Bernard Schmid, Areta | Who's Really Winning the Crypto M&A Race

The Intersection: AI, Crypto and the Institutional Moment

Four conversations from this season of Searching for Mana, woven into one. Chris Perkins on why Franklin Templeton bet on him to run their crypto platform, and why institutions now have more risk if they're not in the space. Sidney Powell on Maple's reverse innovator's dilemma against the JP Morgans and Blackstones now circling the Bitcoin backed loan market. Alex Buelau on what banks actually need from a blockchain, and why instant finality and stablecoin gas fees changed how he built Rails. Boris Revsin from Tribe Capital on the centralising force of AI meeting the decentralising force of crypto, and why the 57th L1 probably isn't capturing much value anymore.  Three themes run through it: the institutional moment, the AI and blockchain intersection, and the macro backdrop pushing both.  If you've been following along, this is the through-line. If you're new, it's four reasons to come back next week. Follow on X! Lloyd Wahed: @lloydwahed Alex Buelau: @x10xalex Sidney Powell: @syrupsid Chris Perkins: @perkinscr97 Boris Revsin: @brevsin Please Like & Subscribe!

Alex Buelau, Rayls | AI, Banks and the Invisible Future of Finance

> "Getting banks to use blockchain has never been about the technology. If you cannot answer why a bank makes more money by going blockchain, there is no reason for them to adopt it." In this episode of Searching for Mana, Lloyd Wahed is joined by Alex Buelau, founder of Rayls, the Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for institutional finance. After more than a decade building infrastructure for banks and financial institutions, Alex believes the next evolution of blockchain will not be driven by speculation, but by the convergence of traditional finance, tokenised assets, and artificial intelligence. Rayls was built around a simple premise: existing blockchain infrastructure was never designed for the operational requirements of institutions. The conversation explores why Rayls chose to build a Layer 1 rather than another Layer 2, the importance of instant finality and stablecoin-based gas fees for banks, and why Alex believes the future of crypto increasingly resembles foundational internet infrastructure rather than an alternative financial system. Alex also shares how Parfin became embedded across major Brazilian financial institutions, why Brazil has emerged as one of the most advanced environments for tokenised finance experimentation, and what it actually takes to bridge institutional liquidity with decentralised infrastructure. Along the way, the discussion moves into AI agents, the future architecture of financial systems, founder resilience, and Alex’s long-standing fascination with technology trends before they become obvious to the market. This episode covers why the next generation of blockchain infrastructure will need to balance public liquidity with institutional privacy, how AI could fundamentally change the way value moves across financial systems, and why the biggest opportunities in crypto may ultimately come from making the technology disappear entirely. Follow on X: Alex Buelau: @x10xalex Rayls: @RaylsLabs Lloyd Wahed: @lloydwahed   Please follow and subscribe!

Boris Revsin, Tribe Capital | The Fight Between AI and Ownership

"Maybe the value is created in AI. But the future of ownership is very likely to happen on the blockchain." In this episode of Searching for Mana, Lloyd Wahed is joined by Boris Revsin, CEO of Tribe Capital, a US-based, multi-stage venture firm managing just under $2.5 billion across crypto, AI infrastructure, and frontier tech. Boris joined Tribe in 2022 to run the fintech and crypto group and has spent the last two years as CEO and GP across all funds, with investments spanning OpenAI, XAI, Kraken, and companies operating at the sharpest edge of the AI and blockchain intersection. Boris's story began in Russia in 1986, with a midnight escape to the US. That experience forged a worldview on capitalism, risk, and what opportunity actually looks like that runs through everything he builds. Tribe's current conviction is that AI and crypto aren't competing forces. AI centralises value. Blockchain is where ownership accrues. And the firms that understand both will define the next decade of infrastructure. This episode covers why the next plethora of L1's probably aren't going anywhere interesting, what on-chain agents actually need to function, and why Boris thinks the more important question isn't how AI changes work. It's how it changes everything else. Follow on X: Boris Revsin: @brevsin Tribe Capital: @tribecap Lloyd Wahed: @lloydwahed Please follow and subscribe!

Bernard Schmid, Areta | Who's Really Winning the Crypto M&A Race

"A business needs to get bought. Not sold." In this episode of Searching for Mana - On Location, Malak Alba is joined by Bernard Schmid at the Digital Assets Forum in London, catching him at the centre of the industry he's helping to build. Bernard is Co-Founder of Areta, the leading crypto-native M&A advisory firm by deal count, and spent years at the Blackstones and Deutsche Banks of the world before making a deliberate bet that crypto would eventually need the same professional financial infrastructure that traditional markets take for granted. That moment, he decided, was worth leaving for. 2025 was a record year for crypto M&A, $8.6 billion across 267 transactions, four times the volume of 2024. Bernard has been at the centre of it. From the Kraken-Breakout deal to the first ever private equity acquisition in digital assets, Areta has been advising on the transactions that are quietly reshaping how the industry consolidates. This episode covers why payments is now the category driving the lion's share of deal activity, what founders consistently get wrong about their own valuation, and why Bernard thinks the most important thing a founder can do before selling is make buyers come to them. Follow on X! Areta: @areta_io Malak: @malakincrypto Please Like and Subscribe!

Sidney Powell, Maple Finance | Why the Next Phase of Crypto Is Credit

“The wave that we're catching is that all of this is going to shift on-chain and be done with stablecoins over the next 10 years.” In this episode of Searching for Mana, Lloyd Wahed is joined by Sidney Powell, CEO of Maple Finance, to explore how on-chain credit is evolving into a serious capital markets category. Maple now manages around $4bn in AUM and has originated more than $20bn in loans since launch. But the deeper story is how crypto lending has changed since 2022: less frontier excess, more risk management, more institutional structure. Sidney explains how Maple lends to institutions on-chain using stablecoins, why liquid collateral changes the risk profile, and how DeFi can become a source of capital rather than just speculation. They also discuss stablecoins scaling into the trillions, the application layer thesis, Maple’s partnership with Aave, private credit, macro cycles, AI, and why Sidney believes the next decade of alternative lending moves on-chain. A grounded conversation on credit, stablecoins, risk, and what it takes to build through the cycles. Follow Sidney & Maple Finance on X: @syrupsid @maplefinance   Follow Lloyd: @lloydwahed Please like and subscribe to stay up to date with all the latest episodes!