Darren Kleine

If Solana aficionados have been paying any attention to recent Web3 industry headlines, they should feel some pretty good vibes by now.&nbsp;



Just in the last couple weeks, a series of positive stories have landed for the ecosystem. Shopify plans to integrate with Solana Pay, allowing “millions of entrepreneurs and merchants” to have access to no-fee, Web3-native payments.” Maker is looking into the possibilities of building a new DeFi lending protocol on an appchain using Solana’s SVM. And most recently, Visa is extending <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/visa-usdc-solana-stablecoin-expansion">USDC settlements to Solana</a>.



Zeta Markets co-founder Tristan Frizza says the good news has been a long time coming. People are “coming around” to the Solana “side of the fence,” he says, adding that it “feels validating.” 



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/shopify-usdc-payments-solana-pay">Shopify enables USDC payments via Solana Pay integration</a>



On the Lightspeed podcast (<a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5YHuz5kbKHahSm4cTRQcVY">Spotify</a>/<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/solanas-watershed-moment-zeta-markets-meteora-hubble/id1697548240?i=1000627070342">Apple</a>), Frizza says, “everyone&#8217;s been putting in this work over the bear market,” he says, “and it&#8217;s starting to pay off.”



“People are definitely starting to pay attention.”



Jupiter co-founder Ben Chow feels the most important message that people should recognize from recent events is that people are choosing “the value and the strength of Solana&#8217;s tech over the ‘fud’ and the narrative.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/makerdao-solana-fork-endgame">MakerDAO co-founder floats using Solana’s code to build new chain</a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bridging the gap</h2>



Chow adds that he expects to see more infrastructure, business-to-business (B2B) and institutional companies considering Solana for applications. “The real pain point of needing speed and cheapness — it trumps everything,” he says.



Chow hopes the shift is a “turning point” where more payments companies choose Solana, along with other “similar use cases.”&nbsp;



“This is such a powerful proof point for <a href="http://blockworks.co/tag/solana">Solana</a> and a validation of how robust the tech is,” he says.



Hubble Protocol founder Marius Ciubotariu argues the recent news “bridges the gap from fundamentals to perceived value.”



“People that work in these companies,” he says, “they&#8217;re not going to be influenced by Twitter fud and bag-holders shilling their thesis.”



“They actually have to make business decisions for which they&#8217;ll be responsible for in the next three years and their career is built on that,” he says. “They have to make pretty good decisions that are long-term and they&#8217;re future proof.”



All the recent advancements are a “validation of what we all knew,” Ciubotariu says, tracing back to efforts to develop Solana tech over the past few years during difficult economic times. After the bad news and despair of “black swans that had to happen,” he feels “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-ethereum-chorus-one">it’s up only</a>” from here.



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“Shopify and Visa will open up APIs that nobody else was able to create before,” he says. “If you want [developers] to build and to create all sorts of payment APIs,” he explains, “you need APIs from these big companies to, basically, [permit] you to access the systems.”



“This could finally make the vision — that Solana was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-pay-connects-merchants-and-consumers-via-stablecoins">for payments and for speed</a> — possible.”



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Solana’s recent good news is a tech ‘validation,’ says Jupiter’s Ben Chow

Shalini Nagarajan

Solana Pay is now integrated with Shopify, enabling enterprises on the e-commerce platform to leverage the protocol for transactions.



Through the close of 2023, millions of entrepreneurs and merchants will have access to no-fee, Web3-native payments, the team said on Wednesday.



Shopify payments can now serve as a portal for a Web3 commerce experience, facilitating cross-border transactions, token-based incentives and NFT loyalty schemes for merchants utilizing Solana Pay, according to a <a href="https://solana.com/news/solana-pay-shopify">statement</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">1/ 🛍️Shopify 🤝Solana Pay Today, Solana Pay integrates with <a href="https://twitter.com/Shopify?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Shopify</a>, empowering the millions of entrepreneurs and merchants on Shopify to accept fast, web3 native payments with no transaction fees through the end of 2023. <a href="https://t.co/q63KeBllXB">https://t.co/q63KeBllXB</a> Learn more 👇 <a href="https://t.co/QEb1LzqS51">pic.twitter.com/QEb1LzqS51</a>&mdash; Solana (@solana) <a href="https://twitter.com/solana/status/1694336131599393186?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Josh Fried, a senior business development manager at Solana, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/23/solana-pay-plug-in-with-shopify-for-usdc-payments/">told</a> TechCrunch that the initial payment gateway for this Shopify integration will be USD Coin, a stablecoin with a market cap of $25.9 billion. This strategic selection aims to attract merchants more inclined to accept payment options closely aligned with the US dollar.&nbsp;



Solana is reportedly also considering the prospective addition of other digital assets, including <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/sol">SOL</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/bonk">BONK</a>, a Solana meme coin.



