 Hello, my name is Joe. I'm here with David Olsen from BlockFi today And we're going to talk a little bit about Europe Institutions and of course the new money coming into cryptocurrency. So David, it's lovely to be with you today Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers and watchers at home? Sure. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks Joe for having me here And speaking with with us. I'm David Olsen. I'm the global head of institutional distribution of BlockFi For those of you that don't know about BlockFi, we're a financial services company in crypto that serves both retail Clients with wealth management products including crypto back loan and interest accounts Trading from one cryptocurrency to another and a Bitcoin rewards credit card in the US on the institutional side Which is the side that I'm most closely associated with yeah, we have a an institutional platform called BlockFi Prime Where our clients can finance For capital efficiency borrow coins for hedging and shorting as well as an Institutional grade trading infrastructure that they can avail themselves of Globally 24-7 Fantastic. Yeah, and of course we're we're here today in La Bourse, which is the former stock exchange and You know the big thing that everyone's talking about is institutional money, you know But before we get into that You of course have a big focus on Europe you spend a lot of time working in London and Cadet Suisse And what would you say is the strategic importance of BlockFi's European operations for the global group? At the moment BlockFi is really ramping up its international strategy. So we really think that it's Obviously the US is our is our base and where we're headquartered And where two-thirds of our clients are But we see a lot of opportunity and international expansion. We recently Incorporated a Bermuda entity and our staffing up there To be a hub for our international business So and moving our our retail clients and institutional clients into that entity But it's also important and we really feel that being a credible player means that we need to also be regulated And as we saw in the US we've you know, we've reached sort of a landmark Agreement with with the SEC and we'll also Be looking to participate in other markets that are extremely important One of those is Europe and the UK is the most obvious It's the most obvious place given the deep pool of talent As well as the financial the financial services industry there. Fantastic. Yeah I mean are there any interesting European or maybe UK trends to pick out from amongst, you know, the BlockFi Portfolio of clients that you manage Absolutely, so we have talked I would say out of the top 50 hedge funds in the world We've probably spoken to about 80% of them. Okay They all are embarking on some sort of crypto journey of starting a desk Mm-hmm or for the moment a lot of them are investing into crypto native firms run by 25 30 year olds that know how to extract alpha from From crypto capital markets know how to manage the risks. Yep And you really see it as a generational story So probably the people that are heads of trading at these at these firms long only asset managers are hedge funds Are you know my generation or older and so they don't have kind of the natural Digital native perspective that someone that's younger that are at these firms That you know that are really looking at at crypto markets at at the moment We're seeing some people go into some of the traditional firms Directly and getting hired in But at the moment, it's mostly not a balance sheet not on their own balance sheets, but investing through other through other firms Yeah, is the trend but We're just seeing a tremendous amount of interest. It's hard to keep it's hard to keep up at the moment Yeah, and I mean with obviously all the hectic activity here. You wouldn't know that we're in like a quote baby bear market Yeah, I think as well that hedge funds have been preparing for some time to come in to crypto given the liquidity and Institutionalization of space and that's continuing. Yeah. Yeah, let's ignore that this bear is right next to us, you know It's still a bull market, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's let's talk about that right now So Flory Marquez the co-founder of bloke by set a couple of days ago that she's you know incredibly bullish long-term on the crypto market I'm going to assume that you have the same sentiment Absolutely, yeah Well, what are the reasons to be bullish right now? Sure I think there's there's there's some some short-term bullish reasons and some long-term bullish reasons I think the short-term bullish reasons are that Crypto is the future right now. It's expressed mainly through some of the top coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum Bitcoin is a defense against monetary inflation and so it should see Money rotating into it as we see some of the inflationary data come in And if you look at it from a generational standpoint as well Anyone that's kind of Gen Y or Gen Z doesn't say oh, let me buy gold because there's been a hot inflation print They're thinking themselves. I need to protect what I'm earning. I'm gonna buy Bitcoin. It's really easy I can buy it through a block by app or through another app. Yeah, so I think that's and then Ethereum There's kind of a structural obviously a structural Play going on with the with the merge coming up And so that should also drive You know price action in the short term in the long term again I think it's it's down to crypto can do everything so it can fix the plumbing of the financial System worldwide it can eliminate Expensive fees from banks obviously black flies to see if I platform But we're all about friction having a frictionless And inexpensive way to access financial services around the world We know that's part of the international pivot is let's give people in places that don't have easy access to say US dollar we can give them access to stablecoins. We can give them access to loans. Yeah and so I think that There's so many different applications for crypto whether it's NFTs or web 3 Or just borrowing and lending derivatives That you'll find that there's a lot of reasons to be bullish absolutely glad to hear it Yeah, and so David you're obviously an industry veteran or a tradfire traditional finance veteran with your experience at good It's recent amongst others We've talked a bit about the institutional investment obviously sat in that books the former stock exchange is Institutional or institutional interest is clearly here is institutional investment here Yeah, I think so there was there's an interesting fidelity study That said that 70% of institutions plan to invest in Crypto in the next year 90% in the next five years. Okay. Yeah, I think it's There's two things driving it one is returns. Okay, Bitcoin for example has returned more than 100% on average of the last 10 years Yep, way more like I think if you look at equities over the same time period It's probably low T10 somewhere at 12% Yeah, so that's that's part of that's part of it And it's just becoming too big in the in terms of mind share for people for people to ignore in terms of the liquidity the infrastructure the ability to To earn outsize returns we're in such an early market. It's really retail dominated. So for professional investors There are lots of investing opportunities. Okay But is there or would you say is there a catalyst or like, you know, some sort of Acceleratory factor that's really going to get the institutions involved. Is it, you know price action or is it regulatory? What's that, you know missing link? I think that's a really that's a really excellent question Because what's missing right now is the predominant places where there's liquidity Those places do not have regulation So the institutions don't feel a hundred percent comfortable And that's why as a as a as a company we've always sought regulatory clarity and that was part of the ruling right, you know That we reach with the regulator. So Now we're seeing retail participation somewhat level out volumes and crypto have been flat down to get the next wave of adoption and Money come big money coming into crypto and that equals price returns Yeah, I'm freezing you need an institutional infrastructure, which means KYC AML Which means financial transparency cyber security all the things they care about okay I think we're gonna see and maybe some of your other interview guests will have alluded to this We're going to see them making big moves to make sure that If not if they don't have regulation necessarily yet They will have all the things that a regulator would require. Okay over the short term. Yeah Yeah, I presume that's your your biggest headache on a daily basis right this you know the regulatory clarity I think I Think so and it's it's what we're asking from from from our partners that at the regulator and it's coming slowly and We just need to operate in in a bit of and we've gotten used to operating in in it, you know a bit of a Gray zone there But we're really excited about the things that you know are growing on globally that the conversation has started in That it's being really Taken seriously for example with Biden in the executive order. Yeah, or some of the European regulation that's coming Fantastic. Well, David, it's a pleasure to speak to you today. We're really looking forward to seeing how BlockFi Develop in the in this year in 2022. Is there anything else you'd like to add before before we sign out from here? Sure I think as as a company as I said BlockFi we really want to expand our international business We've just launched a lot more coins on the platform that people can check out It's a very frictionless easy to use turnkey way to earn interest on those points And trade and trade them so I would just say check out your app if you're located outside the US Yeah, great way to finish Good. Thank you very much. My name is David with Cointelegraph. Thank you very much