The CU2.0 Podcast
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The CU2.0 Podcast
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 395 Curql and Stablecore On Why Now Is the Time for CUs to Embrace Digital Assets
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In mid February, Curql, the collective of 160+ credit unions, announced its first blockchain investment into Stablecore, a company that provides digital asset infrastructure for credit unions.
Literally hundreds of billions of dollars now are flowing into stablecoin, a digital currency backed by fiat currency and accordingly it has little volatility.
Big banks are pouncing on stablecoins but the credit union problem is a lack of tools for managing digital currencies. Enter Stablecore which is designed to enable credit unions to manage member portfolios of digital currencies. It’s a solution that’s needed and that’s why Curql chose to put money into Stablecore.
On the show are Nick Evens, President and CEO of Curql, and Alex Treece, CEO and co-founder of Stablecore,
Along the way, Nick offers insights into Curql’s investment strategy and Alex issues an invite to credit unions that might be interested in a pilot that he is putting together.
Sure, you are glad that you sat out Bitcoin but stablecoin is a very different entity. Now’s the time to get to know about it.
Listen up.
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SPEAKER_02Hi, and welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with big new ideas about credit unions and conversations about innovative technology with credit union and fintech leaders. This podcast is brought to you by Quillow, the real-time loan syndication network for credit unions, and by your host, longtime credit union and financial technology journalist Robert McGarvey. And now the CU 2.0 podcast with Robert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_01In mid-February, Circle, the collective of 160 plus credit unions, announced its first blockchain investment into Stablecore, a company that provides digital asset infrastructure for credit unions and banks. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars now are flowing into stablecoin. A digital currency backed by fiat currency, and accordingly, it has a little volatility. Big banks are pouncing on stablecoins, but the credit union problem is a lack of tools for managing digital currencies. Enter Stablecore. It's designed to enable credit unions to manage member portfolios of digital currencies. It's a solution that's needed, and that's why Circle chose to put money into Stablecore. On the show are Nick Evans, president and CEO of Circle, and Alex Trees, CEO and co-founder of Stablecore. They tell their story. It's a must-listen. Along the way, Nick offers insights into Circle's investment strategy. And Alex issues an invite to credit unions that might be interested in a pilot that he is putting together. Sure, you are glad that you sat out Bitcoin. But stablecoin is a very, very different entity. And now's the time to get to know about it. Listen up. What what does tech stable core do? What's the Raison Detroit Stablecore?
SPEAKER_00So Stablecore, you can think about Stablecore as essentially like a digital asset core. So almost like FIS, Jack Henry, FiServe, but for digital assets. And it's it's actually helpful to take a step back and explain the sort of problem space a little bit, you know, that that that you know credit unions and also banks are facing in the digital asset space. And that's that, you know, as as you probably know, all credit unions have this existing banking technology stack, right? So that's things like banking cores, you know, like FIS, Jack Henry, FiServe. That's things like digital banking platforms, like you know, Q2, Alchemy, those same sort of banking core providers, and also these compliance tools like Verafin and others. But you know, in in short, you know, virtually all credit units or sorry, most credit unions rely on this banking technology infrastructure. And you know, today, given that digital assets is a relatively new space within credit unions, there's not support in that existing infrastructure for these digital assets, right? So if you're wanting to build inside the credit union space with digital assets, whether that's something like stable coins, whether that's something like Bitcoin, whether that's something like tokenized deposits, you're you're you know generally not going to find that infrastructure from within your existing banking technology stack. So that's kind of on one side. Now, on the other side, there's all this digital asset infrastructure that exists from folks like you know, the digital asset custodians, you know, people like Coinbase, Anchorage, Fireblocks, these various stable coin issuers that have emerged, which is folks like Circle and Paxos, and also these digital asset compliance tools that really focus on blockchain technology and on digital assets for compliance. And there's actually a lot of great companies, great tools on that side that are very robust, but that that sort of digital asset infrastructure is completely separate from this legacy banking technology stack that I mentioned. And so what you have here as a problem is any credit union that wants to be in this space is sort of spread across these two sides. And of course, all that digital asset infrastructure is completely foreign to most credit unions. And so you have this gap here in the middle. And that gap is really where my company stablecore sits. And that's really the problem that we solve. And so, again, you can think of us as being like a digital asset core. But what that really means in practice is that on one side, we integrate with all of that digital asset infrastructure. So we integrate into digital asset custodians, um, into digital asset and stablecoin issuers, into all the digital asset compliance tools and really bring together all those important pieces that you need to offer those products. And then on the other side, we integrate directly into the existing credit union and banking technology stack. So we integrate directly into banking cores, we integrate directly with these digital banking providers and with existing compliance tools. And what that does is really meet credit unions where they are and say, you know, you don't need to create all this kind of new technology infrastructure to support these digital assets. We're going to take that sort of best in class digital asset infrastructure and bring it into your existing stack. And then we're also doing some things in the middle there, things like orchestration and ledgering that basically glue these two sides together. But the sort of effective in state is that as a credit union, you can do things like send a stablecoin payment directly from your checking account, for example, you know, directly inside your digital banking experience, you know, for example. Or you can take a stable coin that's outside of the credit union and bring that back in as a deposit. Or have other digital asset use cases like Bitcoin accounts or Ether or accounts that uh members may be engaging with over places like Coinbase or Robinhood and bring those back inside the credit union and do the seamless on and off ramping of those uh assets from you know directly within the credit union. And there's kind of a host of other use cases, things like digital asset-based lending, tokenized deposits, uh, many, many others. But you know, in general, we support all of these use cases and are this sort of you know entire digital asset system of record for credit unions.
SPEAKER_01Super uh uh Nick. I I was planning to start this show by asking Alex what the heck stablecore does. He just told me. So let me add my second question, which was going to be for you. Why did you invest in this?
SPEAKER_03For all the reasons he just said, banks and credit unions, credit unions in our case, don't have the infrastructure and don't have the knowledge and don't have the bandwidth to do all of the things they need to do to get ready to offer stable coins and digital currency and digital lending and tokenized deposits to their members. And so we were looking for a solution, and we believe that stable core is the right solution at the right time for credit unions to build the infrastructure, but more importantly, partner with somebody that knows what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01Well, I've I've talked with a lot of credit unions about stablecoin, not the biggest guys, not like Navy Federal. And the ones uh but the ones I've talked to are a billion dollar plus. And they all are really interested in it, but they're not doing bupkis because they don't really know what to do. It's uh that's a good way to put it. And so you see stablecore as a solution. So if I'm the CEO of a three billion dollar credit union, and I call you up and I say, can stablecore core help me get in this game? You would say yes.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely, and that's why we invested in them. It's a path forward with very knowledgeable people who understand the insides and the outsides of how all of this works and can help credit unions get in the game. And so and and be compliant about it. That's the biggest thing, too, is that Alex and I are meeting with Kyle Hoffman next week to talk through this and make sure that credit unions understand what questions asked, but more importantly, that Stablecore knows how to answer the questions and can help credit unions survive an exam and answer all the questions that an examiner is going to have when they get into offering members the opportunity to buy and sell crypto and and stable coin and things like that. So we believe this is a great solution at the right time.
SPEAKER_01Now, my recollection is that Hauptman is has a favorable outlook when it comes to digital currency.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. He's he's been talking digital assets, digital currency for as long as he's been on the NCA board. He's very knowledgeable and really a champion for credit unions getting into this and being, you know, being present. His big thing is he's not a fan of the banking system. When the banking system closes down over the weekend, and that's the way he'll tell the story. I've been in the room with him many times when he says, you know, it took three or four days for some transaction to clear, whether it be an international transaction or or whatever. And he says money should be available to anybody and everybody in the moment, whenever they need it. And so, you know, his big thing is with the entire banking system, and he thinks digital currency and in including stablecoin, uh, can solve for that problem.
SPEAKER_01What size credit unions do you see stablecore particularly appealing to?
SPEAKER_03I think every size, from the biggest to the smallest. And I'll let Alex answer that question, but that's my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think on a long enough arc, I think it's it's really something that every depository institution, whether it's a credit union or bank, and frankly, every financial institution generally is going to have to sort of have an answer for. I think in the near term, we we certainly see you know some of the more medium-sized, larger credit unions moving a little bit quicker. But I think it's helpful framing just to point out that this space, I mean, today we have around 300 billion or so of stable coins in in circulation. I think that's around 10 trillion of kind of last 12 months volumes. This is already a very substantial payment rail, already a very substantial kind of market. And those numbers about four or five years ago were around, you know, 10 to 20 billion. So we've seen just absolutely enormous growth in a very short period of time. And of course, we had the Genius Act that just passed in July of last year. I mean, we're currently in that rulemaking phase. And all projections are that we are going to move somewhere between 300 billion where we are today to three to four trillion by 2030. So within the sort of next five years. And so you can imagine that, you know, as there's you know trillions of dollars of stable coins circulating in the in the financial system, that even if you're not doing something like cross-border payments, like one of these very kind of specific stablecoin use cases, your members are going to come into card are going to come into contact with these assets, you know, one way or the other. And so I think at, you know, at a minimum, every single financial institution needs to have the ability to go from checking account to stable coins and be able to take these stable coins and bring them back in as deposits. Otherwise, there's going to be this entire system that's sort of building up outside the credit unions that you don't have access to ultimately. And that's going to end up being less deposits and overall less less transaction flows, and then also just fragmenting your members' kind of primary financial account relationship with providers that do offer those products.
