Privy: Turning wallets into the account layer for stablecoin products

The wallet is becoming infrastructure that users rarely notice. In Episode 18 of Range Stablecoin Fireside, Paula Pettit, VP of Strategy and Growth at Range, spoke with Debbie Soon, Head of Marketing at Privy, about what that change means for companies building financial products on stablecoin rails. Their conversation covered embedded wallets, self-custody, fiat funding, card settlement, developer experience and autonomous agents.

Range's view is that the common thread was control. A wallet can disappear from the interface while remaining the place where assets are held and moved. For the companies building on that infrastructure, the work extends beyond making wallet creation easier. Range's view is that teams need an architecture that can support different custody models, transaction patterns and product requirements at production scale.

The wallet becomes an account layer

Soon described Privy as infrastructure that lets companies add the ability to hold, move and grow digital assets inside their own products. Soon said, "Privy provides secure scalable wallet infrastructure to make it really easy for companies to build products that can hold, move, and grow digital assets at scale." In this model, the wallet is provisioned within an existing application rather than presented as a separate destination that users must learn to operate.

Soon said Privy serves more than 140 million accounts across 180 countries and processes more than $15 billion in monthly transaction volume through Privy wallets. She also explained that scale does not produce one universal set of priorities. Trading products may care about differences measured in milliseconds, while an established consumer application may prioritize fitting wallet capabilities into a workflow already used by millions of people. Soon pointed to Robinhood as an example: Privy's capabilities sit under the existing application so users can access products on Robinhood Chain without having to see or manage a separate wallet experience.

Range's view is that the embedded experience also changes how teams should evaluate custody. Privy began with noncustodial infrastructure and now supports multiple custody models, according to Soon. Its default noncustodial architecture is designed so that only the rightful owner can access the wallet's funds. Email or social login can replace a visible recovery phrase as the authentication method without determining who controls the assets. Soon said the core principle is that "the architecture is deliberately set up in a way where only the rightful owner can access the funds in the wallet."

Range's view is that this separation between interface and authority is central to stablecoin operations. A familiar login can improve access, while the operating model still needs clear answers about signing authority, custody, transaction policy and the record produced after funds move. For finance and compliance teams, stablecoin treasury management begins with knowing which party can act, under what conditions and through which account.

Stablecoin products connect wallets, funding and settlement

Privy's place inside Stripe broadens the wallet conversation. Soon described a combined stack that can support balances, DeFi yield, cards linked to stablecoin balances and global vendor payments. The wallet remains the account layer, while other parts of the stack connect it to fiat funding, onchain markets and payment rails.

One example is Privy's native integration with Stripe's fiat onramp. Builders could already connect other funding providers through Privy's lower-level APIs and SDKs. The newer integration lets them configure Stripe's onramp through the Privy dashboard instead of establishing and joining two separate setups. Privy continues to support customers that want to choose individual vendors, while giving teams coming onchain for the first time a more integrated route.

Cards show how these layers meet during a transaction. Soon explained that a card can draw from stablecoin balances held in a wallet, with just-in-time settlement converting the value behind the scenes. Soon said, "What the merchant ends up receiving is still fiat, but the processing and that conversion from stablecoin to fiat happens behind the scenes." The user can pay through a physical card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, while the merchant receives funds over familiar card rails.

Soon used remittances to explain why a user might hold a stablecoin balance in the first place. Speaking as someone from Singapore, she described sending money home immediately and at a fraction of the cost of a wire. That balance can also connect to DeFi vaults run by providers including Morpho and Aave, according to Soon, then be drawn down for spending through the linked card. Soon said, "I no longer really have to choose between earning and spending." Range's analysis is that this convergence increases the importance of a unified operating record: when one balance can fund remittances, earn through onchain markets and settle card purchases into fiat, reconciliation and pre-execution transaction controls need to follow the full lifecycle rather than one rail at a time.

Infrastructure earns adoption through outcomes

Privy markets first to developers, from independent builders testing an idea to engineers working inside large companies. Soon encountered the product as an end user, then explored its documentation while building an onchain experience for her book. Soon summarized the audience directly: "And so developers are really the core audience that we are speaking to."

Enterprise adoption adds another reader. Business and product leads begin with commercial outcomes, while engineering teams eventually need implementation detail and a strong developer experience. Privy does not market a consumer wallet for people to download. Instead, its visible cue is the Protected by Privy mark inside customers' products, which Soon compared with the recognition and trust users develop when they encounter Plaid within a financial application. The company therefore speaks to the buyer evaluating commercial value and the engineer evaluating implementation, while the Protected by Privy mark gives end users a recognizable trust signal.

That structure changes the story an infrastructure company must tell. Soon's approach is to move from the component to the result it enables. Secure and scalable architecture requires substantial engineering, but the buyer still needs to connect it to a practical objective such as serving millions of users, achieving faster and cheaper settlement or reducing operational complexity. Soon described the work as "going from what the feature is to what it enables or what the product is or what it enables."

Range's view applies the same standard to the operating layer around stablecoins. A stablecoin operating layer should connect architecture to decisions a company has to make: whether a transaction can proceed, whether a counterparty meets policy and whether finance can reconcile the resulting activity. Technical depth earns trust when it produces an operational outcome that a finance, compliance or engineering lead can verify.

Wallet policy expands from people to agents and businesses

Privy's work with AI agents makes the authority question more explicit. Soon described agents as systems that can already reason through tasks, with transacting as the next step in their development. Soon asked, "So how do we turn agents into economic actors effectively?" Privy's role is to provision a wallet to an agent, then let a human define the limits within which it can act.

The examples in the conversation were direct: an agent might be allowed to spend $100 in one day, or it might be unable to spend more than $20 in a single transaction. These policy-defined limits let an agent transact autonomously within a bounded mandate. Soon also stressed that the category is still nascent. Range's view is that this makes the design of the guardrails more important than broad predictions about where agentic payments will lead.

Range's view is that agent wallets bring an existing financial-control question into a faster execution environment. A company already defines who can spend, how much they can spend and which approvals apply. When software can act without a human pause at the moment of payment, those rules must be enforceable before execution and visible afterward. That is the practical link between agent wallets, digital asset treasury controls and accountable operations.

Soon's broader prediction extends beyond agents. She expects the definition of a wallet's end user to include more businesses, describing wallets as internet-native accounts alongside stablecoins as internet-native money. She said, "I think we're gonna have a much broader definition of who the end user of a wallet is." She also argued that the stablecoin conversation remains too centered on the United States, pointing to activity she had recently seen in Japan. Her observation was practical: teams need to keep closer to local conversations and help solve the infrastructure problems present in those markets. The United States influences regulatory discussion, but it is not the only place shaping how stablecoins and digital assets are used.

Operating the account layer with Range

Privy shows how wallet infrastructure can make stablecoin access native to a product. Range's view is that companies then need one control layer across those wallets, custodians, exchanges and bank accounts, with policy applied before transactions move and reconciliation after settlement. See how Range supports stablecoin operations.

About Privy

Privy provides digital asset infrastructure for products that hold, move and manage crypto and stablecoins. Its platform includes user, organization, treasury and agent wallets alongside key management, policy controls and funding infrastructure. Learn more at privy.io.

Want to appear on Range Stablecoin Fireside? If you are building with stablecoins and want a seat on the show, get in touch by email or on X.