The stablecoin evangelist: Katie Haun’s struggle for digital {dollars}

In 2018, when Bitcoin was buying and selling round $4,000 and most Individuals, no 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 property as close to nugatory. As Krugman targeted on Bitcoin’s wild worth swings, Haun steered the dialog towards one thing else — stablecoins.

“Stablecoins are actually attention-grabbing and actually necessary to this ecosystem to hedge in opposition to that volatility,” she argued on stage, explaining how digital tokens pegged to the U.S. greenback may provide the advantages of blockchain know-how with out the ups and downs of conventional cryptocurrencies.

Krugman dismissed the concept fully.

It wasn’t precisely a turning level in Haun’s profession, but it surely was one second amongst others which have helped outline it. A former federal prosecutor who spent greater than a decade investigating monetary crimes, together with creating the federal government’s first cryptocurrency process pressure and main investigations into the Mt. Gox hack and corrupt brokers within the Silk Highway case, Haun had an uncommon background for a crypto champion. She wasn’t a libertarian ideologue or a tech founder. Coming as a substitute from legislation enforcement, she understood the felony potential and bonafide makes use of of digital property.

By 2018, she had already made historical past as the primary feminine accomplice at Andreessen Horowitz, the place she co-led their crypto funds. Founding Haun Ventures in 2022, with greater than $1.5 billion in property beneath administration — its group 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 position at a16z and the business 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 evening 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 mentioned, echoing this editor’s query about whether or not there’s any understanding to keep away from competing together with her former employer. “The truth is, I nonetheless speak to Andreessen Horowitz. You’re proper that we haven’t actually finished any offers collectively of late.” 

The obvious lack of co-investment may replicate the cutthroat business or the challenges related to leaving considered one of Silicon Valley’s most outstanding corporations to compete immediately 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 take care of a steady worth by being pegged to conventional property just like the U.S. greenback. 

In contrast to Bitcoin or Ethereum, which might 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 foreign money that may transfer on blockchain networks. 

Certainly, fast-forward to in the present day, and Haun’s perception in stablecoins seems more and more prescient. Stablecoins — which barely existed in 2015 — now characterize 1 / 4 of a trillion {dollars} in worth. They’ve develop into the 14th largest holder of U.S. Treasuries globally. Reportedly, for the primary time final 12 months, stablecoin transaction quantity exceeded Visa’s.

“I feel individuals who checked out stablecoins a couple of years in the past thought, what’s the worth prop?” Haun mentioned Wednesday evening. “You’ve requested me this earlier than. You mentioned, ‘Why do I would like stablecoins?’ And I mentioned, “I check with this as an ‘If it really works for me, it really works for everybody’ downside.”

In actuality, for many Individuals, the prevailing monetary system works moderately properly. We’ve 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 wherever on the earth for pennies. “Folks in Turkey don’t consider Tether as a cryptocurrency,” she mentioned Wednesday, “They consider Tether as cash.” 

The know-how has developed dramatically since these early debates, definitely. Stablecoins as soon as value $12 to ship internationally. And Circle says its USDC stablecoin is totally backed one-to-one by {dollars} held in JP Morgan financial institution accounts and audited by Massive 4 accounting corporations.

Little marvel the company world is taking discover in a giant method. Walmart and Amazon are reportedly exploring stablecoins, as are different goliaths like Uber, Apple, and Airbnb. The reason being easy economics. Stablecoins present a approach to transfer the worth of U.S. {dollars} utilizing cryptocurrency rails as a substitute of conventional banking infrastructure, doubtlessly saving these retail-heavy firms billions in processing charges.

However the shift has critics apprehensive about financial chaos. Whereas Circle and Tether are dedicated to having sufficient reserves to help their tokens, in contrast to conventional banks, there’s no insured authorities safety behind these reserves. Relatedly, if main companies can challenge their very own currencies, what occurs to financial coverage and banking regulation?

The issues run deeper than simply financial disruption. Not all stablecoins are created equal, and lots of lack the backing and oversight that firms 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 advanced algorithmic mechanisms which have confirmed weak to break down. (TerraUSD has had essentially the most specular crash to this point, wiping out $60 billion in worth when it nosedived.)

Corruption issues specifically 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 business the place political affect can immediately influence market worth and regulatory outcomes.

These issues got here to a head as Congress debated the GENIUS Act, laws that may create a federal framework for stablecoin regulation. The invoice handed the Senate early final week with bipartisan help, with 14 Democrats crossing occasion traces to help 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 relations.

Requested about Warren’s issues on Wednesday evening, Haun virtually rolled her eyes. “I feel it’s actually ironic that Elizabeth Warren or different Democrats who do name this corruption should not operating to cross crypto laws,” she mentioned. “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 buyer 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 unsure that yield-bearing stablecoins are a good suggestion for customers within the U.S., however I’m unsure {that a} prohibition is a good suggestion,” she advised StrictlyVC attendees. The difficulty comes all the way down to who earnings from the curiosity earned on stablecoin reserves. Presently, that cash goes to firms like Circle and Coinbase. However Haun wonders why customers shouldn’t get that yield, identical to they might with a financial savings account.

“Should you had a financial savings account or checking account and also you’re getting yield on that, you’re getting curiosity,” she defined. “What in case you simply mentioned, ‘No, the financial institution will get curiosity, not you,’ and so they’re lending out your cash?”

Haun was much less nuanced in relation to one other Warren concern: that if the GENIUS Act is signed into legislation, stablecoins may develop into a automobile for cash laundering and terrorism financing.

 

“Criminals are nice beta testers of all applied sciences,” mentioned Haun. “However this know-how is very traceable, far more traceable than money. The biggest felony instrument is the greenback invoice.” (In line with 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 mentioned, the regulatory readability that laws just like the GENIUS Act gives may truly make the system safer by distinguishing between respectable, well-backed stablecoins from extra experimental or dangerous variants.

The truth is, because the stablecoin ecosystem continues to mature, Haun sees even larger adjustments forward. She envisions a future the place all types of property — from cash market funds to actual property to non-public credit score — get “tokenized” and made out there 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.”

In line with Haun, tokenized property may democratize entry to investments in methods much like how Netflix democratized leisure. As an alternative of getting to be rich sufficient to satisfy minimal funding thresholds, somebody with $25 and a smartphone may 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 mentioned on Wednesday. However she’s assured the transformation is coming, pushed by the identical forces that made stablecoins profitable: they’re quicker, cheaper, and, she insists, extra accessible than conventional alternate options.

Wanting again at that 2018 debate with Krugman, Haun’s persistence appears to have paid off. A significant 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 know-how whereas addressing respectable issues about corruption, shopper safety, and monetary stability.

Haun doesn’t appear involved. Whereas critics level to the truth that stablecoins characterize simply 2% of worldwide funds, questioning their product-market match, Haun bats away that concern, too. As an alternative, she sees this as a well-recognized tech adoption story — one which has performed out repeatedly and infrequently takes longer than folks initially think about.

“We expect it’s actually early days,” she advised the group.