Ep. 682 How Stablecoins are Revolutionizing the Crypto World

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Crypto101 podcast, presented by Gemini. [SPEAKER_01]: Your bridge to the future of money. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, everyone, welcome back to the Crypto 101 podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: We're excited to have all of you back here with us. [SPEAKER_01]: We have another really exciting interview and store for all of you. [SPEAKER_01]: Today, we get to talk a little bit more about stablecoins. [SPEAKER_01]: This has been a huge talking point this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's been all new forms of adoption and regulation. [SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, you all have asked for us to bring in all sorts of founders and people who are pioneering the space. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's exactly what we're going to be doing. [SPEAKER_01]: We're exploring a whole new side of it. [SPEAKER_01]: We have Lorenzo. [SPEAKER_01]: He is the co-founder of USDTZRO. [SPEAKER_01]: And Lorenzo, we're excited to have you, man, and welcome to the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, thank you so much for having me and it's a pleasure to meet you, Brendan. [SPEAKER_01]: absolutely, you know, likewise over here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, stable coins are an interesting part of the space because for the decent past that crypto has had, you know, they've always kind of been around but they've been growing every single cycle, every single year and they've become this integrated part of the crypto ecosystem where they encourage liquidity and they encourage people to have a

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of talk about them and now the sudden we're starting to shift from people using them just inside of crypto to looking how people can use stable coins even in the triad by markets you know how can we tie these to governments and cut in countries and treasuries and how can we do so much more with this idea of stable coins even looking at tokenization and a bunch of other things and I think you all have a unique approach to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: when it comes to cross chain liquidity and kind of ushering in what stable coins can be in this next kind of step into the future. [SPEAKER_01]: So, man, we're really excited to be able to talk to you about this. [SPEAKER_01]: I know the audience is as well. [SPEAKER_01]: Before we even get into the nitty gritty of what you're actually doing, just introduce yourself to the audience and kind of where you come from and [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so my name is Lorenzo. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of the three co-founders of USDV-0. [SPEAKER_00]: I've been involved in an out of the industry for the last six years of my life basically after my second year of uni. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a defy guy myself, so I my roots in the industry are around the defy defy project, landing markets, decentralized AMMs and so on and so forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then for the last three years of my life, I've been busy focusing more on tether related products. [SPEAKER_00]: First, worked on Alui, which is a very interesting way of creating a stable coin by basically backing it only with Telter Gold using a CDP collateralized depth position set up fuel, then I've been focusing quite heavily on native years' decline deployments, how they operate, how they get executed and so on and so forth, and that's basically where the idea behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: USD-D0 was born and we basically our our pitches very simple. [SPEAKER_00]: There's one amazing asset that works basically flawlessly which is USD-D and we just make it 1% better by making it fully interpretable between between networks. [SPEAKER_00]: About myself as I said I mean I'm living in Lugano, which is in Switzerland, pretty cool place to live. [SPEAKER_00]: Very bit coin aligned, very crypto-lined.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can go around the CDNP with like I think it's like 300 shops. [SPEAKER_00]: We've either USD-D-D0 or [SPEAKER_00]: I myself, I guess one who, you could call me a Bitcoin Maxi, I've always been around the Bitcoin ecosystem. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm very, very close to a lot of people that are building on Bitcoin and I'm a big fan of Bitcoin itself.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, fair and off, he was saying he was in Switzerland and we were joking before we started I'll say, man, you want to switch spots, you can come to the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: I can go to Switzerland, but you know, we were joking that the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: wasn't and hasn't been too crypto friendly, but that had started to change here over the last year or so.

