EP 346 – Are We About to See the Next Big Crypto Breakthrough? – Karl Mohan – Crypto.com

Read the best-effort transcript below (This technology is still not as good as they say it is…):

Michael Waitze 0:00
Totally but by the time I come back, it should well be on you ready? Hi. This is Michael waitze, and welcome back to the Asia Tech Podcast. We are joined today by Karl Mohan, the GM for APAC and Middle East and Africa. And if that’s not enough, also the Global Head of Banking Partnerships at crypto.com Karl, it is so great to have you on the show. How are you doing today?

Karl Mohan 0:25
I’m fantastic Michael, and thank you very much for having me on your show as well. Looking forward to this discussion. Yeah,

Michael Waitze 0:32
it’s my complete pleasure. And look, before we get into the main part of this conversation, let’s get a little bit of your background for some context. You have not been@crypto.com your whole life. So what was before that? How did you get here?

Karl Mohan 0:43
Michael, I’ve been very fortunate for over a decade. I was in financial services, and during that time, you know, I had the absolute pleasure of helping a number of banks, you know, upgrade their technology systems and get involved with customer problems and so forth. And during this time, you know, you can imagine, just after the financial crisis, there was a huge turmoil in the financial industry. And during the same time, Bitcoin was born. And you know, as a technologist, as at heart, and I think, Michael, you’re the same. And, you know, I discovered this new technology, and hopefully, you know, I was trying to bring it into the banking environment. And during this time, realized the transformative nature of blockchain and blockchain technologies. And through that, you know, managed to get into crypto.com

Michael Waitze 1:40
Can we talk about this a little bit? Because I think you understood this a lot better than I did at the beginning. I remember going to a conference. It must have been in 2012 and there were a bunch of guys sitting on stage talking about the blockchain, so that not so much talk about Bitcoin at the time, right? And it was interesting to me, because right now, you didn’t say there was this new currency. You said there was this new technology, right? So it’s a completely different lens to look at this. Do you remember when you first heard about it? And did you think to yourself, oh, this is going to change things. Do you know what I mean?

Karl Mohan 2:12
Michael, I wish I would say that in 2009 I had the full side as a true financial service provider. You know, I’m a banker at heart. Not until 2014 actually, that captured my attention. And that was true, not Bitcoin, but ripple. And ripple was out, you know, trying to solve cross border payments. And as a banker, one of the biggest challenges that you face is helping customers make payments internationally and and that sort of caught my attention. And through that, you know, I got really, I would say, fall in love with Ethereum back then, and still, am still a big believer of it. So that got me into it, and that’s what changed my trajectory of my career anyway.

Michael Waitze 3:02
So we’re only like two minutes into this conversation, and I feel like you’re almost like the perfect person with the perfect experience to then move from traditional finance into decentralized finance and into crypto.com because you were kind of trying to do the same thing in the traditional banking sector, and now you’ve kind of flipped over. Tell me if I have this wrong, and I’m trying to do it from the other side and bring all these things together. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Karl Mohan 3:29
Michael, you know, I think the change primarily is right. There’s two schools of thought. Go ahead. The world of defi is taking over, and traditional finance is over, yeah? And then the traditional finance guys who look at the world of defi and look at it and say, Now nothing’s going to change. And I think the opportunity that I had was to see both sides of the coin, yeah, actually it’s, it’s just two sides of the same coin, and combining both is where the future is, and I sense that convergence is already occurring. I think so maybe I’ll elaborate a little bit. Go, go, go. You know, I think you and I share a little bit of common background. So I was listening into your podcast with Nia Thompson. You know, I grew up poor. I grew up very poor. And, you know, seeing my mom who single handedly educated my brother and I, which gave me all these opportunities in life and and that was based on her frugality and doing whole bunch of things, but at the same time, you know, there was actually a gap, and that gap is financial inclusion, financial accessibility and the ability to actually leverage those two to get financial freedom. Okay, what, what really I am super passionate about, is that transformative power of the. Why in actually creating those three elements, right, financial inclusion, accessibility and freedom across the world, regardless of where you are, who you are, or your background. So I sense this is only the beginning. We’re seeing that power come through, and it’s a super exciting future. Okay,

