We’re proud to share that Multimodal was selected as one of the top 4 winners in the Kansas Bankers Assn Association (KBA) NXTUS Accelerator after the final pitch! 🥂 We entered the program with an incredible group of companies, made it to the final round as one of nine finalists, and then KBA selected us as a top four winner. Our VP of Sales, Nicholas Bianchi represented us and this recognition means a lot, not just to our team, but to the kind of work we’re building toward. Because what this really represents is momentum: → more banks looking for practical AI adoption (not just experimentation) → more urgency around fixing operational bottlenecks → more openness to modernizing how critical work gets done across lending, ops, and compliance Big moment for us. Even bigger opportunity in front of us. #Multimodal# #AgenticAI# #BankingInnovation# #CommunityBanks# #CreditUni#

Some community banks are suggesting stablecoins are driving deposit flight. The data says otherwise: BofA shows household deposits rising across income groups this year, and the FDIC reports domestic deposits grew for a seventh straight quarter. Community banks actually outperformed the industry, posting 5% deposit growth. If the worry is the Clarity Act compromise itself, that’s backwards. Section 404 bars stablecoin issuers from paying anything that functions like interest, even disguised as rewards or points, and bans marketing stablecoins as deposits or FDIC-insured. It’s actually tougher than current law, not looser. The real story behind closing community banks isn’t stablecoins. It’s consolidation: 2,000 community banks lost in a decade, only 62 new ones formed, and the buyers are super regional banks, not crypto companies. The Banking Committee already built a nine-provision community bank package into the housing bill to help with deposit retention, on top of tightening stablecoin yield rules under Clarity. Killing the Clarity Act won’t help community banks. It just protects the status quo they say is broken.

How do community banks compete with billion-dollar tech budgets? Abrigo's Ravikumar Nemalikanti explains how his team brings enterprise-grade agentic AI to 2,400 financial institutions with AWS Bedrock & Agent Core. If you’re exploring AI in regulated industries, this one’s for you.

Coinbase Adds Stablecoin Rail Integration for Community Banking @Coinbase has collaborated with @Moov to offer more than 1,000 small and community banks the technology that allows for stablecoin payments, settlement, and instant funding. Through this project, crypto-native payment functionality will be embedded into the current technology stack that these organizations use, rather than having to set up an entirely different system. The integration of stablecoins within these balance sheets is made easier with this technology rollout.

I spoke with the head of a community bank yesterday - initially about stablecoin policy, but the conversation quickly expanded to ways community banks and DeFi can work together. Years ago, under the Biden administration, I was a major proponent of a deal between MakerDAO and Huntington Valley Bank (since purchased by Citizens Financial), where a $100m loan participation agreement was finalized in 2022. Those funds went primarily to business loans and construction loans, carrying interest of 5-9% (2022-23 vintage fixed and floating rate loans). But that was DeFi financing real business formation and expansion in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Under the more clear rules today, I think this could be done again - or something similar - but at a larger scale. Many people around the world would eagerly get exposure to a diversified loan portfolio underwritten by a US bank with local knowledge, financing their local community. If you’re a US bank looking to explore crypto as a funding source or to manage concentration limits within your portfolio, please reach out. My inbox is open.

For months, we’ve been told stablecoin rewards threaten community banks by draining deposits and reducing lending. The Council of Economic Advisers @CEA47 just tested that claim again. The answer is the same: the costs outweigh the lending benefits for consumers 6.6 to 1. Banning stablecoin rewards increases bank lending by just 0.02% — including about $500 million for community banks. Meanwhile, CEA estimates the prohibition imposes a net welfare cost of roughly $800 million a year. The losers? Everyday Americans and business. So what has this fight really been about? Big banks have enormously valuable incumbent economics to protect. They sit at the center of the traditional payments system. And while no one begrudges banks earning money by putting deposits to productive use, banks can also earn billions simply by holding reserves at the Fed — paying customers little while collecting interest from the government, without financing a single loan. Stablecoins challenge both of those incumbent economics. This has always been about protecting the big banks’ payments franchise and protecting the billions they can earn on customer money parked at the Fed. It was never about protecting community-bank lending.

INSIGHT: The White House releases analysis showing banning stablecoin rewards would raise bank lending by just 0.02% with 76% of any gain going to large banks, not the community banks the banking lobby claims to protect.

JUST IN: White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt exposes banking lobby logic on Clarity Act. If the bill fails, community banks lose all the protections they claim to need—leaving Senators with no excuse.