Block and Circle are teaming up to onboard crypto's next billion users

Stablecoins • October 5, 2022, 5:00AM EDT

UPDATED: October 5, 2022, 9:26AM EDT

Episode 95 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at live at Converge with The Block's Frank Chaparro, Circle's CRO Kash Razzaghi and TBD's Co-Founder & COO Emily Chiu.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected].

TBD, the crypto focused arm of Jack Dorsey’s Block, is partnering with Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, to unleash the power of stablecoin payments onto the next billion crypto users.

In this episode of The Scoop, Circle’s Chief Revenue Officer Kash Razzaghi and TBD’s Chief Operating Officer Emily Chiu discuss their new partnership, and explain how their companies’ synergy is going to make it easier to move value back and forth between crypto and the real world economy.

According to Chiu, the crypto industry is lacking a way to exchange crypto for real world items:

“The minute you nexus upon the real world and commerce in the real world, you need to solve these really hard problems that haven't yet been solved in the space. That's what TBDex does, and we see USDC and stablecoins as a critical bridge for facilitating these transactions.”

One of the first use-cases will be a remittance function that enables payments between the US and Mexico, a corridor that sees billions flow a year.

TBD hopes its digital identity solution will put users in control of both their identity and data as well as who they share it with. As Chiu explains, these digital identity solutions will hopefully promote global economic empowerment:

“Regardless of what identity you have, you can create a self-sovereign identity wallet regardless of who you are, there's no intermediary and you need permission from in order to start transacting and engaging with the global economy.

During this episode, Chaparro, Chiu, and Razzaghi also discuss:

How this partnership will improve remittances
When TBD’s products will launch
Why businesses can also benefit from using stablecoins

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron

About Tron
TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |

About Authors

Davis Quinton is the Director of Podcasts at The Block and runs our flagship podcast called The Scoop, hosted by Frank Chaparro. Since joining The Block as an 'intern' in early 2022, he has worked closely with leaders across departments to translate The Block's written content into engaging multimedia formats. He holds a degree in Social Research & Public Policy from New York University in Abu Dhabi and is based in Sydney, Australia.

Frank Chaparro is Host of The Scoop podcast and Director of Special Projects. He also writes a biweekly newsletter. Chaparro started his career at Business Insider, where he specialized in the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street, market structure, and financial technology. Soon after joining Business Insider out of Fordham University, Chaparro was interviewing top finance and tech executives, including billionaire Mark Cuban, “Flash Boys” star Brad Katsuyama, Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly, and New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley. In 2018, he become a sought after reporter in the crypto world, interviewing luminaries such as Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of Gemini, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, and Fundstrat head Tom Lee. For inquiries or tips, email [email protected].