The Team Helping PayPal Enter DeFi w/ Trident Digital - Flywheel #86

In this week's episode, we have on Anthony DeMartino and Mason Vollum from Trident Digital. We were introduced to them, as they are facilitating stablecoin growth for Paypal's PYUSD, issued by Paxos. We wanted to bring them on the episode because of PYUSD's budding relationship with Frax. We learned a lot about the opportunities and difficulties of stablecoins in DeFi, the role of Trident, how they are planning to use stablecoins in Central and South America, and also how they think banks will have an "aha" moment about this new type of digital money in the next few years.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

03:09 Anthony and Mason's Background and Experience

11:45 Their Transition to Crypto and DeFi

20:26 Trident's Lending Conduit and Stablecoin Advocacy

23:49 Trident's Relationship with Paxos and PayPal

27:45 PayPal's DeFi Strategy and Curve as Stablecoin Pricing Center

36:31 Frax's Place in the DeFi Stablecoin Ecosystem

43:24 Permissioned DeFi vs. DarkFi

48:03 CBDCs and the US Dollar

49:30 The Impact of CBDCs on Banking and Lending

50:29 CBDCs as a Standard for Stablecoins

52:21 The Evolution of Payment Systems

57:31 The Benefits of CBDCs and Standardization

58:27 The Impact of a Bitcoin ETF

01:09:10 Advice to Younger Self

01:10:04 Recommended Guest for Flywheel

1:12:02 Post Game