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This week Simon Taylor & Cuy Sheffield are joined by:
Manuel Godoy, Co-Founder & CEO, Félix
Jacquelyn Melinek, Founder & CEO, StrataMedia
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We Cover:
Why Cuy hears less about the stablecoin sandwich, and where Félix still needs it
USDC becomes the EU’s first significant stablecoin, with reserves that can differ by issuer.
Rain moves from card issuer to balance holder.
Deel’s captive users make the case against a two-winner stablecoin market.
S&P licenses a tokenized index without losing control of its data.
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The stablecoin sandwich survives where recipients still need cash
Mastercard and BVNK launched their Global Money Platform, and Visa Direct took USDC prefunding into commercial production with Inyo Global.
Cuy Sheffield, whose Visa team announced the prefunding launch, described the stablecoin sandwich (fiat in, stablecoin in the middle, fiat out) as an early flow that appealed to sceptics because their customers never had to see a stablecoin.
“I’m actually hearing less about the stablecoin sandwich right now.”
He now hears more about stablecoin in, fiat out, as with Visa’s prefunding, and fiat in, stablecoin out, where a bank reaches a stablecoin wallet without handling the token. Jacquelyn Melinek asked whether users might eventually on-ramp and never off-ramp, while acknowledging that world may not exist today.
Manuel Godoy said the stablecoin sandwich didn’t exist when Félix started, so it built its own rails. For his customers, fiat is not going away because families still pick up cash. In markets with enough liquidity, Félix uses 24/7 marketplaces to exchange USDC for pesos without prefunded local accounts.
“We’re doing what Wise did onchain. We’re tokenizing that flow.”
In thinner corridors such as Guatemala and Honduras, Félix still relies on traditional partners and prefunding. Senders there use Western Union and MoneyGram, Manuel said, because those firms hold liquidity at both ends; most have never heard of Wise.
One USDC ticker now answers to two sets of reserve rules
USDC is the first of 45 notified e-money tokens classified as significant. From 12 November 2026, its EU issuer comes under EBA/ACPR dual supervision. The EBA takes oversight of reserves, liquidity, own funds and recovery/redemption plans; France’s ACPR retains supervision of governance and other areas.
Jacquelyn called it “a badge and a burden”- a corporate treasurer can now point to a single EU-level supervisor, while Circle takes on stricter requirements. Simon noted Circle now reports two separate reserves to two separate regulators.
“You can have a single product or ticker in USDC, but depending upon where it’s minted, there could be a different reserve composition behind it.”
Rain wants to hold the balance, not just issue the card
Rain’s non-custodial wallets are live, with users holding their own keys. Custodial wallets and earning features are planned before the end of 2026.
Jacquelyn traced how Rain has built the bundle piece by piece: Uptop in November 2025, Ansa in August 2026, and an OCC trust charter application, filed but not yet approved.
“Whoever holds the balance […] owns the customer, right?”
Cuy expects the bundle to appeal to mainstream fintechs that haven’t built stablecoin wallets. Partners can also keep an existing wallet provider.
“I think Rain is possibly the most interesting growth fintech infrastructure company that just happens to use stablecoins, but increasingly its customers won’t notice it.”
Deel’s users are the case for another stablecoin
Deel’s DLUSD is a custom dollar stablecoin used in its contractor wallet.
Cuy asked whether remittances are becoming a customer-acquisition wedge, with monetisation moving from fees to FX, then to a cut of yield on the receiving balance. The commercial prize in his model is the ongoing dollar account.
Manuel agreed, and offered a strong opinion, loosely held, against proprietary tokens that need buyers and local cash-out liquidity.
“I believe there is only gonna be, you know, two stablecoin winners, and it’s gonna be USDC and maybe USDT.”
Simon’s counterexample was Deel, whose contractors already hold their pay inside its app.
“So where my user is captive in my app and I already have distribution, why would I not keep the yield in that scenario? And I think there is a viable use case for my own stablecoin where I can capture the yield.”
Cuy expected more than two winners over five to ten years. Jacquelyn backed distribution-led issuance through PayPal, RLUSD and Agora-style models, viewing USDT as more emerging-market focused and USDC as more American. Manuel conceded that Deel could make its token useful, while questioning who would buy it on Coinbase.
S&P takes its licensing model onchain
DRW and Marex executed a total-return swap on Derivnex, on Canton. S&P DJI, Kaiko and Derivnex described it as the first OTC derivative referencing a fully tokenized index on distributed-ledger infrastructure.
For Jacquelyn, preserving IP and data controls may be the only reason a benchmark provider participates.
“Index providers make their money by, you know, licensing. They’ve spent decades protecting how that data gets distributed.”
She identified confirmations, valuations and reconciliation as lifetime swap costs. Simon argued that a single shared record removes the reason markets close at weekends, which is to let back offices catch up with what traders did.
Looking ahead
Manuel has been talking to Mastercard, Visa and Circle about how they could support liquidity in Central America, where Félix has fewer local providers. Simon wondered whether tokenized deposits could change the fiat legs too, pointing to SoFi swapping SoFiUSD for its tokenized deposit around the clock. If wallets like Rain’s give people reasons to keep their pay in stablecoins, the sandwich could shrink to the corridors where cash is still the payout.
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