← The Wolf Of All Streets
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A
Crypto lending became a dirty word after 2022. Yield looked dangerous, leverage looked reckless, and most of the biggest players disappeared. But Nexo did not. Now they're back in the United States and the market is changing fast. Regulation is coming, institutions are here, and crypto backed loans are growing once again. Today I'm talking with Neil Steinhardt from NEXO about the return of crypto lending.
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Crypto is democratizing everything because now anybody who's got these holdings want to, want to keep their assets and not sell can access capital. That's why I think it's becoming so
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popular how people are borrowing against Bitcoin,
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B
Ethereum, it's practically automated, right? They're collateralized loans. The risk profile is a little bit different. So we can take a look at your portfolio. As long as your LTV is okay, you can keep taking out loans all day long. You can take out eight loans today.
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A
What makes a responsible platform different?
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B
We use institutional grade custody in the US we work with partners like Bakkt. It's really just a combination of using best practices. We're SOC 2 compliant, we have all our ISO standards and we're building things for the long term and we're not trying to take any short shortcuts.
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A
And why the United States could become one of crypto's biggest growth markets. Let's go.
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B
Let's do.
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A
Yeah, this is where I want to start because obviously you're Nexo and you were the, I'll almost call it the lone survivor in the C5 world from the 2022 collapse. And now yield is back. Maybe like is not a four letter word anymore like it was and leaves you again, I think sort of leading the charge. So let's just talk about that. I think the general broad environment right now for lending yield and what's behind the scenes, perfect.
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B
I think that's super cool.
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A
Yeah, dive in.
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B
So you know, it's interesting because you know, as there's a maturity in the market and obviously the regulatory environment's changed. You see, you know, people are always borrowing against securities, right? So you have HELOCs that would be the most common, right. Like everybody knows, hey, I can borrow against my house, right? Security backed lines of credit, right? Hey, the crypto is democratizing everything because now anybody who's got these holdings want to keep their assets and not sell can access capital. Right? So Nexo can give you a real time decision and give you access. Right. Without having to sell. No capital gains taxes, none of that. So at the end of the Day. I think it's amazing, right, that there's a way forward for this, and that's why I think it's becoming so popular.
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A
So how are people actually using it now? I mean, I remember in the early days it was sort of extremely low ltv. You had to be very conservative. Those would still blow up, of course, with crypto volatility and rates were exceptionally high. I think across the market, they broadly are starting to come down. And I think with tokenization now, it's going to be more blended with the rest of your portfolio. So, I mean, what does the market look like right now and who's using it?
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B
So it's really interesting. So I think, you know, a lot of people like big purchases. So you want to buy a house, you want to buy a car. You know, we have a report from last year about our card spending. Right. And 30% of the purchases were for experiences, travel, hotel, travel agencies. So, you know, people want to use their assets. Right. Without having to sell them. And we have a new card report coming out next year, next, next couple months, really, that should be interesting about this year's spending. But basically, you know, people want to buy the same things they want to do. They want to use it for trading, basically.
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A
How big is this market right now?
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B
Last quarter it was about $70 billion, $73 billion. Nexus was one of the few companies to actually grow their portfolio at that time. It's a robust market. Even in a downturn. There's a fair amount of volatility in the market, but people are still holding onto their assets. Still bullish about the future.
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A
How about the institutional side? Obviously, we know why retail uses it. You just laid out all the reasons why you would take a loan. A lot of people call them lifestyle loans. If the market does well, actually, it's structurally very positive thing for somebody to do because it effectively pays itself off in the gauge. But how are institutions using it? A lot of people have looked at Saylor, for example, and said, why aren't you putting these assets to work either with lending or option strategies or anything?
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B
Yeah, I mean, I can't speak for every institution and I can't speak for Michael Saylor, but I would say that institutions can need access to capital. If you've got these holdings, this is an easy way to get your liquidity bump back into your business. Yeah.
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A
So right now we're seeing this massive wave of institutional adoption to crypto in general, outside of even lending. Obviously, we have the biggest institutions on the planet. We had a recent announcement, actually that caught my attention. I wanted to ask you about which was open USD, this new stablecoin with a consortium of 140 of the biggest players on the planet. Right. I mean, is this, I mean this is the convergence of trad fi and crypto at its like peak, right?
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B
It is and I've been talking about it for a while. Right. So you know, all the major, you know, fintech players and tradfi guys have, have joined this consortium, you know, and a lot of people are saying, hey, blockchain is so disruptive and how is Visa and MasterCard and Western Union going to survive? And now you have Stripe and MasterCard and Visa, all part of this open USD, which is really interesting. And I think it kind of shows that the markets mature. Right. And that this blockchain infrastructure is going to be transformative. Right. And so all the major players are going to come in and support this and it's going to put the focus on the blockchain and not necessarily the issuers. And that'll be pretty interesting to see how that kind of plays out in the market.
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A
Yeah, I think it's going to change a lot if it's successful.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
Obviously, I think the big signal once again is that all the institutions are here, they all have a plan and they're all eventually going to put these assets to work.
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B
They were all here anyway. When you look at all the EFTs, everybody's playing in this space, so it's becoming institutionalized. And I think we talk a lot about the regulation that's been coming in and regulation is good, but if you want capital to flow in the markets, then people have to understand what are the rules that we're playing with. Now those rules are getting established and so now you see the capital is coming in.
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A
You don't strike me as a guy who was born into crypto like myself. I know that you have a pretty robust background outside of this industry. I always love to ask people how, with all the things you could be doing in your life, how'd you end up here?
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B
I ended up here by choice, but what you call it. Most recently I co founded a fintech startup. We were a digital wallet for education and government and, and we sold that company in private equity. And I was kind of thinking about what to do. I've been in FinTech for 25 years and my former GC from Skrill called up and said, hey, you might want to talk to these Nexo people. And I told him straight up, I said, hey, I'm not a Crypto person. I've owned some bitcoin, I understand what's going on, but it hasn't been my industry. And they said, no, no, we're looking for, that's probably a good thing because, hey, we need money. Transmission licenses and we need lending licenses and we need all the things that traditional finance has, are now coming into crypto. It's not the wild, wild west. So it's been a really easy transition and really fascinating to take a deeper dive and learn a new industry.
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A
That's the convergence as well.
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B
Right.
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I mean, it said you need to do it.
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B
Right.
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You can't just do it in the old crypto way, which is move fast and break things anymore. If you're dealing with governments in the largest institutions and tens of billions of dollars in capital.
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B
Absolutely. And it's the same rails that we're riding. And so, you know, when you look at maybe like the genius act and you say, hey, who's going to regulate this? And you're like, oh, okay, I know those guys. You know, this makes more sense. And it's, it's, it's leveling the playing field for, for people to come in and create better products. Right. Because now the uncertainty comes out of the market.
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A
Do you find that people are still skeptical because of what we've seen in the past, or do you think that we've kind of jump the creek now to where it's normalized again?
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B
Well, I think the horse left the barn for sure. Right. So I don't think we're going to go back and unwind all this. I have a lot of people that come up to me and say, hey, I don't really understand these digital assets and what's a bitcoin? It's scary to invest. And I was like, well, if you really understood Fiat, you'd be terrified.
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A
So in your mind, with these products back, you never left. But certainly coming back into vogue, what sort of separates a responsible platform from one that you might want to avoid? Because I have to imagine that there's still going to be people who do this wrong.
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B
There are in every industry. Right. And so you look at some of the players that are no longer around from 2018, we talk about anti fragility Right. And Nassim Taleb, of course, systems that get harder when things get rocky. And Nexo is certainly, we're still here and we're thriving and doing well. So I think, yeah, there's always going to be a bad actor. But at the same time, look at traditional finance. There's always going to be a Silicon Valley bank and a signature bank and a Washington Mutual. And nobody throws their hands up and says, hey, the world's coming to an end. It's like the systems are resilient and they get hardened and everybody moves forward and that's a good thing.
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A
Maybe you can give me the secret sauce then on how Nexo specifically actually works. Where's the money custody? Where does the yield come from? The really important stuff that people need to hear.
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B
Sure. So obviously we have a relatively conservative approach and we keep the LTVs reasonable. We use institutional grade custody. So a lot of fireblocks and people that you would think. In the US we work with partners like Bakkt, right. For our trading and for our Rails. So it's really just a combination of just using best practices. We're SOC 2 compliant, we have all our ISO standards and so we're building things for the long term and we're not trying to take any shortcuts.
