0:00

now plugged into the Delphi podcast. Hey

0:04

everyone, welcome back. It's Kevin from

0:07

Delphi Digital. And today I'm

0:09

very excited to be joined

0:11

by Guilhem Shema, the co

0:13

-founder and CEO of Flowdesk. Guilhem,

0:16

really appreciate you doing this. How are you doing

0:18

today? I'm doing good. Thank you very much for

0:20

having me. It's nice that we're doing

0:22

this on a green candle day, which we'll get

0:24

into the state of the market and all that good

0:26

stuff soon. The marketing

0:29

copy would describe you guys in

0:31

Flowdesk as a full -service digital

0:33

asset trading and technology firm. But

0:35

as we'll get into, there's a

0:37

whole lot to unpack there. How

0:39

would you, your elevator pitch, how

0:42

would you describe yourselves? Yeah,

0:44

so I think, you know, the way you

0:46

described it is actually the perfect way to

0:48

describe the company. We come from a market

0:50

making background. We were notably known with a

0:52

product that our clients love, which is called

0:54

market making as a service, which is a

0:56

slightly different approach to regular proprietary market making.

0:59

So we've been quite popular with that with

1:01

that. Very quickly, we evolved into a

1:03

full service digital asset trading firm, which means

1:05

that basically we talk to a wide

1:07

range of counterparties, some of the biggest projects

1:09

out there, some of the small projects,

1:11

talk to institutionals, ETF providers, that

1:13

could be banks, you know, everything basically that

1:15

touches crypto. And we try to offer those

1:17

guys all the range of services you could

1:19

expect in crypto. So indeed, that would go

1:21

from market making, we do custody, we do

1:24

brokerage, on spot derivatives. Now we are launching

1:26

credit as well. So, you know, we have

1:28

this, we're building, you know, this really

1:30

like all service financial. services firm. And

1:32

at the same time, at heart, we

1:34

are a hardcore technology firm because obviously

1:36

in the backend is all the connectivity

1:38

that we had to build and all

1:40

the algorithmic and all the software. Yeah.

1:43

What I really like about

1:45

your founding story is you

1:47

initially were focused on the symbol

1:49

goal of providing institutional

1:51

grade services. but

1:54

for crypto native teams, right? I'm really curious,

1:56

maybe we can start there. What went into

1:58

that decision making and what was a kind

2:00

of key insight or thesis you had for wanting

2:02

to start there? Yeah, so I think, so

2:04

it was back in 2020. So, you know, we

2:06

came with the following assessment. So I think,

2:08

you know, at this time, it was quite interesting

2:10

because everybody was expecting, you know, an institutional

2:12

wave and they were all, you know, building in

2:14

that regards, you know, those prime brokers, it's

2:16

going to be regulated, et cetera, et cetera. And

2:18

our deep conviction was that it would not

2:20

happen. For a wide number of reasons, we thought

2:23

the market was not ready. We thought, no,

2:25

it's going to be maybe for five years, for

2:27

10 years, this is going to be remaining

2:29

like a crypto thing and crypto native thing with

2:31

some various projects, infra, you know, I mean,

2:33

at that time, obviously, we didn't have a

2:35

lot of the building blocks that we have

2:37

today. So we thought, okay, we're going to

2:39

focus on crypto firm. And where can the

2:41

edge be? The edge can be a bit

2:43

of a contrarian bet, which is to offer

2:45

this institutional grade level of service, but to

2:47

crypto native counterparties. And I think at this

2:49

time, The market was missing a lot of

2:52

that. You know, a lot of things were

2:54

shady, mostly proprietary market makers. Obviously, we didn't

2:56

have at this time some of the market

2:58

makers that we have today in the landscape.

3:00

Regulation obviously was different. So we're like,

3:02

OK, let's try to take a

3:04

contraire approach, institutional grade level of service.

3:06

to the smaller projects out there. And

3:09

that's probably why we became successful. And

3:11

we anticipated, and I think we were

3:13

right about that, but it's probably only

3:15

the tip of the iceberg today, that

3:17

this wave of token issuers will only

3:19

increase. And they will get more and

3:21

more institutionalized, more security token, RWAs, obviously,

3:23

those topics in five years have gone

3:25

in the right direction, and we are

3:27

very happy about it. But we thought,

3:29

you know, the building of this is

3:31

to talk. to the people who are

3:33

in crypto right now. And at this

3:35

time, it was only crypto native counterparties.

3:39

What were some of the challenges?

3:41

in those early days but also i'm sure

3:43

that you still face today in terms of

3:46

again that focus on crypto native teams if

3:48

you go to any big company or especially

3:50

you know traditional financial players the concept of

3:52

market making a lot of the services you

3:54

guys provide is kind of table stakes right

3:56

or it's or it's something that's very common

3:58

whereas when it comes to crypto native teams

4:00

a lot of them might be very

4:02

technology forward but don't have the internal

4:04

expertise to assess why they

4:06

would need a market maker, things of that

4:09

nature. I'm curious how those conversations went, especially

4:11

in the early days of just trying to

4:13

convince the market that what you were doing actually

4:15

was value add and was something that eventually

4:17

they were going to need. So

4:19

first of all, I'm going to state the

4:21

obvious, you know, when you have the

4:23

ambition to do everything with a wide range

4:25

of counterparties, wide range of products, you

4:27

inherit from the complexity of wanting, wanting to

4:29

do everything. So the best is to

4:31

have. a single approach on a single product,

4:34

a single type of client. So I

4:36

think we haven't made our life a lot

4:38

easier by having this conviction they want

4:40

in the company. And if you think about

4:42

it, particularly when you think that the

4:44

spectrum of token issuers you are talking to

4:46

already back, you know, four years ago

4:48

can be a billion dollar market cap protocol,

4:50

heavily backed. But on the other side

4:52

of the spectrum, you may have a

4:54

$2 million market cap. a very small

4:56

cap. And how do you address this

4:58

range? It's extremely complex because obviously the

5:00

cost of running market making in a

5:02

fragmented market like crypto, when you talk

5:04

about hundreds of exchanges, DeFi, CeFi, I

5:06

mean, all the things that we know

5:08

very well, it's hard. And that's kind

5:10

of how we coined also this market

5:12

making of service approach, which is how

5:15

can we address those thousands of token

5:17

issuers? who cannot afford to give

5:19

10 % of their supply, who cannot afford

5:21

to pay thousands of thousands of dollars

5:23

per month for a market maker when you

5:25

have like, you know, tiny liquidity. We

5:27

need to find something that is just very

5:29

efficient and very transparent. And that's how

5:31

the market making as a service approach. Very

5:34

cheap, very affordable, high coverage. You are

5:36

your own market maker. About transparency, you do

5:38

have to provide your own capital. indeed

5:40

take more risk because you take market

5:42

risk, counterpart risk, etc. So, you know,

5:44

it was kind of like we tried

5:46

to engineer the only thing that could fit

5:48

for this market. And that's really how we came

5:50

to it. And today, we are very happy to see

5:53

that we still work with that side of the

5:55

spectrum and our clients are very happy and we are

5:57

very happy to work with them. And we can

5:59

also work with the other side of the

6:01

spectrum, which is also looking for some of

6:03

the features of those products, including the transparency

6:05

and control over their token. So I think

6:07

at the end of the day, We

6:09

are doing crypto, but we are not

6:11

reinvancing the wheel. It's a set of

6:14

financial services. There is a decentralization sort

6:16

of flavor, but we are finding exactly

6:18

the same problem. It's about regulation. It's

6:20

about balance sheets. It's about coverage because

6:22

we are in a 24 -7, 365 business.