Michael Waitze 5:21
I want to dig deeper into this, if you don’t mind, and I want to give you some context first as well, in 2019 I started doing a podcast that we call the Asia InsurTech podcast. Turns out to be very popular. We’ve had unbelievable conversations. We’ve done over 300 and something episodes in this show, and I would say the first 50 to 60 of them. So almost the whole first year, people were talking about how insurtechs were going to disrupt the insurance industry. What they quickly found out was these big incumbent InsurTech companies are not going away. First of all, their balance sheets are too big. But also, they’ve been in the InsurTech business for 200 years, and it just doesn’t happen. It’s just a very complex business. And they switched from disruption to enablement. And I think this idea, and I wrote it down, right? Inclusion, accessibility, and then financial freedom, which comes from those other two concepts, means that, I think that you’re going to have to have trade fi and defi, not merged together specifically, but they’re going to enable each other. Does that make more sense, just from a from an explanation standpoint, right? That neither one of them is going to go away. Going to go away, and both of them kind of can be enabled by the other one. Yeah,

Karl Mohan 6:26
absolutely. Michael, a good, good example would be, you know, when I was in traditional finance, when Bitcoin first came out, the first thing every banker would say is, Bitcoin is going to die, you know, it’s going to die. It’s going to die. And I think Bitcoin had, you know, it’s arbitrary return for it for the last five, six, maybe seven times already still around. And in fact, it is here to stay. As we know with the launch of Bitcoin ETFs, it’s not going away. Captured global imagination. And, you know, I think the the absolute acid test, in my view, is every time you watch any movie that comes out, Hollywood movie, there will be a mention of either Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, either in positive light or negative light. It doesn’t matter. But there is now a common lexicon that everyone knows, everywhere in the world, what it is. And you know, how do you access it, right? And I sense that degree of maturity is going to increase over the years. And you’re right, you know, it’s going to enable each other. Traditional finance is going to enable the defi world, and the defi world is going to enable traditional finance, for sure. You know,

Michael Waitze 7:37
I think it was Mark Twain that said the the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Bitcoin can probably use the same phraseology when you think about what companies like crypto.com are doing right in the context of inclusion and accessibility. Do you and again, just based on your experience as being a banker and a technologist at heart. How do you now look at it from the other side, thinking, Okay, how do we work together with some of the traditional finance businesses? And then what is the benefit to end customers, more specifically than just, like, I mean, I completely get the inclusion and the accessibility part and the freedom part. But like, what is actually getting done to do this? Yeah,

Karl Mohan 8:20
so Michael, I think the first thing is, let me break down what crypto.com is doing, and maybe then we can explore what globally is happening. Perfect space, right? So the first one is, I, you know, for for us, the the ability to hit a billion customers is where we are headed towards. We are right now about 100 million customers. We just announced that a few months ago, and we’re continuing to build that. And the way we do this is in three parts, right? So the first one is we have created one of the most intuitive, highly usable app that customers could access from anywhere in the world, and not only that, enable a whole bunch of features and functionalities like payments and the ability to interact with each other. For for example, we are one of the largest distributors of the crypto.com Visa card, which you know, customers now could actually spend their crypto in over 80 million merchants globally. The second part for us is payments. I think we mentioned that previously, crypto.com pay, you know, one of the biggest achievements in to date, at least in my career history right now, is the enablement of two different integrations that we did. Number one is enabling crypto payments in one of the largest fuel networks, or fuel chaos networks in Australia, and subsequently also launching the ability for, you know, sports fans who head into a stadium or one of the largest. Mediums to go out there, buy their beer pies, you know, chips and pay with crypto. And that that was a good positive outcome, not only for us, but for our customers. And finally, Michael in our organization, you know, we are not excluding the institutional accredited investors, and we have the crypto.com exchange, very sophisticated platform, and very proud to say that in in July, you know, we achieve the number one spot in clearing and settlement of crypto trades, you know, highest in the US dollar crypto trades. So we beat some of our competitors, which we are very pleased about.

