I’ve been relatively quiet on X this year regarding what I was building, that was intentional. 
While I wasn’t posting much, I was deeply involved in building and scaling a privacy wallet on @AleoHQ - @lets_puzzle, which grew to 300k users and highest onchain transaction volume.

Experimented with @fal's new H3 Director model: one stablecoin payment traveling from San Francisco to Lima, directed live, beat by beat. The story: families in LATAM still queue at transfer offices and wait days to receive money. Stablecoin rails make it arrive in seconds.

Been quieter here for a few weeks, heads down, but the shift in the market has been hard to ignore. For a while the loudest take was that Web3 was fading. What I keep seeing is the opposite: adoption is quietly moving from retail speculation to institutions actually building on this infrastructure. Stablecoins settling real cross-border flows. Banks and fintechs running pilots instead of dismissing the space. That's an adoption story, and it's the more durable one. More soon on where I'm focused next.

Starting a career in web3? Listen in.

Looking forward to this!

The most telling moment at the @Asconf_ wasn't on stage. It was meeting @SulemanHezekia, who came through DeFi Diplomas, the education program I founded, and today leads @Mercuryo_io's Africa region. Education → trust → participation. That pipeline isn't a theory I pitch anymore. It walked up and said hello. That aside, three things stood out from a full day at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City Accra with regulators, infrastructure builders, and operators: 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝗶𝗳" 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲. Sharon-Rose D Lithur (Head, Innovation and Cross Border Office, @thebankofghana) opened by acknowledging plainly that stablecoins work. Her diagnosis of what's broken in cross-border payments: settlement still routes through too many intermediaries to happen in real time. When a central bank names the problem that precisely, the conversation has moved from whether to how. 𝟮. 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄. Mosa Issachar laid out what enterprises actually evaluate before adopting stablecoin rails: ERP and treasury integration, custody flexibility, embedded compliance, multi-chain settlement, institutional track record. @Bitnob_official Enterprise hands institutions full custody control, but most fintechs I've worked with don't have that operational muscle yet. The question I left with: what's the bar a customer needs to clear before non-custodial is the right call, and whose job is it to get them there? 𝟯. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆. On the cross-border panel, @d_mulinda (@honeycoinapp) put it best: stablecoins become seamless when users don't need to know the underlying tech. Lasbery Oludimu (@yellowcard_app) grounded it in the operator reality, stablecoins are already solving FX shortages and currency volatility for businesses, with regulatory frameworks still the drag. Arnoud d'Yve de Bavay (@tether) talked about problems stablecoins are solving. Hayford Kumah (@thebankofghana) kept pulling the panel toward interoperability: solutions that complement each other instead of competing. When I raised trust and adoption for everyday users, he pointed to education initiatives BoG is already running, which tells you where the regulator thinks the real bottleneck is. I've been advocating for stablecoins since 2021. Days like this one make the direction unmistakable: the infrastructure is maturing, the regulator is engaged, and the remaining work, the work I care most about, is trust and education at the user level. Good conversations with Webster Michael (@kotanipay) on cross-border flows, and great to see @isaacnewtonIII, Joseph Kwesi Mills, @evergenius_eg, @WikicatStalwart, @iamakosuaosei, Obinna Iwuno, @ujunwaedeh, Francis Owusu-Mensah, Mark Brain, Enoch Borketey Borlabi, Jeremy Acquaah, and the many builders shaping this ecosystem. Ghana is already building the future of payments. Great event @MavericksLtd.

Continue to show up

My thoughts about OpenUSD and what's next in the #stablecoin mania. In my latest blog, I shared what stablecoin adoption practically looks like, and I mentioned that the next phase will see an increase in interest for the underbanked, cross-border workers, small business owners, the creator economy, and the emerging-market saver. One week later, 140 billion-dollar businesses come together under one stablecoin umbrella - #OpenUSD. @openstandard is the company behind #OUSD, led by @zcabrams . Launch is set for later this year. Reading the announcement, it is easy to understand why top businesses are forming an alliance to create a stablecoin for global money movement. To summarize their benefits; 1. OUSD allows businesses to mint and redeem the stablecoin OpenUSD at no cost. 2. Partners share all earnings from OUSD’s reserves, minus a small management fee for operational costs. 3. The company will be operated by a board of partners Now all that sounds incredible, which is why Over 140 major companies like @Visa, @BlackRock, @Mastercard, @JH_Fintech, @stripe, @coinbase, @Google, @bbva, @Shopify, and @DoorDash teamed up to launch OUSD. What grows OpenUSD? Existing large distribution from a $4 Trillion USD consortium brings huge leverage for the stablecoin upon launch. We are about to see huge adoption as well as volume. Now we aren't just talking about stablecoin issuance anymore, the real discussion is now about who controls the distribution and large payment flows that real people use. I have been sharing with builders over the past couple of months that institutions are getting in on this infra fast and even more than most people can see, and OpenUSD's launch just proved that at a large scale. What the challenges might be? Existing stablecoin networks have been public for years and have built connections to apps and frameworks that pulled in real users. They've got integrations from apps and services over the years. Even though these businesses have been successful, the stablecoin playbook is a little different. Also, a board of committees may lead to slow movements and disagreement in some key decisions. However, at the end of the day, the more institutions adopt stablecoins, consumers will continue to win and the industry expands further. Anyways, @jerallaire, CEO of @circle, welcomes OUSD as a new member of the stablecoin community! Closing this thought session with a post from @JasonYanowitz, founder of @Blockworks: "It took us 5 years to realize not everyone needs their own chain. Let's not spend another 5 years to realize not everyone needs their own stablecoin." If you are a builder looking at integrating Open USD, check this out -- joinopenstandard.com/#get-in…. You'll gain access to technical documentation, integration support, and earn revenue based on usage of OpenUSD.

Open USD just launched and it’s taking over from the onset.

Quite cool product update. Get verified in minutes, fund account in seconds, you can move funds to earn yield in-app with a few click, plus nice card perks. Amazing features @Plasma ✨