Circle CTO Nikhil Chandhok on Arc and building a financial operating system

Transcript

because like this is money that like the whole world has to come to depend on right. I don't see that changing. I don't see I don't see that changing but I also don't think it is enough to be a stable coin issue. I think you for us to sort of like realize the vision. >> Everyone knows that stable coins are the future but how should investors think about them and what's going to bring the next wave of adoption for stable coins and beyond. Hello and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that's less interested in meme coins and more interested in companies building multi-t trillion dollar markets. I'm your host John Gillan. Today is December 4th, 2025. And we're going to be talking about the quiet giant of crypto circle.

Our guest today is Nikil Chandok, CTO at Circle, the company behind USDC and its 77 billion digital dollars powering global payments, DeFi, and soon maybe your paycheck. We will unpack Circle's growth strategy, discuss its moat against banks, Tether, other competitors, and whether it is the best business in crypto or the most underrated one on Wall Street, which are not the same thing. But before we dive into today's episode, I want to let you all know about something we're building here at Milkroad, Milkroad AI. It's a free newsletter that comes out every Monday and Wednesday to help you keep track of the biggest moves that are happening in the space and learn how to invest in the future. The first edition came out this week already uh jam-packed with alpha on this ongoing war between Google and Nvidia. We will be launching

a paid tier of this newsletter in January with a group of researchers we've been building behind the scenes. Early subscribers get the first two AI Pro deep dive reports for free during the month of December. So sign up now to get Monday's edition straight to your inbox and unlock two AI Pro reports for free this month. Today's episode is brought to you by Block Trust IRA. Let AI outsmart the market and grow your crypto while you sleep. Reserve DTFs. Get exposure to the entire crypto market in a single token and chain link. Break the interoperability barrier and power the future of tokenized finance. And without further ado, welcome to the Milker Show. Nikil, how are you, sir?

>> I'm good. How are you? >> I'm fantastic. I'm really excited to talk to you today. I think a lot of people have been paying attention to Circle and are really hungry to learn more about what you guys are building over there. Uh, but I wanted to start with you and a little of your background. You have worked building products in music, gaming, even smart glasses and uh circle is a much different direction. Stable coins is a much different direction. What attracted you to this opportunity at Circle? >> Uh yeah, thanks for having me. Uh I've always wanted to be on this podcast. I'm a longtime subscriber uh to the newsletter. U excited for a new AI newsletter. I'm going to sign up. Let's see what attracted me to Circle. I've always worked at consumer companies. I was uh very early at YouTube. I was

early at Google. I was early at YouTube and uh I ran music uh at at YouTube. I sort of helped create the business YouTube gaming like back in the day when people were doing card capture and just like you know just blasting it on the internet and nobody knew how to build a business uh around it. And so I've always been attracted to at scale businesses that are like fundamentally by the internet off the internet for the internet is how I think about it, right? There's no there's no uh prior on uh YouTube like essentially like you know funny videos, cat videos. Uh that's how we started and everybody thought like my friends were like this is foolish and why are you doing this? said, "Wait,

this is really funny. You can't see this anywhere else." And they were like, "Yeah, I get it, but like, you know, I cannot really watch Lost on uh YouTube." I was like, "Who cares? You can watch it on on your TV." Lost is a show from like two decades ago. And and and so and so I've always been attracted to like businesses that can have full internet scale. You know, I worked on AR glasses at Meta. Uh those Ray-B bands that uh uh that have cameras and speakers in them. That was my last project before coming to to Circle. Uh because I really thought like you know two and a half billion people in the world wear glasses and like it makes no sense that they're not smart in any interesting way and wouldn't it be great if they got just incrementally smart much like you know

TV's got incrementally smart that's like you know that's how we ended up with like Ray Bands and it's a fantastic I mean they've done much more since I've left so circle is the same like look everybody in the want world wants stable like dollars there's no way to get it you can't like you know I grew up in India like you can't go to the bank and say like hey I want I want a dollar bank account. I want a bank account number and a routing number that lets me accept like dollar paychecks. That's not a thing. So for 330 million Americans, like it is phenomenal. U like you know I'm American now. So we we have dollar access. We have we have dollar rails. We have incredible financial products. Uh we have incredibly uh robust capital markets and financial infrastructure

with power like all the innovation in this country. One of the things you mentioned is like your AI newsletter and how much investment there is in AI. Like it's remarkable how much the US is able to sort of just marshall resources and move them around in a short period of time to go invest in something. So our markets work well and and so stable coins was a way to sort of like bring all of this innovation, all of this like financial infrastructure, all of this like capacity to the rest of the world. And so that's how I got attracted to it. I was like it makes no sense. like there's like 22 trillion uh like you know M2 money or what however it is defined and there was only 100 billion of stable coin or less than 100 billion of stable coin when I started I think it

was like 80ish or something and and I was like this makes no sense why why why would what is the upper bound on this market like why wouldn't there be more dollars in the world converted into stable coins so that like you know average users around the world would be able to access them so yeah so even though we are like we're not a you know retail focused company. We are a retail product in many ways. Like you know I when I first came on I used to describe this very simply. I was like look imagine a world in which you're in the Amazon jungle and you come across a can of Coca-Cola. You want to have when you open that can of Coca-Cola you're expecting a certain experience. When you're interacting with USDC somewhere in the world you are expecting a certain experience. And so how that can of

Coca-Cola got there is like a whole complicated thing. how like the USDC got to the end user is a whole complicated thing. So even though we're not a retail focused company, we make sure that we create products that the end users touch and so so it's that's it. It's a it's a I think this product has like opportunity to touch like you know billions of users around the world and very few things come along that can touch billions of users. Uh and those things are rare. So um so that that's that's why I got attracted to it. Yeah. >> Yeah. So okay. So, what I'm hearing you saying is that just like sunglasses were an analog product, there needed to be a digital version. You're saying with the dollar, and it's it's something that everybody touches, but only certain people have access to. So, you're trying

to democratize that access. Uh, makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people who are cryptonative know as a stable coin issuer, but I think that the company has evolved a lot beyond that. And I'm interested how you think of Circle. Is it a stablecoin issuer issuer? Is it a financial infrastructure company? How do you think of Circle at this time? and and what is the company evolving to become? >> Yeah, look uh uh we used to be a stable just a stable coin issuer and and that's how we found success over the years and uh and just being a stable coin issuer was was non-trivial for us like you know and and and like and we were successful at it. We have the second largest stable coin. We grew really fast over the last year. So but at this point like we are a

platform company, right? So, and I think like the we are a stable coin issue as much as like YouTube is a is an entertainment network, right? Like it is like it makes no sense. You're like, "Wait, hold on a second." What is being consumed on YouTube is content. What is operating on our infrastructure is stable coins, but all of that glue that goes into making the stable coin successful is what sets us apart. Right? So, we so we have now started talking about it. We've been building it for some time but we have now started talking about the fact that we also have circle payments network which is not just a stable coin network which coordinates crossber payment flows around the world. So that's I think about it as like the stable coin sit in the middle. the circle payment network is a kind of application uh of the

stable coin and then and then one layer below is our arc uh arc uh layer 1 blockchain network uh that we hope to launch next year and and so we're moving into becoming much more like a internet platform company uh than just being an asset issuer right I think asset issuance is sort of is sort of like I I would say that even that circle hasn't been just an asset issuer for a really long time They started issuing an asset but then eventually realized that what they were building was a stable coin network and what I mean by that is a stable coin is the utility of the stable coin only comes because there is a network effect and I know it's it's a funny thing to say like how do you get there and that is the hard nut to crack

for everybody issuing the stable coin is trivial as I think there are many stable coin issues at this point right like there more than my more than I have fingers on my person right and so the um but getting it to scale getting it to get the network effect is is really really hard and circle recognized that and was successful at it and now we are recognizing that like being just a stable coin network operator is not enough. What we need to be is a full internet scale platform company and so we're building products both up and down the stack to get us there. In the process we will probably build a ton of new technology that like makes creates like this mainstream adoption of crypto possible which is the dream for all of us, right? Philadelphia.

