Mastercard's Bill-Pay Network Is How Stablecoins Pay Your Mortgage

Duran, welcome to Stableash Live and our NEO segment. Good to see you. How's it going? Guys. Going good, man. So I was told Drew has dark hair, but it looks like you both have dark Yeah. That's not very helpful. I'm Drew. Yeah. And Zach is, I guess, two What's up, man? I'm Zach. Right? I'm the other I'm I'm other I'm other Zach. It's really fun when we're in email threads. I've gotten a few messages of, oh, I was talking with Zach, I'm like, yeah. That that was the other one.

Have no clue what your guys' conversation was. But, anyways, yeah, Drew and Zach, what's going on, man? We appreciate you. Like I said, I've seen Artisan Cash around our socials. So first, I just wanna say appreciate the support in the past past few months, and, congrats on this new venture. It looks like this has been a recent project of yours, been working in the space for, it looks like, a few years now.

So maybe just kinda give the people a baseline of where you were at, what you were doing before Artesyn Cash, and then kinda bring us into this moment now.

Yeah. So quick back on me. I'm Doran. I'm the CEO and cofounder of Artesyn. I have been a lot of different industries, management and a ton of different industries. I coran my family's upstream oil and gas firm here in the Anadarko Basin for several years, Ran acquisitions and divestitures, you know, tons of 7 figure deals, working with all kinds of different people from landowners, mineral owners to business owners to mineral buyers, everything in between. Bought my first crypto in 2017.

Did a bunch of, like, ETH mining, GPU mining, ASIC mining on the Litecoin side, a lot of stuff, in the meanwhile, and then started working in crypto on the DeFi side in 2021. I got my first job on Avalanche, at a leverage protocol, and the rest is history. I went on to cofound a few projects with them. I worked for Wormhole. My most recent notable role, I was the director of growth at DeFi app where we took them from zero to a million users and over 40,000,000,000 in volume in just under a year.

And, yeah, I had this idea for Artisan because I, like most of us, have been paid in stablecoins for so long in the space. And every month or several times a month, I was leaving the crypto ecosystem to pay for my life, to pay my bills. So I started diving into these card programs and tried every product and was like, okay. I can use the card for discretionary spending, but what about my mortgage? What about Bank of America who doesn't take debit card, credit card, or surface ACH pay details?

So that's sort of where Artesyn, the idea for Artesyn came from, from a First Principles Foundation, solved my problem, started talking to people, realized they had the same problem, and, yeah, just became a no brainer to launch it, Right place, right time. Launched it with two other cofounders, Mick, who is I'd meant that on X and Telegram, and then a close friend of mine, Jordan, who's our CTO.

What was Question. Go ahead. Go ahead. You made me made me.

Well, something this first impression is, like, it's really interesting, the specific, like, targeting you're you're having with landlords. So one, I just I I wanna dive more into some of those experiences that you said you had around maybe resonating with that that user base. And maybe that's more of a broad broad way to ask, like, you you have had so many unique stops on the journey in the last five, ten years in your career.

What would you attribute most when you think about Artisan and and how you've built it and why you've built it? What what what are the big moments or the big stops on the journey that stick out as, like, insightful or inspiring?

Yeah. To be honest, I think we all got into crypto for a lot of the same reasons. We got into crypto for empowerment of our finances, permissionless money. We quickly realized that stablecoins as a use case just makes sense when you compare it to fiat and the antiquated rails. I mean, the ACH rails were literally built in 1974. We're talking about, like, decades old rails that we're all still using all the time that they want to keep us using.

And, yeah, I I along the way, I mean, like a lot of us, I've been a a victim of extractors. I've been a victim of, like, certain situations where I just felt like it wasn't what I thought crypto was meant to be. I think in 2021, 2022, we were all, like, so hard on people. We would join a space. And if anyone had, like, any semblance of a crack in their armor about something they were building, they would get absolutely roasted. And then at some point along the way, everyone was just like, okay.

This is how we make money, and it just became the norm. I think, you know, anyone listening that's been in the space knows what I'm talking about. So the passion passion for Artisan really comes from, like, why we got in the space in the first place and what we've seen, how we've been hurt along the way, you know, the pitfalls, and just wanting to build something not to focus on a token, but to focus on an actual revenue model and building a product that actually solves a problem. Mhmm.

This isn't a product we have this cool product on the front end, but we're really gonna make money on the token. That's not we we actually don't even plan on the token. So, yeah, everything is like, let's do it above board. Let's do this in a way that solves a real problem. And then, ideally, we see a crazy multiple in a few years and get acquired by one of these big dogs.

I think that's a good thing to have your, your eyes set on. Mean, we even had Joe from from Maple Finance on the other day, and, obviously, from the lending perspective, he's like, yeah. Token it's like, I think tokens can be a great mechanism, but he's like, they obviously, they have their own token too, but they aren't they aren't the mechanism. Like, they aren't the prize, and it used used to just be, yeah. Go ahead. Launch token, and and you made it. Job's done.

And now it's it's nice to see, and especially refreshing to see because I know there's a lot of frustrated, I'd say, neo bank users that have been you know, we saw what happened with Cypher. What a pardon me. I'm not even gonna say what it was. Everybody knows what it was. Essentially, got acquired, token went to zero. Like, that's a horrible experience for the users. So when you think about, though let let's fast forward a little bit because I can relate to this.

There was a time where I was getting paid in in stablecoins, and that was that was the main goal. And I think the only option, and this is two, three years ago, to actually, like, pay your bills. And when I say pay bills, not just, like, go, you know, discretionary spending, pay for groceries. Like, I could pay my credit card bill. I could pay my think I could pay my mortgage? I could pay my electricity bill was Spritz Finance, which they've they've definitely stuck around, But the problem at that time was the fees.

Fees were just exorbitant. I think it was upwards of four to 5%, and it was really like, okay. If I had no other option, sure. I'll do that, but I really will just, why don't I just go to Coinbase and OffRamp and take the extra ten minutes and get the funds there? So when we think about this in 2026 now, like, why do people who who is this persona that needs to pay their landlord directly in stablecoins? Who is the persona that you were building out with ArtisanCash?

I have to imagine with the names, it is artisans and and contractors to to the to some degree, but help us understand, like, why why would you not just offer up your funds and pay your bank account if you can? Like, why this positioning, and why even Artisan?

Yeah. And you're right. We are targeting the creator economy because I think it's been extremely underserved, especially on the side of, like, OnlyFans creators. We have a partner of ours who we're probably gonna do something with in q four or q one twenty twenty seven that is focusing on that as well. And that'll be better actually, to speak on that later on the show. It's the founder of Credentials. They're doing a lot of really cool stuff.

But but, yeah, I think our ICP, obviously, we have native distribution in crypto Twitter. Our focus is really people who are being paid in stablecoins to start. And this is like you know, everyone that works for a web three project for the most part is still being paid in Stablecoins. I know I was at my last role. Our employees will be an artisan. It's just, in in my opinion, the superior money and rails and way to pay.

And so there are a lot of people that just don't even know that something is out there that could solve this problem. So, like, to your point about Spritz, we love the Spritz guys. We've talked to Spritz users. We've, like, picked up on pros and cons and, like, things that we can maybe improve on with our UI, our UX, etcetera, which we're doing. We've had a lot of really fruitful interviews, and the thing that keeps coming back and this is for people in The US. This is mainly targeting people in The US.

The thing that keeps coming back is I would pay my mortgage on chain if I could. Like, I wouldn't do all that extra stuff because ideally what it looks like is if I'm paid in stablecoins, I don't send to all these different places. I send to one place where I can do everything. I can pay my bills, I can swipe a card, I can earn yield, not only just on an idle balance, but also in a highly audited DeFi vaults.

Just everything in one place, and that's, you know, the the thesis there and ethos there is, like, that's what I was looking for. Like, I was just like

I don't know if I'm I might be missing it. And, Zach, it sounds like you have, like, a a more personal experience with this. But from my my vantage point, I'm struggling to see why stablecoins specifically in this problem set. Like, what what does using Stablecoins unlock versus having a Visa debit card or credit card or something like that connected to a bank account? Like, what what are what is the big unlock here for Stablecoins and why,

Like, what's the pain there that they're solving in your view? So first of all, the last leg other than Spritz on the Stablecoin front just hasn't been solved. Like, find me another product that does it with Stablecoins outside of Spritz, and you just won't find it. And Spritz was down for, like, six months just earlier this year. We feel we have better distribution. We're crypto native, like myself and one of my cofounders were KOLs on x.

So it's really that last leg because there are three ways right now where you can solve the bill pay aspect with stablecoins or with fiat. You can either send a check on behalf of someone. You can take their money and say, okay. We'll send a check to your bank or or to your liability or biller for you. The problem with that, there's a class action lawsuit actually going on right now with a company that was doing that because they were taking payment on the thirty first.

The people that were paying them thought, okay. I'm paying on time, and they started getting late fees because the check showed up later and and started incurring all these problems. The other way is I can be an authorized agent for you, and I can call on the phone and use my bank account to pay your bill. And this is specifically in the case where you can't pay with a debit card or credit card and they don't surface ACH pay details.

The best way out of all three is to go through what's called the Mastercard RPPS system. And so what happens is you go from a stablecoin to a, you know, a sponsored bank. That sponsored bank sends it to another bank who handles the last leg, who actually surfaces those liabilities for the user and and handles the last leg through the Mastercard RPPS system. So that's really the unlock.

The unlock is we all are leaving the crypto ecosystem to go back to fiat every single month if you're being paid in stablecoins to pay for your life. In most cases, based off of what we're seeing, in 2026, crypto bill pay is up 2700% on Google Trends year over year, and we just see that that's it's just something that people are looking for and and don't have access to right now.

Like I said, outside of, a spritz, and and and to have one competitor in the space, is like peanuts compared to what, like, people are facing on the on the card side of things. So I I don't look at really, like, spritz as competition. I look at it like, okay. Cool. Someone else is doing this because they know it's a problem that needs to be solved.

So I wanna unpack kind of this Mastercard route and this this last leg. Like, let's get more of the stack. I like how on your website too. We see a lot of friendly faces, MoonPay, Spinwheel, Bridge, Stripe, Dakota, obviously, it's a shot at Dakota, yep. How, presenting this this segment. Yep. But I I and I this is even, I think, a telling sign of the space when we think about what, like, how do we solve that last leg?

How do we get to that that stage where if the next wave of I don't I don't wanna call them crypto native, perhaps, because I think we're you're probably the first one we've had on the show in a while that is still, okay with with that vertical, but there's a lot of more neo banks going, hey, we wanna be banking infrastructure, we wanna be lifestyle spend, we want to maybe maybe lifestyle spend with a blend of trading, but when you think about what things need to be true, what needs what does the infrastructure need to look like to actually pay that bill and to not have to off ramp.

I don't even think about it in the sense of, like, on chain and off chain. I just think about, like, how can I pay an account without having to switch an account? Like, I don't want to have to leave my CAS account, whatever account it is, when there's a nascent credit card bill. Like, I just wanna pay that credit card bill from that account. And to your point, you're right. You you can't do that right now. It's like if you go to my credit union account, and they're like, oh, you can't pay the the credit card bill.

You gotta move move move debit accounts. Like, it's super annoying. So bring us into bring us into the stack more. And, well, yeah, how do you solve this last leg issue then? If if there is only one people one person doing this, this has to be a hard problem to solve. Like, how do you start to solve that problem?

Yeah. The card, believe it or not, is actually the easiest part to solve. Just because the infra is there, there's so many options and providers. The bill pay side is the hardest part to solve because, especially on the noncustodial side, there's so many hoops and compliancy protocols you have to hop through to where this could even happen.

So, like, behind the scenes, you might see, like, a lot of different things that seem like they're new that these deal banks are coming up with, but it's literally using the same infrastructure behind the scenes. And just as the infrastructure moves forward and these companies release new features on via via the product that they're these neobanks already tapped into, they just tap into that new product. Right? It's just like a b to b, b to c funnel.

And, yeah, it's it's really interesting because this didn't become a thing until recently. Like, it even, like, you you probably noticed with Spritz, like, they changed providers not that long ago and, like, had to be down for a certain amount of time because their previous provider, like, no longer offer the service or whatever they decided it wasn't right for whatever for whatever reason, they were down. And it just shows you that, like, the options out there are not vast.

