The Rollup

Xiong (Leo) Fan, founder of Cysic, pushes back on the "China caught up" narrative fueling the AI-bubble talk: "I don't think the open-source models from China have caught up with US closed-source yet. Kimi, DeepSeek, they're closing in, but there's a gap." "You can always engineer a model to win specific benchmarks, but not to perform across the board." "So I don't think the bubble is over. On the open-source side, we're still several months behind."

Why did WisdomTree build its own tokenization platform instead of relying on partners? Maredith Hannon, Head of Business Development at WisdomTree, joined The Rollup to break down that decision and where she sees the space heading next. She makes the case that regulatory clarity from the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts will unleash a tidal wave of onchain asset growth, and that privacy and identity are the next primitives institutions need solved before real capital moves onchain at scale. Enjoy the full episode below. 00:00 Intro 02:37 Building Their Own Tech Stack 05:18 Who Wins The Tokenization Wave 09:04 Choosing The Right Partners 11:31 Why A Tokenized Money Market Fund 13:37 Clarity Act Deadline Looms 15:39 Genius Act's Tidal Wave Effect 19:13 Vaults And Custom Portfolios 22:05 Why Privacy Is Non-Negotiable 27:37 Why Investors Choose Tokenization Full conversation: https://lnkd.in/ebCxcepW

Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood's GM of Crypto, on why their chain lets memes, RWAs, and yield all live in the same place: "It's important that we make the chain permissionless and available for everything. Memes, RWAs, stablecoin yield, so many more products. Everything is going to coexist." "Each does a job. Memes bring market makers and DeFi customers. RWAs are for customers across the world who can't easily access US stocks and ETFs. And Robinhood Earn brings yield on stablecoins, and a lot of liquidity." "Partnering with multiple DEXs from the get-go, Uniswap and others, meant we had the infrastructure to support trading on day one."

Yoshi Yokokawa says Alpaca is quietly behind Kraken, Ondo Finance, and Binance's tokenized-equity efforts, and now the DTCC: "Everyone agrees on the end state: everything issued natively onchain, every transaction recorded onchain. Nobody disagrees. The real question is the multiple paths to get there." "That's what DTCC has been proactive about, steadily moving actions onchain to create more flexibility and faster money movement, with a lot of financial institutions in the project." "We're fortunate to be behind the scenes for multiple tokenized equity efforts, publicly, Kraken, Ondo, Binance. That experience across chains and wallets is what's made the last six months of conversations with DTCC so fruitful."

The vault narrative treats vaults as the innovation. Morpho's CEO Paul Frambot says vaults are just the wrapper, the real primitive is financing, and the prize is a $200 trillion credit market crypto has barely touched.

Meredith Darden Hannon, Head of BD Digital Assets at WisdomTree shares her perspective on why privacy is non-negotiable for institutional adoption and why it's not solved yet.

A few weeks back, Multicoin Capital's cofounder Tushar J. told us privacy wasn't optional for institutions moving onchain. This week's HYPE unstake proved it: "It's ridiculous to think institutions will move RWAs onchain and broadcast all their activity in real time." "So you need privacy protocols like @zama , that give you the upgrade blockchains allow, but let you do it privately."

Hanson Birringer, Co-Founder & CRO of Hyperdash, breaks down why Hyperliquid is the purest way to express the bull case on perps, tokenization, and stablecoins at once. He unpacks the Grayscale ETF, Hyper Holdings' push to bring institutional capital onchain, and why Hyperliquid's revenue could grow exponentially as HIP-3 markets and USDC flows scale. Watch the full conversation below. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:48 Hyperliquid's Evolving Thesis 02:24 The Three Megatrends Converge 03:02 Hyperliquid's Purest Expression 04:24 Stablecoins Give Up 90% Fees 05:39 Builder Codes Compound Liquidity 06:48 HIP-3 Regulatory Headwinds 10:18 Incumbents Start Fighting Back 13:22 Hyperliquid's Revenue Forecast 16:22 Hyper Holdings And Grayscale ETF 20:44 What's Next For Adoption 23:44 Token Holders As First-Class Citizens 25:23 Hyperdash's Business Model 26:30 Imperator Acquisition Explained 27:47 Bull And Bear Case https://lnkd.in/eKAnQvyQ