In this insightful session of theCUBE's Crypto Trailblazers series, filmed at the prestigious New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Studio, John Furrier, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of SiliconANGLE Media, engages in an enlightening conversation with Roshan Shah. As the Vice President of Artificial Intelligence and Products at Georgia-Pacific LLC, Shah offers a unique perspective on blockchain infrastructure and its evolving landscape within the United States.
Drawing upon their deep-rooted expertise in blockchain technology, Shah elaborates on OKX’s strategic positioning as a major global exchange, emphasizing robust growth in the U.S. market since its April launch. This segment, hosted by theCUBE analysts, delves into the transformative role of centralized and decentralized finance systems, highlighting how regulation and legislation such as the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act foster a tailwind for cryptocurrency adoption.
Furthermore, key insights shared by Shah underline the rapid adoption of cryptocurrency infrastructure as they discuss the market's journey toward mainstream acceptance. With significant momentum in stablecoins and decentralized finance, they articulate the pivotal role of exchanges and compliant technology as foundational elements in this burgeoning field. Shah also emphasizes the critical need for user-friendly interfaces to demystify complex blockchain processes.
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Roshan Robert, OKX US
In this insightful episode of the Crypto Trailblazers series hosted by theCUBE, Mike Cagney of Figure Markets sits down with analysts from theCUBE Research to discuss groundbreaking advancements in blockchain technology and their implications for the finance sector. This video is part of the NYSE Wired digital event, aimed at bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Wall Street by integrating technology and finance.
Cagney, an eminent figure in fintech, shares expertise on the transformative role of blockchain in financial markets during this interview. Conducted by seasoned analysts at theCUBE, the discussion delves into Figure’s innovative contributions, including their blockchain-native loan origination and securitization process. He outlines how Figure leverages blockchain to achieve cost reductions, enhanced security and improved liquidity in financial transactions.
Key takeaways from the interview highlight insights on the evolution of the Web3 ecosystem, such as the emergence of stablecoins as pivotal to transaction processes and the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi). Oltsik states these developments signify a shift towards democratizing finance, wherein truth and transparency are foundational. The conversation concludes with a look at Figure’s pioneering efforts in creating a new financial marketplace utilizing blockchain technology.
#CryptoTrailblazers #FigureMarkets #BlockchainInnovation #Web3 #NYEWired #BlockchainFinance #DecentralizedFinance #Fintech #Stablecoins
Find more SiliconANGLE news and analysis https://siliconangle.com/.
Follow theCUBE's wall-to-wall event coverage https://siliconangle.com/events/
Learn about the latest theCUBE events https://www.thecube.net/
00:00 - Intro
00:05 - Emerging Innovations in Financial Technology and Market Dynamics
02:45 - Key Elements in Financial Ecosystem Dynamics
06:20 - Blockchain: Truth and Transformation
09:39 - Shaping the Future: Innovations in Financial Markets and Stablecoin Integration
13:15 - Enabling the Future: Navigating Disruptions in Banking and Lending
16:51 - Exploring Opportunities and Building Confidence in the Blockchain Ecosystem
>> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host. This is the Crypto Trailblazer series here at the NYSE Studio, part of the NYSE Wired programming community. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting West Coast and the East Coast, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, tech and money coming together. This is our program here and we highlight the leaders making it happen. We've got a great guest here who's making it happen, he's also on the West Coast and has an East Coast president, Roshan Roberts, CEO OKX US. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for .
Roshan Robert
>> Thank you for having me, John.
John Furrier
>> You mentioned that San Jose is also a hub for you guys too, and New York.
Roshan Robert
>> San Jose is a big hub for us, San Jose is our US headquarters. We do have a small office in San Francisco as well. We opened our New York office last year, and we've hired a lot of people in New York as well. So now, we have around 530 people in the US, and a lot of our engineering talent, a lot of our product talent, is sourced from Silicon Valley, so that's why that San Jose office is very important for us.
John Furrier
>> Talk about the business, for the folks that don't know what you guys do, set the table, put some context. What do you guys do? What's the core value proposition? What's the business model?
Roshan Robert
>> OKX is perhaps the oldest infrastructure provider in the public blockchain space. We go back to origins in 2013, and currently, we are probably the second-largest exchange by volume around the world. We launched here in the US in April of this year, it's been six months, and we've continued to expand our products and services. We've seen tremendous growth and tremendous interest in our products and services, both on the retail side, as well as on the institutional side, and we'll speak more about that as we progress-
John Furrier
>> Yeah. Talk about the exchange dynamics, because we have a regulatory regime that feels good. There's a tailwind here in the US, the financials are leaning in, the back-end, aka DeFi, I call it back-end, it's more of a back-end technology, TradFi, the front-end, retail's booming, so you're seeing a lot of mainstreaming of crypto infrastructure. Some say an open stack for software development, programmable money. But the exchanges have played a critical role pre-tailwind outside the United States. Talk about how that dynamic went down, that market, how that's changed and how it's accelerating in a new direction.
Roshan Robert
>> Tremendous change, tremendous change since the new administration took over, and we've seen the GENIUS Act get passed into law, we've seen the CLARITY Act as it passed through the House, and currently, just a couple of days ago, we had one of the first drafts from the Senate Ag Committee on the market structure bill. So there's a tremendous amount of tailwinds happening in this space, and what that's doing to the ecosystem is... We had a stablecoin market that currently is at around 300 billion in AUM or market cap. There is a Treasury report that came out in April of this year from the Department of Treasury that says that that's a market that's going to go from where it is today to becoming a $2 to $3 trillion market by 2028, so that's the direction of travel.Put stablecoins aside. Stablecoins actually power the larger crypto marketplaces. If you look at the total crypto AUM or market cap, it's around $3.5 to $4 trillion, and just with the stablecoin bill passing and with the impetus or the tailwinds, like you said, that we see around that, that's going to really put a booster rocket to where that industry is going. And last but not the least I'd like to say is, yes, we have the centralized exchanges, we have the stablecoins that is powering this new world of finance, so to say, but equally important is to see the adoption happening in DeFi, or decentralized finance. And of course, we just released a new product today, which is called CeDeFi, which allows centralized exchange customers to, in a seamless way, fashion, access this new world of decentralized finance, it provides a window to that world which did not exist before.
John Furrier
>> It's funny, you've got the exchange, we have loud trading going on here at the New York Stock Exchange, you can probably hear, very active trading on the option floor behind us, one of the last bastions of outcry trading, so it's ironic that we're talking about crypto exchanges while they're doing it old school here.
Roshan Robert
>> Isn't it great to be here, where-
John Furrier
>> The energy's amazing.
Roshan Robert
>> The energy's amazing. And as we transfer that energy into this new world that is emerging-
John Furrier
>> Digital....
Roshan Robert
>> into this new world that is emerging... To talk a little bit about the new world, everything is about adoption. So you have this decentralized finance ecosystem that is developing. We have our own engineering architecture, including the OKX Wallet, which is our self-custodial wallet, our DEX aggregators, which is an infrastructure that provides data and analytics and access to over 500 different decentralized exchanges. We have seen a tremendous amount of volume flowing through this. So just in 2025, we've seen over $80 billion of AUM flowing through this OKX infrastructure around DeFi.
John Furrier
>> That's massive volume.
Roshan Robert
>> That's massive volume. And we've seen around four million daily active wallets, so let the numbers speak. Those numbers point to adoption of this ecosystem by users. So on one side, that's what we're seeing. On one side, we're seeing this new world of digital finance emerging, and as one of the earliest innovators in this space, I think we have a responsibility, and that responsibility is to make sure that we provide secure, compliant technology on one side. But there's an equal responsibility that we have to make sure that more and more Americans who want to transact in this space, in this new world, get involved. The technology around this is complex. If you look at wallet technology, you're looking at seed phrases, you're looking at the need to pay gas fees. So part of what we've done is abstract away the complexities and allow people a window to this new world, and I think that is very important.
John Furrier
>> That value proposition of abstractions and technology primitives sounds a lot like the cloud game in 2007. If you saw the cloud computing revolution, we saw the alternative data centers buy machines, stack them up, to just put your credit card down. Amazon Web Services was born. Now, they were customer zero for amazon.com, but that created a complete change over, different companies emerged. Airbnb would not exist without cloud computing and AWS, Dropbox, all these brands. So we're seeing a similar pattern on crypto infrastructure, that if you can nail the fundamental building blocks, have the primitives, and then look at where to abstract away, and that's what made Amazon Web Services so great and now every cloud, is they just abstract away the complexities to provide an easy layer to interface into. That's exactly what you just said.
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely. And I would say we're still in the early days.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, it's like 2007.
Roshan Robert
>> Exactly. But what we're seeing here is here, there are real numbers. These numbers that I just spoke about, $80 billion in 2025 passing through this ecosystem, just through the OKX infrastructure, and four million active wallets, those are real numbers, and those numbers speak about-
John Furrier
>> Real money.
Roshan Robert
>> And real money. And what those numbers tell us is there's real adoption.
John Furrier
>> Adoption is critical. I want to talk about adoption, because I think the mainstreaming of crypto, certainly here in the US, I think it's going to unleash more products. And as you guys have a global footprint... Now, the world is flat. Remember that book, The World Is Flat? But you have borders, some environments are better. How do you look at the global landscapes? Because now, when the US comes online, and clearly they see the value of stablecoin thanks to the US dollar, the GENIUS Act, absolutely super relevant, the CLARITY Act, that's going to allow for the regulatory teams and systems to catch up, that'll probably come in. Still not there, but solve the hard problem first.
Roshan Robert
>> One step at a time.
John Furrier
>> They're good steps.
Roshan Robert
>> Good steps.
John Furrier
>> They're good steps. What's the global impact? Now that you're starting to see some stability on a global basis, what's your view on the landscape? Because exchanges are super critical in this, they are the main centers of the action. Essentially, the money system revolves around the exchanges, the infrastructure, the user adoption. What's the big picture on this holistically?
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely, exchanges are the hubs from where the spokes emanate, and even the traditional markets that we see behind, which is a quadrillion-dollar market today across multiple products, be it fixed income and equities, et cetera, you have the major exchanges, but the value proposition is global. And I say that of the new world of finance as well. Today, OKX has over 100 million customers in over 180 different countries, and that talks about the reach, and that also talks about how globally digital finance is being adopted.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. It's like a backbone for networking. You now have an aperture, you have a user base, client base, that can interact with each other.
Roshan Robert
>> Oh, absolutely.
John Furrier
>> That, to me, is the huge upside. How does that factor into some of the retail adoption? Are there certain things you see that are working well? Because the dot to connect there is, okay, more adoption, more people getting on the crypto highway, so to speak, money flows, exchanges are on. What happens next?
Roshan Robert
>> I think what happens next is I see four opportunity sets here. I see the ever-expanding spot market, which is what we're seeing and which is what we're building right now. As more and more people get accustomed to the idea of digital finance and more and more products come on-chain, you'll see the derivatives market expand, and I'm talking about digital derivatives, where you can use-
John Furrier
>> Describe what a digital derivative is.
Roshan Robert
>> You can use stablecoins and other RWA products as collateral. That's going to really, really supercharge this market. So that's the second opportunity set. The third opportunity set where I see is RWAs, real world assets coming on-chain. Today, in the UAE, we have a partnership with Standard Chartered, where Standard Chartered actually has real world derivatives that are put in a custodial framework where institutional customers can use that as collateral and trade on our exchange. So this is not-
John Furrier
>> That's called economics.
Roshan Robert
>> That's called economics. And what that also tells is-
John Furrier
>> That's finance....
Roshan Robert
>> we are talking about traditional finance partners coming in to really bridge this gap that we have and partnering with some of the compliant ecosystem firms in the space of digital finance. And as we go further into that-
John Furrier
>> What's the fourth area?
Roshan Robert
>> The fourth area is this intersection between stablecoins and payments. The payment industry is another quadrillion-dollar industry.
John Furrier
>> Four major pillars.
Roshan Robert
>> Four major pillars, and four major pillars that ultimately relies on one thing, and that is on the infrastructure that binds together 140 different blockchains, and that's the backbone of what OKX has built over the years.
John Furrier
>> It's a great story, and I love the enablement too, because it's going to accelerate. The AI trends, accelerated computing is the narrative. Clearly, we're seeing that play out. And crypto infrastructure, those have got the four pillars based on connecting the networks or chains. Both those markets are bounded by power. So energy's important. So they're going to collide in a good way, and that's going to open up more products. So I'm interested in the next thought from you is you mentioned Silicon Valley is where your engineers and your product technology leaders are. In finance, what I've observed, coming from Silicon Valley to New York in the past six months full-time, is there's a product management opportunity in finance. What I mean is that the financial products, like digital derivatives, there's thinking like I see here around finance products that would look like what a PM would do in tech. What's the features? What's the market requirements document? What's the product... All this market product requirements definition builds something. You're starting to see the financial products thinking through the system that they have to plug into. That's like a product manager. I've never seen that before in my entire career, that kind of thinking. What's your reaction to that?
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely true. In fact, I'm seeing a lot of people applying to roles at OKX who want to move from traditional finance into the digital world. There is a flood of resumes that I get on a daily basis, and what that says is there are people who have been used to the world of traditional finance and the compliance systems or risk management systems who now know that a lot of that is transferable into the new world.
John Furrier
>> Because they have domain expertise.
Roshan Robert
>> They have domain expertise, and we welcome that, because I think that is the next generation of builders.
John Furrier
>> They're product managers.
Roshan Robert
>> Exactly.
John Furrier
>> They know the product.
Roshan Robert
>> They know the product, and they can transfer that, and they can transfer those skills into building in the digital space.
John Furrier
>> I'm very bullish that this line of direction is going to be where the apps come in, and the apps aren't traditional apps like we know them today. Today, we think apps like I've got an iPhone, I've got an app on my iPhone, I click on it. This is more like financial apps that are embedded, think Apple Pay. I've got Apple Pay, I go on the subway, I can have another wallet that just says, "Click, pay with crypto." As a user, if that comes on my phone, I don't care, as long as it works.
Roshan Robert
>> Exactly.
John Furrier
>> Does it work? Great. Now, the CFO in my pocket, or my wealth manager agent, might say, "Hey, there's an exchange deal going on somewhere over there. You guys can advertise that out via an API." That's a tech conversation.
Roshan Robert
>> It is a tech conversation, and it is also an inclusion conversation. As we get into this realm of digital finance, the tech is complex, and we have to be able to abstract away some of the complexities to allow more and more people to enter into this new world, and that is so very important. And you're right, at the end of the day, to quote what the SEC chairman said a few weeks ago, the right to self-custody is a foundational American value, and that's absolutely true
John Furrier
>> Liberty for all.
Roshan Robert
>> Liberty for all. But to enable that foundational American value, you have to be able to abstract away some of the complexities and make it easier for a lot of customers out there to access this-
John Furrier
>> There's a lot of FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt from the end users that we talk to, mainstream users, around, what if I lose my money? It's a fear. That's being solved, the wallet ease of use is-
Roshan Robert
>> That is where secure, compliant architecture comes into play. That is where you cannot compromise on the security of your infrastructure, you cannot compromise on the compliance elements, you cannot compromise on the risk management elements. So we spend a lot of time and effort into this. We have 2,500 engineers and product people around the world who manage this infrastructure, and you have to put that kind of expertise behind what we're building here.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, okay, so a lot of cool stuff. We could probably go another hour and break Joe Rogan's record, Lex Fridman's record on this topic. And the work you guys have done is amazing. I want to talk about what you are doing as a CEO. What are you optimizing for? What's your plan? Obviously, global exchanges, great value proposition, great infrastructure position, it's going to be more networked and hub-and-spoke, it's going to be connected. Networking is the key here, connecting nodes in the networks. What's your focus and what are you optimizing for in the business?
Roshan Robert
>> Yeah. So like I said, when I took over as CEO in the US, I built out a strategic plan that goes into the next two to five years, and that's also pegged down to how the ecosystem is developing. So those two, four opportunity sets that I spoke about, the spot market, the derivatives market, RWAs, payments, we need to have a play in all of that. So my first role as CEO was to build a team that can tackle those areas. So my team was built, and I've built my team across operations, strategy and execution, across business development and controls, and I think I have some excellent people on board right now, and we're starting to really, really build the systems and processes.
John Furrier
>> And what are some of your goals from a metric standpoint, can you share any data for folks?
Roshan Robert
>> Yes. So there are certain short-term goals around capturing market share in the US, and the only way to do it is to really come out there as a compliant alternative, a compliant and secure alternative to all the choices that are out here today, and I think we're starting to prove that point.
John Furrier
>> So you're putting your moat around compliance and governance?
Roshan Robert
>> Around compliance and governance, and around being a secure and trustworthy exchange.
John Furrier
>> Roshan, great to have you on the Crypto Trailblazers. I love the mission. Again, making it easy for people to get adoption, that's the flywheel that has to kick in. It will. It's a matter of time, it's inevitable.
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely.
John Furrier
>> The convergence of physical-digital is the first principle on both the AI North Star, as well as crypto.
Roshan Robert
>> As well as crypto.
John Furrier
>> Thank you so much.
Roshan Robert
>> Thank you very much, John.
John Furrier
>> I'm John Furrier doing our part to bridge the physical and digital here with theCUBE. Thanks for watching.
>> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host. This is the Crypto Trailblazer series here at the NYSE Studio, part of the NYSE Wired programming community. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting West Coast and the East Coast, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, tech and money coming together. This is our program here and we highlight the leaders making it happen. We've got a great guest here who's making it happen, he's also on the West Coast and has an East Coast president, Roshan Roberts, CEO OKX US. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for .
Roshan Robert
>> Thank you for having me, John.
John Furrier
>> You mentioned that San Jose is also a hub for you guys too, and New York.
Roshan Robert
>> San Jose is a big hub for us, San Jose is our US headquarters. We do have a small office in San Francisco as well. We opened our New York office last year, and we've hired a lot of people in New York as well. So now, we have around 530 people in the US, and a lot of our engineering talent, a lot of our product talent, is sourced from Silicon Valley, so that's why that San Jose office is very important for us.
John Furrier
>> Talk about the business, for the folks that don't know what you guys do, set the table, put some context. What do you guys do? What's the core value proposition? What's the business model?
Roshan Robert
>> OKX is perhaps the oldest infrastructure provider in the public blockchain space. We go back to origins in 2013, and currently, we are probably the second-largest exchange by volume around the world. We launched here in the US in April of this year, it's been six months, and we've continued to expand our products and services. We've seen tremendous growth and tremendous interest in our products and services, both on the retail side, as well as on the institutional side, and we'll speak more about that as we progress-
John Furrier
>> Yeah. Talk about the exchange dynamics, because we have a regulatory regime that feels good. There's a tailwind here in the US, the financials are leaning in, the back-end, aka DeFi, I call it back-end, it's more of a back-end technology, TradFi, the front-end, retail's booming, so you're seeing a lot of mainstreaming of crypto infrastructure. Some say an open stack for software development, programmable money. But the exchanges have played a critical role pre-tailwind outside the United States. Talk about how that dynamic went down, that market, how that's changed and how it's accelerating in a new direction.
Roshan Robert
>> Tremendous change, tremendous change since the new administration took over, and we've seen the GENIUS Act get passed into law, we've seen the CLARITY Act as it passed through the House, and currently, just a couple of days ago, we had one of the first drafts from the Senate Ag Committee on the market structure bill. So there's a tremendous amount of tailwinds happening in this space, and what that's doing to the ecosystem is... We had a stablecoin market that currently is at around 300 billion in AUM or market cap. There is a Treasury report that came out in April of this year from the Department of Treasury that says that that's a market that's going to go from where it is today to becoming a $2 to $3 trillion market by 2028, so that's the direction of travel.Put stablecoins aside. Stablecoins actually power the larger crypto marketplaces. If you look at the total crypto AUM or market cap, it's around $3.5 to $4 trillion, and just with the stablecoin bill passing and with the impetus or the tailwinds, like you said, that we see around that, that's going to really put a booster rocket to where that industry is going. And last but not the least I'd like to say is, yes, we have the centralized exchanges, we have the stablecoins that is powering this new world of finance, so to say, but equally important is to see the adoption happening in DeFi, or decentralized finance. And of course, we just released a new product today, which is called CeDeFi, which allows centralized exchange customers to, in a seamless way, fashion, access this new world of decentralized finance, it provides a window to that world which did not exist before.
John Furrier
>> It's funny, you've got the exchange, we have loud trading going on here at the New York Stock Exchange, you can probably hear, very active trading on the option floor behind us, one of the last bastions of outcry trading, so it's ironic that we're talking about crypto exchanges while they're doing it old school here.
Roshan Robert
>> Isn't it great to be here, where-
John Furrier
>> The energy's amazing.
Roshan Robert
>> The energy's amazing. And as we transfer that energy into this new world that is emerging-
John Furrier
>> Digital....
Roshan Robert
>> into this new world that is emerging... To talk a little bit about the new world, everything is about adoption. So you have this decentralized finance ecosystem that is developing. We have our own engineering architecture, including the OKX Wallet, which is our self-custodial wallet, our DEX aggregators, which is an infrastructure that provides data and analytics and access to over 500 different decentralized exchanges. We have seen a tremendous amount of volume flowing through this. So just in 2025, we've seen over $80 billion of AUM flowing through this OKX infrastructure around DeFi.
John Furrier
>> That's massive volume.
Roshan Robert
>> That's massive volume. And we've seen around four million daily active wallets, so let the numbers speak. Those numbers point to adoption of this ecosystem by users. So on one side, that's what we're seeing. On one side, we're seeing this new world of digital finance emerging, and as one of the earliest innovators in this space, I think we have a responsibility, and that responsibility is to make sure that we provide secure, compliant technology on one side. But there's an equal responsibility that we have to make sure that more and more Americans who want to transact in this space, in this new world, get involved. The technology around this is complex. If you look at wallet technology, you're looking at seed phrases, you're looking at the need to pay gas fees. So part of what we've done is abstract away the complexities and allow people a window to this new world, and I think that is very important.
John Furrier
>> That value proposition of abstractions and technology primitives sounds a lot like the cloud game in 2007. If you saw the cloud computing revolution, we saw the alternative data centers buy machines, stack them up, to just put your credit card down. Amazon Web Services was born. Now, they were customer zero for amazon.com, but that created a complete change over, different companies emerged. Airbnb would not exist without cloud computing and AWS, Dropbox, all these brands. So we're seeing a similar pattern on crypto infrastructure, that if you can nail the fundamental building blocks, have the primitives, and then look at where to abstract away, and that's what made Amazon Web Services so great and now every cloud, is they just abstract away the complexities to provide an easy layer to interface into. That's exactly what you just said.
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely. And I would say we're still in the early days.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, it's like 2007.
Roshan Robert
>> Exactly. But what we're seeing here is here, there are real numbers. These numbers that I just spoke about, $80 billion in 2025 passing through this ecosystem, just through the OKX infrastructure, and four million active wallets, those are real numbers, and those numbers speak about-
John Furrier
>> Real money.
Roshan Robert
>> And real money. And what those numbers tell us is there's real adoption.
John Furrier
>> Adoption is critical. I want to talk about adoption, because I think the mainstreaming of crypto, certainly here in the US, I think it's going to unleash more products. And as you guys have a global footprint... Now, the world is flat. Remember that book, The World Is Flat? But you have borders, some environments are better. How do you look at the global landscapes? Because now, when the US comes online, and clearly they see the value of stablecoin thanks to the US dollar, the GENIUS Act, absolutely super relevant, the CLARITY Act, that's going to allow for the regulatory teams and systems to catch up, that'll probably come in. Still not there, but solve the hard problem first.
Roshan Robert
>> One step at a time.
John Furrier
>> They're good steps.
Roshan Robert
>> Good steps.
John Furrier
>> They're good steps. What's the global impact? Now that you're starting to see some stability on a global basis, what's your view on the landscape? Because exchanges are super critical in this, they are the main centers of the action. Essentially, the money system revolves around the exchanges, the infrastructure, the user adoption. What's the big picture on this holistically?
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely, exchanges are the hubs from where the spokes emanate, and even the traditional markets that we see behind, which is a quadrillion-dollar market today across multiple products, be it fixed income and equities, et cetera, you have the major exchanges, but the value proposition is global. And I say that of the new world of finance as well. Today, OKX has over 100 million customers in over 180 different countries, and that talks about the reach, and that also talks about how globally digital finance is being adopted.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. It's like a backbone for networking. You now have an aperture, you have a user base, client base, that can interact with each other.
Roshan Robert
>> Oh, absolutely.
John Furrier
>> That, to me, is the huge upside. How does that factor into some of the retail adoption? Are there certain things you see that are working well? Because the dot to connect there is, okay, more adoption, more people getting on the crypto highway, so to speak, money flows, exchanges are on. What happens next?
Roshan Robert
>> I think what happens next is I see four opportunity sets here. I see the ever-expanding spot market, which is what we're seeing and which is what we're building right now. As more and more people get accustomed to the idea of digital finance and more and more products come on-chain, you'll see the derivatives market expand, and I'm talking about digital derivatives, where you can use-
John Furrier
>> Describe what a digital derivative is.
Roshan Robert
>> You can use stablecoins and other RWA products as collateral. That's going to really, really supercharge this market. So that's the second opportunity set. The third opportunity set where I see is RWAs, real world assets coming on-chain. Today, in the UAE, we have a partnership with Standard Chartered, where Standard Chartered actually has real world derivatives that are put in a custodial framework where institutional customers can use that as collateral and trade on our exchange. So this is not-
John Furrier
>> That's called economics.
Roshan Robert
>> That's called economics. And what that also tells is-
John Furrier
>> That's finance....
Roshan Robert
>> we are talking about traditional finance partners coming in to really bridge this gap that we have and partnering with some of the compliant ecosystem firms in the space of digital finance. And as we go further into that-
John Furrier
>> What's the fourth area?
Roshan Robert
>> The fourth area is this intersection between stablecoins and payments. The payment industry is another quadrillion-dollar industry.
John Furrier
>> Four major pillars.
Roshan Robert
>> Four major pillars, and four major pillars that ultimately relies on one thing, and that is on the infrastructure that binds together 140 different blockchains, and that's the backbone of what OKX has built over the years.
John Furrier
>> It's a great story, and I love the enablement too, because it's going to accelerate. The AI trends, accelerated computing is the narrative. Clearly, we're seeing that play out. And crypto infrastructure, those have got the four pillars based on connecting the networks or chains. Both those markets are bounded by power. So energy's important. So they're going to collide in a good way, and that's going to open up more products. So I'm interested in the next thought from you is you mentioned Silicon Valley is where your engineers and your product technology leaders are. In finance, what I've observed, coming from Silicon Valley to New York in the past six months full-time, is there's a product management opportunity in finance. What I mean is that the financial products, like digital derivatives, there's thinking like I see here around finance products that would look like what a PM would do in tech. What's the features? What's the market requirements document? What's the product... All this market product requirements definition builds something. You're starting to see the financial products thinking through the system that they have to plug into. That's like a product manager. I've never seen that before in my entire career, that kind of thinking. What's your reaction to that?
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely true. In fact, I'm seeing a lot of people applying to roles at OKX who want to move from traditional finance into the digital world. There is a flood of resumes that I get on a daily basis, and what that says is there are people who have been used to the world of traditional finance and the compliance systems or risk management systems who now know that a lot of that is transferable into the new world.
John Furrier
>> Because they have domain expertise.
Roshan Robert
>> They have domain expertise, and we welcome that, because I think that is the next generation of builders.
John Furrier
>> They're product managers.
Roshan Robert
>> Exactly.
John Furrier
>> They know the product.
Roshan Robert
>> They know the product, and they can transfer that, and they can transfer those skills into building in the digital space.
John Furrier
>> I'm very bullish that this line of direction is going to be where the apps come in, and the apps aren't traditional apps like we know them today. Today, we think apps like I've got an iPhone, I've got an app on my iPhone, I click on it. This is more like financial apps that are embedded, think Apple Pay. I've got Apple Pay, I go on the subway, I can have another wallet that just says, "Click, pay with crypto." As a user, if that comes on my phone, I don't care, as long as it works.
Roshan Robert
>> Exactly.
John Furrier
>> Does it work? Great. Now, the CFO in my pocket, or my wealth manager agent, might say, "Hey, there's an exchange deal going on somewhere over there. You guys can advertise that out via an API." That's a tech conversation.
Roshan Robert
>> It is a tech conversation, and it is also an inclusion conversation. As we get into this realm of digital finance, the tech is complex, and we have to be able to abstract away some of the complexities to allow more and more people to enter into this new world, and that is so very important. And you're right, at the end of the day, to quote what the SEC chairman said a few weeks ago, the right to self-custody is a foundational American value, and that's absolutely true
John Furrier
>> Liberty for all.
Roshan Robert
>> Liberty for all. But to enable that foundational American value, you have to be able to abstract away some of the complexities and make it easier for a lot of customers out there to access this-
John Furrier
>> There's a lot of FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt from the end users that we talk to, mainstream users, around, what if I lose my money? It's a fear. That's being solved, the wallet ease of use is-
Roshan Robert
>> That is where secure, compliant architecture comes into play. That is where you cannot compromise on the security of your infrastructure, you cannot compromise on the compliance elements, you cannot compromise on the risk management elements. So we spend a lot of time and effort into this. We have 2,500 engineers and product people around the world who manage this infrastructure, and you have to put that kind of expertise behind what we're building here.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, okay, so a lot of cool stuff. We could probably go another hour and break Joe Rogan's record, Lex Fridman's record on this topic. And the work you guys have done is amazing. I want to talk about what you are doing as a CEO. What are you optimizing for? What's your plan? Obviously, global exchanges, great value proposition, great infrastructure position, it's going to be more networked and hub-and-spoke, it's going to be connected. Networking is the key here, connecting nodes in the networks. What's your focus and what are you optimizing for in the business?
Roshan Robert
>> Yeah. So like I said, when I took over as CEO in the US, I built out a strategic plan that goes into the next two to five years, and that's also pegged down to how the ecosystem is developing. So those two, four opportunity sets that I spoke about, the spot market, the derivatives market, RWAs, payments, we need to have a play in all of that. So my first role as CEO was to build a team that can tackle those areas. So my team was built, and I've built my team across operations, strategy and execution, across business development and controls, and I think I have some excellent people on board right now, and we're starting to really, really build the systems and processes.
John Furrier
>> And what are some of your goals from a metric standpoint, can you share any data for folks?
Roshan Robert
>> Yes. So there are certain short-term goals around capturing market share in the US, and the only way to do it is to really come out there as a compliant alternative, a compliant and secure alternative to all the choices that are out here today, and I think we're starting to prove that point.
John Furrier
>> So you're putting your moat around compliance and governance?
Roshan Robert
>> Around compliance and governance, and around being a secure and trustworthy exchange.
John Furrier
>> Roshan, great to have you on the Crypto Trailblazers. I love the mission. Again, making it easy for people to get adoption, that's the flywheel that has to kick in. It will. It's a matter of time, it's inevitable.
Roshan Robert
>> Absolutely.
John Furrier
>> The convergence of physical-digital is the first principle on both the AI North Star, as well as crypto.
Roshan Robert
>> As well as crypto.
John Furrier
>> Thank you so much.
Roshan Robert
>> Thank you very much, John.
John Furrier
>> I'm John Furrier doing our part to bridge the physical and digital here with theCUBE. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier