Fintech
Circle Built an Agent Wallet So USDC Can Charge the Bots
Circle's Agent Stack turns USDC into payment middleware for bots, APIs, and micropayments, showing where fintech wants the next checkout button to live.
Fintech
SoFi Started Minting a Stablecoin, Because the Super App Wasn't Complicated Enough
SoFi has started minting SoFiUSD, revealing a bigger ambition: turn a national bank, a stablecoin, and Mastercard rails into one settlement stack.
Layoffs
Coinbase Discovered AI, So 700 Humans Became a Cost Structure
I like Coinbase. I want Coinbase to win. Which is why watching it dress a plain old layoff in AI-native cosplay is so irritating.
Fintech
Stripe Turned Stablecoins Into a Business Account, and the Card Was the Tell
Stripe’s latest Treasury and card launches show stablecoins becoming business banking infrastructure, with cashback and custody hiding the crypto.
Fintech
Stablecoin Founders Keep Applying for Bank Charters, Because Apparently the Endgame Was Banking All Along
OCC stablecoin rules and a growing bank-charter queue show crypto’s next act is less anti-bank rebellion, more reserves, audits, and supervision.
Fintech
The FDIC Just Explained Stablecoins to Banks, and the Answer Is: Fine, but Bring Capital
The FDIC’s April stablecoin proposal shows where fintech is headed: tokenized money can go mainstream, but only under bank-style rules.
Fintech
Hong Kong Just Licensed Its First Stablecoins, and Naturally the Winners Look Like Banks in Crypto Cosplay
HKMA just gave Hong Kong its first stablecoin licenses, and the winners look a lot like banks turning crypto rails into ordinary finance again.
Fintech
Swiss Banks Finally Want a Franc Stablecoin, Which Is What Happens When the Payment Rails Start Looking Embarrassing
Swiss banks launched a CHF stablecoin sandbox on April 8, 2026, revealing how quickly tokenized money is moving from crypto sideshow to bank infrastructure.
Startups
Starcloud Raised $170M to Move AI Compute Into Orbit. The Bitcoin Miner Is Not the Weirdest Part.
AI ate the power grid. Now a Seattle startup wants to launch 88,000 satellites to fix it — and send a Bitcoin miner along for the ride.
Startups
A Startup Called XFX Is Fixing the Part of Crypto That Still Feels Like a Wire Transfer. Root for Them.
Three ex-Bitso founders raised $17 million to solve the foreign exchange problem they kept running into... at Bitso. The startup is called XFX. I find this extremely encouraging.
This Week in Snark
This Week in Snark: AI Forks, Crypto Prompts, Regulated Shovels, and the Monetization of Your Soul
From Sonic’s AI-powered Web3 launch to OpenAI’s latest agent move, plus EV hype and Snapchat monetizing FOMO—your snarky weekly tech industry recap.
Crypto
Crypto Just Entered Its ChatGPT Era: Sonic’s Spawn Brings AI to Web3 and DeFi
With Spawn, Sonic Labs claims anyone can build a Web3 or DeFi app using plain English. We explore the upside—and the on-chain risks.