It's just three of us right now.
Let me just add more people in.
Alberto, how are you doing today?
Can't complain, getting the day started.
It's beautiful right now.
I'm in San Antonio, Texas.
Yeah, actually, the weather is good today.
Let me just ping our community.
And also, if you could maybe do the same on your end,
just so we can attract more listeners right now.
Hey, Brian, can you hear us?
Yeah, I can hear and speak now.
It was in this weird little, you know.
I was getting soft-rugged by, you know, Twitter spaces for a second here.
I know, Alberto, on your end and any of the listeners, but it was a nightmare scheduling
It just doesn't let you schedule first and it doesn't let you upload them or post about
them and then you cannot go on them.
But, you know, anyways, we're all here, you know, so far.
But, yeah, Twitter is acting super weird.
Let's give it, like, one more minute before we get started.
Send a couple tweets out and then we can get rolling.
All right, Rebecca, you want to kick us off?
I think, you know, we're good.
You know, like, I see some people trickling and I'm pretty sure we're going to have more
But, pretty much, yeah, like, Alberto, you know, you're guys from Stably, here, you know,
Rebecca, Brian, Joe from Alpha Growth.
Basically, like, today we wanted to invite Alberto to speak about Stably.
It's their on and off ramp solution for many chains, you know, and for dApps and stuff.
And they also utilize, like, stable coins.
But I want to, Alberto, obviously, to have a whole floor to speak about Stably.
But I know that, Alberto, that you guys kind of, like, weirdly found about Alpha Growth
So, definitely also want to touch on this.
But maybe let's just introduce ourselves.
Alberto, the floor is yours.
I'm the business development manager at Stably.
And at Stably, we focus on stable coin infrastructure.
We have two, I guess, two main products.
You know, we have stable coin or Stably Enterprise, which is our stable coin as a service, where
we have our own stable coin, USDS.
But we also create branded stable coins for, say, layer ones or any traditional enterprise
that wants to create a branded stable coin.
So, for example, on VeChain, we expanded USDS.
However, we white-labeled it as V-E-U-S-D.
And once we build these stable coins natively onto these layer ones, we then integrate with
DApps, wallets, DEXs, Stably Ramp.
Stably Ramp is our Fiat on and off-ramp widget that can be integrated directly into any DApp.
We KYC and KYB users in over 200 different countries.
We provide both Fiat on and off-ramps.
So, people are able to ACH back into their account.
And, yeah, to kind of touch on Rebecca's, which I mentioned about Alpha Growth.
I actually found out, I think, Corey, our CEO, and I were looking for a CRM for our team.
And we were kind of doing some research on CRMs.
And that's kind of where I somehow found Alpha Growth on, I believe, on LinkedIn.
And at the time, it was a little hard to navigate.
I think it must have been, like, once you guys first launched.
But, I mean, I loved all the improvements you guys have made.
Made it so much user-friendly.
It's still hard to navigate.
I mean, it's gotten a little clearer now.
It's like, at first, I was like, what?
I was like, what did I sign up for?
But for real, though, on that point, just for a second, and this is about you guys, but
there's a whole entire new ecosystem.
And the way that business is done is, like, completely changing, right?
So we have to, you know, take a lot of things into consideration.
And we're trying to figure it out.
So a question back to you.
Like, so you guys are like a stable coin as a service, almost.
Stable coin as a service.
Is this all collateralized back?
Or are you doing some, like, algo stable with, like, you know, some crazy inflation rates?
We focus fully on collateralized, I guess, stable coins.
So we have experience with fiat, U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, Vietnamese dong.
Additionally, we have experience with gold and working with Kitco, the gold dealer.
And creating their KGLD token, KGLD.
And their website is kitco.gold.
You can read a little bit more about it on their site.
And so we focus on everything that's collateralized.
We try not to mess with algo or security tokens just because there's so much more regulation, stuff like that, that we're going to have to deal with.
So we focus strictly on commodities and fiat.
And so because if you focus on tokens that potentially are security, there's a lot more regulations around that, right?
Regulations, jurisdictions that we have to be aware of.
And we think that there's other players in the space that I think are better equipped to serve these projects.
What so far do you think is your biggest win?
Would that be the VE chain integration?
Or what are you most proud of so far?
I think our biggest chain that we recently launched on, I think it's XRP, the XRP Ledger.
