Latest news with #PatrickCollison
Techday NZ
3 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Stablecoins, smart contracts and the rise of more intelligent cash
Fintechs already have the talent, the ingenuity and after a decade of challenger success with innovations like Wise's borderless accounts, Stripe's one-click checkout and Revolut's multi-currency wallets - the credibility to reshape finance on a global stage. Those breakthroughs gave consumers faster payments and slicker front-ends; but let's call that Act I. Act II is unfolding now: money itself is becoming programmable, composable and borderless. Stablecoins can settle in seconds, smart contracts can execute "if-this-then-that" logic without humans in the loop and tokenised assets can move 24/7 across jurisdictions. The rails we lay today - whether they're open, interoperable and secure or fragmented and proprietary - will determine not just how fast value moves tomorrow, but how fairly it's distributed and who gets to participate in the next wave of financial innovation. The challenge to builders today is this: if your vision begins and ends with speeding up domestic payments or making bill-splitting cuter, you're missing the bigger prize. Programmable money rewrites the playbook for remittances, trade, treasury and even machine-to-machine transactions. Are we building for that horizon - or solving tomorrow's problems with yesterday's stack? What's the biggie with blockchain? Behind the scenes, blockchain infrastructure is becoming the default layer for secure, real-time, permissionless value transfer. J.P. Morgan's Onyx platform, for instance, has settled more than US $1 trillion in tokenised intrabank payments on permissioned chains. If you're designing for the next five years, on-chain rails offer instant settlement, embedded logic and global composability that legacy systems simply can't match. No, it won't replace every system but it is rapidly becoming the preferred foundation for anything that needs to be fast, transparent and interoperable. This isn't about riding the crypto wave but about recognising a smarter way to move value - one that's auditable, modular and increasingly composable. If you're designing for the next five years, building with blockchain gives you access to speed, programmability and network effects that simply don't exist in traditional architecture. We need to shift our thinking from 'What is blockchain for?' to 'What's already working, and how does it fit into my stack?' Could stablecoins be the new fuel behind an AI-driven economy? At Stripe's 2025 Sessions conference, co-founder Patrick Collison didn't mince his words: "There are not one, but two, gale-force tailwinds... reshaping the economic landscape around us: AI and stablecoins." In a world increasingly run by AI's, programmable stablecoins are the natural currency and could become the financial fuel behind an AI-driven economy. Stripe has just rolled out stablecoin-powered financial accounts to businesses in 101 countries which allow companies to hold, receive and send stablecoins and crucially, to hedge against inflation and plug directly into the global economy. All of this without needing a traditional bank account. And it's not just Stripe, Worldpay, Mastercard, X and even Apple are exploring how to turbocharge their business using Stablecoins. This isn't theory; this is infrastructure and entrepreneurs in high-inflation countries can now operate in stable, digital USD. What's more, startups can pay contractors in stablecoins, skip wire transfer fees and move capital in minutes via lower-cost cross-border transactions . Stablecoins have quietly moved from the fringes to becoming the go-to method for paying global contractors (instantly, with zero FX fees), cross-border commerce (settling USD payments in mere seconds), accessing savings (even in inflation-prone regions) and plugging into on-chain treasury and lending protocols (without needing a bank account). So if you're building a payments platform, now is the time to ask yourself: can my product evolve with how digital finance is actually being used? If the answer is no - it might be worth reconsidering your architecture because what works here must scale there. That sounds like "money, but faster." What else is cool? Think of smart contracts as 'if this, then that' logic for money - basically code that executes financial actions automatically when certain conditions are met. There's no middleman, no lag and no manual work. This is where money stops just moving and starts doing . Imagine if paying contractors happened the moment work is verified; if refunds were triggered instantly when goods didn't arrive; if cross-border trade ran on rules baked into your code, not your paperwork. This is already happening globally - programmable finance means stablecoins that plug into automated workflows and APIs that react to real-world events. The question now moves on from can we move money faster? .. to can our money move smarter? What's the next move? What separates good from game-changing companies is vision. The winners in fintech will be the ones who design for what's coming, not just what's current right now. If you believe that money will be programmable… If you see that global commerce demands truly global rails… If you know that the rules of infrastructure are being rewritten in real-time right now… … then now's the moment to double down. Build with stablecoins. Plug into on-chain rails. Create APIs that are blockchain-ready. It's time to think like the internet: borderless, open and lightning fast. Let's not just build for today's money; let's help define tomorrow's.