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exactly what Reserve's decentralized token folios bring to the table. Reserve ETFs are rulebased baskets of crypto assets packaged into a single token like Coin Market CMC 20, crypto's version of the S&P 500. Go to milkroad.com/reserve to find out what's on offer. So, I'm hearing a few things in that. Um, and one of the things that brings up for me is a question about the the competitors, right? Because now that the Genius Act has come through, you know, I hear your point about anybody can issue a stable coin. Getting it to those network effects and network adoption is the hurdle there. Obviously, Tether made the distinction of not being Genius Act compliant with their main product and launching a different product to comply with the Genius Act, but keeping one of them non-compliant. There's going to be

now, you know, there's speculation that a lot of other issuers of Meta or JP Morgan or or whoever might also come into that space. Um, is is how is Circle thinking about this? Are you guys focusing on creating new business lines to diversify out of just being a stablecoin issuer and focusing energy there or is it you know more of a focus on using the new clarity from the Genius Act to expand the adoption of of USDC and and what does your role look like in both of those as the CTO? >> Look, we're doing both like I think like we are increasing the adoption of stable coins like as in like we've grown really fast in the last year in the last 12 months. Some was in anticipation of genius and then some once genius happened I think people were like all

right like who has who who has the closest thing to what genius wants the stable coin to be and like circle is that right like I think genius essentially enshrines our business model and so when you're picking a stable coin let's say you're a fintech and you're trying to pick a stable coin you are making you're making a platform bet like essentially right so it's hard to make that bet if like the stable coin is not liquid if it doesn't have the properties that like USDC has and so will we compete there? Yes, we will continue to compete there. Like it is it is the main source of revenue for for the company. A lot of my time goes into making sure that USDC is the best stable coin in the market. It is is most featured. it's on the most chains like it is uh it has the

most liquidity has the best banking rails uh around the world and and so and so we have this entire liquidity infrastructure that exists around USDC that that we go operate both primary and secondary market liquidity that we sort of focus on that doesn't mean that we won't be investing in new businesses because those businesses are complimentary right so if you are a user of CPN you're a financial institution that wants to do stable coin payments where do you begin what do you do you go go implement a bunch of wallets uh and then like what then what and then who do you call who's going to take your stable coin payment and who's going to terminate it on the other side what happens if your user wants fiat on the other side we can solve all of all of that for for financial institutions for

banks for payment service providers who want to do this and so that business will also grow announced something in in our last earnings call we said like we have 55 partners on CPN now which is pretty amazing we had like uh we had zero partners in April and So, we grew pretty fast. We're going to we're going to keep growing there and we're going to keep investing there. And then we have ARC as well because we think like there's a ton to do on the L1 uh uh level as well. Will there be more products? Yeah, maybe like you know in the same way Google started from search and and like became this became this behemoth that is now competing with Nvidia on TPUs. And so where will I I don't have that I can't see that far in the future. I can see the next year and

what we're doing and and and we're going to be focused on these three things that we're like you know and that we have spoken. We will talk more about it in time. We will share more details but like all three things are going to be important businesses essentially. >> Gotcha. I I appreciate the perspective on that and yeah none of us are sure what the future looks like. That's part of what's exciting about this. I do want to ask some more questions about ARC um and the decision there because I think that you know from somebody like who's um you know familiar with digital assets but maybe not in the weeds on some of these things you know we keep hearing about things like plasma arc tempo and then we keep hearing about like new highly performant L1s launching and scaling solutions and so forth and so

just walk us through like the decision to launch an L1 as opposed to an L2 like like Coinbase or Robin Hood did. what what was that process like and and what are you all thinking? What's the strategy with ARC? >> Yeah, I mean I'm I'm happy to share that and maybe like I'll give a little uh perspective because I'm old and you can see white hair on my on my head. And so one of the things I was in Google in 2007 when the first iPhone came out. I actually worked on the first iPhone uh in a small way. Uh I was at uh YouTube. We built the iPhone had a the first iPhone had the YouTube application on it. Then I was part of that project and I got to meet Steve Jobs. It was really cool. And around then around the first iPhone coming out uh Google also bought

some company that eventually became Android, right? And so when when Android started like as as as a project, there were six other operating systems that were trying to do what Android wanted to do which was to sort of build an ecosystem of devices that was going to be more open than Apple was going to be. And look, you could you anybody can go anybody even then could go to Qualcomm and get like a chipset and what is called what is called a BSP which is basically the the OS that like boots up the chipset and like brings you into a phone. What differentiated Google was its ability to sort of like rally an ecosystem around them, right? Like all the same applications that you had on your iPhone could now would now be on the Google phone and not the Google

phone that the Android phone. And so yes, there's a lot of other participants in the market. First, we believe we have something to offer in terms of just technical differentiation like I think we have USDCS gas, we have configurable privacy and we have payment finality which we think is really important for some of the use cases that we're seeing that we don't see existing in the market from the existing L2 ecosystem or or even the existing L1s that are in the market. And then second is we really think that we can build an ecosystem for this like wave of like new financial platform companies that are financial technology companies that are going to be built on these new financial platforms. And we're very we want to be a partner to all of these new companies that are coming about and we want to

build the ecosystem with them because if you're building a new financial technology application in 2026 which where we are almost you're not doing it on traditional rails you're not doing it using the same old technology that was like last year. Everything has changed and like you want to build it on a new platform. You want to make sure that whatever you build is is like resilient to any changes in the next decade. Let's say you want it takes 10 years to build a company really good company. And so like we want to build a platform that like people want to build their companies on and we can be the reliable partners that companies come to look for. And so I think we have an opportunity this like I don't think we will succeed by putting others down and

say like hey like look they are not doing something well. We will succeed because we are valuable like it's interesting to work with us. It's easy to work with us. it's it's uh we have a unique technology to offer. So yeah, Coinbase may have chosen the path because like you know it was probably the most it made most sense for Coinbase or like you know Robin Hood I don't know what what their ambition is there. Our ambition is to operate global financial infrastructure that people can build their businesses on and to do that in the best possible way I think like for us to build an L1 was the right thing to do.

>> Gotcha. Yeah. And I think this is a really interesting thing that we're seeing. A lot of players in the industry have to come to this decision point, right? And some people are saying, "Let's partner with someone else who does this and focus on what we do." And some people are saying, "Actually, we think we have something distinctive to offer the market here." And really, you know, the market's the one who has to answer these questions. Um, I'm curious your thoughts about this though cuz some or a concern I've heard raised by some people is that the the the proliferation of all these different L1s and and you know competing products and services like you know Jupiter for example was on Salana now they're launching their own L12. Um that there's this fragmentation that's happening and this sort of weakens not just individual chains but

it weakens the overall industry. How do you think about that question? Do you think that there's truth to that? Do you think it's just part of the development and maturation of the industry? How are you thinking about that? >> Yeah, like I think people will try many things like I think there's going to be many many my intuition is there will be many more chains than there are right now and many more will be successful than there are right now because we we have sort of come from a time where demand was artificially like you know uh suppressed because of like everything that happened around us. We're now entering into a phase where the merits of the technology can and sort of like you know can count for everything. I mean like you know and the the the builders of this technology who are building these ecosystems will have to

compete with each other. So there are many builders in the world who think they can compete and they have a unique perspective of like what to offer. I'm sure Jupiter have a unique perspective on like what why they why their chain is best or like you know what they can achieve for their application using uh using their own chain. fragmentation will happen. Liquidity will get spread out across these chains. Like we have as an asset issuer, I think we're the only stable coin that does this. We operate our own native bridge to move USDC around between the chains. And so we recognized it like I think CCTP maybe 3 years old or four years old at this point. So we recognized this early on.

We were like look we need to be on many more chains. Chains come to us and they're like look I need liquidity on my chain to be successful. We don't want to turn them away and say like oh you know what there are already enough chains in the world like we don't need we don't need your chain and so so so our our perspective is like okay how do we enable it and like and then and then we hear from uh folks who are deploying liquidity being like look managing that liquidity is really hard what can you do to make it easy and so we're like okay well here's a bridge that makes it really easy so we had a slow version of the bridge and now we have a fast version of like uh CCTP and and so Yeah, there will be fragmentation and like

that's why I'm I'm talking about like an ecosystem, right? Like so yeah, you can issue a stable coin on Ethereum and like you know and like and yay, you know how to count like money in your fiat account against your your onchain tokens, but like all of this needs to be figured out to make it really useful and I think that part is hard. I think like the and others should do it like look if you believe me that M2 money supply is like 20 trillion or something and we are at the beginnings of this ecosystem and this ecosystem is only what 250 billion or 300 billion and it has room to grow there will be many more participants because there there is just there there's just uh this demand and even we are not going to be able to keep up with

like all the expansion of the market that comes uh I'm sure like I'm sure we will try and like people do all the right things and all of that but there will be new stuff that will be like hey my stable coins does X Y and Z in this specific way and like yeah I mean it's the internet like like all websites there's there's not just one website in the world even though there's Google which takes you to every website in the world and even Google like you know now there's shad GPD like there's open internet like open internet is the best thing that happened yeah >> I really I really appreciate the the humor and the perspective on that. And you're right, it's like it's a a a blessing and a curse. It's a beautiful thing to have an industry that has so much innovation happening all the time,

but it does make it difficult to keep up. Um, interesting there. So, I'm curious about what you envision these partnerships looking like, right? Like you said, you're trying to build this like base layer that supports a lot of these businesses that brings as access to digital dollars. An example like you guys have this long-standing partnership with Coinbase. Um I I'm curious about how you see that relationship evolving, but like do you think that there will be similar partnerships to that relationship de developed with other businesses as well or like how do you see Circle figuring into some of the technology stacks of of some of these people these users that you're trying to bring in?

>> Yeah, look Co Coinbase has been with us since the very beginning. They are a very special partner to us. They have been critical to USDC success and so we continue to be partners with them. There's no there's there's no doubt in my mind that we will have a close relationship with Coinbase for for a long time. The others like will they other partnerships will they look like Coinbase? It's hard to tell. Uh like kind of depends on what the partnership partner brings to the table. We have relationships with other exchanges because like they need a stable coin. They need a stable coin too and they can't they can't just be reliant on just one stable coin. That's a lot of risk for them, right? like what happens if like you know the stable coin they chose like is not successful or has a uh has a

market event that they cannot manage right and so so yeah we have relationships with all the exchanges like uh that you can think of we will continue to keep doing that I think the more interesting thing is what is happening beyond trading and like beyond like this liquidity provisioning that happens on all of these exchanges which is there is like all of this payments activity which is just I'm not a payments expert I just told you I made sunglasses and before that I made funny videos, right? Like so I'm learning this stuff and and like what is amazing to me how how how terrible these existing systems are. They're just like they're just done really poorly. And so you bring in a programmable stack and you bring in something that is really

efficient and you sort of bring an engineer's mindset to it and you bring in sort of an ethos of building on the internet which we do as a company and and like you can you can burn through a lot of complexity uh very very fast and I think that's happening it's not just happening with us there are many others who are doing this and they're doing it really well and like they're building on top of USDC like we are building on top of USDC. So yeah will there be more partnerships? Absolutely. What will they look like? I mean, you should just follow our blog like, you know, every week at Zagi who leads commercial for us like, you know, he has something new that he's cooking. So, yeah.

>> Gotcha. Yeah. Well, we'll have to pay attention there. I've heard the payments architecture of the the global financial system described as a Rube Goldberg machine that's held together by duct tape and good wishes. >> That's not how an engineer would design it, right? Like I don't think engineers wake up and they go like oh man like you know what I really need is another room >> right >> exciting for me to do that's what they do in kindergarten like you know to teach people causality. >> Yeah. All right. Well I hope you can improve on the Rub Goldberg machine for a lot of people then. Um I want to ask your thoughts on artificial intelligence and how that intersects with stable coins and with digital assets more broadly. Um because this is something obviously at Milk Road we've been focused on. I know you must be thinking

about this too. just yeah how are you thinking about AI right now and and where does that factor into the the the job as CTO? I I was uh I came at it slow slower than most people, right? Like I think I I will be honest about it because I worked on AI systems for some time before all this like craziness started, right? Like so like I'll be honest, I was I did not expect uh these inference models to be so successful so fast. So I do think there there is a I'll I'll combine a few threads here. one is I buy the assumption or the hypothesis that the web will be used by agents more than it will be used by humans right so like right now we are using the web like you and I are like

