Shiba Inu (SHIB) continues to battle bearish pressures in the cryptocurrency market as the meme coin faces volatility. Amid these developments, Lucie, the marketing lead of the SHIB ecosystem, has dropped insights into the asset’s appeal factors.

Exchanges and wallet distribution boosting SHIB’s credibility

In a post shared with the community on X, Lucie highlighted that the distribution of Shiba Inu is not centralized in a few individuals. Rather, it is spread across several major exchanges and people.

According to Lucie, major wallets on Binance, Robinhood, Crypto.com, among others, have trillions of SHIB in their custody.

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These SHIB tokens are held on behalf of the millions of users invested in the Shiba Inu project. The volume of SHIB held in the wallets of these exchanges represents the top 10 holders’ count.

Besides these wallets on exchanges, individuals also have a sizable number of SHIB in their custody. The SHIB marketing executive noted that over 1.5 million individual wallets are hosted on Ethereum alone. This suggests the massive spread of ownership distribution.

In terms of geographic spread, Shiba Inu is highly concentrated in the United States of America, India, Turkey and East Asia. Other regions include Europe, Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

She noted that this decentralized nature of SHIB holders could serve to enhance security and prevent price volatility from a few controlling owners.

Market performance and “Sparktember” outlook

As of this writing, the Shiba Inu price was changing hands at $0.00001243, representing a 1.18% increase in the last 24 hours.

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However, investors remain cautious of the bearish outlook of the meme coin, resulting in a 17.5% decline in trading volume to $180.3 million within the same time frame.

Despite this outlook, there is growing optimism among some community members that September will be bullish. They expect the month to trigger utility and new launches for SHIB and have dubbed it “Sparktember.”

How the dog-themed meme coin performs will be revealed with the passing of time.

Venture capital (VC) firms have become much more selective with the crypto projects they invest in, representing a shift from the previous cycle due to market maturation, according to Eva Oberholzer, the chief investment officer at VC firm Ajna Capital. 

“It’s harder because we have reached a different stage in crypto, similar to every cycle we have seen for other technologies in the past,” Oberholzer told Cointelegraph.

She added that market maturation has slowed down pre-seed investing, as VCs pivot their attention to established projects with clear business models. Oberholzer said:

“It’s more about predictable revenue models, institutional dependency, and irreversible adoption. So, what we see right now is that crypto is not driven by any memecoin frenzies or other trends, but it’s more about institutional adoption.”

The shift in VC activity reflects the broader trend of institutional crypto investment and the focus on revenue-generating digital asset businesses, as opposed to the price speculation that drove investment during previous crypto cycles, including the 2021 bull market. 

Related: VC Roundup: Bitcoin DeFi surges, but tokenization and stablecoins gain steam

The traditional financial world demands yield and revenue-producing crypto businesses

Traditional financial investors, including Wall Street firms, venture capitalists, and institutional funds, are increasingly demanding crypto projects that provide established, predictable revenue streams.

VC firms are concentrating on stablecoin projects and investing in other forms of payment infrastructure that can generate fees, Oberholzer said. 

Real-world asset tokenization (RWA) platforms are also on the radar of VC firms due to the revenue models associated with minting and managing tokenized RWAs onchain.

Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer (CIO) at investment firm Bitwise, recently told Cointelegraph that the quest for yield is driving Wall Street investment in Ether (ETH).

“If you take $1 billion of ETH and you put it into a company and you stake it, all of a sudden, you’re generating earnings. And investors are really used to companies that generate earnings,” Hougan said.

The smart contract layer-1 blockchain hosts the majority of the stablecoin, RWA market, and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity that generates stable revenues through fees and other forms of financial rent for its owners.

Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/venture-capital-game-has-changed-due-to-market-maturation-vc-exec/feed/ 0 56099 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/genius-ban-wont-stop-institutions-from-seeking-stablecoin-yield-ex-standard-chartered-exec/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/genius-ban-wont-stop-institutions-from-seeking-stablecoin-yield-ex-standard-chartered-exec/#respond Mon, 11 Aug 2025 21:07:20 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/genius-ban-wont-stop-institutions-from-seeking-stablecoin-yield-ex-standard-chartered-exec/

The landmark US GENIUS Act could serve as a major catalyst for stablecoin adoption both domestically and abroad. But rather than simply boosting demand for dollar-backed digital currencies, it may unintentionally push capital into the tokenization market as investors seek yield on their holdings.

