The Chopping Block: Perp Wars & Stablecoin Battles: Hyperliquid, Aster, Tether - Ep. 911

Bullish:

• $TETHER - Tether maintains dominant position with 99% margins and no revenue-sharing deals, while competitors like Circle face margin erosion from exchange partnerships

  • “Tether just continues to win. And the question is, like, what's gonna stop them from winning?”

    Tom·35:02
• $ASTER - Aster poses a credible competitive threat to Hyperliquid with Binance's strategic backing and Asian teams' ability to iterate quickly despite poor initial incentive design

  • “I think there's good reason to be afraid of Aster, especially given the backing of Binance and the strategic element that they're bringing to bear.”

    Haseeb·12:59

Bearish:

• $CIRCLE - Circle faces deteriorating margins from revenue-sharing deals with exchanges, with Q2 adjusted EBITDA of only $126M compared to Tether's billions in profit

  • “I think Circle is a terrible business.”

    Tom·33:01
• $TETHER - Tether's $500B valuation represents over 6x premium to Circle despite timing concerns with potential Fed rate cuts hurting revenue model

  • “I think it's a terrible deal... it's trading for more than six times the premium of Circle, its closest competitor.”

    Robert·31:30