Crypto Currents: Fed’s Waller sees potential for stablecoins to improve payments

As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies see major legal, institutional, and technological developments, the financial landscape continues to adapt. Stay up on the crypto news that matters with the “Crypto Currents” weekly from The Fly. Also, join us for your essential daily recap, every day at 2 PM ET on FlyCast radio.

FED’S WALLER SEES POTENTIAL FOR STABLECOINS TO IMPROVE PAYMENTS: Fed Governor Christopher Waller gave inflation or without easy or affordable access to dollar cash or banking services. In fact, I believe that stablecoins have the potential to maintain and extend the role of the dollar internationally. Stablecoins also have the potential to improve retail and cross-border payments.”

BITDEER REPORTS Q2 EARNINGS: On Monday, Bitdeer (BTDR) reported a second quarter loss per share of (76c) on revenue of $155.6M, which compared to a loss per share of (14c) last year and a revenue consensus of $109.2M. The company also reported 565 bitcoin mined in Q2 and a crypto balance of $169.3M as of June 30. Bitdeer maintained 2025 power and datacenter infrastructure capex guidance of $260M to $290M.

“Q2 marked a key inflection point,” said Matt Kong, Chief Business Officer. “Q2 revenue of $155.6M was up 56.8% year-over-year and 121.9% sequentially, driven by strong growth in our self-mining business as well as external sales of our SEALMINER A2s. Looking forward, we anticipate continued rapid growth in our self-mining hashrate throughout the remainder of the year and we are well on track to achieve our 40 EH/s target by the end of October. Further, wafer supply allocation at our foundry has improved and it is likely that we will exceed this target by year end. As we move into the second half of the year, we expect our financial results to continue to improve sequentially.”

Following the report, H.C. Wainwright raised the firm’s price target on Bitdeer to $19 from $18 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm views the company’s Q2 report as an inflection point in its financials. The company reported a big revenue beat and reiterated that it remains on track to achieve its previously stated 2025 guidance which calls for 40 EH/s of self-mining capacity by October, the analyst said. H.C. Wainwright expects a “significant ramp” in Bitdeer’s sales over the coming quarters as its self-mining capacity expands.

CIRCLE ACQUIRES MALACHITE FROM INFORMAL SYSTEMS: On Monday, Informal Systems announced that its high-performance consensus engine, (CRCL) to support the launch of Arc, a new open Layer-1 blockchain network purpose-built for stablecoin finance. Arc is expected to debut in testnet later this year.

The company said, “Malachite is the product of years of pioneering work in consensus and verifiability, a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus engine implementing the Tendermint algorithm in a modular design focused on correctness and efficiency. Originally developed to meet real-world demands for a flexible, reusable foundation for decentralized systems. Circle’s integration of Malachite will help bring greater performance, reliability, and security to stablecoin-based payments, reinforcing Malachite’s mission to deliver trustworthy, low-cost, and borderless financial infrastructure. The Malachite repository will remain open source under the Apache 2.0 license, ensuring continued industry access and innovation.”

On Tuesday, JPMorgan raised the firm’s price target on Circle Internet to $89 from $80 and kept an Underweight rating on the shares. The firm views the company’s Q2 results as largely in line with expectations. It cited the strength of Circle’s on-platform USDC growth for the target increase.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank lowered the firm’s price target on Circle Internet on Wednesday to $123 from $163 and kept a Hold rating on the shares.

MICROSTRATEGY BUYS MORE BITCOIN: In a Monday regulatory filing, Strategy (MSTR) disclosed that the company acquired 430 bitcoin for an aggregate purchase price of $51.4M during the period of August 11 to August 17. The company’s aggregate bitcoin holdings amount to 629,376 as of August 17, the filing stated.

FLUIDSTACK EXERCISES OPTION TO EXPAND AT TERAWULF CAMPUS: TeraWulf (WULF) announced Monday that Fluidstack has (GOOGL) will provide an incremental backstop of $1.4B in support of project-related debt financing and will receive warrants to acquire 32.5M shares of TeraWulf common stock. With this incremental commitment, Google’s total backstop increases to approximately $3.2B, and its total pro forma equity ownership in TeraWulf increases to approximately 14%. The CB-5 lease is on the same economic terms as the initial Fluidstack leases for CB-3 and CB-4, maintaining consistency in structure and economics across the buildout.

“This expansion underscores the unmatched scale and capabilities of the Lake Mariner campus,” said Paul Prager, CEO. “By adding CB-5, we are not only increasing our contracted capacity with Fluidstack, but also further deepening our strategic alignment with Google as a critical financial partner in delivering the next generation of AI infrastructure. This expansion not only scales our contracted platform but reinforces TeraWulf’s leadership in the AI and HPC infrastructure ecosystem, delivering globally competitive, sustainable, and scalable compute solutions.”

Additionally on Monday, B. Riley raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $14 from $8 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. TerraWulf announced a 10-year colocation agreement with Google-backed Fluidstack, the analyst said. Any upcoming announcements on financing should serve as the most meaningful catalysts in the near-term, B. Riley added.

On Tuesday, Cantor Fitzgerald raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $14 from $11 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm sees additional share upside as TeraWulf nears energization and announces additional contracts. The Fluidstack deal with Google financing affirms the share thesis, driving average annual EBITDA of more than $600M, the analyst said. Cantor believes that with Google’s backing, TeraWulf’s path to contracting all of its capacity is accelerated.

On Thursday, Roth Capital raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $14 from $12.50 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm is updating its model to reflect the company’s 160MW option exercise with Fluidstack, along with its $850M convertible notes offering, the analyst said. Roth added that its higher price target is driven by added capacity as well as any additional sites that TeraWulf may add to its portfolio.

On Friday, Rosenblatt raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $12 from $10.50 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm views the company’s high performance computing hosting agreements with Fluidstack and related Google investment as “transformational.” TeraWulf financial profile has “improved dramatically” and the shares deserve a premium valuation, the analyst said.

OTHER CRYPTO NEWS:

• Coinbase (COIN) adds World Liberty Financial USD to its asset listings
• Thumzup (TZUP) to acquire Dogehash in all-stock transaction
• Hut 8 (HUT) price target raised to $36 from $32 at Canaccord
• Core Scientific (CORZ) price target raised to $22 from $16 at Jefferies, lowered to $17 from $20 at Roth Capital
• Hive Digital (HIVE) price target raised to $10 from $9 at Canaccord
• Robinhood (HOOD) price target raised to $160 from $105 at Bernstein
• Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) announces crypto holdings exceeding $6.612B
• BitFuFu (FUFU) price target raised to $6 from $5.50 at Northland

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital (BTBT), Coinbase, Core Scientific, Greenidge Generation (GREE), Mara Holdings (MARA), Strategy, Riot Platforms (RIOT) and TeraWulf.

PRICE ACTION: As time of writing, bitcoin dropped roughly 4% this week to $112,140 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.