Bankless

Crypto in 2026 is consolidating into a handful of high-stakes rivalries: 

Ethereum vs. Solana for the center of gravity, Coinbase vs. Robinhood for the finance super-app, and Polymarket vs. Kalshi for prediction markets. 

Arnav Pagidyala (Bankless Ventures) joins David and Ryan to map the investment implications, why incentives-driven L1s keep leaking liquidity, what makes Morpho’s institutional playbook work, and whether Hyperliquid, wallets, and onchain rails start eating the exchange business. 

We also dig into the comeback of ICOs, what it would take for tokens to become truly investable, and why proof-of-personhood and privacy-preserving KYC may become unavoidable infrastructure.

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💰ICO WATCH | UPCOMING PUBLIC TOKEN SALES

https://bankless.cc/ico-watch 

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

1:12 Ethereum & Solana

7:33 Why Solana is Winning

9:27 L1 Valuations

13:13 Coinbase & Robinhood

17:16 Base Contentcoins

20:32 Kalshi & Polymarket

23:19 Prediction Market Tokens

24:45 Store of Value Duopoly

27:21 Tokens in 2026

29:41 Tokens & Equity Alignment

31:01 MetaDAO

32:42 ICOs

34:44 Morpho

39:17 Morpho & Aave

40:41 Perp Exchanges

44:28 Proof of Personhood

48:42 Fat Wallet Thesis

51:45 X & Crypto

53:27 AI & Vibecoding

55:28 Is Crypto Dead?

57:18 Capital Stack Moving Onchain

59:10 What About TradFi?

1:02:15 Closing & Disclaimers

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RESOURCES

Arnav Pagidyala

https://x.com/0xArnav 

Bankless Ventures

https://x.com/banklessvc 

Investing Trends for 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Poes3EpAR5c

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Washington takes center stage this week as crypto collides with power, policy, and markets. Ryan and David break down the CLARITY Act fight in the Senate, why banks want to kill stablecoin yield, and why Coinbase says the bill may be worse than no bill at all. They also unpack Trump’s DOJ targeting Jerome Powell and what it means for Fed independence, silver’s explosive move as markets search for safety, X’s push toward becoming a crypto super app, and the NYC mayor’s meme coin disaster. Plus: Tom Lee’s surprising MrBeast investment and what it signals about capital, culture, and crypto’s next phase.

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https://bankless.cc/ico-watch

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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES

0:00 Intro

2:25 DOJ opened an investigation into Jerome Powell

https://x.com/federalreserve/status/2010510130970849338 

https://x.com/federalreserve/status/2010510130970849338

https://x.com/LynAldenContact/status/2010526966953202125

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/powell-probe-highlights-trump-doj-role-white-house-enforcer-2026-01-14/

https://polymarket.com/event/jerome-powell-out-as-fed-chair-by

10:44 Markets

https://x.com/JesseCohenInv/status/2011311082896572766

https://www.coinnews.net/2025/01/09/american-silver-eagle-series-welcomes-2025-w-proof-edition/

https://www.google.com/finance/beta/quote/GLD:NYSEARCA

https://x.com/echodatruth/status/2010568502474571870

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/13/cpi-inflation-report-december-2026.html

https://polymarket.com/dashboards/fed-rates

20:52 Most important Legislation for crypto…ever?

https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/2010709769187676430

https://x.com/DavidMMcintosh/status/2010389058271289845

https://www.aba.com/-/media/documents/letters-to-congress-and-regulators/ltrsenatestablecoin20260105.pdf

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/01/11/jpmorgan-downplays-stablecoin-threat-as-local-bankers-warn-of-usd6-6t-risk

