My name is In Singh. I lead the Go-To-Market and Partnerships department in the Digital Assets team at Google Cloud. I have a career in trading, investment banking, and about a decade in crypto decade in crypto and digital startups, even before I joined Google last year. I had the pleasure of performing on stage with Christian Quley. Christian is a partner in the A16Z crypto team.
He works with all sorts of startups and web3 startups and web3 companies on product business intelligence and go-to- market strategy. Before A16Z, Christian was himself a founder and created numerous DeFi and AI startups. He also created the first Ethereum analytics company under the umbrella of Consensus. Christian Consensus. Christian is a kind of crypto generator.
He knows this space well. He saw it from an infrastructure perspective when he worked at AWS. He saw it from the perspective of an operator when he created these startups, and now, from the perspective of an investor. I'm very happy that Christian will be on stage. So I thought we'd get straight to the point.
Um, the first question that I Um, the first question that I guess really comes to mind is, you know, when you reflect on your journey and the time you've spent building these companies, how do you think that influences your roadmap when you're talking to these founders in the cryptosphere? And how do you think that differentiates you, um, when you help them solve their go-to- market problems? Yes, thank you and thank you for inviting me here. Um, you know, I think a lot of the advice about going to market, business development, sales might sound great in theory. Um, but in practice and embodiment it's often much less interesting or compelling.
And I think that, you know, coming to the negotiating table with these founders, emphasizing that I've made a bunch of mistakes along the way, and I've learned a lot along the way, and trying to articulate, um, what's worked in the past, in terms of common pitfalls, was pretty effective. I mean, in my current role as a partner on the go-to- market team, I help companies with a number of challenges. So, instead of delving into one specific area, the challenge is to find commonalities that can be extended to different use cases use cases . And I think one common theme that I've learned over the years, especially, um, is this: when you're articulating the value of your product to the market, um, how can you reduce the friction that the user has to face to use your product? Whether it's the enterprise, the consumer, you, the entire journey of using your product, these moments through them, um, articulate this ease of use and how you bring your product to market.
Perfectly. Um, yes, I can certainly sympathize with you. You know, I've been on both sides of the equation and, um, I'm really impressed with what you're doing. Um, at Google Cloud, we spend a lot of time thinking about how money will move in the future. And, um, one thing that's really relevant these days is, obviously these days is, obviously , the transparency bill that's coming up.
Um, there are a lot of headlines and articles about this. I think people now estimate the probability of this law being passed at 60%. But, you know, when we talk to banks, there is certainly interest in stablecoins, but we find that there is much greater interest in tokenized deposits. And I'm curious, when you talk to your portfolio companies and to the institutions themselves, what do you see? How do you see this development between stablecoins and tokenized deposits?
Great question. The reality is that there are two parallel paths. Stablecoins, and this current wave of interest and adoption that is gaining momentum, is truly compelling. This provides a clear set of net new value around 24/7 compatibility, composability. The reality is that there is this tension.
Banks want to maintain deposit relationships. They want a system that fits into the existing compliance framework, and I think you know that the value of stablecoins is largely that they deploy on open networks, and banks want to find a way to realize some of those benefits while maintaining their current structures. So I think we'll see a layered implementation where, you know, the deposits that banks are looking to have will be held for some time to come. Um, and we might shift the focus a bit to compatibility between pure gaming stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits, at least in the near future. Yes, I completely agree with that .
You know, I think there was a time after the genius of talking about banks issuing their own stablecoins, and their own stablecoins, and , um, I think that's definitely come to naught . Now it's more about integrating existing stablecoins. But, you know, from their perspective, it's exactly what perspective, it's exactly what you said. We see that they, you know, want to provide their customers, business users or individual users with just cheaper, faster, better payments, and stablecoins are like taking the genie out of the bottle, so to speak. And now they are very focused on how do we keep the deposits on our balance sheet?
How do we do this in a capital-efficient way? and tokenized deposits–this is certainly one very exciting way for them to participate, to provide 247 programmability and other capabilities. But you pointed out something that I think is very important, namely compatibility. Many tokenized deposits today are within the four walls of a bank. And we have this product at Google Cloud called the universal ledger, which has been built at the protocol level to create this interoperability between these different monetary assets on the network.
So we're very excited about that, and we certainly think that both options will coexist over time, and it all depends on the use cases and what you're trying to do, whether it's crossbars or consumer or other business or retail use cases. But there was definitely a lot of interest, and we're really excited about that. On the other hand, tokenization, I don't like the word RWA. RWA, for those of you who have worked in a bank, means something completely different to banking regulators. And so on, but the concept of taking a traditional asset and representing it on the blockchain is very powerful.
