šµ The One Product That Can Hit 100 Million Users
In a market saturated with perps, meme coins, and layer-one competitions, Guy Young, founder and CEO of Athena Labs, has a singular conviction: the product with the largest addressable market isn't another trading platform ā it's a dollar with yield in a mobile app experience.
"Outside of trading on Binance, I think it is a dollar with a yield in a mobile app experience. It sounds simple, but that's actually the thing with the largest TAM," Young explained in a recent conversation.
Athena Labs, known for its Ethereum-backed stablecoin USDE, has grown to over 7 billion dollars in supply (down from a peak of around 15 billion during favorable market conditions). Now, the team is launching Athena Pay, a DeFi-powered neo-banking app designed to meet users where they are ā without ever mentioning crypto.
š Why DeFi TVL Didn't Grow This Cycle
One sobering realization Young shared: DeFi total value locked (TVL) is actually below 2021 levels. Despite Bitcoin ETF adoption and growing stablecoin usage, the crypto industry has largely been "shuffling the same chips around" rather than expanding the pie.
"This cycle, if we just look at the data versus where we were in 2021, in some senses a lot of the metrics didn't grow at all. DeFi TVL was actually below where it was in 2021. And to me that was a pretty important data point ā we're not really meeting users where they are in the form factor that they're used to."
Young argues that the next wave of adoption won't come from asking users to download MetaMask and navigate on-chain protocols. Instead, crypto needs to be invisible infrastructure ā a more efficient backend for fintech experiences people already understand.
šļø The Fintech Playbook vs. The Stablecoin Advantage
Traditional fintech companies like Revolut and Monzo improved user experience but inherited the same costly backend infrastructure as legacy banks. Young describes this as "different front ends attached to the exact same back end."
Stablecoin-powered neo-banks, however, operate on fundamentally different rails:
- Lower operational costs: Running on blockchain infrastructure is 90 to 95% more efficient than traditional banking systems at scale
- Global by default: No need for multi-year, multi-jurisdiction licensing processes
- Self-custodial models: Moving users from custodial balances to self-custodial wallets significantly reduces regulatory burden
- Higher yields: Plugging into DeFi enables yields of 5%+ versus the 50 to 100 basis points typical fintech savings accounts offer
"When you're moving people from holding custodial balances sitting within a bank to self-custodial stablecoins sitting within their own wallet, that's much less of a regulated activity than an entire banking service," Young noted.
š± What Is Athena Pay?
Athena Pay is designed as a global money app where users can save, spend, and send to anyone in the world. The product seeks to replicate the polished experience of apps like Revolut while leveraging crypto rails in the background.
Key features include:
- Fiat on-ramps: Users send fiat to a bank account (IBAN) but are encouraged to quickly move funds into self-custodial stablecoin wallets within the same interface
- High-yield savings: Leveraging Athena's core competency in generating yield on dollars at scale
- Cashback programs: Athena claims to have secured "categorically the best cashback in the market with the largest budget"
- Multi-currency support: A differentiator Young is particularly excited about ā offering high-yield savings not just on USD, but on euro, yen, GBP, and other currencies by layering FX hedges on top of USDE
"The holy grail is for people to log on and just feel like it's a normal fintech app ā everything within the app just feels better or has a better number, and there's no mention of crypto and they don't even know that crypto is powering this at all."
š° The Economics of Cashback and Yield
Young was candid about the business model behind neo-bank offerings:
Cashback programs are generally loss-making in the short term. The goal is user acquisition ā get customers onboard, then monetize through other services. Some providers have secured commercial partnerships to share cashback expenses (e.g., Ethena worked with Scroll to fund cashback).
Revenue sources for these apps include:
- Interchange fees from card payments
- FX fees (a significant revenue line, though Young emphasized the importance of negotiating better wholesale rates over time)
- Net interest margin (NIM): The spread between yield generated on user deposits and what's paid out
On the topic of high APYs (some competitors claim 10%+), Young was skeptical: "A lot of them have quite a lot of fine print ā it's 10% yield up to $20 within the account." Athena's approach is to offer sustainable, structurally higher yields without unsustainable promises.
