On The Ground

OTG TEAM

Sam and Otabek cover all things money, tech, AI, & more.

  1. SpaceX's & Musk's AI Phone; OpenAI Gives US Gov 5% Stake; Stripe, Visa & Coinbase vs Tether & Circle

    3 days ago

    SpaceX's & Musk's AI Phone; OpenAI Gives US Gov 5% Stake; Stripe, Visa & Coinbase vs Tether & Circle

    140 companies just launched a stablecoin to take on Tether and Circle. Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Amex, BlackRock, Coinbase, Ripple, Google, Shopify, and DoorDash are all behind Open USDT. Unlike USDC and USDT, most of the reserve income gets shared back with partners instead of kept. Stripe already made it the default for its businesses. Circle's stock dropped 17% on the news, and CEO Jeremy Allaire publicly pushed back, calling the model unsustainable. OpenAI has reportedly proposed giving the US government a 5% stake worth $42.6 billion. Sam Altman wants Google and Meta to do the same, folding it into a sovereign wealth fund-style vehicle. Anthropic has refused any government equity arrangement. A regulator becoming a shareholder is a conflict of interest waiting to happen. Europe's MiCA rules kicked in July 1, and Tether's USDT just got locked out of EU exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, and Crypto.com. Circle's USDC stays compliant. Tether says MiCA's reserve rules, which force issuers into smaller, less capable European banks, could hurt consumers more than protect them. SpaceX reportedly showed investors an AI phone prototype sleeker than an iPhone, ahead of its IPO. Musk denies it. The device would run on a custom OS built around xAI, and could position SpaceX to take on Verizon and AT&T in wireless. AI hardware has a graveyard already, Humane and Rabbit both flopped. Klarna just won nearly $2 billion from Google. A Swedish court found Google illegally favored its own shopping service over Klarna's PriceRunner for 15 years. It's the largest antitrust award in Swedish history. Google is appealing. ElevenLabs doubled its valuation to $22 billion in five months. The AI voice startup holds under 1% of the broader AI voice market, and independent leaderboards rank Google's Gemini TTS and Inworld ahead of it. The valuation is being driven by enterprise distribution, not the best model. Subscribe for weekly breakdowns of the news shaping fintech, crypto, and payments, and let us know what you think of the new format in the comments.

    31 min
  2. OpenAI Wants to Delay Its IPO, Binance Is Getting Kicked Out of Europe, WorldPay Is Down;

    29 Jun

    OpenAI Wants to Delay Its IPO, Binance Is Getting Kicked Out of Europe, WorldPay Is Down;

    WorldPay went offline during England vs Ghana. Pubs, restaurants, Tesco — none of them could take card payments for hours. Transaction volumes in bars were up 148% that day. The cause was a third-party power grid disruption. Cash lines formed. OpenAI is pushing its IPO to 2027. Sam Altman won't go public below a $1 trillion valuation while burning $21B a year and paying Google, Microsoft, and AWS for the compute it needs to compete against them. Airwallex raised $320M at $11B, up from $8B in December. Revenue grew 74% to $1.3B annualized. A Ramp board member publicly called it a Chinese data backdoor. The CEO rejected it. Make of that what you will. Meta is building a prediction market app. 3.5 billion daily users, AI-powered, starting with virtual points. The ad revenue and data play is obvious. Kalshi just raised at a $40B valuation, doubling from $22B two months ago. Starling Bank deployed an AI agent running on Gemini that intercepts payments it suspects are fraud and asks the customer questions before the money moves. APP fraud hit $576M in the UK last year. Binance suspended EU operations after failing to get a MiCA license from Greece, Latvia, or Ireland. Revolut immediately ran a campaign targeting their customers.

    46 min
  3. Why Adyen, Stripe, and 170 startups are tetting on AI commerce

    24 Jun

    Why Adyen, Stripe, and 170 startups are tetting on AI commerce

    We discuss why the ecosystem nearly doubled in size, where venture capital is flowing, and which categories are emerging as the biggest winners. We also dive into one of the biggest announcements of the week: Adyen launching Agentic, a new orchestration layer that aims to connect merchants to AI commerce platforms through a single integration. Can Adyen challenge Stripe and become the operating system for agentic commerce? We also unpack the growing importance of "Know Your Agent" infrastructure, the rise of AI agent security startups, and why investors are pouring money into companies focused on trust, identity, governance, and fraud prevention. Topics covered: • Why CB Insights expanded its Agentic Commerce Market Map from 90 to 170 companies • Adyen's new Agentic Commerce platform and what it means for Stripe • Why AI agent orchestration is becoming a critical layer • The rise of Know Your Agent (KYA) infrastructure • AI agent security, governance, and fraud prevention • The startup categories attracting the most investment in 2026 • Why trust remains the biggest obstacle to agentic commerce adoption • Whether consumers will ever allow AI agents to spend money on their behalf • The future of shopping, payments, and customer relationships in an AI-first world Subscribe for weekly discussions on fintech, payments, stablecoins, AI agents, digital banking, crypto, and the technologies reshaping financial services.

