Crypto’s Next Era: Quantum, AI, and the Future of Money — Reflections from a Conversation with Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko
Crypto’s Next Era: Quantum, AI, and the Future of Money — Reflections from a Conversation with Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko
Author: Zion Zhao Real Estate | 狮家社小赵
Author’s note: this essay is commentary and analysis for educational purposes only, not financial, legal, or investment advice based on my favorite podcast; The All-In Podcast. I avoid prescriptive statements about specific tokens or trading. I cite public, reputable, and scholarly sources; figures are as of publication dates and may change.
A mood shift—policy, product, and power
When Anatoly Yakovenko talks about where crypto is heading, he doesn’t start with vibes—he starts with physics and systems design. But in 2025, macro-policy really does set the table for everything else. In the United States, the policy weather has shifted notably: the GENIUS Act (a federal stablecoin framework) was signed into law on July 18, 2025, creating national rules for reserves, audits, and issuer obligations. Parallel White House actions created a formal digital-assets working plan and named a high-profile “AI & crypto czar,” signaling the administration’s intent to integrate crypto into financial plumbing rather than fight it at the periphery (and, at least rhetorically, to “on-shore” the industry) (The White House, 2025; American Presidency Project, 2024). The White House+2The White House+2
This comes after several years of more adversarial posture and heavy enforcement. Data from Cornerstone Research show record SEC crypto enforcement in 2023, followed by a ~30% drop in 2024—still high by historical standards, but suggesting a change in temperature just as the policy framework began to cohere (Cornerstone Research, 2025; 2023). Cornerstone Research+1
Why that matters: clear rules for dollar-denominated stablecoins (and clarity on market structure) enable mainstream institutions to use public chains for settlement, treasury operations, and tokenization. In short: compliance rails invite large balance sheets.
Stablecoins, Treasuries, and how the “internet” became a bond whale
Yakovenko’s instinct—that stablecoins will reshape U.S. Treasury demand—isn’t far-fetched. In 2025, Tether disclosed ~$127B in U.S. Treasuries within its reserves, placing it among the largest single holders by some methodologies (although estimates differ on the exact rank). More importantly, the trend line is clear: regulated, fully reserved stablecoins hold short-dated T-bills at growing scale, creating a new, internet-native distribution channel for U.S. sovereign debt (Tether; Yahoo Finance analysis). As regulatory clarity improves in the U.S., more fully reserved, permit-bearing issuers can join, deepening this bid for bills. tether.io
On the payments side, card networks are pragmatically adapting. Visa began settling in USDC on Solana and Ethereum in 2023, then in 2025 widened the set of supported stablecoins and chains. Mastercard followed with end-to-end stablecoin acceptance capabilities and, later, expanded USDC/EURC settlement for acquirers. The takeaway: “legacy” payments firms increasingly treat stablecoins as a feature of their networks (Visa, 2023–2025; Mastercard, 2025). Mastercard+4Payments Dive+4Ledger Insights+4
A common claim is that networks like Visa/Mastercard “only” take low-tens of basis points versus merchant service charges near ~2% once banks and acquirers add their fees. Public financials back the order of magnitude: Visa’s net revenue as a percentage of total payment volume sits in the low-tens of basis points—tiny spread, massive scale (Visa, 2024). If those same rails can clear stablecoin settlement behind the scenes, one can imagine cost compression—and a new détente—between public blockchains and card networks (Visa, 2024).
