Thrilled to announce our first institutional funding round with a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities valuing Crypto.com at $20 billion. An incredible milestone 10 years in on our journey and the beginning of a new phase of growth. Grateful to our team who got us here, our customers and community who supported us in both bull and bear and finally to our new partners for their trust. Together we will capture new opportunities at this critical juncture for the industry and win. Onwards! More information:

Excited to share that Crypto.com has become the first Virtual Asset Service Provider to receive In-Principle Approval from the Central Bank of the UAE for a Stored Value Facilities license. The license will enable us to activate digital government payments within the local market in UAE dirhams. Crypto.com operates as Foris DAX Middle East in the UAE.

But AGI is not the same as ASI (artificial superintelligence). To see the difference, let us zoom into what things might look like one year before the singularity. We also need to add a third line to the chart: the centaur (human + machine). An analogy here is chess. Machine surpassed the average human in the late 1970s, and surpassed the top human (Kasparov) in 1997. But human + machine continued to beat machine alone all the way until around 2017. What did the twilight of human + machine in chess look like? Actually, it did look like humans being relegated to more and more "high-level strategic thinking" functions, while bots managed the move-by-move. Very similar to vibe coding in 2026. Before we get to a point where there are no areas where our input is economically helpful, we will be in a regime where there are only a few such areas. And because we humans are scarce, those few areas will become the global economy's bottleneck - they will be the only thing you can't optimize down to near-zero cost (and latency), and so all our attention will go toward those tasks.

It was an eventful week for everyone at Coinbase, from the team to partners and all attendees at TOKEN2049! Singapore has a vibrant web3 ecosystem, and we enjoy showcasing our progress and hosting the industry each year. The week kicked off with XSGD's debut on Coinbase. In partnership with StraitsX, we are bringing the SGD-denominated stablecoin onto our global platform, allowing users to enjoy 1:1 redemption between SGD <> XSGD. Local stablecoins and onchain FX is ready for primetime, and Coinbase and Base are here to build for it. I enjoyed speaking at focused side events such as Stablecoin Summit, MomentumX Global and Tokenized Capital Summit, sharing insights across tokenization, payments and Coinbase's push on the Everything Exchange. Paired with broader regulatory tailwinds from the US and acceleration of product deployment, the global momentum for digital assets continues to grow stronger. Token concluded with the F1 race, where Coinbase is proud to be the exclusive crypto partner of Aston Martin F1 Team. As crypto use cases grow and regulations harmonize, we're acting with urgency to bring more users unchain in Singapore and beyond. h/t to John O'Loghlen Tianwei Liu Gloria He John Turner Sanchittha Krishnan Natalie T. Pete P. Mey Chyi Wong (黄瑁琪) Carrie Wong Julia Mao David Ko Wilson Cheng Sagar Desai and many more for the tireless work serving our clients and partners through the week!

Today we launched our $50M venture fund that will invest in decentralized finance (DeFi) innovations. If you have not heard of DeFi, it is the nexus of all the innovation going on in the crypto/blockchain ecosystem and the foundation of what could eventually become the financial system of the future.

Excited to announce that the Crypto.com Exchange is now accepting BlackRock’s USD 2.9bn Tokenized Fund $BUIDL as Trading Collateral. TradFi & CeFi are converging at a rapid pace. Thanks for the trust, BlackRock & Securitize 🤝 More info here: #tradfi #cefi #crypto #convergence

Today we are launching Crypto.com Pay™ on Emirates, powering digital payment at checkout for flight booking 🤝 The launch marks the implementation of a partnership between our two companies in July 2025, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to explore the integration of Crypto.com Pay™ into the airline’s digital payment systems. This collaboration is a testament to the UAE’s forward thinking approach to innovation and we’re proud to support Emirates as it embraces the digital payments space. More information at:

Had the pleasure of joining Goldman Sachs’ Digital Assets Summer Conference 2025 in London. An energizing day with some of the brightest minds in the space. Spoke on the panel “What is the Next Big Trade in Crypto?” with Leon Marshall (Galaxy), Chris Zuehlke (Cumberland), Javier Rodriguez Alarcon (XTBO), and our excellent moderator Adam Crook from Goldman. From vol strategies to structured products and the shifting tides of market dominance, we covered a lot of ground and there’s still so much ahead. Huge thanks to Max Minton, Mathew McDermott and the Goldman team for the kind invitation and world-class hospitality. Always a privilege to represent QCP on the global stage.

