Uber are interested in Stablecoins and Circle IPO Frenzy

If you're reading this and still haven't signed up, click the subscribe button below!

Pssst. We also have a podcast… find that here on your favourite podcast player or here on YouTube 🙏 

Introduction

Welcome to the Tokenized newsletter, brought to you by the creators of the Tokenized Podcast; Simon Taylor of Fintech Brainfood and Pet Berisha of Sporting Crypto, written by Jeremy Batchelder.

We are the newsletter for institutions that need help preparing for a Tokenized future.

We run through the headlines every week, what it means for you and a market readout. Always with an institutional, business-focused perspective. 

Join us every week as we meet your Tokenization needs.

Stories You Can't Miss 📰

🚗 Uber CEO: Stablecoins "Super Interesting" for Global Payments

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi confirmed (https://www.theblock.co/post/357233/uber-is-evaluating-stablecoins-potential-for-payments-ceo-khosrowshahi-says) the company is in the "study phase" of potentially using stablecoins as a payment method, citing their practical benefits for international money transfers.

Key Points:

• Khosrowshahi called stablecoins "one of the more interesting instantiations of crypto that has a practical benefit" beyond store of value

• Uber sees stablecoins as a way to reduce costs in international money transfers across its global platform

• The CEO expressed preference for stablecoins over bitcoin, calling bitcoin a "proven commodity" with differing opinions on its future

• This marks Uber's most concrete statement on crypto adoption since 2021-2022 when Khosrowshahi said the company would "absolutely" accept crypto in the future

The Tokenized Take:

• Scale matters: Uber's exploration validates stablecoins for mainstream consumer payments - if adopted, millions of users worldwide could gain exposure to crypto payments without realizing it

• Cost reduction focus: Uber's interest centers on practical benefits rather than speculation, highlighting how stablecoins solve real business problems in cross-border operations

• Regulatory timing: Khosrowshahi's comments come as the U.S. pushes stablecoin legislation through the Genius Act, creating clearer regulatory frameworks for corporate adoption

• Institutional momentum: Uber joins growing corporate interest in stablecoins as major banks reportedly explore joint stablecoin initiatives, signaling broader institutional acceptance

💰 Circle IPO Creates Billionaire CEO as Stablecoin Giant Surges 235%

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire became a billionaire as the USDC stablecoin issuer made a historic public debut, surging as much as 235% in the first crypto pure-play stablecoin company to go public (https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/06/05/circle-soars-in-first-ever-stablecoin-ipo-making-ceo-a-billionaire/).

Key Points:

• Circle raised nearly $1.1 billion in an IPO that was upsized twice due to heavy demand, pricing at $31 per share

• Stock opened at $69 and climbed as high as $103.75, making Allaire worth at least $1.7 billion based on afternoon trading

• The offering attracted major institutional buyers including BlackRock and Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management

• Circle operates USDC, the world's second-largest stablecoin with 27% market share and $61 billion in circulation

The Tokenized Take:

• Pure-play validation: Circle's explosive debut as a dedicated stablecoin business validates the sector's institutional appeal beyond crypto trading platforms

• Revenue concentration risk: Over 99% of Circle's $1.68 billion revenue comes from interest on reserves - a 1% rate drop could eliminate $441 million in revenue

• Distribution cost challenge: Circle paid over $1 billion in distribution fees in 2024 ($900 million to Coinbase alone), while competitor Tether pays no distributors

• Regulatory bet: Circle chose IPO over $5 billion acquisition offers from Coinbase and Ripple, betting that regulatory clarity will create a compliance premium in public markets

💸 Stablecorner ⚖️ → The B2B Stablecoin Liquidity Trap

The stablecoin industry has hit a critical inflection point that most people are missing. While everyone focuses on market cap growth and regulatory clarity, the real revolution is happening in B2B adoption - and it's being driven by a fundamental problem that businesses discovered after getting dollar access.

The Liquidity Trap That Changed Everything

As Kirill Gertman from Conduit (which just raised $36M) explained, businesses initially turned to stablecoins for a simple reason: protecting against local currency devaluation. CFOs in Nigeria wanted to hedge against naira devaluation. Companies in Colombia needed protection from peso volatility. The entry point was basic dollar access.

But then businesses hit a wall. They had USDC sitting in wallets, but as Kirill noted: "Those balances are liquid, right? They cannot actually use those balances in their daily business operations to pay suppliers, to pay vendors, maybe even pay employees."

This liquidity trap became the catalyst for explosive growth. Once businesses realized they needed to actually use their stablecoin balances, everything changed. Conduit saw 16x growth in 2024 and 800x growth in 2023 by solving this exact problem - enabling businesses to transact using their stablecoin balances rather than just holding them.

The use cases that emerged tell the real story:

• A user in Bolivia purchasing car parts with a Visa card funded by stablecoins - even with merchant acceptance fees, it was cheaper than using a bank account

• African companies importing goods from China, bypassing T+7 settlement times through SWIFT

• US employers paying engineers in Argentina instantly instead of waiting days for traditional transfers

Programmable Credit: The Next Frontier

The most transformative development isn't payments - it's programmable credit. Rain has pioneered on-chain lending models that leverage stablecoin flows in ways traditional finance simply cannot match.

Because money movement happens on-chain, Farooq Malik from Rain explained how they can create fundamentally different credit products: "Because it's happening on the blockchain, you can actually route that money to be able to reduce the risk for a lender... you can make that money pay the lender off in the event of a default."

This enables:

• Automatic repayment flows directly from transaction streams

• Lower risk frameworks for lenders through programmable money flows

• Reduced costs compared to traditional warehouse lending

• Real-time settlement that eliminates working capital delays

Rain is now converting off-chain use cases to their on-chain credit model, offering businesses cheaper access to credit while providing lenders with lower risk exposure. This isn't just financial engineering - it's rebuilding the fundamental infrastructure of business credit using programmable money.

The Takeaway

We're witnessing the maturation of stablecoins from speculative crypto assets to essential business infrastructure. The progression from dollar access → liquidity trap → programmable payments and credit represents a complete transformation of how global businesses manage cash flow and access capital.

The businesses driving this adoption aren't crypto companies - they're manufacturers, importers, and service providers who discovered that stablecoin infrastructure simply works better than traditional banking for cross-border commerce. When a user in Bolivia finds it cheaper to buy car parts with crypto-funded payments than bank transfers, we've crossed the chasm to mainstream adoption.

The future of B2B finance isn't just tokenized - it's programmable, instant, and global by default.

📰 Some More News:

🏦 Tokenization, Stablecoins & Finance

• Chainlink Labs Joins the GSF (Read more here)

• Deutsche Bank Considers Stablecoin or Joining Industry-Led Initiative, Exec Says (Read more here)

• Ex-Google Chief Eric Schmidt Backs Firms Behind Blockchain Credit Bureau (Read more here)

• Societe Generale becomes first major bank to launch dollar-pegged stablecoin (Read more here)

• The State of Crypto: The Future of Money Is Here (Read more here)

🤑 Funding and M&A

• Consensys Acquires Web3Auth to Enhance MetaMask’s User Experience, User Safety, and Developer Offering (Read more here)

• Noah raises $22 million in seed funding to build its global stablecoin payment network (Read more here)

• UK's OpenTrade Raises $7M to Expand Stablecoin Yield Access in Inflation-Hit Markets (Read more here)

💼 Government & Policy

• Ripple Gains Regulatory Approval for RLUSD Stablecoin in Dubai (Read more here)

• South Korea's Ruling Party Wants to Allow Companies to Issue Stablecoins: Bloomberg (Read more here)

• Sony Bank tests DeFi, AMM with Japanese regulator (Read more here)

Simon’s Market Readout 💬 

I ended up in a good-spirited debate on X this week with the CEO of a company called Airwallex, Jack Zhang. It took to X to say that stablecoins are largely overhyped—that for his business, he's getting pressure from investors and his board to really consider stablecoins, and yet he can't see a compelling business case. And when you consider the nature of his business, he's probably right at this point in time.

Airwallex is a scale business that helps companies move money across borders, and most of that money is between G10 currencies. Most of that money operates on banking and compliance rails that Airwallex has spent the better part of a decade building infrastructure and efficiencies around. Their FX spreads, costs, and fees are incredibly low because they're in a competitive, scaled market.

In the debate with Jack, he did concede that for currency pairs that are less traded, like Malaysia to Thailand or similar corridors and routes, stablecoins could be more efficient today. But I think what's missing from this story is what everybody's building towards.

I see two things happening simultaneously:

1. The existing market, which is highly fragmented and has low liquidity, is changing as professional FX teams move in and build liquidity, removing some of that fragmentation. For corridors like Mexico to the US or the Brazilian real to the US, it's already often the case that stablecoins are more competitive.

2. We're about to cross an absolutely massive chasm. This week, we'll probably see the beginnings of on-chain FX and settlement, all done via stablecoins. Imagine if we had a local currency stablecoin and a US dollar stablecoin, and we had a financial institution willing to accept either at both sides and settle against local banking. What you'd essentially have is on-chain FX and on-chain clearing—and that would be a game changer.

Tweet of the Week 🐤 

From: Rob Hadick

Thanks so much for reading the Tokenized Newsletter!

Please share this edition or share it with your colleagues if you enjoyed it!

Disclaimers