Andy
Co-Founder of The Rollup & The Rollup Ventures
Plasma's XPL has likely bottomed and has long-term potential over five-plus years as neobanks heat up. The Plasma One launch succeeded, with over 50 million transactions, and the team kept shipping through the bear market. Competition is heavy, but it is a growth market with lots of revenue potential. Upcoming token unlocks are a hurdle, though recent market strength helps the timing. x.comÂ
Growing stablecoin payments and business adoption position Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Circle and PayPal for a massive shift in global payments. Stablecoins are moving from crypto speculation into real-world financial infrastructure; payments reached $482B year to date, up 45%. Autonomous AI-agent transactions may be the next frontier. x.comÂ
EtherFi's card business is out-earning staking on just 5% of TVL, making its pivot from liquid staking to a full neobank one of the wisest moves of this cycle. Card revenue rose from $965 six months ago to $525k today, versus staking revenue rising from $121k to $197k. x.comÂ
Plasma's pumps are likely to be smothered for a while because a lot of float and supply remains in holders' hands. Many accounts promoting the product release disclose they are investors, much of the timeline seems to have been in a seed or angel round, and after the drop there are enough marginal sellers at bands all the way up. The product is reportedly decent and tokenomics may be changing for the better, but holders look keen to cut underwater positions. x.com x.comÂ
Circle investors significantly underestimate the risk that leading fintech players team up to launch their own stablecoin. Stripe alone holds an estimated $15-25 billion of float at any time from its transaction volume, equal to 20-25% of USDC's supply, without even actively growing it. x.comÂ
Visa is no longer just a bet on card payments growing with GDP, because it is building the data, risk and settlement infrastructure that makes new payment rails usable at scale. It has 160+ live stablecoin-linked card programs, and stablecoin settlement recently passed a $20B annualized run rate, up more than 15x a year. It is also linking VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending and building AI fraud tools for account-to-account payments. Its moat is trust at global scale. x.comÂ
Sui's growing native stablecoin circulation can fund further ecosystem growth. USDsui, issued by Stripe's Bridge, reached a record $80 million in circulation, up 20.5%; revenue flowing to SUI is reinvested into the ecosystem, so more adoption means more resources for growth. x.comÂ
Mastercard benefits as cash payments keep moving to cards worldwide, making it a five-year buy at today's valuation. It keeps about 60 cents of each revenue dollar as operating profit; revenue grew 14% and EPS 21% last quarter. Stablecoins and bank-to-bank apps could bypass the network, but stablecoins might instead drive growth. x.comÂ
TRX's stablecoin-payment case gains TRON's integration with Polygon's Open Money Stack, extending the infrastructure for moving, storing and programming stablecoins across the two ecosystems. Wider access to blockchain-based money remains the prospective benefit. x.comÂ
Remitly's moat is eroding as Stripe cuts prices and offers remittance in 100 countries, eliminating the barriers of legal jurisdictions, banking laws and KYC. Stripe can now push the service itself rather than only supply rails, and a possible Remitly stablecoin partnership with Stripe uses a pipe open to anyone. Lower barriers erode pricing and raise marketing costs and churn, shrinking terminal value; only the market's melt-up mode is keeping this news from hitting the stock. x.comÂ
Circle stands to benefit because stablecoins strip out the fees that eat into digital payments. Of 8,605 X subscriptions at $1.00, only $1,595 was paid out, with 30% App Store fees, Stripe card fees and opaque FX rounding (X charges 2 CAD for a $1 price) disappearing along the way. Stablecoins are the future, and banks are already trying to control them through Clarity Act lobbying. Issuers like Circle are preferred over individual networks like Ethereum, since USDC is blockchain-agnostic. x.com … Show more