https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/2009795675635306737

https://x.com/USTransparent

https://x.com/haydenzadams/status/2009809558605299914

https://x.com/SenLummis/status/2010939496830030038

https://x.com/jchervinsky/status/2011464338528166081

https://x.com/jchervinsky/status/2011464341556428936

https://x.com/davidsacks47/status/2011650262361129193

https://polymarket.com/event/clarity-act-signed-into-law-in-2026

https://x.com/Matt_Hougan/status/2010841027800895514

42:09 NYC Mayor Eric Adams issued a memecoin

https://x.com/runecrypto_/status/2010847811781230781

https://x.com/ericadamsfornyc/status/2010849167258566727

https://x.com/bubblemaps/status/2010890093431832789

https://x.com/ericadamsfornyc/status/2011541285354815932

https://x.com/buynyctoken/status/2011501230288257452

https://x.com/haydenzadams/status/2010945632505127317

46:41 TOM LEE - BITMINE….invests $200m in MR BEAST MEDIA

https://x.com/DegenerateNews/status/2011774463818518813 

https://x.com/DegenerateNews/status/2011810278980120830 

49:53 World Liberty Financial launched a lending platform

https://worldlibertyfinancial.com/markets

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/01/13/senate-s-warren-wlfi-tied-bank-application-should-be-halted-until-trump-divests

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/dolomite

51:45 Polygon….ALL IN on STABLECOIN STACK with two major acquisitions

https://x.com/0xPolygon/status/2011076681302446556

https://x.com/HadickM/status/2011099510957580437

https://x.com/sandeepnailwal/status/2009763000895344766

https://x.com/obchakevich_/status/2008876239285637419

54:21 X is rolling out Smart Cashtags & Killing InfoFi

https://x.com/nikitabier/status/2010277345651990564

https://x.com/jessepollak/status/2010404608263520356

https://www.theblock.co/post/385805/kaito-token-plummets-x-revises-api-policies-ban-infofi-crypto-projects

https://x.com/nikitabier/status/2011825522817270230

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/kaito

58:33 BitGo IPO - $2 billion! ($100 billion in custody)

https://x.com/AccessIPOs/status/2010727529238417549

59:16 The Golden Globes integrated Polymarket into their broadcast

https://x.com/shayne_coplan/status/2010862175607488709

1:00:38 David’s Market of the Week

https://polymarket.com/event/khamenei-out-as-supreme-leader-of-iran-by-january-31

https://x.com/polymarket/status/2009382529384497184

1:05:00 Closing & Disclaimers

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

What if the biggest threat to your freedom isn’t a bad decision - but a scoreboard you never agreed to? Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen joins Bankless to unpack how modern life quietly turns values into points: likes, GPAs, net worth, rankings, and performance metrics that feel objective - but often flatten what matters most. We explore what games really are, why “gamified” platforms like social media can be uniquely corrosive, and how “value capture” pulls you from meaning into measurable proxies. Then we get practical: playfulness, reflective control, and “value federalism” as ways to use metrics without letting them use you.

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💰ICO WATCH | UPCOMING PUBLIC TOKEN SALES
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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro
0:58 “Is this the game you really want to be playing?”
5:45 What counts as a game (Bernard Suits’ definition)
11:38 Bankless “serious games” and the cheating test
16:29 Social media as “game-ish,” not truly a game
21:28 The magic circle and why points get dangerous
24:08 Rotten Tomatoes vs. forming your own taste
33:27 Portability: why metrics flatten nuance
38:15 Value capture: when your values get outsourced
45:52 Plato’s cave: “metrics are the new shadows”
54:12 The outsourcing dilemma: we can’t know everything
1:01:47 Playfulness as an antidote to metric hypnosis
1:12:55 Switching rule-sets: D&D, indie games, and redesigning incentives
1:16:22 Reflective control: using metrics without being used
1:20:21 Two endings: cynicism, hope, and the tradeoff of scale
1:23:38 Value federalism + why "Civilization" makes Thi miserable

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RESOURCES

C. Thi Nguyen
https://x.com/add_hawk

C. Thi Nguyen’s “The Score” Book
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/457380/the-score-by-nguyen-c-thi/9780241653975

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Is Canton a real blockchain or a new kind of capital-markets operating system?

Digital Asset co-founder Yuval Rooz explains why Canton prioritizes privacy as “need-to-know” information sharing and a federated “cantons” design that still allows atomic cross-canton transactions without bridges.

We unpack the two-tier architecture (edge validators + super validators that stitch cantons together and validate the public Canton Coin) and what that means for governance in regulated finance.

Plus: DTCC’s tokenization pilot starting with U.S. Treasuries, and why CC fees are USD-denominated with a burn/mint mechanism designed to track real network utility. 

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🎬 DEBRIEF | RYAN & DAVID UNPACKING THE EPISODE

https://www.bankless.com/podcast/debrief-is-canton-even-a-real-blockchain

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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

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💰ICO WATCH | UPCOMING PUBLIC TOKEN SALES

https://bankless.cc/ico-watch

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:57 Canton Origin

8:02 Vitalik’s Post

14:15 Canton Philosophy

24:19 Canton Architecture vs Competitors

34:27 RWA Property Rights Debate

38:17 Canto Super-Validators

50:39 Canton Critiques

56:56 Decentralized vs Open Finance

1:02:16 Are Decentralized RWAs Possible?

1:07:04 Is Canton a Real Blockchain?

1:14:20 Canton Metrics

1:22:17 DTCC Relationship

1:25:27 Canton Token

1:30:43 Ethereum vs Canton in 2030

1:31:55 Closing & Disclaimers

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RESOURCES

Yuval Rooz

https://x.com/YuvalRooz 

Canton

https://www.canton.network/ 

Omid Malekan vs Austin Campbell Professor Debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-h-PeUOvDw

RWA Analytics
https://app.rwa.xyz/ 

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Prediction markets are turning into real-time intelligence, and policymakers are already reacting. In this week’s Weekly Rollup, Ryan and David unpack the Venezuela “Maduro” trade, the debate over fairness vs. public signal, and Polymarket’s expansion into real estate markets. They also cover Bitcoin’s lowest-vol year ever, Solana’s DEX surge, Ethereum’s stablecoin settlement ATH, Morgan Stanley’s crypto ETF filings, Zcash’s governance blowup, Lighter’s massive $LIT airdrop, Vitalik’s “trilemma solved” claim, Wyoming’s state stablecoin, and Strategy’s path toward major indices.

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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

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💰ICO WATCH | UPCOMING PUBLIC TOKEN SALES

https://bankless.cc/ico-watch

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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES

0:00 Intro

2:49 Markets

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2025-ray-dalio-kaf8e/

https://x.com/dampedspring/status/2008568524046991733

https://www.coinglass.com/pro/i/bl

https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/bitcoin-least-volatile-year/

https://x.com/NTmoney/status/2007111582317215767

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2007167084980044071

https://x.com/smyyguy/status/2009282261384888407

https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/2007980573365502161

https://x.com/ericbalchunas/status/2008527564550156315

https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/2008926447205843202

https://x.com/Matt_Hougan/status/2008542347425149247

14:03 Did Polymarket reveal the Venezuela invasion hours prior the announcement?

https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4370431/trump-announces-us-militarys-capture-of-maduro/

https://x.com/JoePompliano/status/2007455311351718118

https://x.com/0xKelle/status/2008099287851561262

https://x.com/JakeSherman/status/2007497192974459372

https://x.com/QuiverQuant/status/2008029132484206664

https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/2008245382539882784

https://x.com/zoomerfied/status/2008184924377960502

25:41 Polymarket Market of the Week

27:42 ZEC dump and resignation 

https://x.com/solidintel_x/status/2009172254496870816

https://x.com/DefiIgnas/status/2009235841751613660

31:05 Lighter launched the Lighter Infrastructure Token

https://x.com/Lighter_xyz/status/2005862682608472263

https://x.com/bubblemaps/status/2006296418622001313

https://defillama.com/protocol/perps/lighter-perps

https://x.com/Lighter_xyz/status/2008309047787753497

35:27 Has Ethereum resolved the blockchain trilemma? 

https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2007559523528233041

https://x.com/ralexstokes/status/2008707458563535022

https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2008174642066845778

https://x.com/dankrad/status/2008466291913265443

45:49 SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw resigned

https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/2007195935403847868

46:32 Major US retailers are accepting crypto payments

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/walmart-starbucks-more-accepting-crypto-202205775.html

48:14 Wyoming launches first US state-issued stablecoin

https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/2008958574962028924

50:00 MSCI decided not to exclude DATs from their indexes

https://www.msci.com/indexes/index-resources/index-announcements

51:28 Closing & Disclaimers 

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures