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- [00:00]
Narrator
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Host
Robinhood Crypto manages about 38 billion dollars in crypto assets under custody and facilitated 119 billion in notional crypto trading volume over the past year. The platform has expanded its cryptocurrency offerings by adding assets such as Sol, Pepe, Ada, XRP and others, enhancing the diversity of investments options for its users. Joining us now to discuss is the Vice President and General manager of Robinhood Crypto, we've got Johan Kerbrat. Johan, thanks so much for joining us.
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Johan Kerbrat
Excited to be here, are you?
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Host
Great. So I understand you've previously announced that Robinhood crypto is expanding into Asia. Can you give us a little bit more information about the timeline and where you're at in the launch in that project?
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Johan Kerbrat
Yeah. So you know, we actually announced during our last earnings that we will use Singapore as a headquarter for the expansion of Robinhood in apac. For the crypto side, a lot of the process is around the acquisition of bitstamp that we announced last year. And so a lot of the wait is around like regulation. We are waiting for the change of control to be approved by all the regulators and once this will be done, we'll be able to, you know, help bitstamp launch their offering in Singapore.
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Host
What went into the decision making into, you know, wanting to get into Asia and I guess you touched on what are some of the challenges along the way.
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Johan Kerbrat
Yeah. So, you know, I think a lot of the interest for us has been around institution and also expanding across the world. And so we've been starting with the Robin Wallet that is actually available in hundred plus countries and we've seen a lot of interest in Asia. And so we are basically using that as a way to understand like what our customers are asking for. And in terms of Blocker. There is not really any blocker. It's just like, you know, getting the right approval in time and then we'll be able to double down on it.
- [02:49]
Host
All right, so Robin in crypto has explained manage offerings by adding Solana, Ada, Pepe and all that. So tell me what goes into the decision making of adding these tokens, especially amid this explosion in meme tokens that we've been seeing.
- [03:03]
Johan Kerbrat
Yeah, so we have a listing framework and a listing committee that look at multiple aspects of listing assets. So we look at operation compliance, making sure that we can offer tight pricing on these assets. And so one of the main features that we are waiting for is like the customer request. When our customer asking for a specific asset, we take that into consideration and we decide to list it on the platform. But as you've seen, Robin crypto is more selective around this offering. And so we only have 22 assets on the platform. And we also have our Robin Wallet which is like a self custody wallet where you can access thousands of tokens if you want to.
- [03:42]
Co-Host
Yeah, I was just reading the other day that I think you've just introduced tax lots, a feature which is helping people with their tax reporting. And tax season is just around the corner as well. Maybe you could share a little bit about that. And what do you think is how is that going to impact some of your user behavior?
- [03:59]
Johan Kerbrat
Yeah, so we have been developing a lot more feature for the more advanced trader, the people that are looking for this type of features to actually improve attacks advantage. And so we launched it for the brokerage side. We're still working on the crypto side, but Robinhood is really invested into making it easy for customers to handle their taxes. So for example, we are one of the only platform to offer like $10.99 for crypto for free. Like we don't ask for anything else. And the goal is really to make it as easy to trade crypto as any other financial asset on the platform.
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Host
Just circling around back to those Meme points, you know, commenting on what we've been seeing in the news cycle. Just most recently over the weekend, we saw the rise and fall of Libra Coin as well as Trump Coin as well as Melania Coin. Where do you see Meme Coins headed? I mean on the one side people love the excitement around memes. They're really very passionate. They stoke a lot of excitement, if you will. But a lot of folks also say, you know, it's a big speculative, unregulated casino and does it's extracting, extracting value from the space rather adding to it.
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Johan Kerbrat
Yeah, you know, I think for us we try to take our position as a very agnostic platform. Like we shouldn't be the one deciding what is a good asset versus what is not a good asset as long as it pass or criteria that we have to support the asset. You know, if you think about it like 10 or 14 years ago, a lot of people had a lot to say about Bitcoin and now it's becoming a bit more of a blue chip coin. So for us the main focus has been what are our customers asking for and can we offer it to them safely? And if we can, we usually try to do it for them.
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Host
All right, excellent. Well, in terms of what you see happening in Asia, where do you see the development and the trends in the region?
- [06:01]
Johan Kerbrat
So for us at this point there is a lot of interest on the institutional side, which is a new business line for Robinhood. We've been mostly focused on retail for a very long time and in Asia and in apac we see a lot of hedge fund, a lot of family funds that are interested to get into the space and so we think we can actually develop a lot of offering for them. And being one of the largest platform in the US we know that we can adapt our technology to, to support like a lot of this institution is sovereign wealth funds.
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Host
Are they on your radar at all? We've been hearing a lot of talks.
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Johan Kerbrat
We, we haven't had any conversation directly with them. But a lot of hedge funds, a lot of institutions that are offering flow for, for the US are Singapore based or are in the Asia. So it's something that we've been looking at.
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- [07:22]
Host
Has joined forces with other fintech and crypto firms to launch the global dollar network. Maybe you can tell us a bit about that. You're introducing the USDG stablecoin. So what role does Robinhood envision playing within this consortium and how do you foresee USDG impacting The broader Stable coin market.
- [07:43]
Johan Kerbrat
Yeah. So Robinhood has been using stablecoin for a long time in the back office for example. So we use it to settle overnight or during weekends with our market maker when bank rails are not necessarily working or not accessible for everything that we need. And so we've seen also a lot of traction around Stable in a lot of countries in Latam for example, that are looking for exposure to the dollar without necessarily buying the actual USD. And so for us it was interesting to join a network that was actually trying to remunerate every partner participating to the dollar network. And so we think it's a more fair system and that we'll be able to actually onboard a lot more institution into the network and therefore we should be able to have a bit more integration with more platform and more institution with it.
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Host
All right, so while I'm hearing a lot of excitement around stablecoins this year, artificial intelligence, but what are the trends you see in 2025 that Robinhood is pursuing?
- [08:45]
Johan Kerbrat
So for us we see a lot of excitement around our wallet so we've been doubling down on it. We've been adding a lot more features for people that are looking to self custody and they are looking to be a bit more acting into the web3 space. We are doubling down on our international expansion as well. So we launched in the EU and we are going to keep developing when we receive our license there, our MICA license there and then we also have the acquisition of bitstamp that we announced last year that should be closing in H1 of this year. And so we are looking to build a lot more feature for Advanced trader using the exchange that they own.
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Co-Host
Got it. We talked a lot about launching in Asia, but I think you're expanding into the UK as well.
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Host
Right.
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Co-Host
I was, I was wondering how that fits in with the global vision, global strategy.
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Johan Kerbrat
Yeah. So the brokerage has launched in the UK last year and so right now we only offer equities in the uk. Bitstamp also has a license in the UK and so right now this is how we are looking at this market.
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Host
I also. And you're working with so many different jurisdictions, a lot of different laws and compliance within each. So I wonder what are some of the challenges that go forward? Is there one region that you see team is more receptive than another?
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Johan Kerbrat
Yeah, you know I think that's, that's a big part of our job is to actually work with all this regulator and understand like how to make sure that we can comply with local rules. Luckily we have a Very good team on our legal and compliance side. And so we've been able to really expand quickly and work with a regulator on every country. I think, you know, what we've seen with the US is in the past, like three months have been very helpful because, you know, a lot of countries are looking up to the US to understand what to do with the digital assets. And so until now there was a lot of, you know, fear on was the US Ban cryptocurrency or things like this. And so seeing the new administration embracing crypto has been helpful to see like more countries being opening their arm around the digital asset space.
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Host
Yeah. And I see just as an example in California that we're some users that were complaining of withdrawal issues, but perhaps they had to do something with the compliance that you had to work with in that case. So maybe you can tell us a bit about the nuances in that and how users can be assured that they won't have problems like that in the future.
- [11:14]
Johan Kerbrat
Yeah. So initially, when we launched a platform in 2018, we didn't offer transfer in and out of cryptocurrencies, but that's something that we fixed since 2022. So it's been a long time that now people are transferring. And we actually saw it during like the, the weekend of the Trump token launch. We've seen a lot of people actually buying Solana on our platform and using it to transfer to their self custody wallet. And we also offer a product called Robin Connect that power the on ramp and off ramp for multiple wallet like Phantoms and Moonshot and Metamask. So, you know, it's been a, it's been a problem that we solve a long time ago at this point.
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Host
All right, Johan, thank you so much for joining us.
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Johan Kerbrat
It was great to have you.
- [11:54]
Host
All right, that was vice president and General manager of Robinhood Crypto, Johan Karat. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but afterward we'll talk to Coins Ph, largest crypto exchange in Philippines.