I'm pleased to announce a new
@Visa
crypto capability and successful transaction settlement in USDC over the Ethereum blockchain with
@cryptocom
as our first pilot issuing partner with
@Anchorage
, as our exclusive crypto settlement agent.
Some personal news: after 2.5 years, this past Friday was my last day at Visa Crypto. It has been an honor to be part of the founding Visa crypto team and I'm so proud of how far we've come in the last few years.
Thrilled to announce a new product I’ve been building
@Visa
to enable FI/fintechs to add crypto features into their products. We’re partnering w/
@bankblvd
, a neobank focused on building generational wealth for the Black community, as our 1st pilot partner
Hard to believe that it's been over five years since the Libra association was introduced by Facebook.
Although it never succeeded directly, it indirectly legitimized crypto for many major organizations.
Web3 is fundamentally transforming every part of our lives - however, the barriers to accessing this ecosystem still remain high. Today, we announce
@portal_hq
is coming out of stealth to empower all platforms to become gateways into web3.
In high school I thought I was going to be a professional basketball player.
I would play basketball for like five or six hours a day every day. It was somewhat delusional.
But then one day I played against James Harden's high school:
I often joke that stablecoins are eating "boring" payments use case that actually have trillion $ in money movement globally.
These are some of the companies that are tackling some of the biggest payment use cases, while abstracting away all blockchain complexities from users
It feels like a new stablecoin is popping up every single day, but interestingly enough, we're seeing the early days of new categories of stablecoins with different functions and use cases at the same time.
Few thoughts/observations ⬇️
What
@base
has built is nothing short but extraordinary. Coinbase was able to add a new $100m business unit in a span of a year. It feels like the street hasn't even noticed yet.
Never thought I would have a leader at a bank tell me how stablecoins/blockchains are poised to disrupt banks.
I didn't even have to make the case myself.
I'm seeing a big shift from traditional fintech builders moving to stablecoin + onchain products.
The DeFI/fintech mullet thesis is very much alive. Excited about some of the products that are coming out.
Users won't even know its powered by blockchains/crypto.
Super excited to share the launch of the Portal Marketplace, a simple Shopify app store like interface to make adding new integrations into your app super simple.
Developers and customers can now add new integrations such as swaps, Visa cards, walletconnect, account abstraction,
1/ Big news! 🎉
Our Developer Marketplace is live!
With over 60 innovative Web3 products and solutions, it's a game-changer for developers. 💙
Discover why this launch is a major milestone for the Web3 community👇
As for what's next, my obsession with crypto has only grown. Web3 will be transformational, but there are still many gaps to onramp the next hundred million users in a safe and secure way. More to come soon!
Currently, stablecoins are the easiest way to access USD outside of the US.
And so how were companies, countries, and actors accessing USD before? The answer is a little known asset called Eurodollars
Quick thread on the history of Eurodollars
Last week was a big milestone week at Portal
- We had a new record on the number of customers signed in a week
- We launched one of our largest customers with millions of users
The beauty of this is that we were able to do all of this while being together for a team offsite!
Still energized by our first ever “Borderless Payments Summit” we hosted with
@SherazShere
and the
@solana
team. Grateful to be joined by so many friends and leaders across the blockchain & payments landscape from leading companies like
@Paxos
@PayPal
@Visa
@stripe
@MoneyGram
and
It's crazy how many different payment types that global marketplaces like Airbnb need to process payouts globally. Eventually, non-crypto companies will need to support payouts in stablecoins because of its efficiency.
Stripe's announcement is another example of the fintech world seriously evaluating crypto/blockchains.
The funny part is that fintechs have been paying close attention to crypto for many years, but continue to evaluate it with pragmatism.
A quick thread on fintech and crypto:
Pumped to announce the launch of
@solana
embedded wallets across the
@portal_hq
platform!
