Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mentor and I'm Mark Boris.
Speaker 2: Jason Dimmon, Welcome to the Mentor, Mate, Thanks very much,
Speaker 2: looking forward to having this chat.
Speaker 1: Good to see you again. I didn't get to talk
Speaker 1: to you much in was and it was in Vegas
Speaker 1: when the ENERL launch was on for the Vegas round
Speaker 1: opening round.
Speaker 2: I don't think either it's got too much of a chance.
Speaker 2: It was so much happening down there. It was pretty
Speaker 2: cool though, it was.
Speaker 1: It was fun, really exciting, like massive energy in places
Speaker 1: like that, like huge amount of energy. And swift x
Speaker 1: is of course, which is USCL swift x. I should
Speaker 1: have said that earlier, but swift x is one of
Speaker 1: the NRL's sponsors.
Speaker 2: We're really enjoying that sponsorship. You know, it's a great
Speaker 2: it's a great code. They really get into it, and
Speaker 2: a lot a lot of our customers, you know obviously
Speaker 2: in r L fans. So yeah, really enjoying it.
Speaker 1: So cryptocurrency exchange, which is what Swiftexas. We'll have to
Speaker 1: break that down because not everybody knows what and exchange is.
Speaker 1: Not everybody really understands what cryptocurrency is. Other than that
Speaker 1: it's a word that's getting thrown around all of these days.
Speaker 1: But these exchanges, of course had a little bit of
Speaker 1: a drama. Not your one, but others in particular one
Speaker 1: in America had a bit of a drama two years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about right. It's two years ago. Look, it's
Speaker 2: an exciting industry and it's only been around for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Probably the last four or five. People have really started
Speaker 2: to get into it. They really got into it for COVID.
Speaker 2: But to let people know, I mean, ultimately crypto a
Speaker 2: digital currency. There's probably about thirty or forty thousand of
Speaker 2: them out there. We only have four hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: of them listed on our exchange. And basically, people have
Speaker 2: their cash, come to us, deposit their cash with us,
Speaker 2: and we go globally and source the crypto for them
Speaker 2: and put it into their wallet, and then they can
Speaker 2: retain that as an investment or they can trade on
Speaker 2: that crypto. In simple terms, that's what we do.
Speaker 1: It's you have good like a stock exchange sort of thing.
Speaker 2: It's the new age stock exchange. It's the digital stock
Speaker 2: exchange for digital assets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And whereas the stock exchange is the exchange for
Speaker 1: listed shares in the stock exchange is the exchange for
Speaker 1: shares in listed companies probably a better way of putting
Speaker 1: it that are on there sub to the A six rules.
Speaker 1: But I will go through. Just get you to step
Speaker 1: us through that at a moment. But let's just a
Speaker 1: little bit of a chat about yourself for a moment.
Speaker 1: How long you been the CEO of swift swift.
Speaker 2: X twelve months as CEO of there for twelve months
Speaker 2: earlier than that, starting to work with the guys on
Speaker 2: their journey. The two young founders Alex and Angus only
Speaker 2: just turned thirty now. I joined them two years ago
Speaker 2: on that journey and then took over a CEO twelve
Speaker 2: months ago.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about alexand Angus. Angus, so
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about how Alex and Angers.
Speaker 2: They met at coding camp a number of years ago
Speaker 2: in Sydney. They were both coding, Yeah, just after school,
Speaker 2: just after school the two of them did. Angus was
Speaker 2: trading in crypto and saw that it was a really
Speaker 2: quite a frustrating, clunky process to go through, and certainly
Speaker 2: not many people would go through that unless you're a
Speaker 2: real crypto nerd, especially back then. And Alex is this
Speaker 2: sort of really downder Worth guy who wanted to democratize
Speaker 2: financial freedom. He was frustrated as well as a young
Speaker 2: guy coming through seeing how the traditional banking system and
Speaker 2: the financial system was clunky. They got together, certainly got
Speaker 2: together at a very good time, a great partnership. But
Speaker 2: they also got together at the beginning or just before
Speaker 2: Crypto went through one of its really big cycles through COVID,
Speaker 2: and they built this, built the exchange with the whole
Speaker 2: idea of democratizing financial freedom, making it easier for people
Speaker 2: to invest in crypto, and that's where the journey started.
Speaker 1: Maybe we just unpack it a little bit, or just
Speaker 1: before I do that. Where were you during this period?
Speaker 1: So their period their original period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, during that period, I had an e commerce platform, Nito,
Speaker 2: which became Australia's biggest and Telstra was an investor in that.
Speaker 2: So there was all for a while I was over.
Speaker 2: We grew that into fourteen countries and living in the
Speaker 2: US for a while there with it all growing it
Speaker 2: and selling what So it's an online platform for online retail,
Speaker 2: so we had like yeah, no, no, so it was
Speaker 2: e commerce.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but like a marketplace it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, in essence, ours was the back end smarts
Speaker 2: for companies like hose Link, like Edible Blooms, the man Shake,
Speaker 2: and some of the Spotlight Anaconda. We had all of
Speaker 2: those as clients, and Nito was a smart back end
Speaker 2: role of that that enabled them to go onto the
Speaker 2: website and purchase something, and then we had all the
Speaker 2: banking rails and everything behind. So I guess moving into
Speaker 2: crypto for me was not that distinct what I was doing.
Speaker 2: So Telstra was an investor and we sold to a
Speaker 2: North American company. I had also been investing in a
Speaker 2: number of startups and scale up companies myself, so that
Speaker 2: was kind of what I was doing. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: about four years ago, my wife, who had a financial
Speaker 2: education business and accounting practice that she sold into BDO,
Speaker 2: was running the CEO school for CEOs and giving him
Speaker 2: a lot of financial education. Alex attended that course. It
Speaker 2: was about a twelve week course and she said to me,
Speaker 2: you got to meet these young guys. A really interesting guy.
Speaker 2: So I met him about four years ago and we
Speaker 2: had some coffees and just sort of stayed in touch,
Speaker 2: and then about two years ago he asked me to
Speaker 2: sort of come on and help out so I sort
Speaker 2: of started in a contracting role because I had a
Speaker 2: number of other commitments and also on an ASX company
Speaker 2: that has a big investment in India, so I didn't
Speaker 2: have the ability to kind of do full time there.
Speaker 2: And things went along and to a point where twelve
Speaker 2: months ago, the guys thought they'd built something really great.
Speaker 2: They could see the global opportunity, but they were thinking
Speaker 2: they probably weren't the people that wanted to actually lead
Speaker 2: it directly. And that's when I stepped in as CEO.
Speaker 1: And were you a crypto trader?
Speaker 2: I was in a crypto investor, not a deep crypto
Speaker 2: djen like some people are, but definitely a crypto investor.
Speaker 2: I got the bug a couple of years earlier, started
Speaker 2: to really see this new form of money, new rails.
Speaker 2: I was never one of these people who thought that
Speaker 2: crypto was going to entirely debase a currency or entirely
Speaker 2: take away from the financial system, but I thought it
Speaker 2: would enhance it. So for me, I could just see
Speaker 2: crypto could enhance the existing financial system. Very excited to Bitcoin.
Speaker 2: I think it's, you know, the new digital goal for
Speaker 2: a whole number of reasons. So yeah, I was on
Speaker 2: the journey. I'd set up as well with my son.
Speaker 2: He was a teenager and getting into tech himself, and
Speaker 2: we set up a mining rig to mine bitcoin. So
Speaker 2: I was starting to get the bug.
Speaker 1: If you set up to mind the bitcoin that you did,
Speaker 1: definitely have the bug. It's interesting you when we talk
Speaker 1: about crypto, When we talk about bitcoin, they're sort of interchangeable,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes we talk about the way that cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: as you said, there's stacks of them, different types, but
Speaker 1: how they operate in terms of the programming and the
Speaker 1: software and the coding they sit on, which is sort
Speaker 1: of a distributed system. And I don't know whether most
Speaker 1: of our listeners would really understand the difference between the two,
Speaker 1: And maybe this would be a good opportunity to talk
Speaker 1: to someone about We're just leaving the exchange aside for
Speaker 1: a moment, just in terms of crypto, what is the
Speaker 1: attraction Because you mentioned traditional banking sometimes record referred to
Speaker 1: as fiat fiat, But what's the difference between the way
Speaker 1: the traditional banking system works in terms of systems electronics
Speaker 1: system to talk about compared to say, the way, for example,
Speaker 1: bitcoin works.
Speaker 2: Look, I've got a good example there, Mark that I
Speaker 2: could use it. I think most people would have experienced.
Speaker 2: And you talk about the Swift network, which is that
Speaker 2: global network that's been around for thirty to forty years
Speaker 2: of transferring money between countries between companies. There's about twelve
Speaker 2: different steps involved to transfer money bit one thousand dollars
Speaker 2: overseas or to another company or be it ten million dollars,
Speaker 2: so about twelve steps, and it will take between two
Speaker 2: to four days for that money to go through the
Speaker 2: banking system. So there's twelve different intermediary steps and into
Speaker 2: ten million bucks in the bank, and I want to
Speaker 2: send it to my grandma in India to buy a
Speaker 2: block of lats, there's twelve steps, twelve steps along the
Speaker 2: way take them to the additional banking It'll take three
Speaker 2: to four days, and that will probably cost you close
Speaker 2: to one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars to do it right.
Speaker 2: Crypto the rails the blockchain that it operates on, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter if it's Bitcoin or if it's a
Speaker 2: theoryum or XRP.
Speaker 1: So we're sitting on blockchain.
Speaker 2: They're all sitting on a blockchain that is more peer
Speaker 2: to peer, so it means from one from you to
Speaker 2: your grandma directly cuts out those twelve steps. It's two
Speaker 2: steps one to two steps instead of twelve. So you
Speaker 2: can imagine there's a lot of people and processes that
Speaker 2: are a lot of money that gets cut out along
Speaker 2: the way and done within seconds and done for a
Speaker 2: fraction of a dollar. That is really one of the
Speaker 2: biggest use cases of crypto. Lots of others out there.
Speaker 2: But if I was to try and explain to somebody,
Speaker 2: why would you be wanting to look at the importance
Speaker 2: of blockchain in crypto, I would say, just have a
Speaker 2: look at the way we're sending money traditionally, and look
Speaker 2: at what is being done now. Stable coins, which are
Speaker 2: a form of crypto which are backed on a stable asset,
Speaker 2: the US dollar, the Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar. Last year,
Speaker 2: the total global volume of that or sorry value not volume,
Speaker 2: was greater than the total value of transactions on MasterCard
Speaker 2: and Visa Card put together.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So it's here, It's here to stay, and in fact
Speaker 2: it's actually starting to really infiltrate the financial system. All
Speaker 2: the big banks are using it in their trading desks.
Speaker 2: They might be out there publicly saying, you know, retail
Speaker 2: we're not sure about this crypto. We want to try
Speaker 2: and block things with crypto, but their own trading desks
Speaker 2: are using it. And as I said, there's no hiding
Speaker 2: the fact that the value of cryptocurrency transactions last year
Speaker 2: was bigger than master card and block chain glob globally. Yes, no, no,
Speaker 2: not in Australia. I'm talking on the global rails.
Speaker 1: So just in terms of blockchain, maybe it just give
Speaker 1: us a minute or two explanation of what blockchain does
Speaker 1: that the normal electronic systems in a normal banking system
Speaker 1: don't do.
Speaker 2: Look, the easiest way to look at blockchains is literally
Speaker 2: as a physical block and each transaction is building on
Speaker 2: the former one, so it's so distributed. So I think
Speaker 2: you talked about it before. The traditional banking system is centralized,
Speaker 2: and the blockchain in the crypto is essentially decentralized, so
Speaker 2: those transactions are recorded on many computers around the world.
Speaker 2: That's the blockchain on the blockchain, so very very hard
Speaker 2: for those transactions to be erased, deleted, interfered with. So
Speaker 2: that's number one, a much more secure system. It can
Speaker 2: happen much faster because it's not just using a few computers.
Speaker 2: It's using many computers, so that's the essence of it.
Speaker 2: And then there's the visibility and the traceability of it.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you or of any of your
Speaker 2: listeners have ever had to try and trace some of
Speaker 2: that money that was transferred virgin possible on the blockchain.
Speaker 2: It is highly traceable.
Speaker 1: What following you Uber, you can see where it is.
Speaker 2: That's another great example, and I mean I think that's
Speaker 2: the new technologies that we've seen in business models Uber,
Speaker 2: AIRB and B. They're very visible, transparency, big deal for
Speaker 2: those things. It is and you can see it and trust.
Speaker 2: Transparency and trust when you're talking financial as set's probably
Speaker 2: a little bit harder to sometimes see exactly what's happening
Speaker 2: and for us to understand it. In the traditional system, Yes,
Speaker 2: in the traditional and we distrust the bank to do
Speaker 2: it for us. We do, and look, it kind of works.
Speaker 2: There's no doubt about it that the banking system works.
Speaker 2: But it's clunky and it's unnecessarily expensive. What crypto and
Speaker 2: the blockchain offers is a new way, a much more
Speaker 2: secure way, a much quicker way, and a much cheaper way,
Speaker 2: and more transparent and more transparent.
Speaker 1: You can watch it. You can absolutely you can see
Speaker 1: it happen.
Speaker 2: You can see it. And the exciting thing is going
Speaker 2: to be for global trade as well, and that's what
Speaker 2: I talked about the stable coins and things like that.
Speaker 2: It's going to give the big mining companies, agricultural companies,
Speaker 2: and in fact the small traders as well that are
Speaker 2: in regional Australia and regional countries that ability to deal
Speaker 2: directly with supplies and see their money going through and
Speaker 2: get money, will get their goods put on ships put
Speaker 2: on planes much quicker. So cryptos had a real growth
Speaker 2: and talked about a lot of retail investors and speculating
Speaker 2: on it, and that's where it started. The interesting thing
Speaker 2: is that the traditional financial system bonds and that which
Speaker 2: started in the eighties and the nineties, started at an
Speaker 2: institutional level and moved down and was eventually offered to retailers.
Speaker 2: Crypto's exact reverse. Not necessarily sure why in some reasons,
Speaker 2: But so cryptos started at retail, but is now very
Speaker 2: much moving into the institutional space and starting to mature.
Speaker 2: And you're seeing that, and we're starting to see countries
Speaker 2: around the world regulate in the space as well. So
Speaker 2: tell me about the exchange platform that has been established
Speaker 2: for swift x and in relation to people who may
Speaker 2: want to buy and or sell or exchange cryptocurrency. So
Speaker 2: what does swift exes exchange look like. So it's a website.
Speaker 2: You come on to the website, and in fact, one
Speaker 2: of the things that we push really hard is education.
Speaker 2: So we have a whole section of our website that
Speaker 2: educates people about the asset class, how we suggest you buy,
Speaker 2: how we suggest you trade, without giving financial advice, but
Speaker 2: we certainly lay it all out there for people to
Speaker 2: make their own decisions. We also have built a demo
Speaker 2: mode so you can go in and without your actual cash.
Speaker 2: But in essence, it's a website. You go on, you
Speaker 2: can establish an account like you do pretty much in
Speaker 2: any digital platform these days. You sign up for an account,
Speaker 2: you transfer, you don't have to put anything into it,
Speaker 2: you don't have to know. You can just simply an
Speaker 2: account yep, there if you want to put something into it.
Speaker 2: We obviously have codes that you can transfer money to
Speaker 2: that money will be in your account within seconds, so
Speaker 2: it gives people a high degree of confidence as well.
Speaker 2: Whenever I transfer money between banks twenty four hours before
Speaker 2: that money is there. This will be within seconds. You
Speaker 2: will have transferred it out of your bank into swift
Speaker 2: x in most instances, and it'll be there within seconds,
Speaker 2: or you'll at least have a notification that we're waiting
Speaker 2: on it from your bank, even if your bank holds
Speaker 2: it up, so you'll transfer the money. There's a digital
Speaker 2: or a virtual wallet. Think of it possibly as a
Speaker 2: big circle, and you'll see how much fear you've put
Speaker 2: on there. One thousand dollars of cash, five, ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: This stage is just it's just sitting there. It's just
Speaker 2: normal money. It's just normal money. It's just normal money.
