Visa vs. Mastercard Crypto Showdown, PayPal’s Bold New Stablecoin Play & More

Welcome back!

This is J264G and this week I’ve got these titbits for you:

• Crypto Showdown: Visa & Mastercard roll out dedicated stablecoin strategies.

• Stablecoin Acceleration: PayPal boosts PYUSD adoption with 3.7% yield.

• Going Big: SOL Strategies secures $500 million to purchase SOL.

Paul Atkins is settling into his new role as SEC Chair, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that crypto will be a defining theme of his tenure.

Now, let’s jump right into this week’s newsletter!

Click on any underlined heading/hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Innovation Dilemma

Banks were once one-stop shops for finance. Now they’re getting picked apart.

We are witnessing an explosion of specialised fintechs, each pouncing on a narrow corner of the value chain. Consumer payments and lending, mortgage brokering, stock trading, business cash management, small-business loans, even insurance underwriting—every line of business is now fair game. 

Legacy banks are losing the high ground they once held.

Blockchain technology, however, is resetting the entire competitive landscape once again—as it enables innovators to create financial services that are not prohibitively expensive to build, highly programmable, universally accessible, and always-on.

These innovations spell opportunity for both legacy banks and fintechs. But the question looms large: who will learn to harness blockchain technology faster and better—the traditional financial giants or the insurgent fintechs?

For banks, the imperative is clear: to stay relevant they must figure out how to operate in an always-on world; and every day they delay, crypto-powered fintechs will eat into their bottom line. 

Yet, blockchain technology also creates a profound dilemma for legacy banks. 

The core promise of crypto—that users hold and control their own digital assets via cryptographic keys—clashes with banks’ historical role as trusted custodians of customer funds. In practice, this means that if banks want to leverage public blockchains, they must cede control over their customers’ assets. However, that undermines their central advantage: being the gatekeepers of liquidity and credit. Alternatively, banks could try to replicate public blockchains via closed networks, but then they lose many benefits of the open system and risk further lagging in innovation.

We are heading into uncharted waters. 

In one possible future, banks adapt aggressively: they embrace public blockchain networks, agree to client self custody, and ride the regulatory wave to offer new 24/7 services. In essence: they win back some of the high-margin business by becoming smaller, agile, technology-driven financial hubs. In another scenario, fintechs—which started by nibbling away at banks’ edges—move into the core by leveraging permissionless platforms to build faster, cheaper, borderless platforms; making the old model obsolete.

The strategic stakes have never been higher.

Decisions made now will echo far into the future.

Chart Of The Week

News Bites

Going Big: SOL Strategies Inc., a publicly traded Canadian company focused on investing in and building infrastructure for Solana, has secured a convertible note facility of up to $500 million from ATW Partners. In a first-of-its-kind deal for digital asset financing, the capital is dedicated solely to purchasing SOL, which will be staked on validators operated by SOL Strategies, with yield shared between both parties.

AI Unicorn: Nous Research has raised $50 million in a Series A round led by Paradigm, valuing the Solana-powered AI startup at $1 billion. Nous is pioneering distributed AI model training leveraging Solana, aiming to disrupt traditional AI labs with open-source innovation.

Crypto Showdown: Stablecoins are moving beyond the niche, becoming critical infrastructure for payments, disbursements, remittances, and more. In this context, both Visa and Mastercard are rolling out dedicated stablecoin strategies—the crypto showdown is just getting started.

Stablecoin Acceleration: PayPal is boosting stablecoin adoption by offering 3.7% yields on PYUSD balances across both PayPal and Venmo. The move aims to increase everyday use of PYUSD—from remittances to online purchases.

Global Payments: Worldpay, a leading global payments processor, has joined the Global Dollar Network. Merchants will soon be able to settle in USDG on Solana, enabling faster, cheaper transactions and expanding stablecoin utility for global payments.

Prediction Markets: Prediction platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have gained traction for speculating on political and major events. Now, Solana welcomes Triad, a new prediction market platform tailored for a global, non-U.S. audience.

Crypto Adoption: The Arizona legislature has passed Senate Bill 1025 (SB1025), proposing an amendment to allow for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, along with Senate Bill 1373 (SB1373), which aims to establish a state-level digital assets reserve.

Caught In 4K

Weekly Take

Keks & Giggles

And that's a wrap!

You can reach me anytime over on 𝕏.

Talk soon!

J264G

_{DISCLAIMER
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research. Lastly, please be advised that we discuss products and services from our partners from which our team members may hold tokens/equity.}