The Stablecoin Chain Wars: Codex’s Bet on On-Chain FX | Cofounder Haonan Li

In this Bankless podcast episode, David interviews Haonan Li, co-founder and CEO of Codex, a stablecoin-focused layer 2 on Ethereum. Haonan discusses Codex's focus on becoming the cheapest venue for fiat-to-stablecoin swaps and cross-border FX transactions, differentiating it from other payment chains like Stripe's Tempo and Circle's Arc, which he argues may struggle with neutrality. He also touches on the contrarian nature of focusing on stablecoins and the importance of understanding fiat infrastructure, as well as the strategic decision to build on Ethereum as a layer 2, emphasizing stability, speed to market, and alignment with Ethereum's values. Haonan argues that general-purpose L2s are parasitic and that L2s should focus on things that L1 cannot do well.