In 2018, when Bitcoin was buying and selling round $4,000 and most Individuals, not less than, thought cryptocurrency was a fad, Katie Haun discovered herself on a debate stage in Mexico Metropolis reverse Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who had dismissed digital belongings as close to nugatory. As Krugman targeted on Bitcoin’s wild value swings, Haun steered the dialog towards one thing else — stablecoins.
“Stablecoins are actually attention-grabbing and actually vital to this ecosystem to hedge in opposition to that volatility,” she argued on stage, explaining how digital tokens pegged to the U.S. greenback might provide the advantages of blockchain expertise with out the volatility of conventional cryptocurrencies.
Krugman dismissed the thought fully.
It wasn’t precisely a turning level in Haun’s profession, however it was one second amongst others which have helped outline it. A former federal prosecutor who had spent greater than a decade investigating monetary crimes, together with creating the federal government’s first cryptocurrency process power and main investigations into the Mt. Gox hack and corrupt brokers within the Silk Street case, Haun had an uncommon background for a crypto champion. She wasn’t a libertarian ideologue or a tech founder. Coming as an alternative from legislation enforcement, she understood the legal potential and legit makes use of of digital belongings.
By 2018, she had already made historical past as the primary feminine associate at Andreessen Horowitz, the place she co-led their crypto funds. Founding Haun Ventures in 2022, with greater than $1.5 billion in belongings below administration — its staff is now investing from a brand-new set of funds which have but to formally shut — she has been much more free to pursue her particular convictions about the way forward for cash.
The leap to hanging her personal shingle hasn’t been with out its complexities. Regardless of her function at a16z and the trade connections that got here with it, the 2 haven’t publicly co-invested in something since early 2022, shortly after she launched her fund, and Haun, who joined the board of Coinbase in 2017, stepped off it final 12 months, whereas Marc Andreessen, who took colleague Chris Dixon’s seat in 2020, stays a director.
When requested Wednesday night time at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC occasion about her relationship with Andreessen Horowitz, she downplayed any potential friction whereas acknowledging they aren’t collaborators precisely. “There’s no gentleman’s settlement,” she stated, echoing this editor’s query about whether or not there’s any understanding to keep away from competing together with her former employer. “Actually, I nonetheless discuss to Andreessen Horowitz. You’re proper that we haven’t actually performed any offers collectively of late.”
The obvious lack of co-investment might mirror the cutthroat trade or the challenges related to leaving considered one of Silicon Valley’s most distinguished corporations to compete instantly with former colleagues. Regardless of the case, Haun is now charting her personal course, and on the coronary heart of it’s stablecoins, that are cryptocurrencies designed to keep up a steady worth by being pegged to conventional belongings just like the U.S. greenback.
Not like Bitcoin or Ethereum, which may swing wildly in worth, stablecoins like Circle’s USDC or Tether’s USDT are supposed to commerce at precisely $1, making a digital illustration of conventional forex that may transfer on blockchain networks.
Certainly, fast-forward to immediately, and Haun’s perception in stablecoins appears more and more prescient. Stablecoins — which barely existed in 2015 — now symbolize 1 / 4 of a trillion {dollars} in worth. They’ve develop into the 14th largest holder of U.S. Treasuries globally, not too long ago surpassing each Germany and Norway. For the primary time this 12 months, stablecoin transaction quantity exceeded Visa’s.
“I feel individuals who checked out stablecoins a number of years in the past thought, what’s the worth prop?” Haun stated Wednesday night time. “You’ve requested me this earlier than. You stated, ‘Why do I want stablecoins?’ And I stated, “I check with this as an ‘If it really works for me, it really works for everybody’ drawback.”
In actuality, for many Individuals, the present monetary system works fairly nicely. We have now Venmo, financial institution accounts, bank cards. However Haun, drawing on her prosecutor’s understanding of worldwide monetary methods, says she has lengthy been conscious that the U.S. expertise isn’t common.
In nations with unstable currencies or restricted banking infrastructure, stablecoins provide one thing distinctive, she argues, which is on the spot entry to steady, dollar-denominated worth that may be despatched anyplace on the earth for pennies. “Individuals in Turkey don’t consider Tether as a cryptocurrency,” she stated Wednesday, “They consider Tether as cash.”
The expertise has developed dramatically since these early debates, definitely. Stablecoins as soon as price $12 to ship internationally. And Circle says its USDC stablecoin is absolutely backed one-to-one by {dollars} held in JP Morgan financial institution accounts and audited by Massive 4 accounting corporations.
It’s vital to notice that whereas Circle and Tether are dedicated to having sufficient reserves to assist their tokens, in contrast to conventional banks, there’s no insured authorities safety behind these reserves. Nonetheless, the company world is taking discover in a giant approach.
Walmart and Amazon are reportedly exploring stablecoins, as are different goliaths like Uber, Apple, and Airbnb. The reason being easy economics. Stablecoins present a option to transfer the worth of U.S. {dollars} utilizing cryptocurrency rails as an alternative of conventional banking infrastructure, doubtlessly saving these retail-heavy corporations billions in processing charges.
