Stripe-Acquired Bridge and Privy Expand Open Stablecoin Issuance Platform

Stripe 收购的 Bridge 与 Privy 拓展开放式稳定币发行平台 GENIUS 法案的提出消除了人们感知到的监管风险，使全球金融科技公司能够绕过垄断性的本地银行轨道，并通过发行自主稳定币获取 4% 的收益率。 本次讨论梳理了快速演进的稳定币格局，重点强调了 Bridge 和 Privy 等平台如何通过开源全球金融技术栈，来支持跨境支付和嵌入式数字资产账户。创始人们分析了 Tether 的市场主导地位、欧洲 MiCA 带来的监管现状变化，以及推动金融科技公司和企业财务部门发行自主稳定币的战略优势。他们还深入探讨了 Tempo 等专为支付设计的区块链的技术演进、加密社区内部激烈的阵营化倾向，以及与 Stripe 的联手将如何加速实现其统一愿景。最终，他们预测在未来几年中，稳定币基础设施将实现大规模扩张，并无缝融入日常全球商业的底层运作之中。 稳定币的作用类似于“资金领域的星链（Starlink）”，它创造了一个链上资本可即时高效流动的零重力环境，尽管仍需物理地面站（法币出入金通道）的支持。 (0:00) 目前稳定币在现实世界中的主要交易量来自跨境企业支付、全球资产回流（如 SpaceX）以及新兴市场作为通胀对冲手段的美元持有，而非本地国内消费者零售。 (6:39) 稳定币将全球业务扩张从成本高昂的 $N^2$ 级区域整合难题，简化为具备 $N$ 架构的开源金融技术栈，让开发者能够利用嵌入式钱包部署全球多币种账户。 (12:11) 尽管 Tether (USDT) 采用自身保留 100% 利息收益的 0/100 模式，但新兴市场消费者对其展现出了强烈的显示偏好，这表明品牌知名度、流动性网络效应和通胀对冲需求胜过了收益激励。 (20:19) 从用户自持钱包转向应用专用嵌入式钱包的变革，极大提升了主流用户的使用体验，但也带来了各服务间资金碎片化的挑战，从而催生了对统一资产控制层的需求。 (17:21)

Following their acquisition by Stripe, Bridge founder Zach Abrams and Privy founder Henri Stern argue that stablecoins and embedded wallets are shifting from speculative trading tools into open-source core infrastructure for global payments and corporate finance. Cross-Border Utility Driving Real-World Adoption (6:39) Abrams and Stern argue that the primary traction for stablecoins exists outside domestic retail, concentrating instead on cross-border payments, corporate treasury repatriation, and inflation hedges in emerging markets. For example, Colombian fintech Zulu used Bridge APIs to convert pesos into stablecoins and then into US dollars more cheaply than traditional rails, while SpaceX relies on stablecoins to convert local receipts from Africa and Latin America back into US dollars. Local crypto exchanges have effectively created an alternative foreign exchange market, though the speakers note that liquidity spreads currently widen on massive transfers, making the mechanism most advantageous for small to medium flows. The adoption pattern resembles a sigmoid curve, where international consumers hedging against local currency depreciation and high-volume US institutional traders anchor the market. Tether (USDT) operates akin to a hedge fund keeping 100% of yield while paying 0% to users, yet it retains a powerful brand moat in emerging economies because users prioritize holding liquid dollar-equivalent assets over depreciating domestic fiat currencies. Unbundling Monopolies via Open-Source Architecture (12:11) Traditional global expansion requires building bespoke connections across heavily concentrated foreign banking systems dominated by three to eight conservative institutions with little interest in enabling startup competitors. Stablecoins and embedded wallets simplify this architecture from an exponential integration challenge into an open-source financial stack where a business only requires a wallet and relevant stablecoins to operate a multi-currency platform. Stern notes this lets early-stage fintechs construct global banking capabilities in a single year—a process that historically took neobanks a decade. Simultaneously, embedded wallets invert the historical model where users manually managed external keys. Companies can embed self-custodial accounts directly within apps, similar to how platforms manage driver vehicle financing. While this improves consumer user experience, it creates asset fragmentation across disparate services, leading Stern to argue that the next infrastructural requirement is a programmatic control plane to coordinate funds across multiple applications. Specialized Blockchain Rails and Payment Bottlenecks (34:37) General-purpose blockchains have proven poorly suited for commercial payments due to architectural choices that introduce failure points and friction. For instance, developers distributing US government humanitarian aid in Latin America faced an 18-hour delay for tens of thousands of payments because transactions had to be sent serially, requiring manual retries and nonce adjustments. Furthermore, certain networks charge up to 30 cents just to prime an address to accept USDC and require volatile native tokens to pay gas fees. To bridge this gap, newer networks like Tempo are being designed as payment-specific chains featuring native batch processing and transaction prioritization, though Abrams acknowledges they face the long-term challenge of decentralizing their validator sets. At the wallet interface level, technical workarounds remain necessary: during a real-time card transaction, Privy must implement an account-level balance freeze mechanism before posting to the underlying blockchain to prevent potential double-spend attacks. Open Issuance and Corporate Treasury Integration The passage of the US GENIUS Act significantly lowered perceived institutional risk, encouraging businesses to move beyond the traditional USDC and Tether duopoly. Abrams expects enterprises holding idle balances to adopt open issuance platforms to launch custom stablecoins. This allows them to capture the roughly 4% yield on underlying assets rather than forfeiting it to third-party issuers, while insulating themselves from sudden platform risks like redemption fees or arbitrary policy changes. For enterprise treasuries, tokenizing internal balances simplifies global movement. Instead of routing capital across multiple jurisdictions and manual SWIFT settlements over days, multinational companies can instantly transfer funds internally between digital wallets using their own stablecoins. Over time, distinct branded stablecoins are expected to operate transparently in the background, converting seamlessly between businesses without requiring consumer-facing awareness. Stripe's Integration Strategy and Future Infrastructure (60:03) Privy and Bridge chose to join Stripe to compress decade-long roadmaps into execution-focused timelines, combining embedded key management, stablecoin orchestration, and traditional fiat rails. Stripe executives view early-stage crypto acquisitions not as cost-cutting mergers, but as high-upside product bets analogous to early tech acquisitions like YouTube or Android, while intentionally avoiding premature standardization that could stifle startup velocity. Over the next several years, the leaders expect the distinct boundary between crypto and conventional financial rails to dissolve as apps like Felix Pago facilitate stablecoin-backed remittances without overt crypto branding. However, whether the term 'stablecoin' will fully fade from language like AJAX and solid-state drives, or remain a recognized category like computing hardware, remains an active debate among the founders. While the speakers forecast a hundredfold increase in stablecoin transaction volume, key uncertainties remain regarding how European MiCA enforcement will reshape the market, whether specialized chains can maintain decentralization, and how the industry will resolve token value capture.

Stripe 首席执行官 Patrick Collison 与被收购方 Bridge 创始人 Zach Abrams、Privy 创始人 Henri Stern 强调，稳定币正成为重构跨境支付与企业财资的“开源金融堆栈”，而非消费端炒作工具。随着嵌入式钱包普及与专用支付链落地，稳定币技术终将克服交互摩擦，如 AJAX 般无形融入全球商业底层。 跨国结算与新兴市场的美元偏好 (6:39) 针对稳定币缺乏日常消费场景的质疑，Zach Abrams 与 Henri Stern 指出其实际爆发点集中于跨境资金流转与新兴市场的财富储备。传统金融常以无法在酒吧刷卡消费表示怀疑，但 Bridge 早期客户如哥伦比亚 Zulu 已通过其 API 将比索转为稳定币并兑付美元，清算速度与成本显著优于传统通道；SpaceX 亦借助 Bridge 将非洲与拉美收取的 Starlink 本地收入转换为稳定币并汇回美国。新兴市场本土交易所的兴起使稳定币成为高效的替代外汇市场，但在 1 亿美元规模以上的大额交易中，加密价差仍会走阔。 此外，全球稳定币展现出强烈的“美元偏好”。尽管非美法币体量巨大，非美稳定币份额仍极小。Henri Stern 将 Tether 戏称为截留 100% 收益的“0/100 对冲基金”，但海外用户依然首选 Tether，因为在年通胀可能侵蚀 25% 资产的地区，稳定获取美元流动性的诉求压倒了一切。 开源金融堆栈与嵌入式控制面 (12:11) 传统新银行（如 Revolut 或 Klarna）曾耗费十年针对多国银行构建复杂的定制接口，而稳定币与嵌入式钱包将全球化架构简化为同一层面的模块组合。Zach Abrams 认为这实质上“开源了金融技术堆栈”，使初创公司在一年内即可搭建多币种银行体系。Henri Stern 解释，Privy 改变了传统 Web3 要求用户随身携带独立钱包的高门槛交互，转而将自托管账户原生嵌入应用内，极大降低了用户认知负担。 针对多应用内嵌钱包引发的资产碎片化困境，Privy 提出构建类似于传统金融中 Fiserv 等银行核心系统（Bank Core）的可编程跨应用“控制面”，在保留用户底层密码学私钥所有权的同时统一调度资产。在实时支付方面，二人展示了基于 Solana 链上 USDC 余额结算的 Visa 卡交易；为防范毫秒级连续扣款导致的双花攻击，Privy 在钱包账户层预先执行冻结逻辑，脱离公链确认延迟实现风控。 专用支付链破局与价值捕获困境 (34:37) 区块链历经了激励型 P2P 网络、以太坊图灵完备世界计算机，以及当下的扩展与专业化三个阶段。现有通用链在商业支付上暴露了严重缺陷：例如部分网络要求地址预先消耗约 30 美分进行“预热”才可接收 USDC，且需持有波动性代币作为 Gas 费。在向拉美发放数万笔人道主义援助款的实操中，受制于串行处理和高失败率，工程师耗时 18 小时手动排查重发才完成打款。 因此，以 Tempo 为代表的支付专用区块链通过内置代币代付 Gas、批量交易与支付优先通道应运而生。但专用链也引发了关于牺牲去中心化与监管套利的行业争议。此外，加密领域面临“价值创造与价值捕获脱节”的矛盾：以太坊创造了庞大生态效用，但在代币持有者的价值捕获上表现受限；相比之下，Solana 在效用创造与捕获间达成高度一致，而比特币的模型则最为纯粹。 监管拐点下的企业稳定币与财资代币化 (48:39) 美国 GENIUS 法案的通过为稳定币扫清了关键政策疑虑，催生了开放发行平台的兴起。在 Tether 与 USDC 长期双寡头垄断的格局下，越来越多坐拥沉淀资金的企业出于经济效益与控制权考量加速自建稳定币。在经济层面，拥有巨额稳定币沉淀的金融科技企业若发行自营资产，可直接捕获底层约 4% 的国债利息收益；在战略层面，企业可规避第三方突然调高销毁费用或限制赎回带来的平台风险，避免重蹈社交游戏厂商 Zynga 受制于 Facebook 规则的覆辙。 在企业财资方面，传统跨国集团在内部调拨资金时面临冗长且昂贵的 SWIFT 多国中转流程（如美国经爱尔兰、新加坡转至巴西）。未来财务主管将通过财资代币化与内部钱包网络，以专有稳定币一键完成全球调拨，既保留底层收益又实现资金隔离。最终，数以万计的专有稳定币将在后台实现无缝互操作。 Stripe整合战略与技术的无形化终局 (61:24) Stripe 收购 Bridge 与 Privy 旨在将其传统法币网络与稳定币编排、专有发行及嵌入式钱包深度捆绑，将原需十年的业务探索期压缩至两年。Stripe 将此交易对标谷歌对 YouTube、Android 及 Google Maps 的早期收购，力图在保持初创企业敏捷文化的同时避免大公司的过度标准化改造。双方领导层一致认为加密经济与常规经济正加速融合，如跨境汇款应用 Felix Pago 虽完全依赖稳定币运行，但在产品界面上对加密术语只字不提。 关于稳定币的长期形态，行业存在显性化与无形化之争。演讲者认为稳定币最终将类似于网页技术中的 AJAX 或 iPod 采用固态硬盘的演进历程：技术在大幅改善体验后淡出公共讨论语境，成为无感知的全球基础设施。即便未来五到十年稳定币交易规模增长 100 倍，“稳定币”这一称谓本身也很可能会逐渐退居后台。 本期对话确立了稳定币正在从加密边缘投机品演变为全球底层生产性金融工具的趋势。然而，这一愿景仍面临多项未决挑战：支付专用链在高性能与去中心化验证集之间的权衡、欧洲 MiCA 法规正式执行后的合规不确定性、大额资金跨国清算中链上外汇流动性价差的放大，以及内嵌钱包导致的资产碎片化调度难题。这些结构性瓶颈的突破节奏，将直接决定稳定币能否最终兑现“货币版星链”的承诺。

[0:00] Zach Abrams: everybody who's sitting on top of money [0:00] Zach Abrams: Starlink for... money [0:00] Zach Abrams: zero gravity [0:00] Zach Abrams: ground stations [0:00] Zach Abrams: carbon dating [3:49] PhD [12:11] Henri Stern: fintech super apps [12:11] Zach Abrams: You kind of open source your financial stack [12:11] revealed preference [12:11] Henri Stern: 0/100 hedge fund [17:21] control plane [18:49] fine, but it could be bad [27:13] cash money [47:17] I think being part of a leper colony for long enough creates really strong bonds of kinship with others. And then on top of that, you've got money. [49:47] Everybody who's sitting on top of money... all money at rest. [60:03] Zach Abrams: This is like not real. [61:24] freewheeling [61:24] standardization machines [61:24] 1 plus 1 equals maybe 2, but probably less than 2 [67:14] running like an absolute banshee [67:14] who's on first [71:06] stablecoin sandwiches [71:06] so cute [71:06] Bitcoin grows one death at a time

[0:00] You brought your own beer selection? [0:01] Yeah, as an international company, [0:02] I felt like you should have representatives [0:04] of different countries. [0:05] Okay. Have you had Guinness? [0:07] I have, and I did not remember it fondly, [0:10] Who listening to this should be, like, [0:11] I should issue a stablecoin? [0:12] I mean, everybody who's sitting on top of money, [0:15] that's the market, all money at rest. [0:18] Stablecoins are like Starlink for, you know, money. [0:21] Once it's in zero gravity, it's super efficient [0:23] to actually move the data around and move the money around. [0:26] But the ground stations on the ground have to be built. [0:29] It feels like I walked into a college dorm. [0:31] Exactly. And do you want [0:32] an alcoholic or non-alcoholic Guinness? [0:36] I feel like there's a wrong answer to this and— [0:38] Yeah, I'm not... [0:39] You're both checking it out. Waiting for you to decide. [0:42] Stablecoins are the [0:43] biggest financial innovation happening right now. [0:45] So I invited two experts for a pint. [0:47] Zach Abrams, founder of Bridge, [0:48] the leading stablecoin orchestration platform, [0:50] and Henri Stern who founded Privy, [0:52] the leading crypto wallet infrastructure. [0:54] Both these companies recently joined [0:56] Stripe via acquisitions [0:57] and they're in the thick of helping both crypto companies [0:59] and regular companies build with stablecoins, cheers. [1:03] Yeah, cheers. Cheers. [1:06] Okay, lots to talk about with both Bridge and Privy. [1:09] I realized with Bridge, when you started it, it was 2023. [1:13] Was that like at the very nadir of the doom loop for crypto? [1:17] We started right before then. [1:20] So we started right when it was interesting, [1:22] which maybe made it worse. [1:23] Which is when? [1:24] Yeah. We did not know [1:26] it was going to be horrible. This was, it wasn't 20... [1:28] 2023 is when we launched our APIs. [1:30] 2022 is when we start, Sean and I started the company. [1:33] Okay. And raised money. [1:35] And then immediately after we raised money, [1:37] Terra LUNA happened. [1:38] Ah. And then the whole space [1:40] was nuked and then FTX happened and it was nuked again. [1:44] Okay. So remind me of the vibes here. [1:47] Like 2022 was still like, [1:49] that was pre-FTX blowup? [1:52] Pre-FTX. Yeah. [1:53] The things were going really well, it was [1:58] before like when the Ukraine War happened, [2:01] the whole sort of economy started to shift. [2:04] And it was [2:06] before that, VC funding was really high, [2:09] and then by June, it was gone. [2:12] Everywhere was, everything had, you know, [2:14] most of the space had evaporated, [2:16] but especially in the crypto space. [2:18] And at the time, to mark this in crypto years, [2:22] when we started the company, [2:23] the first idea we had was using your bank account [2:27] to acquire NFTs. [2:28] So it was the NFT phase. [2:30] Right. Of— [2:31] It's the carbon dating of the company [2:32] where it's like, okay. It is. [2:36] And that's where almost all the volume was, was NFT drops. [2:39] The other thing I was going to say just about Bridge's [2:41] beginnings is we had an early all-hands at Privy [2:46] where it was a Lunch and Learn [2:47] and one of our teammates, Max, worked with Zach prior. [2:50] Yeah. And so Zach came [2:51] to pitch Bridge to Privy. [2:53] Yep. Being like, [2:54] "We're going to work on stablecoins." [2:54] And we were like, "What is this guy talking about? [2:56] This is