In this episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn Melinek speaks with Saeed Badreg, CEO of Wormhole Labs, about how the incubated Sunrise project helps asset issuers gain distribution and reach users across blockchains, with a particular focus on the Solana ecosystem. Saeed explains why the team built Sunrise as a turnkey solution for projects struggling to penetrate closed blockchain ecosystems, and how Wormhole's Native Token Transfer (NTT) framework enables assets to move across chains without wrapped tokens or fragmented liquidity.

He walks through the difference between wrapped and native tokens, why provenance and trust matter more than marketing terminology, and how Sunrise launched with Monad's MON token, among others, to provide day-one liquidity on Solana. The conversation covers why global institutions are accelerating crypto adoption faster than expected, how countries are modeling regulatory frameworks after the US Genius Act and pending Clarity Act, when price discovery for major assets will move onchain, and Saeed's three-part framework for evaluating teams.This episode is a part of the Solana Sessions campaign that Token Relations and the Talking Tokens podcast are doing, diving into founders’ journeys and startups building on Solana. Check out the accompanying newsletter on www.token-relations.com

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Intro
(01:49) What Sunrise is and how it helps asset issuers with distribution
(02:40) Pain points preventing non-native tokens from creating great trading markets on other chains
(03:00) What distribution means for asset issuers across blockchain ecosystems
(04:08) Why Solana is hard to penetrate, despite being the second biggest blockchain
(04:46) How Sunrise provides turnkey solutions for reaching Solana's user base and enabling free flow of capital
(06:01) Why Wormhole cares about economic activity in crypto in aggregate
(06:23) Wrapped versus native tokens and why provenance matters more than marketing speak
(07:11) Who controls assets on different blockchains and trust in intermediaries
(08:14) How Wormhole's Native Token Transfer framework works
(09:38) Why liquidity fragmentation is the challenge for tokens bridging across chains
(11:06) Sunrise solving distribution, go-to-market, and technical challenges
(12:34) Monad's MON token as Sunrise's first major launch
(14:21) Why centralized exchanges still dominate price discovery today
(16:02) When liquidity onchain will compete with centralized venues
(17:35) How Wormhole measures success and adoption
(19:43) Regulatory environment improving and institutional adoption accelerating globally
(21:58) Countries modeling crypto regulation after the US Genius Act
(24:06) Building for volatility and focusing on 1-2 year product roadmaps
(26:37) Wormhole's technology solving real problems for customers
(28:44) Vision for assets, liquidity, and markets to move freely across ecosystems
(30:52) Expansion plans for Sunrise beyond crypto to commodities, stocks, and RWAs
(33:00) How Saeed's vision evolved since becoming CEO in 2023
(34:35) Surprising pace of global institutional adoption over the past year
(36:20) What Saeed is focused on in 2026
(36:41) Timeline for price discovery moving onchain: within three years
(38:15) Three-part framework for evaluating teams: technical soundness, go-to-market acumen, and understanding financial markets

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