Why are fintechs launching their own stablecoins?

In this week’s Weekly Rollup, Uptober kicks off with Bitcoin and Ethereum surging toward all-time highs as Tom Lee drops another $1B into ETH and Vanguard finally opens its doors to crypto ETFs.

We cover Stripe’s push to break the Tether–Circle duopoly with its new stablecoin platform, Cloudflare’s surprising entry into onchain payments, and Swift teaming up with Consensys on blockchain rails. Plus, Zcash rockets 200%, Ethereum’s Lighter perps exchange goes live, and Circle sparks debate with plans for reversible USDC.

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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES

0:00 Intro

3:38 U.S. Government Shutdown

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrj1znp0pyo

7:13 Markets

https://x.com/pumatheuma/status/1973717212025553313 - ZK Szn??

https://x.com/CoinDesk/status/1971565473218113771

https://www.strategicethreserve.xyz/

https://www.bankless.com/read/news/another-week-another-buy-bitmine-stacks-234k-eth

https://x.com/Jrag0x/status/1972643353918677497

https://x.com/smyyguy/status/1971585912602796266

https://x.com/fundstrat/status/1972948825578131523

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-regulators-probe-stock-moves-before-companies-made-crypto-treasury-2025-09-26/

24:57 Plasma nailed its go-to-market

https://x.com/Plasma/status/1972660468561965173

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/plasma

https://defillama.com/chains

https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/plasma-s-defi-shockwave

https://x.com/lemiscate/status/1972337762205339788

https://x.com/ajwarner90/status/1972823448897634648

https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1973436365225468336

32:35 Everyone gets a Stablecoin! The duopoloy is dead!

Phantom announced Cash stablecoin

https://x.com/phantom/status/1973035201950617617

https://x.com/useCash/status/1973035307139477561

https://stripe.com/blog/introducing-open-issuance-from-bridge

https://x.com/zcabrams/status/1973052207911129557

https://x.com/nic__carter/status/1973399535092171216

38:43 Cloudflare launched their own stablecoin on Base 

https://x.com/CoinbaseDev/status/1970477072792592484

https://x.com/eastdakota/status/1971226533831582073

https://x.com/Kira_sama/status/1971237126378504230

https://x.com/Rewkang/status/1970782770805813392

https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1973753405894992073

44:18 Lighter - Ethereum Zk Perps

https://x.com/Lighter_xyz/status/1973508660061180363

https://defillama.com/protocol/lighter

50:06 More crypto TradFi mainstream!

https://x.com/MorphoLabs/status/1972913932802421202

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/swift-teams-ethereum-software-giant-190506673.html

https://www.theblock.co/post/372706/swift-blockchain-ledger-consensys

https://x.com/Louis_Tellier/status/1973692818452337125

https://cointelegraph.com/news/circle-examines-reversible-stablecoin-transactions

57:36 With new Sora, the need for zk proving reality 100x-ed

https://youtu.be/qeORiYlsEH4?t=374

https://x.com/pumatheuma/status/1973258262939312433

1:01:52 CEO of Polymarket gets flipped off
https://x.com/shayne_coplan/status/1972675295564931242
https://x.com/nickpreszler/status/1972748902240780589

1:04:44 Closing, Disclaimers, & Moment of Zen

https://x.com/coinbase/status/1972731382830072129 

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