[Music] welcome everyone thank you so much for joining us today and we're really excited to bring our tech talks back after our summer break in july uh with some fantastic speakers on a fantastic topic which is all about capitalizing on cryptocurrency market opportunities so i'm really delighted to be joined by miya mohammed today and who is the head of product marketing at christology and really delighted to also be joined by uh sam stragger who is the head of marketing at bcb group and of course our one and only managing director and owner of coffee house so i'm going to maybe pass them to sam to give us a little bit of intro on herself before we move on to um our other panelists yeah hi i'm matt sam head of marketing at bcb group um bcb we are europe's uh leading institutional payment services provider uh for companies in in the blockchain and uh uh crypto economy um background wise i've been in the krypton blockchain since about 2017 which is a long time because as everybody knows crypto years are like dog years um i originally started in a blockchain investment bank advisory um where i was working across building the whole brand uh in the crypto and fintech community as well as um on the ico advisory and seo advisory team at the time as well so i would advise a number of different sort of blockchain uh companies that we had as mandates there for raising funds for them on their pr marketing community outreach and all those strategies but yeah that's me i'm fantastic and yeah would you like to introduce yourself a little bit more yeah sure um so i am a financial services and fintech marketer with over 20 years experience now in the industry uh i moved into the crypto space actually um a lot uh i'm a newbie still uh two years ago now uh krypton blockchain space and i opted to lead with trustology who are a they are an institutional crypto custodial wallet provider uh catering to institutional investors and high net worth clients as well as service providers like brokerages uh exchanges and uh companies like bcb group uh who are part both our partner and client um yep brilliant thank you so much and catherine would you like to say a few words as well oh i think katherine's internet is not working the best so hopefully she'll she'll come back soon so i'll do i'll just kick off of the questions just now in that case so um if i just stop sharing this so we can see our lovely speakers foolish there she is did i freeze sorry about that we've lost your body sorry about that um yes so i i was saying that i am catherine strachan i'm the managing director of coffeehouse coffeehouse is a content marketing agency specializing in technology in fintech so we've worked on crypto cryptocurrency projects both in the past as well as present and a lot of our team members have investments in the crypto space um so it's an area that we're highly interested in and yeah we're delighted to be able to discuss this today on the panel fantastic thank you so much and so let's kick off then so i've been doing a little bit of research on the crypto market and and there's been quite a boom last year so just to give you a little bit of background and stats uh for our audience sake as well so from what i found that cryptocurrency market size is expected to grow from us dollars 1.6 billion in 2021 to usd 2.2 billion by 2026 at the cagr of 7.1 percent however according to the d e f i pulse data the total looked valueless shares sat at around one billion worth of cryptocurrency deposited in a dense decentralized finance application today the tdvl figure exceeds the 60 billion mark and 60 billion and american dollar dollar should i say mark with a peak value of over 86 billion in mid-may so the boom is just amazing no one expected that looking at those figures and so i just want to find out a little bit more about why you think this boom happened and you know from my findings i found that a lot of research shows that many people still don't fully understand what cryptocurrency means for the future of the financial sector so could you just explain to us what cryptocurrency is and how does it affect business and obviously more importantly why should we care about crypto technologies and its possibilities so you want me to kick it off sam or sure you go for it so um you've got cryptocurrencies you've got you've got uh also what they called utility tokens and you've got security tokens those are the three pretty much primary categories cryptocurrencies are a subset of digital assets basically and they usually function as a form of cash and most people know that to be things like bitcoin theory eth uh litecoin things like that you get the utility tokens where there's no investment in it like there's no shared investment it's just a token that typically the d5 protocols and d5 by the way stands for decentralized finance uh protocols like um and they're different financial services protocols by the way there's like lending there's borrowing there's trading platforms um what they'll do is they'll create like a kind of a governance token or token where they can hopefully get some derived value out of it and that's called the utility token we've also got erc20 tokens uh and that you're seeing a lot of um a buzz around that uh today with uh with a whole nft craze which typically use those types of tokens and i think another i think there's other uh other nft categories as well within uh within the erc um categories all of this runs on the ethereum chain by the way and then you've got the security tokens which usually means that there's shared investment ownership there on that token it's usually backed by something uh so it probably has regulatory oversight um so why should companies care um because the advent of crypto assets has well the reason why they were created was to solve for a lot of many issues of traditional finance markets today namely the high cost um and fees when you're either trying to move money around borrow money whatever you whatever you want to you know whatever need you're looking for from a financial perspective um this whole infrastructure was set to get rid of the middlemen so you don't necessarily need to go to a bank or any you can go direct direct it's peer-to-peer everything is done peer-to-peer pretty much so it takes away the the middlemen so it helps reduce costs supposed to be cheaper uh it's faster and it's all publicly recorded so the transparency is is pretty uh is pretty is is there so it's supposed to in the future hopefully uh help with the whole aml compliance footprint that people are trying to track um and in terms of what we're seeing today you can tokenize anything now so there's tremendous use cases um just every day there's a new use case and time will tell what's going to stand as the you know tried and true use case that people will continue to leverage versus the fads the things that will just die out in time so that's that's my take in a nutshell it's there to complement the existing traditional finance markets and make it better and more efficient where it can uh yes it runs on a completely new infrastructure and rails and