Western Union執行長Devin McGranahan談USDPT穩定幣戰略

0:00DAS盛會與Western Union執行長登場

0:00大家好嗎？只有一個人回應。大家好嗎？很好，很好。這次我真的很興奮，看到DAS一路走來的發展真的很驚人。我們從2019年開始舉辦這個會議，今年是史上最大規模的一次。雖然大家都說現在是熊市、價格低迷，但看到這麼多人參與，真的很振奮，這是我們八年來最大的一次盛會。How we doing, folks? One person. How we doing, folks? Good, good. Well, I'm very excited about this. It's amazing to see just, yeah, the progression of DAS. We've been hosting this conference since 2019, and yeah, this is our biggest DAS ever. So I know people are talking about it's a bear market and prices are compressed, but are depressed, but yeah, it's very exciting to see just the, yeah, the biggest turnout we've ever had in, you know, eight years of hosting this.

0:31其中一個讓大家這麼踴躍的原因，就是我們很榮幸邀請到Western Union的執行長Devin來到現場。請大家給他熱烈掌聲，我們馬上開始今天的對談。And one of the reasons probably many folks turned out is we were excited to have Devin, who's the CEO of Western Union here. So please give him a big round of applause, and excited to get in.

0:42為什麼Western Union選擇All-in穩定幣？

0:42Devin，我最想問的就是，你接任Western Union總裁兼執行長時，公司股價和營收都下滑。你有上百種方法可以讓公司重振旗鼓，但你卻選擇All-in穩定幣，為什麼？I think, Devin, the biggest thing I'm wondering, I guess coming into this chat is, you know, you come into Western Union CEO, president position, stock is down a bit, revenue is down a bit. You can do a million things to kind of turn the business, you know, get the business humming again, and you go kind of all in on stablecoins. Why is that?

1:03所以我已經擔任執行長四年了。我們大概同時在做一百萬件事情。穩定幣只是這一百萬件事情中的其中一項，而且它符合我們策略中的一個區塊，也就是我們擁有大量的資產。我們有一億名客戶。我們是一家持牌的金融機構，在全球超過五十個國家是銀行、匯款公司或電子貨幣公司。我們在全球移轉數千億美元。因此，那個基礎設施，我們的出帳到帳戶網路有四十億個端點。我們有四十萬個實體零售據點。這些基礎設施，原本是為了做消費者對消費者的小額轉帳而建構的，現在也很有用。So I've been the CEO for four years. We probably are doing a million things. Stablecoins is one of those million things, and it fits in a block of the strategy, which is we have an enormous number of assets. So we have 100 million customers. We're a licensed financial institution, either a bank, a money transfer company, an e-money company in over 50 countries around the world. And we move hundreds of billions of dollars around the world. So that infrastructure, we have four billion endpoints in our payout to account network. We have 400,000 retail locations. That infrastructure, which was built really to do consumer-to-consumer small dollar transfers, is useful.

1:54因此，我們有許多策略，圍繞著要如何開始將其貨幣化，以及如何將其用於其他用途，還有我們要如何讓它變得更有效率。And so we have a number of strategies around how do you begin to monetize that, and how do you use it for other purposes, plus how do we make it more efficient?

2:06因此，隨著GENIUS Act的通過，我們看到了利用穩定幣來做幾件事情的機會。首先，在任何一天，我們系統裡都會有幾十億美元在流動。所以，我們很早以前就解決了消費者之間可以即時匯款並且即時領取的問題。你知道，大家常常在討論說，哦，加密貨幣可以讓交易變成即時，其實它早就已經是即時的了。問題在於，為了預先資助所有這些交易，我必須讓幾十億美元的資金在系統裡漂浮。And so with the passage of the Genius Act, we saw an opportunity to leverage stablecoins to do a couple of things. One, on any given day, we have a couple of billion dollars floating around in the system. So we solved the problem a long time ago of consumers being able to send consumers money and being able to pick it up instantly. So, you know, people talk a lot about, oh, well, crypto will be able to make it real time. It already is real time. The problem is it keeps a couple of billion dollars of mine floating around in the system to pre-fund all those transactions.

2:39使用非 SWIFT 的 SWIFT 銀行系統，所以我們必須等到 T 加二、T 加三。穩定幣在機構層級上，讓我們能夠從系統中釋放出大量資本，使其運作更加有效率。Using the non-SWIFT SWIFT banking system, so we have to wait for T plus two, T plus three. And so stablecoins, at an institutional level, allow us to take a lot of capital out of the system to make it more efficient.

2:54第二個好處是，我們正開放我們的網路，讓更多人能在世界各地困難地區使用我們的出金基礎設施。我們有當地的財務部門，也能做外匯兌換。如果你在某個國家有數位資產，只要我們有基礎設施，你就能走進任何Western Union據點，或直接匯到我們網路裡的任何銀行帳戶，幾乎是無縫接軌。這種大規模的出金選項，很多人都很感興趣。The second thing it does is we're opening up our network. To lots of other people who want to get access to basically off-ramps in tough places around the world, all the infrastructure lives there. We have all the local, you know, treasury departments, and we can do FX exchange. And so if you have a digital asset in a country where we have infrastructure, we'll now enable you basically to walk into any Western Union or send it to any bank account in our network. Pretty seamlessly. So kind of as an off-ramp at scale that allows that kind of instant liquidity option, we find a lot of people are finding that attractive.

3:32穩定幣對內部效率與用戶體驗的影響

3:32你覺得這主要是為了提升內部效率、釋放數十億美元的浮存資金，還是為了改善客戶體驗？還是兩者都有？Do you think it's more about the internal efficiency and kind of getting rid of that, you know, multi-billion dollars of float, or is it more about improving the customer experience, or a little bit of both?

3:45所以使用者體驗不會改變。使用者體驗不會改變。不會改變。我們會討論對某些人來說價值主張可能會改變，但使用者體驗並不會改變。現在你可以幾乎即時地把錢匯到191個國家的任何一個人手上，你未來還是可以這麼做。這裡面有很多效率。如果我能釋放出幾十億美元的資本，我就可以回購公司一半的股份。因為我們現在有現金放在資產負債表上，是為了讓這一切運作，一旦我能動用這些現金，情況就完全不同了。So the customer experience won't change. Customer experience won't change. Won't change. We'll talk about how the value proposition for some people might change, but the customer experience doesn't change. Today you can send money to any one of 191 countries pretty much in real time, and you're still able to do that. There is a lot of efficiency. So if I can free up a couple billion dollars of capital, I can buy back half the company. Because we have cash sitting on the balance sheet to make all this thing work that all of a sudden I can get access to.

4:16但接下來你必須要做的，就是讓我們全球所有的合作夥伴都能夠接受穩定幣，能夠用穩定幣結算，你知道，達到那種機構級的資金流動。而且我們談的是數千億美元的規模。我想現在發行的穩定幣總量也只有三千億美元，對吧？所以我說的是，要能夠把我的公司，也就是幾乎等同於整個穩定幣市場的規模，全部轉換成穩定幣，並且在全球一百個國家運作。所以這背後有一個很大的基礎建設問題，我們必須把這件事做好。But you then have to, I mean, the work in this is getting all of our partners around the world to be able to accept stablecoin, to settle in stablecoin, you know, to get that institutional-grade money movement. And again, we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. There's only—I think there's only $300 billion of issued stablecoin, right? So I'm talking about being able to take my company, which is basically the equivalent of the entire stablecoin market, and move it into stablecoins in 100 countries around the world. So there's a big infrastructure play that we got to get to get it right.

5:02穩定幣如何改變用戶價值主張

5:02一億。一億名客戶？一億名消費者。對，對。所以，對他們來說，價值主張的改變在於，根據現行系統的設計，使用者必須接受當地貨幣。現在，在某些國家，他們也是雙幣國家，所以你可以接受美元。像是在秘魯或——不同的地方，但很多國家你只能接受當地貨幣。所以當你從紐約匯一百美元到玻利維亞時，你實際上是以玻利瓦爾支付。那是一個曾經有些政治不穩定、通膨的國家。價值主張的改變將會是，你現在可以接受一個Western Union的穩定幣，你可以持有這個穩定幣，在那個國家直到你想要換成玻利瓦爾為止，這樣你就可以讓自己免於貨幣波動和政治不穩定的影響。A hundred million. A hundred million customers? A hundred million consumers. Yeah, yeah. And so the value proposition change, though, for some of them is, by the way the system is designed today, customers have to accept the local currency. Now, in some countries, they also are dual currency countries, so you can accept dollars. So, like in Peru or—Different places, but lots of countries, you can only accept local currency. So when you send 100 bucks from New York to Bolivia, you're paying out in bolivars. It's a country that's had some political instability, some inflation. The value proposition change will be you can now accept a Western Union stablecoin that you can hold. In that country until you want the Boulevard, so you can isolate yourself from the currency fluctuations, the political instability.

5:52但更重要的是，我們也將能夠提供給大家穩定幣支援的卡片。這代表你可以走進Western Union，然後帶著一張穩定幣卡片離開，而這本質上幾乎就像是一個銀行帳戶。這是一張以美元計價的卡片，由穩定幣作為支撐，所以你可以把美元計價的資產存放在這張卡片上。你之後可以在銷售點消費，也可以把錢加值進去。所以基本上，我們將讓這些國家的民眾能夠接觸到銀行體系，讓他們擁有銀行帳戶的功能，而不需要真的幫他們開立銀行帳戶，因為在很多國家這其實非常困難。因此，這對於我們的收款使用者來說，這種價值主張的改變其實是非常重大的。But more importantly, we're also going to be able to give people stablecoin-backed cards. So you can walk into a Western Union and you can walk out with a stablecoin card, and that, in essence, is almost a bank account. So it's a U.S. dollar denominated card that's backed by the stablecoin, and so you can keep it on the card in U.S. dollar denominated asset. You can then spend it at a point of sale. You can add money to it. So in essence, we're going to be giving people in these countries access to the banking system. Into bank accounts without actually having to open bank accounts for them, which is really hard in many of these countries. So that value proposition change for our receive customers is actually a pretty big deal.

6:40所以現在你基本上可以為全部一億名使用者開設美國銀行帳戶。以前在有穩定幣之前你做不到這件事。你當然更早以前也做不到。對，這些不是銀行帳戶，它們是穩定幣，但它們的運作方式有點像是你擁有一個以美元計價的銀行帳戶。你看，如果你住在巴西，而且你的財富達到一定水準，你會有一個離岸銀行帳戶。所以你會在邁阿密、倫敦或瑞士擁有一個銀行帳戶，這只是用來對沖巴西經濟和通膨的一種方式，而且你知道，這是在那個國家人們處理財務事務時非常被接受的做法。但低收入的人無法取得這樣的服務。And so you can now open essentially U.S. bank accounts for all 100 million customers. You couldn't do that before stablecoins. You certainly couldn't do that before. Yeah. They aren't bank accounts. They're stablecoins, but they function kind of like having a bank account in a dollar. Look, if you live in Brazil and you're above a certain wealth level, you have an offshore bank account. So you have a bank account in Miami or in London or in Switzerland, just as a way to hedge the Brazilian economy and the inflation, and, you know, it's a very accepted way that people in that country conduct their financial affairs. But lower income people don't have access to that.

7:22他們無法在邁阿密或倫敦開設銀行帳戶，而私人銀行家也沒有時間或興趣幫他們開戶。但是，穩定幣就像是一種代理，提供了同樣持有資產的能力。當然，他們不會持有十萬美元，他們只會持有一百美元。但對他們來說，那一百美元就跟你的一十萬美元一樣重要，對吧？所以，這是一個我們感到興奮的價值主張上的改變。對，就是這樣。They can't open a bank account in Miami or in London, and private bankers don't have the time or interest in opening it for them. But a stablecoin proxies that same ability to hold. Now, they're not going to hold $100,000. They're going to hold $100. But for them, that $100 is as important as the $100,000 for you, right? And so it is a value proposition change that we're excited about. Yeah.

7:48競爭對手與市場格局

7:48你怎麼看競爭？你會擔心像Circle、Tether這些公司嗎？你提到一億名客戶，Coinbase好像也有差不多一億名客戶。你比較擔心這些新創，還是有其他對手？Do you, when you think about the competitive landscape, are you more worried about the kind of circles and Tethers? And you mentioned 100 million customers. I think Coinbase also has roughly 100 million customers, maybe. Are you more worried about those kind of folks, or are you more—who do you worry about when you think about competition?

8:11是的，所以我把那些人視為一個機會。那些客戶都不是我的客戶。我的一億名客戶和Coinbase的一億名客戶是完全不同的一億人，對吧？這兩者的重疊非常低。我的客戶不太可能去開一個Coinbase帳戶，只是為了匯兩百美元給他們在瓜地馬拉的媽媽，而她還得想辦法處理USDC或USDT，才能去買牛奶。這種情況短期內是不會發生的。Yeah, so I see those folks as an opportunity. So none of those customers are my customers. My 100 million customers and Coinbase's 100 million customers are 100 million different people, right? The overlap of those is very low. My customers are unlikely to open a Coinbase account to send $200 to their mom in Guatemala, who now has to figure out what to do with USDC or USDT in order for her to buy milk. That's just not a thing that's going to happen anytime soon.

8:44所以，透過開放我們的支付網路，也就是我們的資金進出網路，我們其實有機會接觸到那些一億名不是我現有客戶的使用者。不過，正如許多人所知道的，當地市場的流動性、當地市場的出金管道，先別說美國、別說歐洲，在世界上比較困難的地方，這仍然是一個很難解決的問題。你知道，我們在中非做了很多生意。我們可以用大約 2% 的費用進出 SAF。如果你進入灰色市場，也就是大多數加密錢包和加密公司所使用的市場，費用就會變成 6% 或 7%，因為他們無法取得中央銀行的管道。So by opening up our payout network, our funds in, funds out network, we actually may gain access to some of those hundred million customers who aren't my customers, but today, as many people know, local market liquidity, local market off-ramps, forget about the U.S., forget about Europe, but in tough places around the world, it's still a thing that's hard to solve, right? You know, we do a lot of business in Central Africa. We can get in and out of SAF at about a 2%. If you go into the gray market, which is where most of the crypto wallets and crypto companies do, it's six or seven percent because they don't have access to a central bank.

9:27我們實際上是與中央銀行進行交易，因此我們這些隨著時間累積起來的本地市場國債操作能力非常有價值。所以，如果你持有Circle、Tether或Bitcoin，並且你想要SAF，我們能提供的條件會好得多。這比你去某個本地交易所嘗試這麼做要好得多，因為那些交易所基本上是在灰色市場上進行交易，因為他們無法取得中央銀行的管道。對，我們認為這就是所謂的「存取權」。我們認為這些是我們目前還沒有的客戶，但他們可能會覺得我們的服務很有用。我不認為我的客戶會轉向他們的平台。我們沒有看到，也沒有任何證據顯示會發生這種情況。We actually trade with the central bank, and so those local market treasury capabilities that we've built up over time are very valuable. So we'll have a much better deal if you own Circle or you own Tether or you own Bitcoin and you want SAF. Then if you go and you try to do that at some local exchange who's basically trading staff in the gray market because they don't have access to the central bank. Right. So we think that's access. We think those are customers that we don't have today that might find what we do useful. I don't think my customers are going to gravitate to their platforms. Right. We've not seen, we've seen no evidence of that.

10:01那麼，你的競爭對手是誰？或者說，當你在努力時，你最擔心的是誰？我們傳統的競爭對手，就是像Revolut、Remitly、Wise這些公司，他們都在做跟我們類似的事情。我們在後台也聊過，對我們來說，最有潛在風險的平台會是Facebook和WhatsApp，單純因為我在世界各地的所有客戶都在用那個作為通訊平台，而匯款其實只是另一種形式的通訊。我們一開始是做電信公司的，對吧？是做電報公司的，對吧？所以，你知道，跟親人溝通、把錢匯給親人，這兩者其實是非常、非常緊密連結的。So who's your competitor then? Or who do you worry about when you're up? So our traditional competitors, which are, you know, the Revoluts, the Remitlys, the Wises, and they're all doing similar things to us. You and I talked about backstage, right? The platform that poses the most potential risk to us would be Facebook and WhatsApp, simply because all of my customers everywhere in the world. Use that as a communication platform, and sending money is just a different form of communications. When we started as a telecom company, right, as a telegraph company, right? Like, so, you know, the idea that I'm communicating with loved ones and I'm sending money to loved ones is closely, closely linked.

10:31是的。現在，我不認為他們想要承擔所有的監管問題，而且他們當然也不想要——我們在全球管理的所有基礎設施和網路，但包括我們在內，許多我們的競爭對手都在尋找方法，試圖利用那個平台來幫助人們彼此之間轉移價值。所以，這比我某天醒來發現Coinbase把我的所有客戶都搶走了，還要有趣得多。是的，那很有意思。Yeah. Now, I don't think they want all the regulatory problems, and they certainly don't want—All the infrastructure and the network that we manage around the world, but lots of, including us, lots of us, we and lots of our competitors are finding ways to try to use that platform as a way of helping people transfer value between each other. So that's a more interesting conversation than somehow I'm going to wake up and Coinbase is going to have all my customers. Yeah, that's interesting.

11:20Meta重返穩定幣與Western Union策略差異

11:20那你會擔心嗎？我覺得看起來像是Meta。所以Meta之前有Libra和他們的穩定幣計畫，但那個計畫被關掉了。你會擔心嗎？你知道，幾個月前他們宣布他們有點像是重新進入穩定幣這個領域。你會擔心嗎？是很大的擔心，還是小小的擔心？我不知道你的想法是什麼。Do you worry at all then about, I think it looks like Meta. So Meta obviously had Libra and their stablecoin project, and that got shut down. Do you worry at all? You know, a couple months ago they announced they're kind of re-entering the stablecoin game. Concern, big concern, small concern? I don't know what.

11:34我得要了解他們打算做什麼，對吧？這個行業的美妙之處——我這個行業的一般美妙之處在於，像那樣的人賺錢，大多是靠賣廣告賺錢，對吧？所以他們想要你。對，你很有錢，你會花錢，你長得好看，你很聰明，你整個人都很有吸引力。像是，我想賣你新的鞋子或是Rolex，還有一大堆東西，所以我就會去打廣告。我的客戶——通常是在社經地位較低的族群，對吧？我們非常把自己定位為金融機構的接入推手。I got to understand what they're going to do, right? The beauty—The general beauty of my business is people like that make money, mostly make money by selling advertising, right? And so they want you. Right. You're rich. You spend money. You're good-looking. You're, like, smart. You got this whole thing going here. Like, I want to sell you, you know, new shoes or Rolex, a whole bunch of things, so I'm going to go advertise. My customers are—Generally at the lower end of the socioeconomic strata, right? Like, we view ourselves very much as enabler of access to the financial institutions.

12:12而且，你知道，我們的客戶並不是這些公司眼中的搶手對象，對他們來說也不是賺大錢的機會，對吧？所以，是的，我並不太擔心Meta。And, you know, so our customers are not coveted by many of these companies as big opportunities for them to make money, right? So, yeah, I don't worry about Meta that much.

