Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK.

In this episode of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh sit down with Zach Abrams, co-founder and CEO of Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company acquired by Stripe that grew several multiples in 2025.

They unpack why Zach calls himself "the founder equivalent of a child of the Great Depression," how following developers into the "fog of war" built five businesses in two years, and why stablecoins won't realize their potential unless someone forces the economics away from existing issuers and back to consumers.

Subscribe and listen to the Money Code podcast here:

https://lnk.to/MoneyCodeSN

Chapters

00:00 How Bridge went from early adopters to mainstream in three months

02:54 "The founder equivalent of a Great Depression child"

06:09 Why stablecoins are the first global financial building block

07:30 Agentic payments: planting seeds for the next cycle

14:30 How one use case kept pulling Bridge into the next

18:45 The $10B ceiling that forced a bank charter

22:50 "Everyone is competing on maximal regulation"

31:42 Why "focus" is wrong advice for this market

36:17 The Stripe acquisition made things harder, not easier

43:42 How one customer becomes five products

49:30 Why tokenized stocks beat real ones at half the borrowing cost

52:55 "If we don't build it, no one else will"

58:47 Where to find Zach and Bridge

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz

Zach Abrams: https://x.com/zcabrams | https://bridge.xyz

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry. Whether you're building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK.

In this episode of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh sit down with Ayo Omojola, General Partner at Refract VC, former Cash App banking lead, and organizer of A Very Stable Conference. 

They unpack why the biggest stablecoin opportunity isn't in the US, where Chase is "ferocious" and payments feel good enough, but in serving billions of people worldwide who can now access dollar-denominated savings from an app store, and why $300B in circulating supply is still peanuts compared to what's coming.

Subscribe and listen to the Money Code podcast here:

https://lnk.to/MoneyCodeSN

Chapters

00:00 Investing in stablecoins: why people matter more than tech

03:30 The wealth flight thesis: why rich people move money to Switzerland

08:00 Agentic payments: real or overhyped?

12:35 A Very Stable Conference: catching lightning in a bottle

19:20 The Jamie Dimon problem: competing with Chase

26:00 Why long sales cycles are a product problem

28:50 Cash App parallels: "we knew a secret"

34:15 $300B is peanuts — the real market sizing math

37:15 Why incumbents have paper-thin advantages

42:45 "Fish don't feel the water as wet"

49:20 Non-USD stablecoins: institutional gaps as the foothold

54:30 Where to find Ayo and A Very Stable Conference

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz

Ayo Omojola: https://x.com/ay_o | https://kunle.app

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry. Whether you're building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 21 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Prabhakar Reddy, Co-Founder & CEO at OpenFX. They explain why “instant FX” can’t be achieved with bank API wrappers alone, and how OpenFX combines end-to-end automation, regional liquidity, local rails, and stablecoins as a routing leg to settle large cross-border transfers in minutes, with bank access and balance sheet constraints setting the ceiling at global scale.

Chapters

00:00 $45B proves the point: what’s broken in FX

03:20 The three unlocks: ICP, automation, 24/7 team

06:30 What OpenFX sells: “money moves like SMS”

09:45 Working capital and prefunding: the hidden tax on fintech FX

12:40 Stablecoins as a routing leg, not the product

15:50 Currency expansion playbook: demand, regulation, bank rails, automation

21:15 Why FX wrappers can’t fix bank cutoffs and float incentives

26:40 Why crypto exchanges fail at $10M+ size

29:05 The $10M walkthrough: fiat → stablecoin leg → fiat in minutes

34:45 What has to be true: licenses, liquidity, automation, security, balance sheet

38:30 Defensibility: regional liquidity + utility pricing + 24/7 ops

42:25 What breaks next: bank access and balance sheet ceiling

44:40 The future: AI agents, and why non-USD stablecoins lag

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Prabhakar Reddy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prabhakar2reddy/  | https://x.com/prabhakar2reddy | http://openfx.com/ 

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry.   Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK
BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 20 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Chris Harmse, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at BVNK, and Anthony Yim, Co-Founder and CTO at Artemis. They dive into BVNK and Artemis’ new YouGov survey on stablecoin usage to show how demand for “normal payments” is outpacing real-world access, and why the next adoption wave is less about ideology and more about embedding stablecoin rails into the fintech apps people already trust.

