Insights from Consensus Toronto: Stablecoins and Regulatory Progress

‍The Edge of Show host Josh Krieger welcomes Ash Pampati, Aptos Head of Ecosystem, to explore the chain's explosive 2025 momentum. Drawing on his background at Spotify, YouTube, and Metaplex, Ash reveals why Aptos stands out—blending high-performance underpinned by Meta engineers with a bold DeFi and NFT-native ecosystem. He dissects Aptos’s drive into Bitcoin-backed DeFi, cross-chain interoperability, real-world stablecoin partnerships, and the promise of tokenized real-world assets. Whether you're staking, minting, lending, or launching a startup, this episode reveals how Aptos is redefining on-chain experiences, utility, and consumer adoption across Web3.

Key Topics Covered

• Aptos in Toronto ecosystem
  Ash highlights Toronto’s high-density crypto talent and Aptos’s local initiatives—hacker houses and student events aimed at forging strong bonds with builders and founders.
  
  
• Creator economy transformation via NFTs
  Drawing from his Spotify and YouTube past, Ash predicts NFTs evolving into utility and community tools that can massively boost creator engagement and retention in Web3.
  
  
• Strategic influx into DeFi
  Highlights Aptos’s focus on building core DeFi infrastructure—primitives and protocols that power liquidity and utility on a non-EVM Layer‑1 architecture.
  
  
• Bitcoin & stablecoin integration
  Aptos supports BTC-focused DeFi like Echo Protocol and prioritizes native stablecoins, positioning itself as fertile ground for dollar-based use cases and global liquidity.
  
  
• On-chain tokenization frontier
  Discusses true real-world asset tokenization—beyond symbolic trophies—enabled by evolving regulation, paving the way for permissionless ownership of real estate, art, and beyond.
  
  

Episode Highlights

“Toronto’s talent density punches above its weight—we did hacker houses, student events.” — Ash Pampati

“NFTs will start to have real identity around utility—loyalty, engagement, retention.” — Ash Pampati

“A non‑EVM L1 building a thriving DeFi ecosystem—that’s one of our biggest bets.” — Ash Pampati

“Echo Protocol’s driving BTC‑Fi, because Aptos is fast and scalable.” — Ash Pampati

“Tokenization of real‑world assets? That is maybe an even bigger opportunity than stablecoins.” — Ash Pampati

People and Resources Mentioned

• Ash Pampati
  
  
• Josh Krieger
  
  
• Blender: Spotify, YouTube, Metaplex
  
  
• Echo Protocol
  
  
• AptosFoundation.org
  
  

About Our Guest

Ash Pampati is the Head of Ecosystem at Aptos, leading ecosystem growth, DeFi initiatives, and NFT strategies. With a background in launching Spotify in the U.S. and accelerating YouTube’s creator economy, Ash transitioned to Web3 via Solana and Metaplex. A visionary in bridging mainstream consumer tech with blockchain utility, he drives Aptos’s developer-first roadmap and cross-chain innovation.

Guest Contacts

• LinkedIn: (not publicly available)
  
  
• Website: https://aptosfoundation.org
  
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashawonn
  
  

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Transcript:

Josh Kriger: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Edge of Show. This is Josh Krieger, your co-host. And we're live at Consensus Toronto. And I'm very excited to have Ash Pampati, the head of ecosystem for Aptos, on. Great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me. By the way, big fan of the hoodie. Maybe do a quick turn. We got a show over in the back. It's pretty cold. Trust the merch. Very custom merch. So you guys had an event earlier in the week and maybe you could just talk about like the significance of Toronto and the Canada ecosystem as part of the broader Aptos lens hit.

Ash Pampati : 100%. So as part of building for the ecosystem, what I'm really focused on are really talented builders and founders who have a strong thesis in the space and want to go and build. And so we see Toronto as one of those major hubs globally. We have the Waterloo community, which we know the talent density there. We also know how they've really punched above weight from a population to an impact perspective in crypto specifically. So this week is all about building strong bonds with those. We have hacker houses. We have student events. Yeah. So it's pretty cool to live a day in their shoes for a week.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, and Toronto is great. I haven't been here in over a decade. Great food, good vibes. It feels like, I don't know, Portland meets New York meets LA. I'm not sure.

Ash Pampati : Wow. That sounds like an awesome city, actually. Yeah.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, it's cool. I definitely want to spend some more time here. So what got you excited about Aptos? You have a really interesting background. Maybe you can kind of talk about what sparked that initial sort of fire.

Ash Pampati : 100%. So I'll start from the beginning. I've been pretty lucky to work for some great consumer technology brands. Got my start helping Spotify launch in the US in 2011. And then a few years after that, spent about seven and a half years at YouTube helping artists seize the opportunity of the creator economy. And near the edge of my time there, I actually saw NFTs virgin and saw what the potential of communities aligning around a common cause could have and really reshape the entire media and entertainment industry. And so I made a decision there that YouTube was a little bit too big of a boat to jump in head first.

Josh Kriger: You know, it's interesting because I knew some of those early NFT lab type of folks and YouTube is a small, small, small subset. Very passionate. Yeah. Yeah. But but didn't it was hard to galvanize the bigger sort of, you know, I don't know, dinosaur, if you will, or I don't call YouTube a dinosaur.

Ash Pampati : I think it's just hard. It was a radical development in what we thought the creator economy could look like in YouTube. pioneered the last 10 years of what it could look like. And I think NFTs and Web3 pioneered what it could look like with a completely different tranche. So for me, I made the decision to jump in head first into Web3 working, got my start within the Solana ecosystem for a company called Metaplex.

Dan Spuller : Oh, sure.

Ash Pampati : Yeah. And I kind of reached a part in the road after all of these Black Swan events, whether it be FTX or otherwise. where I said, OK, I have two options. I've had the luxury of working for great consumer products. I'm a salesperson. I'm not an engineer or product person. I like to sell great products. So I asked myself the question on within Web3, where are the builders or the companies that are building the best products? And Aptos was the first thing that jumped to mind. You have a highly performant blockchain that was built to service Meta's billion user app economy. You have an engineering organization from Meta that built the blockchain itself that's still part of the project. And you have a ton of room to drive ecosystem growth for a maybe more newer chain that is being quite aggressive. So all of those things added up and I got lucky and got the gig at Aptos.

Josh Kriger: Well, very cool story. Thanks for sharing that with us. We'll go into Aptos a little bit more, but I do have a burning question from what you shared, which is sort of, you know, your thesis on the creator economy these days, because talked about on the show for for three years, you know, had some of the leading creators, folks that sold art for millions of dollars to, you know, folks were just getting started in the industry. And there was a lot of hopium for, you know, blockchain really laying down the red carpet for the creator economy and the more contemporary thoughts I'm hearing from artists is, you know, it's gonna look a little bit more like the traditional art world only on chain and there's gonna be some winners and some losers. And it's almost a little heartbreaking for me to hear those thoughts. Do you think that that is the reality moving forward for digital assets in terms of a collectible art sense, entertainment sense? Or do you think there's going to be this reawakening and re-versioning of sort of on-chain entertainment, on-chain content powered by like NFT type of ecosystems?

Ash Pampati : It's a really good question. I'm no Nostradamus, but I'll make some guesses. I think NFTs will start to have a real identity around utility. And you know this space better than I. But what does every platform always have a challenge in doing? It's driving engagement with customers, but retaining that interest. And NFTs as a core technology, even a basic loyalty mechanism, will start to yield even better retentive qualities for people building in the consumer app space. So I think from a business proposition, the core technology-bound NFTs are going to have tremendous value. And I think it's going to take a lot of companies to think that way. On the traditional art sense, you know, the way I think about it is like, when is the only time two competing hedge fund managers put down their gloves and hang out? it's at a museum or an art show. This is where these people gather and actually abstract.

Josh Kriger: Culture makes experiences better. It makes life more interesting, right?

Ash Pampati : So what I think with that is fine art will not only be gatekept by people with financial access and being able to be in those rooms. It'll be a global environment and it will democratize people's ability to buy in and be a part of a community. I think that will always be something that this space can uniquely provide.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, I hope you're right. I think one thing that stands out to me as an opportunity is RWAs and a more open regulation environment where we can think about more creative uses of NFTs and not have the concern that there are potential security. I think if we look at sort of the tools that are sort of there available for us now and we look at more open regulatory environment, I think there's going to be some creativity that comes out. 100%. mix that with AI, mix that with hybrid token economies. And, you know, we'll see.

Ash Pampati : We'll see. You know, the one thing on that point is we're in crypto. It's all about wealth generation for users. The thing that I see is once there's significant wealth generation events, the immediate thing that people want to do is socially signal that they made a lot of money. And one way to do that, because I see it in the metrics, is a lot of the blue chip NFTs start to like, you see them start to move, right, in terms of interest, activity. So you're holding on to some? I'm, listen, not financially, but I have a love, deep love for NFT. But the question to me is, how do new projects sprout up? I think the blue chips, there will be very few, right? Yeah. So that's kind of the big question.

Josh Kriger: Well, we'll see. We'll see. And speaking of sprouting up, Aptos had a pretty strong 2025 so far. Maybe you can talk a little bit about where you guys are at in terms of traction and sort of what you think has sort of spurred the growth of on-chain activity so far.

Ash Pampati : 100%. So I'll start with 2024, which was a little bit before my time, but the way I understood Aptos and saw it move in the market was it was an amazing piece of technology that could be trusted by the highest tiers of institutions. And that to me signaled that the tech works, the team behind the tech is trustworthy, and this is where we need to build on the future in legacy five, 10 year increments. I looked at that and said, wow, we have an amazing foundation to stand on to build an ecosystem of bottoms up founders, protocols, dApps, to start to fill in this space of attention. And I think in 2025, where we started was any healthy ecosystem needs a vibrant DeFi ecosystem, right? It's probably the only space that has had product market fit over multiple cycles. I would say it's still TBD whether a non-EVM chain can actually build a thriving and sustainable DeFi ecosystem. And so us as an L1, a non-EVM L1 at that, we saw that as a tremendous opportunity. And so we went to work immediately for the past six months to start to co-form our DeFi ecosystem. Everything from basic primitives that were missing or products that were basic, bringing them in, but also bringing in new projects that can build on top of the Aptos.

Josh Kriger: Interoperability has to come into the mix too, right? Because you want to tap into that Bitcoin liquidity, the liquidity of EVM chains, right? So what are you guys doing in that regard to interoperability?

Ash Pampati : So we have a couple of exciting projects on the topic of BTC or BTC FI. I mean, obviously, you see in the market which BTC demand diverging from everything. I think that is an amazing touch point in terms of the maturity of people's mindset around Bitcoin. Right. Surprising. It happened. You've seen it. Right. So now the question is, how do you how do you spur the utilization of those assets? in a retail environment within DeFi, right? And so we have amazing projects like Echo Protocol, which is driving tons of DVL for BTC-Fi. They're building on Aptos because it's a really fast network that can process activity very easily and seamlessly. So you can take your Bitcoin and sort of get a DeFi economy. Yeah. And the idea behind that is... You still hold your keys? Of course. I mean, the idea behind that is like Bitcoin is probably the bridge in between highly speculative crypto native assets and highly traditional real world assets.

Josh Kriger: People have come to that realization five years ago, but no one wanted to cross that bridge. I think now people are like, all right, let's go. Interesting.

Ash Pampati : Yeah, so we have them there, which is really fascinating. We also have other protocols that are rethinking how access works in DeFi. So because you can build on AppOS, because now we're natively integrated with all of the major stables, it's the cheapest and most efficient dollar on the web. We have prior protocols like PAC protocol, which is essentially trying to extend credit markets to emerging markets. to process microloans. If you can imagine a rickshaw driver in India whose rickshaw breaks down and all they need, he or she needs a $50 loan to get on the horse again and start making money. They have no way to go get that. This is a problem that crypto can uniquely solve. So we're very excited about ecosystem startups and founders building in these huge white spaces.

Josh Kriger: Very cool. And you also have some some bigger partnerships too with like some pretty well-known brands. Maybe you can speak to to that and how sort of you balance sort of both sides of the pendulum with sort of working with the emerging projects, with working with bigger players in the industry and sort of yeah. How do you how do you process all that?

