builders

Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua published an article discussing the current state of the cryptocurrency primary market. He stated that the main reasons for the decline of the cryptocurrency primary market are: "First, the narrative has collapsed; from white papers to institutional endorsements to TVL manipulation, the basic market is no longer buying in. Second, there is a supply imbalance; now there are tens of thousands of projects, and it is extremely difficult for excellent projects to emerge. Third, the 1 plus 3 unlocking mechanism essentially targets VCs, allowing projects, market makers, and exchanges to run first. Fourth, the cost of listing coins; now primary projects require high valuations and large financing mainly because of several leading centralized exchanges going live, with an average cost needing tens of millions of dollars."Yi Lihua believes that industry leaders need to truly focus on building, such as improving the coin listing selection method on Binance. Under the current model, even if Vitalik Buterin's ETH were to come today, it would not be able to list on Binance. Additionally, the 1 plus 3 unlocking mechanism should be completely abolished; VCs bear the greatest risk and should not be burdened with the worst unlocking terms, as the success or failure of a project is fundamentally not determined by VCs.Finally, cryptocurrency projects need to return to real revenue and buybacks. The sustained prosperity of the U.S. stock market over the years is primarily due to performance growth and the encouragement of shareholder returns. This is what industry leaders should be doing, allowing secondary market investors to truly find quality projects.

Cosmos Ventures, a venture capital firm, has announced its establishment. Brendan McCord and Matt Mandel launched Fund I with a scale of $77.6 million, which will support philosopher-type builders who establish institutions for the AI era. McCord is the founder of Cosmos Institute and Cosmos Ventures, while Mandel comes from Union Square Ventures. The fund has invested in AIUC, Prime Intellect, Workshop Labs (which has been acquired by Thinking Machines), and an undisclosed education company. LPs include Reid Hoffman, Joe Liemandt, Stand Together, Fred Wilson, Micky Malka, and Astera Institute.Cosmos Ventures stated that AI represents the largest institutional building window since the founding of the United States. The world has previously developed around the assumption of intelligence being bound to humanity, and AI is breaking this binding, with many necessary institutions yet to be established. Institutional coding theorizes how to live together, and founders must answer normative questions that machines cannot answer and become philosopher-type builders. The institution proposes the slogan for the AI era, "Condere aude," which means dare to create.

Jack Dorsey's payment company Block has applied to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. If approved, the bank will become an uninsured national trust bank directly regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), focusing on providing custody and trust services for Bitcoin and stablecoins, without accepting deposits or issuing loans.The application is still pending OCC approval, and the OCC's public list of digital asset license applications currently includes 11 pending applications (submitted between February 23 and August 19), which does not yet include Builders Bank. Previously, the OCC conditionally approved five national trust applications in December 2025, including Circle's First National Digital Currency Bank and Ripple, as well as conversion applications from BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos; Circle received final approval in July of this year.The Bank Policy Institute (BPI), representing large banks, had previously opposed a series of limited-purpose national trust license applications, arguing that companies should not obtain trust licenses unless they plan to operate a true trust company, and warned against using the license as a lightly regulated pathway for bank-like products. Block stated that Builders Bank will not begin operations until it receives the necessary regulatory approvals.

Consumer-grade blockchain Abstract announces the launch of Builder XP, an extension of its XP system, aimed at rewarding builders who contribute to the Abstract ecosystem. This mechanism allocates Builder XP weekly based on the project's overall impact on the chain.Builder XP will further incentivize developers and project parties to continue building, promoting the development of the Abstract ecosystem. Abstract is created by the Pudgy Penguins team, focusing on consumer-grade crypto applications and on-chain experiences.

