To anyone who saw a haggard, chap-lipped traveler who looks a lot like me shuffling around the Las Vegas airport on Tuesday evening, no you didn’t. I’ve got Money 20/20 President Tracey Davies as an alibi.
We met up at the press lounge — it felt far busier, if not overcrowded, this year; though some of that was thanks to comms firms using parts of the lounge for hush-hush team huddles — to look back on the conference and compare it to Money 20/20 of years past.
Davies frames this year’s conference, which saw more than 11,000 people in attendance, through two key terms: stablecoins and agentic AI. “I mean, that is the buzzword bingo, I think,” she said, adding that the energy in 2025 is more “bouncy… upbeat, positive” than in years past. The past five years have seen the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, then funding headwinds, BaaS enforcement actions, and much more. The passage of the GENIUS Act, as well as regulators who seem (in my view) like advocates for the industry (which is risky business in the long term), shape the sectoral mood and affect how fintechs and others operate and strategize.
Of course, music stops and tunes change. Initial coin offerings (ICOs), NFTs, and other doodads have been discussed with straight faces on industry-conference stages in years past. Stablecoins have taken the place of some of that prior blockchain-based bullishness, though, as Marqeta’s Chief Revenue Officer, Todd Pollak, told me, stablecoins are still a “solution looking for a problem,” as consumers “don’t have a problem with the way the current monetary system works” in terms of user experience. Fintechs, banks, and others are entering the stablecoin space regardless — including Marqeta — as, if adoption does meaningfully scale, there is a big win to be had.
The final days of the conference saw a few big splashes and timely takes:
- On the glossier front, Circle announced that Haitian rapper and activist Wyclef Jean is now the company’s Global Culture Advisor. The goal is to emphasize the cross-border utility of stablecoins. As Moody’s recently noted, just 1.3% of stablecoin volume is payments-related. More than 88% of volume is related to crypto trading.
- With a similar emphasis on cross-border payments, Western Union announced it’ll launch its own stablecoin (USDPT), using the Solana blockchain and issued by Anchorage Digital Bank. Tackling the last-mile connectivity issues of stablecoins, the cross-border payments giant said its network of 400,000 retail locations will allow consumers to convert digital assets into local currencies — which, depending on whether or not Western Union imposes exorbitant fees on these transfers, may drive significant cross-border use of stablecoins.
- Some major tech cos seem to understand that younger consumers want control over their financial experience — not just automation qua automation. Karin Levi, Head of Financial Services Marketing at LinkedIn, noted that 40% of younger investors are open to changing their advisor in the coming year, and are “going from being a recipient to an architect.” Tech spend should be going to personalization, enabling agency across a user experience, in the name of developing a robust relationship strategy.
- In that vein, Becky Reed, COO of BankSocial, a platform enabling web3 integrations for financial institutions, noted that banks might do well adopting some customer-engagement practices typically found among crypto enthusiasts. The company hosts “ask me anything” (AMA) sessions on Twitter, and sees significant engagement, even in the middle of the day. “When’s the last time a bank has set time to have a public conversation on what they’re working on to improve the customer experience?” she asked. “They’re simply not resonating with Gen Z, and barely with millennials.”
- Oracle announced the launch of its Digital Assets Data Nexus, which will help FIs integrate with stablecoin-related products and ease compliance obligations. We’re pinning down whether this product was driven by bank demand, is an effort from Oracle to throw its hat in the stablecoin ring while things are hot, or a combination of the two. Stay tuned.
For all this (hyper)activity, Davies of Money 20/20 thinks the coming year will largely be defined by the same tune we’re hearing now, and won’t involve the nascence of entirely new buzzwords. She says the IPO market shows that fintechs are growing up. In our view, legislation, not just regulation by enforcement, means stablecoins — and, potentially, DeFi market structure — can rest on stabler foundations; and AI products have billions in budget to blunt-force their way forward.
Off to SmartCon in NYC. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if you’re around. I’ll be carrying chapstick.
– Adam
