Rise of the Stablecoins

Author

Alex Wilhelm
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Top News

  • Stablecoins rising: One of TWiST’s most durable views from the last year is that stablecoins matter, and will matter more over time. It’s why Circle and Stably are both on the TWiST500, for example. We were perhaps not bullish enough. Bloomberg reports that Visa is working with Stripe (another TWiST500 company) to help fintech companies offer stablecoin-predicated cards. That’s super cool. And we learned this week that PayPal’s stablecoin has seen a regulatory query die on the vine. It may be time to do yet another trawl through the realm of stablecoin-focused startups to see if there are any names we have yet to investigate.

  • Much ado about chips: Nvidia boss Jensen Huang is in the news today for stating that the USA’s AI edge viz China is small at best. While Nvidia itself might find chip export rules from the United States to be a bit strict, not every AI-predicated company is irked. Anthropic, a TWiST500 company, argued in a post today that the United States should tweak its AI chip export regime to lower the number of high-end semiconductors that countries in the second tier — most nations — can purchase in a government-to-government deal. The gist of the dual stories is that Anthropic doesn’t want to compete with folks on the same chipset (understandable), while Nvidia wants to sell more chips. We expect this tension to be handled delicately and without any unnecessary drama, of course.

  • Meta, Microsoft report earnings: Shares of technology titans Meta and Microsoft are up in after-market trading, as each company reported calendar Q1 results that delighted Wall Street. Strong numbers from two prominent AI companies is good news for tech stocks, and tech startups to boot. Their earnings calls and notes on Q2 market performance is still to come — but when it comes to the Mag7, at least two of the loose index’s membership are pulling their weight. In detail, Microsoft reported Azure growth of around 33%, while Meta raised its capex projections for 2025.

TWiST500

The next 20 TWiST500 companies have been picked! Lon and I have a few more ideas to work through, but expect to see the next roster of additions by the end of the week.

A question we get from time to time is how we make our selections. The answer is that it depends, but generally speaking, thesis-alignment with our worldview — we’re not going to put companies on the list that are taking on markets we think will shrink, of course — growth signals (including reported revenue results), their investor roster, and so forth.

In a perfect world, we’d have lots of time to dig into each company that catches our eyes and ears, and no other companies would announce news while we finished chewing on the most recent batch of potentially breakout startups. That’s not what happens.

Instead, we are consistently seeing days like this:

We’re busy, in other words. Which brings me to my point for the day. Founders sometimes reach out and ask how they can get more attention from media, VCs, or the like. One very simple way to stand out from the rest is to avoid the private-market tendency to hide performance data. Of the above-listed companies, those that offer the most information on their growth are more likely to earn more of our attention — and far more likely to earn a place on our favorite list. If you are hoping that your startup might wind up on the TWiST500, tell the world in as much detail as your cap table will allow about how much backside your startup is kicking.

And then send us the news item directly. Hugs, and I can’t wait to get you the upcoming list of new TWiST500 startups. — Alex

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This Week in Startups

E2119: Jason, Alex, and Lon are joined for today’s full episode by crypto insider and “Hash Rate” host (and long-time friend of the pod) Mark Jeffrey. He’s here to walk us through Bittensor and TAO, which some are calling the third “great coin” after Bitcoin and Ethereum. Plus the latest from Meta’s first-ever LlamaCon for developers, Alexis Ohanian’s advice for cold email marketing, AND a chat with LayerNext CEO Buddhika Madduma about the secret to onboarding new customers.

E2118: On an all-new TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Lon are SHOCKED by Meta’s celebrity-voiced chatbots, which were caught flirting with underage users by Wall Street Journal reporters. Then they’re considering Palo Alto Networks’ purchase of Protect AI, debating another exciting match-up in our Founder Friday bracket competition, AND Alex sits down with Formulate founder Osmaan Shah.

E2117: On Friday’s TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Lon checked out Slate Auto’s customizable $25K EV truck, considered whether Discord is circling an IPO, and gauged Uber’s new collaboration with Volkswagen. Plus aggressive moves from Perplexity, another Founder Friday bracket matchup, AND Alex sits down with Tailscale CEO Avery Pennarun to talk internet networking: what it is and why it may just fuel the next huge wave of innovation.

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