Former a16z cryptocurrency investor Sam Broner has raised $10 million to launch Higher Cash Firm, a startup aiming to turn out to be a USD stablecoin clearing home following the brand new US federal GENIUS laws. Broner, who co-founded the corporate in November along with his faculty pal Adam Zuckerman, a former Latham & Watkins lawyer and later normal counsel at Eigen Labs, instructed Fortune that the purpose was to “make stablecoins work like cash” by giving establishments a single, low-cost place to trade between completely different compliant tokens. “Stablecoins aren’t simply the long run, they’re higher cash for as we speak,” Broner beforehand stated on the Proof of Speak 2025 convention, claiming that the asset class is already getting used as working capital and settlement money throughout the crypto market.
The $10 million seed spherical was led by Broner’s former firm a16z Crypto, with participation from early stage traders Field Group and Sunflower Capital. Fortune stories that angel backers embody Circle co-founder Sean Neville and former Microsoft technique chief Charlie Songhurst, suggesting that each stablecoin insiders and Web2 veterans see alternative in regulated plumbing fairly than new token issuance. BetterMoney is hiring engineers in New York with salaries between $175,000 and $225,000, in accordance with job postings reviewed by Certainly, which describes the corporate as “constructing a stablecoin clearinghouse to make stablecoins work like cash.”
Higher Cash has already secured commitments from a number of issuers, together with Paxos, Stripe’s bridge division, and MoonPay, and can initially solely deal with cost tokens that meet the necessities of the Steerage and Institution of Nationwide Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, Broner stated. In response to legislation agency Morgan Lewis, the GENIUS Act creates a twin licensing regime for fiat-backed stablecoin issuers, forces issuers with greater than $50 billion in excellent belongings to reveal month-to-month reserves and annual audited financials, and authorizes the U.S. Treasury to declare non-compliance with international regimes. Inside that framework, Higher Cash plans to assist all “signed and legitimate” GENIUS-compliant greenback tokens, whereas explicitly excluding Tether’s world token. $USDT product.
Tether has as a substitute launched USAT, a separate dollar-pegged token “aligned to America’s new federal pointers” and issued by way of federally chartered banks. The corporate says it’s designed to function in shut compliance with the principles of the GENIUS Act. Fortune notes that USAT will likely be supported by Higher Cash and will likely be a part of the preliminary roster alongside tokens from Paxos and different regulated issuers. $USDT “For now” it stays off-platform. Broner instructed the publication that the clearing home is concentrated on “low-cost, high-throughput swaps” for institutional purchasers and expects to start working the product “within the coming weeks” as soon as technical integration and authorized opinion are finalized.
Broner spent greater than two years at a16z crypto targeted on investing in stablecoins and funds, together with researching how “liquidity, sovereignty, and belief” flip tokens into on a regular basis cash. Zuckerman, in the meantime, labored on early GENIUS Act evaluation at Latham & Watkins earlier than shifting to Eigen Labs, giving Higher Cash a founding group with experience in each coverage and infrastructure.
In a earlier crypto.information article on the GENIUS Act, legal professionals argued that its reserve, audit and licensing necessities will seemingly drive world liquidity in direction of a narrower set of greenback tokens that may meet bank-style requirements. One other article on how Amazon, Walmart and Ant Group plan to “weaponize” stablecoins highlighted the chance that Huge Tech corporations might need to subject their greenback tokens by way of regulated intermediaries fairly than instantly, particularly beneath provisions limiting non-financial publicly traded corporations from issuing cost cash with out unanimous approval from a Federal Evaluation Board. A 3rd article on South Korea’s competitors to subject bank-backed stablecoins means that as international locations converge on comparable guidelines, impartial clearing homes like Higher Cash might turn out to be the popular means for exchanges, fintechs, and firms to maneuver between native and USD rails with out touching non-compliant tokens.
