Stablecoin Cards, Web3 Payments, and Securing Agentic AI

Adam Lowe. We had an awesome conversation with you about six months ago, and we really dove into the the history of the founding of Arculus. I love the story of, like, you pitching CEO of Campo, like, bring this business to life. Give us the origin story of, you said thirteen years you've been at Campo now, the journey of like, Campo to Arculus, and how that's how that actually came to be.

Sure. One of the first things that I did here at Compa with the team was tap to pay in metal, which is nontrivial and hard, and that's why we're one of the big leaders in the space in that intellectual property. So the story is, we have beautiful metal cards, now we need to make them tap and pay all over the world. So we're growing the business, we figure out the tech how to do that. And then a few years later, we're growing the business, and I keep thinking about those payment chips that are in cards. Right?

They they do one thing. They do Visa, Mastercard, whatever, and they do payments. But really the chip that lives on those cards is a cryptography engine. Like it can do a lot more than we ask it to do. So the premise was identity, payments, digital identity, digital payments are all going to intersect. Right? They're all these rails and we wanna service all those rails. So by taking that cryptography engine and actually getting it to fire on all cylinders, right, we can service all of those rails.

So instead of doing one thing, we added Elliptic Curve Magic, and now it's a payment card, it's a hardware wallet, and it's a hardware passkey, all in your pocket, all in that same credential. So now, and you talk to some of our customers that have that technology, we're really happy to say we can serve all those industries, and that was essentially the pitch I gave our CEO at the time a few years ago.

You know, he trusted me, we'd help grow the business, invested a bit in Arculus, and now Arculus is a major segment of the business. We'll make the we'll make the pass off as smooth as we can. So we've today, we've talked with MetaMask. We kick off the show with Liz. EtherFi,

Coinbase, Carta. All of these businesses are really in the business of using cards really thoughtfully to build a wedge into a user experience where a user can engage with that financial technology company or financial app. And we're starting to see cards be such a wedge to create stickiness, to embed commercials, to embed a reason for people to keep coming back.

Something I really enjoyed today was talking with Ben Shen about the way that you can create delightful experiences for the Coinbase card to, like, move from a a swipe of a transaction into a Bitcoin purchase, like, all these things that involve cards themselves. You have spoken and mentioned just just briefly there before around all of the functionality that can get packed into a card, just the tech itself.

I feel like we are just now starting to scratch the surface of some of the stuff, And even some of the the customers and partners that we were speaking to today also are probably just still scratching the surface of some of the stuff. I know that there's like a there's like such a, you know, years and years long desire to see some of this come to life, but I think we finally are.

What what is the in this moment as Arculus is creating and embedding some of this technology into these programs, what are you most excited to see come to fruition with some of these programs? Maybe to be more specific, what are some of the functionalities

that we haven't seen come to fruition yet that you're most excited to finally start to see come to life? So as a prouder person, you're always waiting, you know, eighteen, twenty four months to see your baby come to life. And it is fantastic to start seeing some of this in the field. So one example would be, you know, if you get the Gemini card, you know, on the back it says powered by Arculus, and that card as an example has our security passkey on it. Right?

So there users can use that as a passkey and securely log in, keep their assets safe, securely get into the exchange, things like that. Right? So really as part of that digital identity aspect that we talked about. So I think that growth, you'll see that in many cards and many part of our user journeys is fantastic. Right? Because you got to get people away from usernames, away from passwords, anything defishable. Tap cards, securely log in, boom, digital passkey. It's the most secure version.

You can go into Coinbase app, when you look at their two FA options, passkey is hardware passkey is the most secure option. So I'm really excited to see, although that tech's been there a while, that's starting to roll out in the ecosystem, so that's really fantastic. And then I think you're gonna see more native Web three payments. Right? So I know Tom and some other people on the team have talked to about this, our native Web three payments on POS.

Like really excited about that and that journey coming out for for users, particularly in international markets. Alright. So we'll we're gonna earmark the native I like that word, by the way, native web three payments. I think that's a good word. Before we dive into this, so I actually was seeing

demo of this before we pushed record today of one of these clients who is is thinking through what you described Gemini, that kind of hardware signature experience. I get really excited about something like that as someone who's worked at Coinbase Institutional and to see the level of security that a lot of these teams take when they're moving massive amounts of capital around.

