Head of Product, Digital Assets @SolanaFndn. Prev @Visa @gauntletnetwork @Anchorage @Stanford @Cambridge_Uni. views are my own catherinegu.com
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The journey with @solana started sometime back 😇
Super excited to share that today I am joining @solana as Head of Product, Digital Assets. Stoked to be part of an all star team @calilyliu @jnwng @nickducoff @sherazshere @toly @rajgokal @DanPaul000 and many more
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Catherine Gu retweeted
I did say we'd be releasing our models periodically...introducing Gemini 4 Carbon, our next frontier model.
Following Argon's release just two weeks ago, Carbon shows the pace at which we’re pushing the frontier, it ranks #1 on the recently updated v5.0 of @ArtificialAnlys Intelligence Index at 59. It also leads across key cybersecurity evaluations scoring 88.2% on SEC-bench Pro for finding vulnerabilities, 54.8% on ExploitGym for exploitation, and 71.0% on CWE-bench for patching.
We’re seeing significant improvements in long-horizon tasks even compared to Argon, and we’ve strengthened frontier safeguards.
As we did with Argon, we’re going to roll it out gradually + responsibly. Some trusted cyber defenders will get access starting this week. We'll be expanding it to more partners through our Fairwind Program, ahead of wider availability soon, so hang tight!
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Catherine Gu retweeted
Akash was built on one belief: the cloud should belong to everyone.
The Akash core team believes our next chapter is on Solana, where the DePIN movement thrives.
This is your network, so you decide. Vote on Prop 346: mintscan.io/akash/proposals/…
Why Solana: akash.network/blog/why-we-se…
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Catherine Gu retweeted
Depending on who you talk to, our industry growing up is either doom or glory.
We are finally globally relevant and that necessarily means we are less insular.
Because this industry was created by the stubborn resolute and unwavering conviction of contrarians, misfits, and fringe actors, we relished in the pirate mindset. We loved our insularity. (Tbh, I miss it too at times).
The “web3” thesis where programmable blockchains are supposed to be decentralized computing infrastructure for many apps ultimately incinerated billions of dollars of venture capital because it led tech minded builders and their investors to prioritize app sovereignty over unified liquidity. This was wrong on first principles.
As it turns out, blockchain has and always will be financial infrastructure. Finance superpowered by tech and programmability. Decentralization, neutrality, and censorship resistance have never been more important.
Whether this excites you going forward depends on whether you’re more west coast or east coast; San Francisco or New York; more tech or finance minded.
From the west coast crowd, I often hear disappointment (“oh in the end blockchain is only about finance?! That’s it?”)
I couldn’t be more excited, and I think the mandate has never been more clear and also attainable.
Capital formation isn’t an abstract thing that bankers do when you are ready to IPO.
Capital formation enables innovation. It allows us to take big bets on the future. Liquid markets enable capital formation. Over the long term, there can not be a larger global capital market than the internet capital market. The biggest market to possibly unify is that of people on the internet who use money.
Like all things the internet has ever touched, the online/onchain experience is never the same as the pre internet experience. Just as we needed network engineers to imagine and build blockchain networks, we need consumer tech minds to complement finance minds to deliver new ways of accessing finance.
This is not and has never been a small vision for blockchain. In fact, I would argue that it’s a core intent of a “peer to peer electronic cash network.”
We welcome those who want to double down on finance for the internet to come join the Solana ecosystem and make good on this mission.
I think it’s fine and even great that the risk-on talent from blockchain is now expanding new frontiers away from blockchain. New frontiers are only ever explored by those with stubborn resolute unwavering conviction.
My take on a16z crypto moving into frontier tech.
First, I'll always be grateful to a16z for helping validate the space back in 2013 when Chris Dixon led their investment into Coinbase, which got me even more excited about crypto.
But the final nail in the coffin for my previous career, and what ultimately pushed me to pivot my entire career into Bitcoin, was Marc Andreessen's 2014 NYT oped, Why Bitcoin Matters. If you haven't read it, suggest reading it. It's still important to this day.
A lot of people have probably forgotten, but in those days we were all just looking for external validation. Very few institutions or funds were willing to publicly endorse crypto, and two of the funds that took a real brand risk were a16z and USV.
Since then, we've seen some of the most incredible talent enter the space and fundamentally reshaped what crypto is today.
You can actually argue that a lot of the AI infrastructure development we're seeing today wouldn't be where it is without Bitcoin mining infrastructure and the talent that flowed from crypto into AI. There is a real connection between the two industries that I don't think gets enough credit.
Now, moving from crypto into frontier tech, whether that's robotics, bio, AI, energy, compute etc just means to me that the talent and muscle we developed building crypto over the past decade can now be used to build across all of frontier tech.
We spent years building something that was nascent, misunderstood, and in many cases hated by the world. We developed thick skin, continued investing and building, and had to constantly show the world why this tech mattered. Even during thanksgiving dinners.
And I think that makes us uniquely suited to build frontier tech.
An example is data centers. Today, people and governments are increasingly pushing back against them. Well, people and governments hated crypto too, but we continued to invest and build, and now almost all of trad finance is embracing crypto in some capacity.
I believe frontier tech represents the next generation of pirates in technology. People willing to build things that are nascent, misunderstood, and sometimes hated by the world.
We're going to be hated and loved along the way, but we're going to keep building cool shit that the world hasn't recognized the importance of yet.
And crypto taught me that the world usually doesn't recognize the importance of new tech until years later which is why I stay close to talent
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And just like that, all the frontier labs are now going for Personal Agents 📱
We’re opening a research preview of Claude Duet, a new app where Claude works as a proactive agent.
It comes to you with what needs your attention, completes tasks you ask of it, keeps working when you step away, and checks with you before it acts on your behalf.
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Catherine Gu retweeted
Solana's major drop in finality time today
Brought to you by Alpenglow
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BP26-CATHERINE 😬
Just over a month till BREAKPOINT
- Hacker House - 1-12 Nov
- Demo Day - 12 Nov
- Solana Intelligence Summit - 13 Nov
- Community Awards - 13 Nov
- 200ms - 13 Nov
- Scale or Die - 14 Nov
- Frontier Traders: Breakpoint Finale - 14 Nov
- BlockZero - 15 Nov
- Breakpoint 2026 - 15-17 Nov
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Catherine Gu retweeted
solana is now the #1 chain for real stablecoin transfers
> 55.8m transfers in september alone
> 30% of all adjusted transfers
> real volume up 125% this yr (fastest of any top 7 chain)
> payments more than doubled
no bots. no exchange plumbing.
just people and businesses moving dollars.
data: @alliumlabs
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Catherine Gu retweeted
We halved the latency on Solana
Now it's time to double the capacity
It's time to increase block capacity again
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Catherine Gu retweeted
JUST IN: JPMorgan is working with Solana to enable financial institutions settle trades onchain
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