Arc Builders Fund Spotlight: Hibachi

SUMMARY

In this conversation, Hibachi cofounder Chip Dempsey shares his journey from traditional market structure and clearing to building a blockchain-native FX solution. He explains how stablecoins and Arc’s infrastructure unlock atomic settlement, reduced counterparty risk, and institutional-grade market design for the next era of onchain foreign exchange.

KEY TOPICS

• Market structure and clearing in traditional finance
• Stablecoins and atomic settlement in FX
• Self-custody, transparency, and privacy tradeoffs
• Why Hibachi chose Arc
• Liquidity design and ecosystem growth

CONTENT

In this founder conversation, Chip Dempsey, cofounder of Hibachi, shares his path from the Chicago Board of Trade to launching a blockchain-native foreign exchange platform. Growing up around markets, Chip Dempsey began his career as a floor trader before moving into interbank FX at Chemical Bank. He later transitioned into financial technology and market infrastructure, holding senior roles at SunGard Futures, the Chicago Board of Trade Clearing Corporation, Morgan Stanley’s Principal Strategic Investments, and the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), a systemically important financial market utility.

Across these roles, Chip Dempsey developed deep expertise in market structure — how buyers and sellers meet, how clearing works, and where inefficiencies exist. A recurring challenge in traditional finance is reconciliation across fragmented ledgers: exchanges, clearinghouses, banks, and back offices must constantly match records, creating operational friction, cost, and risk. The promise of blockchain as a single source of truth — a “golden record” — became compelling as early as 2012–2013.

At OCC, Chip Dempsey’s team built what he believes was the first blockchain-based clearing system for stock loan, an effort rooted in modernizing infrastructure that clears roughly $100 billion in overnight stock loan positions. That experience deepened his conviction that distributed ledger technology could meaningfully improve financial plumbing.

Hibachi focuses on foreign exchange, a market that processes approximately $10 trillion per day. Despite its size, FX remains largely opaque and relationship-driven. Liquidity is concentrated among major global banks operating through request-for-quote systems without a consolidated public order book. End users are often price takers without visibility into spreads, markups, or whether orders traded through specific levels. Post-trade settlement typically occurs on a T+2 basis, requiring prefunded bank accounts in multiple currencies and exposing participants to counterparty credit risk, including Herstatt risk.

Chip Dempsey argues that stablecoins and blockchain infrastructure represent a structural shift rather than an incremental improvement. With atomic settlement and sub-second finality, counterparties can exchange value instantly without extending unsecured credit. Self-custody reduces reliance on intermediaries, while eliminating the need to maintain multiple bank accounts simplifies operations. The shift resembles the transition from physical mail to email — not just a faster process, but an entirely new infrastructure.

However, different crypto market structures present tradeoffs. Decentralized exchanges offer atomic settlement and onchain proof of solvency but introduce radical transparency and uncertain counterparty identity. Centralized exchanges may handle KYC and AML screening but require users to surrender custody, introducing a different form of counterparty risk. Hibachi’s goal is to combine the strengths of both models while mitigating their weaknesses.

That vision led Hibachi to build on Arc. Chip Dempsey cites several reasons for the decision. Arc’s opt-in configurable privacy allows transaction participants to validate ownership and solvency without broadcasting trading strategies to the entire market. Stablecoins such as USDC used as gas enable predictable, dollar-denominated transaction costs. Deterministic sub-second finality supports exchange-grade performance requirements. Beyond technical features, Chip Dempsey emphasizes Circle’s regulation-first approach and institutional credibility as critical factors for attracting capital markets participants.

Hibachi launched in 2025 and has already processed billions in trading volume with tens of thousands of users, largely without paid marketing. The team now plans to extend its perpetual futures model into stablecoin-based FX markets, aiming to become a central limit order book for FX stablecoin trading. Chip Dempsey describes this as an opportunity analogous to building one of the first applications in a new platform era.

Adoption, however, requires education and ecosystem development. Enterprises must become comfortable with wallets, internal controls, and policy design around digital asset custody. Broader stablecoin issuance across additional fiat currencies will also expand the addressable FX market. Chip Dempsey points to growing institutional tailwinds, including survey data suggesting that nearly all CFOs expect stablecoins to play a role in their companies’ futures.

Liquidity remains central. Successful markets require both market makers and price takers. Hibachi leverages longstanding relationships with crypto and traditional trading firms while designing incentive structures — including equity-based “jump ball” programs and design partner initiatives — to catalyze early liquidity. These programs help refine matching algorithms, pricing structures, and microstructure decisions in collaboration with sophisticated users.

On the capital side, Hibachi has raised $8 million to date from leading venture investors and is pursuing an additional $10–15 million to support engineering, regulatory, and compliance expansion. The team continues to build in parallel with Arc’s development, maintaining close collaboration with Circle’s engineering and ecosystem teams.

The conversation concludes with optimism about the opportunity ahead: modernizing global FX with stablecoins, atomic settlement, and institutional-grade infrastructure — and doing so in partnership with Arc as foundational infrastructure for onchain capital markets.

• Circle Ventures, an affiliate of Circle Internet Financial, LLC, has invested in Hibachi.

• Arc is offered by Circle Technology Services, LLC (“CTS”). CTS is a software provider and does not provide regulated financial or advisory services. You are solely responsible for services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws.

• Arc has not been reviewed or approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

• The product features described in these materials are for informational purposes only and may be modified, delayed, or cancelled without notice at the sole discretion of Circle Technology Services, LLC. Nothing herein constitutes a commitment, warranty, guarantee, or investment advice.

• USDC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle. A list of Circle’s regulatory authorizations can be found here.