How to Get a Job in Web3 with Nadejda Petrova (Nexo)

yes so as I said today we have a very special guest we have Nat she worked before as Equity Trader at Morgan Stanley and I think it was quite fun because I spoke to her the other day and she she actually mentioned that back in 2018 she was a crypto skeptic professional working in finance but skeptic so I thought interesting and now she's full on working for nexo one of the leading uh blockchain Native companies in Europe so net please introduce yourself and maybe also tell us a little bit how how did you go from cryptographic to skeptic to be full on in this space yeah thanks Victoria and thanks for having me um yeah our basically I would say that their blockchain program is amazing so yeah give it a go guys if you're considering it um so my name is I um spare head Nexus institutional sales team um so I look after our trading platform um and lending efforts um so I started out my career as she said in 2018 which ironically is the year nexo was founded um so we basically started together um on slightly different Journeys um I started my career in London uh as I said as an equity Trader um I spent four years there enjoying nexo at the beginning of this year my journey um stems from the fact that um crypto for me in my everyday life as an investor as an Enthusiast and judging from what was happening around me just became too big to ignore a lot of my colleagues left for crypto and I kind of uh afterwards started looking into it I read it and as one of my colleagues says once you essentially understand Bitcoin you really can't go back um so I just realized that this was going to be the next.com um era and I decided to get in on it as fast as possible simply because I think there is a lot I love about finance and I still get to apply a lot of the concepts I learned but at the same time there's so much there is to improve within finance and there is a lot that blockchain will solve in that regard very interesting and and what how what did Morgan Stanley say when you're like okay guys I'm leaving so I think yeah uh I think for me it was um kind of time to go because as a Trader um you focus on a very granular product so essentially if you look at Traders nowadays in Banks um It's Not Like the Wolf of Wall Street so um it's very numbers oriented um and you tend to look at only one product so essentially I had to make the decision of whether I wanted to continue um that level of granularity or whether I wanted to Branch out and for me um you know changing the industry for digital assets was the right way to go because I think there's a lot more to be invented and a bigger contribution to have and therefore um of course I mean I spent four years of my life at the bank and I have nothing but positive um things to say I still keep in touch with my colleagues um so I think the attitude for crypto has definitely shifted as well because you know in 2018 if someone had left they would have been very skeptical but it's kind of where the trend is going so given that Morgan Stanley as well launched its um Research into digital assets the same year he left I think they were quite understanding uh of the move and kind of supported it even interesting interesting actually the other day um I spoke to Sebastian one of our past students um he's there he calls himself Seva and we were talking about this concept of like um what was it crypto companies are becoming Banks yeah so Sebastian was a little bit worried about that because he was like he would like to kind of like separate the the traditional Financial world and the new I mean the new crypto space so he was a bit worried um maybe yeah that say a few words what do you think about that I also said I said maybe you could say why you were a bit worried about that um what do you think about this yeah oh so um yeah so I think you know my my life manager with index so the one of the founding Partners Glenn actually gave a really great talk um token 2049 which we were at in Singapore last week um and he basically spoke about the way the industry is evolving and one of the big concepts of this is a hybrid model so there's a lot of people um within crypto and within Finance still who envisioned a world that the two existed completely different I think this for different reasons on both sides is an unattainable model I think crypto has become too big to ignore not to enter Finance because as I said it does solve problems that Finance has and then uh on its turn I think Financial Concepts within crypto would help the industry and would help digital assets get adopted on an Institutional level because um a world where we are Reinventing risk management is kind of he liked in it to kind of unicorns I mean it doesn't exist numbers are numbers risk management is risk management and for us the most sustainable model forward would be to adopt Concepts that we know work in finance when it comes to sound regulatory requirements risk management and protecting consumers whilst adopting the solutions that crypto gives us yeah no no I mean I I this totally makes sense of course you need to to take the same I mean approach to risk regulatory questions I I totally agree I think when I was speaking to the best and what he was referring to was a little bit like kind of like so what he really likes well maybe you should tell us is the whole digital asset space of course crypto and it was like but why should these crypto players now start offering I don't know let's say investments in equity or bonds you know that's maybe Sebastian you can say a few words while you were like oh yeah hello everybody first of all uh yes hello I have to say a bit worried because yeah from my perspective at least I kind of hope to live behind the whole traditional Science World that's at first so I believe that the crypto space could give at least a bit of fresh air to to from that traditional Finance world but I have to say in a way I understand uh what what Nadia said because also we have to understand that especially right now during the bear Market people the companies are not like maybe making the same numbers that they would make during uh the bull market so of course they have to look elsewhere but I still hope that this is gonna be not like merits too much and not like just one hybrid model at least not just one but there is going to be space for both because I have to say that even the the working environment is different I guess not yet I don't know if you feel if you perceive the same but right now I moved from bis to Signum so I I see the Both Worlds and the work environment is totally different I I really love now the the easy way of doing the job like the the startup type of environment but uh yeah I have to say that if we move to traditional Finance also this is gonna take it's gonna be taken from us so yeah overall I hope that the the merge and the hybrid model is going to be still uh it's gonna still leave the separated World in a way I mean we can I hope that it's gonna be still the traditional Finance hybrid hybrid model and the digital asset kind of model yeah I think you're definitely right in a sense that um there is a Vibe within digital assets that you're building the next big thing which wasn't necessarily um the vibe in finance um I think you know for me I was fortunate enough um pretty much every single place I've worked at has been really really great I think it was more for me that at the bank I felt that you know my managers were extremely smart people and pretty much everything that they had invented um gave me a limited scope for contribution so essentially what I would say is that I think culturally there isn't a big shift for me but I think within where I can make a meaningful contribution that is certainly a much bigger case within digital assets for me um a hybrid model for a retail based client might not be very applicable because if you are a crypto bull uh you might just want to invest in digital assets if you are an equity Trader individual you might just want to invest in equity for an indiv Institutional level however um I believe that the most sustainable model within the near future is um the hybrid model which means that uh I think someone in the uh chat as the about the example of the hybrid model what I'm actually uh referring to here is um institutional allocation that gives exposure to both traditional assets and digital assets for example imagine currently for example in the UK there is the concept of an Isa which currently includes only traditional assets where investors can invest up to a certain amount and most of the products are financially structured around equities or fixed income in the next few years we envisioned that rapidly changing and most funds uh like the big players I mean black rocker recently announced a partnership with a crypto provider so most of the big players will shift to a model where investors can choose allocating a portion of their assets to digital assets so this is kind of what is you know in the immediate future and um I think uh yeah the example here given is that you can't buy a house with ethereum yet um I guess that will change uh hopefully I mean by the way this is quite a fun fact but I don't know if you guys watch selling sunset uh one of the the main characters there Christine she launched a retail uh real estate firm where you can buy houses with Bitcoin so that's coming uh I think we are certainly getting to a place where that will be convention um but I would say give it a few years absolutely also already products where you can just take the loan I mean even with us it's signal you can just deposit your digital assets and take a loan that's exactly right yeah and next who gives that capability as well so you can borrow against digital assets and take advantage of the cash appreciation so it might not be a direct um of chain transaction but you can still take advantage of your crypto uh for purchasing large items like a house for example okay cool just for everyone who just entered recently so we are interviewing today Nat from nexo and I just asked Sebastian to share some thoughts because Sebastian is one of our past students and I was asking a question later on because he did one of our programs before he was working for Bank of international settlements moved to crypto space working for Signum bank so it's always nice to introduce some of them as well and Daniel who also spoke is the other co-founder of European blockchain convention and European tech school cool so Nat I have many more questions for you let's let's let's let's dig into well we talk about working in the space right you move to to the space of working at Morgan Stanley Sebastian move from uh bankruptions and segments to Signal Bank in general net why do you think people should consider moving from a more traditional sector to the blockchain crypto whip three space thanks Victoria I think uh hi everyone who just joined um so I think well I would outline is the three main reasons are the fact that um there is innovation space for growth um and being part of something major so I think we briefly touched upon it with our discussion with seba but the idea here is that you get to be a part of something that's being built so if you look at you know nexo's growth uh since 2020 in terms of hiring the company has grown 800 percent since the beginning of the year it has grown a hundred percent so I think you know there is unprecedented growth within the industry which you get to experience um but furthermore I think if you have the scope and the ability to shine um that gets recognized almost immediately there are no set processes so you get to make a contribution and an impact and it gets recognized almost instantly so for example you you know what Financial firms there's usually a very strict pattern as to how you get promoted how you get um within you know the corporate ladder um within nexo I was promoted to head of institutional um four months after joining The Firm um because when you show initiative when you show you know a vision and an idea for a product that gets immediately recognized and I guess for me it's it's extremely rewarding because I think the market in traditional Finance has become greatly saturated meaning that the contribution there's a lot of smart people but the efficiency of the margins are so thin that your level of you know making a meaningful impact could be limited um in crypto that's certainly not the case so for me it's really great that I get to you know apply Concepts that I know from traditional Finance like trading mechanisms liquidity aggregation and the algorithms and we get to develop them to a completely new asset class so you have a very tangible product that you're building every single day and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor almost instantly yeah well I I can only agree that in this space if you get in or for the ones for the for those of you already here you can see it I mean you have impact instantly right if you're in a more traditional company it takes time there is so many yeah as you said uh you know levels where decision needs to go through and yeah and maybe you you could have a very good impact on different parts of the the company but it's not going to happen because whatever happened right so yeah you have a huge impact and I think what you just said net that the company nexo has grown 100 this year this year where we are in this crypto winter or we can someone at our last edition of the conference said crypto hurricane hurricane but I must say I mean it's a little bit longer this hurricane but yeah yeah I certainly joined an interesting time um yeah you are right Victoria I mean uh the numbers you're quoting are correct we've grown 800 since 2020 and we've grown a hundred percent since the beginning of this year so not only were we one of the companies to not lay off any people we have more than 50 open positions ranging from engineering to marketing currently so there is definitely scope to develop uh just as a reference I when I joined I was the 450th employee and uh now we have 630. so that's kind of the growth we're talking about here amazing amazing I think this is very very strong numbers very strong numbers and even the other day I spoke to some of the of the big blockchain