What It Takes to Power Global Stablecoin Apps | Itai Turbahn & Edward Woodford | Stablecoin Stories

Thank you guys for doing this and thank you for hosting. This seems like an incredible, incredible group. Everyone

I've been talking to is having an awesome time. So, just give it up for

awesome time. So, just give it up for these guys putting this on. This is

awesome.

Okay, so let's start here. Um, we'll

just get dive right into it. We don't

have a ton of time. When I think about Zero Hash and Dynamic, these are companies that are not new to the conversation. You guys have been

conversation. You guys have been building, you've been leading, you've adopted and adapted and evolved, and you guys have been leading companies in crypto for many different seasons. And

so what I'd like to start with for each of you is for those who are maybe entering this stable coin conversation for the first time. I think it would be it would it would underell what you guys

are bringing to the table as leaders and as companies to not touch on a little bit of the journey of where you've been quickly. um what parts of this

quickly. um what parts of this pre-stable coin chapter have prepared you guys for this moment? What

learnings, what um specific things that you might have gone through in this pre-stable coin season of the companies versus maybe a founder who's starting a company right now for the first time.

Maybe it if you want to lead the way.

Yeah, I think for for me the the the key point I think where I realized the current uh payment infrastructure is

broken was when and then and therefore you know over time needs to be fixed was at I was at Zenits uh which was a big HR tech company super fast growing I I I

ran their platform team and and one of the products uh that I was responsible for was contractor payments and I was like this is great. We can pay contractors internationally. This is

contractors internationally. This is awesome. And then you know I started

awesome. And then you know I started chatting with the engineering team.

Okay, how does this actually works? And

it turns out that at the end of the every day they would manually download like an Excel sheet from uh Zens and

manually upload that to Silicon Valley Bank uh for a transactions and close their eyes and hope for the best. And I

was like the there's no way this is the the the the way this stuff happens. And

it turns out it does, right? Turns out

the way you pay contracts contractors internationally for a very long time was you literally would download an Excel sheet with transactions and you would

upload it and hope that SVB accepts that and um kind of processes that and then you close your eyes and you hope that in two days the money shows up elsewhere.

Sometimes it's four days because they're two hops and and that seemed insane to me, right? And and then full circle, you

me, right? And and then full circle, you know, um Yonyi, my co-founder and I actually started talking about crypto probably in like 2011 2012, but full circle when we started dynamic in 2021

and 2022, it became extremely clear to us that this is the way in which money should move, right? And so it was kind

of these two points of hey you know this thing in 2015 2016 from like the hottest tech startup out there is fully broken. Uh and here's a

solution that's extremely elegant and extremely global. That that for us was

extremely global. That that for us was what kind of put two and two together as to okay this is clearly the way this will work going forward. It might take

five years might take seven might take 10 doesn't matter. It is clearly the way in which we will globally move money over the next 10 years. I do not see a

scenario based on these experiences in which it is not a primary method in which there you know we do global money movement. So that's that's really how

movement. So that's that's really how how we thought or how we got to this conclusion. Awesome. Yeah. I suppose um

conclusion. Awesome. Yeah. I suppose um it's passion, right? So trying to solve a real problem. Um the space is shiny right now. um I can guarantee you it

right now. um I can guarantee you it will become less shiny at some point and then it will become even shinier. that

that is how any technological evolution happens, right? And so to your question,

happens, right? And so to your question, I think one of the challenges of building this space and we've been building this space and stable coins and crypto since 2017 is that there are these natural inflection points. And so

although this is a stable coin industry, there will be different applications. I

mean, you're starting to see, for example, the founder of Airwallets pick some holes and I think some valid holes, right? And so I think we need to make

right? And so I think we need to make sure that we're not acolytes to the technology. It's to your point, it's

technology. It's to your point, it's actually acolytes about the problem that we're trying to solve and balancing the hype with the fear of these different

pieces and when naturally this will be a cyclical space um and and trying to narrow that emotional bound and B to your point very focused on a time horizon that is long in the long run we

are right right but at some point we will be wrong and there will be different failures there'll be different experimentations and so that's what I think excites me about both dynamic and zeroash is that we can take multiple bets with our partners doing different

things in different applications. So, I

think that's the challenge, but also equally the opportunity. I got to ask what holes were poked that you think were potentially valid cuz that guy that guy's gotten a lot of heat for what he

did. So, I'm curious if what you mean

did. So, I'm curious if what you mean what you mean when you say that. I mean,

the guy's a genius marketer as well, right? So, um hate is fine online. Um I

right? So, um hate is fine online. Um I

I think um again, I think stable coins are absolutely revolutionary in a bunch of different ways. um does it solve every single problem across every single payment channel? No.

payment channel? No.

