Speaker 1: Hey, folks.
Speaker 2: We are recording at Chainlink's Smart Cohn event and joining
Speaker 2: me is Larry Wade, who is the global head of
Speaker 2: Compliance and Regulatory relations for crypto at PayPal.
Speaker 1: Larry, Great to have you.
Speaker 3: Tony's great man. Great to be here. I'm a big fan,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Larry.
Speaker 2: And PayPal is doing some amazing things with crypto and
Speaker 2: blockchain technology. Before we get into all that, tell us
Speaker 2: a bit about your background and how you got into crypto.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I am a bit of a nerd, but
Speaker 3: I'm also a next college jock, so you know, give
Speaker 3: me a little credit there. How did I get into crypto?
Speaker 3: So I went to Columbia from my MBA and one
Speaker 3: of my classmates one of the smartest guys I've ever met.
Speaker 3: He was ex military but also a commodity's trade or
Speaker 3: for one of the big banks. Interesting, and every quarter
Speaker 3: we kind of have these dinners we have a topic.
Speaker 3: So this is nearly nine years ago, the topic was bitcoin.
Speaker 3: Now me, I am, you know, over twenty years in
Speaker 3: the risk management field, right so credit risk, operational risks,
Speaker 3: d ris, et cetera. And you know, I'm like this
Speaker 3: feels like tulips I don't get it. No again, I'm
Speaker 3: a nerd. So I've tried to read and underbridged audiobookscount
Speaker 3: is reading at least four books a month and I've
Speaker 3: done it over twenty years. Wow. And when you do
Speaker 3: that one, you learn there are moments in time that
Speaker 3: things really change. Yeah too, you will never know everything,
Speaker 3: right and three, you know, have that childlike curiosity because
Speaker 3: you never know what might just come your way.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: So when I we had that and I said, all right,
Speaker 3: I'm willing to hear you. He said, you know, I
Speaker 3: think this may be an adoption rate of a new
Speaker 3: asset class. He's like, and this technology is interesting. It's like,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure it out still, but you should
Speaker 3: look into it. So I start thinking, Okay, you know
Speaker 3: I've done an engagement. You know, we're ordering you know,
Speaker 3: one of the large foreign bank swift operations. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: when it came about, it definitely was beneficial. But you're
Speaker 3: talking the seventies here, right, So you know I can
Speaker 3: I can I can send an email to Singapore instantly,
Speaker 3: but I can't send value or you know, you can
Speaker 3: kind of track what's happening in this kind of internet world,
Speaker 3: but from a value transfer perspective, there's still times where
Speaker 3: you don't know who owns what, et cetera. So I
Speaker 3: got to see that, so I'm sorry, this is interesting.
Speaker 3: And then he also says something that really hit in
Speaker 3: that his daughter said, Daddy, why would anybody want to
Speaker 3: touch money? And I said, wait a minute, this is
Speaker 3: also kind of a demographic player as well. Right, So
Speaker 3: I went home in the rest of she's white paper,
Speaker 3: and I was blown away. I said, this is one
Speaker 3: of the most brilliant things I've ever read in my life.
Speaker 3: How do you solve the double swim prom how do
Speaker 3: you have a trust this transaction in the digital environment?
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, my mind went crazy
Speaker 3: because I started thinking about how I grew up. Sure,
Speaker 3: and if it was not for the Internet democratizing information,
Speaker 3: I would not be here. But we still have not
Speaker 3: democratized value. Yea. And I can make an argument that
Speaker 3: democratizing value is a bigger play than even information, because
Speaker 3: if you don't know anything, you need transaction value.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So then I read Blockchain for Dummies and I said,
Speaker 3: oh my goodness, public blockchain, send me private, private, smart contracts,
Speaker 3: anything that's if then's probably going to be a smart contract.
Speaker 3: I went down the rabbit hole of the time, and
Speaker 3: at the time, I was a management consultant at one
Speaker 3: of the big foursts, and I went to the senior
Speaker 3: partner I was aligned to and I told her, I said, look,
Speaker 3: I think this is going to be something. And I said,
Speaker 3: there are two areas. I think there'll be a lot
Speaker 3: of value. One is on the engineering side, being able
Speaker 3: to deal with the cryptography, the smart contracts, et cetera.
Speaker 3: That's going to be something that I understand. But that's
Speaker 3: not my specialty, I said. Been on the risk side,
Speaker 3: I said, I think we will see inherent risks we've
Speaker 3: never seen before. I said, how do you handle a
Speaker 3: fork This is back when you know forking and all
Speaker 3: these things. I said, how do you handle these things?
Speaker 3: I said, I want to try to be one of
Speaker 3: the experts in that. And to her credit, she's still
Speaker 3: a mentor of mine today. She says, Longe doesn't mess
Speaker 3: with your client work. That time again, I'm consulting for
Speaker 3: Wall Street banks, asset managers, card companies, et cetera. She said,
Speaker 3: I support you. So I was able to kind of
Speaker 3: help develop some of the early blockchain and crypto risking
Speaker 3: appliance methodologies for one of the Big Four. Got laughed
Speaker 3: at a lot. A lot of people told me that
Speaker 3: I've seen this before. This stuff doesn't make sense. But
Speaker 3: when you put the hours in, that's when you realize, yes,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of hyperbolean nonsense, but that's every new innovation,
Speaker 3: but it solves real problems. So from there I studied
Speaker 3: it every single day. Wow. And I again, you know what,
Speaker 3: in my spare time you've talked to my CFO clients,
Speaker 3: I will watch podcasts like yours. I remember your early days,
Speaker 3: and I just dedicated my kind of life to figuring
Speaker 3: out how can I do my part to democratize value
Speaker 3: and really try to help the world in that way
Speaker 3: because I think the velocity of value transfer, the velocity
Speaker 3: of activity, it just could be very beneficial. So fast forward. Finally,
Speaker 3: you know, got up to that, you know, getting into
Speaker 3: the partner level and work hard, you do it, and
Speaker 3: this opportunity of PayPal came about. Wow. And you know
Speaker 3: Dan Shulman prior CEO, had some foresight and that he
Speaker 3: believed in stable paint technology. Yes, and to get there
Speaker 3: you had to do some things. You had to have
Speaker 3: an exchange, you had to have one team transfers, you
Speaker 3: had to open the PayPal wallet. You to do all
Speaker 3: these things. And we had this roadmap, but it went
Speaker 3: from a deck to here's a startup within PayPal. Wow.
Speaker 3: And you know, I won't go through the whole long story,
Speaker 3: but I was fortunateough to be employee one to build
Speaker 3: out the risk of the appliance strategy for PayPal, s
Speaker 3: Crypto grop incredible and it's been an amazing journey. I'm
Speaker 3: blown away by where we are right now. Sure, the
Speaker 3: tailwinds are just unbelievable. We're still super early, but I think,
Speaker 3: you know, this is really a thing. Now. That was
Speaker 3: a very long winded answer. No, that was great.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a journey.
Speaker 2: And you know one thing that stood out to me.
Speaker 2: You spearheading at a one of the top four accounting firms,
Speaker 2: blockchain and these things, and what is it like look
Speaker 2: looking back to see all of Wall Street and all
Speaker 2: the big bangs getting involved.
Speaker 3: Now it is something that I thought could happen. I
Speaker 3: took a big risk because of you know, your partner
Speaker 3: at a big four. That's not a bad life, But
Speaker 3: I mean, my goodness, what we went through. I mean,
Speaker 3: you think about it from the various and fair enough,
Speaker 3: a lot of what happened in our industry was tried
Speaker 3: and true. Wall Street she against to be honesty, whether
Speaker 3: it's fraud or commingling of funds or lack of segregation
Speaker 3: of duties or opick financialuation, MISSI leverage. This is stuff
Speaker 3: we've all seen in the risk manager space, but it
Speaker 3: could have really sunk us. So the fact that the
Speaker 3: industry is so anti fragile it made it through that,
Speaker 3: and now we can get on the other side where
Speaker 3: those incumbents are saying, Okay, maybe there's some value here.
Speaker 3: I'm excited. I'm blown away. I'm thankful that I have
Speaker 3: a little bit of a head start in my knowledge base.
Speaker 3: I'm thankful PayPal does as well. We were the first,
Speaker 3: once a regulated branded stable coin, and you know, I'm
Speaker 3: really really excited to integrate it into real world commerce,
Speaker 3: and I think that there will be a number of winners.
Speaker 3: I think in PayPal's case, we have a very clear mandate.
Speaker 3: Right now. We have a two sided network with almost
Speaker 3: four hundred million wallets in two hundred countries. We have
Speaker 3: merchants and consumers. That is what a lot of organizations
Speaker 3: would love to have as a base. We've built our
Speaker 3: muscles the last five years on you know, how do
Speaker 3: you actually interact on chain in a regulatory compliance manner?
Speaker 3: And now we can start having fun to say, all right,
Speaker 3: how do you launch a product like pay with crypto?
Speaker 3: How do you have a product like we have where
Speaker 3: you know, bill paid with stable coins? How do you
Speaker 3: have py USD rewards? So now we're saying, all right,
Speaker 3: there are existing flows that faster, cheaper, programmable, nearest the
Speaker 3: finality just adds value to the entire stack, and how
Speaker 3: do we get that flywell? Going? Yes, So that's kind
Speaker 3: of where we are right now where I am, But
Speaker 3: I'm also just really excited about what everyone else is building. Sure,
Speaker 3: and I think they'll be you know, closed loop ecosystems
Speaker 3: that interact in their times. For example, if I'm a
Speaker 3: bank doing a syndicated wind farm deal in Canada, do
Speaker 3: I need to know everyone in my syndicate? No, that
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily need to be on chain. But maybe you're
Speaker 3: trying to settle or do something when I need to
Speaker 3: go on chain? Well, how do you do that? And
Speaker 3: we're just travel will come and play and all these
Speaker 3: different things. So now I'm just really excited about the
Speaker 3: problems we get to solve. Sure, and sometimes I can't
Speaker 3: get I can't believe I get paid to have to
Speaker 3: think about these firms because I thought about for free
Speaker 3: for a time. So yeah, overall, just really excited.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a bit about p y USC and how
Speaker 2: it's being used as much as you can share.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is it.
Speaker 2: Being used behind the scenes for cross border payments but
Speaker 2: users don't necessarily know, for instance, settlement our merchants accepting
Speaker 2: it and using it as well.
Speaker 3: Great question. So PayPal has a Zoom with X of
Speaker 3: payments business, and you know that business is in one
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty countries, so we've already integrated PYUSD in
Speaker 3: a number of flows there some where the customers have
Speaker 3: an understanding. For example, pyusc is a funding instrument for
Speaker 3: your Zoom transaction. Well, now as opposed to maybe you know,
Speaker 3: using bank or balance et cetera. Utilizing pius D, you
Speaker 3: can fund that transaction at zero fee and now you
Speaker 3: just have the FX. So that's already a benefit to
Speaker 3: the customer. Now, on the other hand, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of pre funding and cross border payments as you I'm
Speaker 3: sure you're aware of. So we also have piloted with
Speaker 3: two large partners, one in the Philippines one in Africa,
Speaker 3: where now as opposed to kind of pre funding via
Speaker 3: wire we're able to utilize PIUSD and have near instant funding. Wow,
Speaker 3: and now that allows you to manage your float. It's cheaper.
Speaker 3: Everyone can now pass on that value. So those are
Speaker 3: just two use cases that are real right now that
Speaker 3: we are, you know, really trying to make sure that
Speaker 3: we grow in a responsible way. But again that's bringing utility.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely answer your question. Yes, it's already happening. And
Speaker 3: after genius and though we don't have rulemaking yet, the
Speaker 3: signaling of having stable coin legislation that right there has
Speaker 3: really opened the floodgates. So I'm really excited about twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six.
Speaker 2: So to your point, PayPal has a massive network right
Speaker 2: of users and merchants, been around for a long time.
Speaker 2: I remember using PayPal back in two thousand.
Speaker 3: And most people don't know we own venmo. Yes, you know,
Speaker 3: people don't even know that.
Speaker 2: So you have the distribution, you have the network build,
Speaker 2: but our institutions, outside institutions seeing what you're doing and saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, I want to use PayPal's stable cooins
Speaker 2: p uy usc.
Speaker 3: We are getting tons of inbound to collaborate. We believe
Speaker 3: in partnerships. Yeah. Again, there's room for everyone to be
Speaker 3: successful at this and we know what we do well.
Speaker 3: So to your question, yes, I mean we haven't we
Speaker 3: announced even the coin based partnership recently like your spark
Speaker 3: et cetera. But whether there's trad fies, merchants, et cetera.
Speaker 3: You know, everyone's trying to figure out now that we
Speaker 3: have some regulatory clarity. Yeah, well, how do we use
Speaker 3: the technology to benefit us and treasury operations and things
Speaker 3: of that nature. So yeah, lots of reach out and
Speaker 3: that's been really exciting.
Speaker 1: It's amazing to see the growth.
Speaker 2: And one of the things folks wanted me to ask
Speaker 2: is that you offer a crypto assets the ability to
Speaker 2: buy sell on both venmo and PayPal. Are there plans
Speaker 2: to add more crypto assets as much as you can share?
Speaker 3: A good question. So one we're always thinking utility, yeah,
Speaker 3: and again is it aligned to the value prop that
Speaker 3: we are trying to execute on, which is revolutionizing commerce.
Speaker 3: So now again we're really focused on py U s
Speaker 3: D and p USD is on multi chain right because
Speaker 3: there are different chains that have different benefits. So you know,
Speaker 3: the short answer is, you know, if it's aligned to
Speaker 3: the strategy adding more coins, yes, but we are not
Speaker 3: trying to be a change. There are organizations that do
Speaker 3: that in a fantastic manner. So we are trying to
Speaker 3: figure out how do we integrate py usd into Venmo
Speaker 3: and brain tree and hyperwallet and all these other products
Speaker 3: that we have we know will bring real value to
Speaker 3: the to the ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. It has to make business
Speaker 2: sense right now. There was also a crypto rewards program
Speaker 2: that PayPal launch tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so rewards are interesting because and it is rewards.
Speaker 3: It's not interest, it's not yield. You know, if you
Speaker 3: go into Genius, it's very clear issuers cannot pass along.
Speaker 3: Though we're not the issue er. Paxos is our issuer,
Speaker 3: it's our branded and it's it's coregulated. So what we
Speaker 3: wanted to do is to be able to again bring
Speaker 3: utility to our ecosystem, to get the flywheel going because ultimately,
Speaker 3: especially in like the US, though there are you know, issues.
Speaker 3: The system works, but how do you incentive people to
Speaker 3: adopt this technology and then see the benefits of that technology.
Speaker 3: So being able to hold py USC on memoir PayPal
Speaker 3: and earn a reward that's utility. So now, and if
Speaker 3: you're a merchant or a consumer. So now maybe you're
Speaker 3: a merchant and you want to use the bill pay product,
Speaker 3: and you are a small business owner and you're paying
Speaker 3: your utility bills, but you're holding p y USD and
Speaker 3: now you're gaining PRUSD rewards and then you're paying out
Speaker 3: and you're paying out at a lower rate, things of
Speaker 3: that nature. So we're trying to get that that flywell there.
Speaker 3: Or again, you know, you are a consumer and as
Speaker 3: opposed to maybe sweeping it, you know, immediately to your
Speaker 3: bank bult you say hey, I'd rather hold this, or
Speaker 3: I want to convert in and out of another digital asset,
Speaker 3: or I want to go one play in the DeFi market,
Speaker 3: things of that nature. So we wanted to try to
Speaker 3: figure out how can we incentivize our user base to
Speaker 3: want to hold it, because, as you know, once you
Speaker 3: hold it, use it, play with it, it starts to
Speaker 3: make even my mother. Once my mother, if I said, okay,
Speaker 3: by you this Bitcoin once she gott and she's like, okay,
Speaker 3: is what's going on here? So, you know, stable coins,
Speaker 3: especially in the US, it's why do I need it?
Speaker 3: You know, I can, I can, I can send VENMO,
Speaker 3: I can use cash up, et cetera. But we're really
Speaker 3: trying to kind of help change that behavior so that way,
Speaker 3: really we can start unlocking the value.
Speaker 2: One of the things you guys, which is really cool
Speaker 2: that you guys are launched was P two P payments
Speaker 2: with PayPal links. Does that include both crypto assets and
Speaker 2: P y U s d.
Speaker 3: Yep, So I mean being able to send that link.
Speaker 3: It's purest in the Indi digital asset. And again we're
Speaker 3: trying to just make it as easy as possible for
Speaker 3: people to interact and use. Yeah. Again like it. It's fascinating.
Speaker 3: I like to say electricity, whether it's you know, direct
Speaker 3: or indirect. And we're not you know, you know Tesla,
Speaker 3: you know versus uh, you know Edison here. But at
Speaker 3: this point we just want to turn the light on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and PayPal's really good at you can turn the light
Speaker 3: on in a simple manner with trust. So we're trying
Speaker 3: to figure out how can we integrate the technology as
Speaker 3: much as possible in a seamless manner that's easy for
Speaker 3: customers to interact with that adds value. So we're working
Speaker 3: through things like that.
Speaker 1: It's great. It's amazing how far things have.
Speaker 3: Come, Tony. I truly am blown away. Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 3: so thankful for all the challenges. Sure, and as a
Speaker 3: risking compliance professional, I've had to think of many what
Speaker 3: could go wrongs that you wouldn't even think of what
Speaker 3: could go wrong? Yeah, but ultimately that's how you build
Speaker 3: anti fragility. And I've worked as a management soon for
Speaker 3: a very long time and the truth of the matter
Speaker 3: is there's lots of things that go wrong behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: but maybe blockchain technology you might not know it right.
Speaker 3: So I'm really really excited. And I think it also
Speaker 3: aligns with just this overall convergence of where technology is going.
Speaker 3: I like to say, when people kind of question, they say,
Speaker 3: what do I really need this? I said, do you
Speaker 3: think there was gonna be more analog or digital? Do
Speaker 3: you think an agentic AI or your digital twin is
Speaker 3: gonna send an AH or dollars or maybe utilize the
Speaker 3: blockchain exactly? So if you just kind of play this
Speaker 3: out it's an overall play for the convergence of all
Speaker 3: these new technologies coming online. I was in Austin. I'm
Speaker 3: a big Formula One fan, and I went down to
Speaker 3: the Grand Prix and first time I got to drive
Speaker 3: in a an autonomous vehicle. So my wife and I,
Speaker 3: you know, we're downtown, We're looking at the city and
Speaker 3: you know, oh, wait a minute, you know, this option
Speaker 3: got in and I was like wow, And I thought
Speaker 3: to myself, the Internet of things, when these robots and
Speaker 3: things like that communicate, it's just even more utility that
Speaker 3: we can't even think about at this moment. There's plenty
Speaker 3: of problems to solved just in what we know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating because you have the convergence of all
Speaker 2: these technologies AI, robotics, crypto, block chain, and much more.
Speaker 2: And you know, eventually, when we have these humanoid robots,
Speaker 2: regardless of what they're doing in the economy, they're not
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 3: Be using cash, not at all.
Speaker 1: It's going to be stable coins.
Speaker 3: And what I love about stable coins. And it's funny
Speaker 3: because I remember the old days, was like I like blockchain,
Speaker 3: but I don't like the crypto. Yeah, but what people
Speaker 3: understand is having the value chances for mechanism aligned to
Speaker 3: the protocol is the AHA for the Web three, right,
Speaker 3: and it's one of the flaws of Web two. Web
Speaker 3: two is actually legal to transact value initially when it
Speaker 3: was being developed, so you know, you still need those
Speaker 3: value assets that have incentives for developers, early adopters, and
Speaker 3: also to kind of again you know, maybe pay that
Speaker 3: gas fee, et cetera. Stable coins I think are the
Speaker 3: initial killer app of Web three because it's that true
Speaker 3: partnership between the FIAT world in this Web three world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 3: As a US citizen, it's a ready made market for
Speaker 3: US treasuries in a regulated way, and you can you
Speaker 3: can have the pliferation of the US dollar in this
Speaker 3: tokenized version again in a regulated manner. That way, you know,
Speaker 3: you can keep governments, you know, comfortable, but then also
Speaker 3: unlocked the value for citizens. So you know, like, I'm
Speaker 3: just thankful that we're at this moment where the real world,
Speaker 3: in that Web three world that we've been looking at
Speaker 3: all these years, are really starting to merge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating, and it's moving at such a rapid pace.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I can't imagine when the Clarity Act
Speaker 2: is past the amount of innovation that's t hundred.
Speaker 3: Because ultimately it's fascinating. There was this notion of everyone
Speaker 3: was a renegade and it just was not true, you know,
Speaker 3: like like like at the end of the day, you
Speaker 3: want sensible regulation. You want to work closely with your
Speaker 3: regulatory and government partners, because if we don't have clear
Speaker 3: rules of the road, then how do you innovate in
Speaker 3: a responsible manner? And you don't want the systemic risk
Speaker 3: to just be so residually high that it's unbearable. So
Speaker 3: now that we're starting to get this sensible legislation around
Speaker 3: the world, now you can build a strategic moat around
Speaker 3: how do you execute upon it and then innovate simultaneously?
Speaker 3: And then I'll throw one more thing out there to
Speaker 3: the viewers. It's not only is it how do you
Speaker 3: adhere to the regulations in your particular jurisdiction, but how
Speaker 3: do you manage the other regimes et cetera. Because this
Speaker 3: is a globally adopted you know, initiative.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: The governments are going to have to align on their
Speaker 2: regulations like and figure out how do you traade all
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's tough, but again that's the fun of it, right,
Speaker 3: So how do you partner with your regulators? How do
Speaker 3: you help educate them? As more sensible relations come online,
Speaker 3: you start to see the hey, okay, well this part
Speaker 3: of the world they're using this, this makes sense, So
Speaker 3: maybe we could do that. So I think we're still
Speaker 3: very early, but at least now we know that the
Speaker 3: tailwinds are there, where before it was it's been headwinds
Speaker 3: for the you know, the last oh my goodness, FIP
Speaker 3: plus year as easily.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so as much as you can. What's what's
Speaker 2: on the roadmap that you can highlight that PayPal is
Speaker 2: going to do with crypto or p yus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I can tell you wholeheartedly, you know,
Speaker 3: and as you look at our listen to our CEO
Speaker 3: Alex Chris. We want to revolutionize commerce. We want to
Speaker 3: unlock the value of our network. This digital asset revolution
Speaker 3: is important. I can tell you it is. It is
Speaker 3: an important initiative at PayPal, specifically, how do we unlock
Speaker 3: the value of PYUSD. So I think you'll see a
Speaker 3: lot of innovation where we are integrating PIU s D
Speaker 3: into core activities that we were not before. But it's
Speaker 3: allowing for faster, cheaper, et cetera. And then on top
Speaker 3: of that, you know, how do you unlock the value
Speaker 3: around the world? Again, very hard problem, not easy, but
Speaker 3: it's a challenge that everyone's looking at and you know,
Speaker 3: you know, we're definitely looking at that as well, because
Speaker 3: again we're in two hundred countries and how do we
Speaker 3: lack value for all of our customers.
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure, there was something that happened I have
Speaker 2: to ask you about. Sure it's with Paxos when when
Speaker 2: they accidentally minted you know, three hundred trillion or something
Speaker 2: py sc Now I understand stood the benefit of that,
Speaker 2: that that extra whatever happened there, we all got to
Speaker 2: see at the same time we got to see when
Speaker 2: it was fixed versus if that happened at JP Morgan.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows, Tony.
Speaker 3: Thank you for saying that. And it's fat it's interesting.
