José Fernández has spent over 20 years in fintech. He helped build the crypto ecosystem at PayPal and Venmo for 400 million users, and today he's VP of Ecosystem at the Stellar Development Foundation, working with the builders reshaping financial infrastructure across LATAM.

In this conversation from Stellar House CDMX we talk about why Stellar bet on payments before it was cool, how crypto adoption is shifting across the region, and what it's going to take to reach real scale.

00:00 Intro and first impressions of Stellar House CDMX

00:46 Why payments was always sexy (even when nobody saw it)

01:35 Stellar as financial infrastructure

03:44 Why the blockchain you choose matters

05:01 The crypto ecosystem in LATAM and the companies emerging

06:29 Stellar as a Lego box: how the pieces fit together

07:54 Distribution: the hardest challenge in the ecosystem

09:30 Fat Protocols vs. end user experience

11:33 Mass adoption: who's going to push the end user?

12:14 Moneygram, remittances and stablecoin settlement

14:05 AI and the new builder stack: 157 contributions in 60 days

15:31 How the SDF supports ecosystem projects

18:22 Distribution as a competitive advantage

19:48 Why Stellar House in Mexico City?

21:06 Closing and where to find José

José Fernández lleva más de 20 años en fintech. Pasó por PayPal y Venmo construyendo el ecosistema cripto para 400 millones de usuarios, y hoy es VP de Ecosistema en la Stellar Development Foundation, donde trabaja con los builders que están rediseñando la infraestructura financiera de LATAM.

En esta conversación desde Stellar House CDMX hablamos de por qué Stellar apostó por payments cuando nadie lo veía, cómo está cambiando la adopción cripto en la región, y qué le falta al ecosistema para llegar a escala real,