#135: US bank bets on Bitcoin
Hey, it’s Marc.
Don’t miss this sharp take on Tether by The Economist: How Tether became money-launderers’ dream currency. In 2024, Tether made profits of more than $13bn, almost twice as much as BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. We’ve said it:
Then: SoFi, a US bank and biggest online lender with 11M customers, to use Bitcoin for global remittances. We unpack it below.
Also: We have dropped our biggest stablecoin report yet, where we unpack ALL of this – together with Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭 .
Don’t miss this: Tokenized stocks go global.
Kraken and Backed are bringing 60+ U.S. equities onchain via BNB Chain, with support rolling out to 185+ countries. [ANNOUNCEMENT]
Last week, Robinhood launched with 213 tokenized stocks on Arbitrum in Europe — including pre-IPO names like SpaceX and OpenAI (without their consent). Regulators are circling, but Robinhood insists the model is compliant and says the SEC could greenlight U.S. tokenized trading without new laws. [SEE ANALYSIS]
Also, this week:
Coreweave acquires Core Scientific, stock tumbles
Emirates integrates crypto payments
xAI launches Grok 4
OpenAI to launch a web browser
Meta switches to Anthropic’s Sonnet for coding
And much more.
Top Boardroom Reads This Week
Digital Assets
Money Movement 2.0 (51)
Beyond Stablecoins: The Case for Ethereum (Electric Capital)
Crypto’s Audacious Bid to Rebuild Stock Market on the Blockchain (Bloomberg)
Blockchain Going Public: the Convergence of Public Markets and Digital Assets (VeradiVerdict)
Crypto Payments & Infrastructure: Part I, II and III (Architect Partners)
How Tether became money-launderers' dream currency (The Economist)
Why Embedded Conversational AI Is Banking’s Next Strategic Advantage (PYMNTS)
AI
Benchmarking LLM Agents on Consequential Real World Tasks (Cornell University)
A Primer on AI Data Centres (Eric Flaningam)
Principles of Building AI Agents (Mastra)
Bitcoin Miners Pivot to AI Data Centres (Insights VC)
👉 Get your brand in front of 35,000+ decision-makers — book your ad spot now.
SoFi to use Bitcoin rails for global remittances
SoFi, a bank and the biggest U.S. online lender with 11M customers, just announced it will relaunch crypto, starting with buy/sell/hold, and then roll out global remittances powered by Bitcoin. You send dollars, they’re converted to Bitcoin and moved globally, then converted back into local currency for the receiver — all without users ever touching Bitcoin directly. Result: near-instant settlement, minimal fees, no correspondent banks.
So what: Global remittances are a $860B market, with average fees of 6–7%. Bitcoin cuts that to near zero. Until now, Bitcoin as a remittance network has failed to scale: Strike stayed niche, Abra pivoted, BitPesa shifted to B2B, Rebit shut down. SoFi is the first major bank to build Bitcoin into its payment rails at scale — a massive validation of Bitcoin’s original use case: borderless, middleman-free money movement.
CoreWeave acquired a Bitcoin miner for AI
CoreWeave is acquiring Core Scientific in an all-stock deal valued at $9B — gaining control of 1.3 GW of power and cutting $10B in future lease costs. By 2027, CoreWeave expects $500M in annual cost savings, largely by eliminating lease obligations and consolidating ops. [RELEASE]
So what? In the age of AI, power is the new rent. AI workloads generate up to 𝟵𝟬% 𝗘𝗕𝗜𝗧𝗗𝗔 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀, vs. Bitcoin mining’s cyclical, razor-thin returns. Miners like Northern Data, HIVE Digital Technologies LTD, IREN and Hut8 are pivoting their rigs to AI. Galaxy Digital already signed a $4.5B, 15-year deal with CoreWeave for AI infrastructure.
Animoca Launches L1 Chain for Verifiable Identity
Animoca Brands’ flagship company Moca Network is launching Moca Chain — a new Layer-1 purpose-built for decentralized identity and data verification — with testnet in Q3 and mainnet in Q4. Moca Chain proposes a new model:
Verify once, reuse anywhere
Users own encrypted credentials (DOB, degree, game hours, fan status)
Apps just request proof, not raw data
Everyone earns from the data economy via $MOCA
So what? This isn’t another “Ethereum killer.” Moca Chain is gunning for a bigger prize: becoming the identity backbone of the internet. The pitch? Users should own, store, and verify their identity — once — and use it everywhere. It lets businesses verify users (e.g. age, KYC, loyalty) without accessing personal data. All verifications are permissioned, privacy-preserved, and monetizable. [BLOG]
Emirates will let you pay in crypto
Emirates will integrate Crypto.com Pay in 2025 — its first step toward accepting crypto payments from global travelers. It has signed an MoU to integrate crypto payments becoming the first major airline to formalize crypto adoption at the checkout layer. [RELEASE]
So what? Emirates processes tens of millions of transactions annually. And, the UAE’s regulatory framework is now one of the most enterprise-ready in the world — combining sandboxed innovation, full-stack licensing (via VARA), and strong compliance standards. This move is flag-carrier legitimizing digital assets as a mainstream option for global consumers and hence gradually helping Dubai become a crypto capital.
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News Flash
Bitget integrates Kraken’s xStocks with 6 tokenized stock products. Link
Ripple partnes with BNY Mellon to securely hold reserves for RLUSD. Link
OpenAI plans to launch a web browser. Link
xAI launches Grok 4. Link
Coinbase partners with Perplexity to integrate real-time crypto market data. Link
Kraken and Backed expand xStocks support to BNB Chain. Link
That’s all for now, folks.
Take care
– Marc & Team