Right? Does and so it really depends on the application and the use case and I think that's what's key. So I think Jack's pulled out some elements and you know I I can almost guarantee you that

they are looking at stable coins right um but I think he's picking some elements I think if you look at a crossber remittance use case and Philix Pago is a great example of a group of solving a real problem in a real channel uh where there's a really great

liquidity pools in places like Mexico and other places um and where there's a real need um but I think this argument that stable coins in every single channel every single use case every type

of remittance makes sense um I I don't think holds true today. I think that the applications will increase, but that will actually be dependent on uh local

liquidity pools um expanding.

Any thoughts? I I feel like you you got something. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I I think

something. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I I think look he I was told to make this spicy.

Am I am I doing spicy? Perfect. This is

perfect. I I think to your point like first genius marketer the fact that we're spending this is like the you know here in the previous sessions we're spending time talking about airwalls.

phenomenal. Uh I am very jealous. But I

I think his point which is right is that he built a competitive system to stable coins, right? And so in his world in a

coins, right? And so in his world in a lot of ways, it works without it, right?

Uh and so if airwall for instance takes over globally and is the only used system and they can kind of balance balance everything on their end, there's yes, that is correct. you don't

necessarily need stable coins, but it's essentially yes, if you have a direct competing techn or like not direct, but there's a competing technology that you spent a lot of time and resources on, it

makes sense that you're shy shying away from an alternative. I do think uh that he's correct that in like uh spaces in which there's very high frequency of

money movement, we've got to very efficient markets, right? I think it's it's going to be very hard for stable coin to be more efficient than um you

know uh euro versus dollars. I I I don't think there's uh potentially and two-sided, right? So that the net so

two-sided, right? So that the net so that the netting does actually That's right. There's exactly but but I I do

right. There's exactly but but I I do think that the world's bigger than that, right? And where I think all of us are

right? And where I think all of us are seeing traction and again Felix Pago is a good example is anywhere outside that right where there's immediate value, there's also immediate value for stable

coins for US-based account. People in

the US don't realize that people outside the US kind of want exposure to dollars, right? And those use cases, the use

right? And those use cases, the use cases of global kind of treasury movement are huge use cases that I think he um does not necessarily even cover in

his argument, right? He kind of siloed stable coin to a very specific thing and then he kind of picked that apart. But

but it's sort of like arguing against the internet, right? It's like there there's many things in the internet, you know, if you pick one thing, yes, you can argue against it, but there's so

many use cases here. Yep. um pivoting a little bit. So huge news recently with

little bit. So huge news recently with um some you know Stripe's recent acquisitions. I wanted to ask you about

acquisitions. I wanted to ask you about this directly just as you think about the the Privy acquisition obviously massively close to the wallet space the technology there how are you feeling as

a founder building this company and as you think about that is that validating for you is that does that fire you up like personally how does that feel? I

haven't heard of it. What is it now? No,

look, I I think uh first congrats to to that team. They're a great team. We're

that team. They're a great team. We're

we're we're really happy for them. I

look the I think that the bigger the bigger picture here is the following, which is when we started dynamic, our thesis was extreme and I said this at

the beginning. Our thesis was extremely

the beginning. Our thesis was extremely straight straightforward which is if you fundamentally believe that the way in which we move money globally and we do things is onchain going forward it's

steady state in 10 years and every app on your phone is going to have a crypto component then you have to fundamentally believe that every app on your phone will have a wallet component right because every crypto transaction starts

with a wallet and ends with a wallet right and if you believe that thesis then you have to believe there's going to the gigantic

companies that that you know um generational companies that that allow kind of this wallet infrastructure at global scale, right? And with that

fundamental belief, I kind of think about acquisitions in this space um you know like the Stripe acquisition as extremely bullish signals that we're moving in the right space, right? Um,

you know, there there giant wallet companies out there like Firebox, right?

That's a that's a giant wallet company, right? Their success does not imply

right? Their success does not imply anything besides kind of growing the pie for everyone else. And so, you know, when I look at those and and when I look

at uh kind of, you know, these signals of web two companies coming in um and and doubling down on everything crypto, I become extremely bullish on the fact

that we're accelerating and the fact that in our seed stage, we said five years and everyone gets a wallet. We're

actually closer to that prediction.