However the shift has critics nervous about economic chaos. If main companies can difficulty their very own currencies, what occurs to financial coverage and banking regulation?
The considerations run deeper than simply financial disruption. Not all stablecoins are created equal, and plenty of lack the backing and oversight that corporations like Circle present. Whereas well-regulated stablecoins like USDC are backed by precise {dollars} in U.S. Treasury securities, others function with much less transparency or depend on complicated algorithmic mechanisms which have confirmed susceptible to break down. (TerraUSD has had probably the most specular crash up to now, wiping out $60 billion in worth when it nosedived.)
Corruption considerations particularly got here into sharp focus not too long ago when President Donald Trump’s household issued its personal stablecoin, a transfer that highlighted potential conflicts of curiosity in an trade the place political affect can instantly influence market worth and regulatory outcomes.
These considerations got here to a head as Congress debated the GENIUS Act, laws that might create a federal framework for stablecoin regulation. The invoice passed the Senate early final week with bipartisan assist, with 14 Democrats crossing get together traces to assist it. It now awaits a Home vote earlier than doubtlessly reaching the president’s desk.
However Senator Elizabeth Warren, the rating member on the Senate Banking Committee, has been notably vocal in her opposition, calling the laws a “superhighway for Donald Trump’s corruption.” Her criticism facilities on a notable hole within the invoice: whereas it prohibits members of Congress and senior govt department officers from issuing stablecoin merchandise, it says nothing about their members of the family.
Requested about Warren’s considerations on Wednesday night time, Haun virtually rolled her eyes. “I feel it’s actually ironic that Elizabeth Warren or different Democrats who do name this corruption will not be working to cross crypto laws,” she stated. “Had there been guidelines of the highway in place [already], there would have been a framework, there would have been clear guidelines for what’s a safety, what’s a commodity, and what are the patron protections round that.”
Haun, whose enterprise capital agency has made quite a few stablecoin investments together with Bridge (acquired by Stripe for reportedly 10 occasions ahead income), is essentially supportive of the laws, unsurprisingly. However she has one notable criticism: the invoice’s prohibition on yield-bearing stablecoins.
“I’m undecided that yield-bearing stablecoins are a good suggestion for shoppers within the U.S., however I’m undecided {that a} prohibition is a good suggestion,” she instructed StrictlyVC attendees. The difficulty comes all the way down to who income from the curiosity earned on stablecoin reserves. At the moment, that cash goes to corporations like Circle and Coinbase. However Haun wonders why shoppers shouldn’t get that yield, similar to they might with a financial savings account.
“For those who had a financial savings account or checking account and also you’re getting yield on that, you’re getting curiosity,” she defined. “What should you simply stated, ‘No, the financial institution will get curiosity, not you,’ they usually’re lending out your cash?”
Haun was much less nuanced in terms of one other Warren concern: that if the GENIUS Act is signed into legislation, stablecoins might develop into a automobile for cash laundering and terrorism financing.
“Criminals are nice beta testers of all applied sciences,” stated Haun. “However this expertise is very traceable, far more traceable than money. The most important legal instrument is the greenback invoice.” (Based on Haun, the Treasury Division has testified that 99.9% of cash laundering crimes succeed utilizing conventional financial institution wires, not cryptocurrency.)
In the meantime, she stated, the regulatory readability that laws just like the GENIUS Act gives might truly make the system safer by distinguishing between official, well-backed stablecoins from extra experimental or dangerous variants.
Actually, because the stablecoin ecosystem continues to mature, Haun sees even larger adjustments forward. She envisions a future the place all types of belongings — from cash market funds to actual property to personal credit score — get “tokenized” and made accessible 24/7 to world markets.
“It’s only a digital illustration of a bodily asset,” she explains. “BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, they’ve already tokenized their cash market funds. That’s already occurred.”
Based on Haun, tokenized belongings might democratize entry to investments in methods much like how Netflix democratized leisure. As an alternative of getting to be rich sufficient to fulfill minimal funding thresholds, somebody with $25 and a smartphone might purchase fractional possession in a share of Apple or Amazon, for instance.
“Simply because one thing’s inevitable doesn’t imply it’s imminent,” Haun stated on Wednesday. However she’s assured the transformation is coming, pushed by the identical forces that made stablecoins profitable: they’re sooner, cheaper, and extra accessible than conventional alternate options.
Trying again at that 2018 debate with Krugman, Haun’s persistence appears to have paid off. A serious query now isn’t whether or not digital {dollars} will reshape the monetary system however maybe extra importantly, whether or not regulators can preserve tempo with the expertise whereas addressing official considerations about corruption, client safety, and monetary stability.
Haun doesn’t appear involved. Whereas critics level to the truth that stablecoins symbolize simply 2% of worldwide funds, questioning their product-market match, Haun sees this as a well-known tech adoption story — one which has performed out repeatedly and infrequently takes longer than individuals initially think about.
“We expect it’s actually early days,” she instructed the group.