Introduced last year, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-pay-connects-merchants-and-consumers-via-stablecoins">Solana Pay</a> is engineered to facilitate dollar-pegged stablecoin transactions for both vendors and shoppers. The platform is tailored for online as well as point-of-sale transactions, with the capability to handle any volume of digital dollar transfers on Solana&#8217;s blockchain.



The Solana ecosystem has over 11.5 million active users, with an average transaction cost of a mere $0.00025.



Major crypto entities like Circle and Phantom, along with payment processors such as Checkout.com and Citcon, have embraced Solana Pay.



Additionally, Solana projects like MonkeDAO, MadLads, Helius and Solana&#8217;s merch store have incorporated Solana Pay into their Shopify-operated online shops.



Solana Labs’ <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-saga-phone-price-cut">Saga phone</a> also supports the payment method.



Shopify has previously <a href="https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/digital-service-product/nfts#distribute-nfts">ventured</a> into Web3 by allowing merchants to provide NFT-based loyalty incentives and directly sell NFTs to consumers.



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Shopify enables USDC payments via Solana Pay integration

David Canellis

<div id="highlights-block_633b0898879f2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Ecommerce billionaire Lütke became a Coinbase board member in February</li>
 <li>Only one other Coinbase insider has registered stock buys since it went public</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke has been busy buying the dip on Coinbase stock, having scooped up almost $3 million in shares over the past two months.



Lütke, who co-founded ecommerce giant Shopify in 2006, has on average spent roughly $369,000 on Coinbase stock every week since the start of August.&nbsp;



The billionaire tech entrepreneur <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/blog/tobias-lutke-ceo-of-shopify-to-join-coinbase-board-of-directors" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">became</a> a Coinbase board member in February and currently holds the title of director, which requires him to file trades with the SEC.



All his purchases were made in line with a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on May 26, 2022, when Coinbase stock traded for just under $70, having fallen nearly 75% since the start of the year.



Lütke has bought Coinbase stock for as little as $62 (in early September) and as much as $97.24 (in mid-August). Overall, he’s bought 40,315 shares for $2,949,833, per SEC filings, at an average price of $73.17.



Coinbase stock traded for $65 at 11:30 am ET, meaning Lütke is down 12% on his purchases so far, representing $330,000 in nominal losses. Blockworks reached out to Lütke but has yet to receive a response. Coinbase declined to comment.



The company awarded Lütke batches of shares in February and June, and he <a href="https://www.secform4.com/filings/1679788/0001679788-22-000006.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">disclaimed</a> beneficial ownership 25,500 shares around the time he was elected to the board. Lütke owns 65,815 Coinbase shares per his latest disclosures, now worth $4.28 million.



But Lütke’s repeated buys are rare among company insiders. In fact, one other Coinbase executive has bought the company’s stock since it went public via direct listing last April: Co-founder Fred Ehrsam.



Ehrsam spent $76.8 million on more than 1.12 million shares <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-execs-at-coinbase-microstrategy-and-marathon-buy-the-dip/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">throughout May</a>, with trades averaging out to $68.49 per share. This puts Ehrsam in the red by 5%, which works out to $3.35 million in paper losses on those particular trades, at current prices.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Coinbase insiders usually sell their stock</h3>



Indeed, it’s far more common for Coinbase insiders to cash in their shares. After all, Coinbase’s direct listing differed from a traditional initial public offering (IPO), in that no new shares were created when it opened for trading on the Nasdaq. All liquidity instead came from existing shareholders.



Early investors and other insiders such as venture capital titan Andreessen Horowitz and tech investor Fred Wilson have taken part, alongside practically the full suite of C-level Coinbase executives including CEO Brian Armstrong, General Counsel Paul Grewal, Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas, Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee, and Chief Accounting Officer Jennifer Jones, the latter of which sold $595,000 in company stock as recently as August.