Scoop
3 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Stablecoins, Smart Contracts And The Rise Of More Intelligent Cash
Monday, 30 June 2025, 9:17 am Article: Easy Crypto Fintechs already have the talent, the ingenuity and after a decade of challenger success with innovations like Wise's borderless accounts, Stripe's one-click checkout and Revolut's multi-currency wallets - the credibility to reshape finance on a global stage. Those breakthroughs gave consumers faster payments and slicker front-ends; but let's call that Act I. Act II is unfolding now: money itself is becoming programmable, composable and borderless. Stablecoins can settle in seconds, smart contracts can execute 'if-this-then-that' logic without humans in the loop and tokenised assets can move 24/7 across jurisdictions. The rails we lay today - whether they're open, interoperable and secure or fragmented and proprietary - will determine not just how fast value moves tomorrow, but how fairly it's distributed and who gets to participate in the next wave of financial innovation. The challenge to builders today is this: if your vision begins and ends with speeding up domestic payments or making bill-splitting cuter, you're missing the bigger prize. Programmable money rewrites the playbook for remittances, trade, treasury and even machine-to-machine transactions. Are we building for that horizon - or solving tomorrow's problems with yesterday's stack? What's the biggie with blockchain? Behind the scenes, blockchain infrastructure is becoming the default layer for secure, real-time, permissionless value transfer. J.P. Morgan's Onyx platform, for instance, has settled more than US $1 trillion in tokenised intrabank payments on permissioned chains. If you're designing for the next five years, on-chain rails offer instant settlement, embedded logic and global composability that legacy systems simply can't match. No, it won't replace every system but it is rapidly becoming the preferred foundation for anything that needs to be fast, transparent and interoperable. This isn't about riding the crypto wave but about recognising a smarter way to move value - one that's auditable, modular and increasingly composable. If you're designing for the next five years, building with blockchain gives you access to speed, programmability and network effects that simply don't exist in traditional architecture. We need to shift our thinking from 'What is blockchain for?' to 'What's already working, and how does it fit into my stack?' Could stablecoins be the new fuel behind an AI-driven economy? At Stripe's 2025 Sessions conference, co-founder Patrick Collison didn't mince his words: 'There are not one, but two, gale-force tailwinds... reshaping the economic landscape around us: AI and stablecoins.' In a world increasingly run by AI's, programmable stablecoins are the natural currency and could become the financial fuel behind an AI-driven economy. Stripe has just rolled out stablecoin-powered financial accounts to businesses in 101 countries which allow companies to hold, receive and send stablecoins and crucially, to hedge against inflation and plug directly into the global economy. All of this without needing a traditional bank account. And it's not just Stripe, Worldpay, Mastercard, X and even Apple are exploring how to turbocharge their business using Stablecoins. This isn't theory; this is infrastructure and entrepreneurs in high-inflation countries can now operate in stable, digital USD. What's more, startups can pay contractors in stablecoins, skip wire transfer fees and move capital in minutes via lower-cost cross-border transactions . Stablecoins have quietly moved from the fringes to becoming the go-to method for paying global contractors (instantly, with zero FX fees), cross-border commerce (settling USD payments in mere seconds), accessing savings (even in inflation-prone regions) and plugging into on-chain treasury and lending protocols (without needing a bank account). So if you're building a payments platform, now is the time to ask yourself: can my product evolve with how digital finance is actually being used? If the answer is no - it might be worth reconsidering your architecture because what works here must scale there. That sounds like 'money, but faster.' What else is cool? Think of smart contracts as 'if this, then that' logic for money - basically code that executes financial actions automatically when certain conditions are met. There's no middleman, no lag and no manual work. This is where money stops just moving and starts doing. Imagine if paying contractors happened the moment work is verified; if refunds were triggered instantly when goods didn't arrive; if cross-border trade ran on rules baked into your code, not your paperwork. This is already happening globally - programmable finance means stablecoins that plug into automated workflows and APIs that react to real-world events. The question now moves on from can we move money faster? .. to can our money move smarter? What's the next move? What separates good from game-changing companies is vision. The winners in fintech will be the ones who design for what's coming, not just what's current right now. If you believe that money will be programmable…If you see that global commerce demands truly global rails… If you know that the rules of infrastructure are being rewritten in real-time right now… … then now's the moment to double down. Build with stablecoins. Plug into on-chain rails. Create APIs that are blockchain-ready. It's time to think like the internet: borderless, open and lightning fast. Let's not just build for today's money; let's help define tomorrow's. Paul Quickenden - Chief Commercial Office of Easy Crypto © Scoop Media
Irish Examiner
11-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Stripe to acquire crypto wallet provider Privy