    43 min
  4. SpaceX $2 Trillion IPO, Visa + OpenAI, Mastercard’s AI Payments, Secret Ban on Revolut

    16 Jun

    SpaceX $2 Trillion IPO, Visa + OpenAI, Mastercard’s AI Payments, Secret Ban on Revolut

    This week on On The Ground, Sam and Otabek try a new format and bring their own biggest stories of the week to debate live. The result? One of the most important weeks we've seen across AI, payments, fintech, and technology. Topics covered: • Visa's new partnership with OpenAI and what it means for agentic commerce • Why Mastercard is building payments for AI agents and machines • The battle to become the trust layer for AI-powered transactions • SpaceX reaching a $2 trillion valuation and Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire • The future of AI infrastructure, compute, and data centers in space • The European Central Bank's secret restrictions on Revolut's product launches • Whether Europe is making it harder for fintech champions to scale • FIFA World Cup, Visa's payments strategy, and the growing role of fintech in sports • Stripe's major partnership with Lloyds Banking Group and what it means for UK payments The biggest theme running through all these stories is simple: AI agents are becoming economic participants. Visa, Mastercard, OpenAI, Stripe, Google, Coinbase, and others are racing to build the infrastructure that will allow machines to buy, sell, negotiate, and transact on our behalf. Who wins this race may define the future of commerce.

    45 min
  5. AI agents start trading on Robinhood; Visa's invests in Replit; Cash App Enables Stablecoins

    1 Jun

    AI agents start trading on Robinhood; Visa's invests in Replit; Cash App Enables Stablecoins

    Robinhood is letting AI agents trade and spend money on behalf of users. Visa is investing in agentic payments through Replit. Cash App is bringing stablecoins to nearly 60 million users. Tether is launching a national stablecoin with the Georgian government. PayPal and WeChat Pay are connecting payment ecosystems across China. Meanwhile, regulators are questioning whether traditional markets are ready for 24/7 trading, and banks are still trying to figure out whether stablecoins are a threat or an opportunity. The financial system is changing fast. The question is whether banks will lead the transition or get left behind. Topics covered: • Tether's GEL₮ stablecoin launch in Georgia • Mastercard and the fallout from Brazil's banking crisis • Banks' stablecoin strategy dilemma • Robinhood's AI-powered trading agents • PayPal and WeChat Pay interoperability • Visa's investment in Replit • Cash App's stablecoin rollout • The debate over 24/7 financial markets

    25 min
  6. AI is replacing bankers at JPMorgan; Big Tech wants to control how you spend money

    25 May

    AI is replacing bankers at JPMorgan; Big Tech wants to control how you spend money

    JPMorgan says the future of Wall Street needs fewer bankers and more AI engineers. Klarna is bringing shopping directly into ChatGPT. Google wants to follow your shopping behavior across the entire internet. Revolut just launched a physical crypto card. Meanwhile, stablecoins are moving deeper into the financial system while regulators struggle to keep up. NOTICE: Nothing in this video is financial advice. All opinions are our own. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro 01:02 Will AI Replace Bankers? JP Morgan's $20B Bet 07:32 Monzo's Record Profits — and the Revolut Threat 11:16 Revolut's LED Crypto Card: Hype or Habit? 14:56 Klarna Brings Shopping Inside ChatGPT 17:57 Google's Universal Cart vs. the AI-Search Shift 21:42 Trump Tells the Fed to Open Up to Fintech 25:02 The SEC's Tokenized-Stock U-Turn 30:17 Why the ECB Is Saying No to a Global Digital Euro 34:57 Mercury's $200M Raise & the Race for a Bank Charter 38:02 Wrap-Up & What We're Watching

    39 min
  7. JPMorgan expands Chase across Europe; Circle Raises $222M; OpenAI Integrates Plaid and Fiserv;

    18 May

    JPMorgan expands Chase across Europe; Circle Raises $222M; OpenAI Integrates Plaid and Fiserv;

    In this episode of the On the Ground Podcast, I break down the most important developments shaping fintech, banking, payments, AI, and digital assets. This week’s biggest stories include: Wise moving its primary listing from London to NasdaqCircle raising $222 million from BlackRock and Apollo Global ManagementKraken exploring fundraising at a $20 billion valuationJPMorgan Chase expanding tokenization and digital banking in EuropeFiserv partnering with OpenAIKlarna reporting strong results driven by AI efficienciesBank of England reconsidering stablecoin rulesPlaid integrating with OpenAI to power personalized financial advice

    32 min
  8. PayPal to cut ~20% of workforce; eBay to be acquired by GameStop; Ramp to hit $40B+ valuation

    11 May

    PayPal to cut ~20% of workforce; eBay to be acquired by GameStop; Ramp to hit $40B+ valuation

    Welcome to the first episode of "On the Ground Show", where we break down the biggest stories shaping fintech, payments, crypto, and financial infrastructure. In this episode, we cover PayPal and Coinbase cutting thousands of jobs as both companies restructure around AI, signaling how automation is reshaping financial services. We analyze a wave of major acquisitions, including Kraken’s $600 million purchase of stablecoin payments firm Reap, Bullish’s $4.2 billion acquisition of Equiniti to build tokenized securities infrastructure, and the $6.3 billion take-private of Amex Global Business Travel. We also discuss Ramp’s potential $40+ billion valuation and what it says about the rise of AI-powered CFO software, the UK FCA’s rare competition probe into Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal, Robinhood’s struggles compared with Interactive Brokers, and why UK fintech funding is rebounding as capital concentrates into late-stage winners. If you want to understand where fintech is heading—from stablecoins and tokenization to AI-driven finance and regulatory change—this episode provides the context and key insights you need.

    34 min
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Sam and Otabek cover all things money, tech, AI, & more.

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    OTG TEAM
  • Years Active
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  • Episodes
    9
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    On The Ground