RaaS #595: Vitalik Criticizes L2s!

Non-Fungible Agents on BNB Chain, Tokenized U.S. Equities on Solana Hit ATH, And Moar!

Ethereum doesn’t need L2s for scaling anymore. Gas is cheap, L1 capacity is rising, and many rollups won’t go beyond stage 1. The new meta: L2s should offer distinct value (privacy, UX, latency) while leaning on Ethereum for trust and interoperability.

Y Combinator now offers startups the option to receive their $500K investment in stablecoins, citing USDC’s role in unlocking fast, cheap, global financial rails. With the GENIUS Act and rising fintech adoption, YC sees stablecoins as core to the next wave of startup infra.

X awarded $1M to Beaver for a viral exposé on Deloitte’s $74B in government contracts. Kobeissi Letter earned $500K for a tariff deep dive, Dan Koe won $250K for creator impact, and four others received $100K for standout work on geopolitics and policy.

O ye of little faith.

Bruce Fenton addressed claims that Jeffrey Epstein influenced Bitcoin Core, calling it baseless. Epstein donated to MIT, which supported DCI and funded developers, but without control. No dev can unilaterally change Bitcoin; nodes and miners validate. Funding sources matter, but this case is a “nothing burger.”

Aave is phasing out the Family iOS wallet and retiring the Avara brand, consolidating under Aave Labs. Family Accounts will remain a core infrastructure component in Aave products. The move reflects a shift toward purpose-built experiences (like savings) over open-ended wallets to drive DeFi adoption.

Your daily dose of bite-sized crypto news.

1. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev's AI firm has awarded a research scholarship to Neel Somani.

2. Ethena offers 100M weekly exchange points for 6 months to reward trading on Ethereal DEX and HyENA trade.

3. Tokenized U.S. equities on Solana just hit an all-time high of $230M.

4. Binance added 1,315 BTC ($100.4M) to its SAFU fund, totaling 2,630 BTC ($201.1M).

5. CZ warns users to stay alert as fake images and impersonation scams spread online. 

BNB Chain introduces BAP-578, its first official application-layer standard, proposing Non-Fungible Agents (NFAs), AI-powered onchain entities that can hold assets, execute transactions, and interact across dApps. It marks the start of a unified agent economy on BNB.

Tom Lee says BitMine’s $6–7B ETH drawdown is “a feature, not a bug,” likening its strategy to index ETFs built to ride cycles. Despite the unrealized loss, BitMine now holds over 4.2M ETH, recently added $40–46M more, and earns $188M per year from staking, with no sales so far.

A U.S. federal judge sentenced Incognito Market founder Rui‑Siang Lin to 30 years in prison for running a crypto‑based dark web drug marketplace that processed over $105 million in narcotics sales from 2020 to 2024. Prosecutors said the platform enabled anonymous crypto payments, sold more than one ton of drugs globally, and was linked to at least one fentanyl‑related death, with Lin also ordered to forfeit $105 million.

There is no rollup-centric plan. I love you!

Top Gainers: ARC, TRIA, CX, BUTTCOIN, G.

High-signal reads are worth your time, all in one place.

1. Kairos is a trading terminal built for prediction markets, offering real-time data, analytics, and low-latency execution in one unified interface. Backed by a $2.5M seed led by a16z crypto, Kairos aims to bring Bloomberg-level infrastructure to crypto’s most expressive markets.

2. You’re not stuck because you’re lazy or unmotivated; you’re not angry enough. This longform argues that righteous, focused anger is a superpower: it shows you care, fuels self-improvement, and sparks real action. Suppressing jealousy or anger won’t save you; channeling it might.

3. Ethereum is facing an identity crisis. Vitalik’s shift from the rollup-centric path exposes deeper issues: slow L2 adoption, misaligned incentives, and a drifting developer base. Despite strong infrastructure, Ethereum’s pace and politics are pushing builders away. Reform is overdue.

4. Crypto winter didn’t start in October 2025; it began in January, hidden by ETF and DAT inflows. Retail assets have been sliding for a year, with many down 60–75%. Institutional support masked the pain, but exhaustion signals we may be closer to spring than it seems.

5. A DeFi engineer launched rentahumandotai, a platform where AI agents can hire humans for real‑world tasks like errands, meetings, or purchases. Built via “vibe coding” with AI agents, it has ~26K signups, no token, and positions itself as the “meatspace layer” for AI.

Kraken’s parent company, Payward, posted $2.2B revenue (+33% YoY) and $531M EBITDA in FY 2025, with 5.7M funded accounts and $2T in volume. Now positioned as a unified infrastructure layer across products like NinjaTrader, Breakout, and xStocksFi, sharing liquidity, risk, and compliance.

Ventuals V2 is live with a new trading frontend offering 24/7 access to TradFi perps, covering pre-IPOs, indices, stocks, and commodities. The platform integrates prediction markets, earnings reports, and news, positioning itself as the most powerful way to trade traditional finance derivatives.

That’s all for today!