Welcome back to Market Movers the opening bell live from the New York Stock Exchange.
While Moon Pay is expanding its role in digital finance and just announced plans to issue and manage stablecoins for corporate fines as demand for dollar back ton surges under new US regulation.
Well, the company will use its existing money transmitter licenses to offer the service nationwide with additional rollouts planned around the globe, and the effort is led by Moon Pay's new.
Head of Stablecoins, a former Paxo's executive who built infra for PayPal and Interactive Brokers.
Well, last week the Senate ad Committee released a draft digital assets bill that could shape crypto's future here in the US, and it would give favorable treatment to tokens like Bitcoin and ET and give the CFTC more control.
The big questions do remain with little guidance on regulating D5?
Well, joining me live here at the New York Stock Exchange is.
Keith Grossman, president of Mooppe.
Keith, great to have you back.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's always good to see you.
Well, we've been seeing a lot of activity when it comes to crypto in the past month, but first and foremost, tell me what you're doing when it comes to stablecoins over at Mooppe.
Sure, so last week we announced that we are going to go into the stablecoin issuance business.
This wasn't really a surprise, right?
Like when people really started to look at what was happening in March, we acquired iron.
Right, made that big announcement.
Then we started to slowly hire individuals from BBNK and from Paxos, you know, Rich Harrison, who leads banking for us, Derek Yu, who's our treasurer, and then most recently Zach Walter, right from Paxos who head of stable points for them and for now for us and so like we've built up this infrastructure and when you start to think about Moonay.
What we really are is this membrane over the entire ecosystem with 35 million customers.
The idea was how do we all of a sudden now accelerate people's paths into stable coin management initiatives.
And speaking of which, tell us about your plans outside of the US.
Sure, I look like we are we're global, right, and we, you know, have very stronghold in the US we have very stronghold in the UK.
In Europe, and we made a major investment in an aggregator called OnRamper about 3 years ago and what the aggregator does for us, which is really important, is it allows us to have local coverage in geographies where we don't then have to make the investments necessary and we could then go to our partners and say, here's how you can have global coverage to 180 countries.
Now, as it relates to regulation.
Right, like we've been very focused and we could talk about ag and the Ag bill in a second.
We've been very focused in the US, but Moon Pay was also the first crypto company to be mega compliance.
We did it out of the Netherlands.
We were also FCA Finromp compliance when everyone was pulling out of the UK.
We went in, we got our licenses in Canada, and Australia, and like we're going to continue to, you know, be one of the most compliant players in the in the industry.
Yeah, and speaking of which, 2026 is right around the corner.
It's hard to believe but you and I were talking about Thanksgiving following next week, which is hard to believe, but the US government shutdown is over and we continue to look forward in terms of progress on the regulatory landscape.
So what are you paying attention to and what do you think is most important as we head into the new year?
Sure, look, um I will say I was at the Senate Banking Committee, right, and um.
I would say one of the things that Um, was very surprising to me that I really like left feeling very positive about was um on the ground, the tone between the Democrats and the Republicans, Republicans, Democrats was far more respectful and cordial than people read about in the press and in a lot of instances, I saw a lot of really positive deferential sort of tones on both sides, right, and we've been talking to both players, you know, um.
Uh, for us, the two most important things to come out of market structure is a strong position on illicit finance, right, you know, this is our business, you know, we focus on.
Compliance on KYC, you know, to these users and then also the definition of DFI, right, like, and what we've advocated for and I've been very public on X about is been you should define DFI as us and regulate us, the intermediaries, not the protocols, not the developers, right, because at the end of the day, what is this bill really about because it's a complex bill.
It's about advancing innovation in America, which ultimately leads to American jobs.
And Keith, not only have you been in the nation's capital in Washington DC, but you understand what's happening on Main Street and what retail consumers are going through.
And in addition to that, here you are on Wall Street right now, so it's very confusing.
I think it really does speak to the merging of Tradfly and deeply, especially when we're here at the New York Stock Exchange talking about what's happening across. assets.
So this is the time of year that we look ahead.
So in terms of trends, innovation, what are you most excited about as we head into 2026?
Well, first, like, no matter what industry you're in, when you sit here and you look at this, it is unbelievable, right?
Like, and you're lucky that you get to look at it every day.
Well, the trends that you're going to see in Um, crypto in particular have already started, right?
Um, what you're seeing in crypto is, I would argue a golden age, right, and that golden age is emerging from clarity and that clarity is happening in four areas.
It's happening from a regulatory perspective, right?
You're seeing the SEC and the CFTC really sit down and define um transparently what things mean, right, that that was something that just was not happening before.
Um, from a legislative perspective, you're seeing clarity as it relates to genius, you're seeing clarity as it relates to, you know, the market structure bill coming to market potentially as early as next year.
From a banking perspective, you saw clarity as early as yesterday, right, like with the OCC giving more issue like edicts on what banks can and can't do.
And you're seeing clarity from an accounting perspective with the FASB rule changes and so that clarity is literally providing stability, that stability is allowing for capital inflows into the ecosystem and that's allowing for continued innovation to take place.
I don't foresee anything slowing that down, so the things that I'm excited about is I actually don't think you're going to see two divergent ecosystems.
I think you're going to see sort of tradfi and Defi and all of this new.
Stuff, whatever you want to call it, come together and it would just be financed the same way that the dotcom era just became companies and we have 60 seconds here before we head into the opening bell and markets open here at the New York Stock Exchange, but we continue to pay attention to valuations of publicly traded companies.
But when it comes to Moon Pay, with a higher valuation, what would that let you do that you can't do today?
What would a higher valuation let us do?
Well, I mean, look, the crypto industry is consolidating.
Right, and you know we've been able to use our our equity privately as currency for a lot of the acquisitions that we've made.
And so the higher valuation just justifies all the great work that the team has been doing and that the industry has sort of acknowledged in terms of the work that the team has sort of created as Moon Pay continues to evolve.
Well, Keith, always great talking to you.
Thank you so much for joining us once again here at the New York Stock Exchange, and have a happy holiday.
Happy holidays to you too.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you so much, Keith.