not a market, it does not exist." [2:59] Well, on our side, when the NFT market blew up, [3:03] our initial product went away [3:06] and we were sort of pivoting around to try [3:08] to figure out what we wanted to do. [3:10] One of our first ideas was to build Wallets as a service. [3:14] And which was, is obviously your business at the time. [3:18] I don't think that you, maybe you existed, [3:20] but at least it wasn't— [3:22] Irrelevant. You weren't, [3:23] you weren't on our radar at all. [3:25] And I remember looking at the space [3:27] and being like, "No, that's a tar pit." [3:32] There's nothing for us to build there. [3:34] It's so deeply competitive. [3:35] And then we quickly moved on [3:36] and went our way to stablecoins. [3:39] So for me, looking back at like, [3:40] you went through the exact same thing, [3:42] saw that same idea, [3:44] saw that same opportunity and it was like, yes, [3:46] this is the thing and obviously built something [3:48] really good there. [3:49] And so how do you describe [3:50] what Bridge does today to people? [3:52] We enable developers to build with stablecoins [3:55] and it could be anything they want to build. [3:57] So we help folks like SpaceX use stablecoins [4:01] to move money across border. [4:02] We help folks like DolarApp build neobanks [4:05] on top of stablecoins. [4:06] We help folks like Felix Pago [4:08] build cross-border payments experiences with stablecoins. [4:11] We help treasurers rebalance [4:13] their internal funds with stablecoins. [4:16] Stablecoins are sort of this broad payment platform on top [4:19] of which a bunch of new payment experiences can be built. [4:21] And we build APIs to let people use it. [4:23] I want to come back to all those use cases. [4:24] But first to catch up. So how about Privy? [4:28] Where in the crypto hype and then bust [4:31] and then re-hype cycle did you guys start Privy? [4:33] Peak hype. [4:37] And so I'd worked in crypto prior [4:39] and I think I came out of [4:41] that experience thinking this space is incredible. [4:43] We have these rails that can be used to sort [4:45] of codify ownership on the web in a way [4:47] that hasn't been possible before. [4:49] But also no one cares about building like products [4:52] that people actually want to use. [4:53] And so this is a endless space where we'll work on protocols [4:56] but never actually, no offense to protocols, [4:57] which I think are deeply useful, [4:58] but only if they got carried through all the way to— [4:59] Yes, you need the actual [5:01] end customer use cases, yeah. Exactly. [5:03] And so I left [5:04] and I think, you know, peak crypto brought me back which is, [5:06] I was like I want to work on data tokenization, [5:09] which was the initial idea. [5:10] A good place to do that was crypto. [5:11] So our first version [5:12] of it was can we build data tokenization [5:15] that would enable crypto companies to privately KYC people? [5:19] Which is a very 2021 idea of like, you know, [5:22] these private pools of liquidity [5:24] that you need to be KYC for. [5:25] Oh my gosh. I remember— And that led us [5:27] to wallets, which was, this is really hard, [5:30] because people don't have the means of actually signing [5:32] for things and most users don't want to get a wallet. [5:35] And so we were like, we should solve that problem first [5:37] and then we can come back to it. [5:38] And that's how we got to Privy. [5:40] Hmm, and so how do you describe [5:41] to people what Privy does today? [5:43] We build basically digital asset accounts. [5:46] Wallets are the means of controlling crypto, stablecoins, [5:50] any digital asset. [5:51] And so we build APIs, [5:53] so developers can build basically digital asset accounts [5:56] directly into their app rather than requiring a user [5:59] to go outside the app to get an account. [6:01] You can get it as part [6:02] of your neobank's payments platform, consumer app, [6:04] and those are the people that we serve. [6:07] But basically we give you the means [6:08] of controlling assets in-app. [6:09] Yes, so is it basically no one plans to be disrupted [6:13] by stablecoins, funnily enough, [6:15] and so if you're a remittance app, if you're a neobank, [6:19] if you're any of these guys, [6:20] you want to natively build digital asset functionality [6:23] into your app [6:25] and you guys provide the wallet infrastructure [6:27] for them to do that? [6:28] Exactly, and I think the goal is [6:29] to say like you shouldn't need a PhD [6:32] or deep interest in, you know, [6:33] self-sovereignty in order to want to engage in this space. [6:36] You should be able to do it as easily [6:37] as you do anything else on the web, [6:39] and we make that possible. [6:39] When I talk to business people who are not [6:42] in stablecoins, and especially maybe say people [6:46] who are in fintech but not in stablecoins, [6:48] they say, "I'm sure hearing a lot about stablecoins, [6:52] but it doesn't seem like they're actually happening yet [6:55] in a real way." [6:56] And obviously the Stripe, Bridge, Privy house view informed [6:59] by all the data we're seeing in our customer usage [7:01] is like, no, they're happening. [7:02] Like they're maybe not happening for you yet in a big way, [7:05] but they're happening at an industry level. [7:06] But I think people have a hard time visualizing [7:08] 'cause they say, "Well I don't, you know, [7:10] pay at the bar using stablecoins." [7:11] It's just I am myself not paying day to day, [7:14] therefore I just don't see it. [7:16] Maybe you guys can level set [7:16] for people what's actually working? [7:19] 'Cause like consumer retail payments in the US are not, [7:21] you know, the hotbed of stablecoin innovation. [7:24] Just where is the stablecoin stuff happening today? [7:26] The first use case was predominantly cross-border payments [7:31] And it was taking money [7:33] and, you know, our first developer was this team called Zulu [7:37] and they were a company based in Columbia [7:40] and they were taking Colombian pesos, [7:42] converting them into stablecoins, [7:43] sending those stablecoins through the Bridge APIs, [7:45] converting them into dollars. [7:46] So you'd go from Colombian pesos [7:48] to US dollars via stablecoins. [7:51] And for a bunch of reasons, it was cheaper and faster, [7:54] and they showed us the cross-border payment opportunity, [7:56] because before them, I actually had no idea [7:59] that stablecoins would be useful for cross-border payments. [8:02] And then since then, we've seen like neobanks, [8:05] like DolarApp, and so on, become very, [8:07] very successful building on top of us. [8:09] And they're a global US dollar app built on stablecoins [8:13] that can be used all across LATAM. [8:15] Okay, so cross-border payments. [8:17] Yeah. Dollar balances, [8:19] dollar holdings for people [8:22] in emerging markets, anything else? [8:25] After that, we've seen, so SpaceX came to us, [8:28] they're selling Starlink all over the world. [8:31] And so as a result they're collecting local, [8:34] so people are paying for Starlink [8:36] and in, you know, dozens, [8:38] many dozens of different countries with their cards, [8:41] so they're getting local currencies in all these countries [8:43] and they need to repatriate all those funds to the US so, [8:45] because they fund their business out of the US. [8:47] And so they started using us to bring currencies back [8:51] to the US and so they would take money out of a bunch [8:55] of different countries in Africa and LATAM [8:56] and send it to the US via stablecoins. [8:58] How do they do the initial conversion from, you know, [9:02] Rwandan local currency [9:03] or, you know, bolivars or what have you, to US dollars? [9:08] So we do that for them. [9:10] But the way that we do that [9:11] is that in almost all these markets now, [9:14] there are very robust FX markets effectively [9:18] that exist between, you know, [9:20] a stablecoin like USDC or USDT and the local currency. [9:23] And this was like the last, you know, [9:25] with each one of these crypto cycles, [9:27] like more of the infrastructure gets built [9:29] that enables the next thing. [9:31] And in the last crypto cycle, [9:33] the big thing that happened [9:34] was that all these local exchanges started. [9:38] So you had local exchanges in LATAM, [9:40] in Africa, in the Middle East, the Philippines, [9:43] all begin to get scale and those exchanges are dominated [9:46] by stablecoin volume and they've effectively [9:48] just become alternative FX markets. [9:52] What's the remaining gap like, [9:53] is there the biggest gap between marketing and reality, [9:57] of this is doable today? [9:57] I would say that the biggest thing [9:59] that we see in the market is that these FX markets, [10:04] so, you know, converting between Mexican peso and USDC [10:08] or Mexican peso and dollar. [10:10] Some of these fiat markets [10:11] are phenomenally deep and phenomenally efficient. [10:14] So someone could send $100 million to Mexico [10:18] and convert it into pesos without moving the market. [10:21] But the stablecoin market is not as deep. [10:24] So it's hyper-efficient... the interesting dynamic at play [10:28] is that in the fiat FX markets, as you get bigger, [10:32] your pricing comes down. [10:34] And the crypto markets, as you get bigger, [10:37] your pricing goes up, because the spreads widen. [10:40] So the market is way more efficient for startups. [10:43] I see. Over time, [10:44] the markets get deeper and deeper, [10:47] and so those startups are scaling and scaling and scaling. [10:49] We see that with like Felix Pago and others. [10:51] I think what you're highlighting with the effects dynamic [10:54] is underappreciated in crypto being a platform on which, [10:59] you know, it's like a shelling point for everyone [11:01] to come together to create better things. [11:02] And so we now have just more efficient ways [11:05] to convert bolivars to US dollars than we had before. [11:09] It's not particularly crypto native, that particular leg. [11:13] But crypto is load-bearing in bringing everyone together. [11:16] That's kind of what we see I think in our market, [11:17] which is to say like, you know, what my analogy is, [11:20] is stablecoins, it's a very self-serving software [11:23] to hardware analogy, but like stablecoins are like Starlink [11:26] for, you know, money Where you need the ground stations [11:29] to actually, you know, to beam the pipes up from, you know, [11:31] co-ax or fiber onto [11:34] line of sight, like zero gravity like space. [11:36] Once it's at zero gravity, it's super efficient [11:38] to actually move the data around and move the money around. [11:41] But the ground stations on the ground have to be built. [11:43] And at least where we take care [11:44] of the market is mostly after you guys have done [11:46] the really hard work of converting fiat to crypto, [11:49] then the question is [11:50] what can you actually do with the crypto? [11:52] And that's where, you know, [11:53] obviously wallets and those are the powers [11:55] that people will come to us for. [11:57] That analogy may be deeper than you think, [11:59] because, do you know in the Starlink network [12:01] where they started with more ground stations [12:03] and then over time, [12:04] they're enabling more satellite-to-satellite connectivity [12:07] to reduce the need for ground stations? [12:08] And so it could be a pretty deep analogy. [12:11] I mean, okay, same question to you, Henri, where, [12:14] just what are people actually using stablecoins for? [12:17] For us it's, so a lot of it is basically, once, you know, [12:20] wallets as the account system are kind of like [12:22] the control plan, [12:23] once you have the stablecoin, what can you do with it? [12:25] And so I think the majority of what people use us for [12:27] is, one, specifically the holding. [12:29] I want to hold these assets [12:30] and I want to put these assets to work. [12:31] So it's opening up credit markets and yield generally [12:34] for people who otherwise didn't have access before. [12:37] And one of the things that's like, you know, [12:38] shocking about USDT is like USDT [12:40] is like a 0/100 hedge fund. [12:42] Like they keep all of the carry for you, [12:45] which speaks to how like much people want stable currency [12:48] across the world. [12:49] And then the other thing that we're seeing, [12:50] to your point about startups, [12:52] is kind of the emergence [12:53] of like fintech super apps. [12:54] A lot of early-stage companies [12:57] that now have the actual stack to build everything [13:00] that has taken, you know, the neobanks of the world, [13:02] the Revoluts, the Klarnas, [13:03] decades to build and they can do in a year [13:05] because everything's ready for them here. [13:07] So those are the sort of two types [13:08] of use cases which is I want to build like bank accounts [13:10] that are fully global that work [13:12] for any consumer once they can get their hands on a crypto. [13:14] And then I want to make sure that these assets are put [13:17] to work either through traditional markets [13:18] or by actually investing in other assets. [13:20] Yeah, that's what, I mean, [13:21] one of the things I'm most optimistic about [13:24] is you have, like the financial world before, [13:27] if you wanted to expand into a bunch [13:29] of different countries, [13:30] you had to uniquely build your US infrastructure, [13:32] uniquely build your European infrastructure, [13:34] uniquely build your Mexican infrastructure. [13:36] And the next company that came around had [13:38] to do the same thing. [13:39] You know, and then the next company around had to come [13:41] and do the same