Morning Minute — Tyler Warner — quick hits to start your day (and don’t miss our new five‑minute daily news show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify).
Top stories
1) Fomo pulls in $75M at a $550M valuation — big non‑crypto VCs are betting on consumer crypto
- Social-first trading app Fomo raised a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation. Union Square Ventures joined the round alongside existing backer Benchmark and angels including Zynga co‑founder Mark Pincus, Discord’s Humam Sakhnini, and Eventbrite’s Kevin Hartz. The new capital brings Fomo’s total funding to roughly $94 million.
- Founded in 2025 by ex‑dYdX engineers Paul Erlanger, Se Yong Park, and Prashan Dharmasena, Fomo aims to make on‑chain trading feel like any mainstream consumer app: non‑custodial, about a 30‑second onboarding, and social features such as leaderboards and copy trading. It offers more assets across multiple chains without forcing users to manage wallets, bridges, or gas.
- Since launching in May 2025, Fomo has grown to 625,000 users and $4 billion in trading volume, adding roughly 3,500 users per day, all with a 17‑person team.
- Why it matters: Index’s Julia Andre said the firm sees a market shift toward consumer blockchain trading and backed the team — “we’re not doing Fomo because it’s a crypto business.” That Index and USV (both not heavy crypto investors historically) led a large round in a tough market signals high conviction that the next wave of retail adoption will come through polished consumer apps rather than clunky exchanges. Fomo added perpetuals in June and plans to expand into equities, derivatives and prediction markets on‑chain, putting it squarely against Coinbase’s “everything” strategy and Robinhood. Co‑founder Paul Erlanger summed up the mission bluntly: “Onchain trading is just impossible.” Fomo is trying to make it invisible.
2) MicroStrategy sells $335.5M of stock, buys just 520 BTC — cash hoard grows
- MicroStrategy sold $335.5 million worth of MSTR shares last week but only deployed about $35 million of the proceeds to buy 520 BTC at an average price near $67,068. The company’s Bitcoin stack now stands at 847,363 coins.
- The rest of the proceeds boosted MicroStrategy’s USD reserve by roughly $300 million to about $1.4 billion. Management says the cash is there to protect the credit quality of its dividend‑paying preferred shares (STRC) and cover dividends and debt.
- Context: STRC plunged to a record low of $83 before recovering, and some observers see this move as damage control for preferred holders. CEO Michael Saylor’s team is prioritizing balance‑sheet strength over immediate Bitcoin accumulation; Saylor’s firm and leadership even signaled confidence with the CEO personally buying $1 million of STRC. Market reaction was mixed: MSTR fell ~3% Monday while IBIT (a spot Bitcoin ETF) rose ~2.5%.
- Takeaway: MicroStrategy appears focused on shoring up STRC and corporate liquidity for now, even if that means slower BTC buys — a tradeoff that may keep MSTR shareholders under pressure in the near term.
3) ETHLabs: big ETH treasuries and Joe Lubin bankroll a new independent Ethereum R&D lab
- BitMine, SharpLink, and ConsenSys co‑founder Joe Lubin are the anchor backers of ETHLabs, a new independent nonprofit research lab staffed by five researchers who recently left the Ethereum Foundation.
- ETHLabs’ stated mission is to accelerate Ethereum as a settlement layer for the global economy. Early research priorities include faster settlement, native asset issuance, cross‑chain movement, greater mainnet capacity, and work on ETH’s monetary properties — areas designed to appeal to institutional adoption.
- Other backers and supporters include Uniswap’s Hayden Adams, Base’s Jesse Pollak, and researchers Justin Drake, Danny Ryan, and Tim Beiko. BitMine and SharpLink are among the largest corporate ETH holders, so the groups with the biggest ETH treasuries are now funding work meant to increase ETH’s utility and value.
- Governance safeguards: to avoid perceived undue influence, ETHLabs routes donations through an independent grants administrator, creating a buffer between funders and researchers.
- Why this matters: ETHLabs arrives amid an Ethereum Foundation talent exodus and growing debate over who should steer Ethereum’s technical and economic direction. The new lab is pitched as complementary rather than antagonistic to the Foundation — aligning capital holders with researchers while trying to preserve independence — and signals a pragmatic push to drive institutional and real‑world value capture for ETH.
Additional trackers: corporate treasuries, ETFs, and meme coin headlines moving the market.
That’s your Morning Minute. More deep dives later — catch our five‑minute news show if you want headlines on the go.
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