How Rain Grew To A $2B Company | Charles Yoo-Naut
Summary
- The "Collateral Efficiency" Thesis: The killer use case for stablecoins in fintech isn't just speed; it's capital efficiency. Traditional card issuers must post ~4 days of collateral with networks (like Visa) to cover banking weekends/holidays. By settling in stablecoins (which run 24/7), Rain reduces this to ~1 day, freeing up massive amounts of working capital.
- Emerging Markets are the Engine: The majority of Rain's revenue comes from outside the US (LatAm, Africa). The product market fit is "Dollar Access," not "Crypto Speculation." Users treat stablecoins simply as "Dollars."
- The "Stack Collapse": Rain has collapsed the traditional fintech stack (Program Manager + Issuing Bank + Processor) into one layer by becoming a Visa Principal Member that settles on-chain. This threatens legacy Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers like Cross River or Sutton Bank.
- Legacy Adoption: Western Union is actively building stablecoin flows on Solana to optimize their backend remittance cost structure.
Trade Ideas
Charles admits that Coinbase (and Gemini) currently dominate the card market because they have the "crypto everything card" and a massive existing user base. While Rain builds B2B infrastructure, Coinbase owns the B2C relationship. In a world where "1% of US dollars are stablecoins" grows to 10% or 50%, the primary consumer interface (Coinbase) captures the float, the interchange, and the user data. They are the "super app" incumbent that niche cards must compete against. LONG. They are the default winner of US-based stablecoin adoption. Fee compression; loss of market share to vertical-specific fintech apps.
Charles Yoo
Co-founder & CTO, Rain
Rain is a Visa Principal Member that settles directly with Visa using stablecoins. Additionally, Western Union has partnered with Rain and is building stablecoin settlement flows specifically on Solana. The market views "Crypto vs. TradFi" as a zero-sum game, but the reality is integration. Visa and Western Union are upgrading their backend rails with blockchain to reduce collateral requirements (from 4 days to 1 day) and settlement times. This lowers their cost of capital and defends their moats against crypto-native disruptors. LONG. These legacy giants are successfully co-opting the technology to improve margins rather than being displaced by it. Regulatory crackdowns on stablecoin settlement; failure of the Solana network (for WU).
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This Empire video, published February 09, 2026, features Charles Yoo discussing COIN, V, WU. 2 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Charles Yoo · Tickers: COIN, V, WU