Jesse

cofounder @0xPredicate prev @celo

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

Aethos is now Predicate

[Dry Run @TheDryRunPod]

Introducing Dry Run, a podcast for new ideas in fintech.

There's an extraordinary amount of innovation happening right now. We sit down with builders and thinkers close to the work, making sense of what's changing and where things are headed.

A space to take new ideas for a spin, explore them, and challenge them out loud.

We're excited to share these conversations with you.

With love,
Eshita and Khushi

[Ira Ko @irajfko]

It's half cash, half stock, and it's on our website

[Jun Kim @JunKim831]

Excited to finally announce that with the recent acquisition, @nucleusearn is now Paxos Labs!

Previously...

Looking back, crypto in the beginning was purely a theoretical exercise—decentralized governance delivering economic freedom to the unbanked. Sounded too good to be true.

But with every step in the industry, it only became more material. At Terraform Labs, I got to see global DeFi adoption firsthand. At Blockchain Capital, I met the builders pushing the frontiers of ZK and DeFi research.

It was clear that crypto combined the best of finance and tech and attracted the brightest minds to learn from. And with the simple belief that all of finance is inevitably coming onchain. @ChundaMcCain and I doubled down and created Molecular Labs.

At @nucleusearn, we focused on building structured products that offer differentiated yield for crypto investors of varying risk profiles. The mandate was to deliver frontier DeFi integrations from the early days of Ethereum to cutting edge innovations on Hyperliquid.

This was fun. Building in the DeFi trenches was what we signed up for.

But it was clear that there was a natural ceiling to the capital sloshing around the markets. The same whales, LPs, and mercenary capital rotating from one token deal to the next. We were looking for ways to grow the entire pie. While many screamed from the rooftops about “onboarding the masses”, it was much easier said than done.

The Next Step:

When we met the Paxos team, we rallied around the idea that DeFi must scale via global distribution channels. Every business that touches money is now going on this journey. Stablecoins first, DeFi is next.

This journey begins wherever users bank—from crypto native dapps, fintechs, neobanks, to large consumer banks that will inevitably shift.

Combining Paxos’s $120B+ track record in trusted tokenization infrastructure and the Nucleus team’s DeFi expertise, we are uniquely equipped to tackle this problem of delivering the E2E onchain transformation for global enterprises. We are now starting that journey as Paxos Labs.

The mission is to scale access to DeFi, and we’re squarely focused on mass adoption.

If you are interested in what we are doing, please reach out!

And a huge shoutout to the team that makes it happen.
@0xDuckworth @dashanmccain @0x_carson @jpickett713 @mroddy5280 @0xTrojanhorse @anjaliegeorge and all others who are too busy building to be posting!

[Jun Kim @JunKim831]

Happy to share more formally what we’ve been rolling out at @paxoslabs !

I believe those who build easy to use and accessible financial applications for end users are building one of the most important businesses out there that empowers everyday consumers around the globe.

Our goal is to help you create a richer set of financial opportunities for your end users while having your platform earn at each step.

What it does:

Earn—Generate yield on idle on-platform balances.
Borrow—Provide credit and access to capital seamlessly.
Mint—Issue your company’s fully configurable digital dollar.

Savings rates, credit, and faster, cheaper settlement are the three fundamental building blocks for building any financial applications.

The Amplify Stack enables any number of usecases from borrowing dollars on crypto to kickstarting SMB credit programs to help your customers get their businesses off the ground.

The common thread—turn dollars into engaging products that makes customers love your platform.

If you are building the next generation of crypto and fintech app, reach out to see what Paxos Labs can do for you!

[Paxos Labs @paxoslabs]

Every major fintech company, neobank, and exchange has begun to support crypto or has already done so.

The harder question every product team is now facing is: What now?

[Nikhil Raghuveera @pumpernikhil]

Address freezes are a complex compliance issue for asset issuers. We don’t know yet why this freeze was done, but @circle has an elite compliance team, so if they’re facing these questions, it shows why every issuer needs rigorous processes for evaluating freeze requests.

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

Telegram hacked, any messages from me today were indeed not actually from me

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

@typedarray Congrats Kevin

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

@sadbryce Nice

[Gwart @GwartyGwart]

I mean I wouldn’t call it all a “failed experiment” we did create an exchange that makes a cow moo sound when you make a swap which, to my knowledge, did not exist before crypto

[Predicate @0xPredicate]

The SEC Crypto Task Force roundtable on privacy and surveillance is today at 1pm ET — just over an hour away!

Tune in to see our co-founder and CEO @pumpernikhil discuss our perspective on compliant privacy for securities tokenization and more.

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

@0xkatz Something about the thrill of shipping a new feature with tight time constraints

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

We’re fixing this at Predicate

[Duca @big_duca]

The Aave app is cool.

But why in 2025 do I still have to KYC with every single finance app.

How is there not a universal KYC product. Feels like there should be.

That I can use to attest I am who I am.

[Duca @big_duca]

The Aave app is cool.

But why in 2025 do I still have to KYC with every single finance app.

How is there not a universal KYC product. Feels like there should be.

That I can use to attest I am who I am.

[Predicate @0xPredicate]

Today’s the day: We’re excited to support @aztecnetwork’s token sale with Predicate Identity’s real-time KYC/KYB screening.

Aztec is building onchain privacy.
We’re building onchain compliance aligned with privacy.

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

@anmol0x @0xDuckworth @0xPredicate @pumpernikhil Excited for you guys!

[Nikhil Raghuveera @pumpernikhil]

@altantutar and I have been talking about working together for some time now. Excited to finally make it official.

@moremarketsxyz is building a better model for people earn on their digital assets, while abstracting away many of the UX challenges. I love how they take a product-driven approach thinking about the basic problems users face.

Also this is now Predicate's first use case on Ripple.

[Jesse @Jessesawa]

@jameygannon Lets do It

[khushi @khushii_w]

For anyone working in stablecoins or RWA issuance, I’d recommend giving this a read.

As required by the GENIUS Act, the US Treasury has requested comment on how to mitigate illicit activity in digital assets.

Right now, most AML/CFT compliance methods exist as industry best practices, not hard requirements.

The time to define those best practices is now.

After speaking with regulators, compliance officers, and financial institutions, we’ve outlined the approach and recommendations below.

This is what we believe constitutes “best practice” for builders in this space.

[Predicate @0xPredicate]

Predicate has responded to @USTreasury's request for comment on methods to mitigate illicit activity in digital assets.

The key takeaway: Compliance today is reactive. It must become proactive to stop bad activity before it happens.

Summary thread + full letter below.