Morning Minute | Stripe Declares 'Crypto Is Back'

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💳 Stripe Unveils Onchain Settlement with USDC

"Crypto is back."

Some of us have been shouting it for a year.

But it's louder when people like John Collison, co-founder of Stripe ($65B payments giant) say it.

Actions speak louder than words though, and Stripe is backing up John with some big moves.

What Happened?

Yesterday Stripe announced that it is re-entering the crypto game and will global stablecoin payments.

This means that businesses using Stripe will be able to accept USDC, with onchain settlement, and will receive Fiat (USD) on their end of the transaction.

It's a massive unlock for Stripe and it's 300k+ integrated partners around the world.

The demo John walked through highlighted Phantom Wallet and executed the payment transaction on Solana (and showcased Solana's low fees).

After finishing the transaction, John also highlighted how the transaction was posted to the blockchain (pulling up Solscan to show the details).

How this will work:

• Stripe ends up taking the crypto (USDC) and settling with the business (who gets FIAT), effectively meaning that Stripe is buying the USDC
• Payments will be available on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon, with the business and/or customer able to choose
• Rollout begins this summer

What They're Saying

Some of John Collison's notable comments from the keynote:

"We’re excited to announce that we’re bringing back crypto as a way to accept payments, but this time with a much better experience."

“Crypto is finding real utility. With transaction speeds increasing and costs coming down, we’re seeing crypto finally making sense as a means of exchange.”

Notable collector (and crypto mega-whale) Batsoup shared deep comments in a thread:

"I've said in the past that corporations are the trojan horse for mass crypto adoption and that it would likely happen via payments."

He goes on to walk through the 2.5% credit card transaction fee and how crypto can solve it, along with the myriad of loyalty programs that blockchain enables for merchants.

And one more key point from Daniel Got Hits:

"The most insane part of the Stripe announcement isn’t just that you can pay in crypto…. It’s that the SELLER receives normal fiat. Aka, they don’t need to know or care that you paid in crypto."

Why It Matters

There's so much to unpack here, but this is one of the single most bullish crypto headlines of 2024.

A payments giant is re-embracing crypto after abandoning it 6 years ago, effectively saying that the user experience has improved enough to give it another shot.

That's a huge signal.

Merchants can accept crypto without even knowing it or without even liking crypto - and it doesn't matter for them because they settle in fiat.

Merchants who do choose to embrace it can do so with lower fees, and if they go down the rabbit hole, can get creative with loyalty programs as they'll have their customers' wallet data handy.

And the biggest winner here may be crypto maxis.

The biggest hurdle to keeping and holding crypto over the past decade has been balancing the need to spend money irl and the broad inability to do so with crypto.

Now that's changing.

The more irl goods and experiences that can be purchased direct with crypto, the less need holders will have to "sell" crypto for fiat.

There is a real path to holding and keeping wealth in crypto.

We aren't there yet, and it will take time - but the path is more clear than ever.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $27M on the day (+274%); BTC was next with $7.5M (even) and then Solana with $3.4M (-32%)
• ETH NFT leaders saw big green with BAYC +20% to 17 ETH, Pudgy +8% to 12.5, Azuki +14% to 4.6 and MAYC +35% at 3.2
• MAYC, BAKC and Moonbirds were notable winners, jumping 35% each
• Alien Punk 635 sold for 4,000 ETH ($12.4M) on Thursday in the 3rd Alien Punk to sell in the past 1 month (others at 4,859 ETH and 4,500)
• Prometheans led the BTC NFT board with 72 BTC volume, jumping 50% to 0.093 BTC ahead of their pending runes airdrop
• Ink was a big winner, rallying 4-% to 0.025 BTC
• BTC PFP leaders mostly chopped; NodeMonkes at 0.38, OMB at 0.42 BTC, Quantum Cats at 0.4, Bitcoin Puppets at 0.32
• A rare sat (the first sat) from this past Bitcoin halving sold for 33.3 BTC ($2.13M) at auction yesterday
• Solana NFTs were mostly red on the day; Mad Lads even at 90 SOL, Tensorians -7% at 13.3, Saku -30%
• Magic Eden officially expanded to Base on Thursday with a reduced 0.5% fee on transactions 
• Blast NFTs soared on the day led by Blastopians 3x'ing to 0.13 ETH after Wasabi announced a new quadruple farm with them via fractionalization

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly green this morning; BTC +0.7% at $64,200; ETH +1% at $3,130; SOL -1% at $143
• Memecoin majors were slightly green; DOGE +1%, WIF +3%, PEPE +4%, BONK +12%; POPCAT outperforms (+60%)
• Base memecoin leader BRETT fell 25% after inside trading allegations around the launch circulated
• Consensys is suing the SEC, citing "the SEC shouldn't be able to expand its jurisdiction and wrongly label ETH a security"
• Pantera announced its raising a $1B crypto fund, just a few days after writing that "memecoin trading creates gigantic opportunities"
• Robinhood Wallet's cross-chain swaps feature went live, allowing users to swap any tokens from supported chains onto Arbitrum's L2
• Immutable launched the biggest web3 gaming rewards pool ever with $50M in prizes

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $CHICK (+700%, $26M market cap, Base)
• $MICHI (+85%, $35M market cap, Solana)
• $BOOMER (+78%, $17M market cap, Base)
• $POPCAT (+60%, $520M market cap, Solana)
• $CATGPT (+53%, $26M market cap, Solana)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Skyborne (52%, 1.49 ETH Floor)
• BAKC (37%, 0.69 ETH)
• MAYC (34%, 3.29 ETH)
• Moonbirds (34%, 0.68 ETH)
• Grapes (33%, 0.28 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is a busier day of new mints and potential announcements.

Many have hinted that something big is coming from Blur and/or Blast today - so let's see if it delivers.

Frenpet is launching the next version of its app, and many PFPs are dropping across Base & Blast today.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Oogaverse (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Frenpet new version (12:00 p.m. ET)
• sneaky - buddies (2:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.