PERSON DIRECTORY
Santiago Roel Santos
Host of Empire. Santiago Roel Santos appears in 17 indexed conversations across Empire, 1000x. This directory brings every appearance, source, TL;DR, digest, and transcript into one searchable feed.
Crypto's Value Capture Problem & Why Robinhood Built Its Own Blockchain
Jason YanowitzSantiago Roel Santos
After eight months across 20-plus sectors, Santos says Inversion’s crypto-embedding thesis failed to clear the return hurdle, shifting focus to quality, cash-flowing businesses.On-chain B2B borrowing costs 8–12%, while crypto FX quotes sit 20–50 basis points above mid-market; Robinhood Chain’s more than $500 million in Uniswap volume and roughly 150,000 new active wallets show verticalization, though P&L value remains disputed.
State of The Market, The Prediction Market Wars & Kraken Pursues Aave
Jason YanowitzSantiago Roel Santos
Crypto venture is splitting into a weak early-stage market and improving later-stage payments, stablecoin, tokenized-asset and M&A activity.Stablecoin transfer volume remains distorted by bots, but adjusted metrics, card swipes and about 30 public-company implementations offer stronger adoption evidence.Kalshi’s reported $40B raise remains unconfirmed as fee compression looms, while institutional clearing and block trades could expand prediction markets.
Bitcoin Breaks $95k, Crypto’s Valuation Problem, & The Path To Real On-Chain Users
Santiago Roel SantosAvi FelmanJonah Van Bourg
Santi argues ex-Bitcoin crypto’s $1.5T valuation lacks support while active on-chain users remain around 40M, setting a 500 million-user threshold for taking the market seriously.The investable shift is from commodity blockspace to killer applications, with Inversion proposing to buy real businesses such as Western Union and route settlement flows through its own chain to solve crypto’s go-to-market problem.