The Empire Strikes Back: Stablecoins vs. the Old Financial Order

Stablecoins are having a main-character moment. In this episode, Maria, Peter, and Prashanth are joined by Milind Sanghavi, co-founder of XWeave.io, to decode the hype and the hard reality behind the $30 trillion cross-border payments market. Together, they explore: - What stablecoins actually are (and why “stable” is a misleading word) - How the Genius Act cements U.S. dollar dominance in the digital age - Why Asia’s regulators (Singapore, Philippines, Japan) are seeking to lead the next wave - How “agentic commerce” and programmable money could change how we buy, sell, and move value - And whether the Empire (read: traditional finance) will strike back It’s a crash course in the new galactic order of money — less lightsabers, more ledgers. Timestamps 00:00 – Cold Open & Studio Intro 02:00 – Headlines: OpenAI, Agentic E-Commerce & the Buy Button 09:56 – Stablecoins 101: What They Are and Why They Matter 13:06 – Programmability, Regulation & The “Clean Money” Future 17:56 – Real-World Use Cases: Remittances, Trade & Local Stables 21:31 – Who’s Who: Inside the Stablecoin Value Chain 26:21 – The White Space: New Issuers, Local Currencies & Rules 28:39 – XWeave.io: Building the Pipes for Digital Money 33:17 – The Genius Act: America’s Digital Dollar Power Play 40:00 – Asia’s Response: Singapore, Japan & the Philippines 47:57 – Will the Empire Strike Back? Big Banks vs. Startups 49:23 – Founder Reflections: The Lonely Road of Yeses and No’s 51:06 – The Stablecoin Poem (Yes, Really) Give us feedback or nominate topics & speakers at 6040podcast@techinasia.com. 60/40 is a bi-weekly podcast co-hosted by Prashanth Ranganathan, Peter Bithos, Aleksey Mironenko, and Maria Li. Special thanks to this week's guest, Milind Sanghavi from XWeave.io. A podcast by Tech in Asia, a member of The Business Times.