Understanding Stablecoins and Free Banking

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• Defending “Free Banking” from the critics – and why stablecoins are unlike free banks
• The American Bankers Association doesn’t like new crypto charters
• Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announces the company’s plan to launch a new US-based stablecoin this year
• Strategy announced the plans for the fourth preferred stock offering this week, STRC, or "Stretch."
• Anchorage Digital, which does hold an OCC banking charter, is launching a new stablecoin issuance platform. The first stablecoin product will be USDtb in partnership with Ethena Labs
• The Senate Banking Committee released their discussion draft for crypto market structure legislation this week, designed to build off the House's passage of the CLARITY Act last week
• Citadel Securities has expressed concern around the rise of tokenized securities
• Bhutan’s Bitcoin trade
• BitGo, a crypto custody provider, and Bullish, a crypto exchange, both announced that they had confidentially filed an S-1

Further reading:

• Wired, The Great Crypto Re-Banking Has Begun
• Galaxy Digital, Crypto Policy Under Trump: H1 2025 Report