[Money20/20 – zerohash interview] How stablecoins became essential infrastructure
Stablecoins are moving from the crypto-native niche into everyday financial infrastructure. At Money20/20, we spoke with zerohash CMO Katie Perry to understand where that shift is heading and what’s actually driving it.
Founded in 2017, zerohash has scaled into a compliance-first infrastructure provider trusted by Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton, institutions that demand the highest regulatory bar before they’ll touch a new asset class.
Solving real friction
The use cases aren’t speculative. Interactive Brokers lets customers fund accounts instantly with stablecoins. Gusto uses them to pay overseas contractors in near real-time, cutting a process that used to take days or weeks down to minutes. According to zerohash’s 2026 Stablecoin Momentum Report, institutional volume is climbing, and everyday users are coming back repeatedly rather than trying stablecoins once.
Use cases in wealth management
The most concrete data point from the conversation came from zerohash’s ‘Crypto and the Future of Wealth’ report: 51% of high-net-worth investors aged 18 to 40 have already left an advisor who doesn’t offer crypto exposure. For younger affluent clients, digital assets aren’t a side bet; they’re becoming a core part of how portfolios are built. Wealth platforms that don’t integrate this risk will lose clients permanently.
Regulation might be the accelerant
Perry pushed back on the idea that compliance slows adoption down. zerohash recently secured a MiCAR authorisation and an EMI licence from the Dutch central bank, doubling its regulatory footprint in Europe ahead of anticipated demand.
Looking ahead, the roadmap points toward agentic commerce. Perry noted that interest in AI-driven payments is high, but the product layer is still catching up. What stablecoins offer autonomous systems is programmability: money that moves with built-in compliance and rules-based checks, without a human approving every transaction. zerohash is already co-building with companies that arrive with a business problem and land on stablecoins as the answer.
About Katie Perry
Katie Perry is CMO at zerohash, a crypto and stablecoin infrastructure platform, bringing 15+ years of marketing, brand strategy, and partnerships experience across agencies and public companies. She previously served as VP of Marketing and GM of Issuer Partnerships at Public.com, and founded a fractional marketing consultancy for startups and global brands. A recognised thought leader, Katie has been cited in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Forbes. She’s the author of Ticker Shock (Wiley, July 2026) and has interviewed 100+ public company CEOs and CFOs.
About zerohash
zerohash provides regulated infrastructure that lets banks, fintechs, brokerages, and payment companies embed crypto trading, stablecoin payments, and tokenized asset services into their own platforms. In the US, zerohash is a licensed money transmitter across 50 states and D.C. In Europe, it holds MiCAR authorisation and an EMI licence from the Dutch Central Bank, anchored by its European headquarters in Amsterdam. Its partners include Interactive Brokers, Morgan Stanley, and Kalshi.