I've been asked about my thoughts around Reap's acquisition, and to me, it points to a much bigger shift happening across the industry. The stablecoin infrastructure “land grab” is now in full swing. Payward (parent company of Kraken) has reportedly acquired Reap for $600M. This follows a clear pattern of consolidation in just 18 months: Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge in October 2024 and Mastercard’s acquisition of BVNK earlier this year. The biggest names in finance are no longer just watching. They are racing to own the "pipes." At StraitsX, we’ve always said that the best payment tech is the stuff you don’t even notice. Stablecoins should work like fibre-optic cables. They need to be everywhere and always-on, but completely invisible to the person actually making the payment. This shift toward invisible infrastructure is exactly why we've seen our card volume jump 40x in a year. Be it through regional initiatives like BLOOM or powering cross-border payments for our partners, our role goes beyond just "issuing tokens." We are building the compliant, 24/7 settlement rails for real-world money movement at scale. Stablecoins are officially moving from trading instruments to becoming the foundation of global finance, and that transition is happening faster than most expect. The competition is no longer about distribution or interfaces. The race is on to build the rails that will define it.

Proud to be partnering with DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre) to explore new blockchain-enabled applications to strengthen the global commodities trade. The agreement will push tokenisation deeper into the global commodities market and lay the groundwork for next-generation trade infrastructure. Read more here:

2025 moved fast, and it’s only looking back that we realize how much momentum we built together. From major regulatory milestones to new products and markets, to seeing Crypto.com show up in everyday moments around the world, this year was about compounding progress. None of it happens without the team behind the scenes, our partners who trusted us, and most importantly, our community that continues to push us forward. Thank you for being part of the journey. Wishing you all a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year! 2026 marks our first decade; let’s make it count!

Coinbase Business has launched in Singapore marking the financial platform’s first expansion outside of the US. We at Coinbase are very excited to work with local startups and SMEs and help them tap into digital assets. Launched in cooperation with our banking partner Standard Chartered Singapore, it is a one-stop platform offering startups and SMEs a secure, compliant crypto corporate account. Features such as easy payment flows, accounting integrations, and access to stablecoins like USDC and XSGD address major friction points in international business. B2B payments can be fast, low cost, and made with a simple payment link. As one of the world’s leading hubs for trade and innovation, it is not surprising that Singapore is the second biggest adopter for stablecoins. Our decision for Coinbase Business to go global here shows our longstanding commitment to supporting the local business community. Coinbase Business is currently accepting applications from eligible Singapore-based companies for early access to the platform - get in touch!