In your conversations with portfolio companies, hedge companies, hedge funds, traders, and institutions, what do you see as the best application for RWA tokenization today? Yes, I think that's a great question. I think the key point for me is that tokenization itself is not the product, but what you are tokenizing and what benefits the tokenized version of that asset provides. We are seeing early interest and adoption in, among other things, tokenized money markets, tokenized treasury bonds. You essentially bonds.
You essentially take an asset, add things like 247-day trading, better performance better performance , better collateral mobility. You know, these are the first cases. There is no shortage of tokenized assets. I think the value proposition of tokenizing things beyond this initial set is still being worked out. But the best application would really be to let these things have time in the market, demonstrating benefits, and then you find ways to expand into other asset classes.
Yes, we certainly agree. I think the agree. I think the best use case right now is related to collateral mobility. The ability to tokenize a money market fund or treasury. If you think about how it works today, everything is limited to time frames and T+ 1 or T+2 cycles.
And then it gets even worse when you try to move assets between geographic regions and different time zones. So not only active tokenization is the best solution. It's about what you can do with that asset and the efficiency of capital use more than anything else. Uh anything else. Uh , this is very attractive to all institutional participants because it has collateral that can be moved between different exchanges and clearing houses 24/7 without having to worry about different settlement dates and then, ideally, without having to reconcile.
Well, today in the traditional world, there is a lot of reconciliation going on through various books and records various books and records . If everyone can point to one source of truth and say, “Yes, this asset moved or this asset was pledged to this counterparty, um, that would definitely be a huge player, and we see a lot of that. Um, and we're involved in a number of different initiatives to do just that, um, around the world. So I'm very happy about that. Um, it would be remiss of me not to mention Agentic, given the background and the companies we both represent both represent .
Um, I read a recent article by A16Z that basically said that if money becomes a packet that can route the Internet, then the Internet itself will become a financial system. Hmm, I'm very curious what led to that thought and how do you measure the success of that statement over time? Yeah, I mean, what really resonates with me, you know, is because as technology improves, you know, ideally money can function more and more as information than, you know, a currency that has to go through a number of friction points that exist in the current, um, you know, financial services stack. Hmm financial services stack. Hmm , and what does this mean in the future?
You know, for traditional institutions that have built their businesses on an existing stack, they need to find ways to realize the benefits of this new form of fast-moving value. But for new projects that are built from the ground up using best-in- class technology, it really opens up a wide range of possibilities. I think the biggest challenge in the future will be that traditional companies will have distribution. New companies with better technology have no distribution. How are you moving towards user acquisition or adapting your technology base to retain your users?
Of course. Yes. I mean, related to that, I've seen a lot of discussion or speculation that agents will be relevant. We all know that agency commerce is real. It's in the early stages, as you say, but it's definitely growing.
What do you think about the rails these agents will use for payment? If you look at the data... look at the data... Today, I think virtual card volumes have increased by about 6 times compared to last year. There was a lot of good momentum.
And then there's another camp that, then there's another camp that, you know, thinks about it like X42 and stablecoins directly are going to be the most optimal way to pay for these agents. And you know, I think there's a wide range of uses. Some of them are really microtransactions that either pay for APIs or computations, and require a really large amount of, you know, immediate settlement. But I'm really curious what you guys think about this and where do you think the trends will shift over time? Yes, I am happy to share my opinion from a market entry perspective.
You know, I think the growth of virtual cards and volumes there is really compelling and impressive. Hmm, and indeed, you know, that's a fact. Now that's an order of magnitude larger than the volumes flowing through some of the more open protocols open protocols , which...I'm a big fan of. The problem really is how to articulate the value of virtual cards or X42 to existing card users, existing, um, consumers.
What is more affordable? Now virtual cards are obviously a more affordable value. We see much faster implementation of new activity, new behavior, for example, adapting the amount of computation required over a period of time and the agent adjusting this amount in real time. This is a completely new type of behavior. And it seems to me that developing something specifically designed for this, using, you know, more open rails, maybe makes more sense.
But the behavior change that depends on the current rails, that you know you go from using a card to a virtual card, the extension and the behavior change is largely insignificant as you go from there to fully autonomous agents using XForge. It's a much bigger leap, and I think the challenge will be to find ways to articulate to your user base what the benefits are? What is the path to actually incorporating this into your workflow? Of course. That makes sense.
Um, speaking of agents, and you know, at Google Cloud we've spent a lot of time thinking about, um thinking about, um , AI. And, you know, AI, I think, has been maybe a bigger trend over the last few years. And, um, when people think about AI and how it's impacting, you know, the web industry, it's generally positive. Some, I think, you know Some, I think, you know , agents will bring in a lot of volume, and the agency commerce is real, but there's a dark side. Um, you know, I think we've already seen a number of exploits this year.