Ash Pampati : Yeah. So, you know, as I talked about in 2024, we made a ton of progress relative to the maturity of our ecosystem and chain with institutions, folks like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. And that was really them signaling that this chain meets our standards of security and performance. And we want to work with them to bridge to what the future is of traditional assets on chain. I think it is a very interesting balance of working with partners like that, but also growing a bottoms-up startup ecosystem. But what I would say is those partners, because they've been so forthright and so lean forward and engaging, their appetite to see an ecosystem built around that is pretty high. So it makes my job a little bit easier in the sense of, hey, within trading or real world assets crossing DeFi, we wanna see interesting projects sprout up. We think startups or startup founders are gonna be the ones that understand how to grow this from a user perspective more than anyone else.

Josh Kriger: So how, you have a new accelerator program or I guess a revamp, I'm not sure. How are you sort of doing, what's your accelerator model and maybe what are some of the nuances of it that you think are a little bit different

Ash Pampati : 100%. So I think foundations at L1 sit in a pretty interesting position. You're kind of a half a nonprofit, half a VC in the sense that you need to curate a set of founders and projects that they're really passionate about to be built on your ecosystem.

Josh Kriger: And you need to attract them, but you also need to get them to stay and not bop around from chain to chain.

Ash Pampati : You have to support them. You have to show up beyond just the money. And so we've really put that into practice. And the way we're rethinking our grants program is to be more of a pipeline of support programs for a founder and various investment models based on what they need. Sometimes a builder with an idea just needs to win a hackathon. So we need to also be able to introduce them to our network of hackathons where there's substantial prizes, where they can meet other founders to actually build their idea bigger. Sometimes once you pass that, a founder wants to build an MVP. They're trying to validate a thesis. They need a grant, something non-equity dilutive. They don't even have someone to help raise the round. I just need something to give me a six months of runway to work in my college dorm with my friends to build something. From there, they probably are like, yo, we're on main net, like we're scaling. We need funding for distribution. What we really need is a strategic round and get a cohort of investors who understand what we're building that can help advise us on those things. And then from even there, maybe you've been in market for a while, you're a revenue generating business and you're ready to take your token to market. We have a program to help advise on the best practices around that as well. So what we're really thinking is kind of like a full vertically integrated support model where we're just not grants and here you go and see you later. Good luck. It's more like we're investing in you at the right time for a very specific outbound.

Josh Kriger: And are you looking at founders based in the U.S. now? I mean, is that is that sort of on the table?

Ash Pampati : 100%. I think we are very lucky to have a very vibrant Asian founder class. So specifically in Southeast Asia, but now China, we've launched an accelerator and satellite model in Hong Kong. So you're doing a lot of travel. I like doing a lot of travel. I have two little kids, so I'm trying to get them on the plane with me too. But the U.S. really presents an interesting opportunity. One, because U.S. and Canada, Western markets. One, because you have techno-optimism here, which is amazing. The Silicon Valley bleed. And what we really want is to compete for founders who have the choice to work in AI or the Internet of Things or health sciences. We think crypto is here for people as ambitious as that wanting to disrupt verticals that big. And so we really need to be in those markets where people are thinking and thinking on that lines.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Any sort of new partnerships or recent announcements that we didn't cover yet that are worth mentioning?

Ash Pampati : No recent announcements. We'll definitely have a few things coming that we'll talk to you about. But pretty precisely what we're really focused on is really building the trading ecosystem. So we'll have some interesting announcements around that. Within the payment space, we're very excited for startups to build around key use cases. We might work with some partners to launch some new accelerators that are really focused on that in markets where that talent pool or that problem is really existential. Yeah, a lot of these challenges are very local. Paintings especially.

Josh Kriger: Yeah.

Ash Pampati : Yeah, 100%. So we're very excited to kind of talk about those things and also show proof of progress on that.

Josh Kriger: Very cool. Well, I really appreciate your insights today. Give me the high level and zoomed in perspective on what's going on with your chain. If people want to learn more, dive in to the ecosystem, maybe do some building, where should they go?

Ash Pampati : Just go to AptosFoundation.org. You'll find what you need there.

Josh Kriger: And are you on X? Can we follow you?

Ash Pampati : I am on X. Yeah.

Josh Kriger: What's your handle?

Ash Pampati : Ashawan, A-S-H-A-W-O-N-N.

Josh Kriger: All right, well, I'm sure people are going to be pinging you to find out where they can get that hoodie in the aftermarket. It's pretty dope. Let's go. Thanks for hanging out with us. This was fun. Appreciate you.

Richard Carthon : Hey everyone, Richard here live at ConsenSys Toronto, and we have another amazing guest with us. We have Dance Buehler, who is with the Blockchain Association. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Absolutely, man. So, you know, one of the things that's been going on at this conference, and we've had multiple conversations with various founders that are very focused on stablecoins, and that's something that you happen to be very knowledgeable about. So, you know, what would you say is like the current environment around stablecoins, and how do you think it's going to continue to evolve as we move forward?

Dan Spuller : It's a great question and you know just being here at ConsenSys it's just a fantastic I've been coming to these since 2016 and I've never missed one and it's just right to see how much growth we've seen in this space and yeah part of that growth has been around stablecoins and it's just a really really important topic in the industry, but particularly on the regulatory side in Washington. And so what we're doing is we're really focused on getting this comprehensive stablecoin legislation passed in Washington, D.C. Our members want it. The industry wants it. And it's going to be good for the U.S. dollar. It's going to be good for America. But it hasn't been simple. There's been a lot of back and forth on the legislation, on the Genius Act. And our team is working hard very closely with the members of Congress and the legislative staff to get this underway. And I think I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to get this done before Memorial Day.

Richard Carthon : And so for those who aren't as familiar, what is that legislation going to be moving forward? And with getting it moving forward, how is that going to ultimately open up the gates for more opportunity here?

Dan Spuller : Stable coins have been around for a while, right? But they've been generally unregulated here in the United States. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges the industry's had with growth on that topic. And so what this does is this legislation on the Senate side and on the House side, it provides a comprehensive framework and rules and it provides clarity for the industry. And that's really what we've been lacking. And so should this pass, It'll set the United States up to be very strong across the world. Other parts of the world, other jurisdictions have passed comprehensive, stable-going legislation, and it's time we do.

Richard Carthon : I think that's awesome. The ability to go and lobby for this and to continue to move this forward is one of the things that sets Blockchain Association apart from some others. You guys are based in D.C. You have correspondents all over the country. How has it been seeing the association grow?

Dan Spuller : You know, it's been fantastic. I mean, we've been growing. I've been here with the B.A. for a little over five years now. And the last couple of years in particular, we've seen just a really, really big uptick in growth from companies that want to really engage in the policy process. For years, a lot of projects just didn't really want to, or they didn't feel they needed to. But you really need to. You need to have a seat at the table. And we provide that tangible opportunity for companies to engage with policymakers. And that's what we do every day. And since January in particular, certainly since the election, we've seen really a big influx of projects that are much more comfortable doing business in the United States. this new administration at the presidential level has been very open to the industry generally. And putting in Bo Hines, putting in David Sachs, the cryptos are establishing this executive order and really advocating for the space. And I think it's been a big benefit. And because of that, we've seen an influx of projects that we've been some of it we've been speaking to for a few years, but they were hesitant to come to the U.S. And then others have just come out of the blue and they've expressed interest. They want to open up businesses here. They want to open up a headquarters in the United States or at least some type of operation. And we're welcoming that with open arms. I think it really coincides with this president's commitment to the industry and just the flourishing of the industry in general. It's come a long way.

Richard Carthon : And as you continue to see a lot of these things move forward and the influx of new people becoming part of the association, there's probably a lot of people learning about this for the first time. For them who are hearing about this, why would they potentially want to become part of the Blockchain Association?

Dan Spuller : Well, I think we've been really good about bringing all the different parties together. We like to say we're blockchain agnostic. As long as it's focused on permissionless decentralization, we'll work with them. We work with most of the major layer one projects, the foundations, the labs. We work with exchanges. We work with decentralized exchanges, DEXs, stablecoin issuers, miners, service providers. staking, you name it. And I think that's where we're about 129 members now. We're going to probably hit 130 by next week because this has been a great conference. But we bring everybody together. And I think it's important to have that camaraderie because many of our members all face the same issues on the regulatory front. And it's better to go in it collectively. Like any major industry, you have to have that voice in Washington, D.C. And that's what we want to do for our space.

