Crypto's Wall Street Revolution: How Capital Markets are Evolving - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2025

I'm actually delighted to be sitting with a dear friend and industry colleague, Anthony Albanese from Andre and Horowitz. Uh Anthony, we've both flown all the way here from New York. Before we dive into Wall Street and crypto, um why don't you tell us a bit about your background, your story, and what got you into crypto?

Sure. Well, it's great to be here, Maz, with you and with everyone here at token 2049. Very excited to be here. Um, so my background, I had a very unusual path to crypto. Not not the typical path.

I um I'm a lawyer by trade. So, prior life, I was a lawyer. I was a partner at a big firm wall got woke up one day and and decided that I could not spend the rest of my life practicing law. And um so I actually shifted and I moved into government and I launched uh the New York State Department of Financial Services. It was a new agency at the time and uh it was it's the regulator for all financial services in New York State state regulator uh and I launched the agency ultimately ran it and um and then when I left there I went to the New York Stock Exchange uh and I was there as the chief regulatory officer running regulation.

So I was literally working on Wall Street. We're talking about crypto and Wall Street merging. I was literally on Wall Street. But it was at the New York DFS when I was in government that I first became interested in crypto. Uh we were the crypto regulator for New York State.

And we actually created the first uh we're going to talk a lot about regulation today, but we created the first regulatory framework

for crypto. And this was early days. It was 2012 we started working on it. Um so uh and that's when I just became fascinated by the technology uh wanted to learn more, wanted to get involved more. We created the bit license which you know has been uh criticized in later years uh for being so so stringent but at the time it was the intent was to be pro-novative and um to be pro- innovation and uh I actually signed New York's first bit license which went to circle which is now a uh booming public company but uh anyway that's my story and then somehow when I left the New York Stock Exchange I was determined to get into crypto and I found my way to Andre Harwoods

and that's premier place to be at. Well done. So, you're currently the COO. What does that entail and how do you work with portfolio companies?

Sure. So, I'm the COO of A6Z Crypto, our crypto fund. And um basically, when we invest, we don't just write a check. We become partners with our portfolio companies. And at our fund, we have a huge operations team.

So I'm COO, I oversee operations, but we have a huge operations team that helps our companies with go to market. We have a go to market team, which you've spent a lot of time with and you know them. Our talent team, we're sitting in the front row right here, who helps staff our companies and help scale our companies. Um, and we have a great legal team, policy team, government affairs team. So I oversee operations.

We work very closely with our portfolio companies on every issue they're facing and how they get from, you know, a small baby startup to a successful booming company.

Excellent. And I can say at Revolute, we do work with their portfolio companies and we're very proud.

I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy to hear that.

Okay, let let's shift gears to the present day. I can tell you at Revolute, we've been involved with crypto for almost eight years now. So, crypto is not new. However, we've seen our industry peers gain interest in the space and there's just been a surge in adoption. Is that what you're seeing and why do you think this is happening now?

So, there's definitely a surge in adoption. I mean, this is this is crypto's moment right now. I've spent the past year with our go to market team uh meeting with the big financial institutions, the traditional finance institutions, a lot of the big fints. We met with you. We've met with Revel and um and we've been we've spent the past year talking to them about crypto and what their needs are and how we can get them into the space.

And the reason and and we heard the same thing across the board. The reason they haven't entered the space prior to now is because of the regulatory climate. It was um just hostile and in the US and around the world and uh but especially in the US. So with with the new reg uh legislation that's been passed this year, the Genius Act, it's been a gamecher. So to answer your question, why now?

What's caused the shift? It's having a regulatory framework, which we always knew would be the case. And that's why we've spent so much time in DC, our government affairs team, our policy team. I've been down there fighting the good fight because we knew that we if we had a regulatory framework, the industry would take off and you'd have mass adoption. And that's what we're seeing.

So it's really two things I think to answer your question. First and foremost, regulatory clarity and second of all, it's the um the infrastructure. I mean the advancements in the infrastructure have been incredible. I mean now we have transactions, you know, because of blockchain under a second, you know, under a penny. So I think the combination of the regulatory clarity, the regulatory framework and uh the advancements in the infrastructure has been an incredible combo.

I think that's a fair perspective. Um looking beyond the US borders, what are you seeing internationally?

So we've been looking around the world to see where you know where there are opportunities in crypto and uh we have found that what we've determined is that right here in Asia uh crypto is booming. It is taking off. We we've been doing a study and just the usage those holding crypto wanting to do business here launching businesses here tokens here. So we've decided that we are going to increase our presence here in Asia.

We're very bullish on Asia, very excited about it and our portfolio companies um in the US want to do business here. So, we want to be able to support them here uh in creating partnerships um uh developing communities, community engagement. So, we're very excited about it. We're we're bullish on the US. Obviously, great things are happening in the US, but so many of our portfolio companies want to expand here.

We want to be able to help them do that, and we're going to do it.

That's exciting news. Welcome to Asia.

Thank you. Very excited about it. It's good to have that conversation sitting here in Singapore.

Absolutely. Okay, so let's look ahead towards the future. Now, I can tell you internally, we're very excited about crypto and there is a lot of demand coming in. We now have about 65 million customers globally and we're adding about a million every couple of weeks and the talk of crypto from our customers is just always on the rise. What are you seeing as future trends coming for the space?

So, I think there are a number of trends we're seeing. First of all, stable coins, right? I've talked about the Genius Act and um especially when we're meeting with the traditional finance institutions, they all want to get into the stable coins and we're seeing a lot of stable coin companies pitching us. It's just it's very hot right now. The regulatory framework exists.

So, I would say first and foremost that that is a big trend we're seeing. You know, one thing that's so interesting is the Genius Act, which is the legislation passed um in the United States, is the first financial services uh piece of legislation out of Congress in basically 15 years since DoddFrank, which was a reaction to the financial crisis of 2008. So, it just shows you the magnitude of getting that legislation passed. And it was bipartisan that in 15 years, we had DoddFrank and now a stable coin bill. So it's just so you can't underscore the importance of it.

But but I would say that is you know a major trend we're seeing now that we have the framework and we're working on the the market structure bill which is called clarity and I think that's going to be enormous and create more trends as well and more folks looking at uh decentralized finance etc. But so that's trend one. I would say two is tokenized assets. We're seeing so many of the asset managers, banks looking into tokenized assets, tokenized funds. Um, and I think they're now finding a way to utilize blockchain with their more traditional asset classes and and seeing the benefits of that.

Um, that's second. And I think third, another third trend we're seeing is fintech. Fintech jumping into the space. Fintech companies like Revolute. Um we saw the announcement recently uh neighbor acquiring Upbit.

So you've got the you you have the uh the Google of of Korea of South Korea acquiring the largest crypto exchange in South Korea. And that's very exciting. I mean I think it's going to propel uh mass adoption of crypto. And anyway, I think that's the third trend we're seeing is fintech companies wanting a piece of crypto figuring out how they can expand into the space. And I think the regulatory frameworks and clarity that are developing are really paving the way for that.

Okay, great. Well, if you look around this audience here today, I think we have a lot of builders, a lot of teams that are probably looking at various ways of partnering with institutional players or selling into institutional players or building with institutional players. You're sitting on the other side of the table. What advice would you give those teams and those projects? Look, I think there are so many opportunities out there now.

Um, as we're meeting with the big banks and the big financial institutions, they're all talking about how they can get into crypto, but the one thing they l they lack is the infrastructure. And so, a lot of them are talking about partnering with our portfolio companies. So, you know, our goto market team is really done a great job kind of pairing our portfolio companies with with the big institutions that are trying to get into crypto and the big fintexs. Um but a lot of them are also looking at doing acquisitions. So I think for the builders in this room and just you know staying on topic what we're discussing today I think that the big financial institutions the big fintech companies they need the infrastructure they need the technology they need someone who can build it who can provide it who can sell it to them.

So I would say if that is the space in which you're building and you're working on there are phenomenal opportunities you should be looking at some of the big institutions. You know the two big issues that we hear over and over again are security and compliance. So if you can build in that space uh I think there are great opportunities that lie ahead. I can concur with what he said. At Revolute, security and compliance are just at the core of everything we do and it's probably the most critical item when it comes to assessing any crypto product or company.

Absolutely. It is it is paramount and it's what the government and the regulators are looking at and if you mess it up, the consequences are are significant. So, we got to get it right and it's just a big focus of of what needs to be built today.

Okay. Well, you heard it first right here. Anthony, thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Maz.