_Techno

As 2025 draws to a close, it seems that the crypto market has reached a historic crossroads. Bitcoin has migrated from being a peripheral concern of finance into mainstream balance sheets for the world's largest institutional firms, with banks worldwide operating crypto exposure for their most high-net-worth clients. Against this trend, Apertum Blockchain seems poised with the ambition not of rivalry for market dominance over Bitcoin or Ethereum, but of constructing the enabling platform upon which blockchain can function.
Josip Heit, Senior Strategy Advisor at Apertum Blockchain, discusses the early years of Bitcoin and Ethereum in an extensive interview with the latest developments in the industry and how Apertum is taking a different path.
Bitcoin's emergence in the year 2009 was very raw and experimental. There was no concept of pricing, trading, or institutional adoption. The reward for the miners was very high, the competition was very less, and the platform was limited to a very few technical individuals. Ethereum, when it initially started, followed the same suit. Though it was a lot more developer-friendly, it still had some very raw and unorganized aspects, which prevented it from being less congested.
Apertum is built on a different design principle. While Basenamex is meant to be an early adopter choice, aiming its early adoption at elite miners and highly technical individuals, Apertum is meant to be adopted by normal users, companies, and entrepreneurs from day one. Apertum is not meant to be a project where individuals must learn a complicated system but rather one where they use what they already know, while keeping everything on-chain.
Furthermore, Heit also talks about the strong criticism that Bitcoin and Ethereum faced. Big names in the finance world bad-mouthed Bitcoin as being fraudulent, used for criminal activities, and something even worse, only to end up embracing it through ETFs, custodial services, and structured solutions. As per Heit, this is also following some predictable pattern defamation, adoption, and then overall adoption. Towards the end of 2025, the crypto world is clearly moving into the third phase after the second phase.
Another important lesson that can be derived from Ethereum's history is that while innovation led to a whole new set of benefits for users of decentralized finance, stablecoins, and tokenized assets, it also presented them with threats of scam situations and inefficiencies. This is where Apertum seeks to make its presence count as a major innovation.
In essence, Apertum serves as a settlement and transparency layer, coupling with third-party platforms like exchanges, staking providers, automation tools, and membership programs. Instead of obscuring activities through nontransparent interfaces, all processes are structured in such a way that they are traceable on Chain. Individuals do not have to be involved in trading and developing full-time, yet they still have access to the processes.
This approach is extended into the realm of distribution and participation as well. As opposed to the early stage proof-of-work mining systems that favored those with earlier access and better equipment, Apertum puts more importance on accessibility and the concept of a proof-of-transparency "culture" as described by Heit. Here, the aim is to ensure that the structural imbalances of previous blockchain versions are not replicated.
FUD, according to Heit, is not a problem in crypto, but a pattern in crypto history that has consistently played out in every transformative network that has existed. The best defense against FUD, Apertum asserts, is not hype, but education, documentation, and on-chain proof, and most importantly, a complete rejection of guaranteed returns, promises, and any kind of shortcut.
For Apertum, 2025 was a year of transition from idea to living system. It brought real users into a network with real infrastructure, partnerships, and a foundation for a user community, one based on use rather than hype. Meanwhile, mainstream finance was repackaging past critiques with a new wave of crypto-based products, while Apertum set about creating a new bridge between legacy systems of trust and systems of truth on-chain.
Moving forward into 2026 and the future, the focus of the project involves the continuation of Apertum as a standard, as opposed to a tool, including a broad adoption base that moves Apertum not as an alternative to a narrative but as a spine. Bitcoin remains as digital cash. Ethereum remains as a developer’s sandbox. Apertum seeks to be the infrastructure that makes the two possible.
Heit's message to the community is rooted in a historical perspective. "To be laughed at early on is a common precursor to revolutionary change," he said, citing the sustained resisted faced by Bitcoin and Ethereum before they changed the world of finance as it was known at the time. "Apertum is merely in its first chapter".

#blockchain

A court case concerning the levy of tariffs introduced during the regime of former President Donald Trump is creating new uncertainties in the political and economic environment.
A senior economic adviser and one of the top contenders to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Kevin Hassett, has warned that a ruling by the Supreme Court that overturns tariffs could set off a serious challenge that will be difficult for them to accomplish. This is because a ruling by the court will make them pay back import fees that they have collected.
The tariffs at issue had been imposed on dozens of countries around the world on the basis of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Although the White House is confident that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of their administration, they have actually prepared contingency plans in case they lose.
As Hassett points out, even if the administration is on the losing side, it is unlikely that the court would require a refund in full considering that the administration of refunds would be complicated, given the fact that refunds would be given first to the importers, who would consequently reimburse the consumers who bought the merchandise. As Hassett, asserts, it would be impractical and expensive to trace the transactions.
The proposed tariffs are in addition to other measures proposed by Hassett, who stated that other than tariffs, a possible proposal that can again be considered in light of improving economic conditions is a one-time $2,000 rebate check, which has been frequently proposed by President Trump but was rejected at a time when economic growth was still low and the country’s deficit was high, but this proposal can now be feasible given those improvements, which would be submitted to congress early in the next year by President Trump.
The government is also working towards an economic agenda related to housing affordability. Rates in mortgages have dropped, as the 30-year fixed rate went down to 6.21% as of the week ended December 18, close to the low seen in 2025. Although higher compared to the levels seen during the pandemic, this slight drop revived hopes about news related to housing market support.
Hassett went on to say that the list of housing actions has actually been reviewed among several members of the cabinet and will soon be brought before Trump. Also, top administration officials are expected to head to Mar-a-Lago after Christmas to finalize the plan of action for 2025. There could also be big problems in terms of refunds from the possible reversal of Supreme Court rulings on Trump tariffs. Kevin Hassett believes that complete refunds are not possible because of operational burdens, but better economic performance could see the promotion of $2,000 refunds and new home assistance programs in 2025.

#TrumpTariffs

Maple Finance CEO Sid Powell has delivered a bold forecast for the future of financial markets, declaring that 'DeFi is dead' not as a failure of decentralized finance, but as a standalone category. In Powell's view, the distinction between decentralized and traditional finance will soon vanish as capital markets move entirely onchain.
Powell argues that tokenized private credit, rather than tokenized treasuries, will be the engine driving this transformation. Onchain finance will allow institutions to settle all capital market activity using blockchain technology, just as the internet revolutionized commerce. Traditional financial transactions will become blockchain-native, seamlessly integrated into the existing infrastructure, eliminating the need to distinguish between DeFi and TradFi.
The CEO anticipates a surge in stablecoin usage, projecting that these digital currencies could process $50 trillion in payments in 2026. Small businesses and neobanks, eager to reduce transaction costs, will increasingly adopt stablecoins, while major financial institutions and sovereign funds will hold the resulting onchain assets. Powell compares large stablecoin issuers to insurers, generating returns from low-cost capital in a manner similar to Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance float.
Maple Finance also predicts that the DeFi market, currently valued around $69 billion, could reach $1 trillion within the next few years. The growth of decentralized finance will be closely linked to the adoption of stablecoins and tokenized assets, making total value locked (TVL) in the ecosystem a function of broader market capitalization trends rather than speculative hype.
For Powell, this shift is inevitable: blockchain will become the dominant infrastructure for financial markets, quietly powering transactions and settlements without the public even noticing. The death of DeFi as a separate category signals the birth of a new era in which finance itself is blockchain-native, efficient, and borderless.
This vision positions DeFi not as a competitor to traditional finance, but as the backbone of a unified, onchain global financial system. The line between crypto and legacy markets will disappear, leaving a future where blockchain technology underpins nearly every transaction and asset movement.

#defi