Like, you don't have a lot of options where you can just say, okay. I wanna give you stablecoins, and I want you to use the Mastercard or PPS network, handle all the compliance regulation, be okay with where it comes from, blah blah blah blah blah, that whole thing, and get it to the right place. Ultimately, the long run, what it needs to look like is rails being built so that stablecoins are accepted by just everyone in the world.

Like, my thesis is in a few short years, the most widely used global currency will be stable coins. It won't be the United States dollar. And to service that inevitability, you're just going to see more and more and more evolution with these products, especially on the Ampere side. And then on the b two c side on the Neuabank side, as these things hit the market for them to tap their users into, they'll do so.

But, yeah, it's it's like honestly, behind the scenes, it's so basic for a lot of these products you're seeing. It we've literally been spending months on just solving the bill pay side of things and, like, signing contract with this partner and, like, integrating this and, oh, this one works. We have to do this. And, yeah, it's a it's a fun problem to solve. The last thing I'll say is at the end of the day, it's a UX problem.

Like, it really boils down to a UX problem because no one's gonna wanna use something that sucks to use. And so that's, like, really where I think we're gonna shine is I've built and been, like, in a product hat at startup role before at some of these DeFi protocols. I know what people expect. I know what they hate. I know what they like. And that's kinda, like, how we're building Artisan. So it just feels like this is just money, dude. Like, we've been treated for so long. Like, it's not money.

Stablecoins are money.

What what was the

go ahead, Drew.

What's your experience been like, you know, being being at someone who's worked at a payment service provider, like, regulated financial institution myself, I I remember onboarding companies, and I feel like one of the things that sticks out to me about this and just this this general category is, like, the marketplaces and the, like, gig economy conversation, there's so much fraud and bad actors going like, there's so much if if there was like a heat map of laundering and sketchy behavior, this business model is a very, very at risk business model.

And so a lot of infrastructure companies are are very, very slow to move, careful with how they do things, and oftentimes, I guess, I don't know what happened with Spritz, I'm not familiar with that, but it it it doesn't surprise me that companies in this lane are experiencing issues with getting support. And it's not like yeah. Stablecoins work, but it it sounds like you're experiencing a little bit of like it's not actually Stablecoins aren't aren't doing the job.

It's actually finding players to help us use these systems because is that has that been a resistance, or what's been your experience as someone building in this category?

No, Drew. That's a 100% accurate. You hit the nail on the head. And I will say, yes, there is fraud. There are bad actors. But what we're seeing is a lot of new teams popping up every day, excuse me, who are building on the, like, fraud, compliance side of things specifically. Like, that's the infrastructure they offer. We will scan this wallet. We'll scan this person. We'll do whatever to ensure that, like, this is legit above board.

Like, I'm not I don't judge anyone, but I'm not trying to, like, facilitate bad actors. Like, my goal is to help people that make money, have it in stablecoins, do an above board job, have an above board business, and just just want to be able to access those things, like paying for these things that you can get Yeah.

But the tension in the context of payments is like where and this is a this is a question that I I think everyone asks themselves when they're building, is and my understanding is Artisan Cash is not a regulated financial institution. You guys are integrating or working with financial institutions who then play that role. Is that true? A 100%. Yeah. Because we're not gonna save we don't ever touch or transmit funds. Yeah.

So if that's something that's the case, then, like, if you are try it goes back to, like, what you said. The UX has to be great for anyone to use anything. And the tension that I've experienced that I know everyone who's building experiences is, how can we make this feel frictionless, but not frictionless enough where, like, anyone can use it and we won't know? Like, how do how are you thinking about building the safeguards around a great user experience?

Maybe what are the partners that you've experienced where you're like, hey, these guys can crush compliance and not make it feel like they're like, making you eat glass. Let's take how have you solved some of that piece?

Yeah. So I think what we see is, like, all of these different partners have their own programs for KYC, KYC, KYC, and whether people like it or not, like, if you sign up for a consumer fintech app, like, I tried to sign up for Chime the other day. I'm a US citizen and, like, great credit, like, a real person. They denied me. So I don't know what was going on there. It's a conversation the other day, but, Chime Chime is kind of a low bar, if I'm understanding, like, in terms of Yeah. Yeah.