thing and, you know, [13:43] now what's possible is you have a wallet [13:47] and one person just needs to build a US dollar stablecoin [13:51] and then you throw it into the wallet [13:52] and now you have a US balance [13:54] and then someone else in the world needs [13:55] to build a naira stablecoin. [13:57] And now you have naira. [13:58] Someone else in the world, JPMorgan, JPY stablecoin. [14:01] Now you have— [14:02] Yes, previously it was N squared and now it's just N. [14:04] Yeah, exactly, you kind of open source [14:06] your financial stack. [14:08] And, you know, it's like very early days in this, [14:12] and to get here, we need local stablecoins, [14:15] and right now stablecoins are dominated by US dollars, [14:17] but you open source your financial stack [14:18] and the companies who are building on top of this [14:20] are behind today, [14:22] but basically making a bet that the cumulative power [14:24] of all the builders in the world is going to create [14:26] a better application over N years. [14:28] Why have the local stablecoins been so slow? [14:30] 'Cause like, you know, US dollars are not that big a share [14:35] of global currency balances, [14:37] but, you know, US dollars are 95 plus percent [14:41] of stablecoin balances. [14:42] What's going on with the euros [14:43] and the Canadian dollars and the Swiss francs and the— [14:47] My theory is that this is like reveal preference. [14:49] US dollars are not that big a share for— [14:52] We're seeing the true preference— [14:54] Exactly, whereas the true preference, [14:55] if you go to a country that that, you know, [14:57] I can think of many, [14:59] and you have a crisp $100 bill, [15:00] that's worth a lot more than like any other currency. [15:02] I've traveled to places where I have euros and dollars [15:04] and people are like, "No, give me the dollars first." [15:06] So I believe you in the emerging market context [15:09] where, you know, clearly if you're in Turkey [15:10] and you can hold like Turkish lira [15:12] or US dollars, that's not even really a contest. [15:15] I don't, as a European, I'm not that unhappy holding euros. [15:19] I'm not that concerned about it. [15:20] And so euro stablecoins, Swiss franc stablecoins, [15:23] just other major market stablecoins should be a lot bigger. [15:26] But this is where, I mean, I don't know, [15:28] the two dichotomies to me is like US versus global [15:30] and then it's like B2B versus B2C. [15:32] I think the majority of the stablecoin market today [15:34] is B2B and that'll change, [15:36] but like the reality is basically where it is B2C, [15:39] it's emerging markets, [15:40] hence the US dollar preference, [15:42] and where it's B2B, it's American companies, [15:43] hence the US dollar preference. [15:45] So since supposedly it'll even out over time, [15:47] but at least for now, [15:49] it seems to be a real preference that like dollars are— [15:52] I think that's probably true. [15:53] I think that the majority of... [15:56] the two main use cases for stablecoins for, [15:59] or the main use case for stablecoins [16:00] for many years was trading. [16:03] And in market, everything is just quoted in dollars, [16:05] and there is a real network effect. [16:07] So, you know, as more and more liquidity was built [16:09] around a few dollars that that makes sense, [16:11] I think over time, you will see more of these stablecoins. [16:15] But ultimately those same network effects are going to, [16:19] you know, I think perpetuate, [16:21] I think you're going to see while like physic... [16:23] you know, fiat US dollars are X percent [16:25] of the global market, stablecoin US dollars are going to be, [16:29] you know, way more forever. [16:31] But I do think we, [16:32] and I hope we get to local stablecoins being 15%-20% [16:33] of the market, [16:35] because you need them transactionally in all these markets [16:38] and you want to have alternative FX markets [16:40] and you want people to be able to store in local currencies. [16:42] I think that's going to create much better experiences. [16:45] But we're not there yet. [16:46] And to your point, or just about the history of this, [16:48] Tether got started as a like deposit asset for trading. [16:51] You didn't want to basically have [16:52] to trade out back to dollars. [16:53] You didn't want to hold your position over, you know, night. [16:56] So you would move into the stablecoin [16:57] And they couldn't get dollars [16:58] And and they... Exactly. [16:59] But I think like it's a 24/7 currency. [17:01] You don't have to like wait to move. [17:04] So I think, you know, why should you care if you're working [17:07] on a business today that broadly handles money [17:09] but is like, you know, my money works fine. [17:11] Yes, yes. Is like, [17:12] I think the UX is going to be much better for consumers [17:14] to actually have an always-on, like money rail. [17:17] Beyond that there's [17:21] a reality which is, [17:23] you get to have a relationship with your user [17:25] that's much longer lasting. [17:27] Ostensibly Uber's done this where Uber drivers get financing [17:30] for their cars via Uber. [17:31] But now any company can really do this where instead [17:33] of like paying out and then the relationship ends [17:36] because the bank now owns the user, [17:38] they can maintain a relationship [17:39] with the user via these accounts that they enable. [17:41] So every company ostensibly [17:43] has a neobanking arm that they can build into this [17:45] to create a much tighter loop of benefits [17:47] to their constituency. [17:49] But what's the long-term equilibrium here? [17:51] Because presumably consumers don't want [17:52] their money spread out across, you know, [17:54] 15 different services they interact with or do they, I mean? [17:58] I mean, credit card chopping such [17:59] as I see it on Reddit subthreads [18:01] would would say that maybe they do. [18:02] But I think this is the entire point, [18:04] and where at least Privy gets dinged a lot [18:05] with embedded wallets is it used [18:08] to be the wallet was the users [18:10] and you would carry it with yourself from, [18:11] like app to app to app, [18:12] and you had a single point where you held everything. [18:15] And that's great for, you know, [18:16] centralization of these controls. [18:18] It's really bad for UX, [18:19] because it means you're running third-party software [18:20] on every site you go to. [18:22] We've enabled an inversion of that whereby the app [18:24] can serve their own self-custodial wallets [18:26] as part of the app experience. [18:27] But it creates this fragmentation. [18:29] And at least to me, [18:31] this is the real opportunity [18:32] for building these like money networks [18:33] where if you can help users make sense of [18:36] that fragmentation, where even though you have your assets [18:38] in 15 different apps, each app on your phone is a bank. [18:43] You have some control plane [18:44] where you can manage those assets between all of them. [18:46] It's not that fragmented if it's programmable, [18:48] That's the hope. [18:49] Yeah, I think that [18:53] this question is like overwhelmingly going to be dictated [18:56] by regulatory requirements. [18:58] I think in like a free market, [18:59] then we would resolve to like 90% US dollars or something. [19:04] Is MiCA good, bad, fine? [19:06] I would say it seems to be fine, but it could be bad. [19:10] And I think the thing with all [19:12] of these like regulatory requirements [19:14] are that they're sort of like untested. [19:17] And so what is, [19:18] what's basically happening is there's like a few folks [19:24] who are compliant in Europe [19:26] and they're stretching it to, you know, [19:29] the regulatory requirements [19:30] to meet their, like, specific needs. [19:32] And then over time they're going to clamp down [19:35] and what it looks like [19:36] to be compliant in Europe will probably be different, [19:38] very different in five years versus today. [19:40] Oh, interesting, so you're saying, [19:41] we haven't seen MiCA enforcement yet? [19:43] Yeah. And that will inform [19:44] people's views of MiCA? [19:45] Yes, exactly, like the way that the USDC is complying [19:50] with the requirements are very different [19:52] than the way local European issuers [19:54] are complying with the requirements. [19:56] The interesting, like Delta for us, at least, [19:58] was we saw European customers trying [20:01] a lot more things under MiCA [20:02] because at least they knew ostensibly where the lines were. [20:06] Yeah. Which wasn't true [20:07] before GENIUS, and now we're seeing that with GENIUS [20:09] where people are willing to engage. [20:10] So I would argue that compared to [20:11] what existed before, [20:12] which was no clarity and no willingness to engage, [20:16] something is better than nothing— [20:17] It's been very good for the European crypto. [20:18] Totally. Yeah. [20:19] You described Tether as a 0/100 hedge fund. [20:22] I hadn't heard that before, [20:23] but it feels to me that paying out 0% [20:27] of the yield is not the longterm equilibrium [20:31] when it comes to stablecoins. [20:33] And so what happens to Tether? [20:37] So I went to to to Kenya [20:40] on holiday a year ago [20:41] Oh, it's very widespread in emerging markets today. [20:43] And there was a poster that had a crypto app on it [20:47] and there were two logos on it. [20:48] It was Bitcoin and it was Tether. [20:50] And so I do think brand matters in a sense. [20:52] And I think like if you ask someone do you want, you know, [20:54] Tether or alternate stable, they will pick Tether. [20:57] And so I think for the most part, [20:59] and you have more views on this with open issuance, [21:00] but like there will be broad interoperability [21:03] and every app can have their own so that they can choose how [21:05] to program their stablecoin. [21:06] But I wonder if like the network effects are already [21:09] so entrenched and so powerful that maybe they're forced [21:12] to change some of how the yield management works, [21:15] but it's too far established [21:18] for it to be a complete inversion? [21:19] Yeah, I mean I think Tether's going [21:21] to be wildly successful. [21:23] I mean, it already has been. [21:25] It's like arguably one of— [21:26] They seem to be doing okay for themselves— [21:26] Yeah, one of like the most successful fintechs [21:29] in the last like three decades or something. [21:31] But I think there will be, [21:32] and continue to be, I think there is this, [21:34] like enormous network effect behind their business. [21:38] That being said, I think that pretty soon, [21:41] like in the next year, any consumer who wants access [21:45] to the risk-free rate is going to have access to it. [21:47] Yeah. And I think that is going [21:50] to create a sucking sound from some USDT, [21:56] but I also think that it's going to take the market [21:58] and expand it like materially. [22:00] Yes. What I hope happens [22:01] is that, you know, USDT grows, [22:05] but instead of it's at like 60%-70% of the market, [22:07] it becomes like 10% of the market. [22:09] The alternative point is simply like, you know, [22:11] also let's figure out the alternative. [22:12] Like the reality is you can hold Tether [22:14] or you can use 25%, [22:16] you can lose 25% of your net worth every year [22:18] by doing nothing. No, no, no, no, I agree. [22:19] It's better than the alternative. [22:19] I was just wondering what's [22:20] the longterm competitive equilibrium, [22:21] like in five years, do you think Tether pays yield? [22:23] No. Really? [22:25] No. I would take the [22:26] same side of that. Yeah, no. [22:27] Just because that is their view? [22:28] Yeah. Their worldview? [22:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [22:30] I don't think they'd have to in order to stay dominant. [22:32] Yeah, the areas where Tether is most successful, [22:35] which is in trading. [22:36] There's no need to pay yields back [22:39] and the network effects there are really material. [22:42] That being said, I think that [22:43] the trading use case was like 100% [22:46] of the market two years ago, [22:48] was 80% of the market today and, you know, [22:51] will be 5% of the market in some number of years. [22:54] We're talking about the international [22:57] adoption of stablecoins. [22:59] The way I've been explaining it [23:00] to people is I feel like it's pretty common [23:03] that you have very network-effect-y products [23:06] that are adopted first internationally [23:08] and then come into the US. [23:10] And so WhatsApp used to only be used internationally, [23:14] and then it was used by Americans [23:16] who were kind of cosmopolitan and had international friends, [23:18] you know, or like I travel abroad, you know, whatever. [23:21] It's like, you know, if you have WeChat, [23:23] it's because you know people in China. [23:24] And so for a while it was that, [23:27] and now it's more mainstream in the United States [23:29] and it's, you know, I mean it's not totally broadly used, [23:32] but it's pretty commonly used. [23:34] That feels to me the story of [23:37] how stablecoins get adopted in the United States [23:39] where you start to see some [23:40] of these network effects being used. [23:42] Is that the case or will we just see [23:44] other ways they're adopted? [23:46] I think we we're at least seeing [23:48] a complete sigmoid in terms of like [23:50] where the adoption's happening. [23:51] So you have these absolute whales, [23:53] like apps and companies that have, [23:55] call it 20,000 users, [23:57] but the users are moving millions of dollars in assets [24:00] through trading and investing [24:01] and using stablecoins heavily in the US and elsewhere. [24:04] And then on the other side, you've got all the— [24:05] So the whales are the businesses [24:07] or the customers? Or the traders. [24:08] The traders themselves. Company or the customers. [24:09] So you have very large US traders doing all [24:11] the same product stuff. Exactly. [24:12] And then on the other side, [24:13] you've got a much smaller company... [24:15] much smaller consumers abroad [24:17] and a much like wider network that you're talking about. [24:20] But I suspect you kind of see this, like, [24:21] you know, it's going to be a two-pronged strategy [24:24] where it comes in through both ends. [24:25] I think that's true but, [24:27] I mean, I think right now we see, you know, [24:29] the dynamic that you're mentioning certainly playing out. [24:32] And like a great example of this is like the Polymarkets [24:34] of the world, like global markets built [24:37] on top of stablecoins. [24:38] They're now coming into the US. [24:40] Those same markets are going to be stablecoin-oriented. [24:43] And so people are going to be able to deposit [24:44] from their bank accounts, [24:45] but it's all going to land in stablecoins, [24:46] because you want one global market. [24:49] And we're seeing the same thing with fintechs where, [24:52] you know, you have folks who are expanding internationally. [24:54] Eventually you just want one dollar balance. [24:57] You're not going to want many different dollar balances. [25:00] And I think that's like definitely the case. [25:02] I think that as we look, you know, [25:04] startups that are starting today, [25:06] even if you were just serving the US market, [25:09] it makes sense for you to build on stablecoins for, [25:12] you know, it's cheaper, it's like much faster go-to-market. [25:15] But you also know that eventually you probably will want [25:20] to go international and this is the foundation [25:22] that enables you to do that. [25:23] Everyone wants to be future-proof [25:25] and stablecoins are the only way to do that. [25:27] Yes. [25:28] Well, it's cool as a European, at least, you know, [25:30] as a French person, like it always felt tough [25:31] to see French startups because the market's too small [25:34] and like there's too many European like differences [25:36] like selling to France doesn't mean you can sell it [25:38] to Spain or Germany. [25:38] Yep. And the US [25:40] has never had that problem [25:41] because the market is like so big. [25:42] Yes. And it's kind of cool to see [25:44] that at a fintech level, [25:45] which is always kind of landlocked playing out globally. [25:48] Where there's just a much bigger opportunity [25:50] if you can build a global business from day one. [25:51] The other like amazing dynamic is that [25:55] the fintech ecosystem just overall [25:57] has been very concentrated globally. [25:59] Like in the US we don't appreciate how many banks there are [26:04] and how many of them are willing to support, you know, [26:07] all these different crazy fintech ideas [26:09] and how many of them have APIs [26:11] and, you know, lending products, [26:13] or card products or what have you. [26:14] But in some countries, [26:15] you go into a country, there's one bank. [26:17] Mm-hmm. And that bank has like [26:18] no interest in enabling you to build a fintech. [26:21] And as a result the consumers in that market [26:23] see no advancement in their financial experiences. [26:26] And so stablecoins represent like the first opportunity [26:29] for like large swaths of the world. [26:30] People in the US do not have a good mental model [26:33] for how different the banking ecosystem [26:35] in every other country is [26:37] because the US is so generous, [26:39] it's like 5,000 banks or whatever the number is currently [26:41] in the US, whereas every other banking market [26:44] has between three and eight banks, [26:47] and it's very concentrated [26:49] and generally pretty steady. [26:51] Yeah, when we were like talking to a bunch [26:55] of founders in all these different markets, [26:57] some of them would tell us like, oh, [26:59] we're getting our bank license in, [27:00] you know, whatever country. [27:01] And like in my mind I'm just like, oh, [27:02] that's like the equivalent of getting like an MTL [27:04] or something like, whatever, you know? [27:06] And in their mind they're like, no, [27:07] this is like a huge deal and now I have like [27:10] a much deeper appreciation. Appreciation. Yeah, yeah. [27:13] Who will build the successful neobank in the US? [27:17] And is it going to be a single super app [27:21] or is it actually going to get fragmented as like, you know, [27:23] there'll be more of them because it's— [27:25] Okay, it sounds like you have a thesis here. [27:28] Well, I think it's actually much more likely, [27:29] to your point about like this is open sourcing, [27:31] the like fintech stack. [27:32] Like the reality is you actually get to pick [27:34] and choose the layers at which you want to play. [27:36] You can offer credit to your consumers [27:37] or you can offer like, you know, balances to your consumer [27:39] or you can offer payments to your consumer, [27:40] but you don't have to bundle all of them [27:41] if you don't want to. [27:42] So I think we'll see like two things. [27:44] We'll see, I would argue that today the closest things [27:48] are like, I guess, call it Robinhood and Cash App, [27:51] are the closest things I see to like [27:52] a European style neobank working in the US. [27:55] I think gravity has shifted thanks to the sort [27:57] of stuff there that that crypto has enabled [27:59] and stablecoins have enabled. [28:01] And I basically wonder if it's going [28:02] to be singular platforms [28:04] or if it's just going to become a part [28:06] of the fabric of many more platforms. [28:08] I think that will happen. [28:09] But if you think concretely, [28:10] like if you measure neobanking primacy [28:13] as where does your paycheck get deposited? [28:16] Sure. Like at least in my case, [28:17] I moved to the US for college [28:18] and when I was there freshman year in college, [28:20] I set up a Bank of America account [28:22] and my Stripe paycheck to this day is like deposited [28:26] in that Bank of America account. [28:27] And like in 10 years time, [28:31] who are people getting their paychecks deposited into? [28:34] I think that the market is going to, [28:38] I think that these banks are still going to be really big. [28:41] They were, same thing happened to me. [28:44] I was on campus [28:44] and someone gave me a free Duke t-shirt to sign up [28:47] for a bank account [28:49] and I still have that bank account, you know— [28:52] They really understand the CAC to LTV dynamics. [28:55] They're like, those t-shirts are cash money. [28:57] It's like a venture type outcome for them. [29:00] Yes. [29:01] Like is banking going to be as sticky as it was [29:04] if you have a lot more competition in the market? [29:06] Which obstensibly this will, you know, engender. [29:09] Well, what I think is going to happen, [29:10] I think that most financial experiences are going [29:13] to be rebuilt on blockchains. [29:17] I think lending is going to be rebuilt on blockchains. [29:19] I think obviously like trading is going to be, [29:22] I think saving is going to be, [29:24] spending is going to be. [29:25] I think a lot of these financial experiences [29:27] are going to get rebuilt on blockchains [29:29] and they will all compound each other [29:31] to make the next generation of neobanks [29:33] that are building on top of, you know, crypto wallets, [29:37] materially better across a bunch of different, [29:40] a bunch of different dimensions. [29:41] And as a result I think there will be [29:42] a pretty material fragmentation [29:45] of the market versus where it is today. [29:47] And it's already relatively fragmented. [29:49] A very hard day for us at Privy was SVB, [29:53] which led to a stressful set of— [29:56] That was the first week we launched. [29:58] Oh my god. [30:01] Yeah, it was a long few days and we were, [30:04] you know, asked by our backers to diversify risk [30:07] a little bit more than we had. [30:08] Until then, it was our only bank account. [30:11] And so we've been billed basically like, you know, [30:15] accounts at like three different institutions [30:17] and at least the pitch for self-custody [30:18] in crypto used to say the account is yours, [30:22] the skin that you choose to take it through, [30:23] meaning the UX of the actual sort of rails, [30:25] the add-on services [30:27] that you get, all of that will come through the sleeve [30:29] that I guess you put the account in. [30:30] Yes. But the account is yours [30:32] and can be ported over and over and over again. [30:34] So I think that's one of the big questions I'm interested in [30:36] over the next decade is what is the split [30:38] of custodial versus self-custodial accounts? [30:40] So this is like a very old timey analogy, [30:41] but many people don't realize that, you know, [30:44] Chase builds their own software, you know, the big banks do. [30:47] But if you bank with a credit union [30:50] or a mid-sized bank, [30:50] they absolutely do not build their own banking software [30:53] for the ledgering and managing the accounts [30:55] and anything like that. [30:56] And there's, you know, Fiserv, there's Jack Henry, [30:59] there's First Data, there's a few companies like this [31:01] who build the bank cores as they're known. [31:03] And so the banks are actually, you know, [31:07] a balance sheet and a credit strategy [31:09] and a brand of various things [31:11] but in front of all this software that [31:14] is provided by some someone else. [31:16] And so are you saying that your vision is that [31:18] there's much more of that where you can plug in [31:21] the crypto equivalent of a bank core? [31:23] Again, this is like a total TradFi analogy, [31:24] but you can plug in the crypto equivalent [31:27] of a bank core [31:28] into a neobank or, you know, [31:31] maybe Uber and Lyft want to want to— [31:35] Maybe Uber and Lyft want to build this [31:36] for their drivers, you know, or something like that. [31:38] Is that basically your vision of where things go? [31:39] That's, I think, the hope in many ways for [31:41] where things should go or could go. [31:43] I think, you know, it's very much an open question. [31:46] It's a big part of where we feel as Privy [31:48] that we have a responsibility to try to make sure [31:51] that it's kind of an even playing field [31:52] and there are good opportunities on both sides of the aisle. [31:55] But, yeah, I think that's exactly the point. [31:57] I think the point would be the ledger [31:59] is already public, because it's on chain. [32:01] The account is really like cryptography. [32:05] It's like private keys that that people should be able [32:07] to take with them. [32:08] And accordingly, you can move the banking core yourself [32:11] as a consumer and I think [32:12] the Uber and Lyft analogy is, at this point, [32:14] a very tired crypto analogy. [32:15] I'm sure you've heard it, but the old crypto dream [32:18] was what if Uber basically enabled you [32:20] to like have a different rating system based [32:22] on where you were and a different pool [32:23] of like the core network is shared but then the actual app [32:27] and delivery mechanism for which you have [32:29] is something that you can like build on top of much, [32:31] much more easily. [32:32] Yeah, was that a woefully out-of-touch analogy [32:35] from me showing just how— [32:37] No, I've been trying to figure out [32:39] how do we explain self-custody in, [32:40] because the only self-custodial like asset is cash [32:44] and so it's very helpful actually [32:46] to have more mental models for it. [32:49] Okay, so we got one Guinness here. [32:54] Go check out, collect. [32:56] All right, this is just our regular NFC interface. [32:58] And so what payment method do you have there? [33:00] I am paying with a Fuse card which is backed [33:04] by my stablecoin balance. [33:05] So this— It's a Visa card issued [33:08] that is tethered to a balance in a Solana, [33:11] USDC on Solana balance. [33:12] Okay, so there is no bank account associated [33:14] with this card. [33:15] It is Visa backending to a Solana on-chain balance? [33:19] Exactly. [33:19] Okay, see if it works. [33:24] Please be accepted. [33:25] Sweet. You're good for it. [33:26] How does the on-chain transaction work? [33:29] Does that happen in realtime? [33:30] The stablecoins in the balance are then moved immediately [33:33] to a smart contract and then at the end of the day, [33:36] all the funds in that smart contract are then settled [33:38] to the networks. [33:40] So the balance is actually moved out of the wallet. [33:42] So I've had $5.36 moved out of my wallet. [33:45] But is there a real-time, [33:47] like can you get race conditions here? [33:48] These are the age old questions so, yeah, [33:50] like can you overspend? [33:51] You can double spend. [33:52] Okay, yeah you can't overspend [33:54] because it checks the balance in the wallet in real-time? [33:58] Yeah. But you could have [33:59] a double spend attack. [34:00] If during the exact same moment two transactions [34:04] are authorized at the exact same time [34:06] on the same card from the same balance, [34:08] then both would in theory be approved. [34:10] So you're saying we need a blockchain built for payments? [34:13] That's what I'm saying. [34:14] And the account layer is something that we've had [34:16] to build on the wallet side, [34:18] which is actually the ability [34:19] to freeze funds based on the first