Zach Zukowski Digital Money • Tokenization • Market Infrastructure
Portrait of Zach Zukowski
SPEAKER & ADVISORY

Zach Zukowski researches the infrastructure layer beneath digital money: the gateways, custody arrangements, settlement systems, and control infrastructure that determine how stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and token economies actually behave under stress.

I'll show you where the evidence is strong, where it's weak, and where reasonable people can disagree. The session works when you leave seeing the tradeoffs clearly enough to make the call.

Seven scholarly papers across two tracks, unified by a single thesis: classify the token, but regulate and audit the operator. Senior Investment Analyst at Borderless Capital since 2019 (founding hire). Research submitted to the Federal Reserve Board / FRBNY Fifth Conference on International Roles of the U.S. Dollar, June 2026.

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What I do in the room

I work from the evidence outward: what is measured, what is inferred, where uncertainty remains, and what decision follows from each case.

Talk formats

Policy briefing · 30-45 minutes

Best for: policy teams, central bank research divisions, market-infrastructure regulators.

Where does risk actually concentrate in the digital-dollar stack, and what should supervisors monitor? This briefing walks through how the same dollar token inherits distinct regulatory exposure, interest-rate sensitivity, and crisis behavior depending on which gateway routes it. Grounded in three years of on-chain data, 19 gateway entities, and the SVB stress episode.

Takeaways: a clear picture of where the control layer sits, what the CLII gateway taxonomy measures, and what gateway-level monitoring reveals that aggregate supply data misses.

Sample topics:

  • Gateway infrastructure and the Fed-stablecoin transmission channel
  • What SVB revealed about contagion at the routing layer
  • Three dollar objects, one wallet: why policy treats them differently
  • Where GENIUS and CLARITY attach obligations, and who bears the cost

Institutional diligence session · 45-60 minutes

Best for: investment committees, tokenization product teams, risk and compliance leads.

How do you tell whether a tokenized product is institution-ready before the first stress event proves it isn't? This session walks through the nine-category MVEP framework, the failure modes Circle's SVB weekend exposed, and the specific evidence gates that separate credible equivalence claims from marketing language.

Takeaways: a structured diligence checklist they can apply to any tokenized product proposal, a clear understanding of where equivalence breaks surface first, and the three categories (system of record, reconciliation, custody) that are hardest to retrofit after launch.

Sample topics:

  • The MVEP framework: nine gates for tokenized-product diligence
  • What "settled" means when blockchain confirmation and economic finality diverge
  • Transfer-agent integration: recordkeeping, reconciliation, and settlement-cycle alignment
  • Continuous monitoring

Builder workshop · 60-90 minutes

Best for: pre-launch protocol teams, stablecoin product leads, payments architecture teams.

What breaks first in your token economy or stablecoin product, and how do you design the monitoring system before launch? This workshop uses simulation results, real failure-rate data, and the control-layer framework to stress-test product architecture against adversarial conditions. Covers reserve design, redemption mechanics, routing defaults, emission schedules, governance concentration, and go-live readiness.

Takeaways: a named list of failure sequences specific to their product type, quantitative thresholds for when to redesign or pause, and a monitoring framework tied to specific decision owners.

Sample topics:

  • Adaptive emissions as insurance: what simulation reveals about tail-scenario survival
  • Governance concentration in DePIN: why hardware capital barriers concentrate who governs
  • Reserve design and redemption under stress: the 2am Saturday test
  • From policy text to product spec: translating GENIUS and CLARITY into operating gates

Speaking and teaching experience

Workshop lead
9 accelerator programs · ~75 teams (2021-2025)

Structured education on incentive design, emissions architecture, governance attack surfaces, and sustainability constraints. Format: presentations, group workshops, and 1:1 office hours aligning founders, engineering, legal, and liquidity stakeholders on token design decisions.

Programs: Algorand Europe Accelerator, Algorand Miami Accelerator, Algorand x Draper University, Algorand APAC Accelerator, Moonbeam Accelerator, ElizaOS Accelerator, Lisk Accelerator. Partners: Algorand Foundation, Eterna Capital, Rokk3r, Arrington Capital, AXL Ventures, AngelHack.

Uniswap Foundation governance committee
2024

Invited participant in the in-person committee convened to design delegate structure ahead of the protocol fee switch implementation. Contributed to the governance framework that shaped how fee revenue authority was distributed across delegates.

Conference presenter
Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians (2018)

Presentation on NFT standards and token design during the period when the ERC-721 standard was being formalized.

Research submitted for presentation
Federal Reserve Board / FRBNY (2026)

Routing the Dollar submitted to the Fifth Conference on International Roles of the U.S. Dollar, June 2026. Notification pending.

Research boundaries

The research observes the gateway, not the end user. Gateway data measure institutional routing, chain selection, and the regulatory surface each entity presents. End-user geography, the reasons users choose dollar instruments over local alternatives, and transaction-level intent remain outside the data. Claims about specific geographic payment routes await future data collection.

Simulations locate fragility, not forecasts. Large-scale simulation ensembles stress-test mechanism designs under controlled stress scenarios, mapping the boundary between stabilization and failure. The simulations identify where a design breaks and under what conditions.

The CLII is a regulatory-surface index by design. Two gateways with near-identical compliance scores produced opposite stress outcomes during SVB; their banking exposures differed, their compliance posture was similar. The index captures the observable surface a regulator could attach obligations to: licensing, reserve transparency, freeze capability, compliance infrastructure, geographic restrictions. Enforcement quality and operational competence are intentionally outside its scope.

Advisory engagements

Tokenization diligence review

Nine-category MVEP assessment applied to a specific product or proposal. Tests whether the tokenized version preserves legal rights, operational resilience, and economic behavior under stress.