Speaker 3: Problems occur when you innovate, problems occur when you are
Speaker 3: bau and to your point, you know, in one no
Speaker 3: customer funds were harmed. This was you know, Paxos owned
Speaker 3: it immediately we spoke. It was fixed in less than
Speaker 3: twenty minutes. But because that kind of error happened on chain,
Speaker 3: the world got to see it, whereas in an error
Speaker 3: and you know in the trat FI, you know you
Speaker 3: wouldn't see it in the closed data, right. But yeah,
Speaker 3: was it something that was fun for the moment? No? No,
Speaker 3: is it a great learning lesson for everyone. Did all
Speaker 3: of our regulatory partners and other partners ass what happened? Yes?
Speaker 3: Are we working really closely with Paxos to make sure
Speaker 3: that you know, we continue to show up all the
Speaker 3: controls and improve and understand all the worker go wrongs. Yes,
Speaker 3: but it was a moment. You know, we're past. It
Speaker 3: wasn't fun, But long term, selflessly, as a risk compliance person,
Speaker 3: I'm glad that we can continue to build, innovate And again,
Speaker 3: no customer funds were harmed anything like that.
Speaker 1: Right, And this was just the issue.
Speaker 2: But the great thing is, and I keep in reminding people,
Speaker 2: it's not that the erar happened.
Speaker 1: Humans make mistakes all the time. But the point is, for.
Speaker 2: The first time in history, we were able to all
Speaker 2: see it, and that's the power of the blockchain. And
Speaker 2: then it could be fixed right away, burned it right away.
Speaker 3: And as an open source stable coin. Yeah, being able
Speaker 3: to have that transparency. Yeah, I mean, how is that?
Speaker 3: It's not a negative real you know, it's just again
Speaker 3: it's error. But there are errors everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Every day. As long as humans are involved, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be got it.
Speaker 2: But the technologies here where we have to trust, we
Speaker 2: have the transparency, we have the ability to address it
Speaker 2: right away. So that's really great. What are you most
Speaker 2: excited about for like twenty twenty six, you know, for
Speaker 2: the crypto industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited for rule making, the comfort genius. I
Speaker 3: think that's going to unlock a lot of value because
Speaker 3: we have the legislation, we don't have the rule making yet,
Speaker 3: right though, if you look at like NYDFS Part two
Speaker 3: hundred for example, there's a robust regime for stable coins there.
Speaker 3: What I do know of being in risk management for
Speaker 3: twenty plus years in this space is that best practice
Speaker 3: is our leverage. So trying to kind of get ahead
Speaker 3: of all of that. Definitely, the market, you know, clarity
Speaker 3: looking forward to that. I mean, my goodness, what's the commodity?
Speaker 3: What's this? How do we have the rules so we
Speaker 3: can now integrate this more to real world activities? Sure,
Speaker 3: How does the world come together and start unlocking value?
Speaker 3: How does this overlap with AI. I'm excited to see
Speaker 3: all of this because I think we're hitting a point
Speaker 3: in the curve where we're going to see some exponential changes.
Speaker 3: You know, I use you know, ch GBT five every
Speaker 3: single day, right if you have said that two years ago,
Speaker 3: no way, right? So you know, what's what's what's on
Speaker 3: the horizon. Given we're in this exponential moment, I'm looking
Speaker 3: forward to that.
Speaker 2: It's exciting, man, really exciting. Follow up question just PayPal
Speaker 2: looking to use AI in any way AI agents and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you you know, listen to our
Speaker 3: CEO and what we are trying to figure out how
Speaker 3: to utilize you know, AI in a responsible manner to
Speaker 3: unlock value for our customers. Absolutely, I don't know in
Speaker 3: the organization, that's not sure. But if you think about
Speaker 3: just you know, our again our two side network, the data,
Speaker 3: the ability to again benefit merchens and consumers. You know,
Speaker 3: it's something I think everyone's looking at and obviously you
Speaker 3: know we are as well.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to have you back on to have
Speaker 2: a longer form conversation because I'm fascinated by what PayPal
Speaker 2: is doing, as you know, one of the leaders in
Speaker 2: the payment industry, and there's still more to go here,
Speaker 2: absolutely and the innovation. I'm looking forward to the future innovations.
Speaker 2: But thank you so much for joining from this pleasure.
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