.@mehler is CEO of @stable, a USDT-native layer one blockchain built for stablecoin payments. He spent 20 years in finance, including as the first hire on B1's venture arm, where he ran a program with close to a billion dollars starting in 2018, backing companies like Galaxy and Securitize. He joined Stable in August 2025 convinced the plumbing behind everyday money movement hadn't caught up: a wire lands and nobody can tell you where the money sat, or who's actually holding it in between. The chain went live four months later, in December, with a pre-deposit campaign that was oversubscribed in the billions. Stable removes the volatile gas token most blockchains run on and uses USDT, already 80 percent of the stablecoin market, as native gas instead, settling cross-border transfers in half a second. Its cap table includes PayPal Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and Bitfinex, with Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino advising the company. Brian's conversation with @dr3wrogers: 04:41 - First hire on B1's venture arm, deploying close to $1 billion 08:29 - Why "eating your own dog food" is rare in crypto 09:35 - Why Stable skipped the volatile gas token every other L1 relies on 11:53 - The velocity of money nobody talks about in traditional finance 13:00 - PayPal Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Bitfinex, and Paolo Ardoino as advisor 19:19 - What a wire transfer actually tells you (nothing) 20:43 - Public companies losing points on every transaction 23:13 - Where your money sits over the weekend 24:06 - Correspondent banking is "basically memos" 24:28 - The two-week compliance holiday Wall Street takes 27:27 - A payroll run that used to cost a week 36:13 - Why Stable uses a partner for wallet infrastructure instead of building it in-house 42:39 - His cousin at Truist spots his name in a presentation 45:26 - Mainnet live since December, oversubscribed in the billions 49:58 - What it looks like when stablecoins disappear into the background Episode 0053. Presented to you by @Altitude

"Crypto has all these promises. But there was always a hidden asterisk." @mehler ran @b1's billion dollar crypto venture program as its first hire in 2018. Now he's CEO of @stable, the layer1 network using USDT as native gas, backed by PayPal Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and Bitfinex. In this conversation, Brian shares why household-name public companies started calling after the GENIUS Act passed, and why an independent chain in the Tether ecosystem has an edge over the stablecoin chains Stripe and Circle are incubating in-house. First look at Stableminded Ep. 0053. Full episode releasing Thursday, brought to you by @altitude