The Stablecoin Competition Is On. Who Will Be the Winners and Losers? - Ep. 920

Unchained

Laura Shin

Tech News, Business News, News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The stablecoin race is heating up. With the passage of the U.S. stablecoin law the floodgates have opened. Tether still dominates globally, but Circle, Stripe, and a wave of new “stablechains” are making their move. In this episode, Dragonfly partner Rob Hadick and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz join Laura Shin to map out how this battle could reshape crypto and payments. Will ecosystem apps like Phantom and Jupiter keep their own stablecoins? Can Circle’s new Layer 1, Arc, compete with Tether’s network effect? Don’t miss it! Thank you to our sponsors! Binance Aptos Guests: Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 🔥 2:50 What Rob and Mert expect from the coming flood of stablecoins and stablechains 🌐 12:06 How network effects could decide the winners in the stablecoin wars 💵 14:09 Whether Tether’s dominance is here to stay 💱 22:45 Why Forex matters—and why everyone still wants dollars 😎 27:15 Whether Tether even cares about its new competitors ⚠️ 33:18 What Rob calls the biggest existential threat to Tether 🏦 36:00 Can Circle’s new payments chain, Arc, really compete in this environment 🧩 40:42 Why Mert says Circle is in a difficult strategic position 🤝 45:17 How new Layer 1s risk pleasing no one by trying to please everyone 💣 52:55 Whether banks are doomed—and why employees might want to start exiting now Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Whoever the application is, whoever the company is that is owning that distribution,
0:05.0	they're going to want to have their own stable coin.
0:07.0	Because that is the easiest way for them to potentially own how economics are distributed.
0:11.0	Circle seems like the easiest short here over a long time horizon.
0:14.0	I bet you Palo cares more about Bitcoin than he does tether itself.
0:25.1	Hi everyone, welcome to Uncheat. Your Nohy hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host,
0:31.4	Laura Shin. Today's episode is brought to you by Finance and Aptos. Finance is the world's number one crypto exchange, trusted by over 290 million users. With industry leading liquidity, security, and a wide range
0:39.7	of digital asset products, finance is the place to buy, sell, trade, and earn crypto. Download
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0:56.0	efficient than other blockchains. See for yourself why Aptos is the chain of choice for institutions,
1:02.0	users, and developers alike at the Aptus Experience, October 15th and 16th in Brooklyn.
1:08.5	Hey, everyone. I'm here with Rob Haddock, General Partner Dragonfly, and
1:13.7	Mert Mertaz, CEO Fulius. Welcome, Rob and Mert. Today's topic is all these stable coins and
1:21.2	stable chains. And we're just, you know, at the start of what looks like it's going to be some
1:26.2	great stable coin race. Obviously, Tether, Circle, and the start of what looks like it's going to be some great stable coin race.
1:32.7	Obviously, Tether, Circle, and Athena have been sort of like the winners of the preliminaries,
1:38.3	you could say. But after the passage of the Genius Act, the U.S. Stablecoin law, it's pretty clear that now the real race is getting underway. We just saw Plasma just had its TGE to much fanfare. Stripe is getting a lot of
1:47.9	buzz with its acquisitions plus also its upcoming tempo blockchain. Circle also just launched its own
1:54.5	L1 arc. And there's so many others in the works. I mean, I could list so many, and multiple of them
2:00.2	have been mentioned already on the show before. But, you know, on top of that, we are seeing now
2:04.7	these ecosystem stable coins. Obviously, USDAH got a lot of media attention. And then, of course,
	...

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