Fintech Stacks

Robinhood just got approved as a full IPO underwriter right as OpenAI files confidentially — and Vlad Tenev says retail is coming for Wall Street's lunch. Figure dropped $717 million to own the fix-and-flip lending stack on blockchain. And Visa's CFO pumped the brakes on stablecoin hype while quietly posting the company's fastest revenue growth since 2022. Three moves, one theme: the old financial infrastructure is getting stress-tested from every direction.

Klarna just launched a high-yield savings account and officially blurred the line between BNPL and neobank. Coinbase dropped a crypto-collateralized credit card for people traditional banks won't touch. And Robinhood is slowly pulling its prediction market volume away from Kalshi by routing World Cup contracts through its own exchange, Rothera. Today we break down what all three moves mean for the companies, their investors, and anyone who thought fintech was getting boring.

The crypto selloff is over — and the institutions came back with receipts. This week we break down Mastercard's move to build its own stablecoin infrastructure with Visa and Stripe, Coinbase's wild new pre-IPO futures product launching with SpaceX, and Galaxy Digital's Morgan Stanley partnership that signals Wall Street is done dabbling in crypto. The establishment is building now, not watching.

Stablecoins are moving into payroll, Experian is building trust infrastructure for AI agents, and Airwallex continues its quest to become the operating system for global finance. Today's Stack breaks down why all three moves point to the same future: money becoming software.

Ramp closed a $750 million round yesterday at a $44 billion valuation — nearly tripling in a year — and the AI token spend angle is the real story. Block's Cash App shipped a literal magic wand for tap-to-pay, and it's a smarter Gen Z play than it looks. Plus, Revolut, Nubank, and Adyen all reshuffled leadership in the same week — right as all three are making their hardest push into the U.S. market. We break down what it all means.

SoFi just launched an AI financial coach for 14.7 million members — the same week it went live on Mastercard's stablecoin settlement network. Upstart quietly published $1.45 billion in May loan originations and let the number speak for itself. And Sezzle dropped a super app expansion so wide it now includes a 5G phone plan. We break down what's actually signal and what's noise across all three.

China's securities regulator just handed Tiger Brokers a $60 million fine — but the company still grew revenue 26% and launched a buyback the same day. Meanwhile, Shopify authorized a fresh $3 billion in repurchases, and Nubank raided Visa's executive bench for its next CFO. Today we break down what all three moves say about where fintech power is actually shifting.

Yesterday was a lot. Anthropic filed for what could be the largest tech IPO ever at a near-trillion-dollar valuation, Wise got hit with a Belgian money-laundering probe tied to $582 million in suspicious transactions, and Cash App quietly swapped its clearing broker to Apex. We break down what all three mean for your portfolio and the future of fintech.

Robinhood just became the brokerage for every American child born in the Trump era — by U.S. Treasury contract. Visa dropped €500 million on Europe before Europe drops them. And Solana quietly became the payments chain of record when SoFi and Cash App both went live on it in the same week. Three stories, one theme: the rails of finance are being rebuilt in real time.

Thursday was a big day for stablecoin infrastructure and nobody was talking about it. Mastercard got its New York BitLicense, Cash App handed 59 million customers a stablecoin wallet without making them think about crypto, and Coinbase relaunched direct deposit to route your paycheck straight into USDC. We break down what each move means individually — and why all three happening on the same day is the real story.