Brian D. Evans

Some interesting nuggets from Google's Q4 Earnings: Gemini Rising -> Google says the Gemini app has 750M+ MAUs, up from 650M last quarter, and its first-party models process 10B+ tokens per minute via direct API use by customers And YouTube is a beast. This is the first time Google broke out total revenue for the platform -> Alphabet reports YouTube's Q4 ad revenue rose 9% YoY to $11.38B, vs. $11.84B est., and YouTube's annual revenue “surpassed $60B across ads and subscriptions.” That makes YouTube much larger than subscription-streaming leader Netflix, which reported $45.18 billion in revenue for full-year 2025. Indeed, the top-line number for YouTube was more than any other entertainment company except Disney ($95.7 billion in revenue for calendar year 2025)." And this was interesting. Google ignored the question about the Apple/Gemini deal during the earnings call -> Alphabet won’t talk about the Google-Apple AI deal, even to investors "The latest Apple AI deal is rumored to cost Apple roughly $1 billion per year, but the payoff beyond that for Google isn’t as immediately obvious as it is with search. In Google Search, consumers see links to advertisers’ websites at the top of their search results. Ads in AI Mode, which could one day represent the future of Google’s search business, are still an “experiment” for now." Here's a link to the Gemini numbers: https://lnkd.in/edMGWEE7

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You can't reindustrialise with casino money. Dan G.'s piece "No Crying in the Casino" on the Odin blog is the sharpest diagnosis of venture capital's structural crisis I've read this year. He traces financialisation from 16th century bullionism through Carlota Perez's technological revolutions to the present casino culture. He's right about all of it. But the prescription has a gap. Gray calls for reindustrialisation, and the technologists building uranium enrichment, marine robotics, and drug discovery labs are exactly the right companies. The problem is that the capital funding them is still structured for extraction. The numbers don't lie. Total venture funding collapsed 69% from Q4 2021 to Q1 2025. Across every AngelList vintage from 2017-2024, the median fund returned less than $0.38 on the dollar. GP-led continuation vehicles exploded from $6B to $67B as fund managers found ways to sell assets to themselves rather than return capital. My partner James Thomason calls this the option premium problem. Installation-period speculation serves a real function: each startup is an option on a different configuration of the technology. The dot-com bubble built the infrastructure Amazon ran on. But venture capital's current architecture doesn't capture the option premium. It consumes it through fees and financial engineering. Reindustrialisation needs instruments designed for production, not speculation. Revenue-linked capital that pays investors from real performance. Permanent structures that don't expire before the technology matures. Governance that aligns stakeholders instead of creating zero-sum fights over liquidation proceeds. You can't build the deployment period with installation-period tools. The reindustrialists need reindustrialised capital. Full Venture Capital 2.0 edition link is in comments!

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Sony’s Soneium blockchain has partnered with the tokenization-specific blockchain Plume Network to allow users to stake real-world assets and earn yield. This feels like a step toward what I’ve written about before: Soneium’s potential to bring DeFi into gaming and other entertainment properties. Imagine, for example, tokenized real estate earning a yield while granting access to a certain area of a virtual city. Ledger Insights implies that Sony plans to use this for tokenized treasuries and the like – that feels less obvious to me, but it could be that Sony is also thinking of blockchain-based financial services. And, this could be part of the setup for the eventual utility of Sony’s stablecoin, which started trials last year. https://lnkd.in/dscR4K75

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“U.S. Senate Passes GENIUS Act to Regulate Stablecoins, Marking Crypto Industry Win” Yet another compelling reason for banks to closely monitor stablecoin developments in the United States. Deposits and account holders are already shifting from traditional banks to crypto exchanges. This latest news is a clear signal — you can’t ignore it, you can’t delay action, and doing nothing is no longer an option. https://lnkd.in/dc74cT9u

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BNB Plus Corp. (Nasdaq: BNBX) Chief Investment Officer Patrick Horsman recently discussed the company’s focused investment mandate during an appearance on the Odyssey podcast, explaining how the Digital Asset Treasury maintains its disciplined approach to BNB accumulation. BNB Plus (Nasdaq: BNBX) is a B2i Digital Featured Company. See the comprehensive profile at https://lnkd.in/ejcMGtQm. In this segment from the Odyssey roundtable, Horsman addresses a fundamental aspect of BNB Plus’s treasury strategy: maintaining pure-play exposure to BNB rather than diversifying into other digital assets. “It’s not our mandate to go speculate on other tokens. We’re a pure play BNB DAT giving you 1x long exposure to BNB, and then targeting an annualized yield of 9-12% through a blend of those four strategies,” Horsman explained. “Although it’d be fun to take risk on other tokens, it’s just not the mandate. So generally we get the airdrops, we sell them, and we buy more BNB, and that’s the mandate of our business.” Watch the clip and the full Odyssey episode: https://lnkd.in/eQWTHm_w Additional highlights from the Odyssey podcast covering yield strategies, treasury management, and the future of Digital Asset Treasury companies will be featured in upcoming posts. BNB Plus Corp. is led by Clay Shorrock, Chief Executive Officer and President; and Beth Jantzen, Chief Financial Officer. The company’s advisory team includes Anthony Scaramucci, Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital, as Strategic Capital Markets Advisor; Patrick Horsman, CFA as Chief Investment Officer; Joshua Kruger, as Chairman of the Board; and JR Pasch, as Strategic Advisor. To learn more about BNB Plus Corp., visit https://lnkd.in/eZc-PB4w. For investor inquiries, contact BnB@icrinc.com. Disclosure: B2i Digital is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser. This post is informational and not an offer or solicitation regarding any security.

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Struggling with marketing to builders? Nicole Schaefer from M0 shared insights that'll transform how you think about marketing stablecoin infrastructure. Here's what every Web3 marketer needs to know: 1. Ruthless Builder Segmentation Your developers? They need solid documentation and technical deep-dives. Your CTOs and product leads? They want simplified, outcome-focused messaging. One size fits none in B2B crypto. 2. Smart Offline Marketing Skip those expensive happy hours. M0's winning formula: → Curated dinners → Deeper relationships → Real business potential → 25-30 carefully selected attendees 3. Messaging That Makes Waves "Everything is a Bank" - sounds pro-institution, right? Plot twist: It's about democratizing financial services. The best campaigns make people stop and think twice. 4. NYC Crypto Scene Evolution → Growing community → Tangible energy Tune in to this episode ;) https://lnkd.in/eGEgmQ7K

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The next frontier in crypto is not just capital—it’s attention. Oversubscribed raises (25x+). Distribution wars happening across emerging Attention Capital Markets (ACM). Cookie3, Kaito and Legion are at the center of this shift, building platforms that align social influence with capital formation. In my latest video, I unpack what this means for founders, investors, and builders navigating the evolving market structure. Watch it here:  https://lnkd.in/drbckdSp

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The institutional crypto adoption everyone celebrated is quietly killing what made crypto special. We wanted mainstream acceptance. Now we have corporate compliance, sanitized messaging, and risk-averse decision making. The messy, experimental, move-fast-and-break-things energy that built this space is being replaced by committee approvals and legal reviews. Not saying it's good or bad. Just different. But if you're building something truly innovative, don't wait for institutional validation. The edge always comes from the margins.

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The senate passing the GENIUS act yesterday is not just about regulation catching up, its a warning shot. The focus on consumer protection sends a clear signal about where enforcement is headed, and compliance /AML is now baked into the stablecoin framework itself. So if you are building in stablecoins or any regulated corner of crypto, you should definitely take a note. Compliance is a moat, and you should build accordingly. https://lnkd.in/eV5QSHMh

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