So we are the first natively issued stablecoin, US dollar stablecoin on XRP Ledger.
So that kind of has been our biggest win so far.
And on top of that is Kitco.
I mean, Kitco is a big gold dealer out of Canada.
And they will move trillions annually.
So that's another big win that we had, I want to say, a couple of years ago.
And then within that, when you're kind of positioning Shavely, what's the main problem or what's the main pain point these chains are coming to you with?
I guess onboarding new users, right?
So we work most, when we expand our stablecoin, we work with chains that don't have a natively issued USDC, USDT.
So when we expand USDS, we're providing a simple stablecoin gateway into their ecosystem without having the user go through a bridge or through a swapping, right?
They can go directly from fiat to a native stablecoin on their chain.
It eliminates having to go through a centralized exchange.
And the user can send the token directly to their wallet.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I think a lot of the L2 and the L1 migration was because transaction fees got so high on Ethereum that people wanted to do some of the same activities, but with cheaper gas.
So people started bridging everywhere.
Do you see in the next couple of years that these fiat on-ramps and off-ramps are going to be required, necessary?
Do you see that space growing?
Actually, I think I was talking with Rebecca yesterday.
We're integrating with Li-Fi, which is a Dex Bridge aggregator.
So they will essentially, we will integrate with them in our backend infrastructure.
So when we, so the users are able to swap between chains, we're able to go directly into their ecosystem without having to go through an individual bridge.
Before we, when we were doing research for Li-Fi, we were kind of contemplating, should we integrate with one, two, three bridges to be on the safe side, security, you know, hack, hack proof?
So stuff like that is that we were, you know, we were trying to, you know, examine.
And that's kind of where we, where we ran into Li-Fi and what they're doing is pretty cool.
They're already on most EVM chains.
They're going to be expanding to Solana, Cosmos, and a few other chains.
So just by integrating with them, it, it opens up at least 12, 13 chains, 13 ecosystems that we can go into.
Oh, actually, Alberto, can you please give us a little bit of feedback on your end to our developer listeners?
Because I don't actually think that many developers didn't realize the utilization of like things like Li-Fi or Axelr or Layer Zero,
what it unlocks for you when you build on them, I'm sorry, natively.
So when we build on Li-Fi natively, it allows us interoperability between all these different chains, right?
So if, say, Dex, I know, what is it, Pangolin on Avalanche, right?
They just built it on Li-Fi.
So now there's, now Pangolin, instead of just being on Avalanche, they built, not only do they build on Avalanche first,
but then they integrate with Li-Fi and it opens up their, their user base to not just Avalanche,
but all the 12, 13 different chains that, that Li-Fi supports with one integration versus having to do individual integrations for each of these chains.
So it makes it quicker and expands your, your ecosystem as well.
I just think it's like super valuable that, you know, this cross-chain messaging platforms do, and protocols do exist right now.
And I, I do want like more developers who are building or maybe pivoting the project or rebuilding it, you know,
utilizing them like as they build, you know, not like when they need to unlock another chain.
Thank you for it for sure.
Yeah, I think that, I guess kind of in like, you know, network theory or money velocity theory,
like if you go and you build like Stably on a Li-Fi, that the, the, the, the network effects of being,
getting access really should speed up your integration and the growth of Stably in general.
Yeah, that's, that's what I, as we envision, because now it saves us a lot of time,
especially developer resources, a quick go-to-market strategy to all these different chains.
That, that kind of brings up the next point.
If, if the, the cross-chain bridging is kind of being a little bit commoditized,
how do you guys stay unique in your value proposition and, and your roadmap and your growth trajectory?
So, first, when Stably originally started, it was meant to be a branded stable coin for traditional enterprises, right?
So, think of gift cards becoming gift coins for the, but we're too early for that right now, in, in, in our opinion.
And so, we pivoted a little bit into working with these ecosystems that have, that didn't have a natively issued stable coin.
So, for the short term, yes, we are, you know, going heavy on DeFi.
We're going heavy on, on working with these, with as many chains as possible.
In the long term, we plan to work with traditional enterprises and create branded stable coins.
As we can see, right, Starbucks already started messing with NFT gift membership.
So, eventually, if we can create, like, say, a, a Disney-backed stable coin, DUSD, whatever,
that they can use on all the Disney parks, right, on all their gaming, their videos,
they can, they can, they can, they can create, you know, a branded stable coin.
