Revolutionising Crypto Access: Why Robinhood and Bitstamp Are Betting Big on Crypto’s Future | EBC10

[Music] okay perfect thank you so much um good afternoon everyone um and welcome uh so I'm Rafael BL one of the co-founder of the big well which is an European crypto media uh actually guys I'm very happy to be with you on stage because I think that this is the first time that you are together to talk about so the operation and the fact that now you you are partners um can you just briefly introduce yourself and after I have of course many questions Yan if you want to start yeah so hi everyone I'm Johan Kat uh I'm the uh general manager for the robin crypto entity at Robinhood and yeah really excited to be y yeah hi everyone uh very happy to be here as well uh my name is JB grafo I am the CE of bit stamp um so very very nice to meet you perfect just maybe uh talk closer to the to the mic okay perfect so Yan I would like to start with you um simple question what uh Drew Robin Hood uh I mean to I mean by out bit stamp uh why this move yeah so maybe to close um so so there was really like three three big reason for us to uh acquire bit stamp and just to really reiterate we at this point we only announce and the acquisition will be finalized in H1 of next year uh but for for us like the three big reason was one the the international expansion uh bit stamp has about 50 uh Global licenses and so for us it's a big uh step forward for for our expansion internationally the second thing is it's an exchange uh Robin Hood for for the people that don't know is a is a Marketplace so we don't uh match orders and uh you know we think that having a globally scaled exchange like bit stamp is a is a big uh step forward and the final thing was a diversification of Revenue uh bitstamp as a large institutional business and so for us it's also like a big step outside of just serving retail and so uh Jean batist without telling us all the details of the operation um what were your first thoughts about I mean this operation and how you see the future with Robin Hood yeah sure so I I think there is as Joan mentioned you know there is a lot of synergies between the the two businesses um bitam is very well known in in Europe so we can bring our retail but also institutional uh customers uh to the combined entity uh beside that uh I mean you have the best product in the world so we are very excited also to uh essentially learn from your experience and uh amplify our experience offer a broader range of products to our customers um so I think we are very excited by the combination of the the two businesses uh I think we can offer more liquidity on the platform uh I think from a culture perspective as well you are regulatory also very compliant like us regulatory first so we want to offer the best experience to the retail and institutional customers that we are managing today and we can grow with robinot definitely and how you think that uh I mean combining your two business will maybe uh I mean accelerate the growth of the crypto markets maybe especially in Europe yeah so you know I think for us at first it's very important to keep the two business uh fairly independent like we want to make sure that what has been working for bit stamp is going to keep working and you know we don't disrupt the the course of action and something for Robin like I think you know for us uh we've been very good at serving retail customer and so we don't want to disrupt everything but I I I think really what it's going to to create uh this combination in the future is like a very uh large competitor to to some of the the other platform on the on the planet that are like serving already and institution and it's going to provide a very safe uh platform regulated like JB just said safety first um and you know I think we need that after what we see what we saw with FTX and and binance and all the the things and so Robinwood is more focused on u i mean retail and bitstamp um has a big unit uh for I mean more B2B business uh do you think that this is a a big leverage for uh for Robin Hood I mean and the the the new company yeah I I I think it's a very important part like you know Robin Hood has been really focused on retail we have 25 million customer um in the US and so for us uh it was making sense to really focus on retail for a long time making sure that we have the product to serve all the different type of segment that we have um in in customers but I think for for us it's also be um on the top of our mind that at some point we need to diversify uh when you see like Market you know being volatile um institution are usually staying a bit more on top of the market um and I think we had two choices right like you could start from scratch and and really you have to build everything and it's going to take a long time or you can already have like an established business like bitstamp and thanks to that you already have established uh partnership trust and and that's going to be like a huge step forward for us okay and Jean batist so uh you've been in this space for a while uh bitstamp is one of the oldest European crypto company um how you see the European crypto landscape uh and what do you think that uh yeah how you see the the future for crypto in in Europe sure yeah I would say you know over the last five six years uh there there has been a regulatory transition uh there's been different regimes in different countries for what we so called you know the vasp uh regime so this is kind of you know very expensive very difficult and very complex you know to accommodate for small companies uh we have been playing the game you know since the the day one being in compliance everywhere where we are operating I think the beauty of uh what's coming in front of us uh is the mic regulation mic will be creating Level Playing Field uh in Europe which means that if you want to enter the the crypto Market in Europe you will need to be mic compliant uh so we we have been like you know supportive of this regulation for uh many many years essentially to build that framework and why it's important it's because this level of compliance will create a lot of trust in the ecosystem and what we will be observing is that uh more and more institutions more and more retail customers will enter the the crypto space which means essentially that the players with a mic license in in Europe will be in a position to see more activities more volume um so this is really like shortterm and we talk about you know first of January essentially so we are quite excited you know with that block putting in place being in place and um what we observe as well is more and more uh interest from institutional customer to enter the the space we saw that in the in the US you know with the ETF so there is a good Trend you know I think we are far from 2022 and 2023 crypto winter actually yeah you you talk about regulation and when we talk about regulation it equals to uh institutions um so yeah we maybe we saw the last 12 or 18 months uh more on more institutions coming in space uh do you think that you have some I mean yeah a key role in Europe uh so not