5 things I’m excited about in crypto: 1/ DePIN, 2/ Token Capital Markets, 3/ Stablecoins, 4/ zkTLS, 5/ Sovereign Agents. I think each of these has immense promise; collectively, they point toward a future where crypto’s real-world impact becomes undeniable.

1/ DePIN
I started my career at a hedge fund, investing in large-cap oil, gas, metals, mining, renewables, utilities, and telecom companies – all capex-heavy industries that benefit from stable regulations and predictable cash flows to reduce cost of capital. But the pace of innovation in these systems and centralized organizations is slow (e.g. in utilities/energy) and pricing is often quite extractive for the end consumer (e.g. in telecoms).

I think DePINs represent a fundamental shift – creating scalable, resilient, and community-driven networks that offer better, cheaper products (e.g. @Hivemapper, @GEODNET_). Though nascent, I’ve seen DePINs explore deep/hard-tech use cases like drones, batteries, and robotics, which is exciting! Downstream of this, I’m hopeful DePINs have real world, tangible impact that’s easily explainable and will help evidence crypto as tech that creates value and utility for households and SMEs worldwide. Very cool to see @santiagoroel and @inversion_cap be ambitious and jumpstart this!

2/ Investment Banking
I’ve seen both the buy-side (hedge fund) and sell-side (m&a, ecm, leverage finance) in tradfi. While the system’s not perfect, it’s mature and generally effective at helping companies access at lower costs and with better liquidity. Capital markets reward the best companies and punish the bad ones, creating a self-regulating mechanism that drives efficiency, innovation, and disciplined capital allocation.

In contrast, crypto capital markets remain highly fragmented, with poor liquidity and price discovery. There’s a lack of structured frameworks, institutional participation, and rigorous underwriting that tradfi has refined over decades. I think there’s a big opportunity, which will likely get filled this cycle, to bring institutional-grade execution, transparency, and investor alignment to the TGE process and create a crypto-native investment bank. I actually think this is more than just “an opportunity”, but a necessary step toward maturing crypto as an asset class. H/t @bennypjacobs, who’s furthered my thinking here.

3/ Stablecoins
I grew up in a family that ran international businesses, with relatives across the world, including in developing countries like Turkey and Armenia. Watching stablecoin adoption skyrocket in recent years has been awesome – finally addressing issues I witnessed firsthand, like gaining access to USD as a hedge against rapidly devaluing currencies (e.g. the Turkish lira) and enabling seamless global payments for employees and supply chains. I’m excited to see this continue – for SMEs like restaurants to add 2% to their bottom lines by saving on credit card fees and individuals in emerging markets to save 5% on transfer fees.

But I’m even more stoked about what’s next: stablecoins evolving into a fully integrated financial infrastructure. As adoption grows, we’re moving beyond simple value storage and payments toward programmable money, yield-bearing stablecoins, and seamless unchain financial services that will outperform tradfi (@SquadsProtocol is an early example, h/t to the relentless hustler @SimkinStepan).

4/ Web Proofs (zkTLS)
I’ve been pilled on zkTLS ever since I met @Euler__Lagrange in early 2024. I got into crypto in 2020, fanboying over @a16z / @cdixon essays about the future of the internet and how web3 would tear down web2 walled gardens. That hasn’t happened yet, but zkTLS feels like our best shot at unlocking a new wave of web3 consumer apps.

zkTLS lets web3 companies vampire attack web2 incumbents. Say, for example, you want to build a web3 Uber or a web3 Instacart (like @NoshDelivery) – the cold start problem is real. Drivers and food providers would lose their web2 reputation when moving to a new network, making adoption tough. But zkTLS lets users seamlessly port their data from web2 apps, making it easy to bootstrap new apps and ecosystems on web3 rails. The potential here is massive.

Have learned a bunch more on zkTLS from @yeak__ and @Danconia_Crypto + h/t @adam_winnick and @dawufi for being some of the most passionate investors/builders in zkTLS I know!

5/ Sovereign Agents
The Crypto x AI Agent narrative went wild in Q4 2024. It’s a shame, as hype cycles generally tend to create lots of noise while burying genuinely good ideas, but I hope sovereign agents endure! Web 2 AI agents are awesome will help regular people and businesses automate simple tasks. But crypto-native sovereign agents are uniquely exciting because they can operate autonomously, own assets, and execute transactions without relying on a human or corporate intermediary.

They function independently and also prove their integrity through cryptographic verification, enabling things like AI-driven businesses, research groups, or investment funds that aren’t owned by anyone but still make decisions on their own. It also opens the door for AI governance models and net-new organizations (see @AgoraGovernance and @hatsprotocol), where decisions come from verifiable code rather than people with hidden agendas or inflated egos. I think this concept has the potential to redefine how AI participates in the economy – not just as a tool augmenting human capabilities, but as actual economic actors in their own right.

A few serious projects in this category include @Freysa_ai (building tamper-proof AI agents), @NapthaAI (building a platform to orchestrate sovereign agents and distributed workflows), and @Nevermined_io (building decentralized payments infra for AI agents to transact without the fear of being cut off from financial rails by centralized actors).

Fin
Taken together, I think DePIN, efficient token capital markets, stablecoins, zkTLS, and autonomous AI could create a much more interconnected and resilient ecosystem in crypto – one where decentralized networks and programmable money transform industries. Zooming out, and considering the prospect of an improved regulatory landscape, it’s an incredibly exciting moment to be in crypto. I’m stoked to see how these innovations and projects redefine what’s possible.