Why Every Asset Manager Is Racing to Tokenize Funds Now

Jake Brukhman (CoinFund) on Anthropic Fable 5, Agents & Asymmetry in AI

Most experts said training a frontier AI model on consumer laptops was impossible, until the numbers started proving them wrong. What that shift means for decentralized AI, on-chain finance, and who ultimately controls intelligence is what Jake Brukhman of CoinFund lays out in this conversation.Jake Brukhman bought his first Bitcoin in 2011, then forgot about it for seven years before founding CoinFund in 2015, one of the first crypto-native investment firms in the world, raised on the back of a thesis written weeks before Ethereum even launched. CoinFund, now a roughly $158M firm, backs the decentralized stack and the teams trying to train large AI models across ordinary gaming PCs and MacBooks instead of billion-dollar data centers, a field that went from impossible to a published research frontier in four years. Across this conversation with host Sri Misra, Brukhman argues that DeFi is now a feature of on-chain finance rather than its replacement, explains why the real bottleneck in AI is GPUs a government can switch off, and makes the case that the average investor will get AI exposure through a token before a stock. It lands the same week a single AI lab was forced to pull its most powerful model offline, making the decentralized AI debate impossible to ignore.👉How decentralized AI training moved from impossible to a real research frontier, with parameter counts climbing run after run 👉Why Jake says there is no DeFi anymore, only on-chain finance, and what that reframe changes for builders 👉What tokenization actually unlocks, from borrowing against your Tesla stock to instant settlement between banks 👉Why the true chokepoint in AI is the supply of high-end GPUs, not algorithms or talent 👉How tokenizing an AI model creates something both valuable and public that no single company can censor or shut down 👉Why a $500M law-firm model budget and a $600B AI infrastructure buildout point to where compute demand is heading next.Subscribe to un# for weekly conversations with crypto and AI builders, and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra/ for daily insights.00:00 - Pioneering One of Crypto's First Funds 03:36 - Finding LPs Before Crypto Was Real 05:58 - Soviet Roots and a Contrarian Bet 11:19 - There Is No DeFi Anymore 18:28 - Network Investing and the Token Question 28:18 - Where Tokenization Actually Solves Problems 33:54 - Stablecoins, the GENIUS Act, On-Chain Finance 37:24 - The Convergence of Web3 and AI 40:43 - When a Government Switches Off AI 42:26 - Training Frontier AI on Gaming PCs 46:40 - Tokenized AI Models You Can Own 55:19 - Agentic Swarms and the Quantum Threat#JakeBrukhman #CoinFund #SriMisra #DecentralizedAI #OnChainFinance #CryptoVC #AITraining #Tokenization #RWA #Web3AI #Stablecoins #CryptoInvesting #HowToOwnAI #TrainAIonGamingPCs #DecentralizedAITraining #Bitcoin #Ethereum #AIandCrypto #tokenizedassets Disclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.

Steven Goldfeder(Arbitrum) on Why the World's Biggest Institutions Are Coming On-Chain

A network built on the idea of immutable, unstoppable code chose to freeze $71 million in stolen funds, and the man who helped design that power says he wants it gone. Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain and the architect behind Arbitrum, breaks down the tokenization of Wall Street, the future of Ethereum scaling, and why bringing institutions on chain forces hard questions decentralization was never meant to answer.Steven Goldfeder did not arrive at crypto through trading or speculation, but through a Princeton cryptography lab, where he co-authored the field's leading textbook and helped formalize the concept of MEV before co-founding Offchain (formerly Offchain Labs). The company now operates the full stack behind Arbitrum, the largest Ethereum Layer 2 by value secured, providing the infrastructure that lets institutions like Robinhood, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton move real assets on chain. In this conversation with host Sri Misra, Goldfeder makes the case that scaling is a permanent cat-and-mouse game rather than a solved problem, explains why a European buying an Apple share on Robinhood may be using a blockchain without knowing it, and argues that holding USDC is fundamentally different from holding ETH. As tokenized real-world assets cross $30 billion and institutional adoption accelerates, this episode lands at the exact moment TradFi and DeFi begin collapsing into one system.👉Why Goldfeder believes scaling Ethereum will never be fully solved, and how Arbitrum keeps pushing chain capacity from gigagas toward higher limits👉How the Arbitrum Security Council froze $71 million in funds tied to the Kelp DAO hack, and why he still defends a decision purists called a betrayal👉What separates a programmable economy from today's manual financial markets, and how institutions can program their own compliance, privacy, and recourse rules👉Why Robinhood chose Arbitrum to put over 2,000 tokenized stocks on chain, and what optionality means when an institution does not yet know if it needs its own blockchain👉How blockchain settlement collapses a T+5 day wait into a single block, and why steel, GPUs, and equities are all becoming tokenized assetsSubscribe to un# for weekly founder conversations and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra] for daily insights.00:00 - Why Offchain Dropped the Word Labs 02:19 - Rebranding Beyond Scaling Ethereum 06:55 - The Cryptography Origin of Arbitrum 12:58 - Arbitrum Before Ethereum Went Live 15:46 - Is the Scaling Trilemma Solved 17:16 - Building the Programmable Economy On Chain 20:00 - The $71M Kelp DAO Freeze 30:05 - A Future With No Security Council 40:54 - Robinhood and Tokenized Stocks On Arbitrum 46:47 - Tokenizing Steel, GPUs and Equities #StevenGoldfeder #Offchain #Arbitrum #SriMisra #Ethereum #Layer2 #Tokenization #RealWorldAssets #DeFi #CryptoPodcast #RobinhoodStocks #EthereumScaling #TokenizedStocks #BlackRockBUIDL #KelpDAOHack #CryptoRegulation #Web3Infrastructure #HowToTokenizeAssets #WhatIsArbitrumDisclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.

