CrossFi enables global crypto payments for everyday use

0:01I'm ashon Addison from the Crypto Coin Show and today on blockchain interviews with Philip alexie Chief growth officer from crossi Philip welcome to the show and thank you for being here thank you so much for having me Ashton really looking forward to our conversation definitely very excited to chat likewise we're in an amazing time of growth in the crypto industry and

0:242025 it's going to be hard to beat the growth of 2024 but I believe it's possible and there's a lot of interest in developing blockchain ecosystems right now I know your team at crossy has been working on something special and I'd love to dive into it today if we could start out our conversation with a little bit on what you and your team have been working on at crossy how that

0:44relates to the growth of web 3 then we can dive into all the details absolutely so in its Essence basically what we've managed to build is a full-fledged web 3 ecosystem that kind of bridges the gap between web 3 and traditional Finance there's a bunch of different components so crossy first and foremost is founded on our own proprietary layer one blockchain it's a

1:08modular blockchain built with evm and Cosmos as kind of the back end so really you know helping make sure that it's as developer friendly and sort of flexible as possible for all of the you know potential use cases then on top of that blockchain what we're really building in I would say kind of our Flagship product aside from you know the

1:30suite of pretty Innovative defi tools we're definitely doing some stuff that we'll talk about later that is really pushing the boundaries and is really on The Cutting Edge of what is possible in the world of defi which definitely excited to dive into but aside from that I think what we what we are really focused on delivering to the market that I think is going to be one of the most

1:52impactful Innovations for both the native crypto user Market as well as the retail Market is effectively alternative to traditional banking so we have built something that allows users to non-custodial connect any web3 wallet to the crossy app allowing you to spend tokens out of your wallet through one of our physical or virtual cards at any point of sale terminal in the entire

2:20world and I think one of the coolest things about what we've built is that not only is it truly non-custodial so there are no third parties we do not have control of your tokens your keys your coins which I think is really really important and I think we've learned a lot of valuable lessons around that over the last few years as we've seen with some pitfalls in exchanges and

2:42you know some other potential vulnerabilities but I think the other thing is that all of the payments are truly processed on chain and we work directly with large banking Partners to ensure that we are pushing them to innovate we are pushing them to embrace web 3 technology and directly interact with smart contracts such that this is truly kind of innovating and changing

3:07the world of web three payments as we know it and then bringing both native crypto users who are holding crypto who want to use it in the real world who want to be able to leverage this to actually pay for their you know daily lives for goods and services for anything out in the real world as well as and I think the thing that I'm most passionate about as well as helping Bank

3:30the unbanked right there are 60% of the world's population is currently unbanked which is crazy you know people like you and I we have credit cards we have debit cards we have bank accounts these are things that we take for granted that we don't even think about on a daily basis we just go out we spend our money we live our lives 60% of the world's population does not have that luxury and

3:55so what we're doing through the help of crypto and through this bridge that we've built into traditional Finance we are helping those folks get onboarded into the global economy and to actually be able to participate not only in the things that you and I sort of take for granted on a daily basis but also have access to potential investment vehicles potential yield generation mechanisms

4:18things that they would never have dreamed of because they don't have access to this world of traditional Finance so lots of very very exciting things and yeah I'm pretty pretty happy to dive deeper into anything in particular yeah it's a wonderful intro Philip and there is a lot to cover there later on I would love to touch a little bit more on the underlying crossi blockchain

4:39that you're talking about but I think the most important topic there is the crossy app in getting traditional Finance connecting that into web 3 how can we actually spend our crypto and then also on the crossi X the defi part which I think is important and it's going to be growing but first of all being able to spend your crypto in anywhere I think that's important

5:02because I've seen many projects over the years try and develop a debit card or something but there's so many restrictions in different countries or different terminals or different currencies and cryptocurrencies that you want to spend so can you talk a little bit on how you s streamline that and make it as easy as possible for people that have crypto to spend it and for

5:24people that are they're banked in traditional banking they want to get crypto and then they want to spend absolutely so I guess we can start with sort of the crypto native audience you know folks that are currently holding crypto over the years there have been a lot of projects that have really tried to figure out a way to solve for what I call the what's next phenomenon right so

5:51somebody came into crypto they've sort of on ramped right they've purchased crypto tokens they may have traded they may have generated some Yi they may have made some profit and I think the question that I get probably the most aside from where do I buy my first Bitcoin and what do I do with it is what's next right so I made some profits I've done some things what's

6:14next is it going to an exchange and selling these tokens and you know having to go through the middleman and paying the fees and paying the taxes is it holding on to them infinitely and hoping that sort of the world develops into you know kind of being able to accept and embrace this technology and it's available for me in my daily life well I think you know rather than sort

6:36of going the middleman route or waiting for the World to Change and adapt we have built something that you know in today's day and age I think is extremely critical for this crypto native population and the way that we've managed to do it which I think is super radically different from some of the other solutions that I've seen is basically working directly with the

6:59banks we have been building this technology and working on first of all the underlying Tech stack and sort of the foundational you know the foundational technology for 5 years but in the back end we've also been doing a ton of Business Development work we've been doing you know everything from working with the world's largest banks to make sure that they're they care and

7:23they're even interested to integrate a crypto native technology we've been working with security firms to make sure that not only are we compliant with all of the latest and greatest security standards of the world of web 3 but that we're also compliant with the security standards the very very stringent security standards that banks have implemented in order to make sure that

7:45their users are safe to the point where we even recently managed to get our PCI DSS certification which you know if you know anything about payment security that is one of the sort of most hardcore security certifications that you can get in the world of payments and even though it wasn't necessarily a prerequisite so to speak for us being able to launch

8:07this technology we really want to make sure that both the partners that we work with on the banking side on the trifi side as well as the users that are onboarding into our technology we really want to make sure that they're confident in the fact that we are going to protect their funds we are going to protect and secure them the same way that you know

8:26their bank would and this is for folks that are kind of familiar with banking infrastructure so we really are making sure that we're building not only to parity but also Beyond and so I think you know again one of the most one of the biggest roadblocks that we've faced in this journey is really making sure that our banking partners that we are in really close collaboration with

8:49now is getting their attention is getting their interest is really getting them to understand and embrace why this is important for them to adapt to and why this is something that they really need to focus on because if they don't then they truly will get left behind and so again you know as with building the technology which which for any product for any service is extremely

9:11important you need to have a functional product you need to have something out in the market that is actually working that is delivering value there's also so much business development work that has happened in the background to ensure that you know these collaborations were possible and that we were able to bring this to Market and to your point about

9:29you know there's things that have Geo restrictions there are things that are custodial there are things that kind of function but might work through a middleman so it's not quite you know there are more points of failure what we've managed to do is we've managed to find banking partners that not only cover large swats of geographies to ensure that we're sort of you know

9:51compliant in every single geography that we work in but we also work with multiple partners so we diversify our Partnerships such that we don't have One Singular point of failure we don't really have one cut off or choke point and that we always are able to provide a channel to indeed bridge that kind of web three and traditional Finance Gap so yeah that's what makes the product

10:12really exciting for me and I think anybody that I talk to that sort of holds crypto that you know is a crypto native I constantly get asked how do I get my hands on this thing like I need this I need this today so yeah it's been really cool that's that's great that there's there's obvious say a demand for it I think it's just working out the details and lowering the frictions in

10:35making it happen quickly and if you could walk me through that a little bit in an example say I have a mobile wallet on my phone I want to go to a coffee shop or a shopping center how many things need to be done for me to be able to spend that and the merchant can receive it in the currency that they want so the process for the end user is actually very simple on the back end

10:58obviously it's a you know a little bit more complicated than than I can explain in a in a 20 minute chat but on the front end for the user the process is actually as straightforward as you connect your mobile wallet to the crossby app you hold a certain amount of tokens so you're basically letting crossy know that you can only access this amount of tokens from my mobile

