Original Title: Stripe's Trillion-Dollar Bet: How Stablecoins Eat Global Payments

Original Source: Bankless

Original Translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In many crypto narratives, stablecoins are often treated as supporting characters. They are not sexy, do not bring tenfold or hundredfold returns, yet stubbornly exist behind almost all transactions and payments. This conversation focuses on the true stage of stablecoins.

Zach Abrams has a unique identity. He has experience in private equity and fintech companies, participated in the productization of USDC at Coinbase, and later founded Bridge, turning stablecoins into API-based payment infrastructure, ultimately selling the company to Stripe in 2023. He has witnessed the entire process of stablecoins being questioned and gradually accepted by fintech, enterprises, and governments.

There are three noteworthy threads in the interview.

First, the engineering challenges of payments.

The narrative around stablecoins is often grand, but when it comes to payment scenarios, it boils down to mundane issues like "how to pay salaries to thousands of people at the same time."

Bridge encountered the challenge of sending tens of thousands of aid payments on Stellar, taking eighteen hours to complete only a portion, accompanied by numerous failures. They also faced the task of opening wallets for millions of users on Solana, with the pre-funding cost of SOL alone reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The real challenge is to keep the system running stably under these real-world loads.

Second, the positioning of Tempo.

With Stripe's push, a new EVM public chain called Tempo is being built, emphasizing high throughput, sub-second finality, and privacy. It is a chain tailored for payment scenarios, not for trading or speculation.

Stripe does not view it as a private chain but hopes to turn it into a shared public infrastructure.

Third, the market structure of stablecoins.

Zach's judgment is that in the future, there will be very few stablecoins with external brands, such as USDT and USDC, which will continue to exist due to liquidity and the network effects of trading pairs.

At the same time, a large number of companies will launch their own internal stablecoins for fund allocation, settlement, and profit distribution.

Imagine the internal fund flows of Walmart or Robinhood; they may not need to rely on USDC but could very well use their own issued "company dollars." In this scenario, the role of clearinghouses will become important, as they can perform end-of-day settlements between different stablecoins.

The conversation also extended to possibilities in the next five to ten years, such as whether local currency stablecoins will fill the gap left by the dollar, whether AI agents will become the largest users of stablecoins, and whether banks will gradually revert to a purely clearing layer in the new system. These questions have no answers today, but they are gradually moving towards our reality.

The greatest value of this episode lies in its pragmatic perspective; stablecoins do not need to be exaggerated or glorified; their significance comes from the most ordinary flow of funds. Whether it's Stripe or Bridge, what they are doing is enabling these funds to reach their destinations faster, cheaper, and more reliably. It is this seemingly mundane goal that may determine the future shape of the payment system.

The following is the original dialogue content:

Ryan: Welcome to Bankless, a show exploring the forefront of internet currency and internet finance. I’m Ryan Sean Adams. I’m here to help you get closer to a "de-banked" future.

All fintech companies will undergo what I call a "crypto transformation." Stripe is one of them. This is a private payment giant valued at $90 billion, processing payments equivalent to 1.3% of global GDP each year. They are undoubtedly at the forefront of this crypto transformation and are moving very quickly. They have made significant investments in stablecoins. And after the Genius Act was just signed, they are doubling down.

A key figure in Stripe's transformation is Zach Abrams. About a year ago, Stripe acquired the stablecoin company Bridge that he co-founded for over $1 billion. Since then, they have made more crypto-related acquisitions, including companies like Privy.

This conversation with Zach gives us a glimpse into how large fintech companies think about this transformation and how they will evolve in the future. This is completely different from the discussions we usually have on Bankless from a crypto-native perspective, and that’s why this conversation is particularly valuable. It is also Zach's story—a resilient entrepreneur who formed his own conclusions around stablecoins and persevered through very challenging times, ultimately leading the company to complete this significant acquisition.

Shortly after we recorded this episode, Stripe announced some new information—they are supporting a new Layer 1 project. Some in the industry are calling it "Stripe Layer 1." However, our guest explained that it is more like a consortium chain called Tempo, which is an EVM chain driven by a group of fintech companies.

We also discussed why they chose not to pursue the traditional paths of Layer 1 or Layer 2. The bigger question is: what is Stripe's next step in the crypto space? How will each fintech company respond? Today, Zach Abrams will help us answer these questions. So let’s get into it.

I’m very pleased to introduce our guest today—Zach Abrams. Zach, welcome to Bankless. First, I have to say at the outset: congratulations on selling your co-founded company Bridge to Stripe. The deal was announced last October, if I’m not mistaken. This acquisition is rumored to be over $1 billion—I don’t know if you can confirm that rumor, but in any case, it’s a massive acquisition for Stripe. Your company has thus entered the ranks of crypto unicorns, which is quite an achievement, congratulations again.

Zach: Yes, thank you very much. A lot has happened since then. It feels like a hundred years have passed.

Ryan: Yeah, I’ve always found it interesting that Stripe acquired a stablecoin company before the Genius Act. You know what I mean? Buying a stablecoin company before the act was passed shows a lot of foresight.

Zach: Well, you know, that was before the election, and a lot of things started to change. Strictly speaking, it was before Genius and before many other things. But I think for them, and for us, the main point is: you can already see this thing working. The changes are happening very quickly. Two or three years ago, its performance was quite poor.

Ryan: You mean the overall situation, right?

Zach: Yes, yes, from a business perspective, the overall development of stablecoins. At that time, we had also gone through the events of Terra, Luna, and FTX.

Ryan: Oh right, I almost forgot.

Zach: Yeah, it seems like a long time ago now. But at that time, some real payment companies and fintech firms were already building products based on what we had created. If you squint and look into the future, you can vaguely see it becoming very important.

Ryan: Yeah, that’s so interesting. I think that’s the genius of the Collison brothers, right? They always seem to squint and see the future, and they bet right this time. I want to talk about them later. But before that, let’s talk about you. Can you share your experience as a crypto entrepreneur? You can start from anywhere. Where did your story begin? How did you get to where you are now, working at Stripe and completing this perhaps billion-dollar acquisition?

Zach: Well, for me, the starting point of this journey might be different from most crypto entrepreneurs—it started with auto parts.

When I graduated from college, my goal was actually to become an operating partner at a private equity firm, which sounds pretty strange, right? I got into private equity because I thought turning around companies and increasing revenue would be interesting. So I joined a private equity firm that acquired some distressed companies in 2009. At that time, the auto industry was in complete turmoil. We acquired an auto parts company, and I, at 22 years old, was sent to be the CFO of that company.

However, that experience was quite bleak. You can imagine, a 22-year-old kid, like a nerd, sent to Canada to announce to all the workers that we were going to close the factory there. Then I was sent to Mexico to cut the ribbon. I thought, this is not at all what I want to do. What I wanted was to "create," and this was the complete opposite. So I left private equity. At that time, I heard that people on the West Coast were starting to venture into entrepreneurship. But I was at Duke University, and the year I graduated, there were only about seven or eight real computer science graduates in the entire Duke.

Ryan: So what did everyone else study?