We're grateful & excited to have incredible launch partners like
@ColosseumOrg
the largest Solana online hackathon series
@SlingshotCrypto
the smoothest non-custodial DeFi trading platform
Exciting announcement! 🎉
We're thrilled to announce Portal now supports
@solana
, with embedded wallets out of the box. 📲
Solana's high throughput and low fees make it ideal for payments, tokenization, NFTs & DeFi. We can't wait to see what you build!
Very excited to announce our partnership with
@raincards
! Since my time at Visa, I knew there had to be a way to issue cards on self-custodial wallets. It’s now finally possible!
Also, excited to launch this product with $PYUSD with the stablecoin of choice!
@Paxos
@PayPal
Exciting news!
We're thrilled to announce a groundbreaking partnership with
@raincards
—Issue Payment Cards With Portal. 💳 💙
Let’s dive into the future of crypto-powered financial services.
👇
Next generation of fintech is borderless finance powered by stablecoins. Exciting to see
@thebitsian
and team lead the way with their expansion into LATAM!
Excited to co-host the first ever Stablecoin & Borderless Payments meetup with
@Paxos
in São Paulo on April 12th.
If you're building at the intersection of these two worlds in SP, let me know. We have an awesome spot set up too!
Link below to register
Historically, large payment protocols started as a consortiums
Visa - consortium of banks in 1958
SWIFT - Consortium of banks in 1973
Zelle - Consortium of banks in 2016
USDC - Coinbase and Circle in 2018 (disbanded joint venture)
Libra - Consortium of companies in 2020 (failed)
Some fun data, but just in the last month
@portal_hq
has seen usage from over 1000 location points from all parts of the world such as Indonesia, Dubai, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Peru, etc..
Crypto usage is truly global!
The
@portal_hq
team quietly released the Account Abstraction + MPC product recently.
This feature is available across web and mobile (RN, iOS, Android) SDKs.
A few simple steps to get started:
1. Enable the AA feature on our web app at
It's been fun partnering with the
@bitso
team on their new web3 wallet.
Bitso went from support for about 100s of tokens to trade to over to 2000+ with embedded DeFi swaps with
@portal_hq
.
Bitso can now rapidly support new tokens and monetize each transaction too.
A big shoutout to
@cjliu49
&
@nickmartitsch
from
@compoundfinance
for presenting what Defi and Compound is all about to the many teams at Visa! Thanks for stopping by virtually!
We're on track to hit a quarter million on the waitlist. Good news is that we'll be onboarding tens of thousands weekly very soon. We're coming for you!
So excited to see the new
@Bitso
web3 wallet product out in the wild powered by
@portal_hq
. We've enjoyed every minute working with
@caiopflores
@vogelbit
and the rest of the team to power Bitso's 8+ million users on-chain!
INCYMI - checkout the livestream for the launch 👇
Congratulations to my amazing wife
@maitree_m
for being recognized as
#forbes30under30
. This is so well deserved! You continue to inspire me and I'm so lucky to have a front-row seat for what's to come :)
Stablecoins will also likely be labeled as a systematically important financial institution (SIFI) in the next 10 years if it continues to grow as one of the largest holders of US Debt.
Fascinating analysis powered by
@bountycaster
The analysis revealed:
- Stablecoins are on track to be in top 10 holders of US debt within 10 years
- A simple extrapolation of the last 3 years would make stablecoins the largest holders of US debt
Super excited to partner with
@0xProject
@abandeali1
@0xfulvia
to power native swaps in the
@portal_hq
stack.
Portal customers can now leverage 0x’s deep liquidity for a swaps product with just a couple lines of code!
Introducing: native swaps in our AA/TSS MPC platform, powered by
@0xProject
, a first-of-its-kind partnership. Your users can trade ETH and EVM digital assets via your app, powered by Portal and 0x!! 🎉🎉
@withparallax
- fast remittance from US to PH and soon in other markets
@Zenecapp
- rockstar LATAM based team building for freelancers
@Felixpago
- pretty slick whatsapp bot experience for payments between US and Mexico
@velo_money
- simplest USD account in Brazil powered by a
What I love about the
@portal_hq
team is no one cares about price.
