📝117: Coinbase Wants to Tokenize Itself
Coinbase to tokenise its own shares. Trump announces crypto reserve. The first Web3-native LLM. OpenAI's $50M grant program. GPT-4.5, Clause 3.7 Sonnet released. Crocs & Victoria Secret's AI strategy.
👋 Hey, it’s Marc.
We just launched another big newsletter on AI x crypto & sharing some of the best alpha. 👉 Subscribe as long as it’s free or read the latest issue: The first Web3-native LLM. I’m not gonna lie: It’s really good stuff.
Then: Trump announced a strategic crypto reserve this week and holds first White House crypto summit today.
“We are entering a new era of constructive engagement between financial regulators and industry innovators. This is a welcome development—one that is critical to positioning the U.S. as the world leader in the emerging digital economy.”
— Michael Saylor, Founder & Chairman, Microstrategy
This week’s question:
📚 Our Top Reads This Week
Why the Future of Luxury is Tech-First [Podcast]. 51 Insights. Link
ETH Denver recap and takeaways. Marc Baumann. Link
The First Web3-native LLM. 51x. Link
The top 100 genAI consumer apps. a16z. Link
AI x crypto investment thesis. Cyber Fund. Link
AI Agents are Coming. 51x. Link
Crypto Power Plays: The Rise of Crypto in Asia. Paul Veradittakit. Link
Coinbase’s Tokenization Play
Coinbase is bringing its stock on-chain. After shelving the idea in 2021, the company is reviving its plan to tokenize securities—starting with $COIN.
Why it matters: This isn’t just another token listing. It would be the first real step toward turning the stock market into a global, 24/7, programmable financial system — and if they pull it off, it could change capital markets.
What you should know: In 2020, Coinbase planned to put its stock on-chain but hit SEC roadblocks. Now, with the SEC dropping its lawsuit, the company is reviving its push to tokenize securities.
Zooming out: The U.S. is weighing Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, and Coinbase is moving to tokenize securities. Under the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly SEC, the regulatory landscape is shifting fast. Tokenized securities could lower entry barriers, open global access, and enable direct, peer-to-peer transactions—reshaping how markets operate.
Zooming in: If Coinbase succeeds, it won’t just be a technical win. It will:
Global access – Anyone, anywhere could own public company shares, no brokers, no trading hours, no gatekeepers.
TradFi meets DeFi – Fractional ownership, programmable equities, and seamless transactions.
A domino effect – Every exchange, every brokerage, every listed company will have to rethink their capital markets strategy.
Be smart: When $COIN goes onchain, the entire crypto industry will want to hold it. This is bullish for Coinbase.
Punchline: The future of capital markets is unfolding with blockchain technology, and this shift isn’t just a result of attention—it’s a response to real demand.
The State of SEC after Trump’s Victory
51: Grow, compete, and win enterprise deals with our end-to-end growth engine:
70K+ B2B business leaders & direct corporate access to get in front of decision-makers.
Institutional-grade research & BD execution to deliver high-intent corporate prospects & higher conversion rates
Sales enablement & GTM strategy to close enterprise deals faster.
Clients include: Avalanche, MoonPay, Near Foundation, and others.
AI’s New Obsession: Enterprise $$$
AI leaders—OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Gemini, and Perplexity—are shifting from building the most advanced models to making AI useful for businesses.
The new focus? Enterprise adoption.
Instead of just pushing boundaries in research, they’re packaging AI into products that drive revenue, streamline operations, and solve real-world problems. The game is no longer about raw intelligence—it’s about utility, accessibility, and impact.
OpenAI releases GPT-4.5
OpenAI rolled out GPT-4.5 to Plus subscribers. And, it’s all about business.
At $20/month, ChatGPT Plus is OpenAI’s core revenue driver (~70%). Exclusive access to GPT-4.5 pushes free users to upgrade, expanding recurring revenue.
Competitive Positioning – X’s Grok 3, available via a $40/month Premium+ plan, is gaining traction fast. But OpenAI still holds the edge with GPT-4.5's accessibility, performance, and brand trust, with half the cost.
Google is Killing SEO
Google is making AI-powered search a business strategy with AI Overviews and the new AI Mode.
Why it’s important: One of the biggest marketing channels of the last 20 years just imploded — and most brands have no idea it’s coming.
AI Overviews expansion – Now powered by Gemini 2.0 for better coding, math, and multimodal queries. Faster responses, no sign-in needed, now open to teens.
AI Mode experiment – A premium AI search experience for deeper reasoning and real-time insights. Users can ask complex, multi-step questions and get AI-powered responses with web links.
AI Mode is exclusive to Google One AI Premium subscribers via Labs.
AI-powered discovery – AI Mode integrates Google's knowledge graph, live web data, and shopping insights, creating a more contextual search experience.
Instead of showing ranked web pages, Google’s AI will synthesize answers directly, pulling from across the web. Fewer clicks. Fewer opportunities for brands to stand out.
Be smart: Smart marketers need to start thinking now about how to make their content AI-readable, AI-relevant, and AI-preferred — because the old SEO playbook just got thrown out the window.
Punchline: Content will need to be optimized for AI retrieval, not just page rank — and that’s a black box most marketing teams aren’t ready for.
Anthropic releases Claude 3.7 Sonnet
Anthropic launched Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which is ideal for enterprise-grade coding (e.g., GitHub Spark), complex data analysis, and agentic tasks (e.g., customer service APIs). Its hybrid reasoning fits structured workflows in finance, healthcare, and software development.
The model has been widely adopted and available across platforms including Cursor, Replit and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.
Sonar by Perplexity
Perplexity's Sonar API is ideal for businesses to bring AI into business applications due to its ease of integration, real-time capabilities, and customization options.
Pricing model: Sonar is priced at $5 per 1,000 searches, with additional token fees, making it one of the most affordable AI search APIs on the market.
Tiered options: Sonar offers two tiers—Sonar and Sonar Pro—catering to different needs.
OpenAI API compatibility: The API's structure is compatible with OpenAI's API, facilitating seamless integration for developers familiar with OpenAI's tools.
Punchline: The foundation models are rapidly commoditizing — the real game is capturing the best applications and vertical agents built on top of their APIs.
🚨 Other Highlights You Can’t Miss
OpenAI launched a $50M grant program to fund AI-assisted research. Link
Perplexity launched a $50M venture fund. Link
Crocs using AI to let users design custom Jibbitz charms. Link
Victoria’s Secret teamed up with Google Cloud. Link
Walmart dropped a gamified mini-series launches on Spatial. Link
China is reportedly planning a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Link
Perplexity is bringing Perplexity Assistant on AI Phone. Link
Lionsgate launched its immersive movie store on Roblox. Link
👉 Keep up with all our signals for Web3 execs on our Telegram channel.
💰 Money Moves
Anthropic: AI startup raised $3.5B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Link
Figure: Blockchain holding company raised $200M through debt financing. Link
Flowdesk: Market maker raised $102M led by H V Capital. Link
Across Protocol: Blockchain infrastructure company raised $41M led by Paradigm. Link
Infrared Finance: DeFi protocol raised $14M Series A led by Framework Ventures. Link
That’s all for now, folks.
Talk soon,
– Marc & Team
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