We are here at Money Money 2020 Europe in Amsterdam and I'm delighted to be joined by Luca Frosperi, the co-founder and CEO of MZero.
M0 have just had a huge announcement this week, very exciting.
Luca, tell us about it.
Tell us about your partnership with MoneyGram.
Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me.
So we announced earlier yesterday.
With the CEO of MoneyGram, Anthony and Henry, CEO of Privy representing Stripe, that MoneyGram is launching a stablecoin.
Actually it's better to say MoneyGram is transitioning their infrastructure on digital rails, and M0 was the infrastructure provider partnering, powering this launch.
So very, very excited.
Then exactly to that point about exactly what M0's role is in this push towards digital money.
Um, you've spoken previously about the build versus rent thing as, as people move into this space, move into launching their own stablecoins.
Um, what do you think the fintechs need to understand about whether or not you do it yourself or you just use someone else's coin?
Yeah, I mean, for me it's like first of all, it's, it has become very clear that stablecoins are embedded stablecoins is stablecoins are a very efficient tool to do many, many things uh in finance.
Uh, FinTech first adopted tokens built by centralized issuers like Circle or Stether to do stuff.
Now it's becoming more clear that what kind of choice you make in terms of digital asset you embed is very strategic for your business.
So now like the fintech businesses are thinking whether to ask somebody to build this stack for them, de facto renting an asset that is entirely siloed or building it themselves, and I think it's a stablecoin is a very critical infrastructure, so you need, you want to control it.
You want to control the yield, you want to control the permissioning, you want to control the behavior of it.
And we are seeing more and more sophisticated players picking how they compose the stack because this stack is going to be central to their business model for a very long term.
Yeah, and, and with that in mind, um, again, this space has been through so many iterations of what it means to be, um, you know, the sort of pure, uh, crypto, pure, um, you know, whether it's propriety or not, but then also whether it's closed or open, um, as, as far as the infrastructure goes.
Um, what are your thoughts on, on why that matters, um, and, and whether the industry will consolidate one way or the other and the impact that has.
Yeah, I mean, I, I come from a, from a history in traditional finance, uh, but I joined the crypto movement, so to say, because I was convinced of the power of open systems, and I think open systems always win, and, uh, so I, I think there is always gonna be a tendency to to to build more and more open systems that are very integrated.
That's what M0 is doing, you know, M0 is entirely focused on building smart content infrastructure, so technology infrastructure to connect different pieces.
So while it's easier to build closed loops, I think open open always wins, and we need to make sure that these systems talk to each other, but they are sovereignty.
It seems absolutely crucial from that acceptance perspective, from that settlement perspective, the interoperability, and in a space that the internet so far or digital so far has, as you say, been built on the glory of open source and that needs to continue as a culture for sure.
Your move with uh uh MoneyGram is very exciting, we're seeing um non crypto or non-digital asset firms move into the space and really start to adopt it.
And from a product development, uh, person's perspective, you know, if you're completely on the outside of this looking in, what do you think the main use case for stablecoins is.
Outside of the crypto, I mean, I thought the term stablecoin for a long time because I think it's very limited.
I think we should talk about digital money infrastructure.
I say this because I think stablecoins are not a payment product.
It's a piece of infrastructure, and I think digital infra is going to power the fintech of the next decades.
So what is going to power everything?
I think that the Banking experience, the financial experience we see now in the future is going to be built on stablecoins.
If Revolut would launch today, I'm pretty sure they would launch a stablecoin-powered banking experience.
So for a head of product, a chief product officer or CEO of these companies, it is one of the most important strategic decisions what type of platform they build onto.
And sometimes the easy choice is not the best choice for the long term perspective of business.
So I would, I would suggest.
Decision makers to be very, very strategic and thoughtful about how they do it.
MoneyGram, we were impressed from day one.
MoneyGram was very thoughtful and open in thinking how they would layer the stack with the different providers.
That's a fascinating perspective because of course the chief product officer. always looking at like, OK, but ultimately what is the consumer demand here and who wants it.
Now if there is consumer demand, we've seen that with plenty of people, but it's not the overwhelming, you know, market for fintech.
But as you say, actually also the demand comes from elsewhere and it comes from that wider ecosystem.
Yeah, I think the consumer, this will be transparent for the consumer.
I think the builders would choose to build on digital rails because it's so much better to build great things.
And the consumers will just use the great products that are built on new rates.
So I think our clients are the entrepreneurs and the builders of the companies that create products for the end user.
Then the end user, the end users will benefit from cheaper, uh, wider, wider spread, better working products compared to the past.
Um, it's an interesting industry because it's moved so quickly, um, from kind of, OK, we're talking about this on the outside and we're all trying to shout and get attention, but please pay attention to this topic.
Now here at 2026, um, in 2026, but money 2020.
0 my God, have stablecoins dominated the conversation, rivaled only really by agentic AI, um, in the next 2 to 3 years.
We will see you, so much regulatory development already, but then that consolidation.
What do you expect to see in the stablecoin space and then in particular for M0, what are your hopes?
I mean, I think we are, it's still so early, but you're right, the world changed so fast.
3 years ago when we started the company, nobody had a clue what stablecoins were, and I come from a traditional banking background and my, my old friends, they, they didn't know what I wanted, what I was doing with my life and now they, now they do, uh, but it's really the beginning.
I think the regulator we have seen already the regulatory posture in some of the most important markets, I mean the US passing or on the verge of passing the Genius Act and the Clarity Act.
So this is a great, a great bedrock to build for the next for the next phase.
So I think the next phase is going to be a phase of building, building, integrating, improving the stack for the next decades, and stablecoins again are a platform, so we will see this platform powering.
More and more and more products are digitally native tokenized securities, assets, prediction markets, payment tools, banking tools.
It's a It is exciting when innovation comes, but then making this innovation real is a relentless, long-term focused work.
That's what we're doing, and it's fascinating because, as you say, as you get into it, it's not glamorous and it's not the most exciting headline, but boy is it transformative, and we will wake up one day and think, oh, it is exciting for me, but, but I am a nerd, so who am I to speak with?
We are asking everyone else to get excited too, but it's it will be interesting to see as we go along waking up and saying oh it's all transformed now and the options and opportunities are so much greater.
Yeah, and I mean for us at 0, we always had a very long term perspective.
We raised significant capital to build for the long term, so we will continue to expand a network and infrastructure that we think should power the future of financial services and build with more businesses and with more entrepreneurs and empowering more ideas and.
And do more and more of what we know how to do well for a long time, I hope.
We look forward to seeing it and congratulations on the awesome announcements this week.
I hope Money 2020 means to be exciting to you.
Thanks.
Thanks for joining.
