Heath Tarbert, Circle President | From Crypto Winter to IPO | Stablecoins AI and the Future of Money

[00:00:01][music] It can be as big as the economy allows it to be. The sky is the limit.

[00:00:10]>> The company starts becoming potentially, you know, generational.

[00:00:13]>> The fact that people are coming out and saying, "We want to build a stable coin." Validates our thesis. The pie is only getting bigger.

[00:00:20]>> The big swing [music] there is, as you say, if it were to be used as collateral in traditional finance. We've been able to get more products out the door in the last 6 months than probably in the last 6 years. We are going to be an AIdriven organization. One day you're going to have a headline. Blockchain is king. Has overtaken traditional finance. We have to win today, but we can but [music] we're only going to win in the long run by thinking about tomorrow.

[00:00:59]Keith, welcome on to the Surging Forana Show.

[00:01:02]>> Great to be here, Lloyd. Thank you so much.

[00:01:04]>> Absolute pleasure. So excited to have this wide ranging conversation with you just to um set the scene uh for anybody in the audience who um doesn't uh know Heath. Keith is the president at Circle and uh we are uh excited to have um you on almost two years to the day that we had your colleague Jeremy on uh in 200.

[00:01:34]>> My boss >> um you're Wait, does it work like that if you're the president?

[00:01:41]>> Yeah, he's other way around.

[00:01:42]>> He's the chairman and CEO. [laughter] No, no, very much so. So Jer Jeremy was on 2024 uh middle of the year and then uh a year on from then 2025 we had the uh IPO um that we will um critique thoroughly.

[00:02:00]Okay, >> which is a year on uh today and uh it feels like a nice time to pick the conversation back up with you um uh and take the chance to review what has come before and then also really look into what's happening right now. It feels like a very important um time in financial technologies history. Uh and couldn't think of anyone better to have that conversation with than you. So to start with if you could be so kind to for anybody in the audience who wants to know more or doesn't know who you are Heath and what you're doing just to aair more than my introduction if you could take it away please.

[00:02:38]>> Sure. So I'm president of circle of course circle is a le leading global financial technology and infrastructure firm. We're known for first and foremost I think for USDC which is the world's leading regulated stable coin. It's used in more stable coin transactions than any other stable coin in the world. Uh but we're also building infrastructure like our layer one block enterprise blockchain which is called ARC and we can talk a little bit about that. We're also laying the groundwork for agentic commerce. And so at the company uh I oversee um risk, compliance, legal uh all of sort of the operational functions, IT, security as well as communications, relations with governments, uh and play an external and an internal role. But my main job as I would say it is Jeremy is a brilliant visionary. That's very clear. Uh my job is to help him turn that vision into a reality.

[00:03:34]>> Thank you. Um, and what immediately comes across is the um, red thread perhaps that um, I'm curious about at the moment and many of the interviews are are searching for which is we feel like we're in a moment in the market where phenomenal revolutionary almost infrastructure has been um, bought online. And uh when I was talking to Jeremy, you know, he said a few things that I think are are great quotes, but certainly one was, you know, you can just go back through the history to double-edged accounting, the digitalization of the internet, and then we're at this moment where we can have value exchange um digitally. And what really took me um by surprise in a positive way was how Jeremy, to your point, was thinking on such a grand scale. Not um that there's anything wrong with it, but a lot of people will look at okay, there's a trend. I can make a really impressive company into this trend. Stable coins has been one of the massive user cases of uh of digital assets. whilst was already thinking in those terms, just thinking on a much grander societal level and how this can be a technology platform to move value around broadly.

[00:04:59]And so to immediately hear where you are and where you're thinking now which is for the next massive trend that's coming through which is aantic commerce and having arc there um really makes me think that you know the vision that Jeremy saw um is coming together and you know just to start with um let's go the other way round how big can this company be?

[00:05:26]It can be as big as the economy allows it to be which can be incredibly big. I mean the the the the short answer is I think in very much the the sky is the limit and if and if circle sort of to go back one of the reasons I joined circle apart from it being a company that was really serious about integrity because we haven't talked about my government background but I come from a I'm I am a I am a different kind of fintech executive given my government background. But the other thing that really makes circle unique is that the vision also comes down to a really important mission statement which is to create global economic prosperity to increase global economic pro prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. And so the whole thesis is essentially because of blockchain technology including some of the stuff that we're building at Circle we'll be able to bring cost down to virtually nothing. And as a result, we'll have more interactions than ever before economically, just as the internet allowed for more communication, millionfold, right? Million and billionfold. And so you think about that, the ability now to do transactions at virtually no cost, cross borders, people that literally have no bank account, can now send money back and forth and have economic freedom. You combine that with AI and the agentic world and before you know it, you're multiplying it at levels that are beyond. And so if Circle does what our mission sets forth for us to do, the company will scale accordingly and the value will be there.

[00:07:08]>> Yeah. Um I I can see that and it's it's it's so exciting. Um because just a couple of years ago I would appreciate the vision but it seemed it seemed a long way off whereas now the other side of the IPO really the thesis there playing into um aentic commerce where um it's not concluded but it is a good thesis that um you know someone like a circle will be crucial in that infrastructure then the company starts becoming potentially you generational. So that's why I do the show. So I just want to clarify that. So >> we are hopeful. We are absolutely aiming for that. We we call ourselves a full stack internet financial platform company. And the idea is is what Google has done, what Meta has done, what all of these other giants have done in the tech industry to date, particularly the internet side where they achieve great network effects. Circle wants to do that in the finan the internet financial system. So, let's not um go back through the background just yet because we'll do that uh in the middle section of the show, but let's go back to you and Jeremy coming together and um assuming he is obviously um the incredible visionary that you described, the the awareness he has to, you know, bring you in as um as his teammate and Um I'd like to understand how that came together. um the moment perhaps where for you it was because massive move for you to make you know aha I see what circle can be but also I trust that my role here is crucial which it would need to be to make the move and then we'll start walking through how that's panned out for the company and where it is today because I'd like to then understand how you've explained how you spend your time but also what has that allowed Jeremy to spend his time on more which is the crucial point.

