Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Tony here at the Coinbase State of Crypto Summit,
Speaker 1: and joining me is A klil Ipse, who's the head
Speaker 1: of Corporate Development and M and A at Coinbase. A clil.
Speaker 1: Great to have you, great to be here, Thank you,
Speaker 1: A Clile. Tell us a bit about yourself. What do
Speaker 1: you what's your background and what do you do at Coinbase?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, So I started my current investment banking, spent
Speaker 2: about two years at Deutsche Bank in San Francisco, and
Speaker 2: really wanted to jump into tech. I grew up playing
Speaker 2: a lot of video games and so kind of knew
Speaker 2: I wanted to be in technology, and so I joined LinkedIn,
Speaker 2: where I was on the M and a team there
Speaker 2: did a short stinton product management which we can which
Speaker 2: which we can get to, but really kind of around
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, like a lot of people, got really into
Speaker 2: crypto and bought my first bitcoin and thought it was
Speaker 2: fascinating that there's this underlying technology that you know, eventually
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs will build on top of it, which will then
Speaker 2: create products, which then create markets, which then create these
Speaker 2: like whole new platform shifts. And suffice to say, I
Speaker 2: was red pilled pretty hard. Sure, I joined a former
Speaker 2: boss of mine over to coinbase, and so I've been
Speaker 2: there now for almost about six years and now leading
Speaker 2: the corporate function.
Speaker 1: Coinbase has made some very big and incredible acquisitions over
Speaker 1: the years, the most recent, I believe being dere A
Speaker 1: bit tell us a bit about that and what's the mission.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're tremendously excited about the Deribate transaction, largest
Speaker 2: transaction in the history of crypto to date. And you know,
Speaker 2: really the thesis there was, you know, we want to
Speaker 2: build on top of and expand our institutional franchise, and
Speaker 2: with the Derived acquisition, it makes us the most comprehensive
Speaker 2: crypto derivatives platform on the planet. They specialize in options
Speaker 2: where they're the number one in market share, and I
Speaker 2: think with that plus our futures business, plus our purpose business,
Speaker 2: it really makes us the most comprehensive platform for crypto
Speaker 2: derivatives and we're super super excited about it.
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming you're seeing a lot of demand and
Speaker 1: appetite from the institutional investment, so this will allow you
Speaker 1: to cater to them.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah, So today we have Spot, we
Speaker 2: have Futures, we have Purps, and now this adds options,
Speaker 2: which again brings our platform to being the most comprehensive
Speaker 2: and crypto derivatives, and we're super excited about that and
Speaker 2: meeting clients with what they want at the right time.
Speaker 1: And are your acquisitions going to be more focused on
Speaker 1: the institutional side or retail or both?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, both, which is often the answer at coinbase.
Speaker 2: I would say, so, we're we're broadly focused on a
Speaker 2: couple of themes on the M and a strategy side.
Speaker 2: So one which we sort of talked about is derivatives
Speaker 2: and advanced trading. You know, seventy five percent of all
Speaker 2: volumes in crypto exist in derivatives, and you know, we
Speaker 2: are still primarily a spot business and so there's a
Speaker 2: lot of work for us to do there and Dererivid's
Speaker 2: I think the first step in that direction. The secondary
Speaker 2: that we're focused on, and you know, part of the
Speaker 2: whole theme of this conference is around stable coins and payments,
Speaker 2: So we're very excited about the potential and opportunity there,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's actually quite validating to you know,
Speaker 2: see same coins kind of being at the forefront. It
Speaker 2: feels like we're mainstream, non you know, the u SEC
Speaker 2: is a pretty you know, it's an older product for us,
Speaker 2: it's been around for some time, and so we're excited
Speaker 2: to accelerate what we're doing with USDC and payments.
Speaker 1: Through M and A.
Speaker 2: The third area, I would say is on chain, consumer
Speaker 2: and infrastructure. So, you know, if you rewind the clock
Speaker 2: maybe eighteen twenty four months, coinbase was primarily a centralized business,
Speaker 2: centralized exchange, offering basic you know, buy sell and different
Speaker 2: types of services to retail institutional investors. And now with
Speaker 2: things like base coinbase Wall, you know, we're really pushing
Speaker 2: people on chain, pushing people into decentralization, and acquisitions like
Speaker 2: Spindle are really interesting adjacencies that allow us to kind
Speaker 2: of really accelerate what we're doing with the on chain
Speaker 2: business side. That's another one. And then the last one,
Speaker 2: which I'm personally most excited about, is international expansion. So
Speaker 2: today our business is primarily US based around eighty percent,
Speaker 2: and we're trying to build an open financial system for
Speaker 2: the world, and you can't do that if it's just
Speaker 2: in the United States. And so I'm personally very excited
Speaker 2: to expand our foot and internationally and specifically within the
Speaker 2: retail side from.
Speaker 1: The retail perspective. I'm curious about this majority of people.
Speaker 1: You know, they search on Google via the mobile phone.
