Unchained The Stablecoin Competition Is On. Who Will Be the Winners and Losers? - Ep. 920
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Oct 10, 2025 
Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly, and Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius, dive into the fiercely competitive world of stablecoins. They discuss the implications of the new U.S. stablecoin law and explore why apps are incentivized to issue their own stablecoins. The conversation highlights Tether's ongoing dominance, the potential rise of Circle's new Layer 1, Arc, and the challenges of managing liquidity across multiple stablecoins. With network effects at play, they speculate on which contenders might emerge as the ultimate winners.
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Backpack Turned USDT Into USD
- Mert described sending USDT into Backpack and seeing the app display a unified "USD" balance.
- The app then swaps stable issuers behind the scenes and presents users a single fiat-like experience.
Tether's Moat Is Distribution, Not Yield
- Tether's dominance relies on brand, global retail adoption, and exchange usage rather than yield sharing.
- Displacing Tether requires apps and major exchanges to re-denominate user flows or provide a superior integrated UX.
Let Infrastructure Manage Liquidity
- If consumer apps abstract stables, infrastructure providers will manage liquidity and share economics with those apps.
- Expect Paxos, Athena, Agora and others to become the behind-the-scenes liquidity managers for app-issued balances.