[00:09:12]Yeah. So I had the opportunity after leaving government to work for one of the great financial companies uh of all time, Citadel Securities. Every day about 25% of the of the US financial the stock market goes through the pipes of Citadel Securities. Um really loved working for the founder there who is another great titan of business, Ken Griffin. We moved out to Chicago. My wife is from the Midwest. And about a year or two into the job, they decided they were going to relocate 1300 miles away. And at that point, I wasn't going to move my family. I've always said, I'm going to choose my family first. And so, >> even over Ken, >> even over Ken. And it was tough. It was tough. Um, but Ken ultimately was like, you made the right decision. Family first. Your kids are young and you need to be there for them. And so I had a period where I was a still a partner at at Citadel Securities and and the chief legal officer, but ultimately was thinking about, well, I I may stay on in some capacity there, but I'm not going to permanently relocate 1300 miles away.

[00:10:15]I've got to think about what I'm going to do next. I thought about teaching, right? This would be a great opportunity to go to a university, a law faculty, be a part of that. I thought about board service. Um, and I heard though that Circle was looking for someone and I said, "Well, that's an interesting and unique opportunity." Uh, heard heard through friends. It was not advertised and I had heard of Jeremy Aair and back in 2018, I was sitting on the financial stability board and I remember it very clearly.

[00:10:50]Mark Carney, who is now the prime minister of Canada, back then was Bank of England governor and FSB chair, came in and said, "I know we have an entire agenda for this setting in Basil, but we need to scrap it or at least scrap most of it because there's something big on the horizon and we need to talk about it. It's this thing with Facebook. It's called the Libra project, though at the time I'm not sure if it was called anything. Uh and it was the idea of stable coins of essentially internet money that would be created and backed by something right it was a little amorphous at the time but essentially that was the debate and we discussed it with central banks around the world and at that moment I said this is going to happen someone is going to figure this out and they're going to be able to take value and move it over the internet through blockchains at scale and it is going to transform the financial sector so years Later when I heard about the opportunity at circle the Libra project had dissolved I said let me check these guys out. I learned about Jeremy and the one thing that attracted me to Jeremy two things a the vision obviously a great visionary but secondly his integrity his experience there were a lot of folks in the digital asset industry many brilliant people but for whom integrity was not necessarily playing by the rules uh understanding public policy it was literally when as I was checking this out in the middle of the crypto winter Circle was not fairing well u but other companies were fairing far worse and everyone who looked at me said you must be crazy you know you've got one of the best jobs in finance you're working for one of the greatest leaders of all time why on earth would you leave that to go into this industry >> but I thought to myself and said this is precisely the time I need to go into this industry and so Jeremy when he came to me and we discussed it he said look I don't need just a lawyer. I need someone who's going to help me think through what does the world look like when stable coins are a regulated form of electronic money alongside cash alongside deposits and how do we make that world a reality? How do we make that happen? And how do we turn away from this crypto winter and turn this into the financial system of the future and have governments around the world back it? Now, he had already started that work. great colleagues. Dante Desparte is another uh amazing colleague and there were a bunch of others at circle who had been working on this project for years. Um but a as a former government official as well as someone who had been in Tradfi in a major way, I thought, well, maybe I can help with this and this is going to be a fun project. This is going to be hard, but by golly, it's going to be a lot of fun.

[00:13:44]And I joined up. Um, and and and and I'm so glad I did because again, circle Jeremy proved everything. Not only was he a great visionary and continues to be a great visionary, but he wanted to do things in the right way. when you want to do things in the right way. Um, in this instance, there are really tough moments because of course, um, and it sounds like the organization and Jeremy were taking that path anyway. But since you took the move and everyone called you crazy whilst you believed this was the right thing to do for you, and today it sounds like that's absolutely true.

[00:14:24]What's been the hardest moment where if you reflect, you know, the the head was in the hands and [laughter] maybe pulling some of the hair out?

[00:14:36]Well, I would say about 6 months into it, uh, I joined the company, our valuation immediately dropped 25%. The crypto winter deepened and USDC was in a freef fall. It had gone from 55 billion a little before I had come and it and it slid and it would eventually slide down to something like 23 billion 22 billion something like that. Uh and it was very tough and other companies were going bankrupt. Uh the SEC was was out there that the US Securities and Exchange Commission uh looking to put companies out of business. even reputable companies like us who got the first New York bit license who were trying to do things in the right way and everyone was saying if look if you want to stay in this business go overseas and so we had to believe that it would be possible to turn USDC around turn the company around and quite frankly turn the public policy environment around and so I would say that the be the first six months of the job uh 2024 was a was a was a was a tough slog but we we managed to do it and a year later we were IPOing.

[00:15:47]>> But are you in that exact moment and or Jeremy or both of you? Um just complete um I think there's a popular term at the moment deluded optimists. Uh silver lining just doesn't matter. It is water off a duck's back. You're both waking up and it's like noise. We know what we've got here. We're focused. Or is there a moment where one of you is picking the other up slightly more? Does it ever get to a point where you sit there and reflect, I might need to call Ken or go take that uni job? [laughter] >> You know, it's funny. So, first of all, Jeremy is optimism is one of his that might be his mana, right? Uh optimism is one of his key strengths. And so, no matter what's happening, he's he's always incredibly positive and optimistic, which makes him a great leader to learn from and work for.

[00:16:39]myself I tend to be a little bit more of a realist but I've adopted something known as the Stockdale principle right which is um confront reality as harsh and and I've actually presented this to the entire company uh a couple of years ago which is confront reality as harsh as it may be really understand it don't color code it etc because you need to understand what you're facing but at the same time do have that undying belief then in the end you will prevail. Right?

[00:17:10]So you need both in my view. You need the optimism but you also must have the challenges very clearly in your mind or you will never be able to surmount them. And so that's essentially what we did. We laid it all out and said this is what we're facing. And we asked that question. What does it take to win?

[00:17:31]>> I love that. They should certainly teach that in school. What um did it take to win? So to highlight a few um industry successes whilst adding structure crucially which is what I think since you joined the industry needed in stable coins in particular to break out. We have uh ma we have the genius act you heavily involved in circle heavily involved in um getting that over the line quite frankly and being a great ambassador of why to do it. Were those the type of wins that you felt moved the dial in the last two years?

[00:18:10]>> Absolutely. As alongside just winning in in the market itself, convincing folks around the world that if you're going to use a digital dollar, you want something that is 100% back, safe, transparent, reliable, on more blockchain, building out on every more on more blockchains than any other stable coin takes months and years of engineering work. USDC is eight years old, so it has been a long slog, but it's day by day thinking about what moves the needle and then the sort of getting 1% better, you know, at every interval and before you know it, you're you're scaling to where you need to be.

