Joining me now to talk stable coins is Eric Quitha, the CEO of Velocity.
Eric, welcome.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Down here on the floor of the NYSC, your company recently raising $38 million to focus on stable coins.
What more can you share?
Thank you.
Yeah, it's an exciting time of Velocity.
You know, we're still a very young organization, but it's in the name.
We're moving fast.
We did just close a $38 million Series A led by Dragonfly, First Mark, lots of.
Other investors including QED, Coinbase Ventures, Capital One Ventures joining the round as well.
And so yeah, it's a very exciting time for our organization.
We're really doubling down on what we set out to build, which is the first institutional platform that's ready to move money for global CFOs and treasures.
How are you going to deploy this fresh capital?
Uh, it's a good question.
Uh, I think, you know, for us we've been, you know, on a very aggressive pace of building the business and so this really allows us more flexibility to double down on expanding into new markets.
Uh, we're a regulated business and so getting licensed around the world and having the ability to support lots of different markets and depths of liquid.
For our customers is really important and so we'll be deploying a lot of it in global expansion and really accelerating the core capabilities that we've been building over the last year.
Now what I like about this is the investor list includes Capital One Ventures marking their first on-chain investment.
How significant is that to the industry?
I think it's really big, right?
I think a year ago a lot of people were still asking, are stablecoins safe?
Is it something that as an organization we can get comfortable with?
And I think the question has now moved to how do I use them.
Um, and so yeah, it's fantastic to have Capital One ventures on the cap table and uh we're very excited about kind of their strategy in the space and and what they're doing.
Who do you find is adopting stablecoins?
I think anyone who is moving money across border, anybody who has a multinational lens to their business, is really keen to use stablecoins to enhance what they're doing in the fiat world today.
Interesting.
And what is driving that momentum?
I think for a lot of people, you know, we're going through a cycle of AI adoption, and I think folks are starting to think about how they get more out of their business, and that goes from a capital perspective as well.
I think a lot of folks have been trapped in a cycle of what's possible on Fiat rails and are now learning that capital can move differently and there's a huge opportunity to take advantage of those capabilities with stablecoins.
And I see that you believe every consumer payment will be backed by stablecoins.
Talk to me more about that.
Yes, look.
I think we've been in this ecosystem for a long time which has been really focused on the consumer experience and what a consumer gets out of the payments, but behind the scenes there's a lot to happen.
Money moves from issuers to networks, networks to acquirers and acquires to merchants, and every step along that value chain there's an opportunity to enhance what happens.
And I think in order to get to a real-time system, which is the system that should exist in the world today, I think stablecoins are the perfect capability to deliver that.
What's next for Velocity?
What's next for Velocity?
I think it's back to work, right?
There's there's a great quote by Kobe Bryant in one of the playoff games where they went up 2-0 and the reporter says, You're not happy.
What's going on?
Like, you know, why aren't you, why aren't you smiling?
And he said, you know, the job's not done.
And so for us, you know, we've got a lot of work to do.
It's, it's back to work.
All right, back to work.
Very good, Eric Quam, CEO of Velocity, thanks again for joining.
Thank you.
Great to have you.
