I am overwhelmed

I was gone for a while. Time to catch up. This is what you’ll get today:

• BBW'25 Highlights - A quick recap of the most intense weeks with 30+ events and 60+ stakeholders that kept me away from this newsletter.

• w3.labs Staking Event Success - Our first staking event during Berlin Blockchain Week was a total blast - learn what made it special.

• Julius on "Crypto Stocks as the New S**tcoins" - My co-founder explains why altcoin money is flowing into wild stock plays like Circle's 6x IPO run.

• AI Agents vs. Human Traders - Insights from Julius's AI Agent Summit panel on whether algorithms will replace human investors.

• Top Picks & Nuggets - From JPMorgan launching tokens on Base to Euro stablecoins surging to $500M - everything you missed while I was busy.

GM GM,

I can't believe I'm finally writing another edition of cc'd and landing in your inbox again. If you follow me even a little, Berlin Blockchain Week definitely didn't pass you by (ideally you were there and we met. If we did, I was probably running around putting out fires, but hey, it's the thought that counts).

The time was intense, and I've already shared my recap post with you (read it here).

Now that the most intense weeks of our lives are behind us, I'm excited to cc you weekly again with what we're seeing in Web3, what's interesting straight from our w3 ecosystem, plus plenty of personal experiences through the lens of a young (still under 30, tihi) founder in the space.

By the way, this girl just hit 20k LinkedIn followers. Show some love.

And yes, I need to step up my X game. One thing at a time.

Treat yourselves to ultimate BBW’25 content one last time. 14 days, 30+ events, 60+ stakeholders. And so so so much love. My few highlights:

Our marketing wizard Quinn aka the w3.hub intern shared more in his recent issue of the Community Alpha. Read it here.

Feeling the FOMO? After Berlin Blockchain Week comes Fashion Week. And we got an event for you:

w3.labs is the company that's especially close to my heart right now. During Berlin Blockchain Week, we hosted our first event on staking and IT WAS A BLAST. Read my post and learn what I did differently this time and which absolute bangers we had in the lineup:

The best thing you can do from now on to support our w3 activities is to stake with our community validators. Show some love and stake with us.

I love listening to smart people, and our fund manager Julius ist definitely one of them (with an amazing german podcast).

In one of the recent episodes he shares an interesting perspective on why altcoins have been underperforming lately - all the degenerate money that used to flow into random Layer 2 tokens is now flooding into crypto stocks instead. And honestly? The returns are looking WILD:

• Circle went from a $31 IPO to hitting $200 (now at a $50B valuation - the same as Coinbase, which makes absolutely zero sense in an "efficient market")

• MicroStrategy has been outperforming Bitcoin itself

• SPAD (a gaming company turned Ethereum treasury) went from $3 to over $100 before crashing 90% in a matter of days

The pattern is clear: Instead of gambling on altcoins for leverage, traditional finance bros are now piling into these crypto-adjacent stocks for their Bitcoin/crypto exposure. Same risk appetite, different vehicle.

As Julius put it: "If you look at these returns, crypto stocks are the new shitcoins." The question is whether this is sustainable or if we're building another house of cards.

Julius also shared insights from his panel at the AI Agent Summit during Berlin Blockchain Week, discussing whether AI agents will eventually become better investors than humans.

His take? It depends on the market:

• For data-driven, transparent markets (like day trading), AI agents and especially "swarms" of collaborative agents will absolutely outperform humans

• For markets built on information asymmetry (like venture capital), humans still have an edge through relationships and intuition

In the short term, Julius sees a hybrid approach winning - humans working with AI agents as their supercharged analysts and execution tools, with humans maintaining final decision-making authority.

But the Renaissance Technologies example is telling - their Medallion Fund has delivered 45% returns after fees for 30+ years using pure statistical models with minimal human intervention. When their founder Jim Simons would call panicking during market crashes, the team would remind him: "We're playing a statistics game, not an 'I think I know better' game."

The future might belong to those who can fully trust their AI partners and resist the urge to override them during moments of market panic. But are we ready for that level of surrender?

More reads into Crypto x AI:

DeFAI and the rise of AI Agents

The Agentic Future

Okay, that was quite a bit from Julius. And if you find it just as exciting as I do, you can easily follow his work at our liquid token fund w3.wave. On LinkedIn, he shares his weekly recaps.

Berlin Blockchain Week sucked me in like a black hole and it feels like I've missed the last 2 months of what's actually happening in the space. Thankfully, I have a smart team (shoutout Quinn & Nils) who always keep me updated:

• Banks might finally ditch their ancient COBOL systems thanks to blockchain. A 60-year-old problem costing billions could finally have a solution.

• Sam Altman now wants to scan your eyes - and Reddit is interested. Worldcoin Orbs might soon be used for Reddit verification, which is both creepy and fascinating at the same time.

• Our language is increasingly influenced by AI and we barely notice it. "I appreciate your patience" is the new "Sorry for the late reply" and I'm guilty as charged.

• Pavel Durov apparently fathered 100+ children through surrogacy and plans to leave them his fortune. Crypto billionaires and their absurd plans lol.

• JPMorgan brings its deposit tokens to Base, becoming the first global major bank on a permissionless chain. This is HUGE and shows how real the convergence of TradFi and DeFi is becoming.

• The biggest US retailers want to issue their own stablecoins to save billions in credit card fees. The stablecoin wars are heating up, and it's not just crypto companies in the game anymore.

• Know what’s cooler than a robotaxi? A fleet of robotaxis – co-owned by you.

• Will we be able to trade SpaceX on Solana?!

That’s it.

See you next week 💅🏽

And while we're at it:

I'm on LinkedIn.

I'm on X.

Always here at w3.hub.

Active in the w3.group. Follow on LinkedIn to keep up with our projects.