Fintech

The bridge from yesterday to tomorrow.

Fintech news and information you can trust.

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[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Exclusive: OpenAI is preparing to file for an IPO, possibly as early as Friday https://t.co/wBSYP8YMjq

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Announcing YC Crypto deals

We're now providing crypto deals to support fintech builders funded by YC: support on tools like wallets, onramps, audits, blockchains, onchain data.

[Alfred Lin @Alfred_Lin]

Turnkey is building the essential infrastructure for crypto wallets and verifiable computing. Their products will become even more critical as AI agents start transacting and stablecoins continue becoming a core payment rail.

They're now powering 100M+ wallets, 1M+ daily transactions, and over $100B in stablecoin volume, across customers like World App, Polymarket, Axiom, and more. Let's go.

[Circle @circle]

USDC is becoming a core part of @HyperliquidX’s evolving market structure.

USDC will become an Aligned Quote Asset on Hyperliquid and continue as the primary collateral asset across HIP-1, HIP-2, HIP-3, and now HIP-4 markets.

As Hyperliquid expands into new onchain markets, USDC enables:
→ Deep liquidity across trading pairs
→ Greater capital efficiency ecosystem-wide
→ Seamless crosschain access to digital dollars

Circle is also making a significant financial investment in the ecosystem through HYPE staking.

Hyperliquid.

https://t.co/bxFRXgYJLm

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

WTF is going on? Anthropic and Elon. Cerebras IPO. Ramp at $40BN.

I sat down with @jasonlk & @rodriscoll to discuss the deal, along with the biggest news in tech this week:

- Anthropic Buys Compute From Elon & Commits $200BN to Google
- Cerebras IPO: The Breakdown
- Ramp's $40BN Latest Valuation
- Hubspot Tanks, Monday Rockets: WTF is Happening in Public Markets?

My notes below:

1. Foundation Made the Investment of the Decade with Cerebras
Jason argues that Foundation’s success with Cerebras is a masterclass in “actual venture capital” because they did not just muscle into a hot round. They incubated the company in 2016, when the category did not even make sense. By playing the long game, finding a brilliant founder, seeding the idea, and holding roughly 9% ownership through a $40B+ IPO, they proved that the biggest returns still come from doing the hard work before a deal becomes obvious.

2. What Founders Have to Understand Is That to Win, You Have to Mentally Be Changed Forever
There is a fundamental breakpoint around the four-to-five-year mark when a founder’s brain is permanently rewired by the intensity of the journey. Jason notes that winning at a high level requires a commitment to becoming a different person. The happy-go-lucky version of yourself from the early days is gone, replaced by someone who can often only relate to other founders who have survived similar maelstroms.

3. The Enemy of My Enemy Infrastructure Play
Anthropic’s partnership to use SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center highlights a massive consolidation where the strongest players are hoovering up all available capacity on the planet. For Elon Musk, this move transitions xAI from a buyer of CapEx to a net seller of capacity, turning a potential money pit into a $3 to $5 billion annual revenue stream because Grok is not currently growing at the same pace as leading-edge models.

4. The Crackdown on Shadow Cap Tables
Anthropic is enforcing board approval for all secondary sales to reclaim cap table control and call out "bad actors". Rory warns that side contracts for "economic rights" are legally fragile; because the company has no obligation to honor unapproved transfers, many investors face "messy" losses at the IPO.

5. Model vs. Application: The Vertical SaaS Death Zone
The industry is debating if horizontal models will consume the application layer or if vertical workflows will remain independent. Jason predicts a "terminal state of decay" for legacy marketing tools because agents have no need for manual templates. Once a model can perform an application’s core function directly within a prompt, that software becomes obsolete.

6. Token Maxing vs. The 100x Engineer
Despite massive growth forecasts, a "micro backlash" is growing against "token trash" generated by mediocre developers. Jason predicts a clampdown on wasteful agentic spend, where companies prioritize unlimited resources for elite "100x engineers" while restricting "web heads" who burn compute for minimal productivity gains.

(links below)

[Ralph Mylie @RalphMylie]

beinginstant: Absolutely thrilled to announce we have been selected as a finalist for the PayTech Awards 2026! 🏆

This is recognition of our team's hard work and dedication to making exceptional contributions to the Payments industry.

@FinTech Futures…

[Coinbase 🛡️ @coinbase]

Every agent deserves a wallet.

So we’re helping every dev on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore give their agents one.

Autonomous spending, budget controls, built-in compliance, and USDC settlement on @base.

This is the future, powered by x402.

[Mastercard @Mastercard]

Today, Mastercard, @OndoFinance, Kinexys by @JPMorgan, and @Ripple successfully completed a landmark transaction connecting a public blockchain with interbank settlement rails.

Together, we’re laying the groundwork for 24/7 global markets that never close.

[Claude @claudeai]

New for financial services: ready-to-run Claude agent templates for building pitches, conducting valuation reviews, closing the books at month-end, and more.

Install them as plugins in Cowork and Claude Code, or use our cookbooks to run them in production as Managed Agents.

[Solana Hub @SolanaHub_]

🚨 Solana Foundation launches https://t.co/kbn0MP7A2x in collaboration with @GoogleCloud.

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

JUST IN: Morgan Stanley is rolling out crypto trading on E*Trade with pricing designed to undercut competitors Coinbase, Robinhood, and Charles Schwab, per Bloomberg.

The pilot is live now, with access expected for all 8.6 million E*Trade clients later this year.

[Nathan McCauley ⚓ @nathanmccauley]

https://t.co/bPJppspwPK

[Bloomberg @business]

SoftBank plans to establish and float a standalone AI robotics and data center company called Roze in the US, the Financial Times reported, citing sources https://t.co/zJ8zQsDAZ8

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

INSIGHT: Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon all reported Q1 earnings after the bell on Wednesday.

The four companies are expected to spend a combined $650 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026, the largest capital spending commitment in corporate history.

[National Mortgage News @NatMortgageNews]

The $TWO board said the @crosscountrymtg fixed, all-cash bid, not $UWMC's stock and cash offer, provides certainty that is not subject to any financing considerations.

By @NMNBrad
https://t.co/34Ah9UAvEG

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

We just launched the @Link CLI: https://t.co/vYdvNtJgpE. Tell your friendly neighborhood agent about it -- agents can use the Link CLI to create single-use credentials that you get to synchronously approve each time.

I asked Claude to buy itself a gift. It chose HTTPZine on Gumroad.

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

JUST IN: Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is launching stablecoin payouts for creators.

[Stripe @stripe]

Today, we’re launching the @link wallet for agents. It lets you securely empower agents to spend on your behalf. Your payment credentials are never exposed and you approve every purchase.

https://t.co/TcvEiVNth9

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

TODAY: Morgan Stanley has filed a registration with the SEC for a spot $ETH Trust, following recent applications for spot Bitcoin and Solana products.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

Bitcoin is good for USD.

It creates competition in a way that’s healthy for the dollar, which helps to provide a check and balance against high inflation and deficit spending.