Nassim Eddequiouaq on Building Libra's Wallet, Joining a16z Crypto, Powering Sony Bank's Stablecoin

From Libra to bank charters

Nassim Eddequiouaq co-created the wallet infrastructure and key management for the Libra project at Meta. He then joined a16z crypto as chief security officer after, as he puts it, the US government decided to "not so politely kill" Libra.

Today Bastion works as a full-stack provider under a bank's charter, handling the technology and operations. He says customers can start under Bastion's license and move to their own over time, and its wallets support both segregated and omnibus setups.

Sony Bank and Asia

Bastion will launch Sony's Stablecoin for Sony Bank through its issuance platform. Nassim Eddequiouaq describes the ambition this way: "Let's replace Visa across the entire ecosystem." He says Sony Bank wants to be able to reverse transactions in cases of account takeover and phishing.

Nassim Eddequiouaq says Asia is "going berserk" on stablecoins. As the yen moves away from negative rates, with short-term rates getting close to 1%, he says Japanese institutions are expanding globally. He points to investor NTT, which has over 90 million users in Japan.

Policy and yield

He says the GENIUS Act "unlocked a ton" for enterprises. He cites White House research finding that paying yield to consumers would affect deposit flight by only 0.02%, and he expects a negotiated deal within the next few weeks.

Why adoption is slow

Nassim Eddequiouaq says stablecoins cannot match the FX rates of JP Morgan or Citibank, and that accounting, fraud management, merchant-of-record and tax handling remain. He expects processors and banks to use stablecoins for settlement and widen their margins before cutting prices. He also wants Bastion to act as a clearinghouse between the stablecoins it issues, reusing KYC across ecosystems the way Stripe Link does.