💪🏼 Pump it

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Happy Friday!

In case you somehow missed it, Netflix announced that Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle will star in a brand-new series about Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison. 

Just what we all wanted!

Here’s a fun fact: Higher Ground Productions is involved in the project, and if that name looks familiar, it’s because it’s the media company co-owned by none other than Barack and Michelle Obama.

Anyway, Nic Carter wins best post about the announcement, in my very humble opinion. 

And with that, I’ll see you bright and early Monday.

🐔 Winner, winner

Business-to-business (B2B if you will) stablecoin transactions are gaining momentum, per a new report from Artemis, Dragonfly, and Castle Island Ventures.

The report found that such payments are annualizing $36 billion, which is a step above the person-to-person (P2P) rate of $18 billion. 

As you can see in the chart above, the volumes have really picked up on the B2B side of things, showing that the adoption that we’ve been talking about is being heavily reflected in data. Love to see it.

The study noted that USDT wins the popularity contest in these payments, but USDC has roughly 30% of the monthly volume. 

“I kind of expected…that Circle would have done a little better than it has,” Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick told me. “The reality is, today, it's still…between 80% and 90% Tether. There's some indication that maybe Circle is gaining on the B2B side, but we haven't seen that one in the data yet.”

On the downside, though, it looks like P2P might be struggling a bit. 

You can see that volumes seemed to peak earlier this year, but haven’t quite bounced back, despite what is arguably a very bullish environment for stablecoins specifically. 

Hadick told me he was surprised to see the P2P market hit such a wall. He noted that WorldPay’s most recent report showed that account-to-account payments are trending higher and becoming the fastest-growing segment of payments worldwide.

So his read was that P2P stablecoin volumes could get a boost from that, but clearly — as the data shows above — that’s not the case. On the other hand, he was thrilled to see that B2B payments are quickly growing.

What stood out to me is that the smaller segment of business-to-consumer payments is also stagnating. 

As you can see above, it looks like B2C volume hit a high roughly around the same time as P2P before dropping. 

That’s not to discount the rise this year in volumes, which is focused on Binance Pay and Orbital. 

“Volume has increased substantially, rising from approximately $50 million per month at the start of 2023 to surpassing $300 million by early 2025. This growth highlights the expanding role of stablecoins in everyday digital commerce and service platforms,” the study said. 

Empire co-host Santiago Santos, in this week’s Round Up, noted that B2B versus B2C caught his eye.

“ I think the first time, like B2B stablecoin transfers are now at or above B2C, which is institutions are using stablecoins,” he said. “ Now the volume of, or the share that institutions are using stablecoins, is now greater than [retail].”

Even with some of the more surprising datasets, Hadick told me that it’s still very early on for stablecoin use cases.

“The book is just starting to be written,” Hadick said. He still firmly believes that more companies will enter the space, and that’ll help boost massive winners. 

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We’re so back when it comes to launchpads. Remember how many folks thought memecoins and things like pump[dot]fun were on the downtrend earlier this year?

How young and naive we all were. Or maybe it’s the opposite. 

Anyway, my point is that launchpads are still having a moment, with the most obvious leader being pump[dot]fun. In our previous conversations with Blockworks Research on the subject of memecoins, the team reiterated how bullish they are on the segment. 

In a report earlier this week, our Research team looked at pump[dot]fun’s dominance in a growing pool. 

So far, pump[dot]fun’s managed to really corner its market. There have been competitors (remember Tron’s attempt, for example?), but none of them has really managed to stick. 

“The core problem was structural: without instantly recognizable standards and an engaged speculator base (and their capital), these clones offered little more than a lower-fidelity imitation of the original experience,” Research analyst Danny K. wrote. 

But analysts say that it’s still early days for this market, which means we could see more serious competitors to pump[dot]fun down the line. 

“The winners will be those who either defend the core memecoin market or successfully create and grow entirely new categories rather than offering ‘pump[dot]fun but slightly different,’” the report said. 

Raydium is a clear competitor, but they also note that Meteora “has had quiet success” in some of the same pools, from getting big launch partners (Trump and Melania Trump) to also offering infrastructure. Between that and their relationship with Jupiter, Blockworks Research said that they “ultimately view them as another major contender in this battle.”

And now you know.

Last week, I asked: Thoughts on DePINs?

The results were tied: Some of you find DePINs boring, and yet some of you are all in. 

Guess we’re going to need further polling for more data.

This week, I’m wondering: