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 Intro02:00 – Headlines: OpenAI, Agentic E-Commerce & the Buy Button09:56 – Stablecoins 101: What They Are and Why They Matter13:06 – Programmability, Regulation & The “Clean Money” Future17:56 – Real-World Use Cases: Remittances, Trade & Local Stables21:31 – Who’s Who: Inside the Stablecoin Value Chain26:21 – The White Space: New Issuers, Local Currencies & Rules28:39 – XWeave.io: Building the Pipes for Digital Money33:17 – The Genius Act: America’s Digital Dollar Power Play40:00 – Asia’s Response: Singapore, Japan & the Philippines47:57 – Will the Empire Strike Back? Big Banks vs. Startups49:23 – Founder Reflections: The Lonely Road of Yeses and No’s51:06 – 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.