Podcast
Around the Coin
Hosted by Stephen Sargeant and Mike Townsend · EN
The mission behind Around The Coin podcast is to offer entrepreneurs an alternative perspective for growing their business in and around the payment industry.
14episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Programmable Compliance for Onchain Finance - Nikhil Raghuveera | ATC #622
1w ago01:02:04Tap to summarizeHost Stephen Sargeant interviews Nikhil Raghuveera, CEO and co-founder of Predicate, about building real-time, smart-contract-level policy enforcement for onchain finance. Nikhil explains his background in payments and policy, why data from blockchain analytics providers isn’t enough, and how Predicate provides sub-second, non-bypassable “notary”-style approvals for transactions and automated freeze capabilities for assets like stablecoins. They discuss compliance bottlenecks in payments and emerging markets, CBDCs versus stablecoins, secondary-market monitoring debates, safe-harbor needs for issuer discretion, and how Predicate integrates off-chain risk data to enforce AML/CFT, sanctions, and exploit protections. Use cases include M0-powered stablecoins (including MoneyGram), Aleo bridge controls, and KYC/KYB for token sales via Uniswap Labs. They also cover privacy, intents/agentic commerce, regulator engagement with Treasury/FinCEN/OFAC, and how crypto firms are evolving into fintech-like product companies. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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From Banking to Stablecoin Payments - Wesley Rios | ATC #621
2w ago00:59:17Tap to summarizeOn Around The Coin, host Stephen Sargeant interviews Wesley Rios, US & LATAM Partnerships Lead at Morph Network, about the current state of stablecoin infrastructure and merchant payment rails. Rios shares his career path from Citi, JPMorgan, and 13 years at Mastercard into crypto, arguing stablecoins are shifting the conversation from technology to concrete cost and reach benefits. He cites stablecoin market metrics, the impact of regulatory frameworks, and operational adoption by firms like MoneyGram, while highlighting US-to-emerging-market corridors and SMB pain points such as USD access, reconciliation, and on/off-ramps. Rios explains Morph’s differentiator as owning both settlement and orchestration layers, with partners for compliance, KYC, custody, and local stablecoin issuers. They discuss fragmentation, trust, and why stablecoin rails may fit agentic and physical AI commerce, plus Morph’s merchant dashboard launch (Aug 4) and a design-partner beta. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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How Blockchain Fixes Ticketing Infrastructure - David Barrick | ATC #620
3w ago00:58:07Tap to summarizeHost Stephen Sargeant welcomes David Barrick, CTO and co-founder of TIX & KYD Labs, to discuss why ticketing is fundamentally a banking business and how blockchain can fix fees, fraud, and resale chaos. Barrick explains primary vs. secondary ticketing, how venues rely on ticketing companies for underwriting and advances, and why service fees function like “interest” paid by fans. They cover open distribution, speculative ticket listings, and why NFT ticketing failed by ignoring venue financing realities. Barrick introduces TIX, a Solana-based protocol plus a developer platform that lets secondary marketplaces verify ticket ownership, enforce resale rules, and automate royalty settlement without venues managing private keys. KYD Labs currently serves mid-cap New York venues and aims to scale toward larger markets, with a long-term goal of major issuers adopting TIX. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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The Hidden Problem With Prediction Markets - Seni Thomas | ATC #619
4w ago00:49:57Tap to summarizeJoin our host, Stephen Sargeant, as he welcomes Seni Thomas, CEO and founder of EDGE Markets, to discuss prediction markets and EDGE’s role in compliant, high-velocity fund movement across regulated venues. Thomas covers EDGE’s $29.2M Series A led by CoinFund, the partnership with Kalshi, and why fragmentation into multiple liquidity pools could drive far higher volumes than current projections. He explains EDGE’s origins in gaming money movement, the pivot from leverage to solving banking constraints, and the launch of a limited-use checking account with a $1M debit limit that blocks non-allowlisted transactions to reduce AML risk. The episode also explores EDGE Boost, EDGE Connect, and EDGE Pro, real-time payments via RTP/FedNow, crypto-to-fiat rails via Zero Hash, plans for an FCM license to reduce dead capital, views on evolving state/federal regulation, and responsible gaming tools like universal limits, Copilot social accountability, and a planned disposable-income-based limit feature. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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How Crypto Onboarding Finally Gets Easier - Aditi Sriram | ATC #618
Jul 100:59:17Tap to summarizeOn Around The Coin, host Stephen Sargeant welcomes Aditi Shriram, COO of Para, to discuss her path into crypto from seeing Vitalik speak and starting at ConsenSys, plus her experience as a venture scout for Bain Capital Crypto. Aditi explains Para’s focus on wallet infrastructure for companies building on-chain financial products, highlighting stablecoin-driven use cases like remittances, embedded finance, payouts, treasury, and early agentic commerce. She details Para’s differentiation through a security-first distributed MPC model, stack neutrality, and modular integrations, and shares Para 3.0 updates driven by global customer needs. The conversation covers reusable KYC and permissioned identity sharing, the challenges of autonomous transaction authorization, views on super wallets, X402’s strengths and gaps, and what it’s like operating launches and roadmap priorities as a product-minded COO. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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How AI Agents Use Stablecoins - Xen Baynham-Herd | ATC #617