We're three years in. We have two more years to be right. Uh, I kind of think that like this makes me extremely bullish that we're actually um kind of heading in the right direction. But just

on that point, right, about how founders should think about this space, I think we're still really early, right? So

those who've been in the space for long enough will remember that curve got bought by PayPal and you mentioned Fireblocks. Everyone, wow, that's the

Fireblocks. Everyone, wow, that's the end of Fireblocks. You know, it was the best thing that happened to Fireblocks by far, right?

um and you know Curve got bought $3 $400 million and then two years later Firebox is raising $8 billion right so just because there's big players in this space buying companies around you

there's still massive opportunity and and you know that's why I think we connected Yanni Tai myself and others we're we're in this for the long run right and so if you're in it for the long run um you know payments is

incredibly fragmented stripe is big but you know there there's many other payment groups very fragmented space, you know, I think I don't know the exact market share, but in some markets it's single very low single digits, in some

it's higher single digits. So the other 90% of the market is going to be using something else, right? And so I think there's I think to your first point around what should founders look for and

builders don't be put off by this sense that there's big players in this space.

Um, and I think the Fireblocks curve partnership should give people a lot of confidence. It acted as a great

confidence. It acted as a great validator for the space. Fireblocks then

went on to become a massively bigger, multiples bigger. Um, it took out a

multiples bigger. Um, it took out a competitor, right? So, I think there's a

competitor, right? So, I think there's a lot to be excited about by those sorts of acquisitions and, you know, it's a great validator for the space and a great opportunity. It's amazing. Can you

great opportunity. It's amazing. Can you

guys touch on the relationship you have just with Dynamic Plus Zero Hash um specifically what that has unlocked for you, how how you guys are thinking about building in the future? Sure. I I can

maybe start. Uh, I mean, I met Edward

maybe start. Uh, I mean, I met Edward yesterday. No, I'm kidding. Uh the the

yesterday. No, I'm kidding. Uh the the look we've we've we've been um I think we we've been working together for a while now and and the cool thing

is and the relationship is to your point it's very much a two-way relationship right dynamic what you realize very quickly is essentially you can kind of make it extremely easy for someone to

spin up a wallet which is where we kind of thrive right like at the end of the day what we do extremely well is the ability for you to show up somewhere and enter an email and get a wallet

immediately or connect your existing wallet, right? And you do that and you

wallet, right? And you do that and you solve a first real problem which is okay reducing the friction for someone to get on chain without them even knowing. But

then you realize very quickly that the second problem after that is getting something into their wallet or getting something out of their wallet, right?

And that's where this relationship is powerful because it means that uh we cannot exist without the ability to

globally in extremely efficient scale in a compliant manner get money into a wallet or out of the wallet which is what zeroash does incredibly well right

and in massive scale um with a bunch of kind of additional features on top and I think correct me if I'm wrong you know vice versa is true which is when you

move money onchain or offchain, you got to move it to a wallet, right? Where

dynamic comes in, right? And so that's how we view that relationship. It's

super symbiotic in that sense. Um, you

know, not to overuse lingo, but uh just because it one kind of builds on top of the other and to build uh you know, the next Venmo, the next uh global

remittance app, the next you know treasury management app, you kind of the next pay uh payroll app, the next contractor payment app, you kind of need both of these solutions together.

Yeah, I mean look, I think I I agree with everything Tai is saying. I think

that when you look at, for example, payroll, I think I view that as part of a broader lens around, for example, any two-sided marketplace, right? Um, and

you know, you've seen announcements from Meta and others. And so, you know, the the first bit that we do is effectively allow people to convert that, make that super seamless, and some people may have a wallet, right? But the second piece is

a lot of people don't um and that's obviously where the partnership comes in. Secondly, I think equally um the

in. Secondly, I think equally um the next generationally defining business, whether that is on a global scale, whether that be the next Replet, whether that be the next Uber, uh whether that

be the next creator platform, um I think will be built on stable coins both from a wallet perspective and from a transactional basis. And so that's what

transactional basis. And so that's what excites me about the partnership is it's that um symbiotic nature um to allow existing players in any two-sided marketplace um to adjust the way and

create more optionality in a really really seamless and I mentioned user experience friendly way and then secondly is to enable builders that creating businesses that that that span

you know hundreds of countries um to instantly access those geos and unlock that and that that's the opportunity.

What about each of those things? Because

I I I agree. I'm seeing there's very clear swim lanes happening across the industry with with the wallet side and the sort of on and off ramp in and outside. What about those two areas? I

outside. What about those two areas? I

think for me, I'm always thinking about like what where does defensibility come in for a business? What are the most um the things when you're building that are the real core defensible technologies that you're building? What about the

wallet and what about the on and off ramping in your experience building it has made it feel defensible? What is so hard about it? Yeah, I can start with the wallet side. Um, look, at the end of

the day, um, the vast majority of developers globally don't really care or should they care about crypto, right? In

the same way that no one wakes up in the morning and says, "Let me figure out the in ins and outs of OOTH." And no one wakes up in the morning and says, "Okay, I really want to learn about the

wonderful world of Swift and AC, right?

