Name: Guy Young on How to Build a 10 Times Better Product on Blockchain Rails
Uploaded: 2026-09-15T19:50:44+00:00
Duration: 3129 s

Speakers

Guy Young — Founder, Ethena Labs

Summary

Guy Young, founder and CEO of Ethena Labs, explains why Ethena launched Ethena Pay, a neobank offering 6% yield and 5% AVAX cashback while hiding self-custodial stablecoin mechanics from users. He discusses USDe's shift toward AAA-rated RWA lending, the importance of owning distribution and yield infrastructure, and partnerships with Avalanche and Plasma. Young also says crypto may be bottoming and looks cheap relative to AI and gold.

Ethena Pay is a neobank built on stablecoin rails with 6% savings yield and 5% AVAX cashback.
Ethena Pay uses self-custodial stablecoin wallets to enable global rollout without bank licenses.
USDe's backing has shifted from basis trade toward secured AAA-rated real-world-asset lending.
Young says USDe handled $30B of mint/redemption flows and major stress events without losing user funds.
Ethena Pay is built on Avalanche, with AVAX-funded cashback exclusive for at least a couple of years.
Young argues neobank growth has benefited stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether.
He cites Hyperliquid's RWA perpetuals as an example of uncorrelated crypto revenue.
He says crypto sentiment has improved and crypto looks cheap versus AI and gold, though with low confidence.

Ideas

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 0:00

USDe offers safe, high-yield dollar savings.

USDe has survived $30B of mint/redemption flows, the Binance 1010 deleveraging event, and other stress incidents without losing a basis point for users. Its backing has shifted from a basis trade toward secured AAA-rated real-world-asset lending and qualified custodians, which Young argues is safer. It also offers a structurally high savings yield—lifetime average around 7%, sUSDe currently about 4.75%, and Ethena Pay boosting it to 6%—and should remain among the highest savings yields even after temporary incentives fade.

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 1:52

Ethena Pay disrupts neobanking on stablecoin rails.

Ethena Pay is a neobank built on stablecoin rails that pays 6% on dollar balances and 5% cashback in AVAX while hiding self-custodial stablecoin mechanics from users. It is global by default because self-custodial wallets avoid bank licensing, vertically integrates Ethena's yield engine to fund better economics than fintechs, and targets a huge addressable market with no crypto incumbent of comparable scale. Card spend and FX/interchange revenue are attractive because they are uncorrelated with USDe NIM and the crypto cycle.

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 7:24

Young invests in Plasma, not a competitor.

Young says he is an investor in Plasma, does not view it as competition for Ethena Pay, and praises its app design and attention to detail. He argues both should focus on expanding to the 100 million non-crypto users rather than fighting over the existing 50,000-100,000 crypto neobank users.

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 14:44

Circle benefits from neobank stablecoin growth.

Young argues the biggest beneficiaries of the growth in crypto neobanks were not the neobanks themselves but Circle and Tether, because those neobanks built on third-party stablecoins and ceded NIM and float monetization to the issuers. This makes Circle a structural beneficiary of neobank adoption.

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 23:26

Avalanche powers Ethena Pay with exclusive rewards.

Ethena Pay is built on Avalanche, with cashback paid exclusively in AVAX and funded by Avalanche itself for at least the next couple of years. Young says Avalanche's focus on being backend infrastructure for real businesses aligns with Ethena Pay, creating a structural partnership and adoption channel for AVAX.

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 41:39

Hyperliquid diversifies into RWA perpetual volumes.

Young cites Hyperliquid as a great example of a crypto business untethering itself from the crypto cycle, noting that RWA perpetuals on equities and commodities grew to more than 50% of its volumes in a category that did not exist nine months earlier. This diversification supports more durable, less speculative revenue.

Guy Young Founder, Ethena Labs 50:14

Crypto market may have bottomed.

Young says sentiment is better than two or three months ago and the worst may be behind crypto. He argues crypto is cheap on a relative-value basis versus other risk assets like AI and gold, and that green shoots are appearing, though he labels this a low-confidence view.

Guy Young on How to Build a 10 Times Better Product on Blockchain Rails

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