← The Wolf Of All Streets
Loading summary
Transcript132 lines
- [00:00]
A
People in crypto talk about tokenization like it's going to happen in the distant future. But Haida Rafiq from OKX says it's coming a lot faster than people think. In this discussion, we get into why the old financial system may be on borrowed time.
- [00:15]
B
Look, there's enough case studies on when companies don't innovate, they don't welcome change, they get obsolete. You just look at the streaming business or Blockbuster is a great example of it.
- [00:25]
A
Why OKEx partnering with ICE, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, could be one of the clearest signs yet that Wall street and crypto are about collide and why the next phase of markets may be about bringing stocks, futures and everything else on chain, making them tradable 24. 7 around the world. We also talk about how AI agents could soon be managing portfolios, moving money and building financial apps with almost no human input.
- [00:51]
B
We're probably going to launch a new AI or agentic product almost, if not every week. You know, every two or three weeks. Most of the company is going to end up running with the Gentex tools, with people monitoring these tools.
- [01:03]
A
And through all of that, one huge question hangs over the entire conversation. If everything becomes tokenized, programmable and always on, where does Bitcoin fit? This one is a deep look at the future of finance, AI, tokenized equities, crypto regulation and the next evolution of global markets. Let's dope,
- [01:37]
B
Let's do.
- [01:38]
A
What do you make of this market?
- [01:41]
B
It's been mayhem.
- [01:46]
A
I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I usually have like strong conviction and idea of where things are going and even myself I could see anything happening at this point.
- [01:57]
B
It's true. It reminds me a little bit of the COVID days when there was a bit more fear in the market. But that didn't last too long during COVID I feel like this may last a little longer.
- [02:12]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think markets in general are exceptionally confusing. There was a couple weeks ago when the S and P was at an all time high and the fear and greed index on stocks was like a four. It's like the most fearful the market had ever been, but with it at an all time high. And I think that pretty much sums it all up. But I mean everything's trading like a risk asset. Now it is oil, gold, silver, they're all just meme stocks.
- [02:35]
B
Might as well.
- [02:36]
A
Okay, so speaking of meme stocks, then obviously you guys presumably have a roadmap that's going to be tokenizing and trading everything Right. So okx obviously has been at the forefront of all those kind of products and you're making a move in the United States. So what kind of behavior are you seeing, I guess on the exchange that would give us more information on what people are looking to trade and how the market's behaving.
- [03:02]
B
It's fascinating the parallels of when every crypto exchange is sort of on the same trajectory, so to speak. Everyone's trying to build the everything applied. And it started with the super app concept a few years ago. I think you and I were talking about it, I think we were in Singapore and you fast forward to today and I think when you look at the top five exchanges, everyone seems to have the same strategy, which is around two main things as we see a backdrop of market softening in crypto. One is the idea of tokenization and the other is agentic tools and how agentic AI can add more value to the services we provide customers. I think on OkX we're of course pursuing both. You probably saw the announcement. We didn't say much about tokenized assets before this announcement because the reality is we were working on this and it was too premature to say anything because it really determines the strategy of the company. How do we build this out? Do we build it out in the synthetic form that a lot of other companies are doing it, or do we focus on issuer based tokenized assets? And naturally, I think you know a lot about our company. We tend to build native technology and our preference has always been if we're going to add tokenized assets, at least the majority of it should be issuer based. We may have cases or use cases where we choose to have sort of the synthetic version of an asset, but the preference is always issuer based tokens.
- [04:47]
A
I don't want to take for granted that everybody understands what that means. Can you just give the brief TLDR on what the difference would be there?
- [04:53]
B
I think the layman explanation for issuer based is when, if you look at the SEC definition and don't quote me, I think this is my understanding, which is to be an issuer based token or tokenized asset, it either needs to be issued by one of the exchanges. So let's say, for example NYSE or NASDAQ or it needs to be directly from the company that issues the stock, but that requires them to have their own distributed ledger and then issue that tokenized security, which you're likely not going to see that behavior for some time until exchanges adapt this technology and there's consumer interest and then I think there could be an argument that some brands would probably want to take on that innovation and distribute that value back that they don't have to pay to the exchanges, back to their holders in forms of dividends or what have you. But that's issuer based, which is either it's issued by the exchange, which is the listing venue, or it's issued by the company that issues the equity in the first place.
- [06:09]
A
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So where are you on the path to offering everything?
- [06:15]
B
Well, look, I think there are plans of us launching tokenized equities, tokenized perps, tokenized futures in the United States, in Europe, in the markets where we are regulated or self regulated markets. So it's going to be a combination of some markets getting sort of the non issuer based asset. But our majority of our engineering efforts are going to be focused on unlocking the US market and the European market where our preference is. Of course we can distribute nice tokens in these markets and have a direct consumer relationship, so to speak. Right.
- [06:58]
A
So when you talk about the exchange issuing these tokenized equities, you guys just did a massive partnership, obviously that was news last week, which was an investment from Intercontinental Exchange. They get a board seat, to my understanding. And you're effectively plugged in now to the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange. Right. So is that part of the strategic vision of doing a deal like that?
