Stable Stories

Unlocking Trillions in RWAs: Phil Fogel Reveals Cork Protocol's Plan

Phil Fogel, CEO of Cork Protocol, joins to discuss building on-chain risk infrastructure. He explains why DeFi needs tools like fully collateralized credit default swaps to transfer risk explicitly. Institutions require risk control and transparent pricing, not just high yields. The conversation covers how Cork could have impacted stablecoin depegs like Terra and USDC by providing programmable hedges. Finally, Phil highlights their upcoming pilot with Avantgarde, focusing on making real-world assets (RWAs) loopable through secure, risk-adjusted liquidity markets.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy. Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/ecoCork Protocol: https://www.cork.tech/Phil on X: https://x.com/Philfog

Privacy Is Not Just For Cypherpunks: Stable Stories with Horizen Labs

Zain Cheng, CTO of Horizen Labs, joins Stable Stories to discuss the intersection of AI agents, privacy, and stablecoins. A former Federal Reserve engineer turned crypto builder, Zain explains how Horizen is pivoting from a privacy L1 to a modular Layer 3 on Base. We dive into the "Agentic Economy"—where AI agents hold wallets and transact without bank accounts—and how ZKVerify provides the proof layer they need. Zain also covers Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) as the bridge for institutional compliance and the roadmap to fully cryptographic privacy.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy. Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/ecoHorizen Labs: https://horizenlabs.io/ZkVerify: https://zkverify.io/Zain on X: https://x.com/zainlabs?lang=en

The Valuation Arbitrage: Why We Stopped Investing in the US and focused on Emerging Markets. | Gideon Greaves, Managing Partner Lisk Ventures

Gideon Greaves, Managing Partner at Lisk Ventures, joins Stable Stories to discuss why the future of Web3 adoption lies in emerging markets. Gideon shares his journey from bootstrapping a food-tech startup in South Africa to leading a $20 million Web3 fund. He explains Lisk’s pivot to an Ethereum Layer 2, the massive valuation arbitrage opportunities in African tech, and why "boring" use cases like verifying land titles are revolutionary in Nigeria. We also explore the inevitable shift of governments moving on-chain and Lisk’s new partnEco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/ecoLisk: https://lisk.com/Gideon On X: https://x.com/gideongreavesership with the United Nations to accelerate industrial blockchain adoption.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy.

Why Every Company Should Launch a Branded Stablecoin

As stablecoins move from a crypto niche to real financial infrastructure, more builders are asking the same question: why issue your own stablecoin instead of relying on USDC or USDT?In this episode of Stable Stories, we sit down with Chase Merlin, Product Lead at Brale, to break down how stablecoin issuance is evolving — and why branded stablecoins are becoming a core primitive for onchain businesses.Chase shares his journey from Web2 product and fintech into DeFi, entering the space during DeFi Summer and witnessing firsthand why stablecoins became the foundation for nearly every onchain use case. We explore how Brale is building a full-stack stablecoin issuance platform that goes beyond minting — covering on- and off-ramps, automations, wallets, treasury management, and multi-chain deployment.The conversation dives into why more marketplaces, fintechs, teams, and consumer apps are choosing to issue their own stablecoins to capture treasury revenue, customize behavior, and build stronger user relationships — and how interoperability will determine whether the future looks like a long tail of branded stablecoins or a reconsolidation into shared consortium models.Stable Stories is a podcast series exploring the behind-the-scenes stories of the builders, operators, and pioneers shaping the stablecoin economy. Eco: https://eco.com Eco on X: https://x.com/eco Brale: https://brale.xyz/

USDT0’s $63B Year: Inside the Massive Growth of Cross-Chain Tether

This week Lorenzo Romagnoli, Co-Founder of USDT0, joins us to explain how USDT0 makes USDT seamless across chains by turning it into a free, non-custodial interoperable asset.He shares his DeFi-native background (having a crypto wallet before a bank account) and why USDT historically struggled to spread beyond Tron/Ethereum due to friction: Tether chain swaps, liquidity bridges, or CEX routing. USDT0 solves this with an Ethereum lockbox plus LayerZero messaging to mint/burn USDT0 across supported networks—now moving ~150–300M USDT daily. The episode also explores Tether’s “freedom tech” ethos and Tether Gold/XAUT0.Stable Stories is an X Spaces series that explores the behind-the-scenes stories of builders pioneering the stablecoin industry. Eco: https://eco.comEco on X: https://x.com/eco USDT0: https://usdt0.to/USDT0 on Paragraph: https://paragraph.com/@tetherzeroUSDT0 Analytics: https://docs.usdt0.to/overview/analyticsLorenzo on X: https://x.com/zerolore