FINTECHTALK

Welcome FINTECHTALKERS!
Money is having a history moment again. Stablecoins, tariffs, reshoring, central bank independence, “Global South” monetary narratives—these aren’t disconnected headlines. They’re signals that the rules, rails, and power centers of money are being contested in real time.
Money’s Long Arc, Stablecoins’ Next Level: Adam Braus on History, Hayek, and Innovation
In this episode, I sat down with Adam Braus (Chair of Applied Computer Science at Dominican University of California)—a rare mix of engineer and economic-history mind, and a thoughtful skeptic (definitely not a crypto-maxi). Adam is a wealth of knowledge on how monetary systems actually form: what holds them together, what breaks them, and what replaces them. We covered stablecoins and onchain finance, but the real value was the way Adam kept pulling the discussion up a level—what money is for, who it serves, and how institutions evolve when trust fractures or geopolitics shifts. Adam didn’t just talk stablecoins—he walked us through 250 years of U.S. monetary history, explaining how each era of money was shaped by a mix of crisis, politics, technology, and institutional redesign: from coins and fragmented bank notes, to the Fed and the New Deal state, to Bretton Woods and the fiat turn, to the post-2008 legitimacy shock, and finally to blockchain and tokenized dollars. Along the way, he brought a distinctly Hayekian currency lens—focused on what happens when money becomes more competitive, more privately issued, and less monopolized by the state. Companies building the new financial fabric in banking and capital markets will benefit from Adam’s knowledge and perspective.
A very brief 250 year Dollar history
Listening back, the conversation maps onto a 250-year arc—money as a sequence of institutional upgrades and rails upgrades:
* 1792–1913: a patchwork of coins and fragmented paper, with recurring panics.
* 1913: Wilson’s architecture—Federal Reserve (and the broader fiscal state) begins modern centralized monetary governance.
* 1930s: FDR’s New Deal expands state capacity to manage crises and shape the economic order.
* 1944: Bretton Woods locks in the dollar as the hub of global trade and reserves—fueling a century of U.S.-led international order.
* 1971: the gold link breaks; credibility and macro management become the anchor.
* 1976: Hayek publishes The Denationalisation of Money—arguing that government monopoly over money should be challenged by competitive private currencies as a discipline mechanism against inflation and political cycles.
* 2008: crisis backstops expand; the plumbing becomes visible; legitimacy debates intensify. 2008 forced the state to act as a bigger financial backstop, exposed the hidden mechanics of credit and liquidity, and sparked lasting fights over fairness, power, and trust in the system.
* 2009: Satoshi introduces blockchain as a new settlement primitive—rules enforced by networks, not intermediaries.
* 2014–2020s: stablecoins tokenize the dollar—same unit of account, new distribution and settlement rail—while tokenization begins spreading to Treasuries and beyond.
* 2025: GENIUS Act—stablecoins get federal rules (reserves + oversight), legitimizing them as a regulated dollar payment rail.
* 2025–Future: Trump-era “post-Wilsonian” money—tokenized assets and on-chain finance become the new fabric of markets, shifting monetary power outward as the central bank’s role is narrowed, contested, or re-architected.

