Sam MacPherson (Spark) on Stablecoins, AI Agents, and the Future of Cross-Border Money

Sam MacPherson spent two years inside MakerDAO's core engineering team before co-founding Phoenix Labs to build Spark, the on-chain capital allocator that now manages billions in stablecoin liquidity across DeFi, CeFi, and tokenized real-world assets within the Sky ecosystem. Spark sits at the credit layer beneath USDS, Sky's $9B+ stablecoin, intermediating yield for institutions, fintechs, and retail through products like Spark Savings, Sparklend, Spark Prime, and an Anchorage Digital integration for institutional Bitcoin-backed loans. In a wide-ranging exchange with host Sri Misra, Sam explains why Spark offboarded rsETH three months before the KelpDAO exploit, why pure DAO governance does not scale, and why "boring" stablecoin yield products are quietly winning the institutional DeFi race. The conversation lands at a moment when the GENIUS Act has banned regulated stablecoin issuers from paying interest, pushing $300B in idle deposits toward Spark Protocol and its competitors, and when AI agents are emerging as the next stablecoin user base.👉How Spark Protocol avoided the $292M KelpDAO exploit by offboarding rsETH three months early through routine risk reviews👉Why MakerDAO's original DAO governance model failed, and how the new Sky "Stars" structure with sub-DAOs like Spark, Grove, and Obex actually works👉What the math behind a median oracle running Chainlink, Chronicle, and Redstone together protects DeFi lending protocols from👉How Spark generates $21M in annual revenue today and earned $80-$100M ARR at the last bull market peak, while running a programmatic SPK token buyback👉Why the institutional OTC crypto lending market at $20-30B is 3-6x larger than the on-chain side, and how Spark Prime is going after it👉Why stablecoin yield, AI agent payments, and cross-border settlement are converging into the next decade's biggest fintech opportunitySubscribe to the un# podcast for weekly founder conversations and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra] for daily insights.00:00 - Inside DeFi's Oldest Lending Protocol 03:08 - What Spark Protocol Actually Does 06:30 - From MakerDAO to Sky Rebrand 09:11 - Why DAO Governance Failed at Scale 12:39 - Grove, Obex, and Sky's New Stars 14:46 - How Spark Stablecoin Yield Really Works 21:14 - The KelpDAO Exploit and Spark's Response 22:42 - Conservative Collateral Beats Degen Yield 28:08 - Median Oracles and Risk Engineering 35:00 - Spark Protocol Revenue and SPK Buybacks 40:53 - Stablecoins as the New Credit Layer 48:09 - Lessons From Three DeFi Cycles #SamMacPherson #SparkProtocol #PhoenixLabs #MakerDAO #Sky #USDS #DeFiLending #StablecoinYield #InstitutionalDeFi #KelpDAOExploit #DeFiInterview #CryptoFounderInterview #SriMisra #aarnaProtocol #StablecoinExplained #RealWorldAssets #OnChainCredit #CryptoLending #defi2026 Disclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.