In this episode of Stableminded, This Week in Fintech's stablecoin-focused series, Drew Rogers sits down with Robinson Burkey, Co-Founder of Wormhole Foundation, builders behind Wormhole, an interoperability protocol that has become critical infrastructure for moving assets seamlessly across blockchains.

Robinson brings extensive experience building scalable systems from his time at DoorDash, where he led new vertical efforts for over four years, helping expand the platform beyond food delivery into the multi-billion dollar logistics business it is today. This background in network effects and infrastructure scaling directly influenced Wormhole's approach to connecting blockchain ecosystems.

Founded over four years ago, Wormhole emerged from a contrarian thesis that crypto would become multi-chain rather than everything settling to Ethereum—a debate that dominated crypto Twitter for years. Today, with 40+ connected blockchains processing $60-250M in daily volume, roughly 50% of which is stablecoins, that vision has proven prescient.

During the conversation, Robinson reveals a critical insight about the current stablecoin landscape: single-chain issuance is a death sentence. "You no longer can issue a stable coin just on one chain," he explains. "In the long term, they will not be competitive and they likely will not be successful if they stay on one chain." This thesis is validated by every major exchange now launching their own chains—from Coinbase's Base to Kraken's Ink.

Wormhole's technical differentiation centers on security-first infrastructure. Unlike competitors who outsource security to third parties, Wormhole built their own system with 19 validators including Google Cloud. This approach explains why BlackRock chose Wormhole exclusively for their $3 billion BUIDL money market fund—the largest real-world asset on-chain. Their innovation includes 6-second cross-chain transfers and the NTT (Native Token Transfer) standard that prevents the fragmentation chaos that plagued early USDC deployments.

Most compelling is Robinson's concept of crypto's "practical era"—moving beyond speculation toward real utility. "I'm excited for us to be more boring and practical," he shares. "I can go on Uber and pay in USDC. I can go on DoorDash and pay in USDT." This philosophy drives partnerships with infrastructure builders rather than flashy protocols.

Looking ahead, Wormhole operates on network effects where new chains pay to join the established ecosystem rather than fragment it. With partnerships spanning from institutional players like BlackRock to innovative protocols like M0, and real adoption examples like USDS moving $60M to Solana in 24 hours, Wormhole has positioned itself as the standard for high-value cross-chain asset movement.

Thank you to M0 for powering this season of Stableminded, Building Stablecoins. Learn more about building your own stablecoin here.

Watch the full episode on YouTube below, or Spotify!