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Crypto Update | Building the Next 'Trillions' of AI Agent Transactions With Crypto.com
00:12:08
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- [00:00]
Eric Anziani
We're going to live with billions of AI agents in the next few years. Specialized education, healthcare, and financial services. And those AI agents will need to be paid and exchange value across the Internet. The best solution out there is blockchain. So these billion agents will have maybe trillions of transactions on the blockchain. And we're helping build that. We have toolkits now for anyone who's building AI agents to integrate wallets to be able to transfer value. And I think it's going to be very, very powerful as they leverage the blockchain technology.
- [00:39]
Interviewer
Eric Anziani joins us at the desk.
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Eric Anziani
Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.
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Interviewer
Thanks for being here. Now, I've asked almost everyone who has sat down in this chair this. But what does it mean for you to be here in Hong Kong at Consensys? What kinds of conversations have you been having? How have you been pushing things forward?
- [00:58]
Eric Anziani
Well, first of all, I have to congratulate you guys. It's an amazing event. I'm very surprised to see so much energy. And, you know, Hong Kong is also known for that. But, you know, the last two, three years, it was not the same. And over the last few months and when I came back, you know, this week, I just feel the energy. Everybody is here. It's good conversation. Whether for the Hong Kong local market or even Asia or global expansion, US Funds are here. Everybody wants to participate. So I think it's very exciting to be here right now.
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Moderator
And Eric, you just got off stage. We hear. Tell us what you were speaking about. How did that go?
- [01:32]
Eric Anziani
Yeah, we, we talked about how different this cycle is. And I think there was one main point is, of course, that institutions are finally in, you know, in our industry. We've been talking about that for many years. You know, institutions are coming. But since, you know, January of 2024, when the Bitcoin ETF was approved in the U.S. this has changed the game completely. Even just for the ETF itself, if you look at the net flow into it is about 100 billion that has been accumulated there. It's 5% of total Bitcoin market cap, 700 billion in volume. So it's massive. We also looked a bit at the regulatory clarity, and I think Hong Kong just a year ago put in place a new framework. A lot of participants are joining, but across the world we're seeing more. Is that more fit for purpose frameworks where people can actually participate with rules that are dedicated to digital assets. The big elephant in the room is, of course, the US and everybody is super excited with the agenda of the new administration and@Crypto.com, we're actively participating in this engagement to bring some clarity to the market and everybody's looking at it. So I think it's going to be a great year for the industry.
- [02:41]
Interviewer
How's crypto.com looking at the Asian market?
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Eric Anziani
Well, our roots are in Asia. We are globally headquartered in Singapore. We started our early days in Hong Kong. It's a very fast paced and innovative continent, especially in the fintech and payment space. It's leapfrog the western world by years. So there's a lot of great talent. Our innovation center is actually in Asia where we build new technology. AI is also a space, we're at the forefront from Asia. We've built a lot of great services for our customers, improve internally, how we operate, our efficiency, our quality. So it's a great region, we love it here and we'll continue to invest.
- [03:24]
Moderator
I'm interested Eric, on you know, I think we all are very excited about what's going to happen in the US around regulation, but there's also still so many unknowns and there's still the region by region realities. You guys have millions of folks on the platform. We see coins come and go in seconds. Right. How do you think we need to protect the normal consumer in a world where the speed of innovation is outpacing the speed of regulation?
- [03:51]
Eric Anziani
It's a great question. I think when you know we would go back three, four years ago, we'll have maybe a couple of project per month coming to market. Now we have 50,000 tokens per day being issued. It's almost insane. Right. And it's very hard for consumers to grasp. So I think there's where the regulated platforms, the centralized exchange can come and bring some sanity to the market. Do the due diligence provide the right insights? Maybe leveraging AI to at least sense check what makes sense, what could be higher risk? I think there will be different platform and different tools to access these markets. I think on the mass retail platform we have to be very careful. And the good thing is consumers go to those platforms because they know there is consumer protection, there is market integrity. So we will check whether there's bad behavior, insider trading, these kind of things. And of course there you can't offer as much opportunities but they're still going to be a little bit more checked. But then people still want to access and view what's out there. So you need to provide tools maybe for advanced traders, maybe for people who want full control over their asset like our on chain wallet to at least pass an access, maybe with some insights and more information, as much as we can to help them navigate this new environment.
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Interviewer
Can you tell us a little bit more about the due diligence you do when you're looking to list a token?
- [05:13]
Eric Anziani
It varies a bit by market because we have different obligations from a regulatory standpoint. But the themes are the same. First of course we need to look at the project, who's behind it, their reputation, look at what's the roadmap, what they're planning, does it make sense, is there a market? Then there's things like liquidity, is it tradable? And we have 100 million customers. So when we list something we need to make sure that can be hedge and they can buy and sell without any issue. There's of course compliance and legal aspect that we look at reputation adverse media from the team or the project. And of course with Asus security or not. Right. Those are very important matters. And then finally there's things around technology, right. Is it smart, contract audited, the project solid on that front. Is there a risk of rug pull or issues on the technology side of the project? Those are kind of the main themes. And then there's nuances by market depending on our regulatory obligations.
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Moderator
Eric, you mentioned AI a little bit before. We just had Ben before, who's an AI wizard for the normal consumer who's on your platform. I imagine a world that's probably not that far into the future where people may really just say here's my goals and some agentic AI comes in and just really manages it all for you. Is that part of what you're thinking about when you think about how to build for the hundred million people on the platform? Almost take some of the risk away from them, obviously people who want to get their hands dirty. Well, but is that the future of traditional trading?
- [06:44]
Eric Anziani
I think it is and I don't think it's very far from where we are now. And I think it will impact a lot of industries. The question is how far do you go in the advice, right. And what are the licenses you have to do so but generally we already started bringing insights, so gathering all the news that are coming out and insights on what does that mean and then giving the opportunity for people to trade. But I think this whole process can be done by voice, by text and just I want to get a position in this sector. Can you help me do that? And we'll just execute helps you confirm at different steps of the way. But I think this is Definitely the future. When we talk about AI, I also think there's a big opportunity for blockchain technology. You talk about AI agents. I think we're going to live with billions of AI agents in the next few years. You know, specialized education, healthcare and financial services. And those AI agents will need to be paid and exchange value across the Internet. The best solution I was there is blockchain. So these billion agents will have maybe trillions of transactions on the blockchain. And we're helping build that. We have toolkits now for anyone who's building AI agents to integrate wallets to be able to transfer value. And I think it's going to be very, very powerful as they leverage the blockchain technology.
- [07:58]
Interviewer
You mentioned your on chain wallet just a few minutes ago. We had Hong Fang, president of OkX, at the desk yesterday and she said that the volume, I may be getting the numbers incorrect, but she was surprised at the volume in the wallet versus the centralized exchange. Kind of indicating that folks are becoming more advanced, experimenting more with some of the more decentralized assets. Are you experiencing the same?
- [08:23]
Eric Anziani
We do see a lot of massive increase in decentralized exchange volume. Some of it is retail driven for sure, with the, you know, the meme coins and all the trends that we're seeing these days. But we also think institutions going into it, that volume API traded is also driven by small firms and institutions. So it's a mix. And at the end of the day, we want to offer the right opportunities for customers so we have tools that fit for purpose for different customers. Right. If you look at our exchange volume, in last quarter, we did about a trillion dollar in volume globally. So it's still relatively sizable versus decentralized exchanges. But yeah, it's a new avenue. There's a lot of opportunities started driven by retail, but I can see some institutions are coming in.
- [09:07]
Moderator
So we've had a crazy couple of months in crypto, even on the front lines. As you look for the rest of the year, what are the trends that you're sort of focusing on? What are the areas that you think are going to be very big or the things you're actually worried about when it comes to the crypto industry?
- [09:22]
Eric Anziani
I think one of the big trends I highlighted at the beginning is that institutions are in, and we talked about the etf, but there's also tokenization. So our view is that a lot of assets, especially financial instruments, will be tokenized. Could take years, could take a decade or even two decades, but that's the trajectory where it's going, it's inevitable. And for that we need to be prepared to distribute those tokenized assets. They may be on the blockchain, but if you tokenize the security, it will remain a security. So you need a broker dealer to be able to distribute those. So over the last two years, we've kind of acquired many businesses and licenses to offer equities, FX and commodities. And this year for us is about rolling that out. We just started in the US so now people can buy Apple Nvidia stock. Down the road they will be tokenized and we're bringing that to the rest of the world, to Asia as well. So we're very excited about that part. Being a platform where you have all your financial assets and you have opportunities to grow cross assets. You can now even buy stock using Bitcoin. Right? It's new opportunities that are offered to our customers. Yeah, those I think some of the main things I'm seeing, I think the other one which is very exciting is how states, central banks or even sovereign funds will invest in the category. A lot of expectation for the U.S. we'll see how that goes. But even at the state level, there's more than 20 states that have put bill forward to be able to buy and keep bitcoin or digital assets as reserve. I've been traveling across the world the last year and each time I meet regulators or central banks, they're preparing for it and that topic is really heating up. No one wants to be left behind. We don't know which vehicle yet will be used. Sometimes central banks, sometimes sovereign funds, sometimes treasury department. But this is a big trend and I think it will have a massive impact on the industry.
- [11:10]
Interviewer
Eric, we gotta go. But I have to ask you one last question. Crypto.com really@the forefront of marketing in the crypto space. We just had the Super Bowl. I want your opinion. Why don't we see any crypto commercials in the super bowl anymore?
- [11:26]
Eric Anziani
I'd love to see more. We've done that.
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Interviewer
I know.
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Eric Anziani
As a company there's a journey, right. And not every day you need to be on the Super Bowl. I think when I do survey, I look at our brand awareness in Most market is 70, 80% of unaided brand awareness. So do we need to do even more on that front? Maybe not at the start stage we're in, but I think it's anything that can help the space grow. You know, our mission is bring crypto to every wallet. We'll continue to do that. It may not be a Super bowl ad, but we'll we'll innovate and we'll push the industry forward.
- [11:57]
Interviewer
Eric, thank you so much for joining us.
- [11:59]
Eric Anziani
Thank you.
- [12:01]
Interviewer
That was crypto.com president and chief operating officer Eric Anziani.