Stripe has agreed to acquire crypto wallet provider Privy, building on the payment company's recent acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Privy helps companies build crypto wallets into their user experiences. Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea, for example, uses Privy to enable customers to purchase NFTs directly from its platform. Behind the scenes, Privy creates a wallet on behalf of the consumer which facilitates their purchase. Before the partnership, OpenSea customers needed to create an external wallet through a provider like MetaMask or Coinbase Wallet and link it to their account. The extra steps added friction for consumers and created a barrier to entry into the crypto universe. The wallets are necessary to hold NFTs and the cryptocurrencies required to buy them. Privy's other clients include restaurant loyalty start-up Blackbird and global employment firm Toku. 'When we started, wallets were powerful but inaccessible for all but the most technical,' Henri Stern, co-founder and chief executive officer of Privy, said in a statement. 'Developers had to send users off-platform to get started, breaking flows and killing user conversion. That friction fundamentally constrained what could be built in crypto.' New York-based Privy was founded in 2021 and has raised just over $40m from investors. Privy was last valued at $230m (€201.7m) in March of this year, according to data compiled by Pitchbook. 'With a unified platform, connecting Privy's wallets to the money movement capabilities in Stripe and Bridge, we're enormously excited to enable a new generation of global, internet-native financial services,' Patrick Collison, Stripe's co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement. The Privy news follows Stripe's $1.1bn (€1bn) acquisition of Bridge, a deal which accelerated an already growing wave of enthusiasm surrounding stablecoin. Earlier this year, Stripe announced it was introducing stablecoin-funded accounts designed to help merchants hold funds and pay vendors abroad using Circle Internet Group USDC and the USDB stablecoin issued by Bridge itself. Similarly to Bridge, Privy will continue to operate as an independent product. Stripe's acquisitions signal the company's interest in becoming a go-to vendor for clients interested in adding support for, or launching their own, crypto products at a time when everyone from large technology firms to traditional banks have expressed interest in exploring the technology. The Privy transaction is subject to closing conditions and the companies expect the deal to close in coming weeks. Bloomberg
Bloomberg
10-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
How Fintech Founder Rejected Stripe Buyout Before Building $775 Million Fortune
Seven years ago, Airwallex co-founder Jack Zhang walked away from what looked like the deal of a lifetime. Stripe Inc. was offering to buy his firm for $1.2 billion and legendary Sequoia investor Michael Moritz was urging him to accept. After weeks hashing out the details and sale price with Stripe's billionaire co-founder Patrick Collison, Zhang was close to agreeing. Then doubts crept in. He called a vote with his three co-founders and over a WhatsApp call they decided to turn the offer down.
CNBC
10-06-2025
- Business
- CNBC
10. Stripe
Founders: Patrick Collison (CEO), John CollisonLaunched: 2011Headquarters: San FranciscoFunding: $8.7 billion (PitchBook)Valuation: $91.5 billionKey Technologies: Artificial intelligence, machine learningIndustry: FintechPrevious appearances on Disruptor 50 list: 10 (No. 3 in 2024) Since its founding in 2010, Stripe has grown from a few lines of code into the largest privately valued fintech in the world. The now ten-time Disruptor 50 company began as a developer-first solution for online credit card payments. The process for online checkout was notoriously inefficient at the time, and brothers Patrick and John Collison set out to simplify it. Today, Stripe is a global powerhouse serving millions of businesses from startups to Fortune 500 companies, and it offers much more than its original credit card processing tools. It provides backend scaffolding for billing, fraud prevention, business startup help and in-person payment options – all part of a suite of tools meant to grow and increase profitability for businesses from fellow Disruptor OpenAI, to Amazon, Google, Shopify and Marriott, Apple, Walmart and Target. Part of Stripe's focus this past year has been serving the artificial intelligence boom. At its Stripe Sessions conference in 2024, the company unveiled over 50 new features, including AI-powered checkout and fraud prevention. "We are ensuring that Stripe is well-positioned to serve the next chapter of the economy," the Collision brothers wrote in their 2024 annual letter, stressing how the rapidly growing tech will change the fundamentals of online commerce. "More than 700 AI agent startups launched on Stripe last year, a figure that we expect will be substantially eclipsed by the total in 2025," they stated. In February, Stripe took a major step into the world of cryptocurrency, acquiring Bridge Network, a stablecoin platform, for $1.1 billion. The acquisition, its largest to date, is a part of a "big bet on stablecoins" and part of a larger plan to integrate stablecoins into traditional finance. "If you think about Stripe and what we've focused on for the past seven years — what I personally have focused on — it's been about breaking down the barriers for global commerce," Neetika Bansal, Stripe's head of money movement products, told CNBC in an interview at the time of the deal. "We've done it, to a large part, on traditional financial rails." Stripe processes millions of cross-border transactions every day, and Bansal told CNBC stablecoins could cut costs and make transactions easier to execute. Despite years of speculation about an IPO, the Collison brothers, who serve as president and CEO, have emphasized that going public is not a priority. Stripe has taken a hit from its headiest days during the startup boom, but was able to raise funds at a $91.5 billion valuation in early 2025, almost back to its peak valuation of $95 billion in 2021. Cost management remains a focus. Earlier this year, the fintech company cut 300 jobs in product, engineering and operations, roughly 3.5% of its workforce. But the company said it was still expecting to increase headcount to 10,000 by the end of the year and was "not slowing down hiring."
