00:00It is great to see Sam again. Your crypto exchange is one of the largest and fastest growing. However, it has a reputation for extreme volatility. Many people are critical of this fact. It is said to be a store-of-value. We have seen a huge drop in crypto prices this week. What is the matter? Yes. Yes, I was volatile. There are two ways to get to a less volatile seat. The other is that you can have something that isn't a floating currency. You are encrypted. This would be a stablepoint a you knowblocking based token that is only backed by a U.S.dollar or anotherasset and its value is just pegged to it. You must be aware that you are not going to become a market force dependent asset unless you have a mature view of the market changing slowly. This is certainly not true for crypto at the moment. Although there has been a lot price appreciation, it's seen wild ups and downs. It's an asset class that is rapidly growing and changing, which I believe is a reason for the volatility. You know that you can't have such rapid growth without a high degree of volatility in price. It's unlikely that there will be a significant decrease in volatility before the world has decided what its long-term role is. However, we saw a huge increase in the price of crypto over the first quarter. This is likely due to the anticipation that large financial institutions will get involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It is true that the majority of financial institutions we spoke to said they were interested in getting involved in crypto. We will see what it means. They don't know if it's exploratory, but it does appear that there is incoming yoni from that. Many people waited too long in anticipation. A lot of people got very long in anticipation. Let's take a moment to think about this. You mentioned the idea that crypto-use cases are not yet well defined. These are your thoughts. What do you think cryptoas can be used for? We'll just have to wait and see where it leads. You know, I'm running and getting legs. However, I believe that people who talk about serving cases of transfer in the store will be able to see the potential. The staff will be forgotten. It may very well be a huge thing, I believe. It is a subjective thing as to what causes it to work. However, I believe that on the transfer side of things you can fool yourself into believing it's simple to transfer money now if you have it and will not be sending it to a friend who has it. It becomes very difficult once you leave this regime. They can take several days. They can cost hundreds of dollars. They are often not supported by websites. To do them, you must visit a branch. The system is a mess. Credit card transactions take two months to settle, and RTS transfers take another two months to settle. Cryptoco could be a much easier way to transfer value. This doesn't necessarily mean that every iteration has been, but it does suggest that it could be. I believe some versions are. Smart contracts are another thing I believe has tremendous potential. This is still very speculative at the moment. However, the possibility to place arbitrate programs on a blockchain I think is very cool and speedy. FTSE is headquartered in Hong Kong. Recent reports have shown that China is reducing crypto trading and mining. How can you navigate what seems to be a bit of a minefield right now in terms of regulatory and sovereign responses to crypto? Yes. That's a good question. And we know that almost every country in the world is trying to figure out their crypto-regime. The number of jurisdictions who can tell you that this is their right can be counted on one hand. This is our licensing system. Here is our regulatory regime. This is how it works. As I know, you can win at least every place you visit. This is what we are doing right now. We are trying to determine what kind of trip this particular legislation will be. Keep checking back. We're in contact with industry players. You can see a lot of activity from China. Although there have been crackdowns in recent times, historically there have been moves in both directions on the continent. You know that this has been dependent on many different types of specific and idiosyncratic circumstances. I. You should know that FTSE is a highly geographically distributed exchange. Our revenue is distributed in a single jurisdiction. This is in contrast with most crypto exchanges, which are not all located in the same place. We have made a lot of efforts to be ISE distributing worldwide. Nevertheless, I know that we have users in both countries. We have offices in many places. We'll have to watch how the world plays out everywhere, you know. There isn’t one jurisdiction that is particularly important to us, but you don’t know. You've been very open about your interest in altruism. And we've also seen Bitcoin come under a lot of scrutiny recently due to its energy years. Elon Musk has been vocal about this topic. How can you combine your interest in cryptocurrency with the desire to make the world a better place? Absolutely. First, I would say that crypto is not consuming significant amounts of energy. Some people might try to dismiss this question, thinking that it is too simplistic. It is a valid question. Some people are very open to the idea of asking this question, which I believe is not unreasonable. There is significant energy usage, but it isn't out of proportion to the activity on the blockchain. It isn't that different from other industries when you compare energy consumption to economic activity on block chain. This isn't a cryptic problem, but it does not mean that it doesn't matter. It matters. It is important that crypto becomes more environmentally friendly as it scales. There are two main ways to do this. We've tried to help with both. One of them. The first is to try to reduce the negative impact, whether it's by preventing deforestation or carbon removal. It is financially feasible to do so. We have committed to doing that. Through offsets, we pledged to make RTX carbon neutral. The second part of this is that nearly all energy usage goes to mining proof-of-work block chains. You also know that there are a number of different security protocols. One for state, another for energy. To prove of work you will need to have proof of work. This is because of the major differences Bitcoin only uses in theory. Bitcoin will be the only one that uses Bitcoin today and in the future, as proof of stake is being switched to. Even though a lot of online activity takes place in other block chains, their energy consumption is only a fraction of what we see today. This doesn't mean you have to stop working, but it does mean you will likely see more of them over time. It is well-known that high transaction volumes are occurring on the most efficient chains. Could you please elaborate a bit on this last point? Given the criticisms we have about Bitcoin's energy consumption and its volatility, what do you think is the future of Bitcoin? Given its inflexibility and unwillingness to change to a new vision of crypto, we seem to have given up on any hopes for it to be a real method of payment. It seems that it is out there. It's going to happen. That's a great question. I don't know the answer. I don't. Here are my first predictions. This is not financial advice, but it will give you some ideas. This is one part of the idea. You could see it as aprimary store value, but you don't need to transfer it. It can be used to accomplish a goal such as wear and tear on a timescale. You may acquire positions in bitcoin. To send 17 dollars to a friend, you'd use a different blockchain. It will be more cost-effective, efficient, and quicker. That's a property of any cryptocurrency with the potential to appreciate in price right now. You can now have a stable currency. If you are looking to hold dollars, but not on a blockchain. That's right. If that's what your goal is, that's perfectly fine. If you're looking for an alternative asset to store your wealth in emerging industries, you won't be able to have significant growth and volatility. These are in violation of the efficient market hypothesis. It's not bitcoin that's being transmitted. It's just a wrapper. This token is a promise to exchange for bitcoin, but it could be used on shorter terms. You can use certain move IOUs to get bitcoin. It is almost like an astable coin on bitcoin, but with a faster ball. Okay. Crypto is all about innovation. Which innovation in spaceis causing you the most excitement at the moment? Yes, I do think so. This is the first, and it's a bit dumb, but I think it makes really great products. This is a key component of the growth base. It is highly underrated. This is an incredible concept. It will help banks tomorrow. This is not the way the world works. To see widespread adoption of launching crypto assets, you will need to see beautiful Greece and well-designed product designs. The second thing I want to say is that I find it fascinating and exciting. He'll be at least 20 percent of the base. It does need to eat, however. In particular, it must reduce transaction costs and improve efficiency in product design and the standards that are applied to applications. Beautiful cookies are a dream for many. We've actually seen many central banks become more interested in digital currency. What do you think of this development? And the idea that the major financial institutions are now interested in a technology that is supposed to help them. They all want to do it. Everyone you know is a wow player. Nearly all of them have had that conversation internally. They have gone from saying "I hope I'll just die" to saying "All right, let's just say you probably won't." We have to do something. This is part of our business, but it's not disruptive to our business. This is what you can see with Netflix. I think Netflix is an interesting business, given how important it is in everyone's lives these days. It is surprising how little the company has spoken about it. But Netflix disrupted itself as if it was trying to disrupt an industry, like online DVD delivery. It realized that this wasn't the future. It quickly changed to streaming and killing its business model. But, it was a success. You can see many fintech players. We are trying to disrupt finance. They need to take this seriously and integrate with it rather than against. It's not uncommon to be surprised by new products.
