I ask myself as I follow the crypto news. It seems we’re not really chasing the idea of providing an alternative to current systems, but rather embracing them, such as . But that’s not all.

Story One

Everyone wants a Microstrategy

Where would Bitcoin be if there wasn’t a Michel Saylor consistently buying and HODLing his Bitcoin bags? His business model has inspired many founders who dream of an entity like MicroStrategy that simply buys and holds. Diamond hands are a token project’s best friend, after all.

Justin Sun, the billionaire founder of TRON — the blockchain holding up USDT adoption in the Global South — is no different.

With the Trump administration signaling looser rules for crypto, the SEC case against the Tron founder has been paused, clearing the way for bigger and better things.

Earlier this week, Tron reached a deal with SRM Entertainment, a NASDAQ company, which entails SRM Entertainment buying Tron tokens and being renamed Tron Inc.

Takeaway: Tron controls the entire infrastructure that upholds 30% of stablecoin transactions, capturing all the transaction fees. That’s probably a sexy proposition to TradFi, very close to their own business models of maximum extractable value.

Story Two

Circle goes public

Tron isn’t the only one going public these days. Circle, the company behind USD Coin and lesser-known stablecoins such as EURC, went live on the NASDAQ on June 5th, making it the first major public listing by a stablecoin issuer in the US. With shares priced at $31, Circles raised an additional $1.05 billion in an IPO that had been talked about for so long that some had lost hope altogether.

Unlike the coins that the entity puts onchain, the shares weren’t stable at all, but traded like a memecoin after a celebrity tweeted about them (if you discount the usual dump that proceeds). Roughly two weeks later, Circles’ shares are trading at nearly five times their initial offering price. I wish someone had told me that I could have 5x’d my money instead of holding on to my principles (staying in ETH).

What aids this price movement is the final vote in the US Senate to introduce stablecoin regulation, creating a clearer playing field for stablecoin businesses in the US. Another edge Circle has over most crypto companies is that it’s profitable.

Takeaway: Stablecoin summer is heating up, we’ve given up on creating our own money, and love the dollar now. If you think about it, it’d be way more logical for someone like Circle to sponsor the military next… as a defender of fiat. 🤷‍♀️

Story Three

CT now with a dose of betting

This is me whenever I log into Crypto Twitter and witness yet another crypto drama or public loss of virtue.

You’d think it couldn’t possibly get more dramatic than that, until last week when Elon Musk announced that Polymarket was going to be the official partner for X. This comes unfortunately too late for us to bet on and Elon’s subsequent public crash out.

So far, people who wanted to bet on major world events, from whether MetaMask would ever release a token, or who’d start World War 3, had to go to Polymarket directly. Soon, though, the prediction markets widgets could be directly integrated with X, appearing inside posts and live streams so that you won’t need to leave to place bets.

In 2024, Polymarket facilitated over $8 billion in predictions, making it one of the biggest categories in crypto, although people were unsure whether the betting would continue after the elections. The answer is yes.

Takeaway: In a culture where even kids are trained on gambling mechanics early on with loot boxes in Roblox, it’s only logical that gambling is now the preferred mechanism to decide whether things are fake news or not for the adults.

Fact of the week: It’s Strawberry season in Germany, so here’s a fun fact about us: every German eats on average 3,3 kilos of strawberries per year. Australia is also not far off still making the top ten with 2.8 kilos per person.

Naomi for CoinJar