On this Market Cap episode, our Director of Institutional BD Stefano Sanabria speaks with Tika Lum, Head of Global BD at KuCoin.

KuCoin ranks top 10 among centralized exchanges globally in 24/7 trading volume and serves 40 million users worldwide.

At KuCoin Institutional the exchange serves professional clients, offering tailored access to liquidity, advanced trading infrastructure, and specialized programs such as VIP tiers, broker solutions, and market maker support.

Chapters
0:00 KuCoin’s First Institutional Hire
6:24 The Institutional Stack Beyond Just Market Makers
8:43 “Institution Business Is No BS”
12:21 HFTs Connect To Exchanges, Not Prime Brokers
17:49 Delta Neutral Saturation And No More Arbitrage
21:45 Crypto Needs Holders Instead Of Trading Flows
26:52 Institutional Flows Changed KuCoin’s Strategy
31:41 SMA Model Connecting Capital To Trading Teams
35:18 RWA Took Off Once Wall Street Understood
43:19 KuCoin’s Next Push Into Institutional Wealth

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On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

On this Market Cap episode, our Director of Institutional BD Stefano Sanabria speaks with Laszlo Szabo, Co-founder and CEO at Kiln.

Kiln is a leading institutional onchain asset and yield management platform, enabling institutions to generate yield on their digital assets, surpassing 18 billion USD in assets delegated last year.

They offer a comprehensive suite of yield products, real-time reporting, and monetization tools that help custodians, wallets, exchanges, and asset managers streamline onchain operations.

Chapters
0:00 From Recruitment To $18B In Delegations
2:58 Why Kiln Ignored Retail And Went Full B2B
8:41 Shift From “Just Staking” To Full Onchain Yield Infra
12:34 Ethereum Wants Less ETH Staked, Not More
14:58 Turning 2.5% Staking Into 4.5% Yield
16:05 Circle’s Arc And Stripe’s Tempo Signal A New Era
24:41 Convergence Of Coinbase and Revolut
28:43 Why Stablecoins Became The Growth Market
31:58 The Core Problem With Morpho Vaults For RWAs
35:07 Railnet: Mixing Liquid DeFi With Illiquid RWAs

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On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

On this Market Cap episode, our Director of Institutional Services Stefano Sanabria speaks with John Cho, CEO at Ratio and Chief Stablecoin Officer at Kaia Foundation.

Ratio is an onchain foreign exchange orchestration layer for Asia, providing a unified infrastructure that helps financial institutions, payment platforms, and wallets move value across borders through stablecoins.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
0:00 Why Money20/20 Feels Nothing Like Token2049
4:12 Hundreds of Millions LINE and Kakao Users
8:46 Finding Real Consumer Problems and Solutions
13:27 Asian Tigers 2.0 And Intra-Asian Trade
18:42 Asia’s Stablecoin Race For Real-World Edge
22:50 Migrant Workers Haircut By Remittance Fees
29:15 Cost Compression To Financial Democratization
32:42 Rebuilding Trillion-Dollar FX Markets Onchain
44:02 Why Consumer Crypto Stopped Making Sense
48:05 The Endgame: No More On And Off Ramps

On this Market Cap episode, our Director of Institutional Services Stefano Sanabria speaks with Mark Gerhart, Business Development Lead at Dialectic.

Dialectic is a crypto asset manager running a traditional quant fund alongside actively managed, risk-aware onchain vault strategies.

Dialectic is focusing increasingly on flexible vault infrastructure and sourcing yield from real-world assets as crypto market inefficiencies compress.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
1:25 RWAs Need Better Packaging To Work On DeFi Rails
2:40 “Everyone’s Unemployed” Means Consolidation
6:00 Institutions Were Here Since Coinbase Days
13:30 How Dialectic Actually Generates Returns
18:30 Mapping Hidden Risk To Avoid Another Blow Up
24:30 Trust Me Bro NAV and Hard Set Parameters
36:30 Six Month Social Engineering Attack Broke Drift
41:40 Why 3% On Aave Makes No Sense Vs T-Bills
57:00 FINMA License And What It Unlocks For Dialectic

On this Market Cap episode, our Director of Institutional Services Stefano Sanabria speaks with David Lawant, Head of Research at Anchorage Digital.

Anchorage Digital is a key crypto infrastructure provider for institutions to securely hold, move, and actively use digital assets.

Positioned at the intersection of custody, staking, and market access, it’s helping shift crypto from passive exposure to a fully integrated financial system.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
01:44 Real vs Perceived Crypto Momentum
05:22 Late-Stage Bear Market Psychology and Fatigue
10:44 Crypto Institutionalization through a TradFi Lens
16:17 What Anchorage Actually Does Beyond Custody
20:45 Who Anchorage Really Serves Across The Market
22:48 Why Institutions Need External Research Partners
31:09 Market Apathy in Volumes and Leverage
35:37 Everyone thinks BTC will Chop 60–80k
38:30 Options Boom: Yield Strategies
48:23 Signals that Confirm a Market Regime Shift
54:06 Directions for Future Research

On this Market Cap episode our Director of Institutional Services, Stefano Sanabria, speaks with CJ Fong, APAC General Manager at GSR.

GSR is a global crypto capital markets partner founded in 2013 that trades digital assets across spot and derivatives markets and invests in blockchain startups.