Editor’s Note (Post-Record Addendum):
Wilson/FDR to Trump: Central Control → On-Chain Rails + Tokenized Assets
Challenging the Wilson–FDR Monetary State
Trump’s confrontation with the Federal Reserve is not just personality or politics—it’s a challenge to the Wilson-and-FDR architecture that defined the last century. Wilson—and FDR after him—expanded the federal government’s role as the referee of capitalism: permanent fiscal and monetary institutions built to fund a larger state, manage crises, and sustain an internationalist order. In that framework, interest rates—set by an increasingly powerful Fed—function like a kind of indirect taxation, shaping capital allocation across the economy and reinforcing a system optimized for macro-stability and global leadership.
Is the Fed really independent?
But I’d add one sharper layer: the Federal Reserve is not really “independent” in the way civics textbooks present it. It is structurally and culturally intertwined with the globalization project—and with the financial sector whose business model is advantaged by it: deep global capital markets, reserve-currency plumbing, and cross-border flows. Trump’s “America First” nationalism sits in direct contrast: he’s implicitly arguing for a regime where the reward function tilts upward for American producers—manufacturers, farmers, and entrepreneurs—relative to financiers. Here’s where I land after the discussion (not Adam’s opinion—just mine).
America First vs Globalization Finance
Trump’s worldview starts from a different diagnosis: globalization is not a neutral efficiency machine—it’s a strategic threat. In his framing, decades of offshoring, trade deficits, and supply-chain dependence weakened the industrial base, hollowed out communities (especially across the Midwest), and ceded leverage to rivals. So his doctrine emphasizes nationalism as statecraft: reshoring, tariffs as leverage, deregulation, lower taxes, and attracting capital into U.S. assets and factories rather than overseas capacity.
Reframing the Fed’s Mandate Through Industrial Policy
That’s why Trump doesn’t treat the Fed’s dual mandate as “trade-policy neutral.” In his view, trade policy and industrial policy are upstream drivers of employment outcomes. If import competition and offshoring permanently reduce the number and quality of jobs in entire regions, then “maximum employment” becomes inseparable from the structure of trade and production. From that perspective, a central bank that focuses narrowly on inflation and aggregate employment while ignoring deindustrialization is missing the variable that determines whether employment is broadly distributed and politically sustainable.
Rates as Strategy: Macro Stabilization vs Sovereign Reindustrialization
His battle with the Fed over rates follows logically. High rates are more than a technical tool—they are a barrier that diverts capital away from domestic rebuilding. They raise the hurdle rate for factories, new capacity, and risk-taking, and make it harder for reindustrialization to win against global arbitrage. So the conflict isn’t simply “Trump wants lower rates.” It’s a clash between technocratic macro-stabilization inside the Wilson/FDR framework versus sovereignty-first industrial revival that treats money, trade, and production as one integrated strategy.
Perfect Storm: Trump-Era Nationalism + On-Chain Market Infrastructure
And now layer on the other shift: onchain finance is no longer just stablecoins. The same tokenization logic is extending across Treasuries, equities, credit, derivatives, and real-world assets—transforming settlement and clearing, but also issuance, custody, compliance, and liquidity formation. If Wilson/FDR built the last century’s financial operating system, we may be entering a post-Wilsonian, post-New Deal — Trump era—with a new international order emerging as markets are rebuilt on programmable rails.
The fight isn’t over rates—it’s over who America is built to serve.

🎧Listen now for Adam’s Hayek-and-history lesson on money—how currency systems are built, why they fail, and what today’s experiments might be signaling.
Timestamp Table
0:00 – 2:30 — Opening thesis: Stablecoins as competitive currenciesStablecoins framed not as payments UX, but as the first mass-market step toward Hayek-style competitive money.
2:31 – 6:00 — Trump, the Fed, and monetary tensionWhy the Trump–Federal Reserve conflict signals a deeper architectural shift, not just political noise.
6:01 – 9:30 — From Woodrow Wilson to Bretton WoodsHow 20th-century monetary architecture shaped today’s centralized financial system.
9:31 – 14:00 — Money as a technologyWhy money evolves like software—and why stablecoins are a protocol change, not a product.
14:01 – 18:30 — Why stablecoins arrived nowSmartphones, APIs, crypto rails, and global demand converging at the same moment.
18:31 – 23:00 — Private money vs state moneyHistorical parallels: free banking eras, private issuance, and why governments eventually respond.
23:01 – 27:30 — Trust, legitimacy, and adoptionWhy people adopt currencies: reliability first, ideology second.
27:31 – 32:00 — Banks’ existential dilemmaWhy banks can’t fully embrace stablecoins—but can’t ignore them either.
32:01 – 36:30 — Stablecoins vs CBDCsWhy CBDCs solve control problems, not innovation problems.
36:31 – 41:00 — Regulation as inevitabilityHow regulation will shape stablecoins without killing them—and who benefits.
41:01 – 45:30 — The global south use caseWhy stablecoins matter more in unstable monetary regimes than in the U.S. or Europe.
45:31 – 50:00 — Programmable money & economic coordinationWhat happens when money becomes composable infrastructure.
50:01 – 54:30 — Inflation, debasement, and exit valvesWhy stablecoins act as pressure-release mechanisms in inflationary systems.
54:31 – 58:30 — The long arc of monetary evolutionWhy this shift is generational, not cyclical.
58:31 – 1:03:00 — What breaks firstLegacy banking rails, settlement delays, and policy lag.
1:03:01 – End — Closing synthesisStablecoins as the bridge between nation-state money and network-native value systems.
FINTECHTALK: A Top 10% Global Podcast Shaping the Future of Fintech, AI, and Crypto and was recently ranked in the Best 100 Future Tech Podcasts by Million Podcasts.
Ranked by ListenNotes
Looking to amplify your brand’s reach? Partner with our podcast and connect with an engaged and loyal audience. Contact us today to explore sponsorship opportunities and elevate your brand! [email protected]

