TOKEN2049 On-site Report

In the future, many applications will have both financial and non-financial components. Decentralized social is similar; it started as non-financial, but now many platforms are experimenting with financial features. Although 90% will fail within five years, that 10% could be very interesting.

The card issuance and fund management platform Interlace made its debut at the Token2049 summit in Singapore, announcing that its total card issuance has surpassed 6 million, serving over 12,000+ enterprise clients, with a payment network covering 180+ countries and regions.

ChainCatcher live report, Consensys founder and CEO Joseph Lubin, Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak, and EigenCloud founder and CEO Sreeram Kannan jointly attended the TOKEN 2049 conference to share insights in the roundtable discussion "Ten Years In: Ethereum's Next Frontier."Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin reminisced about the early days filled with crypto anarchism, when the slogan was "Kill the banks." However, Ethereum's greatest achievement lies in choosing evolution over revolution, successfully integrating both crypto anarchists and large banking institutions into the same ecosystem.He also shared that his L2 project Linea allocates 85% of tokens to the ecosystem, burning 20% of transaction fees to support the mainnet, demonstrating how L2 should give back to the main chain. Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak revealed that the foundation aims for gas usage to reach 100 million by March next year, which will increase computing power by about three times. The focus for the coming year will be on finality, privacy, and security. He emphasized that L1 and L2 have a mutually reinforcing relationship and encouraged more customized L2s to develop for specific markets.EigenCloud founder Sreeram Kannan believes Ethereum is the "trust layer of humanity," which is especially important in the age of AI. When AI can perfectly mimic anyone, ensuring that AI agents fulfill their promises and establishing accountability become critical issues. He introduced EigenLayer, which can protect any decentralized network through ETH staking and launched a fully deterministic AI reasoning pipeline to implement accountability mechanisms.The three guests unanimously advised builders not to worry about which chain to choose but to focus on what truly matters. Kannan stated that the infrastructure is ready, and now more ambitious applications are needed to disrupt the entire economic system.

ChainCatcher live report, Jump Crypto CIO Saurabh Sharma, Pantera Capital partner Cosmo Jiang, Drift founder David Lu, and Galaxy global trading head Jason Urban jointly attended the TOKEN 2049 conference to share insights in the roundtable discussion "The Solana Treasury Bet: From Balance Sheets to Ecosystem Flywheel."Galaxy's Jason Urban straightforwardly pointed out that DAT is essentially an innovative way for blockchain foundations to enter the public market. Under the new regulatory environment in the United States, many L1 and L2 are no longer considered securities, which opens the door for public companies to acquire cryptocurrencies in large quantities and trade them on the public market.Jump Crypto's CIO Saurabh Sharma explained the pain points of institutional investors from an infrastructure perspective. The traditional financial system is designed for stocks, bonds, and commodities, with a well-established risk and clearing system, but the operational mechanisms of cryptocurrencies present a high barrier for non-participants. DAT provides a tool that aligns with traditional models, allowing institutions to enter the market in a familiar way. In particular, Solana's potential as a new financial system architecture is highlighted, as its fast, cheap, and accessible characteristics make it the best computing environment for a productive economy.Cosmo Jiang from Pantera Capital offered unique insights from the perspective of TradFi investors. He borrowed the principles of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to promote Solana: faster, cheaper, and more accessible. He emphasized that Solana can earn $2 billion annually, with revenue growing at a rate of doubling each year. From the perspective of the stock market, such growth paired with profitability is very attractive to traditional investors.Cosmo also candidly stated that the DAT market will undergo consolidation, similar to Bitcoin DAT, where ultimately only 2 to 3 scaled DATs may survive for each large asset, which is a healthy and inevitable market evolution.Drift founder David Lu shared insights from the perspective of ecosystem builders. He pointed out that on-chain interest rates are much higher than traditional finance, for example, Athena offers a 20% APY, and these rich on-chain yields have yet to be fully discovered. He admitted that if Drift cannot outperform SOL this year, investors should directly hold SOL.

ChainCatcher live report, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Tether USAT CEO Bo Hines, Cantor Fitzgerald President Brandon Lutnick, and Anchorage Digital Founder and CEO Nathan McCauley jointly attended the TOKEN 2049 conference to share insights on the "USA₮" roundtable.Paolo emphasized at the conference that USA₮ and USDT will achieve full interoperability, allowing for one-to-one exchanges through both decentralized finance and centralized channels, providing users with a seamless experience. He expressed confidence in predicting that USA₮ will exceed a market value of $100 billion within five years, noting that the AI economy will be a key driving force. Paolo also estimated that there will be 3 billion AI agents trading within five years, and these agents will undoubtedly use stablecoins. He admitted that existing Layer 2 solutions are completely inadequate to support this scale of growth, which is why Tether is making deep investments at the infrastructure level.As the CEO of USA₮, Bo Hines is extremely optimistic about the market prospects. He believes that the Treasury's prediction of "the global stablecoin market reaching $1 trillion in the coming years" is overly conservative, and the actual figure will far exceed this level. He emphasized that the unique value of USA₮ lies in it being the first fully compliant U.S. stablecoin product, capable of seamlessly integrating with existing banking technology.Brandon Lutnick provided valuable insights from the perspective of traditional finance. He recounted the painful experience of Cantor Fitzgerald losing 658 employees in the 9/11 attacks and how the company rebuilt and doubled its investment banking scale in the past 12-18 months. As one of the 25 primary dealers in the U.S., Cantor ranked first in U.S. stock IPOs in the first half of 2025, but Lutnick emphasized that the flexibility of being a private investment bank is what truly enabled them to enter the crypto space.Nathan McCauley shared his unique experiences from the perspective of a regulatory pioneer. When Anchorage was founded in 2017-2018, it focused on institutional clients and obtained a federal banking charter during Trump's first term, becoming a trailblazer in the crypto space. Nathan revealed that he had long foreseen Trump becoming a candidate supportive of crypto, as the first Trump administration demonstrated a pioneering spirit. Today, Tether is indeed one of the most critical strategic assets in the U.S.

ChainCatcher live report, Tether USAT CEO Bo Hines shared a keynote speech titled "How U.S. Policy Will Accelerate Global Cryptocurrency Adoption" at this year's Token 2049 conference in Singapore.Bo Hines revealed that the U.S. has jumped from being a laggard in cryptocurrency regulation to a global leader. Hines, who previously served as the Executive Director of the White House's Digital Assets Presidential Advisory Committee, was a key figure in pushing the U.S. "Genius Act" stablecoin regulation bill, which passed rapidly in six months, setting a legislative record in Washington.He pointed out that Tether serves 500 million users worldwide, and the "Genius Act" not only updates outdated payment systems but also paves the way for a 24/7 trading market, tokenized securities, and instant cross-border remittances.Hines emphasized that countries wishing to enter the U.S. capital markets must adopt similar regulatory standards, predicting that in the coming decade, tokenization will explode in tandem with stablecoin adoption. He stated, "When consumers are unknowingly using stablecoins for transactions, the game has completely changed."