payment [34:21] to prevent double spend. [34:22] So it's actually something that we've had [34:23] to build out for some of our customers, [34:25] specifically for that reason. [34:26] And you're doing this at the Privy level [34:27] rather than the chain level [34:29] and then you post that transaction at the chain? [34:31] Exactly. That's cool. [34:32] Again, you would see why you'd want this. [34:37] So one of the mistakes I think people make thinking [34:39] about crypto is they think it about it [34:42] as a discrete invention. [34:46] Like, you know, one day we had computers, [34:47] but of course one day we had like UNIVAC [34:50] and, you know, then we had the Apple I [34:52] and then we had the Macintosh, you know, [34:54] and actually the computers got much better over time [34:57] to the point of almost being different things. [35:00] And I think similarly people think [35:02] of blockchains happening at one point in time, [35:04] but like we tried, for the payments use case, [35:06] we tried raw Bitcoin, [35:07] no lightning or anything back in the day in like 2013, [35:09] 2014, that was not a good payments blockchain. [35:13] I'll tell you that. [35:14] And despite the fact that the Bitcoin white paper [35:15] really talked about payments [35:17] as the core use case rather than many things [35:19] that have really worked for Bitcoin. [35:20] And so I'm curious, as you look at the last 5 to 10 years [35:24] of blockchain advancements, [35:26] just how would you guys describe them? [35:27] We started building, you know, [35:30] payments use cases on top of blockchains [35:33] like two, three years ago. [35:34] And it became very clear to us immediately [35:39] that none of these things were optimized for this use case. [35:42] And it was like a bunch of micro decisions that, [35:47] you know, probably made sense for different use cases [35:50] that were being optimized for, [35:51] but made it really hard for us to be successful. [35:54] So like one example [35:57] is that on some blockchains, [35:59] in order to make the address, [36:04] make it possible for that address to accept USDC, [36:06] you have to fund it [36:09] and prime it so that it is available to accept that USDC [36:12] and that might cost 30 cents. [36:14] You can't send USDC to an address that does not have it? [36:17] Yeah, that does not have GAS [36:20] and has not been basically programmed to accept the USDC. [36:25] Because it would be stuck there post-fact. [36:27] Yeah, it would just, [36:28] the transaction would just get denied [36:29] and you couldn't get it out and, yeah. [36:31] And so, you know, [36:32] imagine that you want [36:34] to use this blockchain to create millions [36:38] of wallets at the same time. [36:39] You know, that becomes phenomenally expensive. [36:42] The other thing is that the majority [36:44] of these, you know, blockchains, [36:45] in order to send a stablecoin transaction, [36:48] you need this other random token [36:51] that knowing, you know, [36:52] now it's kind of just like common [36:54] that folks are are comfortable with that [36:56] or just the throughput requirements on blockchains [36:59] or the failure rates on blockchains are [37:02] relatively high for payments use cases. [37:03] I mean, in fact the first time we did [37:06] an aid payment disbursement, [37:07] we were working with the US government [37:09] to disperse aid payments into LATAM, [37:11] we were sending tens of thousands of payments, [37:14] which was like a lot for us. [37:15] It's not that much for Stripe. [37:18] It took us like 18 hours to send all [37:21] of those transactions. [37:22] And what was the bottleneck? [37:24] It was the, [37:27] basically all of [37:28] the transactions need to be serially sent through the, [37:33] and confirmed through the blockchain. [37:35] And what would end up happening is that there's [37:38] a relatively high failure rate for these. [37:40] So a decent number would fail. [37:43] We'd have to capture them, chronicle them, [37:44] and then resend them. [37:46] And it's just because they're not picked up, you know. [37:50] No worse fate working on a blockchain than having [37:52] to manually set the nons for the transaction. [37:54] When you get to that place, you know it's a dark, dark time. [37:56] Yeah, and so we just realized time [37:59] and time again that there's been blockchains [38:02] that have been built for, you know, [38:04] trading use cases and blockchains being built [38:07] for storage use cases, [38:09] but not many blockchains that were built [38:11] for payments use cases, which have their own, [38:14] you know, it's hundreds of very small decisions [38:17] that add up to a, you know, [38:20] materially improved experience if you want [38:22] to build payment infrastructure [38:24] Won't Solana people say Solana solves this, like, [38:28] it's the blockchain built for scalability? [38:30] Solana is a great blockchain [38:32] for a lot of use cases, [38:34] but it's still not great for payments. [38:37] Yeah. Maybe a a geeky, [38:38] very geeky take on on this. [38:40] Like if you go through the history [38:41] is like very early Bitcoin is, I think, [38:43] the reemergence of like peer-to-peer computing [38:44] from the like, you know, [38:46] late '90s early aughts where instead [38:48] of these being volunteer networks like Tor is [38:50] or others, this is now, [38:52] we've built incentivization into P2P. [38:54] So you have a means [38:56] of incentivizing resource coordination globally [38:58] through these networks. [38:59] So that's like step one. [39:00] I think step two, Ethereum, [39:02] is we've gone from a single-purpose chain Bitcoin [39:05] to now actually a programmable chain. [39:07] So this is like akin to like von Neumann architecture. [39:09] You move from like fixed like programs to, [39:12] you can now store the program separately [39:14] from the like compute and you can [39:16] have the computer do anything. [39:18] And so these are like Turing complete, [39:20] they are actually Turing complete blockchains. [39:23] And you know, Ethereum is the world computer in that regard. [39:26] And I think the phase we're in now is scalability. [39:29] So this is, you know, the L2s, Solana, [39:32] and also specialization. [39:34] And I think a lot of [39:35] what crypto gets wrong is a super tribal take. [39:39] Like the meme is we want to bring [39:40] on the next billion people, [39:42] but I think a lot of people don't mean it [39:44] because if you bring on the next billion people, [39:46] then you're no longer be the rebel fighting [39:49] for this technology. [39:50] The technology gets accepted, which feels very hard. [39:53] But I think conversely the appropriate concern [39:58] is like we know how to build scalable systems, [40:00] just use a database, like they work great. [40:02] And so if we give away a lot of [40:04] what has made these systems janky, [40:06] but has been needed for us to scale this technology [40:09] and we recentralize, then what was all this for anyways? [40:12] And this is I think like a sensible way [40:14] to say if if crypto becomes solely regulatory arbitrage, [40:17] it'll have been because we'll have taken away a lot [40:19] of things that make these real special. [40:21] So I think some of the like defensiveness around new chains [40:25] comes from like three things. [40:26] It's like too many scam chains around [40:29] and people being like, well, [40:30] this is a new chain, it's probably a scam. [40:31] And like instead of adding, you know, the XKCD comic, [40:33] instead of adding your 15th standard, [40:35] just use one of the ones that's already here. [40:37] The second I think is a fear of I've bled for this [40:41] and now these newcomers are going to take it away from me. [40:46] And I think the third really rational one is like a concern [40:50] that there are easy technical paths to solving some [40:53] of the inefficiencies that blockchains introduce, [40:56] but those come at a cost. [40:57] The UX can be better, [40:58] but the questions of self-sovereignty, [41:00] decentralization and so on are given up. [41:02] But at least the way I would see it is like Tempo [41:05] is another computing device. [41:06] You know, sometimes the mobile phone is a great form factor [41:09] for doing a number of things. [41:10] Sometimes the computer is, sometimes rarely the iPad is, [41:14] but like you need different computing forms [41:16] to do these things. [41:17] And like I think Tempo is a chain purpose-built [41:20] for like one use case [41:21] and doesn't mean it'll be good for everything, [41:23] but conversely it doesn't mean the other things [41:24] are like particularly good for that either, payments being. [41:26] Yeah, I think it's like interesting [41:29] where you see these, like, [41:30] this isn't like a blockchain-specific thing, [41:32] but you see these like pockets [41:34] where there are moments in time where a bunch [41:37] of people build the same thing to solve the same problem [41:40] because the problem becomes so acute [41:42] that like the world is like, oh, [41:44] this is obviously a thing that someone needs [41:47] to build a solution around to do it. [41:49] And if you zoom into the blockchain where, [41:51] we've seen this now twice, [41:52] where a couple years ago everyone [41:55] was building scalable blockchains, you know, [41:57] Sui and Aptos and Solana [41:58] and all of these kind of came out right [42:00] around like the same time period [42:01] to solve the scalability problems of Ethereum and Bitcoin. [42:05] And then now we're going through the same moment [42:08] where everyone's realizing that those blockchains [42:10] that were previously great or were really good, [42:11] but not great for payments use cases. [42:14] And we have Tempo [42:15] and others coming out to solve [42:18] the payments use cases and all of them seemingly coming out [42:20] and going to market at the same time, [42:21] which is a good thing for the blockchain ecosystem [42:23] because, you know, [42:26] one or many of these will solve these problems. [42:29] And this was a part of the conversations [42:31] that we had at Privy when talking to Stripe [42:33] about M&A, which was like, [42:35] what are conditions under which we think [42:37] we can be successful here? [42:38] And I think one of them was the need to be able to work [42:41] with competitive endeavors, [42:43] endeavors competitive to Stripe itself and the, you know, [42:45] no offense to the Bridge as well. [42:47] And I think the point was to say [42:50] it's way too early in market development to try [42:51] and like verticalize the stack. [42:52] Part of the core value prop [42:54] of the stack is that actually it's like layered [42:57] and you can assemble it in the way [42:59] that best fits your use case. [43:00] Yes. And I think, you know, [43:02] at least the fear that I'm seeing is people thinking, [43:04] well, this is a play at owning the entire thing as opposed [43:07] to like owning modules that you can, [43:09] and to compose that I hope, you know, [43:11] for the sake of us being useful to Stripe, [43:13] that Stripe will compose so that Stripe users get [43:15] a really great experience leveraging Bridge, [43:17] leveraging Privy, but where Privy [43:19] and Bridge customers can use whatever they want [43:21] to get the best possible experience [43:23] for their use case and their users. [43:24] So that's at least part of what I've been excited about, [43:26] but I think has taken, you know, [43:27] talking to my team, and so on about, you know, [43:29] this is how we'll work [43:30] with Tempo and this is how we won't. [43:32] I think it's like if you're serious about all these layers [43:34] of the stack, you can't bind them all together, [43:38] because just like there's no way you're going to get [43:39] that much, you know, if Microsoft is serious about [43:42] the Office suite, they're going to have it run [43:44] on Mac and Windows because you're just not going [43:47] to get meaningful market share [43:49] of an Office suite otherwise. [43:50] And beyond that, like Microsoft, you know, [43:52] at this point has its own laptops, [43:53] but like they're not building their own chips, [43:55] or maybe they are, but like the point is you [43:57] can't verticalize the entire community— [43:58] They're also mostly not building their own laptops [44:00] that are running, you know, Windows software, yeah. [44:02] Ultimately we want these blockchains [44:04] to solve payments use cases. [44:07] You know, folks are only going to build payments use cases [44:11] around infrastructure that they feel like [44:12] is open and neutral. [44:14] Yeah. There's not a world [44:15] where there's like a JPMorgan chain and a Stripe chain [44:17] and a Bank of America chain [44:18] and there's like a thousand, you know, [44:20] unique company blockchains. [44:22] That's not going to happen. [44:24] The one thing I think I'll note is [44:27] a lot of the things that are being solved [44:28] by Tempo are like theoretically possible on any other chain, [44:32] but I think this is one thing [44:33] that we often get wrong in this space, [44:34] which is the gap between the theoretically possible [44:37] and the actually true. [44:39] And so of the like, you know, [44:40] Tempo features that I know our customers are excited about, [44:42] the ability to like sponsor GAS with any asset, [44:45] the ability to have like batch transactions built [44:47] into the chain, [44:49] you know, really reliable like throughput [44:51] where transactions aren't getting dropped [44:53] or priority lanes for payments where you're not paying more [44:56] because something happened on the chain. [44:58] All this stuff is