Articles by Nassim
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CLARITY Act Markup - A New Era For Stablecoins
CLARITY Act Markup - A New Era For Stablecoins
I think Section 404 in the latest CLARITY Act text actually gets the balance mostly right on stablecoin rewards. It…
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Stablecoin Issuance Security
Stablecoin Issuance Security
Resolv, the issuer of USR, got hacked for a result of $50M of USR without any collateral. We've now seen two instances,…
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Standardization as the Secret Weapon for Blockchain Adoption
Standardization as the Secret Weapon for Blockchain Adoption
I remember talking with Packy McCormick a year ago about why I thought blockchains were destined to win. My thesis…
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Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisThe Bastion World Tour continues with Caroline Friedman speaking at KBW Seoul and East Point! 🇰🇷 Catch Caroline talk about US regulations in the crypto space and the role of stablecoin infrastructure in real-world use cases. East Point · Sep 28 · 12:30 PM KST End-to-End Stablecoin Infrastructure Activation & Real-World Use Cases Korea Blockchain Week · Sep 30 · 2:40 PM KST Lawyers, Liability and the Next US Crypto Regime If you're looking for the most robust stablecoin infrastructure partner for enterprises, come say hi.
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reposted thisNassim Eddequiouaq reposted thisLooking for weekend stablecoin reading? I've got you covered ⬇️ Driving this week’s news: Agora, Bastion and Catena received preliminary conditional OCC approval for national trust bank charters. I think we’re watching a new generation of banking-as-a-service take shape. For years, embedding finance has meant finding a sponsor bank and building around what its systems could support. Agora and Bastion are bringing stablecoin issuance, custody and payments together, with a path to providing those services as national trust banks themselves. Sony Bank is already working with Bastion. The opportunity is to combine programmable money that moves across borders with the regulated counterparties large businesses need and (eventually) direct access to Fed rails. A charter doesn’t guarantee a Fed master account; that still requires separate approval. But put these pieces together and you have more firms competing to provide the financial infrastructure businesses build on. I think we’re underestimating what that competition could do for the cost and quality of embedded finance over the next five years. This goes far beyond stablecoins and I don’t think the market has quite caught on to the implications. Read on for a round up of this week's news including product launches, partnerships and funding updates from Atum, Circle, dtcpay, USD.AI, Coinbase, NYSE, SoFi and more.New OCC Approvals: Agora, Bastion, Catena (MC 9/24)New OCC Approvals: Agora, Bastion, Catena (MC 9/24)
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Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisGreat chatting with Jennifer Sanasie about our conditional approval of an OCC trust bank charter on Coindesk at the NYSE. Regulations are in place, enterprise understand the value of stablecoins, and we're now fully ready to support them across stablecoin custody, payments, and issuance. Episode going out on Monday.
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Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisI had a great time debating with Stepan, CEO at Squads, on the benefits of regulated custody over non-custodial solutions. From my viewpoint, the amount of trust that a corporate or retail user put into a non-custodial solution is nearly identical today to the trust they put into a regulated custodian. Being a highly regulated custodian means that we are held responsible and accountable for upholding the highest possible bar of safety and soundness across our business - technology and operations. The security bar for custodians should be that a compromised employee machine with high levels of access does not result in unauthorized fund movements. This property is no different from what the most secure self-custodial solutions have in place today. In a world where you have two solutions: (1) one with mandatory insurance, fiduciary responsibilities, audits, capital requirements, and compliance requirements (2) another with a lot of the same trust properties but none of the requirements above ..we believe that the first one, regulated custody, wins every time unless the second one provides more geographic coverage. Regulated custody is our industry's best tool to drive adoption via trust for the next generation of money and financial products.Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisCircle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets all received conditional OCC approval for national trust bank charters in December 2025. Bastion, a crypto custodian, joined that group on September 18. For a firm that could ship software and move faster, a federal charter brings a long list of requirements. Nassim Eddequiouaq, Founder of Bastion, explained what the company gets in return. > A license settles who is liable when something goes wrong. > Every licensed firm must carry insurance, and the insurer is the party that examines its audits and security controls in depth. > A trust bank charter requires client assets to be fully segregated. > The firm must also hold capital in reserve so it can keep operating through a wind-down. His own security standard assumes a phishing attack has already succeeded. In his view, a secure system is one where you can "hand over a laptop that is logged in on all of your systems, AWS and so on, and the attackers cannot move your funds."
