Major narrative violation: The big banks ARE doing stablecoins.

@Zelle says it is expanding to India and will launch a stablecoin later this year. For context: Zelle is the largest P2P money transfer service in the United States, larger than Venmo or Cash App, and built by the large banks.

The parent company Early Warning is owned by seven banks: BofA, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo.

Modern Treasury just became a PSP competing with Stripe and Adyen.

But that undersells it massively.

What they really did was rethink what a PSP needs to be in 2026.

👇 Most PSPs start with one core rail like cards

Then add others like wires or ACH or stablecoins on a platform build around cards.

Modern Treasury started with all rails.

Creating one unified API for

- ACH,
- wires,
- RTP, FedNow,
- cards,
- and stablecoins.

Where you route the money is just a configuration decision.

The @kontigo_app vs Checkbook & JP Morgan drama is pure 🍿.

I wanted to give it some context. Because the claim of "banking system is evil and outdated" is simply wrong and lacks context.

Here's what I think is really going on JP Morgan closed accounts for crypto startups Kontigo and Blindpay

The information reported that the account freezes were linked to business activity in high-risk regions, including Venezuela, and to gaps in customer identity checks.

From Tradeweb: “JPMorgan acted after seeing rising disputed transactions and chargebacks tied to these accounts. The bank said the decision was based on risk controls, not opposition to stablecoins themselves.”

🚨 JUST IN: @Shift4 just launched stablecoin settlement for hundreds of thousands of merchants.

Merchants can get paid in USDC, USDT, EURC, or DAI 24/7

Instead of waiting for bank transfers - OR paying a fee (like 1%) for an advance.

Here's why it matters 🧵 Shift 4 is a major PSP.

- They process billions of transactions a year.
- $200B+ in payment volume.
- Segments like restaurants, hotels, stadiums, retail.

Not all of those merchants are familiar with stablecoins.

But the ability to get paid faster will make many of them curious.

And that expands the TAM of stablecoins.

The State of Fintech 2026:

Nubank: 127m customers
Klarna: 114m
Revolut: 65m

A handful of companies now have more users than most countries have people.

We've entered the Age of the Fintech Hyperscaler.

🧵 What I learned writing the annual report with @jevgenijs AI assisted 1 in 6 purchases this Black Friday.

It showed in the data for the first time.

But here's the uncomfortable truth:

Almost no fintech has an industry-specific foundation model driving earnings.

Stripe is the only example I found.

The rest is still vibes.

Huge moment for Agentic Commerce.

EMVCo (the technical body behind Visa, Mastercard, Amex) is creating global standards for "agentic payments."

This is the biggest change in card payments since "tap to pay"

Here's how it works 🧵 Right now, AI agents are phenomenal at finding things to buy.

- Power users are starting to default to their research
- Can compare complex options and summarize
- And when people click through conversion is 2x to 5x higher

But...

JPMorgan clients can now swap JPMD for USDC on Base.

That sentence should break the internet.

JP Morgan payments moves $ trillions PER DAY

It dwarfs the entire stablecoin industry.

This is how 1000x more dollars go onchain 🧵 Picture the actual flow:

- A JPMorgan institutional client holds JPMD (bank deposit token).
- They need to transact with a Coinbase customer holding USDC (stablecoin).

A corporation could

1. Move JPM Coin from JPM closed loop to Base
2. Swap JPM Coin for USDC
3. Receive USDC in their base wallet
4. Send that USDC to a 3rd party, or swap it for another bank deposit token

Biggest story in stablecoins nobody noticed

Alipay, the mobile payments wallet with 1 billion users, will launch a EURO Stablecoin BREUR, to the European market

They're only the second to be listed by the European Regulator ESMA.

This is HUGE for reasons you're missing 🧵 Alipay has over 1 billion active consumers

It is a digital wallet and "superapp" for online and in-store payments

Also does financial services like investments and wealth management.

Why are they so early to Euro stables?

Stablecoins solve a bottleneck in the internet economy.

20th-century money is too slow, expensive, and infrequent for the demand of internet-scale payments.

This is a pattern that repeats in history.

🧵 1. The Industrial Revolution

- The Royal Mint couldn't create coins fast enough
- The shortage led to widespread counterfeits
- The new wage economy demanded more coins
- So factories with high quality machinery made their own

The Royal Mint accepted this before eventually USING that technology themselves 50 years later

The bank lobby is furious about stablecoin yield under the GENIUS Act. They're calling it a "loophole" that needs closing.

But here's what they're missing: We've seen this movie before. And it built an entire generation of fintech companies.

🧵 The GENIUS Act prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest directly to holders. Banks claim issuers are skirting this by paying third parties (like exchanges), who then offer rewards or yield to users.

Treasury estimates this could drain $6.6 trillion from bank deposits.

The world's first 50% stablecoin IPO just happened. Crypto exchange Bullish received $1.15bn in USDC.

