2025 Rewind: End of the Infinite Money Glitch and Looking Ahead to 2026

In this episode, hosts Sebastien Couture, Brian Crain, and Friederike Ernst gather for their annual wrap-up to discuss the end of the "infinite money glitch": the era where tokens traded at billions without proven product-market fit. They explore the 2025 "spring cleaning" that devastated the altcoin market and the quiet, efficient entry of web2 incumbents like Revolut and Stripe. The discussion centers on the industry's maturation into a space where protocols are finally judged on their ability to generate real revenue and growth.

The team analyzes the 2025 "spring cleaning" of altcoins alongside Polymarket’s mainstream breakout. As giants like Stripe and Revolut scale crypto integrations, the hosts debate if consolidating distribution power is diluting the original promise of decentralized agency. Finally, they address the existential quantum threat to Bitcoin and share their 2026 "hot takes.

Topics

• 00:00 Intro & Notable Memories
• 04:30 The Bybit Hack & Price Action
• 08:15 Polymarket & The Mainstream Breakout
• 12:00 The Altcoin "Spring Cleaning"
• 18:45 Axelar & The Circle Acquisition
• 25:30 Incumbents: Back-end Upgrades vs. Values
• 33:15 Social Media & The Economics of Attention
• 42:00 Staking Consolidation & Distribution Power
• 50:30 The Quantum Threat to Bitcoin
• 58:45 2026 Predictions: RWAs & Perps

Links

• Sebastien on X: https://x.com/seb3point0
• Brian on X: https://x.com/crainbf
• Friederike on X: https://x.com/tw_tter
• Gnosis: https://gnosis.io/

Sponsors: Gnosis: Gnosis has been building core decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem since 2015. With the launch of Gnosis Pay last year, we introduced the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Start leveraging its power today at http://gnosis.io