[SPEAKER_01]: How is that directly impacted the stablecoin world and the adoption that you've seen as someone who's building in this space? [SPEAKER_00]: I guess a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: Historically, as you said, the US hasn't been the most friendly jurisdictions to build in and out of crypto, I guess, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But thanks to the new administration as well as some of the things that happened with the new administration, I would say we really got a better [SPEAKER_00]: It's been quite clear to me that the positions that the U.S. [SPEAKER_00]: has taken on stable clients and stable can especially have been directly tied to the big growth that the whole stable current world is seeing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess there's also to be said though that the big narrative of this cycle is indeed stable clients. [SPEAKER_00]: Like everybody's building a stable quiet, everybody's building a chain for stable coins and so on and so forth, interest bearing, the centralized and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's definitely something that is on top of mine for everyone who's was working in the industry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am personally been around stable coins for the vast majority of my professional life. [SPEAKER_00]: If you will, I remember when in 2015 nobody was using tether, and then people slowly started using it during the ICO era. [SPEAKER_00]: And now that is grown into a full-on freedom tool, if you will, because now stable coins are being used in third-world countries and less developed countries as they're made mean of exchange.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's very, very important and for me personally it's very exciting to see because I think there's very few technologies in crypto that can be put in the same level of stable coins when it comes to to the changes and the replaying effect that they create. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, over here, I think that there's three big categories that are seeing a lot of excitement in crypto. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's stablecoins, defy and tokenization.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you could kind of say that stablecoins play a part and put deep by and tokenization. [SPEAKER_01]: So you're kind of getting the best of both worlds in that sense. [SPEAKER_01]: But there is a lot of adoption. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a big push. [SPEAKER_01]: And you said something that stood out to me. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's something that we've talked about on the show here in the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's this idea that, you know, you said in some of these developing countries, stable coins are being used. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a normal thing for them. [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the time, you know, users like myself who might be from the United States, we sell well, or we say and we think, well, I didn't use stable coins to get groceries. [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't use stable coins to go, you know, pay for my subscription and this and that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it tends to be a rather limited view of thinking, [SPEAKER_01]: in my, you know, high level of my banking system in the United States in a very fortunate position because I don't use it. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not being used elsewhere or people can't use it elsewhere. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's a really flawed way of thinking. [SPEAKER_01]: And what we are seeing, especially from what you just said, is that this is being used around the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for the people who might not be as fortunate and have access to this like, [SPEAKER_01]: you know, a tier banking system. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that's where stable coins come in. [SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, I think it will be used.

[SPEAKER_01]: You look at a lot of these, you know, a great banks and asset managers, and a lot of them have talked about filing and talked about their interest in stable coins, or several of them have actually already gone ahead and started filing for their stable coins behind the scenes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think we are moving in a direction where people in the United States and people who have a more traditional credit system, [SPEAKER_01]: I think they're they're working their way towards using stable coins on a normal basis, but it's already happening around the world, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, listen, you literally say what what my what my usual story is like living a country, which which is with salon where it's very, very easy to get a bank account.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can probably get a bank account in a matter of five to ten minutes on a bedday. [SPEAKER_00]: And and stable coins are not a technology that was developed for me. [SPEAKER_00]: I use it and in certain situations they're very helpful, but I am not in my opinion that the target group for which stablecoins were created, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Stablecoins were created for people in Africa, in India, in Latin America, the living countries where there is ultra-high level levels of inflation and that [SPEAKER_00]: Stablecoins are effectively safe even and the only thing that can save them from the failing countries that they find themselves in most of the days, most of the times, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think about it like this, what what I always say when I talk about tether specifically because there is effectively no second best when it comes to stablecoins. [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to stablecoins, we all use it if you will. [SPEAKER_00]: All of Africa, all of India and all of our Latin America and a good part of Asia runs on tether.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason for it are multiples, but [SPEAKER_00]: Effectively, what would really matter is that these people are living in countries where you work a lot of for a vast majority part of your day and then you save and then your saving gets the valued $250, $250, $300 per cent a year just because the currency that they are using gets devalued constantly and inflated constantly.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for them saving in use it is basically a safe [SPEAKER_00]: purchasing power and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: That's where I think stablecoins were made for. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the people that are using stablecoins, that's the target group that we should go build towards. [SPEAKER_00]: And the whole other team has been absolutely amazing in getting this product market fit and just leverage it as much as possible. [SPEAKER_00]: and you're right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think necessarily stablecoins are made for people like me and you that live in Europe or the US, where it's very easy for us to access the nutritional financial system, but I think this thing is changing. [SPEAKER_00]: There's more and more usage and it's pretty exciting to see. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk about what you're working on now. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're working on USDT zero.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I already know one of the first comments or questions that people are going to send our way is, what is the difference between Tether and USDT zero?

[SPEAKER_01]: Can you just kick these off or walk in us through that? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, this is a usual question. [SPEAKER_00]: So. [SPEAKER_00]: Very, very easily, USDT0 is effectively the unify liquidity layer for USDT. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's kind of a mouthful. [SPEAKER_00]: So I can dive into it and explain it, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Historically, there's been a big problem in DeFi and in crypto in general in having a single standard to move tether between networks.