Enjoy and always be in the know,
Paddy RamanathanFounder of iValley and Host of the FINTECHTALK™ Show (on Substack, Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify)
Interested in sponsorship opportunities and be associated with sculpting the future? Please reach out to [email protected].
Thanks to ChatGPT for suggestions.
(Violin piece in podcast, courtesy of my daughter Ilina)


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit substack.fintechtalk.ivalley.co/subscribe

Welcome FINTECHTALKERS!
This episode is a forward-looking roundtable on the 2025 → 2026 transition in financial services and fintech—where the arc from digital → mobile → embedded is now bending toward what comes next: agentic commerce and agentic banking, alongside the renewed momentum in stablecoins, tokenization, and programmable money.
To get past the noise, Paddy sits down with three greats across financial services and fintech—each seeing the developments from a different lens:
* Ron Shevlin — Chief Research Officer at Cornerstone Advisors; Senior Contributor at Forbes; Fintech Snark Tank. Brings the bank and credit union reality: boardroom priorities and open banking economics.
* Steven Ramirez — CEO of Beyond the Arc. Focused on strategy-to-execution, customer experience, and change management.
* Bradley Leimer — Strategic Advisor at Darrery Capital. Brings a fintech + venture + large-bank operating perspective, with a pragmatic lens on what becomes real infrastructure.
Across an informal, end-of-year “friends getting together” conversation, they unpack what shifted in 2025—the thaw in fintech sentiment and exits, banks charging for data access, why banks feel increasingly defensive, and how the industry is moving toward convergence (fintech + banks) even as TradFi vs DeFi remains contentious.
And then the big one: agentic AI—what it actually means, why governance becomes the bottleneck, and how customer experience may evolve when it’s your agent talking to the bank’s agent.
🎧 Listen Now for a clear, grounded map of what matters heading into 2026—without the hype.
Key takeaways
* Fintech sentiment is shifting: IPO/exits and public-market appetite are back in the conversation—changing the mood heading into 2026.
* Open banking is getting real about economics: charging for data access forces a reset from “free rails” to sustainable models.
* Banks are in defensive mode: deposits and lending profitability dominate near-term priorities, especially for mid-sized institutions.
* “Customer-first” isn’t a slogan—it’s the strategy: competitive advantage goes to whoever satisfies customer needs best (AI + human + execution).
* Agentic AI = intelligence + tools + autonomous action: but autonomy, ROI, pricing models, and governance are the hard problems.
* The CX interface is changing: from screen/menu navigation to conversational intent—and eventually agent-to-agent interactions.
Editor’s Note (Post-Record Addendum):
We need to bring the OGs back together—this was recorded before Venezuela, the proposed 10% credit-card APR cap, and a potential SCOTUS tariff ruling. There’s a lot more to unpack now.
My quick take: agentic commerce—and the growing adjacency to DeFi—, will make a 10% credit-card APR cap more than a pricing headline; it becomes an accelerant for a structural rewrite of the card business. Issuers will deploy agents not only to streamline operating costs and improve risk management, but to open the floodgates of agentic commerce that changes where value is created.
Just as digital wallets and services like Uber removed friction and reshaped the payment experience, the “AI Card” will do more than optimize checkout—it will transform how commerce is initiated, negotiated, and executed. And combined with DeFi, merchants can increasingly leverage their own balance sheets—not the banks’—to extend credit, further diminishing the role of interest income in credit card economics. The result is a shift from an interest- and interchange-centric model to a far more commerce-centric one, where the economic center of gravity moves upstream into discovery, intent, decisioning, and fulfillment.
AI Cards + agentic commerce + stablecoins + DeFi = a wide-open greenfield for networks, fintechs, and issuers in 2026.
Timestamp table
0:00 – 2:45 – Setup: The 2025→2026 transitionDigital → mobile → embedded → agentic + stablecoins/tokenization on the rise.
2:46 – 8:10 – What changed in 2025IPO thaw, fintech winter easing, and bank-side surprises (including open banking/data access pressure).
8:11 – 13:40 – The arc of fintech: where it’s actually headedWhy “% of fintech done” is the wrong question; the customer problems still aren’t solved.
13:41 – 20:15 – Banks vs fintech: purpose, partnership, and realityFrom “banks are evil” narratives to collaboration—and why transformation takes longer than people think.
20:16 – 27:55 – Convergence debate: Fintech + banks… TradFi + DeFi?Agreement on fintech-bank convergence; pushback on “TradFi-DeFi convergence” framing.
27:56 – 37:30 – What banks are actually focused onDeposits, lending profitability, product vs experience debate, segmentation opportunities (incl. underserved niches).
37:31 – 45:10 – Large bank lens: AI, investment patterns, and what funding signalsAI pilots, efficiency gains, leadership patience, and the post-2021 funding reset.
45:11 – 49:10 – AI adoption reality checkFOMO deployments, slow approaches, and why governance becomes the 2026 story.
49:11 – 56:20 – Agentic AI demystifiedThe three pillars, autonomy questions, ROI/pricing, and who governs agents inside institutions.
56:21 – 1:03:30 – The durable advantage: serving customer needs bestWhy tech-first thinking fails; alignment and execution win.
1:03:31 – 1:10:45 – The future CX interfaceFrom screen design → conversational intent → agent-to-agent banking interactions.
1:10:46 – 1:15:53 – Bold predictions for 2026CX rises, AI embeds into products to take action, and regulation gets “funky.”
FINTECHTALK: A Top 10% Global Podcast Shaping the Future of Fintech, AI, and Crypto and was recently ranked in the Best 100 Future Tech Podcasts by Million Podcasts.
Ranked by ListenNotes
Looking to amplify your brand’s reach? Partner with our podcast and connect with an engaged and loyal audience. Contact us today to explore sponsorship opportunities and elevate your brand! [email protected]