Zach: Basically, they were all studying economics and going to investment banks after graduation. So there was no entrepreneurial atmosphere around me. So I decided, forget it, I’ll do it myself. I thought I could do it. The first company I wanted to start was actually a "buy now, pay later" model, a bit like Klarna or Affirm, but that was in 2010. At that time, starting such a business was almost the hardest thing: you needed to secure large partners and deal with a bunch of troubles like credit, fraud, and risk.

I went to raise funds, thinking the process was like this: first make a PPT, go find VCs, they give you money, and then you hire an engineering team to build the product. But when I ran around VC offices, the response I got was always: show me the product first. At that moment, I was completely disheartened.

Ryan: So you weren’t an engineer by background? You hadn’t studied computer science?

Zach: Right, I had never studied computer science, had no idea what engineers did, didn’t know what designers did, and certainly didn’t know what product managers did. You could say I was one of the least suitable people for entrepreneurship. Then I went through a painful year: trying to start a company but realizing I had to learn to code first. So I went to a coding school in New York. Later, I found I needed a co-founder, so I started what you might call "co-founder dating." You can imagine, it was like going to a bar, with a hundred people like me, and only one engineer.

Ryan: So that one engineer became the most popular person.

Zach: That's right. Later, I finally met Sean, who is now my co-founder at Bridge. He also graduated from Duke. I met him about nine months after that journey began, and I convinced him to start a company with me. After that, we were finally able to raise funds and started to gain some momentum. Later, I moved to the West Coast, but that company ultimately didn't make it, and we sold it to Square. But that was the beginning of my journey, even though it started in a completely different direction.

Ryan: So that brought you into the fintech space. While selling the company to Square might not be considered a huge success, at least it got you out of the pain of entrepreneurship, marking an exit. After that, you not only worked at Square but also had experiences at Brex and Coinbase. So your resume includes both fintech and crypto backgrounds.

Zach: Yes, that's absolutely correct. In fact, every time I look for my next job, I realize in hindsight that I am really interested in fintech. Theoretically, I had a bunch of options in front of me, but every time I would end up picking from the same category on the menu, which is fintech companies.

Around 2016, I applied to join Coinbase. I was really excited about cryptocurrencies at that time. Actually, when I first moved to San Francisco to start Evenly (which was our first company), Bitcoin had just risen to $1,000 and then crashed; that was probably around 2012 or 2013. That was also when Sean and I first bought Bitcoin.

At that time, we attended various meetups where everyone was discussing mining, hardware companies, and all sorts of new things around Bitcoin. These experiences sparked my interest in crypto. By 2016, after I left Square, I had a very strong sense of excitement, feeling that this was going to become something very important. I can't pinpoint what triggered that feeling, but I just felt that something big was going to happen in the future.

So I joined Coinbase. At that time, the company had about 60 to 70 people. You have to understand, Coinbase was a very strange company; it wasn't like the startups of today that can have 70 employees in three months. Coinbase had been around for about five years, and when I joined, I was the 200th employee, but there were actually only about seventy people in the company because Coinbase had gone through many transformations and directional shifts.

When I joined Coinbase, it coincided with a bit of overlap with Stripe. At that time, Coinbase had just realized that using Bitcoin for payments and shopping on the internet was not going to become the next big trend. Their biggest clients at that time were Stripe and Overstock.com.

Ryan: Was Stripe using Coinbase back then?

Zach: Yes, Stripe was using Coinbase's "pay with Bitcoin" feature. Just as I joined Coinbase, we gradually realized that maybe this wasn't the future direction. The real potential was actually in the exchange model—buying and selling crypto assets on exchanges, which could develop into a big business.

Then in 2017, everything changed completely. Coinbase went from being a very niche company to almost overnight becoming one of the mainstream financial service companies in the U.S.

During this process, one of the last major projects I worked on at Coinbase was USDC. Although the actual technical implementation of USDC was handled by other teams, I was responsible for Coinbase's consumer business, and our goal was to find use cases for USDC and make it useful. It was during the productization of USDC that we began to form the view that it could become the first global store of value.

We also considered building Coinbase Consumer into a product similar to a neo bank, exploring many possibilities around USDC, but ultimately we couldn't really make it happen. After that, I left Coinbase and went to Brex.

Ryan: So you returned to the fintech space before founding Bridge?

Zach: Yes, that's absolutely correct. Leaving for two years actually helped me—it gave me time to reflect and allowed me to see many of the issues Brex was facing clearly. Brex was trying to expand internationally, and I was involved in many related product efforts, which made it clear to me that some local issues already solved in developed markets had not been addressed at all in international contexts.

Ryan: Zach, your resume is particularly interesting; you have both a fintech background and crypto experience, and you ultimately founded Bridge. You are one of the few who can connect both sides. My own observation is that many traditional fintech professionals are skeptical of crypto, while many people in the crypto space don't understand or even take fintech seriously. So the two sides have long operated independently: crypto on one side, fintech on the other.

I feel this cycle is starting to change, perhaps from 2023 onwards, with this trend becoming more apparent by 2025: fintech and crypto are moving towards integration. The financial world and the crypto world—are they different, or will they eventually merge? I think this is one of the important themes of this episode.

So how did you bridge that gap? You are in fintech but not entirely skeptical of crypto; conversely, you are in crypto but understand fintech. What did you see that other fintech people didn't?

Zach: First of all, I completely agree with the premise of your question. I think one of the biggest unique advantages we had when we founded Bridge was that we were in the middle ground. We had a deep understanding of the financial system while also recognizing the possibilities that crypto technology could bring. And that combination is very rare. Now, of course, there are more people in that space, but at that time, I felt we were almost the only team truly standing at that intersection.

You were either the kind of person who believed in crypto almost like a "faith," thinking that the existing financial system was a complete failure and would inevitably be replaced; or you were entrenched in the traditional financial system, believing that crypto was purely speculative or even ridiculous.

Ryan: Scams, money laundering, drug trafficking, crazy JPEGs—it's all speculation, with no substance whatsoever.

Zach: Exactly. And the overlap between these two circles is extremely small, but it is this intersection that created opportunities for us. It was very difficult at the beginning because standing at this intersection meant we had to deal with banks and sell products to non-crypto companies. This made it particularly challenging in the early days because there was no one else in that position. Even today, challenges still exist, but the situation is much better than it was back then.

Ryan: You founded Bridge in 2022, right? And that year was a dark time for crypto, as was 2023. All the momentum that had built up and the public goodwill towards the crypto industry collapsed with the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. The subsequent wave of sell-offs and the political goodwill needed to push for stablecoin legislation completely vanished.

Of course, Bankless listeners know that in the following years, there was also the "Choke Point" initiative and a series of crackdowns. During such a time, you were trying to build a bridge between traditional finance, fintech, and crypto. What was that experience like?

Zach: It was as bad as you said, if not worse. Because let's not forget that Terra Luna also collapsed at that time. It cast a shadow over the entire stablecoin space. Meanwhile, a number of so-called "crypto-friendly banks" ultimately went bankrupt. Those institutions standing at the intersection of both circles were almost all punished. Signature and Silvergate collapsed.

Ryan: That was probably early 2023, right?

