131: Stripe x Shopify x Privy =
Hey, it’s Marc.
Stripe is not stopping: It acquired the wallet leader Privy and enabled millions of Shopify merchants across 34 countries to use stablecoins.
Then: For over a decade, Bank of America dismissed crypto as “troubling.” Quietly, they were building the largest blockchain patent portfolio in finance.
This week, CEO Brian Moynihan confirmed what insiders have known for months: They’re building a USD stablecoin.
Also, this week:
X and Polymarket to launch Grok-powered prediction tools from social sentiment
Societe Generale launches USDCV stablecoin and becomes first major bank to launch USD stablecoin
NVIDIA unveils AI Factories
Plasma, Tethers new L1 for stablecoins, raises $500M in an ICO
And much more.
We also released our Stablecoin x AI report. 🔥 Access here
👉 Get your brand in front of 35,000+ decision-makers — book your ad spot now.
Top Boardroom Reads This Week
Digital Assets
Q2 2025 State of Crypto Report (Coinbase)
Tether is not a Stablecoin Company (Fiftyone Insights)
Soft Data, Hard Questions for the Economy (Galaxy Digital)
The End of the Foundation Era in Crypto (a16z crypto)
US Crypto Regulations to Watch for in 2025 (Electric Capital)
Ethereum Foundation Treasury Policy (Ethereum Foundation)
AI
The Gentle Singularity (Sam Altman)
HBR study: What are people really using GenAI for in 2025? (51x)
Apple vs OpenAI (51x)
Sovereign AI Agents Think Local, Act Global With NVIDIA AI Factories (Nvidia)
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BofA is building a stablecoin (and so is everyone else)
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan just confirmed what insiders knew: America's 2nd-largest bank is actively developing a blockchain-based digital dollar. This isn't crypto experimentation: BofA moves $3T daily and has quietly filed hundreds of blockchain patents since 2014 while publicly calling crypto "troubling."
The catalyst: Trump's regulatory clarity + the GENIUS Act creating federal stablecoin frameworks. Moynihan's exact words: "If they make that legal, we will go into that business."
So what: The stablecoin floodgates are opening. Société Générale already launched a dollar-pegged coin. JPMorgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Fidelity are building USD stablecoins. The dominos are falling. Soon, we'll see every major bank launch a USD stablecoin. And when major banks control digital dollar infrastructure, your payment rails will need to integrate or risk displacement. [ANALYSIS]
Stripe now owns the entire crypto infrastructure stack
Stripe acquired crypto wallet leader Privy (75M+ accounts) after buying Bridge for $1.1B in February. This isn't random M&A—it's vertical integration of the stablecoin economy. [RELEASE]
The math: Stripe now controls stablecoin issuance (Bridge), wallet embedding (Privy), and payment processing (core business) across 8M merchants. Stablecoin transfers hit $27.6T in 2024, more than Visa and Mastercard combined.
So what? This is a $1.4T payments heavyweight rebuilding the entire financial stack onchain – without the friction Maybe it's time to pay attention. [ANALYSIS 👇]
Tether isn't a stablecoin company anymore
Tether announced it's open-sourcing its Bitcoin Mining OS and raised $500M for Plasma, a Bitcoin-based stablecoin settlement layer. With $13-14B in 2024 profits, Tether is systematically building infrastructure across mining, AI, telecom, and energy.
The numbers: Tether invested $2B in mining infrastructure, aims to be the world's largest Bitcoin miner by end-2025, and controls $155B in USDT circulation. They're not just issuing digital dollars, they're building the entire monetary operating system.
So what? The company behind the world's most-used stablecoin is securing Bitcoin's base layer, building custom settlement rails, and embedding payments into AI applications. When your "stable" digital dollar comes from a company controlling everything from mining to AI inference, dependency risk becomes real. [RELEASE]
OpenAI hits $10B revenue (but burns $9B to get there)
OpenAI reached $10B annual revenue faster than Facebook or Google—but spent $9B generating $4B last year. They lost $5B, with $5B in compute costs alone exceeding total revenue. [NEWS]
The scale: 500M weekly users (5% of Earth's population), 3M paying business customers (up 50% in 4 months), 90% still on free tier. OpenAI wants $125B revenue by 2029—making them bigger than Meta.
So what? AI leaders are burning cash at unprecedented rates to capture market share. Every "free" AI user costs real money, but whoever wins the scale game controls enterprise AI pricing power. [ANALYSIS]
Polygon's founder takes back control (and kills half the products)
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal just declared himself CEO of Polygon Foundation, taking "full control" of the $8B blockchain network. His first move: kill Polygon zkEVM next year and focus only on Polygon PoS (stablecoin payments) and AggLayer (blockchain interoperability). [TWEET UPDATE]
The pivot: With "several hundred million in cash," Polygon is moving from multi-product confusion to laser focus. New upgrades push network capacity beyond 1,000 TPS by July, targeting 100k+ TPS over "next few years."
So what? When blockchain networks consolidate around two use cases – payments and cross-chain connectivity – it signals infrastructure maturity. Polygon is betting enterprise adoption comes from doing fewer things better, not more things poorly.
News Flash
Meta invests $14B in Scale AI, hires CEO Wang to lead AI. Link
X and Polymarket are partnering to launch prediction tools. Link
SocGen-FORGE launches USDCV stablecoin on Ethereum, Solana with BNY custody. Link
UAE launches AE Coin stablecoin, accepted by Air Arabia, regulated. Link
Matera and Circle integrate USDC into core banking for real-time payments. Link
Top Vendors This Week
👉 We’re tracking 1000s of AI and blockchain vendors so you find the right vendors, partners, and bet on the right tech. Sign up for early access.
Commerce:
Visa Intelligent Commerce: Enables AI agents to make secure, personalized purchases on behalf of users using tokenized Visa credentials
Interactions:
Portraits: Google Lab’s experiment that allows users to interact with an AI-powered, conversational avatar of Kim Scott
Design:
Stitch: AI-powered tool from Google Labs for App design and UI
That’s all for now, folks. More for PRO readers below 👇
Take care
– Marc & Team
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