12:29Western Union自發行穩定幣的策略與差異

12:29我不確定這個問題是不是比較適合問你們的產品團隊，所以如果不方便回答我們可以跳過。我不知道你當初參與這個專案的深度有多深，但我注意到你們在穩定幣方面的做法跟其他公司很不一樣，比如說 MoneyGram 之類的。你們設計穩定幣的方式，經濟利益大多還是留在你們自己這邊。這是你們自己的穩定幣，你們沒有用 USD。你知道，很多像 MoneyGram 這樣的公司只是用 USDC。你們當初是怎麼思考要這樣設計的？I don't know if this is a question more for your product team, so we can skip it. I don't know how deep into the weeds you were, but I was looking at what you guys are doing with your stablecoin is very different than what other folks have done, like a MoneyGram or something. Like you guys, the way that you guys set up your stablecoin, you guys keep most of the economics. It's your own stablecoin. You're not using USD. You know, a lot of, I think MoneyGram is just using USDC. How did you think about setting this up? Yeah.

12:52所以再說一次，如果你思考一下你想要解決的是什麼問題，我們其實是在嘗試讓資金能夠在全球範圍內移動，主要是為了我們自己，而且要用一種更有效率、更有效果、資本負擔更輕的方式來進行。因此，我會從一個負浮存業務轉變過來。過去我必須為了讓這個全球資金即時移動的價值主張能夠運作，在系統裡保留數十億美元，這些資金會產生資本成本；但現在，透過即時、全年無休的結算，任何實際存在於系統裡的資金，現在都可以由國庫券作為支撐，幫我賺取利息，讓我變成一個正浮存的業務。So again, if you think about what problem you're trying to solve, we're trying to move money around the world principally for ourselves, and in a much more efficient and effective and capital-light way. And so I will go from being a negative float business. I have a cost of capital associated with the billions of dollars that I have to keep in the system to make this value proposition of instant movement of money around the world working, to a positive float business where, by having real-time, 24 by 7 settlement, anything that actually lives in the system is now backed by Treasuries earning interest for me.

13:41如果我的其中一個合作夥伴決定為了結算而持有那筆資金一段時間，我就能靠這筆錢賺錢，相較於現在，我還得付錢給我的合作夥伴，因為他們持有我的資金，對吧？所以，我們現在要解決的問題就是，如何能夠更快速、更有效率地在全球移動數十億美元，並且從負浮存金業務轉變為正浮存金業務。這代表我必須擁有浮存金，也就是說我必須發行這個幣。And if one of my partners decides to hold that for some period of time in order to settle, I'm making money on the money, versus today I am paying someone for the money my partner is holding, right? And so, again, the problem we're trying to solve is how do we effectively move billions of dollars around the world much faster and much more effectively and move from a negative float business to a positive float business. That means I need to own the float, which means I need to issue the coin.

14:14另外，我們也希望能夠，大家知道，穩定幣基本上就是可編程的數位貨幣，對吧？所以，在一個監管環境、合規要求以及合作夥伴性質都非常重要的產業裡，擁有我們自己的幣，讓我們能夠以可編程的方式來管理合規風險，並且能夠根據我們與不同合作夥伴之間的交易條件，創造出不同的情境。最終，我們也能夠有能力去辨識並獎勵那些使用我們穩定幣的人，這和他們選擇用SWIFT及傳統銀行系統結算時的情況是不同的。Also, we want to be able to, you know, stablecoins are basically programmable digital money, right? And so in a business in which the regulatory environment and the compliance requirements and the partner nature of my business is so important. Having our own coin allows us to program that in ways that can manage our compliance risk, can create different situations between different partners on the terms in which we transact with each other, and ultimately can also create some ability to recognize and reward people who use it. Differently than if they choose to settle with SWIFT and the traditional banking system.

14:55所以我們可以內嵌、引用、設計獎勵，因為這是我們自己的幣，我們可以按照我們的方式來設計，而且我們可以在合作夥伴層級上進行，而不是使用一個通用的幣，然後還得想辦法去做一些事情。對，對每個人來說都是一樣的。對，這樣說得通。So we can embed, quote, rewards in a way that we can design because it's our coin, and we can do it on a partner level versus we're using a generic coin that somehow we got to do stuff. Yeah, for the same for everybody. Yeah, that makes sense.

15:10百年企業如何推動數位資產轉型

15:10我現在看著台下的觀眾，看到很多我們的——對，就是我們的客戶，你們知道的，都是其他大型金融機構和支付服務提供商的高階主管，還有其他那種，對，已經存在超過一百年的機構。你能不能談談，怎麼讓一個組織——我不知道你們有多少員工，但應該有幾千甚至幾萬人——怎麼讓這麼大規模、這麼有歷史的組織，已經存在超過一百五十年了，怎麼讓這樣的組織願意接受並且轉向數位資產的基礎設施？I'm looking out in the audience and see a bunch of our—Yeah, customers who are, you know, execs at other large financial institutions and payment providers and other kind of, yeah, institutions that have been around for, you know, 100-plus years. How do you—can you talk a little bit about getting an organization, I don't know how many employees you have, but thousands or tens of thousands, how do you get an organization of that scale and of that magnitude and—You've been around for 150 plus years. How do you get that organization on board with moving on to digital asset rails?