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A
You're not making massive uncollateralized loans to Three Arrows Capital.
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B
We would not. That's not a recipe for long term success.
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A
But where is the yield actually coming from in this case? So I understand now obviously where the custody side is and why the assets are secure, but you're obviously putting these assets to work.
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B
There's a lot of different ways. But as the third largest lender, we can generate by lending to other lenders. And so it's really not as mysterious as you would think.
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A
And what does the backed partnership look like? You mentioned that, but what do you do with them?
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B
So coming back in the U.S. we want to, you know, there is a regulatory environment that we understand. And so Bakkt was able to provide, you know, trading and Rails, you know, they're publicly traded, institutional grade and they were the perfect partner to help us, you know, come back in and relaunch. And you know, we really enjoy working with them.
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A
That's interesting. So maybe then you should just broaden out and tell us exactly what services at this point in time NEXO is offering and maybe we can talk about, you know, I don't know if it's depending on regulatory clarity, no pun intended, or what likely coming or what would be on the roadmap.
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B
So right now obviously we have trading, right? So you can take your fiat and bring it on. You can trade, you can take your crypto and bring it on. We have our yield products, you know, flexible yield and fixed yield and we have our lending product. So you know, those are the core Products here. You know, as we continue to develop in the US we want to have more parity, you know, with our European partners. So we going to have, you know, things like that. So, you know, pretty, pretty excited about the future.
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A
I mean, I think we see a lot of platforms in crypto and beyond kind of converging in the middle as we talk about not necessarily really tradfi and crypto, but everybody wanting to be everything. Right. So, you know, Coinbase had their announcements of the 12 new businesses that they're launching in five minutes.
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B
A lot to digest that.
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A
And I think Robinhood coming from the other side, you know, their own layer two, all these things. So does Nexo. Are you in a position where you feel like you do what you do and you do it really well, or do you have plans to also? I mean, it seems like you're in a perfect position to start offering all these competitive services.
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B
Yeah, and we have a good roadmap because we have a very robust business in Europe where we started. And, you know, we just launched business accounts. Right. So not just individuals in the U.S. so, you know, slowly and methodically, you know, we're rolling out the products, you know, as we're ready. And, you know, I think the future is very bright.
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A
But you're back in the U.S. right? I mean, that's kind of. That's kind of the announcement. So what allowed you to come back in the U.S. you know, it was a decision.
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B
I mean, U.S. is huge market. Obviously, you know, we cared very much about the US before we pulled back. So, you know, the idea of coming back with the regulatory clarity that we see with the partners that we've cultivated, you know, U.S. market has the largest GDP, you know, by 30% over Europe. We have some of the most credit savvy individuals. You know, we got a population over 350 million people. So, you know, how could you ignore the United States market? But we do want to come back the right way, and we have.
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A
But is that because of the political and legislative and regulatory environment, or was it just enough time for the smoke to clear and to create partnerships?
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B
Confluence of events that just said, hey, you know, now is the right time to come back in. And, you know, I think if you would have looked back, he said, hey, we would have liked to have done it a little sooner, but we want to do it right. And so, you know, yeah, I'm just
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A
curious if you could have even tried when Gary Gensler was, you know, the head of the SEC or, you know, in that. Or if it was just worth letting out.
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B
It would have been a little more challenging, I think, you know, back then. But. But like I said, you know, like, you know, I think. I think the future in the US is regulatory clarity, you know, and a level playing field to go out and compete and win everybody over.
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A
That's obviously the big topic right now is what will happen with the Clarity Act. We keep saying regulatory clarity. It's perfectly named because we've said the word ten times. No word. Right. But, you know, the Clarity act seems to be the big talk of the town. Obviously, on the legislative side, we've already gotten genius. And I think everybody agrees that regardless of clarity, we have great regulators for the few years. Right. So I think that they'll be able to set a lot of precedent and rulemaking over the next few years. But I think everybody wants this codified so we don't get another pendulum.
