When Money Moves Like The Internet

In this episode of What’s Next Beat, host Dante Reminick sits down with Anton Mozgovoy, CEO and Co-Founder of Holyheld, to explore one of the most misunderstood parts of payments: what actually happens after your card gets approved.

While a card tap feels instant, the movement of money behind the scenes is anything but. Anton breaks down the complex web of issuers, acquirers, payment networks, compliance providers, and settlement systems that power traditional payments—and explains why stablecoins represent a fundamentally different approach. Instead of simply passing messages between financial institutions, stablecoins can move value in real time, reshaping everything from cross-border transactions and treasury operations to reconciliation and settlement.

Dante and Anton dive into the practical realities of stablecoin spending today, including the challenges that still need to be solved. They discuss merchant acceptance, chargebacks, refunds, fraud protection, and the tradeoffs that come with blockchain-based finality. The conversation also explores why connecting stablecoins to existing card rails may be the fastest path to mainstream adoption, the differences between e-money and stablecoins, and why regulation and global standards will play a critical role in determining how quickly these new payment rails scale.

Looking ahead, Anton shares Holyheld’s vision for AI-powered commerce, where intelligent agents could one day make payments safely and autonomously on behalf of consumers and businesses.

Subscribe to Stable Pulse for more conversations on the future of stablecoins, payments infrastructure, and what’s next in fintech.

Connect with the Host:

Dante Reminik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dante-reminick / https://x.com/DanteReminick

About Stable Pulse

Stable Pulse is a fast-paced, news-driven podcast covering the most important developments shaping the stablecoin and digital asset ecosystem. Each episode dives into timely conversations with industry leaders, operators, and policymakers, offering sharp insights and real-world perspectives on where the market is heading. With a focus on clarity and relevance, Stable Pulse breaks down complex topics into accessible, actionable takeaways for anyone building in or exploring the future of finance.

Transcript

Stablecoin Rails And Real-World Use

Intro 0:00

Passage of the stablecoin legislation drafted by the Senate dubbed the Genie Senate. Because analysts say a wave of competition can complicate things.

Dante Reminick 0:13

We've heard a lot about how stable coins allegedly provide better, faster, and cheaper rails. But what does that look like in the real world? What does it look like to use stable coins in the real world? Once you have stable coins, how do you make them useful as a savings and more importantly as a spending mechanism?

Meet Anton And Holyheld’s Mission

Dante Reminick 0:32

Today we're talking with Anton, who's the CEO and co-founder of Holyheld, which focuses on powering stablecoin spending around the world. Anton, welcome to the show, my friend.

Anton Mozgovoy 0:42

Hello, hello, Dante. Thank you for inviting me. Pleasure to be here.

Dante Reminick 0:46

My pleasure. So, Anton, as you know, we always like to start off this show with a section that we call braggadocious. And in this section, it's designed to be an intro, but I want you to leave humility completely at the door. Right. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about Holly Held and what they do. And remember, brag as much as you possibly can about it.

Anton Mozgovoy 1:10

I always try to be very direct. It's actually hard. I have this. Look, I've been in crypto since what, like 2016, but I cannot get rid of this imposter syndrome. It feels like everything you see from the outside, it's like fucking hell, like these guys are so amazing, like so cool. Like, you know, everything is just better than what you have. Um and then, you know, you compare the stats or like you actually compare things, and then you're like, no, wait a second. Actually, yeah, we can do some things quite well. So uh very hard. But look, uh, in a nutshell, Holy Held is uh what's so called the largest uh Web3 card in Europe. Uh and I think it's very, very relevant to part of our conversation. What the hell is that Web3, stable coins and whatnot? Uh but uh in a nutshell, it is um a same uh neo bank experience. You have your uh personal account, you have your card. Uh we all use debit credit cards, doesn't matter. I just have some, you know, whether that's a piece of plastic or you know, you tap the phone, but it's something that you spend your buyer coffee at. Now, the difference between the this traditional thing and what we do is that the source of your money can be that crypto. So um it can be stable coins or it can be crypto. And this is what makes us different, and that's why Web3 card. Um, I think everything else just comes under it. Yes, we've um we've been doing this for uh a very long time. We were definitely the first ones there in Europe, and um uh I I would love to say that partially of what we do been also influencing the regulations uh around the Europe uh and uh I would say like adjacent fintech related things. So whether this banks or issuers or even card networks. Um what's our goal? Very straightforward. Um I think that that glorious cliche of financial inclusion that everybody's talking about, we want to do it for a very pragmatic reason. We are for-profit company, we want to make profit, but at the same time, we want to provide the best service to everyone. And uh then no discrimination around uh who you are, where you are, and whatnot. Um, you know, equal rails, same rails, and provide good service and make money from it.

Why Payments Have 17 Intermediaries

Dante Reminick 3:12

Love it. Love it. I know that you guys work a lot with traditional financial institutions, right? Banks, asset managers, things like that. Tell me more about that work.

Anton Mozgovoy 3:24

Um I guess in in order to understand why we even you we say that we're something new. Crypto is, you know, a replacement, batteryals, and whatnot, uh need to take a step back to understand why do we even work with these things? Why can't we just like appear, pop up out of nowhere, and now say, guys, spend your stable coins? Um and uh the answer to that is uh not so obvious. Not everything is very straightforward and simple. The reality is that the the way the financial system works today is actually very, very decentralized and um distributed. There's so many different um uh things that you need to keep account for in order to move money from point A to point B. How it happens is absolutely not clear. And that's it was as designed as what they say. So it is very opaque. Um it this is where you get a lot of this hidden fees and things that we don't like on a general basis. And that's the reason because I'll just give you one simple stat. Uh when I go to the shop and then uh I have some bank account and I tap my card, and then there's you know, in a coffee shop. Now, before uh the money from my bank account reaches the money in the bank account uh of that coffee shop, there's at least, at least 17 intermediaries. Who are they? Like what do they do? And it turns out that each one of them is responsible for you know the small bit and piece of the.

Dante Reminick 4:48

Wait, wait, wait, pause here. Who who are those 17 intermediaries? Who are the intermediaries in the traditional stack?

Anton Mozgovoy 4:55

Yeah, in in uh from card networks, acquirers, uh, issuers, uh, various AML-related uh systems. Uh it would be uh essentially the asset managers as to like how the assets move from the issuer uh bank account to the uh to the acquirer one. So essentially it is everyone that is responsible for making sure that your money is moved from that point A to point B. Um and like from how it happens on a technical level to how it happens on like regulatory level and then like on business level. Um so that's basically where you get this so many different intermediaries. And uh that is the answer as to why do we work with uh existing infrastructure? Um, our goal is not to disrupt and come here and say, you know what, we rebuild everything from zero. Why we believe that that's a very hard thing to do. Um, because you have to build distribution channels, you have to build partnerships, you have to have the user base. And all of a sudden it turns out that um, you know, it's not the it's not of a solution on par with what we have now. So what it what I have to do is that we have to work with existing infrastructure that's out there, but then make it better bit by bit. So the answer is that how we work is that from those 17 intermediaries, we come in and say, you know what, can we do the same thing, but now with 16? Okay, that worked. Can we do it now with 15? And then the end goal ideally, and that's the uh goal that we believe that will be, you know, something when you say job is done, is that when there's zero intermediaries, when there's your money uh that you own, that you have full control of, and then the service that sure you're call it bank account, and then there's a bank account of that coffee shop. Perfect example. So the money goes directly from your account to their account. That's it. No one else in between. Now that would be the ultimate uh job. And stable coins is the best um shot we have in achieving that. It is something that changes so much of the status quo, and that's so far the best opportunity they would have to even get closer to that zero intermediary mark.

What Changes When Money Moves

Dante Reminick 7:12

Interesting. So traditional payments, if I want to go and you know buy a sandwich at the local store, I swipe my card, lots and lots of intermediaries there. Now, stable coins theoretically should provide that sort of peer-to-peer spending. I have money, I give it to you, very few intermediaries. But obviously, it's not that simple, right? Like you you've built an entire company specifically because it's not that simple. So walk me through how stable coin spending works today. I'm trying to get a better understanding of if stable coins simplify the process, if they add additional complexity, but you know, better features elsewhere. Talk to me about stablecoin spending today.

Anton Mozgovoy 7:56

Sounds good. Uh and again, as I I'm sorry, I have to do this, but now um let's compare so that it's it's very, very obvious what where the difference comes from. So say you have two cards, one regular bank, and then now when this like with stable coin power thing. What is the difference, how it works? When you tap that regular card, now thing number one, we remove, we uh uh you know essentially uh abstract all of this like technical communication stuff like that. But on a high level, what should happen is that your bank, where you keep your money, and then a very clear part here is that your bank custodies your money. So they own the money and they can give you access, and then they make the decision if you can spend that money. So ultimately, the first thing that has to happen is that your bank needs to confirm and say, you know what? This guy, we agree he can actually buy that stuff. So we allow that transaction to happen. Now, um, there's no direct connection between my bank and the bank of that coffee shop. What happens there is that they need to talk through again all of this intermediary stuff, but the main one is Visa or MasterCard. It's the logo that you see in every card. There's also American Express, uh, it's a thing on its own, but similar concept, right? So now what you have is that Visa is like that uh, you know, um bellboy there running. Do you guys agree, you know, to go with ahead with this transaction? Okay, how much that transaction is before? What's the amount? What's the currency? You know, like they go back and forth trying to connect the two. But then when your bank says, you know what, we allow, transaction goes through, you know what happens? Your money doesn't actually go anywhere. Like the money is not moved, nothing happens. If we can simplify and abstract everything, it's purely a handshake where two banks on each side visa there as that like arbiter, agreeing, you know what, you will owe us this much money for this transaction. So my bank to the coffee shop bank. And then the coffee shop bank signals to the coffee shop saying, you know what? We promise you we'll get you that money, so please give the coffee. That's like an abstraction. With stable coins on the other side, what happens is that the money is actually moved in real time. This is where there's an actual transaction happening, there's an actual movement from my account where I had my stable coins to somewhere else. Now, I as a customer, I don't care where or how it moves, but this is the key difference. And that simple difference, it triggers whole lots of changes. What kind of changes? If we say that money is not now um, we go from not moved in real time sometime later, at the end of the day, next day, whatever. Again, I as a customer, I don't know. And honestly, it is not my problem to know how it is moved. All I care is that look, I tapped, it showed okay, I received the coffee. Everything else, not my problem. With stable coins, same thing. I tapped, I got the coffee, not my problem. But the key difference is that underneath the money actually moved. And that triggers a whole chain of events. Now it removes so much headache for everyone. You know, how do we guarantee that the money will be there? What if something happens? What if, you know, this guy, uh, you know, some technical fuck up happens or whatever. The money actually moves, and that removes or reduces everyone's um, let's call it, headache to make sure that this transaction goes through. And obviously, the bigger the system is, so if it's one person to one person, you know, super easy. I can always call Dante and we clear it out. Look, you know, can you send me some money later? Whatever, right? We agreed to something. But if it is billions of people with hundreds of transactions on a daily basis, now you have a lot of problems. And this is this is basically what stable coins um uh clear the part. And um, I will express this even uh more obvious. Stable coins, what's unique about them is not really that speed of a transaction itself, but it's the point that it happens so fast, and when you actually move the money, you move the value with that money. It's not just the information about the money, and this is the key difference. Don't get me wrong, um, things like uh Moneygram and Western Union have been here for decades. And 20 years ago, you could go into the physical branch and wire the money, and in minutes it would be available to collect somewhere else. It was already possible. So, what's really the know-how? Well, you see, the know-how is that the only reason why it was possible for Western Union and Moneygram to do that before is because they had actual shit tons of pile call it cash sitting in both locations, my location and where I send the money. And only because they had that they were able to do this fast transaction. So now it's all of a sudden not about the speed, but about efficiency. So it was really complicated. And why Western Union Mineogram, why they didn't pick up, why if they were so good, why they struggled so much? Well, it turns out that it's actually quite expensive, right, to keep so much cash like everywhere. And this is precisely the problem that stable coins are covering is how can you actually move the money fast? So combination of those things. And that's the key difference.

How Big Payment Networks React

Dante Reminick 13:22

I love it. And you've mentioned a lot of sort of big traditional payment players, right? The visas, the MasterCards, the MoneyGrams. How do these traditional institutions think about stable coins? Do they view it as a threat? Are they all trying to adopt it? What is sort of the position of these traditional players to a new technology like stable coins?

Anton Mozgovoy 13:44

I think it's a very traditional, you know, like this five stages. Like first you deny, you know, and then uh, you know, like all of this kind of stuff. I think at the stage where we are now is that um they realize uh they very clearly understand that this is something to take seriously. Um I don't think that everyone still comprehends the str the sheer size of the changes it will bring. Um but because it to my mind, but because of that, then they um what they try to do is that they try to use it as their advantage. So I think that all of these big businesses are here for a reason. I mean, somehow they survived for some time, so that's you know it's worth some work, right? It's not that every business can you know stay in business for so long. Um, but then it's a very traditional approach saying that you know what? Uh we can do things better because we've had so much experience before, even with this new stuff, we can do it better. And um, I don't think the answer is that obvious. So the way they view stable coins now is A, which is a progress, it's something to stay, probably. Two, it's not um it's not like a just like a wig there, it's actually something meaningful technology. And three, there could be massive implications, just not quite sure what size or like you know how big of those implications would be. And then four, actually thinking right now, how can we use it to our advantage? To summarize that, um, I think that there's you can clearly see a lot of examples right now of um large companies, institutions even, they go now even beyond of this marketing stunt saying, you know what, we put AI to our name, our stock goes up. Call it level one, right? So they're now somewhere in level two. They did that, and now they say, you know what, how can we now actually implement that? How can we start using that? Like how do we take advantage of that right now? Um, because again, uh, all of if we speak about specifically finance, all of these guys, they already realized uh they've made a mistake when the traditional neo banks came in. So things like New Bank, uh, you know, Revolute, Wise, etc., they're afraid to do that same mistake again with this new wave of uh basically stablecoin, call it crypto-powered um things.

Dante Reminick 16:09

Love it. Love it. And I want to play devil's advocate here for a second, right? The reason that companies like Visa or MasterCard or any of these payment companies are so successful is not just because they have such a vast network, but but because they've spent billions and billions of dollars and you know, in many cases over half a century, building out sort of the invisible auxiliary elements to payments, right? Chargebacks, fraud monitoring, et cetera, et cetera. How does all of that stuff work in stablecoin spending?

Anton Mozgovoy 16:42

Um I would say that the real answer is that not all of it works um today. We're still learning. Um, where um I think there's even a core difference, right, between how even these uh money movements work. One of the key um aspects and elements of uh blockchain, so blockchains is essentially tools, rails. Um so for example, Visa has something called Visa Net. So Visa Network. So blockchain is a network, Visa has its own. Um we're not gonna go into details like what is really the difference between, but it's all like technology, right? Basically how things run. But then um one parameter or aspect of blockchain technology is something called um finality, meaning that if something happened, it happened. Cannot change that fact. Um you see, the way traditional systems work is that there's no such thing. You know, you can change things, you can backdate, you can backtrack. And then it comes with both uh positive things, like it's easier to handle, for example, fraud, right? So if something went wrong, there's a mechanism, there's a way, you know, like to claw back money or et cetera, or uh, you know, if court order comes in, oh now we have to change something or execute. With blockchains, you can't do that easily because one of the aspects is if it happened, it happened. So you have to deal with consequences of that action. Um, and uh this is where now with all these payments, and look, there's hundreds probably of different types of payments, right? Like deferred, direct, uh, you know, like uh post-settlement, uh, you know, like pre-settlement, like something that we as regular people don't even understand what's the difference because and we should not care about that. But if you drill down and go in more details, it turns out that that's how things work. I'll give you a very simple example. For example, most of the people, uh, if not everyone who you know listens to this, we use the car rentals. You go to a car rental, you rent a car, they ask you, hey, can you leave a security deposit and your card number there? Why do they do that? Well, they need that for their business model. It's a way to protect against fraud, right? Whatever. And it works pretty well with existing system. Um, with stable coins, all of a sudden it becomes a bit more complicated. How can I guarantee that I will have money at some point of time in the future? That's not how blockchain works. So the short answer is that stable coins uh uh and the whole industry tries to uh and moves really fast in moving one problem at a time, like laser focused on these different types of uh problems and payments. And I think that um everything we can think of will be solved um, you know, quite shortly. But the real answer is in consumer stuff, as we were talking about this cards and whatnot, um, all of these complicated types of refunds, partial refunds, something like that of that sort is not yet working perfectly fine. And that's the reality. And I think that um what I like about us as an industry, altogether, we are here. I think we're a bit more transparent about our positives and negatives. Um, so we're not trying to uncover or like cover it up under the rug, sweep it, say, you know what, everything's amazing. Uh I think we, to my mind, I think we as an industry are a bit more realistic, yet optimistic, right? So we see this bright future, we believe in it, um, but a bit more realistic the saying, you know what, uh, you know, some things are still in work.

Finality, Fraud, And Refund Limits

Dante Reminick 20:02

Yeah. Yeah. And let's talk about that work, right? I want to refocus on Holly Held specifically and and what you guys are doing. Tell us a little bit more about you know why Holly Held decided to tackle payments, how you're tackling stablecoin-based payments, who's using Holly Held right now. Give me everything.

Anton Mozgovoy 20:23

Um when we started back in like 2022, um, my co-founder and I, we've already been in crypto for a very long time. And then we um we experienced this firsthand. Um, it's essentially that if you make money in crypto, and it was like back in that time, it was so new and still so risky that traditional financial systems, so banks and everything surrounding them, they simply would not understand that risk. And the way the financial system works, if you cannot understand the risk, you do not touch that. So it wasn't anything personal with not, but if I would come to my bank and say, guys, uh, I've made this much money, I want to spend it, they would ask me, okay, where's the money coming from? If I would try to explain them how I earned that money, and it's a legitimate way, but if I try to explain to them crypto, be like, no, this guy is just you know some weirdo, like close an account, you know, move on. Um, and that's just how the traditional system works. So we quickly realized that um, look, if we believe that this industry is gonna grow, if the tech is there, then um we need a solution, a mass solution, not only for us, but also for everybody else who um, you know, we go into this. So back at that time, we uh wanted to launch a service, essentially call it a daily banking for people who make money in crypto. And that was a very niche, specific thing that we wanted to do and we wanted to be the best in that. And as we evolve, and also as the industry evolves, it turns out that wait a second, crypto is and stablecoin specifically, is useful not only to us, people who work in this industry or choose to be This industry or affiliated with it or use it, but it can be useful to everyone or majority of the people in the world. And typically, from uh when you look into this kind of things and you say to someone, uh, this applies to everyone, it means that A, you didn't do your homework, or two, you're lying about it, because nothing applies to everyone. But it turns out that stable coins are something that actually can apply to everyone who needs to pay or receive money. And it's pretty much anyone in the world. And uh, where stable coins really, really shine in that perspective and how it all works, it turns out that it's actually a better solution when making payments for both. For you as a service provider, so you as a company building that experience for your customers, and for your customers directly. So it's kind of like a best of the two worlds. TLDR, um, what, like three, four years down the road. Um, so we were now expanding to corporate accounts. Um, we also focus on the infrastructure, helping other companies uh go into this whole stablecoin part. But a lot of it is really um essentially how to marry two worlds. One, how to use the best of the existing world, which we talked about, uh, you know, uh all of these large institutions, they've spent uh decades building that network effect, building uh all this infrastructure that surrounds us, something you don't even think about on a daily basis, but it's because it works. It means that they actually did a pretty good job on that, if you don't think about how something works. Um at the same time, here's this new, better technology, but because it works in a completely different way, because it is um really it's trying to do the same thing, but because of this differences, you cannot just you know like plug and play. It's not like something uh you know super easy, just like, I don't know, click on top, one button, all of a sudden, you know, it works. It is more complicated than that. And that's why A, uh, how does it adapt to the regulatory environment? So it's a regulated business still moving money and whatnot. Um, it is how you actually adapt these different things from even the stupid things that again, we as uh like normal people would never think about this like from an accounting perspective. Well, unfortunately, boring or not, but it's something that all of us still have to do as individuals, as companies, and whatever. So, what we tackle is these problems one by one. Um, and um I would say that that's basically how we go. TLDR, we started from individuals and serving us um first as that niche community, then to something that grows more to apparently it's something that um uh most of the people out there need. Uh, now to more building tools that can help you craft all these various types of different whether retail or business experience that include stable coins. And my final take on this would be is that you know what? I think that if we specifically and everybody else does our job good or well enough, you would never even know that you're using stable coins. That's probably the ultimate uh direction where everybody's going. Um, I don't think that uh many of us even think about the legal difference between physical cash that you have in your pocket and that screen, like a number on the screen that you have in the app. Like technically still the same money? Well, absolutely not. And then then you add these stable coins. What the hell is this thing? Where does it live? How does it work? Um, you know, to the point where clunky experience everybody started from, and it's gonna move to this number on the screen that works exactly the same way as you've experienced before, just better. And in what ways better? Anything from faster to cheaper to even easier. Um, and we are just one by one tackling these things faster, okay, done. You know, easier, not there yet. Okay, how do we solve this? Building tools to actually make this hidden underneath things to make it simpler.

Solving The Last Mile With Cards

Dante Reminick 26:09

I love it. I love it. Um, a lot of the guests in the show talk about the last mile problem, right? How not how you send one stablecoin to another, but how you go from stable coins to whatever the local fiat currency is. You and I have talked a lot about how global Holy Held is and you know how a lot of your customers are moving money between countries and things like that. When I use my visa, I can go anywhere in the world and tap my visa and spend my money. Walk me through what it's like building a stablecoin spending protocol at scale around the world.

Anton Mozgovoy 26:48

Uh I think that's yes, that's the biggest problem. The way that we decided to tackle it is exactly that. That's why we work in adjacent with that traditional infra. We're saying that you want to spend your stable coins, okay. As a as an individual, what's the most common way that we spend money through the Visa, MasterCard card, American Express, whatever. That's exactly that. So, how to make sure that I can spend my stable coins still using my Visa card? That's basically our approach. So we uh for that last mile connectivity, we're saying that instead of building this channel on our own, we tap into the existing systems that already work, whether that's a bank wire, whether that's a card. And I think um, you know, a good example here is to um our reasoning. Um, you know, Bitcoin was what, like, you know, back in 2012, 2013, there was already uh shops, like individuals, like tiny things there that said, you know what, we're happy to accept Bitcoin. What 15, almost 20 years like after, why is it not like a mess? Why can I not go to every shop on the planet and pay with, I don't know, Bitcoin or whatever? Well, as it turns out, again, uh Bitcoin is not uh a good payment thing. Um we've long past this joke, wait 20 minutes for your coffee and it gets cold before this thing's, you know. No, stable coins move very fast now. But what's the problem there? You see, the problem is that it's not just about you paying that money, it's also about who you're paying that to, how they can use it. And that's basically that last mile problem that everybody talks about. And then on our side, um, the way we tackle this is that we cannot solve this for everyone from the day one. So we need to pick um how where we concentrate. And our concentration was you as an individual, how you can benefit from stable coins and crypto, but you can still use it everywhere. Visa has over 150 million merchants worldwide, and you are absolutely correct. It doesn't matter what bank you're with, as long as it's a Visa card, you can pay things there. Everything else is figured out somehow, uh, you know, not involving you. And where we come in here and say, you know what? How can it still work with Visa? But underneath that money will be stables. Um, and that's how we go uh for everything. I think that our option or our vision for building that uh stablecoin settlement uh you know protocol out there is that how can you utilize what already exists and works well without uh you know trying to do things from the ground up that don't need that from the ground up rebuilding.

Dante Reminick 29:30

Got it. So you guys work hand in hand with Visa. Walk me through the flow of funds here. Like if I am a company and I'm sitting on a treasury of of stable coins, I have a Holly Held card, what does that flow actually look like to, you know, from hey, I have stable coins in my account to I'm able to go and spend it. Where do things transition from crypto to fiat? Where does the settlement happen? Take me through that flow.

Anton Mozgovoy 29:59

Yeah. Um, how would work in this way is that number one, again, uh let's look into it from the perspective of buyer and seller. For every type of transaction, right, there's always similar, right? Buyer and seller. So uh whether it's something very simple, straightforward, I buy a coffee, so you're a seller, I'm a buyer of that product, or a bit more complicated, you as a business, you have a treasury and it's your own money, what do you want to do with that stuff? But again, at the end of the day, still buyer and seller. Now, what happens with uh stable coin powered cards and um uh I'd say like even uh wires and stuff like that, uh companies like Holy Held become that intermediary that connects the two blocks. Now, what happens here is that um with our tech, what we marry the two worlds is saying that look, if the stable coins come from here, that's the source, how do we deliver the money that would work with um that corner party? So if it is Visa, okay, would they accept USDC? Okay, we can agree to that. You guys happy, happy, everything closed. But what if uh what if it is not visa? What if it is another bank? Another bank says, you know what, fiat only. So this is where that kind of conversion needs to happen. In simple terms, it means that you um by removing uh remember my earlier example, like 17 intermediaries, you remove like five, seven, ten of them, and you add one or replace it with one. So think of it as like seven and one kind of thing. And this is where again, yeah, companies like Willie Hill come in. Um we are that intermediary that allows that flow seamless. Why? Because again, um uh right now, two different worlds, and that's okay, where you need uh a standard, you need a protocol, something that would be that brick bone connection to make sure that it flows between the two worlds. Uh just to be very clear, uh something called like e-money, electronic money or digital money, that's the number on the screen you see in every bank, um, is in no way connected to uh how stable coins work on blockchains. It's just completely two different things. We you still need somehow something that would connect the two systems, how the information is connected, how the data flows,

E-Money Versus Stablecoins Explained

Anton Mozgovoy 32:12

and et cetera.

Dante Reminick 32:12

TLD Can we pause here, Anton? Can you tell us about the difference between e-money and stable coins?

Anton Mozgovoy 32:19

Um absolutely. Um, uh number one, stable coins are issued by someone. It can be a company. Um, in the future is gonna be central banks and whatnot. Uh they can work in uh because it's all pure code, they can work in whatever means. So you can program something to follow specific rules. But in a nutshell, it is saying that the value that I guarantee outside of blockchain in that traditional e-money system, why we say uh dollar stable coins? Well, we assume that this one stable coin equals to one dollar. And that's basically exactly the rules that everything that coding kind of happens on blockchain. What happens is that the real value is that if you want to transfer that value outside of blockchain. So, how does my one USDC worth one dollar outside in a coffee shop? That's where you know the magic happens. This is where um something like Holy Held moving it and agreeing to that, uh, first of all, we need to figure out is it really worth one dollar? Okay, who said that? Well, USDC is something issued by a company called Circle. Doesn't matter the names, but the core idea is that Circle says, you know what? Because it is backed one-to-one to real dollars, somewhere in treasuries, uh cash, whatever, it doesn't matter. Like it's just there. They say that you know it's there, and we can exchange it to you, or we can guarantee the value. Then Holy Held can come to this to someone else and say, guys, are you happy to accept this one-to-one? As like one USDC to one dollar. If they're happy, job is done. If they're not happy, then it's a workaround. Okay, what are you happy with? Well, we're only happy with um, you know, dollars there. This is where Holy Held needs to go, redeem, converted, exchange, transfer. So the difference between e-money and the stable coin is that A, they're both regulated, and um soon in the US, um, they're also gonna be basically on par, call it this way, legal level. Uh, but what happens is that e-money is uh only issued by in the US Federal Reserve, in other countries, central banks. So it is that fiat currency that you know of, just digitized. And stable coin is something that can be issued by a private company, and that's where the key call uh difference is. So TLDR, if we take US as an example, there's a Federal Reserve that issues a dollar. It would print, for example, a physical bill. What it means is that uh the US government says, you know what, this is a valid bill, you can use it for as a legal tender to pay for things, etc. If you bring this one dollar to a bank, the bank says, you know what, because it is a real dollar, we keep that one real dollar, and then we show on your screen one dollar. That's the e-money. The bank did not issue that money, it agrees to accept that money. Stablecoin is something that a private company like Circle would accept fiat money issued by someone else, and then give you essentially uh uh you know, um, a voucher. Let's put it this way, it's not the right word, but for the simplicity of example, saying that it is backed by real money, so it is actually now worth the same amount of money, you can just move it easier, simply. And then everything else, as in finance, it's just a consensus of something happening. So if I know that this is worth one dollar, I can move or do things applicably to that. Uh may sound complicated, but I think that the difference is very clear. E-money is still issued by the central bank or Federal Reserve, accepted by the banks, um, and displayed as is, stable coins can be actually issued by private companies. And then the value can be inherited by what are the rules of how the stable coins have been issued.