What got us through the bear market was just being heads down. Now it's a bull market and we're still heads down.
Prices go up and down and the mission stays the same.
Love to see the war on EOAs, seed phrases, and custodial wallets. All of these wallets should be a thing of the past.
We're seeing a transition from these legacy wallets over to new and improved MPC and smart contract wallets. Excited to fuel this fire with
@portal_hq
I just shared this internally with the team but the old adage of "move fast and break things" does not apply to crypto. There's just too much at stake and as builders, we have a responsibility to our users to build the most robust product without skipping steps.
So huge! The first legitimate yield bearing stablecoin backed by
@Paxos
strong compliance/regulatory structure.
Congrats to
@bhau___
@ronakdaya
and the rest of the Paxos team!
Introducing Lift Dollar ($USDL), a US dollar-backed stablecoin with regulatory oversight that democratizes access to US dollars, allowing you to safely earn yield on-chain.
1/8
One of the exciting parts about building a global businesses is learning about the different cultures of the different markets from Indonesia to Brazil to Nigeria.
Crypto is way more exciting outside of the US.
The new Lift Dollar or USDL is such an underrated product launch by the
@paxos
team.
Today, companies like Circle take all economics of stablecoins treasury as their own revenue.
WIth USDL, all the treasury economics flow directly to the holder of USDL's wallet
Every CEX that I've talked to is starting to introduce either a hybrid trading + self-custody or launching their own self-custody product. CEX are evolving from just a custodial trading business to building on-chain.
So excited to see the new
@floor
app in the wold! It's easily become the most seamless place to swap, track, and mint NFTs.
Honored that Portal gets to play a role to power the wallet experience.
Congrats to the Floor team on the launch!
Allow us to reintroduce ourselves 📣
What started 2+ years ago as “Floor NFTs” has become so much bigger…
NFTS → NFTs, crypto, tokens, dApps & memes
Single player mode → Getting onchain with your friends
1 chain → 8 chains
So today, we’re bringing you the new Floor:
It's been incredibly humbling to see the amount of building that's taking place in crypto right now. These builders don't care about the markets and are extremely focused on building value for users. Very excited to see the next chapter of crypto unfold.
One underrated use case within crypto is actually humanitarian aid and donations.
As long you have a smartphone and a wallet, you can receive aid from anywhere in the world.
Very excited to co-host the Borderless Payment summit with
@SherazShere
to gather leaders/builders from the blockchain/fintech/payments ecosystem DM me if interested, we have limited spots.
There is a ton happening in the intersection of blockchain and payments, powered by stablecoins. If you happen to be in NYC on May 13th, DM me.
@rajparekh_
and I are hosting a small "Borderless Payments" summit for like minded people
In a weird way, I’ve never been more challenged/tested in my life but also the happiest I’ve ever been.
There’s something about the cycle of challenge and conquest that breeds a strong foundation of contentment and joy.
I've spent the last few weeks across events such as Consensus talking to a number of builders across enterprises, consumer brands, and more that are exploring web3/crypto and
@portal_hq
.
Sharing a few quick observations 👇
I'm very impressed with founders that have time to run a company + invest/diligence/scout other early stage startups either as a scout or through their own microfund.
I'm so focused on talking to customers and doing anything else feels like a huge opportunity cost.
It's hard not to appreciate the resilience of protocols such as
@Uniswap
,
@MakerDAO
,
@compoundfinance
, and many others.
These protocols have survived extreme volatility, constant barrage of hackers/attackers, regulatory actions, and many more.
Antifragile at it's finest.
One of the best compliments from customers we've received at
@portal_hq
is how easy our developer docs are to read/understand.
We learned this from great companies like
@stripe
&
@linear
, where your dev docs is an extension of the product and deserves the same level.
People don't know this but I actually have a personal basketball coach.