Speaker 2: You'll then look through a list of assets and tick
Speaker 2: the list Bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, whichever ones you might choose.
Speaker 2: You can do one or more tick that list, and
Speaker 2: in the background you'll say how much of it you
Speaker 2: want to buy, will go out and work out what's
Speaker 2: what's it currently selling for, and we'll deduct that off.
Speaker 2: So if you had ten thousand dollars in there and
Speaker 2: you wanted to buy five thousand dollars of XRP, it'll
Speaker 2: deduct that off and you'll have, say nine hundred and
Speaker 2: ninety eight dollars there of it, and you'll see in
Speaker 2: your ledger how much cash you've got there, and you'll
Speaker 2: see how much crypto. And then the other beautiful thing
Speaker 2: about crypto and the swift x platform is every three
Speaker 2: seconds we're updating that price to market to market, so
Speaker 2: my stocks, I can only really look at my stocks
Speaker 2: when they're trading during the trading hours of nine am
Speaker 2: to four pm the Australian market, the US, the European whatever, crypto.
Speaker 2: I open my swift x wallet and twenty four to
Speaker 2: seven good, all bad, because let's face it, investments go
Speaker 2: up and down, but I can see all of my
Speaker 2: investments real time twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: It's giving you the value in says dollars or so
Speaker 1: sort of, well.
Speaker 2: It's giving you that. It's giving you the value of
Speaker 2: that asset and then you'll be able to see it
Speaker 2: back in terms of your portfolio in Aussie dollars as well.
Speaker 1: You can convert about to dozzy dollars and say, like you,
Speaker 1: I started ten grand.
Speaker 2: It's all done automatically, so you'll be able to see
Speaker 2: the value of your portfolio, your ten thousand dollars. If
Speaker 2: it's going up, you'll see that maybe it's worth twelve
Speaker 2: five hundred. You've still got that five thousand dollars of cash,
Speaker 2: but it was your investment in your XRP that's gone
Speaker 2: up to and a half thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay, So yeah, okay, So and if I'm moved to America,
Speaker 1: can I still access it just the same, exactly the same.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I would think of it.
Speaker 1: Back.
Speaker 2: We talked before a bit about Airbnb, Uber those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. You access the same Uber app no matter
Speaker 2: where you are in the world. You access your swift
Speaker 2: x app no matter where you are in the world,
Speaker 2: albeit with ex additional security provisions that we allow people
Speaker 2: to turn on with facial recognition and those sorts of
Speaker 2: things as well.
Speaker 1: So can we talk about that just for a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes. What are the security systems or that sort
Speaker 1: of Obviously there's a code, or there's a facial recognition
Speaker 1: or I don't know, fingerprint, What are you using to
Speaker 1: make sure that it's me on my mobile phone on
Speaker 1: the app? Looking at what I've got.
Speaker 2: We're using quite a few things. The challenge often times
Speaker 2: is how hard do you make it for people versus
Speaker 2: what action friction. So we have just over fifty percent
Speaker 2: of our customers that use two factor authentication. It is
Speaker 2: something that we're constantly talking to them about. Why people
Speaker 2: don't use it, I don't know, So you talk about
Speaker 2: it on the swift x app. You could use a password,
Speaker 2: so we give you the choice, and you can have
Speaker 2: multiple layers of security, so you can have a physical password,
Speaker 2: you can log out every single time, log back in
Speaker 2: facial recognition, so we use biometrics with facial recognition, we
Speaker 2: have two factor authentication, and then sitting behind the scene,
Speaker 2: we have some pretty sophisticated monitoring tools that monitor your transactions.
Speaker 2: So very similar to the very similar to the banks.
Speaker 2: If you go overseas and haven't advised them, or you
Speaker 2: have unusual credit card transactions, they may block it, they
Speaker 2: may stop you, and we will do a similar thing.
Speaker 2: Why if your transactions are looking suspicious, if we suspect
Speaker 2: that you might be acting as a money mule or
Speaker 2: something which you know, we've heard a lot about scams
Speaker 2: and the likes. Swift Tex has got systems in the
Speaker 2: background which will kind of recognize through algorithms and start
Speaker 2: to block transactions until we can get in touch with
Speaker 2: you and go through a series of identification steps to
Speaker 2: make sure that it is you, to make sure that
Speaker 2: that is a transaction that you're actually wanting to undertake.
Speaker 1: So in my case, I download the app onto here,
Speaker 1: I can put it anywhere, but I got onto here.
Speaker 1: I open the app. The apps that may immediately send
Speaker 1: me a text.
Speaker 2: Yes, ye you, you'll have it. Within the app, you
Speaker 2: get a number of notif caations. We'll also hopefully you
Speaker 2: will have given us your mobile so you can have
Speaker 2: texts and you'll have emails. What we never do and
Speaker 2: is something we always say, we will never ask you
Speaker 2: for your personal details via text.
Speaker 1: So if someone does, you know that's a skin that's
Speaker 1: a scam, that's so, And then I can I can
Speaker 1: also opt to have facial identification of facial recognition out
Speaker 1: of the app to open the app correct, yep, correct,
Speaker 1: and I so UI metrics, I guess are the.
Speaker 2: Most times you'd have some security on your phone to
Speaker 2: get into your phone. Usually it's then within that the
Speaker 2: swift x app. Ideally you will have turned on all
Speaker 2: or as many as you're comfortable with security provisions as well,
Speaker 2: so before you can open that app, before you can
Speaker 2: trade or transact. There will be the biometrics, there will
Speaker 2: be a pass code, there'll be two factor authentication, and
Speaker 2: then depending on what you do within the app as well,
Speaker 2: we may in behind the scenes block something and if
Speaker 2: we deem it as unusual for your protection, we'll reach
Speaker 2: out to you as well and try to get some
Speaker 2: verification that that is you who wants to have that
Speaker 2: transaction process. So it's a pretty deep layer of security
Speaker 2: that we've put around it.
Speaker 1: Very good. So I'm want to go the brain comes
Speaker 1: straight back from the break and I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about So what are the risks? I mean
Speaker 1: that you just addline a number of the mitigating things
Speaker 1: that you use in relation to the app, the swift
Speaker 1: x app, But what are the risks that you guys?
Speaker 1: I mean risks, risks as a continuum, it doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: There's always new things coming through. And what are some
Speaker 1: of the risks that people need to be aware of.
Speaker 1: How do you educate us? And I want to take
Speaker 1: me through some of this education program. How do I
Speaker 1: choose I'm not looking for a financial advice, but how
Speaker 1: do you guide us as to crypto? Which currency we
Speaker 1: may be considering, you know, should it be my bitcoin
Speaker 1: and therefore why you mentioned earlier, could be the digital
Speaker 1: goal of the future. And you know we've seen what
Speaker 1: goal's done more recently, given all the uncertaintment, goals that
Speaker 1: are an all time high at the moment. Sure is
Speaker 1: crazy number, but you know what, we're there because you know,
Speaker 1: we don't get a dividend out of crypto or digital currencies.
Speaker 1: You don't get a dividend out of that, but they
Speaker 1: do grow and you can make a profit, So you
Speaker 1: may do that to be dividing, but it's not. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's not like a coupon and you just
Speaker 1: read coupon on you on your money, so to speak.
Speaker 1: So what are the defensive measures might be reasons why
Speaker 1: people do go into cryptocurrencies, and I like talked about
Speaker 1: about that after the break.
Speaker 2: Sounds great, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: So I'm back from the break and we are talking
Speaker 1: about all things crypto and swift text being the one
Speaker 1: of the exchanges that you know are available for us
Speaker 1: to use in relation to trading, buying, selling, just checking
Speaker 1: our value of our crypto, the things that we've been
Speaker 1: trading and or using. I guess I'd like to know
Speaker 1: from you a lot of people are nervous about it. Okay,
Speaker 1: they get not about swift text, not about exchange. It
Speaker 1: was just generally crypto. They're nervous about it. And because
Speaker 1: there's you know, allegations of and I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's true or not, but you know, this is a
Speaker 1: major criminal sort of trade. It's probably what it used
Speaker 1: to happen anyway, probably not so much these days. But
Speaker 1: you know, criminals love to trade in crypto because there's
Speaker 1: no cash, no actual folding money involved, and they can
Speaker 1: get the money place anywhere in the world, or they
Speaker 1: can go on access it, I should say anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world. You know, they might make some big drug
Speaker 1: deal in Australia, some other drug person pays them in
Speaker 1: crypto and they go and pick it up in I
Speaker 1: won't suggest a country, but somewhere overseas and they turn
Speaker 1: that back into cash at a local bank and away
Speaker 1: they go. Or man. In fact, they might not know
Speaker 1: about casually misgone by assets using the crypto. They might
Speaker 1: come by a house or a resort or a ship
Speaker 1: or something. Whatever these criminals do. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they do, but you know, how do some of the
Speaker 1: swift eggs get us around that, like, get that fear
Speaker 1: out of our actual normal day to day processing of
Speaker 1: what we've decided to about cryptocurrency. What do you tell us?
