🚀 Is This the Start of Stablecoins 2.0?

PLUS: Klarna launches on Stripe’s chain, BNB meets Wall Street, DOGE gets its own ETF, tariff math gets political, and ARK makes its largest Alphabet bet yet.

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Cryptopolitan News
November 26, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

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Klarna, the $6.5 billion Swedish fintech titan with 150 million users is launching a USD-backed stablecoin next year.

But the stablecoin isn’t the shock. The real surprise is its launch on Stripe’s own proprietary blockchain, a move that signals a significant shift in the Web3 space.

For the first time ever, one of the world's largest payments companies is building out the infrastructure, and another global fintech startup is printing money on top of it. This development suggests that stablecoins are becoming integral to the future of payments, with traditional finance eager to participate.

What Klarna’s stablecoin will look like

  • Full USD-backed reserves (audited monthly)

  • Instant settlement on Stripe’s private chain

  • Embedded directly into Klarna checkout and refunds

  • Merchant settlement in under 1 second

  • On-chain traceability without exposing user data

  • Optional bridges to public chains later

Stripe says its chain is designed for payments throughput, rather than speculation. And if it works, it instantly leapfrogs most L2s in real-world adoption.

Why this matters:

For the first time, we’re looking at:

  • A fintech monster launching a stablecoin

  • Another big fintech providing the chain

  • And, both claiming that its purpose is for everyday commerce, not crypto trading

Think USDC… but with 1M merchants plugged into it.

The competitive undertone

This move introduces a competitive undertone, as Circle, PayPal, and Tether now face a formidable opponent: not from DeFi, but from consumer fintech giants with their own bundled distribution.

If Klarna + Stripe do succeed, the next generation might be:

  • Not on public chains

  • Not pushed by crypto-native companies

  • Not built for speculation

  • But designed for actual payments at a planetary scale.

This raises a pivotal question: Are we witnessing the dawn of a new era in monetary systems, or the moment when private blockchains ultimately take over stablecoins?

Poll: Do you trust a fintech-issued stablecoin on a private blockchain?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

📊 Market Watch

1️⃣ VanEck goes for BNB — the SEC now holds the next domino

VanEck has just filed for VBNB, or Bitcoin Spot BNB shares, constituting the first-ever BTC ETF in the US to include Binance’s native token, a move that would drag BNB directly to Wall Street.

It has physical backing, no futures, no synthetics… but also no staking reward (yet).

The filing arrives amid heavy inflows into US altcoin ETFs: Solana funds surpass $843M XRP ETFs cross $628M DOGE opens sluggish, could pick up steam The filing comes at a time of heavy inflows into US-based altcoin ETFs.

2️⃣ Bitwise launches BWOW as Dogecoin ETF demand goes mainstream

Bitwise’s new BWOW ETF is now live on NYSE Arca: the first regulated DOGE vehicle created in direct response to community demand. Underlying DOGE is kept in Coinbase Custody, so the same volatility and risk of direct meme coin holding applies.

The market already has DOGE products from Grayscale and Rex-Osprey, and 21Shares is up next.

3️⃣ Scott Bessent softens Trump’s “$2,000 tariff dividend” promise

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the viral $2,000 tariff dividend may not be a physical check. It might be via tax credits for tips, overtime, Social Security or auto-loan deductions: all components of Trump’s previous economic bundle.

But the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Trump’s use of emergency tariff powers, and if it loses, more than $100 billion in refunds could be owed … and the dream goes poof.

👀 Chart our Analyst is watching

ARK Invest bought 174,293 shares of Alphabet (~$56.4M) in four ETFs and a Google positioning closer to $4T valuation on AI speculation inside Meta might switch from Nvidia to Google’s chips. And Alphabet was the obvious outlier: Cathie’s biggest ticket by a mile.

But the revolving door didn’t end there.

ARK dumped AMD ($22M out) the day it bought CoreWeave ($28M in), a wager that Nvidia-linked infrastructure still wins even if hyperscalers changed chip suppliers.

On the crypto side, ARK quietly included:

  • ARKB (Bitcoin ETF) – $2.8M more

  • Circle — $7.6 million on breakout earnings

  • Block – $13.5M added since Investor Day

And exited aggressively:

  • Palantir – $58M

  • GitLab – $34M

  • Exact Sciences – $12M

 🐤 Top Tweets

📚 Cryptopolitan Academy: A New Era of Market Intelligence

We’re entering a phase where education becomes central to Cryptopolitan’s mission, not as an add-on, but as a core pillar.

Today, we’re launching Market Intelligence Live, a new series bringing traders and analysts who understand markets as they actually behave: region by region, community by community, cycle by cycle.

Our first featured expert is Haris Khan, a seasoned trader and educator with tens of thousands of students across global learning platforms. Haris brings a grounded, practical approach to trading that resonates across cultures and market conditions.

But this is just the start.

Our goal is simple:
Spotlight diverse voices who understand their local markets better than any global influencer ever could.

And that’s where you come in.

🌍 Who should we feature next?

Whether you’re in:

  • USA

  • Brazil

  • Pakistan or India

  • Greece or Germany

  • Vancouver, Detroit, or anywhere else

Tell us which local experts are shaping the conversation where you live.
Who brings clarity?
Who brings originality?
Who deserves a platform?

This is an open invitation to the community.
Help us map the real experts, and we’ll bring them into the Academy. Reply to us on this email with your favourite experts and stand a chance to win one of our courses for free.

Exciting times ahead.
Thank you for being part of this journey.

— The Cryptopolitan Team

Headline picks by our Intern

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