it's still kind of in its teething days but i think it's it's getting more and more robust and stronger as they continue to build the the different you know the necessary development changes and building blocks to make it user friendly to make it easier for people to access it um and initially it was founded as um uh well bitcoin was founded to be a micro payments uh solution and hopefully tap into or extend access to people that um otherwise couldn't have access to financial services uh and we're slowly starting to see that happen around the world with countries like el salvador uh and other countries slowly start to adopt crypto assets where they can now you know give people who don't have access to banking services um this kind of capability uh over to you sam to add yeah brilliant brilliant um yeah i mean i i think um that's the point in in essence cryptocurrency is decentralized uh it's not governed by or backed by a manatee or a monetary authority or a central bank uh but it's just maintained by that peer to peer community of nodes so it is it is truly decentralized um and it's important it's not going away as mia said you know transactions are fast secure and worldwide um um in terms of sort of the olden days of banking if you think how long things would take to settle it's it's absolutely crazy um here at bcb we've got an instant settlements network where anybody any company which all of the exchanges most exchanges in the in the economy are uh or on a one um in our ecosystem they can settle with each other in crypto or fiat regular currency instantly 24 7 365 days a year which is incredible um i mean my dad worked in banking in the 80s and 90s and he literally cannot believe that the speed and how things have moved so quickly um so it's interesting i mean it as as amir said it is it is really early days but for crypto still it still if it's in infancy however it has matured and evolved as a market incredibly rapidly recently this last year significantly and um that that's probably more than anything to do with the sort of institutional interest that we've seen particularly at the tail end of the latter half of last year um so the big u.s banks getting involved for
instance you know it's in the mainstream press now it's it's everywhere you look um and also you know the likes of uh microstrategy and tesla getting involved with bitcoin as a treasury strategy as well has really sort of made people feel it's it's here to stay fantastic caffeine do you have anything else to add to that yeah i mean i think i'd like to pick up a little bit on what mia was saying about um you know the global well mia and sam about the global network of cryptocurrency i think you know the world is becoming more and more united in some ways where you know borders and doing business between different different company different countries is not unusual even for smaller firms it's not unusual for a smaller firm to have business operations across the globe and then when you start to go even further abroad and you start to go into countries where their currency itself is perhaps not strong so you know i think in the uk and perhaps in the us as well we've kind of taken our currency for granted because it's it hasn't done big crazy swings um you know it's been largely stable um comparatively stable but other countries haven't been so fortunate so there are countries like turkey or el salvador whose currencies have wildly fluctuated over the years and you know when you're looking at doing business in these other countries or when you're looking at working with customers in other countries then it almost makes sense to have one global payment system one global currency that everybody can use i mean imagine a world where like instead of having to cha trade you know pounds for dollars or pounds for um colon uh or it's not that el salvador uses that currency anymore but you know trading um you're converting one currency for another you could just use one single currency so i think you know cryptocurrency has a lot of really great potential and a lot of really great path ahead of it i would say i mean it is still quite early and it's still quite in its infancy i think it's matured a lot over the last year with you know these big brands coming on board like sam mentioned brings a lot of um you know increased trust um but i feel i mean crypto has some problems in its past and what it was traditionally traditionally associated with um that causes it to be still a little bit scary for people who are new to it or don't fully understand it but i think you know once those barriers are overcome and some of the underlying technologies matured even further then we're going to see some really interesting things start to unfold and it's a really exciting time because we're just at the beginning of that really i know it's been around for around for a while now but it's only really starting to be taken very seriously and starting to be considered you know even as an investment strategy for big brands like sam mentioned you know the fact that brands are using that to hold their treasure using that to you know put invest the majority of their of their capital in is um you know a really positive sign of what's to come so where should emerging emerging businesses in the crypto space turn to first as a starting point then so one of the trickiest and obviously the most uh some fundamental things that you need as a business is uh banking services to make payments for trading operations or whatever now that seems incredibly difficult as a business in crypto blockchain even if you are the likes of the huge exchanges because uh traditional financial institutions the banks just just will not provide those regular payment rails that you need um so there are a number of solutions not many around one of which is bcb actually um and we sort of specialize in uh connecting and banking the global crypto economy so banks come to uh sorry companies uh market makers funds exchanges come to us and we can provide uh fear on and off ramp everything they need to be able to do for their you know regular banking services would provide business bank accounts for the for the economy um and uh you know mia's work in uh the custody side as well um we work very closely with trustology because um not only do you need uh those payment services trading services perhaps effect services as well you also need uh custody and wallets as an institution and as i say you you come to a specialist to do that rather than hsbc or whoever you just that that they just haven't got the they're not crypto native they don't understand the space well enough to be able to uh work with the company and their requirements great yeah we're also starting this i mean for funds especially we're starting to see um you know supplementing the banking service which is crucial and probably yes of course first protocol followed by a custodian depending on the nature of your business is you know will determine what you need next so if you're an institutional investor of fund you're probably going to need a fund fund administrator uh so companies like vauban have you know developed a kind of end-to-end solution where they're supporting fully supporting anybody looking to start a crypto fund so that because they just know all the all the ins and outs of how to get that um going um then you have the likes of new you know new other companies are coming forward providing auditing and tax and accounting services so i think it depends on where the company is in their journey but certainly right up front you need the banking services and there's that's a niche and that's an area that has been such a sticking point for several years now so the fact that bcb can support that it's just it's wonderful because we need more that's what that's what they really need it's um even though banks have jumped on board and are supporting it um they're still quite slow to allow it so um until we really get to that stage um you know true value can be found in companies like bcb captain do you have anything to add to that no i i think those those points are pretty spot on i guess i would only only also say that you know it's going to be quite a steep learning curve depending on how familiar a company is already with with bitcoin or cryptocurrency and that it's about getting up to speed um educationally as well so obviously you need the help of some really great trusted partners like bcb to be able to help you to do this but i think it's equally important for any business owner who is taking this decision to be informed on on the markets to be informed on how crypto works and what the what the pitfalls as well as opportunities are and you know to really do do your research and to make sure that you fully understand it but i mean that is the same with all business decisions i mean as an entrepreneur i you know really believe in being fully informed and you know knowing all the facts and all the all the research behind it so i personally would never make a business decision that i didn't understand and i would encourage um other business owners you know to make sure that you understand it to ask questions you know i i know sam quite well so i know how friendly the group at bcb are and you know just ask ask them the things that you don't understand ask questions to to you get to the point where you can confidently discuss it and explain it to people who are not with you because you're also going to need to take people along the journey with you so you know perhaps you can find an accountant who understands crypto but perhaps also you're going to have to talk to your existing accountant about why you're doing this and you know bring people along on that journey with you so it's important as a business leader that you have all that information so that you can then convince your team or your board or you know perhaps your your your traditional accountant or you know people who perhaps aren't as strong believers in crypto that this is the right move for you and for your company um so i would say of course it's about education as well fantastic so can any of you name any uses of crypto technologies in either the b2b or b2c market that have been really successful so maybe some could i start with you on this one um so i suppose i mean that there are myriad uses of blockchain from supply chain everything across the financial services and banking i guess so you know remittance cross-boarded stuff clearing the settlement reporting into back transfers all that type of thing some really interesting use cases around government and voting medical records real estate um but uh just just one that i like to flag which is a lovely story is at bcb we're doing something called the bcb foundation uh which is something that's really close to our founders heart giving back and the the the mission of that is blockchain for good and as a result of that we were sort of giving out our time and the grant uh to a company who is doing blockchain for good uh which is company called hive online and uh they are um really helping um certain african nations i think it's rwanda uh ghana um and ethiopia and the um the small farming communities there the cashew nut growers these tiny co-ops of ten people who and all of their records are basically just kept in an exercise book and if that exercise book goes everything's lost but hive are actually uh building uh absolutely built on the stellar blockchain and put the records these little farming communities numerous ones of them chain and they have access to an app where they can look all their records and it's literally you know change changed how they do business and giving them access potentially as well to banking because they've now got proper records so it's literally sort of super charging at those communities and i just love that i think it's a great story that's brilliant that is so so good to see something like that being used for greater goods and it's fantastic and do any of our other speakers have anything to add to what sam's already mentioned there's a particularly interesting company called quiddly who have found success a very niche area of focus they market themselves to treasury teams and companies um basically substituting where you know normally companies usually offer employees vouchers or whatnot they've kind of flipped it around and said why not offer payment rewards incentives using crypto um so that's that's finding success um through in the in the us at the minute um i thought it was quite a cool concept um there's talk about you know payrolls uh companies eventually possibly using crypto to fund payrolls um cross-border where they you know where they can't if you know they need to do it quickly and they can't do it via fiat um so yeah some use cases there in terms of on the b to c side i mean i obviously we're all kind of watching baited breath uh how nfts continue to evolve uh from you know from artwork to music to now i think the latest is they've they started utilizing ai technology to fractionalize nft so everybody can buy a portion of it that's the tricky part because obviously that might require that might raise a red flag with the sec so but i still think it's quite cool to see how far it's evolved in such a short space of time um obviously for institutions it's great because they can um they can utilize collateral they can collateralize it you don't utilize it as a loan uh in d5 markets so um this just it's just amazing to watch that kind of slowly grow and unfold brilliant and catherine do you have any out of there yeah um i mean i i find it yeah uh mia like you were saying i find it really fascinating how blockchain and crypto has kind of changed the world and are is changing these really traditional really stagnant systems these systems that you know didn't used to work in in people's favors so you know for example the estonian government uses blockchain to create digital citizenship so it's really easy for people to get the information that they need from the government or to apply for you know their government papers or you know whatever it is that they need to do online where you know traditionally it takes months and months and months and months and months of waiting to be able to even do something as simple as get your passport or get your passport renewed and you know all these traditional outdated systems you know are they don't work they don't work i mean should somebody have to wait months in order to get their passport or have their identity confirmed you know the answer is no these traditional systems especially in our digital age make the world so much harder for normal people and especially like sam was saying you know traditional ways of working for people who are perhaps the underbanked or people who are less you know fortunate or don't have the same access that you know everybody else has or you know perhaps even in the case of the estonian government people people who you know are unable to use the internet in the same way we do you know for whatever reason um and even even for people like even for people like me who are digitally native and you know fully understand the digital world these systems don't work because you have to wait you know i'm still waiting on an application to open a new business banking savings account it's been weeks i mean why can't that be done instantly and the answer is that it can with the right technology with with blockchain um you know it can be done very quickly you don't have to wait forever um and in our today's today's world which moves at lightning pace you know it's it's time that these systems are updated so that they can keep pace with the pace that businesses move at with the pace that our lives move at and you know get away from these broken outdated systems that don't serve anybody's interest anymore that's true yeah yeah that's a very very strong point there brilliant so um like the next question is then what is the biggest challenge for those working within digital assets more specifically cryptocurrency in bringing this technology successfully to market and how can they overcome these challenges so mia maybe i'll start with you on this one um so obviously when i came into the space two years ago it was mired with a lot of um obviously bad actors as we call it you know there's scams hacks and just the wrong kind of people giving it the wrong kind of image um i think it's it's changed and then matured incredibly since then and we're starting to see more serious players really take hold of you know take it you know seriously and also drive it forward more seriously um because it's such a native and niche industry because it's so complex and complicated and people really don't understand it um events is key you need that interaction that network and community to build trust it's all about building trust um and that trust comes with educating and informing them um and i guess and depending on the company so for us as a custodian we determined early on that our product market fit was with institutional investors and brokers but we're like so how do you reach them so we just i as a marketer i definitely was like right this is definitely a face-to-face community they want to know that they can trust you obviously nobody saw kovit coming at all uh and zoom quickly made uh you know made that all change going you could force people to obviously network and and integra you know force people to communicate online uh rather than the face-to-face so that quickly changed in terms of um delivering events but it still uh was mandatory people really want to know who they're dealing with because there are still so much scams um anyways to reach our institutional investor audience and our broker audience uh for me i used a mix of you know finding the right events that we knew there would be at looking at who can we partner with to communicate um or inform them so whether that's about tax whether that's about starting a fund uh in the broker space we recently did a four-part blog series that talked about if you're thinking about starting a brokerage in the business here's what you need to know and we leveraged two of our partners on that in terms of liquidity and then us as custodian and then the third part was clearing and settlement and it's actually worked out really nice it was oversubscribed and we followed that on with another kind of q and a session uh which we've seen tremendous kind of engagement with um so that's that's um it's really about education and making sure that you're constantly informing people because there's still a lot to learn and it's always changing in a heartbeat so yeah that's brilliant i'm sorry on your goal some i was gonna say i couldn't agree more i mean it's all about education it's all about building trust um and i mean we've taken a a similar route to trustology and uh sort of we found it events networking really key obviously we've had to rethink that a little bit um but we've also sort of found working with renowned industry bodies for example crypto uk who are the regulatory um sorry the self-regulatory trade association for the uk crypto industry um they really sort of promote promote high standards of conduct and uh talk to uh forming an all parliamentary group uh to lead that debate uh with um some members of parliament as well and uh crypto regulation moving forward on that um i think as well probably uh something that i guess at bcb that we do which um it's it's it's not sort of upfront marketing but it's more how we service our clients i guess is that we really pride ourselves on a high touch um service that we have so literally when a client comes on board with a new business bank account they will um have a whatsapp group a slack channel a community group on telegram and they have access to all of our traders that hold our compliance team to hold their hand through the onboarding process to their account manager and literally everybody across the company 24 7 is relevant to their business they can just ping back and forth so i think so that's coming back to that sort of building trust and not just ahead of getting somebody into your business or selling it but some further down the line as well is something that as i said we've we've found has been really important and i think it's sort of overcome that issue of um potential lack of trust or potential uncertainty uh in the industry um which has been pretty successful for us i think the final thing as well actually i mean uh trustology's um blogs have been brilliant and you know we benefit from that as a you know another crypto company in the ecosystem um that that sort of output and quality content um we do something similar in that we have a a fortnightly um uh newsletter which is put together by our compliance team that sort of highlights any of the issues that have come up in aml or regulatory stuff over the past two weeks and uh but that's very well received and again it's been really good to get that side of the business involved rather than just the sort of sales and marketing team here thinking about what we're doing to to build that trust build that authority and take the whole industry forward really not you know not not just us across the board i want to add to uh echo uh sam's point on customer service yeah your company's