After a rocky start to November and a skipped Uptober, crypto markets have investors wondering if the cycle is running out of steam. In this episode, we dig into the data: staking ratios, ETF flows, price action, and the broader stock market, to separate signal from noise. No hopium, no fluff! Just what's really happening in the trenches.

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res

Follow Juri: https://x.com/jurimaibaum

Listen now on Finality: The Business Lens on Decentralized Networks.

DISCLAIMER All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

Welcome to State of the Trenches, Episode 1: "November Forecast." We kick off this new weekly series with a deep dive into what's really moving crypto markets as we head into the final stretch of 2025. Is November shaping up to be a bullish rebound after "Downtober"? We break down Solana's historic leap onto Wall Street with Bitwise's record-setting Solana Staking ETF (BSOL), Grayscale's GSOL approval, and Western Union's move to build stablecoin payments on Solana. We also unpack the hype around NEAR's so-called Digital Asset Treasury (and why it's not the same as a true ETF), plus Blockworks' pivot from news to data, the broader wave of industry consolidation with M&A activities surging, and why Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana are the only assets truly leading this cycle. Expect real-talk market insights, skepticism where it's due, and an outlook ahead of Devconnect Buenos Aires. No hopium, no fluff: just what's happening in the trenches.

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res

Follow Juri: https://x.com/jurimaibaum

Listen now on Finality: The Business Lens on Decentralized Networks.

DISCLAIMER All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

In this episode of Finality, we explore how Linera is rethinking blockchain scalability and network economics for the next era of decentralized systems.

Host Juri Maibaum sits down with Mathieu Baudet, Founder & CEO of Linera and former researcher at Meta's Novi, to discuss how Linera's microchain architecture enables ultra-low-latency transactions and why it might be the ideal infrastructure for AI agents and machine-to-machine economies.

Together, they unpack:

• The origin story of Linera and the vision behind microchains

• How Linera's shared validator model ensures scalability and security

• Why microchains matter in an AI-driven world

• The network economics of Linera, including validator incentives and network sustainability

• What's next on Linera's testnet and roadmap

If you're interested in the intersection of blockchain scalability, economics, and the coming wave of autonomous systems, this episode is for you.

Listen now on Finality: The Business Lens on Decentralized Networks.

DISCLAIMER All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

Celestia, with its ticker $TIA, pioneered the modular blockchain thesis, separating consensus from execution and redefining how blockchains scale. Two years after its mainnet launch, how is the modular vision holding up, and can modular blockchains actually become profitable? What is a revival plan for $TIA?

In this first Finality interview, Viet, Head of Developer Relations at Celestia Labs, joins Juri Maibaum to discuss the economics, adoption, and challenges of building sustainable modular infrastructure.

Together, they unpack:

• How Celestia has evolved since its 2023 launch

• The lessons from the airdrop era and early hype

• What it takes to attract real builders and users

• The economics of modular ecosystems and validator incentives

• How Celestia plans to scale, grow, and stay relevant in 2026

If you care about the economics of decentralized infrastructure, from modular rollups to validator profitability, this episode is for you.

DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

Frens Validator is now Finality. After building one of the leading retail validators and staking integrations in the space, we decided to pivot. Earlier this year, Frens Validator was acquired by Swyke, which is why we are taking on a new path. We continue to run our own nodes, but with a crisper focus on research and media to explore the business and economics of decentralized networks. Over nearly four years in the Cosmos trenches, we've seen it all! Networks launched and died, incentives evolved, and communities transformed. It became clear to us that for decentralization to remain a relevant aspect in this industry, it needs sound economic rethinking. This is the core of Finality!

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res

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DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

The EigenLayer Token unlock of $EIGEN finally took place. But now the question is: what's next and what strategy should one follow? Accumulate more? Stake $EIGEN? Or sell? Is $EIGEN fairly rated at $4 Billion? What will the EigenLayer ecosystem look like in a few years from now and what does the EigenLayer roadmap look like? And what will the competition, like Symbiotic, do now?

This and much more will be discussed in today's episode!

Our EigenLayer Operator: https://app.eigenlayer.xyz/operator/0x4c77049f3142a55bf995b1b805ddae0052fd56e2

Follow Frens: https://x.com/frensvalidator

Follow DeFi Dojo: https://x.com/DefiDojoBlocks

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DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

Lava Network launched very recently and is about to become the access layer for blockchains. In today's episode, we sit down with Lava Network Co-Founder Yair Cleper and we are going to elaborate on what the access layer for blockchains means, why $LAVA has one of the most exciting tokenomics models in the industry, RPC Nodes, and so much more!

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res?s=11&t=m2h1zLW9V4LHEIlWIS7XQQ

Check out LAVA: https://www.lavanet.xyz/

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DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

What is TOKI and how is the project about to bring IBC to Ethereum and BNB Chain? Toki's testnet is about to go live very soon and the project is working on shipping IBC to corners of the crypto industry that are not associated with IBC whatsoever - Ethereum and BNB Chain. Today we are talking about how TOKI further develops IBC, why cross-chain transfers are so interesting for big financial players in Japan, Japanese stablecoins, the end goal of IBC, and so much more!

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res?s=11&t=m2h1zLW9V4LHEIlWIS7XQQ

Check out TOKI: https://toki.finance/

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DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

What is Vase Finance? Vase Finance is the liquid staking hub of Berachain for all PoS assets outside of the Berachain ecosystem, like $ETH, $TIA, $ATOM, and many more. The protocol even overcomes previously seen issues with liquid staking, such as governance voting rights issues. In today's episode, we uncover, together with DeFi Dojo, how Vase's novel approach aims to tackle these problems and drive true innovation in the liquid staking sector.

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res?s=11&t=m2h1zLW9V4LHEIlWIS7XQQ

Check out DeFi Dojo: https://thedefidojo.io/origins

Check out Vase Finance: www.vased.fi

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Time Stamps: 0:00 Intro 1:48 Overview Vase Finance 5:57 Lock-up Periods 7:58 Supported Assets at Launch 10:01 Choosing Validators 10:20 Interoperability to non-IBC Assets 12:14 Berachain LSTs 13:46 PoL Functionality 18:29 Cold Start & $BGT Bribes w. validators 22:39 Whitelisting PoL Assets 24:40 View on the Berachain DeFi ecosystem 27:40 Booga Bears 29:55 Dealing with validators 35:44 What's next? 40:30 Building on Berachain 43:30 How to start on Berachain 46:07 Outro

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DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.

What is the Union Network all about? Union is one of the most anticipated launches in the interchain as the project is about to bring interoperability via IBC to every corner of the crypto industry. In today's episode, we are going to talk about cross-chain asset transfers, ZK-cryptology, Union's most important integrations, Union's value accrual, horizontal scalability, and so much more!

Follow Finality: https://x.com/finality_res?s=11&t=m2h1zLW9V4LHEIlWIS7XQQ

Check out Union: https://union.build/

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DISCLAIMER

All information presented in this podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be treated as financial, legal, or tax advice. This podcast's content solely reflects the producer's opinion, who is not a financial advisor. Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky.