PATHFINDER: SEAN NEVILLE IS CHANGING HOW MONEY WILL WORK
PATHFINDER: SEAN NEVILLE IS CHANGING HOW MONEY WILL WORK
August 25, 2025
Long-time listeners know that I love all our shows but that, every now and then, we do one that immediately lands on my own short list of favorites. Usually this happens because my guest is stretching my own thinking about a really big, important topic – whether a problem or opportunity – that needs really big, important solutions and cutting edge ideas. Today’s episode is one of these. I hope everyone will treat it as a must-listen. I think it will make some of you scratch your heads and, I hope, lean in to learn more. And I think it will inspire some of you to join in this growing conversation.
Today we’re talking with someone who helped shape the digital money landscape we live in now — and who’s aiming to shape the one we’ll live in next. Sean Neville co-founded Circle with Jeremy Allaire and helped create USD Coin – USDC – one of the world’s most widely used and trusted stablecoins. I knew them, early on, while I lived in Boston for my Harvard senior fellowship, just a few blocks from their first office – back when fintech innovation was a young movement. The work they did at Circle has changed the way money moves across the internet. Importantly, they built it with a core focus on safety, trust, and the ability to be regulated at scale.
Sean is now undertaking a new venture called Catena Labs, which is building the first fully regulated AI‑native financial institution. This isn’t just about using AI inside a bank — it’s about designing a bank from the ground up for a future where autonomous AI agents conduct economic activity on behalf of people and businesses.
Sean is positioned at the cutting-edge nexus of the two biggest innovations that are transforming finance: on the one hand, stablecoins, and on the other, AI. As he puts it, these are the two “surging” technologies that are starting to remake our lives. Most people are thinking about them as two different things, but actually they are converging (my new favorite word, by the way), to create a new whole that is on track to be greater than the sum of its parts.
The heart of challenge, and opportunity, boils down to how we are going to use AI agents to do our financial activities. As Sean says, the usual assumption today is that online bots are bad. However, we are about to have a lot of good bots doing things we want them to do. How are we going to recognize the good agents, to authenticate and certify them, and to fix clear, practical legal accountability in cases where things go wrong? This is the great frontier.
In today’s conversation, we talk about the journey that brought Sean to this challenge, what Catena Labs is building, why they’ve open‑sourced part of their technology, and how they will be positioning themselves to be, yes, a bank. We’ll also explore the bigger picture: what happens when artificial intelligence becomes an actual participant in our financial system? What will that mean for trust, for safety, for regulation — and for all of us?
Part of what I love about this conversation is hearing this early voice from someone who is trying to figure out how to build something that could be truly new and better, amidst massive unknowns. Sean says repeatedly that we are in early days, and part of his effort is to find and build a community to join in the effort. I hope this show will help make that happen.
Sean Neville is a long-time software engineer and entrepreneur, currently serving as the co-founder and CEO of Catena Labs. Previously, he co-founded Circle and was the architect of the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), which has supported hundreds of billions of dollars in transaction volume. With Catena Labs, Neville is focused on building a regulated, AI-native financial institution to power the future of the AI economy.
More for our Listeners
Upcoming Podcasts
We have some wonderful shows coming up, including one with Saket Narayan of AWS about how to modernize the regulators’ own technology, and a show with Carole House and Amanda Wick on financial crime. Watch this space!
AIR Events
Calling all Regulators / Meet in London: We are excited to be offering a four day learning program in London in October, inviting regulators and central banks from around the world. The program shares AIR’s Innovation Elements methodology that regulators can use to build your innovation capabilities. We have room for a few more regulators to participate, and we’re also seeking sponsors to support their participation, so reach out if you’re interested.
Stablecoin Roundtable: On September 16 in Washington, D.C., we’re hosting an exclusive roundtable on stablecoins. Attendance will be limited but if you’re interested in receiving an invitation, let us know.
We have also posted a video from our June Battlefront exercise on AI and Fraud. Please check it out.
Upcoming Speaking Events by AIR’s team
I’m looking forward to speaking at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s annual conference, in Washington this month, on generative AI. And I’ll be at Money 2020 in the fall in Las Vegas, doing a fireside chat with Rodney Hood, former Acting Comptroller of the Currency.
