The Drop #47

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🟩 Tether between S&P downgrade and diversification race

📱 Deblock raises €30M, attracts European banks

💶 Amundi launches its first tokenized money market fund on Ethereum

🟠 MSCI threatens Strategy, Saylor holds firm

🇪🇺 Klarna announces stablecoin

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🟩  Tether between S&P downgrade and diversification race

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Tether was downgraded on Wednesday by S&P, which lowered USDT's stability to "low" due to an increase in risky assets in its reserves (24%), a lack of transparency, and Bitcoin exposure now exceeding the safety margin. The Salvadoran regulatory framework is also considered less robust. At the same time, Tether became the world's largest buyer of gold in Q3, ahead of central banks, with 26 tons purchased and a total of 116 tons in its vaults. A strategy driven by surging demand for XAUT, its tokenized gold, in a market where the yellow metal has jumped 40% this year. Facing criticism, CEO Paolo Ardoino fiercely attacked S&P, denouncing "obsolete" models and claiming that Tether would be "the first overcapitalized company in the industry, without toxic reserves." You can discover this week an analysis on Tether's diversification strategy (Bitcoin, gold, energy, food industry, football, etc.).

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📱 Deblock raises €30M and attracts European banks

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In an exclusive interview with The Big Whale, CEO Jean Meyer unveils Deblock's ambitions, which has just raised 30 million euros and launched its BLOCK token. The neobank combining non-custodial wallet and traditional bank account wants to accelerate: new products requiring capital, enhanced marketing, and launch in Germany and Austria from early 2026. With revenue quadrupled this year and over 100,000 active customers, Deblock is betting on cashback funded by Visa commissions it receives directly. These revenues will be used to buy back and burn BLOCK tokens. "It's a loyalty program, not a financing tool," Meyer insists, ready to stop the project if the community doesn't want it. The startup is now attracting interest from major banks. Commerzbank is a shareholder and other European groups have sent their M&A teams to understand Deblock's trajectory. On the product side, DeFi integration (Morpho, tokenized funds) confirms the strategy: offering services impossible to replicate in traditional fintech, thanks to non-custodial technology. Read the interview.

💶 Amundi launches its first tokenized money market fund on Ethereum

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A few weeks after officially announcing its upcoming Bitcoin ETP (which we revealed), Europe's largest asset manager is tokenizing for the first time a share of its AMUNDI FUNDS CASH EUR money market fund (over 5 billion euros in assets under management), now available both through traditional channels and directly on Ethereum. The first transaction was executed on November 4. For this operation, Amundi relies on CACEIS's (Crédit Agricole) infrastructure, which provides the distributed ledger, digital wallets, and the platform enabling 24/7 subscriptions and redemptions. According to Jean-Jacques Barbéris, member of the Executive Committee, tokenization "will accelerate in the coming years". This move places Amundi alongside the sector's pioneers, in a market that is still modest (less than 10 billion dollars) but already dominated by BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and the French player Spiko. Read our article.

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🟠  MSCI threatens Strategy, Michael Saylor remains inflexible

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Strategy could be excluded from several MSCI stock indices following a proposal to remove companies whose assets are predominantly composed of cryptocurrencies. A decision is expected on January 15, and the consequences could be severe: JP Morgan estimates up to $2.8 billion in passive outflows, or nearly $9 billion if all index funds exposed to the stock are included. Michael Saylor, Strategy's CEO, brushes aside any idea of changing course. In a message to the Wall Street Journal, he insists: the company is "not a bitcoin replicating fund," but "an operating company" with a software division valued at $500 million and active for over twenty years. The potential removal from indices "will not change" its strategy focused on BTC accumulation.

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🎰 Robinhood and Coinbase accelerate in prediction markets

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Robinhood continues to make moves in prediction markets. The acquisition of 90% of LedgerX, a regulated derivatives player, fuels speculation: according to Bernstein, Robinhood could soon launch its own platform, complementing the "event contracts" operated with Kalshi, for which it already generates over 50% of volumes. Meanwhile, Coinbase is positioning itself very aggressively. After being chosen by Kalshi to ensure custody of USDC used in its contracts, the platform would be preparing its own prediction markets service behind the scenes. Screenshots revealed by researcher Jane Manchun Wong show an interface branded Coinbase Financial Markets, directly integrated with Kalshi's infrastructure. The goal: build an essential component of its "everything exchange" project, capable of aggregating crypto trading, derivatives, tokenized stocks... and now prediction markets? Coinbase confirmed this summer it is working on this vertical and plans to offer markets on the economy, sports, politics, or technology, accessible in both USDC and dollars. Market leader Polymarket is valued at $15 billion following its latest funding round in October.

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🇪🇺  Klarna announces a stablecoin

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European buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna is making a major strategic pivot by announcing its own stablecoin: KlarnaUSD. For a player that processes $112 billion in annual volume, entering the stablecoin universe seems almost natural. At this scale, every friction point (especially in cross-border transactions) represents enormous costs. Reducing transaction fees through a crypto rail therefore becomes an obvious lever. KlarnaUSD is currently only available on testnet on Tempo, the new blockchain designed for payments and developed by Stripe and Paradigm. The mainnet launch is expected for 2026, with the ambition to progressively integrate this rail into the Klarna ecosystem to make payments faster and cheaper.