CTRL/SHIFT - 14 06 2026 PARTHENOPE STAGE - SU LEE - INVESTMENT IN THE AGE OF CONVERGENCE

[applause] Yeah, thank you very much Martina. Um, the name of the talk is great convergence and when I was preparing for this it was more about the fintech investments but actually the previous talk from Andrew it is showing also convergence between the I wouldn't say web two charity but existing industry with the new industry. Um actually there are quite a lot of charities have been receiving crypto donations. So doctors without border they're quite big and in the UK there's a hospital called Gosh which is great woman street hospital they actually have received significant amount in ripple from the rile foundation. So I think once the charities start to receive cryptocurrencies, I think they will really open their minds to blockchain and I wholeheartly agree with you that blockchain and smart contract has great potential for a more transparent uh charity donation.

So that said, um I my talk is actually not going to be all the industry but more on the investment, fintech and financial sectors. And it's not because there's no opportunities in other industries. It's more about where my firm have started is has a background in financial sector. So that's why we looked into this concept of great convergence quite deeply in both operational and also investment side. So I'll just give you a quick intro to Galaxy.

So we were founded in 2018. So it's been a while and we initially started as a trading company and investment company of crypto. So we were quite actively trading cryptocurrencies and buying cryptocurrencies for our founder uh Mike Novagrats who used to be the partner at Goldman and he founded Fortress which is a large hedge fund in the US. But once he also started to trade and start to invest and looking into the different ecosystem, he realized that there is actually more to it that there is a true opportunity to revolutionize how one can do finance. So right now we have um sales and trading where we um trade cryptocurrencies in both spots and derivatives and we have investment banking where we actually help smaller cryptocurrency companies who want to be uh looking into the mergers and acquisition opportunities and asset management.

That's where I sit where we raise assets from the investors and then we invest in a good opportunities in crypto and digital asset ecosystem and that was our business initially and starting in 2024 uh we completely repurposed our bitcoin mining operation into AI data center. So we thought that the eventually web 2, web 3 and then AI will all be converging into a one large ecosystem. So that was also our bet on how to play in the this convergence area. So um as I said I'm not going to talk about all the industry but we're going to kind of focus on the financial sectors. Um again that's where we have a lot of experience with and we have operated in the past.

I I joined from a traditional finance as well. But I think so far a lot of what people are looking at fintech 1.0 and digital asset infrastructure and they were kind of separate. They were not speaking to each other for a long time. But now we have these companies that are in this inner joins where they either try to incorporate digital asset aspects into their existing um business or the digital asset native companies are trying to be more like a fintech one and trying to access a wider uh audience.

So the good examples are I think everyone knows Robin Hood. So they started as a more of a traditional brokerage but the real reason why they became s such a powerful um brokerage platform in the US especially was they started to offer cryptocurrency trading much earlier than a lot of other uh brokerages and there companies like FIS so it's a large US payment company and they're starting to look into a different ways to improve their settlement of the payment and the treasury management by using blockchain and they're looking into stable coin and there are companies like NASDAQ everyone know NASDAQ but actually when you look under the hood NASDAQ is doing many different things in cryptocurrencies and blockchains so NASDAQ was one of the early one to create a cryptocurrency benchmark index so they were looking at it from the price perspective but now NASDAQ has multiple joint venture with the crypton natives to think about how to bring tokenization into the existing stock uh trading model to improve the the settlement and the clearing issues as well as really just to expand the the the audience and they expand the market. Um but then on the other side you have companies like S&P or MSCI who doesn't really have that much deep uh skin in the game for the digital asset infrastructure other than look they comment about the crypto or comment about the bitcoin etc. So there are so many opportunities within the financial sector only to think about how some companies are a little bit more prepared and how some companies are more forward-looking and how some companies will be very um very old and very outdated in terms of how they prepare for this new new new web 3 movements and it's it's a fintech and financial sector is a huge huge industry right it's one of the largest industry. Of course, there's softares and manufacturing, but financial sector actually touches everyone's life every single day.

So, it's something that we need to think about what are the companies that can survive and what are the companies that it will emerge from the this convergence theme. Yeah. So, but there are some really interesting companies that are actually going full on chain and I'm not going to talk everything, but I I chose three interesting companies and their collaborations. And my personally favorite one is actually Robin Hood. So, Robin Hood made a big splash last year during ETHC in Ken when they announced that they're going to do RWA tokenization and they decided to do it on top of the arbitrum.

So is is a public blockchain. It's a layer two on top of Ethereum. And I think Robin Hood as as a brokerage who has been offering crypto for the longest time in the US, they understand that bringing this RWA tokenized assets is not only about the operational efficiency, but also it's really the new user as well. Um so if you're Europeanbased investors, I think for most of us it's quite easy to buy US equities. But what we often forget is that if you're from a jurisdiction like let's say Vietnam or Malaysia, you may not have an access to purchase US stocks unless you're an high net worth individual.

So these type of things are really trying to open access to the market as well as improve the efficiencies. And um one good example local example is Intesta S. Paulo. They have been trading crypto quite actively using spot and ETF. Um but also they're quite involved in the stable coin through the different and various joint ventures and the consortium with the other European banks but also there are other examples like um Duchaum which they have a dedicated blockchain based uh settlement exchange BPI France where there's more like a sovereign investment um unit where they have been making quite a significant investment into blockchain.

So this just really to show you that you know there are already companies that are looking into crypto in a very deep onchain and slightly more crypto adjacent manner. So there's lots of opportunities and not everyone is behind. But what does it mean for the investment? Because there are lots of new opportunities and I think everyone is thinking about where to invest next because now it's there are just so many tools for us to think about the better investment and better location. So it's hard for me to give exactly how much you should invest in what.

But what we know for sure is that the traditional 60/40 portfolio may not be the best type of portfolio for the near future. Especially the 40% in fixed income now that the fixed income moves very very closely with the equities. Maybe we need to think about slightly differently outside of the simple 60/40 where you put 60% of your assets into S&P 500 or MCI word and the 40% into other global aggregate ones. maybe think about like how do I even expand my investment horizon and solo location for the these new fintech opportunities. So um yes so about I think the number is now probably slightly lower since uh prepared for this presentation but digital asset ecosystem especially if we include stable coin it's going to be around two two trillion so it's it's it's to give you a context of how big that two trillion is is actually slightly bigger than total investment that are going into infrastructure which are like highways, ports, airports etc etc.

So it is actually much significantly bigger than a lot of people think. Um and I think completely missing this one out may not be the best solution and especially if you think about there are more [snorts] companies in the financial sector and the fintech se sector especially are trying to adopt more digital assets. So what will be the allocation? Again, I'm not going to give you exactly how you should allocate, but I'm just going to give you some ideas. So, the total global financial markets, we roughly say it's going to be slightly over 261 trillion.

So, it's a is a huge huge huge market and quite a lot of them uh include the global equities and the real estate. But where where will be the the correct location for the for tomorrow? Um I think you can do it via cryptocurrencies if you truly believe that the cryptocurrencies will be revolutionizing the whole sector or you can think of what are the opportunities in fintech or what are the opportunities in even traditional asset uh industries where they're going to adopt more in cryptocurrency. So um just to be very clear these are not the companies that we actively trade or invest. These are just a few examples that you can think of where where to find the opportunities.

So these are the names you probably have have seen before as a large legacy companies. So ferve is a large banking and payment infrastructure in the US. PayPal everyone knows PayPal every a lot of the global small merchants heavily heavily rely on PayPal for their everyday transaction. And Faxet is a large US company as well that provides the financial data. And all these companies they are when you look at their stock price again the stock price doesn't always tell you everything and there is can be quite a lot of noise and volatility based on the certain earnings dates.

But what what this that's the the stock price is telling us is that this company are thought to have almost um unreplaceable mode that they're so big and a lot of people will re rely on them and it will be very difficult to replace them etc. But when you actually look at the some of the performance of PayPal for instance um it has been going sideways or even to a degree that it hasn't really um enjoyed the benefit from the other overall uh market rally in the recent years. And why would that be? It's probably because a lot of the investors are thinking well in the age of stable coin where every bank is using stable coin what will be the role for PayPal because they do take a fee and I think PayPal is trying to think of different ways to survive outside of being just a payment company. So it will it will bring a lot of ideas for the companies that thought that they have a very good mood around their uh business and around their around their users especially in the financial sector that what will be the next for them to think about the different think about the future.

Um, sorry, sorry, I was going backwards. And there's some companies that people really like because they're something new and something different and they're bringing some new web three type of element into their investment. So, one of my favorite one is new. So, that's a bank based out in Brazil. So they've been using a lot of neo bank uh they've been using a lot of technologies to make opening accounts in in Latin America very easy uh getting a lot of the the the very basic banking uh activities easy so they were able to accumulate a lot of users and I mean it's not here because it's a private company but I think the best example for Europe is actually Revolute so Revolute has completely revolution utionized at least for myself how I spend money abroad, how I send money to my friends and how I send money to my friends in the US or in other countries.

Such an easy UX and UI and they really really uh improve the standard for how the fintech company should do. So that I mean Revolute is a private company so I couldn't put it here but same example goes to Robin Hood, right? So Robin Hood was very clean, simple UX UI. It gamified trading. So I think there is some um criticism around that but yet they adopted the technology quite earlier on and then they hammered on the providing the good technology for the users and different AI integration.

Now you can do trading on Robin Hood with your AI agent. So these are the companies that will probably weather the the the the more obstacles into the financial sectors and they currently have a good mode. Some of them have good mode like uh Robin Hood and Shopify and I think for them it will be easier to defend their mode than companies such as PayPal or um Fiser where they doesn't have a very strong uniqueness around their mode. Right? So then what are what are the sectors in financial services that we are seeing this convergence?

It's actually pretty much everywhere. So my personal favorite one has always been around lending and credit because credit and lending is such a important function of the basic banking and it's a backbone of the any economy and I think everyone who try to receive a mortgage from any country will be able to agree with me that getting a mortgage is such a pain. Uh it's a nightmare. Uh so I there are more and more companies that are trying to improve this experience of um lending money from the bank and also managing your your loan portfolio very efficiently. So for instance Figure is a large company in the US.

they they put a lot of their um home mortgage functions into blockchain and then now you can even invest into their mortgage loans such a little bit like uh CNB uh RMBBS but on a tokenized format and there are card network settlement such as Visa who and Mastercard who are trying to improve really a lot of their go payment settlement and the global uh crossber payment by using blockchain So it's it's a crossber payment and card network settlement I think go hand in hand and there are opportunities in yield again yield is very important function in banking and finance and there's a tokenization of assets that we will see a lot of things being tokenized and we'll be able to see a lot of new assets coming on chain and then we'll be able to trade and invest. So these are these are really all the things that we can expect to see more disruption and innovation in fintech and financial sectors and it's not only fintech it's overall the broad financial sector. So um the conclusion is really to think about and I think we have a lot of engineers and builders here and sometimes you guys are the one who have an edge in understanding how certain companies may succeed in the future because you're much closer to than some of the bankers is sitting at some office in somewhere um thinking about how to uh improve the improve the um the business. So you guys are actually looking into the technology all day long. You'll be able to understand what type of technology will be more widely accepted.

So I I just wanted to have this talk to give some thinking um some food for thought for everyone to think about how to prepare for the future and then how to really um monetize this opportunity. Thank you. [applause]