This isn't just like, alright, we're gonna give this one person like a one of one signing to go move like an 8 figure, you know, asset across to a different platform or acquire something. Like, if you have ever worked or been around institutions, sophistication and security when it comes to signing for anything on chain is so, so key. The idea of a physical card being able to tap a device to to authorize something like this seems so unique to me.

Asking you about the difference in your mind of what people might be more familiar with with, like, bio biometric authentication, pass keys, like, where do you see physical cards having a unique edge that maybe these other methods don't deliver on as much? Like,

where would you what's the case to be made of, hey, this actually a physical card makes more sense for this versus, you know, a face ID or a thumbprint? Sure. So I think one of the important things to remember is, you know, unused security is the worst security in the world. So, you know, a card everyone has, they carry it around, whether it be your payment card or institutionally your ID card, you know, it's there and people have it, they know how to use it.

And it meets in the security world what we call zero trust requirements. Right? So you don't have to trust it. It will attest. It will cryptographically prove it's the card you're supposed to have and to move those 8 figures of funds, and it will also attest that it is a valid signer. So it is the best security, like period. It meets all of the requirements that the federal government has for DOD, the intelligence community, etcetera. So it is the best in class security along with ease of use.

And the nice thing about bio is that it can be and. It doesn't have to be or. So imagine you're going and you're on the corporate team and you need to move eight or nine figures. Right? I bio in, I get signature one. It's a weaker signature, right, because it's often synced and you can hack a phone and all those things. So it's good but not great. So you get signature one, then it says, okay, great, tap your card.

You pull out your card that's best in class for security, you tap, gets that second cryptographic signature, it attests it's a valid hardware signer that was given specifically to you, and you move on. So all that sounds complicated, but if we just did it live, it would be like five seconds. So it's that and and depth of defense while being easy to use that I think differentiates us. So interesting.

So speak a little bit, the idea of defense, Department of Defense, the we have we have kind of these different flavors of buckets in my mind that seem really well suited for this. You have the financial

institutions that we've hit on, the Geminis of the world who are very actively, like, deploying stuff like this. I know the history of I believe your background and also the companies is is very rooted also in, like, national security and and things like that. Speak speak a little bit about the maybe the future go to market or the the invitation that you would have that these primitives unlock for maybe government institutions or or

people people in the world of defense. What does that look like? Sure. So absolutely. So prior to payments, I did work in defense. I held the TSSCI and worked at a not for profit defense company. And the company has made national IDs. So they made the EAD card, which is kind of right it's a card similar to the green card for the United States government in years past. So we do sort of think that way and best in class of defense.

So that same core signing technology, whether it be on a payment card to serve our payments customers, We also have it on USB form factor for government customers. It runs on the same tips from four d dash three chip, so it's like the best quality security chip you can get. And we really think broadly in this, as I mentioned, is the best in class. So whether it needs to serve the intelligence community or serve everyday consumers, we're giving them the best in grade. We're not we're not dialing it back for anybody.

So we're really excited about that. And same goes for our hardware wallet. So that same chip that runs that log into something is the same place you can keep your private keys, like on the MetaMask card. So we're we are here on-site right now, today, and the

facility itself is, you know, given the the scrutiny and the defense and the the barrier that the I guess the word would be the responsibility that this company has to really do this in a way that is bulletproof. The level of care and detail that the facility even itself has has taken to make these cards is really, really impressive. It's awesome that we get to be here. Walk us through the process of actually creating these cards.

Like, the no one can deny the dominance that Composecure has when it comes to these metal cards, the the wedge that they play in delivering a lot of these services to the market. How are these what is the process? And maybe when we go over this, we'll we'll put some b roll and we'll we'll kind of show one of these cards being made. Like, walk us through the process of taking something and and bringing it to life on the on the production floor. Sure. So I'll take you know, we have a lot of customers in this space.

We'll take the MetaMask card as an example or Gemini card or a Coinbase card. They're they're in roughly the same product class. So we take it's our veneer card. So we take a piece of steel that everybody's very familiar with. That's the front of our card.

And we make what our salesperson calls those a panini sandwich. There's many layers inside the card and then they get baked together. So yeah, it works. It's everybody can picture it. So you take the steel sheet, you apply the graphics, and those are three d graphics. Right? So we we print the graphics in such a way that they actually have texture and depth and that's why everybody loves the the cards that are part of that experience economy. Then we apply the back and that has a lot of magic.

So that has plastic that has, know, names and phone numbers and all that jazz, has an antenna so that you can tap and pay, and has some other polymer layers that make that work. So you bring all those thin layers together, and you go through what's called lamination. So that's heat and pressure for about half an hour that cooks, you know, just like cookies in an oven. They come out and then the cards get machined.

So they're individually cut out and then on many of the cards they get individually engraved in the same way that you would engrave jewelry or something else. The logos get engraved, payment networks get engraved, and that again gives that wonderful depth and experience to give people a premium payment experience that they, you know, identify with brands, and those brands

deservedly have that great experience. I think today, as we speak, the RAIN team is, like, running around the facility somewhere. You guys seem to just, one, you're very embedded in the community. You're very close to these teams who are building specifically these these cards that are tied to custody and and the self custodial world of things. Speak a little bit about the role that you have in working with those types of teams to bring the level of customization that we're talking about.

Not just on the visual side of things, like as a Coinbase one card holder, I personally love the creative and visual side of things. But in in some ways, I know that that's probably the simplest piece of many of these puzzles. What what are some of these the specific customization and maybe the word is consultation that you take with these teams, like who we've spoken to today.

Describe what it's like to to maybe work with some of these brands you've mentioned and the consultative approach that you've you've had with them, like modularity, some of the things that I think make Arculus and working with your team special is that you seem to really

take that posture. Speak a little bit about that value and and what that's like. Sure. So I'm really proud of the team that we are really crypto native, and I think that differentiates us from some other, like, just large generic conglomerates. We've been in the community a long time. We have a lot of friends in the community. You know, we can go call Circle Anchorage, whatever, and have a real conversation. And I think bringing that knowledge is really helpful.

So to your point, when someone's very crypto native, whether they be CAST or, you know, whomever, they're not traditional payments experts and that's fine. That's that's some value we can bring. So we send them to the appropriate and correct BIN sponsor, the bank that's going to be their bank partner depending on where they issue. We guide them on what's probably the best maybe tier of card for the customer profile they're looking like.

We guide them to KYC partners if they need that and distribution partners, all those things that we think add a lot of value. And we don't charge for that. Right? That's like part of the Campo experience to help get them to their goal, get them to that finish line. And then we can add that incremental software that we've been chatting about to keep their users safe, keep those keys safe that nobody else has.

So we take what I think is our best in class product, guide them to some best in class partners, and get people to the finish line faster. Right? Because nobody wants to be dithering with compliance forever, so we go call the Visa guys that need to talk to, and then we move forward. This is a quick one. What kind of companies should be paying attention to Arculus right now? Really everybody. I mean, it's a snarky answer, but I think it's true.

You know, we have Arculus security tech on the most traditional of traditional FIs. Right? It's in millions of payment cards around the world with very traditional players. And then we have Arculus Tech in the most cutting edge of cutting edge DeFi self custody focused platforms. So whether you just wanna do secure login, I think it makes sense there to the most crazy DeFi thing you can dream up. It it makes a lot of sense. So we we really have that broad offering.

I mean, even Stellar, a foundation as an example, paid us to write some other payment smart contracts. So like we do have deep expertise,

so I would say we can really serve all of those components. You know, I do tend to get the most excited about about those Web three rails. Let's talk about this this what we call the Web three native point of sale or Web three native payments.

And the the term that you used that I loved in our last conversation was the the global kind of Johnny Walker persona of like the vision of empowering people to I'll let you explain that because you're way better at me than that, but just giving people the the tools they need to go live the financial life that they want globally. Speak a little bit to this Johnny Walker vision and then lead us into the kind of Web three POS native, what that means for people.

Personally, know we've worked a lot on that, and we're trying to think through that together.

Yeah. Let's talk about those two. Sure. Absolutely. So I I have this kind of dream, crazy dream, depending on who you ask, for what I call the global Johnny Walker. And what that is is a digitally native person, maybe digital nomad person that, you know, they have stores of value. Right? Whether that be US dollars, some other foreign fiat currency, US stablecoins, other currency stablecoins, crypto, stocks. They're all stores of value.

