State of Institutional Crypto Market Structure: From Kindergarten to Pre-school | EBC10

Hi everyone. Welcome to our panel. My name is Waldemar Herring. I'm partner at White & Case based in Frankfurt. I focus on regulatory law including crypto regulation and I'm very excited to have a fantastic group of expert with us today who will share their thoughts on the current state of play around crypto trading, institutional crypto trading, and who will explore how the crypto trading in general and the market infrastructures in particular will evolve over the next years.

So, now I would like to ask the panelists to introduce themselves. Lisandro. Hi everybody. Um I do see that there's fewer people than earlier today, so we're going to try to keep it as entertaining as possible. Um as you can see, I do have a vest which was also here not long ago.

I'm part of the Deutsche Börse Group uh Crypto Finance. I specifically head the sales division uh and we offer uh sales um trading and custody for financial institutions in a sub-custodial manner both in Switzerland as a regulated entity uh under Finma as well as in Europe through our uh German entity. It's a pleasure being here and I look forward to the conversation. Hi everyone. Uh my name is Chris Tyrer.

I am head of institutional Bullish. Uh we are uh an institutionally focused uh crypto exchange. We've been live for a little under 3 years, but we've grown very very quickly in that time. We're now one of the top three uh liquidity venues for spot Bitcoin and ETH. Hi everyone.

Marius Sewing, DLT Finance. What do we do, for whom, and how do we do it? DLT Finance provides infrastructure, financial market infrastructure, but we are a financial institute fully regulated from BaFin. So, that's why we provided to exchanges like Kraken, brokers like eToro, or traditional finance participants like the Swiss Stock Exchange. And we build then regulated trading, custody, staking, spot, derivatives solution for them.

How do we do this? Based on 11 licenses, BaFin licenses, MiFID licenses that we can passport across Europe. And with great technology that we established since 2019, but foremost with the great team residing in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Liechtenstein. And hi everyone. My name is Joaquin Sastre.

It's great to be here as a Spaniard, super happy to be in a such a great Spanish conference. I feel like at home. So, I'm the Chief Revenue Officer at Borsa de Bilbao. We're part of the Borsa de Bilbao group, a 160-year financial services and exchange group. In the digital asset space, we basically run a retail broker in Germany called Bison.

Where we have nearly 1 1 million clients, largest in the region. We on the institutional side, we also run three regulated businesses out of Germany. One of it is the an exchange, BLX. A broker, OVEX, and regulated custody solution. Apart from that, we also have are about to launch a tokenized securities exchange out of Switzerland, also hanging from our Swiss traditional exchange.

And we basically offer all these services to big banks, brokers, both in a B2B and B2B2C manner. Excellent. Now, I would like to kick off our discussion with zooming out a bit and looking at the big picture. Um Alessandro, could you share your thoughts on where we are today in terms of institutional crypto trading and how the overall infrastructures may evolve, let's say, over the next 3 years? Okay, sure.

Um There's a number of things that are happening and I think 2024 and especially 2025 are going to be very important seeing a lot of these changes in fact materialize. So, it is overall a very fragmented market when it comes to liquidity. We've seen it also on other business streams such as custody, which was discussed in the previous panel. But when it comes to liquidity, there's a lot of fragmentation. Um there's a lot of fragmentation within the asset class on specific cryptocurrencies and there's a lot of fragmentation also when it comes to the venues where the liquidity can in fact be sourced.

Obviously, if we go back enough, it's an industry that's still in its infancy and a lot of the liquidity is still on the centralized crypto native exchanges, which were ultimately formed over the past 10 years plus. Now, there's obviously younger exchanges, but that's where a lot of um the liquidity still is today. Of course, liquidity on a crypto native exchange also has comes with a number of considerations. Um especially if we take the perspective of the institutional marketplace, we're going to be dealing with realities which are not native to the traditional financial institutions, that don't necessarily meet or check all the boxes, whether it's a counterparty risk, whether it's a country of incorporation and the subsequent regulation that comes with it. And because of this, there have been a number of companies which have formed over the past years which have specifically targeted these gaps.

We see the emergence of OTC brokers which have been very successful in aggregating the liquidity, often times also pairing everything that comes with trading with custody as well. But at the same time, we're still dealing with an infrastructure that's pretty much scattered. Now, I I have to say that I've I've been very lucky to be with Crypto Finance for the past couple years because Crypto Finance has been located in Switzerland for the vast majority of its lifetime. And so out of Switzerland, we've been seeing or we've seen over the years the birth of a lot of the different types of entities that can ultimately address the fragmentation of liquidity in the market from all sorts of MTFs both related to crypto and asset classes well as tokenized products. We've obviously seen brokers like Crypto Finance and others which have also formed in the early days on the unregulated side and over time, they've become more professional and and in line with the needs of the financial institutions.

What is now to conclude my thought and maybe to address the final part. So what do I think is going to happen over the next couple years? There's going to be a progressive evolution of traditional players that have that have had nothing to do with crypto come into crypto by ultimately taking the form of MTFs centralized exchanges which weren't born in the crypto space but stock exchanges which ultimately evolve. We will be seeing new entities completely come out of you know large groups. We've seen it with six, for example, the SDX um through its digital division.

Of course, Joaquin is a representative of something similar over in Stuttgart. And um we're going to see more and more of this. Now, one thing that I want to stress, which I think is important, up until now when dealing with banks, we've often times gone through a lot of education, which frequently resulted or would have required them to move towards the rails of the crypto-native players. What I'm increasingly seeing instead in the market is financial players, both crypto-native as well as um traditional, ultimately take advantage of the existing connectivity with the distribute the distribution side of the business to ultimately create opportunities for the banks to pick and choose the rails they prefer, whether it's a broker, whether it's an MTF, whether it's a direct relationship with an exchange. And I think that optionality is important.

It will have to be streamlined in a way that is though efficient. Thanks very much. Um you mentioned several points, and we will zoom in into various aspects, but maybe building on what you were saying um Joaquin, um first, do you agree with this analysis of the overall big picture? And second, could you maybe explore a bit more the liquidity element? So, what to expect going forward in this respect?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, I agree with everything Alessandro said. Um I would say that we we have far too many venues right now. Is there a need to have a thousand crypto exchanges around the world? And bear in mind that with the introduction of, you know, robust regulatory regimes around the world, you open up this asset class to existing diversified financial services players.

So, we would expect that we're going to see more and more of that. And there just isn't the There just isn't the need to have so many different venues all over the place. And so, I think that what will happen in the fullness of time is that we're going to see a period of consolidation. And I think that that'll come, you know, partly from, you know, some of the crypto early crypto natives, you know, dropping away and falling away from significance. But I think also just as the, you know, some of the larger aggregators, you know, some of these banks have tens of tens of millions of accounts, you will all of a sudden get get some of those types of players offering services.

And people ultimately just want convenience. You know, if you're if you're institutional or you're retail, ultimately, you know, you're driven to do things that are simple. Um and so, you know, if you're institutional, having a sort of separate crypto exchange means, you know, you don't have aggregated risk reporting, you, you know, you have to set up the relationship, you have to go up through a KYC process, you then have, you know, uh this relationship to explain to your auditor and so on and so forth. But if you're retail, if you already have a bank somewhere, if you can access this marketplace just through, you know, that app in a unified way, I think that that's what we're going to see. I think the other thing is that, you know, ultimately over time, if we look at like crypto, crypto is sorry, Bitcoin, Bitcoin has kind of won the store of value {slash} exchange token war.

I mean, if we rewind, you know, 10 years and look at what the the the top 10 uh assets out there were, it was Bitcoin and things that looked like Bitcoin. It was Bitcoin, it was Bitcoin SV, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, Zcash, Litecoin. It was just a lot of things that looked very much like like Bitcoin. And now there's just one, it's Bitcoin. And so, what we're now seeing is if you look at the, you know, the top 10 assets, you know, we have a lot of smart contract platforms, L2s, and so we're it feels like we're really in this, you know, what is the ultimate mechanism by which people engage in, you know, in dapps.

