Agora's Nick van Eck Shifts Focus to Enterprise Stablecoin Payments

Agora, a stablecoin startup founded by VanEck heir Nick van Eck, is pivoting its long-term strategy toward enterprise payments, targeting multinational corporations for cross-border transactions. Van Eck argues this move addresses a larger opportunity than crypto-native trading, with potential to significantly improve corporate EBITDA. While Agora's Total Value Locked grew 60% last month from DeFi activity, van Eck is focusing on business-to-business, payroll, and cross-border payments. He identifies infrastructure and knowledge gaps as key adoption hurdles for traditional firms. Agora issues the AUSD stablecoin and offers a stablecoin-as-a-service product, but van Eck advises most projects to use major existing stablecoins instead. Van Eck predicts consolidation onto a few corporate chains like Circle's Arc or Coinbase's Base. Agora's goal is to become a top-five global stablecoin issuer by building user-friendly tools that feel like traditional banking.