SPEAKER_01And I imagine there are many credit union members. I'm one. I mean, I have a Bitcoin stash at PayPal, it's where it's parked. It's uh could I if I wanted to use it, I I could cash out, but that's my only option. It's whereas it would be nice if if it were a little bit more mobile and and useful than sitting there. I I like to look at it. It's losing money nowadays, so I don't like to look at it too much, but but it did pretty well overall. So but it's just it's inert, it's just yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think I I would differentiate something like Bitcoin and something like stablecoins, but it but I think it's helpful.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, absolutely. But definitely the world of digital currency, though, it's it's all you have some, but you can't necessarily use it in a way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and and for for you know things like Bitcoin and other more called traditional digital assets, we see that most folks are using them more as like an investment vehicle, right? If you think about why you know members and consumers, particularly younger members, you know, between the ages of 20 to 45, are going over and signing up with accounts like Coinbase and Robinhood and Kraken, these places, they're looking at it more as an investment class, as an investment vehicle versus stable coins is more of a medium of exchange, more of a payment method. Now we're, you know, we'll see as we get into the kind of rulemaking and as the market expands what the use cases are. But I think I think it's important to point out here that whether we're talking about stable coins, whether we're talking about Bitcoin, whether we're talking about tokenized deposits or other types of tokenized assets, all of these assets ride on the same type of rails and they ride on the same type of financial technology infrastructure, right? And that's blockchain technology, that's that's wallets, that's that's custody. And so the good news for credit unions here is that whether you start on the stablecoin side, whether you start on the Bitcoin side, whether you start on the tokenized deposit side, this is all common infrastructure, right? If you if you sort of support one, you've effectively done a lot of the work to support the other. And these are very large existing markets. You know, for example, I talk to a lot of credit unions, really of all sizes, that are seeing pretty tremendous deposit outflows to places like Coinbase and Robinhood and Kraken. And oftentimes those deposits don't come back, right? Folks are sending money over there to engage with digital assets. And so there's a handful of things that are happening there that's quite negative. One is that you're sort of fracturing the account relationship, right? So your members are going to open up a primary financial account relationship with one of these fintechs, which obviously there's that kind of immediate deposit outflow. But then it also sets the stage for future deposit outflow. Secondly, you're you're obviously losing those deposits, right? So you're you're kind of losing that interest income. And then thirdly, those are fees that the credit unions could be earning around, you know, around the transaction fees. And so it's it's and what's interesting is that if you, you know, whether you look in banking, whether you look in credit unions, whether you look at on the crypto side or the fintech side, everyone is converging towards the same answer, which is having that primary financial account and offering all these products in one place. That's what members want. That's what consumers want, is they want to have this trusted relationship where all of their Rails, all their accounts, kind of, you know, all their products are in one place. And so I think the opportunity here is for credit unions to really seize that mantle and to be that primary financial account, right? And to do that though, they're gonna need to offer these products. Uh, and if if they don't, then what's gonna happen is their members are just gonna take their deposits, they're just gonna take that activity elsewhere. So that's why it's very important to you know start engaging on this.
SPEAKER_01Nick, my understanding of Circle is that you're a little bit like MIT, where a hundred people apply to MIT and maybe four or five get in out of that hundred. Why did you choose, why did Circle choose to put money into stable core? Because I'm sure there were other suitors for that, those very same dollars.
SPEAKER_03And there still are today. And we told Alex and Nick, the the co-CEOs or the co-founders, that we could we could possibly invest in others in the space as this evolves. It's evolving quickly. But as of right now, you know, sometimes you bet on the jockey, right? And the jockeys in this case, and you look at their their pedigree, you know, I think it correct me if I'm wrong, Alex. Nine, nine folks from formerly from Coinbase and running your company. So the inner workings, the the plumbing, so to speak, is being plumbed by a lot of knowledgeable plumbers, if you know, if if if that's an analogy I can use. The connections, the connectivity, they have it, and they have it all. And so, you know, Alex talks about all the other players in the market, Fireblocks and Coinbase and all those folks. We we believe that Stablecore has the connectivity and the knowledge on how to navigate all those connections. And so that was very key in our decision, in our decision process. So they're still building and they're still they're still creating their product roadmap. There's some things that need, you know, that we think need to be added to the product roadmap, quite frankly, but we're confident they could do that. And so and they will do that. So, you know, the this is evolving quickly. You know, right now I just was reading an announcement from True Stage, the biggest player in our market, is rolling something out for credit union. So we'll just see how everything shakes out, but we believe we've invested in the right jockeys in this case for it's the right, again, right place, right time. And that's not to say that's the only investment we're going to make.
SPEAKER_01Well, I've talked over the years with enough Sand Hill Road VCs, and they always invest in jockeys. You don't even need much of a balance sheet to get money from them if you have a track record that they this guy's made, he's done a unicorn before. We'll talk to him, we'll put money in them, period. End of discussion. So you're on the right track there.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Now, what how many credit unions do you see being involved in in stablecore? I mean, what's your your patient money compared to a lot of VC money?
SPEAKER_03It's we're not, yeah. And and thank you for noticing that. We're not a VC, we're a strategic investor. Right. And so and that's uh we assume that's part of the appeal as to why Stablecore took money from Circle, in that being a strategic, bringing potential customers to the table, that's what we pride ourselves on. There's 135 investors in our ecosystem right now, today, from the largest credit union to most of them are over a billion, put it that way.
SPEAKER_01So that's what we call Navy Federal's in in circle now, if I remember seeing a press correct.
SPEAKER_03That's what I say. When I say the largest, I guess I'm not saying their name, but they are the largest. So, you know, that's it works both ways, right? So Alex and and Nick saw the benefit that Circle brings to the table, and and we saw what they bring to the table. And that's usually how this works, in that when we're when you're a strategic, there has to be it's a dual-sided value problem, put it that way. It's a win-win scenario. Potentially, we're both we're we're both stable core and circle uh benefit. But most importantly, we we need our credit unions to benefit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Alex, what what was the upside and what's the downside of taking circle money?
SPEAKER_00I don't think there's much downside, frankly, if I'm just being candid. You know, we and I think it's important to highlight that stable core focus, you know, it we we focus only on banks and credit unions. So like we don't sell to crypto companies, we don't sell to fintechs, we don't sell to payments providers. We're very focused on banking. And we we actually have multiple other funds you know in it involved in the company, like Circle on the banking side, you know, like bank tech ventures, which I think has over a hundred banks. And so today we have 290 uh depository institutions, credit unions and banks that are either direct or indirect investors. I mean, that's obviously been a huge part of our strategy because we focus on banking, and that's that's really our niche. And you know, when we started the company, there's there's lots of stablecoin infrastructure companies out there, there's lots of digital asset companies out there, but we saw that there was no one that was really focused on credit unions and banks and really understanding that space and really tailoring to their needs. And quite frankly, selling to and working with a credit union is very different than working with a fintech, for example. And so obviously Circle is, you know, if if the the large, I believe is the largest, if not the largest, one of the largest sort of investment and source and also strategic investors in the space with a huge network of credit unions. And so it was just a natural partnership. And on top of that, obviously Nick and his team bring you know a tremendous amount of expertise to the table for us as we build our credit union product, as we build our credit union strategy. So they've been amazing partners, and quite quickly we're we're very lucky and honored to have them as partners.
SPEAKER_01In my opinion, Circle is sort of the sandhole road of of credit union money. So it's uh now how many how many investors do you have in your Q zone? So credit union.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we have are you talking to me or are you talking to Alex?
SPEAKER_01No, I'm talking to Alex. Oh, you have you have you have them all. You have hundreds.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we we we we have a handful, including Circle, including some others. And I think it's possible that we we may have others that are you know becoming clients today that could invest. So as as as part of this, we we did set up a QSO, um, stablecore QSO in order to serve the credit union market specifically. And and Circle was the first investor in that QSO, and and we and we anticipate having more.
SPEAKER_01So, Nick, you're looking at other companies doing something similar too.
SPEAKER_03We don't invest where there's 100% overlap. So we would never invest in a company that's doing exactly what stablecore is doing. As this evolves, as different, uh, what do I say, channels, different niches, different opportunities appear, we might look at some other things. But right now, in order for us to invest in that in this space, somebody's gonna have to be doing something pretty, pretty amazing and pretty different. And and that could happen, right? Or, you know, stablecore could come to us and say, hey, there's another opportunity over here. We're gonna set up a different company, we need investment. So there's some, you know, like this is so new and so young. And, you know, at the same time, we look at what happened with NIDIG and and the Bitcoin craze from five years ago, and that all went away. So we're being very careful that this is not a repeat of of that, what happened five years ago with the Bitcoin craze. Um, and so we're we're kind of we're studying things pretty closely right now and watching.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, I remember the Bitcoin thing, and I in my opinion five years ago when I talked to credit union guys about Bitcoin, they'd rather talk about being in the Epstein files than talk about Bitcoin. They ran from this. Whereas stable coin, they're all interested in stablecoin, they're not afraid of it. Why do you think that's so?
SPEAKER_03Because it's back from One to one. It's equal to one dollar. Right. It's different. It's different. It's not a big thing. So you don't have the volatility that I have in my Bitcoin thing where the risk is the risk is is beaten out of the system with the the fact that it's you know it's it's backed one to one by fiat currency. The other thing is we've learned a lot about fraud. And and we've made sure that stablecore has those pieces in place around all the compliance and and the ability to recognize fraud. And there's going to be fraud in stablecoin. It's a fact. There's fraud in everything. There's fraud in writing checks today. But it's the mitigation, the risk mitigation that we look at from that standpoint.
SPEAKER_01You see, wow, people are still doing that? Yeah, actually, apparently they're doing it more than ever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, check fraud's check fraud's a big thing, analog fraud, as you call it. Yes.
SPEAKER_01So Alex, how fast do you think you're going to take off with credit unions? Seriously.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, we we already have a bunch of conversations that are very far along. So I I think we will, you know, knock on what I think will sign contracts here, definitely in the next you know, 30, 60 days. We're actually currently running a big pilot program with Circle and Circuit, which is another Q7 group within the, you know, within the credit union space that you've probably heard of. You know, so working with Circuit and working with Circle members and credit unions to offer digital asset products, right? So things like stablecoin accounts, stablecoin send receive, uh, things like other digital asset accounts, like you know, buying and selling Bitcoin, for example, on and off ramps. And ultimately the uh credit unions decide which assets they want to support and which rails they want to support. But it's putting in place the sort of foundational infrastructure that helps them address things like deposit outflows that they're seeing today, uh, things like the stablecoin sort of ramping up period that's happening right now, but then also putting in place the the you know all this digital asset infrastructure, that's I mentioned earlier, is common across all these use cases. And so I'm you know quite confident that we will have you know many, many tens of credit union clients. It's it's it's hard to put an exact number on it, but you know, this is definitely the year. I mean, it's certainly not a 2027 or 2028 endeavor. We're already doing things like negotiating contracts and again, we'll be signing contracts soon, hopefully. And I would expect that by the summer, certainly you'll you'll have credit unions that have announced that they're working with us. And then by the end of the year, like I said, I think there'll be tens and tens of credit unions that have products in production live out to members in this space, uh, you know, both both things like stablecoins, but also these other digital asset use cases like having Bitcoin accounts or you know, even things like digital asset-based lending. There's sort of a whole kind of myriad of of you know products in this space that'll be coming out.
SPEAKER_01Well, once you have a credit union that's actually live, I'd love to have you and the credit union on this show again. I'd love to have a tech guy and a credit union. The credit union is like the truth, the truth serum there. Tech guy will tell me anything, but it's yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00No, you you you won't have to wait long.
SPEAKER_01So we're happy to do that. Now, my understanding, and I have not followed stablecoin that closely, but my loose understanding is that big banks like JP Morgan Chase are all over stablecoin. I mean, lots of huge amounts of money.
