The idea of the financial superapp (one app for payments, savings, investing, prediction markets, and everything in between) has been a recurring ambition in Western tech for years. WeChat proved it was possible, but nobody has cracked it in the West. This week suggested that several very different players are now accelerating.
On Tuesday alone: Meta announced stablecoin payments across its apps; Coinbase launched 24/5 stock trading; and Kraken rolled out perpetual trading on tokenized stocks. This is part of a broader wave of announcements we’ve seen from companies over the past few months, like Robinhood’s announcement that we wrote about last July.
The strategic logic differs sharply by entrant. Robinhood started with stocks, Revolut with banking, Coinbase and Kraken with crypto, and Meta and X (formerly Twitter) with social networks and messaging apps. But each is expanding beyond its core product, all racing toward the same destination: the financial superapp.
Blockchain technology already plays a role in all of these approaches. For Robinhood and Kraken, it is the infrastructure enabling 24/7 settlement on assets that traditional brokers cannot offer. For blockchain-native applications like crypto wallet Phantom, it is the composability layer: the ability to add all key superapp features within months at zero marginal cost through blockchain protocols. For Meta, stablecoins are a payment rail, a way for its users to move money across borders cheaply.
The open question is whether any Western platform can actually pull this off. Regulation, trust, and product complexity have all blocked previous attempts. But the combination of clearer blockchain regulation, stablecoin infrastructure that now actually works, and tokenized assets opening up 24/7 markets has changed the conditions. The race is not just between blockchain-native companies anymore, but the next big superapp will use blockchain rails in one way or another.
This week’s market
- BGCI Index 0.89%
- Bitcoin -0.94%
- Ethereum 1.24%
- Solana 0.72%
All figures are week-to-date as of today 15:00 CET
Theta Blockchain Ventures content
- Theta Knowledge Hub (explore all resources)
- Legends4Legends 2025 Conference Recordings (watch here)
Blockchain news
- Meta is planning stablecoin comeback in the second half amid U.S. regulatory shift (read more)
- US lawmakers revisit stablecoin yields amid deposit flight concerns (read more)
- Morgan Stanley plans to offer Bitcoin custody, trading, yield and lending (read more)
- BNP Paribas taps Ethereum for new money market fund tokenization pilot (read more)
- Coinbase adds stock and ETF trading as it expands beyond crypto (read more)
- Binance brings back tokenized stocks (read more)
- OCC issues proposal to implement GENIUS Act, seeking public feedback (read more)
- SEC grants WisdomTree exemptive relief for 24/7 trading of regulated tokenized mutual fund (read more)
- Crypto.com receives conditional approval from OCC for National Trust Bank charter (read more)
Relevant financial update
- Flying Tulip*, an onchain exchange offering spot trading, perpetuals, lending, options, and structured yield, had its TGE and is now trading at a $983mln FDV
- Whop, an e-commerce marketplace for digital products, has raised $200mln in a Strategic funding round led by Tether, valuing the company at $1.6bln
- STS Digital, a digital asset services company, has raised $30mln in a Strategic funding round led by CMT Digital with investments from F-Prime Capital, Arrington Capital, and Kraken.
- Based*, a Hyperliquid-powered financial super app combining perpetuals trading, a self-custodial wallet, and prediction markets, has raised $11.5mln in a Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital with investments from Coinbase Ventures and Wintermute
- t54, a developer of AI agent payment infrastructure for financial applications, has raised $5mln in a Seed funding round led by Anagram Crypto and Franklin Templeton Investments with investments from Blockchain Coinvestors and PL Capital
- Bluprynt, a crypto compliance and KYC automation platform, has raised $4.25mln in a Seed funding round led by Valor Capital Group with investments from Coinbase Ventures, Robinhood, and Quona Capital
- Rhythmic*, a digital banking and payments infrastructure provider, has raised $4mln in a Seed funding round led by Dragonfly with investments from Mirana Ventures and The Fintech Fund
- Finrob*, a platform that provides AI agents and research tools for finance and cryptocurrency, has raised $3.90mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Maven 11 Capital, Fabric Ventures, Placeholder VC, Archetype, Node Capital and 1 other
*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 27/02
Interesting things to read
- Stripe’s 2025 annual letter (talking about stablecoins and agentic commerce) (read more)
- Senior leaders from JPMorgan and Franklin Templeton discuss the institutional shift toward tokenized funds and onchain capital markets on the Making Sense podcast (listen here)