Sangam Bharti

the first on-chain M&A

Arizona is lending its Bitcoin

Europe's $2.3T manager went on-chain

Morgan Stanley is building a full-stack crypto bank

The man who co-wrote HTTP/2 just IPO'd a crypto bank, with Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ The man who co-wrote HTTP/2, the protocol loading this page right now, just IPO’d a crypto bank. Priced at $18 in January, trading at ~$10 today. And he doesn’t care. Watch on Youtube Mike Belshe started BitGo in 2013 and spent 13 years doing the boring work nobody wanted to do: multi-sig wallets, cold storage, SOC audits, trust company licenses in seven jurisdictions. While every other crypto firm was chasing volume or yield or hype, BitGo was filing paperwork. Now the fir

who owns the agent economy?

On March 18, 2026, Stripe and Tempo co-released the Machine Payments Protocol, an open specification for machine-to-machine payments.

Wall Street just put stocks on a blockchain

On March 18, the SEC approved Nasdaq to trade and settle U.S. equities as blockchain tokens.

the SEC sorts its tokens

Hey, it’s Marc, For the first time ever in their combined 183 years of existence, the SEC and CFTC published a joint document agreeing on what crypto actually is. They named 16 specific tokens as commodities. They said staking isn't a security. And they formally acknowledged that a security can stop being a security. That last part is the one that changes everything. [RELEASE] The Signal: Most crypto tokens aren’t securities by default, and their regulatory status depends on how they’re used

"I apologize", SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on Crypto's New Rules

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ An SEC Commissioner just apologized to the crypto industry. On the record. To us. “The regulatory approach made your lives a lot more difficult. I’ve talked to people who really were hurt. I do apologize for that.” Watch on Youtube That’s Hester Peirce, who spent eight years as the SEC’s lone crypto dissenter and now leads its entire Crypto Task Force. The woman who quoted the cypherpunk manifesto from a government podium and wore protest t-shirts during commission meetings

Mastercard acquired BVNK for $1.8B

Florida's stablecoin bill

Hey, it’s Marc, JPMorgan closed Trump’s accounts. Congress froze on crypto regulation. Whereas, Florida just built the first state-level stablecoin regulatory system in America. And it did it unanimously. In one legislative sprint, the state passed a stablecoin issuance framework, authorized a potential $24B+ sovereign digital asset allocation, and launched a pilot to accept crypto for state taxes. It’s a live fork of the U.S. financial system. [RELEASE] 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Subscr

NYSE's parent just bought 120M crypto users

Nasdaq ate crypto and called it an upgrade

Hey, it’s Marc, Crypto promised to kill the middleman. The middleman just hired crypto instead. Nasdaq and Kraken are turning every Nasdaq-listed stock into a blockchain token, same CUSIP, same rules, just faster. Through Kraken’s xStocks, NASDAQ has access to 68% of the tokenized equities market with $25B+ in transaction volume across 85,000 unique holders. [RELEASE] The stock market is about to run 24/7. Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Subscribe nowHe ran the NYSE, now he's

The first crypto firm on Fedwire

MoonPay, Iron, and the Stablecoin Endgame

In February 2025 Stripe acquired Bridge for $1.1B. A few months later, in March 2025, MoonPay acquired Iron, a German stablecoin infrastructure company, for a reported $100M+.

BNP Paribas called it an 'experiment'

Hey, it’s Marc, Name one major institution that launched tokenized funds on a private blockchain and stayed there. You can’t. BlackRock moved to Ethereum. Franklin Templeton moved to Ethereum. JPMorgan moved to Ethereum. Last week, BNP Paribas joined them as the first and largest European bank. And they went further. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF at the bottom Download Subscribe now What happened On February 19, 2026, BNP Paribas Asset Management issued a tokenized sha

Wall Street's weekend just died

Santander let a bot spend real money

Hey, it’s Marc, I keep asking bank executives the same question: when does an AI agent make its first real purchase inside your system? On March 2, Santander answered it. An AI agent completed a live, end-to-end payment on real rails, no human at checkout. The $5 trillion checkout just got its first non-human customer. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. Subscribe now 👉PRO: Download the PDF at the bottom Download Subscribe now What happened Santander and Mastercard executed Europe’s first live AI

He ran the NYSE, now he's putting it on a blockchain, with Michael Blaugrund, VP at ICE

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ We sat down with Michael Blaugrund, the man bridging the world’s most important equity market, the NYSE, on-chain. The platform goes live later in 2026. It’s the biggest change to capital market since electronic trading. “Irrespective of where crypto asset prices are, the infrastructure momentum at this point is unstoppable.” All US equities on-chain by 2030? Michael thinks not quite. By 2035? He’s betting yes. Watch on Youtube “For a crypto-native investor, the idea of ma