crypto companies and also they actually also grew I mean not 100 as you did but actually also grew like step by step but I think it's it's it's nice to see of course the the solid companies you have I mean you have plenty of things to build so you will continue growing of course maybe you could have grown I don't know that maybe you could have grown 200 this year but of course instead of growing 200 100 but I mean it's still it's crazy I mean it's I mean you know the the popular saying within crypto as a whole is that you know great things are built during bear markets nexo actually originated during a bear Market uh in 2018 and we are pretty much the only big company left standing from that time so I guess you know it really matters within crypto that's one of the biggest um you know do your own research within digital assets and the web tree space as a whole is extremely important more so than any other industry I would say because if you don't do it um you might end up somewhere that you know you might have to make your own decisions as to who to trust um who is going to grow who is going to be at the front of the industry and that that's really important and if you choose correctly um yeah the the potential is huge and unlimited almost um so yeah it's uh it's been a great journey I I do have to say can I ask a question Victoria amazing yes go ahead Alfonso it's Alfonso is now one of our students at the fourth cohort so just for you I mean all of you how many do we have in the room 99 uh the nice thing is to see current students past students all here and then of course most of you are from outside but uh Alfonso the word is yours please go ahead thank you I wanted to ask in reference to your earned interest product are you um how are you as a company going to Pivot now that the that eight U.S states have um categorized your earned interest product as a security instead of a commodity and do you have plans for adjusting like binance did and having a unique office that's us regulated uh so you can hire and provide services can I can I answer I don't have the answer but I just I'm just gonna say something we have a newsletter on Fridays where we do include investment rounds and at positions and I saw something very interesting that like so acquired American bank so I think one way of acquiring all oral all license and all these kind of things is by doing Acquisitions but which bank was that yeah if you can send me the the bank I would like to do some more research on it thank you Victoria [Music] or the question also um yeah I think um news recently is certainly on everyone's Minds um what I will say is that um I know that we are actively working and collaborating with the regulators and we're trying to address the issues um as fast as possible uh unfortunately I would say that being on the institutional trading side my focus is developing uh sound trading products for our institutional client base I focus on liquidity aggregation um and providing mechanisms which allow institutions to get best tax and lending products on par with the ones we see in traditional Finance which hasn't always been the case in crypto so I guess you know to you know summarize it um briefly above my pay grade as a good colleague of mine and a crypto board Morgan Stanley used to say he was actually quite senior so that was quite fun um but I think you know I think I would watch the news for that simply because um there's different themes of very very talented people at the Forum working around those regulations and addressing them thank you I appreciate the answer you you mentioned you're doing liquidity aggregation are you do you guys work with OSL digital um I think I wouldn't be uh at Liberty to say exactly who we work with on the side uh the main idea here is that um we basically pull liquidity from the main exchanges um and then basically we provide that to Consumers because currently the level of Market fragmentation especially during volatile time so for example if reference the May 12 crash it is great so essentially there is I I specialize in Market microstructure as a Trader at my previous job if you look at the spreads between exchanges so you know take the five biggest exchanges currently in crypto they will be pricing your assets um with a stark difference I mean the difference can range from 30 basis points to 160 in volatile times meaning that we basically on our platform and I I nearly lost the plot when I first saw it and that was kind of like why I came into crypto there's a huge opportunity there because we we get a reverse bid ask so if you look naturally you know in equities for example um the you know level you can sell a share versus the level you can buy or share greatly the first and you know the level you can buy or share is always higher if for some reason it gets lower that gets absorbed by boats um and Market strategies that are currently enacting in the market the crypto Market is much less efficient so we pull liquidity from the 10 biggest exchanges and when it comes to BTC USD we have a consistent reverse bid ask meaning that on our platform you can sell Bitcoin higher then you can buy it which is if you think about it in the level of fragmentation that's insane I mean that will change but currently in the current landscape that is presenting huge Market opportunities um so I think that's where we're trying to educate investors and we're trying to push liquidity aggregation because having that visibility would make you know your prices more fair and in the end your investors happier fantastic can I ask just one quick question as a follow-up to what she said about liquidity very quick okay very quick so you're aggregating the top ten I know now that you definitely aggregate the one that I mentioned because they they do nine percent of the market monthly um but my question is that spot do you guys offer leverage or margin trading um outside uh to to um to us investors or Latin American investors thank you foreign so I would say that there is a prime page um and you can go and kind of weave bundled wall geography um offers what products availability um I would say that uh to Latin America margining is currently possible uh but please double check with the nexo io Dash Prime for specific jurisdictions thank you Alfonso so ssap for alponso is currently doing our certified blockchain expert program so it's very nice to have you here and also nice all your questions but now it's my turn to ask questions actually just one quick thing unfortunately you're asking about what bank they bought so I just shared um my link to my post which is our newsletter goes out and you have it at the end the name of the bank of the U.S Bank so net my next question my turn um when hiring because as you said I mean you grew since you since you joined the team 100 what are you looking for of course I mean I I am aware that you have different I mean you're looking for different profiles but in general is there something genetic you're looking for yeah that's a question we get a lot Victoria um so I think um whoever follows me in LinkedIn knows that I advertise this event as you know won't do Kim Kardashian web tree have in common and my idea here to answer this question and yours uh in one is the fact that uh there is no such thing as a conventional path to crypto the whole idea digital assets and web tree um exists is the fact that a bunch of Outsiders were sick of well-defined and predefined metrics rules and patterns so I would say that whoever wants to innovate is more than welcome to uptrend crypto I think a question we get a lot is you know do I have to work in finance I think conventionally people believe that there is a certain profile you have to follow but I guess what we look for is a can-do attitude above all else um you have to be um well educated within the crypto space which can mean a bunch of different things I mean you know a lot of our developers are self-taught in the sense that you know you learn coding but then there is a whole different language within crypto that you have to learn in terms of blockchain and they you know in 2018 they weren't necessarily programs that taught it so they had to like invent it um you know how to essentially get qualified within crypto for our so for an Institutional sales role there wouldn't be a predefined path so for me it's more like does this person um you know have passion for web3 can they identify the major trends that are going to drive the institutional Market um and can they adequately um communicate those to investors very nice very nice I have a follow-up question for that but actually before that follow-up question I would like to ask someone is here yes that's it okay um guys can I ask you to put your camera on Alfonso can you come back and Benoit I saw you before in Dominica amazing to see you here Ivan David all current past students we're gonna have a a photo together all of you please put your camera on because we want to share this photo afterwards so guys a smile and who's taking the photo are you Daniel okay so smile okay wait we need more people oh I don't know I don't see all the cameras now okay guys uh yeah I see more people here Gabriella [Music] um yeah David come join us Yvonne Cedric India is it is it okay Daniel or do you want more faces five more guys okay iPhone put your camera on I don't know who you are hashing DNA thank it Francisco uh Christian if Michelle one of our professors put your camera on put the camera on okay Daniel is it better or we still need more faces is it good to go okay now all right my guys or yeah I used to do this I still do it fantastic okay so my follow-up question that is um is people's online present important is it something you look into like when hiring people online person I mean on social media or I don't know like newsletters or whatever they do outside the physical world yeah absolutely uh uh say yes but then again it's your definition of what that entails simply because um crypto has so many unconventional channels for communication um so for example you know you can be on LinkedIn Twitter Discord telegram so it really matters um what you do and kind of um defining your own voice so for example um I love posting on LinkedIn uh more than anywhere else whereas one of my colleagues who's one of the early participants in nexo has quite the presence on Twitter so essentially everyone decides what kind of presence online they want to have but in an industry that's involving so rapidly and it's kind of still trying to figure out where it wants to go and what it wants to be having a decisive voice um as to what your ideas are and communicating them well could be a very good deciding factor um whether you're gonna drive the company change for forward so you know you have to ultimately convince a lot of people that your product is viable and is going to be a major driver within the industry and it's much easier to do that if you have a solid online presence in some form again you know everyone defines what that should be via their own standards but more so in finance definitely I would say amazing so guys yeah important to have a presence as Ned says you decide where it's a Twitter LinkedIn Discord your newsletter whatever it is it's but it's important but I guess it's also like showcasing like that your interest is really there right because if you're tweeting about it or if you're doing post on LinkedIn or if you're active in different Discord right it's oh I think again you're oh yeah that's it fantastic cool okay um very nice actually uh maybe now since I saw Eve Michelle one of our absolutely first professors I would I think it would be nice to said hi if Michelle so if Michelle he was working at the blockchain team at Renault Group Reno no I don't say that's not the French accent sorry but now he joined out of blockchain so out of blockchain is um the blockchain well you have behind Louis Vuitton Katia all these luxury Brands and they they created this um this blockchain Consortium so the focus is of course on luxury goods and now if Michelle as I said move from the node to our blockchain if Michelle do you want to say hi hello oh hello hello but we cannot see you yes it was the wonders of Internet please to give me a second I'm trying my best okay so if Michelle is he's amazing um he has a good French accent but uh but a normal if you're from Paris but what's really cool about him is that he I think has a very interesting background both as software developer a background and also in finance this did the fra or whatever it is Financial Risk Management something not the CFA but the other one sorry I asked yes Finance computation whatever yeah but then you also have the interesting background from the corporate world well because you worked for Renault I think it's a nice mix and also for the students to have access to a profile like you maybe you can just say a few words I mean and then I'll continue with that okay let's make it uh French then konnichiwa no that said ignition I've been working uh for quite some time I created my own protocol with a bunch of crazy people pure Geeks we have written books we have written white papers research documents we have worked also for large companies such as Renault on the on a Consortium called exceed and I've been also working with aura consortiums the first one is for Logistics a second one they are trying to well plenty of things confidential as of late so don't hide and the point of importance is that each time it's very different you can see the Streamline of Technology I've seen quite a few questions saying okay I'm not a geek how am I supposed to get into touch I mean how do I make money how do I find a job well it's possible actually according to my research about 40 45 of the job you could find right now have zero capabilities regarding gigs what you would do definitely uh is okay I know marketing I know to mail uh make like MailChimp so make what they call Gross marketing strategies I know how to hire people I know how to Market a project in this case my friend welcome because it takes me like forever to train a guy amazing in marketing crazy a lot in finance trying to explain in uh consensus why would I do that because it works like that yes but why okay it will take me like forever so if you're