Combining payments infrastructure for merchants, digital lending, and DeFi, with Stronghold CEO Sean Bennett

Lex interviews Sean Bennett, the co-founder and CTO of
Stronghold, a Fintech company. Sean started out as an independent
software developer, building software for clients. This
experience led him to entrepreneurship and he used his skills to
tackle the problem of remittance. He created Coinex, a stable
coin issuer on the Ripple network, which allowed people to send
money cheaply and quickly. However, early regulatory challenges
and user adoption issues meant that the project was not
successful. Sean eventually left the project and moved on to his
next venture, Stella, a fork of Ripple. Setting the foundations
for eventually starting his own company, Stronghold – a
DeFi-enabled financial services company for institutional
clients.


 


MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION


 


Stronghold's website: https://bit.ly/3iRB8Nk


CEO's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3D4sJNr


 


Topics: fintech, DeFi, remittance, payments, ACH, blockchain,
stablecoins, e-commerce


 


Companies: Coinex, Ripple, Stellar Network, IBM, Stronghold


 


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Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin


 


 


TIMESTAMPS


 


1’52”: Sean’s early experiences building software and the path to
entrepreneurship


 


8’56”: How a remittance-based family use-case led to a career
building stablecoins


 


11’33”: The on and off-ramp mechanics involved in early-stage
stablecoins & the reality-check of being to early to market


 


16’01”: Partnering with IBM to build their blockchain network
& ideating a US Dollar settlement stablecoin integration
using the Stellar Network


 


24’03”: Stronghold - the journey to its inception, its vision,
and its unique positioning to the customer vs blockchain
enablement


 


30’23”: The global nature of Stronghold’s merchant footprint
& the data used to understand merchant risk and the
associated rates thereof


 


33’58”: Stronghold’s preferred blockchain and protocols & the
returns generated by the relative assets class


 


38’24”: Stronghold’s current focus given the state of the market
& the trends informing its strategy going forward


 


39’44”: Channels to use to connect with Sean & learn more
about Stronghold


Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment
advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH
BLUEPRINT LTD.


Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella


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