Google Signals New Bitcoin Strategy, North Korean Hackers Target Solana & More

Welcome back!

This is J264G and this week I’ve got these titbits for you:

• Crypto Periphery: Google takes 8% stake in Bitcoin miner TeraWulf.

• Humorous Hackers: ZachXBT unveils North Korean efforts on Solana. 

• Tokenisation Acceleration: S&P Dow Jones Indices to be tokenised.

If you think crypto topped out, congratulations on being wrong early.

Now, let’s jump right into this week’s newsletter!

Click on any underlined heading/hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Narrative Gap

In crypto, code may be law, but clout is wealth.

Value accrues not only to those who innovate but to those who can scale distribution, shape narrative, and ultimately capture attention.

Attention, quite literally, mints market caps. 

It acts as the fuel that drives valuations and draws liquidity; it's the intangible yet decisive factor that often determines which blockchains surge ahead and which fade into the noise.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the ongoing battle between Ethereum and Solana.

At present, SOL’s market cap stands at just one-fifth that of ETH’s. On paper, Solana has a strong claim: the network processes dramatically more transactions per second than Ethereum’s base layer, and its fees are negligible in comparison. The network is also home to a range of flagship crypto platforms and apps that have proven highly profitable. Yet, crypto markets are rarely meritocracies of technical capability and fundamentals.

Closing the gap requires more than performance charts and benchmarks.

Ethereum’s lead rests on narrative gravity and entrenched network effects. Its first‐mover status, longstanding role as the workhorse of DeFi, and institutional interest give it an outsized brand cachet that cement it as the default choice more often than not. In short, Ethereum enjoys a reinforcing feedback loop: its deep developer base, ecosystem maturity, and institutional trust feed a positive narrative that in turn attracts more users and capital. Solana must find a way to compete with this flywheel.

Consequently, Solana’s fate may hinge less on code and more on attention. Efficiency and performance are necessary, but not sufficient; as markets reward perception more than precision. What matters is narrative sustained over time, credibility earned through visibility, and an ability to spark collective imagination. Without that, even the fastest and cheapest blockchain will struggle to match Ethereum’s entrenched lead—with or without marquee startups in its ranks.

In the end, the battle will be won not just in the lab, but in the hearts and minds.

Yes, code builds the rails, but attention drives the train.

Attention is not ancillary. It is destiny.

The upside is that investors who grasp Solana’s fundamentals today have the chance to accumulate SOL at a steep discount, before spot ETFs unlock broader access and market attention drives valuations higher.

Chart Of The Week

News Bites

Throughput Evolution: As real-time use cases for stablecoins and trading increasingly come onchain to Solana, the imperative to expand throughput has never been greater. To that end, developers at Anza are rolling out Rotor, Solana’s new block propagation designed to accelerate the network’s performance.

Ask Meridian: Extracting insight from block explorers has long been an arduous, clunky experience for crypto analysts. Meridian is attempting to change this dynamic by launching a conversational research tool. The product aims to streamline the process of discovering alpha and understanding onchain activity in real-time.

Crypto Periphery: Google has taken an 8% equity stake in TeraWulf, a US operator that develops, owns, and operates industrial-scale data center infrastructure, purpose-built for high-performance computing (HPC) and Bitcoin mining. Either this is Google making pragmatic use of TeraWulf’s computing prowess, or it marks the faint stirrings of a broader crypto embrace. For now, the jury is out.

Tokenisation Acceleration: S&P Dow Jones Indices is in advanced talks with leading exchanges, custodians, and decentralised finance platforms to bring tokenised versions of its benchmarks to market. The move follows its earlier step into the sector this year, when it licensed the S&P 500 index for a tokenisation initiative with Centrifuge. 

Humorous Hackers: ZachXBT has published new research on North Korean efforts to infiltrate crypto companies, with the Solana ecosystem among the targets. In a comic twist, North Korean hackers revealed their lack of technical fluency by searching whether ERC-20 tokens—an Ethereum standard—could be deployed on Solana.

Deal Flow

When the Solana ecosystem moves, it moves fast.

We give capital allocators an unfair advantage: high-signal research, due diligence, and warm intros.  

Drop us a line and we’ll help take your Solana deal flow to the next level.

Caught In 4K

Weekly Take

Keks & Giggles

And that's a wrap!

You can reach me anytime over on 𝕏.

Talk soon!

J264G

_{DISCLAIMER
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research. Lastly, please be advised that we discuss products and services from our partners from which our team members may hold tokens/equity.}