00:00You were sitting here, you heard it raining. I assume that's going to be good for your business if it
00:03rains to a certain extent, right?
00:05I'd say, you know, it's always raining.
00:07It's always raining. I do want to talk about just the build out of your business.
00:11And I don't think we didn't mention it in there, but you just actually raised more money, another $40 million.
00:17Is that round? Is that correct?
00:19Yes. Yeah, yeah.
00:20Yes.
00:20Yeah, we pulled together, you know, a great strategic bridge here with, you know, great companies.
00:25These SC Ventures, Standard Chartered Venture Arm, Sony's Innovation Fund, Polychain, Blockchain Capital, you know, a number of great investors.
00:34All just, you know, around this thesis that we've proven out in Africa and now have brought to the rest
00:39of the world, which is that everybody wants access to the dollar.
00:42Well, that's what I'm curious about.
00:43I mean, we kind of said in the title, obviously, you started off with the focus on emerging markets.
00:47And we've told your story a lot about, you know, your focus on Nigeria at the start.
00:51But then I was looking, so SG Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, why are they in this?
00:56Yeah, you know, that's, again, it's just indicative of the fact that stable coins are, you know, really have gone
01:02global here.
01:03And so it's not, you know, for us, it's not just Africa.
01:06It's how do you do the whole world, right?
01:09How do you bring this technology to the entire world?
01:11And so, you know, specifically, you know, what they're coming in to back us on is the USD global accounts,
01:19right?
01:19So named U.S. bank accounts that we're able to issue to businesses anywhere in the world to be able
01:25to do instant stable coin on and off-ramping U.S. dollar payments and domestic payments in 50-plus countries
01:30without SWIFT.
01:31Yeah.
01:32Okay, that's interesting.
01:33And SC made sense.
01:34I mean, a standard charter.
01:35Yes.
01:36A lot of their bread and butter is in emerging markets.
01:38And I assume they know kind of or have some sense of where the puck is going with regards to
01:42the transactions and the use of stable coins.
01:44I assume this is a bet on that longer term.
01:46Yeah, those guys are deep in the space, right?
01:48They have, you know, obviously they're working with us.
01:51They have, you know, other plays that they're making in stable coins.
01:54But, you know, I think standard chartered has been, you know, extremely visionary from a banking standpoint in terms of
02:00where this industry is going and where financial services as a whole is going with stable coins and with this
02:05technology.
02:05So where do you stand right now?
02:06I mean, as a business, you've raised a lot of money.
02:09I mean, are you like, I assume you've had, somebody's probably come to you and said, look, we would just
02:13buy you out.
02:14Have you gotten offers from any banks or credit card issuers, anything like that?
02:18Well, you know, look, people come.
02:20You know, people come around.
02:21People poke.
02:23And, you know, I think, you know, there's so much more to do in this space.
02:27And there's so much more that, you know, we need to continue building that, you know, look, if the right
02:31opportunity came around, we'd consider it.
02:33But I think, you know, overall, you know, we've been able to raise a lot of money.
02:37We've been able to, you know, continue to push in this space.
02:40And we want to continue to bring this technology to the parts of the world that need it the most,
02:44right, rather than just focus on the U.S.
02:46When we talk about global USD accounts, I mean, like how big are we right now in this space and
02:50how much bigger do you think it could get?
02:52I mean, there's so much bigger that it can get, right?
02:56I mean, the TAM is essentially all of payments when you think of, you know, stable coins and when you
03:00think of what this technology is doing.
03:02Of course, everything is almost a whole world.
03:03But, I mean, realistically, I mean, do you think it's going to become the dominant sort of source of cross
03:10-border, not just cross-border, but even within-border transactions?
03:14Within borders is, you know, a bit more complicated, right?
03:17I think when you look at international transactions, within 10 years, people will not be using other forms of moving
03:24money across borders, right?
