In partnership with
Deel partnered with MoonPay to enable payroll payouts in stablecoins.
That’s not “crypto adoption.” That’s infrastructure convergence.
Deel (last valued at $17.3B) operates across 150+ countries (160+ depending on coverage definition). Now, through MoonPay, employees in certain regions (starting in the UK/EU) can receive salary in stablecoins directly to wallets.
That’s not a token experiment.
That’s compliant payroll plumbing integrating crypto rails.
Stablecoins are moving from exchange liquidity to salary liquidity.
And that matters.
Because once something touches payroll, it stops being speculative and starts being operational.
Global HR shouldn't require five tools per country
Your company going global shouldn’t mean endless headaches. Deel’s free guide shows you how to unify payroll, onboarding, and compliance across every country you operate in. No more juggling separate systems for the US, Europe, and APAC. No more Slack messages filling gaps. Just one consolidated approach that scales.
What This Means for Investors
Capital doesn’t allocate based on ideology.
It allocates based on:
risk-adjusted return
duration
liquidity visibility
Right now, institutional investors compare:
• Seed-stage venture (5–7 year duration)
• Token models (regulatory + volatility risk)
• Discounted late-stage secondaries with IPO visibility
If a late-stage secondary can be structured at a meaningful discount to the last round…
And underwritten to ~1.6–2.0x over ~18 months (IPO + lockup)…
That’s a mid-30s to 40% IRR profile with defined liquidity timing.
That doesn’t replace venture.
But it competes for allocation.
Private markets aren’t bifurcating.
They’re stratifying.
Early-stage is still about power-law upside.
Late-stage secondaries are increasingly about discount capture and liquidity engineering.
Founders aren’t competing with other founders.
They’re competing with opportunity cost.
What This Means for Founders
The more interesting shift isn’t capital rotation.
It’s product opportunity.
If stablecoins become normalized payout rails inside compliant infrastructure like Deel, then the opportunity moves beyond “token utility.”
It becomes:
Settlement.
Reconciliation.
Compliance.
Working capital.
Treasury.
Once money lands in a wallet instead of a bank account, new surfaces open up.
Here are a few that matter:
• Global contractor & supplier settlement (B2B AP automation)
• Marketplace payouts for creators and gig platforms
• Cross-border refunds & dispute management
• Startup treasury management with programmable budgets
• On-chain expense cards & team allowances
• Earned wage access layered on stablecoin payroll
• Stablecoin-based B2B invoicing & subscriptions
• Wallet-to-bank optimized FX rails
• Insurance & claims payouts
• Retention products layered on payout (savings, yield, tax automation)
If payroll becomes crypto-compatible, the next wave won’t be about issuing tokens.
It will be about building payment-native products on top of stablecoin flow.
The Quiet Benchmark
When you pitch today, you’re not only competing with other startups.
You’re competing with structured liquidity alternatives. Discounted pre-IPO companies integrating crypto into real-world cash flow. That’s a more mature capital environment.
I’ve been studying a potential small secondary in Deel not because it’s “safer” than venture, but because it reveals how capital is repricing risk.
Not raising capital.
Just watching where serious money is underwriting.