Gordon Liao, Head of Research at Circle, discusses the explosive growth of USDC to a $50 billion market cap. Gordon also explains how stablecoins are revolutionizing cross-border payments, the regulatory landscape shaping crypto, Circle's strategic IPO timing, and why blockchain-based payment rails will disrupt tradfi.

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Notes:

• USDC reaches $50B market cap

• Cross-border payments cost 6-7% traditionally

• Stablecoins settle transactions in seconds

• PayPal launched PYUSD competitor

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:40 Who is Gordon?

02:21 Responsibilities at Circle

05:27 What's unique about DeFi?

11:50 Why is fractional reserve bad?

12:40 Separating lending & payments

13:23 AMM functions

15:20 xy=k (inverse variation)

18:06 Circles's mission statement?

21:16 Arc: An L1 Blockchain for Stablecoin Finance

23:15 Proof of Authority

24:32 Ellipsis Labs Ad

25:19 Staking in dollars?

27:48 Courts & laws as slashing mechanism

28:55 Permissionlessness

32:06 Stablecoin competition

34:24 Smaller banks

36:34 Small bank creating stablecoins?

38:19 Will $1 equal $1?

41:29 Arc's value add

45:11 Arc timeline

45:29 Initial use cases

48:23 Liquidity fragmentation

50:35 Managing Circle's multi-chain operations

53:18 Market volatility

55:52 circuit breakers for volatility

57:42 Auto-deleveraging

58:29 Controlling a decentralized marketplace

59:46 Hedge funds & perps

1:02:29 Will TradFi even participate in these markets?

1:04:46 Degens gonna degen

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Backed by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Haun Ventures. The founders, Eugene and Jerry, have experienced Citadel Jane Street in the Solana Core team since launching their order book DEX, Phoenix. They’ve done over $80 billion in trading volume by making onchain order books competitive with centralized exchanges. 

Ellipsis is hiring for New York-based engineers. Work with a small focus team who are results driven, collaborative, and use a modern stack. If you’re an engineer who wants to work on infrastructure that’s already proven itself in the market, go to ellipsislabs.xyz.

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Austin Federa, founder of Double Zero, joins us to talk about building a new internet optimized for blockchain. We dive into how Double Zero uses private fiber networks from trading firms like Jump to reduce jitter and latency for validators, why proof-of-utility beats proof-of-stake for infrastructure, how they secured a rare SEC no-action letter, and the wild token launch that had everyone screaming online.Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com# Notes:• Double Zero has 30% of Solana validators connected• Network has $23 billion in total connected value• Validators pay 5% of block rewards as fees• 50% of revenue is burned, 50% to fiber contributors• Token launched at $0.075, spiked significantly• 7.5% free float, 34% circulating supply at launchTimestamps:00:00 Start02:18 Launching DoubleZero03:37 Layered protocol stack08:00 Partnering w/ high frequency trading firms09:28 Monopolies vs Open Source12:43 What is "jitter"?15:14 Reducing jitter16:58 Current public internet market making18:13 Flash Boys comparison19:57 Fiber quality tiers21:39 Fiber vendors22:28 High quality fiber uses24:01 Fiber is actually 2/3 the speed of light24:51 Fiber uses in TradFi27:20 DoubleZero stakeholders30:00 Fiber bandwidth limits30:50 Opting into DoubleZero33:13 30% of stake weight on Solana34:57 How much faster?36:18 First mover advantage?37:13 Solana MEV & speed37:51 Is DoubleZero a blockchain?40:51 Fees & rewards42:44 Burning tokens44:22 Chain agnostic45:47 $23B in "connected value"?46:51 Holding DoubleZero tokens49:08 Legal & trust design50:25 Validator rug pulls?51:45 Malicious validators53:34 Reasons why firms would NOT use DoubleZero?55:22 Geography matters57:47 Proof of utility59:51 B2B utility token1:02:34 SEC letter1:04:45 Subject framing for the SEC1:08:22 Token sale1:08:58 Token NGU1:10:05 Binance Alpha1:12:09 Online hate a distraction?1:13:18 Initial token float?1:15:15 Token unlock schedule1:16:50 FUD fightingThe Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs: https://www.ellipsislabs.xyz/