Speaker 2: Look, I think you've raised a few good points there.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit for me to unpack in terms
Speaker 2: of fraud scams. There's actually more frauds and schemes happening
Speaker 2: with cash, definitely and the traditional financial system. Having said
Speaker 2: that that, there are frauds and schemes that definitely happen
Speaker 2: within crypto. The industry was in its infancy fifteen years
Speaker 2: ago and it was used in those days for a
Speaker 2: large number of nefarious activities, but over the last seven
Speaker 2: to eight years, and I don't think this is so
Speaker 2: I'm glad you've raised because I don't think this has
Speaker 2: really come out in media, and potentially there are other
Speaker 2: interested parties that sometimes continue to kind of pile on
Speaker 2: to try and put the industry down all those who
Speaker 2: don't want to but those who don't want it to
Speaker 2: be in them don't want to see the industry succeed.
Speaker 2: So what I will say around that is that the
Speaker 2: industry is really conscious of that. The KYC, so the
Speaker 2: Know Your Customer and the AML, the anti money laundering,
Speaker 2: which is really global provisions. Each country has its own.
Speaker 2: We're told as we meet with a number of the
Speaker 2: banks that swift Ex's procedures are stronger and better than
Speaker 2: a lot of the banks. Now, people don't generally know
Speaker 2: that as a new industry to be fair much easier
Speaker 2: than older industries that are building on legacy systems. So
Speaker 2: for us, we have pretty strong identification metrics around that.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of platforms TRM labs, chainalysis, and
Speaker 2: a number of different platforms globally that are combining and
Speaker 2: looking at all of the different transactions, bringing data together
Speaker 2: and sharing that with federal authorities globally. So there's a
Speaker 2: huge has been for the last seven or eight years,
Speaker 2: huge crackdown on that. So what I would say to
Speaker 2: people is it's generally a pretty safe industry from that
Speaker 2: point of view, and a lot of works being done
Speaker 2: by the industry to make sure that there are just
Speaker 2: reputable players in it. Having said that, whenever you're dealing
Speaker 2: with your own personal finances, you've got to have a
Speaker 2: heightened sense of awareness. It doesn't matter whether you're carrying
Speaker 2: cash with you under your mattress or whether you're dealing
Speaker 2: entirely in the digital economy and crypto, and you have
Speaker 2: no bank accounts, you've got to be We touched on
Speaker 2: it earlier in terms of you know, the security on
Speaker 2: the phone, et cetera, keip awareness. What I say to
Speaker 2: people is just understand you've worked hard for your money,
Speaker 2: don't let someone else take it. Always have a level
Speaker 2: of kind of suspicion around it, and make sure you
Speaker 2: deal with reputable players, ask questions as well. So I
Speaker 2: think that's the base level what I would say in
Speaker 2: terms of the idea of what do you invest in?
Speaker 2: That's another interesting issue for us in the industry, and
Speaker 2: particularly here in Australia, where there's up to twenty percent
Speaker 2: of Australians already invested in crypto. Independent studies show there's
Speaker 2: another fifteen to twenty percent, So we're going to have
Speaker 2: forty percent of Australians invested in crypto in the next
Speaker 2: twenty four months. We still don't have regulation in this country,
Speaker 2: so we've spent forty years building up a financial planning
Speaker 2: industry and telling people to go and speak to financial planners.
Speaker 2: They don't have crypto on their approved product list, so
Speaker 2: very hard for people to get independent financial planning advice
Speaker 2: from regulated financial planners. So that's an issue, and that
Speaker 2: also leads to the lack of understanding. It's probably why
Speaker 2: swift tex is over indexed with our education page. Why
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you, why I put a lot of
Speaker 2: time talking to people and trying to help educate them
Speaker 2: about the industry and help them get themselves educated. There
Speaker 2: is definitely also some credible information on YouTube and social media,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of disinformation and lack of credibility.
Speaker 2: So be discerning, like anything in life, if you're going
Speaker 2: to make a big purchase, we'll spend your money, exercise
Speaker 2: some level of caution and some level of their The
Speaker 2: way I look at crypto is there's probably three different types,
Speaker 2: the more or less the blue chip. If we relate
Speaker 2: back to the equities market, there's probably about twenty different
Speaker 2: cryptos that.
Speaker 1: I don't think are going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: They still have a level of volatility, but their volatility
Speaker 2: is coming down because their use cases is becoming a
Speaker 2: lot stronger. Then there's the for example coins, so we've
Speaker 2: talked about bit coin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, so there's some
Speaker 2: of the ones that have been around for many years
Speaker 2: and they have got some strong stability about them. Then
Speaker 2: there's the old coins coins sit below them. There could
Speaker 2: be Suey, there could be Polygon, a few of those.
Speaker 2: Then there's the meme coins. Meme coins have some use cases.
Speaker 2: If people are listening out there, you might have seen.
Speaker 2: And this is not something that the industry has certainly endorsed.
Speaker 2: But if a meme coin would be an example of
Speaker 2: the doge coin would be exact that Elon Musk has
Speaker 2: been involved in, or the Trump or the Millennia meme coin,
Speaker 2: So that's an exact sample of that. What I say
Speaker 2: about crypto is two things. One, it definitely was a
Speaker 2: speculative asset when it first started. I think we talked
Speaker 2: about earlier in this podcast. The use cases that I
Speaker 2: started to show for using it. Each crypto project should
Speaker 2: they don't all so if they don't have one, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't invest in them. A white paper, So every crypto
Speaker 2: token should have out there on the website a white
Speaker 2: paper which it talks about its use case. Why is
Speaker 2: it useful now? XRP I'd mentioned is one that claims
Speaker 2: a lot of its use case is good for making
Speaker 2: payments for payments for well payments digital, between the company's governments,
Speaker 2: et cetera. One is ethereum, which is used a lot
Speaker 2: in gaming. So just to go really basic, they should
Speaker 2: have a white paper that talks about that. But the
Speaker 2: next point, and this is what swift x is working
Speaker 2: a lot on because you touched on it before, and
Speaker 2: this is the intersect we need to have with regulation.
Speaker 2: We've got to be careful where regulation is and licensing.
Speaker 2: At the moment, you're right, you go and buy it,
Speaker 2: and all you're doing is sitting there waiting for that
Speaker 2: asset to go up or down as an investment or
Speaker 2: you're trading it. And a lot of people have very
Speaker 2: successfully traded them. They've taken the feed out, they've used
Speaker 2: it for a deposit on their house or buying buying
Speaker 2: a full house. There's lots of stories of people trading,
Speaker 2: lots of stories of people investing. But what's also happening
Speaker 2: now and swift x is soon to be releasing crypto
Speaker 2: back loans, so you can retain your crypto, your bitcoin
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars a bitcoin, and we'll be lending
Speaker 2: against that so you can get the continue to hold
Speaker 2: that asset. If you think it's going to go up
Speaker 2: and you'll be able to borrow against.
Speaker 1: It, sort of like a margin line.
Speaker 2: I guess you similar to a margin loan.
Speaker 1: It leaves like buying against shares for correctly.
Speaker 2: Yep, you're also going to have crypto back to credit
Speaker 2: cards and be able to start to make payments as
Speaker 2: well with crypto, and the other point you touched on
Speaker 2: earning interest on it or a return of dividends like shares.
Speaker 2: There is the concept in crypto of staking, so once
Speaker 2: someone licensing approvals are through and some changes there, there's
Speaker 2: an ability for customers to earn on a number of cryptos.