Um, and I think the numbers are already reaching 700 million. Um, and when you talk to founders and startups, are they more aware of this now than they were six months ago when they were pitching to institutions? Is security and thinking about how AI can be used for exploits more of a ... A topic in your conversations, or is it, you know, the same thing, and has it always been important to some extent? I'm just curious how it changed.
I mean, based on my own conversations, it's always been critically important. This has always been important. And I just think there's a greater understanding now in a broader sense of the power of the tools that we have access to both on the audit side and on the prevention side, as well as on the exploitation side. And I think, um, you know, there's a period of sobriety now where, you know, until we release advanced models that comprehensively look at existing code bases, we live in a time where there's a certain unknowable set of risks based on code that's been in development for years. And you know, there will be a transition, and I think the tools that founders and security teams have access to and can integrate and then articulate the value of that security to their users are the same tools that the other side has access to.
So, I think so. Now it's a real race between who finds what first and who installs the patches. And I think we're moving from a one-time audit model to periodic monitoring with best-in- class models. And I think we're in this interesting transitional phase. It's a little disconcerting, but the founders I've spoken to are very encouraged by the tools they have access to.
Yes. This is quite logical. I mean, at Google, we know that security know that security is kind of a first- class citizen for everything we build, whether it's the universal ledger protocol or the upcoming MPC wallet that we're building. We really think about how to provide the most reliable and secure experience for our partners and customers. So, we are creating this MPC wallet.
It's a multi-party key management tool that, um, allows you to sign transactions on multiple different blockchains. Full private keys were never actually created or stored in one place. It uses this concept...key shares to actually sign the transaction and eliminates the single point of failure problem. Another thing it does very well is the ability to sign transactions in less than a second.
And we can do this on multiple blockchains, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Salana, and of course Universal Ledger. So we are very happy about this. But, nevertheless , we use these artificial intelligence tools at every stage of the product creation process. And product creation process. And we will likely continue to accelerate this pace over time.
You spent a lot of time going to market, and you were on the other side, as I mentioned. I'm very curious because I've personally been on the other side. What mistakes do you think younger companies make when approaching institutions, whether in the financial sector or outside it? What mistakes do they make or things they don't think through that you see as a trend lately? I think thematically, you know, there's a persistent, uh, misconception that best practices and what worked in terms of go-to- market for Web Two doesn't apply to Web Three, which is not at all untrue is not at all untrue .
And I think, you know, you need, you know, a champion. You need a clear value proposition. You need to provide a clear way, if you're talking to a business, a clear way to use your product. You need to eliminate friction points. You need to consider customer feedback.
In general, at least the corporate segment is not buying for the sake of decentralization. They buy for clear, measurable benefits. And I think recently we've seen a growth of a more strategic approach to going to market. Um, largely around this idea that the best technology doesn't always win. I think the technology that provides the clearest benefits and is easy to implement usually has pretty good results.
Um good results. Um , if you think about the champion or buyer mentality in the enterprise, you know, they have a lot of flaws, if the technology they're recommending, If something goes wrong, the recommendation goes wrong, minimal potential. You know, they're not really investing in this technology. They simply convey the idea that it can help business. And if you give them an easy path to implement it, that's a much easier sell than saying, "Look, this is a new technology that's going to change everything."
Go and sell it inside." It will be much more difficult there. So, I think you know this idea of removing friction points, working more closely together, and developing the use case, rather than developing the technology, and the use case will adapt. I think it was a mental model that changed, and it was encouraging to see it evolve over time. I completely agree.
I mean, agree. I mean, on that note, one of the things that people have to appreciate about Trafi is that they are very budget constrained, and that's only going to increase. Everything is a strict priority, and to get a use case or a new technology, especially if it's a new priority, everything needs to be quantified. Everything, every element of this has to be quantified. If we look at each deal individually, how much money will I save or what net new revenue and volume can I get, for example, this year and next year, rather than in five years.
So in five years. So , uh, I completely agree with that. Um, I think we're almost there. I have one more question for you, and we did n't prepare it, but it's the most important one. Who are you playing tonight, the Knicks or the Spurs?
I have Nix. Uh, I'm a longtime Boston Celtics fan, but it's been really fun to see the city come alive around the Knicks, and they have n't been playing very well in a while, so I... playing very well in a while, so I... don't have...uh, deep- rooted disdain for them.
That's it. Perfectly. Well, thank you very much. Thank you thank you very much. Thank you .
Automatic transcript — names and jargon may be misspelled.