They they kind of work with anyone. But the point is they KYC you on the front end. Yeah. And and so, like, it's just something I think people expect. We have to KYC. But the thing is because all these different partners do it differently, then one takes a sum sub verification token. The other wants to use persona. The other just does it internally and has whatever whatever.

So we had to get creative with how we make sure it's a one time thing and do and then so so a user on Artisan enters KYC one time, not a 100 times to access these a 100 different products. They enter it one time, and then we disseminate it in the background on their behalf, get them verified on their behalf in real time. And if they, you know, are you know, ideally, don't have an experience like I had with Chime.

But generally, what we expect is if they're a, if they fit all their criteria properly, like, they'll get approved very quickly. So the only people that I think have anything to worry about on that front is, like like, to your point, like, just bad actors, fraudulent actors. And and we do have, proprietary ways of, like, catching those people as well on the front end. But, yeah, it's it's a very expensive thing.

Compliance is a very hard thing to solve, and, thank god that we have people like Dakota, all all of these players in the space that are actually putting the time in it. Because this is like it takes millions of dollars and years to spin up these compliance programs Yeah. And make them work. And we don't have to do it, and that's why we can move quick. But, like, we're definitely thankful to the people that have done it for sure.

Brian Bozart was in the green room. I don't know if he heard that, but,

we love Dakota. Yeah. He he's getting ready. We're gonna do a bit of a GenTick payments, demo, I think, with with that part of their platform that they've they've been launching. Then well, let's let's just, like, fast forward six to twelve months. You know, what do you think you what what do you think you have to do right to start acquiring users? I think especially in this highly competitive space right now where, you know, I see a little bit of earn on the website, see a little bit of cash back.

I think everybody knows to some degree though that that, like, cash just launched a reserve product with 12% yield, and and and they obviously have a massive war chest. So it's like when you think about, like, what game are you playing? What game are you playing to acquire users? Like, what do you have to think you're gonna have to really do right in the next six to twelve months to to really survive?

Yeah. So for us, I'm a very boots on the ground, guerrilla marketing, growth hacking type person. Mick, my cofounder and CMO is as well. So, like, we had over a thousand on the wait list before we even spent a dollar, and we've already started to tap into now some of these systems that will allow us to target the correct people. And it's really about finding areas that you can just have a little bit of an edge, a little bit of a niche.

Maybe, like, there's some hoops to jump through for compliance for you to be the advertised to that target audience, that region on that platform or whatever it is, and then you figure out how to do it. That's something I've been good at doing in the past, and that sets you apart. But really, like, we've been having so many user interviews lately where people are like, if this product existed, I would use it.

And they just to your to your, to your point about Spritz, like, it's out there, but a lot of these people just don't know it yet. So our plan is very boots on the ground heavy with our initial go to market. I mean, I'm I'm a person that's not afraid to, like, knock on doors, literally, like, have calls, hey. We're live now. Like, let's get you let's white glove onboard you. I'm a big believer. I think one of the biggest things that differentiates us is I'm a big believer in the Ritz level customer support model.

So I don't know if you guys are familiar, but at Ritz Hotels, regardless of your place on the totem pole, every employee is empowered without management approval to give up to $2,000 per instance with the customer where there's an issue. And that just empowers the employees. It makes people be like, wow. I've never had this good of an experience at a hotel before, and it just is in the psyche for their entire life.

So I don't know if you guys have ever had, like, you reached out because something happened and they, like, just sent you a brand new product with you without you even asking. You knew it was a high quality product and costed them money, but they just did it because that was the right thing they felt to do. Like, you never forget that. So Yeah. That's part of our sword in our war chest. It's like, Ritz level customer support from day one. We plan on white white glove onboarding users themselves one by one.

And, yeah, we have a growing wait list that's that's just growing rapidly and and plan to have, like, a few 100 on the first beta cohort mid September, end of September. But, yeah, I'm confident that on the crypto native United States side, we're gonna hit the ground running very quickly. I wanna hit escape velocity on our to cover our burn by month six. So I have lofty goals, but I think we're gonna hit them.

Awesome. Well, good luck on the journey. We appreciate you coming on the show today, Doran. It's great to meet you. And, yeah, appreciate you. We'll we'll see you next time. Thank you guys so much, Drew and Zach. Appreciate it. Good to meet you.