Meta's stablecoin comeback with Stripe

In 2021, U.S. regulators killed Facebook’s Diem stablecoin project with a phone call. No law, no court order, just the Fed’s General Counsel Mark Van Der Weide dialling Diem’s CEO Stuart Leve and its banking partners with a message that landed like a cease-and-desist. Fast forward four years: Meta is back. But they aren’t minting a coin this time. Instead, they are renting Stripe’s stablecoin plumbing to turn WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook into a 3B user global settlement layer. And, this is

The liquidity cycle just broke bitcoin, with Michael Howell, Founder at CrossBorder Capital

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ There's a chart making the rounds right now. Gold at $5,400. Bitcoin at $66,000. One is at an all-time high. The other is down 47% from its October peak of ~$126,000. Same "store of value" thesis that the crypto community sold to investors over the last 5 years. Wildly different outcomes. We sat down with the man who saw it coming. Dr. Michael Howell, one of the world’s foremost authorities on global liquidity, founder of CrossBorder Capital and creator of the Global Liquidit

167: Stripe wants to eat PayPal alive

Hey, it’s Marc & the 51 team. Welcome back to your weekly briefing. The US stablecoin regulation is maturing. The OCC just proposed new rules to put guardrails around stablecoins (digital money tied to the U.S. dollar), following the GENIUS Act that passed last year. The rules cover everything from who can issue them to how they must be backed and managed. [RELEASE] 👉 Join the 51 live session with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on March 6, 3pm EST. Spots are limited! Reserve your spot Other

12 signals the ambiguity is over

Today we’re publishing our 2026 Outlook: The End of Crypto Ambiguity

Stripe doesn’t need bank

Hey, it’s Marc! For over 15 years, Stripe processed payments. It needed banks to hold the money. It needed card networks to move it. It needed partners for everything. That just changed. Now, Stripe owns a bank. Kind of. On February 17, 2026, the OCC conditionally approved Bridge, Stripe’s $1.1 billion stablecoin acquisition, for a national trust bank charter. [RELEASE] 👉PRO: Download the PDF at the bottom Subscribe now What happened The OCC greenlit a national trust bank charter1 for

From 100% to 2%

You know what’s more powerful than a 1,000-page regulation? A two-page FAQ. On February 19, the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets quietly dropped guidance that slashes the capital charge on stablecoins from 100% to 2% for broker-dealers. That’s the same haircut as money market funds. This makes stablecoins near-cash working capital and it might be the single most important regulatory shift for Wall Street in 2026. [RELEASE] [FAQs] 👉PRO: Download the PDF at the bottom 👉Need it simple? Re

166: Apollo bought 9% of a DeFi protocol

166: Apollo bought 9% of a DeFi protocol0:00/2001× Hey, it’s Marc & the 51 team. Welcome back to your weekly briefing. Here's where we are: * BTC is holding around $67K with the broader market steady near ~$2.3T. Polymarket odds for BTC reaching up $75K in February sit at 15%. * Institutions kept averaging into the drawdown: BitMine bought 45,759 ETH ($90M), while Strategy added 2,486 BTC ($168M). * Now, DeFi had an interesting week. Strong announcements (BlackRock x Uniswap, Apollo x Morp

The first nation to run on USDC

BlackRock just plugged into DeFi

Citi just picked Solana over Ethereum

Coinbase took Epstein's $3M in 2014

3.5 million pages of DOJ documents confirm what no compliance officer flagged in 2014: a convicted sex offender was funding Bitcoin’s development pipeline. The 2026 Tranche of Epstein files suggests that the roadmap of Bitcoin was a commercial strategy financed by Jeffrey Epstein. But the story is different and a mix of fact, rumors, interpretations and opinions. Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: PDF at the bottom The Consensus Miami 2026 Global Digital Asset Adoption Index Report by CoinDesk Data just d

Wall Street's new darling

On Monday, Citadel Securities, the DTCC, the New York Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, ARK Invest, and Tether backed a single Layer 1 called Zero. These aren’t institutions “exploring” blockchain. They’re the operating system of global capital and they just placed a bet on replacing their own plumbing. This is the most consequential infrastructure announcement in digital assets this year. Here’s why. [RELEASE] 👉PRO: PDF at the bottom Subscribe nowDTCC, Goldman, Citadel pick Canton: Why Wall Str

Ethereum, AI, and the end of trust: Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum & CEO of Consensys

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ The world is broken. Trust in nearly all institutions is lost. The complex systems we rely on for our survival are daunting and unwieldy. We are in the dying stages of an 80-year monetary regime and debt supercycle. The conclusion is clear: the current system is unsustainable. The answer is decentralization. That’s Joseph Lubin, Co-founder of Ethereum and CEO of Consensys. While most people are watching the daily candles of Bitcoin and Ether, Joe is watching the “Fourth Tur

Tether just put on a suit

The U.S. crypto battlefield

Hey, it’s Marc & 51 team, Jamie Dimon interrupted Brian Armstrong’s coffee with Tony Blair at Davos. The JPMorgan CEO got in Armstrong’s face and told him he was “full of sh*t” for claiming banks were sabotaging crypto legislation. While CEOs traded insults in Switzerland, SEC Chair Atkins is building the regulatory framework: the GENIUS Act is live. Project Crypto just formalized SEC-CFTC coordination. DTCC launched its tokenisation pilot. OCC greenlit five crypto-focused national trust banks

