🏈 Sunday snacks

Prediction markets meet derivatives law

Variant argues that US prediction markets are now colliding head-on with a derivatives framework built for a different era, reviving old questions about when speculation is “trading” versus “gambling,” who regulates it, and what counts as a “real” market. 

Legal ambiguity let early markets grow, but now caps their upside as the CFTC, courts, and state gambling laws collide over who controls “event contracts” and what’s allowed. The authors see three main fronts: how the CFTC formally classifies and restricts event markets, whether federal derivatives law preempts state gambling rules, and whether decentralized markets can be treated as compliant infrastructure rather than illegal off-exchange venues. 

They note some hopeful signs in the CFTC’s recent willingness to narrow prior overreach, but warn that uncertainty isn’t neutral: Without a clear, durable federal framework that legitimizes lawful event markets, builders will stay in a world of fragmented access, subject bans, and constant retroactive-enforcement risk instead of predictable rules.

Are L1s still overvalued? Hyperliquid’s end game and the state of the market

The Hivemind team breaks down the continued selloff in markets, from crypto to software. They dive deep into the historical L1 premium and the current market shift toward revenue-generating assets. 

The conversation shifts towards Hyperliquid’s strategy, praising HIP-3 traction but questioning whether the HyperEVM chain is even necessary. Finally, they discuss quantum threat to Bitcoin and Vitalik’s post on L2s. 

Helium Q4 token-holder report

Blockworks Advisory published a quarterly report on Helium’s Q4 2025 performance, highlighting the network’s transition from experimentation to durable, organic growth. Carrier Offload revenue grew 53% QoQ to $2.3 million, while HNT emissions declined 52% to $4.2 million following the August halving, improving the sustainable revenue to emissions ratio to 54.8%, a 27x improvement from 1.9% in Q4 2024. 

Daily active users averaged 1.62 million (+35% QoQ), peaking at an all-time high of 2.53 million on Dec. 20, while total data transfer reached 5,513 TB (+47.7% QoQ). Network utilization climbed to 76.9% from 62.5% in Q3, with the hotspot deployer base growing only 1.5%, demonstrating efficient demand absorption across existing infrastructure. 

The report also covered Helium Mobile’s discontinued discretionary DC burn experiment ($2.9 million in Q4) and highlighted ecosystem milestones, including the Mambo WiFi Brazil partnership, the Helium Plus launch lowering barriers to network participation, and multiple industry awards validating Helium’s positioning as a scalable, cost-efficient layer within telecom infrastructure.

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Don’t miss SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins’ keynote on Day 1.