11:20wallet everything else do not touch that is not yours and so you are only kind of allowing permission for a certain you know portion of the token you hold in your wallet then basically it's as simple as you open the crossy app you can either generate a virtual card which then is compatible with apple wallet and you can pay at any point of sale that

11:41allows you to basically tap your phone and kind of you know process a transaction or you can order a physical card which is actually coming later this year that allow you to use chip technology tap technology swipe technology which I think is also important for compatibility the entire world isn't quite onboarded into this you know Mobile payment sphere and so we

12:01want to make sure that we're allowing as much cross compatibility with point of sale terminals as possible and so basically you connect your wallet you hold the tokens you let's say generate a virtual card which then goes into your Apple wallet and then you literally process transactions the same way you would with any credit card any debit card the transactions go through safely

12:24securely quickly you know at the same speed if not a little bit faster than a traditional card transaction goes through and I think that's really where the magic happens that's the aha moment for users when they go from you know their metamask or their Brave wallet or their trust wallet whatever it might be to truly swiping a card at a store and seeing the tokens come out of their

12:45wallet and seeing them get spent so obviously there's a you know relatively complex conversion mechanism that happens on the back end that allows us to leverage both the tokens that the users have as well as our own native token xfi and then all convert that through our banking Partners into Fiat into the local currency where the transaction is getting processed all

13:08happening with a completely flat transaction fee so I think that's another huge differentiator is that we're not doing this Dynamic flexible transaction fee we are guaranteeing our users a relatively cheap safe effective quick and scalable transaction the same experience that you would have from a bank card from a credit card but from your crypto wallet so I think that's

13:32that's really what's amazing about this technology that's why I'm so bullish on crossy and what we're building at you know just in the flagship side then if you dive into the defi side there's just this whole crazy slew of things that we're working on that I think I'm also extremely excited about because it's some of the most Innovative stuff that I've personally seen in the

13:52world of defi yeah no is it is very exciting and it sounds really easy Once you are porting into to Apple pay and just doing your digital wallet it's it's exactly what people would be used to and you know obviously there's a demand for this all around the world anybody can that has crypto in the world could use this but and you mentioned in the

14:17beginning the unbanked you know 60% of the world that's unbanked obviously they need some kind of solution but also there's demand in North America where it is already the traditional Financial capital of the world World they want to use crypto as well and with that physical card coming in that sounds like just an extra touch and ease of use is there a go to market area that you're

14:42focusing on first in that you know I'm guessing there's going to be more transactions from people that are already native crypto crypto holders is there specific geography that makes sense to Target this before it you know it is natural adoption worldwide the way that we think about our user base and the target segments and the people that we're actually looking to

15:07serve we think about it as concentric circles and so for every Circle starting with the middle and then for every Circle that expands outward from that you can imagine that there's more of a lift that there's more education that needs to happen there's a higher barrier to entry and so the first Circle that's directly in the middle so our primary audience as it stand today are

15:31basically people who are crypto natives who are Deens who use the technology who have you know basically understood everything that there is to know about crypto we don't need to educate them on why crypto is important we don't need to you know explain to them why this product would be useful for them they see it they know right away and they sort of are just you know ready to

15:56embrace it and ready to start using it and so that is kind of our first and foremost primary audience then outside of that are folks that you know may hold some crypto that may be in the industry that might have you know be holding some tokens on an exchange or maybe be in their own wallet but they're not quite ready for that what's next phenomenon they're not quite exposed to all of the

16:19potential in the world of crypto they're not quite you know primed to necessarily effortlessly Embrace a product like this so there's a little bit more of a lift there's a littleit bit more education that needs to happen and you know you can see how it's starting to expand outwards then outside of that is really that retail Market you know are the folks that might not even

16:42necessarily have crypto are thinking about getting into crypto but are worried about it because they're not really sure what they're going to do with it they're not really sure kind of how that's going to benefit them aside from you know what they see in the media of potentially generating profits or potentially losing everything you have and so you know the more we work outside

17:01of these concentric circles the more lift and the more effort that's required from us to actually on board those users and so we're kind of working our go to market strategy to really coincide with that concentric Circle user targeting Target demographic and to basically build layers to how we're going to Market with our technology and that's on the payment side obviously on

17:26the defi side you know it really is targeting again those those crypto natives those degens people that kind of see the technology and they understand like wow this is really going to help me generate yield there's a lot of potential on the crossi blockchain there's so much I can do here to you know take my existing tokens or by buying XI token which is cross's native

17:47token and by leveraging the tools that we've built to generate profits and generate yield and so that's kind of how we're thinking about our go to market and thus far it's it's been really successful because I think not only are we seeing really good traction like I said every single person that I talk to that is in crypto that is crypto native they hear about this technology

18:08and they're like dude how can I get my hands on this is insane this is going to completely change the game for me and even people who you know again might be holding some tokens and kind of like you know they bought some crypto but they don't they don't really play around with it as much as somebody who's in the industry who's in it on a

18:26daily basis even there like wow you know I can really see that could be useful for me and I'm really excited for getting my hands on it when the product launches yeah I definitely have met many people in that inner circle section that are actively looking for a better solution to be able to spend their crypto so that makes sense as the target

18:48market and with the physical card that you mentioned and coming in the near future I feel like that could just be one of the things that gets people over the hump of those people who don't have crypto and they're used to having cash or the credit card in their hand and you know they may not even use Apple pay or their digital wallets having that physical card that's all it takes for

19:11them to click and understand that it's just another currency that they're paying with and the fact that they're holding a card in their hand is what gets them over the hill to get into crypto absolutely I think it's really important to build technology especially in an emerging industry that has some some level of familiarity to folks that kind of can connect with something and

19:33anchor into something that they're already familiar with and I think you and I you know being in the in the world of crypto we're so familiar with why crypto is better than Fiat there are so many things that crypto enables us to do more securely more effectively more efficiently than than you know regular standard Fiat transactions and I think in order to onboard folks into those

19:58benefits and really help them realize that we need to create some sort of system that feels familiar to them that gives them the confidence that helps them understand that wow this is actually relatively similar to something that I'm used to using but in reality is significantly better and that's on a retail level as well as an Institutional level and I think as we start to see

20:20these Technologies kind of embrace you know making the learning curve easier Embrace building for familiarity embrace you know giving users confidence we are going to really start to see a lot more adoption and then once the adoption happens and once both the retail market and the institutional Market realize how much more effective crypto is than Fiat

20:42transactions I think that is when the global Revolution really comes into play and that is you know how we how we create Mass adoption which is what we think we're all trying to do what when you mentioned about the effectiveness I think some people they're looking for that what's next and they see Defi and then it's pretty easy for them to put two and two

21:06together that okay even if I have a stable coin in crypto and I'm using defi I can get a yield on that versus the yield I'm getting in a bank it's significantly higher and that's their what's next is like hey I have my savings but it's just in stable coins and I'm getting a yield on that and there's many other functionalities of defi that are possible as well that

21:27gets them down the rabbit hole and I'm curious on the crossi X the defi part what are the main Financial products that you think will help Drive adoption in the app and in defi for people that are not yet in crypto so on the defi portion and this is something I'm always super excited to talk about with crypto natives we've actually built a suite

21:52of several products that I think are are pretty interesting both in terms of you know being at parody with some of the D5 features that you would expect out of any thriving blockchain but also some stuff that is really pushing the boundaries and really on The Cutting Edge of what's possible so you know as you mentioned we have XA which I'll dive into in a second but then we have

22:13three other products that I think are are really game changers we have X assets we have X stop and then we also have X stake so xap is kind of your Swiss army knife of defi it lets you swap Bridge assets acquired tokens add liquidity join a staking program for crossfight chain rewards it you know basically Gives You parody with any other thriving blockchain ecosystem and

22:39and allows you to use these tools on the crossy blockchain with crossi Native tokens as well as other popular tokens but aside from that I think you know again diving into some of these products of course in a nutshell cuz you know I can talk about this stuff for hours and we can kind of unpack what's what's really revolutionary about it but X assets it allows you to Mint trade

23:02and swap synthetic tokens representing real world assets such as Commodities stocks currencies so it's really kind of our rwa play which I think again you know we're taking the not only allowing crypto Deens to participate in rwa on the crossby blockchain but we're also allowing the unbanked population of the world to get access to Commodities stocks you know alternative currencies

23:28like this is really bridging a huge gap so I think that's pretty exciting we also have X swap which is pretty straightforward you convert our stable coin cross USD to any synthetic asset it's permissionless it's decentralized and then of course an oracle provides a data feed with prices of stocks and commodities so you can kind of monitor that and generate yield

23:50that way and then what I think is probably what I'm most excited about in our defi tool suite and I think the thing that is really going to be a huge game Cher that I really haven't seen done well and I think is going to blow the market up in a good way is X stake which is something that we've built in house it is a cross-chain dynamic yield aggregator that optimizes your Returns

24:18on your Stak assets by leveraging a slew of defi protocols across multiple blockchain networks right so we're creating this interoperability we're cre creating this automated dynamic system that is really optimizing all of your staked assets to get you the most yield possible without you ever having to think about what's going on in the back end so it's generating those strategies

24:42it's pulling that data it's literally optimizing itself to help you generate as much yield as humanly possible and it's basically completely automated and hands off and so if I think about what's the best way to onboard you know people that are just getting into crypto or even people that aren't in crypto what's the best way to onboard them into defi

25:03tell them that they can use this product without having to think or worry too too much that in the back end is basically doing the job of a financial manager that is on a daily basis optimizing their trading strategy and their staking strategies such that they're getting the highest possible yield on the best possible blockchain using the best possible protocols and so I think stuff

25:26like that is what really gets me exced excited about the defi component of what we're building at crossy and I think is going to be a major game Cher not only for that crypto native audience but also for people that are just getting into crypto and then especially for that unbanked population who not only never had access to these types of tools but

25:46also doesn't necessarily and by no fault of their own doesn't have the financial literacy to start understanding you know what all the opportunities and possibilities are so it really helps people avoid that learning curve avoid those painful and potentially costly mistakes and to really start bettering their lives through the technology that we've built yeah I appreciate that explanation

26:09on all those defi functionalities it gets overwhelming for people that usually there's something that they resonate with and I feel like that traditional Commodities and equities access for unbanked or anybody that's outside of America is huge that's been a major barrier to entry and tokenized versions of traditional equities that people can trade on is like something

26:35that people are constantly searching for once that realize that getting into Finance is a way to get yourself ahead but then there's that border that they just can't cross or that ocean that they can't cross so that's really cool and on the on the xst side and the automation management when I first saw defi in when it really started taking off in defi summer that was

27:01one of the major breakthroughs was like year Finance which allowed you to find the best yield and you know rather than in being in the bank and them just saying this is the yield and you know and then you have to do research and move assets and move Banks just to get a few extra percent having something that's automated and can change daily or

27:22even faster to the best yield based on the current situation I feel like is an extra touch for people that are like trying to get the best yield without having to do so much research Ai and automation is really just enabling that so much easier now absolutely and like you mentioned you know the AI portion and the effectiveness and sort of the efficiency of this not only is it

27:47important to build technology that makes people's lives easier on the back end and really provides them with a ton of value and provides them with the ability to you know really part participate in something that they may not have the most familiarity with and that they may not feel the most confident in to build that confidence with them but unlike you

28:09know some of the existing Technologies we can learn from the mistakes that they've made we can learn from the pain points that they've provided to their users we can learn from feedback we can learn through these iteration cycles and not only build this technology and improve upon the technology in the back end of it but we can also build the best possible user

28:30experience the best possible user interfaces make it as easy and clean and sexy as possible to really help the adoption and to help people Embrace this technology so I think that's that's the advantage that we're coming in with as well is you know building upon the years and years of learning that we've managed to collect through defi summer through the bar market and now coming

28:53into this bull run definitely and you've hinted at one of the future Milestones being the physical card I'm curious what else is up crossi sleeve for 2025 and the road map of expanding more customers more products what else can you tell for what's next for you guys so 2025 is really the year of go to market for us like I said we've spent the last 5 years building this you

29:21know extremely complex extremely iterative you know just very heavy lift technology and we've been so heads down focused building through the bare Market that 2025 is really the year that we put all of these things into users hands and so our road map is just jam-packed full of launches not only are we launching you know xst X swap X assets the flagship payment

29:48technology all of that stuff is coming to Market in q1 2025 which is amazing right but also just you know basically means we're not not going to be sleeping very much in the next few months but on top of that we have been working in the background to create some of the most amazing Partnerships that I've personally seen we're starting to see this happening just in the last week I

30:14mean we're seeing some wild Partnerships of IRL Technologies integrating web 3 and really sort of pushing the mass adoption curve closer and closer to what we you know we as industry insiders are looking is wow we are really starting to penetrate Society more than just through the media and so on crossby end we're working on much the same type of

30:37Partnerships very impactful global companies that are working with us to push our to put our Technologies into the hands of tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of users and so those are going to start getting announced probably end of q1 2025 if not Q2 2025 then of course throughout the rest of the year I mean we've got a lot of stuff that we've been

31:01working on that we've been building not only stuff that's you know concrete and solidified but also you know a lot of the research and development that we've been doing sort of the Cross by Labs so to speak I mean wow dude there's some crazy crazy stuff that I think is coming into the hopper and so basically 2025 is the year of crossi go to

31:23market is the year that crossi puts this technology into the hands of users and really you know I think you will see this happen throughout the next few months becomes a global leader in the industry in regards to both Bridging the Gap between traditional finance and web 3 as well as a global leader in innovation in the defi space and you know sort of making that all a

31:47reality wow that's a lot that is under your guys's plate Philip and I'm looking forward to seeing those roll outs I would love to have you back on the show to cover more of that because there's just so much to jump into in 5 years of work to cover in 30 minutes it's a lot for those that are interested in like testing out what there is now and then following

32:11along for those updates as the new functionality comes out what's the best way to get started on that so I always tell people you know I can give a wide variety of links but I always tell people start with our website there's just so much noise out there and so many pitfalls and scams go to our website cross.org csf.org all of our community channels

32:37all of our social channels basically anywhere that you choose to consume your information is all linked from there I would say the best thing that anybody can do is just Dive Right In right get into our community get into our Discord sign up for our telegram follow us on our socials follow some of the folks working for crossy on their socials you know connect with us talk to

32:58us ask questions explore the product go through all of the amazing content that we've put out and obviously it'll help you stay up to dat with all of the latest and greatest potentially get early beta access to some of the tools that we'll be launching and really join the community in the ecosystem in a meaningful way such that you know you are kind of up to date on everything

33:20that is coming out as soon as it comes out even before it comes out wishing you and your team all the best philli thank you for taking the time time to explain crossi and bridging web 3 into traditional Finance all the best with the updates moving forward with your team I will leave a link to the crossi site as you mentioned in the show notes below as well and I

33:41would love to have you guys back on in the near future to discuss the next steps and the growth of crypto into the mainstream absolutely it's one of my favorite things is just reconnecting with folks a few months maybe even a year down the line and just looking back and seeing it all all of the amazing things that we've managed to accomplish

34:01and thank you so much again for having me on it was an awesome chat thank you for everybody that's tuning in and listening and watching and sharing commenting liking so on and so forth and yeah really excited for the future and really excited to reconnect in a bit and see what we've managed to do