RaaS #436: Ethena Expands To Telegram!

Gauntlest Launches USD Vault, Texas Creates BTC Reserve, Summer of Symbiotic, and Moar!

a16z crypto’s June 2025 report shows strong mid-year adoption: mobile wallet users, stablecoin volume, ETP flows, and DEX/CEX activity all rose 23–51%. Yet fees fell 43%, hinting at efficiency gains. Regulatory shifts like the SOL ETF suggest growing institutional validation.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino warns that U.S. stablecoins face shrinking margins due to efficient payment rails, unlike emerging markets like Nigeria, where stablecoins improve financial access and stability.

Fan3, built on Avalanche, tackles the $5B annual ticket scalping problem by verifying fans through Ticketmaster and AXS. With features like wallet passes and artist perks, it blends fan engagement with anti-bot tech, aiming to disrupt legacy ticketing.

Hut 8 expanded its Bitcoin-backed credit line with Coinbase to $130M, cutting capital costs by 0.9%. This reflects rising institutional use of BTC as collateral, aligning with MiCA-era frameworks and signaling a shift to non-dilutive, risk-aware crypto financing.

Ethena Labs now offers up to 15% APY on USDT savings via Telegram’s Wallet, tapping into 1B users and $750M on TON. With one-click DeFi access and 100M signups, this marks a major step toward mainstream yield adoption. The ENA token rose 10.87% due to the news.

Polymarket gives Zohran Mamdani a 54.3% chance of winning NYC’s Democratic mayoral nomination, overtaking Andrew Cuomo. Prediction markets > news?

One day war translates into 7 days and then…

It’s not a hot girl summer until the Summer of Symbiotic officially starts. A collection of quests, content, and alpha from Symbiotic and their ecosystem partners like Avail, ether.fi, and more.

Gauntlet’s new USD Alpha vault targets crypto and TradFi yield seekers with a backtested 11.02% APY, beating the 6.75% benchmark. It reallocates USDC across Morpho vaults using Gauntlet’s risk models ($45B TVL expertise), capping high-risk exposure at 40%.

Texas’ bold move to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve was signed into law on June 21, 2025. With no cap on purchases, the state joins a growing institutional trend of embracing Bitcoin over fiat.

Top Gainers: VICE, TAOBOT, BANANAS31, TIGERSHARK, SEI.

Chainlink and Mastercard’s partnership brings crypto onchain for 3B Mastercard users, using Chainlink’s oracle tech with 99.9% uptime. Backed by SWIFT ties and L2 cost savings, it pushes Web3 mainstream, though oracle security will be key for safe scaling.

14% of Ethereum validators are testing MIT’s OptimumP2P tech on the Hoodi testnet, aiming to 10x data propagation speed. By replacing Gossipsub’s inefficient messaging with Random Linear Network Coding, it tackles Ethereum’s networking bottleneck—an often overlooked scalability layer.

That’s all for today!