Richard Carthon : Absolutely. So on that vein, a lot has already happened this year and I think more is to come. What are some of the things that you're looking forward to as the year continues to progress?

Dan Spuller : I'm certainly looking forward to passing that stablecoin legislation I mentioned. The other big focus we're doing is market structure regulation. There's been several attempts at this over the years. Last year with the FY21 bill, this new bill, this market structure project, we think that'll really, really provide a lot of clarity to agencies like the SEC, the CFTC, so that our members and all companies in the industry can thrive. Because it's really that the gray area is still what's the biggest challenge for a lot of our projects. So we're going to push market structure legislation. We're going to push for some improvements to tax policy. And then just in general, the industry, we want to help it thrive. So we want to help make America the crypto capital of the world. And I think it's on the way right now, and we're right in the middle of it.

Richard Carthon : Thanks, Otu. And it's a really exciting time to be here. And physically, we're now in Toronto, Canada. We're at ConsenSys. Why, you know, you say you've come to basically all of them that have come through. Why do you continue to come to ConsenSys?

Dan Spuller : It's just a great conference. I mean, I like to go all the different ones, but this one's really unique in that it brings everybody together. I mean, you bring the Bitcoiners, you bring the DeFi crowd, you bring folks on Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot. Everybody comes together, whereas some other conferences, it might be a little bit more specialized. So, and they've had just terrific speakers. They bring a lot of good policymakers from US, from Canada. And, you know, CoinDesk has just been a great partner to us over the years as well. So we're pumped up. We're definitely going to be continuing to do this next year in Miami when they do it.

Richard Carthon : Absolutely. Well, appreciate you spending time with us. For people who want to learn more about you, to be able to connect with you and learn more about Blockchain Association, how can they do that?

Dan Spuller : I'm on Twitter. My handle is just at Dan Spooler. The Blockchain Association's got a great website, really outlines a lot of the work that we're doing. Feel free to contact me, follow me, and we'll get you plugged in. Awesome. Dan, thanks so much. Thank you. Awesome.

Richard Carthon : Hey everybody, Richard Carthon, co-host of Edge of Show, and we're live at ConsenSys Toronto, and today I have an amazing guest with me. We have Mark Greenberg, who is the head of global consumer at Kraken. Now, what's amazing about this is, you know, we've seen Kraken at a lot of these different events, and it's awesome that we're able to converge here in Canada, where you only had to drive here today. So, how has it been being able to be able to come to this event with so many people globally coming here at ConsenSys?

Mark Greenberg : Yeah, it's really, really, really exciting for me to see the world converge around crypto here in Toronto. Toronto is home for me. It's been my whole life actually. And so I never had a chance to bring this many folks together on this really important topic here. So I'm really pumped.

Richard Carthon : Yeah, well, glad we could be here doing this. You know, with being a part of Kraken, one of the things that has changed a lot has been like, you know, use the consumer sentiment and how they've been coming and using various platforms. So how has Kraken been adjusting what you've been building around how the consumer behavior has been changing?

Mark Greenberg : Yeah, I think crypto is less strange, new, different than maybe it was a few years ago. It's kind of commonplace and just normal now. That's really exciting. What that means is that we are starting to think more about how do you just combine the things that are traditionally TradFi and the things that are crypto together in one product. So launching equities in the United States, hopefully in more markets soon. The Ninja Trader acquisition, which is all about bringing more traditional financial instruments together with our crypto instruments. And over time, I hope that differentiation between TradFi and crypto just goes away more and more.

Richard Carthon : I think it will, and obviously you have a ton of background in both Trapify and all things that are crypto. How have you been able to merge your background into making that a little bit more seamless as we move forward as an ecosystem?

Mark Greenberg : Yeah, I think it's both directions. Partially it just comes down to How do we continue to make crypto accessible, make sense, easy to use for folks who never invested in before, adding 5-10% Bitcoin into their portfolio or other assets? And then similarly, how do we actually make equities and other assets really accessible for our users as well? It's not rocket science in a way, but it's a lot of little things to make these two ecosystems come together and making trading equities as fun as it is to trade crypto, and sometimes making crypto a little bit more boring to trade, much like equities.

Richard Carthon : Okay, so that makes a lot of sense. One of the things I like about, you know, what Kraken is bringing to the table is always being at the forefront of making regulation and being compliant and everything else with that. So obviously, the US is becoming a little bit more relaxed. And how do you think that's going to continue to evolve? And how's Kraken continue to come to the table around the evolving regulatory framework?

Mark Greenberg : Yeah, so in every market we've operated, we always want to be regulatorily compliant. This is a new industry, though, and it's taken time to figure out what works, what doesn't work. Thankful here in Canada, actually, to have regulators who have historically been very open to dialogue and trying to figure it out with us. The U.S. is now in that place as well. That's fantastic and can only mean good things for the industry. and also at the same time for consumer protection and for making sure the industry is truly safe and sound in the United States. That's happening in Europe, it's happening in the UK, it's happening in all of our core markets and actually around the world and so that just makes it easier for us to operate. It makes it easier for us to innovate and get those new things out the door. It just creates a clear rulebook for all. So I see it as only positive for Crypto as long as we continue to have this dialogue and we continue to figure out how to make innovation work inside regulatory regimes.

Richard Carthon : I agree with that. And I think innovation has continued to move in the right direction. Obviously, as regulation comes up and laws come up, it can stifle innovation. And I think we're in this really beautiful place where Kraken and other companies are able to move so much faster. So with that in mind, it's early, it's May 2025 at the time of this recording. What's some things that are on the roadmap that has Kraken very excited?

Mark Greenberg : Yeah, so I'm excited, as I said, to launch equities more globally. That's something that we're working on right now and we'll have it in more markets over the next little bit. On the crypto side, I'm really bullish on stablecoins. I'm really bullish on the global dollar network, which we're actively a part of alongside Robinhood and Anchorage. 25 plus partners, Bullish and others. And this is, I think, the first truly much more decentralized consortium based model for stable coins offering yields for everyone who participates. That's different. I don't love the idea that we have these two big behemoths in Tether and Circle who are so who keep all the yield for themselves and so I'm really really excited about that. I think we're just at the tipping point of stablecoins becoming the norm as opposed to the exception in things like payments and savings. And then tokenization. So lucky enough to sit on a panel on this topic this afternoon. We've been talking about RWAs and tokenization of real world assets now for a while. They've mostly been fake, I would say, insofar as they are super locked down. Rarely can you actually transfer them from one person to another. I think there is appetite now in enough markets to figure out truly permissionless tokenization. And that's coming soon. For me, that is maybe an even bigger opportunity than stablecoins for the industry. And it's just at the starting point right now. So this year is going to be a really exciting one for tokenization.

Richard Carthon : I agree. I know I'm really excited to continue to see how RWAs pan out, even deepen. And stablecoins, oh my gosh, we've talked to so many different people that are focused in that space now. Just like you said, there's just so much more framework for it to become the norm and not the exception. And I think you're going to see more and more come to the space outside of the USDC and USDC. And it's cool to see that Kraken at the forefront of that. So as you look at this week, what are some of the things that you're looking forward to while participating here at Consistence Toronto?

Mark Greenberg : Yeah, it's all about just meeting as many people as I can, finding as many ways to work together with the broader community. As I said, whether that's on USDG, whether that's on our earned products, whether that's on new yield opportunities, whether that's on new things we can list, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people out there in the hall. And that's just really exciting. And we're just here to meet as many of them as possible and find as many ways to work with them as we can.

Richard Carthon : Awesome. So for people who want to learn more and potentially connect with you, what are ways that they can do that?

Mark Greenberg : I'm always just a DM away or a message on Twitter. That's probably the fastest X now fastest way to get a hold of me. Otherwise That's probably the best way to do it actually yeah my and we we try we listen Kraken focuses on listening to our clients as much as we can and so I'm always I'm always watching always looking looking for feedback and we want to be better. Excellent. Well, Mark, really appreciate your time today. Awesome. Great. You too.

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