Better Money raises $10 million to build a stablecoin clearinghouse

Former a16z crypto investor Sam Broner has raised $10 million to launch the Better Money Company, a startup that aims to be a clearinghouse for US dollar stablecoins after the new US GENIUS Act regime. Broner founded the company in November with college friend Adam Zuckerman, a former Latham & Watkins attorney who later served as general counsel at Eigen Labs, and told Fortune that the goal is to “make stablecoins move like money” by giving institutions a single, low-cost place to exchange between different compatible tokens. “Stablecoins are not just the future, they are a better currency today,” Broner said earlier at the Proof of Talk 2025 conference, arguing that the asset class is already being used as a working currency and a payment currency in all crypto markets.

The $10 million seed round was led by Broner’s former company a16z crypto, with participation from early stage investors BoxGroup and Sunflower Capital. Fortune reports that angel backers include Circle founder Sean Neville and Microsoft chief strategy officer Charlie Songhurst, indicating that both stablecoin insiders and Web2 veterans see an opportunity in regulated pipelines rather than issuing new tokens. A job listing reviewed by Impela shows Better Money hiring developers in New York for salaries between $175,000 and $225,000, describing the company as “building a stablecoin clearing house to make stablecoins move like money.”

Broner says Better Money has already received commitments from several issuers – including Paxos, Stripe’s Bridge unit and MoonPay – and will initially only handle payment tokens that meet the requirements of the US Stablecoins National Guidance and Innovation (GENIUS) Act. According to law firm Morgan Lewis, the GENIUS Act creates a dual licensing system for fiat-backed stablecoin issuers, mandates monthly disclosure of reserves and annually audited funds for issuers above $50 billion, and gives the US Treasury Department the power to declare foreign governments out of compliance. Within that framework, Better Money plans to support all “signed and active” GENIUS‑dollar tokens, while clearly listing Tether’s global USDT product.

Tether instead introduced USAT, a separate dollar-pegged token “prepared for the new federal guidelines in America” ​​and issued through a federally chartered bank, which the company says is designed to operate equally within the rules of the GENIUS Act. Fortune notes that USAT will be supported on Better Money, making it part of the initial list along with tokens from Paxos and other regulated issuers, while USDT remains outside the platform “for now.” Broner told the magazine that the refinery will focus on “low-cost, high-quality replacements” for the facility’s customers, with the product expected to go live “in the coming weeks” once technical integration and legal opinions are completed.

Broner has spent more than two years at a16z crypto focusing on stablecoin investments and payments, including research on how “liquidity, sovereignty and credit” can turn tokens into everyday currency. Zuckerman, meanwhile, worked on an early analysis of the GENIUS Act at Latham & Watkins before moving to Eigen Labs, which gives Better Money a group of founders steeped in both policy and infrastructure.

In a previous crypto.news story about the GENIUS Act, advocates argued that its withholding, auditing and licensing requirements may have pushed the global currency into a smaller set of dollar tokens that could meet bank-style standards. Another story about how Amazon, Walmart and Ant Group plan to “equip stable coins” highlighted how Big Tech firms may have to move their dollar tokens through regulated intermediaries instead of issuing them directly, especially under clauses that prevent non-financial public companies from launching payment coins without an unapproved approval from a federal inspection panel. The third issue in South Korea’s race to issue bank-backed stablecoins suggested that, as authorities converge on common rules, neutral clearinghouses like Better Money could be the preferred way for exchanges, fintechs and companies to move between the domestic and US dollar channels without touching illegal tokens.