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- Climbing the wall of worry
Hi everyone, happy Friday. Crypto markets were green yesterday, with HYPE and PUMP leading the bounce. It’s nice to see the two most successful apps of this cycle showing relative strength again! As always, below are a few weekend reads on various topics. My favorite read was Building the Attention Economy by Multicoin Capital, so if you only have limited time, I highly recommend this one.
Crypto markets had a relief bounce yesterday, with BTC closing Thursday (8 pm ET) at ~$110K (+2.3%), outperforming the Nasdaq 100 (+1.3%), S&P 500 (+0.9%) and gold (+0.6%). All three major US equity indices closed higher amid Q3 earning reports and hopes of a potential US-China trade deal, with the White House confirming yesterday that Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next Thursday.
On the macro side, September CPI data came in softer than expected today, with a 0.3% increase for the headline number (vs. 0.4% expected) and a 0.2% rise in core inflation (vs. 0.3% expected) month over month. The data is unlikely to prevent the Fed from cutting rates next week (Oct. 29). A 25bps rate cut is widely expected, with the CME FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading, pricing the second rate cut of the year at a 99% probability.
Source: CME Group
Back on the crypto side, the Launchpad (+5.5%), Solana Ecosystem (+5.3%), and DeFi (+5.2%) sectors were the clear outliers on Thursday. The best performing asset in the Launchpad and Solana indices was PUMP, up 10% on the day. Despite the negative market sentiment after the Oct. 10 drawdown, Pump’s fundamentals remain strong, averaging over $1 million in daily revenue and buybacks over the past week. After today’s buyback, the Pump team will have surpassed $150 million in cumulative PUMP purchases since they began buying back the token in July.
Finally, the best performing asset on the DeFi index was HYPE, up 11% on the day, with Robinhood listing the asset yesterday morning. It’s quite ironic that Robinhood listed HYPE before Coinbase, though not surprising. Similar to Pump, Hyperliquid’s fundamentals remain robust, and recent token underperformance has been in large part due to uncertainty around the Nov. 28 unlock, with 23.8% of the total supply (71.44% of float) earmarked for core contributors beginning to vest. In my opinion, the market will likely climb the wall of worry once the unlock happens.
— Carlos
Takeaways from Monday’s 0xResearch livestream:
Aerodrome’s competitive edge: Alex from Dromos Labs discusses the evolution of DEXs, emphasizing the importance of liquidity providers and tokenomics in the sustainability and competitive edge of projects like Velodrome and Aerodrome. Notably, he defends the ve-tokenomics design.
Coinbase integration: The discussion highlights the integration of Coinbase with DEXs on the Base network, allowing users to trade assets seamlessly in a decentralized environment and increasing accessibility for retail users.
Morpho’s lending model: Merlin Egalite, Morpho's co-founder, discusses the introduction of fixed-rate, fixed-term loans. He mentions this product is aimed at providing users with a more stable lending experience, alongside the potential for under-collateralized loans in the future, targeting a broader user base.
The Mamo agent: Luke Youngbloo, founder of Moonwell and Mamo.bot, explains that the Mamo agent is designed to simplify crypto management for users, facilitating automated compound interest on deposits while introducing an innovative approach to personal finance management in the DeFi space.
Moonwell and Mamo: The separation of the Moonwell and Mamo tokens reflects a strategic focus, allowing each project to cater to different elements of the ecosystem, with Mamo targeting ease of use and automated financial growth.
Risk management: With the recent volatility in crypto markets, the teams acknowledge the need for robust risk management practices, especially when leveraging borrowing strategies to ensure the stability of their protocols.
Macro trends: Overall, the rapid integration of DeFi products and stablecoin utilization on platforms like Coinbase signifies a growing trend in the industry, highlighting the need for accessible, user-friendly financial products for both retail and institutional users.
Look for the full podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and X.
This summary was generated with assistance from AI tooling.
Multicoin Capital published a piece arguing that Attention Assets (i.e., user-generated tokens like creator coins and memecoins) could emerge as a legitimate asset class. To help accelerate this trend, the essay introduces Attention Oracles. This new oracle type could enable Attention Perps, a novel instrument for traders to go long or short on the attention of cultural fixtures. The essay argues that user-generated tokens reward people who are good at spotting trends early, but fail to price existing high-attention subjects (since they shouldn't be priced at zero initially). The author proposes a prediction market-based oracle construction for these assets, using LeBron James's attention as a hypothetical example. The piece surveys design tradeoffs, notes social-data pitfalls and suggests platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are best positioned to offer Attention Perps. That said, the author acknowledges there's ample room for experimentation, noting that Hyperliquid's HIP-3 could also enable the creation of these types of instruments. Read more
Optimus (@0xOptimus) from Flashbots published an article explaining why Solana-native prop AMMs now drive ~40% of the chain’s volume and why they haven’t flourished on EVM. The author defines prop AMMs as AMMs where the liquidity and pricing for a pool are actively managed by a single, professional market maker, as opposed to being supplied passively and by the public. He notes prop AMMs have proliferated on Solana because of its cheap fees, continuous architecture and priority inclusion rules (high fee/CU ratios), starkly contrasting the EVM’s costly SSTORE writes and discrete blocks that invite frontrunning. The article proposes a viable EVM path for prop AMMs: a Global Storage contract + a builder “fast lane” that executes updates at top-of-block, with AMMs reading fresh parameters. The conclusion is that if builders adopt this policy, prop AMMs could deliver tighter quotes on the EVM. Read more
Bain Capital’s Kobi Gurkan published a blog post proposing “blind x402,” which composes Privacy Pass with the x402 HTTP payments standard to issue blinded usage credits at purchase time. The piece explains Privacy Pass (IETF-standardized, Cloudflare/Apple deployments), outlines x402’s machine-to-machine micropayments and sketches an elliptic curve flow where a facilitator both settles payment and issues anonymous tokens redeemed later via HTTP headers. Benefits include privacy-preserving access for AI agents and data services, whereas tradeoffs include reduced per use granularity and offchain state for spent credit lists. Read more
Blockworks Advisory published a Token Holder Report detailing Raydium’s Q3 2025. LaunchLab’s first full quarter drove $12.8 million in revenue (+220% QoQ), over half of Raydium’s $24.3 million total (+69% QoQ), while swap revenue reached $10.5 million (+18% QoQ). Operating cash flow was $27.5 million, with $14.6 million sent to buybacks/treasury. Trading volume hit $51.9 billion (+31% QoQ), lifting DEX market share to 15.9%. The report notes Raydium’s evolution into a multi-product liquidity platform, with ongoing focus on aggregator integration and LaunchLab-driven trading depth. Read more
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