only for retail but also for corporates yeah I mean if we look at um bit time today if we compare you know our H1 uh performance we have seen more than 60% increase of institutional activity on the on the exchange so we can see there is a very compelling Trend uh which in my opinion should be Amplified once the regulatory framework uh is established and beside that uh a lot of investors um are willing to enter the crypto space and for instance for bitstamp we have our retail customers we have 5 million customers today but we are also uh providing crypto access to institutions so we have a wi level solution that um many institutions are using they are integrating our white level solution to offer crypto access to their end client and I can s the last 18 months there is a lot of uh interest in this type of solution and this interest uh is only due uh thanks to the regulation or it's also a new dynamic in the market I think it's a combination of the two uh there's you know the the the coming clear regulatory landscape of course is uh is helping uh and also you know a lot of investors are willing to enter the space uh so we see more and more companies looking at the best solution for them to enter the crypto Market ideally in a very fast manner so I think it's a combination of Regulation market trends appetite from investors um so this is how we we see the market evolving okay and so Yan we talked about it um so Robin Hood is an American company uh now you are expanding in Europe how you will work uh with the bitstamp uh on this regarding the fact that you want them to see I mean to yeah to keep their independence in the business and yeah so you know we actually launched in the EU in in some countries in December of last year so we are not completely uh absent of the of the EU market and I think one important point on the Mika regulation is really that once m is in place you you actually have a block of countries that is in term of population like as comparable to to the US so it creates really an interesting market and makes a very uh important market for for any crypto company so I think for us that's really going to be the focus right is how can we go from the the 5 million customer that uh bitstamp has to the 300 or 400 million people that lives in in the EU right now um and I think there will be a combination of we need to build new products um that bitstamp is already building a lot of them but there will be also a combination of how do we make it accessible U you know I think crypto is still something that is a bit scary for too many people uh Robin is well known to make a a good UI good urx to to break down the the barrier to entry but I think there's still some more more work to do and one interesting thing about the two companies is that uh I mean you started from uh the traditional finance and bit stamp started with I mean more crypto and now you are I mean both of you doing this I mean the two business uh do you think that in the future every uh company and crypto company will also do stocks I mean tokenization and stuff like this I I I think we are going to start to see these Trends happening of the kind of the combination of trifi and crypto uh more and more you know when you think about it uh blockchain Technologies can actually solve a lot of the issues that we see on the equity world uh you know if if you think about it right you cannot trade 247 equities you cannot do fractionalization uh settlement T at least a day so uh there is still a lot that we can do and we can get inspired from the blockchain technology and I think all the companies are going to start looking at that and thinking that tokenization of re World asset is actually a lot more uh easy than than actually you try trying to trade the old thingst on this well I think Johan you know made a very good summary I think that there is probably a trend uh where we see it's interesting you see the the traditional you know players now offering crypto I would not be surprised you know if that Trend goes into the other direction which is crypto players uh offering stocks or tokenization there is a lot of conversation on tokenization since probably 18 months so I'm quite excited as well to see how the you know the the business line will evolve and uh we will see definitely more and more crypto players probably to tackle this opportunity in the future and I think that's where the the crypto as a service that bitstamp offers is is important because for for a lot of institution you know they will be able to actually offer digital assets just by implementing the crypto service and uh give it to their customer very easily okay so yeah it's more like a kind of merge between the the two the two spaces and do you know that it will happened I mean in the US before or in Europe I you know I think the two Trend that I'm the most excited right now has been Ai and and uh crypto or blockchain Technologies uh we started to see a lot of adoption uh mostly with stable coins I think in term of like tokenization of natural reward asset um I I will say currently looking at the regulation EU is probably the the next steps before the US and on this batist um yeah I I would say you mentioned St coin joh it's I mean if we look at the last three years what we can observe is that there is a lot of conversation on stable coins which is very interesting uh there are probably like close to 50 maybe 100 projects of stable coins in the in the world at the moment tokenization is also you know another conversation that uh is happening at the moment so uh quite excited as well to see the development around tokenization security tokens there's Market need it will take sometime to get there but uh there is that uh there is that Trend so yeah let's see where the the de you know the coming months and quarters but it's real I mean uh we have probably you know about five or seven s coins on our platform we see a lot of projects you know uh being nent there's a good Trend there yeah definitely okay maybe the last question for you bti about bit stamp um do you think that I mean you will had uh more stocks I mean more traditional uh Financial products uh in bit stamp or you will mean still be more focused on crypto um so we have been in crypto you know since 2011 so we have built uh crypto Solutions so far we have been spot exchange we offering staking lending uh we have a wide lbel solution for the institutional segment we are also contemplating crypto derivatives uh the market is three times bigger than the spot market so it makes completely sense for us uh as a native crypto exchange to explore uh this opportunity as well we talked about tokenization just earlier um I mean let's see after the acquisition you know how the strategy will play I think it's a difficult question you know to to answer but uh yeah definitely you know I think we have the appetite to offer the best products to the market crypto and on crypto so yeah so it will be completed in 2025 right yeah we we expect it to happen in h one of 2025 okay so guys good luck thank you again and a big round of applause for them thank you thank you very much yeah thank you