The Briefing Memo

May 2025 - If you’re new here, welcome to The Briefing Memo, which features the latest insights and updates from The Venture Dept.

Matt moderated a panel at Solana Accelerate on “Will Stablecoins be Winner-Takes-All?” with panelists Johhann Kerbrat, Head of Crypto at Robinhood, and Eric Kuhn, Head of Onchain at Gemini. The conversation covered whether the stablecoin market will consolidate, evolving use cases, federal legislation's impact, non-USD stablecoins, and privacy in transactions. Watch the full panel for insights, and explore all sessions from the event, including the "Internet Capital Markets" track.

We co-hosted two events alongside Stablecon, one with our friends at Jenner & Block and a second with portfolio company Predicate, as well as the Uniswap Foundation, Paxos, and North Island Ventures. The panel discussed a joint collaboration among Predicate, Uniswap Foundation, and Paxos enabling institutional participation in defi liquidity pools by using Predicate’s compliance policy protocol. The panel was moderated by our friend Ji Kim.

Matt spoke at Stablecon on a panel titled “Investing in the stablecoin ecosystem – how to parse hype from opportunity,” moderated by Lucinda Shen of Axios, and alongside Rob Hadick of Dragonfly, Nic Carter of Castle Island, and Sam Broner of a16z. Kudos to friend of the Dept., Nik Milanovic, creator of Stablecon, on a one-of-a-kind gathering for the stablecoin ecosystem.

Portfolio Company Updates

Congratulations to portfolio company Mountain Protocol on their acquisition by Anchorage Digital!

• AlfredPay: Selected as a mainnet participate in the Circle Payment Network.

• Bridge (exited): Following its acquisition of Bridge, Stripe has launched Stablecoin Financial Accounts, enabling businesses in 101 countries to manage dollar-denominated stablecoin balances and facilitate global transactions via crypto and fiat rails. Bridge has also introduced its USDB stablecoin and partnered with Visa to issue stablecoin-linked cards for everyday spending.

• Etherfuse: Launched the $MXNe stablecoin, which has quickly eclipsed other MXN denominated stablecoins and submitted a comment letter to the SEC on access to foreign sovereign debt.

• Haraka: Congratulations to Haraka on their success in Stablecon’s startup pitch competition.

• Multiliquid: Released “Stablecoins: The Practitioner's Guide – a comprehensive deep dive into the $250 billion stablecoin ecosystem that's reshaping global finance.”

• Predicate: Announced partnerships with Webacy, Alchemy, Uniswap Foundation and Paxos, Cube3, Khalani, Witness Chain, Human.Tech, and Rayls.

• Squid: Announced a slew of new partnerships.

• StableSea: Announced the StableSea Terminal, a dashboard that gives companies access to deep liquidity, real-time FX, and compliant stablecoin conversion.

• Superstate: Launched Opening Bell, a platform that enables companies to issue and trade SEC-registered public equities directly on blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, with SOL Strategies as the first issuer, offering 24/7 trading and real-time settlement.