Latest news with #StephanieJoseph
Forbes
21-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Small Startups Are Fueling Stablecoin's Engine
Kura CEO Stephanie Joseph and COO Clifford Nau The vibrant, booming stablecoin sector comprises of visionary Small and medium-sized enterprises that are tackling significant challenges within the current payments infrastructure. Yet, they are to a large extent eclipsed by a handful of large players, such as Circle and Tether, which are center stage in the current Washington legislative debate. The bills advancing in both chambers of Congress focus on standards for issuance, liabilities, disclosures, guardrails. Specifically licensing requirements, guidelines for guaranteeing reserves, consumer rights, and others related matters. Innovation is already fostering growth. The benefits towards a U.S. digital dollar were deliberated over the last five years and policymakers are finally on the cusp of implementing rules pertaining to federal, state, and foreign-issued coins used by Americans. Ben Milne, CEO, Brale Stablecoins, decentralized tokens pegged to an asset like the U.S. dollar, already make up a robust global market, valued at over $220 billion according to Forbes. And the industry is being fueled by small builders all over the world, including in America. Some startups facilitate creation, others power the system. 'Fintechs and financial institutions worldwide are waking up to the idea of introducing protocols and stablecoins into their tech stacks to increase efficiency and revenue,' Brale Founder Ben Milne recently shared during Fintech Meetup in March. His state-regulated firm helps entities create and integrate stablecoins into their business. Milne, who serves on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Technology Advisory Committee, boasts about the ease of anyone being able to design a stablecoin in just five steps using his company. There is broad optimism about the ways that stablecoins are bridging the gap between decentralized and centralized finance. 'Kura is using USDC to make immense progress toward driving down the cost of remittances, while increasing utility by enabling beneficiaries to spend these digital dollars in the real economy. Their cross-border payment solution enables instant settlement for merchants, instant spending for beneficiaries and transparency on all transactions through point-of-sale data,' Circle, the largest stablecoin issuer in the United States, cited in a recent report. A woman walks past signs advertising cryptocurrency banking at Union Station in Washington, DC, on ... More March 16, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) Kura was a finalist in Circle's Unlocking Impact pitch competition in Washington, DC last year. Founded by Harvard and MIT scholars Stephanie Joseph and Clifford Nau, the US-based startup provides an alternative method for merchants in the Caribbean and Central America to capture cross-border payments. 'Traditional payment and banking rails no longer suit our digitally-connected world. We leverage blockchain technology to execute near-instant transfers of value across borders while mitigating fraud for merchants at the points of sale. Leveraging stablecoins as a payment utility for cross-border transactions offers the advantage of enabling secure, transparent, and near-instantaneous transactions, reducing costs associated with currency conversions and settlement times,' Joseph and Nau told me in a statement. Other stablecoin founders like Seree CEO Lance Davis are monitoring Washington's progress towards getting a bill across the finish line. The Senate is expected to schedule a vote on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act shortly after Congress is back in session next week. New capital investments are flowing into the exploding marketplace, and micro enterprises and large companies alike are getting ready for the next stage of growth once a reconciled bill is signed into law later this year.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump plan to sell four federal buildings in Vermont up in the air after list is retracted
Confusion surrounds a plan by the Trump Administration to sell 443 federal buildings across the country deemed "not core to government operations," after a list of the buildings published on the U.S. General Services Administration website on Tuesday was replaced on Wednesday with a blank space and a new headline that read, "coming soon," according to USA Today. The list published on Tuesday included four buildings in Vermont: the former U.S. Passport Agency and former Customs House in St. Albans, an impressive brick structure more than 100 years old; the Winston Prouty Federal Building in Essex Junction, which houses the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office; the Social Security Administration building in Montpelier; and a "shed" at the Derby and Port of Entry. The list of buildings also included some of the federal government's most iconic buildings, many on the National Register of Historic Places. USA Today reported the list included the Robert F. Kennedy building in Washington, which houses the Department of Justice, as well as the headquarters of nearly every major federal agency. When asked why the list was taken down, Stephanie Joseph, acting associate administrator for the GSA's Office of Strategic Communication, said in a statement that the agency is reviewing the properties. She said it will consider "compelling offers (in accordance with applicable laws and regulations) and do what's best for the needs of the federal government and taxpayer," according to USA Today. St. Albans City Manager Dominic Cloud told the Burlington Free Press on Thursday he is "monitoring" the situation with the U.S. Passports Agency building on Main Street, but that he had heard nothing directly from GSA. "It's obviously a prominent building that contributes to the city's sense of place," Cloud said. "It's full of murals on the inside that date back to the long history of the Customs House. It's hard to imagine, frankly, a building that isn't more inextricably linked to the identity of the city than that building." Cloud said the building is also an important economic driver for St. Albans, as people come from across the region to get passports. "A regional federal agency where people come from out of town, then have a few hours to kill while waiting for their passports is kind of the gold standard (for attracting business)," he said. "That's exactly why Sen. Leahy had the foresight to put (the passport agency) there, reflective of his vision to save small towns." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, retired in January 2023 after eight terms in the Senate. Cloud also stressed that the building is in great condition, despite its age. "The federal government has consistently invested in it, this is no white elephant," he said. And he worried about the fate of the 75-100 employees he said work in the building, who he said were recently ordered to return to the office instead of working from home. "If you're selling (the building) where are the employees going?" Cloud asked. "A month ago they were all ordered to come back to work. Now the building is for sale. It's hard to get a bead on where it's going." Contact Dan D'Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@ Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT. This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: The GSA has retracted a list of buildings it wants to sell
