Rylan Fegan

Democrat Gina Hinojosa wants a broader data center moratorium if she defeats Texas Gov. Abbott Jefferies says 13.3GW of Texas projects could be at risk The state accounts for ~25% of planned U.S. capacity by 2030 ERCOT's 474GW request queue was ~90% data centers in mid-2026

Solana is a significantly worse business than Visa: * Visa takes a %fee cut of transaction value. So if I make a $10,000 purchase, Visa gets more than if I make a $10 purchase. Visa’s revenue scales with the value transacted * Solana’s fee model is at a transaction level & independent of the value of the transaction. I’d pay the same fee to buy an item for $100 as buying an item for $10,000 This makes Solana awesome for users. That’s really good. It even has potential to change the world and commerce. But again, none of that actually means SOL token will accrue value I’ll repeat the analogy again. Solana is closer to the post office or Verizon, who facilitate a ton of economic activity but do not capture it - than it is to a Visa or Hyperliquid

BINANCE WALLETS SEE $2.77 BILLION OUTFLOW ACROSS FIVE BLOCKCHAINS AMID DRAIN SUSPICIONS; HACK UNCONFIRMED

Franklin Crypto Research Competition @ UBC 2026 Year 3 of the Franklin Crypto ( @FTDA_US ) Research Competition starts tonight. This post explains how the competition works, from now until the live pitch finals at the @UBC_Conference in Austin on November 20. The Tracks (pick one, pitch one asset) 1. Long: under $250M circulating market cap 2. Long: over $250M circulating market cap 3. Short: over $1B circulating market cap $10,000 Prize Pool • $2,500 to the winner of each track • An extra $2,500 to the top team across all tracks How It Works • Teams of 1–4 students. You can compete solo, and each school can enter as many teams as it likes. • Stage 1: a written investment thesis of up to 5 pages, due Nov 9 at 11:59 PM ET • Stage 2: the top 3 teams in each track pitch in person at UBC on Nov 20 at UT Austin (5-minute pitch, then 5 minutes of judge Q&A) Key Dates • Oct 22: Competition opens + Kick-off Town Hall (8 PM ET) • Oct 29: Blockworks + Allium tools demo (8 PM ET) • Nov 9: Written reports due (11:59 PM ET) • Nov 16: Finalists announced • Nov 20: Finalist pitch at UBC • Nov 21: Winners announced Judges come from @FTDA_US, @Collab_Currency, @Blockworks, @nolimithodl. Distribution Partner (more announced soon 👀): @StrataMedia_ Sign up for the competition here: luma.com/z1bgn7z8 Full details on the competition: universityblockchain.org/pro…

We continue to focus on what I call "back-door" problems in onchain finance rather than "front-door" problems and it's severely limiting adoption. Back-door problems: - Options (@DeriveXYZ) - Tranching (@roycoprotocol) - STRIPS (@pendle_fi / @ExponentFinance - @papertrade_xyz - Exotic stables (@ethena, @SkyEcosystem) Front-door problems: - Onramping money - Removing anything to do with crypto (chains, gas) - Abstracting anything to do with wallets The back-door problems, while innovative, compete for the same set of onchain users. They do not expand the TAM. Many of them are niches within niches. Rather than refining your protocol, you are better off figuring out a way to grow the TAM via front-door problems. If not, I predict you will be replaced. In fact, I predict many of these protocols will be replaced by apps that solve "front-door" problems. In a few years, we will look back and say, "Remember that era when we all had chrome extensions and physical hardware wallets." I see no world where that becomes the norm. The companies that solve front-door problems will be the ones that dictate which back-door companies survive. You have been warned.