What do Institutions Need to Operate on the Blockchain?

[Music] good afternoon everyone um thank you for joining us as we discuss what institutions need to do to operate on the blockchain as you heard at the end of the last panel there seems to be quite a bit of excitement as we move forward in this new world of of blockchain and how can affect and transform financial institutions and really transform how we operate so today I'm joined uh by an esteemed panel and I will let them uh introduce themselves Glendy hi I'm Glendy cam I'm the chief product officer of tasset group Tassa group is a financial technology company that provide private permission blockchain for institution to transact real time so far we have transacted $2 trillion us on private Mission blockchain hi everyone my name is Darius I'm the founder of qcp qcp is Asia's leading digital asset partner uh we are One-Stop shop for all your digital asset creating and investing needs I'm Constantine RoR I'm the founder of block demon we're the largest infrastructure provider in the world uh and we're also the only company in crypto with three of the largest top 10 institutions in the world uh on the cap table which are Goldman Sachs JP Morgan and City Bank so Constantine I'm going to start with you uh obviously specifically out of the US there has been regulatory unclarity for quite a long time now um unfortunately and that has affected how institutions are able to fully immerse themselves within the blockchain space what do you see coming up in the in the number of years based on on Trump's recent nominations of uh Paul Atkins and David saaks yeah um I always uh well I I told my team the the when the the incident of trump winning the election is sort of as shocking in the inverse as FDX collapsing to the crypto ecosystem in the US and so um if you would have uh asked me a couple of weeks ago what the what what my wish list of would have been in terms of personnel and changes uh we would have liked to see in the regulatory bodies uh in the US then um you know they've been exceeded um I think our hope and expectations I mean there's there's the ones we have for Block demon and then there's the ones we have for crypto in in in general um uh are mostly aligned uh overall you know first and foremost we want Tech forward friendly and clear regulation which was really the ask we've made to uh uh regulators and that we haven't gotten and so the the the most important thing is is clear distinctions of who's the regulatory body that regulates what and clear rules of the game and so very basic um and I have no doubt that uh Mr Atkins will help and provide those um and then second um we also are hoping with specifically David sexus involvement that America actually um will catch up with what has ultimately been left behind which is really the market leadership in crypto and so uh we're hoping for certain tax exemptions uh certain improvements around and and and maybe accelerations around token issuance um for for particular entities um there's obviously you know fit 21 certain Provisions that were just recently vetoed by the Biden administrations that allow large institutions to custody uh crypto assets we expect those to pass relatively swiftly uh through a new Congress and so um but it's it's still early and so our assumption is that sort of by the middle of 2025 um we'll have um uh some a much better guidance and already some concrete improvements totally agree Darius bringing you in uh obviously sitting in Singapore uh the regulations in Asia generally have been far more advanced than what they are in the US but having a a office in the US how do you balance those two with the more uh established Asian uh regulations with what is coming up in the US hopefully so you know I I would say I would Nuance your your question with with this that um it seems like the Asian regulations are a bit more Progressive um but in certain ways they're a bit stricter as well so I mean we are licensed in uh Singapore and about to get a license in uh Abu daab as well so I would say comparing the two uh in Singapore the regulator you know uh sees crypto as in in quite a specific format they see as payments so it's a payment license uh so we know we are regulated for spot trading in Singapore adgm is is unique and and I think a lot more Progressive in the sense that they see uh crypto not as a specific part of an asset class or specific uh you know a specific use case but in this case they see it as part of the capital market right so they don't see it as a stand alone it's part of the Capital Market so you know our license is a capital Market license allows us to look at crypto in a broader sense you know not just payments and spot you know it goes to trading derivatives uh you know trading cross asset you know as well uh with listed equities Commodities I think that's something that is necessary and uh something that we are looking forward to right you know like we're discussing with Constantine earlier um a lot more Progressive and Clarity a lot more Progressive regulation and Clarity globally uh once the US starts to to pick up on this as well makes sense um Glendy obviously a tet you you you all offer private blockchain solutions for financial services how are you all thinking about how that service will be adapted under new regulations so um when we talk to clients and also our partners I think it's really important that everybody wants to be able to follow uh the