Last week at Solana Accelerate in New York City, Helio, a RockawayX portfolio company acquired by MoonPay, took the stage, joined by MoonPay and Iron (acquired by MoonPay), presenting the unified vision that now drives the MoonPay umbrella.
Ivan Soto-Wright (Co-Founder & CEO of MoonPay), Stijn Paumen (Founder & CEO of Helio), and Omid Aladini (Co-Founder & CTO of Iron) discussed shaping the future of payments globally on Solana.
The talk was moderated by Mackenzie Sigalos, tech correspondent for CNBC.
Watch the full panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQDvDpj2pvs
Below is an AMA summary, complete with key talking points and timestamps.
(0:26) The TL;DR Of Moonpay’s Umbrella
Soto-Wright discussed the high-level overview of MoonPay’s new umbrella, comprising MoonPay, Helio, and Iron. He highlighted that MoonPay has been very passionate about wallets being the future, and to bring them meaningfully to the world, it’s essential to build backwards compatibility to traditional financial rails.
Once users are onboarded to MoonPay, they’ll want to spend that money (using Helio). API-driven infrastructure is also essential for building the new financial system, which is where Iron comes into play.
Emphasizing the grand vision, Soto-Wright said, “We want to onboard the entire world to the crypto economy. It takes a village. It takes exceptional persistence, it creates a lot of entrepreneurialism around it. And so as part of that, we brought these incredible entrepreneurs into the mix at MoonPay… Really, different flavors of how we onboard the world to crypto.”
(1:48) Helio’s Value Proposition And What Payment Adoption Really Looks Like
Helio can be seen as the “Stripe of Crypto.”
- The leader in crypto checkouts
- Their mission is to make crypto payments accessible everywhere by making it easy for anyone to drop in a crypto payment widget into the checkout process.
- $1.5 billion in volume across 6,000 merchants
Highlighting the company's value proposition, Paumen said, “There’s speed benefits, there’s security benefits, it’s super cost-effective, it’s future-proof. We charge 1%, Stripe charges 3%. I think in the United States alone, merchants have a cost center of $200 billion in fees. So that’s a huge impact. We also settle instantly. That means the merchant gets money in their pockets a lot quicker. It also reduces things like chargeback risk. In the U.S., it’s, again, a $100 billion cost center for merchants. We’re changing the game with crypto payments.”
When asked what crypto payment adoption really looks like, Paumen discussed how Helio had primarily been focused on crypto-native merchants, but now in collaboration with the Iron team, they’re able to make their crypto-native stack compatible with the traditional financial system, opening key doors that unlock new levels of adoption.
Health & Longevity entrepreneur Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint was highlighted as a company that currently accepts crypto payments, powered by Helio.
(4:43) Introduction To Iron
Sigalos highlighted the White House’s support of clearer regulation for stablecoins, recalling that crypto czar David Sacks stated, “If we provide the legal clarity and legal framework for this, I think we could create trillions of dollars of demand for our Treasuries practically overnight, very quickly.”
Then, the conversation shifted focus to Iron’s purpose:
- Iron is a stablecoin infrastructure and payments API-focused company
- Developers, businesses, etc., that deal with moving funds can create custom flows using Iron’s “Autoramp.”
- The value-add to payment adoption efforts is making crypto-native financial rails compatible with the traditional finance world
(6:03) MoonPay’s Mastercard Partnership
Press Release: Mastercard and MoonPay team up to mainstream stablecoin payments
When asked if MoonPay’s collaboration with Mastercard was the real deal or just another announcement without much substance, Soto-Wright confirmed the announcement’s immediate impact:
“It’s the real deal… I compare it to what happened in telecomms. It was very expensive to place long-distance phone calls, then we had Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), then applications built on top of that (ranging from Skype to Zoom to iMessage to WhatsApp). And it’s not overnight, but over a period of time, people start to opt into the more efficient system.”
He also expressed his belief that crypto wallets will replace the bank accounts of today, with card issuance being a key component to making contained funds spendable. The partnership with Mastercard, he said, “is trying to make this crypto technology and this infrastructure more accessible to people in everyday life.”
(8:30) The GENUIS Act
Sigalos steered the conversation towards U.S. regulations, specifically the GENUIS Act, which seeks to establish a clear regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in the country.
She highlighted that banks like J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citi, etc., are looking at launching a unified digital dollar to compete with Tether, which commands a dominant 66% stablecoin market share today. The passing of the GENUIS Act would enable this to occur.
She asked the panel whether they thought competition from traditional banks would be a good thing for the crypto industry.
The panel unanimously agreed that competition is healthy and welcomed traditional firms entering the space, stating that it would help build safety and trust in crypto-based financial rails.
Aladini confirmed that Iron has been in conversations with traditional financial institutions that are interested in integrating stablecoin tech, stating, “The response we’ve gotten is amazing.”
(13:00) Scaling Helio Across Chains
When asked about Helio’s plans to expand beyond Solana, Paumen first mentioned that 80% of Helio transactions currently occur on Solana due to the chain’s speed and low costs, making it “an amazing chain for payments use cases.” Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Layer 2s make up the other 20%.
He said that it makes sense, from a business standpoint, to integrate with any relevant blockchain that will see meaningful adoption. That’s how a payments processing company like Helio ultimately scales and wins.
He finished by bringing light to how Helio is viewing competing with Stripe, saying that “Stipe is playing defense, we’re playing offense.”
(15:05) The Magic Of Payments On Solana
Soto-Wright chimed in after Paumen, encouraging the audience to start using Solana Pay and buy a Solana Seeker mobile phone.
He said, “Once you experience connecting a wallet, and actually spending that wallet directly, you’re not going to want to go back.”
He added context to how payments will scale, saying it’s all about distribution and the different integration touchpoints, shouting out Solana as a “phenomenal partner” that has reduced complexity and focused on use cases.
(16:10) Tokenized Equities On Solana
Sigalos highlighted that, parallel to tokenized U.S. dollars, tokenized equities are the major conversation of bringing traditional finance on-chain, with Solana being a major player.
Soto-Wright confirmed the movement’s importance, citing that, at their peak, decentralized Solana markets represented 8% of traditional U.S. equities markets in terms of volume, something he called “outstanding.”
He said that growth in this sector will be accelerated by bringing RWAs on-chain and regulatory clarity, even going so far as to say that crypto liquidity will overtake traditional markets.
“What we’re talking about is modernizing the financial system. It’s incredibly powerful for people all over the world to receive a stablecoin at the speed of the internet. They now have, essentially, a U.S. dollar checking account, and then the next step will be how do they earn interest on that, how do they earn yield, and then, connectivity to U.S. equities and all sorts of productive financial instruments.”
(17:38) 2025 Ambitions
Sigalos wrapped up the panel by asking each founder for their primary 2025 ambition, within the current regulatory paradigm.
Soto-Wright
MoonPay further diversifies from its core business line while also proving that Helio and Iron are incredible businesses.
Paumen
Helping brands (with Doodles and its DOOD token as an example) create circular economies by enabling tokenized IP to be spent on merchandise and other community benefits.
Aladini
Expanding geographic coverage beyond the U.S. and Europe.
