Thesis: aml-failure, analyst: restrinct, sector: fintech.
More ... latest change: 2026-02-28 #
tags: [potential/short, source/bear-cave, analyst/restrinct]
- short
Marqueta #
Anonymous Twitter user @restrinct published on Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ — $4.43 billion), a card issuing and payment solutions company. Restrinct said that “the current business model is unsustainable” and aided by one-time pandemic tailwinds. Restrinct predicted that the company’s exposure to growth-oriented consumer startups would “now drag them down as [venture capital] dries up” and competition from other fintech companies like Stripe will continue to intensify.
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Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ — $3.09 billion) describes itself as “the world's first modern card issuing platform” that is “modernizing financial services by making the entire payment experience native and delightful.” In reality, The Bear Cave believes Marqeta is a financial platform in distress with its biggest customer, Block, and its biggest banking partner, Sutton Bank, both under the aggressively growing scrutiny of regulators. The Bear Cave further believes that Marqeta, through its partnership with Cash App, is facilitating criminal payments and becoming the preferred payment processor for child pornography.
Marqeta’s largest customer is Block (NYSE: SQ — $49.0 billion), the parent company of Cash App, which accounted for 68% of Marqeta’s revenue in 2023. Marqeta’s involvement with Cash App dates back to 2016 when Marqeta “entered into a master services agreement with Block” and “agreed to manage Block’s Cash App.” That agreement was recently renewed into 2027, although with more limited terms, and has helped propel Marqeta’s total payment processing volume to $222 billion in 2023, up from $111 billion in 2021.
This is not the first. Spruce Point released an updated report on them in April 2024. No action from interested parites, although, maybe eventually the dam will burst!
Last updated: 2026-03-07 by automated standardization process