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B
Absolutely. And you know what it's going to look like? I don't know. Right. The political solution, sausage making that goes into passing laws, but taking the discretion out of the equation, actually codifying things into law, I think is a real positive. And I think if things just stop now, we'd still be in a really great place. So I think there's more work to do, but we'll let the politicians work it out.
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A
I've got to imagine the US is arguably the most challenging regulatory environment because not only do you have to deal with the federal government, but you have to go state to state to state to state. I mean, everybody notoriously knows how difficult the New York bit license is, for example. Now California has their own regime that's coming into play without having the federal government. So, I mean, we can see it in prediction markets and all these things. There's this endless push and pull between the states and the federal government.
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B
Absolutely. That's the industry I come from. Right. So I've been a licensed money transmitter for. For a very long time, you know, state by state, and every is a little bit different. And, you know, you just have to kind of accommodate it. You know, it becomes a muscle memory. Right. You're like, hey, it's going to be a little bit different to operate in New York than it is in California, than it is in Kansas. We're going to have different T's and C's for people. We're going to have different rul. But you know, Nexo works in 200 jurisdictions, so we're pretty used to.
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A
Do you need different lawyers in every single one of those jurisdictions? Like, are there People who are like a catch all for 50 jurisdictions.
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B
We have some people that can cover many jurisdictions, but it's work. Right. And then you gotta figure it out and tailor your solutions. And maybe there's something that we can offer in one state, but we won't offer it in another state. And you know, that's just part of being in the market.
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A
Do you think the consensus now is that it's safe to operate in the United States? Not for you specifically, but for the industry. Because a lot of people left and never came back. I think a lot of people left and are thinking about coming back and then there's a few who've left and fully came back.
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B
Like I said, I can't speak for other companies, but I think for us, we loved being in the US market, we're happy to be back and the time was right. I think for other companies, they have to make a decision. The regulatory burden is high, the cost of doing business here is high, but the market is tremendous. Everybody's got to make their own cost benefit analysis.
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A
At the most basic level, we talked about who's using it and how they're using it, but is it really a product for people who desperately want to avoid selling and either taking the taxes or because they just fundamentally believe that they want to own these assets?
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B
It's a great use case for our users to build wealth. We tend to cater a little more high net worth than low end retail. Anybody can come on our platform and take advantage of it. So I think when you look at it, there is a very sophisticated market in the US that is looking for solutions like Nexo. And I think we're just scratching the surface at this point because it is still early. People who've been in the industry for a long time say, oh, it's been so mature and there's been so many ups and downs. But the reality is that we're very, very early in this journey and I think there's a lot of opportunity ahead.
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A
Right. I think most people still don't know that they can do this. Right. Who own crypto casually or, you know,
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B
I think there's a huge amount of people that don't know they can take a security backline, of course, from their, from their equities. Right. Or their 401k. So I think there's a lot of education that needs to go on in the marketplace to get people.
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A
Yeah, people, for some reason, rich people don't teach other people how they're doing this and avoiding taxes. Strange how that works.
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B
Well, you know, I'm not here to give tax advice.
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A
I said avoid, not. Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is illegal. But like, why? But it is. The answer is like, I think a lot of people would say I need to sell all these assets to go buy my house, right? They don't realize that they don't need to sell them. And if they appreciate it can effectively be, you know, a massive benefit financially. And from the perspective of being able
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B
to purchase, one of our most popular products is a zero interest loan. So, you know, we definitely have a different product suite for people that they can take advantage of that can be very, very advantageous.
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A
The other side is that it's really hard to get a loan in this country, period. So forget even the crypto side of it. The amount of time it takes, the credit checks, the gatekeeping, all of those things. To me, that was always the most exciting promise of lending in crypto. You can turn these around.
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B
I. It's, you know, practically automated. Right. So, you know, because they're, they're collateralized loans, you know, the risk profile is a little bit different. So we can take a look at your portfolio.
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A
But does my credit score matter? No, don't check it just. Right, that's right.
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B
Right.
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A
Because you have the assets and you can liquidate them as necessary.
