Blockworks Acquires Messari

Bullish:

• $STABLES - Stablecoins and tokenization of dollars on-chain is identified as the most important and working trend in crypto, representing the rebuilding of capital markets on-chain with huge opportunities for fintechs, exchanges, and banks.

  • “The most important trend within crypto is tokenizing assets. So bringing on dollars in the form of stable coins, RWAs, etcetera, and rebuilding capital markets on chain. That means a huge opportunity for fintechs, crypto exchanges, banks.”

    Michael·6:47

  • “The thing that is working at this moment in time is tokenization and bringing all of these different assets that exist in TradFi on chain. Dollars in the form of stable coins, treasuries, more esoteric, you know, kind of bonds and Stocks now pre Stocks.”

    Michael·8:50
• $RWA - Real-world assets (RWAs) moving on-chain is described as a core working use case in crypto, part of the broader tokenization trend that will create opportunities and onboard investors.

  • “The most important trend within crypto is tokenizing assets. So bringing on dollars in the form of stable coins, RWAs, etcetera, and rebuilding capital markets on chain.”

    Michael·6:47

  • “So all of that stuff is moving on chain, and it's gonna create a huge amount of opportunity and onboard investors. All that stuff is great. So that's what's working.”

    Michael·9:06
• $DEFI - DeFi protocols that have been building for eight years are positioned to disrupt traditional financial firms as crypto matures, with the speakers believing it's not a foregone conclusion that banks will dominate.

  • “I would also I think that if you've been building crypto for the last eight years, this is gonna be highly disruptive to many of these firms as well. And I don't think it's some foregone conclusion that banks are gonna come in here and run everyone's show and, you know, generate all the value. There's a ton of opportunity for startups right now to come in and win some of these processes.”

    Michael·17:00
• $CRYPTOAI - The combination of on-chain crypto data with AI is described as highly transformative, enabling real-time queryable financial data, automated credit scoring at 10% of traditional costs, and making existing financial systems operate much better.

  • “And when you combine on chain crypto data and AI, what you actually I think one of the mental models that people got wrong is that we were gonna blow up finance instead of making finance just work way better.”

    Michael·14:52

  • “If all that information just lived on chain, you know, you rep you did your disclosures, you represented that all the information was real. An LLM should be able to it's not rocket science that people are doing. That should be able to get scored at 10% of the cost instantly.”

    Michael·16:15

Bearish:

• $ALTCOINS - Crypto tokens are in a bear market with severe trust issues due to lack of standardized data and disclosures, with founders regularly overstating revenue by 10x and no way to distinguish legitimate activity from pump schemes.

  • “People do not trust these markets anymore. I don't trust these markets anymore. It's hard to believe what we're seeing.”

    Michael·9:15

  • “So we are still at a point where founders will regularly post revenue, which is overstated by 10 x. That is crazy. It's not good.”

    Michael·9:33

  • “At this point, even just speaking personally, like zooming out, I'm not buying any tokens that I don't know if their metrics are actually coming from incentive campaigns and the token's gonna dump 90%. It right now, I just can't trust anything even when I do see it on”

    Michael·8:00

  • “We haven't produced competitive assets that people wanna buy.”

    Michael·9:59
• $TRADFI - Traditional financial firms face disruption from crypto-native startups as capital markets move on-chain, with fragmented businesses like ratings agencies vulnerable to consolidation by AI-native, on-chain platforms operating at lower costs.

  • “I think there will be some financial firms that come in and they've got a lot of you know, they've got great businesses and they're gonna innovate and leverage crypto and generate a lot of shareholder value. I would also I think that if you've been building crypto for the last eight years, this is gonna be highly disruptive to many of these firms as well.”

    Michael·16:52

  • “I think a lot of the different fragmented businesses that exist that facilitate capital markets in traditional finance are gonna get consolidated.”

    Michael·17:43