Speaker 2: We talked about the blockchain before. The proof of stake
Speaker 2: is a way of proving the transaction on the blockchain
Speaker 2: and you get paid for putting your crypto out there
Speaker 2: to do it. In simple terms, so there's a portion
Speaker 2: of that like interest. Now it might be two or
Speaker 2: three percent, it might be four or five percent or
Speaker 2: fifteen percent or higher. It depends. It's the same as
Speaker 2: traditional financial system. There's some risks involved with that. But
Speaker 2: so we talk about the crypto project having a white
Speaker 2: paper and a purpose and if that goes well, that
Speaker 2: crypto should and is demand, you'll see the price of
Speaker 2: that crypto go up. But in addition to that, I
Speaker 2: talked about bringing the traditional financial system and the digital
Speaker 2: financial system together, so that enables the margin lending on
Speaker 2: the crypto. It enables the use cases for credit cards
Speaker 2: and payments, which there are retailers starting to accept crypto
Speaker 2: for payments now, and it enables the idea of earning
Speaker 2: interest or staking revenue on your crypto. So you might
Speaker 2: see now that there's a lot more use cases for
Speaker 2: the crypto, just beyond the fact that it may go
Speaker 2: up or down, or that it was a trading asset.
Speaker 2: So this is what we're seeing is the maturing of
Speaker 2: the industry.
Speaker 1: So that's an interesting one. So let's say let's pick
Speaker 1: a retailer and we won't retailer X and let's say
Speaker 1: the Australian and let's say if they decide to accept crypto,
Speaker 1: is it more likely that the exchange or whoever is
Speaker 1: going to will issue a cryptocurrency credit card and then
Speaker 1: you go to buy that item, perhaps online, with your
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency crypto credit card, and that credit card just goes
Speaker 1: straight into your account and charges you. Like in my
Speaker 1: own credit card at the moment, not being a credit
Speaker 1: card like a debit card probably closer closer to or
Speaker 1: or is it or is the retailer more likely to
Speaker 1: charge you feit normal dollars, but the credit card converts
Speaker 1: it into goes into your wallet and grabs out of
Speaker 1: it whatever it is in bitcoin that needs to be
Speaker 1: converted into fear to pay the retailer.
Speaker 2: You've actually think you've actually no, so it'll we both.
Speaker 2: There'll be both use cases that we'll be able to offer,
Speaker 2: so you will be able to have it. And part
Speaker 2: of this, you might see where we're going here is
Speaker 2: the idea that you can do everything if you wish
Speaker 2: within swift X, So if you wish, you can operate
Speaker 2: entirely within that ecosystem, so like a MasterCard or absolutely
Speaker 2: so the whole idea is with that card. And these
Speaker 2: days not many of us are getting physical cards. We've
Speaker 2: usually got digital card on our wallet, in our Apple.
Speaker 1: Wallet for example.
Speaker 2: So you will be able to go to the retailer
Speaker 2: and the retailer can accept that in fear cash, in
Speaker 2: which case, when it's ready to pay off your credit card,
Speaker 2: that will be taken out of your crypto account account
Speaker 2: or your wallet or alternatively, and what we're seeing is
Speaker 2: particularly not so much in Australia yet, but we're seeing
Speaker 2: it in Europe a lot, seeing it in Asia, starting
Speaker 2: to see it in the US where retailers are taking
Speaker 2: some of the cryptos as a form of payment actual actually,
Speaker 2: so there's no conversion.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing is, and this is we don't all
Speaker 2: have the answer for it. But the exciting thing, and
Speaker 2: one of the things that has drawn me to the
Speaker 2: industry is how many different use cases. But if you
Speaker 2: think about it, and most of us travel overseas, we've
Speaker 2: got to go and get a travel card, we go
Speaker 2: and convert currencies, et cetera. And there's significant I talked
Speaker 2: earlier about how institutions and any of us that transfer
Speaker 2: money internationally have these twelve steps. It's a similar lot
Speaker 2: of friction costs when you're moving money internationally into different currencies.
Speaker 2: If you think about it, the bitcoin, the XRP cryptocurrency
Speaker 2: is are global. It doesn't matter where you are, So
Speaker 2: this notion unless you're on ramping and off ramping, so
Speaker 2: converting into cash, converting or into crypto, and vice versa.
Speaker 2: The transaction fees are fractions, so you're actually not having
Speaker 2: the conversion fee of the foreign currency exchange.
Speaker 1: Who will take that risk? Though?
Speaker 2: Well, you see, crypto is global, so you might get
Speaker 2: some you might get some fees, but spending crypto anywhere
Speaker 2: you won't need to have the exchange risk.
Speaker 1: So if I'm the retailer and I'm accepting bitcoin.
Speaker 2: Sorry, the volatility, the volatility risk you will accept as
Speaker 2: the retailer. As a retail you'll accept the retailer. What
Speaker 2: a lot of them are doing at the moment is
Speaker 2: as soon as the transaction happens, the retailer is virtually
Speaker 2: settling or batch settling into cash, so they're avoiding that risk.
Speaker 1: Any Are there any people that there offering your hedging
Speaker 1: these transactions?
Speaker 2: There are as well, not at the not at the
Speaker 2: retail level, but at the institutional hedging is becoming a
Speaker 2: big market. The derivatives market, the global derivatives market is
Speaker 2: larger than the spot crypto market by many times. So
Speaker 2: these are the sorts of things when most of us
Speaker 2: think about cryptos still, we think about it from a
Speaker 2: retail perspective, because we think our own use cases which
Speaker 2: are growing. And I guess what I've tried to highlight
Speaker 2: in this conversation and just by the retails there is
Speaker 2: that it's starting to permeate itself into the financial system
Speaker 2: and it's creating a more efficient, more transparent financial system.
Speaker 2: It's slowly happening and people are starting to see it.
Speaker 2: But I think you're going to find over the next
Speaker 2: couple of years that it's really going to the use
Speaker 2: cases and the work that's being done on the back.
Speaker 2: I talk about the industry a bit and it's probably
Speaker 2: similar to my use case. It's going from the suits,
Speaker 2: from the hoodies to the suits.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The industry is growing up. There are an incredible number
Speaker 2: of people from traditional financial services that are disillusioned, a
Speaker 2: lot of people early and late in their career that
Speaker 2: are moving out, a lot of traditional financial players into crypto,
Speaker 2: and that is turbo charging the industry. It was started.
Speaker 2: Its giving liquidity, it's giving it liquidity, it's giving it
Speaker 2: an understanding, it's helping with the risk side of things,
Speaker 2: all of that sort of stuff and the maturity, and
Speaker 2: it's helping with use cases. So it's definitely exciting industry
Speaker 2: to be following.
Speaker 1: So in I think it was twenty twenty two, maybe
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, we had the one of the world's
Speaker 1: largest exchanges run in a bit of trouble with one
Speaker 1: of its founders or through one of its founders, and
Speaker 1: they actually end up resting one of this founder in
Speaker 1: I don't know, Cayman Islands or something like that, and
Speaker 1: the issue was that he and others but some are
Speaker 1: able to access money sitting in people's accounts in anticipation
Speaker 1: of them going to buy something.
Speaker 2: That's largely what it was here. And I think they
Speaker 2: excided him back from they did they go back and
Speaker 2: he's in jail.
Speaker 1: Now he is in jail, is okay? So what has
Speaker 1: swift x done around that area to make sure that
Speaker 1: anyone who deals in swift x or uses swift x
Speaker 1: doesn't have to lay better than not worrying about that
Speaker 1: sort of shit.
Speaker 2: Look, whenever those instances go down in any industry, the
Speaker 2: bad actors cause people to be concerned. It also causes,
Speaker 2: though good operators like swift x to really look in
Speaker 2: wood and go, are we doing enough? What else could
Speaker 2: we be doing? And how do we communicate that to people?
Speaker 1: So, but you need a bad actor in the first place.
Speaker 1: Some with bad.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately you need them, and fortunately they're still out there
Speaker 2: and will continue. So I think back to that thing.
Speaker 2: You know, people that want to get involved in this industry,
Speaker 2: they need to do their research, look at reputable players,
Speaker 2: look at players that are out there doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: But the traditional financial markets have always had the client
Speaker 2: money's rule and the separation of client assets from company assets.