[00:18:45]Now, I will say it wasn't just blind delusional optimism because everybody at Circle understands that this technology is revolutionary and far superior to the current payment system. And so we had that on our side. We said it it doesn't matter. It was like the early days of the internet like yes cable is is uh is is dominant uh and and and people are saying I don't I don't necessarily want to dial up or I don't it's a pain to stream my television. But ultimately we said it's going to just like back then it was clear to Jeremy back in the 1990s that one day your television and your computer would be the same thing. It's clear to us at Circle that the financial system will be one day the internet financial system over blockchains. So we had that going for us, but it could it's it's it's not going to occur overnight.

[00:19:36]And so the question is what do we have to do to take those most important steps now to make that a reality >> and it can be obvious that that's where the market is but it doesn't mean that you'll be a participant as a company of course around that true as well that in internet phase whilst um you had so much going for you it sounds like in terms of internal culture and talent whilst also um you know one of only the couple real buildouts of the technology Um and then also obviously network effects and so network effects brings us um more up to date. So we uh just in July 2026, I feel like it's been a better few weeks within the markets from from from from updates. We have Robin Hood chain coming out and a bunch of things. Whilst we also have what has been discussed as uh more of a competitive landscape where a lot of industry partners have um got behind um uh a a a new um US dollar stable coin.

[00:20:45]Um I've read um Jeremy's statement which is um as ever fantastic. Um we need more people, we need more participants. Um and then others which is this could be really competitively damaging to USDC and um just to highlight that there is also um you know the um sense that Coinbase is backing this other um dollar stable coin. Um I'd love to hear your take on this.

[00:21:21]>> Yeah. So the bottom line is the fact that people are coming out and saying we want to build a stable coin validates our thesis. Right? If we were in there often they teach the blue ocean strategy in business schools and my view has always been well be very careful because the Bermuda Triangle is also in the blue ocean, right? There may be a there may be a reason no one is in that space or so, right? So this validates the fact that the future are instable coins. This is real, right? and the fact that people want to compete against USDC once again it shows that years ago people weren't talking about that. Um the other thing that is unique here is that you've got well everyone's joining every consortium. So just keep that in mind, right? Everyone coin Co Coinbase is clearly behind USDC. It's a critical part of their their economics, their earnings. They're behind behind it 100%.

[00:22:15]But the opportunity to join something else to have it on their platform. Of course, we ourselves may find ourselves joining other other platforms and consortiums, it's not it's not a thing.

[00:22:27]But consortiums themselves, it's an important lesson.

[00:22:32]Rarely successful, have an abysmal record in uh stable coins in particular.

[00:22:38]We know I don't know if this was in Jeremy's statement but USDC started out as a consortium and we quickly realized number one uh governance is difficult number two economics harder and number three innovation's nearly impossible right and so so the consortium model we don't necessarily view as a major competitive threat but the idea that people are going to come out and create dollar stable coins well the genius act basically opens that up. Of course, they're going to do that. And the fact that they're doing it again validates the idea that this has a major major future and the pie is only getting bigger, right? So, you think about well 140 people did X Y and Z or they joined this. That means a hundred of them 3, four years ago weren't going to touch this stuff. When I was sitting in my position five years ago, I would have never suggested that we get involved with stable coins back then, right? In the trady sector. Well, that's changed now. So, all of those now present bigger and greater opportunities for circle. So, when Jeremy says like we welcome the competition, we honestly do because I think it's only going to strengthen USDC in the long run.

[00:23:56]>> Thank you. Is there something that at the moment would be what you would consider the real competition then?

[00:24:05]I think the real competition could be a Federal Reserve digital retail dollar.

[00:24:12]Right? So if the Federal Reserve itself came out and said, "We're going to create a digital dollar and everyone's going to use that." I could see that there being a question, well, should should we use the Fed's digital dollar or should we use circles? I still think many people would say, I don't want to touch that thing. I don't want big brother. I don't want big government watching everything I do. Uh and and and but that would never likely happen anyway. Of course, the Genius Act makes that uh unlawful for the Fed to to create a stable coin, the banking industry itself, but that would be the thing where I would say, okay, now you've got the Federal Reserve system or something issuing a digital dollar. That could be a credible threat to a dollar stable coin. But that said, even where we see CBDC's, people are still op uh opting for stable coins in those currencies because they don't want to necessarily touch something that the government is monitoring.

[00:25:14]take me through a bit of scale from um IPO where you sat there because you'll be very attuned to the the scale of the organization exactly then and where we are now uh and then we can get into where we're going and by scale um uh the adoption the use of um USDC.

[00:25:40]>> Yeah. So, so at the time of the IPO, uh, the focus was on building the world's largest and most widely used stable coin network, continuing to adopt, uh, have adoption on chains, continuing to build out the use cases. A month later, the Genius Act comes into law and that is a huge gamecher, right? that really allows us to now have real dialogues with institutions about using USDC for cash management.

[00:26:09]Something that would be hard to discuss a year or so ago.

[00:26:12]>> Yeah.

[00:26:13]>> It allows us to have dialogues with large clearing houses about using USDC uh and and other stable coins as well like EURC as collateral and derivatives exchanges. Uh and it also allows us to talk about banks coming in and creating having circle mint accounts where they actually in the United States and in other jurisdictions distribute USDC to their customers. So it's allowed us to have discussions about scaling uh in in in a in a real tangible way that we couldn't have at the time of the IPO.

[00:26:49]And then I would say in addition to that, scaling has largely been a big feature of our adoption of AI.

[00:26:59]We've been able to get more products out the door in the last 6 months than probably in the last six years because we've embraced and it and it is a companywide mandate.

[00:27:10]We are going to be an AIdriven organization and parts of the organization will actually be AI native.

[00:27:16]So that has been a major push and everyone in the organization regardless of what your title is, parallegal, executive assistant, lead engineer, you must use AI, you must learn AI and you must demonstrate how it's critical to your role. Most people saw this as what it is. Yeah, >> real opportunity because if you're 26 years old, you've been out of university for four or five years, the future's going to be AI anyway. And if the company is basically saying, we're going to pay for you to learn AI. We're going to give you all these tools. You're going to be that's one of the terms we use is AI centaur. A centaur. So, sort of half your body is AI and half your body is a gentic and half your body is human. And if you become that, you will become one of the most valuable people of your generation in the workforce in the future. And so just for training purposes, people are staying on to say like this is this is a once in a-lifetime opportunity.

[00:28:18]>> Um let's get into um AI and Aentic. Just want to finish the trail on the last question.

