133: Kraken vs. Paypal
Hey, it’s Marc.
Visa CEO just went on CNBC to say they’ve been “preparing for this moment for years.” He was referring to stablecoins.
Why now? The U.S. just passed the 𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗜𝗨𝗦 𝗔𝗰𝘁, a stablecoin bill that opens the door for banks, retailers, and fintechs to issue their own digital dollars.
On top of that, the 𝗦𝗘𝗖 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿: digital dollars used for payments, fully backed 1:1 by real assets, are not securities
𝘐𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴𝘦, 𝘸𝘦’𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘢 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥.
— Ryan McInerney , CEO Visa
Also, this week:
Payment giant Fiserv launches own stablecoin for 10,000 banks
Coinbase and Kraken secure MiCA license
Kraken launches Paypal, Venmo, CashApp competitor
Anthony Pompliano raises $750M for a public Bitcoin treasury company
And much more.
Last call: We're going to drop our biggest stablecoin report yet, where we unpack ALL of this – together with Fintech Blueprint. Want to reach 300k+ fintech leaders? Reach out.
Top Boardroom Reads This Week
Digital Assets
Visa CEO on GENIUS ACT: We’ve been embracing stablecoins (CNBC)
Bitcoin's Rising Market Dominance (Tim Draper)
Understanding the risk of Coinbase after Circle's successful IPO (Artemis)
World: A Mission Critical Identity Solution (Pantera Capital)
AI
Your Brain on ChatGPT (MIT)
Agentic Misalignment: How LLMs could be insider threats (Anthropic)
Google ups its Game for AI Developers with Gemini CLI (Reset to Zero)
AI Training Load Fluctuations at Gigawatt-scale – Risk of Power Grid Blackout? (Semianalysis)
👉 Get your brand in front of 35,000+ decision-makers — book your ad spot now.
Kraken launches Paypal, Venmo Competitors
Kraken launched KRAK, a direct comptetior to PayPal, Venmo, Cash App. No banks involved. KRAK is a peer-to-peer payments app for fiat and crypto across 100+ countries. Think PayPal meets MetaMask:
24/7 cross-border payments without banks – Kraken handles internally
Send and receive 300+ assets, including local currencies and crypto
Earn up to 4.1%-10% on balances
Transfers are instant and free in most cases
Built on top of 10+ years of global licensing infra
Physical and virtual cards coming soon
Translation: This isn’t a crypto wallet. It’s a full-stack payments product.
So what: I remember meeting David Ripley in Kraken’s San Francisco office back in 2019. At the time, Kraken was just a crypto exchange. Today, they're coming for the entire money movement stack. And they're moving fast. Earlier this year, they launched xStocks—tokenized trading of Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia shares, going straight after Robinhood. Now they're coming for the payments giants: Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, and every bank — at global scale. [RELEASE]
Mastercard just plugged 3.5B cards into DeFi
Mastercard and Chainlink Labs just teamed up to let 3 billion+ cardholders buy crypto 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯.
The traditional way: You swipe your Mastercard. Fiat is converted to crypto 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯, then pushed onchain manually.
The new model (𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 + 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱): You swipe your Mastercard. Your fiat goes 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 into a smart contract on Uniswap. [RELEASE] [ANALYSIS]
Instead of going to Coinbase, buying USDC, sending it to your wallet, then using it on Uniswap, you just use your card inside a dApp and the whole process happens under the hood.
So what? A card swipe now triggers an onchain swap — instantly, securely, and by default. It’s the first time real payments flow straight from tap to smart contract. Just like Shopify did with e-commerce APIs in the early 2010s, Swapper is building the middleware for tokenised trade flows.
Payment giant Fiserv launches stablecoin
Fiserv, a leading global provider of payments, launching FIUSD, a new bank-grade stablecoin for its 10,000 FI clients and 6M merchants — integrated directly into its existing infrastructure by year-end. The coin will be launched together with Circle and Paxos and will be live on Solana. Mastercard is also on board, helping embed FIUSD across 150M+ merchants globally. [RELEASE]
So what? This is the first real stablecoin infrastructure play built inside the existing financial stack — no wallets, no bridges, just a programmable, fiat-backed coin tied to the rails that already process 90B+ transactions/year. Banks and credit unions using Fiserv (about 10,000 of them) can integrate FIUSD directly into their own digital banking apps and portals. A It’s like Zelle — embedded in your bank app and easy to use, but you can only send to people or merchants inside the Zelle network. FIUSD works similarly, but with stablecoins and much better settlement efficiency.
Pompliano’s 750M Bitcoin treasury play
Pompliamo just raised $750M+ in largest fundraise ever for a public Bitcoin treasury company, ProCap Financial. One day after the announcement, ProCap acquired 3,724 BTC for $395M. The firm currently holds a total of 4,932 BTC. But it’s not just holding BTC, it plans to generate revenue from it. That could mean lending, derivatives, or structured products, we’ll see. [RELEASE] [ANALYSIS]
So what? Michael Saylor might’ve lit the match in 2020, but ProCap is scaling the same strategy faster — buying hundreds of millions in Bitcoin even before it goes public. It gives investors public market exposure to BTC, without needing to buy or custody it. In the past month alone, we’ve seen:
Trump Media: $2.5B Bitcoin treasury
Strive: $750M raise for BTC + Mt. Gox claims
SharpLink: $425M Ethereum treasury
That’s $3.675B+ in new crypto treasury vehicles. On top of that, Metaplanet raised 1111 BTC additional Bitcoin topping $1B for its vehicle listed in Japan. This is the new capital formation playbook. It’s bigger than Saylor. First-movers will get the premiums. But when the music stops… not everyone will be left standing.
👉 We are going to release our flagship report on the “Digital Asset Strategies.” Want to partner & expose yourself to 200k+ digital asset leaders? Reach out.
Coinbase comes for the EU
Coinbase just secured MiCA authorisation, giving it passport-like access to all 27 EU member states from a single base in Luxembourg. It’s the first major crypto firm to go live under the EU’s new unified digital asset regime — opening regulated access to 450M+ consumers. [RELEASE] [ANALYSIS]
So what? Luxembourg is quietly becoming the Delaware of crypto in Europe, thanks to MiCA. Coinbase is merging all its EU licenses into one, making it faster and cheaper to launch across Europe. It’s now simpler for partners to work with them under one clear rulebook. With Coinbase's scale or brand power, it’s going to be huge.
PS: Kraken secured its MiCA license yesterday.
We help teams like Avalanche, Near, and MoonPay drive awareness, institutional credibility, and deal flow. We’re not a marketing agency. We are native industry veterans and operators with 10+ years in the space.
News Flash
Revolut is exploring launching its own stablecoin. Link
Visa partners with Yellow Card to expand stablecoin payments in Africa. Link
dLocal and BVNK team up to enable faster global stablecoin payouts. Link
Barclaycard will block all crypto purchases via credit cards this week. Link
Flashnet and Brale launch USDB, a dollar stablecoin on Bitcoin. Link
Polymarket Nears $200M Fundraising at Valuation Over $1B. Link
Top Vendors This Week
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Enterprise:
Multiplier: Custom workflow automation for back-office tasks (tax, accounting, client ops)
Conquest Planning: Personalised financial advice for individuals and families at scale
Botpress: Safe, scalable agent deployment across enterprise environments
Quinn: Scalable, personalised financial advice for institutions
That’s all for now, folks.
Take care
– Marc & Team