Michael Waitze 10:41
Can I ask you this? Like, how do you get from 100 million customers to a billion? It’s a big goal, right? And with, what is it like, three and a half billion people? Now, if we exaggerate a little bit, maybe 4 billion people connected to the internet, you want to get to, like, 25% of them there. It’s a big goal, and it’s a useful goal. But, like, what are and I’m curious, like, I’m genuinely curious, right? Because I don’t trade crypto, and I’m not an owner at the moment, right? What is stopping people from getting involved? Do you know what I mean? Like, what are some of the challenges, whether it’s from the exchange standpoint, from the Visa card and payments, like, what are some of the challenges and what has to happen for just like, regular guys and gals to get involved?

Karl Mohan 11:20
Yeah, let me. Let me break this down a little bit, please, Michael, so I think, I think the first key part is, you know, where we have focused our attention on this, of course, fine tuning our product and making it super user friendly, easily understandable and accessible from anywhere, right? So you could go to an app store or Google play store and download the app. So that’s the first and I think that’s our mission. We continue to build, continue to add features, functionalities, to make it a lot more attractive. The second component of this is regulation. So in every market, the more there is regulatory clarity, the more engaged the consumers become. Or if people don’t trust their governments, right? So, you know, you go into markets where there’s complete distrust of governments, then you get greater engagement. But I would think the majority, and you’re talking about, you know, the 7 billion people on this planet, majority of them are in pretty much developed markets or developing countries, where regulation is going to be critical in actually enabling the services that we provide to these customers and and I guess for us, the way we are looking at it. The third is through our partnerships, that we have the sports partnerships and all of that to increase awareness, and we have, recently, we announced our partnership with UEFA Champions League. This is to enable customers to know about this globally, so they can actually access our platform?

Michael Waitze 13:02
Can? Can I ask you this, and I’m this, I’m super interested in, right? Yeah, Are people really spending crypto with a Visa card? I go back and forth with a bunch of people like it, because it felt, at least for a while, there was more a speculative thing than a than not an investment tool, like a speculative thing more than like a payments thing. Have people reached the point now where they’re using the top three or top five cryptocurrencies to actually pay for things? Does that make sense? Yeah, it

Karl Mohan 13:29
does. It does. And you know the fact that we are the most successful Visa card for our category testament that they are. But Michael, let me, let me explain a couple of things further, please. So, in terms, in terms of the utility of crypto in payments, yep, so, so the first one is, yes, you know, in terms of consumer payments, we’ve seen it. We are a case in point. Our card is the most distributed Visa card in our category for cryptocurrencies, right? So if it’s not, then it wouldn’t be, we wouldn’t be where we are today. The second is, you know, we believe in our own kind of thinking here, that crypto and using crypto as a payment mechanism is crucial for businesses as well. So to that effect, Michael, you know, we are a big partner of visas, and you know, we are a direct principal member of visa and our International Settlements in us, dollars, we settle in US dollar, stablecoins, okay, right? Rather than relying on, you know, all traditional banking rails, or traditional financial rails. Here’s where we’re going. Look. We really believe in this whole blockchain defi change that is occurring. Therefore we have adopted it ourselves, right? Yeah. The the third is, you know, we build. Believe in it so much that we have partnered with PayPal to introduce the PayPal stablecoin. And a little bit of fun fact, it was introduced less than 12 months ago, and it’s already hit a billion dollars worth of deposits. That’s a lot.

Michael Waitze 15:19
What, um, what has to change on the regulatory standpoint, like, what do you think needs to change there? And, and if every country is different, are these things going to converge at some point in time, right? Like, does the Japanese need to speak with the Singaporeans, which need to speak to the Emiratis which need to speak to the Americans to kind of, then what’s the right word, like, standardize and normalize all these regulations. Like, if you could have two regulations that were just going to make everything better, what would they be?

