Is crypto growing up? Tether risk, Stripe’s stablecoin play, and the GENIUS Act explained
Episode
33 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Investing, Startups, Fundraising & VC
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓GENIUS Act timeline: The White House mediated closed-door sessions between banks and crypto companies over stablecoin yield rules, with a March 1 deadline for resolution. Banks cite deposit flight risk; crypto firms argue yield restrictions create competitive disadvantage. Compromise, not perfection, is the stated goal, and resolution is expected to accelerate the broader market structure bill.
- ✓Stripe's stablecoin stack: Stripe's 2025 strategy combines three acquisitions — Bridge for stablecoin infrastructure, Privy for wallet onboarding, and its Tempo payments blockchain — to serve 5 million-plus businesses. This vertical integration positions Stripe ahead of competitors who haven't pursued crypto infrastructure, giving it end-to-end control over stablecoin-powered payment flows at scale.
- ✓Tether reserve risk: Tether's asset mix is shifting away from US Treasury bills toward Bitcoin, gold, and structured loans, which now represent roughly a quarter of its portfolio. Its equity cushion is shrinking, and its $20 billion fundraise at a $500 billion valuation was scaled back to approximately $5 billion after investor pushback, signaling structural concern.
- ✓Purpose-built blockchains replacing general-purpose chains: Robinhood's chain attracted over 1 million wallets in its first Testnet week, targeting tokenized stocks for its 25 million users. Kraken's Ink chain and Stripe's Tempo follow the same pattern. Finance-specific chains built around existing user bases are replacing general-purpose blockchains as the dominant infrastructure model going forward.
- ✓Crypto funding consolidation: VC appetite for crypto has contracted sharply. Funds from the 2021–2022 vintage are struggling to raise new LP capital. Only funds with demonstrated returns — like Dragonfly's $650 million fourth fund — are closing successfully. Startups without product-market fit or revenue models face shutdown within 12–24 months as investor capital dries up across the sector.
What It Covers
Jacquelyn Melinek, CEO of Token Relations, joins TechCrunch's Equity podcast to analyze crypto's current cycle: the GENIUS Act stablecoin legislation, Stripe's acquisition-driven payments strategy, Tether's shifting asset reserves, Robinhood's finance-specific blockchain launch, and where venture funding is concentrating as consolidation accelerates across crypto startups and funds.
Key Questions Answered
- •GENIUS Act timeline: The White House mediated closed-door sessions between banks and crypto companies over stablecoin yield rules, with a March 1 deadline for resolution. Banks cite deposit flight risk; crypto firms argue yield restrictions create competitive disadvantage. Compromise, not perfection, is the stated goal, and resolution is expected to accelerate the broader market structure bill.
- •Stripe's stablecoin stack: Stripe's 2025 strategy combines three acquisitions — Bridge for stablecoin infrastructure, Privy for wallet onboarding, and its Tempo payments blockchain — to serve 5 million-plus businesses. This vertical integration positions Stripe ahead of competitors who haven't pursued crypto infrastructure, giving it end-to-end control over stablecoin-powered payment flows at scale.
- •Tether reserve risk: Tether's asset mix is shifting away from US Treasury bills toward Bitcoin, gold, and structured loans, which now represent roughly a quarter of its portfolio. Its equity cushion is shrinking, and its $20 billion fundraise at a $500 billion valuation was scaled back to approximately $5 billion after investor pushback, signaling structural concern.
- •Purpose-built blockchains replacing general-purpose chains: Robinhood's chain attracted over 1 million wallets in its first Testnet week, targeting tokenized stocks for its 25 million users. Kraken's Ink chain and Stripe's Tempo follow the same pattern. Finance-specific chains built around existing user bases are replacing general-purpose blockchains as the dominant infrastructure model going forward.