Speaker 2: That's something that swift x takes really seriously. We know
Speaker 2: every cent of a client of customers money and that
Speaker 2: does not get mixed with our own. So we have
Speaker 2: our own separate ledges. We know what's our company money
Speaker 2: and we know what's our customers money. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of work going into that whole custody area, and that's
Speaker 2: another area once the regulation comes in in terms of it,
Speaker 2: and in the traditional financial model there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of separation of that. So there's a lot of custody
Speaker 2: players now, third party highly reputable custody players as well,
Speaker 2: where people can or wear the asse sets are actually stored,
Speaker 2: so and a lot more transparency around since since the
Speaker 2: blow up off that company.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about are you talking about the sort
Speaker 1: of like the likes of perpetual trust in those sorts
Speaker 1: of organizations.
Speaker 2: Or they're probably not getting into it. But yes, they
Speaker 2: have a place in which they play in the traditional
Speaker 2: financial services, but in similar similar concept ye. So there's
Speaker 2: a custodians custodians yea, the whole custodi or model that
Speaker 2: people are comfortable with and used to in traditional financial services.
Speaker 1: It adds cost, but it does add.
Speaker 2: Security and it's an important trust layer. And that trust
Speaker 2: layer is being built into the into the crypto landscape.
Speaker 1: Now. So how is swift Eggs dealing with the regulatory environment?
Speaker 1: Are they on the front foot?
Speaker 2: Are they talking to Australian governments about the possibilities to
Speaker 2: make it let's maybe build a layer and an additional
Speaker 2: layer of trust where you guys with the Australian regular Regulator.
Speaker 2: I think we've touched a fair bit in this conversation
Speaker 2: around education and the government and the opposition need that
Speaker 2: education as well. Swift x is one of the operators
Speaker 2: here in Australia and we have a couple of industry associations,
Speaker 2: so between the Digital Economy of Australia, the Decal we
Speaker 2: called Fintech Australia and the Tech Council of Australia, So
Speaker 2: three large industry bodies that do talk a lot about policy.
Speaker 2: So we're members of those three. We accompany them to
Speaker 2: a number of meetings with current government and opposition and
Speaker 2: it's been a real education process. So swift x has
Speaker 2: We've really linked in to have the conversation because I
Speaker 2: think it's important for Australians and I think it's important
Speaker 2: not only from a consumer protection perspective. I talked about
Speaker 2: the financial planning need for financial planners to be able
Speaker 2: to give advice, but I also see that blockchain and
Speaker 2: crypto and digital assets can become a fifth major economic
Speaker 2: pillar for Australia. It's very unlikely Australia is going to
Speaker 2: become a manufacturing hub, but something like blockchain and crypto,
Speaker 2: where we're using our intellectual capital, if we get the
Speaker 2: legislation right where it's sufficiently innovative but it's got consumers
Speaker 2: protections built in. And now that we're in the hybrid
Speaker 2: working environment and we've got pretty good satellite technology and communication,
Speaker 2: we can attract the brightest brains and create an ecosystem
Speaker 2: in this country and data centers and data centers and
Speaker 2: all of those sorts of things. We have power for
Speaker 2: four a robust economic pillar of the Australian governments Australian economy.
Speaker 2: So I think back to the government side of things.
Speaker 2: I think the governments and whether it be the current
Speaker 2: government or the opposition, needs to look at this from
Speaker 2: an economic pillar productivity perspective, because I think it's a
Speaker 2: real opportunity there, and then from the consumer protection so
Speaker 2: swift X leans in because we've got a responsibility for
Speaker 2: our customers' money. We've got a response ability for over
Speaker 2: one point one million Australians.
Speaker 1: Now you've got that many customers.
Speaker 2: Now we've got over one point one million customers, So
Speaker 2: we take it very seriously. We're here for a long
Speaker 2: time and we're building a sustainable business. So for us,
Speaker 2: it's important to be sitting around the table with government.
Speaker 2: This is new technology. I didn't grow up with it.
Speaker 2: I've had to teach myself with it. So many of
Speaker 2: us are in that environment. So I think educating government,
Speaker 2: educating opposition. What I'd say in Australia pleasingly is that
Speaker 2: there is bipartisan support, so both sides of government acknowledged
Speaker 2: the need for the industry to be regulated. The problem is,
Speaker 2: as we have with many governments, so many things get
Speaker 2: in front of it. And I do think the Australian
Speaker 2: population is being done a bit of a disservice at
Speaker 2: the moment because we've been kicking around the possibility of
Speaker 2: legislation and we've had a framework. We've had a couple
Speaker 2: of frameworks proposed for the last four or five years.
Speaker 2: So it's important now that with the new government we
Speaker 2: get in and make sure that they're sufficiently educated and
Speaker 2: that that actually brings something in to help with the
Speaker 2: productivity and to help with the consumer protection.
Speaker 1: I thing will happen because I remember in there was
Speaker 1: two thousand and one the then Minister for Finance who
Speaker 1: was Joe Hockey, who was in charge of consumer protection
Speaker 1: for in financial transactions or in transactions online transactions. Actually
Speaker 1: I was asked to chair a task forced into online
Speaker 1: transactions and consumer protection and at that stage laws around
Speaker 1: consumer protection for online purchases, and we actually were tasked
Speaker 1: with putting together a set of recommended conventions that online
Speaker 1: vendors must adhere to, for example, like silly things not
Speaker 1: silly labeling. For example, a prepair of pajamas you might
Speaker 1: buy online from an online vendor if it's going to
Speaker 1: be sold in Australia to an Australian consumer, then that
Speaker 1: online vendor must say if it's flammable or not flammable,
Speaker 1: or what's the return policy or what's the spam policy?
Speaker 1: Once I buy something, can they then start spamming me
Speaker 1: with stuff? Et cetera. And we recommende recommendations as opting in,
Speaker 1: as opposed opting out, and those sorts of things. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't after very long though that I'd say would
Speaker 1: have been maybe five years. You know, it sounds like
Speaker 1: a long comment. It wasn't really really very long that
Speaker 1: we started to turn those recommendations into legislation. And my
Speaker 1: gut feeling is if it's sort of built up as
Speaker 1: a consumer protection type argument from you guys, that the
Speaker 1: government probably will call for a task force and get
Speaker 1: an inquiry done, and then off the back of that
Speaker 1: recommended legislation, and I'll probably say, you know, appro has
Speaker 1: got to regulate it, or someone's got to regulate it,
Speaker 1: because once it's sort of regulated, it just feels a
Speaker 1: bit more comfortable.
Speaker 2: I think you. I think you're right, and as an
Speaker 2: industry in general, we're very supportive of it. We actually
Speaker 2: understand the value of legislation. I think we've got to
Speaker 2: be careful in this country not to overregulate so that
Speaker 2: we stifle innovation, and that's something that I think Australia
Speaker 2: has done sometimes to industries. But at the same time
Speaker 2: we have to get consumer protection. And the most important
Speaker 2: thing I think that governments can do is create an
Speaker 2: environment of certainty for business so that it can get
Speaker 2: on and deliver within those parameters. And when you've got
Speaker 2: that uncertainty, that's when you have more bad actors. You
Speaker 2: have a risk of more bad actors and you have
Speaker 2: a risk of losing innovation and getting behind the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. So I think it is something, but
Speaker 2: you're right. I believe it's happening. It's a push and
Speaker 2: the positive thing is that both sides of Parliament are
Speaker 2: supportive of it and the industry is supportive of it.
Speaker 2: So there really is no reason that we shouldn't have
Speaker 2: regulation for crypto very clearly set out here in Australia.
Speaker 1: But knowing governments as I sort of do, especially more recently,
Speaker 1: unless it's understandable, which is your job. Unless people understand
Speaker 1: what crypto is and blockchain is and what a swift
Speaker 1: x exchange is and how it operates, the government need
Speaker 1: people like you to continue to educate everybody, because government
Speaker 1: won't continue to educate because's nothing inter for them. Continue
Speaker 1: to educate Australians as to what cryptocurrency is all about
Speaker 1: and why they should and you have to go to
Speaker 1: exchange to do the transactions, why that's important and as
Speaker 1: sooner or later one or either one of the parties
Speaker 1: whoever wins and who is going to win this next election,
Speaker 1: will probably have to do it because there's going to
Speaker 1: be pressure on them from Australian consumers as Australian consumers
Speaker 1: use cryptocurrency more.