15:47是的，為了讓大家有個概念，我們在全球大約有16,000名全職員工，在美國這裡大約有2,000人，其餘則分布在其他地方。所以這是一家非常全球化的公司，員工基礎遍佈世界各地，擁有數十萬個零售據點，數十萬個零售據點、執照，以及監管環境。每當我說我們在全球大約有3,000人在我們的合規組織裡時，人們總是感到很驚訝。對，聽起來很有趣。沒錯，這就是為了維持我們在世界各地經營業務時所需的監管環境，其中許多地方其實是很難做生意的。令人驚訝的是，我反而遇到的是相反的問題。Yeah, so just for scale, we have roughly 16,000 kind of FTEs around the world, roughly 2,000 here in the U.S., and the rest. So it's a very global company, right, with an employee base spread all over the world, and hundreds of thousands of retail locations, hundreds of thousands of retail locations, licenses, regulatory environment. People are always stunned when I say, you know, globally we have about 3,000 people in our compliance organization, right? Yeah, sounds fun. Yeah, that's to maintain. Our regulatory environment across all these places around the world in which we do business, many of which are tough places to do business. Surprisingly, I have the opposite problem.

16:35相反的問題是，每個人都對其中幾個這類計畫感到非常熱衷，而這就是其中之一——所有一萬七千人都想去做stablecoin相關的工作。但我需要其中一萬六千九百人繼續做我們每天在做的事情，來產生收入，支付我們要在stablecoin上做的事。我需要那一百個真正懂這件事的人動作更快。所以公司裡有很多熱情，對我們所做的事情也很自豪。The opposite problem, which is everyone is so enthusiastic about a couple of these initiatives, but this is one of them, that—All 17,000 people want to go work on stablecoin. And I need, you know, 16,900 of them to continue to do what we do every day to generate the revenue to pay for what we're going to do in stablecoin. And I need the 100 people who really know what they're doing to work faster. And so there's a lot of enthusiasm in the company. We have a lot of pride for what we do.

17:10我們有很多人來到Western Union工作，是因為我們是一家以使命為導向的公司，致力於幫助那些許多金融機構不願意服務的人們。因此，我們有很多同事能夠看到，如果我們能釋放資本，如果我們能讓人們擁有這種類似銀行帳戶的服務，對我們的客戶會有多大的好處，大家都希望我們能更快行動來幫助客戶。這種熱情非常棒，但實際上並沒有太大幫助。對，對，對，這很公平。聽到這樣的消息很好，大家都想投入穩定幣的工作。不過，如果你真的希望大家每週來公司上班五天，那又是完全不同的問題了。We have a lot of people who came to work at Western Union because we're a purpose-driven company, helping people who many financial institutions don't want to serve. And so we have lots of people who can see the benefits of if we could free up capital, if we could allow people to have this quasi-bank account that want us to move faster to help our customers. And so that enthusiasm is great. It's just not helpful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. Well, that's good to hear. People want to work on stablecoins. Now, if you actually want people to come to work five days a week, that's a whole different problem.

17:52穩定幣之外的數位資產藍圖

17:52對你們來說，這會只停留在穩定幣嗎？在你們的數位資產和加密貨幣策略裡，會——所以，你知道，關於穩定幣你們也許可以做的一件事是，你們有一個錢包，然後你們開始，跟別人合作，你知道，你們在DeFi領域做些什麼。你們可以讓使用者借貸。你們有走到那一步了嗎，還是會先從穩定幣開始？Does it stop with stablecoins for you guys? And in your digital asset and crypto strategy, will it—So, you know, one of the things that you can do with stablecoins maybe is you have a wallet, and then you start, you partner, you know, you do something in DeFi. You could take out, you could allow your customers to take out loans. Have you got that far yet, or start with the stablecoins first?

18:11我們真的就是從穩定幣開始。顯然有很多不同的路可以走，但我們始終非常專注於我們想要解決的是什麼問題。我們要如何利用這個技術平台來解決這個問題？這就牽涉到，如果你是一家擁有一百七十五年歷史、數千名員工的公司，如果你沒有極度專注於你想要做的事情，並讓每個人都朝著那個方向前進，其實很難完成任何事情。所以我們的首要目標就是發行我們自己的幣，並且建立機構等級的資金流動，讓我們能夠每年在全球與我們的交易夥伴之間移動數十億美元。這就是我們的首要目標。We're really starting with the stablecoins. There's obviously paths you can go down, and again, we're very focused on what problem are we trying to solve. How do we use this technology platform to solve that problem? And this comes to if you have a 175-year-old company with thousands of people, if you don't remain maniacally focused on what it is you're trying to do and keep everybody moving there, it's very hard to get anything done. And so our number one goal is to launch our coin. And create institutional-grade money movement to move billions of dollars a year around the world between our trading partners. That's our number one goal.

18:54一旦我們完成那個目標，第二個目標就是推出，也就是說讓我們的用戶能夠接收USDPT，也就是我們的幣的功能。這樣我們的客戶就能在通膨嚴重或政治不穩定、但法規允許的地方持有以美元計價的資產。就這兩個目標。就這樣。兩年後再回來。如果我達成了這兩個目標，我們再來討論接下來要做什麼。And once we get that one done, and the second goal is to launch, basically receive capabilities in USDPT, our coin. So that our customers can hold dollar-denominated assets in inflationary and politically unstable places where it's regulatorily possible. Those two goals. That's it. Come back in two years. If I've achieved those, we can talk about whatever it is being next.

19:16為何選Solana發行USDPT？

19:16你們為什麼——我記得，好像是在2018或2019年，你們曾經和Ripple做過一些合作。現在你們又和Solana合作。我不確定，這可能又是要問加密貨幣產品團隊的問題，但你們有什麼想法嗎？為什麼這次選擇和Solana合作？Why did you guys—I remember, I think it was 2018 or 2019, you were doing something maybe with Ripple. Now you're doing this with Solana. I don't know, this might be, again, a question for maybe the crypto product team, but any thoughts on that? Why you chose to do this with Solana?

19:322019 年的時候我還沒加入。所以當我們走上這條路時，我們基本上有兩到三個需求，然後我們也算是把所有選項都看過一遍。要說清楚一點，我們對於區塊鏈是中立的。也就是說，我們會在多條鏈上運行。我們打算在多條鏈上運行 USDPT。我們選擇先從 Solana 開始，主要有兩個原因。第一，它在交易處理和交易經濟效益方面非常高效。對我們來說，鑄造時有低手續費甚至零手續費，以及能夠在高交易量下進行大量交易，還有能夠順利地銷毀和消滅代幣，這些對我們進行金庫操作來說都非常適合。So 2019 was before my time. And so when we went down this path, we had basically two or three requirements, and we kind of looked at everything. So to be clear, we are chain agnostic. Right, so we are going to have multiple. We're going to run USDPT on multiple chains. We chose Solana to start with for primarily two reasons. It's highly efficient at transactions and transaction economics. And so for us, having low or no transaction. Cost for minting and for being able to conduct large amounts of transactions at high volume, being able to, you know, burn and, you know, destroy coin seamlessly as we do this treasury operation, it's well suited to that.

20:27你知道，Ethereum 區塊鏈是一個非常有能力的區塊鏈，但它比較「重」——需要在程式設計和能力建構上有更多前期投入。呼應你的觀點，如果你想要做很多借貸、想要做非常複雜的東西，我們會去看看其他的功能和其他的平台。但對我們來說，在這個時間點、這個產品發展階段、針對我們要解決的問題，這就是最適合我們啟動的解決方案。也呼應你的觀點，我們做法非常不同，我們希望保有控制權、設計權和經濟權，因為我們是在為我們自己解決問題。You know, the Ethereum blockchain is a very capable blockchain, but it's a heavier—Requires more upfront investment in programming, capability building. To your point, if you move into, gee, we want to do a lot of lending, we want to do very sophisticated stuff, we will look at other capabilities and other platforms. But for us at this point in time, in this product evolution for the problem we're solving, it was the solution that made the most sense for us to get going. And to your point, we're doing it very different, which is we want to retain control, design, and economics because we're solving the problem for us.

21:14如果Western Union穩定幣大成功，未來會怎樣？

21:14如果你們的穩定幣策略大成功，三到五年後Western Union會變成什麼樣子？除了資產負債表現金變多，還有什麼改變？What does Western Union look like if you're wildly successful with this? I mean, you get a bunch more cash on the balance sheet. And what else? What is, you know, three, four, five years out, what does this look like if you're wildly successful?

21:27所以我會從兩個層面來說明，對吧？第一，我們原本是為了解決自己的問題而創立這家公司，但如果我們現在已經具備機構級的能力，能夠在高度監管的環境下，於全球五十、六十、七十個國家之間，讓交易夥伴之間的資金流動變得順暢，我們相信這是一件很有價值的事。畢竟，現有的SWIFT代理行銀行體系效率低落，我就先說到這裡。我們認為，這會是其他人也會覺得有價值的東西。像是小型銀行，還有其他企業。So I would go down two dimensions, right? One, we take the company from basically solving this problem for ourselves, but if we have now an institutional-grade ability. To move money between trading partners, 50, 60, 70 countries in the world, in a highly regulated environment, we believe that is something, again, the correspondent banking system in SWIFT is inefficient. I'll just leave it at that. We think that's something that other people will find valuable. Small banks. Other enterprises.

22:07因此，我們的規模以及我們自行建構所有這些基礎設施的能力，這些都是我們必須為自己完成的事情，而這一切最終都能自給自足，我們認為這是一項其他人也會想要加以利用的有價值資產。所以，如果你經營一家規模大約二十億美元的社區銀行，而你的客戶需要匯款到歐洲，現今你高度依賴你的代理銀行關係以及SWIFT系統，這個過程需要五天，而且無法真正追蹤，費用也很高。我們認為我們可以改變這一點。And so our scale and our ability to build all of that infrastructure, which we need to go do for ourselves, which all pays for itself, we think is a valuable thing that other people will want to take advantage of. So if you run a, you know, $2 billion community bank and you have customers who need to send money to Europe, today you're highly dependent on. Your correspondent banking relationships and the SWIFT system, and it takes five days, and it's not really traceable, and it's expensive. We think we can move that.

22:39另一個方向是我們可以為我們的客戶做些什麼，我們認為，你知道，我們的客戶會像使用銀行帳戶一樣持有USDPT，這又會讓我們進入一個不同於單純支付款項的業務。所以現在人們會在這些國家把資產存放在Western Union，接下來的問題就是，你要怎麼運用這些資產？本地支付、儲蓄帳戶、以資產作為擔保的貸款，各種各樣的事情你現在都可以做，在世界上許多國家我們不會真的去經營一家銀行，對吧？像是在玻利維亞開銀行就不是個好主意。所以，這改變了我們在那些收款市場能為客戶做的事情。這就是我們的兩個發展方向。The other avenue is what we can do for our customers, and we think, you know, our customers will retain USDPT like a bank account, which again will. Put us into a different business than just paying out money. So now people will hold assets with Western Union in these countries, and then that leads to what do you do with those? Local payments, savings accounts, lending against them, all kinds of things that you can now do in many countries around the world where we're not going to go operate a bank in Bolivia, right? Like, that's not a good idea. So. It changes what we can do for our customers in those receipt markets. So those are the two vectors.

23:20資金上鏈的未來與最大挑戰

23:20也許我們可以用這最後一個問題來做個結尾，我想這也是很多加密圈的人常常討論的，就是資本正在往鏈上移動。你剛剛提到傳統系統效率不佳，像是SWIFT、ACH這些。那如果我們把時間快轉到5年、10年、15年、20年後，會有多少資本——你知道，現在大概全世界99%的資金流動還是在這些傳統系統上——那未來會有多少會轉移到像Solana、Ethereum這樣的公有區塊鏈上呢？Maybe we can wrap on this one last question that I think a lot of crypto people talk about, which is, you know, capital is moving on-chain. You talk about legacy systems are not efficient, SWIFT, ACH, things like that. Maybe if we fast forward out 5, 10, 15, 20 years, how much capital, right, you know, right now. Probably 99% of the flows in the world move on these legacy systems. How much of that will transition onto public blockchains like the Solanas and Ethereums of the world?

23:55我不知道，我真的不知道。但我知道如果你解決了——摩擦點，對吧？就像如果你真的去研究如何以高度合規的方式移動資產並且具備流動性，這才是重點。大家都在談論，哇，你可以移動資金。但問題不是資金的移動。問題是當幣到達目的地後，你要如何以具成本效益的方式，在大規模下創造所需的流動性，比如說以數十億美元的規模移動到某個地方。現今有效的做法在這方面其實相當有效率，成本也非常低。再次舉我在SAF和加彭的例子，我有一套相當有效率的系統來做到這件事。I don't, I don't know. But I do know if you solve the—Friction points, right? Like if you go and work on how to actually move it around in a highly compliant manner with liquidity, and that's the thing. Like everybody talks about, gee, you can move money. Like the problem is not the moving money. The problem is once the coin gets there, how do you cost effectively Create the liquidity that's needed at scale, like at scale, billions of dollars moving someplace where you can. The thing that works today is it's pretty efficient from that. It's very low cost, right? Again, my point of the SAF and Gabon, I have a pretty efficient system at doing that.

24:44現今，數位資產系統在這方面的效率並不高，所以，當地市場的流動性才是關鍵。再說一次，美國到歐洲，沒有人會——那不是重點。世界其他地區才是重點。所以你越快能夠大規模解決這個問題，機構就越會發現這是一個更好的選擇。但現在他們看這件事時會說，好吧，用這種方式做反而更貴。我願意承受一些時間上的成本和其他問題，因為取得當地流動性的費用實在太高了。Today, the digital asset system is not efficient at doing that, and so. That local market liquidity is the thing. Again, U.S. to Europe, nobody's going to—that's not a thing. The rest of the world is a thing. And so the sooner you can solve that at scale, the more you'll then have institutions find that that's a better option. But today they look at it and say, well, okay, it's more expensive to do it that way. I'm willing to suffer some of the cost of time and other things because the expense of that local liquidity is just too high.

25:22今天時間差不多了，Devin，非常感謝你來參加這場對談。Yeah. That's all the time we have. Devin, thank you so much for doing this. It's great. Thank you.