Stabledash Live · · 23 min
Deel + MoonPay: Enabling Stablecoin Payroll for 40,000 Businesses
With 
Max von Wallenberg
Key takeaways
MoonPay acquired Iron (by Moonpay) in April 2024, about two years after Iron started, according to CEO Max von Wallenberg.
Deel has enabled stablecoin salary payouts for 40,000+ businesses, with Iron (by Moonpay) as the settlement layer turning fiat into stablecoins for employees.
Max von Wallenberg says buyers should ask whether providers hold their own money transmission licenses or bank-sponsored ones.
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Summary
Iron's CEO says the hard part of stablecoin payments is the licensed fiat stack, not the blockchain, and that enterprise buyers should test it.
Iron (by Moonpay), the stablecoin infrastructure brand MoonPay acquired in April 2024, is the settlement layer behind Deel's new stablecoin salary payouts for 40,000+ businesses. CEO Max von Wallenberg said Iron "started about two years ago" before the acquisition, "so it was pretty quick."
Fiat in, stablecoins out
Max von Wallenberg described the Deel flow as moving "from fiat on the deal side to stablecoins on the employee side," and said it is not about internal treasury movements. He called stablecoins an "inevitable next step" for global payroll if a provider wants to offer the fastest service.
He stressed the stakes: in payroll, he said, there is "absolutely zero margin for error" because people rely on the flows working. MoonPay, which most people know as an on-ramp widget, is in his words "certainly up there" among the largest crypto payment processors.
“When it comes to payroll, there's absolutely zero margin for error. Right? People rely on these on these flows to work.”
Max von WallenbergThe hard part is fiat
According to Max von Wallenberg, the difficult work is processing transactions and handling AML before money reaches the chain; once it is on chain, "things get a lot easier." He said he was surprised how few companies own the full stack, and that enterprise clients ask about it first.
His advice to buyers: ask whether a provider has its own US money transmission licenses or bank-sponsored ones, who sits between it and the bank, and to walk through the full lifecycle from fiat entering to stablecoins coming out.
Custom stablecoins and new products
MoonPay also issues custom stablecoins, and Max von Wallenberg said it works closely with M0 on the smart contract layer, which he said would take longer and be less resilient if built in house. He pointed to a Hyperliquid ecosystem stablecoin with over $1B in value locked, and cited a statistic that 86% of US retail bank accounts do not earn deposit interest.
He also said MoonPay launched MoonPay Deposits for any-chain, any-asset deposits, and noted that Revolut enabling stablecoins in Europe opens up their use.
Max von Wallenberg presents Iron (by Moonpay)'s case as one of ownership: its own licensing and fiat stack, now running payroll for Deel, with stablecoins acting, as he puts it, as transfer agents across countries and platforms.
MoonPay, Circle, Fidelity, and Hyperliquid come up most.
- People
- Max von Wallenberg
- Drew Rogers
- Zach Fowler
- Companies
- MoonPay
- Circle
- Fidelity
- Hyperliquid
- Revolut
- Chase
- FDIC
- JPMorgan
- Liberty City Ventures
- Robinhood
- Schwab
- Tether
- Iron (by Moonpay)
- Deel
- M0
- Cross River Bank
- Dfns
