October 12, 2025

The Tether Monopoly Is Over

1 hour 6 minutes

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

00:00 Start

00:29 Who is Facundo?

08:56 Role at Tether

12:09 Argentina & stablecoins

17:40 Daily stablecoin use

21:17 Ellipsis Labs Ad

22:05 What is Agora?

28:13 What is Agroa (simplified)?

30:03 Will Tether be disrupted?

34:42 Stablecoin fragmented liquidity

40:34 Will stablecoins migrate to one chain?

44:25 Hyperliquid

47:24 Treasury companies (DATs)

51:58 Did you say PROFITS?

56:07 Subscribe Ad

56:44 Anacdote

57:55 Javier Milei

59:22 My dad is a central banker

1:01:27 State BTC adoption

1:04:40 Generational BTC trade

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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