I traced $1 from a US bank account to USDC on-chain: same architecture as the €1 journey, different legal foundations underneath every layer.
The $1 road and the €1 road are the same length. One is paved, but everyone in crypto uses the other.
The marketing version of a stablecoin on-ramp takes three seconds to explain. The plumbing version takes five layers of infrastructure, two different finality regimes, and a 1996 compliance rule that blockchain was never designed to satisfy. This is the plumbing version.
Agentic commerce introduces a new financial actor: the individual as a “corporation of one”, delegating spending authority to multiple AI agents.
This post explores the emerging infrastructure required to support this model: from identity and guardrails to fraud systems and machine-native payment rails.
Presentation in which I explore stablecoins beyond narrow banking - and what it would take to reconnect money and credit onchain
Stablecoins appear easy to monetise. They are not. This note looks at the few models that can scale sustainably.
A systematic look at the DeFi insurance landscape, its structural constraints, and the design trade-offs shaping on-chain risk markets.
Stablecoins are, in essence, the first large-scale experiment in narrow banking. Every USDC or USDT is (or supposed to be) fully backed by reserves – cash or short-term Treasuries – sitting safely off-chain. This architecture is what makes these tokens stable, but it also sterilizes capital: every dollar deposited creates no new credit, no new economic activity. In contrast, the...
Gold is going on-chain. Paxos and Tether lead today, but new platforms are building the rails that could turn commodities into the next generation of DeFi collateral.
After several years publishing as Fintech Ruminations, I am introducing a new name: Lombard Notes. The change reflects a broader focus, extending beyond fintech to the wider architecture of financial systems — from historical innovations to emerging digital markets. The content remains consistent in spirit, with only the name evolving. A few months ago, in my post Stablecoins 2.0, I suggested...
Tokenization promises “stocks on-chain,” but the legal wrapper decides what you actually hold. This post compares Robinhood, Securitize, and Backed to show how different wrappers translate into very different rights for investors.
