Jeff Handler / OpenTrade
How OpenTrade is enabling stablecoin yield for fintechs in 2026
In this episode
In this episode of Blockchain Interviews, Ashton Addison sits down with Jeff Handler, COO and Co Founder of OpenTrade, to discuss the rapid rise of stablecoins, on chain yield, and how digital assets are reshaping financial services. The conversation explores why stablecoin yield infrastructure is becoming critical for fintechs, neobanks, and exchanges, and how OpenTrade is enabling financial apps to offer compliant, scalable yield products powered by a blend of real world assets and on chain strategies. We also dive into real world adoption across global markets, why regions like LATAM are moving faster toward stablecoin financial rails, and how embedded yield is changing user retention, treasury management, and revenue models for financial platforms. If you want to understand how stablecoins, RWA tokenization, and programmable financial infrastructure could reshape capital markets and banking over the next few years, this interview breaks down where the industry is heading.
opentrade.io · Watch on Refinitiv
- Stablecoins evolved from crypto trading infrastructure into a tool for non-crypto-native fintechs seeking efficient digital dollar solutions.
- Trust in stablecoins depends on regulatory frameworks and reserve backing, not solely on legislation like the Genius Act.
- OpenTrade enables financial platforms to offer on-chain yield on stablecoin holdings without requiring users to off-ramp to traditional banking.
- Stablecoin yield infrastructure addresses the opportunity cost of holding idle digital assets and improves user retention for financial platforms.
- Real-world asset-backed returns on stablecoins can match traditional bank yields while maintaining the efficiency benefits of on-chain settlement.
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Transcript
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I'm Ashton Addison from the Crypto Coin Show and today on Blockchain Interviews, we have Jeff Handler, COO and co-founder of Open Trade. Here to talk stable coins, yield, the evolution of financial services into digital assets, and much more. Jeff, welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time.
Thanks for having me. Good to be here.
Yeah, excited to dive into stable
coins specifically. It's been such a hot topic over 2025 with the Genius Act legislation. I feel like that's the key to getting more institutions involved in digital assets. C maybe we could start off with just you painting a picture as as an expert with open trade on the where exactly stable coins are at and maybe how they're viewed from traditional financial
services.
Yeah, absolutely. Don't know if I would say specifically I'm an expert, but yeah, we'll we'll see what I can do. Yeah, I always kind of like to set this in the historical context of, when stable coins first really became a thing.
and so, you know, starting out with Tether and then actually, you know, shortly thereafters, the creation of
USDC, really the core use case there was within crypto markets, right, where folks had begun, you know, really trading in crypto. These are the earlier days, right? When you know, even before there was just Bitcoin and ETH and then the introduction of obviously a number of different chains and tokens. But once trading really started ramping up, folks needed a way
to hold value in dollars and wanted a way to do it more efficiently on chain. I.e. back then the only way to truly, you know, exit into dollars and hold value into dollars was to off-ramp your crypto into dollars and put it in a bank account. And so stable coins solved for that immediate use case, which was quite a powerful use case.
and now when you look at the landscape of exchanges, DEX's, D5 venues, it's it's almost hard to find one that doesn't have some sort of stable coin on it, whether that's USDT, USDC, or increasingly others. And so, you know, really stable coins, I think, cemented themselves, with that utility value in, crypto markets at the beginning. And
then what's been exciting over the last I'd say really a couple of years is that an increasing number of noncryptonative fintexs have been looking for ways to use dollars more efficiently in a digitally native format. And stable coins for a variety of reasons
Actually are in many cases the best tool for this particular use case they're looking to achieve whether that's enabling US dollar accounts for users outside of the US crossber payments etc etc and so now I think we're at the point where you know again stable coins had already cemented a position and drove huge amounts of transaction volumes through the use
cases in crypto markets. And then now we're at the point where those use cases are expanding into you know non-cryptonnative companies. And it's really one of those you know what people would say killer apps for blockchain technology in the sense that this is something also that's not purely academic, right? The a lot of the reason that people are talking about
this and paying attention to it is because there's real adoption and volume behind it that warrants the conversation. So yeah, maybe I'll
I'll pause.
Yeah, definitely. You know, it's there's an absolute necessity, especially if you're getting into digital assets to try and make it faster and cheaper. To have to go back to
fiat USD in between each transaction sort of defeats the purpose. But you know there needs to be that regulation which seems to have been set out to sort of give the green light for all these financial services to come in that weren't cryptonative. They didn't believe in Bitcoin at the beginning like maybe you or I you know ear earlier
on and saw the vision. We got to get all these guys involved and I know go ahead. Yeah. No, I was saying and I think on the Yeah, because I didn't really touch on the question surrounding the regulation. I think that is a huge boon towards more institutional adoptance and acceptance. But I think what's more interesting actually is less
the specific regulation but what piece that fits into in terms of the overall puzzle of getting people to not just people but you know institutions organizations to use stable coins and this technology and it's really trust right where there's a huge amount of efficiencies and utility that come from a digitally native form of the dollar
like a USDC or a USDT, but it only works if you trust that there are actually dollars backing that. Ultimately, a token is just
bits and bites of code online. And if this is purporting to be fully pegged to a dollar, it's really critical, not just important, it's critical to understand that is in fact something that is fully reserved and
backed by that dollar. And there's there's a number of ways of establishing trust where you know, Circle obviously launched USDC and drove a you know huge amount of adoption volume on USDC well before the Genius Act was implemented. And I think that one of the reasons that they were able to do that and why stable coins were able to reach this point even before the Genius Act is
that trust is critical and regulation is a piece of that. But there's actually a number of other elements that you can that you can and need to have
in place in order to make a stable coin work. I you know provide for a system of digital dollars online where people actually trust and functionally do have the knowledge that those
are fully backed and reserved. So, yeah.
Yeah. No, I agree. And one part that, I would love to dive into that is of course critical for stable coins is a yield infrastructure that I know Open Trade is focused on, you know, because if you have if you're an individual, you have money in your bank account, you're going to be getting some kind of yield,
probably pretty small. If you're in the money market, you know, there's other ways to get yield. We need to have that in stable coins. Otherwise, there's going to be no incentive to hold them when you could be holding volatile assets. So can you dive into how open trade is focusing on stable coin yield and the importance of it?
Yeah, absolutely. So we came
from the you know stablecoin ecosystem beforehand my co-founder and myself working at center which was the joint venture between Coinbase and Circle that launched and governed USDC and that was where we first identified the direct need which you described from the companies that were you know using USDC and you know powering USDC accounts for their users
to effectively have access to the same real world you know yield generation options like money market funds treasury bills other things but onchain in a way that was just as as seamless as using USDC and so that's really what inspired us to build open trade and open trade provides exactly that so a platform that
allows fintex neo banks, exchanges, you know, increasingly, you know, more traditional financial institutions, anyone that's handling stable coins to have a really easy and secure way to generate money market fund or other real world assetbacked returns on their stable coin holdings and do so in a way that doesn't introduce the inefficiencies, costs, and issues
that arise from having to offer off ramp because again the whole reason that these folks are using stable coins is there's something involved with going off-ramping to USD that presents some sort of inefficiency and so yeah allowing them to get those those returns without sacrificing that and yeah we've we've definitely seen that especially recently this is
becoming a really a new form of onchain chain finance similar to what USDC or USDT or stable coins did in terms of onchain markets where you know as you say companies, individuals, institutions really are seeing the opportunity cost of keeping funds idle on chain versus yeah bringing them off depending
on their their strategy and what their company does. But yeah, so that's that's that's what we do and that's I'd say the at a at a really high level kind of where we fit into the ecosystem.
Could you hint at comparing the returns of something like in your in your bank savings account versus stable coin yield? You know, is it going
to be significantly better? and also how the percentage is actually determined, you know, is it determined in the same way that traditional bank yields would be?
Yeah. So, the way so for us, we give our clients the ability to generate the same kind of like base returns that you would get with a traditional bank on things like money market funds as well
as other, you know, options alongside that. And so I we don't typically like to paint the platform as something where you are definitively going to get, you know, better returns than anything you could get in traditional markets. It's again more of if you're already operating in stable coins, if you're operating on chain, but you still want
the ability to access these returns that are available offchain, here's a simple, straightforward, integrated way to do that without having to onboard to a financial institution and figure out a process and system for how you're going to account for, you know, two to three day withdrawal, off-ramping times, loss, and everything that comes along with
that. So, yeah, so I think it's more of you know, bringing access to the same returns and opportunities on chain versus doing so and it instantly becomes a better option on those fundamentals. So, yeah,
definitely. Yeah, the last thing anyone wants to hear is two to three days waiting and your money is just
somewhere in the stratosphere transferring between banks. That's the whole reason that we're in digital assets. And you mentioned earlier about access to USD or the crypto version of it. you know, for those that are outside of the US, I feel like this is very attractive to get into USD kind of yields without having to have a traditional US bank account
and all that stuff. So, are you seeing a lot of traction as well in Latin America, global markets outside of the US versus inside?
