After a brief pullback this week, shares of stablecoin issuer and recent IPO darling Circle were in rally mode again, soaring double-digits on a percentage basis during trading on Thursday and ending the day up close to 8%, after having moved up by more than 600% percent since its debut on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month.  

Bitcoin and ether have led a recent crypto rise, as digital assets joined the resumption of the risk-on rally, with additional factors such as the potential for lower interest rates later this year, some more moderate talk from the White House on tariffs, and at least temporary easing of tensions in the Middle East.

But when it comes to Circle and the stablecoin boom, there’s a more fundamental driver as Wall Street interest in the technology continues to evolve, and more ties are built between the old rails of the financial world and the new digital assets infrastructure.

Fiserv debuted a stablecoin earlier this week. Mastercard then linked that stablecoin to its network.

Credit cards are a good place to understand the opportunity, according to Zach Abrams, Bridge co-founder and CEO, who told CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos that the market is estimated to grow into the trillions and could be the biggest global money-moving shift since the introduction of credit cards.

Some of the top private companies are already making major use of stablecoins today. Abrams cited the example of ScaleAI, into which Meta just invested over $14 billion, and which uses Bridge to pay data labelers all over the world. SpaceX also uses Bridge to convert payments made for its Starlink internet services in local currencies and bring the money back to the U.S.

“We think that stablecoins are an entirely new money-movement platform, like credit cards were decades ago,” Abrams said in an interview for Thursday’s “Crypto World.”

“[Credit cards] created trillions in value and I think stablecoins will be the same,” he said. “We think it’s going to be a very big change that will play out over many years,” he added.

Bridge was recently acquired by private fintech giant Stripe for $1.1 billion.

Abrams said as regulatory clarity increases, more traditional financial players will want to get in on the opportunity. Stablecoins, less than a decade old, are today a $400 billion market, and Abrams says that if, as most banks think, the market “will get to a few trillion” it is a market where peeling off some of that share has to be a focus.

Today, it is served almost entirely by Tether and Circle, he said. Ultimately, there is a role not just for big financial firms like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, but Fiserv and local banks. In fact, the move up to trillions in stablecoin market value won’t happen, Abrams said, without “a huge percentage” being handled by traditional financial institutions.

Wall street’s embrace of tokenization keeps growing in other ways as well. New York-based investment startup Republic announced this week it will allow users to buy tokens that represent private companies like SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. Republic will offer these tokens for a minimum of $50, lower than the roughly $10,000 typically required for investing in private companies. 

You can watch the full interview with Abrams above in Thursday’s “Crypto World.”

In other crypto news of note on Thursday:

Ripple and the SEC can’t put their legal battle behind them, yet.

A federal judge rejected the joint motion by the crypto firm and the regulator to endorse Ripple’s reduced $50 million fine to settle the civil lawsuit over the alleged sale of unregistered securities, saying they lacked the authority to make the deal. Ripple-linked cryptocurrency XRP was down over 2% on Thursday. Ripple’s chief legal officer Stu Alderoty laid out the company’s options in an X post.

Also, more from “Crypto World” on the news that first broke yesterday that the Trump administration is working to let home buyers include their crypto in federal mortgage applications.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired Omead Afshar, the automaker’s vice president of manufacturing and operations, CNBC has confirmed, following declines in car sales in key markets this year.

Afshar, who reported directly to Musk, led a team of more than a half-dozen high level employees, according to internal organizational charts viewed by CNBC.

Forbes first reported that Afshar was dismissed by Musk. Bloomberg reported earlier that Afshar had left the company.

Executives on Afshar’s team included Troy Jones, who is Tesla’s vice president of North American sales, and Joe Ward, vice president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Also on his team was Karen Steakley, who now leads business development and policy for Tesla, and previously held the role of deputy director for legislative affairs for Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

CNBC reached out to Afshar and to other Tesla executives as well as board members. They didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Afshar was the subject of an internal investigation at Tesla in 2022, Bloomberg reported, which had focused on his orders of hard-to-get construction materials, including a special kind of glass for a secretive project for Musk.

Following that probe, Afshar also worked for SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor, but had returned to Tesla and was promoted to the vice president role.

Afshar’s termination follows the resignation of Milan Kovac, previously head of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robotics program, earlier this month. Kovac said in a post on X that he was leaving in order to spend more time with his family. Musk has thanked Kovac publicly for his work.

Tesla’s stock price is down 19% this year, badly underperforming the Nasdaq and most of its megacap tech peers.

Tesla new car sales in Europe fell for a fifth straight month in May, according to data published on Wednesday from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA, as customers pivot to cheaper Chinese electric vehicles.

The company has faced brand and reputational damage in the past year, largely due to Musk‘s incendiary rhetoric and political activity. Musk spent nearly $300 million to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump to a second term and then led an initiative to slash federal agencies and their resources.

Musk also formally endorsed and promoted Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party.

WATCH: No bad news is great news for Tesla on robotaxi debut

Stablecoin issuer Circle resumed its rally on Thursday after a brief pullback this week.

Shares were last higher by 12%, after losing about 15% earlier over the past three days amid heightened post-IPO volatility and as investors weigh speculation around crypto regulation and the upcoming Fed rate decision.

With Circle still hot off its IPO, its investors may have rotated into Coinbase, which gained 15% in the same two days Circle fell. Coinbase, which began as a crypto exchange operator but has expanded its suite of crypto services, also received a batch of price target increases this week from Wall Street including from Bernstein and Oppenheimer.

Coinbase gained more than 5% Thursday.

Coinbase is the main distribution platform for USDC, the popular stablecoin issued by Circle. It receives half of the revenue generated from the interest earned on Circle’s USDC reserves. It also makes 100% of the interest on any USDC held directly on its own platform.

As awareness of Circle’s story grows, investors are beginning to see how Coinbase could benefit from opportunities in the stablecoin space.

Shares of Circle have rocketed more than 600% since its initial public offering on June 5. Meanwhile, Coinbase is on pace for a 50% monthly gain, its best month since November and its first three-month rally since the end of 2023. Shares added more than 2% on Thursday.

Investors this week were watching Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who was on Capitol Hill for his semiannual testimony to Congress. Powell is facing increasing pressure both from President Donald Trump and multiple White House officials to lower interest rates, as well as two key Fed officials who have said they will likely favor a rate cut as soon as July – which could dampen Circle’s earnings. The company earns interest income on the reserves backing USDC, which are primarily held in cash at banks and short-term U.S. Treasury securities.

They’re also watching progress on the GENIUS (short for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins) Act, which seeks to establish a regulatory framework for the use of stablecoins. The bill passed the Senate last week and now heads to the House of Representatives. The House has its own stablecoin legislation in the works, called the STABLE Act.