Inside the Centralized Database Holding Trillions of Dollars

Jim Hiltner, Co-Founder of Superstate, deconstructs the US capital markets stack  from the DTCC vault at the core to the broker-dealers, exchanges, and IPO syndicates layered on top, each one extracting fees the issuer never sees.

Why AI Agents Aren't Ready to Manage Your Crypto Portfolio Yet

Jim Hiltner, Co-Founder of Superstate, explains the two real bottlenecks stopping AI agents from running serious capital on-chain - thin asset history and the security arms race  and host Sri Misra counters with a sharp reframe on OPSEC. Full episode at: unhashed.co/jim

Why Every Asset Manager Is Racing to Tokenize Funds Now

Most asset managers still can't accept stablecoin payments, yet over $300 billion in regulated capital is already sitting on-chain. Jim Hiltner, Co-Founder of Superstate, explains how the tokenization of capital markets is reshaping the rails now powering Invesco, Bitwise, and Coinbase Asset Management, with the first fully on-chain IPO targeted for H2 2026. Building tokenization rails for Wall Street is a credibility game, and few operators have stacked credentials as deliberately as Jim Hiltner, who moved from Citibank to Compound Treasury before co-founding Superstate in 2023. Superstate now manages over $1.2 billion across two tokenized funds and powers Opening Bell, the platform letting SEC-registered companies issue native tokenized equity on Ethereum and Solana with the same CUSIP, voting rights, and dividend rights as traditional shares. In conversation with un# host Sri Misra, Jim explains why Superstate handed its $1 billion USTB fund to Invesco in Q2 2026, why Circle's IPO mispricing exposes a structural flaw in capital formation, and why the first on-chain IPO is coming in H2 2026. With the SEC's Innovation Exemption now formalizing rails for tokenized stocks and RWA tokenization crossing $34 billion globally, this conversation captures the inflection moment for on-chain capital markets. 👉Why Superstate handed its $1 billion USTB tokenized treasury fund to Invesco in Q2 2026, and what the hand-off signals about the future of fund management 👉How Opening Bell makes a tokenized stock legally identical to a Nasdaq share, with the same CUSIP, voting rights, and dividend rights 👉What Circle's IPO trajectory, from $30 allocation to $150 first-week close, reveals about structural underpricing in traditional capital formation 👉Why $300 billion in regulated stablecoins is forcing every major asset manager to build on-chain distribution rails 👉How Jim Hiltner went from Citibank to Compound Treasury to co-founding Superstate, and why the 2022 crypto lender collapse was the catalyst 👉What needs to happen before AI agents can manage real money on-chain, and why the ultimate defense is legal, not cryptographic. Subscribe to the un# podcast for weekly founder conversations and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra] for daily insights. 00:00 - Inside Tokenization of Capital Markets 0:55 - From Citibank to Tokenizing Wall Street 04:05 - FTX Collapse: The Superstate Origin Story 07:09 - How Superstate's Tokenization Stack Works 11:12 - Invesco Takes Over $1B Tokenized Fund 16:38 - How Opening Bell Tokenizes Real Stocks 23:36 - Why $300B Stablecoins Force Tokenization 30:05 - Disintermediating DTCC With Public Blockchains 42:11 - First On-Chain IPO Coming H2 2026 45:19 - Why Agentic Finance Isn't Ready Yet#JimHiltner #Superstate #SriMisra #Unhashed #Tokenization #RWA #OnChainIPO #OpeningBell #TokenizedStocks #TokenizedTreasuries #Stablecoins #USTB #DeFi #WallStreet #CapitalMarkets #BlockchainFinance #InstitutionalCrypto #CryptoFinance #Web3Finance #RWATokenizationDisclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.