One thing I find striking in the discourse between AI 2040 and its detractors is that the two seem to be locked in to totally incompatible worldviews of how fast and how much of a big deal AI progress is: * In AI 2040, every scenario sees superintelligence of some kind emerging by 2040, unless a herculean effort is made to completely stop it * Detractors say things like "AI 2040 is naive about human coordination ability and a threat to freedom", but don't seem to see any naivety in assuming that the ASI transition will just go well by default, don't seem to see ASI itself as a massive power concentrator risk, and don't seem to feel fear of humanity's "hard power" dropping to zero if ASIs can do literally every task better than we can. This stance makes total sense in a "AI is normal technology" world, zero sense in a world where superintelligence is possible by 2030 and almost guaranteed by 2040 I think my beliefs are: - If I was confident that (present-day-style) AI is normal technology, I would be in the detractor camp - If I was confident that superintelligence is coming in 2030 by default, I would be closer to the AI 2040 camp - it's naive, but every other option is naive squared? But my problem is that I feel great uncertainty and have no idea which of the two worlds (or some other third thing) we're living in? Hence why I continue to be open-minded about slowdowns/pauses, but also I feel very uncomfortable with the "open source bad, the good outcome is the one where our guys have controlling global dominance" push coming from some major AI companies and intellectuals - in a "normal" world that's the sort of thing that triggers every political alarm bell at the same time. A big reason why I have been advocating and trying my best to support the d/acc platform (rapid up-skilling in formal verification, cryptography, secure and open hardware, pandemic resistance and other defensive biotech, food and basic resource security, public epistemics, non-power-concentrating versions of physical security) is that these things are clearly worth doing in both worlds. The 2040 plan is already much more open source friendly (even mandating it! yay). It also includes "mutually assured compute destruction" ideas which (if they work) effectively give one of 2-5 actors the ability to trigger a global compute winter - as opposed to giving 1-5 actors the ability to selectively disenfranchise people they consider baddies while exempting themselves. This is also a big improvement. So I can see the earnest attempts to improve along the dimensions detractors criticize on ("does this concentrate power in big AI labs and superpower governments?"), and I appreciate this. I think many people don't appreciate enough the differences between different "kinds" of pause buttons, and how some concentrate power far more than others. Probably we can think harder and improve even more here. But on the "slowdown/pause or not" topic, there isn't a magic "escape the tradeoff" button. The Hansonian in me says: the winning deal is a deal which, from the perspective of both sides' present-day beliefs and knowledge, both sides would accept, though for different reasons. If the crux is AI progress speed, then identify a set of pre-agreed triggers for "okay, serious shit is happening" [super-pandemics? >25% unemployment? something involving slaughterbots?], and pre-agree that we become much more open-minded to the slowdown or pause thing if enough triggers come to pass within some timeframe. 2040 detractors (who clearly implicitly think that we'll see amazing speedup of progress from AI but think that what I call the "serious shit" category is overhyped) will accept expecting that the triggers don't come to pass, and AI worriers will accept expecting that they will. Pre-agreeing on the specific triggers means that once the triggers either hit or don't hit, there is stronger legitimacy around the idea that one side's worldview turned out more correct and we should be more inclined toward their program. If I were @elonmusk (or zuck, or...) I would re-tool twitter much more heavily into being a platform for helping to identify and make these kinds of grand win-win deals, so that we can bypass big-country governments and big-company CEOs and big nonprofit intellectuals and give more people a voice in the discussion. It's possibly one of the best things that social media _could_ do for humanity if it wanted to. But again, maybe this is also naive. Actually, probably it's naive. But currently, I see zero plans for how to deal with an ASI transition that are not naive. Perhaps humanity is stuck with a choice between naive and naive squared (or maybe even naive squared and naive cubed), so I feel inclined to cut some slack to people who are trying.

Today I am honored to announce our partnership with Sirius International Holding, a technology investment leader and the digital arm of International Holding Company (IHC), aiming to advance the digital asset and tokenization ecosystem in the UAE and globally. Increasing the everyday utility of cryptocurrencies is central to our vision at Crypto.com, and we’re encouraged by the UAE’s commitment to advancing blockchain adoption. Sirius International Holding has an impressive portfolio of companies that share our vision, and we look forward to working closely with them in our collective pursuit. More information at:

It’s always a pleasure to take the stage at Singapore FinTech Festival and this year’s theme, “Shaping the Next Decade of Growth” couldn’t be more significant. In 2025, we’ve seen significant steps forward on the regulatory front that will directly impact our industry’s growth over the next decade. As part of a panel discussion on the GENIUS Act with industry leaders, I shared my views on the first-ever major crypto legislation passed by the U.S. Congress and how it will not only strengthen the US dollar but also why it is a strong and strategic move towards modernising finance and embracing digital assets’ role in that. Stablecoins will form the bridge between traditional finance and decentralised finance, and support new use cases like Tokenized Stocks and Prediction Markets. #SFF2025 has arrived at a time when the U.S. is demonstrating just how swiftly a country can pivot to embracing and regulating the digital assets industry, and we couldn’t be more excited to see the ripple effect globally.

