It’s Permissionless week! We’re kicking off this week’s edition with a collection of charts around political markets on Polymarket, Maple’s unstoppable SyrupUSDC growth and an ambitious Celestia proposal to leave proof-of-stake behind.

— Donovan

Spot sinks, but perps and DEXs hold ground:

Centralized spot volumes have plunged more than 50% since late April, falling from $45b-$50b per day to just $15b-$25b. Yet, onchain trading is holding steady. The DEX-to-CEX spot volume ratio has surged to a consistent 50-70%, even spiking above 120% on June 8.

Binance continues to be the Big Kahuna, with median spot volumes in circa $15b, roughly half of all volume tracked by Blockworks Research.

At the same time, BTC open interest has climbed ~35%, rising from ~$18b to over $25b across major venues like Binance, Bybit and Hyperliquid.

The trend points to liquidity rotating away from spot and into perpetuals and onchain activity.

Perp funding remains relatively flat, making leveraged positions attractive, while low gas and improvements to routing and DEX aggregation are driving memecoin and long-tail token flows to DEXs.

— Macauley Peterson

Blockchain tech altering the global economy is no longer a distant hope. With the market projected to grow almost 600% over the next five years, it’s safe to say the blockchain revolution is well underway.

The latest report from Blockworks Research and OKX shows how blockchain is a new alternative, shifting the landscape for 4 major industries: financial services, technology, consumer goods, and entertainment. 

These data-driven insights on the future of blockchain are a must-read for degens and empire builders alike.

Monday Charts

Polymarket political markets:

Polymarket is back in the limelight amid recent geopolitical conflicts.

In the last week, markets in the “Politics” category saw a jump from $3.9m to $19.5m in volumes, as denoted by the light blue bars in the chart below.

All eyes were focused on the “US military action against Iran before July?” market, which contract resolved yesterday following reports of US strikes on alleged Iran nuclear facilities. The market saw a total $29.9m in trading volumes.

Just before the market surged to 99%+ near certainty, “Yes” shares on the market had been trading at $0.59, meaning markets were pricing in about a 59% probability of the US taking military action against Iran.

Celestia’s governance:

Celestia should abandon proof-of-stake consensus for “proof-of-governance” (PoG), argues Celestia co-founder John Adler in an ambitious new governance proposal.

If passed, the following material changes will be enacted:

1. TIA issuance will be cut by about 20x, or 95%.

2. Delegated staking and liquid staking contracts will be phased out. No more onchain governance.

3. All TIA issuance will be routed solely to validators as payment for running nodes.

4. Validators would be picked by off-chain governance, because Celestia lacks general execution and is not suited to support onchain token voting. 

5. Network fees would be burned as a form of value accrual to TIA token holders. Celestia’s protocol fees amount to $100 - $300 daily.

Tl;dr: Reduce Celestia’s constant emissions in a bid to stave off its declining price action (see chart).

The proposal challenges many common sense “wisdoms” of Ethereum thought, namely where a chain’s “economic security” is derived from (not slashing), the framing of PoS as really permissioned “proof-of-authority,” and how to think about “blockchain profitability.” Expect Ethereum maxis to be triggered.

SyrupUSDC growth:

Maple’s yield-bearing stablecoin SyrupUSDC is now at a market cap of $780m, making it the fastest growing stablecoin this year.

Users deposit USDC onto the platform, which is then used to issue overcollateralized loans to institutional borrowers. The interest charged on those loans is resulting in above average APYs of about 10% today (6.4% base yield +3.5% Drip points), driving SyrupUSDC’s rapid growth.

You can also forgo points to snag a 9.2% PT fixed yield on Pendle instead.

About $587m is used across DeFi, mainly 55% in Spark and 19% in Pendle.

— Donovan Choy

Live debates. Blitz chess. Pull-up flexing. A dunk tank for bad alpha.

Hosted by the 0xResearch and Blockworks Research teams — plus appearances from Jack Kubinec and Boccaccio.

📍Industry City — Courtyard 7 & 8

📅 June 24-26 | Brooklyn