quote: . @gdog97_ explains @Ethena Pay and lays out why owning the entire stack matters by pointing to how Coinbase captures 60% of Circle's USDC revenue
"A lot of the products in the market haven't got the full vertical integration between owning the stablecoin infrastructure, the yield generation engine, and the front end that sits on top. Taking a debit card and putting it on someone else's stablecoin means you lose the most valuable piece of the entire chain, the stablecoin sitting in the background"
"If you're creating one of these platforms and you don't own the whole stack, the issuance of the stablecoins, the generation of the yield, and all the UX and cards and spending on top of it, you've lost the beating heart of these businesses"
"People speak a lot about the Coinbase and Circle deal, where Coinbase makes something like 60% of the revenues of the USDC sitting there. If you always depend on the distribution of others, there isn't that much margin left for you in the end. If you never own the user, you can never control that economic relationship in a much more powerful way"
@ethena | E184: @ethena CEO - Why @EthenaPay Feels Like Revolut, Not MetaMask
@gdog97_ is the founder and CEO of Ethena. He stumbled into DeFi in 2019 when a friend showed him MakerDAO - taking out a $5,000 loan against $10,000 of ETH with no one standing in the middle of the transaction.
Six years later he's running Ethena, which scaled to $15 billion in stablecoin supply faster than anything else in crypto history, and his thesis is that a dollar with a yield in an app that doesn't feel like crypto is what finally brings 100 million new users in.
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
2:37 Which Of Guy's Plans Fell Apart
5:37 Where Actually Are The Users Everyone Wants
7:10 What Got Guy Hooked On Crypto
9:20 PayPal vs Revolut vs Neo Banks
12:43 Partnerships: @variational_io @Bitwise
13:36 Revolut vs Stablecoin Neo Banks
15:58 Is Switching To Neo Banks Really A 10x
18:00 EthenaPay, Explained Simply
21:21 Why Build Another Crypto Neo Bank
23:53 Will Crypto Banks Fight Over The Pie
25:55 How Ethena Wins Users By Helping Everyone
32:47 What Actually Makes Ethena Different
36:51 Ethena's Cashback System Revealed
38:32 How Ethena Cuts Fees
39:39 How Ethena Finds The Best Yield
45:16 Guy On Dealing With FUD
48:35 Why Guy Stays Quiet
49:29 Partnership: @KASTxyz
50:17 Ethena's KPI Targets
51:55 The Holy Grail For A Stablecoin Neo Bank
52:31 Partnerships: @JupiterExchange Ethena
53:14 If Everyone Does The Same Thing, Who Wins
55:23 What's Next For Ethena After EthenaPay
56:36 Is EthenaPay Basically USDe
58:04 Closing Thoughts
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news9/8news
OpenAI is spurring an under-the-radar run in Softbank as well as chip stocks
70·B+Long
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OpenAI is spurring an under-the-radar run in Softbank and other chip stocks https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/08/openai-is-spurring-an-under-the-radar-run-in-softbank-and-other-chip-stocks.html?taid=6aa02d23ab199800014a72a5&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
70·B+Long
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OpenAI, New York Times case tees up key test of AI training under copyright law
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OpenAI, New York Times case tees up key test of AI training under copyright law
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ICYMI: Injective is now officially an SEC registered transfer agent.
With this move, Injective becomes the first layer 1 blockchain to possess the RWA infrastructure and regulatory readiness needed to accelerate tokenization to new heights.
Injective has rapidly expanded its RWA efforts in recent months. Markets for digital asset treasuries, equities, and shares in pre-IPO companies such as SpaceX and OpenAI have also launched on Injective.
Recently, Injective expanded into enterprise trade finance. POSCO International, South Korea’s largest trading company, and LG CNS, the technology arm of LG Group, selected Injective for an exclusive live pilot that issues, transfers, administers, and settles trade receivables generated through international commerce.
This past week, Injective tokenized over $1 Billion in mortgage records onchain, cementing Injective as the fastest growing chain for RWAs. Publicly listed company Pineapple Financial also plans to tokenize over $10 Billion on Injective in the coming months.
The full stack for internet capital markets is here on Injective. Powered by $INJ
65·B+Long
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OpenAI, Tenable unveil AI agent security review. Tenable said the process combines OpenAI GPT cyber models, skills inspection powered by Tenable One AI Exposure, and reviews by Tenable researchers.
35·CLong
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OpenAI, Anthropic bankers seek investment-grade credit ratings post-IPO, FT says
70·B+Long
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Anthropic and OpenAI Bankers Push for Top-Tier Credit Ratings Post-IPO - FT
75·ALong
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Anthropic and OpenAI bankers push for top-tier credit ratings post-IPO
65·B+Long
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Anthropic and OpenAI bankers push for top-tier credit ratings post-IPO
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Arthur Hayes: Does Bitcoin Need the CLARITY Act to Go Up?
