Debate: Should Stablecoin Chains Have an Ethereum L2 or Their Own L1? - Ep. 907

Unchained

In this episode, Cyber Capital’s Justin Bons and Codex’s Haonan Li challenge the new orthodoxy: whether payments chains should be alt L1s or Ethereum L2s, how “neutrality” and finality matter for real-world transactions, and why fragmentation could make or break onchain dollars.

We dig into Stripe’s Tempo (and its permissioned start), what it would take for L2s to reach true decentralization, and whether stablechains undercut general-purpose chains.

Plus: the trade-offs of sequencers, paying gas in dollars, and whether protocol-native stables are the future.

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Guests:

• Justin Bons, Founder and CIO of Cyber Capital

• Haonan Li, Co-founder and CEO of Codex

Timestamps:

• 🎬 0:00 Intro

• 💭 1:45 Laying out the first arguments

• 🛠️ 12:57 What needs to happen for L2s to finally become stage 2 rollups

• 💵 15:40 Why Haonan chose to launch a stablecoin-focused L2 on Ethereum

• 🏦 30:17 Does Stripe’s Tempo L1 spell trouble for Ethereum L2s?

• ⚖️ 38:55 Whether Tempo can position itself as a neutral blockchain

• 🔗 50:02 Are L2s capable of true decentralization?

• ⏱️ 53:58 How important finality is for stablecoin businesses

• 🧩 57:08 Why fragmentation could make or break stablecoins

• 🔮 1:02:31 What the future of rollups should look like

• ⚔️ 1:05:58 The case for and against general-purpose chains

• 📉 1:13:12 Whether protocol-native stablecoins will keep gaining traction

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