That was one of the key takeaways from a recent interview with Will Beeson, a former Standard Chartered executive and now founder and CEO of Uniform Labs, a developer of institutional liquidity solutions for tokenized financial markets.

A central provision of the GENIUS Act is its blanket ban on yield-bearing stablecoins, which prevents holders from earning interest on their digital dollar balances. According to Beeson, this restriction will accelerate the flow of capital into tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

“With yield-bearing stablecoins off the table, institutions need a compliant way to earn yield while staying liquid,” Beeson told Cointelegraph. “Capital is already shifting.”

He noted that trillions of dollars in non-interest-bearing stablecoins are poised to enter digital finance. “Institutional holders aren’t going to sit on idle, depreciating assets. They’ll demand yield — and infrastructure that makes accessing it […] compliant,” he said, adding: 

“The next phase isn’t about holding idle stablecoins. It’s about programmatic access to risk-free yield, and the ability to move between cash and high-quality assets at will.”

Beeson’s view is shared by Aptos Labs’ Solomon Tesfaye, who told Cointelegraph that the GENIUS Act will benefit tokenization as much as it does stablecoins.

To meet this need, Beeson’s Uniform Labs is building Multiliquid, an institutional liquidity layer for tokenized markets that enables programmable, real-time conversion between tokenized assets, such as US Treasurys and money market funds, and stablecoins.

Multiliquid’s open-architecture design allows compliant issuers to integrate without commercial agreements.

While declining to name partners, Beeson confirmed that Uniform Labs is “working with a number of leading institutions, fintechs, and stablecoin issuers” ahead of its production launch later this year.

Before launching Uniform Labs, Beeson served as chief product officer at Libeara, a tokenization platform incubated by Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures.

Related: Tokenized money market funds emerge as Wall Street’s answer to stablecoins

Tokenization surge to broaden beyond private credit, government bonds

Although the GENIUS Act gives newfound legitimacy to stablecoins — and to digital currencies more broadly — “the next phase of digital assets is focused on asset tokenization,” wrote Sandra Waliczek, a member of the World Economic Forum’s blockchain and digital asset division.

Waliczek highlighted tokenization’s potential to level the investing playing field for asset classes like real estate and private equity, which have historically been restricted to wealthier investors.

“Tokenization changes this by enabling asset fractionalization, breaking assets into smaller, more affordable units,” she wrote.

So far, the nearly $26 billion tokenization market has largely centered on private credit and government bonds. But as Beeson noted, the disruption will extend far beyond those segments, encompassing “corporate bonds, credit and credit funds, commodities, equities, real estate funds, private equity funds, and ultimately private equity and real estate assets themselves.”

Related: GENIUS Act scrutinized for stablecoin yield ban as TradFi tokenization gains steam

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/genius-ban-wont-stop-institutions-from-seeking-stablecoin-yield-ex-standard-chartered-exec/feed/ 0 52711 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-season-or-altcoin-season-shiba-inu-exec-outlines-whats-happening/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-season-or-altcoin-season-shiba-inu-exec-outlines-whats-happening/#respond Fri, 08 Aug 2025 17:15:49 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-season-or-altcoin-season-shiba-inu-exec-outlines-whats-happening/

The debate over whether the crypto market is in Bitcoin Season or on the verge of Altcoin Season has dragged on for many months, especially due to Ethereum’s price action in the past few days. LUCIE, Shiba Inu’s marketing lead, recently touched on the matter, sharing insights on what’s currently happening, what to expect for an altcoin season, and when to anticipate a breakout in the Altcoin Season Index.

Altcoin Season Index Points To Bitcoin Dominance

Many traders and analysts have been closely watching the Altcoin Season Index, with posts on the social media platform X and news reports increasing in anticipation of a market-wide move that could favor altcoins against Bitcoin. Although the current market still tilts toward Bitcoin, signs of change are starting to emerge, especially with Ethereum now approaching the $4,000 price level.

