The Next Evolution of the Dollar: Stablecoins, Emerging Markets, and the New Rules of Money

Transcript

Who here recently has tried using Moneygram or Western Union to send money across the globe? Okay, there you go. So, we have a few hands. So, funny enough, uh I had to do this a few weeks ago. Um so, a few weeks ago, it was Eid. I was trying to send money to Pakistan. And so, let me just walk you through the process. I had to get in my car, drive to Chase, take out physical cash. Then I had to Google where can I find a CVS with a Moneygram kiosk. Okay, done. Four miles away. Drove there. Went to the kiosk, put in my information. They asked for my ID. I had to pay an $11 flat fee just to pay for that. And then the

conversion rate from US dollars to Pakistani rupee was outrageous. not even close to the market rate. Not only that, once I sent it to my cousin in Pakistan, he had to wait two days and he had to pay a service fee. So off the bat, I lost about 15% just trying to get money from San Francisco to Karachi, Pakistan over two days. So when we talk about why movement and why I'm specifically in the crypto and blockchain world, this is the use case that I set out almost 10 years ago to solve because it was a problem that not only me but my family was impacted with and it's something that I believe that we have a perfect solution for

especially with stable coins. All right, so why stable coins? So, in 1969, America planted the flag on the moon. And some people in the audience may think that this is a conspiracy, but regardless, um, what this told the world was America is the future, and we're here to show it to you. And then four years later, Swift was born. So, in 1973, Swift was created. And this was the first time that banks could talk to each other cross border and it was the system that was set up that you could send money from one location to a different location you know within a few days. But

this was the plumbing that was created back in 1973. And this is the same plumbing by the way that I had to use when I was sending Pakistan from San sending money from Pakistan or from New from San Francisco to Pakistan. Um, again, the rails are the exact same that were created years and decades ago, and it's time for a revolution in this space. And by the way, just to kind of give you context of how old this is, this was 16 years before the Berlin Wall fell. So, we're still using the same plumbing that was used decades ago.

Okay. So, now for history lesson. Um, how did the dollar become the global currency? I'm sure there's a lot of history buffs in this room. And if you're in crypto, I'm sure you followed this, but this was Brentton Woods. In 1944, there was a conference where 44 countries decided that uh the US dollar would be the dominant global currency reserve for the world. And this was because obviously the US had gold and so whoever has the gold makes the rules. And then in 1973, we had the OPEC embargo. Now oil prices quadrupled similar to what's happening today. Um and what the US did was create a deal with Saudi Arabia. They offered them

security but in exchange the Saudi Arabia would have to price its oil its oil in US dollars. And so the pro dollar was born. So no no longer was you know the US dollar just backed by gold. It was also backed by energy. So any country that needed energy would have to get US dollars. But here's the thing. In 1971, the US actually moved off the gold standard. So it wasn't even that the US was built off of the was based off gold anymore. The US dollar was really built off the trust of the US government, the military, and energy.

All right. So fast forward to 2014. This was when Tether was created. It was the first stable coin based again on the US dollar and year four years later USDC was created um also serving as a stable coin based on the US dollar. So again when we talk about stable coins it's not actually about replacing the US dollar. It's really about extending it. And 90% of the stable coins we have today both USD and USD USDT USDC they're actually based on the US dollar. They didn't choose the euro. They didn't choose the yuan. They didn't choose the yen. They chose the US dollar. So again, when we talk about stable coins, really the future is being built in this

country. And we see the acceptance of USDC or USbased stable coins across the globe in countries all over the world. And again the golden rule of economics is he who controls the gold controls makes the rule. Now the problem is is you know obviously in today's age that gold is digital and so the people who are building the rules for stable coins are sitting in this room. We're building the infrastructure. We're building the rules. We're building basically the protocols that enable global transfer of stable coins across the globe.

Now this is actually a picture of our CEO meeting uh the president of Ethiopia. So one of the things is um sometimes it's you don't re you don't realize how big a need of stable coins are until you actually talk to people across the globe. So we've talked to people in Ethiopia, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, in Djibouti and it's all the same question there. their users or basically the population wants access to stable coins, but the local government is hesitant about opening that corridor because they're scared of what might happen to that local currency. So, the situation you have there is that a black market

gets created where people on the ground are illegally trying to move money using the stable coin rails while the government is trying to crack down on these wallets. And so the way that we think about it is we want a compliant, transparent and fair way to get give countries like Ethiopia give their users and give their population access to stable coins but doing it in partnership with the government. So this is why we build movement. Our whole philosophy is really to move money responsibly. We don't want to be super fast, super chaotic. We also don't want to be super slow or bureaucratic. We just want to make sure that we work with the right partners and we actually work

within these different economies to make sure that money is being moved compliantly as well as transparently and in the end of the day it's built for real users. So you might ask okay well there's so many blockchains so why movement so our position is that first we need to work on the compliance side. So currently we actually have regulated rails of moving money in the United States, the European Union as well as Canada. And in partnership what we're trying to do is basically open up corridors with different emerging countries like I mentioned Ethiopia in Bangladesh in Pakistan and basically work with local governments to enable their their own citizens to accept stable coins and

interact with our blockchain. So again why movement? because we are trying to be fast, secure and retail ready. But at the same time, we do really believe that being compliant and transparent with the government and that working within these economies is just as important because we've seen what happens when these countries crack down on, you know, whether it's crypto or stable coins. Um, black black markets get created. There's a lot of disruption and there's also a different rate between what a bank can offer for US dollars versus kind of the market street rate that you've seen happened recently with Nigeria.

So movement is where money lives. We're not asking for permission to disrupt. We've already built the infrastructure. We already have the licenses and we already have the regulatory approvals. So now it's just about partnering with the right nations and working in accordance with their rules and regulations. So gold uh money in the dollar involved from gold to um oil to now code and movement is where we believe the rails will enable different countries to accept stable coins across the globe. All right. Thank you so much.