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Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisIf you’re heading to Sibos Miami, come meet our own and only Rohan Kohli. He's the right person to talk to if you're a large institution looking for the ideal regulated stablecoin parner. Our Chief Risk & Compliance Officer will be there September 28–30, speaking on the 29th about Risk Management in the Age of Digital Assets. Reach out if you’d like an intro.
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Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisIf you are a bank, you cannot rely on simple fintech unless they are federally regulated. With this charter, Bastion can now be that regulated partner for all of the largest financial institutions in and outside of the U.S., who want to launch world-class products in America. 🏦 Bastion will be offering scalable and safe custody, conversion, and issuance services from our conditionally approved federally chartered bank. Thank you Jasmine Li and Wall Street Journal.Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisBastion is the regulated stablecoin infrastructure provider behind global enterprises and financial institutions. As enterprises bring stablecoins into their products and payment flows, they need infrastructure that can support them at scale while meeting the standards their regulators, auditors, and risk committees expect. Our preliminary conditional approval from the OCC for a national trust bank charter extends that framework to the federal level, across stablecoin custody and wallets, payments infrastructure, and white-label issuance. Read more in The Wall Street Journal on how Bastion is giving enterprises and financial institutions a regulated foundation to build and operate with stablecoins at scale. https://lnkd.in/dHp4Urwb
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Nassim Eddequiouaq shared thisWhen we started Bastion, we believed stablecoins would become core financial infrastructure. But for the world’s largest enterprises and financial institutions to adopt them, that infrastructure would need to meet the regulatory standards they already expect from their banks. That meant building compliance, controls and governance into Bastion from the beginning, not adding them after the fact or waiting for others to pave the way. Today, the OCC granted Bastion preliminary conditional approval for a national trust bank charter, placing us among a small group of companies to reach this stage with the OCC. That matters because the bar should be high. Stablecoins are becoming part of the financial system, and the infrastructure powering them needs to be built for the regulatory and operational standards that come with that. Stablecoins are moving into the financial mainstream, but institutional adoption depends on infrastructure that can meet an institutional standard. We made the decision early to build Bastion for that standard. Today is an important validation of that decision, and we’re just getting started.
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reposted thisNassim Eddequiouaq reposted thisI couldn't be more excited to speak at this year's WIPL Conference! https://lnkd.in/gCZU8ak9 This year’s program will feature top-notch networking with peers, professional and personal development, and industry insights on the most pressing issues women face in law. #WIPL #WomenInLaw
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reposted thisNassim Eddequiouaq reposted this🪙 Bastion is looking for a Payment Operations Associate to support our global on/off-ramp and stablecoin issuance products. You’ll be joining a small team and will be expected to make an immediate impact. This is an exciting and critical stage for the company as we scale our payments infrastructure globally. Interviews start next week - let's get to work. If you’re up for the challenge, please apply: https://lnkd.in/gBjjHmyW
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisNassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisPrivy was running more than 75 million crypto accounts when Stripe acquired it in 2025, which means the health of a single vendor now matters to millions of self-custody users. Nassim Eddequiouaq, Co-Founder & CEO of Bastion : "When you're building systems where we say self-custodial, there are two aspects to it." "Can I still use my money if an Altitude or a Privy goes away immediately? Typically, the answer is no." "The other side of self-custody is, can my provider take some actions without me being part of the process?" "It is possible with enough software updates, compromises of developers internally, to actually get to that as well, and we've seen that in the past." In 2022, Slope, a Solana wallet, sent its users' credentials to an offchain logging server, and attackers drained thousands of wallets that their owners controlled. For a finance team evaluating a wallet provider, both answers depend on the provider's operations, software releases and vendor integrations, which is where custody diligence should begin.
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisNassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisIt’s been a fun year so far on LinkedIn 😁
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisNassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisLooking for weekend stablecoin reading? I've got you covered ⬇️ Driving this week’s news: Agora, Bastion and Catena received preliminary conditional OCC approval for national trust bank charters. I think we’re watching a new generation of banking-as-a-service take shape. For years, embedding finance has meant finding a sponsor bank and building around what its systems could support. Agora and Bastion are bringing stablecoin issuance, custody and payments together, with a path to providing those services as national trust banks themselves. Sony Bank is already working with Bastion. The opportunity is to combine programmable money that moves across borders with the regulated counterparties large businesses need and (eventually) direct access to Fed rails. A charter doesn’t guarantee a Fed master account; that still requires separate approval. But put these pieces together and you have more firms competing to provide the financial infrastructure businesses build on. I think we’re underestimating what that competition could do for the cost and quality of embedded finance over the next five years. This goes far beyond stablecoins and I don’t think the market has quite caught on to the implications. Read on for a round up of this week's news including product launches, partnerships and funding updates from Atum, Circle, dtcpay, USD.AI, Coinbase, NYSE, SoFi and more.New OCC Approvals: Agora, Bastion, Catena (MC 9/24)New OCC Approvals: Agora, Bastion, Catena (MC 9/24)
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisNassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisHow do you get better at using AI? At last night's A Chief of Staff Mixer, we chatted about using AI personally. When you use something personally, you become more comfortable and confident with it. And it's fun and helpful to chat about it with people who get you. Special thanks to Sheena Gohil and Jen Flores with Colliers for partnering with me and to Chelsea Orcutt and Bastion for hosting us! Good things happen when Chiefs of Staff gather!
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Nassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisNassim Eddequiouaq reacted on thisEvery company that moves part of its treasury into stablecoins has to decide who holds the keys, which usually means choosing between a regulated custodian and a non-custodial wallet that the company controls itself. Nassim Eddequiouaq, Co-Founder & CEO of Bastion and former CISO for crypto at a16z, debating Altitude on custody: "Non-custodial does not mean trustless, and I think that the big problem is that it's often painted as such." "You still trust wallet developers. You still trust hardware manufacturers. You still trust firmware, smart contracts, integrations, operations." "You still trust the wallet developer that you use, and their AWS credentials, and how they manage all of those things." "Possessing your access does not mean possessing your keys. It does not guarantee exclusive control over your assets." "If you go deep enough in trying to model the trust that you're putting as a user into your wallet provider, you essentially get the same trust guarantees with a regulated custodian and with a non-custodial solution." "Whether you're trying to hack into Coinbase, or you're trying to hack into Coinbase Prime, or whether you're trying to hack into Altitude, you're probably gonna go for the same vectors." For a finance team weighing the two models, the diligence therefore sits with the vendors, credentials and operations behind whichever wallet it picks.
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International Robotics Contest - IDC Robocon 2013
International Design Contest
University students from 8 countries meets and make up shuffled teams. The goal is to to win the robot contest called "Robocon". They share life and knowledge during 2 weeks, and exchange their ideas of robotics over the wall of language or culture.
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Sanja Partalo
Excited to share our investment in Nex as part of the company’s $150M+ financing announced today. Nex sits at a fascinating intersection of AI, gaming and media — using AI-powered motion technology to turn the biggest screen in the home into an active, shared entertainment experience. The traction is exceptional: more than 1 million Nex Playground units sold, distribution across 7,000+ U.S. retail locations, and a subscriber base approaching 1 million — alongside a growing content ecosystem featuring some of the world’s most recognized entertainment, gaming and sports IP. We’re thrilled to invest alongside Baillie Gifford and BAI Capital, National Basketball Association (NBA) and Logitech — and especially our long-standing friends at The Raine Group, as well as new friends at Medici Capital Partners. Investing at the intersection of media and technology has been central to S4S from the outset—and to my own investment career, dating back to my time at WPP. Nex is a great example of how AI is reshaping media, entertainment and consumer behavior at scale. Congratulations to David Lee, Thomas Kang and the entire Nex team. Excited for what comes next. Great piece from Jennifer Maas in Variety on the company and its next chapter below. P.S. Parents with kids 3–12: consider a Nex Playground. It’s a fun, safe & active alternative to iPhone/iPad time—and may save you a lot of screen-time battles!
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Gabriel Jarrosson
YC operates as a network effects business. Each incremental company added to the ecosystem increases the value of the network for all other participants. The excellent Elad Gil identifies three key network effects: 1) Peer-based help --- YC founders tap batch mates for advice, feedback, and learnings, creating an invaluable peer network. 2) Cross-mentoring --- YC provides a mentoring network where founders at different lifecycle stages advise each other. True network effects kick in as more startups distribute throughout the company lifecycle. 3) Customer development --- For B2B companies especially, YC provides an instant testing ground and user base. Early brand-name customers from prior batches provide both product validation and fast revenue. These network effects strengthen more YC entrants, not weaken. When YC scaled from 75 to 250+ companies per batch, critics worried about dilution. The opposite occurred. Larger batches create more companies similar to any given startup, enable specialized programming for different verticals, and increase the potential customer base within the YC network. Perhaps the best modern example - 80% of Y Combinator companies use Brex. Within six years, Brex captured not just YC startups but also 33% of the top 50 VC firms’ portfolios and 25% of all US startups. Therefore, concentration risk actually decreases as YC scales because the ecosystem becomes more valuable to participants. This is the opposite of what traditional concentration risk theory would predict. Of course, we do discount YC-to-YC revenue when evaluating company performance, particularly for startups that show high ARR. But that doesn’t mean that this cash in hand cannot be used to fuel more growth, both within and outside the ecosystem.
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Tomasz Tunguz
While OpenAI signed $1.15 trillion in compute contracts through 2035, DeepSeek trained a frontier model for $6 million. This was 2025’s central question : are we building on bedrock or quicksand? The top 10 posts of 2025 examined some of these topics : Are we in a bubble echoing the telecom crash, or building the next internet? Do traditional exit paths still work when secondaries dominate & IPOs vanish? How do you design tools when the user is AI, not human? 2025 forced a reckoning with reality. 1. How AI Tools Differ from Human Tools (https://lnkd.in/d9qcnbyz) : I consolidated my 100+ AI tools into unified, parameter-rich interfaces based on Anthropic’s research. The counterintuitive finding : AI systems need complex tools with complete context, while humans need simple, chunked interfaces. Claude’s success rate approached 100% after the redesign. 2. Back to Text (https://lnkd.in/dWcy53fv) : How AI Might Reverse Web Design : I watched an open-source agent book flights by navigating airline websites, extracting data from visual chaos. If AI thrives on pure text, the future of the web might look exactly like it started : simple text, but for robots instead of humans. The better AI performs, the fewer websites we’ll visit. 3. Circular Financing (https://lnkd.in/d8-KMGZf) : Does Nvidia’s $110B Bet Echo the Telecom Bubble? : Nvidia’s vendor financing totals $110B in direct investments plus $15B+ in GPU-backed debt, 2.8x larger relative to revenue than Lucent’s exposure in 2000. But unlike the telecom bubble, Nvidia’s top customers generated $451B in operating cash flow in 2024. The merry-go-round has paying riders. Read the full post here : https://lnkd.in/d8Xw6tJt
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Aaron Stanley
Non-USD denominated stablecoins are still in their infancy, but the use cases are clear, argues Omid Scheybani, VP of Partnerships at Conduit The core challenge currently is a lack of liquidity, which is downstream from a lack of guidance on the regulatory side. Within 2-3 years' time these issues should be resolved, with local stablecoins in places Brazil and Mexico being the likely trailblazers followed by African markets like Nigeria and Kenya Catch my full interview with Omid at the Bitso Business Stablecoin Conference 2025 in Mexico City last month https://lnkd.in/dc3T3UsZ
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