I don't play professional basketball but I still like to think of myself as an athlete.
No reason not to get a little better every day.
I met our CTO
@david_scrobonia
in CS class freshman year.
I remember him crushing every test/question the professor asked and thinking:
"I want to work with this guy one day"
And now we've been friends for 10 years and working on
@portalHQ
for 2.5 years.
Dreams do come true.
NFTs represent a critical building block for the future of commerce and consumer experiences and excited to share
@Visa
purchase of the CP 7610 as a tribute to the amazing NFT community.
Over the last 60 years, Visa has built a collection of historic commerce artifacts - from early paper credit cards to the zip-zap machine. Today, as we enter a new era of NFT-commerce, Visa welcomes CryptoPunk
#7610
to our collection.
One of my favorite things about building
@portal_hq
is how we're able to serve a global market.
I was able to chat with builders from Nigeria, London, Brazil, Mexico, India, and ending off with Japan all in the same day. 🌏
It's in that moment where I started to shift my focus to recognize my own zone of genius.
I then discovered that I had a ton of interests like computers, math, science, chess, and more that came naturally to me.
This was a fun panel to be apart of. Thank you
@WalletConnect
team for allowing me and
@portal_hq
to talk about key management and the future of wallets.
This past month has surpassed so many expectations.
We've had big launches, an awesome payment summit in Brooklyn, Portal is growing faster than ever and have way more to look forward to!
The
@portal_hq
is ready for on-chain summer!
Fiat-backed stablecoins have now passed Norway in US govt debt holdings according to my rough estimate, thanks to an increase in stablecoin issuance combined with a decrease in debt holdings by Norway from Jan-24 to Feb-24.
Today, we announced that
@Coinbase
is funding and supporting a lawsuit by six individuals against the Treasury Department’s sanctions of Tornado Cash’s smart contracts, an open source piece of software. You can read more about the details here:
@portal_hq
transforms platforms with their mobile MPC wallet SDK and security tools for enterprises and developers to launch web3 wallet products for their users.
@contra
- freelancer marketplace with USDC payouts
@SinbadHQ
- access to USD in MENA
@mural_pay
- global payments for SMBs
@BandoCool
- solving cross border payments across LATAM to US
@stables_money
- cross border payments/remittances across many markets
If you’re a builder developing at the intersection of
@solana
and
@PayPal
USD, then look no further
@portal_hq
platform.
We’re live with Solana across mobile, web, and APIs for seamless development!
Exciting announcement! 🎉
We're thrilled to announce Portal now supports
@solana
, with embedded wallets out of the box. 📲
Solana's high throughput and low fees make it ideal for payments, tokenization, NFTs & DeFi. We can't wait to see what you build!
The Visa crypto team is rolling as expected. Check out what
@catgu_
and team have put together on ERC 4337. A Visa powered paymaster could be a large driver of growth for ecosystem.
@Visa
continues to explore real world applications for blockchain. UX and payment experience on blockchain
today is suboptimal, for both individuals and businesses. Following our
#AA
publication last year, we are sharing our experiment today on
#ERC4337
#paymaster
A lot of discussion on MPC vs AA, and not enough MPC AND AA and what a powerful combination it could be.
Both are complimentary solving different parts of stack.
AA -> Account Management
MPC -> Key management
The support from the wider community was instrumental in this recovery.
Thank you to the team at
@HaunVentures
, who connected us with specialists from their network within hours of the attack that were crucial to recovering the funds including law enforcement and
@MoFoLLP
.
NFTs represent a critical building block for the future of commerce and consumer experiences and excited to share
@Visa
purchase of the CP 7610 as a tribute to the amazing NFT community.
Sharing a piece of feedback from one of our customers using
@portal_hq
“I wanted to start by expressing my gratitude for setting us up on Portal…Your comprehensive documentation made it a very positive experience for our team…
Seed phrases need to go.
SC wallets and MPC are indeed the way. With
@portal_hq
you can generate both MPC and SC wallets all with a single integration.
