BlackRock Goes Global and a $250M Fund for Real Builders

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Crypto Founder Story: Rebuilding Financial Infrastructure from the Ground Up

📍 Miami, FL

When Jordan Watson left his role at a major Wall Street bank in 2020, he didn’t plan to join the DeFi movement. But when the pandemic exposed just how outdated the global financial infrastructure was—he decided it was time to build.

His startup, BlockLayer, began as an experiment: a modular toolkit for TradFi institutions to test DeFi protocols without exposing real capital. That MVP gained traction fast. By 2023, they’d onboarded regional banks, credit unions, and even asset managers exploring tokenized treasuries.

Now backed by a $6M seed round led by Framework Ventures, BlockLayer is helping institutions bridge into on-chain finance securely—with built-in compliance, data transparency, and smart contract risk scoring.

Watson believes the next wave of DeFi won’t come from degens—it’ll come from infrastructure.

Key Takeaways from Jordan Watson

• 🌟 Build bridges, not silos. Jordan designed BlockLayer to integrate—not replace—traditional finance.

• 🤑 DeFi isn’t just for crypto natives. It’s for any institution managing capital in the open.

• 🚀 Simple UX wins. The less friction, the faster TradFi gets comfortable on-chain.

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🚀 Global Crypto Highlights

Fidelity’s ‘OnChain’ Treasury Fund Fidelity is launching a tokenized version of its $80M U.S. Treasury fund on Ethereum. It’s set to go live on May 30 and will use blockchain for reconciled ownership records—while still keeping the official ones on legacy systems.

dYdX Launches Buyback Program The dYdX DAO will use 25% of net protocol fees for monthly token buybacks, aimed at tightening supply, improving tokenomics, and aligning incentives with long-term growth. Spot trading and EVM support are also in the works.

DWF Labs Unveils $250M Liquid Fund A new $250M fund from DWF Labs will back mid-to-large cap crypto projects with capital, PR, and go-to-market support. $11M has already been deployed with another $35M in active deal flow.

BlackRock Expands into Europe BlackRock just listed its first Bitcoin ETP on European exchanges, including Xetra and Euronext. With Coinbase as custodian and a fee waiver through 2025, it’s taking direct aim at players like CoinShares.

Embr’s ‘Chains of Chaos’ for Memecoins Forget meme launches with hype and no roadmap—Embr makes them earn it. Memecoins on its new appchain must survive a battle royale-style game where only the strongest tokens win recycled liquidity.

Mt. Gox Quietly Moves $1B in BTC Over $1B in BTC has been shuffled between Mt. Gox wallets without triggering market panic—signaling the market may finally be maturing beyond its former fears.

Crypto VC Bubble Pop? A deep dive into how inflated token valuations from 2021 are unraveling, and why communities are ditching VCs for liquid funds and aligned incentives.

Security Is Still the Biggest Barrier A Bitget survey shows 37% of users cite security as the #1 reason they’re not using crypto payments—despite over 46% preferring crypto over fiat.

— Marco Fazio | Founder Latestly Crypto | Forbes 30 under 30

📩 PS: Hit reply & share your crypto startup story—we’d love to hear it!.

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