Dennis
2026-03-03
Block by Block Ep. 7 – Building for the Next Stablecoin Yield Wave
Block by Block podcast episode with Ryan Rodenbaugh (vaults.fyi).
Ryan Rodenbaugh has spent his entire career in crypto, from early RWA experiments at TrustToken to building TrueFi's on-chain credit protocol. Now as CEO of vaults.fyi, he's tackling the infrastructure problem every fintech hits after launching stablecoins: how do you actually offer yield without building integrations to 75+ protocols yourself? In this episode, we explore what it takes to maintain production-grade DeFi data infrastructure, why even sophisticated teams choose not to build it in-house, and how the next wave of crypto adoption will come from distribution platforms embedding yield rather than converting new native DeFi users.
Topics covered: - Why on-chain maximalism matters — deriving APYs from hourly share price data instead of protocol-reported estimates - The operational reality of indexing 1,000+ yield opportunities across 18 chains with minimal off-chain dependencies - How reputation scoring based on TVL longevity (Lindy-ness) separates established protocols from new experiments - What it actually takes to build transaction execution infrastructure that stays non-custodial across dozens of different protocol interfaces - The 6-12 month enterprise sales cycle for fintechs and why most have crypto teams but move slowly on compliance - Why 95% of new protocol integrations are customer-driven, not internal roadmap decisions - Building for the future: AI agents, account abstraction batch transactions, and cross-chain deposit infrastructure
Guest: Ryan Rodenbaugh — CEO & Co-founder, vaults.fyi (@ryanrodenbaugh, @vaultsfyi)
Host: Dennis Verstappen (@ape_rture)