Is the Stablecoin Sandwich Dead?

Jacquelyn Melinek (0:03)

How can we enable DeFi products, protocols, apps, et cetera in a way that brings it to the public market? That is like one of the big unlocks too, is making it accessible and understandable and just easy to use because it is, in my opinion, better than the existing rails that we have out there.

Simon Taylor (0:21)

Don't forget, next week, we're going to see the DTCC switch on Tokenized stocks. We are in for some watershed moments in Wall Street. It's about to get very real very, very soon.

Manuel Godoy (0:31)

If it weren't for AI, I think everybody would be paying close attention, believe I. So, again, I'm a huge, huge fan of infrastructure in crypto, and I think more and more users are never going to know or care that stablecoin is behind the scenes.

Cuy Sheffield (0:46)

When I look at Western Union and MoneyGram, and how they're using stablecoins right now, it feels like they're trying to build these global stablecoin native neobanks. They're starting to monetize the receive side of their networks that normally they weren't able to do.

Simon Taylor (1:01)

Welcome to Tokenized, the show focused on stablecoins and the institutional adoption of tokenized real-world assets. My name is Simon Taylor. I'm your host, author at BrainFood, and head of market dev over at Tempo. I'm joined by my fantastic co-host, the one and only Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa. How are you doing, sir?

Cuy Sheffield (1:17)

I'm fantastic. It's good to be back together. Excited for the show today.

Simon Taylor (1:21)

I'm excited for our guests this week as well, and making a debut is Jacquelyn Melinek, who is the founder and CEO at StrataMedia. How are you doing, Jackie?

Jacquelyn Melinek (1:28)

Hey, guys. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited for my debut. Long time listener, first time caller perhaps, yeah? Maybe get to call back.

Simon Taylor (1:35)

Yeah, call back. But we're a fan of your show as well, so I hope people will check that out as well.

Making a debut is Manuel Godoy, who is the co-founder and CEO at Félix Pago. How the heck are you, sir?

Manuel Godoy (1:47)

I'm great. Thank you so much for the invitation, for having me here. Excited for the conversation.

Simon Taylor (1:51)

Likewise, before we do get into that conversation, I got to remind viewers and listeners that views and opinions of our contributors today are their own and might not reflect those of companies they represent. And please don't take anything we say as tax, legal or financial advice. I'm happy to remind you that this show is sponsored by Modern Treasury.

This episode is sponsored by Modern Treasury. Stablecoins are here. And so are checks and ACH. They're not going away. RTP and FedNow and new types of payments rails are emerging all the time. The challenge now is integrating all of these without slowing down. Modern Treasury offers one single API for Fiat and Stablecoins, helping teams launch payments products in days, enter new markets and serve more customers. Trusted by companies like Procore and Navan and Morse and backed by over $600 billion in payments history, learn how to adapt to changing payments rails with scale and confidence at moderntreasury.com.

Just one bit before we get in the news, I got to do this very quickly. If you want to come see Tokenized live in person, we'll be at my very own conference, Fintech NerdCon in San Diego on the 19th and 20th of November, so come get yourself some sun before Thanksgiving. Head to tickets.fintechnerdcon.com and use the code tokenized20 for 20% off.

With that, let's get to the first story. This one was about Mastercard and BVNK launching global money platform, one API for Fiat and stablecoin accounts. The idea is that banks, fintechs and enterprises can embed multi-currency accounts under their own brand, and they can hold Fiat and stablecoins with real-time conversion between the two, and they come with stablecoin-linked cards and local bank payouts. And the platform is live through the acquisition of BVNK with clients like Nouve, Ontop, Beam and Almond, named as early users. Manuel, I'm coming to you first on this because this is going live in 40 territories. I know you have been bumping up against the stablecoin sandwich and trying to make things work for users for a long time in Félix Pago, using some other players in the market. What are your thoughts on the increasing convergence of FIA and the stablecoin sandwich?

Manuel Godoy (4:15)

Definitely. Well, first of all, I'm excited for those two teams. We have a relationship with Mastercard and I know the BVNK team and congrats to them. This is exciting for the industry in general.