And the premise is I should be able to journey around the world, hit a smart order router that does the work for me, and figure out the most efficient way for me to pass value from me to you. Because at the end of the day, you have coffee, I like coffee, I want a coffee, I give you a store of value and you give me coffee. Everything else should just be seamless. Right? It's just noise under the hood.

So you know, being able to do that is how we're going to disintermediate a lot of friction points and create more value for the merchant, create more value for the customer. So I really want to go back to the day of like, I have cash, you have something I want, we exchange and instead of pieces of paper, I have many digital forms of value, let's exchange the most efficient way for the both of us. And to do that, we need more digitally native payments and that goes to the crypto point of sale.

So take a market like Brazil, they ask for USDT everywhere, you know, and people want to hold digital dollars, you know, instead of going through this loop, you know, we've come up with a point of sale that just directly accepts stables or other digital assets. So if you have an Arculus card, it knows your keys, you tap, directly signs a transaction and you're done. If you don't, we display a QR, scan it with any modern blockchain wallet, you send your stable, goes to the merchant, and we're done. No middleman.

You mentioned there there's been some buzz around this, like, WalletConnect's doing some cool stuff.

The Shift4 team is doing some cool stuff with, I think, the the team that just spun off Cyclops. Alex Wilson on on that side of things is building some some cool stuff on on that front, bring bridging the kind of the in person terminal hardware side of the equation and the distribution they have with some of the back end tech. How how are you actually right now in this moment seeing this come to life?

Like, who who are the best partners for Arculus to work with to bring this web three native point of sale into the real terminals? I know you guys have been testing your own terminals for this sort of stuff. What is in the next three to six months? Who who are you finding to be the most interesting companies in the space you wanna talk to to work with on this? Yeah. I think for us, you know, we're talking to a number of partners. The most interesting people we're talking to are non US acquirers or non US POS. Right?

Because most of what we're talking about are stablecoins

just because people pay whatever they're buying to sort of a fixed value. So whether it be the LatAm market or certain players in the European market, you know, we're not fixed to any terminal. Right? The same way I want to be able to digitally travel. I don't want a specific thing. Right? And like any Android device should be able to to run this and and even beyond in the future. So we're we're partnering with a few specific acquirers and POS acquire POS merchants in LatAm and Europe to bring this to life.

You know, some of the really, really big people in the space just move a little slow, maybe are doing their own thing,

are using some architecture I don't think is the most efficient. So we're really working with a few of these in emerging markets and people that are a little more nimble. And I think that's how we're gonna win versus some of the trying to shove legacy rails into a web three space. You know, we're really coming at it from a web three native approach. Thinking about the level of, you know, I'm taking a macro look at this right now. You've spent a large part of your career building at this company.

You you you're an owner of this company. You're a leader in this company. Is this, like, when you think about the the jobs to be done and where we where where we're at in the adoption curve of, like, Adam Lowe's impact that he wants to have within this company. Like, are we, you know, just getting started in your mind? Are we like halfway there? What are some of these key as you you're you're stepping back, you're looking at the journey that you've taken.

I'm wondering how you're we're getting kind of philosophical here, but like, how are you evaluating personal impact and progress in terms of what you've done? And then also, what are some of these things that you really feel like you wanna see happen that haven't happened yet? Sure. So it's interesting. So we have a number of very large customers using Arculus, but it's not all necessarily

public facing yet because they have to go through the user education journey, they have to go through UI, UX journeys, etcetera. So I think this year and next year, you'll see more of those customers publicly turn it on for their customers and you'll see Arculus sort of roll out within there. So very excited to see that.

So that would mean you would see very large US banks saying tap your card to your phone to log in, affirm a transaction, all of those things that Arculos Authenticate does that while some of our crypto partners have done that already, they're generally a little faster. You're gonna see that from very large traditional FIs and I'm very excited to see that happen. So that's where you'll see some of this, you know, bigger impact so to speak pop at scale.

So, you know, we're past does it work, we're past initial partners. This year and next year, we're going to grow into really large scale with some impact from Arculus. So I'm very excited to see that. So so on the s curve, right, we're still we're still in this part of the s curve. We definitely have not hit we've definitely not plateaued.

