overreach. I frankly cannot believe that number 3 passed. Need to do a deeper read but holy hell is that good news. Under Biden, Web3 faced relentless attacks ranging from, regulatory crackdowns to innovation choke points. At Fidesium, we’re making this future secure. Our automated scans and dev tools, powered by AST analytics, static analysis, and intelligent invariant fuzzing, catch vulnerabilities instantly. No delays. No bloated costs. Just secure smart contracts, every time. If you’re still waiting on Europe’s MiCA or manual audits, you’re falling behind.

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When Sam Altman said in AI Startup School that now is the best time ever to start a company, I felt that deeply. In just two years, agentic AI has gone from science fiction to reality — performance doubling every 7–9 months, while costs have dropped to less than 1% of what they were in late 2022. But I also realized something: the existing internet wasn’t built for agents. Current infra assumes a human at the center, and most blockchains were built for financial transactions, not autonomous AI. Without native infrastructure — identity, trust, payments — agents can’t take the next step. That’s the gap we set out to close with Kite AI. And honestly, we had an unfair advantage. At ZettaBlock, my team and I lived through the chaos of data at Netflix scale: petabytes processed in sub-100ms, schema drift across dozens of protocols, verifiable feeds you could bet your business on. Those lessons became the foundation for Kite. Three years later, we’ve gone from plumbing infra for data and AI to powering billions of agent calls. Same DNA — trust, speed, verifiability — but now aimed at the agentic internet. The last three years have been the hardest and most rewarding of my career. I’m more convinced than ever: the agent economy is coming fast, and Kite is here to give it the rails it deserves. All of above is impossible without support from, my dear cofounder Chi Zhang our investors and team: Marc Bhargava, Alan Du, Bhaskar Ghosh, Patrick Chang Timothy Chen Baek Kyoum Kim, Raymond Liao Evan Cheng Edwin Aoki Dawn Song, Sriram V., Hao Min Navin Gupta, Grigore Rosu, Tony Wang, Lei Lei Yusuke MuraokaVikas Pandey Yijing Shi, PhD and many more.

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Opus tokens are more expensive, but it needs fewer tokens to do the job, makes fewer token-wasting mistakes, and needs less human intervention (which results in a higher cache hit rate, which means lower costs and latency). Full Article: https://lnkd.in/gay5xneB

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Today we’re introducing PCP: the Programmable Credit Protocol. A new institutional credit rail that allows financial institutions to request, receive, and enforce bilateral credit directly inside custody, without moving collateral, without bespoke legal negotiation, and with full regulatory alignment. Tokenization has unlocked settlement efficiency. PCP brings credit utility to these assets. Built with custodians, asset managers, and lenders, PCP standardizes: • Pre-loan negotiation via FIX (RFQ & pricing) • Custodian-enforced pledging, settlement & lifecycle events • Legal enforceability via a standardized & tested Securities Lending agreement, from ISLA. This unlocks compliant, scalable financing for tokenized MMFs, stocks, bonds, BTC/ETH, RWAs, and other digital & tokenized assets. After a successful pilot, we're now welcoming custodians, asset managers, banks, Lending desks and other institutions to join the waitlist and help shape the future of Credit for Programmable assets ! Thanks to everyone that made this happen ! Zodia Custody, Sahil Sood , Sophie Kazemi , Zane Suren 🚀, Franklin Templeton, Rafael Mastroberardino, Nate Pola, Avalanche Ava Labs , Maia Zennie Khalid Dannish , Oasis , William Wendt, Robert Brienza, Mark Kalin, M. Sc. CMS, Matthew Nyman, SemiLiquid Labs, PCP , Humayun Javed, Quentin H. Farzan Saqib, Muhammad Husnain, Muhammad Tayyab Ashraf, Maryam Noor, M11 Funds , Thibault Labidi , Logan Lim , Geoff McAlister , Stephen Whyman, Patrick McIntyre, Veris Ventures, Michael Tan, Mark Vere Read the full announcement here: https://lnkd.in/ednuzFtw Website: https://pcp.co

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Every Monday, AllScale breaks down the biggest moves in stablecoins. This week: JPMorgan’s 42% surge, Tether’s $1T dreams, Base calls for non-USD coins, and Stripe turns stablecoin issuer. Stablecoins have doubled since early 2024, now topping $290B. This is proof that the “crypto dollar” is becoming global cash. JPMorgan’s 42% YTD spike shows banks are circling back, while the U.S. GENIUS Act tightens yield rules just as regulators realize they can’t stop what’s already gone borderless. Tether’s Paolo Ardoino wants $1T in 3–5 years and just teamed with Rumble to push U.S.-only USAT. Deutsche Börse and Circle are embedding USDC and EURC into Europe’s market plumbing, making stablecoins look more like settlement infrastructure than DeFi toys. Then there’s Stripe’s Open Issuance which allows you to build your own stablecoin with a few lines of code. Phantom turned its wallet into a money app, and Paxos’ privacy play with Aleo hints at the next big frontier: encrypted stable payments. The line between fintech and stablecoin is vanishing. Full post here:

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New Slope Client Work - Brand Identity, Motion, Website Design, Product Icon Library Doma is a purpose-built blockchain to modernize and unlock the liquidity of over 362M existing and future domains. Doma by D3 recently closed a $25M Series A fundraise led by Paradigm, the leading crypto venture firm founded by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ersham and Sequoia Capital Partner Matt Huang. Today is special because the Doma Testnet is officially live 🎉 They are launching with a $1M USDC Developer Fund to support builders shaping the DomainFi economy. --- Our brand identity for Doma positions them as the leader in the Domain industry. Our logomark is a bespoke, geometric symbol that puts Doma at the center of the DomainFi economy. It positions Doma as an architectural foundation of the domain ecosystem that bridges Web2 to Web3. Inspired by the idea of a modular ecosystem, every element of our system - from the logo mark, iconography, to the linear system, were crafted to demonstrate the power of enabling the tokenization of domains, leading to infinite possibilities from fractional ownership, domain-backed lending, and enhanced digital identity and branding. #agency #casestudy #website #crypto #brand

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The Fat Protocol Thesis is Flipping. Back in 2016, Joel Monegro argued that in Web3, value would accrue to base layers not apps. But in today’s modular ecosystem, the script has flipped. At TrustChain Labs, we believe we’re now entering the "Fat Apps" era where execution speed, UX, and outcome-focused design matter more than protocol allegiance. We break this down in our latest article: https://lnkd.in/gAPNjRQz If you're a builder, it's time to optimize for iteration, not ideology. Pick the stack that lets you move fast. Your users don’t care what VM you're on. They want results and you need product-market fit. #Web3 #SmartNodes #LeanStartup #ModularBlockchain #TrustchainLabs #Hbarsuite

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The industry is approaching a critical juncture where a blockchain capable of onboarding one billion users will be essential. Kaspa stands out as the only network that combines the security and speed required to meet this demand. Moreover, if Kaspa continues to evolve as both a Mechanism of Exchange (MoE) and a Store of Value (SoV), its long-term potential becomes even more compelling. Building the ecosystem ahead of the spotlight it is poised to receive is both a privilege and a significant opportunity.

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DATs solve the issue of liquid fund support to listed tokens. It’s a rapid evolutionary response to the debate around how capital in the crypto industry is heavily skewed to early stage projects with an elegant and accessible solution. Granted the model will evolve based on community and market feedback but it’s a classic example of ingenuity inspired by, and catering to, the cutting edge of Web technology.

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In the evolving landscape of digital assets, partnerships between cryptocurrency exchanges and decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols are ramping up. Notably, the collaboration between Coinbase and Aerodrome stands out, showcasing the potential for enhanced onchain trading volume. Should just 5% of Coinbase's massive trading volume migrate to Aerodrome's platform, this could lead to a staggering revenue increase of approximately 150%. This development underscores the growing synergy between traditional exchanges and decentralised systems, facilitating improved liquidity and operational efficiency in digital asset markets. The integration of centralised exchanges with DeFi protocols represents a critical step towards broader institutional adoption. By leveraging Coinbase's extensive user base and Aerodrome's innovative DeFi infrastructure, the potential to attract both retail and institutional players could be significantly amplified. This is not merely a speculative growth path but a strategic convergence that could redefine trading dynamics in the cryptocurrency landscape. Given the current regulatory environment where clarity remains elusive, such partnerships may play a pivotal role in providing the trust and transparency needed for further acceptance and integration of digital assets within traditional financial systems. Additionally, as increased capital flow into the DeFi space is observed, the amalgamation of these two entities may serve as a catalyst for substantial growth in blockchain-based financial services. In conclusion, as barriers between centralised and decentralised entities continue to blur, fostering collaborations like that of Coinbase and Aerodrome heralds a future rich in potential for the cryptocurrency industry. This is a testament to the idea that beyond market speculation, robust frameworks and partnerships can drive tangible growth and adoption. Strategic partnerships matter.

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Excited to partner with Dotfile on bringing the best of our regulatory, risk, and compliance expertise with their world-class infrastructure. Compliance almost always introduces the greatest amount of friction into user experiences as part of financial services, especially in "rainy day" scenarios. But it doesn't have to be this way. Bastion aims to focus on the best developer experience for our customers, so that integrating with us across issuance, custody, and on & off-ramp becomes as seamless as any other world class SaaS product, all while we handle compliance end-to-end. Dotfile is an important partner on this journey as they propose tools that make automating compliance flows easy, and greatly reduces the friction of handling KYC, Requests for Information, and more. More to come soon!

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