Why Now Is The Best Time To Build In Crypto

· devtools · Source ↗

Summary based on the YouTube transcript and episode description.

YC’s Harj Taggar and Base founder Jesse Pollak argue regulatory clarity, sub-cent transaction costs, and $200B in stablecoins have opened a genuine golden age for crypto builders.

  • Stablecoin market grew from near-zero to ~$200B; USDC took years to reach $1B issuance but growth accelerated sharply after regulatory momentum
  • Transaction costs on Base/Solana dropped from ~$5 per transaction to $0.001–$0.005, enabling viable consumer apps
  • Shopify’s commerce payments protocol on Base compressed millions of lines of legacy code into ~1,000 lines of smart contracts after 9 months of joint work
  • Crypto startups previously spent equal or more on lawyers than engineers due to regulatory uncertainty; the GENIUS Act (stablecoins) and CLARITY Act are changing that
  • YC portfolio stablecoin neobanks Dollar App (LatAm) and Aaspora (India) are among YC’s fastest-growing companies, primarily on remittances
  • Base app treats every post and every creator as a tradeable on-chain coin, routing trade fees back to creators — Jesse’s bet on creator capital markets as a new asset class
  • Crypto + AI thesis: crypto provides agent-native money rails and on-chain verification/authentication for AI-generated content at scale

2025-09-23 · Watch on YouTube

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