Bringing the Next 1 Billion Crypto Users | European Blockchain Convention

[Music] thank you for the amazing introduction just like yesterday you're you're making the crowd hot for us this is great guys thanks for joining after a night of exciting and probably tiring side events we appreciate you being here so early and I promise you it's worth it because what we're talking about is reaching the first billion crypto users why this is important where we are right now and what are the Milestones that will help us get there is something we will discuss in the next 50 minutes but before we get in there I'd love for you guys to introduce yourselves perhaps in order and tell us one small thing what was the first crypto you bought and when was the first time you bought it if if you want I can break the ice I bought my first Bitcoin in 2017 it wasn't an entire Bitcoin but I still haven't sold that little BTC I'm still holding it in cold wallet so without further Ado yep um hello everybody my name is Andrea I run the capital team at the salana foundation what that means in practice is that a lot of what I do is handle our grants program and now we're giving a lot of thought to how can we work better with investors how can we work better basically with any source of capital within the ecosystem we just basically want to make sure that good projects at least within our ecosystem are funded quickly and with the right type of funding whether that's from us or someone else um first crypto uh was was Bitcoin it was about about 10 years ago I'm a terrible Trader well I I just don't sell so I'm not a Trader at all I guess uh so yeah not a full Bitcoin either but 10 years hey guys again Michael STV CEO at wenga wenga is an app that takes Innovations from the web three space and makes those Innovation more accessible and easy to use for consumers um I have been professionally in the space since 2020 I have been personally in the space since 2016 but my first big coin then sold it quite quickly and probably have approximately 0.2 BTC somewhere on on some wallet stock somewhere that I can't recover um I think a lot of people are in the same boat right nice to meet you guys um I'm Daman um I'm the um you know Equity partner at block wall we are a venture fund uh investing in tokens and Equity within the web3 space um we've been doing so for about 7 years now um we are fully regulated German fund which wasn't easy as some of you might understand to get that license going um but we happy to support about 40 companies um you know we've been early investors in projects such as Solana for example we're part of the CR um and we've been like you know very strong Believers of the ecosystem ever since um uh even though I personally bought ethereum during the Ico which was my very first uh you know wow moment um and then I you know saw it when 10x and I thought I was the you know biggest rer of all um sadly it tenic afterwards and I just cried in despair hi everyone pleasure to be here my name is Leo groan and I'm a managing director at Spartan group Spartan group's a leading uh digital asset management firm and Investment Banking group fully dedicated to to web 3 and the Technologies around it we're based out of Asia we have our offices in Singapore and Hong Kong uh and really try to be a strategic partner to the industry uh I'm based between Zurich and New York and and great to be here with you we run a liquid hedge fund two Venture funds been early uh back of many uh projects in the ecosystem uh an active m&a adviser working with Founders on exits so from first check-in all the way through to exits we work with the best entrepreneurs in the space uh bought my first Bitcoin uh in 2016 uh obviously I didn't buy enough at the time I was a terrible U experience but I've heard about it from from Friends uh and I think that's really the topic here today in terms of how do we grow the industry word of mouth and and how we've all gotten here so far so really excited to be here thank you around Allstars here hi everybody so I'm Co bit to me and it's the one of the oldest more prominent crypto digital asset service providers in Spain we have an office in here in in Alicante Argentina and Abu Dhabi and Under the Umbrella we have multiple regulated companies such as an exchange broker custody solution which is our consumer app a Launchpad for um launching icos are now stos as well and we also are big into infrastructure helping Banks get into the game now that m is coming so we're tackling a lot of the non- crypto users right now and try to bring in a billion of these of the population into this space I think it's the techn the technology we all believe in and we all want this to succeed so I'm excited to talk about that uh it's Bitcoin for me as well 2014 excellent so from from your replies it's pretty evident that we R um from the Bitcoin class of at least 2015 2016 2017 in my case but um for the people who joined in the past two cycles why the topic of the 1 billion is so important because we've actually crossed the 560 million mark this June which means that we're halfway through to the billion Mark which means that basically one in every 13 people holds crypto now I'll I'll TRW it over to you guys and perhaps we should just go go in order what why is why is the 1 billion Mark so significant and why what why do do we attach so much importance to this um kind of psychological 1 billion number yeah I mean I think to some degree uh the number like a lot of metrics is an arbitrary one but it sort of strikes this balance between being both uh like a wildly large number right like a billion is something that only very few systems have right only very few social media systems have but also like you mentioned it's sort of somewhat Within Reach and so it creates this goal that is both wild but also kind of attainable um and so the actual number itself may be less important but it does give a goal to for people to strive towards and I think it's something that is doable within the next you know couple years uh and so yeah at least that's what it is for me Michael what do you think why is 1 billion so important for us it's a really cool number but realistically I think it's because people compare it to the growth of the internet right when the