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According to the Altcoin Season Index from BlockchainCenter.net, which was also shared by Shiba Inu’s marketing lead, the index is currently standing at 39, well below the 75 threshold required to confirm altseason. Notably, the data from BlockchainCenter.net shows that the index has been hovering in this range after bouncing from lower levels earlier in the year. As shown in the chart below, despite recent momentum from Ethereum and XRP, Bitcoin is still holding a dominant position in the total market cap.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin dominance is currently around 61%, above the 60% level that typically signals room for altcoins to take over. Interestingly, this is a notable reduction from Bitcoin’s 64.3% dominance from three weeks ago. 

Lucie attributed this decline in Bitcoin dominance to alt momentum slowly gaining traction across various sectors, including major altcoins and meme-based projects. This gradual build-up, she suggested, could represent an accumulation phase. This is a familiar August pattern that’s mostly always seen before stronger altcoin rallies.

Eyes On September For Possible Breakout

Although the current readings confirm that it is still Bitcoin Season, Lucie believes everything may already be setting the stage for an altcoin breakout next month. The combination of a drop in BTC dominance and a surge in the Altcoin Season Index above 75 would officially mark the shift. For now, eyes are on this breakout. Particularly, Lucie noted a September window for a decisive move that could ignite a true altseason.

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At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s market dominance is at 60.0%, according to data from Coinmarketcap. Ethereum, on the other hand, has a market dominance of 12.2%. The last time the market saw altcoin dominance was in December 2024, when the Altcoin Season Index spiked to a reading of 88.  Since then, Bitcoin has maintained control, with the most recent attempt to push the index higher stalling at a 59 reading on July 21.

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com

The GENIUS Act contains a little-noticed clause that prevents technology giants and Wall Street behemoths from dominating the stablecoin market, according to Circle Chief Strategy Officer Dante Disparte.

“The GENIUS Act has what I’d like to call — just for my own legacy sake — a Libra clause,” Disparte told the Unchained podcast on Saturday. Any non-bank that wants to mint a dollar-pegged token must spin up “a standalone entity that looks more like Circle and less like a bank,” clear antitrust hurdles and face a Treasury Department committee with veto power over the launch.

Banks don’t get a free pass either. Lenders that issue a stablecoin must house it in a legally separate subsidiary and keep the coins on a balance sheet that carries “no risk-taking, no leverage, no lending,” Disparte noted.

That structure is even “more conservative” than the deposit-token models JPMorgan and others have floated. “It creates clear rules that I think in the end the biggest winners are the US consumers and market participants and frankly the dollar itself,” he added.

Related: Nasdaq files application to add staking for BlackRock iShares ETH ETF

GENIUS Act passes with bipartisan backing

Passed last week with more than 300 House votes, including support from 102 Democrats, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act gives the dollar “rules-based” firepower in the global digital-currency race, Disparte argued.

“Crypto is finally getting what it wanted: legitimization, a path for legal and regulatory clarity in the United States and an opportunity to compete,” he said.

The bill preserves the patchwork of state money-transmitter laws for issuers under a $10 billion threshold but demands a national trust-bank charter once assets breach that level.

Notably, the law bans interest-bearing stablecoins, pushes rigorous disclosure standards and introduces criminal penalties for unbacked “stable” tokens. Terra-style experiments are “gone,” Disparte said.

However, critics argue the ban on yield could stunt consumer adoption and hand an advantage to overseas issuers. Disparte claimed that yield “is a secondary-market innovation” better delivered by decentralized finance protocols once the base layer is rock-solid.

Related: Bank of England governor warns against private stablecoin issuance

DeFi gains edge as GENIUS bans yields

The GENIUS Act’s ban on yield-bearing stablecoins could redirect investor demand toward Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

With no interest incentives left in stablecoins, DeFi becomes the primary option for generating passive income onchain, according to analysts like Nic Puckrin and CoinFund’s Christopher Perkins, who predicted that “stablecoin summer” may now evolve into “DeFi summer.”

The ban is especially significant for institutional investors. Unlike retail users, financial institutions have fiduciary duties to generate returns, making yield opportunities essential. Analysts suggest this could lead to a surge in institutional capital flowing into DeFi, particularly on Ethereum, which dominates total value locked in the sector.

Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/genius-act-blocks-big-tech-banks-from-dominating-stablecoins-circle-exec/feed/ 0 48669 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/falling-us-dollar-could-trigger-full-bubble-cycle-in-risk-assets-according-to-ex-goldman-sachs-exec-raoul-pal/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/falling-us-dollar-could-trigger-full-bubble-cycle-in-risk-assets-according-to-ex-goldman-sachs-exec-raoul-pal/#respond Tue, 15 Jul 2025 17:57:31 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/falling-us-dollar-could-trigger-full-bubble-cycle-in-risk-assets-according-to-ex-goldman-sachs-exec-raoul-pal/

Macroeconomics expert Raoul Pal says risk assets could witness massive eruptions if the US dollar continues to weaken.

In a new video, Pal tells his 242,000 YouTube subscribers that if the US dollar index (DXY) falls further amid an improving business cycle, risk assets such as stocks and crypto could experience an extended bullish phase.

“So what happens is when the business cycle picks up, there’s more disposable income and businesses have more investment income and that gets driven out of the risk curve always…

And I think the inverse to the business cycle being so low for so long will be the flip side of the cycle will be longer than people expected because we’ve got this slight dislocation still working through post-Covid that then extends the business cycle…

But if financial conditions keep moving, if they really have done some sort of Mar-a-Lago Accord, and they get the dollar [DXY] below 90. Okay, then we’re going on further and yeah, maybe it’s a full bubble cycle then.”

The DXY, a measure of the value of the dollar relative to a basket of six other leading currencies from major economies, is currently at 98.

Pal further says an increase in global liquidity could also act as a bullish catalyst for asset prices amid high government debt levels.

“Just using the liquidity framework, the business cycle framework, the financial conditions framework, it’s all suggesting that the probability is because they need to roll the debt, they’re going to have to increase more liquidity, and this is just going to drive assets up strongly.”

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A former executive of the hedge fund founded by billionaire Ray Dalio is warning that the market for US debt will soon hit a rough spot.

In a new CNBC Television interview, ex-Bridgewater Associates chief investment strategist Rebecca Patterson addresses how the US dollar has lost about 10% of its value year-to-date, its worst performance in over 50 years.

“I think there are three main things driving the dollar [devaluation]. One is slightly lower frontend rates, interest rates over this period because currencies trade on rate differentials. 

But I think more importantly and what’s different this time is that you’re seeing both re-allocation out of the US both by Americans diversifying and foreigners pulling back slightly. And then third and really importantly is hedging. So let’s say I’m a large overseas pension fund, and I have a tech equity exposure, and I want to keep it because I believe in the structural story, but I’m nervous about the dollar, I’m nervous about the Fed’s independence, I can hedge out that currency risk. 

So even if money stays in US equities, which helps explain where we are today, you can still see that dollar weakness.”

Patterson, who is now the chair of the Council of Economic Education, warns that the dollar devaluation will continue as investors hedge and move their capital elsewhere. She also notes that the ongoing capital re-allocation will negatively impact demand for US debt.

“This isn’t going to be a one-off. This is going to be a slow bleed out of the dollar, and I believe slowly out of US Treasuries.”

Looking closer at US Treasuries, Patterson warns that she sees the bond market facing a demand shortage in the coming months.

“I think this is rather a slow bleed. Most of the foreign investors who have US Treasuries have them in very short tenure bonds, so three years and less. They just have to let them expire and not replace them, so let them roll off. 

Again, it’s not going to be a one-and-done event, I think, without a trigger. It’s just going to be: we don’t have the demand to meet the supply that’s going to be coming, I think early next year.” 

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In a conversation with journalist Laura Shin on the latest episode of Unchained, Bitwise Head of Alpha Strategies Jeff Park sketched a future in which Japan’s financial system—and the political imperatives that underpin it—place the country at the fulcrum of the next major wave of institutional Bitcoin adoption. Park, a former macro portfolio manager who now advises the$3.5 billion crypto asset manager, argued that Tokyo’s structural role in global credit markets, its historically deflationary domestic economy and a fast-emerging retail fascination with “digital gold” together give Japan unique leverage in shaping the monetary order that is forming around BTC.

Park called Japan “the centre of the entire financial system today,” citing the long-standing yen-funded carry trade that exports Japan’s ultra-low borrowing costs into dollar markets. When Japanese rates rise, he noted, “you see a violent unwind of the carry trade that directly impacts US rates,” illustrating how tightly interwoven the two economies remain despite different growth trajectories. Against that backdrop, Park contends that a credible move by the United States toward adding BTC to its own reserves cannot happen in isolation: “When the US does go on the journey of acquiring Bitcoin for their sovereign wealth or treasury assets, then Japan must be a little bit privy to that because they would probably want to act in concert.”