[SPEAKER_00]: You probably know that the most famous standard for tether tokens, which is native USDT. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, native USDT is an amazing tool, it's an amazing product, but it has one big problem. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not interoperable. [SPEAKER_00]: That means that if I have USDT on Ethereum, it's very, very hard for me to bring it over to Tron and the other way around.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what that has resulted in is basically a very high concentration on a few ecosystems, mainly Ethereum and USDT. [SPEAKER_00]: Ethereum, sorry, Ethereum and Tron. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like 95% of all the market cup of USDT right now. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's very, very concentrated. [SPEAKER_00]: What we are doing over at USDT zero is that we're kind of democratizing this all system. [SPEAKER_00]: And we're saying, well, maybe USDT is amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And USDT is an amazing tool, but we need to make it somewhat better, a tiny bit better, by making it fully interoperable. [SPEAKER_00]: What when it comes, [SPEAKER_00]: What I mean by introbable, it means that you can easily move it between networks completely for free without any limitation of size and fully permissionless matter, which is very important. [SPEAKER_00]: USDT0 is built on earlier zero.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how familiar you guys are, but later zero is basically the leading and most used messaging protocol in all of crypto, multiple large tokens are built on the same standard that we are built with, USD from Athena, Pangoo, WBTC and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: And we're just taking this already about autistic technology and applying it to the best table coming in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: And the way it works is pretty straightforward and elegant.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have one hub chain, which is Ethereum, and users lock USDT on Ethereum, and then they receive our presentation of those locked USDT on Ethereum on whatever chain they decide to go on. [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds like a pretty simple idea, but since we launched it in January, we really got quite quite insane traction. [SPEAKER_00]: As I said, we launched it in early January and since then we've moved more than 13 and a half billion USDT between networks.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are the canonical USDT on optimism, on arbitrum, on Polygon. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be the canonical USDT on plasma. [SPEAKER_00]: We are the canonical USDT on Unichane and on a bunch of other new and exciting networks. [SPEAKER_00]: And what we have found is that the moment we give this technology to users and you just allow them to move their assets between networks, you know, without any barriers and without any fictions, adoption just skyrockets.

[SPEAKER_00]: uptake in both adoption volumes and usage. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's me very exciting. [SPEAKER_01]: So when we're talking about interoperability, does that mean that people don't have to worry about losing their crypto or sending it, sending their, because that was a big issue.

[SPEAKER_01]: People would have USDT and then they'd send their USDT on Ethereum to maybe try to send it to like a Tron address, but then there's different addresses and they try to send a Tron version to their Ethereum address [SPEAKER_01]: things. [SPEAKER_01]: It's complex. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, good. [SPEAKER_00]: It's very complex, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like the whole system is not, it's not the ideal UX to get to the next billion people, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you have these fragmented chains isolated with liquidity that is completely isolated between each other because you cannot touch them. [SPEAKER_00]: Like you cannot easily tap into liquidity on different networks and then on top of it you have [SPEAKER_00]: Other versions of USDT have breached the version, wrapped versions, IOUs, and so on and so forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just increase constantly the risk for the end user, because let's say that I want to have USDT on five networks, then I'm likely going to be exposed to five different isolated risks. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not really the way to do it and not something useful. [SPEAKER_00]: And what we're doing over at USDT Zero, we're just consolidating everything under one single secure and battle tested standard and just [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like an adopter, if you know what I mean.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can just have your USDT zero now or soon on plasma, and you're going to be able to easily send it over to arbitrum with the same risk factor and completely for free. [SPEAKER_01]: And this is clearly this makes it easier for the users and anyone that's newer to crypto, right? [SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to come over and they don't have to worry about bridging or making sure that they're on the right chain or any of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's one of the big benefits of this. [SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the big wise as to why you all are doing this. [SPEAKER_01]: I guess why else do you believe that this kind of technology that this kind of use case is essential in a multi-chain world? [SPEAKER_01]: Is that just for new users? [SPEAKER_01]: What else goes into that?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's mostly new users, but it's also the fact that we're going towards the world where every single large institution will have its own chain. [SPEAKER_00]: Like we've seen multiple chains come up in the last three to four years and the more time goes on, the more I'm seeing new networks and new [SPEAKER_00]: a new technology and fintech providers created on their own chains.

