Stablecoin special: Zach Abrams (Bridge) and Henri Stern (Privy)

Bullish:

• $EM - Emerging markets represent a massive opportunity for stablecoin-based financial services due to monopolistic banking systems with little innovation incentive, creating first-time access to global financial services for large populations

  • “In some countries, you go into a country, there's one bank, and that bank has like no interest in enabling... stablecoins represent like the first opportunity for like large slots of the world.”

    Zach·25:48
• $XBORDER - Major enterprises like SpaceX are already using stablecoins for cross-border treasury management, demonstrating immediate real-world adoption for international payment processing

  • “SpaceX came to us. They're selling Starlink all over the world... they started using us to bring currencies back to The US. And so, they would take money out of a bunch of different countries in Africa and LatAm and send it to The US via stablecoins.”

    Zach·8:16
• $DEFI - Most financial experiences including lending, trading, saving, and spending will be rebuilt on blockchains, representing a fundamental infrastructure shift

  • “I think that most financial experiences are going to be rebuilt on blockchains. I think lending is going to be rebuilt on blockchains. I think obviously like trading is going to be, I think saving is going to be, spending is going to be.”

    Zach·28:27
• $USDT - Tether operates like a $100B hedge fund keeping all carry for itself, demonstrating massive global demand for stable currency with strong network effects in emerging markets

  • “USDT is like a 100 hedge fund. They keep all of the carry for you, which speaks to how much people want stable currency across the world.”

    Henri·19:41
• $SOL - Solana represents ideal value creation and value capture dynamics, successfully translating network utility into token price appreciation

  • “Solana is probably perfect, you know, value creation, value capture.”

    Zach·44:22

Bearish:

• $ETH - Despite being the most utilized blockchain for value creation, Ethereum fails to capture that value economically in its token price

  • “Ethereum, wild value creation, of all the blockchains, minimal value capture.”

    Zach·44:22
• $TRADFI - Stablecoins enable any company to offer banking services directly, bypassing traditional banks and creating disintermediation of traditional banking relationships

  • “Every company ostensibly has a neo banking arm that they can build into this to create a much tighter loop of benefits to their constituency.”

    Henri·17:07