Speaker 2: What's tell me some of the things before we close off?
Speaker 2: What are some of the exciting things that you guys
Speaker 2: are involved in a swift tech in terms of the
Speaker 2: future of crypto and training on exchanges. Look, I'm just
Speaker 2: really excited and that's what's brought me at this stage
Speaker 2: of my career into this industry is I just see
Speaker 2: that it's a real coming together. This is something that
Speaker 2: we're seeing once in a lifetime in terms of modernizing
Speaker 2: the traditional financial system. This is going to revolutionize payments,
Speaker 2: going to revolutionize investments, the transfer of money and the
Speaker 2: visibility of it for both individual consumers, small business, global corporations,
Speaker 2: and governments, so that's what's exciting me. Lots of projects
Speaker 2: from a swift X perspective an Australian company. The two
Speaker 2: founders I mentioned before hometown is Brisbane, but we now
Speaker 2: have people working in Canada, in the Philippines, in England
Speaker 2: or the UK, in New Zealand and South Africa and
Speaker 2: throughout Australia, so we're starting to really build Crypto's global
Speaker 2: swift x is definitely we've just recently closed a transaction
Speaker 2: with buying New Zealand's largest exchange, so easy Crypto has
Speaker 2: become part of swift x, so we've got about sixty
Speaker 2: percent now as in a roll up, and they also
Speaker 2: had operations in South Africa, and there's a number of
Speaker 2: other transactions that swift x is in the middle of.
Speaker 2: So we're looking at growing and I think that that
Speaker 2: level of growth because crypto is so global, makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense from that point of view. So we're
Speaker 2: definitely going down that path in terms as a company.
Speaker 2: Other geographies that we're looking at, other aspects of the
Speaker 2: industry I touched on a little bit earlier. For me,
Speaker 2: it's really important bringing the ability to have financial freedom.
Speaker 2: That's what swift X really stands for we're a crypto
Speaker 2: first company. We're really passionate about delivering world class financial education,
Speaker 2: and we're really passionate about delivering world class service customer service.
Speaker 2: However people want to interact with us, we want them
Speaker 2: to be able to interact with us. So we're building
Speaker 2: out those pillars of the business. We're moving into that
Speaker 2: regulated environment that we talked about, but we're expanding our
Speaker 2: product lines as well, so we will soon be launching
Speaker 2: the area of credit cards, crypto backlending. We're underway working
Speaker 2: with how we are able to offer a return on
Speaker 2: people's crypto that they have on the exchange, and we're
Speaker 2: also looking into to the derivatives side of things. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of product initiatives that we're doing. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of geographic expansion that Swifts is doing. And
Speaker 2: the other big thing, one of the big passions that
Speaker 2: I've got and trying to bring the whole team is
Speaker 2: this vision of how do we bring digital so the
Speaker 2: DeFi together with trad fire traditional finance, and I think
Speaker 2: there's some exciting initiatives and exciting projects that we're looking at,
Speaker 2: working and bringing to market over the next twelve to
Speaker 2: eighteen months.
Speaker 1: And just so everyone doesn't get too weird about the terminology.
Speaker 1: Def I just mean it's decentralized finance as opposed to
Speaker 1: centralized finance, which is how the banking system, the current
Speaker 1: banking system.
Speaker 2: That's the best, that's the best analogy. Yes, using it,
Speaker 2: it's a decentralized As a consumer, you have more control,
Speaker 2: you have more visibility over that system, and there are
Speaker 2: less intermediaries in there, and there's a lot more peer
Speaker 2: to peer, so you're reducing those you're reducing the costs,
Speaker 2: you're getting control, and you're right, there's less centralized control
Speaker 2: from it, so you.
Speaker 1: Know, you're less reliable upon one entity. That's it. That's
Speaker 1: all one system or one.
Speaker 2: Particular system, and those points of failure, so there's there's
Speaker 2: a broadening.
Speaker 1: And did your team of Swift Swift X get excited
Speaker 1: when Trump got voted in and he put out his
Speaker 1: meme meme, He's Trump Meme and the Millennium meme. Did
Speaker 1: you guys get excited about that sort of stuff and
Speaker 1: what Trump is going to do for decentralized finance globally.
Speaker 2: We have gone through a range of emotions since since
Speaker 2: that Trump went to succeeded in victory. What I will
Speaker 2: say is that the US particularly, but globally, there's been
Speaker 2: a one to eighty degree shift since Trump came in.
Speaker 2: I think what he did do well for the industry
Speaker 2: was say that he was a crypto first president, so
Speaker 2: I think he stamped his authority on that. I think
Speaker 2: he's done some really good things with the SEC in
Speaker 2: terms of at the moment he's in Exchange, which is
Speaker 2: the enforcer, which is like our asset here in Australia,
Speaker 2: and what and what he has said to them is
Speaker 2: a do no harm rule. So crypto in the United
Speaker 2: States still doesn't have clear legislation. There were a lot
Speaker 2: of legislative cases being brought against crypto companies that were
Speaker 2: somewhat questionable, maybe they were politically motivated. He's virtually taken
Speaker 2: all of that away, and he said unless you are
Speaker 2: blatantly ripping off consumers, then the SEC is not going
Speaker 2: to go after you. So I think that's an important
Speaker 2: statement and setting it out. However, I think on the
Speaker 2: other side of things, I would say that most people
Speaker 2: in the industry probably weren't supportive of a Donald Trump
Speaker 2: or a Malenia Trump. Mean coin when he brought them out,
Speaker 2: how he brought them out as president.
Speaker 1: No one's unaccepted.
Speaker 2: Look at this stage, I think it's one of those things.
Speaker 2: It's hard to see the use case. They're exciting. Potentially,
Speaker 2: when you say the use case, you know that someone
Speaker 2: would accept them as payment for something. I can't see
Speaker 2: anybody accepting it because it's fairly volatile. Maybe they have
Speaker 2: a historical and they will go up like a piece
Speaker 2: of art in time over value. But besides that, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a practical real world use case
Speaker 2: for them. So I would say that lots of people
Speaker 2: in the industry are very happy that Trump is pro crypto,
Speaker 2: and he did those things I talked about before in
Speaker 2: terms of the regulator and giving some more certainty to
Speaker 2: the industry. I don't think there's probably too many people
Speaker 2: in the industry who are key for him to be
Speaker 2: bringing out too many more mean coins. And I think
Speaker 2: what we've seen in the disruption and uncertainty in the
Speaker 2: so crypto certainly spiked when we saw the sea of
Speaker 2: read in November of the Republicans and Trump winning Wall
Speaker 2: of States. There was a massive rise and rally in crypto.
Speaker 2: But like most asset classes. Now, the way he's gone
Speaker 2: about the tariffs and everything like that, the asset class
Speaker 2: is certainly pulled back. So there's been a mixed bag.
Speaker 2: There's been a mixed bag. But I think I always
Speaker 2: take a longer term view, and that is that ultimately
Speaker 2: for the industry, there's a lot of positivity around it
Speaker 2: that the industry can move forward and it can innovate.
Speaker 2: And if the industry is allowed to innovate in the US,
Speaker 2: in Australia and globally, consumers will end up benefiting from it.
Speaker 2: And that's what this is also about. How do we
Speaker 2: go on a world stage? Last question, Jason, but how
Speaker 2: did we go on a stage? Like Jason Timman, do
Speaker 2: you turn up on behalf of a c of swift
Speaker 2: x to the Dubai conference that was recently held for crypto?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you do? You go there and you
Speaker 1: know it's not scrup but tell about swift eggs and
Speaker 1: tell them what Australia is doing.
Speaker 2: As as CEO, I've got to balance my time. One
Speaker 2: thing is definitely attending conferences, and it's global conferences for
Speaker 2: that very reason. So I've recently come back from Paris
Speaker 2: Blockchain Week so certainly spending a lot of time in
Speaker 2: the European community. I'm heading over to Toronto in two
Speaker 2: weeks as Consensus, which is another global conference there, and
Speaker 2: I'll be in Singapore at Token twenty forty nine later
Speaker 2: this year. I didn't go to Dubai, which is just
Speaker 2: basically currently recently.
Speaker 1: I think it was the end of there was an April.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just in April, yep, yep, now, but it was now.
Speaker 1: But I was there last.
Speaker 2: Year with those massive rains when there was lots of
Speaker 2: flood floods last year. So I certainly spend an element
Speaker 2: and valuable for people to go to just generally people
Speaker 2: who are interested, absolutely, and there's some great ones here
Speaker 2: in Australia. There's the Australian Crypto Convention, which last year
Speaker 2: was here in Sydney, has been in Melbourne, has been
Speaker 2: on the Gold Coast. So there's some good conferences in Australia.
Speaker 2: What I would say, I think back to it. For me,
Speaker 2: it's about educating yourself. If you want to get involved,
Speaker 2: you get a new asset. This is a new asset class.
Speaker 2: You know. In my career I've been involved and still
Speaker 2: am involved in a number of different asset classes. So
Speaker 2: for me, I think it's an important asset class to
Speaker 2: be part of my portfolio, but I've got to understand it.
Speaker 2: I think the best way I've ever understood assets, and
Speaker 2: I've made money and lost money, but is by actually
Speaker 2: investing in them. So I think that's one thing, but
Speaker 2: at a level you were comfortable at. But the other
Speaker 2: thing is I like to do my research, So going
Speaker 2: to conferences is really good. Also, one in Singapore called
Speaker 2: It's Token forty nine is total, so that's going to
Speaker 2: be the end of October. Okay this year an easy
Speaker 2: one to get up to. The big thing is the
Speaker 2: crypto community globally, compare to a lot of industries, is
Speaker 2: still relatively small, so you're getting a lot of people
Speaker 2: in crypto that are traveling to these conferences. So it's
Speaker 2: a really good opportunity to listen to a diverse concentration
Speaker 2: of people, good concentration of speakers. And for me, building
Speaker 2: a global exchange and a global crypto first new age
Speaker 2: kind of financial services company really important for me to
Speaker 2: see what's happening, what I'm seeing. Do we get on stage,
Speaker 2: I mean as a country.
Speaker 1: Looks.
Speaker 2: Australia was in the early stages of crypto held in
Speaker 2: quite high regard because we've been so slow to legislate,
Speaker 2: we've been slipping down further and further. And then when
Speaker 2: you look at the global side of things, they're interested.
Speaker 2: You know, people globally are interested in what Australia is doing,
Speaker 2: what the APAC region is doing. So yeah, we do
Speaker 2: get opportunities to get on stage. So once again, I'll
Speaker 2: come back to it. The swift X is swift X
Speaker 2: and the industry it's so global, So that's why we've
Speaker 2: does participate in those areas. And as I say, I
Speaker 2: think there's a real opportunity for people to learn a
Speaker 2: lot by going to these conferences.
Speaker 1: And a lot of them actually online too. You can
Speaker 1: pay a lesser amount of money. I just watch the
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 2: You can watch the whole thing, so people don't need
Speaker 2: to think they actually have to travel.
Speaker 1: Physically, musically travel. I know the Dubai on was online
Speaker 1: as well. You can be watching it a lot there.
Speaker 2: Well, Jason, that was actually quite for me, quite fascinating.
Speaker 2: And I've had a long interest in crypto and you
Speaker 2: know I have participated let's call it some not so well,
Speaker 2: not so successful others are more successfully in terms of
Speaker 2: various currencies. Of course I had no idea what I
Speaker 2: was doing, but I was just picking what I thought
Speaker 2: was popular. I thought that was one way of de
Speaker 2: risking it because there's more participants in a bitcoin et
Speaker 2: cetera etheroereum. But the one final thing on what do
Speaker 2: you want to ask you? And I think is an
Speaker 2: important one in terms of volatility, maybe you could just
Speaker 2: quickly explain and maybe call out at least one currency,
Speaker 2: that cryptocurrency that is tied to the US dollar.
Speaker 1: Importance of maybe tying a currency to either another currency
Speaker 1: like a fear currency, or certainly tying it to gold
Speaker 1: the price gold in no way sort of consumers or
Speaker 1: people who might want to participate, and it can feel
Speaker 1: a lot more safer.
Speaker 2: So two of the currencies there are the usd T
Speaker 2: and usd C, so there are two stable coins that
Speaker 2: are actually tied essentially to the US dollar. So they're
Speaker 2: an interesting one to have a look at. There is
Speaker 2: also in Australia now where we're getting a couple of
Speaker 2: different ones that are coming up. One is a UDD
Speaker 2: so it's an Australian one, and there's a couple of
Speaker 2: others that are in the process of standing up. So
Speaker 2: there are so those stable coins. Certainly if they change listened,
Speaker 2: you could be able to get you can you get
Speaker 2: access to those on the change, get access to the
Speaker 2: modern platform. Look, the volatility question is definitely there. What
Speaker 2: I will say is that history has shown that those
Speaker 2: cryptocurrencies that have been around longer and have continued to grow,
Speaker 2: and we touched on them, the bitcoins, the ethereums, the solanas,
Speaker 2: the xrps, the volatility is coming down, so they don't
Speaker 2: have the same level of volatility. But just in terms
Speaker 2: of everybody listening, from January twenty twenty to January twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, so a five year period, Bitcoin went up
Speaker 2: twelve hundred percent. It's still that fastest growing act we've
Speaker 2: ever seen over that five year period. So even though
Speaker 2: it's had lots of volatility, the worst performing period ever
Speaker 2: for bitcoin, if over a twelve month period, was a
Speaker 2: twenty three percent increase. So I think if you have
Speaker 2: a look at look at the asset class and had
Speaker 2: a portion of it in your portfolio, the alpha that
Speaker 2: most of us talk about in the investment world, that
Speaker 2: that return can do a lot for your investment portfolio,
Speaker 2: even with a very small portion of it. The other
Speaker 2: thing we're seeing, and you know, we talk about use cases,
Speaker 2: what I'm starting to see in the industry is seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of treasury type balance sheets for companies that
Speaker 2: may be sitting on cash are allocating five or maybe
Speaker 2: ten percent of that cash to bitcoined.
Speaker 1: I've sent a few of the big hedge funds doing
Speaker 1: it too.
Speaker 2: And we're seeing even more charities that have their investment
Speaker 2: pools that are starting to look at maybe five percent,
Speaker 2: maybe five percent of what their investment is are they
Speaker 2: putting into. In fact, forty seven percent of hedge funds
Speaker 2: now have some sort of crypto investment. So well, that's
Speaker 2: what have to This is happening, and the more they
Speaker 2: put liquidit it into it, the more liquidity goes into
Speaker 2: the currency, the more the currency be stabilized. So and
Speaker 2: the more rises as well, we should go up. That's
Speaker 2: the mathematical time. And I think you're right Mark, that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff will happen. But we have a four
Speaker 2: trillion dollar Australian superannuation industry here, which I think is
Speaker 2: a great backbone for retirement savings for Australians, which is
Speaker 2: not touching the asset class yet around that aspect of regulation.
Speaker 2: So I think once you see them getting into the
Speaker 2: asset class, and the studies that we've seen is over
Speaker 2: eighty percent of people that have superannuation are asking this
Speaker 2: superannuation fund, hey, how do we get access to this
Speaker 2: asset class. So there's some really they're asking the question.
Speaker 2: So I think what we're seeing is a lot of
Speaker 2: pent up demand. So you know, we talk about the
Speaker 2: future of it. I think there's so many use cases
Speaker 2: that I've touched on, and I think, you know, broadly
Speaker 2: as an asset class, we're just going to sort of
Speaker 2: see the mass adoption of it happening over the coming years.
Speaker 1: Jason Timman, who did a good case to educate us
Speaker 1: on a crypto but importantly telling us what swift deex
Speaker 1: is excited about in that currency environment, in that new
Speaker 1: age garrancy that and it is disruptive and swift x
Speaker 1: is doing a great job. And by the way, thanks
Speaker 1: very much for being a sponsor. And then because the
Speaker 1: anal needs sponsors like you, and all of these things
Speaker 1: are important for our fans, our players, our clubs and
Speaker 1: just make everything might work much better. So congratulations and
Speaker 1: thanks very much, thank you Mark,