6:24

So when you think about it, that's

6:26

about having operations globally, trading sales. monitoring

6:29

of funds on chain, you know, like

6:31

all those sorts of things, which would just

6:33

create an entry barrier that is getting

6:35

higher and higher. And honestly, it's not the

6:37

beginning of the end. So the game

6:39

we're trying to play is be everywhere, do

6:41

everything, be compliant in every jurisdiction we

6:43

operate. It's a very long journey. That's why

6:45

we think our journey is still quite

6:48

early and we keep building heavily and investing

6:50

heavily. But it's going to be a

6:52

very long journey and the market will evolve

6:54

a lot. Yeah,

6:56

to that point, if we fast forward

6:58

to today, obviously we're living through very

7:00

interesting times. There's a ton of uncertainty

7:03

right now. The market looks quite different

7:05

than it did three months ago, let

7:07

alone six months ago. What's your current

7:09

read on this market right now? To

7:13

talk about the fundamentals and the

7:15

numbers, the volumes right now are

7:18

kind of anemic. To be very

7:20

clear, we're down 60%, 70%, slightly

7:22

above 1 trillion volume per month.

7:24

We almost hit 3 trillion at

7:26

some point. the

7:29

Bitcoin price, Bitcoin face value is kind

7:31

of, you know, hiding a forest of

7:33

not much is happening. And obviously the

7:35

altcoins and some of the altcoins have

7:37

lost significant amount of value. So that's

7:39

the current picture. The current picture is

7:41

the market is basically as slow as

7:43

it was before the whole US election

7:45

and the whole activity that we saw

7:47

last year. That's the reality. On the

7:49

other hand, we have tons of reasons

7:51

to be bullish on the long term,

7:53

I think. And that's why on our

7:55

side, we're still heavily investing. And, you

7:57

know, we have never really looked

7:59

at, you know, the spot picture of

8:02

crypto, which is why we always focused

8:04

on keeping on building and why we

8:06

had so good results, even in the

8:08

worst conditions. And I think the fundamentals

8:10

are very good. You know, the regulatory

8:12

clarity is happening, particularly in the US,

8:14

of course, and we can do a

8:16

lot of things. The institutionals are coming

8:18

in. And this time, I believe it

8:20

fundamentally. I don't think that they are

8:22

coming in the way that people may

8:25

think. And we can talk a bit

8:27

about that later on. But that's where

8:29

the flow is. And that means the

8:31

market is radically changing its structure. I

8:33

fundamentally believe that we are not in

8:35

a four -year... bear bull cycle sort of

8:37

structure. I don't think the flow is

8:39

mostly retail anymore. You know, all of

8:41

those things we are witnessing. So the

8:43

market structure is changing. So what it

8:45

means? It means simply that the market

8:47

is maybe going to be more boring

8:50

to some extent. Why? Because we are

8:52

much more linked to the economic activity.

8:54

We see it every day. Everybody is

8:56

witnessing, you know, what the U .S.

8:58

is going to do in terms of

9:00

tariffs and what Trump may announce. But

9:02

that's not really crypto linked per essence.

9:04

So we can see a strong correlation

9:06

here. We think, obviously, if you look

9:09

at venture activity, most of it is

9:11

priced now. So, you know, those good

9:13

old days of doing 1000X because you

9:15

invested in an early stage project, it's

9:17

over because all those rounds are preempted

9:19

at higher valuation. And again, also the

9:21

venture landscape is going to drastically change

9:23

in the next few years. So I

9:25

think it's becoming a bit more boring,

9:27

some would say. On our side, we

9:29

are very excited because... thesis around institutional

9:31

and tokenization, we see it arriving and

9:33

we are at the forefront of it,

9:35

to be frank, given the projects we

9:38

work with. But that's essentially it. So

9:40

what we could expect this year, in

9:42

my opinion, I don't think we are

9:44

going to have the biggest bull run

9:46

of all time and the highest multiples

9:48

that some people would expect. But on

9:50

the other hand, I definitely see. think

9:52

that whether or not we are in

9:54

a bear market, we won't see those

9:56

80 % retracements on Bitcoins, those sorts

9:58

of things. That's my deep conviction. And

10:00

I think that's quite bullish for the

10:02

space because at the end, volatility due

10:04

to whatever the reasons, including lack of

10:06

liquidity, which brings back to our topic

10:09

of market making, is not good. It's not

10:11

good for the long term. And

10:13

why is that? You talk about how

10:15

you don't expect to see these large,

10:18

extremely large, in some cases, drawdowns that

10:20

we've historically seen throughout, let's say the

10:22

last, you know, three, really four crypto

10:24

cycles, depending on how far back you

10:26

want to go. You're saying you don't

10:28

see necessarily that those times might be

10:31

over in terms of those types of

10:33

drastic drawdowns. Why is that? Is that

10:35

because the way in which you're seeing

10:37

institutions come into this space? There

10:40

are multiple reasons, but the

10:42

number one reason that we are

10:44

seeing is the flow are changing.

10:47

And the view on the maturity is

10:49

also changing. So to summarize, it's not

10:51

the exact picture, but I think it

10:53

would be a good proxy. Until today,

10:55

it was, I'm trying to get in

10:57

the bear market and I plan to

10:59

sell in the bull run. I have

11:01

this like 18 months, two years sort

11:03

of view, 80%, you know, retail

11:05

driven. Now the people who invest most

11:07

of the flow, and particularly in Bitcoin, do

11:09

not have an 18 months horizon anymore.

11:11

And I think when you look at the

11:14

flow of the ETFs, recently you clearly

11:16

see it's a it's a multi -decay and

11:19

money is just flowing in and

11:21

is holding it in a similar fashion

11:23

that people have been holding gold,

11:25

for instance. So that's why I think

11:27

essentially, you know, the people who've

11:29

been accumulating Bitcoin will not sell with

11:31

the same horizon that the previous

11:33

cycles were happening. I think that's the

11:35

key fundamental reasons for what we

11:37

are seeing. And obviously, we are seeing

11:39

it on Bitcoin first as a

11:41

first order of magnitude, but obviously it

11:43

trickles down to all the other

11:45

coins to a lesser extent. Gotcha.

11:48

And that wave of institutional capital, which

11:50

a lot of people have been looking

11:52

for for a number of years now,

11:54

right, to your earlier point, was never

11:56

going to be a giant wave that

11:58

came in all at once. It's more

12:00

of a slow, progressive process. But when

12:02

institutions do come in. they're stickier capital

12:04

they're longer term holders once they're making

12:06

that decision once they're in they're in

12:08

in a sense and it's not so

12:10

much the retail more kind of crypto

12:13

gg if you want to call it

12:15

type of trading mentality where it's very

12:17

short -term focused the new players that

12:19

are coming in have a longer time

12:21

horizon is what you're getting at This

12:23

is what I'm getting at. And their

12:25

perspective is extremely different. Those guys are

12:27

not going to hold, you know, top

12:29

500 of coins, do some TWAP and

12:31

just wait. In my opinion, they will

12:33

either hold the top assets or what

12:35

they will hold and what they will

12:37

buy is the technology. And they will

12:40

issue their own coin. So what I'm

12:42

trying to say is what will bring

12:44

crypto from a $2 trillion market cap

12:46

to a $10 trillion market cap is

12:48

not the increase of the market cap

12:50

of the current token that we see.