Zach: Yes, early 2023. There was also a bank called BankProv that many people haven't mentioned. It was also one of the crypto-friendly banks, providing a lot of loans to Bitcoin miners, and those loans ended up suffering significant losses, leading to the CEO being fired. Almost everyone or every institution at that intersection was punished to some extent.

For us, one thing was crucial. Many entrepreneurs ride a wave when starting a business. For example, right now, everyone wants to start AI companies because that’s the so-called "hot project." When the external environment continuously gives you positive feedback, entrepreneurship seems easier. But ultimately, whether a company can succeed almost always depends on a core belief held by the founders or early team—they feel that this thing must be created.

So starting a company at that point in time was, in a sense, a good thing. Because whether we could hold onto that belief and push it into reality was tested almost from the very beginning. We always had a very core belief: stablecoins represent a superior way to construct financial products. The reason is not ideological; it’s because they can truly make the flow of funds faster, cheaper, and more accessible. Essentially, it is a more efficient way of transferring funds.

A typical example: many people may not have thought about this, but when you transfer money via ACH or wire transfer, you get no confirmation at all and cannot know whether the money has arrived. You can only send it out and hope it gets there.

Ryan: Zach, have you ever experienced a lost wire transfer? I have, actually, it was quite recent. I wired money from one place to another. I still do some traditional finance business, and I have bank accounts, so it’s not completely "de-banked," just to clarify.

Zach: Wire transfers often have issues, yes.

Ryan: Right, that wire transfer never arrived. I waited 24 hours, 48 hours, and the money still didn’t show up. I was completely panicked. Then I started to investigate: had that wire transfer settled? Where was its ID on FedWire? I spoke to at least five or six people. This was between my brokerage account and another account.

Later, they handed the issue over to the wire transfer tracking team, telling me it would take 48 to 72 hours to process. I asked if this kind of situation usually gets resolved. They said most of the time it does, but they couldn’t guarantee it. I thought to myself: if even wire transfers can’t be tracked, that’s just ridiculous.

Zach: Yeah, that’s just absurd. When you send a stablecoin through the blockchain, you can see when it was sent, when it was confirmed, when it was received, and even if it doesn’t arrive, you can know immediately. These are all basic functionalities.

Beyond costs, there are more complex factors that reinforce our belief that currency will inevitably be tokenized. Whether it’s individuals, businesses, fintech companies, or banks, they will ultimately see the value of this new payment track. And we are preparing for that future. We have always held onto this core belief.

And my fintech background has actually been a huge help. I've seen too many similar situations: the reasons why successful fintech products succeed are often very straightforward. It's not like in the consumer internet space, where you have to guess why Instagram won or why Facebook won.

The logic of fintech is more direct. Why can Robinhood win? Because it offers commission-free trading, while other platforms charge $5 per trade. Why did Square succeed? Because before it came along, small businesses had to spend thousands of dollars each year and pay 5% in fees to process credit card transactions, while Square made registration instant and cheap. Stripe follows a similar logic.

Financial products ultimately follow a pattern: over time, people will make rational choices. So at first, the market may stigmatize stablecoins and see them as risky. But at the same time, building and using stablecoins can bring very tangible benefits. What we are doing is moving towards a future where perceived risks decrease, and people can truly experience these practical benefits.

Initially, these users were often the ones with the highest risk tolerance, such as startups. Now, as regulations become clearer, users further down the risk curve—including large enterprises and even governments—are starting to use stablecoins. This is particularly exciting. But all of this stems from our initial core belief: stablecoins are financially logical and worth building.

Ryan: Right, that was the core belief you held onto in 2022. At that time, it was neither obvious nor popular. After the collapse of Terra Luna, many people thought stablecoins were "dead" and that crypto was no longer viable. Coupled with situations like Tether, everyone was questioning how AML and KYC were being handled. Was there a bit of gray area? What exactly was happening?

So I think this is your kind of "unshakeable assertion." Zach, I would even say you are the closest person I've seen to a "stablecoin maxi." You know that there are all sorts of "religious sects" in the crypto space. But you might just be the representative of stablecoins. Because I've heard you say that even though you are skeptical about many value propositions in crypto, once it comes to stablecoins, you firmly believe they are "the next evolution of money."

I remember you said something like, "I am in the crypto space not because I want to liberate the world from centralization, nor because I want to build a libertarian utopia, but because I love financial services, and I believe this new platform can be used to create better products."

Some crypto-native Bankless listeners might think, "Hey, Zach, this sounds too pragmatic. That's not what we're here to do." But you are very straightforward; you believe the biggest value proposition in crypto is to build a better fintech system based on stablecoins.

So for those who are not familiar with the situation, when they mention stablecoins, they might think of Circle or Tether, believing that stablecoins are just those issuers. But what you are doing is actually different. While I know Bridge also has a stablecoin, it is essentially more like a stablecoin payment platform. What exactly did you build between 2022 and the acquisition? What is Bridge's mission?

Zach: I think one of the biggest takeaways from my experiences at Square, Brex, and now Stripe is that money is unimaginably important in people's lives. Even if it just improves efficiency a little bit in how people receive payments, manage funds, or transfer money, I can see the huge changes it brings to people's lives.

Take Square as an example. They created a small card reader that made it easier for small merchants to accept credit card payments. Before that, many could only accept cash. But Square enabled millions of merchants to sell more products, turning previously unprofitable businesses into profitable ones, allowing them to capture transactions they would have otherwise lost. This change has fundamentally altered many people's livelihoods.

Stablecoins are similar, but their impact is much larger.

You know, the significance of stablecoins lies in the fact that they can be used and stored by people all over the world. With stablecoins, people now have real choices that didn't exist before in every country. You can transfer stablecoins between different countries at a fraction of the cost. This will create enormous opportunities, and the applications people can build on top of it will be very profound.

So we have always adhered to this long-term belief. I am particularly driven by this belief, convinced of the possibilities and ultimate outcomes of stablecoins. Of course, there have been moments of doubt. For example, a particularly typical moment was the week we launched our API, which coincided with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). I remember telling Sean, "I still believe we are right, but this path might be delayed by ten years; the timeline might be completely off."

Ryan: As a result, you didn't expect that at the time you thought you were at the lowest point, you just needed to wait another 24 months for the U.S. to pass its first piece of crypto legislation, and it was stablecoin legislation. This meant that stablecoins would gain legitimacy overnight and experience explosive growth. You thought the prospects would be delayed by ten years, but in reality, you were only two years away from a turning point.

Zach: It's incredible. In fact, initially experiencing these setbacks made us particularly vigilant. At that time, our biggest concern was "how to ensure the next meal," because the first 18 months of the company were almost a constant cycle: we would finally sign a bank partnership, and they would soon go under; we would sign a client, and they would quickly run into problems. Even when things finally started to improve, we would still think, "Wait, this can't last too long, right?"

Ryan: When did things start to improve? Was it closer to 2024?

Zach: I would say things started to improve around June 2023.

We founded the company in early 2022, so it took about 18 months for things to start getting better. Returning to your earlier question: what Bridge does is facilitate the flow of funds using stablecoins. Our view is that the current fiat currency system already exists, and stablecoins act as an "extension layer" built on top of the fiat currency system. You can think of our mental model as: stablecoins are like Layer 2 on top of the Layer 1 fiat currency system. Funds need to be "on-chain" in a tokenized form to enjoy more efficient benefits, but ultimately they will continuously "fall back" to Layer 1.

