Bankless Weekly Rollup: The Ultimate Guide to Crypto Finance — December 19, 2025

Main Theme / Purpose This episode of Bankless delivers a comprehensive weekly rollup of the latest and most important developments across DeFi, crypto, and Web3. The main focus is on major product launches from Coinbase (aiming to become a financial super app), JPMorgan’s movement onchain, Solana’s Firedancer upgrade, the Aave DAO vs. Labs “civil war,” and the DTCC’s landmark step toward asset tokenization. The hosts, Ryan and David, also share market insights, discuss token/equity misalignment trends, and comment on culture and regulatory issues.

1. Market Recap & Macro Takes

• Bitcoin and Ether Performance
  • Bitcoin down 4% on the week, down 17% on the year; Ether down 10% on the week, down 27% on the year.
  • Solana suffered more, down 45% in 2025.
• Market Sentiment
  • “Did this feel like a 10% down on the week?” — Ryan [02:50]
  • Total crypto market cap now below $3T — started the year at $3.8T.
• 2026 Outlooks
  • David: “Slow grind up.” [05:06]
  • Ryan: Barclays predicts a down year for 2026 due to weaker retail, fading speculation, and constrained exchange revenues [05:32].
  • David references Joey Krug’s interview, forecasting big tech IPOs (SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic) as “liquidity sucks” — less capital for crypto.

2. Legendary Investors on Fiat & Wealth Erosion

• Warren Buffett on Fiat
  • “But the natural course of government is to make the currency worth less over time and that’s got important consequences.” — Buffett clip [08:18]
  • Ryan and David joke Buffett “sounds like a Bitcoiner” [08:32].
• Ron Baron on Inflation
  • "Prices double every ten to twelve years, and your savings are cut in half every fifteen years...this system is basically designed to punish you if you hold fiat.” — Paraphrased by Ryan [10:30]
• Why Holding Cash Is Hard
  • “I don’t have any cash. What are you talking about?” — David [10:18]
  • “The millionaire is actually ten million dollars…” — David [12:14]

3. Major Bankless Announcements

• ICO Watch (David’s Project) [13:00–15:34]
  • Aggregates all announced and upcoming ICOs.
  • Details: Registration/sale dates, tokenomics, sale mechanisms, team/investors, direct interviews.
  • “We are listing every single ICO that we do not find a red flag for...” — David [14:23]
  • Disclaimer: Not all projects are vetted.
• The DeFi Report Podcast (Ryan’s Project) [15:34–16:48]
  • Weekly podcast with Mike from The DeFi Report — following a seasoned investor through crypto cycles.
  • Only 20% of Mike’s portfolio is in crypto (80% cash), prepping to deploy in a bear market.

4. Coinbase “System Update” — Transforming into the Financial Super App [17:00–37:43]

Major Product Announcements

• Stock Trading in-App

  • U.S. users can now trade equities (Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, etc.) alongside crypto.
  • Not tokenized stocks but actual equities via new brokerage arm “Coinbase Capital Markets”, regulated by FINRA/SIPC; Apex Clearing handles custody. [22:19–22:52]
  • “Now you can trade stocks and a huge selection of crypto all in one place.” — David [21:58]

• Equity Perpetuals

  • 24/7 trading; up to 20x leverage, rolling out soon (for non-US users).
  • “It’s a perps are a crypto product ... makes more sense for retail than options” — Ryan [25:55]

• Prediction Markets via Kalshi

  • Enables betting on outcomes (politics, sports, etc.) through Kalshi integration, targeting feature parity with Robinhood but with regulatory compliance.

• DeFi/Token Integrations

  • Direct access to Solana tokens (via Jupiter), in addition to Base & Arbitrum assets.

• Token Sale Platform (highlight: the Monad ICO)

  • Over $260M in requests from 85,000 verified users.

• One-Stop Payments

  • “Pay Tab”: Send USDC via phone number, email, or wallet address—even to people without preexisting Coinbase accounts. [31:08]

• Loans & Credit

  • Borrow up to $5M against Bitcoin, $1M against ETH as collateral (with Morpho).

• AI Advisor & Creator Platform

  • “Coinbase Advisor”: AI-powered, helps manage portfolios and even suggests prediction market bets.
  • “Base app”: Social media, creator-focused, posts/content as tokens — Farcaster/Zora style.

• Position in Broader Fintech Landscape

  • “If I’m a brokerage like Fidelity...I’m shaking in my boots…” — Ryan [34:04]
  • Robinhood and Coinbase are neck-and-neck, targeting Millennials and Gen Z for super-app dominance.

