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Institutional staking expansion is on the horizon
Solana-based liquid staking platform Jito Foundation has hired Kevin Beardsley to head its institutional growth division, the network announced exclusively on StrataMedia’s Talking Tokens podcast.
Beardsley brings more than a decade of experience building consumer and institutional digital asset businesses across product, partnerships, and M&A. He has previously worked with Kraken’s Pro Trading team, Elwood Asset Management, and B2C2, and most recently, he was COO of Ctrl Wallet, helping scale the self-custody wallet provider.
At Jito, Beardsley will be responsible for growing its products and network, including Jito Staked SOL (JITOSOL), which has a market capitalization of about $888 million. His appointment comes as Jito has became a source of institutional SOL yield, with integrations across Anchorage, FalconX, Hex Trust and others.
Speaking about how the industry has changed over his career, Beardsley said despite the excitement around institutional adoption, the market hasn’t yet had a “floodgates” moment. “I think we all expected this fireworks moment where the institutions were going to come […] that’s not really how it works.”
The change has been gradual, Beardsley said “It is just gradually improving [and] is a gradual process that sort of culminates in a few big press releases and moments of transformation.”
While the industry is in a bear market, a lot of people tend to think “everything is dead and that no one's working anymore,” Beardsley said. “ I think that's definitely not the case now more than ever. It's not obvious from the outside that the innovation is still happening.”
And because the market’s progressing much slower than the industry would like, Beardsley thinks the goal of the moment should be to onboard institutions by “teaching, explaining, showing them how it works so that each individual team feels comfortable getting involved.”
That education is important, he stressed. While institutional interest has largely been defined by price exposure, ETFs, trading desks, and passive flows so far, things are changing as firms come onchain and start using the technology.
As a result, the industry is starting to converge. “Traditional institutions are now coming onchain and I think that line is really blurring between crypto native and and traditional,” Beardsley added.
Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.
The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️
For today’s episode, I interviewed Kevin Beardsley, the new head of institutional growth at Jito Foundation, in his first interview since announcing the role. Kevin, who previously held senior positions at Kraken and Ctrl Wallet, explains why institutions want Solana exposure but still struggle to actually use the technology, and how the 18-month education process behind every big institutional deal is invisible from the outside.
He walks through the process of liquid staking tokens solving the trade-off between earning yield and maintaining capital efficiency, why crypto-native companies are increasingly taking territory from traditional banks rather than the other way around, and what Jito's institutional integrations with Anchorage, FalconX, and others actually look like in practice. The conversation also covers why meme coins created real perception damage for institutional adoption, the branding problem crypto still hasn't fixed, and why AI-enabled wallets are the next thing worth watching.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Intro
01:13 – Kevin's career path to Jito
02:20 – What Jito does and what institutional growth looks like on Solana
04:02 – How institutions are moving beyond price exposure to using blockchain technology
04:29 – Why the fireworks moment never came for institutional adoption
05:12 – DeFi exploits, perception damage, and why hesitancy is understandable
06:40 – The blurring line between crypto-native and traditional institutions
07:57 – Why crypto companies will take territory from banks, not the other way around
10:20 – Liquid staking tokens: what they solve and how to explain them in a boardroom
13:06 – The branding problem: meme coins, perception, and why it still matters
16:18 – What Kevin wants the next phase of Jito to look like
19:32 – AI-enabled wallets and agents transacting onchain
20:58 – Final advice: work with people who care deeply about what they're building
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Please note this content is for informational and educational purposes only. Any views shared should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research. We may have a direct or indirect financial interest in content mentioned in this newsletter.