block by block

The team at U.S. Bank knows that being a leader in payments means being on the cutting edge of payments infrastructure. Enter stablecoins. In September, U.S. Bank officially launched the pilot of USBDC on the Stellar network. USBDC is one of the first bank-issued stablecoins deployed on a public blockchain, and it’s designed to make cross-border payments more efficient than ever. Today on block by block, Jamie Walker, Head of Digital Assets and Money Movement at U.S. Bank, sits down with Denelle Dixon to discuss.

In this episode, Denelle sits down with Sandy Kaul, EVP and Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton, to break down Benji - the first U.S. registered money market fund to use a public blockchain, Stellar, for transaction processing and transfer agency. It didn't start as a tokenization play. It started as a way to cut transfer agency costs. The proof came in a side-by-side pilot: 50,000 transactions cost $75,000 the traditional way, versus $1.13 on Stellar - and those savings go to the end investor, not the firm. Sandy explains why running on Stellar made that possible, how second-by-second recordkeeping lets a holder earn interest for the exact hours they owned the fund, and how the team brought the SEC along on problems no one had solved before. Five years in, Benji has paid out interest every day without a loss or an outage. More about Franklin Templeton on Stellar here: https://stellar.org/case-studies/franklin-templeton

The biggest challenge for institutions moving to blockchain isn't efficiency - it's privacy. How do you leverage a public ledger without exposing client data or competitive strategies to the world? In this episode of block block, Denelle Dixon sits down with the Stellar Development Foundation’s Chief Product Officer, Tomer Weller, to unpack the team’s strategy for configurable privacy. They explore why privacy and openness don’t have to be a trade-off and dive into the cutting-edge technology making private institutional payments a reality in 2026, including: Confidential Tokens vs. Privacy Pools: Understanding the different cryptographic models for securing balances and transactions. The Power of Zero-Knowledge (ZK): How ZK proofs allow for verifiable computation without revealing sensitive underlying data. A "Menu" of Compliance: How configurable privacy provides institutions with the administrative controls (like allowlists and view keys) needed to satisfy regulators. Live Tools on Stellar: A look at the new building blocks and partnerships (like Nethermind and OpenZeppelin) that are already open-sourcing privacy solutions on the network.

In this episode of block by block, Lisa Nestor, Director of Stanford’s Future of Digital Currency Initiative, reveals groundbreaking research into the real-world utility of stablecoins. After analyzing over 41 million USDC transactions spanning five years and 100 countries, the data shows that stablecoin payments are already exceeding global G20 targets for 2030.

Anthony Soohoo is 18 months into transforming MoneyGram - 500,000 locations, 200+ countries - into a developer-led payments network running on blockchain and stablecoins. The catch: customers never see the tech. They just hold a dollar-backed balance in the app while AI orchestrates treasury, FX, and settlement on the back end. In this episode, Anthony breaks down the three pillars of MoneyGram 3.0, why he chose open interoperable rails over building proprietary ones, how his team brought regulators along across dozens of jurisdictions, and why he believes payments is about to hit its "iPhone moment" - where AI, embedded finance, and digital assets converge all at once. If you're at a legacy financial institution weighing whether to build on open infrastructure or keep your rails closed, this is the conversation to listen to.

Issuing a stablecoin used to require a nine-figure investment, years of regulatory work, and deep banking relationships. For most companies, that barrier made participation impossible. In this episode of block by block, Denelle Dixon speaks with Ben Milne, founder and CEO of Brale, about why stablecoin issuance was historically so expensive - and how Brale approached the problem differently. Ben explains how existing regulation made another path possible, why licensing and compliance are central to trust, and how absorbing those fixed costs upfront reduces the marginal cost of issuing a stablecoin to nearly zero. The conversation covers the economics of stablecoin infrastructure, Brale’s decision to support third-party issuers, and what changes when access to regulated financial rails is no longer limited to the largest institutions.

This Block by Block episode features AirTM CEO Ruben Galindo on the economics of global payroll. AirTM has processed more than $1B in stablecoin payments, paid 250,000 workers in 150+ countries, and reports 20–25% cost savings on cross-border payouts. Galindo explains how stablecoin payments are converted to local currency in minutes, why the “last mile” is the real challenge in international payroll, and what reliable settlement means for enterprises looking beyond traditional payment processors.

In this episode of block by block with Denelle Dixon, Austin Campbell (Founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting, NYU Stern professor, former Paxos, JP Morgan, Citi) talks through the parts of the financial system most people never see — settlement, velocity, trapped capital, and the tradeoffs between openness, privacy, and control. Drawing from experience in traditional finance and crypto infrastructure, Austin explains why most tokenization efforts fail, what blockchains actually make possible, and why copying legacy systems onchain won’t lead to greater adoption.

In this episode of Block by Block, Denelle Dixon sits down with Brian Pellegrino, CEO and Co-Founder of LayerZero Labs, to explore how blockchain interoperability is evolving beyond traditional bridges and wrapped assets toward true omnichain infrastructure. What You'll Learn: -How omnichain tokens eliminate fragmented liquidity and security risks -Why LayerZero is a messaging protocol, not a bridge -The importance of immutable, censorship-resistant infrastructure -How blockchain interoperability will become as invisible as HTTPS

This episode explores how Etherfuse is using Stellar to build open, interoperable financial rails that keep money, and access, truly open. Dave Taylor, Co-Founder and CEO of Etherfuse, joins Denelle to share how bringing local-currency sovereign bonds onchain through stablebonds can create transparent, yield-bearing opportunities for savings and payments. Together, discussing what it takes to keep these rails permissionless, ensure composability across builders, and expand real-world access to trusted financial assets - all while helping local economies thrive without relying solely on the U.S. dollar.