already being trained for instance at your band tech school you have one lot of time so in these cases uh you have several uh jobs that you can actually get the first one is where this might appear is analysis of like papers so uh you that you call that blockchain a consultancing is it possible that this blockchain works or not that's your job the second job is as weirdest might appear they still call that blockchain consultant is product owner do you understand technology basic things that should it will never work you know just like pitfalls I do never expect you to be able to to develop anything but at least to have an understanding on how it works basically so that as a client doesn't ask impossible things you are hired today with me IBM loves you the second point also of importance is that several times most of us I'm part of them uh we love big large companies they don't hire so uh please consider getting in touch more with uh mid-sized companies or startups and personally what I I keep doing is I go on the internet and I go let's say blockchain companies country and you have a full list of startups then you make your geek stuff that is you go LinkedIn you ask contact you ask okay what how do you work what are your tasks um you know what uh uh you're looking for a marketing boy and there uh by the way I've been doing that you know it's kind of stuff it's crazy the second point if you really really want it takes time but you say okay you know what in this specific technology I uh write what you've done practically you have read two blog posts believe me I did it number two say okay you you look interesting you know just like you're covering is the right way to person number three I'm not sure really understood what you've been doing on this part of Technology could you please explain for me okay the guy starts to feel you're interested say okay would you be interested to show me your CEO because I think I have some ideas for him at that specific time you have zero IDs believe me your digestive flow will immediately accelerate so you will work a lot tonight to understand what they've been doing and in the next week you have a meeting with the CEO believe me it works yeah it's always good to kind of like you know create an opportunity and then at least if you have a week or something then solve it right present them yeah net I just wanted to say I mean you did actually that right you reach out to one of the co-founders of nexo when you saw that it was an opportunity opening and you're like maybe you can say a few words there and if Michelle thank you so much it's amazing to see you here because you're one of our professors I did not expected to see here so thank you you're not maybe yeah and uh yeah let me let me just uh say Michelle uh I've been following closely what you guys are doing um as a very fashion uh forward geek um I I love what you guys are doing with Louis Vuitton so uh please keep doing it and I think to Aiko he is saying I 100 agree there is no predefined path into making it in crypto um so for example you know to compare the process of applying to crypto versus traditional finance and traditional Finance you basically go on a website you fill out an application you go into a bunch of Assessments and then you might get hired I think in crypto it's it's basically if you're not a go-getter um you you pretty much don't stand the chance because then in order to attract traction to a company or a protocol or whatever it is you're a part of you have to kind of show tenacity from the get-go and that's what Founders and anyone hiring um needs to do so for example one of my colleagues he actually joined the company in 2018 and he's a really good friend of mine he actually sent uh because he loves doing podcasts which he gets quite eased about but he actually sent like a video to the co-founders as to why he wants to join next so and that's how he ultimately landed the job so it's more like you know was it like one one like one a series from the from the podcast talking about why no it was more like a video of himself um so now we we have this internal educational videos and he's leading them so um essentially at kind of you know our approaches are very different but ultimately what gets you um you know after the line is that kind of you know tenacity and thinking outside the box and thinking creatively because as I said that's how this entire industry originated so people want to see that you are like a go-getter so yeah my journey within nexo was um you know I um message one of the co-founders and said okay I'm really interested in the company um what can I contribute like here are my credentials uh here's how I Envision institutional um sales within a digital assets company evolving and I sort of layered out my plan and you know the rest is history um so I guess you know taking the proactive approach and an unorthodox Hands-On one um will be the difference between you getting hired or not yeah I mean that's it amazing amazing thank you Ned okay now Nat I would like to kind of like talk a little bit about how do you see the industry rolling maybe like the industry as a whole but also more like well the whole industry but also the institutional side because you're focusing a lot on institutional players so maybe you could give us a little bit like some words here so that the audience also can understand a little better what's happening absolutely I think my bread and butter is institutional trading um and asset management and I think there um I would have a lot more uh scope to kind of you know identify meaningful Trends because the thing within the entire industry is that it it's so fragmented currently that you know someone like me who focuses on the institutional side wouldn't be able to identify the specific next big thing for institutional specific though um I can say that what we're seeing is um you know more and more digital assets uh getting allocated um in traditional asset managers so for example um you know I gave the example of BlackRock um trying to get their investors access to crypto funds there are ETFs being developed uh with a Bitcoin Focus so there will definitely be demand for digital assets within traditional asset managers Pension funds insurances um within that we'll naturally see Concepts like liquidity aggregation come into fruition because as investors are getting more and more involved from traffic they require the same level of traffic transparency transaction cost analysis and protections being adopted into their digital asset portfolios um in the next uh big thing um I could definitely and it was a theme that emerged very significantly in Singapore last week was the fact that um there is a huge market for derivatives currently being developed so all kinds of derivatives uh options Structured Products exotic options that will kind of will drive the market for at least the next year simply because there are a lot of opportunities for experienced players to take advantage of marketing efficiencies and this space kind of provides you with a lot of the opportunity that doesn't necessarily in any longer exist in traditional Finance interesting