Debate: Should Stablecoin Chains Have an Ethereum L2 or Their Own L1? - Ep. 907

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Cyber Capital’s Justin Bons and Codex’s Haonan Li challenge the new orthodoxy: whether payments chains should be alt L1s or Ethereum L2s, how “neutrality” and finality matter for real-world transactions, and why fragmentation could make or break onchain dollars. We dig into Stripe’s Tempo (and its permissioned start), what it would take for L2s to reach true decentralization, and whether stablechains undercut general-purpose chains. Plus: the trade-offs of sequencers, paying gas in dollars, and whether protocol-native stables are the future. Thank you to our sponsors! Binance Token2049 – Get 15% off with code UNCHAINED Guests: Justin Bons, Founder and CIO of Cyber Capital Haonan Li, Co-founder and CEO of Codex Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 💭 1:45 Laying out the first arguments 🛠️ 12:57 What needs to happen for L2s to finally become stage 2 rollups 💵 15:40 Why Haonan chose to launch a stablecoin-focused L2 on Ethereum 🏦 30:17 Does Stripe’s Tempo L1 spell trouble for Ethereum L2s? ⚖️ 38:55 Whether Tempo can position itself as a neutral blockchain 🔗 50:02 Are L2s capable of true decentralization? ⏱️ 53:58 How important finality is for stablecoin businesses 🧩 57:08 Why fragmentation could make or break stablecoins 🔮 1:02:31 What the future of rollups should look like ⚔️ 1:05:58 The case for and against general-purpose chains 📉 1:13:12 Whether protocol-native stablecoins will keep gaining traction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If we look at things now, the most basic L1, like the most crappiest L1, number 200 in MarketCat,
0:07.2	you cannot steal user funds, you cannot sense it. Okay, you can do that on the top 20 L2s right now.
0:14.1	That make up like 99% of the TVL? Like, this is crazy. So let me, that's the reality right now.
0:19.8	So like, I'm asking you, who's on the side of these institutionalization here?
0:23.6	You started your sort of critique on roll-ups generally on talking about, you know, incentives
0:28.0	and how it doesn't make sense for a roll-up to give up the position of being sequencer.
0:32.0	Yeah.
0:32.6	If you are a roll-up today, do you really think it is in your interest to steal your users' funds?
0:41.5	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hyp resource for all things crypto. I'm your host,
0:46.8	Laura Jin. Finance is the world's number one crypto exchange, trusted by over 290 million users.
0:59.0	With industry-leading liquidity, security, and a wide range of digital asset products, finance is the place to buy, sell, trade, and earn crypto.
1:03.0	Download Binance today to get started.
1:06.0	The crypto world is buzzing.
1:08.0	On October 1st and 2nd, 25,000 people will be at Token 2049 Singapore,
1:12.7	the largest crypto event in the world, featuring headline speakers like Eric Trump,
1:17.8	Vlad Tenev, Tom Lee, Bologi Srinivassin, and Arthur Hayes. Visit asia.tokin 2049.com now to get 15% off tickets with the code Unchained. I am here with Justin Bonds, founder
1:31.8	and CIO of Cyber Capital and Howan Lee, co-founder and CEO of Codex. Welcome, Justin and Howan.
1:37.6	Pleasure to be here again. It's always love coming on to Unchained. So it's going to be great.
1:42.1	Thank you. Hey, Laura. Nice to see you.
1:45.0	Nice to see you, Justin.
1:46.0	So you guys, we are at this moment in crypto where FinTechs and crypto are clearly converging
1:51.6	on the same space.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Laura Shin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Laura Shin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.