BRC-2.0: Can Bitcoin’s Smart-Token Standard Recapture the Magic of the 2023 Inscription Boom?
The Upgrade That Went Live at Block 912,690 On 2 September 2025, at Bitcoin block height 912,690, the BRC20 stack received its biggest overhaul since launch. Dubbed BRC-2.0, the release—co-authored by original designer Domo and the Ordinals team Best in Slot—drops a fully functioning Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) inside the BRC20 indexer. The move turns Bitcoin into a Turing-complete settlement layer, promising DeFi, NFT markets, borrow-lend and synthetic-asset apps without leaving the BTC s...
Burn vs. Redistribution in Crypto: Which Mechanism is Better?
Core Topic: Exploring the applicable scenarios for burn and redistribution mechanisms in cryptocurrency, emphasizing that redistribution is superior when economic value impacts system security. Key Definitions: * Slashing: The act of reclaiming assets from malicious actors. * Burn vs. Redistribution: Methods for handling the reclaimed assets. Burning reduces the total supply, while redistribution transfers the value to other parties. The Advantages of Redistribution: * Enhances economic secur...
Coinbase Invests in WCT, Secures $45.75M Funding, Set to Launch on OK Exchange—Is a 100x King in the…
Community Launch of WCT In the cryptocurrency realm, every significant funding round and project launch can create waves in the market. Recently, a major announcement has captured the attention of the crypto community: WalletConnect (WCT), backed by Coinbase, has successfully raised $45.75 million and is set to make its debut on OK Exchange. This news has sent ripples through the market, leading many investors to wonder if a 100x king is truly on the horizon. Specific Launch Times:WCT Deposit...
<100 subscribers
BRC-2.0: Can Bitcoin’s Smart-Token Standard Recapture the Magic of the 2023 Inscription Boom?
The Upgrade That Went Live at Block 912,690 On 2 September 2025, at Bitcoin block height 912,690, the BRC20 stack received its biggest overhaul since launch. Dubbed BRC-2.0, the release—co-authored by original designer Domo and the Ordinals team Best in Slot—drops a fully functioning Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) inside the BRC20 indexer. The move turns Bitcoin into a Turing-complete settlement layer, promising DeFi, NFT markets, borrow-lend and synthetic-asset apps without leaving the BTC s...
Burn vs. Redistribution in Crypto: Which Mechanism is Better?
Core Topic: Exploring the applicable scenarios for burn and redistribution mechanisms in cryptocurrency, emphasizing that redistribution is superior when economic value impacts system security. Key Definitions: * Slashing: The act of reclaiming assets from malicious actors. * Burn vs. Redistribution: Methods for handling the reclaimed assets. Burning reduces the total supply, while redistribution transfers the value to other parties. The Advantages of Redistribution: * Enhances economic secur...
Coinbase Invests in WCT, Secures $45.75M Funding, Set to Launch on OK Exchange—Is a 100x King in the…
Community Launch of WCT In the cryptocurrency realm, every significant funding round and project launch can create waves in the market. Recently, a major announcement has captured the attention of the crypto community: WalletConnect (WCT), backed by Coinbase, has successfully raised $45.75 million and is set to make its debut on OK Exchange. This news has sent ripples through the market, leading many investors to wonder if a 100x king is truly on the horizon. Specific Launch Times:WCT Deposit...
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Support Sophiaqr
From Stripe to Circle: Why Fintech Giants Are Suddenly Building Their Own Blockchains
Support Sophiaqr
From Stripe to Circle: Why Fintech Giants Are Suddenly Building Their Own Blockchains
A New Fashion: Everyone Wants Their Own Chain
Self-built blockchains have become the latest craze in fintech.
• Coinbase already has Base.
• Robinhood announced its own chain in June; rival eToro is weighing a similar move.
Now Stripe and Circle—two of the biggest names in payments and stable-coins—have jumped on the bandwagon.
A since-deleted job posting and people familiar with the matter say Stripe is quietly building Tempo, a payments-first blockchain. Hours later, Circle revealed Arc, a chain purpose-built for stable-coin finance.
The sudden bloom of corporate chains raises one obvious question: why do Stripe, Circle and seemingly every other large financial firm now want to be blockchain developers?
Owning the Full Stack
Two senior stable-coin execs and one investor all give the same answer: vertical integration.
Stripe spent $1.1 B to buy Bridge, a stable-coin start-up, giving it an in-house coin and payment rails. Its June purchase of crypto-wallet provider Privy adds user accounts. For a company best known for online check-outs, the blockchain layer completes a full-stack stable-coin ecosystem.
> “Big companies want to own the entire tech stack.”
> —Rob Hadick, General Partner, Dragonfly
Stripe is convinced that stable-coins are the future of payments. If even a slice of its $1.4 T annual volume migrates to stable-coins, missing the underlying rails could cost it hundreds of millions in fees.
A blockchain is the crypto stack’s equivalent of AWS or Google Cloud. Decentralised servers process transactions, and the owners of those servers collect the fees. Since launching in early 2023, Base has already generated >$130 M in fees, per DefiLlama.
> “Everyone wants to control the economics.”
> —Luca Prosperi, Co-founder & CEO, M0
Whether consumers will drown in an alphabet soup of tokens and chains is still an open question. Stripe declined to comment.
Defence vs. Offence
Circle’s motives rhyme, but the cadence is different.
The newly public company issues USDC, operates a growing payments network, and even offers white-label wallets to enterprise clients. Yet until now it has not owned the underlying chain—meaning it has had to pay, not earn, the fees on every USDC transaction.
> “They want to own the flow of money, too.”
> —Bam Azizi, Co-founder & CEO, Mesh
But the two firms’ risk profiles diverge sharply.
Stripe is a diversified, profitable giant; Stripe Billing alone booked $500 M in annual revenue in January.
Circle, by contrast, earned >96 % of Q2 revenue from interest on US Treasuries backing USDC. A Fed rate cut could gut its business model overnight.
> “We’re building a full stack—from the infrastructure layer to the stable-coin layer to the payments network layer.”
> —Jeremy Allaire, CEO, Circle, to The Information
Still, some see Circle as playing catch-up.
> “Circle is playing defence—reacting. Stripe is on offence, shaping the future of payments.”
> —Rob Hadick, Dragonfly
A New Fashion: Everyone Wants Their Own Chain
Self-built blockchains have become the latest craze in fintech.
• Coinbase already has Base.
• Robinhood announced its own chain in June; rival eToro is weighing a similar move.
Now Stripe and Circle—two of the biggest names in payments and stable-coins—have jumped on the bandwagon.
A since-deleted job posting and people familiar with the matter say Stripe is quietly building Tempo, a payments-first blockchain. Hours later, Circle revealed Arc, a chain purpose-built for stable-coin finance.
The sudden bloom of corporate chains raises one obvious question: why do Stripe, Circle and seemingly every other large financial firm now want to be blockchain developers?
Owning the Full Stack
Two senior stable-coin execs and one investor all give the same answer: vertical integration.
Stripe spent $1.1 B to buy Bridge, a stable-coin start-up, giving it an in-house coin and payment rails. Its June purchase of crypto-wallet provider Privy adds user accounts. For a company best known for online check-outs, the blockchain layer completes a full-stack stable-coin ecosystem.
> “Big companies want to own the entire tech stack.”
> —Rob Hadick, General Partner, Dragonfly
Stripe is convinced that stable-coins are the future of payments. If even a slice of its $1.4 T annual volume migrates to stable-coins, missing the underlying rails could cost it hundreds of millions in fees.
A blockchain is the crypto stack’s equivalent of AWS or Google Cloud. Decentralised servers process transactions, and the owners of those servers collect the fees. Since launching in early 2023, Base has already generated >$130 M in fees, per DefiLlama.
> “Everyone wants to control the economics.”
> —Luca Prosperi, Co-founder & CEO, M0
Whether consumers will drown in an alphabet soup of tokens and chains is still an open question. Stripe declined to comment.
Defence vs. Offence
Circle’s motives rhyme, but the cadence is different.
The newly public company issues USDC, operates a growing payments network, and even offers white-label wallets to enterprise clients. Yet until now it has not owned the underlying chain—meaning it has had to pay, not earn, the fees on every USDC transaction.
> “They want to own the flow of money, too.”
> —Bam Azizi, Co-founder & CEO, Mesh
But the two firms’ risk profiles diverge sharply.
Stripe is a diversified, profitable giant; Stripe Billing alone booked $500 M in annual revenue in January.
Circle, by contrast, earned >96 % of Q2 revenue from interest on US Treasuries backing USDC. A Fed rate cut could gut its business model overnight.
> “We’re building a full stack—from the infrastructure layer to the stable-coin layer to the payments network layer.”
> —Jeremy Allaire, CEO, Circle, to The Information
Still, some see Circle as playing catch-up.
> “Circle is playing defence—reacting. Stripe is on offence, shaping the future of payments.”
> —Rob Hadick, Dragonfly
No comments yet