12:52

And maybe, by the way, that may

12:54

be bearish from a speculative perspective. It's

12:56

going to be new assets coming into

12:58

the space. being tokenized. This

13:00

is starting with the RWA that we're

13:02

seeing at the moment. So it's

13:05

very important to understand that I think

13:07

for whoever is expecting and waiting

13:09

for that wave to basically pump their

13:11

bag, I don't think it's going

13:13

to happen much. That doesn't mean that

13:15

the casino casino use case

13:17

of crypto is over. This is going to

13:19

remain a $1 trillion market cap. It will

13:21

have ups and downs. There will be extremely

13:23

good projects that will do, you know, whatever

13:25

multiport and all of that. But this is

13:27

not a relay of growth. That's the point

13:29

I'm trying to make. And

13:31

where do you see the most

13:33

growth coming from going forward? Is

13:36

it the tokenization side? Is it

13:38

other new token issuers that are

13:40

focused on maybe consumer? Where do

13:42

you see the biggest growth areas

13:44

going forward? So I think

13:46

we have three areas, essentially. We

13:49

have the store of value in

13:51

a digital gold fashion. Most of that

13:53

will be grabbed by Bitcoin, obviously.

13:55

Then you have a few key network

13:57

that will have some market capitalization

13:59

derived from their revenues. Ethereum is a

14:01

good example. in the negative, a

14:03

good negative example these days. But as

14:05

soon as you have a network

14:08

that has, you know, a

14:10

value of fees of 2 billion, 10

14:12

billion a year, you can easily

14:14

derive some market cap using whatever high

14:16

multiples. So I think there would

14:18

be a lot of value in the

14:20

networks, on the contrary to Web

14:22

2 .0, to be clear, it's very

14:24

different. And then the third is tokenization,

14:26

obviously. And this is a 10,

14:28

15, 20 year process that will start

14:30

with easy things that has started,

14:32

by the way, a long time ago.

14:34

with stable coins, tokenized fiat, or

14:36

to be more precise, tokenized money market

14:38

funds, government corporate bonds to some

14:40

extent with some of them. So it

14:42

has already started a while ago

14:44

and it has been quite successful. The

14:46

only key difference today is that

14:49

the yield is passed on to the

14:51

ultimate user. And that's very exciting.

14:53

But I think this is where the

14:55

next relay of growth is. So

14:57

I think we will start with the

14:59

simple use case. How do we

15:01

bring the yield on chain? And if

15:03

you think about it, it's interesting

15:05

because Even without crypto, this is happening

15:07

more and more, you know, on

15:09

our side in Europe. Now, whatever bank

15:11

you have, and I know it

15:13

exists in the US, you deposit cash

15:15

in your neobank and you basically

15:17

get the Fed funds rate or whatever

15:19

the equivalent is. So it's happening

15:21

on both sides. Obviously, the crypto brings

15:23

a much better competitive environment and

15:25

a very much more interesting flavor of

15:28

it because you can tokenize it

15:30

and you can move money around very

15:32

easily. But I think it will

15:34

start heavily with tokenizing the yield, whatever.

15:36

the yield is and obviously then

15:38

we're gonna go down to some much

15:40

more interesting routes and do you

15:42

see the the rise of tokenization being

15:44

more focused or a bigger growth

15:46

area being tokenizing or bringing on chain

15:48

existing assets or traditional markets or

15:50

on the other hand actually creating liquidity

15:52

around assets that historically haven't either

15:54

been illiquid themselves or haven't had liquidity

15:56

at all Obviously,

15:59

the wild dream is to have assets

16:01

which were not liquid, that they become

16:03

liquid. So we are all extremely excited

16:05

about tokenizing and that we start from

16:07

pre -IPO sort of firms, but that

16:09

will go down all the ladder until

16:11

tomorrow the grocery store of the corner

16:13

may have a $2 million market cap

16:15

and distribute its dividend on chain. I

16:17

think this will happen. And by the

16:19

way, it's the number one reason why

16:21

we are building Flodesk. But I think

16:23

it will happen in a very long

16:26

time. Because it's a very complex use

16:28

case. So right now, what we are

16:30

seeing and what we are thinking is

16:32

the next two to five years will

16:34

be dedicating to bringing existing assets that

16:36

are already liquid, just to tokenize them

16:38

and bringing them on chain and having

16:40

all the positive sides of crypto, using

16:42

them as collateral, transfer them easily. I

16:44

mean, you know, there is even a

16:46

use case for crypto that I think

16:48

is quite possible, is the end of

16:50

fiat money. Because tomorrow, if I can...

16:52

pay if I get my salary with

16:54

the tokenized money market fund and it's

16:56

accepted as a payment on a one -to

16:59

-one basis, who will want to hold

17:01

fiat? We will just hold those tokenized

17:03

assets and I will pay you with

17:05

it, you will pay me with it,

17:07

and boom, and we have yield. And

17:09

just that piece of the puzzle is

17:11

an insane use case for the world

17:13

and it's a $10 trillion market cap

17:15

in itself. But I think quickly after,

17:17

we will see the rise of new

17:19

waves of assets. And again, it will

17:21

start with liquid assets, so the Tesla,

17:23

the Apple. All those stocks, starting

17:25

with the bigger one, will be brought

17:27

on chain, will be used as collateral

17:29

with whatever LTV. The companies may bring

17:32

even their dividends on chain quickly. I

17:34

think, you know, Coinbase

17:36

tokenizing their stock is probably the first

17:38

stage of the rocket. And ultimately,

17:40

it will go down all the ladder.

17:42

But I think we're probably talking

17:44

about 10, 15 years, and we need

17:46

to appreciate... how institutionals are very

17:48

careful about this. And people are often

17:50

wrong about, is it the technology

17:52

already? Is it the risk appetite? No,

17:55

it's none of that. We need

17:57

to understand that tokenization, banks are not

17:59

going into it because the regulatory

18:01

doesn't allow it. If you look at

18:03

the ratios in terms of RWA,

18:05

so the risk -weighted assets, those are

18:07

insane now. It was interesting because... A

18:09

few days ago, the French public

18:11

investment bank announced a crypto fund where

18:14

they will invest directly in crypto.

18:16

And they are getting smashed on their

18:18

balance sheet for doing this. So

18:20

there is also some regulatory, some basal

18:22

requirements which need to evolve at

18:24

the same time. And that's why, by

18:26

the way, the institutionals are

18:28

starting with what looks like the easy stuff.