browsing the web like it's designed for us now there will be a version of the web that will be designed for agents okay so makes sense and there will be all these primitives and all these new companies created to enable that right like so you have you have information you have a shopping website like you have uh an information website you have some another website that like is trying to do something for the user, how do we make sure it's operable via agents. Once that is true where the web starts getting like in the amount of agent usage time eclipses human usage time uh and even on the way to to that you will see more complicated payment flows that like emerge uh that are not possible to express using the existing sort of like

payment infrastructure, right? And so and I think that's the opportunity is the programmability of the payments. It's not so much like you know maybe like the small size payments is is important as well like I I don't have intuition on that yet uh as in like who will use that and agents to agents like you know just sharing small amounts of payments. It's possible that they will do it. But what I think is more interesting is like complex rule sets for longunning queries that like the agent is performing for the user, right? like go buy me these flights and these are the constraints you have and like when you do this like there's a whole if then else that the use that the agent has to follow and that'll be hard to express using like existing uh payment networks and I think that will be the

opportunity for stable coins because stable coins are programmable like it's fundamentally just a token that is being that that that that has you can build a full tuning machine with it right like so like and so I am excited for that so that is like one bucket I'm excited for the machine to machine payments. Yes, hopefully there's a use case that is obvious where where where stable coins will be useful because for for small payments there's nothing better than stable coin. And then I think like the big opportunity is like what happens as a consequence of like more intelligence like in in our lives where we are individually more productive and what is the societal impact of that and like how do we think about that and like I think like stable coins have and crypto have a

huge role to play. Uh because like look crypto is about like solving the coordination problem, right? Like all of us around the world have decided that Bitcoin is worth $2 trillion or whatever it is today, right? Like so but we have coordinated on that activity together and like we have and crypto has enabled that. Ethereum is a world computer and like we have coordinated on that activity and we've all around the world we have come together and we've created these very these ideas that didn't exist and that are worth a lot of money like a true trillion dollar asset that didn't exist in 2009 right and so the next set of coordination that I think is interesting is sort of like is trying to like create like making sure that like stable coins can be used for like

capital formation for like users as they get as in as we get into this age of like individual empowerment where we have like you know if you are like some if you are somebody with an idea and you have digital workers and your entire corporation is on the internet how do we make sure that like you can raise money you can like do things with stable coins and you if you have agents they're probably operating with stable coins uh you're doing your entire business is on a stable coin stack and then you should be able to raise money on stable coins so like that that's my dream like you know that's what keeps me motivated like once AI happens like the world will become more productive. What does productivity mean? It means removal of inefficiencies. As inefficiencies go away, what happens? New ideas come forward. As new ideas come forward, they

need to be funded. And like crypto is great at funding ideas, right? So like that's where and and you need stable coins for that. You cannot do it using like existing infrastructure. You like the best idea should be funded globally. That's what Bitcoin is, right? It's a global it's a globally good idea, right? So >> Right. Yeah. So I think the estimates I've seen and I think this these are our estimates but around half of internet activity right now is is nonhuman in origin and by estimates are by 2030 it could be like 10 to one non-human to human. So like the the future is coming fast.

>> Everything that I'm talking about is like in the next four to five years. I think like the there used to be a time where I could predict like you know I could I could say like oh like this is happening and then this is happening and then this is going to happen and like I think this timeline will make sense. I personally have been surprised by everything that has happened in the last like 3 to four years and as a technologist it's an incredibly optimistic time because like everything that you think could not be done is being done and is being done very very fast like there are reusable rockets that have gone up and down more than 500 times you know it's just madness like it's it's there's

an AI that like that can tell me everything I need to know about like you know like this complicated thing like you know I'm I'm dealing with some family members's medical condition and like this AI is the best sort of advocate I have on on my side and we have stable coin payments around the world that like will let me send dollars to anybody in the world and like in 2 seconds that didn't used to exist 5 years ago 10 years ago. This is an incredible time that we're in and as technologists it becomes a like the challenge is to how to integrate all of that thinking into in a way that is useful for users. Uh right and not get carried away by it and say like oh this is you know the the value is in this integrative thinking now it's not like