Chapters

00:00 Why this survey matters right now

04:42 Stablecoins as everyday money (paid + spend)

07:52 The 77% signal: stablecoins inside fintech apps

15:35 Enterprise reality: sub-1% penetration, fast growth

19:03 Demand outpaces access: the integration gap

23:58 Do users want stablecoins or just faster payments?

31:53 Instant cash-out mechanics and why legacy rails tax speed

36:46 Closing takeaways + where to find BVNK and Artemis

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Chris Harmse: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisharmse/ | http://bvnk.com/ 

Anthony Yim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyyim/ | https://x.com/anthonyyim | https://www.artemisanalytics.com/

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry.   Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 19 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Mike Hudack, Co-founder and CEO at Sling Money. They unpack why stablecoins function as a shared ledger layer that turns cross-border payments from a prefunding and reconciliation problem into an interoperability problem, and why the real hard parts become ramps, localization, and fincrime controls rather than “the blockchain.”

Chapters

00:00 Money never became an internet good

04:07 Sling’s “global Venmo” origin story

05:05 End-to-end Sling flow across 120 countries

08:33 Why global availability is the default, not the goal

10:30 What self-custody actually means in practice

13:29 Ramp strategy: regulation plus local partners

15:33 Abstraction versus trust in the UX

20:26 Generations of cross-border and shrinking float

25:11 Localization is distribution, not translation

28:49 Compliance is a product, not a checkbox

36:44 Stablecoin choice

43:22 Sling’s mission and the line between money apps and banks

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Mike Hudack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mhudack | https://x.com/mhudack | https://sling.money/

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 18 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Cooper Thompson, Head of Innovation for Embedded Finance and Digital Assets at Fiserv. 

They argue that stablecoins won’t replace bank cores but will connect them, and that the real bottleneck for bank adoption is the liability side: if reserves sit in Treasuries or at GSIBs, stablecoins undermine deposit-funded lending unless “fiat-layer” designs keep backing deposits distributed across smaller institutions.

Subscribe and listen to the Money Code podcast here:

https://lnk.to/MoneyCodeSN

Chapters

00:00 The bank funding problem stablecoins create

00:55 Why Fiserv is in the “implementation layer”

02:36 What banks want: trust, reliability, and constraints

04:54 “Not everything moves onchain; cores stay”

06:38 Why FIUSD: stablecoins ignored fiat-layer innovation

10:33 FIUSD distribution: regulated-network cash, not DeFi liquidity

12:12 Domestic rails vs cross-border wins, and where programmability matters

17:36 Tokenized deposits vs payment stablecoins

21:14 StoneCastle and the deposit network mechanism

31:33 What products move onchain first: multi-party coordination

36:45 Privacy on public ledgers: ZK, audit keys, and institution-grade needs

39:49 Parting advice: when to adopt, and staying educated

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Cooper Thompson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cooper-thompson-963a01171/ | https://www.fiserv.com/ 

About Money Code

Money Code is the show that decodes stablecoins and the evolution of programmable money for builders, investors, and decision-makers. Each week, join hosts Chuk Okpalugo, Author of Stablecoin Blueprint and Raj Parekh, Head of Payments/Stablecoins at Monad Foundation as they break down the systems and strategies of seasoned operators in the space, revealing the insights you need for better build and buy decisions.

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry.   Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK
BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 17 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Jess Houlgrave, CEO at WalletConnect. They use the recent Ingenico partnership to unpack what it really takes to scale stablecoin payments at the physical checkout: incentives that move behavior, compliant routing from on-chain to fiat, UX that feels like Web2, and privacy constraints that shape whether merchants and consumers will ever choose on-chain settlement.

Subscribe and listen to the Money Code podcast here:

https://lnk.to/MoneyCodeSN

Chapters

01:08 WalletConnect as the “messaging layer” between apps and wallets

02:49 Why crypto checkout feels wrong and what WalletConnect Pay changes

04:34 The coffee shop walkthrough: QR, wallets, assets, chains

07:40 Where funds go after on-chain payment: transit accounts and off-ramps

10:03 The supply-side reality: merchants, acquirers, and incentives to enable

14:42 Which merchants care first: luxury, cross-border, LATAM QR familiarity

19:18 Why B2C is harder

25:38 Incentives and “on-chain interchange” to shift consumer behavior

35:15 Privacy: why transparent ledgers collide with payment norms

38:19 The end-state: tap-like UX and settlement routing users never see

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Jess Houlgrave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/houlgrave/ | https://x.com/Houlgrave | https://walletconnect.network/ 

About Money Code

Money Code is the show that decodes stablecoins and the evolution of programmable money for builders, investors, and decision-makers. Each week, join hosts Chuk Okpalugo, Author of Stablecoin Blueprint and Raj Parekh, Head of Payments/Stablecoins at Monad Foundation as they break down the systems and strategies of seasoned operators in the space, revealing the insights you need for better build and buy decisions.

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry.   Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 16 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Joao Del Valle, CEO and Co-founder at EBANX, and Chris Harmse, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at BVNK. They break down why and how EBANX is incorporating stablecoins into its global money movement stack and share views for how to potentially seed non-USD liquidity via tokenized asset settlement rather than retail payments.

Subscribe and listen to the Money Code podcast here:

https://lnk.to/MoneyCodeSN

Chapters

00:00 EBANX’s origin: local acceptance, foreign settlement

03:00 Pay-ins vs payouts across fragmented emerging-market rails

05:01 Stablecoins as a “100-country APM” with one integration

09:06 The regulatory mood shift: CBDCs down, stablecoins normalized

11:55 2025 breakout: checkout + payouts + embedded dollar wallets

14:39 Expansion playbook: merchant-led, but regulation is the bottleneck

17:58 Liquidity and VASP rules: stablecoins as common language

24:07 Domestic RTPs are great, interconnectivity is the real gap

26:47 Visa stablecoin settlement: sponsor banks unlock US scale

29:52 Non-USD stablecoins: tokenization seeds the cash leg and liquidity

37:48 Treasury ROI: speed, predictability, and visible payment status

42:43 Compliance vs privacy: what flows need opacity

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Chris Harmse: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisharmse/ | http://bvnk.com/ 

João Del Valle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaodelvalle/ | https://www.ebanx.com/ 

About Money Code

Money Code is the show that decodes stablecoins and the evolution of programmable money for builders, investors, and decision-makers. Each week, join hosts Chuk Okpalugo, Author of Stablecoin Blueprint and Raj Parekh, Head of Payments/Stablecoins at Monad Foundation as they break down the systems and strategies of seasoned operators in the space, revealing the insights you need for better build and buy decisions.

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry.   Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 15 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Jackie Reses, Chair and CEO at Lead Bank. 

They break down why stablecoin payments quietly depend on banks as regulated “plumbing,” how compliance automation becomes a product advantage, and why the biggest second-order risk of stablecoin growth may be destabilizing community-bank deposit bases before local credit creation has a replacement.

Subscribe and listen to the Money Code podcast here:

https://lnk.to/MoneyCodeSN

Chapters

00:00 Stablecoins don’t work without the banking layer

01:28 Why Lead Bank was built from scratch

04:27 How you earn regulator trust in modern banking

11:25 Onboarding “too tricky” clients and scaling with them

13:34 Compliance as a front-of-house product

17:44 Why Lead acquired Loop Crypto

20:02 Lead’s API primitives and composable banking stack

22:49 How different banks should think about stablecoins

24:41 The community bank risk: deposit flight and local lending

34:25 Tokenized deposits vs stablecoins as rails

39:26 The “Hunger Games” phase of fragmentation

44:30 Builder advice: precision, scale, and no hyperbole

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com 

Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz 

Jackie Reses: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-reses-938b7850/

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. 

In episode 14 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpolugo and Raj Parekh are joined by José Fernández Da Ponte, President and Chief Growth Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation.

They unpack why stablecoins are first transforming treasury and capital markets rather than consumer payments, what drives institutional adoption, and why non-USD stablecoins are critical to global trade infrastructure.

About Stablecon

Stablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce.

By convening the brightest minds in fintech and crypto, Stablecon provides attendees with world class thought leadership and fosters unparalleled networking and strategic collaboration across the digital payments industry. Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.

About BVNK

BVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Chuk Okpalugo: LinkedIn, X, stablecoinblueprint.com

Raj Parekh: LinkedIn, X, monad.xyz