Why not get the best of both worlds.
This was a really fun project with the
@zerodev_app
team! There’s a ton of synergies with MPC & AA and we’re excited to enable our customers with the best of both capabilities. Sign up for the beta to learn more.
Over the last 18 months, my team has been focused on rethinking our payments network and products from first principles to mesh the traditional payments ecosystem with crypto and public blockchain networks.
This is just the beginning of what digital currency settlement could enable. It will also prepare Visa to enable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) as they become available and integrate them into the existing payment ecosystem.
1 / The next big consumer brand will be powered by web3 ✨ There is massive potential to align incentives across consumers and brands in a way that has not been possible before, creating opps for co-creation & co-ownership, powered by crypto rails (ex:
#NFT
and social tokens) 🧵
This will be coming to more exchanges and fintechs soon with what I'm building at Portal ->
Every exchange should have native dApp discovery to enable everyday users to web3 applications.
Excited to see Coinbase announce this!
Fiat currency
- Earn interest at rest
- No interest in transit
Stablecoins
- Earn interest at rest
- Earn interest in transit*
*Stablecoins give fiat currencies new capabilities that we've not seen before
Went for a walk with
@Iiterature
yesterday and a powerful insight: "crypto has had mobile wallets, but it hasn’t had mobile products.”
Such a simple statement, but a powerful one when taken in the context of broad crypto adoption. Consumer tech is mobile, and thanks to the
Users do not care about how any underlying technology works as long as it delivers immense value.
People use
@Visa
every single day, but have no idea how it works.
New technologies like Blockchain or AI are best when used as enabling technologies.
It’s amazing tech, but it doesn’t need to show off - in fact, in the best examples you don’t even know it’s there. It’s under the covers. It simply makes something easier, or faster, or more
One of our key principles at
@portal_hq
is building software with zero dependencies.
When you use the Portal SDK you get libraries that we've built from scratch instead of importing a ton of dependent libraries.
I still think
@solana
token extensions (confidential transactions, memo field, and more) is one of the most underrated products out there.
Awesome to see PYUSD take full advantage of being one of the first to leverage it.
PYUSD circulating supply is now at ~$130m after just 2 months of being live and has a lots of room to grow. The
@PayPal
and
@Paxos
team are moving fast!
Exciting to see how PYUSD plays a role in accelerating the on-chain economy.
We've also seen crypto wallets emerge as a new class of card issuers and exclusively building their business with public blockchains and digital currencies. The rise in crypto wallets forced us to ask the question of how can we make it easier for crypto wallets to work with Visa?
Excited to be an Adjunct Professor at my alma mater,
@CalPoly
this quarter. I'll be teaching a course on the principles of Product Management. Would love to find more mentors & resources for my students, who are the best PMs they should know/follow?
The
@stables_money
keeps shipping and expanding globally!
Another great case study of a stablecoin focused product getting rapid traction across many markets.
Congrats to
@stablesbernie
and team on the launch in EU!
☁️✨Dream partnership alert ☁️✨
We've teamed up with
@MastercardEU
to bring the Stables card to our European frens 🇪🇺
This is a huge step towards our mission to make fast, affordable payments accessible to everyone, no matter where you are.
We spilled all the tea with
I'm pleased to announce a new
@Visa
crypto capability and successful transaction settlement in USDC over the Ethereum blockchain with
@cryptocom
as our first pilot issuing partner with
@Anchorage
, as our exclusive crypto settlement agent.
"Data from blockchain analytics platform Artemis shows that Solana stablecoin transfer volume for January currently sits at around $316 billion, second only to Ethereum’s $328 billion."
Crazy part is that stablecoins adoption is just getting started and actively permeating many
When we started
@portal_hq
a few years ago it was quite clear that mobile was going to be the way that crypto applications scale globally to many more users.
Fast forward to today, we're on v4 of our mobile SDKs across RN, iOS, and Android with
@solana
support.