They can save on cost for card processing fees, right?
They can do marketing, they can have some kind of, you know, marketing campaign, reduction of fees,
whatever it is on certain holidays.
So, to answer, to kind of tie it all back, you know, our short-term vision is, you know,
creating an efficient fiat on and off ramp, I guess, widget for all of DeFi and integrating as many chains as possible.
In the long term, we plan to tackle traditional enterprises and hopefully creating branded stable coins
and converting their gift card program into a gift coin program.
That's awesome. I, I'm completely reminded, and I was, did this really deep dive into the Starbucks gift card
and their, their financial modeling around it.
They, Starbucks is, as a, as a, you know, organization, as a company, sure, they make money on coffee,
but they're making more money on the, the financialization or the, you know, the, the, the Starbucks gift card tokenomics
and lending out of the money from that gift card program that they have than almost anything else.
Yeah. And similar with, with, you know, stable coins, the collateral that, you know, is held in a, in,
in our case, a trust account, um, can be interest earned, right?
You can, they can put it into T-bills, earn some interest on it, and it still becomes, um, income for, for the company.
Absolutely. As long, as long as, you know, you, you have, uh, some reserve ratios that you can kind of,
like, audit and stuff that people, there's no run of the bank.
Can I actually ask you, like, with this partnership that, you know, like, uh, Starbucks did with Polygon,
like, are they using, what are they utilizing, if you know, of course, like, for their own and off ramps,
for, like, the gift cards?
Oh, they're, they're not right now. So, the, um, it's really kind of NFT based right now,
and they're not really going full all in from, from what I saw. So, so a couple little, um, you know,
give some free coffees and the tea, like, it's, it's, it's full, uh, from what I saw. Yeah.
Full, like, crypto enabled yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, we're getting somewhere, but yeah.
But, but Alberto, actually, uh, question to you, for example, how Stably, uh, is able to support
this kind of similar integrations within, like, retail, like, normal retail, right?
With, like, blockchain technology and having the solutions with gift cards.
Um, yeah. So, one, we're still, we're still looking for the first big enterprise that we can do this for.
Um, I guess our biggest, um, traditional enterprise that we have integrated with is Kitco, right?
The gold dealer. Um, and it was, um, we just need to look for the right partners, right?
Custodian, um, technology partners that we can integrate with to add some transparency.
Um, so, yeah, I mean, and we need, um, businesses with, with an existing ecosystem, right?
So, these are all the big, you know, Amazons, the Shopfys, the Walmarts, right?
Um, and we haven't found the right fit right now for gift cards.
Um, however, tokenization and creating a branded stable coin for gold, um, with Kitco has been our, our biggest success with a traditional business.
And, and the technology stack and they're, you know, they're a big, um, I guess, legacy company, um, was not too difficult.
So, we assume it would probably be the same with other large companies.
Yeah, it's like, it's a lot of things then, you know, like, obviously to consider when, uh, you guys are on board and then actual enterprise.
So, if you know any enterprises trying to create their own, um, branded stable coin, let us know.
Wait, you said, uh, enterprises trying to create their own what?
So, like, I mean, there's a, what do you mean by branded specifically?
So, we can white label our own stable coin USDS to be whatever, um, the, the enterprise wants it to be, right?
I think, like, if, you know, using the example of Starbucks, just continue that, right?
If they want to create their own Starbucks US dollar backed stable coin that their users can use in any of their stores globally, we can white label it to them.
And we can white label USDS and brand it to, or I guess it would also make sense, right?
Um, USD, um, Starbucks or S-U-S-D, whatever it is that you want to name it.
Or do you want to name it, um, Starbucks or whatever?
So, if I was to, like, answer that question in any way, I would say take a look at Funware.
So, Funware actually does white, white label token solutions for real companies.
That, that might kind of be, you can look at, look at their brand kit.
So, go to Funware and look at their brand kit.
They actually just released it in July 29th, 2022.
A lot of good stuff in it.
I think it might give you some ideas of where you could look.
Uh, this company, Funware, is partnered with Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, all the big companies.
It's kind of under the radar.
It's a blockchain company.
Um, I actually, I missed out huge on it.
Uh, like, literally in December 2021, I had a bunch of shares of it and sold it a month before it 20x.
So, it's so fucked up there, but check it out, bro.
Um, if you go to their brand kit, you know, they have Funware colors, like, their specific blue.
It might just be a company that could kind of, like, inspire you, bro, if anything.
Um, back to, uh, Stably about, there's a couple products that you guys have.
It seems like you have a custodian, StablyRamp, and StablyPrime.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
So, um, we have, I guess, two user platforms.
We have StablyPrime, which is meant for institutional, um, I guess, users that want to enter DeFi.
So, any business, um, that wants to convert their fiat to crypto, they can do it through StablyPrime.
Um, they can also just DM me, and I can help them walk you through the application.
It's pretty straightforward.
Um, StablyPrime, think of it as, like, a bank account with crypto.
So, right, you're able to wire money in, ACH money into the account, um, buy Bitcoin, Litecoin, Cardano, all the major, um, tokens through, through our platform.
And then from there, if you want to enter, you know, send it to a lending protocol or swap it, whatever it is, you can do that.
Um, and businesses are able to compliantly on and off-ramp, um, through StablyPrime.
Is that through Prime, is that through Prime Trust?
Is that why it's called Prime?
Um, it's just, we just called it StablyPrime from, from the past.
But yes, it is through Prime Trust.
Prime Trust is our custodian.
Um, they, they are, yeah, we do most of the things through, through Prime Trust.
And then, in terms of, like, security, like, how do I know, do you, I mean, I guess you're leveraging Prime Trust for a lot of, like, the custodian security services?
Like, how does that work?
Yeah, so we leverage, um, Prime Trust for all our custodian security services.
And I believe they also leverage, um, FireBlocks, um, on top of that.
So, we essentially have FireBlocks support through, um, through Prime Trust.
Do you, do you think your, most of your expansion in 2023 is going to come from chains or brands or a little bit of mixture of both?
I think it's going to come, or in 20, in the short term, it's going to be all from, from chains, um, and their ecosystem.
And, um, I, I don't think the brands are going to come until maybe at least five years from now.
Maybe sooner, but that's kind of my estimate.
Yeah, and I think there's, like, a lot of, like, risk-off regulation, TBD, stablecoin regulation, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's what it is.
Um, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations with a lot of big brands already.
So, we know the interest is there.
I think it's just the risk of launching a stablecoin that they might be looked at as a fintech.
And, you know, it's just a lot more regulation that goes into play for some of these industries if they do plan to do a project like this.
But, that's kind of where we come in and provide them that compliant infrastructure.
Okay, actually, yeah, because my, my question is more about, like, the partnerships and stuff.
Alberto, how do you currently, right now, doing, uh, BD, either if it's, like, enterprise or chains?
Yeah, so, most of our business development is done through outreach, cold outreach,
either LinkedIn, Alpha Growth, Telegram.
I think those are my top three, um, that, that I personally use.
I, I gotta, I gotta ask this, like, layup question for myself.
How are you using, how are you using us for Alpha Growth for business development?
So, what I really like about your guys' platform is that we're able to connect with projects
via Telegram, um, and that you have everything in kind of one place for Web3, right?
Like, I, I come from traditional finance, um, I used to be a financial advisor, so, you know,
LinkedIn was kind of my, my go-to.
Uh, so, I was pretty familiar with that, but now being in, in crypto and Web3 for, I guess,
almost two years full-time now, uh, I'd never found, like, a CRM or somewhere where I can
just go and talk to people that are building other than Telegram, but then you risk, you
know, being bought it, you know, spammed, all that, but Alpha Growth, you kind of have all
that, you have the point of contact, we all know how we communicate, either through Discord
or Telegram, um, so, it's a lot easier, everything just kind of in one place, where I can just
go and look at a profile and find that all just kind of there for me.
Yeah, I, I'm, I'm gonna show a little bit here, um, recently funded list is my go-to on
my own platform, like, yeah, check out the recently funded list, I, I think, because
we're, we're updating that, like, uh, three or four times a week, we got a, you know, large
data entry team that is going, you know, getting all of the things, so, new chains that are
recently funded, and new, you know, I, I think that might be a hit for you as well.
Yeah, I did play around with that, um, I want to say a couple weeks ago, so I do like that,
um, and then, yeah, just, you have, you have also the investor part, right, sometimes very
hard to get in contact with an investor or firm, so I like that you guys are building
that out, and very similar to, like, the companies, Telegram is probably the best, um, or Telegram
Discord is probably the best when, when we're networking and web through.
