USDT vs USDC: The Stablecoin War Just Escalated! #CryptoTownHall

**David** (0:00)
Good morning, everybody.

**Scott Melker** (0:01)
Welcome to a slightly delayed Crypto Town Hall. I believe that our co-host, Dave Weisberger, is playing in Poker Tournaments in Vegas right now, or hopefully sleeping after playing in Poker Tournaments in Vegas last night since about 7:30 a.m. there. And I had a recording, so I appreciate you guys being patient and waiting for us and all of our amazing guests and panelists for giving us that little leeway to show up. So we got a lot, obviously, to talk about here on Crypto Town Hall, the market's slightly down, apparently on headlines that we're ceasing to cease fire, although I don't know that we ever ceased fire or don't cease fire actually means. But some structural weakness many people are pointing to under the market, like the Coinbase premium being negative and long being leveraged once again, building up, meaning that maybe it's ripe for another flush, and this was just a little bear market rally. I mean, my default is it's summer and go away and touch grass, and maybe come back in the fall and worry about it. But we can get into that conversation. Obviously, the title here USDT versus USDC, the stable coin war just escalated.
Probably not going to be the main topic, but if you didn't see, obviously USDT is by far the much larger by total value locked, but actually quietly USDC has been doing the bulk of transactions on stable coins. That number, it was around 70 percent, I think, and was from a recent Visa report, and in context of open USD launching. Pretty interesting. I guess we can, there's actually about 10 more topics, but I guess we can just start with the market. If any of you guys have thoughts on where we're at, what's happening with the price action, other than, hey, we're sideways. Feel free to raise your hand, jump in, bail me out, and let's get this started.
You don't have to.

**Ryan** (1:56)
I'm in the middle of touching grass here, Scott.

**Scott Melker** (1:59)
Yeah, well, touch grass. Touch your phone button while you're touching the grass, please, Ryan.

**Ryan** (2:06)
It's been an interesting summer, but I mean, that's what we're expecting. It's a sideways summer.
We weren't really expecting any breakouts anyways, and I'm surprised it hasn't gone lower. So I don't know. I still think at the end of July is never really a happy time with Bitcoin.

**David** (2:23)
So it's interesting.

**Scott Melker** (2:25)
That's what that I mean. That's what Matt Hogan said to me this morning on YouTube. He said, you know, maybe the good news is that the bad news hasn't caused the market to drop, right? You know, that obviously, you know, I mean, strategy being a seller at this point, Brian, I would love your opinion on that. Maybe that's the next Ryan, Brian, Brian, Ryan. But Brian, obviously, you know, you're my go-to for treasury companies. So I think we had an interesting situation on Monday and we haven't actually had the chance to unpack it. So that's probably a good place.
Strategy sold 200 plus million dollars worth of Bitcoin. And the immediate reaction actually was MSTR strategy, STRC and Bitcoin all sort of rose. So it was an interesting dynamic there. What do you think, Brian?

**Brian** (3:12)
Yeah, I thought it was a great announcement and just what they needed to do.
I think that this will gradually remove one of the biggest overhangs in the market today. I say that because it was a pretty comprehensive release. They obviously upped the dividend to 12% for STRC. They instituted dividend and reserve policies. They also talked about STRC and MSTR repurchase programs, which I think will be helpful. And to me, the key line was, they said strategies corporate objective is for STRC to trade over time in a range of 99 to 100 So this basically tells you that they're gonna continue to try to push it to par.
I thought there were a few items that folks might not like. So there's a BTC monetization program, but obviously came with guard rails and for good reason.
They're also saying that they won't change the STRC dividend rate solely because STRC trades below par, which I think is smart. You don't want to let the market dictate you into paying too high of a price. And then I thought like the buy back authorizations could have been larger. They were a billion each. But to me, it tells me two big, big things. One is they're going to continue to support STRC. They actually don't have to do that, I think which is the big fear and what had led to the discount. And so I think that as they continue to do that and demonstrate that hopefully it drifts slowly back to par and then this should enable future issuance and allow them to buy more BTC. And then the second thing is they can now monetize their multiple whether it's at a premium or a discount. So they can increase BTC per share regardless of its valuation. And you do that by just buying back shares when they're trading at a discount. So I thought it was a big positive. I think the market generally saw that too, especially for SCRC. So I think things generally improve, especially if we hang around here, Bitcoin gradually moves up.