Enjoy and always be in the know,
Paddy RamanathanFounder of iValley and Host of the FINTECHTALK™ Show (on Substack, Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify)
Interested in sponsorship opportunities and be associated with sculpting the future? Please reach out to [email protected].
Thanks to ChatGPT for suggestions.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit substack.fintechtalk.ivalley.co/subscribe

Welcome FINTECHTALKERS!
In this episode, I sat down with Brandon Card, Founder & CEO of Terzo, to explore one of the most overlooked foundations of enterprise value: contracts.
FINTECHTALK’s view: the future enterprise won’t be run by today’s ERP, CRM, or core banking stacks—it’ll be run by an AI orchestrator that coordinates value flows across agent-based suppliers, partners, customers, and internal functions like finance, with much of that value moving on-chain.
The schematic below shows the future state. Left: an interim phase where existing workflows remain intact but gain an AI “overlay.” Right: the end state, where workflows are rebuilt into an on-chain exchange of value, dynamically executed and optimized by AI agents. Companies like Terzo are already building early versions of this future-state orchestrator engine.
Figure 1 - FINTECHTALK’s view on future state Enterprise architectuer with AI agents and Blockchain based systems of value.

While Wall Street debates tokenizing equities and increasingly exotic instruments, the real unlock for Main Street and enterprise businesses is happening elsewhere. It’s in what companies like Terzo are doing—turning buried enterprise assets like contracts into liquid, actionable value. This is where tokenization gets practical: Wall Street–grade capabilities such as pricing intelligence, risk visibility, and cash-flow foresight, brought to everyday businesses by structuring and activating their own data.
Brandon’s journey—from Oracle and IBM to Microsoft—gave him a front-row seat to the same problem repeating at scale. Enterprises sign thousands of contracts worth trillions of dollars, yet the financial intelligence inside those agreements remains trapped in static PDFs, disconnected from finance, procurement, and ERP systems that actually run the business.
With Terzo and its latest platform, NirvanAI, contracts become more than legal artifacts—they become financial assets. We discuss how core platforms like ERP, procurement, CRM, and banking systems will evolve into AI- and blockchain-native systems of value, not just systems of record. In doing so, enterprises gain access to tooling and insight that was once reserved for big banks and firms like Palantir—but now purpose-built for the Fortune 500 and beyond.
If you care about enterprise AI, agentic systems, or how trillion-dollar businesses are quietly being re-architected from the inside out, this conversation is essential listening.
🎧 Listen Now to hear how Terzo is building what Brandon calls “the Palantir for finance.”
Timestamp Table
0:00 – 2:00 – Welcome + Meet Brandon CardFrom Oracle to Microsoft to founding Terzo.
2:01 – 5:30 – The Contract Blind SpotWhy finance teams don’t actually control their most valuable data.
5:31 – 9:00 – $120 Trillion Locked in PDFsHow contracts quietly underpin revenue, spend, and partnerships.
9:01 – 12:30 – Contracts as Financial AssetsWhy treating contracts as “legal documents” is a massive mistake.
12:31 – 16:30 – Why ERP Systems Miss the MarkSAP and Oracle own transactions—but not the agreements behind them.
16:31 – 20:30 – Introducing NirvanAITerzo’s financial command center for contracts, spend, and revenue.
20:31 – 24:30 – Accuracy Over HypeWhy finance demands 99% accuracy—and most AI tools fall short.
24:31 – 28:30 – Purpose-Built vs PlatformsWhy Terzo positions itself as the Palantir for finance.
28:31 – 33:30 – Fortune 500 Go-To-MarketWhy Terzo focuses on the most complex enterprises first.
33:31 – 38:30 – AI in Production, Not R&DWhat it takes to deploy AI systems enterprises actually trust.
38:31 – 44:00 – The Future: Contracts on the LedgerSmart contracts, blockchain, and contract-to-payment automation.
44:01 – 49:00 – The AI ERP OpportunityWhy the next Oracle won’t look like an ERP at all.
49:01 – End – Raising Series B + Final ThoughtsBuilding a category-defining enterprise intelligence platform.
FINTECHTALK: A Top 10% Global Podcast Shaping the Future of Fintech, AI, and Crypto and was recently ranked in the Best 100 Future Tech Podcasts by Million Podcasts.
Ranked by ListenNotes
If you’re building the next-generation enterprise stack—disurpting ERPs, CRMs and Core banking—where AI + blockchain rewire how finance, procurement, supply chain, and operations actually run, FINTECHTALK helps you turn that vision into a category narrative, not just another pitch deck. We work with founders and innovators to translate your product thesis into a clear “why now,” a differentiated point of view, and a story the market can rally around.
Through our Narrative Blueprint collaborations, over 4–6 weeks we help you:
Run founder interviews and a positioning workshop
Craft a 60–90 minute flagship episode
Publish a 3–5k word Substack deep-dive
Produce a crisp executive 2-pager and a “where you fit in the next-gen AI + blockchain enterprise stack” infographic.
Ship a social pack of posts and clips your team can use across channels
We also partner with PR/creative agencies via an affiliate model, and with VC & corporate innovation teams through a VC + Corporate Innovation Blueprint that links your fund thesis to an Insight Lab for your portfolio and strategic partners.
If you see your company in what follows—or want to be on the 2026 watchlist—Schedule a scoping call today or email us at fintechtalk at substack dot com

Enjoy and always be in the know,
Paddy RamanathanFounder of iValley and Host of the FINTECHTALK™ Show (on Substack, Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify)
Interested in sponsorship opportunities and be associated with sculpting the future? Please reach out to [email protected].
Thanks to ChatGPT for suggestions.
(Violin piece in podcast, courtesy of my daughter Ilina)


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit substack.fintechtalk.ivalley.co/subscribe

Welcome FINTECHTALKERS!
Our thesis from our piece earlier - “We’re moving from “features on legacy rails” to programmable, money on increasingly on-chain infrastructure. Tokenization is a means; infrastructure is the story. Eventually, programmable money can think and choose with Agents.”
If you’re building any piece of this on-chain financial fabric—stablecoins, RWA rails, prediction markets, treasury tools, or AI-native infrastructure—FINTECHTALK works with founders and innovators to turn your thesis into a category story, not just a pitch deck.
If you see your company in what follows—or want to be on the 2026 watchlist—Schedule a scoping call today or email us at fintechtalk at substack dot com
In this episode, I sat down with Patrick Gerhart, President of Banking Operations at Telcoin, to explore how a crypto-era startup just made US banking history.
Telcoin recently received approval to launch a fully regulated digital asset bank under Nebraska’s Financial Innovation Act — the first of its kind in the United States. Patrick shares how traditional banking meets blockchain through Telcoin’s new charter, the vision behind its dollar-backed stablecoin EUSD, and what it means for consumers, fintechs, and community banks.
We also unpack the broader shift in financial infrastructure — from legacy cores and card rails to programmable, real-time settlement, where money moves as fast as data. Patrick explains why regulation is not a burden but an adoption catalyst, how state innovation is shaping federal policy, and why stablecoins could be the “credit card moment” of the 2020s.
According to DeFiLlama, there are roughly $308B in stablecoins outstanding today—an increase of nearly 50% over the past year. Consider this Act I, Scene I of on-chain finance: the opening move in a world where TradFi and DeFi are starting to converge.
If you’ve been watching the stablecoin and banking worlds converge, this conversation is your front-row seat to how on-chain infrastructure becomes the new financial fabric.

If you’re building any piece of this on-chain financial fabric—stablecoins, RWA rails, prediction markets, treasury tools, or AI-native infrastructure—FINTECHTALK works with founders and innovators to turn your thesis into a category story, not just a pitch deck.
Through our Narrative Blueprint collaborations, over 4–6 weeks we help you:
Run founder interviews and a positioning workshop
Craft a 60–90 minute flagship episode
Publish a 3–5k word Substack deep-dive
Produce an executive 2-pager and an “where you fit in the new financial fabric” infographic
Ship a social pack of posts and clips your team can use across channels
We also partner with PR/creative agencies via an affiliate model, and with VC & corporate innovation teams through a VC + Corporate Innovation Blueprint that links your fund thesis to an Insight Lab for your portfolio and strategic partners.
If you see your company in what follows—or want to be on the 2026 watchlist—Schedule a scoping call today or email us at fintechtalk at substack dot com

