Powering Stripe's Stablecoin Stack I Henri Stern (Privy) and Jacob Willemsma (ETHGlobal) at ETHConf

Sun, Aug 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this fireside chat, Jacob Willemsma from ETHGlobal sits down with Henri Stern, founder of Privy, to discuss Privy's first year inside Stripe and how stablecoin infrastructure is being woven into mainstream finance. Henri explains that Privy builds embedded wallets, key management systems that developers drop directly into their products to give users simple access to crypto, stablecoins, and any digital asset without needing to think about what happens under the hood. Privy serves several thousand customers ranging from crypto native companies like Jupiter, Hyperliquid, and Uniswap to much more mainstream businesses like Deel, Ramp, and Klarna. Henri shares that his biggest fear joining Stripe was the stack being co-opted and verticalized into captive infrastructure, but conversations with Stripe leadership affirmed a shared commitment to an open stack where developers pick their chains, orchestration, and rails, and where Privy can still serve Stripe, Bridge, and Tempo competitors. He describes the pragmatic balance between decentralization purism and usable infrastructure, citing wallet connectors and day one key export as escape hatches that preserve self custody. He walks through lessons absorbed from Stripe (decade long ambition exemplified by Atlas now powering 25% of Delaware incorporations, kinetic short term execution, and a deep commitment to never deprecating interfaces), the Treasury product giving businesses stablecoin backed accounts now used across 50 countries, and recent launches like MoneyGram's MGUSD and Deel's hold, earn, spend contractor wallets. He closes on the remaining bottlenecks of financial tooling, regulatory clarity, and accounting integration, along with his belief that these rails ultimately lay the groundwork for genuine self sovereignty. 00:00 Introduction 00:28 The Fear and Excitement of Joining Stripe 00:45 What Privy Builds: Embedded Wallets 01:04 From Crypto Native to Mainstream Customers 01:27 Privy Needs Friends: Why Wallets Need Ecosystems 02:11 The Fear of the Stack Being Co-Opted 02:33 Conversations With Stripe on an Open Stack 02:57 Working With Stripe, Bridge, and Tempo Competitors 03:37 Pragmatism Over Decentralization Maximalism 04:00 Where Are the Lines on Open vs Closed 04:40 Privy Earn Built on Morpho and Aave 04:57 Embedded Wallets and Abstraction From the Metal 06:06 Wallet Connectors and Escape Hatches 07:21 What Privy Learned Inside Stripe 07:40 Decade Long Ambition and the Atlas Example 08:40 Balancing Long Term Vision With Short Term Shipping 09:36 Never Deprecating Interfaces 09:50 Stripe Sessions and the Treasury Announcement 10:51 Why Crypto Rails Make Better Products 11:07 The Two Prongs of the Stablecoin Strategy 11:42 From Holding to Actually Using Stablecoins 12:30 Treasury Live in 50 Countries 13:00 Abstracting Crypto Without Losing the Magic 13:53 Smart Contract Risk and Disclosure 14:38 MoneyGram MGUSD and Deel Contractor Wallets 15:35 The Stablecoin Sandwich and Responsibility to Disclose 16:05 Ship the Value, Not the Infrastructure 16:48 Is Tooling Still the Bottleneck 17:30 Regulatory Clarity and Money 20/20 17:53 Accounting, Taxes, and Marrying the Rails 18:41 Meta Creator Payouts in Emerging Markets 19:33 The Perception Gap: Crypto Stuck in 2014 20:23 Three KPIs Henri Is Watching 21:21 New Experiences That Peek the Rails 21:39 The Ten Year Horizon of Self Sovereignty 22:04 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _