DeFi
‘DeFi is dead’: Maple Finance’s CEO says onchain markets will swallow Wall Street
The Maple Finance CEO says institutions will stop distinguishing between DeFi and TradFi as private credit moves onchain, and stablecoins process $50 trillion in payments.

Most Influential: Jeff Yan
Jeff Yan, founder of Hyperliquid, has quietly built a $308 billion volume DEX with over half a million users, influencing DeFi while avoiding public attention.

Strata protocol developer Frontera Labs raises $3 million in seed round
The funding will help the London-based team expand Strata, a DeFi protocol that structures onchain yields into senior and junior tranches.

Most Influential: Sergey Nazarov
Chainlink’s co-founder spent 2025 turning oracles, cross-chain messaging and CRE into building blocks for tokenized funds and on-chain finance.

Regulatory Battle Over Tokenized U.S. Stocks Escalates, HSBC Says
Citadel Securities has urged the SEC to treat decentralized finance trading venues like traditional exchanges, a stance facing opposition from the crypto industry.

A16z-Backed Daylight Brings Electricity Markets Onchain With New DeFi Protocol
The DayFi protocol aims to turn electricity cash flows into a crypto-native yield product, bridging capital to new solar power installations.

Crypto Has Reinvented and Replatformed the Middle Man
For those of us who want to use crypto to make the world better, we need to start calling out this behavior for what it is: short-sighted, selfish, unwelcome greed, says VeChain co-founder Sunny Lu.

Blockdaemon, VerifiedX Join Forces to Deliver Mass-Market, Self-Custodial DeFi
The experience, which is designed to feel like Venmo or Cash App, allows users to earn yield on bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins and borrow against their holdings.

Plume Brings Institutional RWA Yield to Solana With Debut of Nest Vaults
Plume is bringing real-world yield to Solana with the rollout of its Nest vaults, giving the network’s users direct access to on-chain credit, Treasuries and receivables.

Citadel Securities Challenges DeFi Framework in Letter to SEC, Sparking Industry Outrage
A Citadel Securities letter to the SEC argues that some DeFi systems resemble traditional exchanges and should face comparable oversight.