This quietly changes everything about how public companies can raise capital. What actually happened:

• Bullish (NYSE: BLSH) closed their IPO on August 14th
• 50%+ of proceeds came as stablecoins ($1.15bn total)
• Settlement across 8 different stablecoin types
• Majority minted on Solana, custodied by Coinbase

Nubank's results are INSANE. Every other bank CEO must look at these and be like... HOW?

Here's the breakdown...

* 122.7 million customers (+4.1M net additions)
* $3.7 billion revenue (+40% YoY)
* $637 million net income (+42% YoY)
* $12.2 monthly revenue per active customer (+18% YoY)
* $0.80 cost to serve per customer
* 83.2% monthly activity rate That's a benchmark every other organization in finance should print out on their wall. Only webank in China (with 494m users) can beat.

The unit economics *almost* don't make sense:

- $0.80 cost to serve each customer
- $12.20 revenue per customer/month
- That's 15x return 🤯

Most banks struggle to hit 3x - That's the benefit of self-owned technology and a branchless servicing model.

Most people think stablecoins, CBDCs, and tokenized deposits are fighting to the death. They're not. They're building the same highway.

Here's what 99% of debate gets wrong:

These aren't competing technologies.

They're solving different problems for different people:

🧵 Think of it like this:

- Stablecoins = Highway for the unbanked (or global south x global south trade)
- Tokenized Deposits = On-ramp for Fortune 500s
- CBDCs = Settlement layer for central banks

All three go onchain.

All three win.

We just lived through most consequential 24 hours in financial services law for the past two decades.

And it will bring the biggest transformation of financial technology since the 1970s.

Here's what happened and why it matters 👇 What Happened? 🤔

1. The GENIUS Act passed with a 308-122 bi-partisan vote in the House and is heading to the Presidents desk.

2. The CLARITY Act, clarifying SEC vs CFTC oversight passed House 294-133

3. Anti-CBDC Bill, prohibiting a retail CBDC also passed the house.

While everyone is debating Stablecoins. Pay by Bank is quietly becoming a FORCE in payments.

TrueLayer just launched Pay by Bank with Stripe in Germany.

But here's the timeline that explains why this matters: 2019: "What's Pay by Bank?"
2021: "Interesting experiment in the UK"
2023: "We should probably test this"
2024: Every major PSP picks their dance partner
2025: The invasion begins

Stripe + TrueLayer aren't just expanding to Germany.

Why did Kalshi just raise $185m at a $2bn valuation more than DOUBLE Polymarket's recent reported $1bn?

- Polymarket dominated election coverage.
- Had 10X the volume.
- Every journalist quoted their odds.
- They owned the narrative.
- But they can't touch US users.

The biggest prediction market in history... banned from its biggest market.

Kalshi is CFTC-regulated and able to advertise to US customers. But what about prediction markets generally? Isn't it just gambling?

When you can't afford a house, can't trust institutions, can't build wealth through traditional means... why not bet on elections?

This is financial nihilism pricing in.

The social contract broke.

Prediction markets filled the void.

Young Americans are gambling because the "legitimate" path to wealth feels rigged anyway. Same odds, different casino.

🚨 BREAKING: Revolut — the neobank with 50M customers — is quietly building its own stablecoin.

Does everyone need their own stablecoin? Can this threaten Circle and Tether's dominance? Revolut has a distribution advantage:

- 50M active customers
- Full banking in 30+ countries (EU + UK + MX)
- Live crypto exchange already running (Revolut X)
- Crypto support in their core product

Visa wants to give AI Agents "tokens" so they can pay without you ever seeing a checkout page.

Visa's CEO told investors this is their #1 priority.

Here's how it will work 👇 Imagine telling your Agent.

"I want a signed Pedro Pascal shirt from The Last of Us" don't spend more than $100" -

Then you tap your phone.

The next thing you know, the payment is complete.

Let's unpack the flow as I understood it 👀

A founder sold her startup to JPMorgan for $175M.

The bank thought they were getting 4 million customers.

They actually got 300,000.

Now she's going to prison.

The Charlie Javice story is a masterclass in how NOT to exit your startup... Charlie Javice founded Frank, a financial aid platform for students. By 2021, she'd raised over $20M from notable investors.

She'd even been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30.

JPMorgan saw a golden opportunity: acquire Frank and sell banking products to millions of students.

Stablecoins aren't cheaper; they're better

The mistake is comparing card fees to crypto network fees.

This is Apples-to-oranges (see table).

Stablecoins are now over $200bn.

Here's how they make payments better. 🧵 Visa doesn't move money; banks do.

When you pay with a card, Visa takes 15 cents.

Yet merchants pay $3.20 on a $100 purchase.

Where does the rest go?

TL;DR on yesterday's SWIFT and VISA Crypto announcements

SWIFT announced backward compatibility with their network for banks doing things with tokens.

VISA announced a service that lets banks turn Fiat into Stablecoins or tokens

What's the difference? 👇 The two networks play different roles.

Therefore their announcements fill a different need.

SWIFT is Layer 0 for bank-to-bank payments. It is not a settlement layer; it is a messaging network.

VISA is a consumer-facing brand that unlocks in-store and commerce.

Banks eventually settle via SWIFT or their local central banks.