In this episode of the Around The Coin podcast, host Stephen Sargeant sits down with Vugar Usi, CEO of MEXC, to discuss his path from traditional finance and marketing to running a global crypto exchange. Vugar explains what makes MEXC stand out—serving 40M users across 170+ markets with a 99% retail user base, a “list-first” approach with 3,000+ projects, and near-zero fees that he says returned $1.1B to customers last year. They explore retail trends like tokenized real-world assets (stocks, gold, oil) and shorter, sharper market cycles, plus key risks in leverage trading such as liquidation and slippage. Vugar also covers MEXC’s new prediction market, fragmented global regulation, proof-of-reserves publishing, and a $100M Guardian Fund with plans to grow it. The conversation closes on exchanges evolving into finance super apps and marketing’s focus on user attention, retention, and trust.

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Stephen Sargeant interviews Ran Goldi, SVP of Payments & Network at Fireblocks, revisiting his earlier prediction that stablecoins would become a dominant payments rail and discussing 2025 as a breakout year for stablecoins. Rand shares lessons from algorithmic trading and First Digital’s rapid 2017 growth, followed by a severe downturn that forced him to cut the team from 70 to 7, and how founder resilience and long-term belief shaped his decisions. He argues stablecoins will keep growing short term but may eventually be displaced by tokenized deposits and new bank-led frameworks, with stablecoins remaining important for certain cross-border uses. Rand explains why Fireblocks was the right acquirer, outlines Fireblocks’ core use cases (secure wallets, treasury/ops orchestration, and ecosystem network), highlights newer areas like vetted on/off-ramp partner coverage, reconciliation via Trusts, and non-custodial wallets via Dynamic, and reflects on institutional adoption, interoperability challenges, AI-driven product velocity, and the next wave toward tokenized real-world assets.

We are also available via:

• Around The Coin — Official Website
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Host Stephen Sargeant interviews Jesse Knutson, Head of Operations at Bitfinex Securities, about his path from investment banking (Barclays, Macquarie) to early Blockstream work and the Blockstream Mining Note, which he describes as an early flagship tokenized security. They discuss Liquid and the Lightning Network, why stablecoins and taxation affected Bitcoin payments, and how Bitfinex Securities (launched 2021) has grown to about $250M in assets with tokenized bonds, microfinancing bonds, ETFs, US treasuries, litigation finance, and Bitcoin hashrate contracts on a 24/7/365 platform. Jesse explains STO vs ICO differences, the 60–90 day issuance/listing process, regulatory and disclosure requirements (including El Salvador’s shorter “relevant information document”), why tokenized markets are complementary to TradFi, and future goals like collateralized tokenized securities, dual listings, and broader access to capital in Latin America.

We are also available via:

• Around The Coin — Official Website
• Buzzsprout
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Player FM
• Quora
• Medium
• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Tiktok
• Soundcloud