It was fantastic to be back at #MIGlobal, and at home in #Singapore during a milestone week for our entire industry and the Crypto.com brand. I had the privilege of participating in a conversation of great importance – Asia’s blueprint for digital finance. While Asia has a strong foothold in #crypto (about 300M users now), we must continue to build responsibly, collaborate across sectors, and embrace what consumers and traders are looking for – all while keeping safety, security, and compliance at the center of everything. Blockchain technology is truly becoming the infrastructure of the future for Finance. The new growth drivers for the sector will be around Digital Asset Treasury (DATs), tokenization (esp. securities), and regulated derivatives (inc. predictions). Thank you, Angelina A. Kwan, for moderating our discussion, and thank you to my co-panelists Luke Boland, Melvin Deng, Tom Lee, and Jaime Leverton for your insights and leadership. This is just the beginning 🚀

As I count down to the 5th anniversary of DeFiance Capital, the high-profile blow-up of a well-known liquid crypto fund serves as a stark reminder of how challenging this business can be — and why there’s still plenty of room for improvement in our industry, both in serving clients and advancing the space overall. 1. Alignment & Skin in the Game This might be the single most important factor for any crypto fund — liquid or venture — given the nature of the industry and asset class. The best way to ensure alignment and that GPs act in LPs' best interests is through meaningful GP capital commitment. Ideally, >20% for smaller funds, >10% for larger ones. Bonus points if that capital represents the majority of the GP’s net worth (as it should be). For reference, I'm by far the largest investor in DeFiance Fund I, and a top 3 investor in our current flagship liquid fund. That means if we lose money, I stand to lose the most. That said, it’s counterproductive for GP stakes to be too large (e.g., >60% of the fund), as it effectively becomes a quasi-family office — and GPs may stop caring about external investors' concerns. 2. Professional Operations & Risk Management This is crucial in crypto and comes with its own unique challenges. It’s often where funds led by successful crypto-native investors — without prior institutional experience — fall short. To make things harder, there’s no perfect toolset for liquid crypto fund operations. Most of us have to cobble together different solutions to achieve operational excellence. But it matters — one major hack or poor exchange collateral management, leading to unintended liquidation, can take a fund to an absolutely unrecoverable state. 3. Professionalism & Integrity — Especially During a Crisis Nearly every liquid fund that has lasted more than 4 years in crypto has gone through some kind of crisis. I’ve lost count of how many we've faced in the past five years. These are the moments when investors appreciate honest communication and transparency the most. GPs may not be able to disclose everything — but hiding behind legal counsel and stonewalling investor inquiries is the fastest way to destroy trust. Remember: the lawyers aren’t the CEO. You are. And the decisions ultimately rest with you. 4. This is a 5km Run — Not a Sprint, But Not a Marathon Either You're here to achieve sustainable outperformance, not to larp about one good trade forever. So one hero trade might raise your profile and gain clout, what matters is if your strategy is repeatable and able to work as well in the future as well. One hit wonders are dime a dozen in market. Unfortunately unlike VCs, we don’t get a 5–10 year timeframe to prove ourselves either. Performance is measured quarterly, even monthly. That forces constant evaluation: Is your current strategy still working? Do you still have edge? That’s the question I ask myself regularly to ensure we remain ahead — or at least relevant — in the market.

Thread: how I think about the growth of AI capabilities and what it means for us as they keep getting stronger. I think the right model for comparing humans and AI is not any single dimension like intelligence or aggregate performance on economic tasks. Rather, I view both humans and machines as having a whole range of capabilities. This includes both physical (eg. doing things with our hands, walking) and mental (eg. strategic thinking, mental math, emotional intelligence). For most of human history, machines have only exceeded us in very few areas, eg. a strong early example is water and windmills. So we can look at the situation in 1500 like this:

I came to Art Basel to observe, research, and learn. Yet somehow, the Zero 10 exhibition ended up being the section where I collected the most. So what changed my mind? This year's Zero 10 felt less focused on performative or participatory works and more on tracing the history of digital art—from early computer-generated experiments to protocol-native and on-chain generative art. It explored the signal running through digital art's evolution, from code to canon. As Co-Founder & Director of ArtVerse , this resonated deeply with how I think about digital art: works that explore the dialogue between art, technology, and the digital realm. As both a collector and gallerist, one of my priorities is supporting artists who are shaping this conversation, established and emerging voices whose work reflects, questions, and reimagines our relationship with technology. Another aspect I particularly value is the opportunity to meet artists directly. Having conversations around their practice, process, and conceptual framework provides a much richer understanding of the work itself. So, which works joined my collection? • Ben F. Laposky — Oscillon 16 via Asprey Studio 
• Herbert W. Franke — Tanz der Elektronen via ArtMeta 
• Vera Molnár — 11 rouges and Au commencement était le carré via interface gallery and ONIRIS.ART - galerie art contemporain 
• DEAFBEEF — SYNTH POEM: OSCILLOSCOPE No. 3 via Asprey Studio
• Leander Herzog — Infinite Garden via Nguyen Wahed
• William Mapan — Paysages Plausibles – Plotter Works (DOS) via Art Blocks Inc.
• Hyunsun Jeon — Forest in Clarity via Galerie Lelong and And a few more to reveal soon ✨