A typical example is cross-border payments: funds initially come from fiat currency because the business operates in fiat; then the funds rise to this extension layer and become tokenized; after cross-border movement, they fall back to the recipient and revert to fiat currency.

Ryan: So in this example, Layer 1—the fiat layer—refers to bank settlements? Ultimately, it will settle into systems like FedWire?

Zach: Exactly. Today, most fund flows switch back and forth between Layer 2 and Layer 1. This is also how many practical use cases operate. A good example is: Bridge allows people around the world to store money in dollars, but in the form of stablecoins.

For instance, we work with Scale AI, which provides data annotation for AI models. Scale's business is settled in dollars—fiat dollars. They send funds to Bridge, which converts those funds into stablecoins and then distributes the stablecoins to data annotators worldwide.

So the funds initially exist in the fiat layer, we tokenize that money, and then distribute it to users, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of stablecoins.

Ryan: So the essence of Bridge is to build a bridge between the fiat Layer 1 (the traditional banking system, ultimately settling to FedWire, etc.) and the stablecoin Layer 2 (the tokenized world). You sit right in the middle. And the API you mentioned is the interface connecting the bank layer and the tokenized stablecoins, right?

Zach: That's right. And we are essentially built for developers. Today's developers are mostly fintech companies, banks, or startups. They want to use stablecoins for cross-border fund flows, or accept stablecoin payments, or allow customers to store tokenized dollars, or even issue debit cards on top of stablecoins.

We package all these capabilities into a simple set of APIs, allowing developers to avoid delving into the various details of the crypto and fiat worlds, and not having to navigate the complexities of KYC and compliance. They just need to call the interface to deliver the final value to their users.

Ryan: So do you also have a stablecoin? Something like USDC?

Zach: Yes, we have a stablecoin. Returning to your earlier question: June 2023 was when we really got things running smoothly. Our first core product is what we call orchestration APIs. Their role is to facilitate the flow of funds between the fiat layer and the stablecoin layer. The first scenario we successfully ran was using stablecoins for cross-border payments.

The first real client was Zulu. They were our first "real customer." The situation was quite interesting: I tweeted about us, they saw it, and reached out to us. But the negotiation process was extremely difficult; they pressured us hard on fees. I almost wanted to give up a hundred times because I had never sold anything before. In the end, they still integrated with our platform.

Their need was to convert Colombian pesos into stablecoins, and then have someone help them convert the stablecoins into dollars and send the money to a bank account in the U.S. In other words, they needed a service that could run a cross-border payment process to convert Colombian pesos to dollars.

We created a very simple product for them: assigning a crypto address to a bank account. For example, you just need to send stablecoins to a specific Ethereum or Solana address, and that address will automatically convert it into fiat currency and send it to the associated bank account via ACH or wire transfer. For them, the product was very simple: just call the API, create an account, deposit the money, and the system would deposit it into their bank account.

After signing with Zulu, they grew at a rate of 50% to 100% each month. As a result, Bridge also grew at the same rate. The state of a startup is quite magical: looking at it from another angle, our company at that time might have been super fragile, with almost only one customer, not really achieving product-market fit. Although there were a few other clients, the core relied on this one. But from another perspective, you could say we really made it work because the company was growing exponentially every month. Zulu helped us get through the first three or four months.

I often think about what would have happened if we hadn't found Zulu at that time. Today, when people look at Bridge, they see it as a success: we are now part of Stripe, stablecoins have become a trend, and it seems everything was destined to succeed. But at that time, the difference between us and "no progress, zero customers, zero feedback" was just one customer. It's incredible. It was this one customer that gave us the confidence to try for the next clients. As a result, our next big client turned out to be the U.S. government.

At that time, there was a government aid program to distribute funds to frontline workers in Latin America. These aid funds were previously distributed through stablecoins, executed by Silvergate. But when Silvergate collapsed, they could no longer distribute the funds because the process is actually very complex. You need to first receive the funds from the government, convert them into stablecoins, and then issue thousands of stablecoin payments. This is not something that can be done manually.

Ryan: Essentially, it's still a dollar payment, right? When you tell this story, I am reminded of the previous U.S. "stimmy checks." You remember, right? Every American received them, but the process was very strange and clumsy. I received mine via ACH, while some people got paper checks; if you didn't have a bank account, you might not have received anything at all.

Stablecoins are actually similar, just on a smaller scale: you just want to quickly airdrop funds to a specific group of people or organizations. But in the existing fiat Layer 1 system, this is almost impossible—because the whole process is too cumbersome.

Zach: And the costs are extremely high. You have to convert U.S. dollars, which are in a "U.S. format," into the local currency format, such as Argentine pesos or Brazilian reais, through a U.S. partner, which incurs costs. Then, depositing into local bank accounts incurs additional costs. Each step has fixed and variable fees. For small amounts of money, there is almost no efficient way to distribute them. That's why, before finding us, they chose to use stablecoins for distribution.

Ryan: Let me ask you a more macro question. If we consider Layer 1 as the settlement layer for banks and fiat currencies, and Layer 2 as the layer of tokenized stablecoins combined with crypto-native platforms, what do you think?

If more and more businesses start to occur on Layer 2 because it is more user-friendly and functional, then global fintech applications—whether in emerging markets or in the U.S.—will be more inclined to use Layer 2 directly rather than relying on Layer 1.

If this continues, I see the result being that the existing banking settlement system will be bypassed to some extent. At least, real use cases are increasingly happening on Layer 2, while the banking system gradually degenerates into a "dumb settlement layer." They no longer engage in interesting and valuable activities, nor do they build applications; instead, they become marginalized, left only with the settlement function.

So I wonder, if the trend is indeed like this, will there be conflicts with the existing traditional banking system—like institutions such as JPMorgan? I recently saw Jamie Dimon mention something similar. He talked about Plaid, which you should be familiar with. Plaid connects to the global banking system through APIs, allowing developers to easily access banking data.

Jamie Dimon said they do not want Plaid to scrape their customers' data, even if the customers authorize it. They want to restrict Plaid and charge additional fees. His point is clear: they do not want to be relegated to that "zero-profit dumb settlement layer."

So I am curious, if more and more businesses move towards Layer 2, leaning more towards crypto and fintech, will banks tolerate it? Or will they push back? Do you see this trend now?

Zach: I think they will. I believe some banks will definitely do this. Assuming we completely eliminate regulatory factors and the world becomes a "libertarian paradise," then the flow of funds will increasingly be completed through stablecoins. In other words, if you view the stablecoin layer as a layer above the banking layer, over time, more deposits will settle into the stablecoin layer, and more users will interact solely through the stablecoin layer. Meanwhile, the banking layer—though still large today and the main channel for fund flows—will gradually shrink over time, while the stablecoin layer will continue to expand.

I think this is a natural evolutionary direction. The reason is very practical: building applications on the stablecoin layer is easier; whether as consumers or businesses, you can achieve better economic benefits on this layer; the cost of fund flow is lower, and settlement is simpler. Therefore, more and more transactions will naturally shift here.