Speaker 1: Everything revolves a mobile around the mobile phone. So are
Speaker 1: you building the experience more so on that end versus
Speaker 1: say desktop or a computer.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, as is often the case of coinbase,
Speaker 2: it's both. So yeah, that's right. So I would I
Speaker 2: would say, you know, different customers have different needs and
Speaker 2: different markets, and we see that across the twenty plus
Speaker 2: markets that we serve coinbase today, at least from the
Speaker 2: retail app side, and many many, many more across our
Speaker 2: Coinbase wall app. And you know, be it desktop, be
Speaker 2: it mobile, be it a centralized experience or a decentralized experience.
Speaker 2: You know, the thesis is really to become the primary
Speaker 2: account within the crypto economy, and you know that means
Speaker 2: offering desktop experiences, mobile experience at centralized experiences, decentralized experiences,
Speaker 2: and whatever the customer needs are, we intend to meet that.
Speaker 1: And then in expanding globally, I've read and I've seen
Speaker 1: different surveys and reports. The majority of it is around
Speaker 1: stable coins. People want the US dollar back stable coins
Speaker 1: because maybe they're in a country at hyperinflation. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing mostly demand being around US dollar back stable coins
Speaker 1: because people want the world reserve currency.
Speaker 2: I think that's right, you know, and this is a
Speaker 2: this is an area that's you know, personally very exciting
Speaker 2: for me around stable coin and dollar access. My parents
Speaker 2: are from Ethiopia. You know, the burr is not the
Speaker 2: most stable currency in the world, and you know, it's
Speaker 2: so exciting to have this go from you know, almost
Speaker 2: like an experiment that we did with USDC in partnership
Speaker 2: with our friends at Circle to now a legitimate way
Speaker 2: in which you can get access to dollars and we're
Speaker 2: seeing a lot of demand for that right now.
Speaker 1: M M. And then from a tokenized asset standpoint, anything
Speaker 1: you can share there. Maybe it might be too early
Speaker 1: or you're in the process of looking at things.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, great, great question. So institutional access is
Speaker 2: definitely an area that is of utmost importance and an
Speaker 2: area that we're really excited about on the M and
Speaker 2: A side. We think with the regulatory environment, you know,
Speaker 2: notably the market structure and the Genius Bill, it really
Speaker 2: is paving the way for you know, things like tokenization
Speaker 2: and r WA's and a number of these things that
Speaker 2: we've kind of all talked about for so long in
Speaker 2: crypto to really kind of become a thing. And I
Speaker 2: would say on the M and A side, we're very
Speaker 2: excited about it.
Speaker 1: But early days, yeah, it seems like tokenization is a
Speaker 1: hot topic. Everybody's trying to put stocks and traditional assets
Speaker 1: on the unchained. Yeah, don't forget real estate in real estate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very Yeah, it's like a brave new world and
Speaker 1: there's so many different sectors being developed, whether it be
Speaker 1: deep en, AI, RWA, obviously tokenization. So it's exciting. What's
Speaker 1: on your roadmap as far as that you can share
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's kind of the themes I talked
Speaker 2: about earlier. So I would say on chain, consumer infrastructure,
Speaker 2: derivatives and advanced trading, international expansion, institutional access, and then
Speaker 2: stable coin and payments are really the five areas. And
Speaker 2: you know, we have a pretty diversified business retail, you know,
Speaker 2: now we just announced quite based for business and now businesses,
Speaker 2: institutions and developers, and we have a pretty aggressive I
Speaker 2: would say M and A roadmap over the next top
Speaker 2: twenty four months, and you know, we anticipate you would
Speaker 2: be hearing a lot more from US across those five areas.
Speaker 1: That's exciting. And with the coinbase for Business, it seems
Speaker 1: that's the untapped sector, maybe because you need the on
Speaker 1: and off rams, people being able to buy and spend
Speaker 1: and all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think businesses is truly it is very much
Speaker 2: an untapped area. And you know, I think what is
Speaker 2: really I would say woken up the industry is you know,
Speaker 2: stable coin payments and businesses actually using them for actual
Speaker 2: utility and usage. And you know, I think historically there
Speaker 2: have been a lot of attempts and a lot of
Speaker 2: things where you know, people would try different experiment experiments
Speaker 2: and things like that. And I think payments has really
Speaker 2: brought businesses into the limelight around crypto adoption. And you know,
Speaker 2: we're really excited about that. You know, with coinbas for Business,
Speaker 2: we are launching a product that essentiallyows you to store, save, send,
Speaker 2: receive all on crypto with unified onboarding and really really
Speaker 2: quick onboarding. So Taylor made for like the modern business.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's only that's just the beginning. I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of opportunity to help accelerate that
Speaker 2: through m and I.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see that being like a big on ramp
Speaker 1: for crypto adoption because if you can go to your
Speaker 1: favorite store merchant and be able to use your crypto
Speaker 1: in that way or stable points, yep, just makes things
Speaker 1: a lot easier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally agree.
Speaker 1: Oklet pleasure, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Awesome