# Solana Foundation's new payments chief Jamal Raees calls FX ripe and expects yield to grow Stabledash Live, a Stabledash show. Sep 28, 2026. Jamal Raees. https://live.stabledash.com/shows/the-live-show/episodes/from-polygon-to-solana-the-new-payments-gm-on-what-hell-Iv7bwqFHYM4 Arriving from Polygon Labs, Raees argues stablecoins pay off in narrow segments that are hard to find, and names FX and yield as his first targets. Jamal Raees has joined the Solana Foundation as General Manager of Payments, moving over from Polygon Labs. Speaking on Stabledash Live, he named his first calls in the job: FX is very ripe, and yield and earn will be a huge category for the next twelve to eighteen months. ## Why payments, why now Raees says blockchain-based payments have created some of the best and newest infrastructure for global payments, especially across borders. He points to partners already active on Solana: Western Union was announced earlier this year, and Visa is doing stablecoin settlements on the network. He adds that stablecoin activity on Solana has grown tremendously. ## Narrow segments, sticky users Raees argues that a lot of people have forgotten a basic point about stablecoins: they are very valuable, but particularly in certain segments. Those segments are not easy to find, he says, but when you find them they are extremely sticky. He names where that value shows up today. More stablecoin activity is moving onchain in FX, payment automation and escrow, and he says those areas are where Solana starts to deliver tangible value very quickly. ## What has matured Raees says stablecoins have reached maturity. In his view, regulation around them is incredibly strong and getting stronger, wallets have gotten really good, and companies like Rain have proven out a card connectivity play that is extremely valuable. ## First bets: FX and yield Asked about his priorities, Raees says FX is very ripe. He expects yield and earn to be a huge category over the next twelve to eighteen months, and says the Solana team is building out a number of solutions there and partnering with a number of people on it. Raees's pitch skips the idea of stablecoins as a fix for everything. He describes infrastructure that has matured, large payment partners already settling on Solana, and a plan to go after the specific segments where he says stablecoins stick, starting with FX and yield. ## Key takeaways 1. Jamal Raees has joined the Solana Foundation as General Manager of Payments, coming over from Polygon Labs. 2. Raees says stablecoins are most valuable in certain segments that are hard to find but extremely sticky once found, such as FX, payment automation and escrow on Solana. 3. He calls FX very ripe and expects yield and earn to become a huge category over the next twelve to eighteen months. ## Chapters - 0:00 Raees arrives at Solana HQ as new payments lead - 1:24 Payment pilots and stablecoin growth drove the move to Solana - 3:08 Stablecoins pay off in narrow segments that are sticky - 6:21 First priorities: serve institutions surgically, starting with FX and yield ## Transcript **Jamal Raees** (0:00) The new core for the next era of finance. **Drew Rogers** (0:09) Don't worry. Here I am. Bro. Hello? What the hell is going on? **Jamal Raees** (0:15) You say... Save the worst for last. Maya's the better one for sure. Yeah. Maya's great. Shout out to Maya. **Drew Rogers** (0:21) You're gonna you're gonna learn a lot from her. She's she's super smart. Great stuff in the world of payments for for the business. So I saw... I was, you know, about to push push go live this morning. I saw the news. It's been fun to watch your career unfold and and grow. And what... What's going on right now? Do you have a Solana hat on? **Jamal Raees** (0:44) I just got it. I just got it. I'm in Solana HQ for the first time. It's, like, super nice here. Getting swagged out. It's been great. Yeah. The team is awesome. Like, there's an undoubted, like, Silicon Valley type energy here, like a hacker house type energy. Everyone's, like, working nine to five or probably around the clock. And then on top of that, also, like, you know, grinding across multiple different sectors and verticals. There's, like, institutional people here as well as DeFi degens as well as, you know, former bankers and former treasurers and, you know, builders and CEOs. It's just a... It's a great bunch. I'm thankful to be here. Yeah, man. So **Drew Rogers** (1:24) what can you share around this move? I'm looking at Yahoo Finance. Solana Foundation appointed you, Rachel Conlon as chief strategy officer. You're you're coming in general manager of payments. You know, we we we covered your move... The recent moves you've had in in Polygon and all this stuff. Like, what drove this decision from your perspective? How did you think about it? Why now? Why Solana? Bring us into this a little bit. **Jamal Raees** (1:52) Yeah. No. We've come a long way from the the old square days for sure. Oh, yeah. We... I think, you know, Polygon kinda showed it as well. Like, around the world, you're seeing this increasing, like, acceptance and more comfortability and more pilots and just more products being built around blockchain based payments. And people are realizing that blockchain based payments have created some of the, like, the best and newest infrastructure for global payments, especially cross borders. I think Solana has been at the forefront of that, building across various sectors, kinda getting into the trenches, working with some of the largest payment companies. We've been... I mean, we announced Western Union earlier this year. Visa is doing stablecoin settlements on Solana. A bunch of new pilots are being announced. Stablecoin activity on Solana has grown tremendously. So I think, yeah, like, the the perfect storm is here. There's a lot of pieces, and I think now is the time to, like, dig in and build. A lot of enterprises are asking us, like, what do we build, and how do we do it? Who do we work with? How do we structure this? How do we architect this? And I think all of this is really healthy to show, you know, people are digging in, and they need they need trusted partners to work with, and they need deep point based solutions to be able to go after. And I think there's there's a lot of opportunity. It just feels like every every day there's new new traction and new heat. **Drew Rogers** (3:08) Yeah. What did you learn at, like, the stops along the way? Like, you know, you I mean, there's so many interesting ones. Like, gosh, Square, Time at Bridge. You have, like, that traditional payments knowledge. Now you... And then most recently, really understanding, like, labs, blockchains, like, foundational stuff. Like, what what... When you