🎙️ Ep. 66. Visa's $1.7 Trillion Network Adds Stablecoin Infrastructure

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On Episode 66 of Tokenized, Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are joined by Michael B. Tannenbaum, CEO, Figure, a fintech veteran with stints at SoFi and Brex, now leading one of the most ambitious blockchain-native financial services companies in the space. They're also joined via a special segment by Chris Harmse, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at BVNK, who breaks news on a major Visa partnership.

The phrase "pre-funding" might soon join fax machines in the financial services museum. That's the thesis emerging from this week's conversation, as Visa's $1.7 trillion money movement network begins integrating stablecoin infrastructure and Figure launches blockchain-native public equities.

🎙️Listen to the full episode here on your favorite podcast app or 📷 watch on YouTube.

We Cover:

• Visa Direct adding stablecoin funding and payout endpoints via BVNK

• Why pre-funding is the real problem stablecoins are positioned to solve

• Figure's blockchain-native equity network and what it means for public markets

• The strategic case for self-custody of equities and stock loan economics

• Why 24/7 trading isn't the point -  DeFi credit and lien perfection are

• The crypto market structure bill's delay and the banking lobby's deposit concerns

• Polygon's $250M M&A spree as L1 foundations become infrastructure businesses

Visa Direct Adds Stablecoins to the Stack

BVNK is now powering stablecoin infrastructure for Visa Direct, enabling two key use cases: stablecoin funding for fiat payouts and a new "push to stablecoin wallet" endpoint. As Chris Harmse explained: "Any payout that's done through the Visa Direct network can now be done through stablecoins."

The partnership means Visa Direct customers can:

• Fund payouts with stablecoins on weekends and receive them in real-time

• Initiate local payouts via RTP without hitting wire cutoff times

• Access a new endpoint - push to stablecoin wallet, alongside existing push to card and push to account options

BVNK handles the full compliance stack: wallet screening, transaction monitoring, sanctions checks, fiat conversion, and orchestration. Harmse noted their target: "Visa doesn't get excited for anything less than a billion dollars in TPV. So hopefully target is six billion of TPV in the first six months."

Why Pre-Funding Is the Real Problem

Cuy Sheffield framed the strategic significance directly: "I hope that a few years from now, the term pre-funding is just like archaic, like what we used to do... I think we're kind of on the path in that direction."

Michael Tannenbaum connected this to operator reality from his Brex days. The company's early growth came from abstracting pre-funding pain: "We Brex ourselves pre-funded the Marqeta account on behalf of our customers, and then made it a credit card... That actually was a huge reason why Brex took off early on."

The behavioral insight matters: "The behavior of pre-funding things is just so anathema to consumers and businesses that absolutely had there been that stablecoin option, you could kind of get around all the acrobatics Brex had to do early on."

Figure's OPEN: Blockchain-Native Public Equities

Figure announced OPEN - the On-Chain Public Equity Network - launching blockchain-registered equities that exist outside DTCC's traditional rails. This isn't tokenized DTCC securities; it's natively registered stock on Figure's regulated ATS.

Tannenbaum positioned this as marketplace three in Figure's evolution: "We're known for seeding out marketplaces... We started in consumer credit, we're the market leader in tokenized mortgages - we've done about $20 billion - and then marketplace two was crypto DeFi with democratized prime. Marketplace three is equity."

The Strategic Case for Self-Custody and Stock Loan Economics

The real value proposition isn't transactional efficiency, it's controlling the stock loan. As Tannenbaum explained: "When we launched democratized prime, we called it that because we were going to go after prime brokerage... If you own a tokenized equity, and you're custodying that equity yourself, you can control when someone wants to borrow that and control those economics on that borrow."

This matters economically: "Whenever people are shorting a stock, they're borrowing that stock, and they have to pay to borrow it... It can be really material economics for people that own the stock, because if lots of people want to short it, in some ways, you're getting paid to hold that stock. But today you're not really getting paid to hold that stock. The prime broker is intermediating that."

Figure is seeding the marketplace with its own stock - a second CUSIP trading on their ATS - with existing investors already requesting to migrate their shares to the onchain version. "We're seeing our own investors that already own our stock saying, Yeah, we want to move our existing Figure stock to this platform."

Why 24/7 Trading Isn't the Point, DeFi Credit Is

Sheffield highlighted a common misconception: "I think that the first thing that a lot of people started saying was, oh 24/7 trading... that was like the value prop. And it sounds like that's not actually that big of a problem or value proposition."

Tannenbaum agreed and explained the counterfactual: "Let's say you were to tokenize OpenAI as an example... I guess you can trade it 24/7. I don't know how many people want to trade OpenAI 24/7 or if the price is moving that much. And then at the same time, you don't really have this ability into that equity. How do you know that you actually own it? How do you lend against that? If the borrower defaults? Where do you go to collect on that?"

The answer: "You need that lien perfection, and you need that blockchain-native security to do that."

Regulatory Reality Check: Market Structure Bill Delayed

The Senate Banking Committee's crypto market structure bill has been delayed after multiple industry players pulled support. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong flagged concerns including: a de facto ban on tokenized equities, DeFi prohibitions giving government broad access to user financial data, and relitigating stablecoin yield provisions from the GENIUS Act.

Bank of America's earnings call highlighted the banking lobby's concerns: up to $6 trillion in potential deposit outflows if stablecoin yield remains accessible.

Sheffield offered perspective on the complexity: "Part of the challenge is this stuff is still really new... How many banks have spent meaningful time really understanding DeFi? Not many, because it's new, it's like brand new, and it's super complicated. And so anytime you have something that has potentially significant implications, that is also really complicated... it's hard, and I think it takes a long time to really understand and try and find compromises."

L1 Foundations Become Full-Stack Businesses

Polygon's $250 million acquisition of Coinme (payments) and Sequence (wallet infrastructure) - including MTLs in 48 states - signals a broader trend: blockchain foundations are vertically integrating into payments infrastructure businesses.

Sheffield explained the strategic logic: "In the early days, I remember Polygon used to do developer grants, and they'd go out and try and convince enterprises to build on the chain. And I think we're getting to a point where you have vertical integration happening from multiple angles... What some of these foundations are doing is saying, let's build a full stack product suite that uses our chain, and let's go out to enterprises and sell that product."

The competitive implication is straightforward: "Anyone who has a chain that doesn't own any infrastructure that's end customer facing is now going to have a harder and harder time competing."

Looking Ahead

The theme threading through this episode: blockchain infrastructure is maturing into real businesses with real revenue. As Simon Taylor noted: "Figure is probably the canonical example of a real business that happens to use a blockchain."

The question isn't whether this transition happens, it's whether regulatory frameworks can keep pace with the infrastructure already being built.

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