internet reached one billion users um YouTube was launched Facebook was launched in 2004 so I think people associate blockchain and that number with the fact that maybe once we reach that number it was going to be Mass adoption and we're going to have products and services that are going to allow that mass adoption and allow that number of users that will have either formed before or will have for will form after or at reaching that number so I think it's it's just that Association and it's a cool number obviously it's a huge milestone for me it's kind of been um in my pitch for many many years hoping to Aid the the industry to reach that 1 billion is is a good ambition for me and I hope for everyone in the industry maybe I'll jump in here with a little bit of a different take uh I think realistically what the industry is about uh is is Network effects right and and when we make the comparison to the internet it wasn't the launch of YouTube or major consumer applications that we now interact with that made the internet the Internet it's what that that then enabled the second thir third fourth order effects that were created so nowadays when we talk about content creation advertising the way in which brands consumers everyone is engaging in interacting with each other in a fundamentally different way that was never possible before and I think you know to all the Ico Skeptics out there and people that make fun of our industry which often there is very very legitimate criticism uh I think they underestimated the power and significance of a community-driven approach to technology and adoption and and you know what makes Bitcoin Stand Out across all of the technologies that have come is that it really has been bottom up it's been initiated by people in response to what was at the time the financial crisis which created a lot of frustration in the world a lot of economic impact uh and as a result there was a system that was designed and adopted as a result of people's desire to not be dependent and held captive to that and if you play that out the Technology's grown in adopt adoption has come projects like salana have shown you know the the throughput and and the technology scaling problem can be solved it's really then when you get to a billion how many second third fourth order Network effects can you realize and recognize and I would argue that today decentralized networks within crypto communities are the most exciting space in the world today for any consumer application the distribution channels the distribution power that you have with decentralized exchanges dexes and and all of the fun things happening in the the Deep Web 3 world I think that these are things that are only just getting started and we'll continue to see so very excited about the 1 billion number uh this is a a people first movement and and that's how it started and excited to see that really hit that Milestone and and really just launch the rest of it into uh into possibility um I think I personally want to bring a bit of nuance um to that magical number um because when you think about it there's nothing magical in a number right um when it comes to crypto users reaching 1 billion I mean it's not even crypto users right the question was about holders so it's it's even a different topic um I think we have to be a bit rational here um even though 1 billion seems like a big number um if people are just passively holding you know cryptos in their wallet um you won't see much of a difference um the reason why this number was magical for the internet as you alined is because there was like very high usage U you know driven by the people on the internet this kind of so-called Network effect so I think overall um as you know we we gather more and more users to in the space um we need also to reflect upon okay where where are we driving people towards and what are those people actually doing right I think there's you know again more than 500 600 according to the latest numbers crypto holders but what are those people actually doing on chain is there any meaningful activity that are you know really um you know bringing this ecosystem to the next level um and are we taking you you know full um you know custody of all of that I'm not sure right now that's the case um and I think we've seen like great Builders at DC and uh and worldwide trying to actually make a minic full um you know solution out of crypto and I think this is really where we need to push the users will naturally come right it's not it's I think I don't think it's about putting the number of users first but it's rather putting the use case first uh and then users was not very come the reason why internet was so widely adopted is because it was just convenient and I think crypto you know went through different phases of realization when it comes to um you know usage and and use cases and we're now only getting out of the wood and you know realizing the full potential before having kind of exhausted all of the useless use case sort of so fun fact in 1999 only 3% of the world used the used the web and that's where we are right now with web 3 only 3% of the population so at least with us we look at it as as a percentage of population and not like an absolute number like 1 billion so I'm I'm really excited to talk about this this panel it's not about the issue right now is not about technology it's not the technolog is there it's not about the um how how we can build things it's it's it's what we're building what s we're solving what part of the world it's different in Europe and in the US where Bitcoin is more of a speculative asset whereas when you go to Emerging Markets it's actually a necessity to get out of their current problems to put food on the table so these are these are the different problems we're tackling as a company since we have presence both in Latin America and Europe so it's uh I think we should ask ourselves better questions in and if we want to drive this forward that that's a great perspective and we've we've heard a lot of um interesting answers here one thing that some of you guys touched on is um is how uh web tree is sort of correlated with this adoption curve of the internet now um for Bitcoin specifically not for web tree I believe we're at 4.7% of the world's adoption 15 years in and when we look at the internet 15 years into into its uh development we've seen a huge surge in users and we've seen a huge surge of adoption now Bitcoin has just passed its 15th birthday um webt tree is a little bit younger but but um it's getting there um two two questions I guess I'd like you guys to answer one is do you do you see adoption accelerating in the next few years and two what what are the use cases we really need to drive adoption forward cuz obviously um Michael I believe you were the one who mentioned that um uh that kind this financial crisis bought us to to bitcoin but we may need some more use cases to push forward to the first billion and uh you guys can answer in any order for this one per me again it's the use cases are being built and but it's not just use cases again it's let's take a step back first of all it's education right education is still a blocker people know Bitcoin cool ETFs people know ethereum great ETFs people can buy that as as an asset class what else can you do right crypto is just a small part of the blockchain industry uh then that's also a small part of the web 3 Industry uh us I think the most important for us as an industry is to educate people what you can do and that is obviously talking about the different use cases and and the different products that are in the market right specifically even like going into rwas this has been on the market for a long long long time and people are expecting to see a hype with tokenized funds tokenized real estate other tokenized uh asset classes this has happened and has not happened and again A lot of people are still not aware that this even exists so I guess for us and for me for the whole industry it's all about education and then also what we're about in venga it's discoverability right it's allowing people to quickly and easily discover these things right which right now takes time I need to spend hours on crypto Twitter or anywhere researching stuff and I don't have that time I I need to run a company how can I do it and I'm sure everyone can relate to this so that's the biggest issue and biggest problem it's a very interesting point and sorry I'm going to steal your role for a second but I would really like to extend on on education because I think this is one of the um you know Less Talk Topic in crypto uh whereas I think it's one of the most important one and and I would very much like to understand your take on how do you think educating people could could be actually made possible on that specific topic uh showing them the different use cases right bringing them more than just buy sell and swap right bringing them more than just an exchange right bringing them additional products focused on specific use cases even like Emerging Markets things like that right to show them hey you can do this you can you can deposit funds here you can you can send funds this way you can invest in this again different use cases everything is still being developed right now that's that that's the way to do it and it's also through user experience so it's not specifically just going hey educating educating people right it's building a product that is educating people through its use case so it's good ux good user experience good UI right when you have that people learn while using so it's not just about like me giving a course you know or a one1 you know crypto talk right it's really building a product that is end to endend complete and good and great yeah I think it makes a lot of sense and and just to bounce back uh uh on one of the thing you said um I think especially on the financial sector we have seen crypto becoming very interesting for the consumer Market um I just have you know one example that comes to my mind which is Remy um we've seen a lot of you know markets being hit super hard by inflation um could be I mean I think Nigeria is one of them uh where we have in the company doing that um where you essentially enable people to actually have um instant settlements and you know along the chain being able to use stable coins for you know their daily use and daily life instead of having to endure um hyperinflation environment um and I think those people are actually the ones leading the revolution to that end because it impacts their daily life right whereas you know even myself right I'm holding crypto but I'm not doing much on a daily basis these guys they have the the mean through crypto to actually um you know improve their life um and make it you know just a better environment um and I think you know they're probably going to be the one leading the very next phase of the Revolution when it comes to adoption in in in crypto maybe just anecdotally we do a lot of work uh educating politicians for example in the US at least and the things that strike a chord are sort of what you mentioned these like real world examples that go beyond by sort of cell Swap and primarily right now the two things that resonate the most are deepen very easy to explain right this is something that really wasn't possible before crypto and it's bootstrapping physical networks through the community right so something like helium for example um or Hive mapper so that's that's one bucket of things and the other one like you guys also mentioned is payments and specifically crossb International payments using stable coins super easy concept to understand and we'll get to everything else but I think you're right starting like education has to start with something that is comprehensible and goes beyond just hey how can I buy and hold something and hope that it goes up so I think distribution is the key here and with distribution to happen we need regulatory Frameworks to speed up all right so nobody educated us how to use chat GPT just popped up from nowhere came out of nowhere and we started using it and and we started talking about Ai and and researching about it because we realized how much impact it has in our everyday life right and and so we need distribution we need the banks to get into the game the Robin Hood effect in the US is I think very interesting because all of a sudden you have millions of users who trust the Robin Hood app and if you see Bitcoin there instead of Tesla stock then you automatically get curious that you're able to transact and buy that piece of asset and so once the banks start rolling out their crypto offerings I think that's going to be a big one um because you're automatically it's distribution right and it it it builds out from there on the consumer app perspective on deepend that's really interesting too because it's like you're saying really uses the potential of of web 3 and the technology but we need regulatory Frameworks for every jurisdiction to allow that to go and get the network effect that leor was talking about and so we need both distribution but and Regulatory Frameworks in each jurisdiction to come uh I like that we talked about stable coins because that's one use case that's clearly something that let does not even need education because all of a sudden you have access to a tokenized dollar or at least a tokenized asset that's backed by the US dollar that needs that that that has changed the lives of hundreds of millions of people without even knowing it right in specifically in the emerging markets and in the Philippines for example they just launched the Philippine phpc stable coin that's going to be built on salana was launched last week and breakpoint and that's that's really cool because as an Filipino you s send money and every $100 you send $8 gets out of gets out of the table and but for the user now through this new technology they just see oh I'm getting charged 10 cents now I'm just going to switch to that I don't care what's behind the hood under the hood I I like this better and so there's a lot of human element that needs to be put into this industry also and we need to talk about and build uh because at the end of the day if you're building a consumer app you got to build what consumers want and if you're building something more on the infrastructure level like deepen then we have to we have to constantly talk with regulators and have an open dialogue because we're not going to build something and then they regulate it we have to I think that was before when the when this first happened but now we have to have open dialogue with the incumbents and make this make this thing happen for real that's definitely a great perspective and um just just regarding um all this um this regulatory talk I I feel like what what Co said goes hand in hand with the with this educational discussion you guys had earlier because without without proper education we will definitely not have a proper regulatory framework but I would actually take it a step back and say that while crypto education is important I feel like General Financial education is also lacking um from my perspective I'm from Eastern Europe I'm from Romania which had the highest inflation rate in Europe we we're at 7.3 super proud of that and Bitcoin adoption is actually true the true the gutter it's nobody really understands inflation nobody understands monetary debasement and I feel like the example Co gave with uh with remittances if if people simply understood that they're losing I think you said 8% of their money when they're when they're sending a transfer to the Philippines um I feel like it would be much clearer why um why we need stable coins and why we need cryptocurrencies with lower transfers did you did you want to add something to that I'm going to add to that because I'm going to take it a step further I think what's happened today is the normalization especially within retail Banking and the service provision that you have let's say across Europe North America America Australia and and parts of the world where you have um Advanced infrastructure I mean in Switzerland retail customers are still paying Banks monthly fees to store their money at a bank so the basic service provision of preserving wealth is not only does a bank and if people knew how banks are making money they would be absolutely Gob smacked right they would immediately enforce a change to the system uh you know one of their biggest successes is to make sure that no one really understand what the hell's going on right but a bank who takes your money basically sells you mortgages matches long-term supply and demand of of credit uh and makes money off that you as a retail customer are a golden Cash Cow for a bank and I think the issue where we are today in terms of when we talk about decentralized Finance how do we actually support the adoption of this not just within the crypto EO Echo chamber I mean most of us here turning up to an event we understand that there's an opportunity in technology here I think for the technology to really make it and and scale and be adopted by not just the 1 billion Milestone but really the world 7 billion and thereafter as however many we become is to have that scalable infrastructure which is permissionless trustless mechanism for you to store Assets in a secure way now the only way to do that as far as most people are concerned is under your bed at home or at a bank in a country where you're being ripped off there is no other option there's two options and the reality is and one the reasons why we're so bullish on the opportunity set here is there are many entrepreneurs in this industry who have built scalable sophisticated technology which are able to replace that and I think one of the challenges we've had at the is in the industry is communicating the traction they've had so I mean even in Europe we have projects like safe safe is securing over a hundred billion do which again in the sheem of things is a drop in the ocean of of how much assets are out there but but in terms of small Regional banks in most European countries this is larger than the deposit base of most banks in most countries so we already have onchain native decentralized banking Solutions which again my Mom and Dad could go on and use they're not doing it today because of Education because of concerns smart contract risks we're not there yet but the technolog is there and it's really now about how we get from where we are today as we said 15 years into the Bitcoin Journey to the next 15 years of of the Bitcoin journey and uh the the second third fourth Network effect orders that have come thereafter are people using using safe for their basic I want to deposit my money in a smart secure way why the hell would I give that to a third party like a bank where I'm taking counterparty risk not getting the security of my deposit and they're making money on me so none of those things make sense and as soon as people start realizing that and there's a secure alternative that they're aware of they will change and that's where I think projects like safe are going to be and not an investor I'm not Shilling my bags here really just acknowledging credit where it's due for some of the leading Tech infrastructure we're seeing being developed within the decentralized web that was awesome I completely agree it's it's it's quite hard to build to build on such a comprehensive answer but um just just speaking of the network effects I I know I know we've talked about how this is a magical um and a bit of a psychological number but how soon how soon do we get to the 1 billion will we see it before 2030 or or not really and and what what does it depend on is is education right now what's what's stopping us cuz we we seem to have most of the use cases I think I think to be honest as I already said education uxui discoverability compliance right so going a bit switching to the compliance side of things right uh there's compliance for today's products right regulation for today's products okay fine we're covered by that so to speak there's vasp there's mik that's coming but then there's mik too that's going to be around the corner right which is going to cover Defi and now I'm not even getting into all the future products and services that going to get developed which will require future compliance so I'm very curious to see in which direction that moves so the next let's say to get there we also need compliance future compliance but this is a normal trajectory trajectory route to get from today to the 1 billion mark my opinion I think we're going to get to 1 billion before 2030 but it also depends on again how good the compliance um how quick the compliance advances how quick the compliance catches up to all the new products and the political situations in all the key countries in Europe in the US specifically us that's affecting the US regulatory landscape etc etc I mean according to your presentation you're supposed to embor the next 500 million so that's what we're trying to do of course next week yeah no me I'm not going to add much on that but I think you know the point which was touched before was very relevant distribution is key um and you don't get you know to to on board more users in the next you know 5 years than we did in the next in the last 15 without having a proper distribution um the real question is though like do you consider people holding ETF um you know crypto holders um or crypto users um having think distribution in the form of you know really buying the asset the underlying asset is really what needs to be done um however we're seeing already a move from Banks who of course want their share of the cake and and that's normal right um to tokenize those things put them in ETF s um and just you know subsidize crypto by um you know standard you know Financial products that we've been buying for years and just you know embedding crypto in this so I think there's a bit of a shift here in the industry where um we really have to be careful right um between you know the real crypto word that we all here used to know and the one that is coming with institutions wanting their fair share of the market as well um because distribution here will you know largely shift towards um you know embedded products that those Bank are going to cook or those institutions are going to cook versus you going on an exchange or going on a platform which sells you the asset directly um and I think you know it all boyss down then again to education here um don't don't trust right verify um and I think that's very true also for um not going in a way which inevitably we're going to end up in the same scenario today yeah I think a billion holders doable a billion users uh super hard to predict and I think that difference is important because right now just buying and holding something is is doable in the US at least coinbase you do it you don't have to like it's a web to experience but using crypto is very very different um ux sucks right now people if they want to self- custody you know people are people don't want to learn or have to remember you know 7,500 words in order to store $100 uh in their Ledger whatever it is and so I think that to me education sure agreed completely but it's the user experience the sort of effectively masking the complexity of crypto that needs to change if we're going to actually get users who are interacting with the blockchain regularly um if if I can actually ask a question to the panel on that so for the 1 billion user Mark do you think that consumers will go full decentralized web 3 Siege price experience or will this be a mix between web web 3 and web 2.5 or that's just called Web 2.

5 I asked this specifically because again I'm from I'm from C C5 we're centralized app right and specifically you see companies like Ledger that are moving not away but offering side projects side let's say uh processes right for people to uh not need to store their seat phrases and things like that so again once we reach that 1 billion Mark will this be full web 3D de centralized or will this be a mix what what's your opinions I think you know the answer right I mean it's I think it's it's it would I mean it would be wonderful if people you know can you know finally use a Sit phrase understand how to use a wallet and all but I think it's also very inconvenient at some uh at some point right so that's why you know um you know coinbase owns custody or binance custody is what a lot of people are using I think coinbase has 100 million users right I mean it's it's a fair share of the market um and there there's a reason behind that is there very I mean web 3 is a very old style environment we're seeing more and more account obstruction stuff being developed where people don't have to care about that and they can just use like centralized service such as face ID and when you think about it it's a bit uh it's a bit of a bad news um but still I think ux matters and I it's been said many times on on this panel so to answer your specific questions I don't think we can reach uh that billion user with like only people that know how to use and handle a SE phrase and a wallet um it doesn't seem possible because um it's like if I would ask you to uh you know run the the database on your website yourself and code the the whole backend right um You might you might be like a you know tech savy people but I personally don't understand how to I don't know how to code um so that's I think it's the very same thing here and people don't want to probably I think I mean there's two aspects of this because I do think that some of the applications that we're talking about specifically around stable coin and payments which again retail I mean we understand because we go and pay for things multiple times a day with a credit card debit card whatever infrastructure you're using businesses do the same thing they have suppliers accounts receivables accounts payables they process transactions everyone understands that now what percentage of that is contributing to the web 3 world and what we're talking about here in terms of adoption know open for debate but I really when I look at this in terms of what is success for the industry I I don't consider it just you know the Evolution versus the internet uh you look at things like how did cloud computing uh and cloud storage really take shape and take form I mean cloud storage was the idea of of splitting it across multiple devices was invented in the 70s we only got Google Drive Dropbox Amazon AWS hosting infrastructure those applications only came in the 2000s that took 30 years so I think if we were sitting in conferences in 1980s talking about what would be the adoption cycle for everyone to be de facto storing their data not on a single PC or device but on the web you would had a very different answer like oh billion you that's crazy we would never have this but then at some point you're like why why the hell would I store it on my PC alone what about backup what about all of the things that are important to me as a user not because that's how it's always been done and that's how companies are making money by selling me larger storage devices but what actually makes sense and and I think we're seeing a similar thing here right cuz when you look at the evolution of how storage of money works right I mean we've gone from cash to versions of e- money right I mean you sit in a bank it's not your money when it's at the bank that just doesn't make sense you're paying with your Visa processing Network why is the Visa processing network not the same counterparty as my bank where the money's sitting and the whole idea of onchain assets digital money digital value is that it is fully online transparent and traceable and that is from every metric possible other than committing illicit activity and Anonymous transactions for predominantly illicit activity it's the better product and most people want to do good they want to do the right thing of course there are applications and use cases to do the wrong thing and not pretending that doesn't exist in our industry but most people are doing the right thing and at some point in the not too distant future and I think it will be much before 2030 we will have that inflection point where paying with onchain digital assets will be much easier and cost effective than going through any version of the I guess what we're calling web2 payment rails Swift networks Visa processing networks because the money is already on chain it's cheaper to transact and it's much more transparent and visible so people have the incentive to push on their users now that hasn't conceptually happened yet because regulations Banks don't understand what we're doing here there's too much fraudulent activity happening in the industry so it takes longer right every step forward we take a step back as well uh and that's frustrating for us in the industry trying to push this forward in the right way but ultimately at some point people don't want cash anymore and the same way I don't want cash people don't want e money that they don't understand who's holding it what it is and is it mine right people want to know that it's my money and it's secure and I can get it whenever I need it and that's where we're going I agree yeah I mean it's very very solid point I think to summarize that and add my take on it is two main things like with with our industry we talk a lot about adoption and then we talk a lot about how how it can be better for this and that for retail users for the banking sector I actually like how the AI sectors talks they they they go oh how is AI going to change the way we do customer support how does AI change the way we're going to do um design and all these things so if if we go more specific on on on industry and Niche and how we can actually use technology to save either you know save jobs or or or or save just be more efficient in general um we'll we'll get to the bottom of this question pretty quick pretty faster and then the second part is what Lear was saying and for me the summary is it's money is crypto is programmable money and when you can program money it's a GameChanger whether that's in decentralized infrastructure decentralized finance and this and and web3 gaming you know hopefully by 2030 that's just going to be called infrastructure gaming and finance right because the fact that you can program money is it's just incredible and now the issues will lie more incentive design especially for web 3 gaming right you have to do you have to do we have have to do a better job there um but we're we're on the right track 2030 I think is is is a is is feasible we'll see I think all of us here are doing impact assessments on what M will do by next year we have no idea ma 1.0 ma 2.0 we'll see right but it's a it's a step to the right direction the US has been clear now whoever wins the presidency will be supporting our industry that's what they promis at least so we'll see but but yeah just going back to what leer was saying programmable money is a game changer and that's why we're all here because there's so many use cases you can do with that where you can both send and own really said asset just to quickly Circle back to Michael's question which was which was a great question um vitalic boin had a speech at token 2049 um which basically um kind of kind of answered your question which is that we have to be careful to maintain decentralization without uh sacrificing practicality or maintain practicality without without sacrificing decentralization I I think what what he ended his speech was that we have to take both pills we need practical Solutions because obviously for 90% of the people seat Praises won't work metamask won't work paying for gas gas fees and so on just won't work but we also need we also need practical solutions that are easy to use and that don't really deter um the mainstream investors now one thing that that Co also touched on and and quite a lot of you is actually this upcoming MAA bill which which I'd really love to get your opinion on cuz I feel like it's at a critical moment um most most of the MAA 1.0 is going to be implemented for crypto service providers at the end of this year in December um now as you guys also noted that's not maika 2.0 which will bring a lot more changes but what's interesting is for the first time the European Union is coming out with a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto whereas the US the largest global economy is um is quite lagging behind behind um and why this is key is because we also have the elections coming up so H how do you guys see the regulatory front change like in in the next year because um elections will will obviously be a Hot Topic especially for crypto regulations but I feel like jurisdictions are kind of being pressed by MAA as well to innovate and kind of attract more uh more companies so how how do you see the global Regulatory Field playing say after the elections and after MAA 1.

0 I'll I'll take anyone who who wants to start I don't want to put anyone on the spot here it's it's a tough one right I'm G to try to give you like an honest opinion um just like jumping back on the on the first question which is you know like essentially is regulation driving adoption um and I think you can ask yourself this question in two ways right I mean does regulation drives adoption or adoption drives regulation um I think there's one case which we've seen is true is that regulation drives liquidity in the market because a lot of um the people um that have a lot of cash at hands and I'm thinking about institutional um for example um have to comply with a set of rules right which is set by Regulators locally um and those liquidity you know inputs can't be can come to the market if if there's no regulation in place um so I think on that end um most of us or at least Financial players in Industry see that as a good eye right of course you have to make assumptions that um regulators also understand the market in a way which is not going to be harmful for for the future uh and the case of Mika I don't think it's been the case always um I think you rightfully pointed out that we don't really know how this is going to impact us yet um we have some sort of idas because um you know some points have been heavily debated already and and some lobes have formed already at European level to kind of fight some of the things that are in mic and I think um I'm can I can just you know mention one thing which you know shocked me a little bit is that stable C cannot bear we yield for example which is one of the MAA most controversial uh uh resolution which is actually enforced uh uh very soon um so I would say just to sum things up here that um for sure regulation is going to drive liquidity but there's a lot of unknowns yet for us on how this is going to be operated operationally for all the crypto companies out there and how hard is it going to be to comply so I think there's eventually going to be a period where we will see things change slightly and and M car will adapt probably uh because lows will be you know will grow stronger in front of the regulation um so I'd say it's a very much work in progress here it's too early to say what is going to be the definite impact uh of that type of Regulation um but of course we all of us will will be involved in that so I'm I'm an optimist so I think with MAA happening it's forcing the rest of the other countries to self-regulate the European Union does trade with a lot of huge Market it's a huge market for a lot of countries and so that will mean these countries have to self-regulate in the UAE it's basically almost a very similar framework in the UK with the FCA as well I don't when the US does it I don't see it I don't know if that's going to be that different we're given the amount of business the US does with the EU and the UK so on the financial sector side I think it'll be pretty clear on CI because at the end of the day it's it's it's just an adoption of mid um and stable coin I think now is what e- money considered e- money now and so we're we're getting there 2.0 when defi comes in will be a lot more interesting a lot more heads will butt but by then like you correctly pointed out regulation brings liquidity and liquidity brings in huge incentive to make things work and so it's going to be a very um it's going to be a step-by-step process but I truly do believe we're in we're headed to the right direction I think I can also add but if we if we look at the let's say presidential situation right now we must not forget that there's a lot of let's say power gain based on the decision you know that each potential candidate posts forward the us today I'm not full disclosure I'm not from the US right but I've been following the scene very closely because it's been affecting Europe and everyone uh for years now the US has not released a let's say con any concrete regulation in the past years right uh this has not happened the SEC has just been up and down uh security not security thank God we got the ethereum ETF uh but what what next Trump has obviously said yes Pro crypto camela I don't know has camela put out any policy to Clearly say what the regulation is going to be about what her stance is on crypto I don't think she has so there's really a lot of let's say um a question about power it's a question about polic itics and that's obviously influencing Us world but big question here is I'm curious to see how this will influence actually markets across the world does it really influence to the extent that we all think it influences that is always let's say a test right um we'll we'll have to see I will say not super surprising that the US hasn't done anything this is generally uh the case with a lot of sort of especially Financial regul I don't know I worked at a company called Square before joining crypto and we saw the you know chip and pin and stuff like that and you know NFC payments happen in Europe way before the US to some degree it's a leading is a risk they cannot take so not super surprised I also would be very skeptical of anything said during the election period by either side people say what they need to say to try to win an election but the fact that both sides are to some degree signaling positively I think it's a good sign for the for the yeah for for the whole industry so also an optimist but skeptical Optimist at this point I I I feel like you've touched on a very important part here which is taking every political promise with a pinch of salt because actually we we've just seen that Donald Trump actually promised to um to launch a crypto platform on September 16 and during the supposed launch date there there was basically no talk about the crypto platform besides a potential governance token so as you say once once they get elected it's it's not quite sure that they'll deliver the type of Regulation they promised co co did you want to add something to that no I was going to add to uh Andreas so remember that the US the reason why American companies are so great at going from zero to one and disrupting Industries is because they launch and then they regulate after while in the EU we like to regulate first and then we'll we'll do something after maybe maybe do something after yeah maybe maybe so it's it's it's a dynamic so not surprising but again yeah Optimist I I also feel like we we have to touch on one more thing in the US which is the approval of the first Bitcoin and ether ETF because even though the US did not have a comprehensive regulatory framework yet I feel like the ETFs were a huge huge regulatory nod and after The Ether ETFs we're actually hearing Market rumors that we we'll have a Solana ETF next I won't ask you I know you can't comment on on this I know you're not a Securities regulator but do do you guys also feel like the ETF was sort of the US's way to say hey crypto is here to stay even though regulation is going to take more time I mean the the US tense you know on crypto has always been so muchat mixed right so um I think we've seen good things and we've seen also terrible things of course um DTF I think is just is just the beginning for them to really kind of get their hands onto it start you know to regulate at their own pace before or they can do any more major uh change in within the regulation itself um you know like this whole ETF topic is very interesting but um when you look at net inflows on the U etherum ETF which you know was the latest release it's it's actually pretty flat uh at the moment so I wouldn't be too excited that we rush onto like hey yes let's sure let's let's let's you know create an ETF for every single crypto asset out there because I don't think um timing is still very right it takes a lot of time for adoption of this product to really um take root uh in people's mind so I think we should we we shouldn't rush things here and take it very step by step Bitcoin was the first U you know good sign for the industry let's you know you know consolidate on that and and and and make things better afterwards rather than rushing to every single crypto asset but this is something we really like to do right in web 3 is like hey see it works and and we all rush to it but you know let's let's let's you know take it step by step and and probably think a bit more rationally here there was no way for institutional investors in the US to own Bitcoin directly and so the equitization of tokens was the way to do it and so I think it's actually smart and and we in the U EU we kind of lost that train um but it was a it was a it's it's good it's clearly they recognize that this is an asset that's here to stay and digital Assets in general is uh is a growing space and if there's no regulation to own set asset then let's work with what we have and that's the Securities or the ETFs and the equitization of these tokens which is kind of the reverse of what we want but it's still it's still it's a net positive guys we're almost out of time so I'll thr a last quick question at you it's really a 20 30 second answer I'm curious for the next year speaking about adoption what is your biggest concern about the crypto industry and and I'll start personally I'm very concerned that we'll see another Terra Luna like meltdown I I don't want to name any protocols I don't want to name any categories but with with building yield yield generating layers on top of yield generating layers I'm very concerned that we'll see another collapse what are your what are your concerns guys I think that's right I think uh two second answer is probably just lack of Regulation that's yeah Michael what about you uh I'm just going to say it's probably going to be the political situation affecting the market really um even though you know we don't know I said we don't know how let's say how strongly this will push the market uh how strongly this will affect the market I that's I think the single biggest thing I'm worried about right now I'm going to be controversial but I'm going to say meme coins yeah I think becoming a victim of its own success so some people made too much money everyone else tried to chase that and expected that didn't make that and uh it's basically pushed out the adoption cycle easily 5 10 years in my opinion because otherwise it'd be much further along the the journey already yeah it's the same we I mean we've survived so many cycles already Wars all these things it's it's very unfortunate where we're still here um and I agree with what Le saying it's not a question of if we're going to get there or if something's a bad a bad actor's going to pull us down again it's just going to slow us down but that's it that's a great perspective to end this panel on gentlemen thank you for all your insights ladies and Gentlemen please give it up for our panelist