Combining payments infrastructure for merchants, digital lending, and DeFi, with Stronghold CEO Sean Bennett

Lex interviews Sean Bennett, the co-founder and CTO of Stronghold, a Fintech company. Sean started out as an independent software developer, building software for clients. This experience led him to entrepreneurship and he used his skills to tackle the problem of remittance. He created Coinex, a stable coin issuer on the Ripple network, which allowed people to send money cheaply and quickly. However, early regulatory challenges and user adoption issues meant that the project was not successful. Sean eventually left the project and moved on to his next venture, Stella, a fork of Ripple. Setting the foundations for eventually starting his own company, Stronghold – a DeFi-enabled financial services company for institutional clients.

 

MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION

 

Stronghold's website: https://bit.ly/3iRB8Nk

CEO's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3D4sJNr

 

Topics: fintech, DeFi, remittance, payments, ACH, blockchain, stablecoins, e-commerce

 

Companies: Coinex, Ripple, Stellar Network, IBM, Stronghold

 

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TIMESTAMPS

 

1’52”: Sean’s early experiences building software and the path to entrepreneurship

 

8’56”: How a remittance-based family use-case led to a career building stablecoins

 

11’33”: The on and off-ramp mechanics involved in early-stage stablecoins & the reality-check of being to early to market

 

16’01”: Partnering with IBM to build their blockchain network & ideating a US Dollar settlement stablecoin integration using the Stellar Network

 

24’03”: Stronghold - the journey to its inception, its vision, and its unique positioning to the customer vs blockchain enablement

 

30’23”: The global nature of Stronghold’s merchant footprint & the data used to understand merchant risk and the associated rates thereof

 

33’58”: Stronghold’s preferred blockchain and protocols & the returns generated by the relative assets class

 

38’24”: Stronghold’s current focus given the state of the market & the trends informing its strategy going forward

 

39’44”: Channels to use to connect with Sean & learn more about Stronghold