on the like everything you think will will be true will be true like you know on the asmtote everything will come true. >> So let me ask you a question about this. So one of the big ethoses or the big ethos rather I guess of digital assets and of crypto is this idea of decentralization and you know as we move towards this future we've described a lot of people are concerned about concentration of control and power in the hands of you know whoever controls certain centralized chains or issuers of assets not just stable coins but other assets as well um and and how do you think about that right like if we're living in a world where we have AI agents handling our transactions and there's one company that controls not

only the the stable coins but the L1 like what are your thoughts around that in terms of as a technologist right like how do you think about that >> yeah I mean I don't want to live in a world in which like one company controls everything like even if like I just that's just not that's not a world that like motivates me uh look I'm that old that I know what BGT is okay I worked on it in graduate school border gateway protocol and that is what like >> I have not I've not heard that since I was in school. So nice. >> And so like the border gateway protocol is fully decentralized and it sort of is it's what's uh it is what is like at the root of like the internet like all these routers are basically running border gateway protocol and like we are we are

all benefiting from it. Uh I'm just using it as an example. So like look even ARC is fully EVM compatible. Uh right like we are not trying to break that. We are trying to create we are trying to create a model that is we're trying to create like an application space for us to like you know succeed for the use cases we have. So, Circle issues on 28 chains like USDC and is does that because it believes that like this like sort of diversification of like power and like you know ability to like is is a general good like so I I would be I don't know again like this is one of those things like not being able

to predict the future but in terms of ethos uh of the company Jeremy Alair sort of only built internet companies I have not built I haven't been founder a successful founder like he has been but I've also worked only on internet companies my whole life. So I do not want that which I grew up on to disappear because of something that I did right like so like I I am excited for I'm excited for the web because if machines are going to use the web like you know the web is useful again like we we went through a phase where all this power was being concentrated and in into uh into these um aggregation platforms.

that is not the case anymore like you know and even with even with uh crypto like look you can take any project and you can branch it uh and you just got to convince enough people that that makes sense. I'm a little more open-minded about like you know and optimistic I guess about like not living in this sort of like Orwellian world that something is inevitable right like I I'm I'm sort of in the other bucket which is like no I think with some clever engineering and with some uh and some like you know good culture in the building communities we will end up in a place which is not which is not dark like which is like which is actually encouraging like which is like look we're going to enter into this phase of incredible productivity and like uh and like uh which will allow

people to sort of like do the things like knowledge now which used to be the biggest arbitrage is is gone like that arbitrage is like has disappeared and like with stable coins and with internet finance financial access was is is still a big arbitrage but like even that will go away and so like what should what should that world look like I think it's a fascinating question in terms of like who emerges successful in that world and like I want to see that future I want I I don't want this like concentration so Yeah. Is it is it possible will will like people have bad incentives? Yes.

Like you know has the internet succeeded at like and like sort of like taking your bad incentive and like basically kicking your ass 100%. Yeah. >> Sure. Tokenized financial products are the future. But there is a big sticking point. They all need to speak to each other. This is a tough problem to solve. But chain link does exactly that. It's the universal language for financial markets. linking Wall Street to web 3, banks to blockchain, and so much more. See how Chainlink is linking the world by going to milkroad.com/chainlink. >> Well, you know, I think just like you said, like it's we don't want to get to a dystopian future. And I think something that's a relief to a lot of people's minds is just to hear that it is something you're thinking about, right? Because we all have a

responsibility to to make sure that we don't get to a dark future, but to a more utopian, a more a better and a more free future. >> I have three children. I don't want them to live in some Orwellian future. I want them to live in like you know I want them the future to have puppies and unicorns and like you know an opportunity >> and I like your your your point about not trying to like replace or destroy Ethereum as the world computer but like hey we made a sandbox for us to play and build some applications into and like yeah it's yeah they they can encourage each other. Um okay I we're coming towards the end of time here. I want to get in just one final question about this because I think this is something that a lot of investors have on their

mind right now. We have a lot of investors who watch this channel and you know like I said there's a lot of different competitors from from Wall Street from uh from other places in crypto, other L1s, other stable coin issuers. What I would like for you to do is just as clearly as you can, you know, to an investor's perspective, right? like why is circle a great business and what do you view as distinguishing distinguishing circle from others like JP Morgan or tether etc. Um and yeah what's what's the moat to protect that? >> Look there is no public company that is doing what we are trying to do is what I would say. We are a stable coin issuer.