I am proud to share Coinbase's early participation in the new BLOOM initiative spearheaded by the Financial Infrastructure and AI Office of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) alongside other premier financial institutions and DPTSPs. BLOOM (Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency) builds on the foundation set by Project Orchid, building a toolkit of well-regulated stablecoins, tokenised bank liabilities, and AI applications to update the financial system. Through our groundbreaking work on x402 protocol and Base, we look forward to playing a key role in BLOOM's focus on stablecoin-enabled agentic payments, exploring ways for AI and blockchain to work together, making digital finance more efficient, transparent, and accessible. This initiative reinforces Singapore’s position at the intersection of responsible innovation and real-world adoption, advancing our future of digital finance. Governments can be builders too! Erik Reppel | Katie Mitchell | Alan Lim | Dan Kim | John O'Loghlen

Running an art gallery is hard. Really hard. After years as a serial entrepreneur, I became the Director of Digital Art at ArtVerse, turning my curiosity about art into a business dedicated to artists and collectors. 2026 has been a turning point for ArtVerse. We’ve doubled down on delivering exceptional exhibitions, investing in ambitious productions, and supporting the artists we represent well beyond the walls of our shows. What I’ve learned is that there is no repeatable formula for success in the art world. No cheat code. The only constants are perseverance, consistency, and hard work. Loving art and artists is essential - but it’s not enough. The market is evolving, and so must we. I'm grateful Valentina Buzzi is leading this change and our new team who joined in 2026. If there’s one thing that consistently makes the difference, it’s having an exceptional team that goes above and beyond, and working with artists whose practice stands at an institutional level. There will always be highs and lows, but hearing artists praise our team for their dedication and seeing that work translate into meaningful sales and long-term opportunities makes every challenge worthwhile. I’m incredibly proud of the artists we’ve exhibited in the first half of 2026: Genesis Kai , aurèce vettier m , Patrick Tresset and Céline Shen . Now, onto the next chapter. Our next exhibition opens on July 3 with Polygon1993 , followed by an exciting second half of 2026 curated by Valentina Buzzi. Onward.

Crypto.com is becoming a multi-asset venue leveraging blockchain infrastructure, offering global, 24/7 access to 1,500+ equities and 400+ digital assets today. Equity trading is now live in the Crypto.com App via tokenization: ✅ Unified Portfolios: Manage crypto and equity exposure in a single app ✅ Enhanced Utility: Get up to 4% p.a. Rewards on tokenized stock holdings with Stocks Earn ✅ 24/7/365 Trading: Move beyond legacy market hours and respond to breaking news instantly ✅ Institutional-Grade Security: Tokenized positions are backed 1:1 with underlying shares held in secure U.S. custody

I was honored to present at the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises at the Business Symposium 2026 in Sentosa last week. The conversation centred on how how digital infrastructure and digital payments are reshaping the way SMEs operate across ASEAN. Real-time, low-cost regional interoperability is closer than most businesses realise. Stablecoins, both USD and local currency pegged, are a practical tool for SMEs in the region to move money faster and with greater certainty, while avoiding costly FX fees. Regulated infrastructure should be appreciated more. One of the biggest misconceptions SMEs have is that strict regulation slows things down. In practice, clear frameworks build the trust that allows businesses to move faster and attract institutional partners. AI and blockchain are converging in the form of Agentic AI payments. From automated treasury management to autonomous payments, the infrastructure is expanding rapidly. SMEs should utilise these tools to reduce overhead costs and streamline workflows. The message I'd leave with any SME owner is that the time to familiarise yourselves with these tools is now, and this first-mover advantage will erode in a few years. Many thanks to ASME and Yuit Ang for hosting this important conversation and for Hamidah Aidillah Mustafa (PBM) and Wei Jie Chan for an engaging panel.