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
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Mike Wilcox, Blockchain.com
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
play_circle_outlineBlockchain.com's Durable Trust and MiCA/FCA Licenses: Building a Regulatory Competitive Advantage
replyShare Clip
play_circle_outlineFrom Transactions to Tokenized Assets: Building a Scalable Modular On-Chain Financial Platform
replyShare Clip
play_circle_outlineCLARITY and GENIUS Acts: Accelerating U.S. Crypto Adoption through Compliance, Accounting, Risk Controls, and Public-Company Standards
replyShare Clip
play_circle_outlineInstitutional Prime Brokerage for 5,000+ KYC'd Clients Meets a Unified Custodial and Noncustodial Wallet Super App
>> Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE, here at the Cube's NYSE studio. Of course, we have our studio in Palo Alto, California, heart of Silicon Valley, connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street, as technology becomes the market. This is our Crypto Trailblazer series, where we interview the leaders in crypto infrastructure, cryptocurrency. As the real world assets come on-chain, digital and physical worlds are coming together. Mike Wilcox is the CFO of Blockchain.com here. We've had many of your peers on before. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate it.
Mike Wilcox
>> Thanks for having me here, John. It's great to be here.
John Furrier
>> You're here for the IPO Summit here at the New York Stock Exchange. They love IPOs.
Mike Wilcox
>> That's right. Well-
John Furrier
>> IPOs are hot in crypto right now....
Mike Wilcox
>> it's quite a crowd down there. A lot of aspiring companies and we're very happy to be in the crowd.
John Furrier
>> You guys have one of the best URL on the planet, in my opinion. Blockchain.com, you can't beat that URL. But really, we've covered you guys in the past. And what's coming out of the real world and mainstreaming of crypto infrastructure is the fact that money's money, currency is currency. Cryptocurrency has a lot of advantages. And the platformization of crypto infrastructure is now powering payment rails, settlement rails, new kinds of services, a lot of entrepreneurial activity in the market, platforms that are delivering the kinds of services in a different way. You guys have been very, very successful. As CFO, durability is always a big thing, right? So, speak to the Blockchain.com value proposition as you hit escape velocity in the growth. What's durable? What are you guys working on? Can you share the state of what's happening inside the company?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, absolutely. We were founded over 12 years ago. We've been pioneers in the industry. And one of the things that's really compounded for us is trust, trust with our consumers, retail and institutional. And that's what's really compounded and proven durable and made our business model really resilient across all the cycles, and put us in a really favorable position to capitalize on all the momentum that we see in the industry.
John Furrier
>> You've been in the finance world. You've seen many cycles come and go. What's different about this one as the mainstreaming of crypto blockchain infrastructure hits, what's new? What's changed? What's the prevailing winds look like?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. What's really evolved, I think, in the last couple of years is the establishment of a clear regulatory framework. It's an interesting industry. Most industries are not clamoring for more regulatory clarity and more involvement from regulators, but crypto has. And it's been to our benefit, especially for the established scaled players, like ourselves, where we have a history of compliance and legal infrastructure, and have been able to make licensing and regulatory frameworks a competitive advantage. We recently got our MiCA license in Europe, our FCA license in the UK, and we continue to really invest in that part of the business as a real competitive differentiator for us.
John Furrier
>> A lot of people are coming online, learning a lot about this area. Obviously, money's involved. All kinds of new services coming out like credit, holding the asset, using it, leveraging it. Talk about what has Blockchain.com done because it's not like you guys just appeared out of the woodwork, "Hey, we're here to hang out and do things for you." Talk about the work involved up to this point, because you mentioned some of those momentum points. You guys have done a lot of the work. We talked to Lane and Nick in the past. Share some of the momentum, key things that have been done foundationally.
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. So, one of the key elements of our model is building a common infrastructure platform for our technology stack. Our legal and regulatory framework allows us to modularly put new business lines on top of that infrastructure in a really scalable, profitable way. And so, we have agility as more regulatory clarity comes online, it's brought more financial services products on-chain. So, we've moved from a very transactional-oriented ecosystem to one that's offering more and more financial services products that are coming on-chain. And that plays very well into our infrastructure platform because we're providing a lot of the picks and shovels for those products and services to come on-chain and then distribute them out to our 40 million verified retail users and thousands of institutional players that have-
John Furrier
>> Mike, I moved to California 25 years ago, maybe 26 years ago, from the East Coast. And over that time, New York's entrepreneurial scene in finance was somewhat limited. Most of the big players controlled the market. Silicon Valley, obviously, they have startups, product managers, they think roadmaps, architecture. As technology becomes the market, you guys seem to fit that hybrid of capital markets, technology with the platform. You're seeing a lot more entrepreneurial structural change, meaning startups coming out of the woodwork, doing things that you never would have seen maybe 20 years ago. You're seeing more product management thinking around the kinds of financial products that could be leveraged. What's your reaction to that as you look at what's happening with Blockchain.com in the market? Do you agree that there's a lot more product management-like things happening in finance?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, absolutely. Again, I think you're just seeing so much innovation take place in our ecosystem. Regulatory frameworks have just made it easier for retail and institutional users to adopt cryptocurrency as part of their day-to-day life. We certainly see in more mature markets, like the US and developed markets, a bit of a store of value type approach to how people engage with cryptocurrency. And so, they'll use our platform for buying and selling and swapping into various cryptocurrencies, but we're increasingly seeing product use cases, to your point, in more emerging markets where perhaps there's more inflationary environments or less trust in the currency system, where we're seeing users increasingly look for real-world assets, tokenized equities, using cryptocurrency rails as a way to engage in commerce. So, it's really an exciting time.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. Being the CFO, you get the keys to the kingdom on the money side. But your job, well, my words, is to build the architecture for the business lodging, reporting, measurement. Right now, with AI and crypto infrastructure changing so fast, there's a lot of transformation stories. Share a story around Blockchain.com and your customers, or both, where the transformation has been a CFO-like conversation. We're seeing more and more CFOs leaning into either changing their own organizations and transitioning or transforming, whether it's regulatory tailwinds or other headwinds. So, how do you think about that transformation?
Mike Wilcox
>> Well, it's funny. Transformation sounds like a moment in time, but it almost feels like it's become a permanent part of the business discourse. And sitting in the CFO seat, I think we're always looking at the business model, the infrastructure, and thinking about transformation and evolution. Case in point, we've launched our own artificial intelligence LLM tool embedded into our platform that has privacy as an embedded layer. And privacy has really been a philosophy of the company from day one as the first provider of non-custodial wallet infrastructure. We've brought that same discipline and philosophy to AI, where we're looking to embed AI tools into our wallet infrastructure to essentially embed a CFO in the customer's wallet with privacy at its core principle.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And the custody thing is massive. Talk about the customers. How's that mix of business shaped over the years? What's the current, like relative to visibility and the economics? What's the customer base look like for Blockchain.com?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, so we have over 40 million verified users around the world, so we're very geographically distributed. The vast majority of our user base is international markets today. US market is very important and growing for us and one we're very excited about. And as I mentioned before, use cases can be very different depending on the geography that you're in. But where we've really had a lot of success is looking at local market entry models where we can partner with regulators and sandbox environments and helping build out the crypto ecosystem. Nigeria is a case in point last year, where we went with the regulators, established some guiding principles and guardrails to really accelerate the momentum of crypto. And that market for us has just taken off enormously. It's been a great market to trial new products, like tokenized equities, and see what the day-to-day demand is for really engaged users.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And that's a really great example of infrastructure. I mean, you're an infrastructure player. At the end of the day, a platform.
Mike Wilcox
>> That's right. Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. I mean, the thing about the cryptos is that it does have a lot of benefits in countries with inflation, stablecoins and whatnot. You mentioned compliance earlier and security, those are two killer features in crypto, in any platform, AI and crypto. With the regulatory acceleration, you got GENIUS Act, check. Everyone's super pumped about that. That creates a lot of clarity. Now, the CLARITY Act comes. So, you're seeing this lagging reporting system. How are you guys thinking about that? What does that mean? Obviously, when you start to getting into compliance, there's reporting, regulations come in as regulatory reporting, accounting. How do you account for things? How is that progress being made in this world right now?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. I think on the user side, the regulatory clarity and the GENIUS Act and things of that nature really drive adoption. And so, to be ready for that adoption, you have to have a really strong compliance and accounting infrastructure. You have to have good risk controls in place. And so, we're at the forefront of that journey as well. Getting ourselves operating at a public company standards in terms of gap reporting, making sure we have a strong balance sheet, that we're scaling and doing so in a profitable way.
John Furrier
>> You're at the IPO Summit upstairs. What's it like up there? What's the vibe? It's pretty crowded.
Mike Wilcox
>> There's a lot of buzz. It's a standing room only room and there's a lot of people dialed in virtually. There's a lot of optimism for capital markets and we're excited to be part of the summit.
John Furrier
>> What are your goals this year? As you guys look at 2026, what are some metrics you're looking at? How are you looking at the business growth? Can you share some stats, momentum and strategies?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, 2025 was one of our strongest financial years. We had nice growth last year. We're very nicely profitable and we're looking to build on that momentum in 2026. We have a strong track record of growing significantly faster than the overall crypto environment. And right now, we're in the process of building more and more products and services for our retail and institutional customers, as well as a growing infrastructure platform for token launches and crypto-native foundations and protocols, looking to bring more and more financial services on-chain. So, we're looking to really lean into that capability, as well as investing in our infrastructure, so that we create optionality for our business. You mentioned the IPO Summit. Those are certainly things that we're interested in.
John Furrier
>> If you had to comment on the mainstreaming of crypto infrastructure, obviously, that's happening, we've been chronicalizing it here in theCUBE. What's the big takeaway right now for you on terms of where it's at, what's the sentiment, momentum, progress, the mainstreaming of financial plumbing, I call it. It's happening.
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, you see more and more companies getting involved in digital asset, treasury management, thinking about cryptocurrency as part of their balance sheet optimization strategy. You're seeing the education process at the top of the funnel, as we say from a go to-market perspective. That top of funnel is filling up quickly with retail users and institutions, and we're very excited about where we sit in the ecosystem and being able to educate consumers, put content-rich things on our website and in blogs to help them on their crypto journey.
John Furrier
>> What's the coolest thing that you think is going to happen this year that will open the floodgates? Is it the CLARITY Act moving faster? Is it custody wallets embedded in our phones? What are the key things that you think will be very key dominoes that need to fall this year to open the floodgates?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, I think the CLARITY Act certainly has to be right up there. Getting the United States to be the central point where there's a regulatory framework is going to be a key catalyst in making sure that we're at the forefront of this movement in driving innovation in capital markets and cryptocurrency in particular. So, I think that's where we're super excited. It's going to continue to accelerate the onshoring of cryptocurrency innovation and adoption from institutional players and retail players.
John Furrier
>> And for folks watching, whether it's going to be a customer or partner or developer, what should they be thinking about with Blockchain.com? White spaces to develop in, partner in, services? What are some of the highlights that you think people should pay attention to?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. So, we primarily play in three dominant pillars. We have a consumer super app where consumers can do all sorts of things in terms of custodial capabilities and noncustodial capabilities in a single wallet infrastructure. That's a really scaled business that we're super excited about. We have an institutional prime brokerage business, that is up to 5,000 KYC'd customers and growing quite rapidly. One of our fastest-growing businesses where we offer a full suite of prime brokerage services. And then, I mentioned earlier, alluded to this blockchain market services infrastructure platform, where we help new tokens and foundation bring their products and tokens to market by providing liquidity provisioning services, treasury management services, and cross-selling them across the prime-
John Furrier
>> And that requires integration?
Mike Wilcox
>> It requires integration. It requires that common technology platform that I mentioned before, and a lot of thoughtful work goes into how we make those three pillars work together in a flywheel way that creates diversification, benefits across the customer bases, and what we like to call an all-weather crypto business model.
John Furrier
>> So, those are the three pillars. I think that last pillar really creates some acceleration on an enablement side, and basically, it's a service. I mean, you're basically providing crypto-infrastructure-as-a-service, like AWS for crypto.
Mike Wilcox
>> Effectively, yeah, you nailed it, John. So, that's what we're leaning into. And I think our DNA in being so entrenched in the ecosystem and being a brokerage model, so agnostic to where we can post liquidity for our strategic partners in that services infrastructure play, I think positions us exceptionally well. They love our distribution capabilities, our channel agnostic method of providing liquidity in our scale.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, you guys have really trailblazed it for sure. Very successful. Again, scaled up. I have to mention the NFL partnership you guys have with the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Is it with the NFL or is it the stadium? What is the relationship there?
Mike Wilcox
>> It's with the Cowboys.
John Furrier
>> Cowboys? Okay.
Mike Wilcox
>> Cowboys directly, yes.
John Furrier
>> So, it's the NFL team?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, they've been a great partner of ours. We've loved working with the team over there, the Jones family. We love hosting events at the stadium. It's great for activation. It's great for branding and we couldn't be more excited about it.
John Furrier
>> Lane wanted us to come down there. Lane, if you're watching, president, we'll be there this year. Couldn't make it down last year. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
Mike Wilcox
>> Thank you very much. I appreciate you being here.
John Furrier
>> All right. Crypto Trailblazers here, talking to the leaders. And as the market evolves, certainly here in the United States, with the CLARITY and the GENIUS acts, you're starting to see real stability in what the unit economics are going to be, and then the acceleration of real-world assets on-chain. That's digital and physical coming together, completely decentralized. This is the benefit of blockchain. All the promises over the past decade's come into fruition. Again, mainstreaming into the financial system is only going to create a global system. And of course, developers will start onboarding, of course, continues to grow. We'll do our part sharing that content with you. Thanks for watching.
>> Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE, here at the Cube's NYSE studio. Of course, we have our studio in Palo Alto, California, heart of Silicon Valley, connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street, as technology becomes the market. This is our Crypto Trailblazer series, where we interview the leaders in crypto infrastructure, cryptocurrency. As the real world assets come on-chain, digital and physical worlds are coming together. Mike Wilcox is the CFO of Blockchain.com here. We've had many of your peers on before. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate it.
Mike Wilcox
>> Thanks for having me here, John. It's great to be here.
John Furrier
>> You're here for the IPO Summit here at the New York Stock Exchange. They love IPOs.
Mike Wilcox
>> That's right. Well-
John Furrier
>> IPOs are hot in crypto right now....
Mike Wilcox
>> it's quite a crowd down there. A lot of aspiring companies and we're very happy to be in the crowd.
John Furrier
>> You guys have one of the best URL on the planet, in my opinion. Blockchain.com, you can't beat that URL. But really, we've covered you guys in the past. And what's coming out of the real world and mainstreaming of crypto infrastructure is the fact that money's money, currency is currency. Cryptocurrency has a lot of advantages. And the platformization of crypto infrastructure is now powering payment rails, settlement rails, new kinds of services, a lot of entrepreneurial activity in the market, platforms that are delivering the kinds of services in a different way. You guys have been very, very successful. As CFO, durability is always a big thing, right? So, speak to the Blockchain.com value proposition as you hit escape velocity in the growth. What's durable? What are you guys working on? Can you share the state of what's happening inside the company?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, absolutely. We were founded over 12 years ago. We've been pioneers in the industry. And one of the things that's really compounded for us is trust, trust with our consumers, retail and institutional. And that's what's really compounded and proven durable and made our business model really resilient across all the cycles, and put us in a really favorable position to capitalize on all the momentum that we see in the industry.
