Henri Stern is a French entrepreneur and engineer known as the co-founder and CEO of the wallet infrastructure company Privy. ^[1] He works on products focused on stablecoin payments and financial infrastructure and is an active contributor to industry discussions on global payments, regulation, and the evolving stablecoin ecosystem. ^[2]​

Education

Stern earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer and Information Sciences and Intellectual History from Columbia University. He later completed a Master’s in Computer Science at Stanford University. During his time at Stanford, he was also involved in academic cryptography research, where he collaborated with noted researchers in the field, including Dan Boneh and David Mazières. ^{[4] [5]}​

Career

Stern began his career in finance as an investment banking summer analyst at Lazard in 2012, where he gained exposure to financial analysis and capital markets. In 2013, he co-founded his first company, Shout Inc., a consumer-focused business where he was involved in product development and company operations until 2015. He has since reflected on this early entrepreneurial experience, noting in a September 2025 podcast that the lessons learned informed his approach to iteration, decision-making, and assessing market feedback at Privy. ^{[4] [6]}​

In 2016, Stern transitioned to a role as a forward-deployed engineer at Palantir Technologies, working with clients to implement data-driven software solutions. He subsequently worked as a software engineer at Mark43 in 2017, contributing to public safety technology systems. From 2018 to 2020, Stern served as a research scientist at Protocol Labs. In this role, he worked on decentralized systems and protocols, including research and development related to the Filecoin network. This work connected him with figures in the venture capital community who would later invest in his next company. ^{[4] [5]}​

Privy

In September 2021, Stern co-founded Privy with Asta Li and assumed the role of CEO. ^{[4] [5]} The company's initial mission was to help developers link and protect users' off-chain data, such as emails and names, with their on-chain crypto addresses. However, Stern stated in a November 2025 discussion that the company pivoted from this "data tokenization" concept to focus on wallet infrastructure in response to evolving developer and market needs. The new focus became building tools for user authentication and secure key management, aiming to simplify the onboarding process for applications built on blockchain networks. ^[7]​

Privy secured an $18 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm in November 2023. At the time, Stern stated, "...we are at a pivotal time in crypto - distributed systems stand to massively upgrade the Internet, provided we can make them easy to use..." The company's first institutional investor was Sequoia Capital. ^{[1] [8]}​

On June 11, 2025, Stern announced that Privy was being acquired by the financial technology company Stripe. He explained in subsequent interviews that the acquisition was intended to address the need for simpler entry points into crypto for a wide range of businesses, including neobanks and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. He confirmed Privy would continue to operate as an independent product while leveraging Stripe's resources to accelerate its mission. Stern stated, "I'm very excited to share this - a lot of how we build is modeled after @stripe's craft and attention to detail. On our end, we're excited to push even harder for our partners across the many verticals crypto impacts today!" ^{[1] [9]}​

As CEO, Stern has also publicly addressed operational challenges. On October 14, 2025, after Privy experienced a partial API outage due to database issues, he took public responsibility, stating, "This is unacceptable. We are making requisite changes." ^[1]​

Public Commentary and Industry Views

Stern is a regular contributor to public discussions on financial technology and cryptocurrency through podcasts, interviews, and industry events. His commentary often focuses on the practical application of blockchain technology and the infrastructure required for its mainstream adoption.

On Stablecoins and Global Payments

Stern frequently discusses the growing role of stablecoins as a foundational component of modern financial systems. He has pointed to their use in cross-border payments and for providing financial services in emerging markets, such as those in Latin America, as key early use cases. He has commented on broader industry collaborations to expand stablecoin utility, including Visa's partnership with Stripe and Bridge to support stablecoin-linked cards and Mastercard's efforts to enable stablecoin acceptance through partnered wallets. In a November 2025 discussion, Stern predicted that stablecoins would become a more established and integral part of the international financial system, while also noting the importance of evolving regulatory frameworks like the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. ^{[7] [10]}​

In a November 2025 discussion alongside Stripe co-founder John Collison and Bridge CEO Zach Abrams, Stern elaborated on the evolution of stablecoins and Privy's role in the ecosystem post-acquisition by Stripe. The conversation explored the practical challenges and opportunities in integrating stablecoin payments into global commerce.

<div> Stablecoin special: Zach Abrams (Bridge) and Henri Stern (Privy)<iframe>

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On Wallet Infrastructure and Onboarding

A central theme in Stern's commentary is the need for improved user experience to drive crypto adoption. He advocates for embedded wallets, which integrate authentication and key management directly into applications, thereby abstracting away the technical complexity for end-users. He argues that this approach can "bridge crypto and non-crypto applications," making blockchain technology more accessible. According to Stern, the core of this infrastructure is secure key management, which he has identified as a primary focus for Privy. He believes that by simplifying user onboarding and transaction management, the industry can remove significant barriers to entry for both developers and consumers. ^{[11] [6]}​

In an October 2025 interview, Stern discussed the Stripe acquisition in the context of improving wallet infrastructure and crypto onboarding. He explained how combining Privy's technology with Stripe's extensive financial network was a strategic move to address these challenges at scale.

<div> Privy CEO: Why Did Stripe Acquire Privy? | Henri Stern<iframe>

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On Future Financial Technology

Stern has spoken about several emerging technological trends and their potential impact on finance. He has discussed the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) as a way to bring more value onto blockchain networks. He has also explored the future of automated finance, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to support machine-to-machine payments and the rise of "agent-driven payments," where autonomous software agents could conduct transactions programmatically. His view is that open financial infrastructure enables both startups and established institutions to build new products and improve how money is moved and managed globally. ^{[11] [9]}​