[00:28:26]>> Um just to just to just to get that scale again. um if if if you're able to and and approximations I just want to understand um how much how much use there is um so how much volume um but but really why I want to understand that yeah >> is I want to understand um what the curve's doing >> right >> and then crucially where that curve is coming from hence by being able to now have adoption as you say in clearing houses. I mean the quantum just becomes bigger than >> absolutely >> almost anything else. And so strategically um I know that you will be pressing into that whilst I also assume that it is just as crucial that this is in the hands of individuals to use on the retail side. And so there's a lot to cover here. I'd love you to dance around that please and where adoption is and where the focus for the company is. Um, so if you could just try to break that out please.

[00:29:31]>> So in the first quarter of this year the key number is 21 and a half trillion dollar in stable coin transactions. So that's a huge number that dwarfs anything else in the past. So that's the that's the amount of transactions that USDC has been involved with and it's about 63% according to Visa. Other other people put it at closer to 80%. So that's just USDC flow flowing around. Um some of those use cases we can divine but again we're looking out at blockchains that's onchain activity. So digital asset trading but we're also seeing crossber remittances. We're seeing um uh wholesale use in trade finance and then we're starting to see trady adoption but we haven't seen that yet. So I would say we're in the early stages of the use of USDC as collateral in the traditional financial sector.

[00:30:29]Clearly being used as collateral in the digital asset sector but not in the financial sector yet. Um and then we are starting to see it being used on rails for payments, credit cards, Visa, Mastercard, they're offering, you know, the ability to pay in USDC. may not be the entirely preferred payment given given the uh there are more there there are better there are ways in which uh they can make more money using the traditional means but at the same time if your customers are demanding look I can send stable coin payments at a fraction of the interchange fees um you've got to offer it to folks um and then we're building the agentic stack that has not come to fruition yet right so we're we're working with some of the standards but we haven't seen that scale The short answer to your question is um we have an idea but it's not very clear what is going to grow f first and how much. And so in some ways we're almost like a farmer where we're planting seeds in various various types of crops and various types of fields. We're trying to water them and depending on the weather and the conditions and the climate some of them are going to sprout sooner rather than later and we'll harvest them.

[00:31:43]>> Yeah. But so it so it it's and in some ways it it really hones in on what they don't teach you in business school about strategy. Uh that it is a mixture of doing things and trying to shape the landscape but at the same time there are other forces at play and you have to be patient and you have to understand where things are going to happen and be there.

[00:32:03]>> Yeah. And I really appreciate you being transparent about that being what you're doing because it it makes complete sense and is really interesting to just think of what you said where really of course generically it's not crossed over into tradition you have right now is incredibly valuable but that just becomes why wild.

[00:32:34]But >> we've had big announcements last week.

[00:32:36]We had BNY Melon say USDC, the only stable coin at this point, is going to be made available to their customers for the first time. Yeah.

[00:32:43]>> Standard chartered, same thing.

[00:32:45]Customers now can go to standard chartered directly to get USDC.

[00:32:49]>> Yeah. But the big that's massive. The big swing there is, as you say, if it were to be used as collateral in traditional finance. So you just think of all the floats that sit ranging from fixed income to reinsurance and the quantum there alone.

[00:33:05]>> Absolutely.

[00:33:06]>> Um just just outside the media triangle >> if you have the stable >> coin there in trad that market is so large and so one one business >> thought could be the setup that wins that is quite different to what wins a gentic.

[00:33:23]>> Right. Now you of course have a platform large enough where it can have different personality for either or but it is always I think slightly a risk to spread into different opportunities whilst actually you might suggest it's also a risk to not if you don't know the timing of the road map love just a little bit of thinking there >> I mean there's an old saying that the essence of strategy is determining what you're not going to do and that strategy itself is a product of scarcity scarcity of resources. So we are continually asking that question of ourselves. Yeah.

[00:33:58]>> Where do we put our time, talent and resources? Now the good news is is AI has actually enabled us to >> Yes. has as as as you know I don't know how many X's 10 20xed our productivity at least that's the goal. So we're able to do more things and we're able to scale in a way that we quite frankly we we we didn't two years ago. I mean it's dramatically changed the ability to use you know cloud codework. We have a number of AI systems working simultaneously. Um but we're constantly shifting and thinking and you have to make these investments. I would say the tradctor takes time and patience and we've laid that by the way we've started this years ago but now with genius with with the UK moving its own regime into place and we're starting to see stable coins uh you know become much more they're no longer a newsworthy item, right? they they are becoming, you know, run-of-the-mill, which is precisely what we want. We don't want people talking about stable coins. We want people talking about money, right? And so, it will take some time, but we're investing the resources there. The agentic world is is much different in some ways because in many ways it presents that problem that often people talk about it as being skumorphic, which is, you know, with the trad essentially thinking about what do you do today and how can stable coins make that better. Yeah. right? You you're you're posting margin overnight. Uh your rates are much higher. There's time lag and therefore your initial margin is going to be much greater. But with stable coins, you can do it instantaneously. You can enjoy uh much all things being equal lower initial margin because the volatility isn't there. You can send money quickly vary.

[00:35:39]So that's sort of easy. But the and that's you know sort of skumorphic. But with the agentic world, the uses for stable coins, we haven't even figured what they're going to be yet, right? So, we don't even know ultimately where that's going to go. And so, some ways the the agentic world represents a more interesting, more fun, but more imaginative strategy process.

[00:36:06]One of the things we're thinking about, of course, is nano payments. Like, nano payments have never scaled, right? And and and I think you know Jeremy's view on this is they haven't scaled not simply because of payment systems and the cost though friction is an issue right so you're not going to have nano payments if there's a level of friction you're going to have to have some hurdle rate as you know essentially if the transaction is under a penny it's not worth doing the transaction but when things become frictionless that makes it easier but but but I'd say his major view is one of the reasons we don't have nano payment is because we're still having humanto human payments and the cognitive load of figuring out whether something should be a tenth of a penny or something is is is not going to be something that humans put their time into. Interestingly, in my background in tradi working for one of the world's glo global market makers, of course, uh stocks are traded at mills, right? It's sort of, you know, fractions of a penny.

[00:37:08]And so algorithms and computer algorithms can figure that out. But with a gentic world, when you have agents to agents and they're supplying work to one another and they're hiring one another, USDC can go down to 110,000th of a penny. So you could see a scenario where agents are transacting almost at a microscopic level when it comes to money, but if they're doing it billions and billions of times a day, that adds up, right? And so those are the kinds of use cases that are not around today that we can't even possibly fathom today. And then there's businesses that the agents themselves will create on blockchains building protocols. And again, USDC would be the ideal form of money for that. But we don't even know what those businesses are going to be yet.

[00:37:53]>> Yeah. Such a creative and interesting landscape to to to think across. He what I'd love you to um talk to here as somebody who has your legal background and has you know as you say you know almost come into the hard to the soft of Jeremy if we think of vision and then we think of operating you both have all of the matrix of course but what has to happen or not from a um policy regulatory perspective here for all of the wonderful ideas we have about agantic commerce us if we rift off of what's happened for USDC to come through to this point. What has to happen for USDC to come through that agantic landscape?

[00:38:39]>> Yes. And so I I am getting my head around that as we speak. But a few things. First of all, there has to be legal certainty. There has to be settlement finality. There has to be a way of uh sorting out, you know, mistakes, you know, legal legal legal issues. uh there has to be regulation to be able to determine whether or not the agent is truly an agent and acts on behalf of the principal. Uh and so there's a whole paniply and that is where I'm focusing some of my time now.

[00:39:09]So I don't have an easy answer because in some ways this is the next three-year project just like the last three years was figuring out how should stable coins be built and regulated so they can be used in everyday commerce. We've sort of climbed that mountain and now in some ways this is the second mountain.

[00:39:29]>> Yeah. And for that mountain you can, you know, for for me almost always talent comes into everything if you really break it down, right? Um so you could take someone who worked at the scale that you did in traditional finance and think of various systems that were operating in derivative exchange there that then might be the future of USDC here. And as you say, it's waiting for the market to afford it to happen. This is as as as we're exploring a new universe. Where does the talent come from who can uh use parallels to even think it through? You're you're a good example, but there are things that just haven't existed, if that makes all sense. What do you do from a cultural perspective? So, you've clearly completely embraced and adopted you know using it yourself everybody is super used now of AI so that's crucial first step but what do you do from a talent and cultural perspective to be able to answer these questions in real time as possibly the biggest opportunity that's ever presented itself as >> a lot of it is trial and error a lot of it is experimentation because there aren't answers and in terms of finding talent uh I what I found is that each generation I think brings much to the table. The generation X uh folks, I don't know if you're a millennial or generation X, somewhere in Yeah.

[00:40:59]>> Yeah. I'm I'm I'm 43, so I'm right on the uh >> right on the edge there. Yeah. But I've I've been very impressed with Gen Z and now I look at my children who are uh Gen Alpha actually uh right the beginning of Gen Alpha and their ability to understand technology almost natively as if you like like we learn to read uh they can just just in some ways they are centaurs and so they're bringing an imagination and a capability to understand what's possible that I think I I certainly don't bring to the table, but it's matching that with well well what is reality here and how is a how is a 58-year-old regulator thinking about this right you need both you need to be able to understand what the future and how you can shape that future but also understand well what's the policy reaction going to be from Washington or Brussels because if those things don't match up it's not going to work in the long run please subscribe to our YouTube Spotify or iTunes tunes to make sure you receive all the latest episodes as they are released.

[00:42:10]>> Yeah, I I think that's such a powerful message. Um and it's it's inspiring to hear because there's a lot of dooming at the moment around um displacement of work which of course whenever their mega trends does does >> I mean the industrial revolution created a displacement of work >> whilst um you know as you say for a generation coming through now you can get up to speed and almost potentially be ahead uh within a few years. So, it's encouraging to hear that. It feels like that hasn't been the case for say 10 or 15 years, but we may well be starting to come back and for your for your family that that's great to that's great to hear as they start to look at what they'll do. Um, we'll go into the next se section. Um, I think we've covered the the the here and the now and a little bit about >> challenges and opportunities that you're you're working on. Um, so it be great to, you know, really find out a little bit more about that that background. But just just to just to just to conclude from what I've heard here, one like one of the things I really think is super powerful message [snorts] is what you said around, you know, you've got to and I'd love to I'd love to read or hear that speech that you gave to the team.

[00:43:28]you know, you've got to embrace the challenge and you've got to be upfront about that whilst you have to be, you know, delusionally optimistic as I put it. And I think that, you know, that is the nature of good business and particularly when you're building something that a lot of people are going to be naysayers about. Let's find out where that came from in your background.

[00:43:47]I don't know you're walking around at 10 thinking like that. I'm sure it's been a I'm sure it's been a journey. So, if you could be so kind to take us back to start with, whatever you feel would be um you know, for formative years of where um where your your career either started or where you first started to get your teeth stuck into, you know, I'm really passionate about this. You know, for Jeremy, it was the internet. For you, uh love to hear the story of what got you there.

[00:44:13]>> Yeah. So, uh, probably the best way to start would be, you know, grew up in a, uh, middle-class family, was the first in my family to go off to a four-year college. And so, education has always been critical to me. And I feel my like I I'm continuing to learn. I'm a lifelong student, right? With the convergence of AI and everything else, I am continuing to learn and I am always a student. Um, but I I I studied accounting and and finance because uh my father was was an accountant and it was a way to sort of quite frankly bring our our our family out of poverty but my parents were married at 19 uh and they had to figure out what to do and he became an accountant and it's the language of business decisions. So I studied that but I always wanted to go on because accountant accounting is about understanding the rules but the real question is well who makes up the rules and where do they come from. So that natur naturally led to law. So I went on uh and studied law uh so finance and law and practice for a number of years but found myself in Washington. Uh had the opportunity to clerk for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit which is sort of the second highest court in the United States. Uh it has the jurisdiction over the US government. So all government decisions most of them that are made in the dis the the capital by federal agencies like the banking regulators end up getting reviewed by that court. So it was an eyeopening experience to learn how federal agencies and how regulation works that particular court. Then I went on to clerk for the US Supreme Court uh and was in the White House Council's office. So that's the point at which I feel like my career took from a generalist standpoint to something far more specific. Um I came into the Bush administration in the summer of 2008. I just finished my Supreme Court clerkship and there were a number of people leaving the Bush administration. Uh it was an election year and he only had he was serving in his second term and I came in thinking I was going to practice constitutional law dealing with the powers of the presidency and congress. I interviewed for the job and they said, "Well, you know, you have a financial background, very unique. Um and it just so happens the person that was covering financial markets for us left and so if it's okay with you, we're going to give you that portfolio. But don't worry, it's at the end of an administration.

[00:46:48]You're not likely to have to do anything with it. Well, two weeks later, Fanny and Freddy fail. Three weeks later, four four weeks later or so, Lehman collapses, and I become the young 31-year-old White House counsel full-time on the global financial crisis. I'm there as a fairly young lawyer in in in the room listening on conference calls when the chairman of the Fed, the Treasury Secretary, they're discussing uh essentially the great financial crisis of 2008, 2009. And that was the point at which I said, "All right, obviously there's serendipity.

[00:47:25]There's there's there's there's, you know, the God above. There's all sorts of things. And maybe maybe they're pushing me. Maybe I was meant to be here at this moment and this is telling me something about how to spend my career.

[00:47:38]And so from there I said but I I really it was it was really fascinating un being at the confluence of law policy and finance and grappling with the questions of and I saw people suffering and I couldn't get a job for nine months after that by the way. I was out of work. No one was hiring. It was the great financial crisis and I had had some pretty decent credentials but nonetheless. So it it it affected me personally but it affected of course millions millions and millions even billions of people around the world. So I said this is fascinating. I want to understand how to make financial markets resilient and how to allow them to continue to scale and get stronger and innovative but also have financial stability. And so from that point I sort of view that as my trajectory. I was at a law firm, a private practice actually here in London. Uh I was a was a partner at a London-based firm and I counseledled people for seven or eight years on financial regulation and how it works and then came back into the government in 2017 as assistant secretary of the US Treasury covering the international markets portfolio uh which was fascinating. So I had the seat on the financial stability board. I grappled with these issues and then was appointed the 14th chairman of the commodity futures trading commission. Uh and there I ended up leading the agency through COVID and CO actually resulted in more volatile commodity derivatives markets than the great financial crisis and so it was a great test of strength about how markets could endure during that period. Uh and then I went back into the private sector and found myself here. So I would say for the last close to 20 years it's been at that section of law, finance, policy and technology when you critiqued what you needed to become in 2008 2009.

[00:49:40]Um that's one thing. The other thing is what the markets need to become. And so to see what you're working on now starts to make some real sense because this is an efficiency to the the markets. Um do so I got a few questions. So so so just here and now do you feel like we're in a more positive market than um and I don't mean the collapse in 2008 2009 but what created that or are we heading back there?

[00:50:09]No, I I think I think we're in a much better position than we were back then because I think now we're thinking a lot more about endgame scenarios and the stresses that the financial system could go through in a way that we weren't in those decades. And so, um, I think we're in a lot better position just like we're in a better position back back at that period than during the period of the Great Depression. We learned the the the lessons of the great dep depression, applied them in the great financial crisis, and now we have the lessons of the great financial crisis that we're applying now. So, I do think we're in a better we're thinking a lot more about systemic risk, uh a lot more about uh wrongway risk, disincentives. It's it's a lot more I feel like um thought out and its own domain in a way that it wasn't back in that that day.

[00:51:05]>> Now that said, >> it doesn't mean that we're not going to have bubbles and those bubbles aren't going to pop. So, and in fact, obviously during the great crisis of COVID, we saw extreme volatility, right? People lost a lot of money. the markets went up and the markets went down, but the markets themselves didn't break, right? So that's that's the lesson is making sure that the system itself remains resilient even if there's volatility within that system.

[00:51:35]>> Yeah, it makes complete sense and going to be my question is what needs to happen to make that you just want the structure to stay the same. Of course, cycles are going to happen within it. And the point around technology is you're bringing efficiencies whilst those efficiencies can allow even higher frequency of absolutely trading. And we know what can happen there. It can go up in the short term, down in the short term, whilst over the long term the ledger is solid.

[00:52:00]So if that was all to be the case, what's the thing that needs to happen in the market to make sure the system is more solid because there's work to do.

[00:52:08]And I can only imagine that you think about that the whole time. I'd love to hear that.

[00:52:12]Well, it depends on every aspect of the market. You should always be thinking about what's the endgame scenario. What could go wrong and have I have I manage that risk properly? In some ways, I don't put a lot of this on the market so much as policy makers. So, the market has a role to play. And I'll give you the example which is we knew for USDC to scale it needed to be a solid form of money that would be acceptable to central banks, government agencies, etc. And so we could have backed USDC uh with 10%. We could have backed it with Bitcoin like some of our competitors do or Chinese commercial paper or what have you, but we didn't because we said look for this to be serious and we want this to be serious and one day adopted as legal electronic money. Uh it needs to be backed one for one with highquality liquid assets that are dollar denominated like T bills. It needs to be able to be exchanged one for one and that needs to be there. All of these features essentially what does good look like? get there first. Um, so the market should be doing that, but ultimately it's in incumbent upon policy makers.

[00:53:27]And when it comes to technology, I've often said regulators are often five years behind, but that doesn't mean they should stick their head in the sand, right? And or look the other way or pretend it's not happening. And so I applaud the regulatory and government sector for saying, "Look, this is serious and people are going to do it.

[00:53:44]The technology is here and people are going to use it. So we can't pretend it doesn't exist. We have to start formulating policy. I gave a speech at Harvard maybe 10 years ago, well I guess 8 years ago or so about uh rules and principles. And so one of the ways you can approach this is thinking about what's a principles framework because you don't yet have all the answers but at the same time you don't necessarily want a wild west. So there are ways in which regulators can approach there are sandboxes there are a number of other features that you can use to sort of help with this transition but my view is is you can't ignore it. How are you feeling about the market? Um I'm now coming back into and I know some of this is about actually this is digital money and we need to be careful around whether it's a crypto company onchain all of these terms that previously would have been potentially detrimental whilst it would have been perceived that the users were in that space. How are you looking at that that space the digital asset landscape right now? It's certainly been incredibly volatile over the last se several months. There's some positive signs recently, but uh nonetheless still still still no certainty. Um we have um in my view not many applications that have come through at the level of circle as a company to the point maybe people didn't take the um disciplined approach of Jeremy and you and and the organization. We've got um predictive markets that are big user cases um and we have some brilliant infrastructure uh organizations potentially too many uh and so this next phase and certainly what I'll use the searching for mana podcast case podcast to try and seek out is the next big applications that come through but there's not that many um you know how are you looking at the landscape generally right now are you feeling um at all pessimistic In the long run, no. But because I think it is a necessary condition that there will be many entrepreneurs in a new space looking to make that next great application with 98% of them or whatever the relevant percentage is failing. Think about the internet boom. I actually my very first legal job was as a summer associate here in London in the summer of 2000, 26 years ago, just blocks from here. Uh was my very first job and it was in the middle of the dot rage. So you had all sorts of companies and what I would say is for every Google there's a pets.com, right? And so for every Ethereum there's going to be a chain that goes nowhere. But that's part of the innovative process. Even in the railroad industry, there were tons of railroads back in the 19th century.