18:31

But I think it's very exciting,

18:33

obviously. Is part of

18:35

that hesitation on the institutional

18:37

side... Also, regulatory obviously being

18:39

a very big component of this, but

18:41

when you dig a bit deeper

18:43

and let's say the regulatory kind of

18:45

curtain was lifted, conversations

18:47

I've had, but again, you've got a really

18:49

good purview into this world. Institutions

18:52

are also trying to figure

18:54

out how they can capture

18:56

fee revenue or capture the

18:58

upside economics of tokenization in

19:00

a world where this world

19:03

is crypto native is all

19:05

about permissionless technology and decentralization.

19:08

and i i think it i i personally

19:10

have a hard time sometimes imagining that

19:12

some of these big especially these big trad

19:14

fi incumbents are just going to come

19:16

into this space without having a full understanding

19:18

and plan for how they're going to

19:20

be able to capture the upside from bringing

19:22

a lot of these assets on chain

19:25

uh i could not agree more with with

19:27

what you have just said for them

19:29

you know it's a combination of of what

19:31

are the efficiencies that these things are

19:33

bringing and by definition, how much more money

19:35

can we make doing the same thing,

19:37

combined with a risk aversion of, I'm not

19:39

sure we understand 100 % of these things.

19:42

It seems that these things, they remove

19:44

a lot of our value on the operational

19:46

side, notably, so to which extent we

19:48

are letting the baby go. And that's why

19:50

they are, and obviously all of this,

19:52

with on the top this thing can explode

19:54

to our face because you know this

19:56

is on chain there are hacks there is

19:59

security risk there is protocol risk uh

20:01

pr risk and obviously we're talking about crypto

20:03

so crypto is is a hot topic

20:05

for everyone so that that explains partially the

20:07

risk aversion but Everyone who

20:09

has a decent understanding of what's going on

20:11

in crypto on the institutional side and,

20:13

you know, just need a 10%, 20%. And

20:15

I think some of the guys out

20:17

there like BlackRock, for instance, or all the

20:19

other guys were issuing some sort of

20:21

money market fund tokenized or stable coins at

20:23

the moment have well understood this, see

20:25

a huge advantage. And at some point, I

20:28

suspect, of course, right now they are

20:30

in a mode where... They

20:32

understand the synergies that it's bringing. They understand that

20:34

they need to be careful. They need to

20:36

understand that this can be a winning game or

20:38

losing game for them. But at some point,

20:40

it's going to be a losing game for everyone

20:42

to just not go into crypto. At some

20:44

point, the risk will not be to go into

20:46

crypto, will be to not go into crypto.

20:48

Again, it's going to take years. the

20:51

retail keep embracing this market, the investors

20:53

on the buy side keep embracing these

20:55

products. It's going to be a loss

20:57

of opportunity for them at some point,

20:59

but we could definitely understand why they

21:01

are very careful about it. But again,

21:03

you look at the numbers, you look

21:05

at the TVLs of those stablecoin biddle

21:07

tokens, it's exploding these days. And again,

21:09

back to what I said, you know,

21:11

even if we think about, you know,

21:14

the stablecoin market being 150, whatever the

21:16

number is, billion market cap. it's ridiculous

21:18

to compare it what it could be

21:20

tomorrow we will be talking about five

21:22

trillion ten trillion those sort of numbers

21:24

and when you have this type of

21:26

longer term perspective and a pretty clear

21:28

thesis on where you think the space

21:30

is going obviously today flow desk does

21:32

a lot of different things how do

21:34

you think about where were the biggest

21:36

opportunities within your market that you see

21:39

right now or what are the ambitions

21:41

of how you want to go out

21:43

and try and capture or be part

21:45

of this evolution that you

21:47

foresee in terms of both market structure,

21:49

but the different types of players coming in,

21:51

like what has got your attention most

21:53

right now? So, you know, I

21:55

think it's when you have a thesis that is as

21:57

strong as the one we have and that we

21:59

share with most of the markets, so we're not making

22:01

a contrarian bet here. Don't get me wrong. The

22:03

question is, how do we get there? And how do

22:06

we get there is a complex answer, particularly if

22:08

you think that you're going to get there in 10

22:10

years. So the question is, what do you do

22:12

now? And I think... I mean,

22:14

essentially everything we've been building in the

22:16

last years is centered around that vision,

22:18

building operations, building the regulatory framework. And

22:20

to put it in a more simple

22:22

manner, we think that we will trade

22:24

those tokenized security exactly the same way

22:26

we trade utility token today. And by

22:28

the way, utility token won't die. There

22:30

are some very interesting utility token, and

22:32

that's probably going to be a single

22:34

digit trillion market. It's not going to.

22:36

be two digit trillion but but we

22:38

we think it's there are some very

22:41

interesting tokens out there and but my

22:43

point is we will trade the security

22:45

token exactly the same way we trade

22:47

them today so what i'm saying is

22:49

erc20 tokens on pool some rfq on

22:51

chains some centralized exchanges they may be

22:53

centralized exchanges you know of of trad5

22:55

they may be robinhood you know whatever

22:57

whatever it can be but at the

22:59

end of the day the technology is

23:01

there and it's going to happen exactly

23:03

the same way of course it's going

23:05

to be permissioned very likely because you

23:07

need to know who's buying you need

23:09

to do quite kyb kyc kyc all

23:11

of that but Essentially, what we're building

23:13

at Flodesk is the technology for that.

23:15

That's our deep view. And we don't

23:17

think that it requires any additional technical

23:19

infrastructure improvement. We think we have that

23:21

since the L2s came in, the fees

23:23

are viable enough for any transactions. And

23:26

we think it may change. And if it does, by the

23:28

way, we will be at the forefront of innovation. So we'll

23:30

be very happy. But we think that part of the puzzle.

23:33

is is is done and now it's only

23:35

a matter of time until it happens

23:37

and until then we will watch the tvl

23:39

of all those assets grow every day

23:41

so now what we are looking what we

23:43

are looking for in the market is

23:46

just working helping the current players in the

23:48

market whoever they are. Obviously,

23:50

we come from a strong background of

23:52

working with crypto native firms and token issuers.

23:54

So we try to help those guys

23:56

on all fronts. We think, just like I

23:58

told you, that when we trade with

24:00

security token tomorrow or utility token, stable coins,

24:03

we will trade the same way we

24:05

trade with our clients today. They are looking

24:07

for credit capabilities. We can bring them

24:09

credit capabilities. They are looking for various structured

24:11

products to bring an additional yield. We

24:13

can do that. We are doing it with

24:15

the top foundations out there. So, you

24:18

know, all those things is just, you know,

24:20

trying to to keep that long -term vision,

24:22

but build bricks that make sense for

24:24

the ecosystem today and that will make sense

24:26

for the ecosystem tomorrow. But it's very

24:28

interesting to see that, yeah, now the strongest

24:30

demand that we have in terms of

24:32

client is stablecoins. We are incredibly excited about

24:35

the stablecoins that we see out there.

24:37

Everyone is launching stablecoins. We are working with

24:39

some of the biggest. out there.

24:41

What's happening on the security token side

24:43

is also very interesting. Less and less is

24:45

happening on the infrastructure layer side. Obviously,

24:47

there is a huge, almost philosophical question about

24:49

where is the value going to be?

24:51

Is it going to be EVM? If it's

24:53

EVM, it's going to be on layer

24:56

one and some layer twos. We see also,

24:58

you know, those chains. RWA

25:00

is compliant. They want coming in. I think

25:02

that's an interesting use case. But

25:04

yeah, the road is very long. So

25:06

our job, obviously, and that's where we

25:08

become risk averse is to make minimum

25:10

bets in terms of where we want

25:13

to be, because we think our job

25:15

is to be everywhere and to adapt

25:17

to the future evolution of the market.

25:20

What do you say demand for stable coins is one

25:22

of the areas you're seeing? the

25:24

most growth and or the most demand

25:26

for per se. How exactly does that manifest

25:28

or what specifically does that mean? I

25:31

think something is happening and stablecoin demand

25:33

is really happening driven by the retail.

25:35

That's one of the interesting retail thing

25:37

on the contrary of what I said

25:39

before of institutional coming to market. I

25:41

think there is a real adoption from

25:43

the retail market to start using. stablecoins.

25:45

And obviously we know it came more

25:47

from countries with lower GDP, lower access

25:49

to banks. But I think it's happening.

25:51

We see now, you know, two digits

25:53

percentage adoption in some of the countries

25:55

used on a daily basis. We've all

25:57

been paid by some friends in stablecoins.

25:59

We see people in our families who

26:01

are not necessarily 100 % crypto savvy.

26:03

We start using stablecoins with, you know,

26:05

and what people don't understand is to

26:07

have crypto adoption, we don't need people

26:09

to fully embrace crypto in digit mode

26:11

and they all have a ledger wallet.

26:13

I mean, having having a wallet in

26:15

your in your smartphone with 1000 bucks,

26:17

2000 bucks of stablecoin is perfectly enough

26:19

to do your daily operations, just like

26:21

you have your credit card and you

26:24

pay this and there and you don't

26:26

really, really think about it. So I

26:28

think that's where the demand is. And

26:30

there is also a self fulfilling prophecy. of

26:32

the offer is creating the demand now

26:34

for a wide number of reasons a whole

26:36

bunch of people want to to create

26:38

stable coins because obviously they've they've seen some

26:41

some some very good returns they've seen

26:43

some exits lots of that so so they

26:45

want they want to get into and

26:47

they are also creating the narrative and the

26:49

marketing to to start onboarding banks are

26:51

distributing it it's it's no secret that

26:53

we work with some of the largest

26:55

banks on their stablecoins, they are creating

26:57

the demand for it. Right now, it's

27:00

mostly driven by retail. But the second

27:02

stage of the rocket is having banks

27:04

using those stablecoins to settle between them,

27:06

to collateralize with them, put those stablecoins

27:08

in some credit support annex as they

27:10

trade derivatives. So again, I think we're

27:12

talking about three years, four years, five

27:14

years, whatever it is. But I think

27:16

this is what is driving the demand

27:18

right now. Yeah,

27:21

and I've got a... call

27:24

it outlandish question, which we can

27:26

certainly cut if you don't want to

27:28

answer or feel comfortable answering. But

27:30

to put it bluntly, what's to

27:32

stop you or what would stop you

27:34

from issuing your own stablecoin and

27:37

then having that work within your own

27:39

ecosystem and the liquidity aspects and

27:41

again, the additional revenue you could

27:43

drive from issuing something like that. I'm

27:45

curious, what would stop you from

27:47

doing that? So it's been a

27:49

question that has been asked very often

27:52

to us and to a wider extent.

27:54

Why wouldn't you issue a stable coin,

27:56

a tokenized money market fund? Why wouldn't

27:58

you issue your Flowdesk own coin utility

28:00

token? You know, it seems that it's

28:02

an easy money grab or, you know,

28:04

whatever it is. Our answer has been

28:06

always the same and it will remain

28:08

always the same. We

28:10

are being seen more and more

28:12

as a transparent player. a trustable player,

28:14

which sounds kind of ironic into

28:16

a world where we're trying to remove

28:18

the trust, but I think this

28:20

will never happen. With no

28:22

conflict of interest, as I said earlier,

28:25

we're not trying to bet on

28:27

one pony versus the other. It's almost

28:29

a philosophical approach that we have

28:31

to it that we think is very,

28:33

very important. Because once you're linked

28:35

to a certain ecosystem, once you start

28:38

building your products and start distributing

28:40

them, then are you really being fair?

28:42

And that fairness, that trustability, has

28:44

a lot of importance for us,

28:46

has a lot of value. We think

28:48

it will have even more value

28:50

in the future. That's why the counterpart

28:53

is straight with us. So ourselves,

28:55

we will never see us as a

28:57

company investing into building a product

28:59

that is like directly client facing

29:01

and that we have to advertise and advocate

29:03

for it because what that would mean it would

29:05

go against the interest of our own clients

29:07

so we know exactly where we are in the

29:09

in the food chain and we don't want

29:11

to to go elsewhere even though you know it

29:13

sounds quite appealing considering that we have obviously

29:16

the technology we obviously have a good understanding we

29:18

have the distribution we have the we have

29:20

the regulations it could be it could be easily

29:22

doable but i think When you look

29:24

at the complexity of the things we are building

29:26

already in our realm, we have a lot of

29:28

food on our plate to do a lot of

29:30

things for the next 10 years. So I'm not

29:32

too worried. Certainly. And

29:34

I think that point around trust is

29:36

a really important one. You know, before

29:38

we turned on the camera, you and

29:41

I were chatting briefly before this about

29:43

how I think that a lot of

29:45

people probably have or would like to

29:47

think they have a rough. service level

29:49

understanding of what market making is specifically

29:51

what you know companies such as yours

29:53

provide but digging into that a little

29:56

bit what do you think is one

29:58

of the biggest misconceptions about market making

30:00

and then on the trust side when

30:02

it comes to teams that you're working

30:04

with right token issuers what are the

30:06

critical questions or things they need to

30:09

know before engaging a market maker Thank

30:12

you so much for this question.

30:14

It's a quite interesting one. So obviously,

30:16

the biggest misconception about market making

30:18

is that it works potentially against your

30:20

interests. If you work with the

30:22

right market makers, it's EV positive for

30:24

your token. So assuming you're working

30:26

with the right market maker, and honestly,

30:28

there are more and more very

30:31

legit market makers, even some of the...

30:33

the biggest out there who have been put wrongfully

30:35

in the light for what the market was

30:37

thinking was the wrong reason. No, they are legit

30:39

people and they are just trying to do

30:41

their job. And at the end of the day,

30:43

a market maker is supposed to be delta

30:45

neutral. So if you are delta neutral, that means

30:47

that you are not betting on the success

30:49

of the token. You're just buying and you're just

30:51

selling and you're just trying to monetize the

30:54

spread. So you buy a bit lower, you set

30:56

a bit higher, but you don't do that

30:58

over a six -month period. You do that over

31:00

a millisecond, sometimes almost microsecond sort of period. So

31:02

that's the first misconception is that the

31:04

market maker is making money on your

31:06

back. Of course, if your market maker

31:08

is using all their inventory to basically

31:10

dump your token and enter a big

31:12

short in your project, that's another thing

31:14

and that's another debate. But let's assume

31:17

that market makers are doing their job.

31:19

So as a project, what you should

31:21

look like is... Let's go

31:23

back to the fundamentals. You have a token.