- [07:19]
B
Absolutely. It took us, you know, any deal takes time and we've been at this for a good bit. I think it dates back to last year, at least as early as when we started talking to them in the summer. So I'm glad we got it done, number one, because can you imagine doing a deal like this in the conditions of the market that we're living today? So I'm very happy that it's completed. And now the hard work is the two technical teams are getting together and we're figuring out how to build this product the right way and how to seek the regulatory approvals required and then not just offer this technology on the OKX app, but also make this technology available for other participants to access. So we're not going to guard rail it. I think the idea will be we let it be open and let others use that technology.
- [08:17]
A
So collectively you're building a way to issue these tokenized equities and then for them to be tradable on multiple platforms, 100%.
- [08:25]
B
And not just tradable, but imagine tomorrow there's an IPO. Well, in today's world, for you to access that equity, you'd go on your Fidelity account or your Charles Schwab account or so on and so forth. But you're not going to see that equity immediately make it to crypto platforms unless they're issuer based platforms. In this case, when we are, when we complete our product, what's going to happen is you see an ipo, the company gets listed, you open up your OKX app and the idea is that you have that stock available for you to trade just like you would on Fidelity or other brokers. There is a key difference though. On our platform it will be tradable 24, 5 or 247 minus 1 hour for maintenance or what have you and it will be accessible globally in the markets where local laws allow us to distribute this product. So that's the core difference is you're getting instant access and you're getting always on access.
- [09:30]
A
I don't really understand how the existing system survives. I know that's hyperbolic and I'm a crypto guy. But every part of this is a better way to do business.
- [09:42]
B
It is, and it's interesting you bring that up because I always debate in my own mind the different generations of investors. And you look at our age group, perhaps we got into 30 in our age group. We discovered the world of investments through perhaps you and I got a 401k account with our first or second employer and then you create an account with a brokerage, you know, platform and now you have access to the equities market and maybe you're learning about certain companies and you start, you know, adding up positions. And in our generation that was the way in. And then second, you know, the, the crypto wave came in and we adapted or adopted crypto. When you look at people who are younger than us, their first investment experience actually happened on a crypto platform, whether it was a wallet or, or whether it was an exchange app. And so for them, they're actually used to and grew up in this concept of 24,7. I can trade this thing anytime I want, anywhere I want. So for them, when they experience, when they welcome equities, they're going to want the same access that they're used to on crypto.
- [11:02]
A
I keep asking my hedge fund friends about what happens when they're forced 24, 7, 365 or 24, 5. And they can't even fathom the idea of their companies having to do that. I'm talking about friends at Citadel and Millennium and the biggest shops in the world. How do these Guys who are used to being in the Hamptons all summer and taking weekends off and they're done with work before 5 o'.
- [11:25]
B
Clock.
- [11:26]
A
How does a company adjust to having to be present 24 7, 365?
- [11:32]
B
I think I speculate that there's going to be a lot of consolidation in the market, whether it's led by partnerships or whether it's acquisition led. But you're going to see a lot of trade fight companies partner up with crypto companies because that's the best path forward for them. Look, there's enough case studies on when companies don't innovate, they don't welcome change, they get obsolete. You just look at the streaming business or the blockbuster. Blockbuster is a great example of it. So I don't think we're going to see the blockbuster like moments here. Whether it's brokerage platforms or banks, I think these institutes are quite smart and they're going to make their plays. And crypto companies need them as much as they need the crypto companies, I would argue. And your point of what happens to the brokerage platforms? I think they're absolutely going to be in the game and they're going to have these services. The reality is they have trust that arguably crypto companies don't. Crypto companies have the tech but not the trust, not at least at the same level as the brokerage platform. So I think there's a bit of give and take here and the consolidation is good for the consumer.
- [12:44]
A
Doesn't that make the approach that you've taken with ICE the superior approach? Because we know if you accept that they're not going anywhere, Schwab or Morgan Stanley, any of them, but that they're gonna want to avoid being Blockbuster to Netflix coming in. That means they're gonna have to adopt the superior technology and put everything on those rails and they'd rather probably do that in a partnership to keep up rather than try to do it themselves.
- [13:11]
B
Look, I have a huge amount of respect for ICE and nicee folks. They are quite advanced. Before us they invested in Polymarket, they've made other bets. So I think they embrace this technology, they understand it, they I think will be ahead of others. So I really do think that a lot of folks in trade fire are thinking about this and they understand that the younger people want this technology. So depending on who shows up first or who gets a product out first, I think in five years you're going to see a lot of cross pollination and you're going to see a merging of crypto Companies with trade fi companies.
- [14:02]
A
Yeah, that's exactly the path. But you're the first ones I'm seeing really do that because there's even a corollary, I think, in stablecoins. Right. So you see, you have obviously native stablecoin issuers and then you have every bank now post genius saying we need a stablecoin plan. Some are trying to create their own, but most of them now seem to realize that that's reinventing the wheel and they should just partner with somebody. Right. And either like white label their own private stablecoin. So like, it just. That seems like the same kind of multiple paths that everyone's going to have to choose.
- [14:36]
B
It's very true. I think crypto needs a little bit of a cleanup. I think you've, you know, I've had that point of view for a while. It's the reason why we created this piece of content called the Mile Mile West. So if you look at the markets today, the public markets, you have less than a dozen companies, crypto companies that went public. This is no dick to anyone that went public. But the reality is I don't see a lot of shareholder value being returned. Maybe one company out of all of them has had a decent run in the last earnings, but you look at majority of the basket and they're sitting in the red from the time they actually went public. And I don't think that's a good thing for the category. When we, when any company goes public in our category, it's our responsibility back to their shareholders, whether it's institutions or retail, that we return shareholder value. So when you have a market of crypto companies that haven't returned that value, what do you think happens? Doesn't it create even a bigger opportunity for these crypto companies to either get acquired or partner with TradeFi? Because a consumer doesn't want two or three applications, they think of markets as a singular, whether it's gold, silver, commodities, cryptos, equities. And so this convergence of tradefi and crypto is inevitable. Some companies may resist it, some companies might continue to fight for their independence, but I think what's better for the category is sort of the convergence. And perhaps that's just my point of view.
- [16:24]
A
Yeah, I was making the argument last year when people were so frustrated that tokens weren't moving like crypto altcoins that we basically had alt season. It just happened in the stock market instead of in crypto. And you can see it's like the, you know, the joke Burj Khalifa pattern on the chart straight up one side and straight down the other side of the Christmas tree, whichever one. But that basically happened to every one of those that issued and then every treasury company. So basically anywhere that people went to get exposure to crypto in the market or by and large they ended up doing the same thing that they did. Participating in an ICO or a pre sale which is buying the top and then watching it bleed.
- [17:01]
B
There's the good and bad here. The bad is we call it the alt markets. But another way to look at it from my vantage point is penny stocks. You look at a lot of the speculation in the equities markets and it's typically in the penny stock space. It's the pharmaceutical companies getting FDIC approval, their stock shooting up and then sort of going down. So you saw a lot of that happen in the crypto markets. We issued a lot of tokens. There was a time when I think in crypto markets you were seeing 3,000 plus tokens published every single day or listed every not listed but concepted or created every day. The good on the other side is the platforms. Whether it's the exchanges, the networks, meaning the chains or the governance or tokenomics, everything got stress tested through this process of pushing so much volume of newly created tokens out there in market. So there is the bad side which is I think these are penny stocks and they don't have, most of them don't have long term value and they go to zero, which is not good for the consumer, not good for the market, not good for the category. But, but the good is that we did develop a lot of great tech on the back of it. And that tech is now going to be commoditized, it's going to be used by tradefi to then tokenize everything else in the world. And we now know how to do that because we know how to stress test the systems and what works, what doesn't work.
- [18:40]
A
Yeah, I always kind of ask myself when we see that at its full potential, obviously all this commoditized, all of these blockchains being used, whether private or public, and everything's tokenized, whether that's captured in some way by institutions in Wall street and uninvestable by individuals, or whether there's going to be a way for individuals still to participate.
- [19:03]
B
When it comes to tokenization, I think five years from now we can assume that most assets are inevitably going to get tokenized. I definitely see that future and I think the backbone of that tech is going to be one we developed over the last like Five, six years.
- [19:20]
A
Yeah, I agree. It just makes me wonder if the things we've already seen it. So I think stocks obviously having crypto adjacent stocks moved a lot of the liquidity out of crypto. Prediction markets have moved a ton. Because if we're being honest that most people are just gambling they can go gamble on the weather tomorrow.
- [19:36]
B
Yeah.
- [19:36]
A
They don't need a meme coin.
- [19:38]
B
Right.
- [19:38]
A
And they can do it pretty much 24, 7, 365 anywhere. And now people are going to be able to trade everything else just like they trade crypto. So you got to wonder where the bid comes for or maybe now we just have a real return to utility and some of those, the few that actually deserve it actually rise and we
- [19:56]
B
start creating our own indices of great basket of crypto assets that have long term value.
- [20:04]
A
Yeah, I think that that's exactly where it heads.
- [20:07]
B
Now the equity side is interesting because you look at the global equities market or actually you look at the US equities market which is the dominating one I think, don't quote me, but in 2025 the market was valued between $60 to $70 trillion. About $18 trillion of that is foreign investors. But the reality is to access US equities outside of the United States is extremely difficult. You can be in uk, you have access to it. However, the challenge is UK is a different time zone. So you really got to play with time zones to make sure if you're trying to place a trade after markets for anyone who's not a sophisticated investor is unable to do it. And then when you go to different time zones like Brazil or apac, what have you, it becomes even more cumbersome. The value of tokenized equities to the United States is, I believe it opens up the US stock market to the rest of the world. And if you've got 16 to 18 trillion of volume being done by foreign investors, I think you see that jump over a period of time. Because the reality is when American innovation becomes accessible in public markets and you price them in public markets, there's a whole world out there that is looking to access those assets and they currently don't have access to it. So I would argue tokenized assets bring a complete new inflow of money and investments into the US stock market. And I think that's great for American economy. It's a great unlock for us and I really think our government should continue to support it because it's going to be great for everyday Americans.
- [21:56]
A
I want to talk about that in a minute. I Guess the progress of clarity and how you see that legislation sort of pushing forward. But on the regulatory side, obviously we have Atkins at the SEC pushing project Crypto and he made a comment a couple months ago that he effectively thought everything would be tokenized by the end of 2026. And that sounded insane. Just so people don't think we're insane for having this vision. And then the DTCC which clears 4 quadrillion in volume a year, I mean, I think 4 or 7, it's something insane. Basically the entire stock market got a no action letter from the SEC and then made the announcement that with Canton Network and then future other networks, they're going to be looking to tokenize everything and basically go to T +0 or less settlement. So we're not crazy talking about that this is inevitable.
- [22:38]
B
I don't think it's a crazy idea that by the end of 2026 we don't see most assets trending in that direction. Now of course the regulatory side is still needs to mature and we need to get there. We need to get approvals to be able to do this at scale. But once it begins, then it's just a matter of adding additional assets. I think it starts with equities and futures and what have you and then you see the snowball effect, so to speak. So I have to imagine it's great for the American economy and I think it's great for American investors because they're now going to have this demand that we historically couldn't unlock and now we can unlock it.
- [23:25]
A
So I would have to imagine that the deal that you just got done would have been much more difficult in the previous regime than now. Is that fair to say?
- [23:34]
B
No comment.
- [23:34]
A
Okay, no comment. But you were able to get it done now and you're getting it done in a time when we still don't have complete legislative clarity. No pun intended. Right. So we're everybody's eyes on the Clarity Act. We know that the regulator is going to be favorable for the next two and a half or three years. But we still need something on the books, I think, to make sure that we don't see the pendulum swing back the other way in the future. Right. So how do you handicap that when you're building in the United States?
- [23:59]
B
Well, first off, I think for any policymaker listening to this, I think they've really gotten close to a lot of the companies in our category over the last one year period. I hope that every policymaker sees that what these companies are not trying to do is break the Law, what they're trying to do is focus on the tech and the access to people. So I really do think, regardless of which side of the aisle you're on, this is in the interest of our. This is a national interest for us and we should support it. And I hope that Democrats are going to continue to support it, the Republican side is going to continue to support it. And.
- [24:41]
A
Yeah, but I mean, it's ridiculous that it's even a political issue.
- [24:46]
B
It is ridiculous. And I think, I think it's really important that we continue to keep all the innovation in the United States. We have to maintain that environment. Why do people feel compelled, founders, investors feel compelled that they want us to come and start one of the greatest products in the world here in the United States, because we have the right environment, we have the right capital markets to be able to do this. I think it's in our national interest to make sure that that continues to be the case because capital is now democratized. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, you needed to be in Silicon Valley to raise money to start a startup. That is not the case anymore. You can raise money in Singapore, you can raise money in Hong Kong, you can raise money in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, you can raise money in parts of Europe. So I think we have real competition. And with AI coming in, knowledge is getting commoditized, skills are getting commoditized. So it really begs the question, how do we protect our national interests and how do we make sure that the incredible founders continue to find our country as the place where they want to establish themselves and create these great innovations?
- [26:03]
A
I want to move on to AI next, but just curious, non specific, but do you think that companies right now have to have two plans? Clarity gets past plan or a Clarity does not get past plan. Or do you think everybody's just full steam ahead and hoping for the best?
- [26:18]
B
Look, Clarity does, no pun intended. Clarity does have a lot of sort of resolution on market structure at many levels. Now I really hope that Clarity is going to pass and we should talk about that. But if Clarity did not pass does not mean that crypto companies are suddenly going to have to shut their business in the United States. State laws support crypto companies and I think we can continue with state level MTLs and offer these services. But naturally, if we want to sit with the big boys and big girls on Wall street, the market structure bill is what's gonna allow that convergence to happen.
- [27:03]
A
Okay, so let's talk about it. Right. Clarity, specifically, why it's so important that
- [27:07]
B
it gets done I think you know this, that I always say a deal is better than no deal. It's the most important thing because when you have something in front of you, I always believe you should take it because the world is quite uncertain. I don't think Brian Armstrong or Coinbase anticipated that fighting for crypto people at the time on rewards against banks would have jeopardized the bill. I don't think they intended for that to happen. But no one can predict a global conflict. And I think now that's a great example of why you should take what you have in front of you and then work on amendments, then work on modifying the bill and optimizing it over a period of time. So none of us in the industry disagree with the stance Brian took. But I don't know if we needed to die on that hill, and I hope we haven't. I hope there's a compromise. I hope we see this bill passed before midterms because it is really important for everyday Americans.
- [28:20]
A
Well, I was gonna say Patrick Witt at the White House had a great tweet at one point. It was right after Brian Armstrong made the no bill's better than a bad bill comment. And he basically said the same thing you're saying and added, in addition, if we have regime change, we get a Clarity act written by the anti crypto army rather than crypto supporters. So it's not even binary. It's not like this. Clarity or no clarity, it could be some terrible legislation in the future from an unfriendly regime.
- [28:47]
B
Yeah, yeah. And there are things that are out of our day to day control. And like I said, I think hindsight is 20 20. Let's move on. Let's work. All of us work really hard to push this bill through. I think I commend Brian and Coinbase. They've put in a great effort and who knows, maybe their resistance to accept the bill as it sat back then may end up in a great place in terms of rewards for consumers and all crypto companies in the United States being able to offer the right services to people. Now, I also think when I think about banks, I think I don't understand why they're resisting giving rewards to people because they should be in this game. I want to see a J.P. morgan coin, I want to see a Bank of America coin, I want to see a Wells Fargo coin, and I want it to have really competitive yield products. Today, if I have money in my primary bank, if I put it in a money market account, I barely get any value back. If I put it in a cd, I might get single digits, lower single digits, but then there's a lockup period and I can't do anything with that asset once it's in that lockup period because I'll have to off ramp from it and then I'll have to reinvest it into or move it into a position in the markets. That's not a great experience. That's very archaic. So can you imagine when bank of America customers or any of the banks that we have here, federal banks or local banks, when they're able to offer that yield product using this great technology, using blockchain settlement and its efficiency and taking that value and giving it back to the people. Can you imagine the sort of retention they will experience in their institutions? They already have the trust to some degree. I think some of them lost the trust along the journey. But I think that should be intriguing for them and they should be developing this technology, not fighting it.