In Park’s telling, Tokyo’s response is not merely a diplomatic nicety. If Washington were to accumulate Bitcoin without warning, “Japan would be pretty upset,” he said. “They would say, ‘Hey, we have to do it together because I’m on the other side of the trade. If you’re going to front-run me, then I’m going to front-run you.’” That tension, he suggested, is one reason US policy makers have so far hesitated to follow El Salvador, by placing Bitcoin directly on the national balance-sheet. “Once the US starts doing it,” Park warned, “there are other tangential players who would be conflicted… and I think Japan is at the centre of it.”

Japan Might Flip The Switch On Global Bitcoin Adoption

Park sees a convergence of incentives pushing Japanese actors—retail, corporate and state—toward Bitcoin. Years of negative deposit rates and chronic demographic headwinds have left savers “starved for yield,” while institutions searching for growth “invest in US stocks directly” as an extension of the carry trade. Adding Bitcoin to that toolkit, he argued, offers Japanese investors an instrument “not only just incredibly volatile but high-performing… backed by Bitcoin, the one collateral that you can lean on that isn’t you being subservient to the funding model.”

The first tremor of that shift, Park said, has already surfaced on the Tokyo Stock Exchange through the meteoric rally in Metaplanet Inc., the listed hotel operator that adopted a “Bitcoin-first” treasury strategy in April. “The meteoric rise of Metaplanet is truly a cultural one,” he told Shin. “Japanese investors are waking up for the first time to understand what Bitcoin can do for their wealth-accumulation strategies and their portfolio construction.” Although Park did not disclose whether Bitwise holds Metaplanet shares, he framed the company’s ascent as evidence that domestic demand exists for securities that express a long Bitcoin thesis inside Japan’s familiar corporate wrapper.

Park’s analysis moves beyond price action and into geopolitics. He portrayed Bitcoin as a neutral reserve asset that could soften the asymmetric burdens created by dollar hegemony. “If Japan understands where the world is going in the store of value,” he said, “they should have an eye on a way to preserve wealth that touches Bitcoin.” He went further: “At the core, Japan is going to be a big player in ushering the era of Bitcoin adoption.” For Park, that eventuality follows from simple arithmetic. Should Japanese authorities choose to diversify even a modest slice of the country’s$1.1 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves—or the $8.7 trillion held in life-insurance and pension pools—into Bitcoin, the liquidity shock would be profound.

The interview also highlighted how a coordinated US–Japan approach could reshape the strategic Bitcoin reserves landscape. Park, while cautious about a unilateral American move, implied that a tandem accumulation programme might dampen market disruption and embed Bitcoin within existing alliance structures. “I think the US really does not understand the role of Japan even today,” he continued. “Japan is hinged to the butt of the American experience and the US must succeed together as an alliance.”

For now, Park sees the private sector leading. He pointed to Bitwise’s own analysis showing Japanese corporate treasuries experimenting with modest Bitcoin allocations, while regulators in Tokyo continue to refine guidance on custody, accounting and trust-bank administration of digital assets. That interplay between policy pragmatism and grassroots enthusiasm, he argued, could make Japan a laboratory for the capital-market instruments—convertible debt, perpetual preferred shares and exchange-traded funds—already proliferating in the United States.

Asked by Shin whether Japan’s ascent might accelerate if US mortgage rates remain high and domestic political consensus frays, Park nodded to generational dynamics: younger savers find Bitcoin “directionally the right thing to own as a way to grow wealth,” while Japanese youth, long resigned to stagnation, increasingly view the cryptocurrency as a lifeline. “It’s actually very acutely obvious to young people the role that Bitcoin can serve,” he said earlier in the programme when discussing housing affordability. In Japan’s context, he suggested, that clarity is amplified by a three-decade struggle against deflation and now a sudden, unfamiliar bout of inflation.

If Tokyo elects to move, it could catalyse coordinated reserve diversification, accelerate financialisation of Bitcoin-linked securities and underscore the cryptocurrency’s emerging role as a geopolitically neutral asset. As Park summed up: “Japan will be an incredible player for Bitcoin adoption”—and in the tight weave of global finance, the timetable for that pivot may ultimately set the cadence for everyone else.

At press time, BTC traded at $107,818.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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