They kind of want to implement something and move on their merry way and kind of do what they actually are trying to build what they're actually trying to build." That is doubly true in a vibe

build." That is doubly true in a vibe coding environment where your next set of startups uh are going to be built extremely quickly on top of existing tools because then you can get to market

extremely quickly, right? We are in that sense uh kind of a crypto abstraction company, right? Our goal is to abstract

company, right? Our goal is to abstract away as much complexity as possible for you to implement these magnificent global rails in your app, right? And it

starts with wallets and it brings on-ramps and offramps on top of it and it brings swaps and it brings identity and it brings all that type of stuff.

And the defensibility in a lot of ways is that kind of all-in-one stack, right?

that abstracts away that complexity, but also the fact that you can implement this all in one stack in um kind of in five minutes and go on your merry way.

And that's actually a non-trivial problem solve because you're taking a lot of that complexity that is today in front of the scenes and kind of in the forefront and moving it behind the scenes for this kind of abstracted

experience. It's the same reason why

experience. It's the same reason why companies like Pad exist, right? where

their entire hypothesis and defensibility is around the fact that no one wakes up in the morning and says let me integrate with 50 or 100 bank accounts uh and pull all that data and

do that at scale right and or the same that stripe has uh in terms of like five lines of code and you get access to global kind of um you know a credit card etc and so that's where we see our

defensibility we really think about dynamic as kind of a a an abstraction company or a crypto abstraction company where our goal is to make it extremely

simple for you to tap into these global rails and not think about any of the complexity behind the scenes.

Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean I I think you know where Zero Hash is positioned I I think technical extraction as as well right what we do is complex at scale that we do it on

across you know 100 different assets. Um

if you just look at stable coins the number of stable coins and the velocity of movement in the space is incredibly fast. So um you know one data point I'm

fast. So um you know one data point I'm proud of is USDC.world was launched I think last week and within 3 days we launched USC.orld world, right? So,

launched USC.orld world, right? So,

there's this complexity and continuous evolution that exists and that for us being at the cutting edge of defense of that technological revolution and providing our customers with as much

breadth of choice is really critical.

Second, secondly, I would say it's trust, right? Um the next wave of

trust, right? Um the next wave of adopters in this space will be the largest banks in the world. They'll be

the largest merchants in the world. Um

and what they're looking for is trust, right? uh the way that these decisions

right? uh the way that these decisions are made at these organizations is a CYA risk approach. Everything's viewed in in

risk approach. Everything's viewed in in the framework of risk. Um everything so the reason why players are entering this space in stables isn't because they truly believe in in the technology. It's

because the risk curve has shifted. It's

now more risky not to be involved than to be involved. But in order to make the decisions and the partner decisions that they make, it's largely around that. And

so for us, having been building since 2017, I think a pretty incredible track record with partners ranging from, you know, Black Rockck, Shift 4, um, you know, Nuv, Felix, Pago, um, you know, a

range interactive brokers, you know, these are publicly traded massive organizations with a lot to lose, um, I think having done that for the last eight years and continuing to do so is a

huge competitive advantage that we lean into. 100%. How do you specifically when

into. 100%. How do you specifically when I think about Zero Hash I've always thought about just the regulatory strength and history that you guys have?

What are your current feelings right now Edward around Genius? How that how that's progressing? Is that is that

that's progressing? Is that is that competitively really exciting for you guys? Does that feel like hey maybe some

guys? Does that feel like hey maybe some of this like moat is like if you're able to be honest about that or I'm candid what what you think about it. you guys I mean candidly they've crushed it like

they've more licenses than most like you guys were first first to the game there I I wanted to ask you how you're currently feeling about that. Yeah. So,

look, I I think within like we we view licensing as part of trust. It's it's

one framework. You're abstracting away complexity. You know, getting a slap for

complexity. You know, getting a slap for um unlicensed money transmission um is a is is a federal crime, right? Um and so that's one of the elements, but it's it's it's one part of the overarching

trust. I think with regards to your

trust. I think with regards to your specific question around genius, genius um is largely focused around the issuer.

