Episode #4
The Desk – What Institutional Stablecoin Flow Actually Looks Like with Edward Woodford
Edward Woodford, founder and CEO of zerohash, joins Frank Chaparro and Slater Santer for episode five of The Desk to describe stablecoin adoption from a seat almost nobody else occupies: the infrastructure layer that banks, brokerages, and fintechs use to offer crypto trading, stablecoins, and tokenization. Stablecoins are now the majority of that business, which Interactive Brokers led a $104 million round into in September 2025 at a $1 billion valuation, alongside Morgan Stanley, Apollo-managed funds, and SoFi. Edward walks through what institutional flow actually looks like, [flow figure or growth rate], and which corridors and use cases produce volume rather than headlines. He explains why the hard part of this business is licensing and compliance rather than technology, which is why fintechs rent the stack instead of building it, what MiCAR authorization changed for operating across jurisdictions, and how the shift from holding a stablecoin balance to funding accounts, settling payments, and spending at the point of sale changes what platforms need underneath. A conversation about the plumbing that stablecoin adoption runs on, from the person building it for the institutions using it.