“Execution vs. settlement”: Solana’s bet and Ethereum’s bet
Yakovenko’s core design thesis for Solana—a single, globally synchronous execution engine—contrasts with Ethereum’sincreasingly rollup-centric, settlement-layer posture. Vitalik Buterin’s “Endgame” and the Ethereum roadmap emphasize data availability and verification for a multitude of L2s, with danksharding/proto-danksharding to scale settlement and data (Buterin, 2021). Solana, by contrast, aims to push state execution and latency on L1 itself (Proof-of-History + optimized networking), accepting the engineering challenge in exchange for a developer-friendly, monolithic environment (Solana Whitepaper). It’s not that one is “right” all the time—the two are deliberately different points in the design space, and markets now have both options at scale. CB Insights+1
Practically, performance is no longer just a claim: mainstream finance is experimenting on Solana. BlackRock’s BUIDL—the tokenized money market fund launched in 2024—expanded from Ethereum to Solana in 2025, with Securitizeproviding the transfer-agent and issuance stack. Multiple outlets and the issuer confirm the multichain expansion (Reuters; CoinDesk; The Block). This is not a meme: it’s the world’s largest asset manager choosing a high-throughput public chain for a compliance-bound product.
Tokenization: from talking point to “boring back-office pipes”
Tokenization is where crypto stops being “new money” and starts being new market infrastructure. Over the past three years, Hamilton Lane, KKR, Apollo, and others have tokenized interests in private-market funds—often via Securitize feeders—to broaden distribution, improve transfer mechanics, and shorten settlement cycles. These are regulated securities with KYC’d investors transacting on public chains (Hamilton Lane; Ledger Insights; WEF; Apollo). The thesis: lower operational frictions (from T+2 to near-instant) and programmable ownership will quietly rewire large, illiquid markets. Private Debt Investor+3Hamilton Lane+3Ledger Insights+3
Regulators see both the promise and the pitfalls. The BIS frames tokenization as potentially improving delivery-vs-payment, collateral mobilization, and intraday liquidity—but stresses legal certainty and interoperability across ledgers (BIS, 2023–2024). The end state likely looks less like a “crypto casino” and more like boring pipes that happen to be global, programmable, and audit-friendly. PQShield
Beyond finance: social, IP, and real assets (waiting on rules)
Yakovenko’s “creator-coin meets IP” idea is compelling but gated by securities and IP law. The Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act and related proposals are a start, but creator equity and tokenized royalties require precise rule-making to avoid accidental securities issuance. Congress has worked on several clarity bills since 2023; the stablecoin piece moved first (HFSC; Senate calendars). Expect niche, compliant pilots to lead: onchain music splits, film receivables, or real-estate cash flows for qualified investors before broad retail access (House Financial Services; Reuters/SEC dockets). CoinDesk
Quantum computing: timeline humility, migration urgency
Yakovenko’s “50/50 in five years” for a quantum breakthrough is intentionally provocative. What do the experts say? Government roadmaps split the difference: NIST has now standardized post-quantum cryptography (FIPS 203 for ML-KEM/Kyber; 204 for ML-DSA/Dilithium), and the U.S. federal posture is migrate now for “harvest-now, decrypt-later” risk, even if a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) remains uncertain in timing (NIST, 2024; OMB M-23-02; DHS/CISA). Apple shipped post-quantum iMessage (PQ3) in 2024; Google Chrome turned on hybrid Kyber key exchange for TLS at scale—proof that consumer platforms can transition without breaking the internet (Apple Security Research, 2024; Google, 2023–2024). The sober takeaway: timelines are uncertain, but migration paths and standards now exist. Blockchains should plan for PQC agility today. Reuters+3The White House+3NIST Computer Security Resource Center+3
What would that mean for Bitcoin and Solana? Bitcoin’s ECDSA/Schnorr signatures are vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm if a CRQC arrives; governance would need to coordinate a soft-fork or hard-fork to PQ signatures with careful key-rotation and UX for migration. The good news: Bitcoin’s simplicity and conservative change process make this doable if started early (NIST; academic surveys). For Solana and other high-throughput L1s, PQC implies heavier signatures and latency/cost trade-offs, but the standards body work means those trade-offs are quantifiable (NIST, 2024; Liu et al., 2025). The White House+1
