Charles Yoo 2.3 3 ideas

Rain is a Visa Principal Member that settles directly with Visa using stablecoins. Additionally, Western Union has partnered with Rain and is building stablecoin settlement flows specifically on Solana. The market views "Crypto vs. TradFi" as a zero-sum game, but the reality is integration. Visa and Western Union are upgrading their backend rails with blockchain to reduce collateral requirements (from 4 days to 1 day) and settlement times. This lowers their cost of capital and defends their moats against crypto-native disruptors. LONG. These legacy giants are successfully co-opting the technology to improve margins rather than being displaced by it. Regulatory crackdowns on stablecoin settlement; failure of the Solana network (for WU).

Charles admits that Coinbase (and Gemini) currently dominate the card market because they have the "crypto everything card" and a massive existing user base. While Rain builds B2B infrastructure, Coinbase owns the B2C relationship. In a world where "1% of US dollars are stablecoins" grows to 10% or 50%, the primary consumer interface (Coinbase) captures the float, the interchange, and the user data. They are the "super app" incumbent that niche cards must compete against. LONG. They are the default winner of US-based stablecoin adoption. Fee compression; loss of market share to vertical-specific fintech apps.