Is Crypto Winter Finally Over, What’s Next For DeFi? With Solstice Labs CEO Ben Nadareski

Is onchain yield in DeFi a broken trade? Catastrophic downside for a couple of points over a savings account — or is the whole category just mispriced by people who don't understand where the yield comes from? For the Season 2 premiere of The Big Picture, Jack sits down with Ben Nadareski, co-founder and CEO of Solstice, the largest Solana-native yield stablecoin protocol. Before Solstice, Ben ran global crypto-derivatives trading at Galaxy Digital, led M&A at SIX Digital Exchange, and worked on central-bank blockchain adoption at R3. He came to crypto to fix the plumbing, not chase the casino — and he answers like a risk manager, not a degen. With markets ripping back to life, we dig into:  • Whether the crypto winter is actually over  • Why onchain returns look mispriced against the risk, and what "sustainable yield" really means now  • The compression in delta-neutral yields since the October 10 crash  • The bank lobby's war on yield-bearing stablecoins, and what CLARITY changes for builders  • Inside Solstice: USX, eUSX, and building trustworthy yield infrastructure on Solana Please note that none of the opinions shared in this episode are financial advice. Subscribe to The Big Picture on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for new episodes every Thursday. For deep dives, livestreams and daily coverage, follow SolanaFloor on X and YouTube. Guest: Ben Nadareski