A JP Morgan quant trader walked away from Wall Street to build the trust layer that lets AI agents spend your money.
Chandler Fung went from the JP Morgan trading floor to Onyx, the bank's blockchain and AI payments team, to years at Ripple building cross border stablecoin rails. In early 2025 he founded T54, a company solving one problem almost nobody is: how do you trust an AI agent to touch your money?
Backed from day zero by Ripple, Franklin Templeton and others, Chandler and Ivan Patriki dig into what happens when 30% of your daily transactions get delegated to agents, why finance is the one sector you cannot waltz into, and what it actually takes to earn a seat check from a company worth billions.
We cover:
Why an AI agent booking your cheeseburger is a bigger risk problem than it sounds
The moment you ask GPT to buy something and everything that can silently go wrong
How a day zero startup lands Ripple and Franklin Templeton as seed investors
"Idea is cheap" and why execution and a real moat matter more
Is trading on Elliott Waves and ICT legit, or just momentum vs sentiment fishing?
What quant traders actually do (and why everyone using the same strategy breaks)
Why he left a lucrative quant seat to build products for humans instead of numbers
The three pillars before you start a company: team, execution, moat
Why 90% of successful startups end up doing something other than their original idea
Why he feels safe putting $2M in Chase but nervous moving it to a cold wallet
Can a startup become the "Chase-level trust" of the agentic economy?
When do you stop chasing money and start chasing impact?
Marathon vs sprint: the patience trap almost every young founder falls into
MORE OF CHANDLER FUNG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/znfang
Twitter: https://x.com/chandler_agi
Company (T54): https://www.t54.ai/
MORE OF ON THE MARGIN:
Website: https://www.themargin.tv
Spotify:
Main Site: https://www.on-the-margin.com
MORE OF BOAZ SOBRADO:
Twitter: https://x.com/sobradob
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobradob
Website: https://themargin.tv/boaz-sobrado
MORE OF IVAN PATRIKI:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artizt
Substack: https://substack.com/@artizt
Twitter: https://x.com/Ivan_patriki
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artizt/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ascended
Telegram: https://t.me/ivanpatriki
Timestamps
00:00 - From JP Morgan quant to building the trust layer for AI money.
02:31 - Landing Ripple and Franklin Templeton from day zero.
05:05 - The cheeseburger problem: what breaks when an agent spends for you.
08:18 - Is quant trading better than day trading on waves and sentiment?
11:26 - Momentum vs sentiment, and whether trading courses are legit.
13:10 - Why he left a lucrative quant seat to build for humans.
16:20 - How to build long term connections that get you funded.
20:23 - Why finance is the one sector you cannot rush into.
23:00 - The three pillars: team, execution, moat.
26:38 - Why 90% of winning startups pivot.
27:26 - The Chase Bank vision for the agentic economy.
31:39 - Rich moment or not: when money stops being the point.
37:01 - The advice nobody gives you: patience over the short game.
Subscribe & leave a comment if you made it this far!
