Exclusive Interview with WINTERMUTE Co-Founder Yoann Turpin | KBW2023

so the way we had separated the business was essentially more between spot and derivatives so spot in London and derivatives in Singapore more as like splitting the land from a regulatory point of view to be honest to take to take less risk as such uh we had some clarity with the ECA in the UK on spot and we had some clarity basically with Mas in in Singapore so that's late 2021 we started the small team in Singapore and I would say it's more the the signal that we want to launch it's more that we very much you know much more focused in Asia these days hence me spending about you know bit more than two months living here uh in soland discovering the ecosystem because we don't have a business here per say it's more about you know looking for Investments and just understanding the ecosystem um but also like in Asia in general it's just quite a granular ecosystem as such so it's just quite interesting to just go and spend you need to spend time on the ground it's a very very very cool space and it's very um both um you know a space that makes me enthusiastic here in South Korea and and very frustrated because there's there's a ton of really cool people building things um there's a bit more of an app layer for example for for as opposed to let's say bit bit like in Japan there a bit more of an app layer for crypto uh which means that we should actually be able to just bring a lot more you know you users into into the crypto space but there's also all sorts of you know friction between so let's say two things there's a bit of you know political uh cautiousness about the space um and I don't blame them considering Luna and so on and on um on the other side there really good you know Solid Ground from you know web two companies that have you know gone into web 3 but it's sometimes they just see it too much as a corporate you know Corporate Way of like going into a new space um but it's a really really you know cool country SL cool City to to to be in and uh very very good at embracing new trends you know you can see it close to the v tower you've got these streets basically full of uh self you know self Studios and then um and Tarot shops and so on where you can see how quickly you know South Korean is going to braing strength but essentially yeah it's um both very very cool very very interesting but also very challenging in some ways because it's not that easy to do business [Music] here so for us it's about scaling and and being consistent essentially so if you put it if you put a trading or your Trading strategies essentially into an algorithm much more well you have to be consistent about what what happens it's a good defense on our side when people sort of wonder what we do and and we we we say we're Market neutral it means that we don't make money if things go up or down we we are Market neutral as such and it's coded it's coded as such another thing is is is very much we the essence of what we do is we help you know we're part of different Market participant and we help Define what a price the Tok the price of the token should be um and that means we have to go across many many different venues and we have to trade you know across many conss to to do that so we trade you know four to six million times a day uh and you can only do that with machines essentially and and the role we have is very much to to help you know people like you and and others to buy and and sell you know Bitcoin or any any any coin with the least friction possible so with the least movement the price movement is possible we look at this b as deeply as we can from you know especially with eal from research or J on on the Venture side so on the Venture side will take much longer term bets and I would say you fall into the same sort of um filters than you would use for early stage of you know investing in general it's just quality of the team matters really quite a lot there's different people who look at more the macro side of things so people who look at you know essentially if you if you think of like regardless if you think that we are actually in the winter now or spring for next summer we need fresh money to come in if you think of where the next money would come in it's probably from you know large institutions as such all Chinese retail coming back into the space we don't know um but essentially if you think of the flow where things are going to flow if you think an institution will come in into the space and and and buy a lot of coins are probably going to be something that they really know something that they can push through an investment committee and that's probably going to be more like Bitcoin or some of the top 10 if you think of like retail coming into the space uh in size um that's probably going to be more meme coin MH so you know I'm not giving you names but you know just I think it's how I like to think it it's could be completely independent from win by the way but it's it's more how I like to think of of uh of things with money flowing in and flowing out and then who who's going to buy and then and then you obviously if you want to make a profit you need to be you know at least you know with buying with that with that person or that entity or so on uh and maybe sometimes you you buy you try to buy a few years ahead of first person so I don't know if it if it's necessarily technological Trends as such but we see I'd say if you think of the big problems we still have to solve in the crypto industry there's a big issue in terms of you know def versus C5 so there's a big issue in terms of essentially def users are still just about one one and a half% of all the total crypto users and there you know there's issues there there's issues around trust there's issues around you know even people would claim that you don't need trust then it should be trust less but but essentially when you want to have net leverage you you still need some element of trust Maybe some some things around sort of solving a trust score or something something a question around trust another element is like how do we Bridge more essentially real world assets so how do we flip a bit more traditional Finance into into the crypto space and that's um there's real world asset discussion nowadays and it's it's it's an interesting discussion because essentially defi initially just took off on the basis that there was Zero yield elsewhere and then there was some yield in Def Summers 2020 and and a bit afterwards and now then there's real yield you can get you know four 5% on your treasuries then it's harder for defi to compete but there's there's plenty of you know sources of you know assets basically that are in the real world that you know can be transposed into onto the blockchain and also I hope that with this there will be discovery of new assets or you know new business models as such uh that can that can be essentially leveraged uh through through crypto