03:26And even if you are using, you know, a company or anything like that to move that money across borders,
03:32they're going to be using stable coins on the back end.
03:34It's just such a paradigm shift in the way that money moves across borders.
03:38But, I mean, I've seen a lot of other companies, you know, trying to do kind of what you do,
03:42Stripe-wise, a few others here.
03:43I mean, what sets Yellowcard apart?
03:47I mean, what's the value proposition over your competitors?
03:50Yeah, look, I mean, you know, when it comes to, you know, companies like Stripe and Wise, you know, we're
03:54the ones building the infrastructure for those types of companies.
03:58I mean, so we're the ones that build infrastructure for companies to actually be able to move money internationally and
04:04on and off-ramp all over the world directly against stable coins.
04:08Well, that's what you do for Circle.
04:09What is your relationship with Circle right now?
04:11I mean, you are building, you have the infrastructure for them, right?
04:13They're using your infrastructure.
04:15So we use USDC, right?
04:17We use USDC and, you know, other stable coins for actually moving that money around the world.
04:22You know, I mean, the big thing that we do that, you know, sets us apart, right, is there's a
04:26lot of companies that are using, you know, USDC and other stable coins to move money around the world.
04:31But then they only actually interact with the dollar.
04:34So, you know, you have a company that mints USDC, you know, sends it to you and then you've got
04:39to burn it for the dollars.
04:40And, you know, all we did was add two extra steps to me just wiring you dollars.
04:44And so, you know, what we do is we go into, you know, countries all over the world, all over
04:48Africa, LATAM, Asia, et cetera.
04:50And, you know, we have direct liquidity and direct on and off ramps against the local currency.
04:57So instead of going, you know, USDC to USD and then wiring that money somewhere, you can actually send it,
05:04send the stable coin directly to, you know, China, right, to, you know, Africa, to anywhere.
05:09And then off ramp against the local currency.
05:11I mean, we didn't bring this up.
05:13I mean, when we were talking with Dan Dollof earlier, I mean, I mean, Circle is trying to build out
05:17a payments network, at least based on what Bloomberg has reported.
05:20Does that become a competitor to you, a threat to you, if they are able to do that?
05:24So we're part of Circle Payments Network.
05:26You are part of it.
05:26Yes.
05:27Yeah, yeah.
05:27So they're going to and they're going to remain, you know, in part, you're going to remain in partnership with
05:31them or they're going to remain in partnership with you?
05:32Yes.
05:33Yeah, I mean, so look, unless they want to go, you know, build this stuff out themselves across, you know,
05:37all these countries,
05:38which, you know, it's, you know, a tall task, right?
05:41It takes a while, you know, so we work with, you know, great companies like Circle powering those types of
05:47payment networks, right?
05:48And, you know, Circle is just one of them.
05:49So we do this, you know, across the board for, you know, we work with great companies like Visa, Western
05:54Union, you know, all these types of companies.
05:56How much does, I guess, the prominence of the dollar and sort of the renewed focus by this particular administration
06:03on making sure that the dollar is sort of the remains the central currency around the world.
06:08How much does that factor in to your business right now and any adjustments you would have to make?
06:13Look, I mean, that that has definitely been a big boost to the entire industry, right?
06:18And to stable coins as a whole, and it has made the conversations that we have with, you know, foreign
06:24banks, foreign governments so much easier around, you know, why is this technology beneficial, right?
06:30And, you know, the big thing that stable coins are doing is they're extending dollar dominance, which is why, you
06:35know, the current administration loves them so much, right?
06:38They're taking, you know, the dollar, which, I mean, look, everybody loves to talk about the downfall of the dollar,
06:43right?
06:44But, you know, they are extending dollar dominance by at least 30 years past, you know, however much longer it
06:49already had.
06:50So it's, I mean, it's really taken it to, you know, another level and it's going to keep the dollar,
06:55you know, in its position as the dominant world currency for a while.
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