All right, enough about us, but thank you, like, it's like a little, little ego boost, you
Yeah, yeah, for sure, man.
Um, all right, so, so liquidity, right?
So liquidity moves all of the needles in, in, in DeFi and these different stable coins.
Are, when you, um, how do you bootstrap liquidity?
Does most of the liquidity come from the chains, liquidity providers, investors?
Like, how, how do you guys, like, deal with this?
Like, I mean, are you, are you making pulls on AMMs as well, or are you trying to, are you
keeping things mostly, like, um, like, centralized?
Like, where does stable liquidity go?
How do you bootstrap it when you start on a new chain?
I would love to understand that process.
Yeah, so, um, that's one of the biggest problems, right?
Or hurdles that we always go through.
But we do a little bit of everything you mentioned, right?
We, we have, when we expand, we usually ask for a grant.
Part of that grant is used for liquidity, starting liquidity pools, um, between USDS and, you know,
whatever other token that we're, that they're looking at, or ecosystem we're in.
Uh, we just started a liquidity pool, a small one, with FRAX on Curve.
So we have a Curve, so we have a FRAX, USDS, and I think USDC or DAI, or, or maybe two separate
Um, but, you know, you can find it on there.
And that's actually being created because of our integration with Li-Fi, um, and being,
being able to support the majority of stable coins that are going to be on Curve, um, once
So main reason we're integrating with, um, with Curve and, or setting up a liquidity pool
Um, but then we also work with chains, um, the foundation, see if they can help us bootstrap
liquidity, um, for when we launch or ongoing.
And then most of the time, though, the chains will, um, outsource, um, I guess to market makers
There, there's very limited, um, DeFi market makers.
I mean, there's like kind of, there's a couple of big name funds, but mostly it's like small
guys on, on these like different liquidity providers.
So stable coin, I get the USD, USDS, I got, I get the stable coin.
What are you seeing as the biggest utility and the biggest impact of your token?
Um, yeah, I think it's just DeFi, right?
Just, um, trading on like, I think V chain is our biggest, uh, or actually no Chia network.
I think it has been giving us the, the most, um, liquidity or the most traction with our
I think they have the, the most, um, yeah, activity with our, with our stable coin USDS.
However, the most volume comes from stellar USDC.
Um, so for us, we think that our stable coin USDS is best for like DeFi lending, um, staking
on some of these platforms and, and to kind of answer your question is not just our stable
coin, but even USDC, USDT, uh, we see entering a lot of DeFi applications through our platform.
Um, I'm not sure if I mentioned, but we are stable coin, I'm not, I'm not, stable coin
I'm not agnostic, but, um, yeah, we can, users are not just able to just purchase our stable
coin, but we see a lot of traction from USDC going into DeFi through our platform.
So, so it sounds like, you know, people are doing something in DeFi.
They want to, you know, risk off or D lever, then they wouldn't move back to like USDC or
That's the most volume that we see.
And then did you ever see any kind of like crazy, like runs on the bank with your coin?
Have you, have you had to like, like, like the, oh shit moment of like what's happening
where, you know, people are exiting like crazy or is it, or has it been pretty, um, pretty
Um, our stable coin has been stable.
Um, yeah, no, nothing, nothing crazy.
Um, we're fully, like I said, we're fully collateralized one-to-one.
It's fully transparent through our dashboard with coin and co.
Um, sometimes, you know, if there is a liquidity pool where the stable coin is not trading at
par, um, you know, some arbitrage opportunities may arise and that's kind of where we see traders
step in and, and, and fill that in.
So, um, we haven't seen any like run on our stable coin.
Um, any, any mistakes you guys made that you could talk about?
Like what lessons that you, uh, any, any black eyes?
I mean, last year we had a pretty big black eye and it was fun for, for the first part
Um, we were, we were trying to become a trust company in the state of Washington.
And just because there was some bottleneck, you know, with prime trust at the time and the
cost, the time was a lot.
Um, and given now the whole regulations may change, um, only banks may or may not happen,
That banks will be the only, um, issuers and, and burn and the minting and the redeeming
Then, you know, that kind of backfired on us and we had to pivot a few times last year.
Um, you know, and also trying to compete with some, some big, um, stable coins out there,
Um, when, when they, when we try to compete our stable coin with them, we're going to
lose, uh, we're a very small stable coin compared to them.
However, we focus on small to emerging chains.
Um, and you know, that's kind of where we found our sweet spot, um, ever since the stable
coin wars a few years ago.
Um, at, I guess at that time, you know, we were listed on, we were the fifth stable
point listed on Binance at the time.
Um, but we delisted because just market making was just too expensive to maintain and kind
of where we threw in the red flag to USDC, USDT and all these guys.
I actually think Wall Street wizard, uh, do you want to say something?
I just wanted to say, I would like to thank you guys for, you know, having me up here and
just sharing so many insightful and valuable ideas.
I just, I really am honored because I can tell you guys know what you're talking about
and you've been in this industry for, I mean, even if it was a one or two years, you've done
enough research to where like, you can use the right terminology and a lot of stuff I'm
hearing, I don't know about.
So just thank you for, you know, doing this and being able to share these ideas for everybody.
Cause I think there's just a huge future for, we are in the decentralized era, D apps, you
I wanted to say peace out.
It's going to be a big year for all of us guys.
I'll be, uh, I'm hosting a space on frat on Sunday.
I talked to Joe about inviting you guys to that.
We should have like a hundred or 200 people in there.
Please, you know, DM me as well, you know, like a Rebecca pro.
I think I DM you as well.
And, you know, we definitely will join.
So you got a couple of black guys in the, in the space, uh, trying to compete on
Binance with some really, really large stable coins.
Uh, the path, the growth path is, uh, some of the smaller chains.
Helping them bring liquidity and an option for liquidity early on.
Um, you know, it's pretty dark times.
I mean, a lot of chains have like shut down their grants programs, obviously the FTX BS,
Um, all that type of stuff.
I, what would you say, do you, do you have any like hopeful message or what would you say
to the, to the bears right now?
Like on, on what, what keeps you motivated?
Um, what keeps me motivated?
I mean, this space is just fun, right?
Just learning all this, just having, just have fun with it.
Just build, have fun with it.
Um, yeah, I don't look at my portfolio every day anymore.
But, uh, but, uh, you know, because of that, it's just, I mean, I'm in, you know, I left
Tradfly, I left a really good industry comfortable because I believe in the technology and the
people building it, you know, in the, in the field and the real people, right.
We always see these FTX, you know, blowing up scammers and, you know, not just big ones
It's just be aware, um, right.
And just continue, just keep your head up during these bear markets and, and the right
time will come and just open yourself again.
Also network, open yourself up, um, open the doors or your DMS, um, because you never know
who you may find to be able to help you keep going.
What are you most good segue?
What are you most bullish on in 2023 and if you could meet anybody in the space, who
would you want to meet with and collaborate with?
Um, so what am I most bullish on?
I really hope, um, GameFi really has a good run this year and I really hope, um, video games
actually start, you know, using, um, NFTs, you know, just GameFi, um, technology aspects
to it because, um, I think there's, there's a big market for that and yes, it's already
been kind of going, you know, booming a little bit, but I still think there's still a lot more
to do there and until they get like, you know, until they change their, their perception
on, until the traditional game, like gaming institutions change a perception on blockchain,
then we won't have, I don't think many meaningful GameFi games and actual fun games.
Um, because now if you think Activision, all these other guys, right?
Like, they just consider, they just, I feel like they've been kind of pushing back on
it, but I really hope they, they change their, their mind on it.
Um, and I think that will just boost GameFi so much more.
Um, and I guess, uh, what was the second question?
Um, partners, if you could, if you meet partner, collaborate with who, like in the space,
like who would be like a big win for you, for you to connect with?
Sure. Um, I would love to talk to Vitalik just cause, I mean, but, um, yeah, I think,
um, let me see. Yeah. Uh, you know, I think a lot of people, I mean, Charles from Cardano,
I kind of want to ask him what, what he's doing and how we can help grow his DeFi a little
bit more. Um, all right. All right. We might have a connect for you there. Um, but let's
talk after this. There's a, there's a, there could be a pathway of, uh, of working together
on that. Yeah. Cardano, they, they have, um, very interesting, uh, approach on, on, on
community basis. And I think it's, especially for, you know, I think one of the challenges
or, you know, what we're figuring out and kind of, and help like, you know, working with
companies like you guys potentially is you have, you know, your traditional BD and biz
dev that you go to the foundation, the foundation has needs and wants, and you can, you know,
sell into that, what they're looking for, but there's also this whole new kind of, sorry,
I just got a call. Um, sorry about that. Um, how do you sell into, uh, communities and
DAOs, right? It's a, it's a whole new wild way to sell in public. So I, so I find that
super interesting and a crazy new opportunity within this space.