SPEAKER_00Am I right? Yeah, absolutely. And that's something so and we actually started on the banking side before we got into credit unions, and so can kind of speak to some of the things that we're seeing there on the banking side, particularly with the larger banks. So, yes, all of the large G SIB banks in the United States and also globally as well, are very actively investing in digital assets and stable coins and tokenized deposits, really kind of all these products. And so, you know, definitely the top, you know, one to 10 banks for sure. And then also there's you know many super regionals and regional banks as well, you know, call it between 30 billion in assets all the way up to you know 500 billion, who are also you know are also very aggressively exploring the space. In fact, we actually have some existing clients right now. We have a we have a super regional client today that's a top 25 bank by assets here in the United States. And so we are definitely seeing a lot of interest from the larger banks. And they're taking the position that they're they're not waiting around to kind of see what happens. They're getting started, you know, even before like the rulemaking for Genius Act is is clarified. And so I think that should be a signal to all smaller banks and credit unions and even mid-sized ones, that your sort of competitors at the top, you know, we are I I think everyone is sort of very mindful of the competition coming from fintechs, right? Who are trying to win those primary financial account relationships, who are very aggressive in offering these types of products. But you know, folks should know that it's also coming from these larger, you know, you know, these larger banks and credit units, these sort of regionals and super regionals. And as I mentioned earlier, and then we also have all these de novos that are spinning up. So as I mentioned earlier, everyone is converging to the same point, again, which is being this primary financial account, having all the rails, having all the accounts in the same place. And so I think ultimately everyone's gonna get is is gonna sort of end up in that same place. And the question is who's gonna get there first? Who's gonna you know do it the best way? Who's gonna have the most trust? And I think that's an area where credit unions obviously have a great advantage because they're already that that primary financial account are very you know very trusted. So as you think about a you know credit union lining up against a large bank or even a fintech, you know, you've got pretty good odds there with your sort of trusted members.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've been thinking, worrying about the huge lead that big banks like Chase have in AI over credit unions. It's uh and this is another area where I think those giant guys are vaulting ahead. I mean, they're just sprinting at full force, and they have so much force that it these and it becomes worrisome. Yeah, historically, if you said to a credit union CEO, do you wake up in the morning thinking about what Chase is doing? He'd look at you as though you were nuts. No, of course not. But now I think they have to because these guys have voracious appetites and and they're really good at what they do.
SPEAKER_03I would comment on the fact that that's one of the reasons we created Circle for Credit Unions, is in order to have a seat at the table and partnering with great fintech like Stablecore and all the companies we've invested in in order to try to keep up. And keep up as a relative term, right? So, you know, we know that JP Morgan Chase is spending$18 billion a year on technology, and we're not going to spend that much, but at least we're, you know, we're in we're we're we have a fighting chance, and that's what we're doing. We're pooling credit union resources in order to find the best and most most transformative technology that that that we can in order to compete and stay in the ring, so to speak, with these big banks and the big fintech that are uh well funded as well.
SPEAKER_01Well, I've been saying for five or ten years that the secret credit union weapon is the Q zo, particularly the tech Q zo, because it enables them to compete with much larger institutions. So I've I've been uh singing the praise of Circle for some time.
SPEAKER_03So appreciate that. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I think I got what I wanted from this call. Either of you want to say something that I didn't think to ask.
SPEAKER_00As I mentioned, we are running a uh digital asset pilot with Circle and Circuit as well. And I think there we're we're we're seeing tremendous interest from that. I think we're gonna have a lot of credit unions that are involved in that. So for any credit union who's interested in, you know, not just exploring this space, which which everyone should be doing, right? If you haven't started exploring, if you haven't, you know, put someone on your team that's responsible for digital assets, you should do that. But for any for anyone that actually wants to develop real capabilities and really step into this space for the first time, we're offering an ability to do that. And as Nick sort of mentioned, you know, I talked about the stable core, but and but but before stablecore, I was over at Coinbase and spent three plus years there. And we have a team, a lot of people that are also ex Coinbase that have been this space for the last five to 10 years, you know, building digital asset infrastructure, integrating it with traditional infrastructure as well. And so we deeply understand this space and we're you know very focused on credit unions and banks. That that is our our sort of singular focus. And so for anyone that is serious about wanting to get into the space, we would love to partner and you know love to be helpful. So we'd love to have those folks reach out if they're interested.
SPEAKER_01Before we go, think hard about how you can help support this podcast so we can do more interviews with more thoughtful leaders in the credit union world. What we're trying to figure out here in these podcasts is what's next for credit unions? What can they do to really, really, really make a difference in the financial scene? Can't all be mega banks, can it? It's my hope it won't all be mega banks. It'll always be a place for credit unions. That's what we're discussing here. So figure out how you can help. Get in touch with me. This is RJ McGarvey at gmail.com, Robert McGarvey again, and that's rjmeggarvey at gmail.com. Get in touch, we'll figure out a way that you can help. We need your support, we want your support, we thank you for your support. The C U two dot O podcast.