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Facundo Werning, former Tether country manager for Latin America and now at Agora, joins us to talk about his journey from Argentine policy work to the front lines of the stablecoin wars. We dive deep into how stablecoins actually work in emerging markets, why Agora is positioning itself as the credibly neutral alternative to Tether and Circle, the real state of crypto adoption in Argentina, and why traditional banks are about to get completely upended.

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NOTES:

• Argentina has more US cash per capita than America

• Stablecoin yields hit 10-12% vs banks' 3% in Argentina

• Agora shares revenue with partners unlike competitors

• $10B in stablecoins = $400M yearly opportunity cost

• Tether built dominant last-mile retail distribution

Timestamps

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume.If you’re interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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James Christoph explains why MicroStrategy can't be replicated, DATs are doomed, and crypto markets are more efficient than people think. Plus: Celestia's inflation problem, Ethena's systemic risks, and why Hyperliquid nailed their stablecoin strategy.

If you’re interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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Mallesh, formerly Special Mechanisms Group and Rice University joins us to talk about his move to Tempo, Stripe's new payments-first blockchain.We dive into why they built another L1, multi-stablecoin architecture, MEV challenges in payments, with credible neutrality

05:34 Tempo

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Eric Yakes, venture capitalist at Epoch Ventures, joins us to talk about Bitcoin's path from digital gold to banking system integration. We dive deep into his 130-page report on Bitcoin banking, stablecoin dynamics as Trojan horses for Bitcoin adoption, and why he believes we're heading toward a hybrid financial system that bridges traditional finance with crypto innovation.

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Rory Murray, Director of Digital Asset Management at Cleanspark, joins us to discuss his journey from global macro investing to leading Bitcoin mining operations, the Griid acquisition, cost structures, hedging strategies, and how the business is evolving into a hybrid energy‑finance powerhouse.

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SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce joins us to talk about the evolving crypto regulatory landscape—from the Clarity Act and the Howey test to protocol ownership, governance tokens, and the challenges of MEV. She shares insider perspectives on market‑structure bills, self‑custody, and what regulators really care about in decentralized finance.

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Anatoly from Solana joins us to talk about the recently launched Seeker phone and its strategy to break Apple/Google's 30% monopoly through crypto-native distribution. We dive deep into Hyperliquid's centralized matching engine vs Solana's decentralized approach, Bitcoin as digital gold vs investment, the meme coin phenomenon, and why hardware might be key to building alternative app ecosystems.

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Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Benedict Brady, former quant trader and founder of Meridian joins us to talk about Solana's dark pool ecosystem, Jupiter's market dominance, the move from traditional AMMs to sophisticated trading infrastructure, MEV wars, and how his AI-powered trading assistant is changing crypto trading interfaces.

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:19 Benedict intro

02:32 Solana focused work

05:14 Solana market evolution

13:03 RFQ vs Dark AMM

15:24 Partial RFQ Fills

17:17 Dark AMMs in practice

19:58 Define "Dark"

23:46 Why Jupyter?

27:45 Dark AMM big unlock?

30:19 Deep thoughts...

32:14 Are Solana spreads tight?

36:02 Wintermute

37:19 Why the secrecy?

40:01 Hello MEV, my old friend

45:26 Gwart the Bitcoin Maxi (or not)

49:23 SOL vs ETH

52:44 App sequencing

55:33 Perp DEX is actually an L2

58:35 BAM

59:36 Permissionless building

1:04:29 Meridian

1:07:11 LLM trading

1:09:27 AI + Crypto killer apps

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The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume.

If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas.
Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices