This special episode features Blockworks co-founders announcing their acquisition of Messari, the prominent crypto data platform. The hosts discuss why this merger makes strategic sense after 9 years of building Blockworks from a media company into a comprehensive data and investor relations business.

The conversation covers three main themes: the rationale behind acquiring Messari specifically, their analysis of crypto's current 'institutional bull, token bear' market dynamics, and Blockworks' evolution into a data-centric business serving both asset issuers and institutional underwriters.

Both companies have spent nearly a decade focused on increasing transparency in crypto markets, with Blockworks starting from media distribution and moving into deep protocol analysis, while Messari built broad data infrastructure covering 40,000 assets with comprehensive APIs.

Why Messari: Complementary Data Strategies Converge

Blockworks and Messari pursued opposite but complementary approaches to crypto data - Messari went broad as a 'Bloomberg for crypto' while Blockworks went deep on specific protocols like equity research analysts

Messari covers 40,000 assets with APIs providing market data, exchange information, on-chain events, protocol data, token unlocks, fundraising, and social sentiment monitoring

Both companies share the mission of 'increasing transparency for investors and promoting fundamental-based decision-making in crypto' after competing for 8 years

Messari has successfully expanded from serving crypto funds into enterprise clients over the past 2 years, matching Blockworks' institutional focus

Institutional Bull, Token Bear: Trust Crisis in Crypto

The winning crypto use case is clear: 'tokenizing assets and rebuilding capital markets on-chain' including stablecoins, RWAs, and traditional financial instruments

'People do not trust these markets anymore. I don't trust these markets anymore' due to lack of standardized disclosures and inflated metrics

Founders regularly overstate revenue by 10x with no consequences, unlike traditional finance where this would be criminal behavior

'There's no boogeyman, guys. We're just losing. We haven't produced competitive assets that people want to buy' - the industry must solve trust issues internally

The solution requires three layers: disclosure frameworks, standardized data accounting, and compliance tools for financial institutions entering crypto

Blockworks Business Model: Serving Issuers and Underwriters

Blockworks serves two customer types: issuers of on-chain assets (protocols, chains, foundations) and underwriters (investors, regulators, exchanges, custodians)

The company provides three core services: TTF disclosure frameworks for token issuers, standardized datasets, and compliance monitoring for financial institutions

'Blockworks is the center of gravity in between liquidity hubs like exchanges, token issuers, and regulators' - positioning as essential infrastructure

AI agents represent Messari's fastest-growing customer segment, highlighting the opportunity for automated data consumption

AI-Native Finance: The Trillion-Dollar Opportunity

Traditional information platforms like Moody's ($80B) and S&P ($120B) show the massive scale opportunity for crypto data businesses

Crypto data advantages: 'all of the data is already digital, structured, and real-time' compared to legacy systems requiring enormous headcount

Future investor relations should enable live data streaming and LLM queries instead of manually matching footnotes across quarterly reports

'We're making the existing finance stack operate way, way better' rather than completely replacing traditional finance

The strategy follows a 'land and expand' model - controlling data unlocks monitoring, diligence, and other workflow use cases

Resources Mentioned

analysts Messari covers 40

went broad as a 'Bloomberg for crypto' while Blockworks went deep on specific protocols like equity research analysts Messari covers 40,000 assets with APIs providing market data, exchange informatio

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