Risk Management in the DeFi Era: What "Institutional-grade" Actually Means | EBC12

Okay, when they close that door, I think we'll get started. Um, and I assume a timer will be set. Um, otherwise we'll spend the rest of the day, um, discussing a topic that is multifaceted in its aspects. Um, I'm just going to ask those of you who need to make important calls or have conversations, um, to step outside, because I can hear every word you say, Thomas, over there in the third row. Um, and you're in the fourth row, no matter how pretty you are.

Um, okay, I'm going to, um, introduce, um, our panelists. I'm Stuart McDonald. Um, by the way, I'm the co-chair of the conference. And, um, in the past, I chaired a series of conferences related to hedge fund risk management called " called " Hedge Fund Risk" on both sides of the Atlantic, and I found that the biggest mistake of my career was not taking the path that would have allowed me to become a chief risk officer, a CRO. I...

I...I think it's absolutely fascinating. Now, um, I think those of us who have been active in this particular space for more than 2 months know more than 2 months know that there was a long period during which very few digital asset managers had anything resembling, um, holistic risk management. Um, very few had really basic things like, um, external or independent risk assessment mechanisms, let alone, um, anything internal that would allow them to keep risks under control. And, you know, one of the themes of this conference is that we're moving into, um, a more institutionally filled, if not dominated, era for this, um, space.

And, um, so this is a pretty pertinent, um, question. Um, introducing, um, the panelists, I'm actually going to ask them to talk, based on their experiences, about, um, in a way, what this question really means to them in terms of the experiences they've had, um? And well, first of all, I'll say that Thomas, on my right, um, has been at Jane Street, um, for many, many years and joined the years and joined the , um, Qube, um, last February, when he said there were about 2,000 people there. Hmm, now there seem to be 3,000 of them now there seem to be 3,000 of them . Not all organizations, not all enterprises are cutting jobs.

Um, some are increasing their staff. And, um are increasing their staff. And, um , he's known to me as a real risk expert. Um, next we have, um, Cedric from Geneva, um, with whom we have many common working moments. He manages a hedge manages a hedge fund portfolio as well as cryptocurrency allocations for Banque Pictet.

We also have wonderful local experts with us, Javier and Roman, who are the heads of the two only institutional, truly institutional hedge institutional hedge funds operating in the cryptosphere and managed from Spain. So I believe that each of them can speak authoritatively. Moving on to the first question, I'll give the floor to you, Thomas. Congratulations. Hello everyone.

I'm Tom, Director of Quantitative Research at Qube. Hi, I'm Cedric. As you said, I head the hedge head the hedge fund division at Cees. We launched a crypto hedge fund three years ago crypto hedge fund three years ago . I would be happy to talk about what we are doing in the DeFi space.

OK. Hello, I'm Javier Pineda. I am here. I work at Renta 4 Bank. I am the manager of the crypto hedge manager of the crypto hedge fund Renta 4.

Greetings to everyone. My name is Roman. We run a crypto hedge run a crypto hedge fund here in Spain, and this year we launched an ETP as well as a basket of assets. Okay, I'd like to move on to the first substantive question of our panel, building on its title. Why is this issue relevant?

As part of this, how do you think institutional investors feel about DeFi? Are they ready for it? What do they expect in terms of hacking risks and other dangers? Also related is this : what does " : what does " institutional" versus " versus " non-institutional" mean in this context, both for investors and for you? Again, let's open this issue up for discussion.

Let's start, perhaps, with Roman. Start. OK. This is a very valid question. So, I think the goal of our team and personally, is to provide institutional clients with access to the market while managing risks appropriately.

There are many risks in crypto, because when you think about them, you usually only think of market fluctuations, but there are many more. Custody risk, wallet management wallet management , operational risks, and even inheritance issues if you, for example, hold the funds yourself. So I see our job as taking on these risks, in addition to purely market risks. So, our main goal is our main goal is to give clients who already have other products in their portfolios the opportunity to own crypto assets in the same way they own other traditional asset classes. So our main goal with respect to risk is to try to absorb all these risks related to regulation, storage and everything else, except for the market risk of the asset itself.

Here. Good. In my opinion, institutional investors, I think they are interested, but we need to distinguish between interest and willingness. I believe that the main barrier for institutional investors is not a lack of interest lack of interest . I think they need to understand the chain, the risks of the entire chain, like liquidity risk, smart contract risk, regulatory requirements and everything else.

So I think the main barrier is not a lack of interest. And whether DeFi can be integrated into the institutional risk management framework. So, this is my opinion based on my experience. Good. So, from my side, things are a little different side, things are a little different .

We have been allocating funds to hedge funds for 25 years. And a few years ago, we decided to look at cryptocurrency to find alpha. So from a process and risk management perspective, it's a similar job. This is a similar structure from a fund perspective. What really changed was when we started investing in DeFi last year.

And it was a completely new way of approaching and implementing a new risk management structure for this type of activity. And speaking of institutional investors, we are , so we are really interested. But if I look at what's happening in Switzerland, I don't see many people, many investors, institutional investors, investing in DeFi right now. So. Ahem.

So, at the risk of oversimplifying a very complex issue. Um, I think my fellow panelists have talked a lot and will continue to talk about the institutional view institutional view . I think it might be worth taking a step back to the second part of your question, which is about institutional versus non-institutional. And at the risk of giving a history lesson here, I think for important context, crypto was born, Bitcoin was born in 2008, during the Occupy Wall Street movement, at the height of all of that . And it was a reaction to a heightened sense of distrust in our existing financial systems.

And because what cryptocurrency is, or one way to look at crypto, is a way of eliminating intermediaries in trust through cryptography. So, essentially, what people have done here is this: they have built a financial system from the ground up, created by the users themselves the users themselves . And the users in this case are primarily retail customers. So, the way this space has evolved has been focused largely on retail goals: self-sovereignty, financial freedom, privacy, and so on. That is why many of the challenges for an institution looking into this space lie in overcoming many of the assumptions built into crypto today.

And there are a few ways I think about it , like institutional versus retail or non-institutional use, and there are a few key factors here. One of them factors here. One of them is the concept of trust is the concept of trust , trust in intermediaries, since cryptography was invented largely to eliminate some financial intermediaries. Whereas institutions, by their very nature and structure, rely on proven counterparties, on proven infrastructure providers, on this middle tier. And that's part of the challenge, because the emergence of this goes against some of the original principles original principles on which cryptocurrency was founded.

The other key thing, I think, is about privacy, because privacy means very different things to institutions and to individuals. And one of the key things about privacy, in my opinion, is that individuals are very concerned about the privacy of property. They are fine with you looking into the wallet, seeing all the balances and transactions, they just don't want you to know who owns the wallet. But for an institution that is used to filing quarterly reports, 13Fs or whatever, it's or whatever, it's normal for them if people know what they own. Instead, they are very concerned about the confidentiality of transactions.

You don't want all your transactions to be publicly submitted in real time, because then you risk information leakage, frontrunning, etc. And this is another tension that exists between institutional use and the dominant paradigm of cryptocurrencies today cryptocurrencies today . Perfectly. Who wants to continue this thought? Javier or Roman?

First, Roman. Javier later. Yes, I like their thoughts about all those levels being eliminated. You know, this is a big difference between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), for sure. But sometimes for sure.

But sometimes , well, after you've removed all the layers you've removed all the layers , the problem is that you've put a lot of responsibility on the end investor, on the institution. Because sometimes it sounds like, "Okay, now it's 24/7 trading, now I can hold the assets myself," but there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that. So you want to be 100% sure sure , and you want to have a really good player in place. I often talk about storage because I myself had, let's say, a bad experience. It seems like it was a few weeks ago.

I took my Ledger Nano out of the basement . I don't know if anyone in the audience knows what that is. I hope so. And you know, there's a battery in this thing , so there was almost no charge, and it was painful for me to move some of my assets. Even I don't really like to store my assets myself for many reasons.

So, even as a even as a software engineer, I'll tell you software engineer, I'll tell you : while this technology has its beauty, you have to make sure that you manage the risks of removing all these layers well. Javier. Regarding self- storage, I know everyone says it's the safest way to invest and own crypto, but I think with self-storage you might be better at managing your risks, but remember the Cold Card case. Cold Card Cold Card case. Cold Card is a hardware Bitcoin wallet.

They had a vulnerability in the seed phrase generation process. And the hackers were able to calculate the private keys of several wallets and stole a lot of BTC. So when you choose self-storage, you still rely on third parties: those who create the firmware, the hardware, the code, the chip. Therefore, in my opinion, when you buy, for example, an ETF buy, for example, an ETF , you rely on the issuer, on the custodian. So, in my opinion, there is no ideal storage model.

