Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Q1 GDP decreased came in lower than analysts’ expectations and extended the selloff in stocks. 

• How a payments giant-stablecoin platform link-up seeks to transform everyday transactions.

• Another crypto equity ETF launches ahead of Galaxy’s expected Nasdaq listing.

GDP prints red

The US economy contracted in the year’s first three months. It’s the first quarterly decline since 2022. 

Today’s advanced GDP estimate for Q1 showed a 0.3% annualized decline, sending stocks lower, and Treasury yields and gold higher. Analysts had expected GDP to grow 0.4% in the first quarter. 

The report comes a day after President Trump marked 100 days in office, during which time the S&P 500 notched its worst performance (-7.3% since Inauguration Day) since the first 100 days of President Nixon’s second term. The Nasdaq Composite lost 11%, which is the biggest drop since President Bush’s first term in 2001. 

In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump insisted that “this is Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s.” 

While the “Liberation Day” tariffs came at the beginning of the second quarter, the Q1 data suggested that consumers and businesses started preparing for more aggressive trade policies at the beginning of the year. The first quarter saw an increase in imports alongside declines in consumer and government spending — the perfect recipe for a negative print. 

Imports were up more than 41% in Q1, compared with a 1.9% decline in the last quarter of 2024. Goods imports were up more than 50%, showing that consumers and businesses were in a rush to secure larger purchases and increase inventories ahead of expected tariffs. 

The GDP print, as expected, falls between projections from the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow (-1.9%) and the New York Fed’s Nowcast (2.6%).

Also today, the Treasury Department announced plans to revamp its buyback program. There could be “possible enhancements” made to the purchase amounts, scheduling and frequency, Treasury said in a statement. 

The update comes after Treasurys sold off earlier this month, sending yields higher and raising concerns about a slowing economy and tightening financial conditions. The surge in yields, Trump said, was concerning enough for him to pivot on some of his tariff policies; he issued the 90-day pause on most countries just a week after Liberation Day. 

Now investors are waiting for signs that the administration is inking trade deals with other countries. After comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the situation with China is “unsustainable,” stocks felt some short-term relief, but have since faltered on the recovery path. 

The GDP print also comes a day after the Conference Board released the latest consumer confidence figures, which surprise, surprise, were very bleak. The index fell 7.9 points, marking the eighth straight monthly decline and the lowest reading since 2020. 

As Sevens Report Research founder Tom Essaye wrote in a note this morning, the report emphatically proves that investors and consumers are certain that the future looks bleak. 

Apologies for ending on a negative note, but the numbers just don’t lie! We’ll be back tomorrow with hopefully some better news.

— Casey Wagner

The Next Cycle Won’t Be Traded Into Existence.

It will be built by the teams scaling infra, refining UX, and shipping real products to real users. Permissionless IV brings together the people doing just that:

• Ian Barile (PayPal) – building stablecoin infrastructure into one of the world’s largest payments networks

• Michael Rihani (Coinbase) – leading onchain product across payments and emerging markets

• Uma Roy (Succinct) – shipping ZK infra that makes blockchain data faster, lighter, and easier to verify

June 24–26 | Brooklyn, NY | Get Your Tickets

This is the change in PCE month over month in March, a rare positive figure in today’s sea of economic data. Annually, the PCE rose 2.3% — the smallest year-over-year increase since October 2024. 

A household name is teaming up with a stablecoin platform in a bid to bring tokenized dollars into everyday life.

That would be payments giant Visa, which is now launching stablecoin-linked cards. 

What does that even mean? Essentially, fintech developers using Bridge can offer these cards to their customers, who can then make purchases at any merchant location that accepts Visa. 

Bridge deducts funds from the cardholder’s stablecoin balance and converts the balance into fiat so the merchant gets paid in their local currency. The card programs are starting in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Chile.

Stablecoins are a roughly $230 billion market. We’ve written before about how industry watchers expect this space to multiply into the trillions of dollars in the coming years.

Why this space is poised to grow substantially doesn’t seem too difficult a concept.

“By enabling fast, cheap, global payments, among other uses, stablecoins have become one of crypto’s most obvious killer apps,” a16z noted in a 2024 State of Crypto report.

More people than ever seem to be paying attention now, especially as tokenized money market funds — viewed by some as a sort of yield-bearing alternative to stablecoins — also gain steam.

A look at a Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee presentation (dated today) discusses stablecoins’ potential to “catalyse structural changes” across bank deposits, the Treasury market and monetary supply.

You might remember Bridge being in the news last October, when Stripe said it would acquire the company. The $1.1 billion deal closed in February.

Architect Partners’ Eric Risley called the deal “the most important M&A transaction to date for our industry” at the time. It offered more evidence that stablecoin-based payments have compelling benefits even to non-crypto companies, he added. 

It would seem integrating stablecoins into Visa’s existing network furthers that narrative. 

— Ben Strack

We have a more specific date on when Galaxy Digital intends to (finally) go public in the US. And speaking of crypto-related equities, Grayscale’s launched a new ETF.

First, on Galaxy: The firm is eyeing May 16 for its Nasdaq listing. We reported earlier this month that the SEC “declared effective” the company’s registration statement to do so. There’s still that shareholder meeting to approve the move on May 9.

Galaxy shares have traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange since 2020 and will continue to do so “for a period of time” if and when the Nasdaq listing is finalized, the company says. The new listing will “enable us to attract a broader investor base,” CEO Mike Novogratz said in a statement. 

It would seem he’s right given financial pros like to see cash flows, balance sheets, etc. — things bitcoin alone doesn’t offer. And as noted before we’re keeping an eye on the other segment players looking to soon go public (looking at you, Circle and eToro).

On to the Grayscale update, the firm has launched an ETF that invests in companies adopting bitcoin as a treasury asset. Galaxy’s TSX-listed shares are actually the fund’s seventh-largest holding out of the gate. Its top two holdings are Strategy and Tesla, with ~27% and ~17% positions, respectively. 

Bitwise launched a similar product in March. That one, too, skews heavily toward MSTR (also at nearly 27%) but opts for Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms as its next-biggest holdings (~11% and ~9%). Less than 2% of the fund’s assets currently go toward Tesla. 

That Bitwise offering has just $5 million in AUM after nearly two months on the market; still, these funds’ investable universes are expected to grow quickly. We’ll see what kind of impact that has on the demand for them.

— Ben Strack

• Trump Media is considering launching a utility crypto token and wallet to be used for Truth+ subscription fees, the company said in a filing yesterday. 

• Consumer spending was on the rise last month, coming in 0.7% higher from February. That’s likely due to pre-tariff buying.