And is that sort of modular or monolithic blockchain architecture? And I think the reality is that there's probably, you know, as we think about the blockchain trilemma, there's probably different local maxima that lend themselves to different use cases. And so we're going to see, you know, proliferation of these survive. But I think people are realizing that getting exposure, you really want a diversified exposure, certainly at the sort of retail type level. And I think you know, when we look at, you know, how like every other market has a has a a widely accepted broad market index.

And whether that's, you know, GSCI for commodities, or whether that's the FTSE 100 for UK equities, or whether it's the Dixie for the dollar, there's generally a widely accepted broad market index. And there isn't one in crypto. And, you know, I think that there are there are a couple companies trying. CoinDesk has come out with the CoinDesk 20. That's hit like a like a high degree of success.

Uh and so we think that that will proliferate in the fullness of time. But as people access this marketplace through, um you know, index structures or investment products, like I think that naturally that will consolidate liquidity around a few centralized sources, as opposed to this, you know, sort of scat- scatter approach that we have at the minute. So, one one Maybe. Just one idea. I mean, the consolidation that might happen, that will happen, or that we all think will probably happen because there is where is the need of, I don't know, 10,000 exchanges or 5,000 exchanges.

It's super interesting why it has not happened, because a lot of people wait for this and wait for more speed in this changing crypto landscape. Um let's see when it will really play out, because on the retail side, for me it's again again very interesting that, I mean, the retail side is just going for usability. And you see fees, they don't care in a way, because the fees that you still see on a lot of retail exchanges are if you compare this to traditional finance, I mean you you made a mistake in the comma, right? So, um I think we will see this because at some point investors will shift their their attention to more the substance of what they're doing, which is trading at at a certain moment where regulation has come in, this is equal, securities equal, usability is equal, and then we will see a lot of movement in the landscape of of the big big exchanges. So, what can uh doesn't feel like kindergarten anymore, it's rather preschool?

What are your thoughts on this one? I think we're not even in preschool. I would say and yeah, let let's be let's be honest, right? I think the four of us here, the businesses we run, um whenever we want to land a deal with a real institutional traditional client, the average of time you take from the moment you start conversations to the moment you close, come on Alexander Alessandro, give it give it yeah, like it's 18 months, 20 months, 24 months, I'm not kidding, right? Like those are the the the the time spans that that we spend to really land real business from large traditional clients.

And we shouldn't diminish that, right? Like access to market and liquidity is only one piece of the entire flow of funds, compliance, KYC, etc. we have to do, right? And each deal is different, right? In our case, we just announced, for example, that we will provide with uh liquidity and custody for uh DZ Bank.

Below DZ Bank, there are 30 million clients. I mean, do you think the person responsible at DZ Bank making a decision to launch this in their main app with 30 million clients below them and by the way with a good healthy running business is going to risk this? No, they're not, right? So, that's when things start to get complicated. It's not just plugging and play APIs.

It's about how you figure out settlement, how you figure out risk thresholds, how you figure out custody, is it a sub custody, is it a direct custody? I mean, there's so many complexities that I think and I I'm sorry for speaking for everyone here, but I think we're all trying to figure it out as we go. I mean, yes, we have we have the base of the infrastructure that the institutional traditional world needs or we think we need and that's how we build a let's say a road map on developing the products we think our clients will need, but ultimately there's a lot of adjustment to be done in the middle, a lot of education, a lot of information sharing with our with our partners and clients and that's where the real deal is, right? And I think right now more than being in a who really has the best infrastructure to win the deal, it's about who can serve the client the best to fix all this different setups that you have as a base to bring the client to the best, let's say to to bring the client to the to the biggest comfort zone that you can, right? And and I think that's one of the keys and sometimes here in the crypto industry we and by the way, this is probably, you know, buying and selling crypto spot, nothing fancy.

