Stablecoin Financial OS Replacing Banks | Stepan Simkin on Altitude’s $18M Round by Solana Ventures

Описание: Squads (Multisig) just closed $18M led by Solana Ventures to scale Altitude - the stablecoin-native financial OS that has processed over $200M in payments across 150+ countries since December. Stepan Simkin, CEO of Squads, explains what it actually takes to build a full business banking stack on Solana without touching a traditional bank.

The proof points: Altitude is multi-currency accounts, corporate cards, global payments, APY on balances, and a CFO stack - all running on stablecoin rails. The round brought in Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, L1D, Collab+Currency, Electric Capital, Placeholder, Jump Crypto, and Robot Ventures, bringing total funding to $42.9M. The infrastructure underneath is Squads Multisig - the smart account standard already securing over $1.8B in stablecoins on Solana, with broader protocol assets exceeding $10B.

Stepan unpacks why Altitude was built on top of an existing security primitive instead of from scratch, what "businesses no longer need banks" actually means when you walk through the workflows, how Bridge unlocked stablecoin-to-fiat and Altitude makes self-custody feel custodial, where Altitude sits against Stripe Treasury after Stripe Sessions 2026, and why Solana Ventures leading this round is an ecosystem-positioning statement. Also covers agentic commerce on Altitude, the Stableminded: The Frontier founding sponsorship, and what the Solana payments thesis looks like with real volume behind it.

Stepan Simkin - CEO & Co-founder, Squads / Altitude
X: @SimkinStepan | @altitude

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