Can't Let It Go: Crypto Lobbying and CZ Pardon

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) by my Jason Mikula, my partner in recapping, but this time we recorded live from the floor of Money20/20 in Vegas!

Expect a shorter and more caffeinated episode where we riff topic to topic, grab bag style. 

First up, no surprise that AI was the buzzword, especially agentic AI. Conversations this year felt more grounded (not “we’re doing AI,” but which use cases make sense and which don’t; folks finally have better language and specificity to describe it).

Then it’s onto the second buzziest topic: stablecoins (mostly cross-border payments and digital dollars in inflation-hit economies), while our friends at the Fed manned a booth pitching “faster payments,” which felt charmingly out of time.

Next, we check in on open banking’s 14,000 comment letters, where big banks demand cost recovery, Plaid wants free access, and small banks want help surviving. 

From there, we fly past BaaS Island at warp speed (Evolve Bank’s latest unwanted headline!) for a deep dive into the newest Silicon Valley-meets-OCC experiment: Erebor Bank. Founded by Palmer Luckey, financed by tech money, and conditionally approved in record time (raising questions about pay-to-play politics in banking charters).

Plus, in our Can’t Let It Go corner: Jason vents about the corrosive influence of crypto lobbying, and I read a truly cursed news item: Truth Social launching “Truth Gems,” a crypto prediction-market where users can bet on the future of… anything! (Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.)

Thanks for listening! 

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