Talking Tokens

Today we are announcing Convergence, our new institutional product for sophisticated investors, in a joint venture between StrataMedia's Token Relations product & Talking Tokens podcast alongside The Rollup, and is presented by WisdomTree.  For our debut launch, WisdomTree's Head of Digital Asset's Will Peck joins us for Episode #1 of Convergence. WisdomTree's onchain assets we...

In today's episode of Solana Sessions, Jacquelyn sits down with Andrea Miele, CEO and founder of Beezie, to explore how gamification, tokenization and onchain infrastructure are changing the way consumers discover and buy collectibles. Andrea breaks down how Beezie grew from tokenized trading cards into a broader gamified commerce platform, recently crossing $200 million in volume and $100 mil...

Robinhood Chain has quickly emerged as one of the fastest-growing blockchains, with roughly 620,000 average daily active users, $1.3 million in daily fees, and $4.26 billion in TVL, at the time of recording. But  Alexander, from our institutional research team, explores in his latest report that some of the most interesting activity isn’t coming from stock tokens alone but also from what happens w...

In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Nicola White, VP of Institutional at Robinhood, to discuss how Robinhood is expanding its institutional crypto business and why tokenized assets could reshape the way traditional financial markets operate. Nicola breaks down how Robinhood's acquisition of Bitstamp plays a role in expansion, the evolution of institutional demand...

In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Sam Broner, CEO of The Better Money Company, to unpack what stablecoins need to become everyday payment infrastructure and why interoperability could matter more than which stablecoin ultimately wins. Drawing on his experience across Microsoft, the Federal Reserve, a16z and now building stablecoin infrastructure, Sam explains why t...

In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Edward Woodford, founder and CEO of zerohash, to explore how crypto infrastructure is becoming embedded inside some of the world’s largest banks, brokers, fintechs and payment companies. Zerohash powers digital asset and stablecoin capabilities for companies including Morgan Stanley, Interactive Brokers, Stripe and Visa, helping tr...

On today's Talking Tokenization, Jacquelyn sits down with Andrew McCormick, Head of Institutional and Market Development at Chainlink Labs, to explore how banks, retail brokers and traditional financial institutions are moving deeper into tokenization and why simply putting assets onchain is no longer enough. Andrew explains why institutional conversations have shifted from “what is a blockcha...

DeFi vaults are having a breakout year, with roughly $15 billion in value now sitting across the sector. But as Alexander Beaudry from our institutional research team found in his latest survey, rapid growth doesn’t necessarily mean institutional adoption has arrived. In this episode, we break down StrataMedia’s survey of seven industry leaders from Aave, Veda, Sky, Loopscale, Gauntlet, RockawayX,...

On today's episode of Talking Tokenization, Jacquelyn sits down with Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, to explore what's next for tokenized assets as institutional adoption grows and Wall Street moves more financial products onchain. Carlos breaks down why tokenization is still in its early innings despite Securitize reaching $5 billion in tokenized AUM, and why just 2% of...

Anthony Scaramucci still believes Bitcoin can reach $500,000. In this episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn Melinek sits down with the SkyBridge Capital founder and SALT chairman to discuss Bitcoin’s path to $500K, institutional crypto adoption and what could drive the next phase of the market. Scaramucci breaks down why banks and major institutions haven’t fully embraced Bitcoin, how blockchain co...

Is it possible for $200 trillion in global credit to move onchain, or is DeFi still trapped in speculation? Today’s guest is Paul Frambot, Co-Founder and CEO of Morpho. We explore the evolution of onchain credit, how decentralized finance is becoming a core technology stack for traditional finance, and what it takes to build a truly global, open credit network. Paul breaks down Morpho's shift...

In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Rishin Sharma, Head of AI Growth at the Solana Foundation, to explore how AI agents could reshape payments, commerce, and financial markets and why Solana is positioning itself as financial infrastructure for the emerging agentic economy. Rishin breaks down how agentic payments work today, how pay.sh enables AI systems like ChatGPT and...

