Santi Alvarado (XFX) on Improving FX for Stablecoins (EP.635)

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  EthCC troubles  Robinhood has been shipping Figma owns BTC  The House GOP has declared "crypto week" in July Circle and Ripple are applying for bank charters  AI companies are buying Bitcoin miners Sharia finance The BBB passes  America teeters towards default The Sohan Parekh fiasco How do tokenized stocks work?  Another architect of OCP2.0 bites the dust Is AI going to usher in a socialist revolution?  Ric Edelman wants you to buy crypto  Franklin Templeton is worried about bitcoin treasury companies  No crypto language was included in the BBB  

Chris Maurice, founder of Yellow Card, a pan-Africa stablecoin business and exchange, rejoins the show. In this episode: How Chris feels about the crypto space in 2025 as compared to when he started a decade ago How Yellow Card evolved from being a retail BTC exchange to being an enterprise payment platform for stablecoins How Chris realized that stablecoins were all about b2b transfers How businesses in EM use stablecoins, and what the alternatives are Regional differences within Africa in terms of stablecoin adoption Shifting regulatory attitudes in Africa Does Chris worry about crypto-dollarization in Africa? Is dollarization happening on the ground right now Tether and TRON market share developments Where we are in stablecoin infra and tooling and what needs to be built Why we need a stablecoin clearinghouse The future of Yellow Card a few years ahead How banks will engage with stablecoins

Wyatt sits down with Bernando Bilotta, founder of Stables.money. In this episode:  Stablecoin usage in APAC, for saving, spending, and beyond Retail adoption that bleeds into institutional adoption The forward-looking path for stablecoin finance

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  Golden age of prediction markets NYC mayor’s election What’s happening with Canton? The FHFA says crypto can be a qualifying asset for mortages Our thoughts on the market structure bill The significance of the Fiserv stablecoin pilot $500m public access vehicle for BNB The Fed drops reputational risk in bank supervision EO for debanking is rumored Kraken HQ is moving to Wyoming Texas buys Bitcoin Will banking hours be obsolete? 

Josh Frank, the founder and CEO of The Tie joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The origin story behind The Tie and how Josh approached founding the business. The digital asset data market. How sentiment data has evolved in the digital asset industry. The buy-side landscape for digital assets and how Josh sees that evolving in the coming years. The Canton Network and how The Tie is working with this new protocol. To learn more about The Tie visit their website. 

Ria sits down with Luca Prosperi, CEO and Co-Founder of M0, a universal stablecoin platform that enables customization while preserving interoperability across assets. In this episode, we cover: Lessons from MakerDAO Drawing inspiration from the dual banking system Building a base asset that is decentralized, permissionless and ossified Issuing opinionated assets via wrapping and extensions while maintaining interoperability

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  The GENIUS Act passes the Senate Should GENIUS be stapled to market structure? Bessent thinks stablecoins could be $3.7T by 2030 Stablecoin FUD Will stablecoins destabilize the US Treasury market JPM's stablecoin FUDs JPMD's deposit token will launch on Base The future of stablecoin yield in the US  Circle hits a $50b market cap Yellowcard partners with Visa in Africa Kraken will launch a token for their Ink L2 Are Walmart and Amazon looking at their own stablecoins?  An Iranian crypto exchange is hacked at the coins are lost We review old Bitcoin FUDs on the FUD Dice Content mention in this episode: Yesha Yadav and Brendan Malone, Stablecoins and the US Treasury Market

Sean is joined by Santi Alvarado, CEO/Co-Founder of XFX, to cover their seed raise and how money moves cross border. In this episode:  Background of Santi and how he made his way into crypto How legacy FX settlement operates today How XFX enables more liquidity for cross border payment companies

Wyatt is joined by Greg Genega, Digital Asset and Blockchain leader at KPMG, for a conversation on the state of crypto auditing. In this episode:  How KPMG works with crypto companies and protocols Relevant new innovations in the crypto space What to look out for as a new founder

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  Stripe acquires wallet infrastructure company Privy for an undisclosed sum Fireblocks’ stablecoin data Stablecoin FUD Were mnemonic phrases a local maxima? Bullish and Gemini have filed preliminary paperwork for IPOs Soc Gen is launching a USD stablecoin We look at some infamous rogue traders Gamestop’s bitcoin strategy is a flop DTCC is looking at issuing a stablecoin