Stripe Relaunches Crypto Services
Plus crypto majors and memes dip ahead of this morning's CPI print.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news:
Crypto majors fall 1-2% ahead of CPI
Stripe relaunches crypto payments across the globe
DOJ brings charges against 4 market makers for fraud, manipulation
Trump family moves forward with WLF proposal on Aave
XCOPY 1/1 sells for 800 ETH, highest sale in years
💸 Stripe Is Back In on Crypto
The co-founder of Stripe, John Collison, called it back in April.
"Crypto is back."
He promised that Stripe would get back into the crypto game with global stablecoin payments.
Fast forward 6 months - and he's backing up those promises.
What Happened?
On Wednesday, Stripe announced the official rollout of its USDC payment support, enabling businesses across the U.S. and 150 other countries to accept the stablecoin.
Initially, payments will be facilitated across Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon, with plans to expand support to additional networks.
The "Pay with Crypto" feature converts USDC into fiat currency automatically for merchants, so they never have to deal with crypto if they don't want to.
Payments are integrated through Stripe Checkout, Elements or the Payments Intents API.
By The Numbers
A few notable figures from the announcement:
150 countries will have crypto support on Stripe
$10,000 limits per crypto transaction, $100k per month
1.5% transaction fee
Why It Matters
Stripe is one of the biggest players in payments.
For perspective, they processed over $1T in payments in 2023, servicing 2.84M websites.
They're a $65B company.
And now they're fully embracing crypto payments for their merchants across the globe.
It's another huge signal for businesses and crypto doubters that crypto payments are here to stay.
It's also another step forward in enabling crypto holders not to have to sell crypto to fiat to use it in the real world.
Stripe is setting itself up for success with the mechanics of this launch, handling the crypto to fiat swap behind the scenes, making it as easy as possible for merchants to adopt.
That makes me think this program will have real legs and will have a foundation for success.
More and more adoption, from some of the biggest players in the world.
Are you paying attention yet?
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $3.5M on the day; Solana was next with $1.7M, and then Bitcoin with $1.6M
ETH NFT leaders mostly chopped; Punks even at 27.6 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.4, BAYC +2% at 11.1, Azuki even at 5.18
SMOWL (+50%) and PROOF Collective (+32%) were notable top movers
BTC NFT leaders were mixed; NodeMonkes -3% at 0.162 BTC, Puppets +2% at 0.141 BTC, OMB -2.5% at 0.165, Quantum Cats -1% at 0.237; Bitcoin Wizards jumped 25% to 0.126
The Runes leaders were mostly green; DOG +5% at $392M mc, PUPS +7% at $167M, RSIC -2% at $75M mc, BDC +23% to $81M
Solana NFTs were mixed; Mad Lads -2% at 45.5 SOL, SMB Gen 2 -3% at 20.4, DeGods +9% at 16.2 SOL
An XCOPY 1/1 "Chatbot and Chill?" sold for 800 ETH, the highest sale since Dec 2021
A memecoin launched on the new art-focused L2 Circle and ran to $15M after being featured in a Beeple Everyday
rektguys launched a new "rektcoin" X page, leading to speculation around a potential token launch
Claynosaurz launched a new Plushies line
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
Trump’s World Liberty Financial has proposed launching on Aave, promising 20% of protocol fees to AaveDAO if approved along with 7% of tokens
Abstract officially launched their Abstract Global Wallet SDK, allowing users social and one-click logins with no extensions
NFTfi introduced Flexible Loans, where borrowers only pay interest on duration of loan vs fixed
Swell introduced its airdrop checker for its ETH restaking platform
Coingecko integrated Arkham Intel to provide additional onchain insights to users
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
Crypto majors are red down another 1-2% ahead of CPI this morning; BTC -2% at $61,150; ETH -1% at $2,400, SOL -2% at $140; UNI is the top alt mover up 10% to $4.8B
Memecoin majors were also red; DOGE -2%, SHIBA -2%, PEPE -4%, WIF -7%, BONK -4%, POPCAT +1%, and MOG -11%
The U.S. DOJ brought charges against Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global, and MyTrade, alongside 14 individuals, accusing them of manipulating the crypto market and "pump and dump" schemes
Stripe officially began accepting USDC and USDP payments with Solana
ETH seized from the PlusToken scheme was moved to exchanges after being dormant since 2021, with 7k of the 542k ETH ($1.3B) moved
VanEck launched a new $30M venture fund to invest in crypto and AI startups
Blockworks introduced a new advisory practice to help protocols grow based on lessons learned and data captured via their site
🚀 Memecoin Movers
$MIHARU (+4700% to $6M market cap, ETH)
$SILLY (+86% to $17M market cap, SOL)
$mini (+50% to $57M market cap, SOL)
$r/snoofi (+32% to $14M market cap, SOL)
$SKBDI (+27% to $36M market cap, SOL)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)
SMOWL (50%, 0.24 ETH)
PROOF (33%, 0.97 ETH)
rektguy (28%, 0.69 ETH)
Lasogette (25%, 0.12 ETH Floor)
Auntiverse (24%, 1.1 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events
Today is another busier day of mints, spanning art and Ordinals.
Art Blocks is back with Ryan Bell's "And Yet We Dance." And there are several drops on Bitcoin including Dario Lanza's "Ariadna."
The most important event of the day though is the CPI print coming in this morning, which likely dictatctes near-term market action for all of crypto.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
CPI (8:30 a.m. ET)
Florian Zumbrun - Becoming (11:00 a.m. ET)
DARK (11:00 a.m. ET)
Ryan Bell x Art Blocs - And Yet We Dance (1:00 p.m. ET)
Dario Lanza - Ariadna (1:00 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.d.warner@gmail.com.