However, I believe the real big issue is that all fund flows and financial services must ultimately comply with regulatory requirements.

So the question is: how much funding and business will migrate to this layer? And clearly, banks will do everything they can to protect their own scale and importance.

Ryan: Let me give you an example. One area that banks seem very eager to protect is the yield on government bonds, especially short-term government bonds. According to the Genius Act, there is a specific provision: stablecoin issuers cannot directly return this yield of around 4% to users; only banks can do that. Of course, I am simplifying; you certainly understand the complexities better. But the general logic is that only banks can directly provide customers with government bond yields.

However, later the crypto circle found a small "workaround." Instead of issuers like Circle directly giving the 4% yield to users, exchanges do it. For example, if I store USDC on Coinbase, I may not get the full 4% (Coinbase takes a cut), but I do receive part of the yield. You can imagine that in crypto and DeFi, there will be various ways for stablecoin holders to obtain this yield.

The question lies here: why not? Why can banks monopolize this 4% yield? Why can't stablecoin holders enjoy it? Why should this 4% "rental yield" be monopolized by banks? Now, the banking alliance is trying to close this loophole; they do not want crypto companies to continue to exploit this yield.

Thus, a confrontation has emerged: on one side is crypto and fintech, and on the other side are banks. And banks clearly have strong influence; they have been deeply rooted in Washington for many years and control part of the game rules. This seems to be brewing into a "battle of the giants." What do you think?

Zach: Indeed. But I also want to add that this is not entirely "crypto against banks." For example, Tether does not return yields to users, nor does Circle.

Ryan: Right, they also have no incentive to return that yield.

Zach: Exactly. This is also something I often think about. Before founding Bridge, I often felt that some reasonable things would inevitably happen. For example, the yield return to users that you just mentioned seems to me to be something that will happen sooner or later because it is just too reasonable.

However, now I realize more clearly that nothing is "inevitably going to happen." It will only happen when someone—whether a small group or a large team—works hard to push it forward. For instance, the "yield return to users" will only change the market landscape if someone builds the corresponding mechanism and continues to drive it.

Even if stablecoins ultimately succeed, if only the two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC, exist, the outcome is clear: Tether will never return yields to users; that is not their model. Circle and Coinbase may also stop returning yields at some point in the future. That surplus will not flow to consumers or businesses but will be captured by new "Visa/Mastercard-like" giants.

So someone must build new mechanisms. This is also why we want to issue our own stablecoin—the goal is to ensure that the benefits of stablecoins and the economic yields generated by stablecoins can better flow down to end users and end businesses, thereby improving the economic model of the platform.

We believe this is very important. This is not just a regulatory game; it is also a game about the long-term structure of the stablecoin market. We must ensure that this system ultimately creates surplus for consumers, rather than merely transferring value from old financial institutions to new financial institutions.

Ryan: Exactly. As an ordinary stablecoin holder, I certainly hope that these "rental yields" can disappear, allowing more yields to return to users. Now let's talk about the Genius Act itself.

Currently, stablecoins in the crypto space are almost a "duopoly." Tether holds the dominant share, with USDC following behind. This pattern aligns with the logic that "the greater the liquidity, the greater the advantage," appearing to reflect a "power law effect." However, the entire market size is currently only around $270 billion, which will certainly grow to trillions of dollars in the future.

The Genius Act has opened a whole new door, allowing various new issuers to enter the market. There are already some fintech players entering, such as PayPal's stablecoin; you also have your own stablecoin; I guess Stripe will definitely make big moves; there are even rumors that Amazon and Walmart may also enter the market.

So after the Genius Act, we may enter a whole new era, seeing various issuers flooding in, different experiments unfolding, all competing for liquidity and dominance, and presenting different paths and ideas.

What do you think about the stablecoin market after the Genius Act? You can start by discussing Stripe's thoughts, but more generally, do you think there will be a large number of experimental projects, or will there be some clear structure?

Zach: Our view is that there will be many different stablecoins in the future. I believe every platform should have its own stablecoin. We may see a world where the number of stablecoins could reach tens of thousands or even millions.

The differences between these stablecoins will be completely abstracted. So ultimately, only a few "brand-recognized stablecoins" will be truly named by people, such as USDT and USDC. I believe USDT and USDC will be more successful in the future than they are today, and we certainly hope so, as they play a huge role in driving the industry. Their businesses have strong network effects, as they continuously accumulate liquidity and build foreign exchange trading pairs.

These are very hard to replicate. PayPal is an example; it spent a lot of money to get PYUSD off the ground and establish liquidity, but the results are not easy.

So, I think there may only be about five or so, or a small handful of such "brand stablecoins" that can truly establish themselves in the market. Meanwhile, when major platforms use stablecoins—like Robinhood, the Amazon and Walmart you mentioned, and even banks—they will be more inclined to issue stablecoins that they control. The reason is simple: these stablecoins are primarily used for internal fund transfers within the platform, such as distributing funds to users and settling between different subsidiaries. In this scenario, the external liquidity advantages of USDC are simply not relevant.

For example, if Walmart allocates funds among its twenty-plus subsidiaries in Europe, that is entirely an internal transfer. They naturally want to use their own stablecoin because they want to directly control the reserves, rather than handing the funds over to Circle to mix with others' funds. They also want to directly receive interest income and fully control the flow of these dollars.

More importantly, some issuers now charge a burn fee when redeeming funds. So you can imagine, if you want to transfer a large amount of money and have to pay an additional fee, that is worse than using fiat currency.

So you definitely want to have control over your funds. This isn't about decentralization; it's about not wanting to rely on another platform, as its interests will always outweigh yours. This is especially true when the flow of funds is at the core of your business.

Ryan: I understand, that's very interesting. Let me confirm if I understand correctly: the future world you describe would likely have a small number of "external brand stablecoins," like today's Tether and USDC. Each would have its own positioning, such as Tether being more favored in international markets outside the U.S., while USDC represents "compliant stablecoins." There might also be a stablecoin focused on "returning yields to users" or other features, but overall, the number of external stablecoins would only be a few.

At the same time, every large company would have its own "internal stablecoin." I can even think of the current Starbucks rewards card, which, while not yet an ERC-20 fungible token, essentially functions as an internal currency on Starbucks' balance sheet. The world you describe might be that there are only a few external stablecoins, but internally, companies will have thousands or even millions of different "corporate stablecoins."

However, I can imagine that they will ultimately need to be compatible with each other. Just like I wouldn't want to have Wells Fargo dollars that I can't use at JP Morgan because JP Morgan only recognizes its own JP Morgan dollars, and then I would have to exchange them. This entire system must maintain fungibility and interoperability, just like today. Is the world you envision really like this? Can you help clarify a bit?

Zach: Yes, that's completely correct. Let me give two simple examples. Suppose in the future every bank uses stablecoins for fund settlements, but Wells Fargo would never use JP Morgan's stablecoin; that is simply impossible. Because the reserves for JP Morgan's stablecoin are held at JP Morgan. If Wells Fargo used it, it would mean its reserves would have to be held at JP Morgan. Logically, that makes no sense, so that situation will never happen.