- [30:58]
A
Well, they're never going to give people the same yield that a stable coin is going to because it cuts into their bottom line. And obviously we all understand fractional reserve banking and they make their money on giving you less than they can lend it out for. But maybe there's a happy medium where actually because of volume and the amount of business they would bring in by even offering one and a half or 2% or something much better than they do that they could thread that needle and actually win this battle.
- [31:22]
B
Well, Scott, I think you're right. But think about it this way. In our generation, banks might succeed with that idea and they might resist it. But how are they going to do this with younger people?
- [31:35]
A
They can't.
- [31:35]
B
Yeah, you have self custody wallets, which I call, you know, banking software on your computer. Be your own bank. You and I know that for many, many years now. So fine, they can do this, resist this change for five years, for 10 years. What happens after the boomers die?
- [31:53]
A
That's what happens.
- [31:54]
B
That's exactly it. And the young people, they're going to go be policymakers, they're going to be working at these future banks, they're going to be working at the future fintech companies and they're going to end up evolving the entire industry and the consumer economy experience. So I think the smart thing to do for banks is stop being dinosaurs. Adopt it and be competitive and show up at the baseball field and swing the bat.
- [32:20]
A
Yeah. Instead they're trying to get the entire game shut down.
- [32:22]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [32:23]
A
We don't even want to play at all. Right. It's not going to work. Even if they kill this bill in some way, shape or form, like you said, people still have freedom of choice and we know what young people are going to choose. But that just puts on a slightly longer timeline.
- [32:35]
B
Yeah. And look, I love the President for this because you know, no matter what criticism you have for the president, the reality is he sees this stuff, he's extremely intelligent when it comes to this industry. And I really was very happy to see his message after the meeting with Brian. He understands it swinging fast. He came out swinging and I think he gets it. I think. Yeah.
- [33:02]
A
So let's talk about the AI side because that seems to be the prevailing narrative at the moment and for good reason. Right. I think there was. We kind of had an AI wave in crypto before. That was just one of our classic too early bubbles. But now you can't ignore the agentic side. I mean even a AI boomer like me is running open claws a part of my business and trying to optimize things. And it's just incredible. Isn't that how everybody's going to do everything financial in the future? So we talk about all these self custody wallets and everything, but it's pretty clear that you're going to probably have a superior intelligence, managing your portfolio and transacting on your behalf. I mean you guys are preparing for that. You had another announcement there. AI, obviously tools for developers and all these things maybe just break down how you're looking at that and what you're building on that side.
- [33:51]
B
Well look, the exciting part is when everyone's doing it and everyone's pushing the limits. And I think if you look at the exchange space or the sort of legacy crypto companies everyone's pushing forward, which I think is really exciting because that's what develops the best products, services and user experience. So our view is we've got 120 million plus customers, people who use our apps around the world. And the thing we're trying to do now is create the developer layer first. We want to create as many developer toolkits across our centralized exchange, our Dex markets, our wallet, all of these things to be programmable so Gentec tools can operate on top of it. And what we're going to see, what we're expecting will happen is these developers will take these tools and they'll create applications on top of our platform. And so you're going to see a marketplace of apps develop very quickly on top of each of the platforms in our category. And these are tools that people can then use to do personalized trading or portfolio building or many different use cases or programming it with their e commerce platforms or projects so that transactions can just happen seamlessly in the background without them having to ever touch anything. In addition to that, deploying the developer layer on our platform, I think what we're also doing internally is incubating native apps ourselves. So we're looking at how the developers are using our toolkits, but we're also experimenting ourselves. And I think in the next three months, six months, what you're going to see is OkX is going to deploy a number of these developer toolkits. We're going to keep advancing them and then soon enough we're going to come up with two, three, four maybe native apps. And you saw that when the Web three self custody wave came in, you saw how quickly we jumped in. And it sort of felt a bit odd to many people because they said, well, you guys are a centralized exchange, your monetization is on, you're disrupting yourself, you're disrupting yourself. But I think we're absolutely going to do that. I think we're probably going to launch a new AI or agentic product almost if not every week, you know, every two or three weeks. And I think that's the velocity at which we will approach this over time. And Star, our founder, says this, he thinks that centralized exchanges or crypto companies as we see them today are going to inevitably get disrupted. They're going to look very different. The size of companies is going to look very different. The way we operate and serve our customers is going to look very different. The way we do compliance is going to look very different. And most of the company is going to end up running with the Gentek tools, with people monitoring these tools. And then on the user experience side, on the QA side, the end service that we give to people who use our apps, I think they're all going to get extremely personalized and extremely customizable and unique. And I'm also very excited about what developers and technical people do because they're going to use this to have frictionless transactions in the background that people haven't been able to program over the last 10, 15 years.
- [37:14]
A
I mean it was just a crazy story from Amazon. A few thousand of their engineers were basically told to over a few month period record everything that they were doing. They Amazon used it to fire all of them. And like 12 guys in Bangalore I think was the number, I don't want to quote it exactly, are now running what those multiple thousands of engineers are running. And that's today, in 2026, at the beginning of the year. Imagine what that looks like down the road. I guess my fear is that we like to move fast and break things in crypto and I know how you do business and I know how some of the reputable companies do, but I have a definite fear that people are going to release a lot of these things into the wild and we're going to see quite a bit of mayhem on the path to what you just described.