Karl Mohan 15:47
Yeah, so I think, you know, the word that we use is harmonization across multiple locations, and I think that’s crucial regulators are talking I mean, that’s part of my job and some of my colleagues in actually engaging with regulators, educating them about the technology, because they know it’s bringing them up. So the regulators, to give you a bit of picture here, please, Michael, you know they’re coming along the journey as well. So they’re used to regulating traditional finance, and you know a lot of traditional financial folks who work in traditional finance have also are also working in the regulators, right? So the way they think and actually construct strategies are based on traditional finance. Now there’s a educational part that is occurring. So as they gain knowledge and understanding of how the underlying technology works, how the systems work. They’re getting better at it. The these. So the first one is harmonization. The second one that we do talk about is tech neutrality, right? So that means you, you should regulate based on concepts, not the underlying technological architecture. So to give to paint a picture here, you know, if you think about blockchains, you have Bitcoin might work on, you know, a proof of proof of work. Yep, that’s, that’s the blockchain concept. And then you have Ethereum, which is proof of state, two different technological models. Now the regulator, and this is what we encourage the regulators think about the way you regulate should be based on the principles, not the underlying technology. So tech neutrality is absolutely critical, because you want to actually ensure that the regulation withstands the change that might be occurring in the underlying technology. And we’ve seen, like, Ethereum is a good example. It started off as a proof of work blockchain, and it’s moved to a proof of stake. And, you know, you shouldn’t be regulating based on the underlying technology, because it’s constantly being improved. Yeah. I

Michael Waitze 17:53
mean, then there’s the whole zero knowledge proofs. There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on there. Do you think, and do you feel this, right? And maybe this is more of a personal question, anything else, but do you feel like the technology on the on the decentralized finance side, is just moving so fast that at some level, it’s almost unfair to the regulators for them, you know what I mean? Because I think, and I know this from dealing with the insurance regulators in in Thailand, and I’ve spoken to them a lot, and I’ll tell you what they are, operating in good faith. They’re very forward thinking. They want to do the right thing, right? So this idea from the outside that like, oh, the regulators are just trying to get in the way. I will push back on that. And I think it’s probably true too, in their traditional finance space when it comes to regulating cryptocurrency at scale. And I’m curious if you think that the tech is just moving too fast, and at some level, they’re trying really hard to keep up. But it’s just hard. No,

Karl Mohan 18:42
oh, absolutely. And hence, you know, my previous comment that, you know, as long as the regulator is focusing on tech neutrality, yeah, some base concepts that are similar, right? That, yeah, that are enduring. And I think, you know, some regulators get it. You know, for example, the ones that we, we, we are operating in under license in Singapore, you know, soon to be in Hong Kong. Dubai is a good example. Yeah, Micah is interesting. So we’re looking at mica, which is in Europe and and in these jurisdictions, there is an understanding and perhaps an appreciation that the technology is moving fast, and the way to regulate is not to worry about the technology, but worry about the functions that the technology is dealing

Michael Waitze 19:27
with. Yeah, I agree. Can we go back to talking about partnerships a little bit? Because I think one of the trends that I see happening, and I’m curious if you see this happening too, is that a lot of the guys and gals that you and I used to work with on the other side of the fence are now moving into your side as well. They’re thinking not just because it’s the future and the traditional finance is going away, but because there’s a lot more innovation, let’s say, happening in the on the crypto side of this and on the decentralized finance side of it. So the opportunities look huge. Right when you when you look at a partnership from your side Now, besides sort of the inclusion thing, like, what does an ideal partnership look like to you? And has that changed over the past, like, three or four years, where now it’s just easier, because it feels like traditional guys have really started to accept this and onboard it internally. So what’s changed and then, like, what’s actually happening when you get one of these great partnerships, if that makes sense.

Karl Mohan 20:26
So obviously, the change is the greater distribution of the sorry, the understanding that crypto is here to stay. You know, maybe you know a good case in point is, you know, in the last one year alone, or last six months anyway, we have grown from, you know, 580 million crypto owners to 617 million crypto owners, right? So that’s a huge six point 6.4 6.5% jump, yeah, in crypto ownership now as a banker previously, I understand markets, and you know, Michael, you’re the same. You understand market you understand market sizing, you understand growth rates and so forth. And most traditional financial individuals understand this, right? So there’s two things that is occurring right now. Michael, I think, I think the first wave was, you know, folks like myself moving, you know, sort of, sort of jumping ships to help, you know, shape the future of the defi world. Like crypto.com into embracing some of this partnership. But what I’m seeing as well, Michael, is individuals within organizations to changing and influencing internally as well. Yeah, now, in every bank that I know and I deal with today, you know, as you know, one of my roles is being the Global Head of banking partnership. And I deal with some very big banks. Every single bank has a head of digital finance, slash digital? Yeah, they have to every bank and these individuals are there to spearhead and actually drive that whole how do we incorporate defi how do we incorporate blockchains? How do we evolve our business to to actually embrace like I think I like the word that you use to embrace this new way of thinking, new way of being. Now, the way we look at it is anything that is going to advance the adoption. And again, you know, I come back to you, maybe you know some things that I’m driving, which, you know, I’m very lucky again, you know, you know, you get, you get lucky in your career once. I think maybe twice. I lucked out by joining crypto.com because there’s a congruence between my own personal value exactly where the organization is going. So the way we look at it is, you know, how do we actually get individuals to embrace the technology. So, you know, for example, our partnership with Visa is a good example, partnership with PayPal, because we know that’s how we’re going to get to, you know, the entire planet embracing the technology.

