What Wall Street Actually Wants from Crypto | Bart Smith & Laine Litman
On today's Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Bart Smith and Laine Litman, CEO and COO of AVAT, the Avalanche Treasury Company, two traditional finance veterans who both spent years watching institutions talk about crypto before finally deciding to go all in themselves. Bart and Laine get into what makes AVAT different from the pile of treasury companies trying to copy the MicroStrategy model, and why their bet is on giving investors exposure to the whole Avalanche ecosystem rather than just stacking the token. Institutional conversations almost always start as investment discussions and quickly turn into implementation discussions, but the Clarity Act might be the unlock most people aren't paying close enough attention to. TIMESTAMPS 02:49 From ETFs to Crypto 05:48 Laine's Path from Voice Trading to Blockchain 09:00 Why AVAT Is Not Another MicroStrategy 13:40 The Private Market Problem 14:57 What Institutional Conversations Look Like Right Now 28:43 The Role of Debt Structure in a Bear Market 35:39 AI, Agentic Payments, and What to Watch in 2026
You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review — it really helps. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TalkingTokens Follow us on X Jacquelyn: / jacqmelinek Talking Tokens: / _talkingtokens Follow us on Instagram / _talkingtokens Note: This podcast is for informational purposes only. Views shared are opinions, not financial advice. The host or guests may have financial interests in discussed content.
What Wall Street Actually Wants from Crypto | Bart Smith & Laine Litman
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On this edition of Strata Research, Jacquelyn sits down with institutional research analyst Alex Beaudry to dig into crypto cards, which many assumed were built for consumers but are actually seeing most traction from institutions. Alex breaks down why the developed market consumer card is basically a feature in search of a need, what Visa is building that could change the equation, and why onchain credit could be the piece of this stack that makes or breaks the whole argument. TIMESTAMPS: 01:21 - What a crypto card actually is and how it works under the hood 03:04 - Why the developed market consumer card hasn't taken off — and may never 07:22 - Where the real value actually is: B2B and institutional usage 08:39 - The acquisition wave and why infrastructure is the real prize 11:46 - Onchain credit: what works and what's still broken 14:01 - What to watch over the next 6–24 months You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review — it really helps. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TalkingTokens Follow us on X Jacquelyn: / jacqmelinek Talking Tokens: / _talkingtokens Follow us on Instagram / _talkingtokens Note: This podcast is for informational purposes only. Views shared are opinions, not financial advice. The host or guests may have financial interests in discussed content.
Evernorth Has 473 Million XRP And An Argument to Why Idle Capital Should Not Exist | Asheesh Birla
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Why Aave V4 Is Built Like a Central Bank for DeFi | Stani Kulechov
On today's Talking Tokens, we're sharing Jacquelyn’s Proof of Talk chat with Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave Labs, to break down why Aave V4 moved away from a single monolithic protocol toward a hub and spoke model that works more like a central bank. Stani gets into why a lot of centralized lenders didn't hold up through both the FTX collapse and last October's market unwind. Then Stani explains why he thinks the next real growth phase for DeFi comes from financing things like AI infrastructure, tokenized equity, and credit for businesses that have never had access to capital this efficient before. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction to Aave and Stani Kulechov 03:09 Evolution from Aave V3 to Aave V4 06:03 Risk Management in DeFi 08:45 Building Network Resilience 11:58 Aave V4 and Corporate Treasury Management 14:48 Tokenized Assets and Aave Horizon 18:11 Institutional Interest in Tokenization 20:52 Mainstream Adoption of DeFi 24:02 Future Vision for Aave You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review — it really helps. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TalkingTokens Follow us on X Jacquelyn: / jacqmelinek Talking Tokens: / _talkingtokens Follow us on Instagram / _talkingtokens Note: This podcast is for informational purposes only. Views shared are opinions, not financial advice. The host or guests may have financial interests in discussed content.