Yoel (Joe) Lapscher

Circle's Q4 numbers show USDC gaining ground as regulated stablecoin infrastructure matures. For LATAM: the institutional shift from USDT to compliant alternatives is accelerating. The winning layer won't be the coin it'll be the compliance + ops middleware that makes corridors bankable.

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Boom. Robinhood just lit up Q1 and sent a message to every crypto exchange alive. The app posted $927M in revenue, beating the Street even after the wild Q4 rush cooled off. EPS landed at $0.37 versus the $0.33 whisper. That is a solid flex for a platform still known for meme stocks. Here is the kicker. Crypto revenue hit $252M, up 100% from last year, even though markets got choppy after the election hype faded. Retail traders did not disappear. They just traded smarter. Robinhood’s buyback jumped by another $500M, pushing the total plan to $1.5B. Management does not spend that kind of cash if they think the ship is leaking. They see upside the market is not pricing in yet. Why should crypto natives care? Robinhood volumes often shadow Coinbase. Yet analysts think Coinbase volumes fell less in Q1. If Robinhood still doubled crypto revenue, Coinbase’s mix of spot, staking, and USDC could look even sweeter on May 8. Translation: Retail is late to spring break, not gone. When fees show up in two different earnings calls, that signal is hard to ignore. My takeaway is simple. Macro noise aside, usage data keeps proving real demand for easy crypto access. Platforms that pair low friction with trust will win the next cycle, whether markets pump or dump short term. Want more straight-talk insights on the numbers that move crypto? Tap follow and stick with me.

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QvaPay probably wouldn't exist in its current form without the Airtm Cuba Sandbox Experiment that I ran to prove that OFAC-compliant US/Cuba funds flows was not only possible, but a moral obligation for anyone who solves problems with fintech (that's me!). And Airtm itself wouldn't have been possible without Uphold UPHOLD EUROPE LIMITED where Airtm started as an app I built on nights and weekends with some interns, including Airtm's current CEO Rubén Galindo Steckel. And Uphold itself would not exist if I hadn't built the world's first Mexican Peso fintech back in 2002-- Todito Cash. This is what building and risk-taking on the fractal frontier looks like-- compliance + defiance, innovation + moral motivation.

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One product, two markets.... Stablecoins are being pulled in two directions as institutional teams want settlement speed and liquidity control and retail users still need trust, utility, and simple on and off ramps. When one product tries to serve both, the roadmap gets confused. You either build for compliance and treasury flows, or you build for consumer habit change. They are not the same job, and they do not need the same messaging or commercial model. Many teams are attempting to launch both at once, which usually means neither is great. The institutional roadmap gets slowed by consumer UX debates, and the retail roadmap gets slowed by governance requirements. I do not see enough clarity on this split. If you had to choose one market to win first, which would you pick, and why? #stablecoins #payments #fintech

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🚨 The $104M signal: infrastructure is eating crypto zerohash just raised $104M in a round led by Interactive Brokers and Morgan Stanley. That’s not a hype token. That’s not a marketing stunt. That’s Wall Street putting capital into the plumbing layer the rails that actually move money. Infrastructure is no longer a side project for boutique firms trying to stitch APIs together. zerohash is positioning itself as a kind of “AWS for on-chain rails” offering APIs and embedded tools so traditional finance and fintechs can add crypto, tokenization, stablecoin features without reinventing the stack. Many “crypto infra” companies spent years selling narrow tools in small markets, convincing themselves they were building rails... 🧞‍♂️ The truth is: rails only matter if serious money moves on them. 🫰 Whoever can’t scale to this level will be acquired, sidelined, or forgotten. Crypto isn’t about shiny apps anymore. It’s about who owns the pipes. And pipes are boring until they’re the only thing that matters. Congrats zerohash, impressive!!!! great execution https://lnkd.in/dpBpQUkt

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Latest Refresh Miami News: As tokenization grows up, here’s how Miami builders are turning blockchain into market infrastructure https://lnkd.in/ekCcs_w3 #MiamiTech

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Stripe + Bridge + Privy Hmmm sounds like a playbook that has already been proven in tradfi from companies like my old friends at PayPal ie marketplace clients + digital wallets + payouts + compliance coverage Im seeing more and more tradifi payment playbooks play out across the web2.5 portfolio companies at Fabric Ventures whether that's PaaS, BaaS, CaaS, orchestration, FX apis, etc etc These tradfi companies have the distribution and playbook but lack the blockchain expertise in solving difficult onchain challenges. Expect to see many more such web2.5 acquisitions. They share the same DNA.

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US founders hiring Flutter in US time zones: your first paragraph decides who applies. If it's requirements and years, US seniors read it and think: "no chance." Lead with ownership instead: What ships in the first 90 days. What they own in production from day one. What they’ll have the authority to say no to. That’s the difference between a team add and a first mobile hire.

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