• Fees and Accessibility

  • Robinhood: zero fees on stocks, high crypto fees; Coinbase: “not low” crypto fees, unclear stock fee parity.
  • OG “super app” is still Ethereum itself — on-chain swaps for tokenized equities (Ondo) with tight spreads. [36:04–36:56]

“All these companies are launching super apps; don’t forget about the OG: Ethereum.” — David [36:44]

5. Aave “Civil War” — Token vs. Equity Tensions [37:43–44:26]

• The Dispute

  • Aave Labs swapped Paraswap for CowSwap as DEX aggregator in the frontend—fees now flow to Labs, not DAO.
  • “Stealth privatization” claim: DAO and community feel revenue and brand built by DAO should accrue to token holders, not just equity.
  • Estimate: $10-15M/year in lost DAO revenue.

• Industry-Wide Pattern

  • Labs/entities sell IP & tech w/o tokenholders benefiting—recent examples: Circle acquiring Interop Labs (Axelar), Coinbase buying NFT platform Tensor; tokens left behind.
  • “How can you say invest in our crypto assets? You might get rugged.” — Ryan [40:49]

• Cowswap Example

  • “Cowswap is crushing it in terms of volume, but the token’s only worth $100M...” — Ryan paraphrasing Martin [41:08]

Uniswap's "Unification" Proposal [41:42–43:34]

• Proposed Solution
  • New legal entity (Wyoming DAO LLC “Duna”) for the DAO.
  • Uniswap Labs becomes main operator via service agreement; quarterly growth budget in UNI paid out.
  • Aligns Labs’ incentives with token holders.
  • Not perfect, but a big step—model for other DAOs?
  • “Probably now that we have the regulatory green light to do things, the first thing we need to do is fix investor rights and investor protections.” — David [44:26]

6. Solana Breakpoint Announcements [47:32–50:47]

• Firedancer Launches

  • “Firedancer is now on mainnet... 660K to 1M+ TPS in tests.” — David.
  • Incremental mainnet rollout, written from scratch in C by Jump Crypto.
  • “Pretty big milestone to have a second client from an independent dev shop.” — Ryan.

• Phantom + Kalshi Prediction Markets

  • Solana tokens for prediction market positions; fully tokenized and composable in Solana DeFi.

• Visa Settlements

  • Visa offers USDC settlement for US banks, using Solana as rails.

7. TradFi Onchain: DTCC, JPMorgan, and the "Suitcoin" Era [52:42–57:27]

• DTCC (US securities settlement giant)

  • SEC greenlights a 3-year tokenization pilot for assets on qualifying L1/L2s (resilience/uptime requirements).
  • Demo: Apple shares settled via DTCC and transferred to Ethereum; USDC as settlement layer.

• DTCC + Canton Network

  • First pilot: using the private/permissioned Canton blockchain for US Treasuries.
  • “There’s actually a Canton Network token... 2.7B, where did that dime come from?” — David [56:28]
  • CEO interview scheduled for January.

• JPMorgan

  • Launches first ever tokenized money market fund on Ethereum mainnet (world’s “greatest super app”).
  • Token ticker: MONY

8. Regulatory & Legal News

• Do Kwon Sentenced

  • 15 years for “fraud of an epic, generational scale.” [58:02]
  • US prison first, then South Korea—could face up to 40 more years there.

• Crypto Regulation & Partisanship

  • NYT alleges Trump SEC has withdrawn 60% of Biden-era crypto cases, implying industry pressure.
  • “Crypto’s moved once again into partisan territory.” — Ryan [61:23]

9. Culture Corner

• Upcoming Netflix Rom-Com: "One Attempt Remaining"
  • Jennifer Gardner leads a story about divorced couple who won Bitcoin in a drunken cruise... but lost the seed phrase, with only one login attempt left for $35M. [61:57]
  • “I want to watch this with an eye towards how accurate it is...” — Ryan
  • “Prediction: you’re going to be disappointed.” — David [62:51]

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Did we just get tokenized stocks yet? Hmmm. Kind of. Hold your breath, we’ll let you know.” — Ryan [00:20]
• “Slow grind up—that’s my outlook for 2026.” — David [05:06]
• “If you zoom out, ETH is looking pretty good right now ... dark times.” — Ryan [03:32]
• “That’s what a Bitcoiner says!” — David on Warren Buffett’s currency debasement quote [08:34]
• “We are listing every single ICO that we do not find a red flag for...” — David [14:23]
• “Don’t forget about the OG: Ethereum.” — David [36:44]
• “Stealth privatization” — Ryan on Aave Labs vs DAO [37:53]
• “How can you say invest in our crypto assets? You might get rugged.” — Ryan [40:49]
• “First thing we need to do is fix investor rights and investor protections. Let’s go do it.” — David [44:26]

Conclusion

This episode was a whirlwind tour of both crypto-native and TradFi evolution, emphasizing the convergence of traditional finance with DeFi infrastructure, the struggles of aligning tokens with equity value capture, the race for super-app status, and the continuing push for regulatory and institutional legitimacy. The hosts keep the tone conversational, lively, and occasionally irreverent—always putting the community and listener first.

Happy holidays from Bankless — see you on the frontier.