According to the official announcement, Gate's DEX infrastructure platform Gate DexBuilder has officially launched its first event contract Builder and initiated a $3 million funding program, open for global project parties, developers, communities, and Web3 applications to collaborate, promoting the ecological construction of the event contract market.The event contract Builder is dedicated to lowering the development threshold for market products, providing partners with integrated infrastructure services covering market creation, trading, liquidity support, settlement, and operational management. Through infrastructure services such as APIs and SDKs, partners can quickly deploy branded event contract products without building the underlying trading and settlement systems from scratch.Currently, the program is open for applications from brokers and comprehensive trading platforms, crypto wallets, Web3 applications, media information platforms, AI Trading, AI Agents, quantitative trading platforms, as well as sports, esports, and entertainment products. Selected projects can receive up to $3 million in funding and ecological resource support, covering product research and development, technical integration, liquidity building, market promotion, and user growth.Jason Fung, the project leader of Gate DexBuilder and Head of Global Partnerships, stated that the development of the event contract market requires more application scenarios and infrastructure support. Gate DexBuilder hopes to lower the construction threshold through the event contract Builder, helping more partners explore innovative applications in the event contract market. In the future, Gate DexBuilder will continue to open up the infrastructure capabilities of the event contract market, working with global Builders to explore more innovative application scenarios and promote further development of the market ecosystem.

DWF Labs co-founder Andrei Grachev tweeted that the current market is in a "very boring" phase, where most participants can tweet, play memes, or discuss philosophy, but the truly valuable activities are mostly happening quietly, including financing, trading, investing, and business development.He pointed out that this market environment makes it difficult for large projects, exchanges, and companies to make new listings or significant announcements, as high-profile actions often do not yield good results at this time. He suggested that portfolios should remain patient and wait for better opportunities.Grachev emphasized that the market is not heading towards extinction. For now, it only provides great opportunities for those boring activities, such as buying Bitcoin and holding it long-term, or participating in the hype of altcoins. The final decision is yours, but most people end up buying high and selling low anyway. He concluded that there is still much to do as a builder or investor, while small retail investors should keep learning, not cry in the casino, and enjoy this market we chose to enter.

Zhao Changpeng stated in a Chinese AMA that the BNB ecosystem is relatively stable and large. It is something to be proud of that there are many active builders in the BNB ecosystem. The price potential of BNB is still very large, and he still holds a significant amount of BNB, but he cannot provide a specific target price.

According to Cryptobriefing, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cryptocurrency working group will visit Miami on January 27 to engage directly with early crypto project builders.The working group is touring multiple cities to gather feedback from project teams on policy reforms, aiming to establish a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce stated that the working group will actively interact with the crypto industry to develop a clear regulatory framework for digital assets.

CZ posted on the X platform, stating, "Builders build." He also cited a report from Fortune magazine that Binance accepts BlackRock's BUIDL as collateral.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, YZi Labs has announced the establishment of a $1 billion builder fund to double down on supporting the BNB ecosystem, especially the founders on the BNB Chain.By leveraging the high-performance, low-cost infrastructure of BNB Chain, builders can now access enhanced tools, funding, integrations, and a user ecosystem of over 460 million to drive real-world impact. The upcoming EASY Residency Season 2: the final recruitment is dedicated to the most valuable builders (MVB) focused on BNB-based innovations (trading, RWA, AI, DeSci, DeFi, payments, wallets). EASY Residency Season 2 will expand operations to New York, San Francisco, Dubai, and Singapore, aiming to create a highly engaged, immersive product delivery environment for builders.

ChainCatcher news, according to official Twitter news, the TRON ecosystem's July influence ranking has been released, with 50 outstanding contributors sharing a reward pool of $28,000, among which six innovative leaders will receive an additional $5,000 special reward for their outstanding performance.It is reported that this selection covers multiple dimensions such as content creation and community interaction, and all qualifying participants will receive a basic reward of 100 TRX. This program will continue to promote the growth of innovative talents in Web3 and support the prosperous development of the decentralized ecosystem. The new round of incentive programs for August has been launched simultaneously, and the platform will provide more growth opportunities and resource support for ecological co-builders.

ChainCatcher news, the token issuance platform Believe announced that it will invest $1 million in the coming months to support high-potential builders and the builder community through scholarships, hackathons, and targeted incentives.