Michael Waitze 23:13
Can I ask you this too? I love making analogies, because I think it makes it easier for people to understand. You know, when I was at Goldman Sachs, or was it a Goldman? Yeah? Like, you know, the internet bubble was a thing, right? And a lot of guys were trying to make this decision, like, do I go work at a startup? Do I stay here and sit on a trading desk? And one of the things that startups did was they let you wear just like, casual clothes. And a lot of guys would come in and be like, Okay, I’m getting paid really well, but like, do I really need to wear a suit, and then, like, the younger guys would graduate from Harvard and Prince, or whatever would be, like, I’d love to take this job, but I’m not wearing that, those clothes. I’m not doing it. And I feel like the same thing’s happening in the crypto space. Like these young guys and gals are graduating from top universities, coming into the big banks and just going, where’s the crypto department? Can I work there? And they’re like, we don’t have one. Like, you don’t have one. Shouldn’t we have? One? Is that what you see happening as well, like there’s this generational change taking place? Yeah? Oh,

Karl Mohan 24:06
100% right? So, you know, I, this is where I bring out my own analogies. Michael, do it? I have a 20 year old son, right? Well, yeah, and, and, you know, he’s a digital native. You know, he doesn’t know a time where the internet did not exist by the time he was old enough, you know, the smartphones were the thing. You know, there’s no flip phones or dial phones and so forth, right? So this little kid, two years ago, two years Yeah, just under two years ago, comes to me, and, you know, he’s been doing his research, and the legal age in Australia is 18 to open up financial services products, right? And can get your own share trading account and all of that. So he gets his share trading account, and he decides to invest in us shares. So I’m giving him a few educational tips and so forth. So. Right now, what the kid quickly learns is that trading in the US stock market would mean you waking up late in Australia and staying up during this time. And what he could not understand is why clearing and settlement could not occur. 24/7, now this is something. It just he wasn’t happy with t plus three, he was not happy at all because he sold some chairs. I love it. He’s expecting the cash. I don’t know, you know, 18 year old? Yeah, I think he was going to buy his car. So he sold some of his shares, wanting to buy this car and realize the money doesn’t hit your account. Yeah. And then he’s asking me, Dad, but when I’m trading on crypto, you’re getting the money instantaneously. I say, Well, that’s the power of the technology, right? That’s how it has been designed to operate. 24/7, there is no off switch, you know, once it’s on, it’s on and and you spot on. Michael, so you know, this, this is an evolution in thinking, and I think that’s going to drive change into the future as well. And I think it’s going to be a very positive future. Yeah, I

Michael Waitze 26:10
think so too. And I just, I watch this generational change happening everywhere. And, you know, again, they will come into the finance businesses, they come into insurance business, they come into all these new business and they’re like, I don’t understand why this isn’t just like, one click purchase for everything. That’s what Amazon does. Why can’t everybody do this kind of thing, right? And then the big companies sit there and just go, maybe we should be more like an internet company or like an E commerce company, and you can actually see it. I mean, I remember when I was sitting on a trading desk where there was bonds, options or equities. I was like, we should be able to settle this instantaneously, because the tech is already there. Like, when I make a trade, it goes to the exchange, it comes back, I get an acknowledgement done. What’s this? T plus three stuff? Well, we know what that is. That’s right. It’s, um,

Karl Mohan 26:54
why do I have to wait? You know?

