Q. What are the other ways in which stablecoins
can be used for payments?
A. You could program a micro payment and
send a very small amount of money to someone.
For example, as a journalist, wouldn’t you like
to get a penny for every “like” of an article that
you post? With today’s traditional payment
standards, the penny for every “like” is not
possible because to send a penny would cost
more than the sum of money that would be
sent. If, however, you could receive a streaming
payment or an accrued payment, or a payment
that is contractually obligated to you in
software, and it costs no more to send $1, or a
billion dollars, all of a sudden you’re unlocking
quite a lot of economic activity.
Q. How are you addressing the increasing
regulatory focus on cryptocurrencies
in Washington?
A. Our company is comprehensively licensed
across the U.S., comparable to major payments
companies that we compete with. What we have
also signaled is the intention of becoming a
digital commercial bank ahead of the President’s
Working Group on Financial Markets issuing its
recommendation that stable coin issuers should,
in fact, be banks. So we’re in broad agreement
on the direction of these innovations.