š Going Global Without Going Broke
One challenge Young acknowledged: traditional fintech requires massive teams to support multi-jurisdictional expansion. Cast, a competitor, has around 300 people. Athena, by contrast, expanded its team by just 25% over the past six months while building Athena Pay.
The key difference? Self-custodial wallet design.
By moving users from custodial fiat balances into self-custodial stablecoins as quickly as possible, Athena reduces the regulatory burden associated with holding customer funds. This allows the platform to scale globally without replicating the compliance infrastructure required by traditional banks in every jurisdiction.
Young also emphasized a localized go-to-market strategy:
- Targeting 20 high-opportunity countries where demand for dollars is highest (mirroring Tether's playbook)
- Integrating local payment methods (e.g., PIX in Brazil is non-negotiable)
- Focusing on emerging markets where financial infrastructure is weakest and dollar demand is strongest
"Tether acknowledged the fact that the people that needed dollars the most would pay you the most for providing dollars, and they actually existed outside of the US financial system. Circle took the opposite approach ā we're going to focus in on the US, be regulated within the US. The strategy that Tether took is kind of how we think about this."
š”ļø Trust, FUD, and the Lindy Effect
Athena has weathered multiple waves of FUD ā from comparisons to Terra/Luna during high-yield periods to criticism when yields normalized. Young's response? Time and consistency are the ultimate moats.
He pointed to Aave and MakerDAO as examples: both protocols have earned massive trust premiums simply by existing for years without major issues. Users are willing to accept lower yields in exchange for perceived safety.
"There's a huge amount of value for just existing for a long period of time without messing up. Even professional money managers really just look at: has this thing not lost money or screwed up in X many years?"
Young acknowledged that Athena "should have been quicker to recognize" the structural regime change post-October when leverage unwound across crypto markets. Open interest on centralized exchanges fell more sharply than during the 2022 bear market following the FTX and Luna collapses ā a dramatic shift that impacted Athena's supply.
Still, Young emphasized: Athena has maintained zero depegs since launch, a critical trust signal in the stablecoin space.
š The Race for 10 Million Users
Young's near-term KPI for Athena broadly is simple: return to the $15 billion USDE supply peak from last year. For Athena Pay specifically, the goal is to break into the top three crypto-native neo-banks within six to nine months.
But the real ambition? North of 10 million users within three years.
Young acknowledged this won't be easy in a bear market with subdued yields and waning retail interest. But he's betting that vertical integration ā owning the stablecoin, the yield engine, and the user-facing app ā will prove decisive.
"If you're creating one of these platforms and you don't actually own that entire stack ā the issuance of the stablecoins, the generation of the yield, and all of the UX and cards and spending that sits on top ā you've kind of lost the core beating heart of these businesses."
š„ The Most Interesting Crowded Sector in Crypto
Crypto neo-banking is crowded. Players like Cast, Plasma, Bridge, and Jup Global are all vying for similar users. So why is Young optimistic?
Because there's no Binance or Coinbase equivalent yet.
"This is probably the most interesting crowded sector," Young argued. "Yes, it's crowded, but it doesn't have incumbents at the scale and size of a Tether or a Binance operating within the space. The thesis is extremely obvious and extremely clear ā it's just a question of who's going to go grab it."
He compared the moment to 2015-2016, before Binance existed, when the crypto exchange landscape was wide open. The winners emerged over the next 5 to 10 years. Young believes crypto neo-banking is at a similar inflection point.
šÆ The Takeaway
Athena Labs is placing a big bet: the next 100 million crypto users won't come from DeFi degens or on-chain traders. They'll come from people who want a better savings rate, instant global payments, and a sleek mobile experience ā without ever knowing they're using crypto.
Whether Athena Pay can execute on that vision remains to be seen. But in a market starved for real product-market fit beyond speculation, the race to build the world's first crypto super app is one of the most compelling narratives in the space today.
As Young put it: "We're not really competing with other crypto apps. We're competing with Revolut."