Working with the teams on continuing to grow that out, continuing to grow all the segments of how those rails come together, and I'm I'm excited to continue that part of my journey with Compo and Arculus. We got some new leadership that's great, a new CEO, and he's really excited to continue to grow the company. We're gonna aggressively continue to grow internationally and just, yeah, you know, been here 13, planning on being here for a while longer and about the CEO level. Sure.

So Graham came in a few months ago, has a great history in industry, former Honeywell, as well as, you know, our majority shareholders, former Honeywell. Really expect to continue to grow the company, strong operational focus, strong execution focus,

know, have a really solid battle plan on how to help grow Arculus and grow the company overall. So, yeah, just really excited to continue the journey. It's awesome. It's exciting when you have a leadership come in who's like who's got energy and and they have vision for where to go, where to take things next.

As we close close here, what were some of those specific things that Graham, when you were thinking about welcoming in a leader like that, or some of the things that now that they're included in the company that you really align with, that you're excited that they're bringing to the table into the near future, like what were some of those things that a new leader in the fold makes you most excited and, yeah, gets gives people maybe a glimpse into what they can expect as the s curve begins to to tip.

Like what what what are some of these things that you're most excited to see come to fruition under his leadership? Sure. And I think some of this you won't see for a few years and that's okay because the thing that gets excited me most is right? So built a lot of Arculus, still building but built a lot of it, and now it's it's more about market execution and etcetera. And so what Graham's pushed me and some of the other leaders on is, okay, what's the next disruptive innovation?

So on day one on Arculus, right, very disruptive, continued to disrupt the market in a great way. So what's the next thing? So, you know, starting to really think hard about, you know, whether it be leaning into MPC, multi party computation,

post quantum AI, like what is the security angle, how do we fit there, what is the next big disruptive product that we're going bring to market, and how do we do that in a way that we can scale, have a right to win, all those normal business questions. So he has a lot of energy, big focus on disruptive innovation, which I love. And that to me is the thing that when he came in, was most excited about that is, you know, given the remit to go build the next great thing.

You know, I go chase the next white whale, which for a builder and an inventor is the is always the fun thing to do. So that that's when I'm the most excited about. Right? The last whales on the wall, we're still we're still working on it, and now I get to go chase a new whale. Is there anything

like in that list, NPC or otherwise, you want to dive deeper into a little bit little bit deeper of like what that would look like or, yeah, unpack one of those that that gets you most

intrigued? Sure. I think I can, in the time we have hit MPC and AI. So for MPC, right now, it's typically very, very cloud heavy. Under the hood is extremely complicated to do the math, to do distributed key share key gen, as well as doing distributed signing. It's also very hard to do it on hardware. It's often a lot of compute.

So we think we figured out a way to begin to bring that into an individual signer to bring a place like Arculus, to have it work with MPC, and to have it work across all the blockchains that we support is very hard. So we're starting to lean into that and do a project around that to help bring that to everyone. So the the big goal for that is it would eliminate the need for recovery phrases. That's the upside. And do it in a way that's still safe for everyone. So it's a very hard challenge cryptographically.

So we're leaning into that, that will take some time, but it's an exciting and fun project. And then AI is again, the same way we sign transactions or sign to login, how do we do AgenTik AI safely? So right, how can we be passkey of sorts for AgenTik AI? Mastercard just released a framework that's very interesting, so start just starting to lean into that. I don't I don't know the news about Mastercard. Are you able to go a bit deeper into that? What does that mean? Sure.

So, you know, everybody's excited about AgenTik AI. We'll see exactly how how much that plays out, but people are very excited about it. But right now, there's, you know, other than doing like an approved transactional USDC or something and giving this agent carte blanche permission, there's not a great way to structurally control agents. Right? They don't necessarily have to conform to a specific smart contract.

So Mastercard released a draft open source framework as an example of like how you could approve certain types of transactions for a Gentec AI. It's written, if you read the spec, very much like a smart contract. So it's a lot like if you were to read a ETH smart contract or something, the messages are signed very much like a passkey. So again, like Arculus Authenticate. So again, it goes back to the sort of hardware in your pocket, a key in your pocket scenario.

So like, okay, want to control my traditional payment. I tap and pay. I want to log into a platform. I tap and log in. I want to sign a traditional blockchain transactions. Tap my phone and sign a MetaMask transaction. I want to control my agent doing whatever. I tap and authorize the agent to do something under certain conditions. So all those keys and all those protocols could live on your card and figuring out an efficient way to do that is where the space is just beginning.

