Better Money, a startup co-founded by former a16z crypto investor Sam Broner and Adam Zuckerman, has secured $10 million in seed funding to develop a clearinghouse infrastructure for the stablecoin market. The funding round was led by a16z crypto, with participation from BoxGroup, Sunflower Capital, The Fintech Fund, and several angel investors.
The company's core thesis is that the next major bottleneck for the growing stablecoin ecosystem is not the creation of more tokens, but the ability to exchange them efficiently and cheaply. Better Money aims to build a dedicated clearinghouse that would act as a unified network, allowing customers to swap between different dollar-pegged stablecoins at lower costs than current open-market trading.
The startup has already secured commitments from a range of issuers and platforms intending to join its network. These include Paxos, Stripe's Bridge, MoonPay, Agora, M0, Bastion, Frax, Brale, MetaMask, and Phantom. By establishing direct links with issuers, Better Money plans to source tokens through dedicated accounts to reduce friction for businesses that need access to multiple stablecoins.
A key regulatory aspect of the plan is its alignment with the proposed U.S. stablecoin rulebook, the Genius Act. The company stated it intends to support any token compliant with this legislation. This policy would notably exclude Tether's USDT, the market's largest stablecoin, but would include its American version, USAT.
The founders declined to disclose the company's valuation. The product has not yet launched publicly but is slated to become available to customers in the coming weeks.
