Why Building a Global Venmo with Stablecoins is Still Hard w/ Mike Hudack (Sling)

Presented by Stablecon; Powered by BVNK. In episode 19 of Money Code, hosts Chuk Okpalugo and Raj Parekh are joined by Mike Hudack, Co-founder and CEO at Sling Money. They unpack why stablecoins function as a shared ledger layer that turns cross-border payments from a prefunding and reconciliation problem into an interoperability problem, and why the real hard parts become ramps, localization, and fincrime controls rather than “the blockchain.”Chapters00:00 Money never became an internet good04:07 Sling’s “global Venmo” origin story05:05 End-to-end Sling flow across 120 countries08:33 Why global availability is the default, not the goal10:30 What self-custody actually means in practice13:29 Ramp strategy: regulation plus local partners15:33 Abstraction versus trust in the UX20:26 Generations of cross-border and shrinking float25:11 Localization is distribution, not translation28:49 Compliance is a product, not a checkbox36:44 Stablecoin choice43:22 Sling’s mission and the line between money apps and banksConnect with the Hosts & GuestChuk Okpalugo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuk-okpalugo/ | https://x.com/chuk_xyz/ | http://stablecoinblueprint.com Raj Parekh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajparekh7/ | https://x.com/rajparekh | http://monad.xyz Mike Hudack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mhudack | https://x.com/mhudack | https://sling.money/About StableconStablecon (https://stablecon.com/) is the premier gathering for those at the intersection of DeFi, economic policy, financial infrastructure, and institutional integration, and those reinventing global commerce. Whether you’re building, advising, or navigating this new frontier, this is the room where it happens.About BVNKBVNK is the leading provider of stablecoin payments infrastructure, helping businesses move money faster, settle globally, and even launch their own stablecoin products. Head to https://bvnk.com/ to learn more.