Let me give another example. Suppose you are Polymarket. Polymarket currently operates mainly using stablecoins, allowing users to bet with any stablecoin they want: you can use USDT, USDC, or even potentially directly use dollars or other tokens in the future.

But internally at Polymarket, you would definitely want it to ultimately run on its own PolyUSD, or some internal stablecoin belonging to Polymarket. There are several reasons for this:

First, if Polymarket wants to build its own Layer 2 in the future, its stablecoin can seamlessly migrate to that Layer 2 without needing to persuade external issuers to cooperate in the migration.

Second, it needs to ensure that there are no burn fees during redemption, so that zero-cost redemptions can be achieved at any time.

Third, it may ultimately want to program and customize the smart contract logic of these dollar stablecoins.

So for Polymarket, controlling its own "dollars"—that is, its own programmable, tokenized dollars—is key to ensuring it can lead future developments.

Ryan: And if it's Polymarket, it might also want to share interest income with users, right?

Zach: Yes, exactly. So we believe such a world should exist. But the problem is that someone must build this world. The Genius Act is a very important first step; it makes this world more feasible and increases market acceptance of it. Next, we need to truly implement it.

Ryan: Now back to your earlier example of Wells Fargo and JP Morgan. If Wells Fargo wants to send money to JP Morgan, how would they do it? Would they need to go through an intermediary stablecoin, like USDC, before transferring to JP Morgan? Or would they revert to Layer 1, the fiat system, to complete the settlement in the background?

Zach: The way I envision it is that there will be a dedicated stablecoin clearinghouse. Every day, stablecoins will circulate among banks in this clearinghouse, and only at the end of each day will they actually return to Layer 1 for net settlement, balancing the reserves of all parties. This way, only a net amount needs to be settled each day, rather than the full amount of funds. This is somewhat similar to the current settlement logic of the financial system, just with different settlement windows. But I believe this is how it will operate in the future.

Ryan: Stripe's moves are very interesting. It seems we are in an era where fintech companies are fully undergoing a "crypto transformation," and Stripe has signed on to be one of the pioneers in this.

I've been following the Carlson brothers; they previously tried some crypto directions, like Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, but were somewhat skeptical at the time. This time is different; this is the first time we see Stripe truly "all in" on crypto. They started by acquiring Bridge (stablecoin payment infrastructure) and then acquired Privy (a crypto wallet infrastructure company), making significant moves.

So this is not just Stripe's story; it is also a reflection of the entire fintech industry's accelerated crypto transformation. You were one of the early visionaries of stablecoins, and now five years have passed. If we look ahead another five years, after this integration period ends, what will fintech look like? For example, will Venmo, which many U.S. users use daily, become a crypto wallet? Will the balances in our PayPal accounts be entirely backed by stablecoins? What kind of shape do you think this integration will bring to fintech?

Zach: I believe that most financial assets will be tokenized. The result will be that the foundational module for every fintech company will be a "wallet."

In the future, it won't be like today, where people feel that the crypto world is a new field that requires relearning. At that time, you would just need to call an API, like Bridge's API, to open an account for users, and that account would essentially be a wallet. In this wallet, you could enable dollars (which would be some stablecoin), enable euros (another stablecoin), enable reais (yet another stablecoin), and later, you could also enable stock trading (which is the tokenized form of stocks), and so on.

I think we are already on a "glide path" now, unless there are drastic regulatory changes in the future. The most interesting dynamic in this is that, on one hand, you will see wallets originally rooted in the crypto space gradually aligning with traditional financial services; on the other hand, you will also see traditional financial companies continuously moving closer to crypto. Over time, these two paths will gradually merge.

Take Robinhood as an example; it initially started as a typical traditional financial player, providing stock trading. But later, it increased its investment in crypto trading, and now one of their core strategies is internationalization. So how does a fintech company go international? If I were Robinhood, I would choose to start with "building a wallet," making the wallet the core.

The most magical aspect of blockchain is that it is essentially "open-source financial services." For example, if you build on Solana or another blockchain, whenever developers around the world add new features to Solana, those features can immediately be used by Robinhood.

Ryan: And it's always open, 24/7. As long as there is an internet connection, it can be used in any country.

Zach: Exactly. The traditional financial service model is that as a company, you must build everything yourself. If someone wants to replicate Revolut, they have to establish compliance infrastructure, develop new products, and connect to local stock markets in every new country—they have to do everything themselves.

But blockchain is completely different. For example, if someone issues a tokenized Brazilian real based on Solana, then Robinhood doesn't need to develop the related infrastructure themselves; they can immediately natively support BRL deposits. Similarly, if someone issues a euro token on-chain, Robinhood can directly support euro balances; if someone issues tokenized government bonds, Robinhood can directly provide government bond yields.

So, you are essentially "open-sourcing" the entire financial stack to the world, built collaboratively by countless developers, and then you internalize these services into your own products. This is why I believe everything will eventually go on-chain—it's a shift from the past world of "single companies building everything piece by piece" to a world where "everything is shared and built on the blockchain," and you just need to integrate and internalize these results.

Ryan: This is actually a very simple narrative, but it really seems to be happening now. As you said, all the bank accounts we use today will become crypto wallets in the future, whether users know it or not; and all the assets we hold will also become some form of crypto tokens, existing somewhere on the chain.

Another question is that we see some fintech companies, like Robinhood, and even Coinbase (which now seems to be transitioning more towards fintech), have launched their own ledgers—they all have their own Layer 2. Meanwhile, Circle recently launched a Layer 1, which is a public chain focused on stablecoin payments. Recently, there have also been reports that Stripe is going down this path, announcing the Tempo project.

So the question is: how is this positioned within the entire stack? Will banks also move towards a similar model—gradually transforming their originally "private ledgers" in the background into some sort of semi-private/semi-public chain ledger? Will they also launch their own Layer 1 or Layer 2 in the future? What do you think about this evolution?

Zach: For us, this process has actually evolved quite naturally. I would say Bridge is probably one of the earliest companies trying to build payment-level infrastructure on the blockchain. I can't say we were definitely the first, but at the time, it certainly felt like we were at the forefront. And this is very difficult; it remains difficult to this day. Blockchain has many advantages, but it does not perform well in terms of "scaling payments."

Ryan: For example, building on Ethereum would encounter issues like gas fees, right?

Zach: Even with Solana—widely recognized as a TPS representative project. We recently encountered a client who has millions of accounts and wants to open stablecoin accounts for all users. To achieve this functionality, you must generate a Solana wallet for each user and pre-fund it so that the wallet can receive USDC. Both of these steps require consuming SOL, with each wallet costing about $0.30 worth of SOL. So just to enable this feature, the cost could reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

The reason is simple: Solana was not originally designed to handle scenarios where "developers suddenly need to enable millions of accounts simultaneously." In reality, almost no one would be willing to spend millions of dollars to enable a feature that a user hasn't even started using or tested yet.

Here's another example involving the distribution of aid funds. In the traditional fiat system, the flow of funds is extremely slow—so slow that we have to layer a lot of infrastructure on top to ensure that funds do not move arbitrarily. Suppose you need to send money to tens of thousands of people at once; the usual approach is to use PayPal, pre-funding the account three days in advance, and then clicking a button to distribute the funds once they are confirmed. But that isn't real money moving; it's just an update of numbers on a ledger.