Jun 2400:57:52Tap to summarizeJoin our host Stephen Sargeant with Xen Baynham-Herd, Head of Growth and Marketing at Base, on the Around The Coin podcast to discuss Base’s newest launches. Base Ledgers for enterprise-grade private transactions (shielded from the public but visible to regulators/auditors) and Base MCP, which connects chat interfaces like ChatGPT/Claude to a wallet and Base apps so agents can execute DeFi actions with user approval. Xen shares his path from TradFi and five years at Blockchain.com to working with Balaji Srinivasan on The Network State, and explains how Base is growing across trading, lending, payments (including major USDC transfer volume and local-currency stablecoins), and agents. They cover institutional adoption, X402 as an internet payments protocol enabling agentic commerce, Agentic market, and Xen’s approach to global expansion and building founder-driven communities.We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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ATC - Itai Turbahn, Co-Founder & CEO of Dynamic and Tal Zackon, Co-Founder & CEO of TRES Finance
Jun 1701:07:12Tap to summarizeJoin our host Stephen Sargeant with Itai Turbahn from Dynamic and Tal Zackon from TRES Finance, both now under Fireblocks, for a deep dive into agentic AI and what it means for payments, compliance, cybersecurity, and stablecoins. They explain why today’s human-in-the-loop rails like cards and ACH don’t scale for agent-to-agent microtransactions, and why crypto rails and stablecoins can enable instant, low-cost, high-volume programmable payments that should remain invisible to end users. Tal shares how TRES is using AI tools like Vara and MCP to automate repetitive back-office reconciliation and help compliance teams operate with an “army of agents” while maintaining audit trails. They also discuss agent identity, emerging standards like x402 and MPP, fraud and chargebacks, enterprise treasury efficiencies with stablecoins, and how to stay relevant by learning and building hands-on. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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How Stablecoins Fix Cross-Border Payments - Chris Mason | ATC #615
Jun 1000:51:12Tap to summarizeHost Stephen Sargeant interviews Chris Mason, founder and CEO of Orbital, about building stablecoin infrastructure and how it can improve cross-border payments compared with traditional correspondent banking and SWIFT. Mason explains Orbital’s background processing stablecoins for seven years, its focus on corporate clients, and why transaction controls, authorizations, segregation of client funds, and compliance (including travel rule and blockchain analytics tools) matter as much as speed. They discuss common use cases like pay-ins, payouts, auto-conversions for firms that want stablecoin speed without holding stablecoins on balance sheet, and growing demand for emerging-market on/off-ramps. The conversation covers licensing burdens, regulatory arbitrage, crypto’s potential for better financial crime detection due to on-chain visibility, stablecoins in crisis or sanctioned-region trade for non-sanctioned goods, and how industry M&A and AI may shape Orbital’s next phase.We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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Why Enterprises Need Their Own Blockchain - Kyle Jenke | ATC #614
Jun 300:22:38Tap to summarizeRecorded live at EthCC in Cannes, Around The Coin with host Stephen Sargeant sits down with Kyle Jenke, Chief Business Officer at Optimism, about how Optimism’s OP Stack and OP Enterprise help large enterprises build and own their own blockchains for customization, revenue economics, and stronger compliance, privacy, and security. Jenke cites over 50 OP Stack chains and major brands building on Optimism, and highlights Bitpanda’s MiCA-compliant Vision Chain as a European example of regulated adoption. He discusses key customer verticals (fintechs, exchanges, payments, and large financial institutions), rising gas-fee costs and urgency to launch owned infrastructure, and how enterprises use blockchains for product differentiation amid converging financial services. The conversation also covers Security Overwatch SLAs, a menu of compliance/security vendors, AI use across Optimism, and compliance needs like OFAC screening amid geopolitics. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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Why Institutions Need Confidential Blockchain Transactions - Jeremy Jeremy | ATC #613
May 2700:32:40Tap to summarizeLive at EthCC on the Around The Coin podcast, Stephen Sargeant heads to the Zama Villa to speak with Zama COO Jeremy Bradley about fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and why financial institutions need a confidentiality layer to balance blockchain transparency with selective access for regulators and compliance. Jeremy explains “programmable confidentiality,” Europe’s GDPR-driven focus on data sovereignty, and how Zama enables end-to-end encrypted on-chain transactions while allowing authorized decryption when needed. He cites a partnership with T. Rowe Price/Apex Group, use cases like payroll, supplier payments, and influencer payments, and notes other projects (e.g., Inco, Phoenix) use Zama’s technology. They discuss lessons from Zama’s token launch, KYC/KYB support at scale, hiring in a niche FHE talent pool, internal AI for operations efficiency, and quantum computing risks, noting FHE’s quantum-resistant properties. We are also available via:Around The Coin — Official WebsiteBuzzsproutApple PodcastSpotifyPlayer FMQuoraMediumX FacebookLinkedInTiktokSoundcloud
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