GM all and happy Thursday!

Wednesday's session had a familiar feel: perps led, equities lagged, and Solana infrastructure continued its quiet evolution. DoubleZero wrapped up its bootstrapping phase with three structural updates to validator economics. This included the launch of DoubleZero Edge, a real-time shred data market that routes revenue back to the validators and client teams doing the work. Meanwhile, HIP-3 RWA markets on Hyperliquid crossed 28.5% of total futures volume, a number that still has room to run. Today, we break down what the DoubleZero changes mean for Solana's client funding model and why HYPE continues to stand out.

Wednesday’s session reinforced the theme that winners keep winning, with perps being the top-performing index, up 6.1% on the day. On the daily timeframe, BTC and many crypto indices showed positive relative strength to traditional markets, with 17 of the 25 indices we track showing positive gains despite weakness in equities and gold. The notable loser during Wednesday’s session was the 2025 crypto equity cohort, trading down -6.9%. GEMI accounted for most of this downside, trading down -12.5%.

Among perps, HYPE continues to lead the sector higher, up 12.5% over the past week. Despite strength at the index level, HYPE remains the only player in the perps category showing positive returns over the past week. Meanwhile, runners-up Aster and Lighter continue to lag, each trading down -2.9% and -21.9%, respectively.

On Hyperliquid, volumes on HIP-3 RWA markets continue to account for a growing share of total perpetual futures volume. These RWA markets are trading $2B-$4B in daily volume, now accounting for over ~28.5% of total futures volumes on Hyperliquid. Similarly, HIP-3 markets account for over 20% of total exchange open interest. 

There’s always a bull market somewhere, and with HIP-3, it can be listed and traded on Hyperliquid. As traction continues to grow on this sleeve of listings, which have still barely scratched the surface of their SAM, HYPE stands out for its relative strength and remains the winner.  

One notable outlier on Wednesday’s session was Across (ACX), trading up on an intraday move of 120%. This pop comes on the back of a temp check proposal to convert existing tokens to equity in a new US C-corp. through an ACX token buyout and optional token-to-equity exchange. Under the plan, ACX holders could either convert tokens 1:1 into equity in AcrossCo (directly or via an SPV) or sell their tokens for USDC at $0.04375, a 25% premium to the recent 30-day average price. The motivation is to enable enforceable contracts, revenue agreements, and institutional partnerships that are difficult under the current DAO/token structure. If the vote passes, Across would continue operating normally while token holders choose between equity exposure or a cash exit. The proposal introduces a question straight at the heart of crypto’s persistent token problem: do we really need a token, or is the legacy equity path a better way?

— Luke

DoubleZero Upgrades Validator Economics

DoubleZero shipped three significant changes to its validator economics model yesterday, marking what the protocol describes as the end of its bootstrapping phase.

The headline announcement is DoubleZero Edge, a real-time market data platform delivering raw Solana shreds over multicast. Shreds are the raw packets that constitute a partial Solana block as it is being built, representing the earliest possible view of onchain activity before a block is finalized. Historically, access to shreds was gated by stake weight and Turbine tree position, limiting meaningful participation to a small number of large validators. Edge changes that by aggregating shreds from all publishing validators into a single shared feed, distributed simultaneously to subscribers via multicast. Revenue is split with 10% burned, 50% going to DoubleZero network contributors, 17.5% to protocol client teams (Jito, Harmonic, Agave, and Firedancer), and 32.5% to shred-originating validators proportional to leader slots contributed.

Second, the 5% block reward fee charged to validators is eliminated effective March 13. DoubleZero now carries ~46% of Solana's network stake, and the protocol is pivoting its revenue model from validator fees toward data subscription revenue.

Third, DZDP Phase II launched, expanding the 13M SOL delegation program with geographic decentralization incentives. Delegation is now structured across baseline connection (1% of stakeweight), shred publishing via multicast (2%), and a geographic bonus (4%), with Ring 3 regions (Hong Kong, São Paulo, Singapore, and Tokyo) receiving an additional 600KSOL per device incentive pool. Multicast connectivity is required to qualify for the geographic bonus.

The 17.5% revenue allocation to protocol client teams is worth dwelling on. Solana client development has historically been funded through foundation grants, validator donations, and ecosystem treasury mechanisms, none of which create a direct, ongoing link between client software quality and economic outcome. DoubleZero's model changes that structure. If Jito, Harmonic, or Agave improve shred propagation performance, subscriber demand for the feed increases, and client teams earn more. That is a materially different incentive than a one-time grant. The question worth watching is whether subscription revenue scales fast enough to be meaningful relative to existing funding, but directionally, aligning client team revenue with network data quality is a more durable model than what exists today.

For validators, the unlock sequence is straightforward: connect to multicast, publish shreds, earn delegation bonuses and future subscription revenue. Jito and Harmonic are integrating Edge directly into their clients, which would make shred publishing automatic at the client level.

— Nick

1. The Dawn of the Agentic Economy

Nick Garcia from Breed VC published a research piece examining the structural case for why the agentic economy will operate onchain. The report surveys the current state of crypto adoption, revisits the premature 2024 agent meta, and argues that improvements in model quality and blockchain infrastructure have meaningfully changed the calculus. Garcia centers his thesis on three enabling primitives: ERC-8004, which assigns agents onchain identity and verifiable capabilities; x402, which enables autonomous stablecoin payments for API calls and microtransactions; and stablecoins as the programmable unit of account for machine-to-machine settlement. He cites Stripe's explicit acknowledgment that existing API-key-and-credit-card infrastructure breaks down at agentic transaction volume as the clearest external signal that blockchain rails are not a crypto-native talking point but a practical necessity. The piece also notes OpenAI's recent launches of Frontier and EVM Bench as evidence that agentic infrastructure development is accelerating across the stack.

2. Kraken Gets Fed Access as Crypto Takes on the Banks

The Inflection Point crew examined Bitcoin's resilience during a 2% S&P drawdown tied to Middle East escalation, attributing the muted volatility to multi-year-low leverage and light positioning. The bulk of the episode centered on Kraken's acquisition of a skinny Fed master account, covering its limitations around overnight balance caps and interest on reserves, and contrasting Kraken's five-year quiet regulatory engagement with Custodia's failed litigation approach. The panel also discussed how Kraken's combined exchange, bank charter, custody, Fedwire settlement, and tokenization stack represent a prime broker-like model no other crypto-native firm currently replicates and argued that bank opposition to yield-bearing stablecoin provisions in the GENIUS Act reflects a classic innovator's dilemma.

3) Across Token Buyout: The First Proposal to Convert Back to a Private Company

Across co-founder Hart Lambert discusses the project’s proposed conversion from a token-governed DAO into a traditional private C-corp, offering token holders either a 1:1 equity token-equity exchange or a buyout at a modest premium, because he believes the current regulatory and market environment makes the company structure more practical and effective. He argues crypto token markets have become overcrowded and inefficient, while a private-company setup would make it easier to sign contracts with major partners, reduce DAO-related friction, and better support Across’s evolving business model around interoperability and stablecoin infrastructure. More broadly, Lambert frames Across’s future as building “financial plumbing” that makes cross-chain and stablecoin transfers fast, seamless, and ideally free for users, with issuers or ecosystems covering the cost instead.

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