We're probably in the most say to my team, we're probably in the most boring crypto business that you can ever do, but at the same time, I think it's the most important one because what we're talking about here is about getting really millions of clients access through their banking apps or traditional brokers to this asset, right? And I always say until I I always said my my grandma buy, but now it's until my mom doesn't buy through her own banking app, our job won't be done, right? And I I think we should remove the yes, the more crypto nerd last incredible venue that it's executing amazingly to a okay, now we have the venues, as Chris was saying, and we have a lot. Now, let's figure out how we really can build products that are usable tomorrow, no? If if I may make a comment, the gentleman, Pepe I think his name was, at the end of his previous panel said, "What kind of recommendation would you have?"

And he said, "Well, I hope that the CEOs are going to have a live production process." Something that I've noticed, especially in the banking space, generally the banks that are the most proactive will be led, whether at a board level or some sort of management level, by people who have kids. So, I think the first thing that has to happen before the liquidity gets fixed, the custodial setup ultimately gets automated, um is a cultural shift. And most, and you mentioned this, you know, if I have a lot of things on my line, I have a healthy business, why would I want to expand it to 30 million? We need to question what the real reason why a lot of these financial players are getting into the space.

Um and obviously there's different types of entities out there. You've got those which are doing it purely out of FOMO. They're very afraid to be left behind, so it's kind of like a business retention over a medium to long term. You've got those which mainly don't work on the retail side of things, but they're more on the private side of things. They have, quote unquote, much bigger tickets, but fewer.

They've got fewer families to manage, fewer uh a lot of wealth concentrated. And they want to make sure that they're not constantly seeing outflows, but actually inflows and that they can keep up their portfolio and their service offering to new and new institutions. So, I think 2025 is ultimately going to be important because with Mika coming into play, the regulatory check box is almost entirely solved, right? Um there's still a couple of question marks here and there. After 10 years?

After 10 years? Um but even in Switzerland it was only 2021 when the DLT law was introduced and that was also after quite some time, right? But we did see the progress and now it's tens and tens of financial institutions offering the service. Now, if I'm making a lot of money outside of crypto, do I want to get into crypto for the money? Probably not because there's a lot of question marks still around it.

But most likely, I want to make sure that I can put into the market or portray to the market, project I mean, to the market an image of innovativeness, which traditional financial institutions generally are not defined by. So, I think it's a cultural shift that's ultimately going to allow for that transition to happen. And then, you know, we are here to make sure that once there is a readiness to hit the ground running, things can be done in a way that is compliant, secure, so on and so forth. I mean, it's it's a good point that you raise on the cultural shift. I mean, it kind of it strikes me that a lot of the early crypto businesses were set up by people who sent out self-identified as technologists.

You know, they were developers or they were programmers, they were early to crypto, they saw there an opportunity. But they were very much, you know, and those those companies identified as technology companies. Um and so, you know, who happened to find themselves operating in regulated financial services. But you know, it's very much a mentality of move fast, break things. And, you know, that doesn't work in traditional finance.

You know, traditional finance is move slowly, break nothing cuz I don't want to go to jail. And so it it does strike me that you know, we started off with this sort of clash of cultures. And as the industry matures, those are definitely starting to overlap to a far greater degree. And so you know, the the CEO of of bullish is an example, former president of the New York Stock Exchange. Um it's we're starting to see more of that kind of traditional finance caliber come into the space and I think that's the industry overall.

Which is also sorry, excuse me. Which is also good because it means that the the people that these traditional banks are going to talk to talk the same language. And this is very important, right? Um when these decision-makers talk to a pure technologist, uh super BitConnect, educated, etc. I am one by the way.

I mean, I've spent most of my career in crypto. They still don't feel comfortable and they need to speak the the the the same language to get to get comfortable, right? And and that's why this shift is I think the right way to go. Still a lot to do, but definitely right way to do. Sorry, Marius.

No, because you said what you said is truly right. I mean, the first years, of course, it's tools. Tools were created. And then products were created for people who want to use it to trade trading product. And what a lot of companies like ours are doing now is bringing those product into traditional setting.

So the complexity is like 3D, 5D. It's a puzzle. So um and that's why now with external reduction of complexity like regulation this can get better, but of course, we need tailwinds from entire economy, global markets, um and um then um yeah, positive not just regulation, but also everything around and policy making needs to Um, a little bit more in um, because this is all in interplay. Uh Uh, because when we talk and, uh, the big giants in the room from Deutsche Börse or Börse Stuttgart, you know, like um, the the level what they're doing lobbying. This this helps the industry.

And at the end, then full circle closes and the initial tool is then accepted in real finance. So, it sounds that we do not really share the sense of optimism which were expressed during the panel on banking sector. But, which is quite interesting. I just would like to pick up actually on the banking point, you know, uh, maybe we could briefly explore, you know, the role of banks, uh, and other broker dealers which may play in terms of bridging different liquidity pools. Do you envisage, you know, an evolution of roles?

Uh, one would expect there to be sort of arbitrage type of trading activity which may connect different liquidity pools, market makers, liquidity providers stepping in. Um, what are your thoughts around the business models of brokers? Will they experience changes? They So, I think I think the market is definitely going to open architecture in that sense, for sure. Um, not everyone is ready for it.

So, I mean, I think we we, um, in our business, we do see a mix. Most of the traditional players do want to go first with one only broker, not big fantasy, but they already ask, "Okay, what's what's go what's going to happen in 2 years? Will you be static and just get obsolete or are you going to be connected to this to this and the other?" Because they want to generally mirror what they have in TradFi, right? I think there are not so many super reliant, trustful, regulated venues, etc.

etc. out there. Either they're a super crypto-native or they're none or not many at least in Europe. Maybe maybe you guys disagree. In our case, what we did is we found an intermediary solution, which is working quite well, which is using our traditional capital markets broker called Euwax AG, founded in 1991, I believe.

We basically um got the license through Fin through BaFin, excuse me, um for them to uh give us the the possibility of trading crypto assets. So, what does this mean? This means that um a big bank or a big broker that is used to using this venue for uh traditional capital markets business just has to see this uh crypto assets as one new asset coming from the same provider. And if you do that, I mean, you have a lot you gain a lot, right? You start with advantage, for sure.

KYC is not the same. Uh decision-makers don't look at you the same way, and that has been, I think, in our case a big win, but also it's um it can be a threat because if we don't develop those connections that our traditional broker has to the newest possible venues that are coming up in crypto and new products with derivatives, etc. etc., we will be obsolete very soon, right? So, it's a double-sword that you really need to navigate intelligently.

For now, it has worked very well for us, but we cannot sleep. That's um that's for sure. Uh one comment to echo what you said. Uh I think it was Steve Jobs or some famous CEO once said, "Always hire the laziest person because they're always going to find a creative way to ultimately get a problem solved, right?" It's ultimately Now, there's a period of transition where you have to come up with creative ways, whether it's spin out a digital entity from your traditional one up until the regulation is in place to ultimately enable the actual traditional rails to service uh at a specific level of quality um exactly of the what of what the crypto native players do, but with a different kind of party risk.

As an example, uh if I speak of uh Deutsche Börse, there was this acquisition of a broker aka Crypto Finance in 2021, which was already servicing institutions. Deutsche Börse services mainly institutions through its many different uh subsidiaries. And what is also keeping us very busy, it's not only us as Crypto Finance living out the market and having independent relationships with banking players, but it's ultimately enabling the different entities to come into the space. From a very practical standpoint, this means something very simple for a bank or another financial institution. It means that the company that you're already onboarded with, whether it's a CSD like Clearstream, whether it's some sort of marketplace like 360T, or insert whatever name you want, is still going to be the counterparty when you get access to this new asset class.

It's going to be the same kind of paperwork, and you're going to have some sort of a amendment or addendum at the end. And then of course behind the scenes there's going to be a lot of heavy lifting done on the technological side to enable that to happen. But again, it's now a lot less about forcing the the bank into the crypto space. And even the max even though the maximalists might be against this, it's a lot more about okay, what's what do you already have? And how can we crypto players ultimately make the necessary adjustments for you to help us get to 2.

2 trillion market cap asset class to 20 trillion and hopefully much much more down the road. Right. Um I would like to move on to another important issue and this is best execution. Right? I would be interested in hearing Chris, your advice, you know, to people in the room in terms of, you know, what to focus on if you think about best execution in institutional crypto space.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because this is going to be a requirement for brokers, you know, following MiCA or the implementation of MiCA on the 1st of January. And so, you know, one of the one of the great things about MiCA is, you know, it will at least curtail the access of unregulated offshore exchanges from accessing, you know, the EU retail marketplace. And so, I think that, you know, we're starting certainly starting to see, you know, from our perspective, a lot of people out reaching to us. We are We have a an application in with BaFin um that is subject to approval still. I've been advised to say, but we're confident that we'll have that in before the end of the year.

And so, that we'll be regulated by BaFin. Now, that is something that, you know, it puts us in a unique position because we have very tight liquidity, but in the context of a sort of regulated onshore EU financial venue. And so, I think that we're starting to see the market structure change on EU soil. We're starting to see some of the unregulated offshore exchanges pull back. We're starting to see, you know, some of the advantage of that being felt by people who wanted to conduct business in the right way.

And ultimately, like I think that this is a test case for what will happen ultimately everywhere. You know, some regulators are moving faster than others, but this is a natural consequence. It's It's It's It's creating a level playing field. In order to operate in a, you know, highly regulated compliant way, it requires a lot of people. It requires a big spend in terms of your legal risk compliance teams, you know, the controls over your processes, governance, oversight, etc.

, etc. And so, if you have venues that don't have to do any of that, or you know, just pay lip service to those requirements, you know, they can operate with a, you know, a far lower cost base, and it it just creates an unlevel playing field. So, I think that it's been, you know, incredibly beneficial seeing this coming. It's been a long time coming, as somebody said. I mean, I think the the first draft of MiCA was released in September 2020, and there'd been consultations for 2 years prior to that.

So, it really has been, you know, it's it's it's taken a very long time, but when we look at the landscape globally, it's moving in the right direction. Marius, what are your thoughts around the best execution? Yeah, and also following what you said, I mean, it's a level playing field then here in the EU, right? So, international context. It's complicated.

That's the question. Yeah, what's going to happen then? Yeah, what what is the big question is actually, will it lead to, you know, like, some exchanges becoming really strong from the EU, and then being able maybe also to facilitate business in other international jurisdictions in a better way, and be able to compete, or will it be even a burden for those operating here because of the high cost, because of MiCA, and MiBEST acts? Yeah, it's it's it's something I mean, we don't have to scare about it. But, the other So, this on product side, but on the on the, let's say, complication and the necessary complexity in regulation, this is simply so costly.

So, let's see how this plays out. It's hard to say. Will this be like a win situation for some exchanges who can afford to do this? Will this, or will this lead even to new exchanges coming from Europe going elsewhere? So, this will be I think in 2025 is very interesting movements in the industry and also how some of the exchanges position themselves on this question.

Do you go full in into regulation because due to MiCA and due to what's happening in Europe, in a way this makes them deciding going full regulator or staying out if you're active also in Europe. Yeah, look, I would I would say the ultimately, you know, if you if you're an institution, you have to trade where the size is trading. I mean, that's just it. I mean, and people can say, "Oh, I wish we didn't have to execute on this unregulated offshore venue where we're not too sure of the reserves and the custody and, you know, the founder might be in jail currently getting released on Sunday." But, like, you know, so people might say that, but then they'll still go and execute their business there because that's where the liquidity is.

And what this does is it forces the liquidity to come into regulated venues. And so, will it happen all at once? No. But, if you take, you know, this let's say 90% of EU volume and you put it then through onshore EU-regulated exchanges, that's going to be take that's going to be volume that doesn't get executed offshore anymore. And so, in that sense, you know, you bolster those that are trying to do the right thing.

And so, that's you know, does it does it fix everything globally all at once? No. But, it's a step in the right direction and I think that's the direction of travel. 100% because it's for everyone uh in this industry it's simply better. And if you then you will have those unregulated niches that makes also in a way for some liquidity it makes sense.

But, I think overall it's the direction's quite good. I have um a rather tricky one for you all. Uh and this is around access to single market, maybe also power of the single market. Uh how do you envisage sort of any any potential for growth and especially for consolidation as the result of such growth? You will be able to access uh all member states as of January 25.

What are your thoughts around, you know, how the process may impact sort of will we see rise of EU champions also in the space of crypto trading business? I think it will grow for sure. Institutions, if we're talking about traditional institutions, uh it will bring them more comfort, but let's don't forget that MiCA is transported into the countries and it's the local regulators enforcing it. This is very important, okay? I mean, a French, German, Italy regulator it doesn't have the same number of people looking into this stuff as you guys want to name some of them?

Right? Even even if they're in Europe and under MiCA. So, when you go into a traditional bank to try to offer your brokerage CASP services, etc., compliance and legal people are not stupid, okay? They know what regulator you're talking about and they know that regardless there's a law that you can passport across the European Union, how much you are enforced to comply it depends on your local regulator.

And depending on how much your local regulator enforces you, it's directly proportional to the protection your client and your client clients have. Let's don't forget that because also it's not the same to it will not be the same to be MiCA approved in Malta of the world, okay, than being as we are uh by BaFin in Germany, right? Or or in France or in one of these I don't know, big bigger countries with the larger financial ecosystem, etc. etc. So, the passporting would definitely help us grow in Europe, for sure.

Liquidity will have to change, and at the beginning probably will be a little bit harder to get the best prices that you we've been getting for the last 15 years, for sure. But at the same time, let's don't forget that regulation is here to protect the ultimate client that wants to just hold fraction of a Bitcoin and just maybe sit on it for a while and see what happens, right? And and again, regulators are not the same, and I have to say I've I've been already 9 years in the industry. I mean, MiCA is not going to save us of some of these regulated players going upside down, for a lack of a better description, okay? It It is not going to happen.

I mean, some players are going to have a tough time, and some players will be at some point, I don't know, hacked or something will happen in this process until the market is really standardized and super mature, and we will we won't have that, I don't know, until 10, 15, 20 years down. What What I think some of the growth I think might come from competitive pressure that MiCA enables between regulators, aka there's going to be a lot of work in the first happening as we speak, but especially in the first half of 2025, with the regulators having to process all the different MiCA applications. So, what I hope to an extent is that if all of a sudden, let's pick Spain since we're in Spain, all of a sudden there is 50 or 500 crypto asset service providers that are coming out of it, all of a sudden, Italy, I'll say Italy just cuz I'm from there, which is not processing as many, will start looking into it more. And maybe they will hire more people looking into it, and they will enable to actually live out MiCA and what MiCA ultimately allows. So, I think that a lot of the growth is ultimately going to happen from this.

It's also true that today, if I'm an Italian player wanting to service crypto assets to an Italian market, I could I could do it, and there are players that do it, right? Yet, how many banks are offering on the private side or on the retail side or on the corporate side in Italy services to the Italian market? Not too many. And that's because maybe the business case localized there is not sufficiently big, or maybe because some of the providers that they would need to support that are not located in Italy, and they need that passporting to happen. So, I think 2025 for sure is going to enable a lot of that growth.

Some of it's going to happen on the regulatory side, and I think a lot of it is just going to happen as a natural flow of things. I see we are running out of time, so maybe Chris, Marios, just concluding remarks. Just one sentence. Sorry, so closing remarks? Yeah.

Uh okay. Um I think the one of the things that we haven't talked about today, and I'll keep this brief, is the lack of banking rails in crypto. I think that with the introduction of MiCA, banks, traditional banks, are getting a lot more comfortable with the industry, and so I think that's going to be a big shift in 20 25. Marios. Yeah, closing remarks.

Let's not forget to bring the beauty of crypto and real crypto into traditional world, because otherwise it simply will end up as a very boring asset class, and this would would be a pity. Excellent. Thanks very much for this fantastic discussion. Thanks very much.