theoretically possible elsewhere, [45:00] but I think making it a primary purpose of the chain [45:04] and making it something that comes out of the box [45:06] with it ends up leading [45:07] to a very different developer experience [45:09] if you're building with it and so I... [45:11] You didn't touch on the most controversial of all [45:13] of those, which is decentralization. [45:17] No, but, yeah, [45:18] and I think that's the two sides are like if you work the, [45:23] I think that the set of launch partners [45:26] that Tempo has is exceedingly exciting [45:28] because if you build for these customers, [45:30] this has been super true of how Privy has sought to build, [45:32] which is we will build for customers, [45:33] they will dictate our product roadmap in a very real way. [45:35] And that is how we stay away from like shiny object syndrome [45:38] or building stuff that no one actually cares to use. [45:41] And I think if Tempo can do that [45:42] and deliver for the partners that they have, [45:44] they'll build an exceedingly useful payment chain. [45:47] I think it comes at the risk [45:49] of actually over-centralizing. [45:50] And I think the real question is over a, you know, [45:53] two year, three year journey, [45:55] can they make good on actually decentralizing [45:57] the validator set and the people who are running, you know, [46:00] transaction validation on Tempo altogether? [46:03] Doesn't this get to the related question, [46:04] which is like nobody really knows how [46:06] a token should be valued and in particular, it's not clear, [46:11] it's at least never been clear to me [46:13] that you could have 10 times the transaction volume [46:16] on Ethereum or 100 times the transaction volume on Ethereum, [46:20] and no one can really tell you mathematically [46:22] what that should correspond to [46:24] in terms of the Ethereum token price. [46:26] And I think if you try to reason about it, [46:27] it bottoms up on like this is how much value we will accrue [46:29] to the underlying token holder. [46:31] And this is what's so interesting about the dynamics, [46:32] like Ethereum, I think, has vastly underperformed [46:35] its utility as a network. [46:36] Yeah, it's like a value capture, value creation. [46:39] And like Ethereum, wild value creation, [46:42] like of all the blockchains, minimal value capture. [46:45] Whereas there are a bunch of others where, you know, [46:48] like Solana's probably perfect, you know, value creation, [46:51] value capture, and then there are some others [46:54] where there's like very little value creation, [46:56] lots of value capture. [46:57] You should name them. [47:00] But that's where I think Bitcoin at least is very simple. [47:02] Like we know what we're valuing [47:04] and it's valued by the market in that way. [47:06] Yes, Yeah, and Solana. [47:08] Yeah, it all depends what your reference point is. [47:11] Is your reference point other crypto assets [47:13] or is your reference point companies. [47:16] Right, right, right. [47:17] Why is crypto so tribal? [47:19] Is it just because people, it's as if people were, [47:21] it's as if everyone was a shareholder in their soccer team [47:24] and like people are constantly [47:25] starting new soccer teams, [47:27] is that basically what's going on? [47:28] I think there's two reasons. [47:29] I think, one, people's relationship to money [47:31] is very complicated [47:32] and I think, you know, as a French, [47:34] like being a French person in the US like it's stark [47:36] to see the difference between how people interact [47:38] with money as a thing. [47:40] And so I think it is that, it is like soccer teams [47:44] and a self of identification with something [47:46] that's like quasi-religious. [47:48] Especially because like, you know, [47:49] working in crypto for the last decade [47:52] has been just being rejected time [47:54] and again by like anyone else, like, you know, [47:56] but you can tell how the crypto market is going [47:57] by how people describe what they do. [47:59] I work in, you know, tech or in fintech or, [48:04] but I think being part of a leper colony [48:08] for long enough creates really strong bonds [48:11] of kinship with others. [48:12] And then on top of that, you've got money. [48:14] And that creates, I think, an insane amount of tribalism [48:16] where you feel like if anybody else succeeds, [48:19] it comes at your detriment. [48:20] Everyone went through the share of suffering together. [48:21] Yeah, and, I mean, [48:23] I think crypto being so zero sum is such a great shame [48:27] because there's such an opportunity [48:29] to make this technology— Zero sum in mindset, [48:30] do you mean? Mindset. [48:31] It's not actually zero-sum. No, it's not. [48:32] And it shouldn't be. [48:33] It's very positive sum. Right. [48:34] But I think we all act [48:35] as though someone else succeeding means we [48:37] are doing less well. [48:38] Yes. Yeah. [48:39] What has change in your guys' worlds post-GENIUS Act? [48:42] On our side, it has been this [48:46] incredible tailwind to our business. [48:48] The benefits of stablecoins have not changed. [48:52] You know, you can— [48:53] Yeah, they were legal before, so it's funny. [48:54] It's like, it's not a technical change to your business. [48:56] Yeah, like the building of global products [49:00] and the economic benefits of using stablecoins, [49:02] the cross-border opportunities of stablecoins, [49:04] all of these benefits were there, [49:05] but the perceived risk of engaging with stablecoins [49:09] or issuing stablecoins was really high. [49:11] So it made everyone comfortable [49:13] with doing stuff with stablecoins? [49:14] Yes, yes, it purely, like in people's ROI brain, [49:18] you know, it lowered the risk upfront and increased the— [49:24] It was like an official statement [49:25] from the US government that stablecoin— [49:26] We can try things now. Yes. [49:28] And so that's the first thing that happened. [49:30] And the second thing that happened is, you know, [49:31] we launched this open issuance platform [49:33] because now all these folks are interested [49:37] in launching stablecoins, [49:38] and now people realize there's a license [49:39] for them to participate in the market, [49:41] and this market is likely going to be very big and [49:45] a permanent part of the US financial ecosystem. [49:47] Describe the open issuance strategy and early customers [49:51] and just like what's going on there? [49:52] Yeah, we have, Bridge was sort of predicated [49:56] on the belief that, you know, [49:57] one, stablecoins would be important [50:00] and then, two, that there would be many of them. [50:01] And our belief that there would be many of them was, [50:05] you know, just purely based on like companies acting [50:08] in a self-interested manner. [50:09] Yes. And that they're going to want [50:11] to control the infrastructure on top of which they're built [50:13] and they're going to want the underlying economics [50:15] of the stablecoin. [50:16] And importantly, this has not been the case up to now [50:19] where it's mostly been USDC [50:21] and Tether, this is like where most stablecoin balance. [50:24] Yeah, and it was all USDC, all Tether for a long time. [50:26] And that was because the perceived risk [50:28] of issuing a stablecoin, creating a stablecoin, [50:30] doing that was really high. [50:32] And we then, over the last, you know, [50:36] basically year have been building [50:37] this open issuance platform that makes it really easy [50:40] for any platform to come to us [50:42] to issue their own stablecoin so that they can access [50:45] the underlying economic benefits [50:47] and they can control the money on top [50:50] of which whatever financial experience they want is built. [50:53] So who is issuing their own stablecoin [50:55] and who should issue their own stablecoin? [50:56] Like for who listening [50:57] to this should be like, "I should issue a stablecoin." [51:00] I mean, everybody who's sitting on top of money, [51:02] they should issue a stablecoin. [51:03] That's the market, is all money at rest. [51:07] And today we're issuing stablecoins with Phantom, [51:12] we're issuing stablecoins with MetaMask. [51:15] We're issuing stablecoin for Hyperliquid. [51:17] These are all the leading crypto wallets [51:19] in the first two cases and a trading platform [51:21] in the third case? Yeah, yeah. [51:21] This has been an interesting duopoly [51:23] that we've seen, which is a lot. [51:25] You know, one of the things that we find really important is [51:27] to serve both, you know, [51:28] traditional businesses who are otherwise uninterested [51:30] in crypto other than the benefits that crypto gets them, [51:33] and then crypto businesses. [51:34] And I think both have, like, are going to be big businesses. [51:37] I mean, one of them already are, [51:38] and crypto businesses will continue to grow. [51:40] But I think it's really important to serve both [51:42] because you have early adopters in the crypto businesses [51:44] who are the first to do these things that then set the rails [51:46] for this is how it's done for everyone else. [51:48] And I think GENIUS has at least opened it up [51:50] so that you have a lot more traditional businesses engaging [51:53] as early adopters and willing [51:54] to be early adopters of the tech itself. [51:56] Yeah, like what we see on the adoption curve is you had [51:58] a lot of the crypto businesses, you know, the Phantoms, [52:00] the MetaMask coming [52:02] and issuing stablecoins, issuing stablecoins first. [52:04] We very quickly see the fintechs coming after them. [52:06] And this is like any of those folks [52:09] who are building a global neobank, [52:10] they're sitting on top of stablecoins. [52:13] They're sitting on top of millions, [52:14] tens of millions, hundreds of millions, [52:16] billions of dollars of stablecoins, [52:17] and they can literally just swap them out [52:20] and all of a sudden earn, you know, [52:22] 4% on all of those balances. [52:24] It is extremely economically rational for them to do that. [52:28] Is the yield the only reason why you would want to do it [52:30] as a business sitting on a balance? [52:31] No, the other really big reason [52:33] is that then you control your money. [52:35] And so, and that manifests in two ways. [52:38] So one is, let's say you want to build [52:40] on a specific blockchain. [52:42] Let's say you want to build on Tempo, [52:43] or you want to build on Arc, or you want to build on Sui, [52:47] or you want build on Aptos, or what have you. [52:49] If it's your stablecoin, [52:50] you can guarantee that it will be available to you. [52:52] Or maybe you want to build your own blockchain, [52:55] you can guarantee [52:55] that your asset will be available wherever— [52:58] You control the product. Wherever you move. [53:01] And then the second thing is that you control all [53:05] of the fundamental economics of it. [53:06] So right now, a lot of stablecoins like Tether, [53:09] for instance, charges burn fees [53:10] when you move out of that stablecoin. [53:12] So let's say you build a giant platform [53:15] on top of a stablecoin, and then over time, [53:17] that stablecoin changes the economic game. [53:21] And now all of a sudden, [53:22] in order to move in and out of it, [53:23] there are additional fees. [53:24] Now all of a sudden to move in and out of it, [53:26] there are delays if you want it, [53:28] you know, if you want it free, but if you want it fast, [53:30] you have to pay more for it. [53:32] All the economics of building on the platform. [53:33] Like it's not that different than being Zynga [53:35] and building on Facebook, you know, [53:37] and then all of a sudden Facebook is like, oh, [53:39] you're making more money than we are, [53:41] like why don't we take that money and— [53:42] So it just reduces general platform dependence, [53:44] which can be economic but can be roadmap [53:46] and all those things. Yeah. [53:47] But it feels like the leap from, [53:48] I want to use stablecoins, should I build my own? [53:51] This is, if you're already convinced [53:51] that you want to use stablecoins, [53:52] these are the advantages of building your own. [53:54] Like do you have the pitch for the people who, you know, [53:56] have balances in a Chase account [53:59] and are generally saying, well, I am earning a yield, [54:01] like my savings account kind of works. [54:02] Like, what's the pitch for the business that, you know, [54:05] is otherwise not using stablecoins at all? [54:07] So I think that ultimately all like corporate treasuries [54:10] will move into stablecoins. [54:12] So like let's say you're a large global company [54:15] and you have a business, [54:16] and I was actually talking to one such company. [54:19] You have, you know, a business in the US [54:21] and then you have a business in Brazil. [54:23] And in order to move money from the US to Brazil, [54:26] you actually, because of the way your entities are set up, [54:28] you need to move it from the US to Ireland, [54:30] Ireland to Singapore, Singapore to Brazil. [54:32] You know, today that swift, settle, swift, settle, [54:35] swift, settle, in the future, [54:37] you should just tokenize your treasury, [54:39] set up wallets and all balances, click a button, [54:42] and it goes one, two, three, four down into the thing. [54:44] And that should be your own stablecoin, [54:46] because you don't want your balances commingled [54:48] with everyone else and you want access to the yield. [54:50] That's a very good analogy where, yeah, [54:51] if we're a corporate treasurer, [54:53] they then have their own system [54:54] for kind of managing their treasury. [54:58] But importantly people think, [54:59] won't this be crazy if there are thousands, [55:01] tens of thousands of stablecoins. [55:02] Part of the vision is that they're all interoperable, right? [55:04] Yes, there will be, [55:07] ultimately these stablecoins will recede [55:09] into the background purely as infrastructure. [55:12] And I believe that in a couple years, you know, [55:15] today, you look at a product and you're like, oh, [55:17] that's a stablecoin balance and that's a dollar balance. [55:19] And like it's like another FX out there. [55:22] And actually there are many, because you could have a wallet [55:24] and in that wallet you could have US dollars [55:25] and you could have USDC on Solana and USDC on Eth, [55:27] and USDT on Tron, and so on. [55:31] But so like is the right analogy for people, [55:34] because I think when people hear, [55:35] everyone's going to have their own stablecoin, [55:37] currently stablecoins are very different. [55:39] It's a big thing. [55:41] You know, there are very hard boundaries between them. [55:43] Maybe people's mental model should be like, [55:46] you have money in different bank accounts... [55:48] like with different banks. [55:49] And moving money between banks isn't like completely instant [55:54] and trivial, but it's pretty trivial. [55:56] Yeah. And and that's [55:57] maybe the mental model? [55:58] Yeah, and I think it will be like completely trivial [56:01] to move money, like, you know, [56:03] already from moving money [56:04] to MetaMask to Phantom with stablecoins we issue, [56:06] it's a seamless transition. [56:08] And when you move from one to the other, [56:09] it settles as cash or MUSD. [56:12] And that's going to be the case as money pings all [56:14] around the world when it comes to Stripe [56:15] and then when it goes to Walmart, [56:17] then when it goes to Amazon, and so on, [56:19] it will just change shape, [56:21] and be attributed to each of the different entities. [56:24] How about you? The GENIUS question. [56:25] How's it changed your life? [56:27] So we're a software business. [56:28] In this regard, I feel very grateful, [56:30] compared to both of you. [56:31] We have a much simpler life than you do [56:33] and we're not involved in the flow of funds. [56:37] And so we build software where we'll be able to, you know, [56:38] really key management [56:39] and then everything that comes with it, [56:41] which enables these digital asset accounts. [56:44] So what it's really done for us is [56:47] it's opened up a lot of new business for us, [56:49] of companies who were not willing to engage— [56:50] So companies being excited. Who are, [56:52] so much broader US customer base, [56:54] much broader fintech base, [56:56] and then much larger companies who are now engaging in this. [56:59] What got you excited about joining Stripe? [57:01] Many things, I think, so, Zach, [57:03] we have a strong interweaving journey [57:06] with Zach where I think, well, [57:09] so the first time I met Zach was when he was talking about, [57:13] you know, what Bridge was. [57:14] And we all thought this is a crazy idea. [57:16] Stablecoins are not a thing. [57:18] The second time I met Zach, [57:19] I think I was your reference call for Sequoia. [57:22] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Where our [57:25] joint investor at Sequoia Yes. [57:27] Was like, "Do you want to talk to Zach? [57:29] Like I feel like it'd be helpful for him [57:30] to understand what we're like to work with." [57:31] Yeah. And then the third time [57:33] was you were my reference for Ribbit. [57:38] And then the fourth time we were doing a lot [57:40] of work together and I think you had a choice sentence, [57:43] which was something along the lines of, [57:45] in the next two years, we will either work together [57:49] or we will compete very heavily. [57:51] And it wasn't said as a threat, [57:53] it was said as a pure statement of fact, [57:54] which I think was factual in fact. [57:56] Yeah. [57:57] Because what you guys were building was [57:58] so close to each other? [58:00] We're building very different products in so many ways. [58:02] Like I would argue that you guys are building, [58:04] like the programs, [58:05] you guys are building, stablecoins are programs— [58:06] No, but geographically close. [58:07] But geographically close. [58:09] And there's a sense of as you expand, [58:10] you'll want to move into each other's spaces. [58:13] So I think this is part of the answer. [58:15] It's the least romantic part, [58:16] but the least romantic part [58:17] of the answer was there was a real sense [58:19] of if we want to move fast [58:21] and we want to have real impact in the space, [58:24] there's deep value to bundles [58:26] and to being able to layer our software [58:29] with stablecoin orchestration, [58:31] stablecoin issuance with traditional fiat money movement [58:34] and rails with the networks [58:36] that Stripe has built across like, you know, [58:37] marketplaces and merchants. [58:39] And so there was a sense of we can take [58:41] what are 10-year roadmaps for us with many possibilities [58:43] of death and turn these into two-year roadmaps [58:46] where the expected value [58:48] that we have in the world becomes much, [58:49] much greater if we're able to, you know, [58:52] become a part of a whole [58:54] that can serve something much more complete. [58:57] So that was the first one. [58:58] I think the second one [58:59] which is going to sound very brown-nosy, [59:01] so, sorry, is like a lot of how we've shaped Privy [59:05] was looking at Stripe as a business [59:06] and what it meant to take very complex things [59:08] and make them more simple, [59:10] and hopefully work towards elegance of APIs in order [59:15] to unlock things that otherwise would not be possible. [59:17] And so at least from, you know, [59:19] in a world in which we were going to be acquired, [59:22] who would the acquirer be? [59:24] I think it romantically made a lot of sense [59:26] for us that this would be it. [59:28] And then frankly, going back to Zach, [59:30] I think having seen him go through the journey [59:32] and talking to him about, you know, [59:34] what it was like, felt very reassuring. [59:35] It felt like, you know, he had sort of walked, [59:39] so we could run, I don't know how you would do this, [59:41] but like basically he had done all of the hard things [59:43] of figuring out M&A integration [59:45] and we got to sort of follow in your footsteps. [59:46] Pave the road. [59:48] Pave the road for you to go down. Yeah. [59:50] How about you, Zach? [59:51] So, first, when we started talking, [59:54] I didn't think our company was acquirable. [59:57] Like I just didn't, I thought we were, [60:01] we were so optimistic about [60:03] what was possible with stablecoins. [60:06] No one else could be more optimistic? [60:08] No one could be more, [60:09] there was like the Venn diagram of companies that were [60:12] as optimistic and had like the capital behind it, you know, [60:16] and the tolerance [60:19] to push this space forward was like, there was like, [60:21] I didn't think there was anybody in that intersection. [60:23] So I think as like we went through the process, we, [60:26] you know, Sean and I were kind of like the whole time like, [60:29] "This is like not real." [60:33] And then over time it became pretty apparent [60:36] that it was real and there was like a very, [60:40] like a strong shared belief in [60:43] how big the opportunity ahead was. [60:46] And I feel like we have pushed the stablecoin space forward [60:50] in this like pretty material way over the last two years [60:54] and we wanted to continue pushing the space forward [60:57] and pushing it as far as it could possibly go. [61:01] And it was pretty clear that that [61:03] was like much more possible to do that together than [61:07] to do it alone. [61:08] I mean, there's just a lot of things, [61:09] like our stablecoin issuance platform [61:11] that we just launched. [61:12] An amazing opportunity. [61:13] We could launch that as an independent business, [61:16] but it is a very different opportunity, [61:18] a very different set of customers that are interested [61:21] in working with us as a result. [61:24] Well, one question I have that, you know, Asta, [61:26] my co-founder and I have been asking is like, [61:29] how has your view of M&A changed over the last, [61:31] call it year through a few iterations? [61:34] I mean, obviously you've done M&A before. [61:35] Yes. Hopefully you will do M&A [61:37] post-fact, we've not disgusted you from the prospect, [61:40] but like what's changed about your old view on this is [61:43] how we should acquire and integrate companies within Stripe? [61:45] Yeah. [61:47] At some level, Bridge and Privy make me much more bullish [61:50] on M&A because we had [61:54] an idea going in [61:56] and Stripe was very much taking crypto [61:59] and stablecoins seriously. [62:01] And there's no way we would collectively be where we are now [62:05] or there's no way Stripe would be [62:06] where we collectively are now [62:09] had we not bought Bridge and Privy. [62:12] Now I think not everything is like crypto [62:17] where I think the cultural difference between companies [62:22] like Stripe, that essentially grew up before crypto, [62:24] I mean, technically the Bitcoin white paper precedes Stripe, [62:26] but, you know, for all intents and purposes, [62:28] grew up before crypto, and more crypto-native companies. [62:33] I basically think that cultural difference is useful [62:35] and part of what we are bringing in is that culture. [62:38] And that's probably not true in other pure like, you know, [62:42] we know how to build software [62:43] and, you know, we know how to build a bunch of things. [62:44] And so it makes me more bullish [62:48] because of how well it has worked. [62:52] Broadly speaking, I think the other [62:56] real nuance is like [62:59] Oracle buys companies for, you know, [63:02] 15 times PE when they're growing [63:06] at 15%-20% in a mature industry [63:09] and then they pull out 10% of the cost, blah, blah blah. [63:11] But it's like this total rinse and repeat [63:13] of very established, you know, [63:15] companies and they know how to do that really well. [63:18] And they're exceptional at it by the way. [63:19] They're almost like a quasi-private equity firm, [63:21] but it's a different thing. [63:23] Whereas I think the real art [63:26] is how do you grow [63:28] new initiatives internally [63:31] through acquisitions and do that well? [63:33] And is prior art here. [63:35] And, you know, we always try to learn from that. [63:37] And, you know, Google's a good example of, [63:40] YouTube is now a $50 billion revenue business. [63:42] And I believe they literally had no revenue. [63:44] I mean, they were hemorrhaging money [63:46] when Google acquired them, [63:47] but importantly they had no revenue. [63:48] And now it's like one of the crown jewels in Google. [63:51] And actually as you look across a huge amount of Google, [63:54] it was all acquired in at this incredibly early stage. [63:58] You know, there were acquisitions that became Google Maps [64:02] and separately Google Earth [64:03] and, you know, Google Docs and all this kind of stuff. [64:06] There's actually some good acquired episodes [64:07] on this recently. [64:09] And I think that is a different skill [64:12] to acquire things that are growing, you know, 10X, [64:16] and and build those businesses. [64:17] And a big part of the art of it, [64:20] and you guys have seen, [64:22] is companies are sort of standardization machines [64:27] because like there's a way they do things, right? [64:30] And when a large company makes an acquisition, [64:35] the natural tendency is like, okay, great, you know, [64:38] we're going to do things the Stripe way now. [64:40] And there are some places [64:42] where it's valuable to do things the Stripe way. [64:44] Like there are certain things Stripe is good at, [64:46] but there's an incredible art to, okay, [64:49] these are things that we're going to standardize. [64:51] These are things where, yeah, you know, [64:54] you guys are going to stay doing it the startup way [64:56] and that's more freewheeling than the Stripe way [64:58] and that's great. [64:59] When we closed the deal, I like reached out to a bunch [65:02] of folks who had sold their companies [65:04] to get feedback on like, well, how did you like it? [65:06] Was this good? Was it not good? [65:09] And there was like, for sure, there was like a fair share [65:11] of horror stories, and regret and tears. [65:15] But the person who was the most impactful was this guy [65:19] who leads integrations at Google. [65:22] And he had seen, you know, [65:23] YouTube and Nest and Waze and DeepMind [65:27] and, you know, all these success really successful [65:30] and some unsuccessful. [65:31] Sure. And one of the things [65:33] that he told me, [65:35] because I was coming in, you know, [65:36] like I think any founder who comes into the company is like, [65:38] you like running your company, [65:40] you think you're like pretty good at running your company. [65:42] You know, there's a reason why your company was bought [65:44] and so you kind of want to like keep running your company [65:46] and like doing your thing. [65:48] And he was telling me that like it now he's seen basically [65:53] all these acquisitions and, you know, [65:56] you buy a company because you believe that there [65:59] is some way in which, [66:00] you know, 1 plus 1 equals more than 2. [66:04] And so if you totally stay independent [66:06] and you don't do any form of integration, [66:09] there is like 1 plus 1 equals maybe 2, [66:11] but probably less than 2. [66:13] Almost certainly, like definitionally, [66:14] you are setting yourself up for less than 2. [66:17] And so at some point in time during the journey, [66:20] there is like this moment that comes [66:22] and it could be in year one or it could be in year five [66:25] or whatever, where it becomes clear that the two need [66:29] to come together to like create that value. [66:32] You're saying you have to learn how to use the stuff [66:34] that the large company has [66:35] because otherwise why would you work together? [66:37] Yeah, and it doesn't happen right away, [66:39] but at some point it becomes clear [66:41] and then you need to lean into it. [66:42] Yes. And a great example [66:44] of this is like DeepMind at Google. [66:47] DeepMind was a totally separate business, [66:49] separate everything for 10 years. [66:51] But now AI is like its thing and now it's one. [66:54] Yes. [66:55] And the art was like enabling it [66:57] to stay its own thing and like push forward the frontiers. [67:02] But as soon as we entered this moment, [67:04] bringing them together. [67:06] Yeah. It's like a bit [67:07] of collective faith. [67:07] We can suspend this belief that the connection points arise [67:13] in ways that are organic and, yeah. [67:14] Yeah, and a big part of my conviction [67:18] is we think [67:21] crypto-enabled transactions [67:22] are going to be a very large part [67:24] of the economy [67:26] and just Stripe's business in the relatively near future. [67:30] But then it's also the case that there isn't going [67:33] to be a crypto economy and a regular economy [67:36] and never the two shall meet. [67:38] And we're already seeing this, like one of my favorite, [67:40] one of the most bullish stablecoin things [67:41] in my mind is when you look the Felix Pago website. [67:44] Felix Pago is a remittance app. [67:45] It's powered by stablecoins. [67:46] It doesn't mention stablecoins [67:48] or crypto anywhere on the website. [67:50] It just talks about customer value, [67:51] the fact it's nice integration [67:52] with WhatsApp and things like that. [67:54] And so Felix Pago is just off competing [67:56] in the remittance space and, you know, same with, [67:58] you know, you're talking about neobanks starting [67:59] to integrate, you have your fiat balance, [68:00] and your stablecoin balance. [68:02] And so we're just seeing this convergence [68:04] and so I think our collective belief is, okay, [68:08] we can build something really compelling [68:10] on the infrastructure side here. [68:12] There's actually a lot to build. [68:14] Like there's a lot of scope [68:15] to have a good offering in the market [68:17] and so that's why it ends up being better together. [68:20] And then the integration challenge is, again, [68:22] you have these like separate companies, [68:24] separate code bases and you're trying to integrate [68:27] as you grow like an absolute banshee. [68:30] That's just like, [68:31] I don't know, it's a fun challenge, let's just say. [68:32] I mean it's so, everything about it is so hard. [68:35] Like I did not appreciate how hard it is. [68:38] Like even little things like, you know, [68:40] our CRM is different from Stripe's CRM [68:43] is different from your CRM, you know, [68:45] and bringing those things that, you know, [68:47] and so if we're all talking [68:48] to the same customer, who's on first? [68:51] Yes, and, you know, we have acquired, you know, [68:54] Bridge and Privy at the inflection [68:57] it's really working kink in the life cycle, [69:00] but everyone talks about, you know, [69:01] that hold on for dear life startup stage. [69:04] And so then what you have when you have an acquisition [69:06] is you're at the hold on for dear life startup stage [69:09] if this thing really has product market fit. [69:11] Oh, and now we have to layer on a CRM migration [69:14] and all these other things [69:17] and just no one has more bandwidth, [69:19] and like most startups are already at running [69:21] at 120% capacity. [69:23] And so, you know, you can't add more things on... [69:25] Which anyway, that's what makes it challenging. [69:26] CRM migration though, but yeah. [69:29] What was the, I'm curious on the other side, [69:31] obviously having been on the, [69:34] our side of the table. Yes. Yes. [69:35] What was it like on your side of the table? [69:37] Like is there a good cop bad cop team [69:39] between like you and Patrick [69:40] or like other people on the Stripe side of the room [69:41] of like there is a pro-champion [69:43] and there is a like wet blanket [69:46] as part of the acquisition talks? [69:47] Like how do you make decisions? [69:50] Surprisingly, no, where I think, look, all of me, [69:55] Patrick, Will, Rob, you know, [69:56] we're all super bullish on crypto, you know, [70:00] super bullish on you guys after we met you. [70:02] And so it's not like anyone, [70:04] like I don't think they would survive the company very long [70:06] if someone's walking around who's like, I don't know, [70:07] I don't think this stablecoin thing is going to be a thing. [70:11] And so the debate you're always having is, [70:15] do we build this in-house? [70:16] Like for every acquisition, [70:18] there is some price that is too expensive. [70:20] And of course part of the challenge there [70:22] is early-stage startups. [70:23] It's just like so hard to put a number on things. [70:24] It's like venture rounds, it's like, you know, [70:26] what is the price, [70:27] like what people are paying at some level. [70:28] And so you end up [70:31] doing a lot of math [70:32] and it kind of comes down to some amount [70:34] of gut feel and, yeah. Yeah. [70:36] But there's a lot of spreadsheets backing up [70:37] that gut feel. [70:40] And a lot of it is about [70:44] the founders and the team because what you're buying [70:48] is not what already exists. [70:51] Again, it's not like that Oracle late stage, [70:53] we're going to buy Cerner and this existing business [70:55] and customers and everything like that. [70:56] It's like we are going [70:57] to build the leading crypto infrastructure product [71:00] together over the coming decade. [71:04] And there's just a lot of uncertainty in that, so. [71:06] Yeah. Last question, [71:08] just what do you guys project [71:10] the next two to three years looks like for each [71:13] of you on the product side, on the business side? [71:16] I think, like, I don't know, [71:17] it's been true thus far and we're still early, obviously, [71:21] but it's been true thus far that like every year we look [71:23] at the company and it's completely unrecognizable [71:25] from the prior year. [71:27] And I think if we can keep that up for another three years, [71:30] like we're really in business [71:31] and it's going to be very interesting three years from now. [71:33] So I suspect the scale of customer [71:36] and the amount of, like, [71:39] call it household names who are not, [71:40] you know, it starts in many ways with fintech, [71:42] because they are the most exposed to money as a thing, [71:45] but I think my hope is that the amount of household names [71:48] and stablecoins themselves become ubiquitous [71:52] where they are just a part of the fabric of reality [71:54] if you're interfacing with like, you know, [71:55] economic systems in the world, one. [71:58] I think I hope wallets become ubiquitous [72:01] whereby everybody has a means of owning [72:03] and controlling digital assets [72:05] and being able to port them across platforms [72:07] and being able to put them to work [72:08] in ways we couldn't have imagined. [72:10] And then I hope, I think there's a sort of [72:14] two step going on, [72:15] which is Stripe itself becomes much more crypto-native [72:18] and crypto kind of suffuses the entirety [72:21] of how the company operates. [72:22] And in like a few ways, which is it's like another rail [72:25] that Stripe users can like choose to utilize, [72:27] but also it is a superpower that like, [72:33] separate from being in another rail, [72:34] is just a whole new means that they get to tap into like, [72:36] you know, some stuff it's like, you know, [72:38] if you want to do a stablecoin sandwich [72:39] to move money from A to B, there were other ways of doing it [72:41] that might not have been as good. [72:43] But there are things that you can do now [72:44] with, call it open issuance, [72:45] that you just could not have done before. [72:48] And then I also think like hopefully Stripe [72:50] is like the best purveyor of crypto tooling via, [72:55] you know, Stripe's efforts via the brands [72:58] that it has in Bridge and Privy. [73:00] So my hope is that we're able to, [73:02] at least on the Privy side, grow the team really sensibly [73:07] to a place where we're both delivering extreme value [73:11] to like standalone customers that we have [73:12] that we couldn't dream of today [73:14] who are like really incorporating us [73:15] as a core part of their stack, [73:17] like akin to AWS in level of importance, [73:19] and then also serving that through Stripe [73:21] and enabling Stripe products. [73:23] That's a... Yeah. [73:24] Yeah, I mean, on, I agree with like, you know, [73:29] what you said at the beginning really resonated. [73:30] Like our company, you know, same with Bridge, [73:32] totally unrecognizable versus last year or the year before. [73:36] Before Bridge, there really wasn't [73:38] that much infrastructure, [73:39] really any infrastructure to build, you know, [73:42] financial experiences with stablecoins. [73:46] So that kind of means like, you know, [73:48] we started the company three years ago, [73:49] our APIs were available for like roughly two years, [73:52] so that means there's kind of only been like two years-ish [73:54] of teams building at like the application layer [74:00] on top of stablecoins. [74:02] And so, you know, [74:03] it's like I feel like I am like, [74:06] even though I live in this, [74:07] like constantly reminded of how early we are [74:09] and how few applications have been built [74:11] and how few of the big problems [74:14] that need to be solved have been solved. [74:16] And I think what I'm most excited about is more [74:19] and more of those teams coming [74:21] and building on that application layer [74:24] which pushes the frontier of stablecoins forward. [74:26] And, you know, that then forces us to change our company, [74:28] change our APIs and change who and how we serve people. [74:32] I think I really agree with what you're saying, [74:33] which is people still have no idea [74:36] how big stablecoins are going to be [74:37] and I think they discount it [74:38] because it feels like it's a lot of hype right now. [74:40] But we're going to look back when stablecoins [74:43] are 100 times bigger and just think [74:45] of this moment as so cute. [74:48] One question I have is whether they [74:50] will in fact disappear. [74:51] And to me at least it's one place where it's, [74:52] for companies building on stablecoins, [74:54] really important to maintain optionality. [74:56] Like, you know, the joke is something like Bitcoin grows [74:59] one death at a time, [75:00] which is a person holding gold dies [75:03] and a new generation will decide [75:04] to hold the digital equivalent. [75:05] Yeah. Like it's not just, [75:08] I think, a difference in like degree. [75:09] It is a difference in kind in a few different ways. [75:12] And so I think the question of like, [75:13] will it be branded as stablecoins [75:15] or will you just like lose track of the fact [75:16] that it's the underlying medium? [75:18] Yes. To me that's a real question [75:19] that like I'm interested in, [75:21] I can see both paths five years from now. [75:23] I think it's more likely that actually people [75:25] will be more aware of this infrastructure [75:26] because it is unique in different ways. [75:28] Ah, interesting. I'm in the other camp. [75:30] Okay. I think it will [75:33] recede into the background. [75:34] I think I'm more in Zach's camp [75:35] because there's so many tech improvements [75:37] where like remember when everyone was talking about AJAX? [75:40] Like, you know, JavaScript to application? [75:41] Then like applications are still, you know, [75:44] JavaScript's web applications, [75:46] but just we don't talk about AJAX anymore [75:48] or you know, there was a time when [75:50] all your iPods went solid state [75:52] and didn't have a spinning hard disk [75:53] and your songs didn't skip anymore. [75:54] But like just it happened, life got better. [75:57] Or like the cloud or— Yeah, are stablecoins [76:00] the cloud or the solid state drive [76:02] or are stablecoins is the computer? [76:03] Because we talk about the computer today. [76:04] Like I can, you know, you might've told me, [76:07] well, you have a spreadsheet, [76:08] but I've got a human computer over here. [76:09] Yeah. [76:10] Yeah, we do and we don't talk about the computer, right? [76:13] Like my car now unlocks [76:16] when I walk up to us it, but it's just a car. [76:18] But I think both. Yeah. [76:19] I think your car is like, you know, [76:20] 38 computers, but then you also do have your computer. [76:23] And I think potentially that's how it happens. [76:25] For the most part, [76:26] it will recede and it will become fabric of like reality. [76:28] Yeah. But in some places, [76:30] I think it'll be like blindingly obvious. [76:31] Yeah. Okay, we're going to do [76:32] another one of these in five years time [76:34] and we'll check back in on the, [76:35] whether people are still talking about stablecoins [76:37] despite 100X the volume. [76:39] Yeah. All righty. Yeah. [76:41] Thank you, guys.