when you thought about the decision to go go towards Solana, like, when you think back in your career and these kind of stops along the way, what were some of those key... Like, sometimes sometimes the learnings happen after the fact as you look back, and you're like, oh, I really wanna do this or I don't wanna do this next time. Like, as you were thinking about joining Solana, what prior experiences were you kind of reflecting on? I think the most important thing is that **Jamal Raees** (4:00) there is... There's always a ton of noise in crypto, especially with stablecoins. And I think there are... If you peel back to Onion a little bit and you look at, like, who is actually building in the space and what are they building, there are these use case and... Use cases and situations out there where stablecoins, tokenized assets of various kinds, are solving tremendous pain points for people. And I think the most important thing to do is like dig in and find those. I think a lot of people, like generically and blanketly prescribe stablecoins to like solve world hunger and like solve cancer and whatever. Like stablecoins are very, very valuable, but they're particularly valuable in certain segments. And I think a lot of people have forgotten that those segments, you know, they're not easy to find, but when you find them, they're extremely sticky, and they... And stablecoins have helped a ton. Solana obviously has like the resources and the global reach to be able to reach them. But I think that just now we're starting to see like, mature builders come in the space and and build solutions that are are robust, scalable, and are gonna last. I think in the beginning, had a lot of trial and error. We had a lot of, you know, trying things out, different pieces, and, you know, infrastructures weren't strong enough or robust enough to be able to handle this kind of, like, global launch and global reach. But I think it's kind of a perfect storm now. Like, stablecoins have gotten to maturity. The regulation is incredibly strong around them, and it's getting stronger. I think the infrastructure solutions around stablecoins have gotten extremely, extremely strong. Like wallets have gotten gotten really good. Companies like RAIN have really proven out that there's, like, a card connectivity play that's extremely valuable. Global payment providers are starting to use stablecoins. Multiple companies are launching their own stablecoins. You're starting to see more stablecoin activity on chain, in in places like FX, in places like payment automation, in places like escrow. And those, like, unique areas are where we start to deliver tangible value very quickly. I think we need to dig in and find those areas and build with those builders. And as those, like, foundational pieces start to get strengthened and grow really rapidly, I think then you start to proliferate into other sectors. But there's just things like clear low hanging fruit that Solana's been after for a while, a lot of chains have been after a while, but clear low hanging fruit where builders are really solving people's problems. And they know their particular sector, and they're focused entirely on that, and they just, like, wanna dig in. We wanna dig in with them. Yeah. **Drew Rogers** (6:21) Dude, I'm pumped for you. I guess I'll definitely be seeing you in London later this year, which will be fun. We will be there doing a bunch of different different things. And as always, I'm excited to kinda follow the journey, and we we wanna find more ways to... Actually, some some alpha for us. We're launching a very, like, Solana focused show, if you will, with one of Solana's favorite people on the timeline probably next month or early in the month. We're gonna be launching... It's really gonna be focused on markets and spotlighting builders. And not just Solana, but it'll be a very Solana friendly show. And would love to have your hands all over that. It'll be fun to jam on that more. But last question for you. In the next fourteen, thirty days, as you think about, like, what do you do now? Like, what what is the first step? Like, you coming in, I'm sure that you you kind of presented some sort of, like, thirty, sixty, ninety day plan. Like, **Jamal Raees** (7:22) how do you attempt to start? Like, what practically are you gonna start with? I think that is gonna be a very tough thing to figure out because ultimately, like, there's just Coming on StableDash live. That's the first thing you do. You need to tell the I was way... I was waiting. I was ready to go as soon as the announcement hit. I I don't know. I'd like... I have really bad ADHD, so it's, like, super bad because there's, like, 90 things that I wanna do, like, today and so much opportunity, so much activity. Obviously, some of the largest enterprises are our partners and are really, like, digging in with us. So, yeah, it's gonna be hard to figure out where to start. I I personally think that, like, large institutions are coming on board. That's gonna be a huge focus. As those large institutions come on board, we have a very critical role to play in architecting what is the best path for them to look at this stuff. It doesn't make sense for them to do everything in the first, like, whatever, ninety days. So I think it's very important for us to be surgical, find where the pain points are strongest, and build solutions towards those those pain points, and then scale those, and then go land and expand from there. Like, think FX is very ripe. I think yield and earn is gonna be a huge category for the next, like, eighteen months or so, twelve to eighteen months. And I think we are building out a number of solutions on there, and we're also partnering with a number of people on that. And I think as these institutions learn more about that, that's gonna start to blow up like crazy. And then there'll be another 50 things after that, and I'll be distracted Let's by all **Drew Rogers** (8:46) go, man. I'm excited for our off the record phone call later, hopefully. Off the record. Yeah. Yeah. It's taking time. I know you... Are you in Switzerland? Is that where their HQ is, or where where are you right now? Not... I'm in our New York office. New York. Okay. It's under the foundation. I I was just looking. It's, like, based In Switzerland. Yeah. Yeah. Nonprofit based in Zug, Switzerland. Okay. Anyway, man, thanks for hopping on. You can just, like, close close the browser out, and then we're bringing on actually Anna from Piranha. So another. Yeah. It's kinda turning into a Solana a Solana love fest today. So I love it. I saw her on there, and I messaged her already. So she's gonna crib it. She's amazing. Thanks for having me. To see you. Take care. Yeah. Likewise. Thanks.