The Idle Trillion | Nick Stoev (Mellow) at ETHConf

Sun, Aug 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this talk, Nick Stoev from Mellow addresses what he calls the idle trillion: the gap between how much capital sits on chain and how little of it is actually working. Drawing on 10 years building in the space, he traces the industry's evolution from an isolated world with few on-ramps and off-ramps and almost no real world use cases, through DeFi summer as the kickstarter, to today's landscape of on-chain settlement, tokenized products, and real world assets. He cites over $300 billion in stablecoins on chain now with BCG projecting more than $18 trillion by 2033, then polls the audience on how much of that capital is truly working. The answer is only around 10%, and he argues two forces are changing that: shifting regulations that, while limiting some asset classes, enable banks and institutions to hold stablecoins on their balance sheets, and the rise of payments and settlement as the main driver since on-chain settlement is atomic, cross border, and 24/7. Nick frames the opportunity in two parts: settlement, which is already solved with custodians, stablecoin settlement, and bridging infrastructure live today, and management, which is still being built and involves not just technology but business processes, strategy construction, compliance, NAV reporting, and strategy isolation. As sophisticated asset managers arrive from TradFi and fintech, the industry needs more guardrails and tech stack pieces to route capital between assets (stablecoins, money market funds, commodities) and distribution channels (wallets, exchanges, brokers, issuers). He stresses that yield is a liability with very different risk characteristics for retail versus institutions, where APY is the last question asked after transparency, risk, and structure. He covers the same yield stack serving AI agents that need guardrails since models hallucinate, DeFi products being baked invisibly into fintechs like Deel and Stripe, and Mellow's vault stack that deploys strategies on chain in hours without smart contract development. He emphasizes on-chain enforced risk management removing the need to trust asset managers, and the faster pace of updating strategies as RWAs make the market more dynamic, closing that the coming year will bring far more capital on chain and deeper DeFi and TradFi convergence. 00:00 Introduction 00:12 The Idle Trillion and an Invisible Industry 00:51 How the Industry Has Changed in 10 Years 01:17 The Numbers: 300 Billion in Stablecoins 01:57 Audience Poll: How Much Capital Is Working 02:26 Why Only 10% of Capital Is Active 02:26 First Driver: Changing Regulations 02:53 Second Driver: Payments and Settlement 03:16 Why Settlement Is Naturally On-Chain 03:44 The CFO Question About Treasury Stablecoins 04:17 Two Parts: Settlement and Management 04:42 Why Management Is More Than Technology 05:16 How the Asset Manager Landscape Is Changing 05:47 Assets and Distribution Already Solved 06:16 The Missing Middle: Strategies and Routing 06:48 Why Yield Is a Liability, Not Just a Number 07:25 Why Institutions Ask About Risk First 07:55 The Yield Stack for AI Agents 08:20 Why Agents Need Guardrails 08:20 DeFi Products Baked Into Fintechs 09:08 Invisible Deposit Buttons for End Users 09:39 Mellow's Vault Stack 10:08 On-Chain Enforced Risk Management 10:37 Transparency and Trust Without Trusting Managers 10:59 Why Speed of Updates Matters 11:29 Reallocating Capital Almost Instantly 12:03 Summing Up: DeFi and TradFi Convergence 12:32 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _