Speaker 1: Hey, folks. We're recording at Halburn's Access Summit at the
Speaker 1: New York Stock Exchange and joining me is Henry Zang,
Speaker 1: who is the founder and CEO of DGFT. Henry, great
Speaker 1: to have.
Speaker 2: You, Thank you, thank you for inviting me for your podcast.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm really looking forward to learning about what you're
Speaker 1: doing at DGFT. Let's start with your background. Where are
Speaker 1: you from? How'd you get into crypto.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, given my age, I started with traditional finance,
Speaker 2: not called the traditional finance, but I would rather say
Speaker 2: this as a mainstream finance. So I'm working in the
Speaker 2: financial industry for more than two decades, mainly with City
Speaker 2: with Standard chartered and always on the East West Bank,
Speaker 2: mostly in Asia. Different functions brought me to crypto is
Speaker 2: in my twenties, which is in the year of twenty
Speaker 2: two thousand. It's a two thousand time. That was internet
Speaker 2: at the time. That was internet at the time. I
Speaker 2: was the e commerce head when I worked for City,
Speaker 2: so I'm pretty much wept to og so starting Funders
Speaker 2: twenty in two thousand. In my twenties, in my role
Speaker 2: as an e commerce head, I built the first online
Speaker 2: payment system for in the Asian market. I thought it
Speaker 2: was a very cool product because you make a payment
Speaker 2: electronically rather than paper based and effects to the bank
Speaker 2: to make the payment and then people call back right
Speaker 2: then become electronic and as a time, people talk about
Speaker 2: the internet would be the future in the ten years,
Speaker 2: everybody very brutish convinced, but people don't know what's going
Speaker 2: to happen entertainments. Later on, this product become a very
Speaker 2: successful and profitable, commercially successful product. But actually it's on
Speaker 2: that that's starting from the online payment, go to the
Speaker 2: online banking, then go to the online finance. Then the
Speaker 2: whole thing tech build on the internet. So that was
Speaker 2: my experience twenty five years ago. Not coming to continue
Speaker 2: my banking career in different roles, different jurisdictions, I appreciate that,
Speaker 2: but I have this kind of memory and continue to
Speaker 2: monitor the whole world because as a time I have
Speaker 2: a great company come out like a paper or issue
Speaker 2: market like ldipay blah blah. Theyater to become huge companies.
Speaker 2: Then coming to this web sree, it's that time internet.
Speaker 2: Now we give it the name of a Web three
Speaker 2: next generation of Internet not only transferred information, it's transfer
Speaker 2: values giving my financial background and giving my tech background
Speaker 2: and my proder background. About twenty five years ago I
Speaker 2: realized this is something big, probably even bigger than Internet
Speaker 2: next generation, last generation that's called the web stream, a
Speaker 2: blockchain based because can transfer value. I'm so passionate about that.
Speaker 2: That's why I say, let me do something, engage early.
Speaker 2: I was early in the last wave. I want to
Speaker 2: be early in this way, but in a different way
Speaker 2: as a as a builder, as an entrepreneur, rather than walking
Speaker 2: on on our platform. So I build the DGFT five
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 1: So do you see You know your background in the Internet,
Speaker 1: in e commerce, and you mentioned payments that where we
Speaker 1: are now with blockchain and the movement of value. It
Speaker 1: is a natural evolution of payments and the Internet.
Speaker 2: Very true, you know. It is about the financial market
Speaker 2: right and also very important is about the money. Now
Speaker 2: we talk about stable coin or CBDC or tokenize the deposit,
Speaker 2: which is a hot topic today in the in the
Speaker 2: in the conference, which I think very very important because
Speaker 2: the money no matter, no matter called the stable coin
Speaker 2: or CBDC or whatever, it's the money on chain. Yes, Now,
Speaker 2: what are called the three the phase three of money?
Speaker 2: Phase one paper based phase two, which is current electronic.
Speaker 2: Then the phase three is money on chain, it's money
Speaker 2: token the base why the three generations because the background
Speaker 2: is different, technology is different. Now were having the uh,
Speaker 2: we're entering to the age of this money on chin
Speaker 2: based on the block chain. So once the money on chin,
Speaker 2: you have two things. How to use money. Money is
Speaker 2: about two usages. If I may say, one is to
Speaker 2: buy something, another is to invest. Buy could be to
Speaker 2: be to see to see its consumer spending, to be
Speaker 2: a unreceivable or comparable any money you didn't spend, you
Speaker 2: want to earn something, so you have to invest. So
Speaker 2: in this regard ones the stable can money move on
Speaker 2: chain and of course based on the whole infra there's
Speaker 2: a chain wallet or the other things. Now how to
Speaker 2: pay and how to invest is going to be fundamentally changed.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And it makes it almost a more global
Speaker 1: market because you have twenty four to seven trading. Anyone
Speaker 1: can access the asset because it's on chain. Right before,
Speaker 1: for example, not everyone could access certain stocks on the
Speaker 1: New York Stock Exchange. But with bitcoin and crypto acids
Speaker 1: and stable coins, you could be in any part of
Speaker 1: the world. So as you have Internet connection, you can
Speaker 1: access it totally.
Speaker 2: These kind of new features of benefits people start to
Speaker 2: realize starting from the crypto native assets like BTC. Because
Speaker 2: of crypto native there are nothing in the real world
Speaker 2: but just an on chain. But then the people once
Speaker 2: they like the see the values of the asset, but
Speaker 2: also on the other side they see the value of efficiency, transparency,
Speaker 2: self ownership. Then people start to think about it. BDC
Speaker 2: is good as an asset, but on the other side,
Speaker 2: the BDC is very good in terms of its features.
Speaker 2: Then people naturally think and the debating here is can
Speaker 2: we apply these good features enable make it enable other assets.
Speaker 2: Now there's a name called the r W A, although
Speaker 2: I don't think r W is a perfect name, but
Speaker 2: just use it real assets basically the assets which is
Speaker 2: not on chain, but we make the ownership or the
Speaker 2: representation on chain called r W A token or digital
Speaker 2: asset tokens. Then you can enjoy this kind of benefits
Speaker 2: which native assets crypto assets already inherited. That's the moment
Speaker 2: things on chain. Then coming to your point is like
Speaker 2: twenty four seven etc. On the other side is if
Speaker 2: I may adam just a couple more sentences, then the
Speaker 2: people look at the current financial industry. Mainstream financial industry
Speaker 2: use the best of the technology so far, but still
Speaker 2: there's a lot of room to improve. The current financial
Speaker 2: market is very local and the pretty manual in terms
Speaker 2: of middle office and the back office, which the technology
Speaker 2: hasn't been changed much in the past decades. The one,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, it is like a stock we're sitting in.
Speaker 2: Your stock has changed, but this is US stock. If
Speaker 2: you go to japan stock, you go to European stock,
Speaker 2: you go to Asian stock. There are different separate markets
Speaker 2: which they cannot be you buy here, set over there.
Speaker 2: You okay, only buy here, set over there, And each
Speaker 2: one has a very distinctive settlement procedure, some T plus two,
Speaker 2: some T plus one, some maybe T plus x, very
Speaker 2: very different, and you need to move the capital cross
Speaker 2: the border. Then you add on another layer of complexity.
Speaker 2: The result is your capital efficiency it's low. Your accessibility
Speaker 2: even doesn't exist, then the efficiency will be low. Even
Speaker 2: you can transfer around, so these kind of things. Thanks
Speaker 2: for the technology. Using this token based Web three next
Speaker 2: generation of Internet can be largely addressed.
Speaker 1: Absolutely breaks down a lot of the walls and connects
Speaker 1: more of these markets that were segregated before.
Speaker 2: Indeed, totally that's going to be a non marginal change.
Speaker 2: The change work can be very substantial, as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: Tony said, currently is like a five days maybe eight
Speaker 2: hours right then next step people can talk about twenty
Speaker 2: four seven and the settlement and the clearing happened simultaneously,
Speaker 2: and it can be in minutes, seconds or even many
Speaker 2: seconds soon. So this is one step forward, yes, but
Speaker 2: this is one step forward. Is almost reached to the ideal,
Speaker 2: most ideal situation twenty four seven. What else you can
Speaker 2: expect and the real time or near real time. So
Speaker 2: this kind of innovation, I would say it is not
Speaker 2: marginal innovation.
Speaker 1: It's normal, absolutely, and I think I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was this week we heard the New York Stock
Speaker 1: Exchange they're looking to go twenty four to seven, you know,
Speaker 1: the NASDAC. So eventually, like you said, you know, everybody's
Speaker 1: going to be on the same playing field to get
Speaker 1: real time settlement twenty four to seven trading.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one, I mean just encouraging me to say
Speaker 2: two things right. One is the financial industry is never
Speaker 2: slow in adopting new technologies. Look at the history when
Speaker 2: a new technology come out telecommunication, PC, internet, mobile. Financial
Speaker 2: industry never never be the slow guide to adopt it.
Speaker 2: So this time just another new technology, so financial industry
Speaker 2: will be a very active use of it. This number one.
Speaker 2: Another thing is that when you mentioned like an ASTech
Speaker 2: New York stock change coming in to do it is
Speaker 2: institutional engagement. So the institution was start coming. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 2: So that's never slow in the past. We're not slow
Speaker 2: this time. And also big guys start to come in,
Speaker 2: so this kind of change we can expect it will
Speaker 2: be accelerated.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. So took us about dgf T what is
Speaker 1: what are the services you offer? The history and who
Speaker 1: are you working with and things like that.
Speaker 2: DGFT is a marketplace we called our next generation of
Speaker 2: a marketplace. Why is that? Is a technology white? It
Speaker 2: is a dex non constudient platform. What do we call
Speaker 2: this open architecture means you can connect your own wallet
Speaker 2: to the platform and once you get the assets, the
Speaker 2: assets goes into your own wallet self custodiing. So this
Speaker 2: kind of thing never happened before. We have this technoledge.
Speaker 2: So far the lot of exchanges and marketplaces and the
Speaker 2: financial institutions are almost one hundred percent centralized. You need
Speaker 2: to depend on intermediate to do financial transactions, so decentralize
Speaker 2: your self control. You have a minimum dependency on the
Speaker 2: intermediates or even no intermediate, So that's efficiency. That's efficiency.
Speaker 2: Number two. We deal with not only native crypto assets.
Speaker 2: We deal with the beyond crypto assets. There's so many
Speaker 2: assets of value fixing common stocks, equities, and real state commodities,
Speaker 2: many others that are all of value. So there's a
Speaker 2: huge room to be upgraded in terms of efficiency, liberty,
Speaker 2: or disease knowledge. That's why we go beyond cryptocurrency, not
Speaker 2: called other buy or security digital assets.
Speaker 1: Token assets essentially, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, token azed assets. Number three is were licensed because
Speaker 2: we're in the financial industry. We believe what we're doing
Speaker 2: is the mainstream finance. Financial industry has its own feature.
Speaker 2: It is heavily regulated industry in almost all jurisdictions. This
Speaker 2: is not going to be going to change and publisher,
Speaker 2: not change protection, blah blah, right, a lot of things.
Speaker 2: So we were licensed. We're dealing with that. When licensing
Speaker 2: is a key requirement hold the people accountable. That's why
Speaker 2: you build a trust. So DGFT is a licensed decks
Speaker 2: for digital assets, and we're very proud we are the
Speaker 2: first way in the world be the license the decks
Speaker 2: for digital assets.
Speaker 1: It's incredible because you don't hear about deck is decentralized
Speaker 1: exchanges for those whom no, But that's incredible. Uh, I
Speaker 1: think you're the first I've heard that has a deck
Speaker 1: setup to handle tokenized assets.
Speaker 2: We indeed the first one licensed and the life in operations.
Speaker 1: And I read that you're working with UBS and in Vesco,
Speaker 1: those type of institutions.
Speaker 2: Correct, since we are regulated and we are regulated by
Speaker 2: Tier one jurisdiction. We're in Singapore starting Singapore, now in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong and entering to other jurisdictions, so we are
Speaker 2: regulated by tier one regulators and fully compliant. And on
Speaker 2: the other side, the good asset managers, like when you
Speaker 2: mentioned the UBS in Vesco, they also holding the same
Speaker 2: view as as will be distributed on chain. They're looking
Speaker 2: for partners. That's why we make ourselves and be the
Speaker 2: partner be chosen by this kind of tier one asset managers.
Speaker 2: We're very proud of it. So now we have but
Speaker 2: we're working with UBS in Mesco, Wellington, DBS, develop Bank
Speaker 2: of Singapore and with some other asse managers out of
Speaker 2: Hong Kong our list. This list is getting longer and
Speaker 2: we're very proud of it. And also this also in
Speaker 2: our vision is more and more asset providers probably in
Speaker 2: the future percent they will move the way on Chin
Speaker 2: just like a move from paper to electronic. Yeah, Leytown
Speaker 2: will be on Chen twenty five years ago online.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, it's incredible the adoption that's happening, Henry. I
Speaker 1: know Singapore has always been more for thinking and ahead
Speaker 1: of the curve than the rest of the world with crypto.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, we're almost at the cusp
Speaker 1: of getting crypto market structure. So are you seeing the
Speaker 1: US opening up more where you're talking to institutions here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there isn't a couple regulators of jurisdictions are very
Speaker 2: forward looking and taking action. Singapore, of course is the
Speaker 2: one we appreciate. That's why we also uh talking to
Speaker 2: the regulators in Singapore and also be endorsed by Singapore.
Speaker 2: The giving license then US definitely is in terms of
Speaker 2: size and the richness is never ware in the world
Speaker 2: as a financial market. We also see in the US
Speaker 2: market the regulators variously regulators which is not easy and
Speaker 2: also legislations. But I'm also moving very fast. Yes, the
Speaker 2: more in fast, and the trend is very clear. The
Speaker 2: trend is to embrace this innovation. But of course there
Speaker 2: are a lot of debate, a lot of check and
Speaker 2: balance talking about how to embrace, what to embrace, and
Speaker 2: how to embrace. That's very natural. But the trends are
Speaker 2: very clear, including the stable coin. There money on chain
Speaker 2: is also digital.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, the stable coin adoption is surging after here
Speaker 1: in the United States passed the Genius Act and a
Speaker 1: lot of institutions like banks want to launch their own
Speaker 1: stable coins.
Speaker 2: Now incredible, Yeah, because I would say wise men think,
Speaker 2: I like right, People quickly realize it's not difficult to
Speaker 2: really to understand the benefit, right, especially once you try
Speaker 2: it a little bit, Just like before people talk about
Speaker 2: the internet. Then when they start to use internet, you
Speaker 2: quickly realize the kind of unprecedented benefits. Repeat again here.
Speaker 2: Then people see there's a room to improve. And back
Speaker 2: to what we just said, is a financial industry never
Speaker 2: slow in adopting new technologies. Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So what's on your road map for this year?
Speaker 1: What are your top priorities?
Speaker 2: What do we have a lot of things to do
Speaker 2: so sometimes just overly excited, but we need to prioritize.
Speaker 2: So what do we focus on is a first of all,
Speaker 2: we believe in this future open architecture based the UH,
Speaker 2: the the financial infrastructure, new financial infrastructure. It is a
Speaker 2: very open based you can call the DeFi. This is
Speaker 2: our focus, so we're very focused on that. Number two
Speaker 2: will very focus on the capital markets. We are not
Speaker 2: payment company. When not focused on payment, payments will work
Speaker 2: closely with payments, but we focus on the capital markets
Speaker 2: digital assets because money, how to pay, how to earn.
Speaker 2: Once you use the money to pay, you will immediately
Speaker 2: ask how do I invest? I want the assets being
Speaker 2: token That's the direction and of course we are core values.
Speaker 2: We're building this platform for the asset providers the name
Speaker 2: like UBS, Invesco and others. We building this platform for
Speaker 2: the investors who are investing in this valuable assets in
Speaker 2: the token way, enjoy the quality of the assets and
Speaker 2: enjoyed efficiency of the way. And number three, which is
Speaker 2: unique for essay in tokens, we work for the builders
Speaker 2: just like you buy money market funds in tokens instead
Speaker 2: of as a replacement for deposit, what else can you
Speaker 2: do with it, Yes, more easy to be collaturalized or
Speaker 2: be for the lending, borrow money, cross border type of thing.
Speaker 2: So that's we called the generally recorder for the builders.
Speaker 2: So it's for the for the asset providers, for the investors,
Speaker 2: and for the builders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're able to open up new use cases and
Speaker 1: utility put put the assets to work in different ways.
Speaker 2: Right, that's correct. Then we did we implement something last year.
Speaker 2: We'll continue to do it. We see the benefit, we
Speaker 2: see the market's demand. For example, we make the ubs
Speaker 2: IS money market fund. Ubs is a very reputable as
Speaker 2: a manager for money market funds, stable, good liquidity, decent written.
Speaker 2: We build an use case that we walk with a
Speaker 2: centralized exchange crypto exchange like a bybit cook coin. They
Speaker 2: take ub as money market as collateral.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Then from the trader user perspective, they can enjoy boths.
Speaker 2: They can enjoy the efficiency in the in the in
Speaker 2: the token way. They can also enjoy the reliable and
Speaker 2: a sustainable yield from the collective assets. So it's enjoy
Speaker 2: on both sides. That's one of the typical case of
Speaker 2: building applications. Many can be due and a lot of
Speaker 2: peers in the industry also doing the same thing. We're
Speaker 2: very excited about it.
Speaker 1: It's an exciting time, Henry. I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 1: seeing future updates on digit f T. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to chat.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.
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