In total, Coinbase insiders have jettisoned almost 15.7 million company shares for around $5.8 billion, at an average price of $369.39, according to SecForm4 data compiled by Blockworks — more than 85% of it offloaded during Coinbase’s first day of public trading.



Coinbase stock would need to rise more than 450% to reclaim insiders’ average sale price to date.



Wilson has so far sold more Coinbase stock than any other insider, having generated $3.63 billion across his own sales and that of his investment vehicle, Union Square Ventures.



Coinbase co-founder Ehrsam comes in at number two — he sold a tad over 1.5 million shares for $492.3 million throughout 2021, for an average price of $328.18 — followed by Marc Andreessen with $311.2 million in sales for an average price of $294.15 per share.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Short interest remains steady despite headaches</h3>



Coinbase&#8217;s shareholders writ large will need strong conviction moving forward. The company faces persistent headwinds going into this year’s fourth quarter that stretch far beyond the bleak general macroeconomic outlook.



“Coinbase is still in the grips of a lot of recent issues, including SEC action, technical issues, terrible financial metrics (huge negative EBITDA) and fee structure,” Oisin Maher, founder of QuantX Analytics, said.



Stock pickers have grown reliant on ‘back-to-basics’ approaches to calculating where to park money to weather inflation and depressed market sentiment, seeking strong balance sheets with clear revenue growth. “I&#8217;m not a fan of their heavy use of non-GAAP metrics in their accounting,” Maher said.&nbsp;



“The stock may have some short-term upside potential, but beyond that, I would prefer to stay away from it.” Coinbase reported a year-on-year 63% drop in revenue in this year’s second quarter, posting a $1.1 billion loss on $803 million revenues, both figures below analyst expectations.



These factors could explain why Shopify’s Lütke stands as the lone Coinbase insider to load up on Coinbase shares last quarter, despite the dip.&nbsp;



Coinbase’s stable short interest offers one ray of hope. Over the past two months, COIN short interest has hovered between 24.6 million and 26 million shares, equal to about 17% of the float, indicating bets on further substantial dumps are drying up.



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Shopify CEO Spends $3M on Coinbase Stock in 2 Months

Michael Bodley

<div id="highlights-block_624f64707c1ac" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Strike CEO Jack Mallers detailed the new partnership Thursday at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami</li>
 <li>Traditional payment processors haven’t innovated in more than 50 years, Mallers said</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



In a move to revitalize the payments processing industry, which Strike CEO Jack Mallers said Thursday has been stagnant for 55 years, the company unveiled a partnership with Shopify to facilitate bitcoin-to-cash payments over the Lightning Network.&nbsp;



The setup is live now with Los Angeles-based streetwear designer Warren Lotas, with the plan being to add additional merchants in the coming months, Mallers said at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami.



Railing against a “boomeristic” credit card system that started when “rich dudes” didn’t want to carry around wads of cash to buy caviar at high-end Manhattan restaurants, Mallers posited bitcoin as a solution to fees, transfer times and settlement issues that plague the traditional financial system.



Not content with targeting the online payments market, Strike — a digital payments platform based on the Lightning network — has also moved to enable in-person transactions via Lightning, connected by a user’s bitcoin wallet of choice. The company partnered with alternative payments processor Blackhawk and point-of-sale provider NCR to facilitate such transactions.&nbsp;



Dressed casually with his trademark hat, Mallers, through bits of laughter and profanity, presented himself as “just this kid from Chicago” in a stark contrast from the buttoned-up CEOs of traditional finance.&nbsp;



“In reality, payment networks have not innovated in over 50 years,” Mallers said. “That’s insane…that’s ridiculous.”



Mallers has also been working with political heavyweights, including the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/senators-warren-lummis-divided-on-digital-asset-value-agree-on-regulation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bitcoiner Sen. Cynthia Lummis</a>, R-Wyo., to “get this done.”



The idea is to roll out in-person bitcoin payments at scores of retailers, including Chipotle, Whole Foods and Walmart.&nbsp;



There’s no word yet on whether the companies have opted in to the proposal — or any reaction from old-school payment processors that rely on fees for moving money. Strike’s transactions, which are instantly settled, cut down parties from five to two: the buyer and the seller.



“Anyone can build anything, man,” Mallers said. “Anyone can build anything.”



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