Dante Reminick 36:13

Yeah. So to summarize that, e-money still issued by some sort of central bank, just like you know, the the US dollar is. It is merely a digital representation of you know of that dollar. Stable coins are almost like a derivative of that, where a company like Circle is saying, Hey, we have this dollar, and we are going to have an internet first native representation of that dollar that lives on an open ledger, a blockchain, which means it becomes a lot easier to send all over the place because it means everyone has access to that ledger, everyone understands where that dollar is, who has custody of it, et cetera, et cetera. Is that fair?

Anton Mozgovoy 36:57

That is a very good um explanation. And I think you also explained the problem that we talked about earlier, which is um essentially that Western Union example, how they were able to do fast payments, and then how stable coins can solve that, but more efficiently. Because it turns out that now with a stable coin, you are not just moving information. So when it's e-money, and I wire e-money, I it the why and the money doesn't fly somewhere, it doesn't move somewhere. It's merely the information exchange between two banks saying, you know what? Minus here, plus here somewhere. Recorded, recorded, noted, done. It's not that the money actually moves there somewhere in real time and changes. But with stable coins, it is exactly that. So why this is such a big of a fuss for this cross-border stuff? Because it turns out that if I send you a stable coin, you can go with that stable coin whatever you want, and then essentially get somehow a value out of it. So all of a sudden, I actually transferred you value, not just that information about the money. This is the biggest thing. And then why interesting? Uh we can argue about that, but I think one of the things there that you mentioned is an open ledger. Uh, there's no one single correct open ledger. Uh, there's many now, it's probably gonna be more. Um, we advanced as any tech, right? Something was older. Um, first now you have something more optimized, efficient, etc. But the key point is that is that if everybody can access this kind of ledgers and things, this is where you you are able to get the value out of that stablecoin, you know, that you just transferred. Um, yeah. So I think um you can really call it um not new money, but new ways to um make your money work for you.

Dante Reminick 38:57

Yeah, I I completely agree. You mentioned that Hollyheld started trying to enable the average retail user to spend their stable coins, and now you guys are branching out and focusing really, really heavily on that business use case, corporate accounts, things like that. What's the difference between the two from an architecture perspective? What do you need to build that is different for corporate spending than it is for individual retail spending?

Anton Mozgovoy 39:26

Uh, it's a cool question. Nothing. It's the same thing. It transfers a transfer. It's the the product is different because the needs are different. Um, so all of the complexity, and this is why we're able to kind of go and branch out and you know, do new stuff and explore, etc., because the underlying logic in tech is the same. And it and it wasn't before. And uh, you know, now uh you see, for example, um uh I think one of my favorite examples there is that look, I think there's less than five banks in the world that would be able to send an international transfer, you know, like over a billion dollars today. You know, there are there are transfers like that, mostly government related, and that's why there's only a few banks in the world that are actually able to move that money. And then yet in crypto, when we see a billion dollar transfers, like nobody even, you know, kind of flips their eye because it's it's it's a uh a common thing now, pretty much. Um that's you know, that's uh the key difference. So, yes, underlying tech is the same. It's the packaging, what's so called, the product is different. Um, my needs as an individual are very different from uh same me as a as a founder of a company, so business needs that we have. And this is where we learn and we um uh essentially build products to cater those specific needs. And then you can go into an infinite number of different things, what kind of those needs are from daily payments, you go into uh you know the overdrafts, you go into uh you know the business loans, you can go to mortgages. Um I mean uh these are just things on the surface, right, Apollo? But there's like hundreds of different types of financial instruments that exist out there that you can uh you know explore, like have products to. But a natural, it only the package. That's what's the difference.

Biggest Barriers: FX And Regulation

Dante Reminick 41:10

I love that. At the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned that there's still a lot to be solved in stablecoin-based payments. I want to get an understanding from you of what those problems are and like what the biggest obstacles are that need to be overcome for stable coins to be ubiquitously used as an efficient payment mechanism.