[00:56:42]Everyone was starting a railroad, but only several of them, you know, became what they were because of network effects, because of, you know, competitive forces. And so it's only natural that an industry like this which is so entrepreneurial but so speculative will have this kind of scenario where many of them and that's why the venture capital firms only need one out of every 20 investments to go big. Uh and so it's a different kind of investing and I feel like that is where the crypto sector is now. Think about all the L1 chains, right? Very few of them will end up making it. We believe ours will because of all sorts of other effects USDC the protocols the circle name but but again that's experimentation uh and in fact many of those those projects for example uh that didn't succeed the ideas and the teams were brilliant and so a company like circle may recruit those and so you you know but that's the kind of environment I think we find ourselves in but that's also the environment that history has shown leads to these great innovations.

[00:57:52]>> Yeah, makes complete sense and good to hear. So, we're going to move on to the Moround >> where we will ask the um same several questions we ask all guests. So, interesting to see the similar and different responses. Um just before I do that, um I wanted to just um highlight the um the work that we have um playing as our background. Um it's called um transaction sculpture and selected it as potentially something that you you you may like. Not to lead you into that you will um just do with the artist concept.

[00:58:38]So they are um ox fff >> as [snorts] an artist and they dabble in smart contracts as the medium that they um deliver their art within. So this is um financial infrastructure can itself become a medium whether the value moving is ETH or USDC. The invisible process of blockchain routting execution randomness and performance are transformed into something visible and experimental. I just wanted to >> well thank you very much. Yes it is fascinating. Thanks Eve. Um, so, um, first question, you have the front cover of, uh, publication that is dearest to you. So, let us know what that is. And I'd like to know what the message on the front cover would be.

[00:59:26]Well, last year or I think I think it was 2025, the New York Times had something like um uh the king of TV, streaming. In other words, it's finally been done. Streaming has taken over cable. And so, what I would say is we'll make it the Wall Street Journal because that's the publication I I most uh daily daily read. One day you're going to have a headline that you're going to have one of two. I think you're going to have both of these headlines.

[01:00:00]One is blockchain is king has overtaken traditional finance. And then I think you're going to have another headline which is agentic finance is king. That more finance is conducted by agent AI agents than by humans. Now the interesting question is which of those two headlines will come first? And I honestly don't have an answer.

[01:00:23]Love it. You come into um each day with pressure, not stress hopefully, but weight on the shoulders and responsibility to deliver the vision. Is there a way that you set yourself up each morning to to to be at your best?

[01:00:43]Yes. So, no one can see this in my home office, but I have two plaques on the wall, two quotations.

[01:00:54]The first quotation is by Marcus Aurelius, and I'm not necessarily going to get it exact, but it says something like, "You have power over your thoughts, not outside events. Realize this and you will have strength."

[01:01:10]And then the second plaque underneath which I actually had in government says it's by Thomas Edison that says vision without execution is hallucination.

[01:01:21]So in some ways those two quotes are very important which uh is how I approach the day. I start the day I actually work from my basement uh in Kennallorth, Illinois. Lovely little space right right near Lake Michigan.

[01:01:36]And in the basement, I have sort of the circle room with all the technology and all of the the the, you know, cameras and and and the Macintosh and all that.

[01:01:47]And then I have another room which has no electronic devices whatsoever.

[01:01:53]It's almost like a skiff, which is the specially compartmentalized intelligence facility, information facility to review classics. And so I start the day with those two quotes in mind and I go into the thing. I keep my phone outside that room and I reflect on what are the things that I will have control over my own actions today. No matter what happens, right, things are happening.

[01:02:16]And then the point about my my role visa v Jeremy as the great visionary who has that ability to see the future before it begins. I have to think about the execution side of that. How do I help bring us to that point where circle needs to be by executing two days? So those two thoughts I start the day with.

[01:02:37]I reflect on the day. This is what I need to get done. Then I walk out of that room into the circle office and I try to plug away. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I need I need that second room. Um I I'll take a walk without any contraptions and try and after having just a light amount of information think through similar similar way. Yeah, those two quotes coming together is amazing.

[01:03:04]So Heath, at the moment, and I don't mean caffeine, what keeps you up at night?

[01:03:10]>> Well, on that one, it's funny. Um, I've learned over the years, try not to keep yourself up at night.

[01:03:19]But the the honest answer is is sleep is so important and I neglected it for many years. Now it's absolutely critical.

[01:03:26]When I think about that Marcus Aurelius quote, I think about like quite frankly the only thing worth losing sleep about uh is is whether or not you're not doing what you need to be doing. The other thing is I'm going to borrow from General Mad Dog Mattis about losing sleep. He was asked that question. He said, "My job is to make sure my adversary loses sleep at night." And so I also think about that and say, "What am I doing to make sure the competition is losing sleep at night?" That's the way I should be thinking about it.

[01:04:01]>> Oh, I love that. There's the competitiveness.

[01:04:04][laughter] >> It has to be there.

[01:04:06]>> That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:04:08]Absolutely. Visualize the fiercest competitor you can possibly visualize and then how are you going to be better than them? [laughter] >> Yep. Keep them on their toes. And that's why we welcome the competition as earlier said like it it keeps you on your toes and it's ultimately going to lead to this technology. The great western countries in particular but all around the world that have the competition uh is what leads to innovation.

[01:04:34]off off a few more questions but just I'm intrigued you know I never know if I want to talk too much about somebody's colleague but let's with Jeremy let's just do it because it comes up so so much and feels like the roles are so well defined but it's crucial that you come together I want to get a bit more about how it comes together in that session so you've kind of thought what can I control today then I'm going to get into my circle room and there'll be many different ways this happens but when it's a Jeremy conversation because perhaps you've thought of the vision and you need to come together, you know, how how's it working? Are you guys on calls all day?

[01:05:12]Is it actually is there more space? I'd love to understand that relationship and the dynamics of how it's working.

