#124: Bitcoin Beats Alphabet
Circle vs Swift. Tether + SoftBank's $3.6B Bitcoin play. Ledger's debit card. Paypal drops Agentic Toolkit. LayerZero lands $55M. Hidden Road (Ripple) wins FINRA approval.
๐ Hey, itโs Marc.
Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether and SoftBank are launching Twenty One Capital โ a $3.6B bitcoin buying machine far more ambitious than Microstrategy. This means:
The biggest USD stablecoin issuer on Earth
Now indirectly controls a publicly listed Bitcoin vault
With access to U.S. capital markets and investor flows.
This is a quiet revolution of capital markets.
Then: Hidden Road (recently acquired by Ripple) secured approval from FINRA to operate as a broker-dealer. Paypal dropped the ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐๐ฃ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ด๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ฐ ๐ง๐ผ๐ผ๐น๐ธ๐ถ๐ โ a full-blown suite to plug their APIs.
And, Bitcoin just became the worldโs 5th most valuable asset, surpassing Alphabet with a $1.87T market cap:
โBitcoin has a dual role as both a tech-correlated asset and a safeguard against private and public sector financial disruptions. It is regaining attention as a hedge against systemic risk as the concerns mount over the independence of the U.S. Federal Reserve.โ
โ Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Charteredโs Global Head of Digital Assets Research
This weekโs question:
๐ Our 10 Top Reads This Week
AI in the Enterprise. OpenAI. Link
The Great Rewrite: AI, Bitcoin, and the Unraveling of the Old Monetary Order. Maja Vujinovic. Link
Type III Stablecoins. Stanford Blockchain Review. Link
The State of Crypto Lending. Galaxy Digital. Link
Stablecoins: The First โKiller Appโ. Standard Chartered. Link
Networks in Crypto VC. Decentralised.co. Link
What Circle Payment Network can learn from Facebook, Plaid, & Wise. Fintech Blueprint. Link
Sam Altman Talks ChatGPT, AI Agents and Superintelligence. TED. Link
Google Takes Aim at Cursor. 51x. Link
What Comes After Mobile? Perspective AI and Consumer Tech. a16z. Link
Circle vs SWIFT
Circle will debut its Circle Payments Network (CPN) in May. [Announcement]
The goal? To enable real-time cross-border payments for financial institutions using USDC, EURC, and other regulated stablecoins.
What you should know:
What it is: A compliance-first payment protocol for fiat & stablecoins.
How it works: Banks and payment firms onboard via strict KYC/AML. CPN routes payments off-chain, settles on-chainโfast, cheap, programmable.
Use cases: Cross-border payroll, trade finance, remittances, AI payments, DeFi, e-commerce, micropayments.
Governance: Circle sets the rules, vets members, enforces AML/CFT, and ensures global compliance with travel-rule data sharing.
Ecosystem & Fees: Plug-and-play services for FX, risk, billing, liquidity. Revenue from payout fees, FX spreads, and network fees is reinvested into growth.
Why it matters: Cross-border payments are slow and costlyโup to 6.65% in fees with multi-day delays. Circleโs CPN offers a faster, cheaper alternative by linking USDC and EURC to banks and real-time rails. It unlocks use cases like payroll and treasury, and positions stablecoins as next-gen payment infrastructureโputting pressure on SWIFT to evolve.
Yes, but: Banks across North America, Europe, and Asia will begin live trials for digital assets and currencies on SWIFTโs infrastructure.
CPN vs SWIFT: As payments become embedded in software and AI agents transact on their own, legacy rails like SWIFT start to show their limits. Trusted but rigid, they werenโt built for speed, automation, or programmability.
Our take: For corporates, this means one thing: a dual-rail strategy is no longer optionalโitโs essential. Legacy systems like SWIFT remain critical for large institutions with deep regulatory and banking ties. But for high-velocity use casesโcross-border payroll, AI-led procurement, smart contract settlementsโrails like CPN will be the default.
Read the Whitepaper
51: We help companies like Avalanche, Near, or MoonPay with industry-leading thought leadership campaigns to attract institutional clients. Interested?
Ledger x Mercuryo
Mercuryo launched a Mastercard-powered crypto debit card, Spend, live via Ledger Live. [announcement]
It enables users to spend BTC & ETH directly at 150M+ merchants globally.
Key features:
Limits: โฌ40,000 monthly spending cap; zero setup fees
Compatibility: Supports BTC, ETH at launch; stablecoins coming. Works with Apple Pay & Google Pay
Infrastructure: Integrated directly into Ledger Live, enabling real-time conversion of crypto into fiat
Security: Taps into Ledger's Donjon security lab and self-custody setup; AML/KYC built in via Mastercard
Expansion: EEA users first; global availability planned
Why it matters: Backed by Mercuryoโs infra + Mastercardโs network + Ledgerโs security stack, Spend blends self-custody with real-world spendingโwithout compromising control.
Our take: Ledger is shifting from secure storage to everyday spending. The gap between digital assets and real-world commerce is closing fast. The next wave crypto products wonโt be won by hypeโitโll be won by products people trust and actually use.
๐จ News Flash
Cantor x Tether x SoftBank: $3.6B Bitcoin bet. Link
PayNation rolled out a crypto-powered B2B payment solution. Link
Hidden Road secured approval from FINRA to operate as a broker-dealer. Link
Paypal dropped the ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐๐ฃ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ด๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ฐ ๐ง๐ผ๐ผ๐น๐ธ๐ถ๐ โ a suite to plug their APIs. Link
Dorsia integrates MoonPay to enable crypto payments. Link
PayPal is launching a 3.7% annual yield on its PYUSD stablecoin. Link
Slovenia proposes 25% tax on crypto transactions. Link
๐ Keep up with all our signals for Web3 execs on our Telegram channel.
๐ฐ Money Moves
Bitdeer: Bitcoin mining company raised $179M in Loans and Equity. Link
Auradine: AI infrastructure solutions raised $153M Series C led by StepStone Group. Link
LayerZero: Interoperability protocol raised $55M led by a16z. Link
Symbiotic: Restaking platform raised $29M led by Pantera. Link
ZND: Digital finance platform raised $20M led by Rollman Management Digital. Link
Analog: Blockchain startup raised $15M led by Bolts Capital. Link
Thatโs all for now, folks.
Talk soon,
โ Marc & Team