Security realism: resilience, concentration, and state-level threats
Yakovenko praises Bitcoin’s robustness and simplicity—and he’s right to. The original Nakamoto design remains a masterclass in incentives and distributed consensus (Nakamoto, 2008). Still, two issues deserve nuance:
Concentration of holdings. Corporate treasuries and ETFs now hold meaningful portions of outstanding BTC; MicroStrategy alone holds hundreds of thousands of BTC, and spot Bitcoin ETFs plus corporate/sovereign wallets add further concentration. This is not “fatal,” but it amplifies liquidity and governance optics during stress (Investopedia; Barron’s; FT). Investopedia+2Barron's+2
State-sponsored coercion. While a 51% attack is very hard, wallet-level coercion is real: DPRK-linked groups continue to target crypto infrastructure and holders, with billions in cumulative thefts across DeFi bridges and exchanges. Hardening OPSEC, key custody, and property-rights protections matters as much as consensus mechanics (Chainalysis, 2025). All-In Podcast
AI × crypto: what’s real vs. what’s next
It’s fashionable to say “agents will pay other agents on-chain,” but the first end-user-visible winner has been simpler: coding. AI copilots ate the developer desk first. In crypto, experiments at the intersection of distributed compute and onchain incentives (e.g., training/inference marketplaces) are ongoing, but data-center economics and trust in outputsstill favor centralized deployments for now (various industry reports). For finance, though, AI already raises the stakes: compliance automation, onchain graph analytics, and counter-fraud tooling are rapidly improving—and public chains’ transparency gives data teams a head start.
Exchanges: from “us vs. them” to “and/and”
Will Nasdaq and the banks or crypto-native venues win tokenization? Probably both—but under different licenses and customer sets. The core determinant isn’t “brand;” it’s where regulated assets can sit and how easily public-key cryptography (custody, transfer, control) is recognized in market rules. As those rules crystalize, expect “global liquidity pools” to be assembled from public chains + regulated participants rather than rebuilt as walled gardens. That’s not ideology; it’s simply where the cost curves and auditability push. (See the SEC’s approval path for spot ETH ETFs in 2024 and, in 2025, generic standards enabling a broader family of crypto ETPs—a strong sign of market-structure normalization.) Reuters+2Reuters+2
Where Solana fits: the “execution layer” thesis in the wild
Solana’s bet—low-latency global execution—is now battle-tested beyond DeFi and NFTs. Tokenized cash and fundsare live; stablecoin settlement volume is rising; infrastructure teams are shipping client diversity and throughput upgrades. That doesn’t make Solana “the Google of finance,” but it does mean the “fast execution layer” is no longer hypothetical. The platform and its ecosystem still must keep delivering reliability and post-quantum agility—but the RWA and payments pipeline suggests this is where latency does matter (Reuters; CoinDesk; Mastercard/Visa releases; BIS). Mastercard+2Payments Dive+2
The quantum clock is ticking—but so is standardization
The most pragmatic part of Yakovenko’s quantum warning is his migration heuristic: “When Apple and Google flip consumer stacks to PQC (they have), start your migration.” That’s already happened: iMessage PQ3 and Chrome’s ML-KEM hybrids are deployed; NIST PQC is finalized; OMB requires federal inventories and migration planning. The tools are here; the will is the question (Apple, 2024; Google, 2023–2024; NIST/OMB, 2022–2024). Bank for International Settlements+3Reuters+3NIST Computer Security Resource Center+3
Conclusion: back to doing hard things
In the last cycle, crypto’s hottest products looked like clever SaaS with token tickers. This cycle, the energy has swung back to hard engineering—global, low-latency systems; compliant tokenization at institutional scale; stablecoin plumbing for real businesses; and a serious, standards-based plan for post-quantum survival. That doesn’t make everything in the space credible—far from it. But it does mean that if crypto is going to matter for the next fifty years, it will be because builders chose the difficult path: physics-bounded latency, regulatory-grade compliance, cryptography that survives Q-day, and user experiences that hide all of the above.
If Yakovenko is right, the “single computer for markets” is not a slogan—it’s a milestone you reach one subsystem at a time. And if the U.S. really means to lead, the combination of clear rules, PQC adoption, and public-chain interoperability is the sober path there.
