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Coinbase is officially acquiring a stake in USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, according to joint announcement from the two companies.

Although the companies technically cofounded USDC in 2018, they operated as two separate companies. But that’s now changed as Coinbase will own a yet-to-be disclosed equity stake in Circle going forward.

Furthermore, Coinbase will begin receiving a larger percentage of the interest revenue generated by USDC. Prior to Monday (and as we discussed in Coinbase’s Q2 earnings outlook), Coinbase and Circle had a revenue split only based on the amount of USDC on their respective platforms.

Going forward, the two companies will also “now equally share in interest income generated from the broader distribution and usage of USDC,” as opposed to Circle having the larger share.

So let’s review:

What’s the deal mean for Coinbase? Although the company was quick to announce that the deal would have no meaningful impact in this quarter’s earnings, we know that the deal only helps.

As The Street continues to demand less volatility and more diversification in Coinbase’s revenue, the new deal helps create a more predictable stream of revenue for the company.

What does the deal mean for Circle? Well, probably more revenue as the deal may lead to an increase in USDCs market cap.

Which – speaking of the USDC market cap – it is bleeding out all over the stablecoin ecosystem. Although USDC is the world’s second largest stablecoin, it has been steadily losing market share since March. That’s when Circle revealed that it had more than $3 billion of it’s reserves stuck at SVB, causing USDC to briefly depeg.

And while USDCs market cap has fallen from $44 billion to just under $26 billion, the largest and most controversial stablecoin, USDTs, marketcap has risen to $83 billion.

TLDR: USDC isn’t losing in the grand scheme of stablecoins, but it certainly isn’t winning either.

But more importantly, the company will be able to focus on what it does best – issuing stablecoins. That’s why, the equity announcement was pared with an announcement that USDC will quickly be launching on six other blockchains. What the deal means in regards to any future public offering Circle though remains to be seen.

What does the deal mean for stablecoins? Further entrenched competition. We can’t forget that just a few weeks ago, PayPal announced their somewhat odd PyUSD stablecoin. Quasi-like CBDCs are going to continue to emerge from traditional finance. It’s up to crypto to compete.

What does the deal mean for crypto? We know that we speak to almost entirely western based readers here in CoinSnacks. Furthermore, we also know that many of our readers are just looking to make a buck (see story below). But please don’t forget that crypto also has the power to help billions of people. Hyperinflation, double-digit remittance fees, slow moving money… these are only a few things that stablecoins can help solve.

So last week, we did a poll asking our friendly CoinSnacks readers (that’s you!) what type of content they’d like to see more of.

Here were the results:

Honestly, pretty good insight on our end. I mean, we didn’t realize we were talking to so many altcoin, get-rich-quick degens!

No, no – just kidding. We respect the honesty. Plus, we somewhat agree with you as the prospect of new and emerging altcoins is a thrilling facet of today’s crypto economy.

The more you stay in the know on today’s rapidly evolving industry… the more comfortable you are taking nibbles here and there on obscure, or perhaps, off-the-beaten-path altcoins that stand the chance to 10x faster than any traditional asset or stock. It’s loads of fun. Plus, and speaking from experience here, you often learn a lot too in the process.

With that said, you may be asking yourself, “well, where the heck are all the altcoin stories then?”

In which, our answer would be… “it’s complicated.”

1.) We write about what we can understand.
The truth of the matter is that 99% of altcoins out there we can't wrap our heads around. Not that we aren’t smart enough to, no, it's that they fundamentally don’t make sense. In other words, we stick to what we know.

What we know is that bitcoin represents a fundamental shift in money. And we know that blockchain technology and projects like Ethereum represent a fundamental shift in compute.

Now there will be plenty of altcoins that pop up that we believe in. For sure, we have covered some of them in CoinSnacks, but we could count the ones we stand behind on two hands.

2.) In times like today, there’s a lot more to avoid than to gain exposure to.
Again, there’s a reason we never fully jumped on the DeFi, NFT, or Web3 hype train. There’s a reason we weren’t salivating over SOL, DOGE, SHIB, or any of the other mania’s. And there’s a reason we’re not pausing our entire afternoon to tell you about the latest flavor of the week, Friend.tech.

Apart from participating in a fun (and hopefully affordable) gamble, we find that the long-term prospect of these altcoins or trends is relatively weak. Take a hard look at the entire list of tokens and try to explain why our economy needs 20 different layer 2’s… 400 different DeFi tokens… 200 smart contract protocols... 250 meme coins… over 100 different lending and borrowing protocols… 140 different decentralized exchanges. Do you get our point? The industry is due for massive consolidation.

3.) Distractions can be costly.
When we began CoinSnacks in 2017, bitcoin's value hovered around $3k. If we'd invested our funds solely in the majors, by now we'd have witnessed an astounding ~1,000% growth. Such transformative returns didn't require investments in tokens like Cindicator, Enjin Coin, or NEO (remember those?)

At the end of the day, Coinsnacks is a letter for investors... for believers.

If you want the next coin to the moon, we are simply the wrong newsletter for you.

And if you are looking to day trade, we are definitely the wrong newsletter for you.

But if you want no BS highlights of the most important things happening in crypto that impact the real world, plus with a spin of government kleptocrat critique, we're your guys.

Going full circle:
If we just shat on your altcoin parade – don’t take it personally, and don’t take offense to it. As we mentioned earlier, despite the dangers, the altcoin market still serves as a great avenue to find gems that can 100x. We just don’t play that game.

If you do play that game, though, some words of advice: diversify, diversify, diversify. Stay away from Binance. Don’t hold onto sketchy stablecoins. And you should probably load up now, while we’re in the trenches and before another “altcoin season” arrives.

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