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think the you hit the nail on the head where for the vast majority of individuals and businesses in Latin America getting access to US dollars is cumbersome costly and you know comes
with risk and generating you know wealth on those US dollar accounts is double as as challenging and restrictive. And so the we've seen the highest amount of growth and usage on our platform over the past year from companies in Latin America that offer US dollar accounts to individuals and businesses. And so, yeah, it's it's a like thuddingly clear example,
That we see every day of the impact that, you know, digital dollars and the ability to earn, you know, stable returns on those digital dollars has outside of the US.
yeah,
that's very exciting. And with the companies in the US over 2025 when the Genius Act went through and then you know Bitcoin at least right now going down maybe other companies are looking
for ways to preserve their wealth while still getting a yield. Was are those some of the catalysts that have pushed more US entities into using open trade? You know, I think that it's to be honest, it's too early to tell. You know, these market disruptions are are quite recent and so you know, it's I tend to like to let the dust
settle a little bit before, yeah, making proclamations about whether you know, this is, you know, prompting some sort of, you know, seismic versus, you know, reactionary behavior. But from what we've seen to be honest the markets are down and the markets are down. So a lot of people are are definitely feeling that and getting hit. And capital preservation
seems to be the name of the game right now as as it as it should be. And ultimately that's it's really different for every company and every organization, right? Folks were exposed in different ways but yeah capital preservation is definitely top of every treasury manager's mind every you know seuite's mind and it's definitely the case that if you want
to stay on chain while preserving capital during this period that being in USDC which is earning returns on money market funds is a is a good way to do that. But yeah, again, we'll I think we'll have to see how the dust fully settles before yeah, making a yeah, big categorical proclamation on it.
Mhm. Definitely. And with regards to traditional banking services, at least the younger generation, they all seem to be moving to these fintexs or neo banks. Does Open Trade actually work with these traditional financial providers to integrate that into, you know, maybe you have a Neo Bank app and all of a sudden it's popped up that you can get into crypto
easier or you can get stable coin yields or maybe they're white labeling it.
Yeah. I know those are the vast majority of our clients honestly are NEO banks outside of the US that use open trade under the hood as a way to generate returns on their you know stable coin treasury which comes from
yeah powering a an app where you know stable coins are the dollar
infrastructure and rails versus USD accounts and so
yeah the way that we always say it is that there's literally tens millions of individual users across you know in particular Latin America who have a US dollar account where they are earning some interest on it and under the hood is a combination of one of our clients and an open trade without
them even knowing it. So yeah and we're
we like it that way where we're a we're definitely a B2B company. We find that the best you know neo banks out there are ones that are run by folks who are you know really dedicated to that BTOC app experience doing it on the ground in their particular market. But yeah we work with them to power that.
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the best way to get that I've always said, you know, the best way to have blockchain adoption is to have people not really knowing anything about the underlying blockchain. They just have it in their in their banking app. Boom. Stable yields. Just says USD, there's the yield. Whatever blockchain it's on, you know, that's for the developers and, you
know, the people who built the internet, the coders to know. As long as it works and it's secure and you're getting what you need, then that's what matters, I feel like.
Totally. I agree.
So, moving forward in 2026, what are some of the major initiatives for growth and getting this into the hands of more people?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean for us it's you
know as the as the market grows for stable coins, the amount of companies that are offering you know stable coin accounts and different products to end users us continuing to grow with that. And so that's a combination of you know serving new clients, client segments and also you know continuing to expand and beef up the product suite for our existing ones. And
so it's it's really a lot of the same things that we've been doing. But you know, continuing to do it do it in a way that's you know, responsive to the market while also looking ahead and yeah, continuing to build out new products and refine the existing ones. Mhm.
What's the best way to see, you know, what are the some of the partners that people can use to get stable coin yields and to try out Open Trade, whether they see it on the front end or not?
Yeah, absolutely. So, the best way to do that probably would go be our website, opentrade.io. We have a number of case studies on there where you can see all the
different companies that are are using us for you know various yield offerings across the world. We also have a new liquid yield token. So basically a freely tradable token that's you know backed by and generates yield intrinsically from different real world asset investment strategies that Open Trade manages called Sierra. And so folks can actually get Sierra
directly themselves via the Sierra site and web app. But yeah, I'd say opentrade.io case studies and then sierra.m money.
Sounds great. Jeeoff, I will leave a link to the Open Trade platform and the socials if people want to check it out in the show notes below. I appreciate your insights into stable coins. It's really the gatekeeper
for all of the institutions and individuals through neo banks and fintech services to get involved in digital assets whether they know it or not. It's it is the future and I appreciate what you and your team have been doing to push that forward. Wishing you guys all the best with everything and would love to follow up again in the near future.
Awesome. Really really appreciate it Ashton. Thanks thanks very much and yeah, happy Friday. Have a good weekend.
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