dead if you don't provide a really good you know end and customer service and ability for people to reach out to you and communicate right away people are nervous people want to be handheld in this industry uh and then the same thing uh equally we we it's a community building thing it's you know it's all about propping each other up it's about giving each other support so you know if um sam's got something great in her newsletter you know something she wants to highlight or bring out we kind of share networks we share um each other's networks to push each other to you know to communi you know to get their word out and vice versa as partners and as um allies uh and in the community there's actually a really really interesting question that came from uh mark just before we um maybe go over to catherine and is there a body to complain to about a crypto business uh there should be um i mean there's no better business bureau um but um i think uh in terms of uh no i'll have to look into that i don't know because i know that there is some place that people can post like complaints on most most i'd have to say this people take their complaints um on on social media direct so um i think recently there was um uh coinbase coinbase somebody took their uh complaint on customer service for example online so i think uh for now i would say social media is where we're seeing um the body of most complaints and i guess the fca as well to an extent as well that we will get sort of things coming through from other companies who have come up with those bad actors that mia referred to earlier and we uh work quite close with the fca and actually making sure that we have a section on our website so that anybody who is coming in and might be confused can actually access that and see you know who are the recent bad actors what do i need to look out for so it gets that balance it's that the the fca and word of mouth as well and uh and social media as you say because uh i think uh reputationally in crypto crypto twitter is a pretty ferocious place and as soon as something gets out it seems viral um but yeah and uh to sam's point if they're if they're uk based like ourselves we're all it's mandatory you've got to go and file with the fca and we're in the process knock on wood so we've got a temporary registration there's about 100 companies still waiting pending um but they're taking it seriously like you know make sure your policies your procedures your way of conduct is all in order so we were really pleased to get the temporary registration while we await our full of our full application approval but it definitely if you if they are registered it's a good sign because that means that they're they're being closely monitored and they've got some good practices in place brilliant catherine do you have anything to add to marx or my question yeah i mean i guess going back to your question um you know it is really all about trust um which is not uncommon for emerging technologies emerging technologies in general are quite scary because it's a new way of doing something it's a new way of thinking it's a new way of behaving and when it comes down to money that makes it even scarier because money is one of the biggest stresses in all of our lives you know the biggest most common thing to keep people awake at night is their finances so it's not uncommon in in the financial technology space and then you take that even a level further with crypto because crypto had such a bad kind of beginning like like maya mia was saying about um you know the bad actors and bad players in the space it's i mean it had some really negative stigmas at the beginning but that is you know changing and it's not not true anymore um that you know it's always you know dodgy or back alley or you know used for use for criminals or any of these really negative stereotypes that that traditionally existed so crypto has this really unique challenge of not only needing to gain people's trust because it's finances and emerging technology but also having overcome previous stigmas and you know that is going to come through with your marketing so whether it's your events or your networking or you know even the content that you create the content that can talk to people when you're when your team can't be online so you know your team um if you're only based in uk you know can't answer questions 24 7 because well they have to sleep right um but what can answer questions 24 7 is your website um so you know it's really important that your website looks legit that you know you have all the right elements like sam was discussing about her website on on site so you know that you present yourselves as professional and trust trustworthy but then also you know your long-form content helps plays a role there too because you can answer questions that you know your sales team is getting all the time and then your sales team either doesn't have to answer them because people have already found the answers or can say oh well we've created this really great article recently go read this because you know it's going to tell you everything you need to know about that specific question so it makes their job easier especially if you can align your customer service team with your marketing and your sales team with your marketing all of it kind of comes together to build trust around your brand um and i would i would argue that in the crypto space it's even more needed than you know in other spaces because of all these challenges that crypto has to overcome and it's so essential that it does overcome it because we won't get to a global current currency we won't get to you know the end dream of you know having this be the only currency or you know the main currency that all that all companies and all individuals use if those barriers aren't overcome if people don't trust it if if people you know continue to think of it through a negative lens then you know we're never going to get to that end goal we're never going to get to that you know global currency widely used goal which you know i would love to see how easy would it make it to travel and to do business international you know i want us to get there and the only way to get there is to overcome these barriers brilliant and so before we move on to the next audience's question i just have a question for mia could you tell us about cryptocurrency custody solutions what they are and why is custody important it's hugely important if you're uh an institution or business looking to do uh looking to enter crypto markets or already engaged in crypto markets because chances are if you're in one of the key markets like europe uh us uk you're going to be regulated especially in terms of what you're doing for as a business practice so you need to you need to secure a custodian you need a regulated or governed custodian with insurance um that is just key otherwise you will not be able to uh transact or do anything in custody markets if you're an individual looking for a wallet um i mean that's a personal choice but um you know there's a risk with all the different types so from an individual perspective um you have the choice of cold storage you have which is completely offline it's never seen you know never been connected to an internet you've got a hardware wallet you've got what they call the software wallet a hardware wallet looks like a dongle basically and you carry it around that's got all your crypto on it which is very dangerous because it puts you at physical risk um and then if anybody knows that you know you're carrying that or crypto you could get god forbid assaulted you've got what they call a software wallet um which is um metamask is a good example of that it's a software wallet that's in the browser so that's huge huge risk in terms of being hacked um and then you've got paper wallets um also similar if you're walking around carrying your seed phrase um you know your access to your wallet or account it's on a piece of paper and you lose that piece of paper you've lost your assets so the main issue here is um it's it's who's somebody has to be responsible for the private key because that private key is your asset if you lose that key you've lost your assets this is where a custodian can really make life easy you can take the burden away from having to manage multiple or thousands of keys especially if you got growing you know a scaling business like a brokerage or an exchange uh or you've got you know hundreds of investors into your fund so you need a custodian who can scale i mean you obviously need it also a custodian that's going to give you security and it's going to be able to give you utility so you want um the back end security of you know says safe as cold storage um you want the front end flexibility so if you want to go into d5 markets for example you can to tap yield bearing opportunities that custodian can make it happen for you and from a custodial perspective there are different types there's us we're a scalable hsm solution and you've got the latest npc tech which has actually been around for a very long time but only been in practice in crypto markets for the past five years so it's really not tried and tested whereas we're using hsn technology uh in terms of our hardware security the back end combined with our firmware that to give it that scale and also the extra layer of security without compromising or sacrificing speed uh and we use hsms because that's been tried and tested for decades 30 30 something years and they're still being used today to move trillions trillions of payments um so you've got different options but from an institutional perspective institutions have a choice really of scalable hsm or mpc or cold storage if they're not planning on doing anything with the money and just want to store it [Music] um so cold storage providers would be like bitco for example and then for us uh scalable hsm i think there's a few players out there and then there's npc players or vendors um and that's important to know because they don't have to provide insurance they don't they don't have regulatory oversight because they're just the technology solution provider they give you the tools really um versus being a custodian and i'm referring to um fire blocks as an npc player for example uh so there's different choices um i think you need to really do your research you need to to look at what provides you uh what meets your business needs um and and makes you feel comfortable from a security and a risk perspective um and delivers uh on the support you need from an asset perspective and chain perspective as well brilliant amazing and that's really interesting and at summer coffin do you have anything else to add to what mia said [Music] i mean from from our perspective i mean we um provide a digital asset custody solution but built on our strategic partnerships with the likes of trustology and other industry leaders because those sort of multiple levels of security and accessibility that clients um sort of need to have to suit their requirements get the optimal solution uh it's it's it's it's a quite deep dive on a choice of what what's right and uh yeah as i say through through partnerships with the trustology and the likes um we're lucky enough to be able to offer that as part of our suite of services as well brilliant and captain do you have anything to add uh no not really but i would echo the need to do your research and to be informed on what decision is going to be right for you and you know what decision is going to be right for your business so that you know the ins and outs of what's happening with your money you know that that's quite important so you know i really i really resonated with that point for mia um and would echo it brilliant and so because we've got quite a few questions coming through the audience i'm just going to ask another question from the audience so there's one from helen here how do you think brands can overcome trust when reaching to international audiences do you think there are any specific challenges around broad brand and acquisition when engaging in new regions so maybe captain i'll start with you on this one yeah definitely i mean i think when you're expanding internationally the first thing you need to think about is who are you trying to reach so who is that audience and how different are they from your current audience so you know people in different countries think about things in different ways businesses operate in different ways so really you know before you start any marketing it's really important to look at your customer avatars and to define those to make sure you understand who you're talking to what information do they need to know how informed on crypto are they going to be i mean crypto the level of awareness around cryptocurrency changes by country i mean some countries really understand it some haven't ever heard of it so you need to know you know what what's the general attitude there are there any stigmas that you need to overcome immediately or that you need to address head on or what challenges are they facing within their business um challenges and pain points are always a really great area to look at because it's what makes something immediate so if you have a problem and it's keeping you awake at night you need to solve it immediately if it's you know more of a nice to have then it's far easier to kick it down the road to wait till next budget review or the one after that or the one after that and to never actually act on it so as a brand understanding the challenges that your that your customers have then makes your solution your service far more pertinent so you know you really need to do your research and to understand your audience and then you need to review your existing marketing strategies to see how well they aligned they are with your new target audience um perhaps some of it is still relevant perhaps none of it is relevant and it's really you know taking a step back and critically reviewing and then setting a firm foundation and creating a strategy before you really move forward so you know a lot of brands are quite quick on on action and you know will fly into production before they do those foundational things before they set the strategy before they build their customer avatars and it's it's such a mistake because it's more of a spray and pray kind of mythology it's you know just pushing content out and hoping that it works but that is not the way that you know good marketing should take place you get far better results if you set the strategy if you understand the situation and the context that you're operating in and the situation context that your audience is operating in so i would encourage any brand um crypto or not who's looking to expand internationally to start with that foundational element and then to build from there yeah i agree that's absolutely spot on i love the work that um copyright you guys do with the customer avatar profile i'm really looking forward to that um upcoming tech talk actually definitely tune in for that one um the other the only other thing i was going to add as well completely onboard all that you say catherine it's probably uh particularly in crypto and financial services look at the regulation side as well what are you allowed to say uh to those customers in those regions is there anything different from the regions that you already know and work in um that can be quite crucial i mean i've i've did a lot of work uh in my previous role um with um marketing in asia specifically uh china korea japan and the the rules and regulations there around crypto very different um to what we're used to dealing with over here and in the u.s so that's sort of a case of um i mean really having a potential specialist partner in the region as well to help guide you through that i think he's something i'd personally recommend yeah and you need to look at the yeah for sure regulation is key because you could be restricted from marketing to that market uh in particular and you risk exposing your company to fd fines if you end up you know getting caught or uh called out on it so yeah understanding your market restrictions um legality of it uh and also knowing the gdpr rules around it too that is our key brilliant so i think that to some extent definitely um answers nazareth i hope i pronounce your name correctly there question but just in case there's anything missing from there and so where is a regulation in the uk how is that going have we advanced um yeah i mean uh to echo sam's point earlier dude we're both working very closely with the crypto uk association which is an industry body that works very closely with the uk government and tries to lobby for you know keeping the industry moving forward uh and trying to push you know uh hopefully work work around or find ways to um help the uh the industry grow and advance um and get the regulators on board um i think we have come a long way we were missing regulation early on which is probably what kept the institutions at bay uh now that we have aml compliance with the what was the 50ml director that was introduced back in 2020 that was the kickstarter and i think we're going to see a lot more regulation coming forward um soon also the fact that the uk has stepped in and asked that businesses register i mean so i think we've made tremendous improvement people are people recognize this industry's here to stay so they're getting more serious about it and this is what institutions need to feel safe um in terms of entry brilliant and i realized we've only got 10 minutes left so i'm gonna crack on with as many questions as i can just to let the audience know for any questions that we won't be able to answer and we will ask our speakers to and answer them after the event and i will actually not follow up email so do not worry you will all get your answers um so moving on to the my next question then um um our crypto technologies and still misunderstood by consumers stakeholders and etc so can you tell me how crypto technology providers can tackle those with marketing efforts in a way that help their desired audience understand crypto and its possibilities so maybe start with some on this one sam you go for it um i mean i i think probably we've we've covered i mean what my response is something that we've already spoken about for this one in that it's very much this whole building trust this educational piece that we're all really undertaking um and i i think um uh probably what's key about crypto compared to say traditional finance and marketing and it's something that i've really found um again we've already touched on but it's really this this community feeling this whole it's collegiate that everybody supports everybody else everybody is pushing towards getting uh adoption trust authority and uh really helpful and supportive across the board uh which as i as i say you you would i mean i've worked in um marketing and wealth management and more traditional financial services as mia has and that's just just not there um so it's that's something that's wonderful really that from uh it just means that we're all sort of really connected um not just in london and not just in europe on the numerous wechat groups whatsapp groups telegram groups across the globe for women in blockchain for for custody for business banking for uh different blockchain platforms you name it it's there and and that's so positive and literally as i say it's this collegiate sharing uh all working towards wider adoption and trust um that i i think is extremely positive and differs from traditional financial services and that's something that we all this this is what we're working towards i i think and then that's sort of the real effort um and that's sort of how we're trying to help the our audience understand or crypto and its possibilities just to add to that um traditional finance it was a breeze you knew where to go you know everything at your fingertips nothing was really barred because everything you know it's just you know angel you know fiat and everything around it uh derivatives was an issue but um there's obviously subsequent regulation that came out around that that fx was an issue and they came out with a code of conduct and now you have crypto where you um as a marketer when you know because of the bad actors you know you get channels that you desperately need like google advertising uh who slam the door shut because you know you're advertising and promoting crypto and like you find a little bit of roadblocks here and there but that's because you know it took a few bad actors to ruin it they're slowly starting to reopen those channels but then you get new um channels popping up like uh brave browser or sites like hacker noon who are very dedicated to the whole community in the space and helping to you know people to find um a platform to to to you know get their word out um but it's been interesting uh marketing for this industry versus my my experiences with the traditional finance side events pretty much similar but it's also it's um not every event was created equal you've really got to do your research and and get to you know find the right events because you can easily get sucked into an event with the label blockchain and you think it's relevant and it's not um so yeah that's