In-text citations (APA)
American Presidency Project. (2024). Statement announcing appointment of David O. Sacks as AI & Crypto Czar. Mitrade
Apple Security Research. (2024). iMessage with PQ3: The new state of the art in quantum-secure messaging at scale. Apple Security Research
Bank for International Settlements (BIS). (2023–2024). Tokenisation experiments and policy analyses. PQShield
Buterin, V. (2021). Endgame (Ethereum settlement & rollup-centric roadmap). CB Insights
Chainalysis. (2025). Crypto crime & state-linked hacking overview. All-In Podcast
CoinDesk. (2025). BlackRock expands BUIDL to Solana.
Cornerstone Research. (2023, 2025). SEC Cryptocurrency Enforcement reports. Cornerstone Research+1
Google. (2023–2024). Hybrid post-quantum TLS (X25519+Kyber / ML-KEM). Chromium Blog+1
House Financial Services Committee. (2023). Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act. CoinDesk
Mastercard. (2025). Stablecoin acceptance & settlement capabilities. Mastercard+1
Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. bitcoin.org
NIST. (2024). FIPS 203 (ML-KEM / Kyber), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA / Dilithium). The White House
OMB. (2022). M-23-02: Migrating to Post-Quantum Cryptography. Bank for International Settlements
Reuters. (2024–2025). Spot ETH ETFs approvals; BlackRock BUIDL multichain reporting. Reuters
Securitize / Hamilton Lane / Ledger Insights. (2022–2025). Regulated tokenized fund feeders. Hamilton Lane+1
The White House. (2025). Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology (executive action).The White House
The Block. (2025). BlackRock extends BUIDL to Solana.
Visa. (2023–2025). USDC settlement pilots and expansions (Ethereum, Solana, others). Payments Dive+1
Yahoo Finance analysis (via Goldman). (2024/2025). Tether among large Treasury holders.
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References (APA 7th ed.)
American Presidency Project. (2024, December 5). President-elect Trump appoints David O. Sacks as AI & crypto czar.University of California, Santa Barbara.
Apple Security Research. (2024, February 21). iMessage with PQ3: The new state of the art in quantum-secure messaging at scale.
Bank for International Settlements. (2023–2024). Tokenisation of assets and payments: Opportunities and challenges. BIS publications.
Buterin, V. (2021). Endgame. Ethereum Foundation blog.
Chainalysis. (2025). Crypto crime trends and North Korea–linked activity. Chainalysis Research.
CoinDesk. (2025, August 22). BlackRock expands BUIDL to Solana. CoinDesk Media.
Cornerstone Research. (2023, August 21). SEC Cryptocurrency Enforcement: 2023 update.
Cornerstone Research. (2025, January 20). SEC Cryptocurrency Enforcement: 2024 update.
Google Chrome Team. (2023, August 10). Protecting Chrome traffic with hybrid post-quantum Kyber KEM.
Google Security Blog. (2024, May 23). Advancing our bet on asymmetric cryptography.
Hamilton Lane; Securitize. (2024, August 15). Hamilton Lane Secondary Fund VI available via Securitize (tokenized feeder).
Ledger Insights. (2022, September 13). KKR fund is partly tokenized on Avalanche public blockchain.
Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2024). FIPS 203: ML-KEM; FIPS 204: ML-DSA. U.S. Department of Commerce.
Office of Management and Budget. (2022). M-23-02: Migrating to post-quantum cryptography. Executive Office of the President.
Reuters. (2024, May–July). SEC actions enabling spot Ether ETFs and their debut trading.
Reuters. (2025, August). BlackRock’s BUIDL expands beyond Ethereum.
U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. (2023). Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act (committee materials).
Visa. (2023, September 5). Visa expands USDC settlement to Solana and new partners.
Visa / Network announcements. (2025, July–August). Expanded stablecoin settlement options and supported chains.
The White House. (2025, January 23). Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology (Executive Order 14178).
Yahoo Finance / Goldman analysis. (2025). Tether’s U.S. Treasury holdings and relative rank among large holders.
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