U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal announced a formal Senate inquiry into Binance 
after recent news reports revealed that the world’s largest cryptocurrency 
exchange allegedly facilitated nearly $1.7 billion in transactions tied to 
sanctioned Iranian entities and Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of…

U.S. senator launches inquiry into Binance’s alleged sanctions violations

Castle Labs is arguing that crypto’s long tail is structurally overbuilt and 
that most tokens will ultimately be priced toward zero unless they can prove 
real business traction and tighter token alignment. The thesis, published in a 
long X post, frames the current market as a selection phase rather than a 
broad-based recovery story. The core point is not that crypto itself is 
failing, but that token supply has far outpaced sustainable demand. Castle 
Labs says the result is a market where a handful of majors dominate while 
thousands of smaller assets compete for shrinking liquidity. Too Many Crypto 
Tokens Castle Labs points to concentration data to make the case. According to 
the post, the top five crypto assets account for 84.4% of total market 
capitalization, leaving the rest of the market with 15.6%, or roughly $330 
billion, spread across thousands of tokens. Related Reading: House Democrats 
Urge Treasury Probe Into Trump Family’s Crypto Venture It contrasts that with 
US equities, where the MAG7 represent 31% of the market and the S&amp;P 500 
represents 84.7%. In Castle Labs’ framing, crypto has reached roughly the same 
concentration level as the top 500 US companies, but with only five assets 
doing the heavy lifting. “Over the years, so many coins have been created that 
99% of them need to go to zero for the industry’s good,” the firm wrote. It 
adds that the mismatch has become harder to ignore for investors who bought 
into crypto’s institutional adoption narrative but remain deep underwater in 
alt-heavy portfolios. Castle Labs outlines three broad paths for rebalancing: 
majors lose share to smaller tokens, external liquidity lifts the broader 
market, or weaker tokens lose value while majors absorb more of the capital. 
It argues the third outcome is the most likely, even if the first would be 
healthier in theory. A major part of the argument is simple market mechanics. 
Castle Labs says token unlocks will continue to add supply into a market where 
demand is already selective, citing $8.51 billion in unlock value this year 
and $17.12 billion over the next five years. That overhang, it argues, is 
colliding with poor business performance across much of the sector. Out of 
more than 5,600 protocols listed on DeFiLlama, Castle Labs says only 76 
generated more than $1 million in revenue in the last 30 days, and only 237 
cleared $100,000. Revenue is concentrated too. The post says the top 10 
protocols in 2025 accounted for 80% of total crypto revenue, while the top 
three accounted for 64%, with Tether alone representing 44%. It also notes 
that only three of those top 10 revenue generators had launched tokens so far: 
Hyperliquid, Pumpfun, and Jupiter and says only HYPE materially outperformed. 
Related Reading: Goldman Sachs CEO Says US Must Codify How Crypto ‘Will 
Operate’ That backdrop helps explain Castle Labs’ skepticism toward new 
listings. It says there were about 118 major token launches in 2025, and 84.7% 
traded below their TGE valuation, which it describes as evidence of inflated 
launch pricing and weak post-launch structure. The Alignment Problem Castle 
Labs also argues the market is punishing tokens that are not economically 
aligned with the products they represent. It cites Circle’s acquisition of 
Interop Labs, where Axelar’s token AXL was not part of the deal, as an example 
of product value and token value diverging. “Tokens are not a legal 
representation of the business and don’t offer any actual rights over the 
company’s profits, unlike equity,” the firm wrote. “Investors, when they 
receive tokens, have these rights through the equity they hold. So they are in 
a better position, but token holders? They are at the project’s mercy when it 
comes to aligning their product with their token.” In that framework, buybacks 
are treated as one of the clearest signs of alignment. Castle Labs highlights 
Hyperliquid and Aave, and says Uniswap is only fully aligned with tokenholders 
after more than five years of its token’s existence. The firm’s conclusion is 
blunt but specific: capital should rotate toward protocols with real revenue, 
tokenholder alignment, and credible mechanisms to offset dilution. Whether 
that thesis holds in the next cycle may depend less on narrative and more on 
whether more projects adopt the kind of KPI- and revenue-led launch models 
Castle Labs says are now starting to emerge. At press time, the total crypto 
market cap stood at $2.16 trillion. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart 
from TradingView.com

Most Crypto Assets Need To Go To Zero, Research Firm Says

The White House has reaffirmed that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried will not 
receive a presidential pardon, even as the disgraced crypto founder publicly 
courts President Donald Trump through a sustained social media campaign. Sam 
Bankman-Fried’s Trump appeals fall flat…

Sam Bankman-Fried’s social media campaign fails to sway Trump on pardon

River reports that Bitcoin adoption surged in 2025, cementing it as a mature 
asset class, even as its price has halved since hitting a peak in October.

Bitcoin adoption is booming, even if its price isn’t: River

Hashkey Group has introduced a comprehensive real-world asset ( RWA) issuance 
platform aimed at strengthening Hong Kong’s role as a global tokenization hub. 
The solution integrates compliance, infrastructure, issuance, and trading 
under one regulated framework. Hong Kong Pushes Ahead in Real World Asset ( 
RWA) Tokenization Race Hashkey Group has rolled out a full-service Real-World 
[…]

Cryptocurrency price in CNY