interesting very cool so um I think now we've had a few questions um from the audience but I would like to have a few more questions so um but before that actually I would like to ask Sebastian who also spoke before um I mean for you you were one of our first students because you were part of the first cohort which was also at risk for you to join our first program but then we convinced you that's good no but I mean maybe I think it's interesting you came from a very very traditional right yeah I think you're a traditional done that it can it cannot be fun exactly very old institution Bank of international settlements I mean it's really traditional and you want to like yeah you wanted to work in in crypto so how did the program help you I mean what did you do uh tell us a little bit more and then after that we will take questions from the audience to nap so Sebastian tell us yeah I mean I will try to be short but not too short basically I started realizing that how how do I see myself in several years and honestly in Tradition I didn't see myself in the going on going forward in traditional Finance probably the fact that was so um how did you call it the so traditional uh it actually made biggest all the things that I didn't like in in the traditional finals world so I mean basically I started to get close to that digital assets world and the same time I was working with fax so it was just a bit of a contradiction because yeah let's say I didn't know anymore where to find myself and I started to check online and back then I have to say as you said could said I just cannot help because yeah you you start really pumped yeah yeah this time I will I will manage and then after a couple of lessons like that it gets really difficult so one day yeah I I found the advert I'm advertisement of European tech school and as I was going a bit looking for something well well structured I I had a look at the program I really liked it and I have to say that it was what really pushed me away from the traditional Finance it was the answer I was looking for like I got all the necessary info I was looking for and all the people you Daniel really I like your uh positive attitude but of course also the the professionalism of everybody involved in the school you really get all the answers you need to have when you are in doubt and you are in between let's say that the two words absolutely I'm really happy and that's it was what drove me finally to the to the crypto space okay and now you will never go back no well I hope that the crypto space yeah you hope you hope that there is not too much emerge between the traditional financial industry yeah yeah yes yeah amazing Sebastian well actually maybe you can share also your link if you want in the chat if if someone wants to reach out to you on LinkedIn absolutely that's always nice so Sebastian thank you so much um now if anyone would like to ask thank you and that a question uh maybe we can you know start with uh one or two questions now and then see how it goes the idea of course is to finish around six so any questions you're welcome to put your like your how do I say uh your mic on so we can hear you Yeah we actually just received a great question Victoria uh about a uh book um about institutional trading so I don't know if I can um appine on particularly institutional trading within crypto um but a few books I would suggest are the Bitcoin standard which basically is what got me um into crypto I guess if you guys haven't really um you know understood that affirmatively I'm a Bitcoin Maxi so um I think this is this is a really good one and then um there is the Fiat standard which basically um the series kind of analyzes how um these evolve uh within crypto and how we can apply money standards uh within digital assets and this is kind of one of the meaningful themes uh within crypto so I would definitely recommend both of them yeah well I can only agree I I read the Bitcoin standard years back and it's absolutely amazing it can be a bit difficult especially if you're new to the space but then you just read the same page a few times and then at some point you get it uh but it's it's an amazing book I was very excited and I even I was even very excited because before even going into Finance or anything uh because I also worked in finance in the past I I studied European studies and I felt like that in the Bitcoin standard like everything was connected right because it is connected with history it's just like it's just it's just next step right Next Step so it's like it makes all sense it's like amazing yeah and I think you know because uh we do talk a lot about you know risk management and the idea of risk management and how you know a lot of crypto natives um have tried to push in the past several years that they're basically Reinventing finance and I think you know exactly you know who I'm talking about here so you know proving that there are Concepts that are lasting um is really important so um one that I I would definitely recommend as well is a book about long-term Capital Management uh which is within traditional Finance but it kind of shows us so it's ultimately uh about a fund based on um you know the main players and the strategy designers are the guys who invented the options model so basically you know a lot of people thought that there was nothing that could go wrong with the fund uh I'm not gonna spoil it but you kind of know how how it goes so what's the name of the books I didn't get it so it's about long-term Capital Management so ltcm and relatively yeah so um let me check about the specific name so it's called when genius failed so it's about American shows um and their colleagues who uh basically go to fund it serviced some of the biggest sovereigns in the world as well at some point so it's a good you know cautionary tale about why we need Concepts from traditional Finance adopted into crypto and how no one is immune to excess leverage for example so um it's a good one I think here yeah fantastic oh when the genius failed okay fantastic cool I don't know that book I'll I'll read it um well actually I think Natasha you ask a question previously are you still around atasia maybe you could ask a question with Mike and Cameron is she around foreign okay so the question is here oh I'll read it then where are you based are you required to work at the headquarters or is there flexibility just wanting to understand the culture working environment the next question would be that's the average no what's the average yearly pay sorry I'm I'm I'm too pramatic okay this is Natalia so many questions but uh yeah absolutely um so I think I would say that when it comes to the culture um it's a very very relaxed much more so so one of the big reasons uh I left trading is that you don't get that much flexibility without trading uh with trading uh simply because when you're dealing with Market risk it kind of um you know requires an on-site presence whereas uh currently my job is really really flexible so um I'm I'm currently working from my home today um and you know it's a hybrid environment personally I love being in the office because it