Yeah, definitely. Um, cool. And then in terms of like, we're going to open it up for questions
here. If there's anybody else that has any questions, I always like to ask this question,
um, on these things. What question do you wish I would have asked you?
I never, never thought about that. I mean, maybe a little bit, I mean, I, I don't really,
I mean, you, we probably much touched on it all, I guess how
what question do you wish I would have. All right. Yeah. Not sure.
Actually, I have a question. I have a question. I do as well when you're done, Rebecca.
Yeah. What's the biggest win? Like what's the win that you, uh, celebrated in 2022 as a team?
Um, biggest win, um, launching Stably Ramp, um, just our new product that we were just anticipating
all year, um, has just been really great. And it, I think is going to be setting us up for a great 2023.
Um, so the team, uh, the Stably engineering team, they did a great job, um, on launching our product
and, and couldn't be more proud of them.
Thank you. Yeah. We, you know, like I think everybody wins as a team is like super important
for, you know, culture. And like, this is what we also, uh, you know, like nurturing with our,
with our company. That's why I asked that question. Uh, Joe.
Hey, thank you. Uh, okay. So first of all, awesome, awesome stuff. I'm, I'm super, I'm not
very educated in terms of all the different, you know, nuances with stable coins, but I do want to
know, since you are really deep into it, I want to know your opinion on this. I, you know, USDC
is a stable coin that most people would accept, you know, like no questions asked, but if, if someone
like myself or maybe some of the baby boomers that believe that the U S dollar is going to
continue losing value, you know, through the future decades, where, you know, where would,
where would you suggest that, you know, people keep their, their money if they want to choose
a stable coin? Cause even, you know, and then there's like the tax gold and these other stable
coins that are backed by things with intrinsic value. Then you have to, you know, there's some
trust required with, is someone actually managing the gold itself and evolved and all that stuff.
So that's, if I know that question wasn't super obvious, but I kind of just wanted to open it up
to you in terms of all of the different, you know, risk with what the stable coin is actually pegged
to, pegged to, excuse me. Then that's when I buy Bitcoin, but, uh, I thought, I thought you
might say that, yes, but you know, the problem with Bitcoin is there's no, you know, there's no
intrinsic value to Bitcoin. So selling that to a boomer is a little bit difficult.
Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think there is really no way to hedge against that right, right now.
Um, I mean, you can argue that I'll go stable coins or maybe an over-collateralized, um,
crypto backed stable coin, uh, may make the most sense, but for, but again, we got to look at
regulations that are coming, um, most likely either in the next year or two, um, that may or may not
make it, um, a good stable point to park your money in. So, um, yeah, I mean, really, there's not
really a way to fight the inflation, um, and devaluation of that, um, at the moment, at least
not that I'm aware of, or not that I would feel comfortable making that right, that I guess, um,
comment to, uh, what about physical land, a physical land stable coin?
Yeah. Um, but then you can argue in May, I mean, that would be a tokenization, right? You would
tokenize the land. Um, I would, yeah, I mean, you can create a stable coin with real estate,
um, but then, or land, um, you may or may not get some kind of security pushback if there is some
kind of development or anything like that. Sure. Then you have the, you have the government risk
and all that stuff. Yeah. I suppose if you were to, you know, buy a sovereign nation for enough money
and turn it into a DAO, then you could split it up and all that, but that's a whole different
conversation. I appreciate it. Yeah. I appreciate your, uh, your opinions on that stuff with Barto.
Thank you. Yeah, of course.
All right. I actually see a familiar face, but I think he just joined, so I don't want to put him
on the spot here, but yeah, if anyone wants to, uh, chime in, ask questions or voice your opinions on
stably stable coin or the future of web three, please, you know, uh, request to speak and I'll
make your speaker as well.
