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GM, What are stablecoins actually used for? Last week, on-chain data analytics firm Artemis pointed out that the market for stablecoin Visa cards is booming. Their compound annual growth rate (CAGR) has doubled to 106%, and total payment volume has already caught up with wallet-to-wallet transfers. After investment use cases,
GM, About a month ago, my wife invited me to try vibe coding together to build a family expense-tracking tool. Since then, I’ve fallen in love with the feeling of “making things myself.” Whether it’s slide decks for talks, registration pages for in-person courses, or even an information
GM, First, an important announcement: Blocktrend’s first in-person event of the year is now open for registration. Corporate Web3 Essentials: From Beginner to the Negotiation Table On Friday, March 6, I’ll be hosting a full-day, corporate-focused Web3 workshop at the GIS NTU Convention Center, limited to 25 participants.
GM, Blocktrend’s 2025 satisfaction survey opened last week. Thank you to the first nearly one hundred members who have already filled it out. I also invite readers who haven’t yet responded to take 10 minutes to share your thoughts. Let’s chat Over the weekend, I read through
GM, First, I want to thank the very first readers who filled out the 2025 content satisfaction survey. After all, the scariest thing about sending out a survey is having no one respond. Reading through the feedback feels like looking into a mirror—every year, I notice subtle changes. Still,
GM, Happy New Year 2026. Blocktrend’s publishing calendar for the year is out. Over the coming year, Blocktrend plans to take 14 days off and has set aside 5 days for sick or personal leave. The only variable is that I’m still hesitating whether to fly to Mumbai,
GM, This is Blocktrend’s final article of 2025. The next time we meet, it will be 2026. Wishing everyone a happy New Year—and thank you for spending your increasingly scarce attention on Blocktrend over the past year. I owe it to you to live up to that trust.
Taiwan ranks second in the world—behind only South Korea—in convenience store density. The sheer breadth of services they offer has led people to jokingly call convenience store clerks “the strongest species on Earth.” They not only brew coffee, boil tea eggs, and make ice cream, but also double
GM, Lately, I’ve been seeing Firstrade ads all over my social feeds, tempting me to invest in U.S. stocks (as shown below). If you make your first wire transfer deposit of more than USD 2,500, Firstrade will reimburse USD 25 of the wire transfer fee. But this
GM, AI hackers are here—and they can launch attacks autonomously. Last week, the security research team at AI company Anthropic released a critical report showing that AI agents are already capable of independently discovering vulnerabilities in smart contract code, planning attack strategies, and executing attacks. In a simulated environment,
GM, In my previous article, I mentioned Central Bank Governor Yang Chin-long’s question 1 about stablecoins: “If future stablecoin issuers and related businesses are brought under regulation—required to follow AML, CFT, KYC, cybersecurity, and consumer-protection rules—will they still be able to offer the fast, freely circulating, and
GM, Last week, Central Bank Governor Yang Chin-long delivered a keynote speech titled “Digital Innovation in Payments and the Role of the Central Bank” at the Financial Information Service Co. annual conference. His talk focused on three major topics: stablecoins, tokenization, and central bank digital currency (CBDC). This video is