gives me that kind of like people's presence but we have fully remote rows available and we're always able to discussing this um so I would say um you know my answer to this would be you know crypto jobs are what you make of them people are way you know they're way less defined uh there's no one that I've heard of who works in digital assets either an hour firm or a different one who is required to be on site all the time the same way you know we would be in finance for example um to the other questions um I would say that the average pay in crypto it ranges greatly but it's around uh seventy four thousand dollars to a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars so it's pretty much on par with uh you know where traditional Finance is with the exception that you get a huge component of for potential remuneration when you join a protocol or a company um either in the form of tokens or an equity component so you know you get the added part of that immense upside so I would definitely say that remuner debris you have a lot more potential to earn um you know a lot more whereas in finance that will be a lot more defined and you kind of know the pay structures for years ahead amazing and where are you based Ned oh so um I'm based in London um I travel back and forth because we have a pretty big office in Sofia Bulgaria so I basically um whenever there's client needs I'm in London but as I said it's uh pretty back and forth currently so you're based in both places right now yeah pretty much in London given you know my job kind of requires face-to-face interaction with most of our institutional clients um but yeah if uh if required and also you know in crypto as well guys you get to travel a lot um so I would say especially for client facing role keep that in mind because you know I get to go to tons of conferences which I personally love so if you love that component of traveling I mean um you know in in may we were in Austin Texas uh this month we were in Singapore next month you know we'll be at Das in London um you know there's the finance Summit in London so there's like so much going on globally that is just um you know a jet set lifestyle I'd say and then in February European blockchain convention absolutely so you know it's uh that one is another big one so you know the more attendance you can get into conferences the better I would definitely say visit the blockchain convention because it's it's just you know you get to meet so many people and it's much easier to find a job face-to-face as well so if you're like job hunting Etc there's so many companies that you might have not stumbled upon so it's a good place to start so if I had to find a job in crypto I mean I'm not looking for a job at the moment but if I had to what I would do is I would go find the latest startups that raise money because I have this theory that when startups raise Venture Capital half the money go into hiring people and half the money goes into marketing right so I would what do you think I would go to startups that raise money and reach out to the team because I guess they would need people right is it a good strategy well I would say it's definitely a potential strategy um what I found uh personally from communication is that um you know it's kind of like trading right so if you read um the news that apple is launching a new product then use might already be priced in so you know it's a great strategy the problem is that um the most upside you can get from you know a series a startup or a seed one um and I think necessarily the bulk of applications because a lot of people would think like you um and they would go into you know a firm that recently has news out um so it might be a lot more competitive than um something else so I know that there's a lot of um you know websites which advertise you know early startups positions and then there's the established companies like nexo where you can go on the actual website and you know search for a good fit for a role so there's several Avenues you can take um I would say that if you want to get into something very early on reaching out to the founders and you know it it's it might not necessarily even be you know um very well compensated in the beginning but you know the upside here is that you would get a huge you know potential allocation so you know there's a trade-off and you kind of need to decide for yourself what's important for you because if it's salary uh that's definitely by all means a great strategy um if it's the potential upside for the project making it big uh it might be you know going even to the smaller players who haven't raised money yet because once you raise money the value of your tokens for example you know increases exponentially too so this is something to consider amazing uh I have a question can you hear me yes who who is it where yeah okay my name is Emmanuel fantastic I'm from Nigeria Africa and um uh personality as a person I think can you hear me well yes yep okay okay so yeah I have I think I reached out to Victoria one time like that and one of the one of the problems in this part of the world here is that um trainees we don't have um access to training and sometimes when we get access to training because of the currency whatever is kind of um High uh the cost for training is kind of on the eyesight so my question is personally as a person I so much love the crypto space I studied civil engineering but then I believe so much in control and I'm in the blockchain space so like how do we get you know will I call it subsidized training or discount training so that we can also you know function in this place because it looks like Africa is really behind because um uh people apparently cannot pay for courses that will give them the opportunity to meet uh founders of mixer co-founders and function in that space so my question is um is there any provision um for trainings that can be affordable for people from this part of the world yeah yes so I can say a few words and that maybe you I know you also have a lot of like stuff going on so um I think I mean um when it comes to of course we're very aware that being based for example in Nigeria is not the same as being based in Europe so we do offer some grants when people are based um in other parts of the world where of course the salaries are very different but I think also if if you are looking for something completely free there is also options out there right um I mean as we talked before there is coursero there has amazing I mean all types of courses from stuff in finance to crypto and and anything outside this world um but of course as we also said further before the tricky part is with these programs is that you need to be very disciplinated and only four percent more or less managed to finish a course when starting on crucera but I mean this is maybe a good option especially if you if you have no money to invest then definitely here you can get some great programs free but you need to be very very disciplinative uh to manage to actually finish the course Matt do you want to say something yeah I guess I mean to that I will add um I agree with everything that Victoria