I think we can, I don't see anyone requesting, so I think we can start, uh, wrapping up. Oh, yes, yes,
yes. Just a second. Hello. Okay. Hi. Hey everyone. Hi, hi. Hey, I'm Mikael here with, uh,
I see some familiar faces. Thanks so much for, uh, calling on me. I just jumped in, so I'm not
entirely sure everything that's been covered, but, uh, I know stable coins is, is definitely a,
uh, hot topic right now. So for me personally, what I'm looking, uh, at is what's the competition
going to play out? You know, we saw a little bit of news between circle and finance and Paxos and
what, what's that going to look like in 2023? We'll see. Uh, and then also with, uh, you know,
uh, Terra Luna collapse in 2022, you know, what's the overall perception of algorithmic stable coins? So
there's a lot of things up in the air in 2023. It's going to be interesting to see how it all plays
out. But, uh, one thing's for sure is regulatory clarity is, uh, out of every aspect of crypto,
I think that's the one area where I think it'll hit the hardest, the fastest. Um, but, uh, yeah,
those are just my thoughts on that.
Hey, Mikel, thanks for joining. Um, yeah, I, I, I do, I do think that there's going to be some
regulatory clarity on stable coins and, you know, we are probably going to get hit with some of that.
However, state stable is pretty well positioned, right? We've took compliance, um, very, I guess, um,
serious since the beginning. So we work with regulated partners, right? Prime Trust is an SEC
qualified custodian. We work with, um, you know, third parties like secure for KYC, KYB. So we're trying
to be as by the book and most likely, um, and working with our legal team to be well positioned
for. So if these regulatory, you know, hurdles do come or when they come, um, we're well positioned
to remain in business and continue, um, serving the users. Um, and regarding stable coins. Yeah,
I think, I think there's another stable coin war brewing between these, again, these, um, um,
large stable coins, USDS or USDC, USDT and, um, DAI, FRAX, all these other ones, right? Um, kind of now
that, you know, I'm not sure if I'm, you're, I told you, Mikel, but we're integrating with Li-Fi
and now with these big decks, bridge aggregators, I kind of want to see how all this kind of plays
apart, um, to be able to quickly move stable coins from one ecosystem to another, um, these,
this next time around. Um, but yeah, I, I market perception on algorithmic stable coins, I think
is very negative. Um, I don't, I don't, I don't see much appetite for users for algo stable coins
at the moment, especially after the Terra, um, Luna collapse. Um, however, fiat backed and
over-collateralized crypto stable coins, I feel like, um, are probably going to be, um,
successful in the, in the next few years.
Yeah, I just, I would say that I agree with everything that you said and I'm happy to hear
that you guys are positioned to take on any kind of, you know, regulatory framework that
may come into play in, uh, 2023. And I do, I do agree that the overall sentiment when it comes to
algorithmic stable coins is we're very far from that ever. There's a lot of trust that needs to be
built with everything that's transpired in 2022. And so I think in the short term, it's hard to
envision an algorithmic stable coin having a lot of success, but I mean, you also have a lot of people
that are anti-regulation. And so I think the other aspect of this that we need to consider is there's
going to be a wider gap between, um, those entities that want to play by the rules and seek out these
regulatory frameworks and they want to abide by them. And those that are wanting to get even more
decentralized and basically not face the music, so to speak. I think we're just going to see a wider
spectrum, uh, between centralization and decentralization and, you know, regular regulation
and those that are, you know, wanting to be more privacy focused and, uh, not necessarily abide by
the regulatory standards.
All right. I think it's a really good spot to wrap things up. Thank you everyone for joining and
listening and speaking up. Mikhail, thank you so much for joining us last minute as well. You know,
very valuable to hear your thoughts as well. Um, but yeah, Alberto, thank you so much for this AMA.
Really interesting for our community about like stable coins on and off ramps as well. Um,
I do believe, you know, just with partnerships, you know, BD, all of the things that we offer,
you guys offer, you know, like we can all, um, we can all scale the industry. Uh, and you know,
like this is a great time of course to make more partnerships, more introductions and stuff. And this
is basically how we met as well. Um, so, you know, like it proves, uh, proves that it's working. So
thank you everyone who joined us today. Uh, please DM, feel free. Always DMs are open,
slide in on Telegram DMs. Uh, we are here to talk, to help, uh, the industry together if you're
learning something, but yeah, until the next one, Alberto, Brian, Joe, Mikhail. Thank you so much.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good one, everyone.