In an August 2026 video interview with Altcoin Daily @AltcoinDaily , BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes @CryptoHayes said he doesn't hate the CLARITY Act — but it's a moat-building tool for projects that spend more on lawyers, and it's terrible for real creativity and builders of useful products in US crypto. Bitcoin never needed the CLARITY Act since 2009; what it needs is Bessent expanding Treasury buybacks overnight or the Fed printing money to help Japan swap Treasuries for cash. The biggest rally in recent history came because the market finally realized the US debt problem is real and yield curve control is coming. His advice to Trump: just veto it.
Australia's Firmus inks compute deal with OpenAI for Malaysian data centers
65·B+Long
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Nvidia-backed Firmus signs deal with OpenAI for Malaysia data centre capacity
75·ALong
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Nvidia-backed Firmus signs deal with OpenAI for Malaysia data centre capacity
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Firmus - OpenAI Will Contract Dedicated AI Compute Capacity From Two Firmus AI Factory Sites in Malaysia
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Firmus - Surpasses 900 Mw Contracted Capacity, Adds OpenAI as Anchor Customer and Expands Into Malaysia
65·B+Long
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OpenAI owned ChatGPT posted this today:
“ChatGPT Work can now pick up on what makes your writing sound like… you. Your favorite phrases. Your very specific sign-off. your capitalizations quirks.” https://t.co/Bd4gtZfF1h
35·CLong
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Crypto + Macro Stuff I'm Looking At Today
...
- Tradfi markets closed today for Labor Day
- CPI and PPI inflation data coming out this week
- EIP-8141 may allow Ethereum users to pay for gas with stablecoins by sometime next year (very interesting - link below)
- $QQQ at $718.96
- Oil at $92.72 and lots of attention on crack spreads
- Gold at $4,405.40
- Total crypto market cap at $2.765T
- My beloved $FXN up almost 200% from spring lows - to $28.19(!) (still insanely undervalued though!)
- Hunter Biden to apparently release a memecoin on Wednesday called $LAPTOP, with part of supply airdropped to wallets that lost money on $TRUMP and 30% of supply to be burned if Democrats win the 2028 election
- Also... odds of Democrat sweep in November have risen to 52%
- $PONS, $ZEC, and $ENA all getting lots of positive attention on the TL (link below)
- Copper hits ATH
- Variational still most anticipated airdrop (link below)
- Stacks $STX to launch self-custodial Bitcoin staking
- Biggest bond bear market in US history continues... with $TLT (long-duration US bond ETF) averaging -7.65% per year the last 5 years, while conversely $QQQ (stonks) averaged +13.82% per year during that time
- (Related) 30 year fixed rate mortgages in the US are averaging 6.71% right now, down from high of 7.79% and up from 2.65% in 2021
- Above issue (yields and thus mortgages at record highs - since mortgage rates track long-duration US bond rates) is a very bullish setup for US real estate imho, at least residential (definitely not office) and at least in states people want to move to... As a result I still have significant exposure to $JOE (FL landholding + development company with huge holdings in the Panhandle/Bend section of FL) as my main RE exposure
- Also re: the above... I think the odds on Polymarket re: the Fed raising vs cutting rates are WAY WAY off (and thus asymmetric) and therefore I am seriously considering throwing a bit of money on bets that they somehow actually cut rates by EOY. The payoffs are absolutely insane proportionally and I can still 100% see it happening depending on how things go. Consensus is the opposite though with the bond market pricing in an 88% chance they RAISE by end-of-year...
- Also re: the above... I thought Trump's post on Truth Social over the weekend was quite shocking, where he seemed to openly threaten the Fed... saying (again, directed toward the Fed): "LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT..." - which is quite startling and perhaps blackpilling to consider the President and Fed are openly at war to this degree... but it seems like Powell and his ilk who are still on the board are refusing to lower rates as Trump (and presumably Warsh) want... very fascinating situation that really brings up a lot of questions about how much control over the Fed the Executive Branch is supposed to have in the US...
- Also lots of talk about security and OpSec after Bold losing all his on-chain funds... tbh I remain a huge fan of just having all your on-chain crypto on a dedicated $200 Chromebook (or several) with multiple handwritten seed phrases cut in half and kept in multiple secure locations. Then if you are managing a defi protocol or something and need to sign all the time create a multi-sig. Or if you're degening on-chain and doing lots of transactions just separate your long-term holdings from that wallet. And if you have serious wealth in crypto diversify between on-chain and off-chain and various chains/counterparties/etc.
Conclusion
That is everything lads!
Remember to get jacked and tan for the $ETH $10k party! 💪
-and lift weights while watching the sun set! see pic below :)