- [37:58]
B
Think so too? Anytime you have speculative markets, you know there's, there's always bad actors. And I think if anyone, you know, is looking for an idea, I would say create governance agentic tools so that we make sure these platforms, the markets, you know, have great governance and we, we don't, we don't abuse the things that we've built with a lot of hard work over the last 15 years. I think you saw that compromise with what I call penny stocks. You know, arguably we had an unhealthy amount of tokens being published with zero value.
- [38:39]
A
Our pub fund was doing like 6 million a month.
- [38:41]
B
I don't, you know, maybe I'm isolated in my camp, but I don't think that was great for the industry and I think we got to be careful that, you know, we don't continue to damage our reputation with things that in the pursuit of technology.
- [38:56]
A
It's interesting though that Star has the foresight to I should actually reframe it. He's always had the foresight to disrupt yourselves as you said, so with the wallet, the dex, the centralized exchange, you guys have always been ahead of that. So I'm not surprised.
- [39:10]
B
Why do you think that is?
- [39:11]
A
I just think he always sees where the puck is moving and he's a technologist first and so I think he understands that.
- [39:16]
B
I think it's that I think if you look at most crypto platforms today, at least ones at our scale, you'll notice that Star is the only technical founder and CEO running the company today. When we were in discussions with ice, it became really apparent to them that the thing that they were buying was our engineering strength. And that comes from top down. I think Star's an incredible engineer, he's an incredible product, product person. And so I think that's where my bet is that OKX is going to continue to be very superior. I think we know this like founder led companies are amazing and then engineering founder led companies are even more superior in nature.
- [40:05]
A
Yeah, I mean it's clearly definitely the reason why you guys have Stayed ahead technologically and I think he's just incredible at seeing it a few years ahead. Yeah, yeah, it consistently has done that. So you've also been building social tools.
- [40:22]
B
Right.
- [40:23]
A
So you have another announcement from last week. So maybe talk about we're shipping a lot of products. It's ridiculous. It's like you guys have like a decade happen in a week.
- [40:33]
B
Yeah. Although I don't think okx is great at. We. We typically are not the first to launch things. We typically. Sometimes I feel like we have the Apple approach where we'll watch and see what the industry is doing, learn from it and then try to launch the right product.
- [40:57]
A
Yeah, the better version of what everybody
- [40:59]
B
look, self custody wallets had been around for many, many years and then you saw the defi rise and you saw every defi network have their own wallet and rather than launch our own wallet very quickly, we waited, we studied the market and then we ended up launching a wallet that was sort of a consolidation of all wallets. So you can read, write and transact on this wallet, on our OKX wallet, making everything singular and cross chain interoperability. So I think you're going to continue to see that pragmatic approach now even with AI, with all the other initiatives. You're talking about the social community, we're not the first ones to launch it, we might be the second or third to launch it. But I've always wanted a product like StockTwits within crypto platforms and I think we're approaching it more like stocktwits than just a town hall online town hall. And the unique things in our product, which by the way is called Orbit, is you're going to have live streaming tools, you're going to have a bunch of tooling in there so that it's not just about comments and a thread, text based thread. You have more interactive tools so you can share the insights, you can share the knowledge and the utility with the community and interact with them not just on knowledge but also economically on different incentives and what have you. So very early innings on Orbit, but that's at least the long term view.
- [42:34]
A
I read the whole announcement, I reported on it and I didn't see the live streaming side, but that's incredible. So can I take my YouTube stream that I'm doing every day anyways and we just go live on there as
- [42:44]
B
well now it's rolling out very slowly. You're catching it at a very early innings and I believe we haven't shipped it in the US yet. I think we've started to roll it out in different parts of the market. We're at testing stage and I think once we feel like the product is stable, then we'll bring it into the United States.
- [43:00]
A
Can't wait to do that.
- [43:01]
B
Yeah.
- [43:02]
A
So. And then you obviously have accountability for performance, which I found to be such an interesting part of it is that someone can say something, but they also have to show it to some degree, or they can choose not to, but then you don't believe them. But there's accountability. If someone says they took a trade or something, you actually attach your portfolio and, and your performance, you can see that. And then that takes a much more, I think, sensible approach to copy trading.
- [43:29]
B
It's not like Instagram and other social media networks where there's no way for you to verify your trades. So that's a big piece of being on OkX's orbit, the social community, which is, you know, that the information people are sharing, especially around their trading strategy or what have you, is has to be transparent. And I think that's the key, unique value that people are going to find is we're going to have strong governance, strong community rules, strong detection, so that when content is not correct, it does not fit our community guidelines. We're going to ban that content very quickly. So I think that's very, very important, is for people to verify that what they're seeing is actually, in fact, true and they're not being duped in any way.
- [44:20]
A
So I want to talk about expansion into the United States. I don't even know how to phrase it right because obviously you've always been here. Yeah, in some ways, in a way, shape or form. We had the OK Coin days. I know you were very passionate about leading the effort to rebrand everything here to okx and make it a seamless product. So where would you say you're on percentage basis of where you want to be in the United States?
- [44:43]
B
Well, a couple of things. I think US is a very tough market because it's a very mature market and you have a lot of companies that are doing incredible things. They're really advanced on the user experience and what have you. So let's just acknowledge that US is a very tough market. When I joined the company Back in 2020, one of the key hopes I had is that I would solve for the brand fragmentation. We had a number of different brands, I think you remember, and I've been at it for 2020, rebranding OkiCoin, then rebranding OKEx, then convincing everyone that we should just be just one OkX, get rid of, you know, everything else. So it's been a long journey and that of course handicaps you in the US because in the United States consumers do care about brand, they do care very highly about the user experience and how things look. So that's one part of it and I think we've solved that. The second part is your product has to be very competitive and unique and there's a huge amount of first mover advantage. Everyone has a portfolio functionality in their app and you can buy and sell crypto or at least the top three or five assets on a bunch of fintech apps. You can buy it on crypto exchanges. So people have a lot of choice. And we weren't first to, you know, get into prediction markets. Gosh, after all the regulatory work on crypto, you know, I don't think anyone had the appetite to want to go and figure out prediction markets. But good on polymarket, big shout out to them and Kelchi and I think these two companies, you know, are doing incredible jobs. I know both had different approaches. Polymarket came from the global side and
- [46:33]
A
they're still not available to us, right? I know they will be, but still
- [46:37]
B
soon I think they'll be available. I do think they have an incredible product. So our position in the US is we've sort of been playing catch up and I don't think we've been able to have enough great reasons for why people would use the OKX app at scale now hopefully with the nice partnership, hopefully with us going into the tokenized world and being able to unlock issuer based tokenized equities and bringing regulated perps, regulated futures to the United States, we can start to catch up. And I think that's the goal is can we build a really competitive product in the United States? Yes, we can. It takes time. Look, I'll give you the example of chip manufacturers. You look at Nvidia, you look at intel, you look at some of the other giants. If you look at them back in 2000, 2002, 2004, arguably intel always had market share and superiority. Could you have ever imagined that this sort of niche gaming chip manufacturer is going to take over the world? It took them, you know, two decades to find that product market fit. So I think life is pretty long, especially the commercial side of things. And we're going to stay at it. You've seen us stay at it. We haven't closed our shop. We have stayed in the business in the United States and we're going to continue to Try and find that product market fit or be the first to do something that brings millions of Americans or really creates the urgency for them to come and download our app and give it a try. I do think we have a really compelling brand compared to others. I think younger people want radical brands and I don't think the status quo in crypto in the United States gives that vibe. And I think we, we want to be that. That's number one. And I think it's improving the product stack. Is it possible that in the next six months, eight months, you're going to see issuer based tokenized equities, you're going to see prediction markets, you're going to see regulated derivatives and future products on the platform? Yes, I think that's a great possibility. And then I think let's see where the future takes us. But we're committed to the United States. I think you're seeing ICE is not just a one off deal, this is a very intentional deal. It's a signal to the world that we care about the US very deeply. We want to be here, we want our products to be loved by people here just like they're loved all over the place and so wish us well. Let's see what we can do.
- [49:27]
A
And to be honest, I think when people see the big number, the valuation, they look at it and go, wow, these guys must be doing a lot of business outside the United States. Maybe they didn't know that.
- [49:36]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think the valuation is a great validation. A valuation like that in the market conditions that we have I think is also a really positive signal. But what's more important for us as a company is whether it's our private investors today on the cap table, whether one day it's our investors in the public markets. Our focus is how do we continue to grow the company that we have shareholder value creation and if we're unable to demonstrate that or show that, I don't think you're going to see OKX running towards the public markets. I think we're going to take our time and I think we're very resilient, we're very persistent, we're very stubborn and we're going to be here, we're going to keep chipping away.
- [50:23]
A
Isn't part of being that everything app, not just the offerings or the products or the assets that you offer, but also eventually offering the full suite of financial services that seems to also be with the pucks moving custody, yield, lending. I mean, I kind of envision this day where you have your Nvidia tokenized stock that's issuer based and it's next to your Bitcoin and it's next to, I don't know, your car title, your mortgage or whatever. And they're all tokenized in this one big basket and you can take a loan against it and never sell and not have taxable events. All the things that Richmond and they're
- [50:59]
B
on self custody and you have true ownership of it. And self custody recovery is a lot better than where it sits today. I mean I think it's improved quite a bit already. But yeah, I do think that's the world where we're going to, where your finances are going to be consolidated in one or two places. They're going to be extremely accessible, they're going to be extremely interoperable with different asset types and different markets and you can move them without permissionlessly across borders, across different networks and what have you. So I think that's very exciting. You look at the world and in many ways communications became the basic human right. In many ways I think you're going to see access to modernized money and access to modernized markets become a basic human, human right. And I think just like Internet and other things, I think it's going to be something that everyone in the world is going to eventually have access to and it's going to create even healthier two sided marketplace.
- [52:02]
A
To ask you the most important question, what do you think of the new F1 rules?
- [52:05]
B
I hate them.
- [52:07]
A
Everyone hates them.
- [52:08]
B
Well, I. Look, remember when Facebook was popular?
- [52:16]
A
No,
- [52:19]
B
back circa, like 2007, 2008, when we were still using Facebook and they would update their interface and most people would hate it.
- [52:26]
A
Apple does it all the time. Every Apple update for two weeks or a month.
- [52:31]
B
We would hate it and then we would forget it and we would love the new interface. So I think it's too new to tell whether we should like or dislike the F1 regulations. I think it's very tricky. Everyone's learning. It's very clear from the Australian GP that certain teams have an advantage. They've figured things out. But it's also very early innings. Remember the last two seasons, if you look at the teams that were on the first two or three positions didn't end up being the teams that were winning the constructor or driver's championship. So I think it's too early to tell. Look, I'm a motorhead, you know, I like the V8s and the V10s and I, I like that sound.
- [53:17]
A
Visceral experience.
- [53:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. I don't have that. So naturally, you know, it's not as exhilarating, quieter. I didn't even know that the car, they are quieter.
- [53:25]
A
And you know, that's the best part about going to a race. The first time you hear them, just,
- [53:28]
B
yeah, I want my eardrums blasted. You know, that's, that's what I go there for. So, yeah, let's see, let's see. I, I hope you continue rooting for McLaren.
- [53:36]
A
Of course, I remember like when I went to McLaren with you guys to Silverstone, which was like the race that it all turned around and all of a sudden McLaren was on the podium and. But they, there was some comment when we were in the control room, you know, mission control, where they said that from the beginning of the season to the end of the season, the cars are some amount faster, a full lap faster, whatever it is. Like how much innovation happens in real time from beginning of season to the end of the season. Oh, I good corollary for OkX.
- [54:02]
B
It's. There's a lot of innovation. Zach Brown and I have gotten to know each other really well and I've been learning from him. And one thing he said is almost like 3,000 or more than 3,000 parts get completely not even rebuilt, but recreated every season. So it's a brand new car, especially in a year where regulations have changed. So I think there's a lot of work they do. It's incredible and it's all very new, which creates an even playing field. And I'm still very confident with Zach, Andre, Andreas and I think they have the two best drivers on the grid, Lando and Oscar. I think they're going to crush it again this season and I'm rooting for another constructor and driver championship.
- [54:54]
A
Yeah, I hope so. Do you have any other big partnerships on your radar? So obviously, I mean, I know now it's been years. Tribeca Film, McLaren and Manchester City. I mean, you chose. We've talked about this at length and everyone's heard it, but like you chose three mass massive winners and in the case of Manchester and McLaren, you chose them before they were massive winners.
- [55:14]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [55:15]
A
Is there anything else you're looking at and getting prediction markets and start to bet on those teams?
- [55:21]
B
I don't think we're looking at anything right now. I think it's possible we will look at a US property once we feel like we're we're ready, but right now we're just drinking out of the fire hose and last thing we're thinking is a sports partnership. I Think the good thing for us is McLaren is very much or F1 is very much a growing sport in the United States. So it has huge penetration here. I think football is still a sport that people really love watching. You're going to have the World cup here this year. So we get a lot of mileage out of these two properties. Are we going to do a basketball team? I'd like to. I'd love to do it, Star. Give me some money.
- [56:05]
A
I just saw the new soccer stadium here. Football, soccer stadium here in Miami. I hadn't noticed it and all the times I landed at the airport. But yeah, bring in Messi. You get a whole new stadium.
- [56:14]
B
Yeah, you get a whole new stadium. So I hope that we will look at new properties. But I gotta tell you, Scott, the amount of spam mail you get once you do one or two or three partnerships, you know, every agency, every property is emailing you. So I definitely don't want to get that. I'm not looking at any properties for the next one year. Please don't spam my inbox. But. And Star, if you're listening to this, I need another 50 million because I want to go shopping. Perfect.
- [56:45]
A
And I have to get the sound bite. Where do you think bitcoin fits into all of this at this point? Right. Because it was originally obviously the OG I think it has the most clarity. And it seems like crypto has definitely jumped the ship from where bitcoin originally started. But do you think that it still has a very important place?
- [57:04]
B
Scott, how much skepticism have you and I experienced in the last 10 years of Bitcoin?
- [57:11]
A
All of it.
- [57:12]
B
Every single debate you could have about the decline and the death of bitcoin. Bitcoin is the most resilient crypto network, or I would argue financial network. The best times to dollar cost average and invest in Bitcoin is when the world is afraid of where it's going. I am a long term bitcoiner. I think it's going to continue to be the foundational layer of our markets, perhaps even trade fi over a period of time. There's not much you can do with gold other than have it in someone's custody and you get a paper that says you own some gold. But with Bitcoin you have actual digital use cases. I don't think there's an asset that has been able to replace it and has maintained decentralization the way bitcoin does. So yes, there's a lot of skepticism in the market. But did you notice today, Strategy bought another 2 billion at the average price of 70k. So I think when somebody's spending $2 billion to buy an asset, I think they're doing more thinking and what have you than you and I alone. So I continue to be pro Bitcoin. I think the resilience is not to be with.
- [58:49]
A
I want Star to give you 50 million. And if you're looking Star, can you please Send my wife 5 million for her?
- [58:54]
B
He knows that at least I'll get him. He knows that I'll get him a winning team. I've proven it, right? McLaren winning team, man. City. Winning team, Star. You give me $50 million, I'll get you a winning basketball team.
- [59:07]
A
Can we get Star in the next conversation?
- [59:08]
B
100%.
- [59:09]
A
You know, we tried at Singapore a year and a half, and it was actually there. And then, like, we just had some logistical.
- [59:17]
B
No, no, we'll make it happen.
- [59:18]
A
Yeah, I would love to have the conversation with him.
- [59:20]
B
Yeah.
- [59:20]
A
All right, man.
- [59:21]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That's dope.