There is something I wanted
to show you, really interesting.
I feel success. It's
a mother of cryptography.
Do you know who Satoshi is? Me.
Everybody's gonna go to the pub.
Face the ship on Thursday.
Is this your yacht over here? Oh, yes.
Here we are in London, England.
We're right near the Tower Bridge.
And right on the Thames.
And we're here to meet the
CEO of a crypto exchange.
Maybe it's his yacht over here or maybe not.
We're gonna go ask him. One thing that I
really love about this city is the kind of
architecture, some of it's very, very old
and some of it's very, very new.
But there's not a lot
of contrast between them.
It really flows seamlessly together.
I love this city. Okay, here we go.
Do you feel crypto success?
I feel success. Hey, George, how are you?
Wow, what an awesome place.
Oh, we have a beautiful weather
today as well in London.
Yeah, I can see.
So what? This is kind
of your typical morning here?
You come out here for your coffee.
When I stay here in between the travel it's
easy to commute and we have lots of people
coming over from different places, we figured we will
save a lot of money by having an
apartment. Got a great view of
the London Bridge over here.
Yeah, it's really beautiful here.
So is this your yacht over here?
We were wondering. I wish, yeah.
I'm saving on it. Touchup my coffee.
Refresh. Warm it up, there is
no rum there or whiskey.
It's okay, it's a little early for that.
But I was here last year actually, and
I noticed Brits like to drink pretty early
actually like 4 p.m.,
5 p.m. If the sun is down, it's like...
It's a big myth that Russians drink a lot.
When I saw how much Brits are drinking, I
think a pint for lunch is absolutely normal.
Really? Wow. It's a liquid
diet type of thing.
So and today's Thursday is a big night out.
Everybody's going to go to the pub.
Do they work on Friday? Yes, if
you can call it work - yes.
I see. So where are we headed?
Going to the office.
Okay. It's a short 15 minutes walk.
We had a meet up in our office and that
happened to be the warmest day of the summer.
Really? It was like 34 degrees.
It was was in July and that day, at
around 2:00 o'clock, our air conditioning went off and
died. In the office?
In the office when we had the meet up.
Our friends from Craft Beer Coin brought in a keg
of ice cold beer and it saved the night
actually. Yeah, it was great.
Yeah. What's that company here?
Who are these guys? It's
their parade or something.
Yeah, looks like a parade. Yeah.
I'm not sure if there's anything
going on in particular today.
That's the St.
Katharine's Docks.
Well there's been a lot of wharfs and you
can see the cranes are still operational, are
still hanging out there, although it's probably been
taken up by WeWork or some other
fintech company or something like that, so.
.. See, the names of the boats here are
very much, very much English names: Moneypenny, S
hipfaced. It's Thursday today, right?
So our office is just
right outside of the wall.
This was like the old city center?
Correct. You know, that's where Jack
the Ripper had been operating in.
And all the seedy parts.
The underground. Yeah.
Welcome to... This is my
ringtone or like my alarm.
Really? Well, it's time to wake up.
Oh, it is mine. Welcome to Bequant.
Bequant. Oh, look who's here.
Awwww.
One of our contractor employees as well.
I'm a huge dog guy. My dog at home.
I've been missing him. Him or her?
Pippin, come here.
See, we are very pet friendly, we have a
ping pong table, so that allows people to kind
of, you know, work and
relax and do their best.
And this is a little symbol of
the industry, I guess the dog years.
I always say it's the
industry is moving so fast.
And that's it's more like we're living
one year like a dog year.
These things you do in the span of one
year same as in traditional world for 7 years.
Yeah, just seven times as fast.
And much more dynamic for sure.
Right. I wonder how does the traditional financial
markets here in London, the old guard,
if you will. How do
they see disruptive crypto businesses?
Yes, that's a great question.
And just go back to your point about
crypto world in terms of the language.
For me, it's an additional asset class to
learn crypto versus, you know, equities, bonds,
FX, etc. So there are a lot of similarities,
but there's a lot of unique terminology in
crypto world because it's
very, very high tech.
And there are a lot of
nuances you have to learn.
So that's why I'm spending time learning,
after my first month of being here.
You know, to answer your question, you know,
people don't wear suits in this business.
It's much more casual.
There's more flexibility in terms of
working hours and how people work.
It's much smarter now.
And the crypto business isn't so heavily regulated
yet that it has so many barriers to
doing business. I think people are
very pro-business in this new world.
They want to get things done.
They want to get things on board fast.
We do a daily publishing of the codes.
And our Crypto&Coffee publication
is printed here.
Just telling people what's happening, what's happening
today in the crypto world, there's
always something's happening. Right.
And a lot of things we
do is about bridging the gap.
So it's the gap with the
traditional finance, with old money.
And we're bringing in obviously new technology
and new way of doing business.
Right. Quite different, obviously, because it's crypto,
I mean, I've only been in crypto
for 11 months.
Prior to that number of years at different
institutions, exchanges and sort of big bank.
So it's a different atmosphere.
It's more relaxed, but also more high pressured
because you've got quite a lot of stuff
going on. Obviously, we're trying to do
things quicker than probably the bigger companies
would normally do. They tend to have a lot more
process, a lot more people in sort of not
in the way, but not almost creating barriers
sometimes, whereas here we're a lot more
free to do what we would like to
do and we are trying to act quickly.
But obviously that means you got
more things to try and juggle.
But it's good fun. It's nice.
It's a good atmosphere here.
I guess one question.
I mean, why aren't these institutional
players doing essentially what you're doing?
I mean, are you nervous that they're going to
swallow up this kind of industry and just
keep it in-house or...?
I come from the traditional prime broker
and I've been building electronic trading desks
for different banks. And right now,
it's basically it's another market.
It's another emerging market, in fact.
So I'm very much in
that familiar kind of situation.
It's another startup.
It's another emerging market.
It's the same product. And actually, the
clients are the same as well.
So we talked to the same guys I
talked to 10 years ago, in fact.
I am just now leaving the Bequant office, got
a behind the scenes look at this exchange
and what they're trying to do. And, you
know, they're what they've been saying is that
they're trying to be this bridge between
the traditional financial system and the crypto
industry. You know, Vitalik Buterin, kids
in hoodies, everything like that.
So I can say it seems
to kind of fit that mold.
I didn't see anyone in a tie.
I didn't see, you know, no one was really
busy and always on the phone, it seemed relaxed
and professional.
So, you know, it was kind of a mix.
They had ping pong and pool, but not
beanbags and, you know, video games to play.
So I think it's really interesting.
And I have to say my
favorite part was the dog.
I think having a dog in the office that
cute is definitely going to help everyone have a
better day. So, you know, that's
what we were doing today.
And George invited us out tonight to check
out some London pubs and we'll see, it's
Thursday, which he said is kind
of a heavy night here.
So we're going to check it out
and see what there is to do.
How was your day? It's not
over yet. It's not over yet.
We have a call in a few.
Oh, really? And then we can
go back to the pub.
Get to the business. We got
kicked out of the pub.
Yeah. I should've probably ask permission first,
but we can film on the street.
And hey, we can drink on the street, too.
Cheers. Yeah.
I mean, it's pretty noisy.
For what, Thursday?
Is it? Is it common?
That's very common.
Thursday's the big, big night out.
Yeah, more than the weekend?
Absolutely. Well I mean why waste the weekend
for you know, for hangovers when you can.
.. Face the ship on Thursday.
I got to finish this quick because
I got a call in 30.
In 30? Okay. It's final preparations
for a meeting with the regulator.
So I'm going to Malta. Let's go to Malta.
You're going to Malta. We're going to Malta.
When is that? Tomorrow. Tomorrow?
You just want to go to Malta tomorrow?
Yeah. It's a quick, quick bus ride.
Oh, yeah.
Let's, okay.
Let's try it. Let's try to do it.
So let's drink up and yeah.
And then let's get some tickets I guess.
Welcome to sunny Malta.
Quite a bit better than the
weather in London, I'd say.
So how often are you here?
About once a month for about a week.
We have to wrap up a lot of
things on the regulatory side of things.
The team here is getting bigger and bigger.
So this is our office.
So let's go check it out. One that
is very expensive, you know that, right.
So Malta has all the perks, right.
The sunshine, Italian food, the sea.
Well, yeah. So we're going to meet the
regulator in a couple of hours presenting the
business plan for the two of our
businesses, the exchange and the prime broker.
So we're very excited about today.
Because the process finally
is getting kicked off.
So your presentation "Bridging the gap
between traditional finance and emerging digital
asset class." Yeah.
You're just going to be introducing your
business model to the regulators today or...?
Exactly, yeah. The part of the process
is presenting the functionalities and the
operational the management team to the regulators
explaining what we're looking to do,
how we're looking to do that
and get the process rolling.
Yeah. Are they kind of concerned in the main vision
or are they just kind of want to see
the structure? I think that is one of the
main first steps for the regulator is to filter
out the professional out of unprofessional and
trying to understand the general direction
of where the business that we are looking to
bring to the island is going to go.
So this is kind of like a handshake test.
You know, just to...
Exactly. Very solid handshake test.
Yeah. So we're on our way
to the meeting with the regulator.
We're with the team, there's another taxi with
some of the rest of the team.
And yeah, we're gonna go wish
them luck and see what happens.
Does it kind of feel like a first date?
You know, like with the regulators.
I guess I'm an experienced dater.
I don't get the crumps
in the stomach anymore.
We're going on a date, yeah?
Exactly, yeah. I don't get as
nauseous or anything like that.
So only the regulators can
put butterflies in your stomach?
Exactly. Exactly. We're well-prepared.
We've been working for it for a year.
We've been preparing for this.
So it's just now we have to go with the flow
and show who we are and ask questions and get
the ball rolling. Yeah,
we're excited about it.
Could you even go through this in London?
I mean, is there a system for it?
No, not at the moment.
But a lot of regulators
are now looking into it.
Maltese have gone probably a step ahead.
These other regulators like in the U.K.
or in the EU?
Do you think they're going
to look at Malta as.
.. Oh, yes, a path?
Well, you have to piggyback off something,
these first steps, the practical steps that
the Maltese regulators are taking, definitely going to
be put into the textbook of crypto
regulation to teach the kids.
And your name is gonna be
as a footnote, you know.
The financial history textbooks, the future.
Exactly. Yeah. Going to be
written about moments like this.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I guess this is where
we leave you, yeah? Yeah.
So good luck. Thank you.
We'll talk after, get a play by play after.
Awesome. Good luck.
Yeah. It was a kind of
an interesting road to get here.
The sidewalk was kind of disappearing for a
little bit, but we figured that's kind of
the, you know, the way to success.
Sometimes it's a little bumpy at first,
but that's how billion-dollar companies are made.
So while George and his team are meeting with
regulators, we have some time just to kind
of walk around. But I can tell you a
little bit about the regulatory system here in
Malta. So in November 2018, the Maltese
government signed into law the Virtual Financial
Assets Act or VFA.
Pretty much it was the
first of its kind legislation.
And it's an attempt to try to regulate a
system that for most of its history has been
kind of unregulated and not really monitored.
But what's happening right now,
it's all brand new.
And companies like George's, they're
a part of the process.
They're working with regulators, trying to
figure out the best framework.
And those things are gonna be
set as precedent for future companies.
So it's actually pretty exciting
to see what's gonna happen.
So, we were able to get a little bit
of a behind the scenes look into this process.
This isn't the meeting with the regulators, but
this is a post-meeting meeting with their
legal advisors and they're kind of discussing some
of the issues that they've brought up
in the first meeting. More details about
the specific parts concerning like insurance or
which assets they're going to offer. You know,
everyone seems to be in a pretty good
mood, so I'm thinking that the
first meeting went pretty well.
When do you think is the right
time for regulation to step in?
Time is absolutely now.
We've seen that with the recent announcement
from the German regulators allowing German
banks to hold digital assets in the
books and generally regulating the space.
We've seen the U.K. coming up with the
sort of a preliminary regulation regime where the
following MLD5, the participants have
to register with the FCA.
So we've seen first steps getting things regulated
now and that's going to extend to
other European major European
economies as well.
So come on in here, this is another office
where we get to use once in a while.
There is something I wanted to show you.
Really interesting. Cool.
It's the original World War II Enigma
machine, which is, as we know,
is one of the... The mother of cryptography.
It's what brought us here, basically,
the cryptocurrencies and the regulation.
And I was so excited when I saw this piece.
Yeah. So it's one of the original pieces.
You see everything is in German here.
And yeah, the guys told me that the codes
from the machine cost about the same as the
machine, the codes themselves.
You can actually buy the codes.
So, yeah, that's a really cool piece.
What was it actually used for during the war?
It was an encryption device for
Germans to communicate between each other.
And everybody watched the Turing
movie about Alan Turing.
With Benedict Cumberbatch? Yeah.
And the decoding and breaking the code of
the Enigma machines that changed the World War
II quite a bit. So,
yeah, it's an interesting thing.
Again, we're 100 years later in Malta with
the Enigma machine, the mother of cryptography
talking about regulation in a digital
assets space and the cryptocurrencies.
I always picture this kind of
evolution of the crypto finance.
You know, you have those homosapiens, the monkey and
then it grows into a sort of a more
human being. So it's like, you know,
the monkey, a guy in a hoodie.
And then you basically you
envision an investment banker.
With a tie. I think that's what the
evolution is moving towards this sort of more
professionalism and more professional
talent in this space.
So, I mean, what is it for you then
and what's the, you know, what's the reason that
you're doing all this? Making money for the
sake of making money it's not really my
thing. So I enjoy what I'm doing.
I like building businesses and I love to see
it grow, mature, and bring value to the
clients and investors and become a
sort of a mature business.
So for us or for myself, the goal is to
make my baby a matured, you know, mature adult
and go into a life of
big finance and be successful.
Crypto parenting, yeah? Exactly. Also,
I see your socks.
Representing Cointelegraph there.
Thank you very much.