Trading Wall Street stocks 24/7 in DeFi sounds like the ultimate financial unlock, but as Alexander Beaudry from our institutional research team points out, the reality is far more complex. In this episode, we dive into Alex's latest report, "Equity Perps Are Nothing Without Equity Spot," to explore why the infrastructure behind tokenized equities is still catching up to the hype. Al...

In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Adrian, who breaks down his journey from Goldman Sachs to building in DeFi. He reveals why traditional banks are secretly terrified of stablecoins, the brutal reality of why tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs) actually takes months, and why the safest smart contracts are often the "dumbest" ones.  Timestamps:  00:10 Stabl...

On today's episode of Talking Tokenization, Jacquelyn sits down with John D’Agostino (Head of Strategy at Coinbase Institutional) and Rebecca Rettig (COO & CLO at Jito Labs) for a masterclass on the real state of institutional crypto adoption. They discuss what it actually takes to bridge the gap between TradFi and Crypto, ranging from why Wall Street is actively resisting tokenization, to...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Jillian Friedman, Chief Operating Officer at Symbiotic, to talk about what it actually takes to make tokenization work at scale, ranging from why 94% of tokenized real-world assets are still bought directly from the issuer, to how Symbiotic's LiquidLane gives investors an instant exit from illiquid RWAs, to why she doesn't see CeFi an...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Thomas Gregory, VP of Payments at Binance, to talk about what it actually looks like to build a global payment infrastructure from the inside, ranging from QR code rollouts in Argentina to the Binance Card hitting the market across 20 countries and B-Stocks hitting $2 billion in trading volume in a single weekend.  Thomas breaks down why he s...

On this edition of Strata Research's Analyst Insights, Jacquelyn sits down with Institutional Research Analyst Alex Beaudry to break down the results of Strata's first industry survey where they asked five leaders across the agentic payments space, including the CEOs of Alchemy and Anchorage and Circle's Chief Product and Technology Officer, who all weighed in on where it actually stan...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Dom & Phil Kwok, co-founders of EasyA, a platform that teaches developers and consumers how to actually build and use blockchain technology.  The brothers also run some of the biggest hackathons in the space at events like Consensus Miami and Consensus Hong Kong.  Dom & Phil explain why so much of crypto's top talent drifted to AI...

On today's Talking Tokenization, Jacquelyn sits down with Suzy Singh, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Securitize, to pull back the curtain on what institutional tokenization interest looks like day to day. Suzy outlines why everything you're seeing announced publicly has been in the works for six to twenty-four months behind the scenes, then breaks down why Securitize tokenized its own e...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Anchorage Digital’s CEO and Co-founder Nathan McCauley and Head of Policy Kevin Wysocki to talk about what the post-GENIUS Act world of stablecoins looks like from the inside. They think most of the market isn't paying enough attention to the banks racing to tokenize their deposits and explain why all 5,000+ US banks are eventually going...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink to talk about why he and a group of Ethereum stewards including Joe Lubin and Tom Lee decided now was the moment to go back on offense for the Ethereum ecosystem. Joseph breaks down why he thinks the Ethereum institutional supercycle is already here, how Ethereum will win even amid bad price action and why the...

On this edition of Strata Research, Jacquelyn sits down with our Institutional Research Analyst Alex Beaudry to dig into the OUSD announcement that resulted in Circle's stock dropping and had the crypto world convinced a new stablecoin competitor had arrived. After looking into the details, Alex argues this is just Stripe's stablecoin wrapped in a consortium for competitive cover, then he...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with CZ, founder and former CEO of Binance, on the exchange's ninth anniversary to talk about what he got right, what he missed, and why he thinks AI handling payments in crypto is coming within months, not years.  CZ breaks down why he once thought stablecoins were a temporary patch job, how he sees blockchain technology as one of three found...

On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Roger Bayston, Head of Digital Assets at Franklin Templeton, to discuss his 35-year journey at the firm and how tokenization became the focal point to his career there today. Roger breaks down how he sees blockchain less as a new financial system and more as a long overdue infrastructure replacement, why BENJI’s ability to transfer and accrue...