JD Durkin: Benjamin Peillard, founder and CEO of Cap. Good to see you again.
Benjamin Peillard: Likewise. Thank you for having me. It’s been a while.
JD Durkin: Okay, so this is fascinating. Cap is financing the new film, the title is Wake, starring Cole Sprouse, by advancing against its own production tax credits. First of all, why move to Hollywood? And maybe more interestingly to me, how does that even work?
Benjamin Peillard: We believe that the future of lending, the future of financial markets, is [unclear: “to stablecoins”; likely “on stablecoins”]. One big task there is to convince the world’s businesses to come on chain and use stablecoins for loans. And why not start with film, which is part of the business?
JD Durkin: Okay. Was there a big learning curve to try and figure out how to make this work? I can’t say I’ve done many interviews or had a whole lot of conversations with people who have thought to do something quite like that.
Benjamin Peillard: The big learning curve is convincing these production studios to use stablecoins, to self-host their own wallets, to control their own funds. That can be complicated, especially with all the hacks that we’ve been having as an industry. Convincing them to use the blockchain can sometimes be a hurdle.
JD Durkin: Yeah, I can understand that. DeFi lending has mostly served crypto-native firms, of course. How are you bringing, excuse me, traditional finance and traditional business more and more on chain?
Benjamin Peillard: Traditionally, lending markets on the blockchain require borrowers to have crypto like Bitcoin or ETH. We don’t do that. We let them keep their capital structures off chain, like their collateral, their tax credits, and we just give them stablecoins. Thanks to regulations such as the GENIUS Act, having a stablecoin is nothing scary now. Companies are very comfortable holding these assets.
JD Durkin: [unclear: “16 underwriters, they all put their own capital, each behind each of the loans responsible”]. Do you think that makes the lending process safer? And if so, how?
Benjamin Peillard: Behind every loan, not only do we have this off-chain collateral, like the tax credit in this example, but we also require every loan to be insured with a credit default swap. Unlike what we had in 2008, which was uncollateralized credit default swaps, we collateralize all these insurance products with Bitcoin, ETH, and other liquid assets that can be liquidated immediately.
JD Durkin: What could financing a film, the likes of which you did, teach us about the general on-chain process, not just for where the technology is today, Benjamin, but where it could be more and more tomorrow?
Benjamin Peillard: I think now, in 2026, it has been proven that companies are comfortable holding stablecoins and large institutions are comfortable coming on chain. So it’s written in stone: finance will come onto the blockchain. It’s just a matter of time.
JD Durkin: What are the biggest misconceptions about the broader moving-things-on-chain conversation? There’s a lot of chatter and conversation about it. You’re an expert in the space. I’m sure you see a lot of mistakes in the way people still talk about this relatively new technology.
Benjamin Peillard: I think right now a lot of companies are worried that this technology is going to get ahead of them, for example, having issuers tokenizing stocks on their behalf. They’re losing the control they might have had otherwise to raise funds or to manage their float. The learning to be had is, let’s bring them on chain and let’s have them take the driver’s seat. They themselves issue their own assets, instead of waiting for these [unclear: “stars”; likely startups] to do it for them.
JD Durkin: The film was called Wake. It stars Cole Sprouse. Benjamin Peillard, founder and CEO of Cap. Congratulations. Thanks a lot for catching up with us. Good to see you again.