Michael Waitze 26:55
Well, because the banks would be using your money to invest into other things for the three days that they don’t have to give it to you, but we that’s a conversation for another time. Can I ask you this too? Let’s just say there are 100 million people. Is I want to make sure I have this number right, right on the crypto.com platform. That’s a lot of people. Just objectively, it’s a huge number. Do you ever think about asset protection and insurance, you have this massive market. And the reason why I’m saying this is because banks have traditionally been the biggest distribution mechanism for insurance products, bank assurance, right? You know this already, but is there crypto assurance, right? Or crypto.com assurance, where you can start now selling insurance products on the assets or just on anything, right? And use that as a platform, because I know from my insurance conversations and the background that I have there that they’re looking always for digital platforms to create distribution mechanisms. Is this something that’s been thinking about or been thought

Karl Mohan 27:57
about? Oh, absolutely. Michael, so for every one of our customers, we assure them, and it’s very similar to the US FDIC guarantee, up to $250,000 worth of their crypto assets is protected now in saying that, you know, we take stringent measures to protect customer assets, sure, sure, sure, including having custody, and, you know, having one of the most robust security standards. But to answer your question in in directly, yes, we do. And up to $250,000 US, dollars that is of every customer, retail customer, is protected.

Michael Waitze 28:38
Okay, I want to ask a further question, though, and maybe I just didn’t say this the right way, the asset the asset protection, I completely understand. But if we’re talking about financial inclusion, right, a lot of financial inclusion is centered around having just regular insurance products, not related to the financial assets that you have. But a lot of the markets where this financial inclusion is becoming necessary, right? Because you don’t have access to bank accounts, and all the kind of stuff that you were talking about at the beginning is that they also don’t have access to just regular insurance products, health insurance, life insurance and stuff like that. And if you look at the 100 million people that you have on the platform, to the extent that any of them are in Asia or in Southeast Asia or in India, again, where insurance penetration is low, it just opens up a massive distribution possibility for non digital asset related insurance. But just like insurance itself, I’m just curious if you’ve thought about that, and if you haven’t, we can talk

Karl Mohan 29:32
about it later. Well, the fact that I answered your question very differently means have not thought about it, yeah. So today, you know, generally, the approach that we have taken to our customers is we offer products that we create and initiate ourselves. So it’s been direct normal issuance, right? Yep, and so we haven’t looked at us. Of as a distribution platform. And I don’t think that’s something we have thought through, or have been thinking through, because, you know, and this is the ethos of the company as well, is to actually ensure that the products and services that we offer our customers are something that we can stand by. Okay? And you know, whether, whether it’s our card or whether it’s crypto trading, whether it’s payments, we truly understand and stand by those products and services. And hence, today, you know, it’s been products that we have directly issued. I got it to the point where, you know, I can openly say this. You know, as organization, we even create our technologies and platforms to deliver those things, so we don’t use third party services and so forth, because we just want to have that assurance that our customers can and will be able to reap those benefits, which you know otherwise they can’t.

Michael Waitze 30:58
Do you dedicate any resources? Do you think about, like, financial literacy as well, right? In the sense that if you want to be financially included, and this gets back to the conversation that we were having earlier, right? Like, I grew up poor. You heard that in some of the other podcasts that I’ve done. And one of the problems of growing up in poverty is that you don’t understand, like, how to use money. I mean that very seriously, like, I wish somebody had told me a bunch of stuff in my teens and like 10s that I learned when I was 40 or 30, right? Because it just would have been so useful to know back then. And is there a place, and the answer is okay to be No, but I’m just curious, like, is there a place to have, like, seminars, or just some way for a company of this stature with that many users to also be involved in just educating people about why these products are necessary. Oh,

Karl Mohan 31:45
that’s a good segue for me to talk about the crypto.com University. Then, Oh, great. Go ahead. So we have the crypto.com University where, you know, it provides general information for customers only, customers, anyone, anyone, anywhere in the world, to learn about, you know, financial services, at least in our environment, to understand the basics. What is blockchain? You know, what is useful? What is investing in crypto look like, and so forth. So there is, there is a platform for it. Now. At the same time, Michael, we have been running a whole number of seminars, right, whether, domestically, regionally, globally, and these are to educate customers. So in fact, in two weeks time, we are holding one in Singapore, where we are bringing in, I think, about 4050, students, university students, for them to understand about compliance. So, you know, I know we talk about financial inclusion, but ultimately, in in financial services, compliance is a key component of it, yeah, and so getting these students to understand what it means to be compliant, right? What it means to prevent money laundering, what it means to ensure that you know you have proper safeguards, and how do you protect your money? And so forth, yeah, and, and, I think the biggest one that we are pushing for right now, and we have is working with, you know, not only law enforcement, but some of our bank partners to mitigate scams. I think, you know, we talk about financial inclusion. One of the scariest part that is occurring in in the world today is financial scams. Yep, you know, you have criminals looking at this as easy target, easy access, and therefore exploiting it. And this has happened throughout history, and I think it’s just perpetuated further. Yeah. I

Michael Waitze 33:36
mean, it’s way harder now, right? Because, again, in the old days, and I’ll put that in quotes. Just doing anything bad at scale was really hard, but the technology now allows you to do things really bad to so many people all at the same time and again. If you’re not financially literate, then you don’t understand what the scam is until it’s too late. And I know very well educated people that have had some weird stuff happen to them because they just weren’t paying attention, right? More than anything, anyway. But I love the fact that you’re not just talking to talk. You’re walking the walk by having this university thing where you’re out there actually teaching people, because that’s where the rubber hits the road, right? If you know what’s going on, you can make better decisions. What do you see coming like in the next, I don’t know, 13 to 19 months? That excites you.

Karl Mohan 34:22
Oh, Michael, I this is the part that juices me up. Go for it. I can already tell I think. I can’t give you the details of some of these, but I can provide generality. Please, please. You can hit the direction that we’re heading in. So obviously, partnership is a big thing. You know, in the next few weeks, months, we’ll be making a number of partnership announcement, not just our sports partnerships, which we have seen, but actual partnerships with, you know, service providers, financial institutions and so forth. The second focus for me is market penetration, you know, as you know, from the other part of my title, GM, for. Asia, Middle East and Africa. So we are marching down the path of being the most not only we already are the most regulated service provider on the planet, but to increase our global coverage. So that’s the second one that I’m really excited about, in some really exciting markets that we’ll be announcing soon as well. And finally, you know, for for me at least, is to continue driving product innovation. And you know, one of the things that I started this conversation with Michael is the convergence between defi and tradfi, and I think we are bringing some of that tradfi elements into defi, and I think that’s something that I’m personally involved in, which I’m really excited the next 1218, months. Another thing for for you to look out for.

Michael Waitze 35:47
I’d love to learn more about what’s going on in the Middle East and Africa. I think the story, because the story there’s just so different than it is. Right? Every market, I like to say, has its own sort of microstructures and nuances. I won’t take up a ton of your time on that, but maybe the next time we have you on the show after you, yeah, but after you’ve made some of these big announcements, I think would be great, because once you’re out there and those things are out in the regular market, and everybody knows about that, we can say, Okay, why did you do that thing? And then, how is Africa different from the Middle East? And we know what’s going on in the UAE. I mentioned the Emirates a little bit before. But then there’s, you know, burgeoning financial center in Africa as well, right? That a lot of people don’t think about and don’t talk about, but that’s going to be a big deal too. Africa has one point pick a number two, 3 billion people, 50 something countries. It’s the one of the youngest, youngest continents in the world,

Karl Mohan 36:37
right? So, yeah, I think the one of the key statistics is something like 70% of them are under 13.

Michael Waitze 36:45
Yeah. I mean, yeah, we can look at Nigeria’s. I can’t remember what the numbers are, but there are countries in Africa where the median age, the median age is like 19 or 20. It’s a very young continent, country. Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, look, this has been amazing there. I feel like we’ve been in a bunch on a bunch of different topics, but we’ve been at this for almost 40 minutes. I’m gonna let you go. This has been so cool. Karl Mohan, the GM for APAC in MEA and Global Head of Banking Partnerships of crypto.com we have to have you back on again. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. This was awesome.

Karl Mohan 37:16
Michael, this has been absolutely awesome. And you know, thank you again, once again. Thank you very much for having me on the show and looking forward to talking to talking to you again.