So it's securely controlling agents, which as if you've ever read LinkedIn lately, if you don't do that, there's problems. I've been enjoying your LinkedIn.

Go go follow Adam on LinkedIn. It's quite fun. Yeah. We were just talking about an hour ago to the Carta team, Freddie from Carta, and I know they work with you guys in some specific ways.

I don't know all the details, but he he was talking about the specific ability to, on Carta, have an agent go start bringing what I think a lot of people have enjoyed in credit card land for decades as this, like, concierge type of experience to the market where, like, this it's actually really interesting if you think about what a concierge historically has been and the intersection that agents can play in that type of offering in the world of money.

And he's really thinking through a lot of like the concierge experience and but as as we were talking, was beginning to feel really equally excited, but also a little like worried and concerned around some of these like like boundaries and guardrails and the the it sounds like Mastercard and folks like that are really starting to think through these, core primitives, you guys as well of, like, how do we how do we, you know, not just put that on a website and say we can do it, but also behind the scenes build guardrails so that we are really being thoughtful when when we give these concierge agents true permission to go transact.

Any other thoughts

on this like Agenza Commerce opportunity? I'm hearing this getting really excited about that for you guys. Yeah. I think the AI industry is going this way, you know, and people are starting to figure out like the the cloud in a lot of these scenarios is not your friend.

So the more we can reduce the compute requirement for the agents themselves and the model size and the efficiency, and that's where a lot of people are driving, you'll see the a lot of this material run locally, right, and then there's just a lot less risk. So you know a lot of times when I do AI, whatever it's running on the graphics card in my computer, not in the cloud. So the more we can drive locally, the more you can control and sign it and I think it'll be a lot better.

And second, you'll see I think a lot more, it's called homomorphic encryption, where all of the data start to finish even at rest is encrypted and it actually executes an encrypted environment between the two agents. So that takes, again, takes a lot more compute and it's going to take some time for everyone to figure out, but it brings a lot of value in that it doesn't, you know, get encrypted, go here, get decrypted, it stays encrypted the entire time. So there's a lot of value there as well.

So we need agent security and data security, bottom line. Well, Adam, it's been a really fun day. We are

excited to be working with you guys on the show. We're excited to be in the conversation. The teams that you're working with, even the small group that we covered today, the way that they're thinking about the world is so interesting. And I love the the position that cards fit in the real world adoption of some of this tech.

It's like a perfect bridge of like if you look at even the Rain business, like the bridge that a company like that sits in between traditional finance or where money has traditionally been into the Johnny Walker world vision of where it could really go. Cards are such an interesting way to help people make sense of this, to bring people on chain, to really get a lot of get on base with a lot of this stuff.

So it's really fun to explore this with you guys, and we're super grateful to be working with you guys on the show. Any we don't have to say fully goodbye yet because we'll, you know, we'll be having many of these conversations with you and Tom and team. Love is like the the Web three point native point of sale stuff becomes more visible, and as some of these the s curve, like, use cases start popping up, we'll do our job to highlight and spotlight those well. But any final thoughts from you on

yeah. Just the the the moment that we're in, the the the kind of send off of like, here's what you can keep in mind as you guys are building new leadership is in the fold now. What's the what's the final take here? So I think the final take for today is, you know, you're gonna continue to see, but you're gonna see a lot more of the Arculus logo internationally. And what I mean by that is it's been fantastic, but it's mostly been a, you know, a US phenomenon. Right?

A lot of US customers, that's where our home base is. So you're gonna see the team grow and push this, you're gonna see this in the Brazilian market, you're gonna see this in the European market, you're gonna see this in Southeast Asia,

and so, you know, you might see Arculus in a lot of different languages. So that's the part I'm I'm excited about for this year is, you know, prepare to see Arculus conquering more continents. Johnny Walker is actually happening. It's before our eyes. Well, was the Mega Stream, the the Card Carnival, our day at at Arculus HQ. We're not actually calling it the Card Carnival, people were joking.

Thank you so much for tuning into this special edition of Stable Dash Live from Arculus headquarters here in Somerset, New Jersey. We're here with Adam. We've been we've had an awesome day. There's so much going on, so much to learn about companies in the space that are building some really cool stuff. So thanks for tuning in.