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Circles v2 launches today, proposing a radically fair alternative to basic income projects like Worldcoin. Every user mints money at the same rate, with no VCs or biometric scans in sight. As a form of independent community money, Circles aims to build real-world economic networks rooted in mutual trust and self-sovereignty.

— Macauley

Permissionless IV is hitting Brooklyn on June 24-26. Tix are $599 — but refer 5 friends to the 0xResearch newsletter and score a free Permissionless ticket. Scroll down to grab your code.

Betting on stablecoins:

Of Pendle’s $4.5b TVL today, 83% are stablecoins. Today’s chart shows Pendle’s stablecoin TVL growth over 18 months by 60x, from ~$53m to $3.4b. 

Insofar as regulatory certainty continues to clear up for stablecoin growth and Pendle successfully captures these assets, a bet on Pendle may be one way for leveraged exposure to the broader stablecoin bull thesis.

Pendle has captured 30% ($3b+) of the entire $11b yield-bearing stablecoin market, a recent report from Modular Capital and Spartan Group finds. Though the bulk of these stablecoins (75%) are comprised of Ethena’s USDe at $2.6b, Pendle is increasingly diversifying away from its USDe concentration.

“Since the beginning of 2024, unique stablecoins on Pendle contributing [less than] $10m TVL have 4x+ from four to 18. In the last three months, new issuers crossing this $10m threshold include Open Eden, Syrup, Astherus, Falcon, Cygnus, Coinshift, Reservoir, Superform, USDX and Sky.”

— Donovan Choy

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Fair money for all

Today’s launch of Circles v2 is a reassertion of crypto’s community-first ideals. Originally launched in 2020 as an experiment in universal basic access (UBA) to currency, Circles is now back with a refined product, a stronger economic model and a renewed mission: to build a fairer alternative to centralized identity-driven distribution schemes like Worldcoin.

It’s a project out of the Gnosis Chain orbit, and co-founder Martin Köppelmann recently told a room of supporters that getting the concept live was a 10-year process.
“Circles is a quite big and radical idea, and it tries to question, well, how does money work and can we create a better version of money?” Köppelmann said.

At its core, Circles offers an egalitarian money system. Every participant in the network mints the same number of Circles tokens (CRC) — one per hour — for as long as they are active. Unlike Bitcoin, where early adopters gain an irreversible head start, or Worldcoin, which promises global coverage while reserving massive allocations for insiders and investors, Circles maintains balance by design.

Circles is governed by four simple rules:

• Universal access lets anyone join and mint currency once they receive trust from three existing users — no biometric scans or privileged entry.

• Distributed issuance means every human mints one CRC per hour, creating a continuous and equal flow of new money without insiders or early adopter advantages.

• To keep the currency circulating, Demurrage applies a 7% annual decay on all balances, encouraging spending over hoarding.

• And the Rule of Trust restricts transactions to users connected by mutual trust links, making the system socially curated and resistant to bots or Sybil attacks.

With v2, Circles addresses two of its biggest historical shortcomings: usability and liquidity. A new Metri wallet — built on the same technology as Safe — brings a modern, mobile-first interface that feels more like Venmo or Revolut than a Web3 science project.

Users can browse trust connections, join local groups, and spend or trade their Circles. New functionality allows users to optionally back their personal Circles tokens with stablecoins via decentralized AMMs like Balancer. This creates market-based price discovery for what was once a purely social currency.

Where Worldcoin relies on iris scans and a globally centralized (albeit encrypted) registry, Circles builds organically through a web of social connections. To begin transacting, a new user must be trusted by at least three existing users. With over 100,000 historical accounts from Circles v1, new adopters can bootstrap into existing networks quickly while maintaining the project’s local-first ethos.

"Groups" are collections of users who can co-mint, coordinate spending and set shared policies. Groups can now issue their own sub-currencies backed by pooled CRC and even assign real-world goods or services to these tokens.

For example, in early pilots, local vendors in Berlin and Bali accepted Circles for groceries, drinks and services. These group dynamics provide a decentralized scaffolding for what similar projects like Colu once tried to do: bootstrap hyperlocal currencies for urban neighborhoods. Unlike Colu — which subsequently pivoted away from crypto entirely — Circles doesn't rely on grants or external incentives. It’s designed as a self-sustaining network rooted in personal issuance and mutual trust.

There’s also no VC backing or OpenAI distribution potential, something which Köppelmann likes to see as a strength. “In Circles, there is no owner of the protocol, no team or investors that get 30% of the whole thing — that does not exist,” he said.

At a time when Worldcoin has reignited global debates over digital identity and data privacy, Circles quietly offers an alternative — one without privileged insiders, biometric scanning or opaque governance.

It’s going to be an uphill slog — bootstrapping liquidity, navigating UX hurdles and scaling trust networks are thorny challenges. But, in a sense, Circles v2 is a provocation to the broader crypto ecosystem: What if currency wasn’t about scarcity and speculation, but abundance and participation?

— Macauley Peterson

Nillion’s Monad Integration is poised to catalyze the next phase of DeSci’s evolution by eliminating key privacy bottlenecks. This synergy allows researchers, institutions and DAOs to exchange sensitive data and insights securely while managing governance and payments onchain. Although early-stage, this integration may usher in the beginning of broader DeSci adoption, potentially transforming how critical research is funded, executed, and commercialized.

The bandwidth bottleneck holding blockchains back

What is DoubleZero?

Mateo Ward: DoubleZero is a purpose-built internet focused on delivering performance for distributed systems. It’s not a general-purpose network. Every tech platform in history (e.g.,YouTube, Netflix) built a purpose-built and custom-dedicated underneath to scale, and DoubleZero addresses the same bottleneck for blockchains. DoubleZero routes the entire world on a single mesh of peered routers under a single ASN number, which means every packet goes straight to its destination, which is not the case on the internet.

Austin Federa: DoubleZero does this in a decentralized fashion with multiple network providers, which is why you need tokens. Tokens provide the incentive for every provider to provide the most performant and useful service as possible because they'll earn the most rewards. It sounds like the way the internet should work, but it's not. This is really only possible with tokens.

DoubleZero’s tokenomics

Austin Federa: The problem with DePIN today is that it’s focused on supply-side with no demand. It’s theoretically useful but has low practical usage. With DoubleZero, there’s no base level contribution and reward. You get no rewards unless you’re providing connectivity to Solana validators or RPCs. Most DePIN networks give you passive coverage or capacity subsidies, which encourages farming. With DoubleZero, it’s extremely hard to farm tokens without providing actual value to the network. Validators and RPCs will also pay to use DoubleZero.