Michael Saylor’s bitcoin buying strategy had both believers and skeptics. But a new rival just emerged, already holding nearly $4 billion BTC on its balance sheet—and it’s a bullish sign, according to at least one Wall Street analyst.

When SoftBank, Tether, and Cantor Fitzgerald unveiled plans to launch a new bitcoin investment company called Twenty One, structured explicitly around holding bitcoin as its primary business, many called it a significant rival to Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR). Its day-one bitcoin balance sheet holding would rank it as the third-largest publicly held bitcoin treasury on day one.

In traditional finance, one could argue that such a big competition could hamper a dominant company’s market share and capital raise opportunities, especially since Twenty One is already potentially launching with over 42,000 BTC at launch (worth nearly $4 billion at spot price).

However, TD Cowen analysts Lance Vitanza and Jonnathan Navarrete see it as the exact opposite: «The proposed launch of Twenty One reflects the most-meaningful validation of Strategy’s bitcoin treasury operations to date,» leaving the analysts «incrementally bullish» on the stock.

The analysts added that the new rival could even convert MSTR’s biggest skeptics, institutional investors, into believers in Saylor’s bitcoin buying strategy. The move would also increase demand for bitcoin from a high-profile entrant, which could outweigh any pressure on Strategy’s cost of capital and attract more capital into buying bitcoin.

“Certainly this is what Michael Saylor professes to believe,” the analysts wrote, pointing to the Strategy founder’s long-standing push for more companies to adopt similar strategies.

TD Cowen maintained its $550 price target for MSTR and projects the company could hold 757,000 BTC by the end of fiscal year 2027 — about 3.6% of bitcoin’s total supply. The analysts said that if bitcoin hits an average price of $170,000 by then, TD Cowen estimates that stash could be worth $129 billion.

The bullish impact of this rivalry is already prominent in the market. The shares of Cantor Equity Partners (CEP), Twenty One’s SPAC vehicle, have already climbed as much as 130% since the announcement, while MSTR stocks held strong.

Read more: Cantor Skyrockets 130% as Traders FOMO Into the Stock on Bitcoin SPAC Frenzy

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Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) said it will introduce free conversions between PayPal’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, PYUSD, and the U.S. currency in a move aimed at accelerating the shift toward on-chain payments.

The move, open to both retail and institutional customers, is part of a partnership aimed at promoting PYUSD as a payment currency. Coinbase also plans to use its platform to offer PYUSD to PayPal’s extensive network of merchant partners, which could ease the use of stablecoins in everyday transactions.

Stablecoin rivalry heats up

Stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to traditional currencies, predominantly the dollar — are one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto. They are marketed as a faster and cheaper alternative to legacy payment systems, and are increasingly popular for payments across borders. Standard Chartered projected the sector to grow to $2 trillion by 2028 from the current $220 billion.

With regulation for stablecoins advancing in the U.S., the competition is heating up among issuers while banks and traditional payment firms are also eyeing the market. Binance, the largest crypto exchange, and Circle, issuer of the second largest dollar-backed stablecoin, have already linked up to use Circle’s USDC as a trading pair and payment method. Circle introduced a remittances network this week.

Market leader Tether, issuer of the $140 billion USDT, is mulling issuing a stablecoin designed for U.S. users.

Meanwhile, PayPal, whose stablecoin debuted in 2023 and has grown to $860 million, recently introduced a 3.7% annual yield on PYUSD for U.S. token holders to attract more users.

Shaquille O’Neal has reached a settlement agreement with a group of FTX investors who accused him of enabling the failed crypto exchange’s fraud by acting as a celebrity promoter, according to a court filing.

Details of the settlement agreement, including the amount O’Neal will pay, have not yet been disclosed. Plaintiffs in the case are seeking up to $21 billion in total damages from O’Neal and other promoters, former executives and other insiders.

The former basketball star-turned-business mogul was just one of a host of celebrity promoters named in the class action suit. Other athletes, including tennis player Naomi Osaka, baseball player Shohei Otani, basketball player Steph Curry and retired football player Tom Brady were also named as defendants, along with comedian Larry David, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, and model Gisele Bundchen.

Though O’Neal is the first big-name defendant in the case to settle on Wednesday, seven other celebrity promoters and former executives reached a settlement agreement with the investors back in 2023, including Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and Youtubers Tom Nash, Graham Stephan and Andrei Jikh. The first tranche of settlements were relatively small, totalling a collective $1.4 million.

O’Neal’s settlement with FTX investors is not his first tied to a promotion of a failed crypto project. Last year, O’Neal and several of his associates agreed to pay $11 million to Astral non-fungible token (NFT) holders who lost money in the Solana-based project he founded and promoted.