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James

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USDC

<a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Roundtable</a> CEO James Heckman and Coinbase Head of Institutional Strategy John D'Agostino told The Block's that real-time USDC settlement is the forcing function set to drag mainstream media on-chain, paying reporters in minutes instead of months.
Their pitch to publishers is blunt: wait 90 days for your ad revenue, or take five minutes to understand what USDC is and get your money now.
The lag is well documented. Publisher executives told Digiday in 2023 that major Fortune 100 advertisers were taking <a href="https://digiday.com/media/media-briefing-some-publishers-say-payment-terms-are-up-to-half-a-year-causing-cash-flow-issues/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">150 to 180 days</a> to pay for completed campaigns, that <a href="https://digiday.com/media/media-briefing-some-publishers-say-payment-terms-are-up-to-half-a-year-causing-cash-flow-issues/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">net-90</a> had become the standard ask, and that payouts were landing an average of <a href="https://digiday.com/media/media-briefing-some-publishers-say-payment-terms-are-up-to-half-a-year-causing-cash-flow-issues/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">60 days beyond agreed terms</a>.&nbsp;
Even Google AdSense, the most basic monetization tool for small publishers, pays <a href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1709858" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">monthly in arrears</a>. Earnings from one month are finalized the next and issued between the <a href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1709858" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">21st and 26th</a>, a three-to-eight-week wait, and only once a publisher's balance <a href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1709858" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">crosses $100</a>.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/roundtable-ceo-james-heckman-offers-a-solution-for-ais-destruction-of-journalism" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Roundtable CEO James Heckman offers a solution for AI's destruction of journalism</a>
<h2 id="the-lag-is-getting-worse">The lag is getting worse</h2>
<a href="https://www.einpresswire.com/article/835610284/late-payments-surge-for-media-advertising-oarex-reports-new-highs-in-h1-2025" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">OAREX</a>, a firm that finances publishers' ad receivables, found 58% of digital media payments arrived late in the first half of 2025, up from 49% in the prior six months and a record in its survey series, with 18% of payments landing more than 15 days late.
Heckman and&nbsp;D'Agostino&nbsp;made the case in an interview with Kelvin Sparks on The Block's <a href="https://www.theblock.co/podcasts/prediction-market-news/2026-10-20-polymarket-us-hits-8-7b-plus-coinbase-and-roundtable-on-paying-media-in-minutes-421441" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Prediction Market News</a> podcast, walking through how their live partnership settles publisher ad revenue in USDC in minutes.
The money at stake is enormous. U.S.&nbsp;internet advertising revenue hit a record <a href="https://www.iab.com/news/digital-ad-revenue-climbs-to-nearly-300b-as-iab-celebrates-30-year-anniversary/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">$294.6 billion</a> in 2025, up <a href="https://www.iab.com/news/digital-ad-revenue-climbs-to-nearly-300b-as-iab-celebrates-30-year-anniversary/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">13.9%</a> from a year earlier, according to the IAB's annual report conducted by PwC. Programmatic buying, the automated pipes most publishers rely on, accounted for <a href="https://www.iab.com/news/digital-ad-revenue-climbs-to-nearly-300b-as-iab-celebrates-30-year-anniversary/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">$162.4 billion</a> of it, and the <a href="https://www.iab.com/news/digital-ad-revenue-climbs-to-nearly-300b-as-iab-celebrates-30-year-anniversary/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">top 10 global media companies</a> hold the majority of that revenue.
<h2 id="the-usdc-forcing-function">The USDC forcing function</h2>
D'Agostino reached for an analogy from early in his career.
A hedge fund boss he worked for refused to move data off backup tapes and into the cloud "There has to be a forcing function," D'Agostino said.&nbsp;"You have a choice. You can get paid in an hour or a minute or 90 days. You are going to learn how to go on chain for that level of delta."
Heckman, who had just pitched senior executives at major media companies on a UK roadshow with D'Agostino, put the same point in USDC terms.
<blockquote>
 "If you tell somebody you're going to wait 90 days or just take 5 minutes to understand even what USDC is, you get your money now," he said.
</blockquote>
The hesitation is still real. Heckman recalled laying out two options in those meetings. Keep the current system and get paid months late, or use Roundtable's platform and get paid in real time into a Coinbase Prime account.&nbsp;
<figure>
 <figcaption>
 [From L to R] John D'Agostino, Head of Strategy: Institutional, Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN); James Heckman, Founder &amp; CEO, Roundtable (NASDAQ: RTB); Eyal Hertzog, CTO, Roundtable (NASDAQ: RTB)
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
 "The answer on some of them, I won't give names, was, do we have to take crypto?" he said.
</blockquote>
D'Agostino said the whole pitch starts with a payment lag he finds absurd.&nbsp;
An entrepreneur launching a media outlet today "can wait up to 60, 75, or even 90 days to get paid on ad sales in a digital economy," he said. "That just seemed kind of outrageous and ludicrous and crazy."
<h2 id="these-reporters-are-paying-themselves-by-the-hour">"These reporters are paying themselves by the hour"</h2>
