Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg
Speaker 1: mus And this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I
Speaker 1: Heart podcast. It's Monday, July eleven. Jump Crypto burst onto
Speaker 1: the scene less than a year ago with the appointment
Speaker 1: of a former intern named Cannav Karia as its founding president.
Speaker 1: Within just a few months, Jump Crypto has found itself
Speaker 1: spending hundreds of millions of dollars, failing out market participants
Speaker 1: because of a major DeFi hack and having to navigate
Speaker 1: the collapse of the terra USD stable coin. But undeterred
Speaker 1: by critics, Cannav Korea believes the current markets volatility is
Speaker 1: the perfect time to double down. Today you'll hear from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reporters Katherine Doherty and Uchi Yang, who went to
Speaker 1: Chicago to visit Jump's headquarters and hear about what's next
Speaker 1: for the firm. Uh, Catherine, thank you so much t
Speaker 1: joining me today. Katherine, before we get started, you go
Speaker 1: by Kato. That is correct, Katherine Doherty, but Cato is
Speaker 1: the informal reference. I love an abbreviated name. So speaking
Speaker 1: of complicated abbreviations, we are going to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about Jump Crypto, which is a firm that folks
Speaker 1: might have seen make headlines, including those here at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News for its involvement with furious, specific and complex parts
Speaker 1: of defy with there's a big hack that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about, and of course with what's been happening
Speaker 1: with the collapsed stable coin known as terra USD. But
Speaker 1: before we talk about any of that, where did this
Speaker 1: firm come from? So Jump Crypto is born out of
Speaker 1: Jump Trading, and that is a traditional financial trading firm.
Speaker 1: It really started back in Chicago, so that's where the
Speaker 1: firm is still based, in the trading pit, where you
Speaker 1: would execute a trade through a movement, whether it's like
Speaker 1: a ignal to another trader or through yelling, just verbal communication.
Speaker 1: So this is the image that people might have when
Speaker 1: they've watched like old timing movies of Wall Street and
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of men and suits being like by
Speaker 1: so by. So that's correct. So the two founders of
Speaker 1: Jump Trading came out of that world, and so they
Speaker 1: were a part of the transition to electronic trading when
Speaker 1: things started to move onto computers. So you go from
Speaker 1: movements with your hands verbally to your screen. And then
Speaker 1: there was the second transition to quantitative trading, so using
Speaker 1: algorithms and and trying to figure out how you could
Speaker 1: be the smartest trader out there and the fastest and
Speaker 1: the fastest you're taking advantage of little price movements and
Speaker 1: profiting off of that um and you're also helping the
Speaker 1: whole ecosystem function. So that's traditional market making, which jump
Speaker 1: trading is at its core. Flash forward to a this
Speaker 1: firm launched an internship at a school in Illinois, and
Speaker 1: the primary focus of this internship was on digital assets,
Speaker 1: specifically the crypto world. The founders of again this traditional
Speaker 1: market making firm, they started to see both an interest
Speaker 1: from the outside and internally from their own employees on
Speaker 1: the growth of this asset class, and they thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a cool project that we could bring to these
Speaker 1: interns and have them start to problem solve and see
Speaker 1: see what they can create, see what they can come
Speaker 1: up with. They were able to bridge what they had
Speaker 1: developed in traditional market making executing trades with stocks and
Speaker 1: equities in the crypto world. So that brings us to
Speaker 1: really the start of what I see is like their
Speaker 1: third chapter. So you have traditional market making. You have
Speaker 1: electronic quantitative as the second and this is really like
Speaker 1: their third, the third act. It's almost like the third
Speaker 1: leg of the stool. And U is somebody who spends
Speaker 1: a lot of time at that kind of weird intersection
Speaker 1: of the traditional Wall Street moving into whatever it is
Speaker 1: the crypto is up to tell me more about the
Speaker 1: person who they put in charge of this, who came
Speaker 1: from that very internship that Kato mentioned. Um So Kina Korea,
Speaker 1: is the president of jomp Crypto, and he is actually
Speaker 1: one of the interns that um worked at the U
Speaker 1: I U S Lab when Jump first created this internship
Speaker 1: exploring digital assets. I started as a Jump alding some
Speaker 1: of the early crypto treating infrastructure. Jump has this like
Speaker 1: really incredible culture of allowing people to just take opportunities
Speaker 1: around with them and throwing resources being things that are working.
Speaker 1: And so when I step into the leadership position, if
Speaker 1: they're incredibly organic. And he's very young, but he's very
Speaker 1: ambitious and very passionate about crypto in general. One thing
Speaker 1: that many people described to us is they're always impressed
Speaker 1: by how his knowledge, how deep his knowledge is um
Speaker 1: when it comes to various cryptal projects, and as we know,
Speaker 1: there's been hundreds of thousands of projects out there just
Speaker 1: coming out of the past few years, and he's the
Speaker 1: one who really knows ins and outs of these projects.
Speaker 1: And he's now the leader of Drump's cryptal unit, and
Speaker 1: he played a very important role in coming up with
Speaker 1: the business strategy for Jumps cryptal unit. And this strategy
Speaker 1: is what industry people say really differentiated Jump from other
Speaker 1: players in the cryptal industry, and specifically DRUMP Cryptal does
Speaker 1: three things. First, they started with treating, which is the
Speaker 1: market making for cryptal and that plays into their strengthe
Speaker 1: historically speaking. Secondly, they're also moving into investing cryptal projects
Speaker 1: and tokens, and in that sense, they're kind of playing
Speaker 1: as the role of the v C investors adventure capitalists. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're able to get in touch with the projects at
Speaker 1: very early stage. They're able to buy tokens at early stage,
Speaker 1: which means they can't get it at a low price,
Speaker 1: and then as the project takes off as the tokens
Speaker 1: value rise um, they're able to benefit from it. And
Speaker 1: then lastly, they are actually moving into building some of
Speaker 1: these cryptal projects themselves, just using the engineering and technology
Speaker 1: talent that they have in house, and then one way
Speaker 1: they facility this is to come up with the incubator
Speaker 1: called the Pit, and that's essentially hacker house where they
Speaker 1: invite engineers and cryptal entrepreneurs to to visit their office
Speaker 1: spend a certain amount of time there to code and
Speaker 1: build on these projects. So it sounds like there is
Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis on tradition because you know, Kato,
Speaker 1: you were saying, well, they started in the pits, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, here's crypto and here's the pit. Why are
Speaker 1: we talking about them though? Like, what what is the
Speaker 1: thing that happened since I think it was September one
Speaker 1: when Jump first put out this announcement about Jump Crypto two. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously markets have been more down than up recently, but
Speaker 1: there were a couple of really specific things that Jump
Speaker 1: has been involved in that they're still bullish on crypto about,
Speaker 1: but perhaps they've learned from the first time most people
Speaker 1: started hearing Jump referenced as a firm was what they
Speaker 1: did with a project called Wormhole. So Jump was a
Speaker 1: big backer of Wormhole UM. They were early and helped
Speaker 1: really developed the infrastructure behind it UM. But there was
Speaker 1: a hack a very now infamous hack um that Jump
Speaker 1: found out about and quickly acted on and essentially they
Speaker 1: fixed this problem. There was a hole. There was a whole,
Speaker 1: a whole in Wormhole. It was over three hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of assets that had been stolen that they
Speaker 1: could not locate, and Jump within like a half hour decided, okay,
Speaker 1: in order to shore up this project so that investors
Speaker 1: have continued confidence in what we have helped build, we're
Speaker 1: going to fill that hole, which means they took over
Speaker 1: three hundred million of their own capital and replaced what
Speaker 1: had been stolen so that the whole was fixed. Now,
Speaker 1: my big question there is why you mentioned investor confidence.