important um um and that's really it brilliant i i am i would add it yeah so i i see that content marketing is about creating conversations i mean good marketing should spark lots of conversations and should open those doors so i think one of the biggest mistakes a lot of brands make especially early on in the journey is that they don't do any marketing or enough marketing and it's really important that you do because that is how you start these conversations that is how you disrupt some of these myths that is how you build relationships with your audience if you're not doing any marketing then you're basically not having any conversations and imagine how you know not talking to anybody about your business how devastating if you think about it in that light how devastating that will be for the future growth of your business so you know these events events uh content marketing creating content making sure your website's up to date you know doing all these things is so important for a brand at every stage of the journey and is something that should run throughout and far too often you know especially the earlier companies we see them not doing any marketing or having a really poor website um and it's really important that you know even if it feels a little bit scary or a little uncomfortable because you're not really sure how to get started that you do get started that you know you get the help that you need so that you can create a strategy so that you can start you know posting and that you can start slowly and surely to build a marketing machine that's going to help you deliver results over the long term and help you grow and develop not only your business but also you know contribute to the wider community because as sam has said a couple of times you know the better one company can do you know it benefits a whole entire crypto community so you know it's not just about that one company it's about everybody pulling each other up and you know getting to that end place where crypto companies are you know not aren't blocked from google are well are respected across all the channels and all the mediums and you know are taken seriously brilliant so i think we've got time probably for one last question so um maybe i'll choose this one then so what does the future hold for cryptocurrency then and how should cop companies then invest in helping these technologies thrive and obviously the solution providers themselves market themselves successfully in that space so i know that a lot of it's already been mentioned but what do you think the future holds for marketing and crypto so maybe mia maybe i'll start with you this time um well for the industry for crypto i am waiting with baited breath to see if central bank digital currencies ever really comes to fruition i think the most recent news is on um british sentiment on the britcoin that that uh quickly spelled out no they're not ready for it yet um but it will be interesting to see if the central bank digital currency does come to fruition and and what will it do i think we're all still trying to understand that there's still um a lot of research being done around that uh it'll also be interesting to see if cryptocurrency becomes the you know payment of choice uh in cross-border transactions you know um olivia alleviating the headache of uh meeting supply chain payments for vendors and things like that so facilitating international cross-border payments i think nationally on the ground i think we might still see fiat but it'll be really cool to see how the world kind of um evolves to um have a you know the two complement each other in some way from a marketing perspective i'm just hoping um that you know the more adoption we see the easier it's going to be to facilitate um marketing efforts um but also um hoping to see more established channels that you know you could put your trust in to know that this is the go-to channels to get your voice out there and amplify your message for your company um and also to see traditional companies embrace us um you know more of the traditional banks uh letting people use their uh banking accounts to purchase crypto um so uh we'll see uh that's my view i'm brilliant and confident you have anything else to add to that no but i would say that you know it's a really exciting time you know i feel like the crypto space is just getting started the last year was a time of tremendous growth and change um positive change within the industry and it's really exciting to see where it's going to go to see what's going to happen and you know how the world is going to change as a result of that so i'm really excited to like be at the forefront of it to be aware of crypto and what's going on and to be watching and contributing to the space by helping companies with their marketing but mostly to be a part of it even if it's in a relatively small way of this great movement that i think can create significant social and you know large-scale change brilliant and sam yeah i mean you know there's big chats there's you know we're we're looking at you know further wider adoption uh there was a dera de la survey annual blockchain global survey uh that came out last week saying that 76 of finance professionals think that digital assets will serve as a strong alternative to or outright replacement for fiat currencies in the next five to ten years i mean given the speed that it moves as i said crypto user like dog ears you know i think we can really expect to see some of these things come to fruition and stuff stuff really changing and um just in terms of solution providers in the space marketing themselves i think that the key is as we've touched on that it's that blend really of uh sort of good tactics educational contents or leadership and we haven't talked much about press but that's really important as well leading the story there and raising your profile and leading the debate so some strong pr pipelines will be good and uh also visible market commentary as well is incredibly useful getting your experts out there you know and uh building that trust piece still and uh yeah presents at events um and perhaps you can all start networking in person again properly soon i agree it's it's definitely an exciting time for crypto and the fintech space and i'm really really excited to see what's what's gonna happen in the near future i mean the the space is booming so it's only gonna get better in my opinion uh but thank you so much that is that is the time so i just want to thank all of our panelists and speakers and you have been amazing and your insights are having so valuable so thank you so much and of course thank you to our audience thank you for taking the time and i know you're all really busy so thank you for taking the time to come join us today and i really hope you all enjoyed the discussion and as i mentioned i will follow up with any questions that haven't been answered with our speakers have via email so thank you so much everyone cheers thanks for having us guys thank you guys for having me bye everybody thank you sam enjoy your holiday thank you cheers [Music]
2021-09-05