The partnership is already live. Roundtable's Media Liquidity Pool tracks how much money every view generates as it happens, and smart wallets tied to publishers' Coinbase accounts settle the revenue in USDC in real time. The system <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/23/3367445/0/en/powered-by-coinbase-roundtable-s-real-time-defi-media-payment-platform-goes-live-100-million-ad-ecosystem-to-migrate-rtb-shares-begin-trading-on-coinbase-today.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">went live Sept. 23</a>, the day Roundtable's Nasdaq-listed shares started trading on Coinbase.
USDC, a&nbsp; stablecoin issued by Circle has a market value of about $72.6 billion, and the total stablecoin market passed $301 billion this week, according to DefiLlama data as of Oct. 22.
A USDC transfer settles in seconds at any hour, while a standard bank ACH payment typically takes one to three business days, <a href="https://www.nacha.org/content/how-ach-payments-work" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">according to Nacha</a>.
Heckman said usage has surprised even Roundtable's finance team. The platform started with sports reporters around the world, expecting them to cash out about once a week.
<blockquote>
 "Our CFO just says, 'God, my phone is blowing up,'" Heckman said. "Well, why is your phone blowing up? Because these reporters are paying themselves by the hour. They can't wait to get the money."
</blockquote>
He argued the bigger shift is credit. Because the on-chain record cannot be altered, a publisher's pending revenue becomes something a lender can underwrite. "It makes the receivable collateralizable," he said.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 "That allows us to basically reach out and loan people money 90 days in advance because it's real and it's inarguable and it's time-stamped and it's forever."
</blockquote>
<h2 id="tokenization-pulls-billions-on-chain">Tokenization pulls billions on-chain</h2>
D'Agostino said the same logic extends far beyond media. He compared it to his own reluctant switch to the iPhone, forced by group chats with his daughters, and to every mom who now uses Alexa.
"Tokenization is going to force billions of people against their will even because they're going to want the speed and security and functionality and they want to buy everything in one place," he said. "I love that forcing function of putting quote-unquote normie stuff on chain."
Tokenized real-world assets on public blockchains are worth about $39 billion as of mid-October, according to <a href="https://app.rwa.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">RWA.xyz</a>, and <a href="https://www.addx.co/files/bcg_ADDX_report_Asset_tokenization_trillion_opportunity_by_2030_de2aaa41a4.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Boston Consulting Group has projected</a> that tokenized illiquid assets alone could reach $16 trillion by 2030.
For media, he said, the draw is survival-grade cash flow.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 "Media is not doing incredibly well globally, so they're hurting," he said. "90 days to an hour, that's massive improvement in cash flow."
</blockquote>
The pressure is not theoretical.&nbsp;
The US is losing more than two newspapers a week and 50 million people now have limited access to local news, according to Northwestern's <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2025/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Medill Local News Initiative 2025 report</a>.
The second draw is debanking.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 "Payments have become politicized, and media's politicized," he said, adding that many executives he met through Heckman had similar debanking stories.
</blockquote>
In February 2025 <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2025/fdic-releases-documents-related-supervision-crypto-related-activities" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">the FDIC released internal documents</a>, unearthed by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit backed by Coinbase, showing the agency had instructed banks to pause crypto-related activities while it reviewed them.
"If AI is scalable intelligence and blockchain is scalable truth, they work together really, really well," he said.
<h2 id="stablecoins-genius-and-a-failed-bill">Stablecoins, GENIUS and a failed bill</h2>
D'Agostino called stablecoins "the major crypto success story of the last, I'd say, two years, largely in part due to the passing of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1582" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">GENIUS Act</a>, which really hasn't even become active yet until about Q1 2027."
The GENIUS Act, the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins, was signed into law on July 18, 2025. Its main provisions take effect in early 2027, once regulators finish writing the rules, the timeline D'Agostino referenced.
Heckman said Roundtable chose Coinbase for its regulatory standing.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 "They are the standard of the industry," he said. "They went right through the front door of the U.S. government and said, hey, we're going to play by the rules."
</blockquote>
Roundtable (NASDAQ: RTB) is an AI/DeFi-powered Enterprise Media OS, integrating distribution, publishing, monetization, community, syndication, and DeFi payment operations, powering professional and major media brands. The Web3 platform was developed over years by digital pioneers and co-founders Eyal Hertzog and James Heckman.
<h2 id="watch-the-full-interview">Watch the full interview</h2>
The full episode is on <a href="https://www.theblock.co/podcasts/prediction-market-news/2026-10-20-polymarket-us-hits-8-7b-plus-coinbase-and-roundtable-on-paying-media-in-minutes-421441" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">The Block's podcast page</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/SuYJ-uPaU9k?t=314&amp;si=alxjWNQ0KAkothd1" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">YouTube channel</a>. The interview with Heckman and D'Agostino starts at 5:14.<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SuYJ-uPaU9k" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms"></iframe>
Disclosure: Roundtable and its affiliates have a direct financial interest in the securities of the company discussed. This communication should not be construed as investment advice.

Roundtable CEO, Coinbase's D'Agostino discuss USDC "forcing function" partnership

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