I believe that any storage model can be attacked. Therefore, the investor should choose the storage model that best suits him. That's my point of view. Well, as far as storage goes, I do n't have much experience, except for when we were launching our own bitcoin fund of funds and we had to implement a whole new system and personal process. It was very difficult.

And when we talked about it initially, especially in terms of finding, yes, finding a custodian, finding counterparties, it wasn't easy. Therefore, we preferred not to take any risks and used the services of an external consultant who helped us build an operational structure for this new product. And I think in terms of self- storage, I'm not sure a financial institution or a bank would be of any help. This is very difficult to implement, and it is best to contact an external vendor to do it. Of course.

Well, I think part of what this indicates is that financial systems are really... systems are really... I'm sorry, this is the dumbest thing I'm going to say today, probably all week, but financial systems are really, really complicated. And I think because of the existence of so many intermediaries, many of whom are in this room, we've become accustomed to working with traditional assets through intermediaries because they create value by removing much of that complexity. So when you think about something like custody, custody exists in other asset classes as well.

Settlements exist in other asset classes, but we don't think about them because we usually connect to a prime broker, and it is he who provides us with access, financing, handles all the settlements, and is a member of the clearing house. So the fact that the cryptosphere is facing these problems is not at all surprising, and part of the tension that arises today is due to the fact that no one has yet created a comprehensive end-to-end solution. Therefore, we expect a whole new class of intermediaries to emerge in the cryptosphere that will allow institutions to get involved, but it is difficult to get involved, but it is difficult ... There is a problem of " ... There is a problem of " cold start".

There is also a regulatory issue: if you need a custodian and you are a regulated institution, you have certain responsibilities and you need to find someone who is also regulated. And it takes a very, very long time if you start creating a custodian from scratch. So I don't want to say that these problems are unique to the cryptosphere, because they exist in other asset classes as well. But what's happening is that there's a lot more choice now, and a lot more awareness of complexity, because the cryptosphere has stumbled upon these problems. And so we find ourselves in a situation where, listen, no one wants to settle 10,000 transactions a day, whether it's cryptocurrencies, stocks, bonds, or the foreign exchange market.

You know, counterparties exist in these other asset classes. They are just starting to appear in this asset class. And we now live in a world where you, as an institutional investor, want to have access to Bitcoin, but you don't want to do self- custody; you don't want to bother with margin payments at midnight on Sunday. You can simply gain access through ETFs. And then you don't have to worry about the risk of hacking, or risk of hacking, or whether you have permission to trade this alternative asset class, because you're just buying it because it's an ETF.

So, there are certain problems that cryptocurrency has created that are unique to this asset class. But the crypto industry has also created many solutions. Therefore , we see how many of these solutions are borrowed from the traditional financial system. For example, the whole idea of T+2 securities settlements is now obsolete, and this has largely been due to improvements in blockchain ledgers and similar technologies. So I think what will happen is this: the digital infrastructure will be largely absorbed by many of the traditional players in the financial system.

If you use a large prime broker today to trade stocks, bonds, currencies, or commodity futures, the idea that they will have their own custodian that you can use will greatly simplify the process, it just takes time. Who wants to add to this ? Yes, Cedric. Do you want to say? What do you want to add about this?

I will say that for both the investor and investors in China, it has been a long road to cryptocurrency adoption. This is not easy. If you work in a large organization, you need to convince a lot of people. This is not the same as talking to a private individual who wants to manage their own cryptocurrency assets. When it comes to a large organization like a bank, you need to convince the CEO convince the CEO , the CEO, and the board of directors because they are the ones who have to approve this new way of investing.

And for us, it was like that, we brought this issue to the board of directors' attention three times. They ask questions about the risks of storage, of allocation to the funds we choose, of concentration. It took us about six months to create this product. It only took three months internally to agree on our plans. And that was 3 years ago, and also last year and also last year , when we created this bit in BTC, we had to go through all the security layers again.

Our risk security layers again. Our risk manager came to us at least 15 times. And, you know, it wasn't easy, but it was great. It was fascinating. When we talked about DeFi before, we were looking at DeFi as early as 2 years ago, but it was, well, it was dangerous.

We were not ready for this. And last year we really did a lot of work in this direction. And in January 2025, we started investing in DeFi. But we took many precautions. We selected many managers.