Why crypto broke

Hey, it’s Marc & 51 team, For 18 months, the crypto pitch to allocators was simple: ETFs brought in real money, regulation was coming, and Bitcoin had decoupled from degen retail. Mature asset class. Uncorrelated store of value. Digital gold. Then three pipes burst at the same time: the U.S. Treasury sucked $200B out of bank reserves, Japan ended 30 years of free-money leverage, and AI’s hype cycle suddenly became a risk event, and Bitcoin did what “digital gold” isn’t supposed to do: it crash

164: Capital is repricing

164: Capital is repricing0:00/2001× Hey, it’s Marc & the 51 team. What a week, folks – and only in crypto. We have a packed newsletter for you today to untangle everything that happened. In case you missed it: Bitcoin crashed 30% in 7 days below $60K (is not already back at $70K) amid a brutal market-wide crash that wiped over $1T in value and lead $5B+ in liquidations. Strategy and Bitmine are sitting on billions in unrealized losses, choosing not to sell and instead continuing to buy more,

Hong Kong built the rails. Will the trains arrive?

Buy Bitcoin. Then What?

163: The Canton moment

163: The Canton moment0:00/2001× Hey, it’s Marc & the 51 team. While Blackrock took a quiet $100M stake in Canton, BitGo IPO’d at $2B and Tether launched its US stablecoin USAT, the biggest shift in crypto this week came from Capitol Hill: “Advancing this bill brings us closer to a U.S. regulatory framework that protects consumers while allowing American innovation and businesses to thrive.” — John Boozman, U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman * The Senate

Crypto's $2.1B Custody IPO

Hey, it’s Marc, Crypto custody has come a long way from scribbled seed phrases and anonymous exchanges. Today, it’s a multi‑billion‑dollar institutional industry led by players like BitGo, which now safeguards over $100 billion in digital assets. BitGo just accomplished what few thought possible on Wall Street: becoming a $2.1 billion federally chartered custody bank and now, with its $212.8 million IPO last week, it’s taking crypto infrastructure into the institutional era. This isn’t just a

SWIFT’s vampire attack on crypto

What Davos really said about crypto

162: Davos just confirmed it

162: Davos just confirmed it0:00/2001× Hey, it’s Marc. Davos is usually where the establishment pats itself on the back. This year, they looked over their shoulder. Suddenly, crypto isn’t a “scam” , but national defense. And the bankers who spent a decade mocking it? They are panic-buying the infrastructure. Jamie Dimon (and others) are realizing that if they don’t upgrade to the “new physics of money”, they won’t just lose market share, they’ll be displaced. “We can now move infinite data a

The house model is dying

The end of the closing bell

Yesterday, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) dismantled Wall Street’s most long-boundary: market hours. For 232 years, equity markets have operated under a simple constraint. Trading happens between 9:30am and 4:00pm ET, Monday through Friday. That created an entire ecosystem: futures markets for after-hours risk, “gap” strategies betting on weekend news accumulation, and a global pecking order forcing Asia to wake up at 2am to trade U.S. stocks. But on January 19, 2026, Intercontinental Exch

BNY Mellon rewrote how money moves

161: Washington stalled. Bitcoin didn’t.

161: Washington stalled. Bitcoin didn’t.0:00/2001× Hey, it’s Marc. Big week for crypto regulation: The industry just shot itself in the foot. “We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.” — Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-founder of Coinbase Twenty-four hours before Congress was set to vote on the most comprehensive crypto bill in U.S. history, Coinbase pulled its support. His stance: the CLARITY Act would ban stablecoin yield, narrow tokenized asset pathways, and expand surveillance in DeFi. Plu

Polygon’s $250M payment pivot

Why Polygon chose payments, with Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ “The idea of general purpose blockchains or blockchains where all block space is worth the same is going to go away. Within a year, maybe two years, you can guarantee they’re pretty much identical. In that world, we recognized a need to differentiate ourselves again.” That’s Marc Boiron, the CEO of Polygon Labs, explaining why being just “another fast L2” is no longer a viable business model. For years, Polygon owned DeFi. Fast, cheap transactions. $10 billion TVL at peak. T

Leading economist on why Bitcoin’s biggest risk isn’t regulation, with Garrick Hileman

Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️ “Everyone has a boss. The central bank’s boss is a devil known as inflation. When inflation is tame, they can tune the economy and bail out the system. But when price pressure stays steady, the central bank gets constrained. That’s the environment crypto sits in today.” That’s Garrick Hileman, one of the few Bitcoin advocates who’s deeply skeptical about what Bitcoin will actually become. Watch on Youtube 🚨We’re opening sponsorships for our next podcast series. Top guests.