Why Crypto Changed Forever | Roundup

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  July 03, 2026 at 13:00  |  58:44  |  Bell Curve
Speakers
Mike Ippolito — Co-founder, Blockworks
Xavier — Host
Myles O'Neil — Guest

Summary

Bell Curve hosts Mike Ippolito, Myles O'Neil, and Xavier discuss how crypto has changed over five years as US regulation opens, incumbents move up and down the stack, and industry consolidation separates real businesses from failed experiments. They debate defensibility, stablecoin chains, L1 value accrual, Base vs Arc, and whether tokenized equity and earlier-stage access define crypto success. Market implications center on neutral L1s, application-layer order-flow protocols like Hyperliquid and Morpho, and Coinbase/Base's positioning.

  • US regulatory opening has de-risked crypto and changed the customer base for crypto products.
  • Incumbents and apps are moving up and down the stack, making defensibility harder for startups.
  • Stablecoin issuance is commoditizing, with value potentially shifting to apps that control order flow.
  • Stablecoin and consortium chains face coordination and cold-start challenges.
  • Neutral L1 base layers like Ethereum and Solana are framed as long-term value capture points.
  • Solana is favored over Ethereum near-term by one host due to fee-generation alignment.
  • Base and Coinbase are viewed as well-positioned relative to Circle's Arc.
  • Tokenized equity and earlier-stage access are framed as the long-term winning outcome.
Ideas
Xavier Host 25:23
Hyperliquid, Morpho benefit from stablecoin abundance.
Stablecoin issuance is commoditizing and dollars coming on-chain will flow to applications that control order flow or lending/borrowing. Hyperliquid in trading and Morpho in lending stand to benefit as value capture shifts away from stablecoin issuers to these applications.
MORPHO HYPE MED
Xavier Host 31:25
Base beats Arc; Coinbase captures value.
He predicts Base chain will be more valuable than Circle's Arc because stablecoin issuance is commoditizing and value accrues to chains and application ecosystems. Coinbase already has end users, the execution layer, potential apps, and the x402 standard, so he would put money on Base and expects Coinbase to capture value at the chain/network level.
BASE COIN MED
Xavier Host 34:04
Still bullish Solana and Ethereum network effects.
He remains bullish on Solana and Ethereum because chain network effects, applications, distribution, composability, trust, state, liquidity, and wallets make them valuable. Solana's rise was driven by applications and composability, while Ethereum's base-layer trust is underrated.
SOL ETH MED
Mike Ippolito Co-founder, Blockworks 34:42
Circle should focus on USDC.
Circle's network effects are at the USDC asset layer, not in its Arc chain. Tether's strategy of not overbuilding tech is better; Circle keeps building unused products, and if it signaled focus on USDC, the market would appreciate it. He does not like Arc for Circle and sees the story as conditional on better strategy.
CRCL MED
Mike Ippolito Co-founder, Blockworks 39:33
Long neutral L1s as consortiums fail.
Neutral L1 base layers are incredible buys because consortium and stablecoin-chain efforts should fail from misaligned incentives, and value ultimately settles at neutral, fee-generating layers with long track records. He is bullish on Ethereum and Solana, sees Hyperliquid as a possible entrant, and says he currently prefers Solana over Ethereum because Anatoly aligns on fee generation while Ethereum needs to fix value accrual, though he is still bullish on ETH long-term from a sentiment nadir.
ETH SOL HIGH
Mike Ippolito Co-founder, Blockworks 39:33
Long neutral L1s as consortiums fail.
Neutral L1 base layers are incredible buys because consortium and stablecoin-chain efforts should fail from misaligned incentives, and value ultimately settles at neutral, fee-generating layers with long track records. He is bullish on Ethereum and Solana, sees Hyperliquid as a possible entrant, and says he currently prefers Solana over Ethereum because Anatoly aligns on fee generation while Ethereum needs to fix value accrual, though he is still bullish on ETH long-term from a sentiment nadir.
HYPE HIGH
Myles O'Neil Guest 44:42
Headless Morpho wins incumbent backends.
Smart contracts work and incumbents are reluctant to build everything themselves, so they can outsource backend yield/trading/lending to headless protocols like Morpho. The bull case is that these protocols service the back end for large incumbents rather than competing for end users.
MORPHO MED
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This Bell Curve video, published July 03, 2026, features Xavier, Mike Ippolito, Myles O'Neil discussing MORPHO, HYPE, BASE, COIN, SOL, ETH, CRCL. 7 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Xavier, Mike Ippolito, Myles O'Neil  · Tickers: MORPHO, HYPE, BASE, COIN, SOL, ETH, CRCL