We are well diversified across many protocols many protocols . We conduct our own due diligence on every protocol we invest in. We demand complete transparency from all our asset managers. And I think we have implemented a risk management system that, yes, at least allows us to mitigate risks. Since we see a high risk of hacker attacks in DeFi, we know that managers have ways to minimize such risks through insurance and the use of platforms that prevent such threats.

Can I ask a question? Yes. Sorry. I'm taking your job. So, how much has the discussion changed internally: from looking at market risks to looking at market structure or product structure?

Because now we live in a world where Bitcoin is an asset with 30% volatility, there is Cosbi with 90% volatility Cosbi with 90% volatility , and you can trade triple Soxl on your personal account. Yes, but what has changed is that a few years ago, when we ran a traditional hedge fund, we were looking for alpha in the market were looking for alpha in the market , but finding it in the traditional market is becoming increasingly difficult. So we said, " Okay, let's see what's going on in the crypt." But we found the first manager who was involved in arbitration 4 years ago. And we worked on that a little bit.

We believed there was great potential for alpha generation here. You need volatility, you need volume, you need retail investors, people who don't know this market very well. You can really find opportunities to correct price distortions, and that's when we decided, " we decided, " Maybe it's time for our group to do this." And then it took 3 to 6 months to get approval within our institution. Roman.

Yes, that was a very good question, Tom. I think the market has changed: from the question "Should we invest in Bitcoin?" to "Should we invest in cryptocurrency?" To the question: "Okay, what is this product?" "What is the best way to invest in this market?"

So when we talk to institutional clients, I think they understand that having less than 1% having less than 1% exposure to crypto is exposure to crypto is too little. So they are now seriously thinking about how to get at least that 1% at least that 1% exposure to crypto. And so, the problem now is, where to go? How, how, how do I get this exposure? And I think this problem has already been solved.

In my opinion, there is no better way to invest in crypto than an ETP than a regulated product regulated product , as it allows you to avoid many risks by delegating them to proper custodians and professional risk management teams. So, that's my opinion. This is how we distribute our clients' funds in the bank. Because, as I said, the goal is not for the client to become an expert in crypto, because it is almost impossible for each of us to become a specialist in this field. But the goal is to give them the opportunity to invest safely to invest safely , while we take on a lot of risks that they don't even realize exist; Perhaps my panic with the Ledger Nano was caused by the fact that, as a computer engineer, I knew that if something went wrong, I would lose everything, all my assets.

So maybe that's why I panicked. Maybe ordinary people wouldn't even panic because they think there's a "delete" button or a phone number they can call to get their assets back. Isn't that right? Javier? I I want to talk about this, but let's say institutional investors now have the opinion that they should invest in crypto, at least a small percentage, if they don't want to lose the benefit.

And in this regard, I want to discuss Raoul Pal's reflections. Raul Pal Raoul Pal's reflections. Raul Pal is a former general manager at Goldman Sachs. He said that global liquidity is growing by about 8% each year about 8% each year . Global inflation is growing by about 2-3%, so together it's more or less 11%.

So, the investor needs to receive 11% per annum if he does not want to lose purchasing power. He says that over the past decade, the performance of several assets, for example, gold was 12%, the S&P 30%, and only two assets had indicators higher than 12 and 30%—the Nasdaq (20%) and Bitcoin (about 60-70%). So, if you haven't invested in these two assets over the past decade, you've lost purchasing power. I think these institutional investors are now changing their minds because they see that if you don't invest in crypto, you will miss out on great opportunities and your purchasing power will decrease. Does anyone want to add anything?

If not, I'll mention some risks we haven't touched on yet. I wonder if you want to add anything to the recognition that they exist. For example, in no particular order: the issue of KYT and AML, in DeFi KYT vs. KYC as a compliance model. We haven't even touched on cyber risks, quantum risks, geopolitical risks, commercial risks, or even ethical risks.

I'm curious which of you would like to talk about this. I don't care which one . I'll pause for a breath. Okay, I'll give the floor to you, Cedric. Thank you.

So, actually at our level, we delegate the management of these risks to the managers we elect. This means that we do not cover this type of risk ourselves. We check whether our managers are monitoring these risks. But it is certain that AML risk exists in DeFi . Although I don't know if that's really a risk.

There are just not many of them, and not on every protocol. And maybe there are only a few of them. So yes, we have clients asking what AML you have in DeFi. I say, "Okay, but that's something that doesn't actually exist yet." And we have to put up with that for now .

I am sure that there will be some further developments in this area. But for now, that's how it is , and we have to live with it live with it . And yes, it's a difficult, complicated discussion with some clients. Roman. Okay, it's funny, because sometimes I remember this chapter from Seyfedin's book.

This is a good book called "Bitcoin Standard." You know them. This is a good section on banking with Bitcoin. And I think it's the only book I've read twice. Maybe that's the only reason I'm still in this industry.

So, it's about all the banks finally joining the protocols. When I think about AML and all these compliance issues, the only solution is there will be only two types of banks. Banks starting to connect to all protocols: Bitcoin, Ethereum protocols: Bitcoin, Ethereum , Solana, etc. And banks that will disappear. When you connect to all protocols, you understand that these protocols cannot fail in terms of transaction history and all the ledgers that are in the blockchains.

So when you transfer money on a chain like Bitcoin, you know it can't be reversed. In my opinion, there is nothing better for anti- money laundering ( AML) and compliance than protocols like Bitcoin or Ethereum. The only question is, as Tom said, how banks will connect to these new protocols. Javier, and then Tom. What I want to say is that the world of traditional finance (TradFi) and the world of DeFi, I think they will both converge.

I do n't think one of them will destroy or absorb the other. I think TradFi has good things like regulation and governance, while DeFi has governance, while DeFi has 24/7 settlement and transparency. So I believe these two worlds will come closer thanks to stablecoins thanks to stablecoins , real assets, and tokenized funds tokenized funds . In my opinion, both worlds will survive, and we will take the best of each. Tom.

Yes, I think one of the very clear examples of what Javier is talking about is the current discussion. And this can be described in several ways. One is permissioned versus permissionless, or centralized versus decentralized blockchains. Because, as I mentioned at the beginning, KYC is fundamentally a matter of trust. That is matter of trust.

That is , how do I find out who is on the other side of my transaction? The only way I can know is to have information about them, and enough information to trust that information. So, in a world where things are fundamentally built on a lack of trust, the KYC model simply doesn't work. And I believe that KYT, which means "know your transaction," has demonstrated some effectiveness. Of course, there are many criminals or unscrupulous participants who are caught precisely because their activities are so easily tracked.

But I think fundamentally we are going to live in a pretty divided world: permissioned or decentralized networks versus permissioned or centralized networks. Because after all, if you take large public networks like Bitcoin or Ethereum, anyone can create a node. The situation is the same with Hyperledger . Anyone can set up a node or wallet and start using the network almost immediately, without any KYC elements. A new wave of some kind of centralized blockchains, well, you know, there are those that are created inside banks.

There are some payment networks that are currently under development. There are many consortia that are currently being actively formed. One of the factors for accessing such a blockchain is passing a certain type of KYC. So we have a situation where someone can control access. And if you can control access, you can implement KYC as a factor that allows institutions to interact in the way they are used to.

But it won't be on Bitcoin. This will not be on Ethereum. This will not be on Solana. And I think there's a very serious discussion going on right now about what the future will be. And, actually, I think it's a pretty fascinating discussion.

Roman? Yes, this is a really controversial conversation, but I like your thoughts on decentralization. And yes, I think good technology good technology is not blockchain, it's Bitcoin, it's Ethereum, it's those permissionless layers that allow you to do a lot of things that a person couldn't do before 2009. So when you have this powerful tool, the idea is, " the idea is, " Okay, now the responsibility is on the people, on the institutions." That's why these institutional trading solutions are going to take on this responsibility.

So, but yeah, I mean, I agree. I believe that true technology is decentralized. This is the one on which everything is built, it works and will work in the future. And answering your question about quantum computing, we sometimes forget that these technologies are evolving. Bitcoin is not a static technology.

It is evolving, and although it seems slower than other networks like Solana or Ethereum networks like Solana or Ethereum , it works well. That is, it is developing faster than traditional finance. This is reality. So when quantum computers become a real problem, we will have many suggestions for improving Bitcoin to stop it. Javier?

Well, as I said before, I think both worlds should coexist, traditional finance and DeFi, because they need each other. There are good things in both worlds , as I said. And as for quantum computers, I will say that this is not a problem right now. And as Roman said, Bitcoin technology is constantly improving. I think this is not a problem now.

I don't think she will become one in the future. So I think, as I said, the technology is evolving, and right now we don't expect problems in a few years. So I think we'll be ready for it when it comes. And we are still a long way from problems arising. Of course.