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B
Exactly. Although our preference would be not to, obviously. So. So yeah, no, I think it's a great opportunity for people. I think there's lots of, lots of opportunity in like crypto backed mortgages, you know, and just, you know, generally raising the awareness for people, you know, still, crypto adoption, you know, is, is low. Right. Compared to, you know, everything else that's in the marketplace. Right. And so like I said, you know, people instantly think about helocs, right? Because homeowners say, oh, I've got all this equity built up my house and I can borrow against it. They make it really easy, relatively easy,
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A
which makes sense because you have the asset and it's a collateralized loan that's not dependent on some theoretical idea of who you might be or your risk profile. You have the house.
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B
You have the house. And most lenders would be like, hey, I'm happy. They don't want to take possession of your house either. But it's nice to know that this is not an unsecured loan.
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A
So what assets do you lend against?
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B
We lend against about 20 different assets. The majority of them are BTC and ETH. But when you go to Nexo.com, you can see a pretty wide array I
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A
assume the LTV is different based on the risk profile of those assets.
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B
Yep.
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A
And where do most people come in from a LTV perspective? You know, on Bitcoin, which I'll say is probably the most conservative asset.
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B
About 50%.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, which is reasonable.
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A
So. Meaning that they don't start to even, you know, be concerned about margin calls or liquidation risk until there is a significant drop in price.
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B
Absolutely. And you know, obviously, what's the threshold?
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A
What's the threshold where you start to get emails.
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B
There's been a. Yeah. And you do get some warning. Right. Hey, there's a margin call. But I think, you know, the volatility that we've seen, you know, and I'm not a real market expert in that. Yeah. You know, it's less volatile than it's been. I think part of that is some of the institutional money that's coming in, you know, so I think, you know, there's lots of volatile assets. You know, crypto can be volatile, but at the same time, I think It's.
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A
We've seen Mag 7 stocks put in 30% days up and down over after hours. So I don't really think the volatility is. So I don't think it's as hard.
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B
Right. And. And you know, generally I'm bullish on crypt, you know, going forward.
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A
So, you know, but what's the threshold where people generally start, like where come
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B
in and test smaller loans. Right. Just kind of.
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A
And they can add.
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B
They can add.
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A
You would never tell everyone to take everything they have and put it into a loan because you want to be able to add. You want to have the flexibility.
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B
Not going to give financial advice to people. Right. But you know, so. So most people come in, test the water. Hey, this is really simple and easy. And you know, as long as your LTV is okay, you can keep taking out loans all day long. You could take out eight loans today. You know, if you think a lot
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A
of people take out a loan to buy more of the asset, they do.
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B
And I think it's a good use case if you're bullish. Why not?
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A
Yeah. So you take a loan on your Bitcoin and use the 50% and buy more Bitcoin.
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B
Buy more Bitcoin. Right.
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A
And as long as you can add. Yeah. I know a lot of people who have done it. I was just curious if that's one of the more prominent behaviors that you see on the platform.
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B
That is a common behavior and we do see it. But like I said, a lot of people want to Buy a house or buy a car. There's lots of different use cases for. For the liquidity.
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A
Did I see that you guys had an F1 partnership now?
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B
Yes, we do. So actually, we're a sponsor this season for the Audi Revolut team. It's been super fun. I got to see them in Miami.
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A
It is the coolest looking car. Obviously, you come in F1, it's hard to compete, but the car looks amazing.
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B
It's pretty wild. So we tend to do a lot of sponsorships and brand building. So in the US we were the title sponsor for the Dallas Open. That was a blast. So next our Dallas Open, we'll be back next year as well. We sponsor an Australian Open. We sponsor a ton of golf. We've got the. We got F1 this week in. In London or in England.
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A
Silverstone.
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B
Yeah, Silverstone. So that'll be a lot of fun. And so we love, you know, taking our brand, giving some of our clients experiences, you know, super memorable experiences.
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A
Right. I mean, is that. I guess, you know, when you look at a branding partnership, I always find this to be so interesting. You know, they're expensive, obviously. So, you know, are you looking for general brand exposure? Does it drive tons of people to sign up or is it really, like, the lifestyle side of it? Right.