Speaker 1: But there are lots of players in crypto who were
Speaker 1: exposed to Wormhole, which we want to go down a
Speaker 1: rabbit hole talking about wormhole, but it's a kind of
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a protocol in defy that
Speaker 1: allows people to move crypto around, the most simplified version
Speaker 1: of that that you'll hear on the podcast today, but
Speaker 1: it was structurally very important and there were a lot
Speaker 1: of people who were exposed. It was also one of
Speaker 1: the bigger hacks in crypto at the time. You've both
Speaker 1: spent time a lot of time talking to these folks, Like,
Speaker 1: from their perspective, why was it so important for them
Speaker 1: to show up and say it's okay, We've got this
Speaker 1: under control. Well, warmth Home is one of the projects
Speaker 1: that Jump really prioritizes on, and it makes sense for
Speaker 1: them to step in and filling the gaps because they
Speaker 1: wanted the project to survive and hopefully to thrive going forward.
Speaker 1: So I think it is partial partly out of their
Speaker 1: self interest to keep it alive given that they already
Speaker 1: have a stake in the project, and then partly I
Speaker 1: think they're trying to build out their reputation in the
Speaker 1: crypto world as someone who is a long term believer
Speaker 1: in the space. They have deep conviction and they want
Speaker 1: you to play an important role going forward building out
Speaker 1: the infrastructure of cryptocurrencies. Was warm hoping one of the
Speaker 1: most important um bridges that would bridge across different blockchains.
Speaker 1: That's a big theme with this firm is belief. If
Speaker 1: they find a project or something that they're passionate about
Speaker 1: and there's conviction, they they've either put in they've either
Speaker 1: invested a lot of their own capital, or they've helped
Speaker 1: build the infrastructure of something. We'll be right back with
Speaker 1: more from Katherine Doherty and U H Young. So one
Speaker 1: of the other things they had a lot of belief
Speaker 1: in was a little algorithmic stable coin called terra Usd.
Speaker 1: Terra USD and its sister token, Luna lost their peg
Speaker 1: to the dollar in the last few weeks. They had
Speaker 1: a spectacular meltdown, sending prices to ner zero and their
Speaker 1: market value to a shadow of the combined sixty billion
Speaker 1: they once commanded, which is now sadly no longer with us.
Speaker 1: But you know, talk a little bit about why they
Speaker 1: had such high conviction in this project and what ultimately
Speaker 1: was the result. Ultimately, when we when we pose that
Speaker 1: exact question to Knav and to others at the firm,
Speaker 1: it became clear that Tara looked different. And I think
Speaker 1: that there are there are very specific reasons that they
Speaker 1: saw again in the early days a reason to support
Speaker 1: this project, um one being exposure in Asia. Um there
Speaker 1: there was just like a larger audience that I think
Speaker 1: that they saw this stable coin reaching right, and Tara
Speaker 1: was you know, came out of various Korea based investors.
Speaker 1: A lot of their initial audience were retail investors in
Speaker 1: in South Korea, so that that absolutely as a market
Speaker 1: was very meaningful in terms of the original folks who
Speaker 1: were excited about this project. That's correct. And when you
Speaker 1: get in early to these kind of projects, you it's
Speaker 1: not like the traditional equity investment where you you might
Speaker 1: get equity in a company or a project. You're actually
Speaker 1: getting these coins and you're getting the met at discount.
Speaker 1: So there again is some value to finding these things
Speaker 1: that early days you see promise and it might give
Speaker 1: you what could be the bank for your buck. But
Speaker 1: it is a bit with crypto. Part of the challenge
Speaker 1: for being perceived as a role model is most people
Speaker 1: have barely been around right like this. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons where we're having this conversation is because crypto is
Speaker 1: an asset class. Yes, it's you know, a decade and
Speaker 1: a bit old, but this is one of the most prolonged,
Speaker 1: and I would argue most complicated types of downturns that
Speaker 1: various of these firms have had to experience. And it
Speaker 1: is a very difficult leadership challenge to go from intern
Speaker 1: to president to crisis manager in an extremely short amount
Speaker 1: of time. In your conversations with with can in your
Speaker 1: conversations with like Jump Crypto, was there anything that came
Speaker 1: across to you about how they might have just like
Speaker 1: experienced this right, so they sort of launched into a
Speaker 1: bull market where crypto prices were hitting all time highs,
Speaker 1: and then sort of six months into his tenure, it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: we're having a very different conversation. I think there's definitely
Speaker 1: moments of what I refer to as all hands on deck,
Speaker 1: whether it's late night phone calls or days spent in
Speaker 1: the office where you might even you know, stay over
Speaker 1: in the office. Who knows their office is open floor plan?
Speaker 1: You can't, You can barely unless someone explains it to you.
Speaker 1: Distinguished between the traditional market making side and the crypto unit.
Speaker 1: It's all just one big open floor. And often people
Speaker 1: from traditional market making might even go into the crypto
Speaker 1: business they like formally or informally. An important thing to
Speaker 1: note about Jump is that, again, they have the backing
Speaker 1: of their traditional market making business. So you bring up
Speaker 1: a really good point about the newness of the crypto
Speaker 1: ecosystem that they're growing in and want to be a
Speaker 1: leader in. There afforded the ability to try things in
Speaker 1: a way that other just crypto businesses can't well, they
Speaker 1: haven't yet made it's their first birthday, and I would
Speaker 1: be interested U in your perspective on, you know, anything
Speaker 1: that they said about what they expect the next six
Speaker 1: or so wants to look like. You know. Do they
Speaker 1: see this as a prolonged crypto winter as folks have
Speaker 1: taken to calling it, or it's just just another example
Speaker 1: of crypto as an asset class that folks have to
Speaker 1: write through. I think we asked Jump to reflect on
Speaker 1: what has happened with Tara Luna and other projects. One
Speaker 1: thing that they told us is even though things don't
Speaker 1: always pan out the way they expected, they are really
Speaker 1: a believer in the process and they think that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't let your You should have an emotional discipline towards
Speaker 1: the process or your decision making approach. And they said that, um,
Speaker 1: regardless of the outcomes, there are still a believer of
Speaker 1: their own process, which is too to invest, to trade
Speaker 1: and to build in crypto, and the winter is something
Speaker 1: that they have long expected and they kind of see
Speaker 1: this as another opportunity to double down to be able
Speaker 1: to invest in projects now hopefully at the even better
Speaker 1: variation because prices are going down and then to build
Speaker 1: out the infrastructure when and if the cryptal spring eventually arrives.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You can find more of Catherine and u
Speaker 1: ag is reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal, on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com and on Twitter. Katherine is at cat Lee Doherty
Speaker 1: that's d O H E R T Y, and uh
Speaker 1: is at u H Underscore Yang on the next episode
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Crypto. What makes crypto so enticing? Depending on
Speaker 1: who you ask, cryptos volatility is either a bug or
Speaker 1: a feature. Wild unexpected or aggressive price wings make this
Speaker 1: an asset class that's still suited to anyone who's less
Speaker 1: experienced than managing risk. But what about the folks who
Speaker 1: find those risks and those swings to be a major
Speaker 1: source of benefits. We're going to talk to Bloomberg opinion
Speaker 1: columnist Leonel Laurent to discuss whether there's any value to
Speaker 1: cryptos volatility. I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, and this is Bloomberg Crypto,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For
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Speaker 1: Email your questions, comments or suggestions for the show to
Speaker 1: Crypto at Bloomberg dot net, and you'll find us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is
Speaker 1: Vicky very Galina, our associate producers of Sanam Suddiki and
Speaker 1: Moses and um Dasta wonder Ad is our engineer. Original
Speaker 1: music by Leo Sidron