We we used to be a stable coin issuer and now we are a full stack internet platform company. And I think like you have to sort of like believe our thesis like in the sense that when we say like look like the stable coins are just the beginning but what we what we're building with ARC is this economic OS and like what we're building with CPN is this global payments network and this all sinks together because like you know the more payments activity there is there is more there's more utility to the stable coin and then then and like you know and to create utility in the stable coin we are building features like fast finality privacy you know stable coin as gas inside of so my hope

is that our story hangs together like in the sense as to like why we're doing the things we're doing we other stable coin issuers like look we are where we are in the market we're second largest we are mika compliant we genius we're I think I said this earlier genius enshrines our enshrines our way of doing things and so we are going to keep doing that. We're going to keep working in ways which are compliant because like this is money that like the whole world has to come to depend on, right? And so I don't see that changing. I don't see I don't see that changing. But I also don't think it is enough to be a stable coin issuer. I think you for us to sort of like realize

the vision not not about investors and not about specifically like what the stock will do but like our vision is much fuller than just being a stable coin issuer. I think yes and it uh yes today we make most of our money using uh because of stable coins and but we are building new businesses right so like um you know Google had this back in the day like all your money comes from search what happens and like you can click one button and go to bing and like you know all that jazz and like yeah it's true and we used to go I used to I mean early days of Google you had like the founders were right there and like you would like I was very young and they would just be They were like, "Yeah, that's true.

People should use the other ones if it's better." And I would just sit there and I was just like, "No way you said that." They would just be like, "I think the I mean, so I have the same ethos." I'm like, "Look, if this the other thing is better, it's on us to make it better and like to tell you that our thing is better and like you know, so you you will see it in our ethos, right? Like because like we want to build things, we want to build widgets. We don't want to complain. We don't want to sort of cast aspersions on others way of doing things. We're just going to keep building our thing. Like our thing is we used to do one thing, we now do three things and we're going to we're going to sort of pick up pace on all

three things. Uh we used to be a stable coin network. Now we are a full full stack platform company. What does that mean in the internet financial space? Yeah, it's it's being defined. It's not uh defined yet, right? And so we will define it and we will probably bring this uh vision to bear hope like hopefully soon. Yeah. I I don't know. I'm not I'm not the CFO so I don't know what else. >> No, but I think hearing about the the diversification of the business from the technology perspective is really valuable for our audience. So I appreciate you doing that. Um and yeah, we're we're going to be watching 2026 Arc goes live. We're going to be watching what you guys are doing there.

Um so just you know uh thank you so much for being here sharing with our audience. Where can we send people to find more of you and your work online to follow along with the with circle's journey here. uh you go to my Twitter or like you know the circle blog has like a ton of information like the circle's Twitter has a ton of information as well and I I also like post time to time but like look like the like most operators I am more focused on like doing things and like so and we are hoping that like what like you know the partnerships we launch like the products we launch like you know the uh the outcomes we create speak for ourselves speak like you know sort of show we are ser we are serious company trying will see this technology, right? Like so I mean this stuff is hard

like it is not easy like I said earlier like you can start a stable coin uh much like you can put up you you started Milk Road like you can put up a website and say like you know I am Milk Road and like and then what happens like you got to bring >> then then NIL subscribes to our Milk Road Macro newsletter and we all we all get get smarter together. Um thanks so much for being here. I really enjoyed this conversation. I'm wishing you guys all the best. Thank you so much. >> Thanks so much and thank you all for joining us. We hope you all learned something today. So until next time, stay bullish, stay educated, stay safe, and we will see you all on the next episode of the Milk Road Show. Thanks for being here, everyone. Bye. If y'all are making swaps or trades right now,

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