Good. Yes, regarding risk, I was at the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in May and it was a big topic. There, people were really arguing on stage about this. Either you look for a solution today, or you wait for what happens, and when the first people are hacked, then you have to react have to react . There was an argument there, it lasted about 30 minutes, and people were very unhappy.

It was strange because some people said that if we try to fix it now, people will think Bitcoin is dangerous and abandon it. This was the main argument. Tom, do you want to add anything? Yes, I'm going to give away my age a little now, but in 1999 I was working under contract at Goldman on the Y2K project. I don't know if people remember this if people remember this , but essentially the problem at the time, or what was considered a problem, was that every computer system in the world was programmed using a two-digit year format.

And so when the year 2000 came, suddenly there were double zeros, which would cause a lot of programs to crash, and everyone thought that planes were going to start falling out of the sky and all sorts of other things were going to happen. So, we still live in a world where part of the fundamental financial infrastructure is built on COBOL, and no one knows how to program in it anymore . So yes. Will there be risks in the future for any software system, software-based system ? I mean, definitely, yes.

I believe that quantum computing quantum computing is a different problem for proof-of-work and proof-of-stake networks. Bitcoin is the most famous proof-of- work network. But for others, like Ethereum or Solana, that use proof of stake, you have some voting power, and validators are the voting power, and validators are the ones who actually confirm transactions. So I think that's a slightly different problem. But yes, it is real.

The great thing about cryptocurrencies is that they are a huge experiment built on iterations. You release a product, see what's wrong with it , improve it, release fixes, improve it again—that's how a lot of the things we're used to working with are created. I don't want to downplay the threats of hacking, quantum computing, or anything else. We see a lot of evidence of poor product design leading to attacks through oracles and things like that. But, you know, in the long run, if enough people follow this, and quantum computers can actually break SHA break SHA -256 encryption, a lot of other things will be at risk.

Do you disagree? Much more than just a $2 trillion asset class , at least in the case of Bitcoin. So, I think the fact that so many people are focused on the quantum problem in relation to Bitcoin is actually a positive thing, because the only way to improve an iterative system iterative system is if people pay attention to it and work on solutions. Um, so for that matter, I probably have a little more faith in the crypto community than, say, the COBOL language of the say, the COBOL language of the 1950s. But looking ahead, and not trying to seem outdated, in quantum terms, we haven't quite gotten to the point where we can bend space as well as time, and so, unlike the Bitcoin offering, our time supply for this panel is unfortunately limited.

So, we will have to finish. What I would like to ask very quickly, and this is really very quickly, besides you sending me your wallet details and passwords: I would like to know very quickly , looking at a 3-5 year perspective (not longer, but that's a long time in the crypto world): do you see that you see that ultimately large incursions, increased institutional participation at different levels of this space will prevail, or do you see that the animal instincts that have driven this space so far will eventually drag institutions along with them? In other words, will we end up with something very institutional, where we have to work on traditional institutional schedules, using the usual modus operandi, or will we end up in a mimetic world, run essentially by Robin Hoods and figures floating in the air? Let's start with you, Roman, but very quickly. I think this space is going to grow a lot because anyone from their own home, from another part of the world, can launch a protocol, for example, that runs on top of Ethereum, and you know, a new idea comes along, and, you know, it's unstoppable.

But institutions have to adapt, adapt to people, to regulators, and adapt to doing things properly, just to avoid the risks we talked about. Perfectly. What do you say, Javier? Yes, I share Roman's opinion that institutions must adapt; If they are adapting to the crypto and DeFi world now, then these institutions must also adapt to the changes that will come in the coming years. I think they will come together, not completely, but I think we will take the best from each other, they will improve, and that is what I see in the future.

Okay, Tom. Yes, and it is worth noting that convergence is happening in both directions. It's not just traditional assets on crypto, you know, it's tokenization, perpetual futures, all those things, but it's also crypto assets that are put into traditional wrappers like ETPs, structured products, QIS notes and so on. I mean, we're totally expecting this world and, you know, preparing for it. So, if someone doesn't have a specific strategy for digital assets, I think you should start thinking about it .

And let me conclude by saying that our extensive preparation for this panel, which was not fully reflected in the conversation due to lack of time, showed me how great experts all four of them are. I think each of them would be happy to talk to all interested parties. They are definitely worth reaching out to. I can only thank you, the wonderful panelists, and thank you for being a wonderful audience.