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Welcome to this week’s edition of DeFi In Five!
Every Monday, I’ll bring you the newest, most notable things happening in DeFi – from tokenization to trading to AI and beyond.
Here’s what you can expect:
Key Narratives – the hottest topics in DeFi
Chart of the Week – the most eye-catching DeFi charts I can find
Tokenization News – tracking the mass migration of assets onchain
DeFi x AI – developments in AI-powered finance
From the Marketplace – latest news from DEXs, money markets, vaults, and more
Best of the Rest – any other news that caught my attention
📰 Key Narratives
The world’s largest companies are rapidly shifting towards agent-driven commerce
Stripe launches Tempo blockchain, envisioning its primary users to be AI agents
Visa is already using Tempo’s agent-powered settlement for onchain and offchain payments
Amazon expressed their confidence in x402 in a recent blog post
Major equity infrastructure providers continue their push into onchain trading
Nasdaq & DTCC are blurring the lines between onchain and offchain equity trading and settlement
S&P-approved futures contracts are coming to Hyperliquid
Experts Would Invest $100,000 in This Alternative Now
A new Knight Frank report made an unexpected declaration. It revealed that 44% of family offices are investing more in residential real estate now. And, you don’t need to be Warren Buffet to see why.
Since 2000, residential real estate outperformed the S&P 500 by 70% in total returns. It’s the only asset that pays you to own it, grows while you sleep, and shields your gains from the IRS.
That’s why you need mogul. It’s a real estate platform that lets you invest in institutional-grade rental properties. You get monthly rental income, capital appreciation and tax benefits without a down payment or 3 a.m. tenant calls. In fact, over 20,000 investors have joined.
Here’s Why:
• Tax Benefits
• +7% annual yields
• 18.8% avg annual IRR
TLDR: You can invest in high quality real estate for a fraction of the cost. Why wait?
Past performance isn't predictive; illustrative only. Investing risks principal; no securities offer. See important Disclaimers
Onchain options continue to gain traction, and Rysk is emerging as a clear leader. Rysk offers vaults (like the one I covered last week) that manage complex onchain option strategies on depositors’ behalf.
The wild swings in the chart above represent expiration dates – when depositors’ funds are returned to them. The immediate rebound after each drop shows that demand is not only consistent among their userbase, but also growing at an increasing rate.
For more on why I believe options will inevitably succeed in DeFi, and what’s driving demand for them, check out my previous article here.
TradeXYZ partners with S&P Dow Jones Indices
TradeXYZ is the leading app on Hyperliquid for trading “traditional” assets
This partnership will launch the first official S&P 500 onchain perpetual futures market – available 24/7/365
The SEC supports tokenized share trading for Nasdaq
Nasdaq and the DTCC are allowing select participants to trade and settle tokenized shares
In this pilot program, stocks can settle onchain while using the same order book and execution priority as traditional shares
Data from Allium shows difference in xStocks and Ondo stock traders
Ondo and xStocks make up 80%+ of the rapidly-growing tokenized stock market
Combined, they’ve grown to over $750M AUM and 300+ tickers in just 9 months
Ondo attracts larger players with a median transfer value of $100-400
xStocks attracts smaller buyers with a median transfer value of $10-22
Stripe launches the Tempo blockchain and MPP for agents
In 2025, Stripe processed $1.9T from businesses around the world (~1.6% of global GDP!)
MPP stands for Machine Payments Protocol – gives AI agents a common “language” to interact onchain and allows any Stripe user to easily accept payments from agents onchain or offchain
MPP isn’t only built for Tempo, it can easily integrate with other payment networks
For example, it’s already being used by Visa and the Bitcoin Lightning Network
Stripe built Tempo for AI agents – anticipating that they’ll quickly begin out-spending humans when it comes to online commerce
This lets agents access resources such as data and AI model inferences while paying for them in real time, rather than paying a flat fee or subscription, while also setting a spending cap
MPP is an alternative to x402 – x402 has a broader userbase (it’s more flexible and compatible with more programming languages), but MPP has the advantage of tapping directly into Stripe’s massive global userbase
Virtuals is dominating x402 volume
Outpacing major players like Coinbase and PayAI, both of whom target enterprises
Virtuals and t54ai are bringing x402 to Ripple’s XRPL network, which has facilitated over $95B in transaction volume
Amazon emphasizes importance of AI Agent-powered commerce
They note that x402 is especially important because it does what other AI systems can’t – lets AI agents transact with each other autonomously
Agents are expected to facilitate $3-5T of global commerce by 2030
This is directly tied to blockchains and stablecoins – I covered this topic here
Maple Finance’s syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT cross $2.5B in deposits
Maple Finance has 2 main businesses: one for institutions and one for retail users
SyrupUSDC and SyrupUSDT are their main products for retail users
Both stablecoins derive yield from overcollateralized, fixed-rate loans created by Maple’s institutional business – both are currently yielding ~4%
While Maple’s institutional platform is gated for institutional lenders, these stablecoins represent a way for the public to gain access to their yield
Privy enables direct DeFi yield for crypto apps
Privy is widely-used DeFi infrastructure – they were acquired by Stripe last year
Now, any developer using it can give their users direct access to various vaults
Imagine having a list of yield options in an app like Venmo or Zelle covering different risk levels – that’s what this enables
Starting with 3 vaults on Morpho and expanding to Aave and Kamino
SEC & CFTC declare that 17 major crypto assets aren’t securities
Including several top-20 market cap assets: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, LINK, BCH
This is the largest legally-binding rule on the subject of crypto assets in history, and it’s fully in the industry’s favor
“Years of enforcement actions, billion-dollar lawsuits, and regulatory limbo just ended in one document”
The full 68-page ruling can be found here
Mastercard acquires BVNK for up to $1.8B
BVNK helps businesses and people across 130+ countries send and receive stablecoins
This is a major move by MasterCard on the heels of their 85+ company Crypto Partner program
Visa has pulled ahead significantly in onchain transactions via crypto cards, but MasterCard is looking to catch up
Moody’s brings credit ratings onchain
Moody’s is one of the largest credit rating companies in the world – this brings massive credibility to DeFi
Will give insights into risk inherent in new onchain products
Also a major step towards enabling potential undercollateralized loans, which is by far the most important service that DeFi markets don’t offer
Their onchain debut will be on the Canton network, which is used by major institutions including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and BNY Mellon
Today’s issue was filled with major financial service providers — Stripe, MasterCard, Nasdaq, and more — integrating with crypto.
But the crypto space has its fair share of grassroots banking services. One of the largest success stories of decentralized banking infrastructure is Sky.
Launched in 2017, Sky was building the future of DeFi before the term DeFi was ever used. Since then, it’s minted over $11.5B in stablecoins and is expanding faster than ever.
Check out my Sky overview in last week’s Friday Feature.
For any questions, comments, or feedback, please email me at [email protected].
And finally, make sure to subscribe below!
