From Rivalry to Revolution: TradFi and Crypto Forge the Future - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2024

very good morning to everyone um absolutely delighted to host this morning's session on the convergence of traditional Finance in crypto on behalf of open paate uh first of all very good morning to everyone my name is Jana I'm the chief executive of open date we are a traditional Financial services company as many would call us here we're a B2B provider of infrastructure for payments and embedded Financial Services I'm absolutely delighted this morning to be hosted by one of our dear friends and partners Bobby Bobby is the chief executive of bitstamp for the US and Global Chief commercial officer so Bobby please could you please introduce yourself and tell us a few more words about bitstamp and what you do sure sure thank you it's great to be here uh good morning everybody uh so bitstamp many of you may know is the longest running cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011 and uh we have quite a track record and uh a really colorful history during that period of time um the things you should know about bit stamp is uh we pride ourselves on being the most regulated and compliant exchange on the planet we were the first to get a license and today we have over 50 licenses around the globe um as Jana said I'm the US CEO and the chief commercial officer I've been with bitstamp three years I did three years at Kraken as Chief commercial officer but I have a lot of traditional Financial Services experience as well uh from CME Group I was on the leadership team there and I was fortunate enough to be the executive sponsor for the CME Bitcoin Futures product great thank you so much so today we're talking about the conversion of traditional Finance world and the crypto world so Bobby can you tell us a little bit more about that increasing interconnection obviously you and I have been witnessing this evolve over the last few years but I'd be interesting to understand what are the key enablers from your perspective for that convergence yeah sure so firstly we've been talking and I've been thinking about when this convergence is going to happen but it's here it's it's actually happening right now and I think the key driver of it is institutions getting into the market in a very active way so just using bit stamp as a data point we had 84% increase in institutional on boards this year in the first half versus last year in the first half and that's kind of happening throughout the ecosystem and institutions have higher expectations around not just regulation and compliance but scale efficiency Etc so there's a lot of ways to pull this together but one of the challenges is there's a lot of fragmentations still when you're operating like bitstamp does in multiple jurisdictions multiple banking relationships multiple Fiat currencies and that's where we we value our partnership with open paid they help us knit all of that together so that we can be efficient with our customers no thank you thank you for that I guess what we have seen from from from our standpoint we obviously help with a number of the exchanges like like bit stamp and the liquidity providers that we see here on the floor we help bridge that Gap with the traditional Finance world so we have developed that interconnectivity to the payments infrastructure so agre the aggregation of connection to the different payment rails the ability to generate named accounts named virtual all ey bands um how from your perspective how do you see that infrastructure fitting into the uh Mass adoption and into the growth plans of of bitstamp yeah I I see that into in two areas so one is as I mentioned there's just growing demand amongst uh you know societies around the world which gets the interest of Institutions institutions get very very very involved and you have in many cases a perfect marriage of a great product with you know from crypto let's say with traditional Financial Services distribution and when those things come together now you have you know widespread accessibility and a lot of value a lot of value created but I think the other driving force there's still gaps you know there's still you know in despite all of the technology and innovation sending money across borders today is still incredibly inefficient very very expensive and there's a lot of inequity in that equation so that's another key driver is bringing the Innovation from crypto to solve problems that exist today so then what would be your advice to all the players that you see here on the floor of course there are a number of very wellestablished companies that are well banked that are well set in terms of the Fiat on and off ramps but for anyone that is starting now within the crypto industry what are the key attributes that they should be looking for in a payments partner in an infrastructure provider if they want to do this quickly efficiently and in a cost effective way yeah um so uh firstly um multiple jurisdictions or Global you know for for payments again the Challen challeng is uh doing it with different currencies in different jurisdictions with different laws different regulations Etc so some so we value payments uh providers like open paid that have this multi-jurisdiction approach and then the second thing is uh scale right so the ability to handle a lot of transactions very very efficiently what we care about a lot of bitstamp is that our users have a very seamless experience and frankly that doesn't come with every payment services provider that we've worked with um open paid is an exception thank thank you thank you for sharing this and if I may just share in a few words for those of you that are not familiar with the open paage platform this is exactly what what we do so what we do for you is we would deliver through a single API access to any local or International payment rail access to any current currency of choice and access to the ability to generate multicurrency accounts to do FX and treasury services to fully automate all of your backend processes so think about it as a single connectivity single API for payments for reconciliation as well as for embedded true embedded Finance really because people often see payments as a utility but actually there is more and more opportunity to use payments to create greater stickiness with your clients and Bobby you're one of the Pioneers in that space seeing that you can use financial services and payments and payment accounts and FX in particular to create that stickiness and to really drive drive real growth so I would from from our perspective they highly recommend look at the technology first look what really sits behind that that API doc mentation that you're getting and make sure that the level of Regulatory Compliance and relationship with banking partners and key stakeholders key Regulators is is there and is right because these are the things that you want from your from your partner these are the things that make a payment partnership really sustainable in in in the long run C can I ask you a question please you are a bridge for us between crypto world and processes and traditional Banking and processes what are you seeing on the traditional side is there resistance to what's happening is there openness and embracing of these Bridges or what do you see yeah no that's that's a really great question I think if I had to sum it up in one word that would be change we're seeing change we have been coming here for several years now um but we see two major shifts really one on the crypto side we're definitely seeing an increase of the understanding of The Wider environment we see more and more Talent from traditional Finance coming into the crypto industry which absolutely helps us Bridge the conversation bridge bridge that Gap BR from a regulatory as well as from a compliance perspective um the other major shift that we're seeing on the traditional Finance side of things is there is now greater knowledge and greater understanding knowledge technical knowledge and understanding which wasn't necessarily there five six seven years ago and as a result of that it is much easier to have an educated conversation about the direction of travel of Regulation the direction of travel of of compliance and how the Two Worlds can actually converge and work better together in a seamless way from a technical perspective but also in a full integrated way from a compliance and Regulatory perspective so we're definitely seeing that maturity of the the both the industry but as well maturity of the understanding on the regulatory side and frankly that is something that we as the infrastructure provider that sits in the middle as as the bridge as you say welcome very much because that makes our role in terms of educating Regulators educating banking Partners much easier much easier easier as well um I'm just conscious of time and wanted to ask you do you see a path to mass adoption and if you do what are the key elements that required to to to support that Max adop adoption yeah um there's there's a quite a few Dimensions here but I would highlight a couple things so firstly um I have to remind myself and we all should remind ourselves that crypto in developed economies and developed parts of the world is and can be quite recreational it's it's all opportunity um and it's fun but in other jurisdictions and more developing nations or economically challenged Nations it's a Lifeline you know if you think about Venezuela and and some economies where you can't trust the institutions um you know Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies really plays a crucial role in people being able to manage and and sustain their life in a in a in a meaningful way so the first thing is mass adoption we all have to recognize that this isn't just for fun and the second thing is regulation so uh I won't take any more time on that but we've got to get a little bit clearer a little bit better on that in several jurisdictions such as the US great thank you and uh if you had to sum it up what is the future of crypto looking like over the next 10 years you know the word that comes to mind for me is in inclusivity you know or inclusion just providing easy you know Fair Equitable access to different ways to manage your money participate in in new opportunities or ecosystems this is what I think will keep the large Global banks on the traditional side in check a little bit and making sure they're serving the needs of of the citizens and of the of the customers great thank you so much Bobby for being with us today so if you are interested in talking about easy Fair access please do come and talk to Bobby bit time the most regulated Exchange in the world and if you want to talk about faton and offramp and payments infrastructure please do come and find us Bo both Bobby and I will be on the floor for the rest of the day thank you so much thank you all