- •Crypto funding consolidation: VC appetite for crypto has contracted sharply. Funds from the 2021–2022 vintage are struggling to raise new LP capital. Only funds with demonstrated returns — like Dragonfly's $650 million fourth fund — are closing successfully. Startups without product-market fit or revenue models face shutdown within 12–24 months as investor capital dries up across the sector.
Notable Moment
Melinek describes how consumer apps like DoorDash or Uber could function as de facto banks by holding user funds in stablecoins, earning yield on pooled balances, and keeping transactions entirely within their ecosystems — a model Starbucks already approximates through its app's stored-value treasury.
Episode Transcript
Hear that? That's the sound of saving a good deal more when you shop with mperks at Meijer. Some delicious cosmic crisp apples, money saved. Meijer essential paper towels, that's money saved. Savings, saving, savings. Because every dollar spent is also points earned in mperks, which you can use to save on your next grocery trip or up to a dollar off per gallon on your next tank of gas. At Meijer, we work hard to help you save a good deal more for a whole lot less. That's bringing more good to life. Exclusions apply. See mperks.com for details. Hello, and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups. I'm Rebecca Balan, and this is the episode where we bring on industry experts to help us explore a trend in the tech world and dive deep. Crypto is having a moment again, but it feels different from the last cycle. At ETHDenver, the buzz was as much about Washington as it was about tokens. And as Tether and stablecoins face scrutiny, players like Stripe reenter the chat, and startups find either traction or flame out, the industry feels like it's at another inflection point. Today to talk about it all, we're joined by Jacqueline Malenick, the CEO of Token Relations, host of the Talking Tokens and Crypto in America podcasts, and former reporter at TechCrunch. Today, we're joined by Jacqueline Melanick, the CEO of Token Relations, host of the Talking Tokens and Crypto in America podcasts, and former reporter here at TechCrunch. Jackie, so nice to see you again. Welcome to the show. It is so good to see you, and that is my favorite accolade out of all of them, is that I was a crypto reporter at TechCrunch, and I had a podcast there with you guys too. So feels like a full circle moment, and thanks for having me on. Tell me about you recently were at ETHDenver. Is that how you pronounce it? So this is a big crypto conference. You interviewed some pretty powerful policy people. Can you give us, like, a a rundown of what went down at the conference? Yes. For sure. So I was at Ethereum Denver, and then prior to that, I was at Hong Kong Consensus, which, you know, we're obviously in Hong Kong and Denver. So very different markets, very different kind of audiences. But for eight Denver more specifically, that happened last week. And, essentially, the turnout of the conference was very strong in terms of, like, the speakers and, you know, executives, leaders, etcetera, that were there. But the actual conference itself was kind of dead, if I'm being honest. Like, the amount of sponsor booths slash booths in general were just very low, and it felt like a lot of the developers that typically were there in previous years were not around. So that was pretty disappointing on that front. That's why do you think that is, or what were people …
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Products
by Robinhood
“Robinhood's chain attracted over 1 million wallets in its first Testnet week, targeting tokenized stocks for its 25 million users.”
company
“Stripe's 2025 strategy combines three acquisitions — Bridge for stablecoin infrastructure, Privy for wallet onboarding, and its Tempo payments blockchain”
“Stripe's 2025 strategy combines three acquisitions — Bridge for stablecoin infrastructure, Privy for wallet onboarding, and its Tempo payments blockchain”
“Melinek describes how consumer apps like DoorDash or Uber could function as de facto banks by holding user funds in stablecoins”
“Only funds with demonstrated returns — like Dragonfly's $650 million fourth fund — are closing successfully.”
“Tether's asset mix is shifting away from US Treasury bills toward Bitcoin, gold, and structured loans, which now represent roughly a quarter of its portfolio.”
“Robinhood's chain attracted over 1 million wallets in its first Testnet week, targeting tokenized stocks for its 25 million users.”
“Melinek describes how consumer apps like DoorDash or Uber could function as de facto banks by holding user funds in stablecoins”
“a model Starbucks already approximates through its app's stored-value treasury.”
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