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B
I think it's both. And I think, you know, coming back into the U.S. obviously, there's some brand building that we need to do. And again, it's like, you know, there's. There's a certain early adopter segment of the market who love Nexo and have known Nexo for a very long time. Right. But there's the mainstream market that, you know, hasn't been exposed to Nexo. And, you know, so we need to raise the awareness. And so how do you target the people that are our potential clients, you know, so they start making the association. And sports sponsorships are a great way to kind of get your name out there and get people curious, you know, what's the ROI for every specific event? It's hard to quantify, but that's why we have marketing geniuses in the company and try to figure that out.
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A
So you've come back into the United States, obviously, Argentina as well.
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B
Nexo, Argentina is going strong. We did an acquisition of a company called Buenbit last year in Argentina, and so just solidifies our foothold in Latin America. And we have big aspirations for latam going forward.
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A
Yeah, I guess that was literally going to be my next question. So you mentioned 200 jurisdictions but there are more. So there's some where you're obviously not operating and would like to. How are you navigating that? How do you identify the next target? How do you kind of think about where to go next?
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B
Yeah, to be fair, my focus is mostly in the US so obviously I'm aware of what's happening in Argentina. But at the same time, I've got some pretty big goals for the United States and that's my general focus.
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A
Okay, so now how do you service institutions and businesses outside of your retail customers that I think are, I'm assuming the bulk is retail customers.
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B
And then you have family offices. Businesses come in lots of different, different flavors, you know, and so lots of high net worth people come in as corporations and not as individuals as well. Right. Although their behavior might be, you know, pretty similar. But no, we target RIAs, we target family offices. There's a lot of marketing and outreach that goes on to go bring those people into the nexofold.
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A
Are there states where you can't operate at bay? Going back to that?
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B
We're not operating in New York right now.
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A
Nobody operates in New York. They hate fun.
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B
You know, having grown up in New York and New Jersey, you know, know, I think we'll get there. But they've been a challenging jurisdiction to work with for most of my career.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, and so in crypto, not
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A
just gonna say, I think people should be aware of that. Absolutely. I think there's a sentiment that like they hate crypto. It's just that they are very difficult.
- [25:58]
B
They're challenging, but at the same time, you know, it's just a, you know, order of operations. Right. It's like we can launch almost everywhere else, you know, real easily and get started with Bakkt and you know, we'll get New York eventually, you know.
- [26:11]
A
But you just opened in California.
- [26:13]
B
We did just open in California.
- [26:15]
A
That's got to be the second most challenging.
- [26:16]
B
Fantastic. We're super excited to be back and
- [26:19]
A
you know, nonspecific to this and more broadly, like what gets you up in the morning, what gets you excited about this industry now that you've been here for a bit.
- [26:27]
B
You know, it's, it's a growing industry and you know, so I think there's, you know, the opportunity, you know, it grows exponentially. Right. Because you know, we want to grow our core business, but also the market grows as well. Right. And that's really fun. So, you know, I'm a startup person by nature. You know, I've been venture backed for about 25 years, they sucked you back in.
- [26:48]
A
Yeah, you're like that. You're like that.
- [26:50]
B
But the idea of growing is. Is really, you know, fun and that we can do things that actually move the needle. Right. And so you can feel those wins, you know, at some point you get, you know, so institutionalized, where, like, nobody cares. Right. And the winds don't matter anymore, but, you know, for the US Market, you know, the wins all matter. Right. And so. So we can track the growth day by day, and that's exciting. And that gets me excited.
- [27:10]
A
So I guess. Yeah, I mean, I guess the next question is you have incumbents who offer products like this. Non crypto.
- [27:17]
B
Right.
- [27:17]
A
What happens when they all decide? Because we've seen that's kind of. That's actually part of, I think, clarity. But, you know, seeing SAB121, when that was kind of rescinded, like State street, and all these guys, when do they just say, yeah, we'll take all your big.
- [27:31]
B
We're poised to compete. We're the third largest crypto lender in the world. We're one of the big boys, too. So we may not have the brand recognition yet, but I think we've got an interesting product suite, an interesting track record, and we can go out there and win.
- [27:47]
A
Well, I think the crypto native still isn't on JP Morgan and looking to lend their crypto assets there, maybe if they're holding ETFs and such.
- [27:59]
B
And that's a great way to come in, say, hey, I can get some exposure to this market. So now I'm a little more intrigued about how this is performing. Maybe I really want to hold that asset, and we can make it really easy for you. So I think it's interesting because I've always been a fan, being a startup kind of guy, of crossing the chasm from Geoffrey Moore. It's like, why do a lot of startup companies fail? Because they're really good at selling the 15% of the early adopters, and then they go out and raise a Series A, and then they double down. Oh, my God. But they're only selling to 15% of the market. Right. But we want to sell the whole market, and the whole market isn't aware yet. You know, like, if your mom's not buying crypto, you know.
- [28:39]
A
Yeah, we're too early to be worried about the size of the pot to be worried about.
- [28:44]
B
We're early. Right. And so. And it's not just young people that are into it. Like, people need to get educated a little bit more. And I think, you know, listen, bitcoin goes up, that gets more people excited and more people talk about it. But especially in the US Market where we're such a credit savvy and a market savvy population, you go on the news, so many people have their retirements tied up in 401ks. They understand there's a ticker about the stock market. People know what the Dow is at and people know what the NASDAQ's at. And now people see what bitcoin's at. Right. So there is a mainstreaming of things that is really encouraging to me that people are starting to become more aware.
- [29:18]
A
I know you're us focused, but do you see different behaviors by jurisdiction, like is your average customer behave, transaction size
- [29:27]
B
and things like that? Things tend to be bigger in the U.S. you know, we're just a wealthier market.
- [29:31]
A
Have you seen Buc EE's? It's huge.
- [29:34]
B
I've been so fascinated by the World Cup.
- [29:36]
A
All the Europeans coming here.
- [29:38]
B
Love, love, love.
- [29:39]
A
It's amazing.
- [29:39]
B
I've worked for European companies for a really long time and so, you know, sometimes I feel like I have to defend America, you know, to, to a bunch of Europeans. And you know, it's great when they can come here and it's just like they don't understand. I've had somebody call me up like, hey, I'm coming to the States. You know, I'd love to get lunch. I'm like, great, you know, when are you coming in? Like I'm going to Dallas on, you know, next week. And I'm like, I'm a four hour flight from Dallas. Yeah, they can't around. Yeah, not even right, you know, like, like, like America's big, you know, and that's one of the things that's like super cool. I'm, I'm very pro America and definitely, you know, rooting for the, for the World Cup.
- [30:11]
A
Does it. Is your business impacted by where the asset prices are? Like, you know, is it, is it, is it booming? Crazy when we're in a bull market and do people pull back when we're in a bear market?
- [30:23]
B
Obviously, obviously it's a little more fun in a bull market, but we're resilient. And listen, Nexus has been around since 2018, so we've seen a lot of cycles and people are buying in the down market too. People want to buy when it's going up and I can't manufacture the FOMO for them, but it's a very real thing.
- [30:46]
A
You have no concerns about the interest returning to this market, it's going to
- [30:50]
B
come back, and it's going to come back hard. You know, we're bullish, right. And we're here for the long term. I mean, this is why we're doing everything right. And, yeah, you don't care about the prices today, so, you know, to take one specific point in time and be like, hey, I'm totally fixated on, you know, where Bitcoin is today, you know, misses the bigger picture.
- [31:08]
A
Yeah, I agree. Anything else on your radar that I might have missed?
- [31:13]
B
No, I think, you know, that was an interesting conversation. I think we got to cover a lot of ground. And like I said, for your audience, I would encourage them to come and check us out.
- [31:22]
A
Where can they do that?
- [31:22]
B
They can go to Nexo.com, easiest place. And I think we have a lot of exciting products for our US Customers and, of course, for our global customers.
- [31:31]
A
I think this helps get the word out that you're back in the United States. I would imagine there's a lot of people out there who you left, and now we got to let them know that you're back and you've been here the whole time. Not here, but you've been here. The grander here the whole time.
- [31:44]
B
We're totally back, and we're going to keep promoting. We're going to keep doing things. We'll be at F1 in Austin. We'll be at F1 in Vegas, and we're going to try to keep raising our profile.
- [31:53]
A
Vegas, man. My 50th birthday is the weekend of F1 in Vegas.
- [31:57]
B
I'm thinking about doing that. Then let's go out for your 50th in Vegas.
- [32:02]
A
Good time. Thank you so much.
- [32:04]
B
My pleasure.