But that's not how blockchain works. Everyone has an independent wallet, and you must send the money one transaction at a time to each wallet. If you want to send 20,000, 30,000, or even 50,000 transactions on-chain simultaneously, it's impossible—regardless of which chain you use.

When we first did aid distribution on Stellar, we were particularly naive; we clicked the "send" button thinking we could complete it all at once. But it ended up taking 18 hours to process those transactions, and the failure rate was very high. Immediately, a large number of users sent support requests: "Didn't you say it would arrive by 9 AM? Why hasn't it arrived yet?"

So we had to build an entire set of infrastructure to optimize the process, such as prioritizing large transactions over $50, as those users were more likely to check immediately, and setting up seven or eight parallel tasks for batch distribution, gradually pushing it down. Because there was no way to send all transactions at once.

In summary, blockchain indeed struggles with payment scalability. So our approach is to build infrastructure that can solve our own pain points. From the very beginning, we have not been, and are not now, doing transaction-related things; we simply want a high-throughput system that has the core functionalities required by payment companies and can ensure reliable delivery. Because if someone wants to run banking operations, pay salaries, or send money to all customers on this track, that deliverability is essential. This is why building and investing in Tempo has become particularly important for us.

But I want to clarify that Tempo is not a "Stripe-exclusive blockchain." We also do not believe that so-called "enterprise private chains" will succeed, because no one wants to build on someone else's chain; they want shared, universally recognized infrastructure. Just as we remain skeptical about "building on someone else's stablecoin," you wouldn't want your interests to be subordinate to another company with its own economic considerations.

So, Tempo is actually an independent entity. Stripe is one of the main contributors to Tempo, and Bridge is also a core participant and collaborator of Tempo, but Tempo itself is a neutral blockchain built outside of Stripe.

Ryan: So Tempo will be an independent entity, a neutral blockchain, and it will be an EVM-based Layer 1?

Zach: Yes, Tempo is indeed an EVM Layer 1, focusing on high TPS, without the "neighbor noise" problem. There won't be situations where a transaction gets stuck because of the launch of some "Trump Coin"—we encountered this on Solana. It will also support private transactions, which are crucial for all payment companies. Additionally, it will provide extremely fast finality: unlike Ethereum, which requires a 12-minute confirmation, Tempo will have sub-second finality. These features are critical for payment scenarios.

Ryan: So you can achieve application scenarios like this: for example, if you want to send a stimulus check to a million people in the U.S., you can do it directly on this chain. Users can receive funds immediately using any EVM-compatible wallet. In other words, its scale is sufficient to support such operations, right?

Zach: Exactly. And the key is that it's not just for us; if PayPal sees value in it, they can also use Tempo. This is precisely our positioning: we see Tempo as an important public infrastructure for the entire stablecoin ecosystem. Stripe is one of the main contributors, and we are investing in and building Tempo, but we, like any other participant, have the same rights and voice, with no special privileges.

Ryan: So Zach, how do you see this trend evolving? Especially in the Layer 1 space—financial technology companies like Stripe entering the Layer 1 arena, and we also see Circle launching its own Layer 1.

In the crypto space, the emergence of more centralized stablecoins has not diminished the status of native crypto assets (like Bitcoin and Ethereum); rather, it has accelerated their development. They have essentially grown in parallel with stablecoins, without reverting to what you call "fiat Layer 1," but instead forming an independent clearing network.

What are your thoughts on the development of Layer 1? Specifically, projects like Tempo—I know you said it's not Stripe's exclusive chain, but Layer 1s like Tempo. Will they encroach on the market share of Ethereum, Layer 2s, and Solana, or will they be complementary? How will they interact with each other? Do you think the future evolution will see every fintech company and every bank launching their own Layer 1 or Layer 2? Or will there be "power law distribution" winners? How will the landscape at the ledger level evolve?

Zach: I believe projects like Tempo are actually highly complementary. The reason Tempo must exist is that the functionalities it provides are currently absent in the market. Without something like Tempo, the entire stablecoin ecosystem would be much smaller. Because there is currently no chain that can support "payment-scaled operations," none come close.

So in this sense, I see Tempo as a complement to all existing blockchains, not a replacement. My thinking is that in the future, there will be a few "general-purpose blockchains" that continue to exist. For example, Base will clearly become a winner; the product experience created by Coinbase is excellent; Solana is also one of them. There will be a few such general-purpose chains in the future. But if someone wants to create a "general-purpose blockchain" from scratch now, hoping to attract a large volume of transactions, I think the difficulty is very high.

We are entering a new phase: people will build chains specifically designed for certain needs to solve problems that general public chains cannot address. Tempo targets payment scenarios; I have also talked to some teams that are building chains for trading scenarios, such as those requiring ultra-high throughput and low latency, which will need completely different technical requirements. These types of blockchains will solve highly specialized problems that general public chains cannot address.

I also believe a third type of blockchain will emerge. For example, going back to the Polymarket example, Polymarket might choose to build its own chain to control its own block space. These would be application-specific chains. So the overall landscape might look like this: a few general-purpose blockchains; a few function/feature-oriented blockchains, like the Tempo we are building; plus a large number of application-specific chains. This is my current thinking, though it may change in the future.

Ryan: So there will be a multitude of blockchains, meaning a lot of businesses will need to go on-chain. What position will fintech, or the broader financial system—whether in the U.S. or globally—be in five years?

If we look at the underlying layer, the current traditional financial and banking system is essentially a settlement layer. I remember they are still running some old systems, like IBM mainframes written in COBOL, with a very chaotic underlying structure, filled with paper documents. Although it appears digital on the surface, there may still be a bunch of office workers handling paper documents behind the financial operations. Perhaps they no longer use fax machines, but legal documents are still on paper, which makes it hard for me to believe.

Zach: Yes, they might actually still be faxing.

Ryan: Right, so can we understand this as: we are gradually switching from this old legacy system and slowly migrating to a new crypto/blockchain system? In other words, the user interface of future fintech will no longer rely on the mainframe systems of traditional finance but will increasingly settle directly on the blockchain.

Zach: Yes, I believe that is how it will develop. For example, with Bridge, our initial product was stablecoin orchestration: frequently moving funds between fiat and stablecoins, and between different Layer 1s and Layer 2s. At that time, this was a rigid demand, and it still is.

I believe our business will increasingly trend towards a segmented service—which is actually the result I hope to see. Because this means that the demand for settlement to Layer 1 will decrease. Just like the bank example I mentioned earlier: in the future, there may be millions of stablecoin transactions behind every fiat settlement. But today, the situation is almost still one-to-one, or even two fiat settlements corresponding to one stablecoin settlement. I hope this ratio can change.

In my view, that is the mark of success: more financial services can be completed and settled directly at the blockchain level. But the reality is—we are still in an extremely early stage. For example, in the most basic scenario: sending a large batch of transactions simultaneously is still very difficult at the stablecoin level.

Moreover, there are currently almost no local currency stablecoins; the entire market is 99.9% dollar stablecoins. This is great for the first use case of stablecoins (i.e., trading and obtaining dollar liquidity), but if it is to truly become a core component of the financial system, local currency stablecoins are essential. I am very optimistic that in the next 5 to 10 years, they will become very important. But today, these foundational components are still missing.

