Crypto’s Evolution: From Speculation to Financial Infrastructure 

Crypto has managed to mature beyond just speculative trading and digital gold rushes while the world focused on the roller coaster price of Bitcoin as well as tokens, the rise of the stablecoin was also a key evolution.

Now by formatting traditional money to work on the blockchain, the industry did find a way to conduct transactions without the wild swings and value and fast forward to today, the central.

Finance is merging with the traditional global banking infrastructure.

Well, joining us here at Consensus 2026 in Miami to break all of this down is Reeve Collins, the co-founder of Tether STBL, as well as Wei.

Reeve, great to see you in person.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Absolutely, thank you for having me.

Well, here we are, May 2026 on the ground in Miami at consensus.

A lot.

Happening at the intersection of Tradfi, DeFi.

A lot of policymakers are here as well.

So tell us about the evolution of digital assets and where do you think we are right now.

It's really amazing to see how far we've come, right, starting out in this industry back in 2013, and as you shared, formatting the dollar and putting it on the blockchain, which really laid the foundation for the entire ecosystem as we know it today.

It's come a very long way.

Most importantly is the shifting in the regulatory stance.

All the large institutions and governments are finally leaning, leaning in, meaning all that money that's always sat on the sideline is ready to start participating in this new ecosystem in this much more advanced infrastructure for the movement of money.

So it's a very exciting time.

Yeah, and I think one of the key words that gets thrown around at conference. like this in 2026's infrastructure.

So first, for viewers out there who might not know about your thesis for Bitcoin versus stablecoin, break this down for us.

Well, from a very high level, the blockchain is a new way to transact.

So there's the traditional way that you're used to that's kind of slow and inefficient, but it's pretty good if you're in the developed world.

But a lot of the underdeveloped and underbanked nations, they have Very poor financial services.

So that's one way that it's really leapfrogging is bringing this updated infrastructure that's global instant-free, connects everybody.

But just as importantly, in the developed world where the institutions want to lean, lean in, it makes their infrastructure more efficient.

So for the general audience, it just means your transactions will be faster, cheaper, and it will be easier to transact, especially on a global scale.

Yes, and you and I are here in the United States in Miami, and we might complain about inflation, right, whether we're talking about CPI or the price of gas for driving around.

But when we look at other countries, whether we're talking about Argentina or Turkey or we're talking geopolitical situations we're not talking about single digit percentage inflation, right?

We're talking about double digit inflation.

So there are use cases for stable coins, but you think that we will all be utilizing stable coins for, say, groceries by 2030, is that correct?

What I was saying is I believe most currencies will operate on some form of blockchain by 2030 because it's more efficient infrastructure.

And to your question about inflation, these other countries, the reason why they want stablecoins is because today most stablecoins are backed by US dollars, and those countries want to swap out of their local currency for a dollar.

So the advent of the stablecoin democratized access to the dollar for the rest of the world.

Yeah, I'm glad you cleared that up because there are a lot of myths out there regarding stablecoins, especially if you've never transacted, utilizing this.

So what's the future of stablecoins?

The future of stablecoins is essentially it's not about a stablecoin versus money or dollars.

It's all money.

Stablecoin is just.

Money your local currency formatted to work on a different platform.

That platform is more efficient than the platform that you're used to.

And so this is about the whole world upgrading the financial infrastructure to something that is connected globally, can move instantly, and it's almost free to transact on.

Yeah, and we, before I let you go, we're at a conference where there are also policymakers, American policymakers on the ground here.

I'm sure you're having a lot of conversations with stakeholders as well.

Now, as a co-founder of Tether, as well as STBL and also now WiFi, right, I'm sure you talked to a lot of people who are supporting you as well as Unsupportive.

So what would you say to them out there and what is your vision moving forward?

Well, the reason why I've leaned into stable and WiFi, it's the evolution of the stablecoin, upgrading the technology that we have now to really get the most out of what we are able to do with stablecoins and blockchain technology, and Wi Fi is on-chain banking infrastructure.

It's bringing this upgraded financial services to the masses.

And so what I to share with the rest of the world, especially the regulators, they're leaning in in order to make it safe, but sometimes they lean in too hard and it slows it down.

But at the end of the day, this evolution is going to happen because the quality of financial services that are now offered to the rest of the world is unparalleled.

Once we get to that point where the regulators understand how that technology can really plug in to traditional finance. and the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Yes, and here in the US, Reeve, we are focused on what's happening in the nation's capital, especially given that it is a midterm election year.

But when you're a builder in this ecosystem, of course innovation is front and center.

So what do you think needs to happen when it comes to the regulatory landscape and what should legislation look like here in the US so that talent does eventually come back here?

Yes, they have to loosen it up a little bit.

And right now the big debate with clarity around is yield going to be shared or is it not going to be shared, that's really slowed down the forward momentum and right now it's looking like it's not, but over time it's going to because the ability to share the yield where it's essentially going to be a high.

Yielding savings account and checking account for the end user.

It's a better quality product, so regulation might slow it down, but it's not going to stop it.

We will eventually get there.

Well, we have a lot to keep our eyes on as we head into the rest of this year, so I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for joining me here in Miami.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.