[01:05:18]>> Well, first of all, he's intensely visionary but also intensely competitive. Jeremy Aair wants to win and each and every day he goes to work thinking about how can circle win. uh my job then is to help help him figure out well what is the pathway there given the resources that we have what can I be doing uh so we normally have check-ins uh formal check-ins a minimum of once a week but mostly it's daily it's Slack messages back and forth the company is very much a Slack company and we also have a group of of colleagues the executive committee that are constantly on Slack with one another and if we need to jump on calls as we do it. But normally, you know, I have to start the day and thinking about what's the port and what's the mo most important things that we need to achieve as a team. And I oversee several hundred folks obviously and there are a bunch of OKRs that we have in place, goals, roles, OKRs. So, we're constantly doing that, but we also need to be ready to move and pivot as necessary. And Jeremy can see those things. He can see around corners. So, communication is is the key. So, I'll talk to him several times a day, but often they're short calls. They're, you know, five minutes a piece. Did did you see this? Did you do that? And or I'll say I let me let me just check with Jeremy on this one again because I think that was that was what we were going to do last week, but there have been a couple things that have changed and I want him to go back. So, I would say it's a it's a much more dynamic place.

[01:06:46]It's not like the government where let's say the Treasury Secretary I would see once a week and I would I would say like, "Sir, these are the these are the things that I'm working on, etc., etc. This is a much more dynamic relationship and it's a 247 relationship.

[01:07:01]>> I love it. And I mean given how great that dynamic works and how big the vision is, I think you're blessed that this is something that you must be thinking in multi-deades will will be how you work and that's so rare in a career really a privilege to be in that position if that is true.

[01:07:18]>> It it is most certainly true. Um, you know, we, you know, keep our head in the clouds with our feet on the ground, as the saying goes. But we have to win today, but we can, but we're only going to win in the long run by thinking about tomorrow.

[01:07:31]>> Feet in the basement, head in the >> There you go.

[01:07:34]>> Head head in head in space. Um, so um, the, um, speeches you you gave probably probably the the most inspiring actually to get quotes from, but I'll stick with the general questions, but take it where you want. um is a particular um passage or book um we've we've had some good quotes, but passage or book that that you come back to that is something you'd like to share with the audience that you found great reserve and inspiration from.

[01:08:07]>> So this is this is not an easy book to read. Um but in some ways I think every human being should read the book. I read it in college and 20 years after I graduated, I was the I was at the TR I think I was CFTC chairman at the time. Yeah, I was most certainly CFTC chairman at the time. I was asked to give the commencement talk, a small college in Maryland, uh, in the mountains, lovely place, and it was COVID, so it was cancelled. So, I had to write a letter to the graduating class.

[01:08:41]And in that letter, one of the things I quoted was this book, Man's Search for Meeting by Victor Frankl.

[01:08:49]Essentially, it's a book about someone who survived A Schwitz and ultimately lost his family and ultimately found meaning in life and changed the lives of others. And it's a tough book because it's both about his experiences, you know, enduring deprivations that no human being should ever have to endure and then thinking about no matter what, he still had the power. Just like Marcus Aurelius, we quoted earlier uh uh said, he still had the power between stimulus and response. That was the human freedom that comes that even in the concentration camp, he could decide how to respond to that and take it as a learning experience. Well, my view is if you read that book and you're feeling sorry for yourself, there's no damn reason because if he can endure all of that and still make use of human freedom to choose to live and to have a meaningful life, you can too.

[01:09:44]>> So, it's so fundamental to human existence, but that would be a book I would recommend.

[01:09:49]>> Yeah. Beautiful. We'll put that in the um the show notes. I've just been read several books on the go. just been reading again um a classic the the count of Monte Cristo >> and it's got a similar philosophy through it um where someone is in a different way you know put into captivity uh injustly and for many many years has to try and you know work out how they can still be positive and what can they do and it's uh it's it's a it's a good place to to ground yourself I find um it sounds like I'm looking for referral And perhaps I am, but I always ask, who do you think would be a wonderful guest for the audience to listen to on Searching for Mana?

[01:10:34]>> Well, I feel like you've got to have Jeremy back at some point. So, that's an easy one. Um, I also think we probably have younger folks within Circle who are cutting edge engineers that are working on the forefront of Agentic Commerce, who are building the agent stack. And so I'll take that back and think about it, but I wonder having someone of a of a of a of of an even, you know, sort of a different generation who is who is thinking who is doing the 10year thinking.

[01:11:02]>> Yeah.

[01:11:02]>> Um Jeremy's obviously thinking 10 years, but he's also talking to shareholders and doing all that. But we have folks that are really focused on five years from now, what should Circle be building? I think they would be interesting to talk to.

[01:11:15]>> Yeah, I'd love that. And then for the audience, we'd have such a nice rounded trilogy of individuals who've talked around trends in the company. So yeah, whenever you get time, I'd love that.

[01:11:26]So, um, the big question you're on searching for mana. And so, um, just to remind you, manner is in gaming, you have your power and your life, and you're trying not to die, but you also have your mana, which is your super power. What would you say your manner is?

[01:11:52]Well, it may be different at different phases in life, but with my role at Circle, I would say over the last few years, and we've sort of touched on this, but maybe not as explicitly, my job has been to figure out where the law and regulation should be and help get the company there first and then get the regulators there. And that is ultimately what's going to allow this innovation to flourish. So that that is sort of me thinking about well my background as a former regulator as a lawyer but also working for one of the great technological visionaries how do I bring it all together and help make it a reality. I love that. Well, we've taken so much of your incredibly valuable time and great to have you back in in London.

[01:12:35]Um so I don't want to keep you from your important meetings because we want London to feature in the work that you're doing as I'm sure sure it is.

[01:12:45]Many argue it's the greatest city in Western civilization and it is one of my personal favorite cities.

[01:12:51]>> So just to give you the platform to um finish if you could really um set out the landscape and you can choose the time frame but we were just talking around five years. What has this all been? What has this all been for? Um, if things go the way they can, what's the Hollywood version of Circle for you?

[01:13:19]It's a company that has achieved its mission. That the world is truly a better place and people are more prosperous and more engaged in the economy that have been on the outside because of this technology.

[01:13:34]That I think is the vision and circle can wrap things. I mean it may be a very valuable company but at least the mission part of it to achieve that mission to get to the point where we have a frictionless exchange of value and as a result of that the world is a more prosperous and fair place.

[01:13:50]>> Beautiful. Well, you're certainly on the path. So fingers crossed. Thank you so much for coming on the searching for mana show.

[01:13:57]>> Wonderful to be here. Thank you so much.

[01:13:59]Cheers. Cheers.

[01:14:00]>> Thank you.

[01:14:07]Thank you for joining us on this edition of the Searching for Mona podcast. We hope you've enjoyed it and hope to see you again [music] next time. Please subscribe to our YouTube, Spotify, or iTunes to make sure you receive all the latest [music] episodes as they are released.