Deliverable: pass/fail report with remediation roadmap and monitoring triggers.

Timeline: 2–4 weeks.

Best for: asset managers, issuers preparing for committee review, custodians benchmarking a new offering.

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Token economy design review

Simulation-based stress test of an emission schedule, governance structure, or incentive design. Calibrates the mechanism against real data and runs adversarial scenarios to locate the boundary between stabilization and failure.

Deliverable: scenario report with parameter recommendations, failure-boundary analysis, and named guardrails.

Timeline: 4–8 weeks.

Best for: protocol teams pre-launch, foundations redesigning emissions, investors underwriting a token economy.

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Policy and strategy advisory

Ongoing advisory for teams navigating regulatory change, product architecture decisions, or control-layer design. Translates legislation into operating gates, maps where compliance obligations concentrate, and builds monitoring frameworks tied to specific decision owners.

Deliverable: decision memos, monitoring frameworks, escalation triggers, and structured input for board or committee decisions.

Timeline: retained or project-based.

Best for: stablecoin issuers, payments platforms, institutional partnerships teams, policy shops.

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Press kit

Bio (50 words)

Zach Zukowski researches the infrastructure beneath digital money: gateways, custody, settlement, and control systems. Seven scholarly papers across stablecoins, tokenization, and DePIN token economies. Senior Investment Analyst at Borderless Capital since 2019 (founding hire). Research submitted to the Federal Reserve Board / FRBNY conference on the dollar's international roles.

Bio (100 words)

Zach Zukowski is a researcher and investment professional focused on digital-dollar infrastructure and token-economy design. His seven-paper research program spans stablecoin gateway analysis, tokenized-product diligence, and DePIN mechanism design, unified by the thesis that the infrastructure operator determines regulatory outcomes, stress behavior, and governance concentration. He developed the Control Layer Intensity Index (CLII) for gateway-level regulatory scoring and the Minimum Viable Equivalence Pack (MVEP) for institutional tokenization diligence. Senior Investment Analyst at Borderless Capital since 2019 (founding hire), where he supported diligence across ~250 investments and ~$500M in AUM.

Bio (250 words)

Zach Zukowski is a researcher, writer, and investment professional building a seven-paper research program on the infrastructure beneath digital money and token economies. The program spans two tracks: Track A examines stablecoin gateway infrastructure, monetary policy transmission, and tokenized-product diligence; Track B examines DePIN tokenomics, programmable incentive design, and operational risk. The unifying thesis: who routes the dollar matters more than which dollar is routed; who earns the token matters more than who holds it; classify the token, but regulate and audit the operator.

His flagship paper, Routing the Dollar, introduces the Control Layer Intensity Index (CLII), a five-dimension gateway taxonomy, and documents how the same dollar token inherits distinct regulatory exposure, interest-rate sensitivity, and crisis behavior depending on which gateway routes it. The paper was submitted to the Fifth Conference on International Roles of the U.S. Dollar, hosted by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (June 2026).

Senior Investment Analyst at Borderless Capital since 2019 (founding hire). He built the research operating system, analytics infrastructure, and AI-powered workflows from scratch. He has supported diligence across approximately 250 investments and $500M in assets under management, advised on more than 100 tokenization engagements, and led structured workshops for ~75 teams across nine accelerator programs. He served on the Uniswap Foundation's in-person governance committee convened to design delegate structure ahead of the protocol fee switch.

His frameworks include the CLII for gateway regulatory scoring, the MVEP for institutional tokenization diligence, the Credit Migration Model for deposit displacement, and a ten-signal Regime Dashboard for control-layer classification.

Sample questions a moderator can ask

  1. Your thesis is "classify the token, but regulate the operator." What does that mean in practice for a regulator sitting in the room?
  2. Three stablecoins with zero SVB exposure still depegged. How?
  3. You've diligenced ~250 digital-asset investments. What's the single most common structural weakness you see in tokenized products?
  4. Your simulation work shows adaptive emissions sustain eight times more participants under stress. Why aren't more protocols using them?
  5. The CLII measures who is regulated, not who is fragile. Why is that distinction important?

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Booking

For speaking, advisory, or press inquiries, email [email protected] with the event, audience, and format. My reply will include the most relevant talk outline, bio version, and supporting materials.

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ABOUT

Zach Zukowski

Senior Investment Analyst at Borderless Capital since 2019 (founding hire). Borderless Capital is a Web3-focused registered investment adviser. Built the research operating system, analytics infrastructure, and AI-powered workflows from scratch. Supported diligence across ~250 investments and ~$500M in assets under management. Led a four-analyst team. Advised on 100+ tokenization engagements across stablecoin issuers, tokenized RWAs, and lending platforms.

The research program grew from a gap between how tokens are classified and how they actually behave. Regulators classify the asset; stress propagates through the operator. Risk committees evaluate the product; equivalence breaks at the infrastructure layer. The seven papers in this program measure that gap from two directions: stablecoin gateway infrastructure (Track A) and DePIN token economies (Track B). Both tracks converge on the same finding: the infrastructure operator, not the asset, determines regulatory outcomes, stress behavior, and governance concentration.

Open to institutional tokenization leadership roles in product, strategy, or research. Strongest fit: teams building or regulating digital-money infrastructure where the operating decisions require both policy fluency and product judgment.

[email protected] View resumes

About this site

My research program holds itself to the standard it applies to the systems it studies: claims trace to sources, frameworks are tested against adversarial conditions, and boundaries are named explicitly. The advisory work follows the same discipline: scoped deliverables, stated assumptions, and conclusions the client can pressure-test.