Inside Ethena's new neobank built on AVAX

Ethena Pay, the internet-money neobank from Ethena Labs, is live exclusively on Avalanche. Founder Guy Young sits down with Ava Labs’ John Nahas to walk through a consumer app built around three jobs — save, send, spend — on stablecoin rails, and why a dollar issuer at Ethena’s scale is launching the neobank itself rather than wrapping someone else’s card program. “I want to save money, I want to send money, and I want to spend money.” Young traces Ethena from on-chain DeFi distribution (Binance, Coinbase, Robinhood, BlackRock Aladdin) to a mobile app that owns the last mile. Nahas’s pitch for the chain underneath is invisible adoption: technology built for businesses, with a path from the C-Chain to an application-specific L1 if a partner outgrows shared blockspace. The tape also covers Avalanche Summit (September 16–17 in New York), RWA perps after TradeXYZ, credit receivables via Black Opal, and a public labs-to-foundation IP shift so equity cannot accrue value going forward. OUTLINE 00:00 Open 02:10 EthenaPay Overview 03:10 Save, Send, Spend 06:25 Why Avalanche 09:04 Direct to Consumer 13:20 Invisible Adoption 18:00 No Ethena chain 21:02 C-chain today 24:54 EthenaPay versus other crypto neobanks 27:46 Embedded finance 36:06 RWA perps 39:18 Black Opal 42:00 Buybacks, Labs IP 43:33 Close Guests: Guy Young - Founder, Ethena Labs Co-host: John Nahas - Chief Business Officer, Ava Labs Host links: Kelvin Sparks - x.com/imyoungsparks The Block - x.com/TheBlockCo Layer One is a podcast focused on the intersection of crypto and the real world, brought to you in collaboration with Avalanche. Nothing on this podcast is investment or financial advice. Always do your own research. \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Subscribe to The Block's Newsletters**! 🚨 Breaking News 👨‍🔬 Expert Analysis 📈 Market Insights **Subscribe now** 👉 https://www.theblock.co/newsletters \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------