31:25

You are basically doing an IPO day

31:27

one. You're going to be listed on multiple

31:29

exchanges. Your token is going to be

31:31

traded against multiple currencies. Some of those currencies

31:33

are going to be fiat, stable coins,

31:35

some other assets like ETH and so on

31:37

and so forth. What will attract demand

31:39

for your project is two things. Is it

31:41

a good project fundamentally? Does it have

31:43

good fundamentals? And if you think about a

31:45

security token tomorrow, does it have good

31:47

financial ratios? PER, those sort

31:49

of things, distribute dividends, et cetera, et

31:51

cetera. And the second thing

31:53

is how quickly can I get in, get out?

31:55

People need to understand that. And that's particularly

31:57

going to be true for institutionals. They have liquidity

31:59

requirements. How fast can I get in and

32:01

can I get out? When the funds get regulated,

32:04

that's a question that is asked by the

32:06

regulators and they categorize the assets in different categories.

32:08

So the first thing investors will look at,

32:10

and that's even true for retail investors to some

32:12

extent, what is the depth of the order

32:14

book? If I buy $1 ,000, $10 ,000, $100 ,000.

32:16

worth of token, what is going to be my

32:18

execution? If my execution cost is 5 % to

32:21

get in, 5 % to get out, that means

32:23

that if I want to get in, get

32:25

out the same day for whatever reason, I lose

32:27

basically 10 % of my money. So the liquidity

32:29

is how you attract investors and how you

32:31

reduce volatility. Because those two things... are

32:34

positively correlated to attracting investors. So that's

32:36

the number one reason you hire a

32:38

market maker. You want your book and

32:40

you want to have pre -tised KPIs

32:42

from your market maker, how much liquidity

32:45

I'm going to put in the book.

32:47

And then we could talk more into

32:49

the details and into numbers if that's

32:51

necessary. But yeah, it's not putting liquidity

32:53

very far away from the mid. You

32:55

want typically to have a bid -ask spread

32:57

for a legit token. 10

32:59

to 20 bp sort of spreads you want to

33:02

make sure that you have a decent amount

33:04

of liquidity you want further liquidity in the book

33:06

you want to have a decent uptime 95

33:08

is very reasonable so you know there are a

33:10

whole bunch of metrics that projects should look

33:12

into and at the end of the day they

33:14

should compare what they pay and what they

33:16

get for it and that's you know just like

33:18

anything in life for the same thing you

33:20

could pay 10x the price talking to to

33:22

different competitors who have, you know, different

33:25

AACs to trade your token or certain

33:27

way, different connectivity to exchanges. So, you

33:29

know, at the end of the day,

33:31

the way I will summarize it is

33:33

look at the KPIs. What are the

33:35

numbers saying? Pick what you think is

33:37

the best market maker, the most transparent

33:39

one, the one that aligns the most

33:41

with your interests. Some market makers will

33:43

try to extract money from your project.

33:45

Some market makers will just try to

33:47

provide liquidity and just extract market making

33:49

just from the spread and taking arbitrages.

33:51

So, you know, that's two very different

33:54

approaches. Is the market maker directional

33:56

in the underlying? That's what I'm talking

33:58

about. You definitely want someone who

34:00

is market risk neutral. And at the

34:02

end of the day, you know, the market

34:04

is evolving in the right direction and

34:06

it takes time. This is still a market

34:08

that is in its infancy. So, you

34:10

know, the track record of market makers will

34:12

speak over 10 years at some point. Yeah,

34:15

I think a good way to

34:17

try to understand this idea is also

34:19

to kind of flip that question

34:21

on its head and imagine a world

34:23

in which what do crypto markets

34:25

look like if firms such as yourselves

34:28

didn't exist? Yeah, it's a

34:30

very good point. I mean, there would

34:32

be two things. So first of all,

34:34

it wouldn't be a disaster as much

34:36

as people could think. Why? Because you

34:38

would have simply a proprietary trading firm.

34:40

operating on a full discretionary basis, not

34:42

having any links with projects who will

34:44

be here basically to monetize. So, you

34:46

know, we're not going to give any

34:49

order of magnitude. It's completely indicative, but

34:51

it's not going to be 1000x, you

34:53

know, worse. There will be people taking

34:55

arbitrages, even retail market, putting orders in

34:57

the book, limit orders manually and trying,

34:59

you know, to reduce that spread and

35:01

so on. But obviously,

35:03

if there were a market maker,

35:05

we would be looking at completely different

35:07

volatility. I mean... If you look

35:09

at the top assets like Bitcoin and

35:11

ETH, obviously market makers, even the

35:13

pure proprietary one, have limited impact. It's

35:15

very clear because when you look

35:18

at the liquidity for all the rest

35:20

of the market, you would be

35:22

looking at much more realized volatility. So

35:24

take any asset of the top

35:26

100 coin market cap, top 50, you

35:28

would be looking at, you know,

35:30

200 % realized vol instead of 80,

35:32

100%, whatever it is. And particularly... When

35:34

you need a market maker is

35:36

in the worst moment when everybody is

35:39

out of the books. In the

35:41

extremely volatile event, you prefer to have

35:43

a drop by 20 % in your

35:45

token instead of going to 70 %

35:47

or even hitting and going through

35:49

the full order book and virtually going

35:52

to zero. And then, of course,

35:54

spiking up, you want to avoid that.

35:56

So I think market maker clearly

35:58

play a very efficient role in the

36:00

market. It's been demonstrated, by the

36:02

way, by the literature that assets who

36:05

have higher liquidity tend... tend to

36:07

trade at higher multiples. There is a

36:09

premium for liquidity. So that's essentially

36:11

a very important thing. And

36:13

whether it's through relationships with token

36:15

issuers directly, with banks, some

36:17

of the brokers out there, market maker

36:19

will persist. in some sort of

36:22

new fashion as crypto has brought it.

36:24

It's a slightly different model than

36:26

TrotFi. Would it become very similar to

36:28

TrotFi? Maybe. I don't think so

36:30

for wide reasons. But yeah, clearly market

36:32

makers and financial services players in

36:34

general play a key role in the

36:36

industry. Yeah,

36:38

and as this market matures, and we

36:40

talked a lot about how institutions are

36:43

coming in and the ways in which

36:45

they're coming in, how do you think

36:47

about... moats around the

36:49

business that you've created, especially

36:51

if and when we

36:53

start to see big traditional

36:55

finance incumbents come into

36:57

this space? So there

36:59

are multiple ways to look at

37:01

it, and obviously nobody has the answer.

37:03

So the first thing that we

37:05

should really be clear about, and that's

37:08

irrespective of new incumbents, big firms,

37:10

the entry barrier is getting higher and

37:12

higher, as I was stated before. in

37:15

the world of today in the world

37:17

of tomorrow you cannot operate this business without

37:19

having the right regulation the right people

37:21

and the balance sheet this is becoming a

37:23

balance sheet game so you know and

37:25

and to be very clear and very honest

37:27

we we created for desk a few

37:29

years ago and we created with limited means

37:32

we raised funds very quickly and that

37:34

was fantastic but it was a very small

37:36

team You could hardly do that today,

37:38

at least not with the ambition and the

37:40

velocity that we did. The entry barrier

37:42

is going to get bigger and bigger because

37:44

it's just becoming more complex and it's

37:46

just becoming more competitive. We're talking about, you

37:48

know, market making. How do you find

37:50

your market maker? If you look at the

37:52

implied price of getting a market maker,

37:55

it probably has shrunk by a 10x factor

37:57

in the last five years versus, you

37:59

know, 2021. If you look at the percentage

38:01

of supply that token issuers were doing. and

38:04

happy that with our very little

38:06

limited means at Flodesk, we have

38:08

contributed to that to some extent

38:10

through our market -making -as -a -service approach,

38:12

which is arguably 10x cheaper already.

38:14

So I think what will happen

38:16

is very simple. The

38:18

theory is institutionals, banks, we

38:20

want to embrace crypto for all

38:23

the right reasons. We talked

38:25

about it before. We think

38:27

that it's going to be nearly

38:29

impossible for them to build it because

38:31

the complexity is... a higher, one

38:33

order of magnitude above doing it in

38:35

TradFi. And it's slightly different. Where

38:37

in TradFi, it's centered around, you know,

38:39

single trading venue, high frequency trading.

38:41

Here it's a fragmented market. It's, you

38:43

know, you're touching assets, you're touching

38:45

exchanges that you have less readability on

38:47

it. So the complexity is different.

38:49

So we think the only way that

38:51

they would want to embrace it

38:54

is either working with people, buying some

38:56

technology. buying the firms or buying

38:58

the technology directly. That's why there are

39:00

lots of bets made on the

39:02

infrastructure side of trading in crypto at

39:04

the moment. And there are some

39:06

really good firms that have emerged out

39:08

there. So, you know, we think

39:10

that's the only way it can happen.

39:12

Some of them will try to

39:14

invest. They will invest a lot of

39:16

money. Maybe they will be successful.

39:18

Probably some will be. But most of

39:20

them will realize that the complexity

39:22

of crypto is so high that it's

39:24

probably better to partner with existing

39:26

people at least. That's what

39:28

we think and that's what we

39:30

hope, very, very selfishly, to be

39:33

frank. But also there is another

39:35

interesting scenario, as we talked about,

39:37

you know, crypto itself being a

39:39

threat to institutionals is maybe we

39:41

will witness through this reshuffling of

39:43

cards, the emergence of crypto native

39:45

firms that become very big, arguably,

39:47

you know, larger. than the current

39:49

institutionals. This is a bet probably

39:51

that has low probability because when

39:53

you look at the track record

39:55

of those firms, the regulatory, the

39:57

size, the balance sheet, you will be

39:59

like, well, okay, no, those

40:01

big banks are going to remain the

40:04

big banks. But after all, why not? Why

40:06

not? And that's why as an ecosystem,

40:08

we should be very ambitious about just providing

40:10

the best that we can for our

40:12

clients as an industry. And if it means

40:14

we can replace what is existing and

40:16

we can do it in a better way,

40:18

let's do it. Given

40:21

the bears entry are only getting

40:23

higher and have only gotten higher over

40:25

the last five years, to your

40:27

point, I won't ask you if you

40:29

today hadn't launched, if you would

40:31

try to launch and build a company

40:33

like Flowdesk, but if you were

40:35

starting from scratch, what do you think

40:37

it would take capital -wise to actually

40:39

be able to compete? I

40:42

can answer you the question. I would

40:44

still do it today because I'm very naive.

40:47

And I realize the risk and I

40:49

realize how much of a hard battle

40:51

it is only a few years later

40:53

when I have a few gray hair

40:55

on my head. So I'm way too

40:57

naive to think about all these things

40:59

when I'm building it. And it's more

41:01

a self -reflection, having gone through this. So

41:03

I think today... There are multiple things.

41:06

So first of all, yes, the entry

41:08

barrier is higher in crypto and in

41:10

crypto trading, but you could run a

41:12

similar parallel that launching any new startup

41:14

today is probably harder because there are

41:16

more competitions and, you know, everything. But

41:18

the tooling is incredible. And when I

41:20

say tooling, I mean, obviously, both the

41:22

crypto tooling, like, you know, it was

41:24

a pain in the ass five years

41:26

ago to do anything crypto. We could

41:28

talk about cybersecurity. I mean, obviously, we've

41:30

had some really good custody providers, technology

41:32

providers that arrived and that solved those

41:34

topics, and they were almost nonexistent five

41:36

years ago. So the building blocks are

41:38

much more solid today. The blockchains themselves

41:40

are much more solid. Of course, I'm

41:43

not even talking about AI. The way

41:45

we developed Flodesk, I'm still the CEO

41:47

and CTO today of the firm, it

41:49

was a very different way we did

41:51

it five years ago. We had Stack

41:53

Overflow. Today you have OpenAI, you have

41:55

all the AI that you want. So

41:57

it's becoming more easy on the tooling.

41:59

That's 100 % sure, and that's why

42:01

I would still do it today. However,

42:03

the entry barrier to launch a trading

42:05

firm today, and again, it depends on

42:07

the vision. If you want to run

42:09

a similar prop shop, maybe... close a

42:11

few deals with token issuers. You do

42:13

that from a single country, the coverage

42:15

is not going to be excellent. You

42:17

don't necessarily have to be 100 % compliant

42:20

because you will be under the radar.

42:22

You can do that. And you can

42:24

probably run a single dollar million business

42:26

quite easily doing that and be very

42:28

profitable. I don't think that's good quality

42:30

for the clients. I don't think that's

42:32

sustainable over the long run, but arguably

42:34

you could do that. If you want

42:36

to launch a business that is global,

42:38

regulated, that has similar equity story as

42:40

we had with Flodesk, we are already...

42:42

talking about the high two digits million

42:44

dollar balance sheet. We are already talking

42:46

about probably 40, 50 people between sales

42:48

trading and operations globally. And what I'm

42:50

not even mentioning is an uncompressible timing,

42:52

which is the regulation. To get regulated,

42:54

it takes years now. We were actually

42:57

the first regulated trading desk in France

42:59

back in 2021 or 2022. It

43:01

took us three, four months to get it.

43:03

We did some really good work and probably

43:05

we were a bit lucky. And the regulator

43:07

was very constructive at that time and very

43:09

favorable. Today, there is not a single legit

43:11

regulation that will do this. You look at

43:13

the UAE, for instance, which has a very...

43:16

interesting framework we're talking about hundreds of companies

43:18

we are waiting to be regulated there and

43:20

on top of that the requirements are much

43:22

higher so you know you have all these

43:24

things where basically you need more money but

43:26

also you need time and money cannot necessarily

43:28

buy time you know it's not one one

43:30

or the other but i think you know

43:33

it's good to see that there are still

43:35

new incumbents into the space because those new

43:37

incumbents are going to be as naive as

43:39

we were a few years ago and maybe

43:41

they will crack things that we haven't figured

43:43

out and all in that's that's very positive

43:45

for the space because at the end of

43:47

the day, the clients, whether they are from

43:49

token issuers to institutional, they will benefit from

43:52

that. So I strongly encourage people to keep

43:54

trying things and hopefully bring something positive to

43:56

the space. Yeah,

43:58

I think that's a really, we could talk

44:00

for hours about all of this stuff. And

44:02

unfortunately, we don't have hours and hours. But

44:04

as we kind of get towards the end

44:06

here, I think one of the things I

44:08

wanted to wrap on is as we look

44:11

to the future, Recently,

44:13

you guys announced a very

44:15

big financing round, had some actual

44:17

very reputable players involved in

44:19

that. I think most notably BlackRock,

44:21

or at least debt managed

44:23

by funds by BlackRock. Where are

44:25

you investing most right now?

44:27

Where are you really pouring fuel

44:29

on the fire, given what

44:31

you expect over the next 12,

44:33

24 months? Yeah. So,

44:35

you know, we're obviously at a

44:37

stage at Flodesk where we are

44:39

very lucky not to have, you

44:42

know, a very healthy business from

44:44

a financial standpoint where we would

44:46

not need to raise any further

44:48

money arguably today. And we are

44:50

obviously blessed to have incredible people

44:52

around us. You mentioned BlackRock, among

44:54

others. That's really good. It's

44:56

very simple. I think I told you

44:59

a bit earlier that we try to filter

45:01

the noise from crypto and, you know, we

45:03

try to be a bit bullish when everybody's

45:05

bearish and a bit bearish when everybody's bullish.

45:07

And we have a roadmap of, you know,

45:09

keeping on doubling down into everything that

45:11

we do. So that's where those funds will

45:13

be poured. So more than ever, we are.

45:15

We are doubling down on the infrastructure side.

45:17

We're trying to build the whole suite of

45:19

technology products that allow us to trade any

45:22

asset, any token everywhere, enable our clients

45:24

to do that in the most cost efficient

45:26

manner. That's a lot of technology. That's a

45:28

lot of investments. We are very happy to

45:30

pour our funding round and our profits into

45:32

that mission, which will take years. We're doubling

45:34

down on our own people because as I

45:36

stated, arguably you could run this business

45:38

with 15, 50 people, whatever it is based

45:40

on your ambition, but the firm of tomorrow. that

45:43

very big firm, you know, multi -billion,

45:45

dozens of billions of dollar valuation, financial service

45:47

firm would definitely not be a 30 ,000

45:49

people firm for a wide number of

45:52

reasons. We were talking about a few hundreds

45:54

at least. So us, we are just

45:56

doubling down on trying to find the best

45:58

talents who fundamentally and deeply love crypto.

46:00

And when I say it, it's very important.

46:02

And those people are rare, but they

46:04

exist and they are just incredible. We

46:06

are building on the long term. We understand

46:09

that building a firm And being part

46:11

of such a journey is a different timing

46:13

than, you know, just trying to speculate

46:15

over the next coin and just trying to

46:17

get rich in a one year or

46:19

two years sort of horizon. So we are

46:21

building all of this together with a

46:23

lot of naivety. And obviously, the big

46:26

challenge that we have is how do we

46:28

scale our balance sheet? to

46:30

get into that point and being that firm

46:32

we arguably need to 100x or balance sheet we're

46:35

gonna do that with our profits maybe we

46:37

can buy time you know another way that's partially

46:39

why we also did this round and why

46:41

we'll do the others so you know again trying

46:43

to tick all the pieces of the puzzle

46:45

at the same time and invest energy into what

46:47

we think the future will look like we

46:49

talked a lot about tokenization that's that's our big

46:51

battle now we're not forgetting all the other

46:53

aspects of the ecosystem because because we love what

46:55

everyone is building on the infra side, all

46:57

those utility tokens, some of them are not really

47:00

useful, some of them are very useful, but

47:02

that's the market we will decide eventually. That's not

47:04

our call. We're not here to judge if

47:06

this token is good or bad. We're just trying

47:08

to provide them the best financial services in

47:10

the most transparent way and we let them do

47:12

their own journey. So, you know, I think

47:14

this is essentially what we are looking at and

47:16

we couldn't be more excited, obviously, of where

47:18

we are today, but it's going to be another

47:20

10 years journey to get to where we

47:22

think we can get. Certainly. And

47:24

you beat me to the punch on

47:26

what my final question was going to be,

47:29

which was talk a lot about all

47:31

the exciting things. And you're, I think, similar

47:33

to me in terms of being almost

47:35

a perma optimist. Right. But what

47:37

is the biggest challenge that you and

47:39

the team face right now? There

47:42

are multiple ways to answer this question.

47:44

The first way to answer it is

47:46

more as an entrepreneur and CEO is

47:48

the people side of things. Because, you

47:51

know, when you start a company in

47:53

a very naive way and you have

47:55

more an engineering background, technology background, you

47:57

build things, it's a small group of

47:59

people. And then, you know, it becomes

48:01

just unmanageable. But fortunately, we have incredible

48:03

people across the firm who are making

48:05

sure that everything holds up together. So,

48:07

you know, it's a people battle. it's

48:10

the biggest challenge for every firm people say

48:12

it the first time you hear it you think

48:14

it's bullshit and then when you build your

48:16

own company you're like holy smoke it's true because

48:18

that's fundamentally everything that it is if you

48:21

have the right people or you can be lucky

48:23

you can be a good shot caller about

48:25

this will go up or this will go down

48:27

but Assuming you need this anyway,

48:29

then you need the people. So the

48:31

people is a huge challenge and how we

48:33

get there. The regulatory side of things

48:35

is a big challenge for us at the

48:37

moment, particularly as a European -based firm. Because

48:39

obviously we have Mika coming into practice,

48:41

exchanges are starting to delist USDT, for instance,

48:43

non -Mika -compliant stablecoins. We even came across

48:45

something in the recent days where one of

48:47

the largest exchanges didn't want to list

48:49

in Europe a coin that didn't have on

48:51

-chain traceability supported by, you know, the chain

48:53

analysis, DLT. and others. So this is

48:56

where we are heading. And as usual, you

48:58

can see the glass half full or

49:00

half empty. Half full, half empty, you're like,

49:02

we don't have business today. And half

49:04

empty, we know that this is what probably

49:06

will enable the next wave of the

49:08

business for banks to be reassured and to

49:10

prove that they are compliant in every

49:12

way. Other challenges, obviously, we are

49:14

facing is keep scaling our technology with the

49:16

same pace that the market is scaling.

49:18

Cyber security, more than ever, we saw it

49:20

in the recent months. The threats are

49:22

probably at all time high in crypto and

49:24

arguably. are probably a prime prime target

49:26

too uh so you know that those are

49:28

the sort of challenges but fortunately we

49:30

we touch wood and we have an incredible

49:32

set of people working with us so

49:34

you know for us we just try to

49:36

make it happen every day uh and

49:38

that's that's already a lot yeah no i'll

49:40

double click on that last point too

49:42

having the right people in the right seat

49:44

is arguably the biggest unlock for going

49:46

and scaling a successful business absolutely so true

49:48

gilliam really appreciate you hopping on i'm

49:51

already excited for our next conversation you know

49:53

we'll do this again we'll get some

49:55

updates on where you are where the market

49:57

is you know i'm really curious to

49:59

see see how this thesis plays out. There's

50:01

a lot that we unpacked here. um

50:03

to really appreciate you joining me today. and

50:05

so do I, and thank you very

50:07

much for the opportunity