says uh but bear in mind Emmanuel that the whole reason blockchain exists is that a bunch of Outsiders were sick of well-defined rules um and you know the financial system as a whole so you know the the way you know if you look at how Satoshi operated how vitalik operated they they all operated within you know constraints in outside of the industry necessarily so you know if you kind of um you know do your own research which is way more important than any kind of course you might reach a conclusion that that is indeed enough and you can certainly get all the education available online because everything about blockchain is designed for Outsiders which is a great thing about it so I think I would definitely say to you know kind of be proactive in the way um in which you already are I mean even by attending the seminar you're obviously like trying to engage age in a way that's very Hands-On which is what you know the the industry is seeking I would also say that being such a global industry um and such a big part of it being remote there is a big part of you know there are opportunities within blockchain available to you um that wouldn't necessarily be available available within Finance so if you're able to secure a role it might be a lot better remunerated than anything else available in the space given the geographical landscape and constraints amazing yes thank you very much thanks to you so guys uh I think we have time for one more question what time we actually over time but if someone wants to ask the last question that would be nice also before we wrap up I wanted to tell you again that our next cohort fifth cohort starts on the 26th of October so you still have time to apply we have some seeds left um and do I need to sell anything else Diane oh yeah next webinar as well next webinar is with sandbox and it's going to be on the 25th of October so that's also going to be fun I encourage you to join that one as well also unet if you want to join um oh yeah I definitely will thank you amazing that um so yes as I said uh do we have a last question for Nat maybe if not Daniel has one he Daniel before worked as a financial analyst he was analyzing companies and investing in bonds so I know he's really good at asking one million questions but instead of having him to ask um yes I see look I put yes exactly good evening everybody this is good evening do you hear me yes okay go ahead there's Luca here colleges from Basel Switzerland actually I passed by the bank of international settlements every day um yeah and I asked the second question in the chat if you scroll up you can see it and basically uh the question is whether large Banks now I'm not talking about central banks per se but even like major retail Banks I'm thinking about credits with uh UBS here in Switzerland for example whether they will for sure or at least whether they will transition without to a hybrid model like incorporating crypto assets also in the um in the business even though the bank of international settlements recently published a warning about uh and there is the link that's either the the third link message in the chat published a um yeah this Prudential treatment of critical asset exposures which could prob maybe even yeah be um sent down to National central banks and so limiting the possibility of uh institutional banks that adopt crypto assets so what's your thoughts on that what are your thoughts on that yeah great question Luke by the way we we are joined by my very very clingy Boston Terrier um so apologies for that he just couldn't resist so um I would say that uh you know it is funny you mentioned Credit Suisse because if you're warning about systemic risks in the system I don't know if you've read the news but they have pretty big troubles on their own so I don't know if they will be adopting anything anytime soon um in terms of um you know institutions going that way I would certainly say that you know that's exactly where we're headed um simply because when regulation kicks in um and when this kind of attention is brought within an industry it's more to to kind of address the fact that there is a lot of consumer demand I mean people have been calling time of debt in crypto uh for pretty much the better part of 10 years I don't think that that's gonna end anytime soon but the very fact that there is so much regulatory scrutiny around it means that we are heading in the right direction there was also a um you know a great you know article by blockworks um analyzing which companies um were you know adopting some form of crypto and if everyone from Apple to uh you know uh MasterCard Visa all of these Mega caps are getting involved in digital assets will certainly migrate within a reality where they're part of our everyday life amazing thank you Luca for the question and for the answer not actually right now for some reason we cannot see you net um yeah I've been trying it's just that I I don't know for some reason when my dog joined the video stopped yeah yeah that's fine uh you know the internet um no so I think guys we are over time but since we had a like very nice conversation going I thought it was it was nice to continue a little bit better that thank you so much for oh hey there you go here he is yeah thank you you're a little crypto dog Bitcoin Docs thank you so much Ned for for joining us today I think it was really cool very nice way to start our um European tech school coffee talks having a conversation with you about how to how to get into the space how the whole Space is evolving how nexo as a company is growing um amazing thank you so much Nat also I think it was cool to see a lot of our current past students Sebastian joining in saying a few words uh if Michelle as one of our first professors absolutely amazing to see you here I did not expect that so that's so cool um yeah and as I said we have another event on the 25th of October don't you worry we will let you know and at any final words any final recommendations for I was going to say for a crew for a crew for yeah for the audience today yeah absolutely and the video just tuned in just in time um I would say you know if you want to get into uh crypto web 3 or blockchain be creative guys I mean you know again think about um Kim Kardashian who you know reinvented a whole another industry with you know influencer marketing that's kind of you know the mindset we're seeking within crypto um someone who will drive the industry forward with great ideas whilst employing Knowledge from you know existing Industries so that could be anything could be audit could be um you know retail could be absolutely um any industry currently you will find an application within crypto because the industry is going that fast so stay curious stay enthusiastic and uh yeah I hope see you again soon thank you Nets thank you so much and yeah thank you everyone for for this lovely evening if you have anything you want to talk to us about Reach Out reach out to net you have her LinkedIn at least we've posted several posts with her LinkedIn so uh reach out to her and that's it thank you guys amazing thank you for joining and I'm gonna say I love you all