Mastercard's Bill-Pay Network Is How Stablecoins Pay Your Mortgage

From oil fields to DeFi

Doran Mauldin ran his family's upstream oil and gas firm in the Anadarko Basin and bought his first crypto in 2017. He later worked at a leverage protocol on Avalanche and at Wormhole, then as director of growth at DeFi app, which he says went from zero to a million users and over $40 billion in volume in just under a year.

He launched Artisan Cash with cofounders Mick and Jordan, who serves as CTO.

How the payments work

Doran Mauldin says the best route from stablecoins to billers is the Mastercard RPPS system, and that Artisan Cash never touches or transmits funds. Users complete KYC once, and the company passes it to partners in the background to verify them in real time. He argues that stablecoins make sense next to ACH rails that were built in 1974.

A gap in the market

Host Drew Rogers said that when he was paid in stablecoins, Spritz Finance was the only option and its fees ran upwards of four to 5%. Doran Mauldin says Spritz Finance was down for about six months earlier this year.

Artisan Cash is targeting people paid in stablecoins, especially web3 employees, along with the creator economy. Doran Mauldin says a partnership with the founder of Credentials may come in Q4 2026 or Q1 2027.

Launch plans

Doran Mauldin says Artisan Cash had over a thousand people on its waitlist before spending a dollar, and he plans a first beta cohort of a few hundred in mid to late September. He promises Ritz-level support, with users onboarded one by one, and wants to cover the burn by month six.

The company does not plan a token. Doran Mauldin says he wants to build an actual revenue model and ideally be acquired by one of the big players in a few years.