The firm works with exchanges, institutional investors, and token issuers to structure and support trading as new crypto assets come to market.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
00:20 Introduction to GSR
01:15 Reflections on Consensus Hong Kong
03:23 CJ at Nomura, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan
09:44 GSR's Business Model and Evolution
17:25 The Importance of Regulation and Licenses
19:38 Adoption, Credit Curves and Open Source
22:48 Defining and Maturing Capital Markets
26:08 Understanding APAC Market Dynamics
32:22 Diversifying Across Sustainable Business Lines
38:08 Agile Tactics Within a Strategic Vision

Links
https://gsr.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuanjinfong

On this Market Cap episode our Director of Institutional Services, Stefano Sanabria, speaks with Sam MacPherson, CEO and Co-founder at Phoenix Labs, the core development team behind Spark.

Spark is the lending protocol within the Sky ecosystem that enables users to supply assets, borrow the USDS stablecoin, and access onchain liquidity markets.

It functions as the capital markets layer of Sky, directing stablecoin liquidity across DeFi while aligning borrowing demand, yield generation, and protocol revenue.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
00:20 Introduction: Spark, Sky, and Phoenix Labs
01:16 Sam's Background and Entry into Crypto
04:14 Lessons from MakerDAO and DAO Governance
07:28 The Sky Sub-DAO Model Explained
10:27 What Spark Does in the Ecosystem
13:26 Institutional Lending and DeFi Borrowers
17:25 Spark Prime and the Funding Rate Opportunity
23:10 Risk Frameworks and DAO Governance
28:26 Misleading Metrics in DeFi
33:07 A Decade in Crypto: Lessons from the Cycles
41:32 Macro Outlook and the Future of Stablecoins
44:38 What’s Next for Spark and Closing

Links
https://spark.fi/
https://sky.money/
https://x.com/sparkdotfi
https://x.com/hexonaut

On this Market Cap episode we speak with Greg Schvey, COO at Yuma.
Yuma powers projects within the @bittensor ecosystem.

Their mission is to create positive economic and societal change by connecting transformative ideas to decentralized intelligence.

They do so by helping promising teams access capital, technical resources, and community support to build on decentralized AI.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Yuma and Greg
03:25 Greg's Journey in Fintech and Crypto
06:21 Transitioning to Yuma and Bittensor
09:30 Understanding Bittensor's Ecosystem
12:26 Yuma's Business Model and Revenue Generation
16:25 Managing Risks in a Volatile Market
19:24 Insights from the Bittensor Network
24:13 Challenging Common Views on AI and Crypto
30:21 Market Trends and Future Outlook
35:25 Yuma's Upcoming Initiatives and Collaborations

Links
https://www.yumaai.com/
https://www.yumaai.com/updates/yuma-composite-index

On this Market Cap episode we speak with Bernard Schmid, Co-founder at Areta.

Areta is a digital assets investment banking firm supporting crypto companies across M&A, capital markets, and onchain services.

They lead execution for mergers and acquisitions, from deal preparation and financial modeling to investor outreach and stakeholder management.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters00:00 Introduction to Areta
01:50 Bernard's Background and Experience
09:29 Areta's Business Model and Operations
15:39 Compensation Models in Investment Banking
22:03 Risk Management Strategies in M&A
22:32 Unique Practices and Strategic Focus of Areta
26:47 Market Dynamics and Strategic Shifts
34:04 Secondaries Insights and OTC Data
38:06 Regulatory Impacts and Future Directions
46:31 Areta's Focus and Upcoming Initiatives

On this Market Cap episode we speak with Sidney Powell, Co-founder and CEO at Maple.

Maple is a blockchain-based decentralized credit marketplace and onchain asset manager.

They connect pools of capital with institutional and professional borrowers seeking structured financing.

Maple combines automated smart contract execution with traditional credit underwriting practices.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Maple
03:27 Sid's Background in TradFi
06:16 The Role of AI in Maple's Operations
09:12 The Journey to Founding Maple
12:09 Understanding Maple's Business Model
15:11 Risk Management in Lending
18:23 Current Market Constraints
21:11 Capital vs Adoption
23:30 Challenging Industry Norms
27:23 Generational TradFi Gap
30:11 Tokenized Private Credit
32:07 What Bets To Double Down On
36:08 Leadership and Team Philosophy
41:16 Growing To Top Asset Manager

On this Market Cap episode we spoke with Hanson Birringer, Head of Sales US at Flowdesk.

Flowdesk is a regulated digital asset trading and technology firm that provides liquidity provision, over-the-counter trading, and treasury management services across centralized and decentralized markets.

It has engineered a proprietary trading infrastructure and algorithmic execution platform designed to connect token issuers, exchanges, and institutions to global liquidity with a compliance-first approach.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Flowdesk and Hanson Birringer
01:33 Hanson's Journey into Crypto and Flowdesk
07:30 Understanding Flowdesk's Business Model
11:40 Navigating Market Constraints and Regulations
18:38 Market Insights and Trends in Crypto
22:57 Understanding Market Making and OTC
31:24 Navigating the Evolving Crypto Landscape
39:50 Future Directions for Flowdesk and the Market

We spoke with Joshua Lim, Co-Head of Markets, and Martin Gaspar, Market Strategist at FalconX.

FalconX is a digital asset prime broker providing execution, financing, and liquidity access across spot and derivatives markets to institutions.

It serves hedge funds, asset managers, and corporate clients, connecting them to global crypto venues with integrated trading and risk infrastructure.

On Market Cap we feature firms and funds to explore the thinking that guides them, the patterns they observe, and other forces moving the markets.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to FalconX
01:27 Backgrounds of Joshua Lim and Martin Gaspar
03:36 Prime Brokerage in Digital Assets and FalconX
10:39 Observed Market Insights and Trends
20:35 Impact of October 10 and Unwind
29:36 Client Shifts and Flight To Safety
37:36 Next 6 Months for FalconX