Ryan: The U.S. Treasury Secretary recently cited some research, stating that by 2028, the scale of on-chain stablecoins will reach $3 trillion. Do you agree with this assessment? How fast do you think the growth will be, and how large will the scale become?

Zach: I believe that prediction only refers to dollar stablecoins. If we can successfully tokenize euros, pesos, yen, etc., the scale could easily be an order of magnitude larger. Of course, this entirely depends on the regulatory environment. The good news right now is that the U.S. has rapidly transformed from a regulatory laggard to a clear regulatory leader, which allows us to push the market forward more quickly. But we need to see the same progress globally.

Ryan: So what is the biggest issue hindering the entire world and the financial system from switching to a crypto system more quickly? You mentioned regulation before; I guess that might be one of the top three obstacles. But besides that, there’s also the user experience issue. For example, wallets—many times still require mnemonic phrases, which raises the operational threshold.

Additionally, is there chargeback protection and consumer protection like Visa or traditional credit card networks? In terms of compliance and privacy, do they meet the anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC requirements of various countries? What do you think are the three major missing links to make crypto assets reach trillions of dollars and truly go mainstream?

Zach: The most direct answer is regulatory clarity and clarity in accounting standards, which may be the most obvious. But for us, the more specific barrier is actually education.

One of the biggest problems facing the development of stablecoins is that over the past few decades, teams have accumulated rich experience and inertia in the fiat system. In any company involved in the flow of funds, there will be a large number of people who know how to set up FBO (For Benefit Of) accounts, how to build internal ledgers, and even how to send ACH batch files—these complex operations have been mastered through years of practice.

But when you walk in and talk to them about "enabling an on-chain wallet," the scene is completely different. Everyone's heads are about to explode, as if you were asking them to go to Mars. This is an entirely new financial technology stack, completely unfamiliar. Moreover, it touches on every company's "lifeline"—the flow of funds. This naturally makes people very risk-averse.

I want to say that if every company had someone who was very familiar with crypto, our progress today might be 100 times faster.

Another issue is that the number of engineers who understand crypto is extremely limited. The people who truly understand smart contracts and have experience in wallet development might be one of the smallest engineering communities in the world. In other words, if you are an engineer looking for a field that will give you the "rarest skills," the answer is almost obvious: it's crypto. This will become an extremely important area for the world, involving the flow of funds for every company and every continent. But right now, it feels like there are only a few hundred people who are truly proficient in this system.

Ryan: Stripe itself has many engineers, and you are now part of a larger engineering team. What about Patrick and John? We previously talked about their early attempts in crypto and their gradually more optimistic attitude. How do you think their acceptance of crypto is now? How "crypto-pilled" is Stripe overall?

Zach: During the acquisition process, I once went to the Stripe office to have lunch with John and Patrick. I remember it might have been my first time meeting John. As soon as I walked in, he said, "Can I tell you a joke?" I said sure. He said, "Do you know the difference between a bank and Tether?"

I said I didn't know.

He said, "The difference is—one is a massive institution holding huge amounts of money, but you have no idea where that money is. And if you want to withdraw it, you probably can't, because it's invested in a bunch of extremely complex and obscure assets, with no transparency. And the other is different."

Ryan: Well, that makes a lot of sense.

Zach: Yeah. So I think on a deeper level, they are actually very firm believers in stablecoins and understand the potential of this technology very well. For example, they were early investors in Stellar. They also tried Bitcoin but quickly realized that Bitcoin had many issues in payments and was not suitable for large-scale implementation. It wasn't until they saw the gradual rise of stablecoins, combined with the specific scenarios that Bridge addresses, that some pieces of the puzzle really came together.

Ryan: Stripe is a massive company with countless partnerships. What are your expectations for the penetration of crypto within Stripe? How do you hope this fintech company will transition to "crypto fintech"?

Zach: What excites me the most is that no one will use stablecoins just for the sake of using stablecoins. The reason people are willing to use stablecoins, wallets, and our API is that it brings clear business value: for example, helping companies enter new markets, serve more users, reduce costs, or open up new revenue streams. There must be tangible benefits for the application to really take off.

And now, being part of Stripe, the biggest advantage is that the feedback loop is greatly shortened. Previously, we had to validate the product value ourselves; now Stripe itself is our first and best customer. We can apply and experiment with all new things internally at Stripe first. This is significant for us.

But at the same time, Stripe has 8,000 employees. Even if John or Patrick says, "We want to do stablecoins," there must be dozens of people from different departments who genuinely buy into it for things to really move forward.

The internal teams at Stripe must truly understand these benefits to be willing to invest resources in it. If we encounter resistance within Stripe, it is actually no different from the resistance we face when communicating with external companies like Walmart, Robinhood, Revolut, or Nubank.

So the opportunity now is: in the process of promoting Stripe's deep integration with stablecoins, we can discover problems faster, understand concerns, find ways to address them, and then position Stripe as the first and best demonstration customer. This way, it can also serve as a powerful proof externally.

Ryan: It sounds just like your first customer Zulu, right?

Zach: Exactly.

Ryan: In the last question of this conversation, we've always regarded stablecoin users as humans. But in another future, the largest users of stablecoins may not be humans, but AI or AI agents. What role do you think Stripe will play in this transition? Will AI really become the largest users of stablecoins? If so, how far away is that future?

Zach: A few days ago, Sir Simon Taylor shared a perspective with me (I forgot if I saw it on Slack). He said he had talked to a "monetary historian," and every major technological revolution has seen the emergence of a new form of currency to drive the development of that revolution.

A universally understandable example is: the internet and credit cards. Without credit cards, the internet would not have developed into what it is today; conversely, without the internet, the prevalence of credit and debit cards would not be as high. In fact, credit cards appeared as early as the 1960s, but they truly exploded in the late 1990s to early 2000s, alongside the internet wave. Today, we can hardly imagine an internet without credit cards, as they have become the default method of value transfer. And Stripe itself is also an accelerator of this process.

I believe stablecoins will play the same role for AI. For AI agents to form complete economic activities, a new form of currency is needed to support them. The existing fiat system presents many natural barriers for AI, the most obvious being: to store fiat currency, you must be a human.

Ryan: Yes, if you are not human, that is indeed a problem.

Zach: That is indeed a big problem. So I think we will quickly go through this stage: at first, many AI agents will operate under human names, borrowing human KYC identities to function. But over time, they will need to have their own accounts and be able to make their own payment and settlement decisions. And stablecoins and wallets can provide that capability.

Another advantage is that stablecoins and wallets are very suitable for small payments, variable amount payments, and streaming payments. These types of transactions are almost impossible to achieve in today's traditional fiat networks because cross-border settlements are both expensive and slow. But in the stablecoin system, these can become feasible.

Ryan: Exactly, it's amazing. It seems almost obvious to me: the financial system used by AI in the future will definitely be a crypto system. Their financial stack will certainly be based on wallets, ledgers, smart contracts, and holdable tokens—there's almost no doubt about it. So perhaps what you need to do next is to build a bridge between the AI layer and the crypto world.

"Original link"

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