Guy Hirsch on eToro's cryptocurrency trading platform

0:24short explanation plus your guys's unique value proposition sure so et.com is a social investment Network you can open an account deposit funds and then invest across six different asset classes that's our Global offering so can you can invest in US Stocks ETFs indices Commodities currencies and cryptocurrencies all from the same platform it's really easy to buy and

0:49sell each and every asset class and build really interesting portfolios we are known for being to have a social environment so that means when you deposit fun and you start trading by default your trades and track record are being shared with the rest of the community meaning people can see how well you're doing with your own real money and we buil this kind of Facebook

1:11style feed at the heart of the application where you can post content about the world's markets about Tesla about IBM Bitcoin whatever you feel passionate about and people can then like comment share and do all the things that you would expect from a social feed a few year a few years ago we launched something called copy Trader that took it to the next level and it is

1:35one of our competitive advantages and that is when you see someone who's doing really well and obviously you trust eoro that verify their track record you can actually invest in them so you can put $1,000 $5,000 a million dollars behind that person and then on that moment all their portfolio Holdings will be open in yours on a proportional basis and from

1:58that point onward every time day trade you will trade at the same time same price so it's really kind of cool portfolio management type of type of thing we built a program called the popular investor program on top of that which essentially so we track if someone is becoming popular and if they are we invite them to that program and that program entitles them to get two%

2:25of the total assets that are copying them and we have quite a few people making a very good just managing their own money onoro so that is toro.com it's available both as a desktop destination as well as mobile app and we're obviously a blockchain evangelist so we're we're investing heavily in blockchain capabilities so now we have itoro X this is our crypto

2:49asset exchange and we have itoro wallet which is a multi- cryptocurrency wallet and so with the wallet so as long as you go through kyc ML on our on.com you can then have the wallet which is a companion mobile app and you can send receive in that wallet you can convert between the different coins and if you deposited funds into your account and let's say

3:15bought Bitcoin on too.com you can then transfer that out into the wallet and from there to wherever you want so that is these are our core kind of core competencies right now but our future is definitely the blockchain and this is where we're putting a lot of our resources and effort and M M on that's great guys sounds like you guys

3:38have a wide variety of products already available and I'm glad that you guys are on the blockchain train because most of us believe that it is going up so I'm glad that you guys are a part of that now when did you guys start introducing cryptocurrency products into Toro and are they as popular as you expected them to be out of the gate 100% so you our founder and CEO

4:01have been an avid believer and evangelist of crypto from the very early days of it I mean his pink tweet on Twitter can can show you when when he kind of got interested in Bitcoin was I think about a dollar or so and then not a lot of people know but vitalic Bin who's the founder of thean foundation worked at Doro just before he went and started the ethereum

4:24foundation he and Y worked together on a project called College coins and Bitcoin was first introduced into the platform as an asset class as a new asset class in 2014 as early as that so Itor was well positioned to capitalize on the interest in 2017 and early 18 on the VA that vast interest in this in this asset class what's unique about us is as they got into the

4:53platform they got to know us they got to know about other asset classes and we so we continue to experience growth even though the prices of Bitcoin kind of dropped in 2018 and out of I would say out of the mix of assets that we have on the platform definitely the vast majority of users on our platform we have 10 million registered users are

5:19in crypto to one degree or another that's amazing and I was just going to ask you know how many active Traders do you guys have but to have 10 million people on the platform sounds you guys have quite the user base now is your guys' user base actively growing and do you guys also do active advertising and marketing to grow your user base or is it more of an organic

5:39growth so the answer is to the first question is yes we are growing we also just launched in the US on March 7th and we are available in 32 states so we're now growing in the US as a region too in terms of in terms of the sources of growth it's both organic and not we are we have a pretty sophisticated marketing

6:09machine that we've built throughout the years we are I would say very good at brand plays as well we sponsored seven Premier League soccer firms our London office is doing extremely well with regards to building the eoro brand over over there and we also are investing heavily in highly sophisticated user acquisition

6:38techniques so it's it's a mix of both that's great to hear now you guys must be getting some pretty nice Revenue sources from having 10 million users you know what is your Revenue generation model basically are you just taking trading fees and do you have additional Revenue models that you're also introducing right so the almost all of our Revenue comes from marking up the

7:02the prices of the asset classes that we're offering on the platform it's very transparent everyone can see exactly our fees so we're just marking up the spread on the different the different assets so that's that's our core core Revenue model and it will continue to be that way in the foreseeable future we serve primarily retail investors we have some thoughts about

7:29Serving institutional customers too but again we're we're facing retail retail investors that's our bread and butter and that's our that will continue to be our Focus that's great now you mentioned you guys are on the blockchain train and you have a wallet already you have trading for many years now are you guys planning on introducing additional

7:49products or services that are with blockchain or just as well in general investing what does your guys' road map look like for the next 6 to n months in terms of new features coming out for the users so first eoro is 100% sold on the idea that blockchain is the future of the financial services industry every vertical every type of use case we believe that the next five 10 whatever

8:13years will run on the blockchain so with that realization we're also Transforming Our Own Business we're thinking about how to move our Core Business into the blockchain and we just announced two weeks ago that we've acquired a firm out of Denmark called firmo and we're going to use the firmo protocol that they've build in order to tokenize financial

8:40assets and that will be a critical component in allowing us to transition our business from basically trading in traditional markets to trading using the blockchain so we have a lot of plans and a lot of announcements coming this year about how all of this will pan out but again generally

9:08speaking we are 100% committed to blockchain and to the fact that blockchain is the future of the financial service in Industry so we're going to be transforming ourselves and then also adding or looking to add additional asset classes as they emerge in the industry that's great guy and it's great to hear that you guys entered the United

9:32States in March and you're expanding now what kind of resources do you guys need to expand are you guys expanding your team are you looking for outside investors or are you simply just looking for more people and customers to use the platform so we are definitely building our team we're basing hoki New Jersey we're we're hiring for multiple roles marketing compliance

9:57operations so on and so forth with definitely planning to build a very strong team here in the US that is tagged along with our user acquisition and go to market plans so you would definitely see us essentially adapting our Playbook to the US but still doing a lot of activities surrounding brand building we're going to be investing a lot in consumer

10:25education we feel that is something that our target audience really wants and needs in order to get into the space either initially or if they already are maybe expose having more and more of their assets allocated into this asset class so we intend to provide a lot of Education a lot of resources for people to understand the risks how it works

10:54the opportunities and so on and so forth and that is you know coupled with all the other kind of marketing techniques and capabilities that we have and we will adapt them and build new ones here in the US that's great guy now if people are looking to join the team or they're just looking to sign up what's the best way for people to either contact you or just to learn more

11:16download the applications to go to the website what's the best way to proceed toro.com go there open an account try it out we have a we have a virtual portfolio feature that allows you to actually practice before you risk real dollars and it's one to one to the Real Environment so all the features available of the real environment are available in that kind

11:39of virtual virtual environment too you get like $100,000 of you know Monopoly money to kind of play with and invest in so that's a really good entry point for you to try it out so et.com you can also see obviously our all of our job openings on the site and if you're if you're on your mobile device device just go to the you know the app store or to the

12:04Play store and just type in itoro and you'll you'll see you'll see the app great I'll leave the links to the apps and the website as well in the description box below for the viewers and that's all the time that we have for today but it's truly been a pleasure talking to you guy sounds like itaro is expanding rapidly especially in the states and I wish you guys all the best

12:24Especially since you guys are on the blockchain train and it sounds like you guys are making some big moves in the market and I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys are coming up with in the next 6 to9 months and maybe the cryptocurrency bull market if that does come back will help even further accelerate the growth of e Toro so I'm very interested to see how that will

12:42play out and I want to thank you so much for your time today and it's been a pleasure speaking to you likewise thank you for having me