#857 Avalanche Summit London 2025
The day in history
It’s not often you’ll see a less impressive 400 year-old-tree.
But apparently, this mulberry tree was planted by James I of England (James VI of Scotland) — "the wisest fool in Christendom"— to encourage the silk industry.
It’s a shadow of its former self but who wouldn’t be after 400 years?
Anyhow, the more famous tree at Hatfield House is the Elizabeth Oak, the tree under which the 25-year-old daughter of King Henry VIII reportedly first heard the news she would become Queen of England, following her half-sister Mary’s death on 17th November 1558.
The date is suspect and while there is a tree in situ, it’s certainly not the original but a newbie planted in the same spot by Elizabeth II. Even before blockchain, provenance was a thing people cared about.
Which smartly brings us back to the things we care about.
Aside from the expected opening ticketing delays — never get into the VIP queue — the first day of Avalanche Summit London 2025 was glorious — in weather and temperament.
The location was Hatfield House, originally a royal palace built in 1497 by Henry VII’s Archbishop of Canterbury and lived in variously by Henry VIII’s children Edward, Mary and Elizabeth.
But asides from planting his Mulberry tree, James I “did not like the palace” and it ended up being owned by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury — famous for his ‘discovery’ — or instigation if you believe — of the Gunpower Plot.
As for Avalanche, one obvious element in defence of the realm was that Avax Labs’ CEO Emin Gün Sirer sported two — presumably ex-UK special forces — bodyguards.
You could tell because they were wearing suits but not in the ironic way that some of the crypto bros audience were. They were wearing these ill-fitting uniforms because they had to and because their charge — the one-time Cornell computer science professor — is worth over $500 million in an era in which crypto execs are regularly getting $5 wrench hacked or their relatives losing fingers.
Another Chesterton Fence having to be rebuilt!
In keeping with other macro blockchain trends, US DC insider — at least for 10 days — Anthony Scaramucci was also early on stage, with his hot anti-Trump takes. But the man knows of which he talks.
He would have also been good on history too, given his podcast pedigree: a great couple of episodes on The Rest is History about US presidents with Dominic Sandbrook last year.
But when you’re eating at the buffet at Mar-a-lago, you don’t get to choose some crypto acceptance — a bit of stablecoins legalisation and SEC dial-back, Scaramucci warned.
You have to chomp down on the entire meal — tarifs, TRUMP memecoins and whatever else #47 comes up with.
And yet when it comes to Avalanche — the 16th most valuable cryptocurrency — the troops are happy. Of course, when Bitcoin is over $100,000 everyone is broadly content, whatever their bags.
But comparing themselves against Ethereum and Solana, there is an argument that Avalanche now has the momentum, with plenty of companies using its tech to launch their own L1s across multiple sectors — DeFi, DePin, institutional, consumer etc.
For in our own wheelhouse of gaming, Gunzilla Games’ Off The Grid is still sloughing towards Bethelhem to be born, with its Avalanche-based Gunz mainnet finally onboarding players — another 20,000 this week — Nexon’s MapleStory N is already up to 39,000 DAUWs with the price of its NXPC token remaining steady.
Expect more detail on Nexon’s roadmap in tomorrow’s email.