right things to do so I agree with Constantine uh everybody's looking for the clarity so Clarity is really important uh so for the institution that that we're working with what they are trying to do is to make sure that they build solution that is compliance ready and uh also to make sure that transparency accountability and also privacy is built into the solution that is really really important part so when T it work with our clients and customer these are the really important part that we we we put into the product when we make the offering and of course uh when you're working in a regulatory and Regulatory environment uh it's important to foster a positive relationship with your Regulators yeah I mean I think we can all agree the the regulatory Clarity is going to immensely help the space but turning to more of what institutions need to to adopt and and Implement better blockchain that comes with cost savings Darius um obviously you're very big on the derivatives trading front um how do derivative trading Solutions uh help institutions uh achieve cost efficiencies um moving forward with the space so I think you know what we've seen in the last two years is our client based change changing in nature I think you know previously used to be a lot of uh Native clients or high netw worth clients looking to explore the space I think the the people that were speaking to now are more corporates uh listed corporates sovereigns uh and I'm I'm very sure that that you know in in the next 5 10 years time every corporate uh you know every Sovereign is going to have Bitcoin in the balance sheet so this so derivatives becomes very important here because it's no longer just a speculative Market uh no longer just uh store of values so to speak right the space is going Beyond Bitcoin as digital gold uh you know it's starting to it's starting to have an impact on debt financing uh it's starting to have an impact on Equity financing so it's starting to to to change the way both companies and Sovereign think about their their treasuries and their assets right so in this respect I think what what's important is is to make sure that there institutional solutions for them for hedging uh for return generation for you Generation Um and deres play a very very big part in this uh I mean you know for for Asia specifically and you know in terms of The Sovereign conversation I think digital assets present something very unique two things here for a lot of energy producing countries it presents uh an energy optimization tool that's one you know for for the putting mines beside the grid allows you to store to store energy in Bitcoin and appreciating asset rather than in batteries uh the second thing here of course is that for for Frontier markets that you know where their economies are dominated by local currency it becomes a break away from them you know to have Bitcoin as an asset which is fun which is easily uh interchangeable of US Dollars allows them to raise debt or financing at a much lower rate uh and you know that the whole conversation you can see that it's become uh a very Capital Market conversation and and and presents a lot of interesting opportunities um Glendy turning back to you uh tet pay is processed over let me get this right two trillion dollars worth of transactions um it's quite a number of uh transaction value or volume what lessons have you all learned during that time processing that amount of transactions and how do you apply that going forward to create more cost efficiency for your for your clients so uh I think what make the Tesa pay product uh uh uh be able to achieve that volume or the uh uh transaction amount is that when we first build a product we build it with scalability in mind so that is really important that's the reason why the product can be able to scale and also perform um so this is the technology that is behind the tax pay product and then also very important is because we are working with all the regulated uh uh entities as our clients and partners so building something with compliance ready in in the product that is also a critical part now the product itself is um for a lot of the the companies that's going to adopt blockchain technology or financial services company adopting uh blockchain technology is very obvious this is going to scale and expand just like in US recently we have um the regulat settlement Network that was announced with all the major players like City Bank JP Morgan MasterCard and also Swift partic ipating so this is to anticipate that all these financial services company using DT technology they will be interoperable uh they will be working together and so this is also something that is important to keep in mind tasset is a project contributor to regulated settlement Network and we Pro that the use case that we have for Tes pay to be able to operate with within a much larger Network that is sustainable uh Constantine obviously this region in the UAE Abu Dhabi specifically is is growing quite a bit and in his integral part of the space with their regulatory Frameworks coming out what do you see as the unique opportunities and also the challenges um with the implementation of from institutions with blockchain technology here in this region um that's a good question I think the the um I think the I think for us I mean we really run underlying infrastructure so for us it's really all about enabling uh ultimately any financial institution to empower their customers and and that can be uh other financial institutions wealth managers that can be somebody who wants to hold any form of uh uh crypto um uh with the ability uh to have a wallet to facilitate a transaction and to earn a reward right right and so um any financial institution um that is looking to do so uh we sell technology to right and so um our wallet stack secures hundreds of billions of dollars in in in digital currencies um and um you know we enable you know endless amounts of transactions and rewards that are earned in in that particular infrastructure so I think for this region particularly uh uh the same is true right like so um uh I think and so there's this is really two components so one is institutional uh uh offerings that have consumers on the other side of it um and then there's also institutions who want to ultimately custody and hold crypto for their own good right and so um and when you hold custody U then you need uh a wallet solution um our largest uh one of our largest product ultimately is is an Institutional grade um MPC infrastructure that's on Prem that allows any Institution um the policy layers and and the technology to manage their treasury of crypto assets um it's a product that companies like JP Morgan or or or City Bank or NASDAQ or companies like that actually use and so that's something we're very actively um deploying here um and um yeah and you know so we we're licensed here uh in Abu Dhabi and uh we're very excited to participate in the market here uh just stick with you on this obviously black Damon you all have introduced the node operator registry standard um for ethereum how does how does this initiative uh enhance institutions uh trust and participation in blockchain space because obviously for institutions they have far greater regulatory requirements and risk management Necessities how does this factor into that to to enhance adoption yeah um so because we run so much infrastructure one of the things we've learned U from our institutional customers um we're pure uh B2B provider so we run infrastructure for these institutions um and they make us go through really lengthy procurement processes um and and so we've just learned so much about their requirements um that they make their thirdparty vendors go through and we really just ultimately spend time educating the crypto industry on what those requirements are right and so specifically for validators and and cryptotech a lot of the um our competitors on the crypto side um are a little more crypto native and and maybe not as experienced in operating and dealing with um institutions of that scale and so we just really share that knowledge right like what does that mean to run uh failovers around the world to have 247 customer support around the world what does it mean to um ultimately have insurance products to uh guarantee the the infrastructure that you provide I think that's a really um um core core requirement that we like to share with the industry to make sure that ultimately you know we don't have um at least on the technical side failures uh for crypto which is important for the reputation that you know ultimately has taken some hits in the past so yeah so we have about a minute left um so quickly from each view darus I'll start with you what do you see in the next three to five years as really being the next advancement of adoption by institutions and specifically for you within the the derivatives space absolutely so uh this year has been remarkable for for you know derivatives and and for uh the space as a whole you know starting with the Bitcoin ETFs I think uh the way to see it is you know you know talking about Sam and FTX he he tried to bring the whole world into crypto and try to get everything to trade on FTX I think the key here is for for the crypto guys is how do we bring our product to the rest of the world right put it on distribution channels and and put it to where the liquidity is right you know so so ETFs um uh ETF options uh you know Bitcoin proxies like coinbase micro strategies I think there will be a micro strategy equivalent in every single Market uh and we'll be trading derivatives on those as well we already doing that in Japan with meta planet for example uh we'll see the same and and I think that really brings that's where the liquidity is going to go and that's how we scale Glendy final thoughts um I think is I think the blockchain technology is going to become ubiquitous in uh Financial Services firms and institutions and uh as you can see that right now all the large corporation large uh Mega Banks they all using this technology but I think it's going to be spreading to even like maybe midsize Bank Regional Banks we are seeing a lot of interest in adopting the technology and that's why interoperability become a really really critical part Constantine yeah I'm EXC excited about the future also of AI agents on crypto where ultimately blockchains and wallets will be autogenerated by software and and you will not even know that you're using any of these things and so I think that's going to be really really fascinating and you will have tokenization you know hopefully for companies even like us like you know we we're thinking about gr public and um I'm hoping that in the US we can do so via token sale really soon you know well hopefully we will get there uh thank you all it was uh great having you on the panel and um enjoy the see your day thank you for moderating [Applause] [Music]