Summary
AI agents are becoming customers. At our annual summit, founders from World, Alchemy, OpenMind, Figure, Ondo and more showed how blockchains solve the problems agents create: payments, identity, ownership and markets that never close.
Fission fixes the exit problem in tokenized funds. Investors can sell in about 90 seconds instead of waiting around 200 days for a redemption. Pantera led its $10M Series A.
Markets. ICE moved to bring Hyperliquid perps to the U.S. through trade[XYZ], with Stan Druckenmiller backing the effort. DTCC switched on its tokenization service.
Earlier this month, we brought our LPs, founders, and partners together for our annual summit. The theme was Money, Markets, and Machines. It captures where Pantera sits today: still rooted in the belief that money is software, and now watching software become an economic actor in its own right.
I’ve been investing alongside Dan since 2014. Our edge has never been predicting a single breakthrough. It’s sequencing how a new technology gets adopted, layer by layer, and positioning ahead of each one. I used my time on stage to walk through that sequence and explain why it’s converging with AI.
The New Customer
The next shift is already here: humans are no longer the only customers.
My partner Franklin Bi recently wrote about the coming wave of 80 billion customers. That figure assumes just 10 AI agents per person, and plenty of people in our room already run more than that. The data supports it. Cloudflare reports that automated systems now make the majority of requests for web content, reaching 61% in a recent reading. Morgan Stanley projects agentic shoppers could capture up to 20% of U.S. online retail by 2030, or as much as $385 billion in spending.
Every shift this large creates new problems. How does an agent pay? How do we know who’s human? Who authorized an agent to spend, and who owns what it creates? Today’s systems weren’t built to answer those questions at this scale. Blockchains were.
What We Heard on Stage
We built the agenda around those questions, and many of the answers came from founders we’ve backed.
The machine economy. Daryl Xu of B3, Ryan Li of Surf AI, and Bera Sogut of Orthogonal opened the day on agents as active market participants. Later, Nikil Viswanathan of Alchemy sized up agentic payments as a $3 trillion opportunity, and Jan Liphardt of OpenMind made the case for making robots useful.
Proof of humanity. Alex Blania of World took on identity in an AI world. Zain Zaidi of TransCrypts and Ajay Patel of World followed with what zero-trust verification looks like inside the enterprise.
Stablecoins at work. Luca Prosperi of M0 and Daniel Lev of Coinflow covered what happens when digital dollars go global.
Markets that never close. Ian de Bode of Ondo Finance, Jon Shaffer of Fission, and Harsehaj Singh of Lumena Labs dug into tokenization and 24/7 markets.
Institutions and capital markets. The S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index kicked off the afternoon. David Schamis of Hyperliquid Strategies covered the rise of perps, Will Peck of WisdomTree and Robert Harrington of Cantor discussed institutional adoption, and Torey Korsunsky of Novig asked whether prediction markets are just sports. Mike Cagney of Figure closed the day on the evolution of capital markets.
Policy. Patrick Witt of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets and Kristin Smith of the Solana Policy Institute shared the regulatory outlook heading into the midterms.
The convergence. AI companies increasingly need what blockchains already provide: payments without a bank account, proof that a person is human, ownership machines can read, and markets that run around the clock.
No Closing Bell: Fission
Tokenization has made funds easier to issue, distribute, and settle. Liquidity hasn’t kept pace. Many tokenized private-market funds still rely on redemption windows that are infrequent and often capped. Jon Shaffer told Fortune that some of these products take around 200 days to fully redeem.
Fission closes that gap by acting as the principal buyer. Eligible investors connect a wallet, receive a quote, and settle in USDC in about 90 seconds or less, for a fee. They don’t wait for another buyer or the next redemption date. Today most customers are institutions already holding supported funds, including hedge funds, crypto treasuries, and stablecoin issuers. The platform is built for permissioned markets, so investor eligibility and transfer restrictions stay intact.
The same day as our summit, Fission announced its $10 million Series A, led by Pantera with participation from Circle Ventures, Borderless Capital, Ari Rubenstein, and existing backers New Form and gumi Cryptos Capital. As Franklin put it, Fission can help turn tokenized funds from digital copies of legacy products into assets that are more liquid and more productive.
Message to Founders
If you’re building in this space, here’s what we’re looking for.
Build for the new customer. Agents will soon outnumber people online. In Alex Blania’s words, “It’ll hit us like a tsunami.” These agents need to pay, prove who they act for, and own what they produce. The teams that make those things work at machine speed will build the defining companies of the next cycle.
Don’t stop at putting assets onchain. Tokenization is step one. The real value comes from what happens after: liquidity, collateral, and markets that never close. Fission is a good example. It took a problem everyone accepted as normal and solved it with a better product.
Build for institutions from day one. Our summit stage had Ondo, Figure, WisdomTree, Cantor, and a White House advisor alongside crypto-native founders. That mix is the market now.
We’ve backed founders through every shift since 2013, from bitcoin to tokens to stablecoins to tokenized markets. We’re ready for the next one. If you’re building where AI meets blockchain, reach out. We’d love to hear what you’re working on.
What I’m Watching
November 3. The midterms decide CLARITY’s next shot. Analysts see the post-election lame-duck session as the most likely path to a presidential signature this year. If that window closes, builders keep working through the SEC’s exemptions instead.
November 9. Kalshi’s response to New Jersey’s Supreme Court petition is due. Whether the Court takes the case decides if event contracts get one national rulebook or fifty state ones.
Issuer objections. One of the first tokenized securities venues published its launch notice on October 4. The first 30-day objection windows close soon. Then we’ll see which public companies let their stock trade onchain and which say no.
Business
Binance Hit by the Largest Crypto Hack on Record
On October 29, an attacker moved roughly $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets across ten blockchains, about four times the size of the 2025 Bybit hack. TRM attributes the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group. Binance says about $3 billion is frozen, and Co-CEO Yi He pledged to cover all user losses. Bitcoin slid below $77,000 and BNB fell about 7% on the news.
Bitcoin ETFs Turn October Negative
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $635 million on October 22, their biggest one-day exit since June, which pushed October flows below zero. Fund assets still sat around $104 billion in mid-October. Allocators are trimming, not leaving.
SoFi’s Crypto Business Passes 500,000 Accounts
SoFi’s crypto business topped 500,000 accounts less than a year after relaunching, and its shares rose 11% on the news. Gross crypto revenue reached $162 million. Regulated fintechs are turning crypto into a core product line.
Regulation
Reg CA Comments Close, the Door Stays Open
The formal comment window on Regulation Crypto Assets closed October 20, but an SEC spokesperson said the agency will keep accepting feedback. The SEC received about 140 submissions. California’s DFPI pushed back, warning the fundraising exemptions could weaken state oversight.
SEC Staff Clarifies the Innovation Exemption
On October 20, SEC staff issued FAQs on the timing and content of venue notices and on how tokenized stocks are treated while issuer objection periods are pending. The SEC also began publishing a list of firms that intend to operate under the exemption. Tokenized equities now have a working playbook.
Prediction Markets Head Toward the Supreme Court
New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether CFTC authority over event contracts blocks states from applying their gambling laws to Kalshi. The NFL also urged the Court to take the case. Meanwhile, the CFTC sent two rules to the White House on September 28 that would classify event contracts as swaps.
New Products & Deals
ICE and trade[XYZ] Bring Hyperliquid Perps to the U.S.
ICE, owner of the NYSE, signed a definitive agreement to become the exclusive operator of trade[XYZ]’s regulated markets and is taking a strategic stake in the company.
DTCC Launches Its Tokenization Service
DTCC went live on October 28 on the Canton Network and its private Besu chain, with 34 eligible securities representing roughly $30 trillion in market value. Twenty firms have signed on, including JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and UBS. Ondo is named as a collaborator, and Stellar and Circle’s Arc are expected to join.
Pantera News
Fission Raises $10M Series A Led by Pantera
Fission lets eligible investors exit tokenized funds in about 90 seconds instead of waiting months for a redemption window. The round expands its liquidity capacity and fund coverage.
Jon Shaffer on the Pantera Podcast
Fission’s CEO explains why liquidity is the missing piece of tokenization and how investors can exit a fund in seconds instead of months. Listen here.
80 Billion New Customers
Franklin Bi breaks down how AI agents are becoming economic actors and why they’ll need blockchain rails to transact. Read the full piece here.
Important Disclosures
This letter is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute, and should not be construed as, an offer to sell or buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell or buy or subscribe for any securities. Opinions and other statements contained herein do not constitute any form of investment, legal, tax, financial, or other advice or recommendation. Nothing in this letter should be construed as investment advice
The portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described herein are included for illustrative purposes only and are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by Pantera Capital Partners LP and its affiliates (”Pantera”) and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results.
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and uncertainties, actual events or results or the actual policies, procedures and processes may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in such forward-looking statements
and no undue reliance should be placed on these forward-looking statements, nor should the inclusion of these statements be regarded as Pantera’s representation that any investment
or financial instrument will achieve any strategy, objectives, market or economic measure, or other plans.
This newsletter cites market data, projections, and research findings from third-party sources. Pantera Capital has not independently verified this data and makes no representation as to its accuracy or completeness.