Bobby Zagotta on Bitstamp's 12 years as a crypto exchange

0:00I'm Ashton Addison from Block West capital for investment pitch media and today on the Crypto Coin Show we have Bobby zagoda CEO of bitstamp USA and chief commercial officer of bidstamp Bobby welcome to the show and thank you so much for taking the time hey Ashton great to be here you're very welcome it's I know bitstamp for so long now I believe it's the world's longest running

0:23crypto exchange which is incredible to still be around and I'm sure that the industry has already expanded and pivoted a hundred times since then so I'm so happy to have you on the show in what I think is an amazing time in cryptocurrency and we're only continuing to grow despite the crazy things that have happened in the last year or so I think it's all good

0:45for the industry and I'm excited to dive into bitstamp today with you but I would love to start off our conversation with just a little bit from you personally and your journey starting the exchange and going through you know a decade of crypto expanding and then we'll dive into all the details so would love to just hear a little bit about it

1:02personally sure sure well I've been with this stamp for a year and a half I joined as CEO for the Americas and since then I've also taken on as you mentioned a global Chief commercial officer role prior to this I was at another crypto exchange Kraken where I was Chief commercial officer for three years had a great experience there learned a

1:29lot and I think contributed to a lot of their growth before that interestingly enough I was on the traditional Financial Services side at a company called CME Group the Chicago Mercantile Exchange which is you know Fortune 500 kind of publicly traded Global derivatives platform and exchange and you know it was there that I got involved

1:56and interested in crypto one of my responsibilities as a member of the leadership team there was to oversee our Venture Capital arms CME Ventures and we started investing in crypto and blockchain technology companies in 2014 and that's really what created captured my imagination and you know sent me down this path amazing and yeah I think 2014 was that

2:25year that all the big players although they didn't maybe announce it they all started getting really interested in it and like just the growth that's happened since then it's just been exponential so I'm glad you've dived into you know the cryptocurrency exchanges directly and just put your hands right in the dirt with web 3 because I feel like it's a great it's a

2:45great time still and there's still a lot expanding now over to bitstamp you know this is this app's been around I first heard of Bitcoin in 2013 2014 and I knew at the time you know all the best people were using bitstamp and still it's one of those best exchanges you mentioned crack in there as well I know that's a top tier exchange as well so it's great

3:06to have experience with both in terms of the use of cryptocurrency exchanges for you know everyday Traders inside America and outside what do you think is the reason that bitstamp has been so popular and continues to be one of the best over years and years of different exchanges coming and going yet bitsnap is still here yeah so as you mentioned Ashton bisstamp is the

3:36longest running cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011 and the founders you know had a particular belief and idea in mind when they started the company and that still infuses the DNA of the of the organization and everything that we stand for and that was really about broad adoption of cryptocurrency in other words the founders believed and

4:01still do that this is a very very important technology for all the right reasons it can treat you know it creates Financial inclusion and Independence and that's just becoming more and more important in the world now what the founders also did differently than many others in the space which has really contributed to our longevity is that they embraced regulation early on so

4:29Bit sample is the first cryptocurrency exchange maybe the first crypto company that ever had a regulatory license which was which was in Luxembourg in 2016 was our first regular regulatory license we now have 50. And we're well regulated around the world we've invested heavily in compliance in fact a third of our entire you know Personnel are are dedicated to

4:57compliance and risk and legal reg related functions now not many companies in 2016 through 2023 invested as heavily as we did and frankly bisnav has never gotten much credit for it until recently as as the world has become a little bit more aware of the risks associated with up you know with partnering with companies where you really don't know

5:23what they're doing or where they came from yeah no that's great to know about all a third of the Personnel that's that's crazy but obviously it's important and that's I feel like that's part of the reason for sure that bitstamp's been around for 10 years and it wasn't as much of an issue before and but now as we saw in 2022 and just throughout

5:45the years as well I feel like one of the other points is you know just having that security and the regulation but also just the security of users information and funds to not have a hack or an exploit you know FTX or Mount gox even some of the New Zealand exchanges Canadian exchanges they've all at one point or another there was a hack that lost users funds or lost users personal

6:10information sort of lost the trust and from what I understand nothing catastrophic has happened to bitstamp and it's like as long as they're good and like they've protected their customers from Harm's Way and like every year that nothing happens like that just continues to build more trust and they have the longest track record of any cryptocurrency Exchange

6:31that's right so bitstamp just to just to go a little bit deeper on the DNA of the company you know straight from the founders is just we're a company built on trust and we're a company that does things right so to your point you know our five million or so clients you know that they have grown to appreciate that trust and the transparency that we have provided all

6:57along the way which is why they're still with us I'll give you one more example of you know bitstamping a company that does things right bisstamp is also likely the only crypto company that has a big four Global Financial audit every year and has been doing it we've been doing it for six years so we're starting in 2016. now we're not required to do that by law or anything like that

7:27we could go without an audit or a private company we could go with an audit by a second or third tier auditing firm no we work with a big four accounting firm we've done it globally for six years and let me tell you that is a rigorous process and just the fact that you know every element of our of our business is going to be audited you know creates a culture by

7:53which we maintain integrity and control and everything that we do so again this is not cheap to do it's it's resource intense but it's the right thing because why because we want to make sure everyone knows our customers the institutions who are our customers and also Regulators that we run a tight ship definitely and you know after the FTX crash last year there was all this

8:23these rumors and social media spread around other exchanges and whether they were solvent or not and not once you know anywhere did I even see the name bitstamp there was no concern whatsoever whether there was a lot of them that you know everything seems to be fine but there was a lot of names thrown out there that was one that was never on the

8:43table so that's a that's a good sign and now I know you're very focused on regulation I'm curious about the balance of growing and as the industry grows as well to consider new products or new ways to capture more customers and the regulation you know there's more products that are coming in whether tradify or hybrid products or options derivatives things like that and they

9:11all have different regulation behind them as well is there a consideration of balancing you know the amount of Regulation versus innovation yeah for sure you know as a product company you know we have to continue to innovate and we have to continue to deliver a great experience and at this stamp again we've been around for 11 years so we've

9:38lived through Market cycles and we have a playbook for it and that Playbook is basically to take advantage of this bear Market to focus on our product and really perfect The Experience both for retail users and for corporate users institutions so we are we are doing a lot of work right now on product and just to give you a few examples we have a product called bitstamp as a

10:05service it's a white label offering by which a bank or a fintech company or some other type of organization who wants to offer cryptocurrency buying and selling to their clients can do that in a very TurnKey way through bitstamp we have the regulatory foundation and cover we have all the you know onboarding and kyc processes we of course have you know the platform

10:35for very efficient liquid markets to buy and sell cryptocurrency and that's a an offering that even in this bear Market is getting a lot of attention because because the in my opinion the Smart Companies who are not offering crypto to their customers recognize that there is a growing demand that demand isn't going to go away so if they

11:02get caught flat-footed in another bull market you know it could be a problem so that's that's a key focus on the institutional side we're also in the process of you know getting ready to launch a new experience for retail buying and selling that we think is quite creative and interesting I can't talk too much about it yet but we'll be launching it next month

11:27we're really really excited about it well that is exciting and I'm curious on if there's a strategy or position around like the marketing of two new customers and you know how focused you are on gaining new customers versus you know appeasing the current customers because you know I Venture around you know crypto Twitter and the crypto news a little bit and I don't see

11:55bitstamp as often in the media although I know they're doing well whereas some other cryptocurrency exchanges are like aggressively marketing or you know pushing leverage and trading competitions and all these kinds of things where do you guys sort of stand with that yeah absolutely it's a great question and from a bit stamp perspective you

12:16know kind of our approach has always been to communicate mostly with our actions so with our product and with the user experience and also with our regulatory footprint and commitment and licenses so that really helps users and people who are aware of this they have to understand where we stand now in addition to that at this moment given there's so much focus on

12:44trust and you know coming out of the FTX debacle we're also trying to be more visible yeah we're trying to elevate our voice but you will never see bit stamp you know naming stadiums or doing Super Bowl ads you know I think that's misplaced in my opinion why because because firstly I think if you're investing that heavily in a in a in a marketing campaign like a

13:10naming a stadium you probably don't understand your business right because you need to be particularly if you're an early stage company you need to be plowing that money into the product not not naming a stadium and then secondly if you're if you're you know doing these types of mass marketing very very high dollar investment you know it's probably not intelligent marketing and

13:35crypto is a fairly sophisticated product it needs to in my opinion the marketing needs to be content-led not you know not brand on the side of a building yeah no that's a great Point Bobby and FTX and you know crypto.com spent tens and tens of millions naming stadiums only to disappoint for the most part you know the users that and the people that they set get

13:59ripped down you know a year later so I think it's a very smart move and now we don't have a lot of time left Bobby but I want to look towards the future and hopefully the next coming bull runs and there will be it's just a matter of when and you mentioned it slightly there one of the things that your team's planning on the retail investor side is there

14:18anything else that you have in store that people can be excited for 2023 and initiatives that bitstamp is launching yeah absolutely so one of the things we're really excited about is our learn Center so you know one of the things that we've observed is particularly as as we move up the adoption curve you know in other words the people who got into the crypto markets

14:45in 2017 2018 2019 where by and large pretty sophisticated from a technology standpoint and from a crypto standpoint but the users who will Who are coming on today and will be coming on in 24 25. these are a different style of user I think with perhaps more questions or less sophistication around these topics and where do you go there's it's not like there's a shortage of

15:13information there's a flood of information but the problem is much of that information is not useful it's it's either you know biased it's like Shilling a product behind it or it's not from from a credible source and so we aim to try to address that for users by creating this learn Center so the learn Center is populated by several hundred

15:38bite-sized articles and videos that anyone whether they're a bit stamp customer or not can go to get straight answers and concrete information everything from you know what is faking to you know what is Ave and what's the Ave ecosystem which is a crypto to you know who is Senator lamis in the U.S who

16:09sponsored a bill in cryptocurrency so there's there's really useful and relevant and timely information we're adding to that all the time but you know I think that's a really useful and unique way to get engaged in the market I agree and I think unbiased education you know it's hard so hard to tell just going through YouTubers and people that are you know pumping the

16:34prices and all these kinds of things just to get a credible source of information from a crypto currency exchange that's been around for 11 12 years I would say it's going to be reputable information I'm looking forward to seeing when that comes out for the viewers that want to learn more about bitstamp what products you guys have right now the communities and to

16:52follow along for that retail release that you mentioned and for this learn Center what is the best way for people to learn more yeah bitstamp.net that's our website everything is accessible there and you know our blogs are there where we talk about product and product launches so that's also where the learn Center is where you can get involved immediately so that's that's

17:17the best way and then of course you know I'm out there and the rest of our executives are out there talking about it too sounds great Bobby thank you so much for the time I'll put the bitstamp platform Link in the description box below as well all the best with everything crypto moving forward in 2023 and let's follow up in the near future thank you Ashton