John Furrier
>> You've been in the finance world. You've seen many cycles come and go. What's different about this one as the mainstreaming of crypto blockchain infrastructure hits, what's new? What's changed? What's the prevailing winds look like?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. What's really evolved, I think, in the last couple of years is the establishment of a clear regulatory framework. It's an interesting industry. Most industries are not clamoring for more regulatory clarity and more involvement from regulators, but crypto has. And it's been to our benefit, especially for the established scaled players, like ourselves, where we have a history of compliance and legal infrastructure, and have been able to make licensing and regulatory frameworks a competitive advantage. We recently got our MiCA license in Europe, our FCA license in the UK, and we continue to really invest in that part of the business as a real competitive differentiator for us.
John Furrier
>> A lot of people are coming online, learning a lot about this area. Obviously, money's involved. All kinds of new services coming out like credit, holding the asset, using it, leveraging it. Talk about what has Blockchain.com done because it's not like you guys just appeared out of the woodwork, "Hey, we're here to hang out and do things for you." Talk about the work involved up to this point, because you mentioned some of those momentum points. You guys have done a lot of the work. We talked to Lane and Nick in the past. Share some of the momentum, key things that have been done foundationally.
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. So, one of the key elements of our model is building a common infrastructure platform for our technology stack. Our legal and regulatory framework allows us to modularly put new business lines on top of that infrastructure in a really scalable, profitable way. And so, we have agility as more regulatory clarity comes online, it's brought more financial services products on-chain. So, we've moved from a very transactional-oriented ecosystem to one that's offering more and more financial services products that are coming on-chain. And that plays very well into our infrastructure platform because we're providing a lot of the picks and shovels for those products and services to come on-chain and then distribute them out to our 40 million verified retail users and thousands of institutional players that have-
John Furrier
>> Mike, I moved to California 25 years ago, maybe 26 years ago, from the East Coast. And over that time, New York's entrepreneurial scene in finance was somewhat limited. Most of the big players controlled the market. Silicon Valley, obviously, they have startups, product managers, they think roadmaps, architecture. As technology becomes the market, you guys seem to fit that hybrid of capital markets, technology with the platform. You're seeing a lot more entrepreneurial structural change, meaning startups coming out of the woodwork, doing things that you never would have seen maybe 20 years ago. You're seeing more product management thinking around the kinds of financial products that could be leveraged. What's your reaction to that as you look at what's happening with Blockchain.com in the market? Do you agree that there's a lot more product management-like things happening in finance?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, absolutely. Again, I think you're just seeing so much innovation take place in our ecosystem. Regulatory frameworks have just made it easier for retail and institutional users to adopt cryptocurrency as part of their day-to-day life. We certainly see in more mature markets, like the US and developed markets, a bit of a store of value type approach to how people engage with cryptocurrency. And so, they'll use our platform for buying and selling and swapping into various cryptocurrencies, but we're increasingly seeing product use cases, to your point, in more emerging markets where perhaps there's more inflationary environments or less trust in the currency system, where we're seeing users increasingly look for real-world assets, tokenized equities, using cryptocurrency rails as a way to engage in commerce. So, it's really an exciting time.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. Being the CFO, you get the keys to the kingdom on the money side. But your job, well, my words, is to build the architecture for the business lodging, reporting, measurement. Right now, with AI and crypto infrastructure changing so fast, there's a lot of transformation stories. Share a story around Blockchain.com and your customers, or both, where the transformation has been a CFO-like conversation. We're seeing more and more CFOs leaning into either changing their own organizations and transitioning or transforming, whether it's regulatory tailwinds or other headwinds. So, how do you think about that transformation?
Mike Wilcox
>> Well, it's funny. Transformation sounds like a moment in time, but it almost feels like it's become a permanent part of the business discourse. And sitting in the CFO seat, I think we're always looking at the business model, the infrastructure, and thinking about transformation and evolution. Case in point, we've launched our own artificial intelligence LLM tool embedded into our platform that has privacy as an embedded layer. And privacy has really been a philosophy of the company from day one as the first provider of non-custodial wallet infrastructure. We've brought that same discipline and philosophy to AI, where we're looking to embed AI tools into our wallet infrastructure to essentially embed a CFO in the customer's wallet with privacy at its core principle.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And the custody thing is massive. Talk about the customers. How's that mix of business shaped over the years? What's the current, like relative to visibility and the economics? What's the customer base look like for Blockchain.com?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, so we have over 40 million verified users around the world, so we're very geographically distributed. The vast majority of our user base is international markets today. US market is very important and growing for us and one we're very excited about. And as I mentioned before, use cases can be very different depending on the geography that you're in. But where we've really had a lot of success is looking at local market entry models where we can partner with regulators and sandbox environments and helping build out the crypto ecosystem. Nigeria is a case in point last year, where we went with the regulators, established some guiding principles and guardrails to really accelerate the momentum of crypto. And that market for us has just taken off enormously. It's been a great market to trial new products, like tokenized equities, and see what the day-to-day demand is for really engaged users.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And that's a really great example of infrastructure. I mean, you're an infrastructure player. At the end of the day, a platform.
Mike Wilcox
>> That's right. Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. I mean, the thing about the cryptos is that it does have a lot of benefits in countries with inflation, stablecoins and whatnot. You mentioned compliance earlier and security, those are two killer features in crypto, in any platform, AI and crypto. With the regulatory acceleration, you got GENIUS Act, check. Everyone's super pumped about that. That creates a lot of clarity. Now, the CLARITY Act comes. So, you're seeing this lagging reporting system. How are you guys thinking about that? What does that mean? Obviously, when you start to getting into compliance, there's reporting, regulations come in as regulatory reporting, accounting. How do you account for things? How is that progress being made in this world right now?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. I think on the user side, the regulatory clarity and the GENIUS Act and things of that nature really drive adoption. And so, to be ready for that adoption, you have to have a really strong compliance and accounting infrastructure. You have to have good risk controls in place. And so, we're at the forefront of that journey as well. Getting ourselves operating at a public company standards in terms of gap reporting, making sure we have a strong balance sheet, that we're scaling and doing so in a profitable way.
John Furrier
>> You're at the IPO Summit upstairs. What's it like up there? What's the vibe? It's pretty crowded.
Mike Wilcox
>> There's a lot of buzz. It's a standing room only room and there's a lot of people dialed in virtually. There's a lot of optimism for capital markets and we're excited to be part of the summit.
John Furrier
>> What are your goals this year? As you guys look at 2026, what are some metrics you're looking at? How are you looking at the business growth? Can you share some stats, momentum and strategies?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, 2025 was one of our strongest financial years. We had nice growth last year. We're very nicely profitable and we're looking to build on that momentum in 2026. We have a strong track record of growing significantly faster than the overall crypto environment. And right now, we're in the process of building more and more products and services for our retail and institutional customers, as well as a growing infrastructure platform for token launches and crypto-native foundations and protocols, looking to bring more and more financial services on-chain. So, we're looking to really lean into that capability, as well as investing in our infrastructure, so that we create optionality for our business. You mentioned the IPO Summit. Those are certainly things that we're interested in.
John Furrier
>> If you had to comment on the mainstreaming of crypto infrastructure, obviously, that's happening, we've been chronicalizing it here in theCUBE. What's the big takeaway right now for you on terms of where it's at, what's the sentiment, momentum, progress, the mainstreaming of financial plumbing, I call it. It's happening.
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, you see more and more companies getting involved in digital asset, treasury management, thinking about cryptocurrency as part of their balance sheet optimization strategy. You're seeing the education process at the top of the funnel, as we say from a go to-market perspective. That top of funnel is filling up quickly with retail users and institutions, and we're very excited about where we sit in the ecosystem and being able to educate consumers, put content-rich things on our website and in blogs to help them on their crypto journey.
John Furrier
>> What's the coolest thing that you think is going to happen this year that will open the floodgates? Is it the CLARITY Act moving faster? Is it custody wallets embedded in our phones? What are the key things that you think will be very key dominoes that need to fall this year to open the floodgates?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah, I think the CLARITY Act certainly has to be right up there. Getting the United States to be the central point where there's a regulatory framework is going to be a key catalyst in making sure that we're at the forefront of this movement in driving innovation in capital markets and cryptocurrency in particular. So, I think that's where we're super excited. It's going to continue to accelerate the onshoring of cryptocurrency innovation and adoption from institutional players and retail players.
John Furrier
>> And for folks watching, whether it's going to be a customer or partner or developer, what should they be thinking about with Blockchain.com? White spaces to develop in, partner in, services? What are some of the highlights that you think people should pay attention to?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. So, we primarily play in three dominant pillars. We have a consumer super app where consumers can do all sorts of things in terms of custodial capabilities and noncustodial capabilities in a single wallet infrastructure. That's a really scaled business that we're super excited about. We have an institutional prime brokerage business, that is up to 5,000 KYC'd customers and growing quite rapidly. One of our fastest-growing businesses where we offer a full suite of prime brokerage services. And then, I mentioned earlier, alluded to this blockchain market services infrastructure platform, where we help new tokens and foundation bring their products and tokens to market by providing liquidity provisioning services, treasury management services, and cross-selling them across the prime-
John Furrier
>> And that requires integration?
Mike Wilcox
>> It requires integration. It requires that common technology platform that I mentioned before, and a lot of thoughtful work goes into how we make those three pillars work together in a flywheel way that creates diversification, benefits across the customer bases, and what we like to call an all-weather crypto business model.
John Furrier
>> So, those are the three pillars. I think that last pillar really creates some acceleration on an enablement side, and basically, it's a service. I mean, you're basically providing crypto-infrastructure-as-a-service, like AWS for crypto.
Mike Wilcox
>> Effectively, yeah, you nailed it, John. So, that's what we're leaning into. And I think our DNA in being so entrenched in the ecosystem and being a brokerage model, so agnostic to where we can post liquidity for our strategic partners in that services infrastructure play, I think positions us exceptionally well. They love our distribution capabilities, our channel agnostic method of providing liquidity in our scale.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, you guys have really trailblazed it for sure. Very successful. Again, scaled up. I have to mention the NFL partnership you guys have with the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Is it with the NFL or is it the stadium? What is the relationship there?
Mike Wilcox
>> It's with the Cowboys.
John Furrier
>> Cowboys? Okay.
Mike Wilcox
>> Cowboys directly, yes.
John Furrier
>> So, it's the NFL team?
Mike Wilcox
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, they've been a great partner of ours. We've loved working with the team over there, the Jones family. We love hosting events at the stadium. It's great for activation. It's great for branding and we couldn't be more excited about it.
John Furrier
>> Lane wanted us to come down there. Lane, if you're watching, president, we'll be there this year. Couldn't make it down last year. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
Mike Wilcox
>> Thank you very much. I appreciate you being here.
John Furrier
>> All right. Crypto Trailblazers here, talking to the leaders. And as the market evolves, certainly here in the United States, with the CLARITY and the GENIUS acts, you're starting to see real stability in what the unit economics are going to be, and then the acceleration of real-world assets on-chain. That's digital and physical coming together, completely decentralized. This is the benefit of blockchain. All the promises over the past decade's come into fruition. Again, mainstreaming into the financial system is only going to create a global system. And of course, developers will start onboarding, of course, continues to grow. We'll do our part sharing that content with you. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier