Stable Stories

Phil Fogel, CEO of Cork Protocol, joins to discuss building on-chain risk infrastructure. He explains why DeFi needs tools like fully collateralized credit default swaps to transfer risk explicitly. Institutions require risk control and transparent pricing, not just high yields. The conversation covers how Cork could have impacted stablecoin depegs like Terra and USDC by providing programmable hedges. Finally, Phil highlights their upcoming pilot with Avantgarde, focusing on making real-world assets (RWAs) loopable through secure, risk-adjusted liquidity markets.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy.

Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/ecoCork Protocol: https://www.cork.tech/Phil on X: https://x.com/Philfog

Zain Cheng, CTO of Horizen Labs, joins Stable Stories to discuss the intersection of AI agents, privacy, and stablecoins. A former Federal Reserve engineer turned crypto builder, Zain explains how Horizen is pivoting from a privacy L1 to a modular Layer 3 on Base. We dive into the "Agentic Economy"—where AI agents hold wallets and transact without bank accounts—and how ZKVerify provides the proof layer they need. Zain also covers Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) as the bridge for institutional compliance and the roadmap to fully cryptographic privacy.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy.

Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/ecoHorizen Labs: https://horizenlabs.io/ZkVerify: https://zkverify.io/Zain on X: https://x.com/zainlabs?lang=en

Gideon Greaves, Managing Partner at Lisk Ventures, joins Stable Stories to discuss why the future of Web3 adoption lies in emerging markets. Gideon shares his journey from bootstrapping a food-tech startup in South Africa to leading a $20 million Web3 fund. He explains Lisk’s pivot to an Ethereum Layer 2, the massive valuation arbitrage opportunities in African tech, and why "boring" use cases like verifying land titles are revolutionary in Nigeria. We also explore the inevitable shift of governments moving on-chain and Lisk’s new partnEco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/ecoLisk: https://lisk.com/Gideon On X: https://x.com/gideongreavesership with the United Nations to accelerate industrial blockchain adoption.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy.

As stablecoins move from a crypto niche to real financial infrastructure, more builders are asking the same question: why issue your own stablecoin instead of relying on USDC or USDT?In this episode of Stable Stories, we sit down with Chase Merlin, Product Lead at Brale, to break down how stablecoin issuance is evolving — and why branded stablecoins are becoming a core primitive for onchain businesses.Chase shares his journey from Web2 product and fintech into DeFi, entering the space during DeFi Summer and witnessing firsthand why stablecoins became the foundation for nearly every onchain use case. We explore how Brale is building a full-stack stablecoin issuance platform that goes beyond minting — covering on- and off-ramps, automations, wallets, treasury management, and multi-chain deployment.The conversation dives into why more marketplaces, fintechs, teams, and consumer apps are choosing to issue their own stablecoins to capture treasury revenue, customize behavior, and build stronger user relationships — and how interoperability will determine whether the future looks like a long tail of branded stablecoins or a reconsolidation into shared consortium models.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy.

Eco: https://eco.com

Eco on X: https://x.com/eco

Brale: https://brale.xyz/

This week Lorenzo Romagnoli, Co-Founder of USDT0, joins us to explain how USDT0 makes USDT seamless across chains by turning it into a free, non-custodial interoperable asset.He shares his DeFi-native background (having a crypto wallet before a bank account) and why USDT historically struggled to spread beyond Tron/Ethereum due to friction: Tether chain swaps, liquidity bridges, or CEX routing. USDT0 solves this with an Ethereum lockbox plus LayerZero messaging to mint/burn USDT0 across supported networks—now moving ~150–300M USDT daily. The episode also explores Tether’s “freedom tech” ethos and Tether Gold/XAUT0.Stable Stories is an X Spaces series that explores the behind-the-scenes stories of builders pioneering the stablecoin industry.

Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/eco USDT0: https://usdt0.to/USDT0 on Paragraph: https://paragraph.com/@tetherzeroUSDT0 Analytics: https://docs.usdt0.to/overview/analyticsLorenzo on X: https://x.com/zerolore

Peanut is a self-custodial wallet connecting users and their funds directly to banks and payment networks, making spending and using stablecoins easy, cheap and global!This week, Peanut co-founder Conrad Urban explains the Peanut wallet and it's core promise: send funds to anyone without caring what rails they use, with simple link/QR transfers that can route to wallets, banks, or local merchant QR systems.

Stable Stories is an X Spaces series that explores the behind-the-scenes stories of builders pioneering the stablecoin industry.

Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/eco Peanut: https://peanut.me/Konrad Urban on X: https://x.com/0xkkonrad

2025 marked stablecoins’ shift from a crypto primitive to real financial infrastructure. Privy’s Max Segall, Circle’s Peter Schroder and Eco's Annika Lewis break down what drove the “stablecoin year”: Bridge’s momentum, Stripe’s acquisition, Privy joining forces with Stripe, and major enterprises finally engaging seriously. They highlight regulation as the key unlock (including the U.S. Genius Act and Canada’s draft stablecoin framework), the rise of stablechains, and Circle’s IPO. The big question for 2026: can stablecoins quietly power mainstream apps through seamless, abstracted payments?Stable Stories is an X Spaces series that explores the behind-the-scenes stories of builders pioneering the stablecoin industry.

Privy: https://www.privy.io/Circle: https://www.circle.com/Eco: https://eco.com/

Coinflow enables businesses to make payments their growth engine by launching fast, settling instantly and scaling globally.In this episode, Daniel Lev, co-founder and CEO of Coinflow, explains how stablecoins can eliminate the slow settlement cycles that plague global payments—especially for marketplaces that collect funds and pay sellers across borders.

Coinflow acts as a next-gen PSP, accepting multiple payment methods and settling merchants in stablecoins in as little as T+5 seconds, enabling near-instant payouts and faster cash flow.

Stable Stories is an X Spaces series that explores the behind-the-scenes stories of builders pioneering the stablecoin industry.

Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/eco Coinflow: https://coinflow.cash/Daniel Lev on X: https://x.com/CoinflowLabs/status/1965788707698708939

Axal is a high yield savings app that provides industry leading rates and protection. In this episode of Stable Stories, Dave sits down with Ash, Co-Founder of Axal, to explore why yield should be treated as a core financial primitive, simple and accessible, despite growing fragmentation across DeFi, RWAs, and fixed-rate products. He highlights the importance of non-custodial guarantees, clean UX, and aggregation as yield becomes commoditized and outlines Axel’s yield-first strategy, recent app launch learnings, and roadmap.Stable Stories is an X Spaces series that explores the behind-the-scenes stories of builders pioneering the stablecoin industry.

Eco Website: https://eco.comEco X: https://x.com/eco Axal: https://axal.com/Ash on X: https://x.com/ashlan_ahmed?lang=en

In this episode of Stable Stories, Dave sits down with Gabriele Sabbatini, co-founder and CEO of Hercle, to unpack how institutional-grade infrastructure is bridging fiat rails, digital assets, and stablecoins—and why that matters most for cross-border B2B payments in emerging markets.
Eco Website: https://eco.comHercle Website: https://hercle.com/