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Editor: @PhoenixxDown

The Stablecoin Power Struggle

While mindshare and liquidity in speculative assets has cooled off in recent weeks, an unlikely asset has become uncharacteristically interesting.

With Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pushing for stablecoin holders to earn interest, Circle filing for an IPO, and U.S. lawmakers scrambling to pass new legislation, stablecoins have become one of the hottest topics in crypto lately.

But why is this happening now? And why are governments, banks, and crypto firms all fighting over stablecoins?

Stablecoins now handle trillions in transactions. Their rapid adoption has caught the attention of lawmakers, who fear that unregulated stablecoins could disrupt the traditional financial system.

The U.S. House is pushing forward the STABLE Act, while the Senate is debating the GENIUS Act; two bills that would place stablecoin issuers under strict financial regulations.

These laws would require issuers to follow bank-like rules, including detailed record-keeping and customer verification under the Bank Secrecy Act.

But not everyone is on board. Critics, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), argue that these regulations could drive stablecoin innovation offshore, giving global competitors an advantage.

One of the biggest battles in the stablecoin debate is whether holders should be able to earn interest. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, has been calling for lawmakers to allow stablecoin users to earn yield, just like they would with a traditional savings account.

Armstrong argued that current laws unfairly benefit banks by preventing crypto firms from offering on-chain interest. He believes stablecoins should act like interest-bearing checking accounts, where holders receive a share of the yield generated from stablecoin reserves.

Here’s why this matters:

• Currently, stablecoin issuers invest reserves in U.S. Treasuries, earning billions in interest.

• That yield goes to the issuer, not the consumer.

• If interest were shared, stablecoin holders could earn an estimated 4% yield; far higher than traditional bank accounts.

Armstrong argues that unlocking on-chain interest would boost consumer wealth, drive global adoption of USD-backed stablecoins, and strengthen the U.S. economy.

But lawmakers aren’t convinced. Many in Congress argue that stablecoins should remain a payments tool and not become an investment product. French Hill, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, stated:

This stance has made it unlikely that the current legislation will allow interest payments, despite Armstrong’s push.

As lawmakers debate, Circle, the issuer of USDC, has filed for an IPO. If approved, Circle will become the first publicly traded stablecoin issuer.

Circle’s financials show just how massive the stablecoin industry has become:

• $1.7 billion in revenue last year, mostly from interest on USDC reserves.

• An expected IPO valuation of $4-5 billion.

• USDC remains the second-largest stablecoin, processing billions in transactions daily.

Circle’s public listing would solidify stablecoins as a mainstream financial instrument, potentially forcing regulators to recognize them as a legitimate part of the global economy.

With governments tightening regulations, Armstrong and other leaders pushing for more flexibility, and companies like Circle and Coinbase trying to expand stablecoin use cases, the stablecoin industry is at a crossroads.

Will stablecoins remain a decentralized alternative to traditional finance? Or will they be absorbed into the banking system under strict regulation?

But the most important question, perhaps? How do we gamble on their success?

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Todays Markets

Ordinals

Bitcoin Puppets are the only bright spot among the top five today, up 8%, while the rest of the Orange Chips lose ground.

Taproot Wizards and Quantum Cats continue to dominate volume, but market caps tell an interesting story.

Just last week, many assumed Wizards would be the leading collection on Ordinals. Yet today, that crown belongs to Bitcoin Puppets, sitting at $33M, with NodeMonkes a very close second.

Taproot Wizards and Quantum Cats currently hold $26.5M and $13.6M in market cap, respectively, meaning Wizards is trading at just over 2x the value of Cats, or a 95% premium.

Bitmap sits in fourth place at $19M, wedged between Udi’s collections and sitting $6M above OMB, which holds the sixth spot.

Want to dig into the stats yourself? Check them out here.

The bottom half of the rankings looks a little healthier, with Bitcoin Frogs and Pizza Ninjas both posting double-digit percentage gains.

Down in 10th place, Unsanctioned Wizards appears to be emerging as a protest buy against the Taproot Wizards FUD.

Runes (Bitcoin Memecoins)

$MIM has completely dwarfed the competition today, including $DOG, which only registered 0.388 BTC in sales volume on Magic Eden yesterday.

For fairness, a quick check on CoinGecko shows that $DOG still saw $7.5M in total trading volume across all platforms and chains. As we’ve seen previously, this seems more like a Magic Eden Runes platform problem rather than an issue with Runes themselves.

Meanwhile, OdnApe is up 27% and looks like it's gearing up for another run. But distribution remains ugly: 21 of the 568 holders each control 3% or more of the supply.

GhibliDog is up 53%, while in 9th place, we have Forsetiscn, which describes itself as “The ultimate dev-focused token tracker.” It offers a dev dashboard, stats, and a confidence rating system, among other features.

Good luck to holders there, but that aside, one thing that keeps bugging me about these OdinFun runners are the names.

It’s long been said that Runes struggled to gain traction in China because the tickers were too long, but now, we have completely incomprehensible ones like this.

To OdinFun devs, you can just name things shorter. It’s possible!

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