Um and so if you're of a certain size, you're going to have to be a bank, right? So this concept that banks lose

right? So this concept that banks lose with stable with the genius act is no I mean the banks win right um circle is going to have to become a bank right so

that's the reality of it um we're not an issuer so it doesn't affect us in that sense where I do think it plays in is that I do believe many many banks will issue stable coins and you know that's infrastructure that we provide and then

secondly to my earlier comments what it's going to do is it's going to drive a massive fragmentation in stable coins massive right we've seen JPMMD, you know, every bank is thinking about this.

And so right now you have, you know, probably five stable coins that matter.

Some some would argue less, right? I

think you're an asset fragmentation. You

mean of them? USDC. So USDC, USDT, RLUSD, you know, let's those let's call those the big, you know, big three. Um,

and then PYUSD are, you know, but after the big two, you kind of drop down. um I

think you're going to have 10 to 20 very very large meaningful stable coin issuers created right and so what that does is it creates this increased technical complexity where zero hash is

actually perfectly positioned which is around interoperability so if I want to send you a stable coin and I've got JPMD and you've got USDT it doesn't work right there's got to be an interoperability layer that exists

there's got to be interoperability cross asset and there's also going to be interoperability crosschain so even if I'm sending USDT if you're on USDC do you know let's say they're launching the

light on lightning and I'm on USDT you know again these things don't compute so the genius bill is actually going to create what it does incredibly well is that it's going to make this

technology distributed everywhere that's what's incredibly exciting every everybody in the US is going to have access to a stable coin instantly because all the banks are going to jump in that's like that's incredible but the

usability challenge is only going to become greater And that's why I think companies like ours which abstract away the complexity only benefit significantly from genius. Incredible

answer. All right, we got to wrap up here. So last question for you both.

here. So last question for you both.

This is a room full of stable coin builders, leaders, people who are trying to drive the space forward. Um, what

would be the thing that you would want to leave this room with? This is a serious, you know, sector for you, beach head market. What would be the call uh

head market. What would be the call uh or invitation to this room? If um you know when you're thinking about the kind of commercial relationships you're looking to form, the types of builders

you're looking to support, what would be your your invitation to them?

Um come to our happy hours would be the invitation. No, I I I think look, I I I

invitation. No, I I I think look, I I I think the the we get excited. We

we dynamic kind of get this really special spot in the world of crypto which is when you start a company one of the first things you need is wallet infrastructure right because it's you

can't build anything without it which means that we get to see a bunch of really creative use cases that have not

existed before um anywhere from kind of new neo banks to again global money movement to I just saw a use case where you move money but then you actually

claim it as cash uh in certain locations globally, right? These are really cool

globally, right? These are really cool use cases. And so my call um you know my

use cases. And so my call um you know my ask is is if you're looking if you're thinking about this space or if you're building in this space, we h have a

blast just brainstorming with folks these solutions, right? One of the cool things is we get to build alongside a lot of uh builders who come in with

ideas that we could not build for because did not exist, right? And so I think our ask, you know, and our our call is talk to the dynamic team. If if

you're working on something, you're building something that's unique, tell us what you're building. We want to build tools for that. Right? Again,

we're we're a crypto abstraction company. Our goal is to remove these

company. Our goal is to remove these constraints so you can focus on the actual use cases. So that's that's pretty much our call to action again with the addition of come to the happy

hours at five. Those are really the two I I think somewhat linked. I mean I think for us where we look to either in invest in companies or um what what

excites us is multi-year time horizons, right? Um if the problem's easy, it

right? Um if the problem's easy, it would have been solved. So if if you if if your time horizon has to be long because the problem's going to be big enough and I I think that's the the first point. I think to Tai's point, we

first point. I think to Tai's point, we we like doing things for the first time as well. So when you look at for example

as well. So when you look at for example our account funding product with stable coins, um we've been able to bring in the first regulated clearing house regulated by the CFTC to um enable

stable coins. Um that's Koshi with Zero

stable coins. Um that's Koshi with Zero Hash. Um, we've bought in the first

Hash. Um, we've bought in the first regulated broker dealer directly into stable coins, which is Tasty Trade. And

then we've bought in the first uh regulated fund in the United States. Um,

that is a tokenized fund, which is both Benji, um, by Franklin Templeton. We've

also bought in Black Rocks, which is technically outside of the United States, but also we've bought in groups like Hamilton Lane with Republic. So, we

love bringing in the first players into the space and and disrupting um especially across a range of regulated areas, whether it be CFTC, SEC, FINRA,

and really educating um people about the benefits of stable coins and how you can make this um an incredible unlock for your clients. Incredible. Thank you

your clients. Incredible. Thank you

guys. Let's give it up for him. Thank

you.