Silicon Valley's most prominent startup incubator will allow its spring cohort of entrepreneurs to receive their funding in stablecoins. YCombinator, whose alumni include the founders of Airbnb and DoorDash, announced on Tuesday that founders can opt to receive their customary allotment-typically around $500,000-in the Circle-issued USDC. Startups founders who choose stablecoins can choose to receive the tokens on various blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana, Nemil Dalal, a visiting partner at Y Combinator who focuses on crypto, told Fortune.
The math is straightforward. At roughly 60.7 billion tokens in circulation, a $10 XRP price target implies a $607 billion market cap. That would vault XRP past Ethereum into second place behind Bitcoin. It's a moonshot scenario that would require massive institutional adoption, XRP ETF inflows, and utility growth on a scale the asset hasn't yet achieved-but in crypto, stranger things have happened.
"Younger investors just feel like the traditional playbook isn't working," said Gareth Kay, vice president of brand at Coinbase, about Gen Z and Millennials investing in crypto. Gen Z and Millennials, or younger investors, as the report calls them, say that 25% of their portfolio is in non-traditional assets, including crypto, derivatives, and NFTs. That is three times more than older investors, or Gen X and Baby Boomers, who say that just 8% of their portfolio is tied to such assets.
