*BLUF


Happy New Year,

In 2026, crypto as a space should start to mature.

Hype = hot air. Huge upside for utility (vs novelty).

Zeroing in,
Austin Campbell

FINANCE

🪙🪙🪙
STABLECOINS AT SCALE

GENIUS Act derisks U.S. issuers—these are the conditions they need to start these projects, scale, and sustain. USD stablecoins can dollarize the world.

Cross-border payments at scale. Not for speculators. For currency exchange. For treasuries. For remittances. For a better system to power everyday commerce for regular people.

🏡🎨💎
RISK WEIGHTED ASSETS

Tokens backed by actual things. Treasuries. Real estate. Commodities.

If it represents real cash flows, real collateral, real utility—it survives.

Everything else? Tbh, worthless.

🤝🤝🤝
M&A MADNESS

Deals surpass 2025's $37B record. Independents—infra, data, apps—funnel into banks and exchanges. Regulation demands scale.

Vertical integration unlocks efficiency. Dorm room companies get acquired by the real ones. Crown Jewels? Companies with real businesses and no token.

TECHNOLOGY

📈📈📈
BULLISH ON BORING

2026 tech that survives, shouldn’t makes headlines. TBH, nobody talks about how exciting TCP/IP is. They use the internet. That's where this stuff needs to go.

⛓️🔐⛓️
CONCRETE CUSTODY

Institutional money needs institutional-grade security.

Not "write down your seed phrase" security. Not "bro, don’t lose the keys" security. CTOs need to be building tech that lets CFOs sleep at night.

Nothing in crypto will matters until JPMorgan is capable of on-ramping a billion dollars without risking a collective heart attack.

🎨🙉🚢
BORING APE

In 2026, no one is going to be investing $100k in some nobody's jpg.

Instead of the infra that can on-chain the art world which can add actual value for the worlds’ art galleries, collectors, assets that appreciate (Picassos, Dalis, etc).

📜POLICY

🌎 🌎 🌎
SOUTH OF BORDER

Before we brought down Maduro, Venezuelans had already voted with their phonesUSD stablecoins were the Venezuelan exit becoming #9 in per-capita crypto adoption.

🔪 🔪 🔪
SCHISM : CEFI vs DEFI

Schism will emerge for the soul of the space.

House CeFi: System. Suits. Sigmas who eat and breathe “Bloomberg terminal”.

House DeFi: Satoshi's witnesses who bend the knee to no one—code is law, chain remembers.

Screaming. Scheming. Sabotage. See what happens.

💩 💩 💩
SH*TCOINS FLUSHED

Smh. Retail got rekt too many times. Schemecoins, rug pulls—including by "responsible" authorities that our grandma would trust, like Eric Adams!

Seriouscoins (BTC, ETH), we stan.

Sh*tcoins, we skip.

ZERO OUT

🛡️ SOUL OF OUR SECTOR

Crypto space splits in two.

On one side, serious crypto will power infrastructure, compliance, risk management.

On its sidelines…casino tech, chasing meme coins, clout - “ideology” substitutes for utility - “community” substitutes for commercial viability.

ZERO INSIDER

Snagged @austincampbell on X. Spoke to @CryptoAmerica_ about that new market structure bill currently flailing in Congress.

Creative Studio: Sum of Parts for Zero Knowledge
Photographer : Shirley Yu | Production Designer : Effie Liu

ZERO INPUT

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