Anton Mozgovoy 41:33

Um I'll give two. Um there's a lot more, but I'll give you two. Um right now the reality is that um there are only really USD denominated uh or dollar, US dollar um denominated stable coins that have gained significant traction. So something that you can somehow with you know, like half-closed eye consider that, okay, that's a meaningful definition of somewhat success or at least adoption. Everything else, realistically, is more of a what's so-called friends and family testing. So when you compare the size and the scale of like how much money and payments is moved uh in the world versus non-USD stable coins, it looks like a joke. So that's number one. Yes, US dollar is a reserve currency of the world. So de facto everyone still relies on the dollar today. That is true. Um for international trade, for intergovernment agreements, whatever. But on a daily basis, us living in all these different parts of the world, I may be using euro, uh, you may be using the British pound, you know, somebody else is using Polish Zalote. Like regular people on a daily basis are not necessarily connected or tied to the dollar. The prices around, the business around, yes. But they themselves are not. So until we have a good enough solution for that, you cannot really call it the true global um, you know, solution for everyone. So it's kind of like a half measure. If you have a US dollar, yeah, by default you can cover pretty much everywhere and you can live with that, but that's not going to be the most efficient one. I think that um this is again the true part about financial system even today. It is very, very distributed. Like there's so many local um things, and then they kind of step up into more global things. Altogether, it is it does look like internet, kind of you know, very clumsy, decentralized, maybe somewhere not efficient, but it somehow works today, like altogether. So from point A to point B, you can do things. Um, stable coins getting there. So I think that's number one. Number two, it is uh wanted or not a regulation. Um, we can be as much uh cypher punks as we want. Um, people can have different um views on the um on the privacy of their money, and I uh you know support that uh reality. Is that nothing can become a true serious global solution unless it has proper standards. And what I mean here by regulation is I'm not talking about under-regulation or over-regulation. In here, I talk about a set of rules that everybody plays by and everybody understands how it works. From simple reasons that if I today decide to issue Anton stablecoin and then tomorrow I shut down, well, there have to be certain rules about that. So, you know, like, can I do that? What are my obligations as Anton stable coin issue and whatnot? So this is the biggest friction, which uh I'm not sure if it's being sold fast enough or efficient enough. Um could be many reasons why so, but I think this would be the the second biggest um factor, decisive factor, that slows down things or um would allow us, on the other hand, on the other side, would allow us to go really uh faster and bigger and more global.

AI Agents That Can Spend Safely

Dante Reminick 45:02

Amazing. Um, is just about what we can expect out of Holly Held in the next six months and the next year. The entire industry is evolving really, really quickly because companies like yours are pushing things forward. What what should I be on the lookout for, Holly Held-wise?

Anton Mozgovoy 45:24

Um we started uh we not not a while ago, we launched for uh individual accounts something we call HolyHeld for AI. Um and uh essentially it is a set of again tools, uh means for an AI agent to securely safely um learn how to operate and how to use your card so that then it can execute whatever you want uh you know and give instructions to from you know things like hey, uh, you know, get me get me a pizza. So that you know, before what you do is you Google, go on a website, go through the checkout, enter card details, order pizza. Now it is a reality. Um, you know, AI is branching out in uh more and more in our daily lives. What is not yet possible today on a big scale is that AI can find you that uh nearest pizza shop. It can search and get you all the prices, but it cannot actually go through that human checkout level. And uh realistically, we don't need to expect from a pizza store to build API tools that would allow AI agents, you know, like to order pizza. That's that's not their business, their business is to do good pizza. Um we on the other side, because we come from that you have an account with us, what do you can do? Um, how can you securely, safely? Because we know that again, AI is still not something that um it still develops, right? It's the same thing. Um it can do a lot of amazing things and it can do a lot of stupid things. So that's the reality. Um so how can you do that when something involves money? And essentially, how can you go to your personal clothed code agent and be like, hey, order me that pizza? And it actually goes and happens, and the transaction uh appears. So, what you can expect uh from us, uh I think we would um uh experiment more with that, because stable coins, payments, and AI, somehow that trio altogether, um, it doesn't lock a lot of interesting use cases. And again, here, just to make sure that uh I express myself correctly, AI is not like um uh like a know-how, like an ultimate solution for anything. It's uh merely as the way I view it, as one of those additional convenience uh channels for regular people. If you're not a developer, you're not like a researcher, like how can I, as a regular person, utilize AI um really? Two years ago, make a funny picture. Okay, that's cool. Like that's realistically what I was able to do. Now I can ask it questions and it replaces my Googling. Okay, tomorrow, can I can AI help me do my banking? Can it help me um calculate my taxes easier? Can it help me optimize my expenses and make you know, tell me where I spent overspend or where you know I can do things? So this is the part that excites me because stable coins truly enable that. Again, refer back. Stable coins just different tech because of how that tech works. For EI, it's so much easier to work with that than with traditional banking that's so gated, so opaque, so closed. It's just not viable, not possible. With stable coins, all of a sudden it becomes possible.

Closing Thoughts

Dante Reminick 48:36

Anton, I think we're gonna have to have an entirely different podcast recording on what you guys are doing in Agenda Commerce, because super, super cool stuff. But Anton, this has been a phenomenal conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat today. For our audience members, I hope that you take a second to pause. And next time you swipe your card at the coffee shop, you stop and think about what that process looks like under the hood and what it could look like for stable coins. Please do not forget to follow our show on whatever platform you are listening on. And as always, stay stable.