[SPEAKER_00]: The stem pods, the splasma, the sark coming up now, a monod, mega if bear chain, all these new networks they're trying to build on ecosystem in their own siloed entity. [SPEAKER_00]: And what we are doing with the SDV-0, we're just unifying all of those different entities and all of those different ecosystem into one single large shared liquidity layer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: that's been quite exciting for me and I think it's also very very important when it comes for everything that is built on top of those ecosystems, defy, tokenization, centralized exchanges, payment processors. [SPEAKER_00]: If you live in a fragmented world, it's very difficult to build two solutions and tools that are well executing, if you know what I mean.

[SPEAKER_00]: While if you have this shared liquidity layer that it becomes very, very easy and every single [SPEAKER_00]: product can just focus on being the best product it can be rather than having to focus on also growing a lot of USTD liquidity or on its own, if you know what I mean. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I take away from this is that if we're building a multi-chain world that kind of insinuates this idea that multiple chains are going to be able to succeed and be around for a long time and it kind of goes against this idea of a one-chain [SPEAKER_01]: victor, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of maxis out there who say, no, the future is only a theory and main chain. [SPEAKER_01]: The future is only XRP. [SPEAKER_01]: It's only salon.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's only this or that. [SPEAKER_01]: But I think this kind of idea says, no, you know, we, it can be more than that. [SPEAKER_01]: Would you say that the world is big enough for multiple chains to succeed here and all be interconnected? [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, if you think about it, that's basically how fintechs have always behaved.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like you have multiple isolated solutions that are very vertically integrating in the wrong niche, if you know what I mean. [SPEAKER_00]: And I consider some more of a maxim myself to be very honest with you. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm a big Bitcoin guy. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I have a big percentage of my network in Bitcoin. [SPEAKER_00]: I trust Bitcoin and I believe in Bitcoin. [SPEAKER_00]: But I also understand that there are certain use cases where which Bitcoin is not built for.

[SPEAKER_00]: stablecoins, maybe are one of those. [SPEAKER_00]: Now there's a lot of new technologies coming up, lightning, RGB, spark and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: But at the core, Bitcoin was built for something different, which is being the plan B, if the whole world was part of my English, to go to shit. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's quite important. [SPEAKER_00]: And to me, like, [SPEAKER_00]: the way I'm seeing this whole thing is everyone will come up with their own ecosystem.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them will consolidate under Ethereum, some of them will live on on Solana, we as a stable human provider and as a liquidity solution, we shouldn't pick winners in this. [SPEAKER_00]: We should be announced they can we should make sure that each one of those ecosystems can tap into the disunified liquidity layer that we are creating. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think you said it well. [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, there's just clearly a lot going on.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the biggest things that stuck out to me lately was that Tether hired bow hines. [SPEAKER_01]: He was a former White House crypto advisor. [SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of got my brain strain. [SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking out of everywhere that he could have gone. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, why did he choose Tether?

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not like a good thing here about it thing I'm not saying any of that, but I'm saying like, he came out of the White House as an advisor and charge of all this stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, [SPEAKER_01]: He could basically have gone anywhere. [SPEAKER_01]: He could have gone to Coinbase. [SPEAKER_01]: He could have gone directly to Ethereum. [SPEAKER_01]: He could have gone anywhere. [SPEAKER_01]: And he says, I want to go to Tether.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like why, from your perspective, clearly you were closely with other, why is that the case? [SPEAKER_01]: Why did he choose Tether in your opinion? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, I don't want to speak for Bo or for Tadder obviously, but at the same time for me, it's quite simple to understand it, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like Tadder, I have a strong belief that Tadder is going to be one of the most important companies, not only in crypto, but in the whole world in the next five to ten years. [SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing that is going to be able to leverage up the current geopolitical situation or financial situation in the whole world as good as what Tadder is doing. [SPEAKER_00]: They're building products that are not specifically only for crypto.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're building products with one goal in mind and that goal in mind is freedom, freedom of speech, monetary freedom, freedom of information and so on and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: If I could choose any company in the whole world to be contributing towards, and that's what I chose, it would actually be better because you're pushing forward this very important ethos and these very important missions that are fundamental for, I think, human kind in general.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I totally understand why he did that. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no better company to join if you're coming out of the White House and you want to help shape the regulatory frameworks and the way this all ecosystem is all new [SPEAKER_01]: Well, as we've said earlier, there's a lot of different groups getting involved with stable coins down, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you have governments, you have the retail traders who have been around, and now you also have institutions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's this clear shift that's happening where more attention is being put into stable coins and the idea of them and how they're going to be used. [SPEAKER_01]: But who do you think benefits the most from them? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it the governments? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it retail traders? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it institutions? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it all three? [SPEAKER_00]: I guess all three, I mean, again, we go back to the same argument that we talked about in the beginning, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: The real people that will benefit from stable coins, stable kind of adoption and decent right technology are the people that are currently sitting last in our societies, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like the people that have been de-banked, the people that do not have access to our financial tooling, that do not have access to all of the [SPEAKER_00]: things that we sometimes give for granted, like I can go an Amazon and I can buy myself a phone online with my credit card and that's something that most people in the world actually cannot do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, given as a fact that they are the real people that are getting their life changed and that we should all build towards helping. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that all three categories that you mentioned are going to be benefit-have-link, heavy, heavily from stable-core adoption.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you're asking me, there's no better tooling than a US dollar-based stable-core and up to benefit the US dollar-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�-�- [SPEAKER_00]: plenty of money to governments like the United States. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's very powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Users like as more experienced users also are going to be able to have better ways to access traditional financial system through stablecoins. [SPEAKER_00]: I think payment processing is one of the best applications of this technology. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I always tell the story which is that I had a bit coin account before a bit coin wallet before I had the bank account.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when my dad had to explain to me that he takes three days to get a bank wire, I was like, what are you talking about? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I was living in London and I was a student. [SPEAKER_00]: So my dad was sending me money to effectively live. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, hey, dad, I have no more money. [SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, okay, I'm going to send you a bank wire and it's going to take three days.

[SPEAKER_00]: And actually today's Friday, so it's going to be five days. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what are you talking about five days to get my money? [SPEAKER_00]: And do you get me a transaction ID so I can check the status? [SPEAKER_00]: But no, like, just wait, and then you're going to pop up in your account. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's terrible, especially when it comes to global trade and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: And you set those stuff fast and efficiently.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that is also a good part. [SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, at the end of the day, we're talking about a better technology. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big supporter of the fact that whenever you're going to improve the technological layer, you're just going to get adoption. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's, I think, what we're seeing so far.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is silly that with how far technology and just humanity has come, there's still this idea of, oh, it's going to take three business days to move money from point A to point B without crypto. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that has to be one of, you know, one of the best arguments for this stuff and for it to be, to be used. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I like that all three groups benefit, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You look governments. [SPEAKER_01]: They get buyers of their debt.

[SPEAKER_01]: You look at institutions. [SPEAKER_01]: They solve that issue of having to wait multiple business days for transactions to get moved around. [SPEAKER_01]: They get something that's instantaneous and it's a fraction of the cost of what they already are using. [SPEAKER_01]: And then for retail, they get the freedom that comes along with that. [SPEAKER_01]: kind of benefiting like institutions, they get to have their funds instantly.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you could get your funds instantly. [SPEAKER_01]: You can move it around, and you can also scan it. [SPEAKER_01]: Whether you're scanning for a payment in Switzerland or the United States, if you're scanning that, that your crypto wallet and paying with that, [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be the same. [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to worry about a transfer fees. [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to worry it. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, does my bank work here?

[SPEAKER_01]: Does my card work here? [SPEAKER_01]: Do they accept my crypto current? [SPEAKER_01]: Or sorry, do they accept my my fiat currency or my crypto or this or that? [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's where USDT zero comes in pretty and a pretty cool way is that it can be multi-chain. [SPEAKER_01]: And so this takes it to another level of not only can you use crypto anywhere, but you can use crypto on any chain anywhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so regardless of whether they're native to an ecosystem, you're saying, hey, there's like a one-size-fits-all solution. [SPEAKER_01]: And to me, it seems like that kind of interoperability is just the next logical stepping crypto. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that's obviously agree with you. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of world where we're building towards. [SPEAKER_00]: And in our mind, it's just, again, we're trying to give more freedom to the users, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we're still very early on in this technology, meaning that I try it every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I go around, I try to leave my life on expanding U.S.D. [SPEAKER_00]: U.S.D.V. [SPEAKER_00]: Zero and Bitcoin, and it's hard, because you're in front of you, you have vendors, and you have, [SPEAKER_00]: and you have people that really don't get this, like you're like, so you're going to pay me with this thing that it's US dollar base, but then I am sending you on this network, but you're telling it that there are five other networks, like it's too complex, it's too convoluted.

[SPEAKER_00]: While we've used it as a zero and with the technology that we are trying to pioneer here, it at least makes it a little bit better, which is that,

[SPEAKER_00]: We're still working closely with payment providers to actually pilot these old programs, but what you're going to be able to do in the next five to 10 months is that you're just going to be able to say, hey, I'm accepting USDT on any EVM networks, for example, this is my address, and as long as USDT zero is deployed on any of those EVM networks, I can accept payments.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then automatically you're going to be able to receive USDT zero on any of our networks and converge it on the chain that the merchants want to have. [SPEAKER_00]: And finally enough, this is something that also end up being very useful for centralized exchanges, which are some of our closest partners and some of the infrastructures for which US30 was built for, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like exchanges have huge, huge problems to maintain their float supply, to remove balance, constantly their float supply. [SPEAKER_00]: When I talk about float supply, it just means that [SPEAKER_00]: you need to have treasuries of USDG sitting on each of the networks that an exchange serves to be able to process the post and withdraws. [SPEAKER_00]: But guess what, sometimes those treasuries end up being empty.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, before us, the only thing that you could have done was go back to Paolo and rest of the team and ask for a change swap, which is expensive, takes a lot of time, and sometimes it's not so easy to integrate in your infrastructure. [SPEAKER_00]: Now we've used the DCR or you can completely on your own, manage fully your whole reserve balances on anywhere networks and that's obviously very, very powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're just trying to build technology following these these ethos, which is people should be able to move on whatever network they choose in total freedom without having to pay 50, 60, 70 beeps per transactions and basically still relying on the underlying security and technology

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, well said, and we're seeing more and more that happen, and two unique situations that stuck out to me, a little bit of a, I don't want to derail us, but kind of putting us in a different direction, because they just kind of came into my mind. [SPEAKER_01]: But two different examples that come to my mind, specifically were Wyoming's launch of the Frontier Stablecoin FRNT.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we saw different talks from a different area of the world on a more global level, [SPEAKER_01]: with the green light for the first to end peg table coin. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of conversations about like, how do we make sure that this doesn't go the route of CBDCs? [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think a lot of people are scared of that. [SPEAKER_01]: And how do we stay this path where we can see growth and we can see maturity?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know in the US now we have regulation that's kind of [SPEAKER_01]: Making sure that that doesn't happen but how do we make sure that even if it's not a year or a couple of years from now down the road That we don't get toward this idea of a CBDC.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, lots to unpack there So first of all about the the Wyoming stable going this was insane for me Yeah, really like I was here when when there were only there was only one stable going in the world And I was here when [SPEAKER_00]: state in the US, actually issuing their own stablecoin. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a very surreal moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also have one big thing in common with Wyoming stablecoin, which is that we're both built on the WFT standard, the Wyoming stablecoin is powered by the year zero, like we are, so that's something exciting to see.

[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't dived too deeply into what kind of distribution layers and railways, they're building, but [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's going to be very, very cool to see, and it's definitely expecting a world where we're going to see hundreds of thousands of stable cores, potentially, issued by the most different entities in the world, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And then the other big topic here that the dimension is CBC is, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm really, really scared about CBC.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big truster of decentralization and everything that the crypto stands for. [SPEAKER_00]: And CBC is the exact opposite of it. [SPEAKER_00]: people in power and the ratio of financial systems is taking to be like, hey, look how cool I am. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing crypto too and then you're doing something that is the exact opposite of the industry we're building.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how we can do to stop them from happening, but I know that I think it's a responsibility that [SPEAKER_00]: every single participant of these ecosystem builders and users alike should always should always have a heart and always be careful on. [SPEAKER_00]: Like we cannot allow CBDCs to happen, we cannot allow a central bank to control the monitor supplying that way and I think it's very, very important for it to make it happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other side of this argument is the fact that we're seeing way more regulation and way more adoption, which from our institutional perspective, it's always good because I'm a big fan of the fact that the more regulations, the easier to follow the regulations are, the better it is for everyone, because at least we have clear guidelines and if we have clear guidelines, it's very, very easy to to make sure you're not doing anything outside of those guidelines, which I don't think anyone is trying to do so.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, taking us back to a point that we were talking about a little bit ago, back to tokenization. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, our community loves hearing about this clearly. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a hot topic, all these different groups are building towards it. [SPEAKER_01]: You even have like mainstream brokerages now, like Robin Hood is talked about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think crack and coinbase and all these different players who want to get in on this. [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that the growth of RWA's and other tokenized assets exemplify the need for interoperability and stablecoins as a solution? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, to a certain degree, first of all, it's definitely helpful if you have a bonder or anything else it's being tokenized on chain to pair it against something like the US dollar, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you don't necessarily want to pair it against something as volatile as a Bitcoin or Ethereum, you probably want to pair it against something that is... [SPEAKER_00]: stable proven and that the whole financial system is already being paired against effectively. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a huge fan of tokenization and tokenization platforms. [SPEAKER_00]: I actually just spoke today with the guys building Hadron.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hadron by Tether is the Tether's tokenization platform and it's insane. [SPEAKER_00]: They're really building anything from bond with what are stable clients and so on and so forth. [SPEAKER_00]: and there's these two main takeaways here. [SPEAKER_00]: The first one is that each one of those tokenized offset, as I said, will need to be paired against a stable coin.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you add to this equation, to this equation, the fact that you effectively have, um, [SPEAKER_00]: How, let me think out, I can describe it. [SPEAKER_00]: But effectively, you need to pair it and then maybe also want to pair it on a certain network and now you have to effectively coordinate within every single network. [SPEAKER_00]: Together, I'll unify liquidity. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll not liquidity to actually trade it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where we come into play and that's pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, what I really love is is RWA's under the form of differently, stablecoins that are denominated in non-US dollar assets, if you know what I mean.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one that I like obviously the most is that a gold bag myself, I love gold, I think it's one of the I mean it's not that I think it's that it's one of the safest way to store money in the history of humankind and it's absolutely insane and that exemplifies perfectly the need for our WAs. [SPEAKER_00]: You can bring gold and chain through to the gold and it's really amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, shout out to Gold, you know, we don't hate Gold over here.

[SPEAKER_01]: We love Gold. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's big enough. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, shout out to Gold hitting you all time highs at the time of recording this. [SPEAKER_01]: It's done great. [SPEAKER_01]: And listen, you know, we like to see all these all these different forms of assets. [SPEAKER_01]: Bitcoin is all oftentimes referred to as digital gold. [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I mean, good stuff around the world. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's, it's a very different system, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't think Gold is in competition with Bitcoin. [SPEAKER_00]: I think Gold is in competition with the US dollar. [SPEAKER_00]: I would love to be able to live on gold and to be able to spend gold every day and saving gold very easily. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that it has never been easy enough until stable coins pegged to gold actually were born.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like we're living in a situation where I tried to buy some gold with my bank, they asked me for like 75 bipser and took like seven days. [SPEAKER_00]: I can buy it on, I can go on Uniswap right now and buy some XAUT by simply routing USD through cowswap, where it's such an old data technology that it's crazy. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, didn't you, I mean, you have a history with gold, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I remember correctly, you or part of the crew that launched alloy and that linked Tether Gold, which is, I think, XAUT to the on-chain world. [SPEAKER_01]: Is that right? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, so I'm always, it's kind of my baby, like we, we contributed from the get-go. [SPEAKER_00]: We actually came together with Paul and the rest of the 13 team to actually execute this launch.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't grown much yet because I think it's a particular product, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The power of Aloy is that we had this idea, basically, this came after the 2022 Circle de Peck, when Silicon Valley Bank failed, then USDC traded nearly three cents off for five days. [SPEAKER_00]: And our thought was, we need a way to basically detach, to have a stable coin that is completely detached from the street shop financial system.

[SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: There were only a few options back in those days. [SPEAKER_00]: There was liquidity, which will emits in my opinion, one of the best designed decentralized stable coins ever. [SPEAKER_00]: But it had one problem. [SPEAKER_00]: It was backed by Ethereum and our belief was that Ethereum was not mature enough to be able to scale to 10, 20, 30, 50, 60 billion dollars in collateralized position. [SPEAKER_00]: And in our idea, it was very simple.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to take this bottle tested design, which are CDP-based stablecoin, where the idea is, I put some collateral on a borrower a certain stablecoin percentage out of that collateral. [SPEAKER_00]: And we're just going to back it with the strongest and most resilient currency in the world, which was gold. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we're going to hear a lot about Ali in the next few years because all it takes is one big fuck up.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you know what I mean or one big stable coin that blows up, to be explained to everyone why it's so important for all it exists. [SPEAKER_00]: The way I see this basically is an apocalyptic protocol, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like as long as one ounce of gold backs one to the gold, there is effectively nothing that can blow all the way up and it's very important. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just one of the multiple ways where you can utilize that a gold in a defy-like environment, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You can use it as collateral or another, the proposal just past recently. [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to be able, you can put it into AMMs. [SPEAKER_00]: You can do all these kind of stuff that I think it's very, very powerful and it's going to do the next step for tokenized gold on chain. [SPEAKER_01]: What do you say to the people, I've seen a lot of people talk about this idea that Bitcoin and crypto is going to take market share away from gold.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to see gold's market cap bleed down while crypto bleed's up and the two kind of even out. [SPEAKER_01]: There's been a lot of conversation about that, but I haven't seen any.

[SPEAKER_01]: evidence of that makes sense that like that is going to happen there's a lot of of theory out there and you know maybe this has something to do with the US gold reserves like there's all these theories but not necessarily any proof I mean listen you what you work with with both what are your thoughts on the matter of maybe crypto taking metals market share yeah good question I mean

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a weird edge case, like most people have like 5% of their portfolio location into Bitcoin maybe and 10% in gold for me it's the exact opposite I have basically everything I have in Bitcoin and everything that I don't have in Bitcoin is either in USDT or gold but I think they work synergically like effect if you think about it [SPEAKER_00]: gold is Bitcoin is a better version of gold because it's mathematically scarce.

[SPEAKER_00]: While gold is not really mathematically scarce, like you could find a huge chunk of gold somewhere and you could just inflate the supply. [SPEAKER_00]: But the reasoning behind it is the same. [SPEAKER_00]: We need something that is not easily inflatable by human greed or human decision-making.

[SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: To me, what I think will happen in the next five to ten years is that we're going to see gold eat up the market cup of the US dollar, not a bit, because we're keep rising. [SPEAKER_00]: But I have a person I believe that in five to ten years, one of the largest stable coin in the world will be a goldback stable coin and a gold denominated stable coin because it's just logical to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what I personally do is that again, I treat gold and Bitcoin, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: pretty synergically way and I mean I got pretty lucky. [SPEAKER_00]: I guess because the prize of gold has been steadily growing and it was a good trade I guess but I just want to keep saving and be in gold effectively.

[SPEAKER_01]: if fair enough, this whole topic of stable coins is fascinating and, you know, there's not a doubt in my mind that as we move into the future, five, 10 years and now, from now, people are going to be using these as essentially the same way that we use checking accounts. [SPEAKER_01]: Think people are going to be transacting all sorts of different daily activities, right through stable coins, right from while it's in, it'll evolve a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: until we get to that point.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a lot of exciting stuff to look at. [SPEAKER_01]: So Lorenzo, we really appreciate you coming on here. [SPEAKER_01]: Where can people follow everything that you're working on?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so our main social media, I guess, at the US Dickies year on the score Tio, I have a Twitter, but I usually post about Pokemon cards that I'm not too interesting to follow, but if you want to follow me, I think my Twitter is at zero lot, I think, that ERO or R.E. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: So that, uh, you can follow us on Mirror, and then you can definitely, were you gonna see us around on Twitter and multiple other places? [SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you all heard it here first. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in cryptocurrency, stable coins, gold, or Pokemon cards, make sure to check out Lorenzo. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, certainly check out all the stuff that he is working on. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and once again, man, you know, pleasure having you on, and you have to keep us posted as the stable coin world evolves. [SPEAKER_00]: It was my pleasure and whatever you need me, I'm always here.

[SPEAKER_00]: For, I mean, the front lines pushing this new technology so it's gonna be exciting, yes. [SPEAKER_01]: absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, everyone, that is listening back home. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you all for tuning in. [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we're going to have lots of more episodes coming your way.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you ever want to make sure to check out and get more content from us, head over to our YouTube channel at the Crypto 101 podcast on YouTube. [SPEAKER_01]: Over there, you're going to get all the videos, all the charts, everything else that all the data that comes along with it. [SPEAKER_01]: If we screen share or present anything, it's going to be over on our YouTube for all of our Spotify and Apple podcast listeners. [SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: the same place next week.