Banking & Capital Markets: What We’ll Be Watching in 2026 on Blockchain
Our thesis from our piece earlier (link here) - “We’re moving from “features on legacy rails” to programmable, money on increasingly on-chain infrastructure. Tokenization is a means; infrastructure is the story. Eventually, programmable money can think and choose with Agents.”
Market Structure & PoliticsHow the Market Structure Clarity Act and Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA) actually land—and the politics between Congress and regulators (SEC, CFTC, Fed, OCC, FDIC) and large incumbents and crypto natives (JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, Coinbase, Ripple, SIFMA, Blockchain Association) - Is AML/OFAC policy—and the control it enables in D.C.—becoming the ultimate “WMD” that secures just enough bipartisan support to stall financial innovation and block real market-structure reform? And if so, what levers does the industry still have to educate lawmakers and the administration?
On-Chain Issuance & RWA Tokenization (Capital Markets Infrastructure)
* Issuance & primary markets (on-chain):Platforms turning equity, credit, funds, and money markets into tokenized instruments: Securitize, Figure, Digital Asset, Blockstream, Ripple, Ondo, Tokeny, Polymesh.
* Buy-side infrastructure:Asset managers and allocators building product on top of these rails—tokenized funds, on-chain share classes, and 24/7 liquidity from BlackRock (BUIDL), Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, Hashnote, Ondo, family offices, and crypto-native funds.
* Sell-side & market infrastructure:Trading, prime, and collateral plumbing that connects institutions to tokenized markets: FalconX, Coinbase Institutional, Anchorage Digital, Copper, BitGo, exchanges and ATS venues, as well as custody and collateral management stacks.
Applications Across the Stack (Banking + Markets)
* Cross-border payments & liquidity:Faster, cheaper flows using stablecoins and tokenized deposits via Wise, Ripple, Visa, Mastercard, SWIFT gpi banks, Thunes.
* Corporate & institutional treasury (“Treasury 3.0”):Moving from siloed bank accounts to programmable liquidity on shared ledgers—Bitcoin on the balance sheet (e.g., MicroStrategy, Coinbase), then USDC/PYUSD/JPM Coin for payments and pooling, and ultimately AI-driven treasury playbooks executed via SAP, Oracle, Kyriba plus cloud/AI platforms (Microsoft, Google, OpenAI) and bank labs.
* Buy-side use cases:Portfolio construction and risk management using tokenized funds, RWAs, and on-chain money markets, with integrated data and collateral workflows for asset managers, hedge funds, and corporate treasuries. The endgame is to deliver Wall Street–grade capabilities to corporates and Main Street—without the Wall Street overhead.
* Sell-side services:Prime brokerage, financing, and structured products are being rebuilt on tokenized collateral and always-on markets (FalconX, Galaxy, Anchorage Digital, Coinbase Institutional, Copper, BitGo, bank desks). On-chain finance may blur the old lines—could corporates and Main Street one day operate as “sell side” liquidity and product providers themselves?
Prediction & event markets as a new primitive:Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket offering markets on macro, regulatory, and geopolitical outcomes—both as speculative venues and as signal feeds into AI-driven treasury, risk, and portfolio strategies.
Regulation, Compliance & Market IntegrityTooling and rules for a converged TradFi–DeFi structure that now includes stablecoins, RWAs, DeFi protocols, and prediction markets—driven by SEC, CFTC, ESMA, FCA, FINRA and surveillance/compliance vendors (Chainalysis, TRM Labs, Elliptic, Eventus, Solidus Labs) plus in-house regtech stacks at major banks and broker-dealers.
Timestamp Table
0:00 – 1:00 – Welcome to the New Financial FabricSetting the stage for programmable money and regulated blockchain infrastructure.
1:01 – 2:20 – Meet Patrick GerhartFrom traditional banker and policymaker to president of America’s first digital asset bank.
2:21 – 5:50 – The Nebraska Innovation StoryHow local legislation and Congressman Mike Flood shaped the US digital asset framework.
5:51 – 8:00 – From Telco Token to Bank CharterThe evolution of Telcoin — from crypto wallet to chartered financial institution.
8:01 – 10:50 – Why Regulation Is a Growth StrategyHow embracing compliance and regulators builds trust and accelerates crypto adoption.
10:51 – 14:30 – The Future Banking StackCombining legacy safety with blockchain speed and programmability.
14:31 – 18:00 – Washington Gets OnboardInside the Genius and Clarity Acts — how D.C. is enabling innovation.
18:01 – 21:20 – Main Street Banking ReinventedHow community banks can access blockchain rails through Telcoin partnerships.
21:21 – 26:00 – EUSD: The Digital Cash ProductHow Telcoin’s stablecoin works — minting, reserves, and redemption explained.
26:01 – 31:00 – Real-World Use CasesFrom cross-border transfers to merchant payments — cheaper, faster, safer.
31:01 – 35:00 – De-Risking for Community BanksHelping smaller institutions onboard to blockchain rails without heavy lifts.
35:01 – 40:00 – AI + Blockchain: The ConvergenceHow AI will transform compliance, KYC, and transaction monitoring.
40:01 – 45:00 – Stablecoins as Payment RailsWhy stablecoins are the new ACH — programmable, self-clearing, and instant.
45:01 – 50:00 – Building a Digital Asset Bank from ScratchLessons from the charter process — regulation, risk, and reinvention.
50:01 – 54:00 – Future Vision: The Stablecoin EraHow stablecoins will become as common as debit cards within a decade.
FINTECHTALK: A Top 10% Global Podcast Shaping the Future of Fintech, AI, and Crypto and was recently ranked in the Best 100 Future Tech Podcasts by Million Podcasts.
Ranked by ListenNotes
Enjoy and always Be in the Know.
Paddy RamanathanFounder of iValley and Host of the FINTECHTALK™ Show (on Substack, Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify)
Interested in sponsorship opportunities and be associated with sculpting the future? Please reach out to [email protected].
Thanks to ChatGPT for suggestions.
(Violin piece in podcast, courtesy of my daughter Ilina)


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit substack.fintechtalk.ivalley.co/subscribe

Welcome FINTECHTALKERS!
In this episode, I sat down with Toby Brown, who leads regulated industries at Google Cloud, to explore how AI in financial services has evolved from pilot projects to real deployments driving measurable ROI.
Last year, the conversation was about proofs of concept. This year, it’s about deployment, integration, and scale. Toby explains how banks, fintechs, and exchanges are turning generative AI into productivity tools, compliance engines, and customer experience drivers—while building a framework for secure, regulated AI adoption.
We also dive into Google’s emerging role in agentic commerce—from the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol and Agentic Payments Protocol to the Google Cloud Universal Ledger, which enables programmable money movement and real-time settlement across industries.
If you’re curious about how AI, Stablecoins, and distributed ledgers are converging to define the next generation of financial infrastructure, this episode paints the roadmap from assistive chat to autonomous finance.
💡 Key Takeaways From the Episode
* AI goes from pilot to production: Deployments are happening across productivity, customer service, and marketing use cases.
* Agentic finance emerges: The next evolution—agents transacting, settling, and verifying autonomously.
* Google’s A2A and payments protocols: Open frameworks enabling secure, verifiable agent-to-agent interactions.
* Universal Ledger for programmable money: A distributed infrastructure built for compliance, throughput, and scale.
* Risk & compliance first: New AI models like Gemini enable anomaly detection, KYC automation, and financial crime prevention.
* Stablecoins’ institutional moment: Adoption is surging in B2B, remittances, and settlement—while consumer use cases are still forming.
* Customer experience reimagined: From static dashboards to interactive, multimedia financial guidance powered by generative AI.
* The future is hybrid: Human-in-the-loop systems for high-value transactions; autonomous AI for low-friction commerce.
🎧 Listen now to the full episode
⏱️ Timestamp Table
0:00 – 2:00 – Welcome + Meet Toby BrownFrom 20 years in financial services to leading Google Cloud’s regulated industries team.
2:01 – 4:00 – AI’s New VocabularyFrom pilots and proofs to deploy, integrate, measure.4:01 – 7:00 – Where AI Works TodayReal ROI in developer productivity, customer service, and marketing (with Klarna results).7:01 – 10:00 – Agentic Commerce Takes ShapeThe shift from assistive chat to autonomous money movement.10:01 – 13:00 – A2A & Agentic Payments ProtocolOpen frameworks for agent-to-agent trust and verification.13:01 – 18:00 – Universal Ledger + PartnersHow PayPal, AmEx, Etsy, and CME are piloting programmable money infrastructure.18:01 – 22:00 – Stablecoins in ContextEarly wins in B2B remittance and institutional settlement; consumer use cases still emerging.22:01 – 26:00 – AI for Risk, Fraud, and KYCFinancial crime detection and compliance automation with Gemini.26:01 – 29:00 – Reimagining Customer ExperienceFrom text and charts to interactive, multimedia financial guidance.29:01 – 31:00 – The Always-On Financial AdvisorAI-powered advisory and inclusion at scale.31:01 – End – Announcements + Where to Find MoreGoogle Cloud at Money20/20; Monday, Oct. 27 keynote.
FINTECHTALK: A Top 10% Global Podcast Shaping the Future of Fintech, AI, and Crypto and was recently ranked in the Best 100 Future Tech Podcasts by Million Podcasts.
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Enjoy and always be in the know,
Paddy RamanathanFounder of iValley and Host of the FINTECHTALK™ Show (on Substack, Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify)
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Thanks to ChatGPT for suggestions.
(Violin piece in podcast, courtesy of my daughter Ilina)


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