GM to all of you nutcases. It’s Crypto Nutshell #826 balancin’ opinions… ⚖️🥜

We're the crypto newsletter that's more volatile than a space crew realising the real threat was already on board… 👽🚀

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BREAKING: Meta is coming back for stablecoins - four years after regulators killed Libra

Remember Libra?

Back in 2019, Meta tried to launch its own stablecoin.

Regulators shut it down. Lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg. The project got renamed to Diem, scaled back, and eventually scrapped in 2022.

Now Meta is back for round two…

According to CoinDesk, the tech giant is planning to integrate stablecoin payments across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in the second half of this year.

The company has already sent out requests for product proposals to third-party firms.

But this time, the approach is very different.

Meta isn't building its own coin. It's outsourcing the infrastructure. One source put it simply: "They want to do this, but at arm's length."

And Stripe is reportedly the leading candidate.

Stripe acquired stablecoin firm Bridge last year, Bridge just received OCC approval for a national trust bank charter, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison joined Meta's board in 2025.

Meta's comms team pushed back on the framing. "There is no Meta stablecoin," said spokesperson Andy Stone.

But he confirmed the company is working to let users and businesses pay on its platforms using their preferred method.

The timing isn't random either.

The GENIUS Act - signed into law last year - created a legal framework for stablecoin issuers for the first time. But there are provisions in it that could limit big tech involvement. Reports suggest Meta is racing to launch before those restrictions kick in.

The bigger picture is hard to ignore. Meta has over 3 billion users. If stablecoins become the payment layer across its apps, it puts Meta in direct competition with X and Telegram - both of which are pushing to become payment super apps.

Fintech analyst Simon Taylor thinks this goes even further.

He sees stablecoins becoming the settlement layer for Meta's AI-driven commerce - where autonomous agents shop and transact on behalf of users.

Meta failed the first time because it tried to own the whole thing. This time it's letting others build the rails.

That might be exactly what makes it work. 🚀

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With the crypto sell-off, right now everyone is talking about Bitcoin ETF outflows. The bleeding. The ‘institutional exodus.’

Eric Balchunas just put that narrative in its place.

Balchunas is Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst. He's the most respected voice in the ETF space, and arguably the person who tracked the Bitcoin ETF story closer than anyone else on the planet.

And this week he dropped a chart that every panicking investor needs to see:

Bitcoin ETFs have seen roughly ~$8 billion in outflows since Bitcoin’s all-time high in October. That sounds bad. It looks bad in the headlines.

But zoom out.

Cumulative net inflows into Bitcoin ETFs peaked at $63 billion in October. After the sell-off, after all the panic, after the worst drawdown in years, that number still sits at $53 billion. Net positive. In just 2 years.

For context? Before these ETFs launched, the most bullish prediction on Wall Street was $5-15 billion in inflows in the first year. They blew past that within months.

So yes, $8 billion walked out the door during a 45% crash. But $53 billion has stayed.

That's the part nobody's talking about.

Wall Street didn't panic sell its entire Bitcoin position.

It trimmed around the edges during one of the sharpest drawdowns in crypto history. That's not weakness. That's institutional behaviour.

The relationship between Bitcoin and Wall Street hasn't broken. If anything, it just proved how strong it actually is.

$53 billion doesn't lie. 💎

Today we’ll be taking a look the overall stablecoin supply.

Stablecoins are the backbone of crypto liquidity, used for seamless trading and instant cross-border transactions.

The chart below tracks the aggregate change in the total stablecoin market cap.

Two weeks ago, the total stablecoin supply sat at $264.07 billion.

Today it's $263.76 billion.

That's a $310 million drop in the past 14 days.

And so far in 2026, stablecoin supply has contracted by $4.17 billion - likely a direct response to the sentiment shift since the October 10th crash.

But let's keep this in perspective…

The supply is still up massively from where it started 2025. Capital isn't fleeing crypto - it's just sitting tighter.

And when conviction returns, that dry powder tends to deploy fast. 🔥

El Salvador overhauls Bitcoin learning programme for public education system. El Salvador is reworking its Bitcoin learning programme. The fresh initiative builds on the “What Is Money?” programme.

Jane Street faces claims of insider trading that sped up Terraform's 2022 collapse. Jane Street has denied the allegations as a "desperate" and "baseless" attempt to extract money.

Polymarket Users Favor Meteora in Bets over ZachXBT Crypto Takedown. As prediction market platforms continue to be litigated in the United States, global users on Polymarket placed bets on the latest investigation by online crypto sleuth ZachXBT.

White House reiterates Trump has no plans to pardon Sam Bankman-Fried despite FTX founder's social media push. Despite former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's near-daily posting on X, his efforts to sway President Trump seem not to be working.

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