Stable Futures? The Rise of Stablecoins

[Music] well welcome everyone thank you so much for joining us and what a day to be talking about stable coins we've got 19 minutes on the clock so we're going to jump right into it first massive congrats to Walter on the amazing announcement today and the partnership between PA SAU and Standard Charter it's really great to see all of these Partnerships that are coming out of ADF so tell us a bit more about what you're seeing in your world how you see the future of the stable coin space evolving and what's happening with the landscape as well as from a regulatory perspective particularly in this region well we really see stable coins as just changing the way money moves and money is used in so many different ways and you can just spend a couple of days at this conference having conversations and they range from trade financing to retail payments to B2B payments to remittances and we see the real um acceleration of the expansion of stable coin usage Beyond crypto trading and defi both of which are important but far into the rest of the economy and in ultimately into all of the ways we use money today um we also see at the same time huge changes happening in the regulatory environment that's enabling that fantastic so moving to you fuse provides digital assets as a service but then you also have your OTC desk so why do you see stable coins as critical and particularly in the Middle East where you've been a champion of this being the next big hub for Innovation yeah thank you uh look so we're super excited about this so what we've seen is that across you know um Middle East Africa and Turkey um uh stable coins are um you know really moving uh very quickly so I think first of all stepping back globally the if you look at Q2 the total stable coin volume was about 8 and a half trillion dollars double you know um uh Visa right so there's a lot of demand for this all across the world specifically in this part of the world what we've seen is that if you go to certain markets such as uh you know Pakistan Egypt turkey people are buying you know um stable coins only to kind of hedge because their um currencies are falling so quickly and it's hard to get uh really hard cash and in some other Markets Lebanon Nigeria people are using it as a form of you know a payment as well right it drives efficiency it's crossb um interoperable and and what we see is more and more as we push digitization forward we're very much skipping over some of the traditional networks around visa and MasterCard and Swift and really using this as like a global uh sement layer fantastic and then right moving to how we want to hear about what you're doing as well with changer a leading crypto and digital asset custodian and Abu Dhabi how are you approaching stable coins what is that connection how do you see the kind of Fiat on and off ramps as well and then how are you approaching integration as we look across the ecosystem sure um thanks for inviting actually is actually a very exciting moment as we have seen the news yesterday with the official announce of the stable coins in the country um andest probably um there's to be more I think ecosystem to be build up thir is changer we firstly adgm regulated um virtual access service provider um as just the license we are able to do a custody and uh virtual asset exchange so that's actually two things we are looking at but there more than that so we are talking about different stable coins uh one of the biggest I think use case is payment um if you have read I think uh the report by one of the major Banks um is actually probably the the the first killer app in terms of the crypto or blockchain technology in the last 12 years um and that's actually payment I think this is actually uh going to revolutionize a lot of things we are thinking about uh we definitely have a lot more services to offer in the pipelines um but one thing that we want to do under a regulatory framework that's number one secondly with a secure not just from a technology perspective but from operation compliance and the whole Insurance perspective so when you're thinking about doing this this is not just like for the younger Generations who are very easy to download the app login register put money transfer and then we are thinking about broadly traditional fin financial institutions they look at a lot of things how your infrastructure are you I ISO uh compliant or sock to Etc so they look a lot of things right so these are things that we are thinking about the whole business for the financial services and I think that's really critical especially as we think about what you're talking about with resilience and infrastructure that really matters from a regulatory perspective and having a regulatory environment that enables that and that's how you get the scaling with the major financial institutions is that reflected in what you've seen as well and working with The Regulators here definitely the most important thing for continue stable coin growth is clear and consistent regulatory Frameworks from credible Regulators globally and we have been issuing um a stable coin regulated by the fsra out of the adgm since earlier this year um they released a new framework for Fiat reference tokens uh or stable coin uh just uh this week and um that type of of clarity uh from The Regulators isn't just important for us as the issuer but for that whole ecosystem and and and to your point uh that you mentioned earlier just today we announced uh our our partnership and um uh that Standard Charter would be supporting uh paxos in the issuance um of uh uh and the different banking services behind lyt dollar which we're issuing out of the adgm and that type of uh uh that caliber of financial institution uh partnering in the ecosystem supporting regulated players like paxos enables all types of second order adoption and allows the ecosystem to really continue to thrive completely agree and especially when you think about the fact that Financial Services is one of the most regulated Industries in the world in order to have the major institutions participating there has to be that regulatory certainty and you obviously look across a lot of regions as well are you also seeing the kind of criticality of that regulatory certainty and you know we've spoken about this before as well and in the need for that and evolving and Innovative Industries to have that Clarity of what the guidelines are yeah so uh fuse is regulated here uh FSR Central Bank and you know um uh some other places as well so we're regulated for payments uh brokering um a broker broker um broker um uh dealer and um a custody as well and uh UI Central Bank also released uh payment token um framework which is for a Durham backed um stable coin that's something else that we're looking at uh and I I think just uh in line with what we just said right to really make this successful as like the next layer of financial services um uh infrastructure you have to have regulations in each region or within each market but not just as a you know a standard Alan there has to be cohesiveness across right so people can get a stable coin issued here and then transfer it or then off-ramp it in another Market as you know my seemlessly as possible without fear of you know um Regulators or police or that kind of stuff which does happen in several places 100% And I mean you've obviously mentioned the announcement on the framework which is critical and it is Market leading and that we actually haven't seen Clarity around stable coin regulation from too many jurisdiction so I wonder if you have any thoughts on this as well cuz I know you sit and also look across we were speaking earlier the different jurisdictions that you've lived and worked in what do you see as being those other kind of critical missing pieces for scaling globally of stable coins um okay actually I see two things that we probably can do uh better than what we have done so far number one is actually uh I think under regulative firw workk I think adgm UE has done a great job so that sets us a very good a standard for people for other countries who are still developing or actually uh I'll say maybe modifying their existing law so that's number one thing when you have a benchmark or have a standards you know how to operate the second thing is actually to um to get some I would say connectivities in terms of technology I I think this is the thing that um a lot of people think this is easy um but if you really dig into this this can be beyond your I would say complexity so we all know Swift network has been there for I think more than uh half a century or so right so that things to connecting to each individual Banks payment companies Etc to really Empower all the financial istion then to the retail to the merchants to use stable coins or to use other crypto uh means to make payments Etc Financial transactions I think technology we needs to get further improvements I mean if you look at why technology is a gap globally we are looking at um probably 80 million in terms of developers in the traditional web tool space but web web 3 we're talking about only 50 to 60,000 how many universities have this major so far I think most of they are selftaught right so that's the thing I think the Gap we need to feel in the next probably a decade or so before we really have a robust infrastructure tan pool to connect this completely and it's thinking about what's needed for those farther steps in the future preparing for that next Generation the next Evolution not just where we're at right now so as we look to the Future if you could have anything on the wish list when it comes to stable coins because there has been a lot of exciting developments that have happened in the past couple of months we'll start with you a little bit more of a fun question if you could have anything to make this industry scale what would it be look I think we're super fortunate because we're in a region where um our Regulators sit with you at a table and they help you define a framework or they ask for your help to define a framework that makes sense so so I don't have a wish list per se I think also the market itself is driving it you know um if you look at a typical payment transaction it's 15 Steps right and then the merchant or the end recipient has to wait for 3 days or four days or 5 days to receive the value right so across our part of the world consumers businesses are demanding this now and we've seen a huge amount of you know growth um you know coming uh from it so I don't have I don't think I think probably the only wish that I can ask for is that we continue on this pace have this momentum continue because it's it's going incredibly fast and I think this is where you want to be if you want to do something in the uh digital asset space completely fair and but you mentioned obviously the institutional side of things which is where you guys are looking so maybe broadening out a little bit not just here what would you say is needed to bring in that institutional investment and also Comfort to bring it even further yeah I I have to say I agree with Mo on this one I mean we are headed in the right direction here and if more markets around the world can foll in the footsteps of what's Happening Here in the adgm uh where we're getting clear regulation where we're getting uh Forward Thinking Banks moving into the space to provide infrastructure and to service regulated providers like paxos I mean there already is amazing product Market fit for stable coins I mean we are up here and of all the things you can talk about in digital assets nothing has as great a product Market fit as stable coins I mean just you know if you think about our range of customers we power a uh White Label stable coin that we issue for PayPal we power stable coin payin infrastructure for stripe so that they can accept payin to their large Merchants around the world um this type of activity is really a signal that we have amazing product Market fit and if we just continue down this path of banks following in the footsteps of Standard Charter of regulators following in the footsteps of FSR uh we are going to see trillions of dollars of stable coins in the not distant future heard it here first check back next year and we'll see where we're at but and what about you so you mentioned obviously the things that we need to grow and build and you always said that so what are though the ones the use cases that you're really excited about in the stable coin space okay so in terms of use case um just think about uh I I don't really want to think about just in terms of stable coins stable coins I know all all my partners are talking about stable coins that's the panel it's about my my biggest dream is actually we won't even need to talk about stable coins because everybody is using this as they used to if you talk to the young people these days like 15 18 years olds either in emerging countries or somewhere in the US they don't need to use the stable coins they will just transact as they used to that's what they know about as money to solve their mejor whether it's a payment or it's uh to just Global transfers remittance they don't use that kind of words they think this is the money so I think if that's actually where we're looking at I think digital money I think that's what we are looking at in terms of the the real auctions so payments is number one I think we have a lot of things that has been put into place for us to to to get this Investments as you mentioned I think that's a huge um I think when I joined this industry about four years back uh that was the kind of hype of nft which is non fundable tokens it's a terminology don't bother that but if you look at really what makes the difference all these terminologies is everything can be tokenized or everything should be tokenized no matter what in the form of dollar Fiat or the ad Etc so that's kind of things if we think about broadly doesn't have to be transacted so if this actually where we are going to um I think stable coin should definitely serve a big purpose in terms of making sure the transactions is as a smooth number one number two as a secure number three as compliant as possible you know and uh he makes a very good point right so I think if you look at the use case of payment a user doesn't really care if it's a blockchain based payment or not they just want to be able to transfer value from one side to the other for treasury management I'm sure you have some ideas on why that may be different but for a payment people just want to transfer value as quickly and as uh you know simply as is possible so if you have a dollar or a local currency that's digitized that just makes it so much easier and yeah and agree and I think that the sort of friction list the you know seamless integration is really critical and actually maybe if I come back to you for a minute especially since you're looking at digital assets as a service how are you looking at then embedding this within Financial Services in a seamless way so that people aren't thinking oh I'm using stable coins or I'm using this but how are you making that kind of help that transition happen yeah so fuses Das platform first started with regards to um uh Investments wealth and Investments and now we're focusing on payments and um and also now um we we have uh some different use cases coming up uh and really around you know uh payments and lending the focus is on how do we take uh a stable coin which many people uh in this part of the world hold and how do we create additional value on that that can be credit that can be lending that can be transfers individuals businesses all that kind of stuff so many of the banks and the fexs that we're working with are actually looking at enabling onchain payments onchain lending uh without necessarily having to implement blockchain technology themselves and I think that that's really critical as well because it's the connectivity of the ecosystem that's where we see all of the Partnerships that's where we see the different players being able to contribute and so maybe if we come back to you what other types of Partnerships do you see as being integral in this space and the connectivity across other types of players in the ecosystem yeah I I I think that um you know I've mentioned a lot the banks and they're very important and then you look um kind of at two other uh kind of key areas of growth uh that we think about a lot and one is you know existing Enterprise um and how are they using stable coin either to operate their business to offer to their customers um uh and then the other one is in developers and so you know I think the great um thing about stable coins is um a lot of the amazing things that we'll eventually discover about stable coins in this technology are like barely just being used just the surface being scratched particularly on the programmability side and um making sure that you know all developers out there that are building new products new finex the solutions and the products that we're going to use uh tomorrow are building it off of stable coin infrastructure uh because it really is an amazing platform and I love your point um which is that you know today we talk about stable coin and it's part of like marketing ourselves as an industry as we are all collectively really disrupting um the way uh that dollars have and fiat currency have been distributed it's not a new asset but the way it's being distributed is is changing um and eventually we won't be talking about it that way we won't be talking about stable coins this just like we don't um you know think necessarily like in the terms of the internet we think about like all the applications on it and that's just how we're all connected and I think that that is um you know kind of an exciting place that we will arrive at fairly soon where we just think of these as dollars uh but in a more modern way and Global way uh that they that they move and are distributed fantastic we only maybe have time for one last question so I'll come to you next picking up on that point that he mentioned then if we could look one year ahead to 2025 what do you see as going to be the most kind of key development throughout the next year if we come all back next year if we're still talking about this all right where will we be I I think I mean it's especially uh in the world I think the stable coin adoption will definitely rise up if you look at what actually uh the key Financial Centers are ramping up not only here which is a very uh uh uh leading Singapore Hong Kong and Japan I think we're probably going to see something going on Thailand as well um in Europe I think there will be something but I think that'll probably slightly slower Pace uh hopefully there's something coming out from UK um that's expect us I'll probably put in the in in the last job yeah well you heard it here first that was the wrap up but I think it's very clear that this is the place to be for stable coins and also stable coins will continue to take off so thank you so much to my fantastic panelists thank you thank for [Applause] [Music]