Chris Titley: Hi, I'm Chris Titley and this is FinTech Fun, the podcast where I speak with Australian FinTech founders and executive management. And have some fun along the way, gaining insights about the person behind the brand. FinTech Fun is part of day one, the network dedicated to founders, operators, and investors. Chris Titley: I'm joined by Vakul Talwar, GM of Australia and head of product for trading at crypto. com. Vakul, thank you so much for being part of this series. Vakul Talwar: Thank you so much for inviting me, Chris. It's really nice to meet you. Chris Titley: Uh, Vakul, I'm interested to know a little bit about you firstly, uh, and your journey into crypto. Chris Titley: com, but also for the listeners out there, a little bit of an understanding of what crypto. com is, uh, and what it does. Vakul Talwar: Sure. Like, listen, my journey basically started, I started in a company called General Electric. Um, you know, in 2006, I joined the leadership program. I was in G for eight and a half years. Vakul Talwar: Uh, basically moved around a lot around the globe, like worked in Singapore, worked in the UK. Um, many other countries like China, right? Um, after that I joined PayPal. I was in PayPal Australia and then I went to PayPal Europe in UK. Uh, then came back and joined Afterpay, you know, very early days in Afterpay world. Vakul Talwar: Um, you know, launch multiple markets, let their product teams globally for all the consumer products, right? With the co founders basically involved in scaling and then selling the business to plug after that I joined crypto. com. Uh, right. I always had an interest in cryptocurrencies Uh, the opportunity came, you know, the conversations were great, uh, with, uh, the co founders and the teams in crypto. Vakul Talwar: com. So basically join crypto. com and, uh, you know, currently, as I said, like, as you said, my role is, I'm the GM of Australia. And head of product for trading. So yeah, that's a bit of my journey. Chris Titley: You're fantastic and when it comes to crypto. com not being an australian business But also being in so many different countries Can you talk about the journey of why you're in australia and what your role is here? Chris Titley: Particularly to grow the grow crypto. com in a local market. Vakul Talwar: Yeah, like listen, um Australians love technology and australians, you know Recently survey came out like there's a huge investment and huge interest from australians in cryptocurrencies You Uh, we're in 130 markets. Australia is one of our most important markets, uh, globally. Vakul Talwar: And, you know, like we basically are here to give consumers the opportunity to be able to trade and work and, you know, use cryptocurrencies as they see fit. So that's where really we're providing them the opportunities. Um, looking at this way, like in crypto. com Australia, we like We like a one stop shop for all kind of crypto products, right? Vakul Talwar: Like consumers can come in, trade more than 250 cryptocurrencies very simply and easily in the platform. Then after that, they can even use staking capabilities to create a passive income. Uh, they can use our CDC Visa card, which is one of the, you know, One of the best visa cards out there in the market. Vakul Talwar: And also, you know, they can do crypto payments and NFTs. So there's a lot of things consumers can do, uh, in Australia holistically, uh, from a crypto.com perspective. Chris Titley: In terms of the, the trends of the crypto adoption and usage, obviously over the last few years, uh, it's been sort of a, uh, oh yeah. Oh, what's this thing? Chris Titley: It's pretty new to now, sort of most people don't understand what Bitcoin is or, or the, the, all the, the, the cryptocurrencies out there. How are you seeing that sort of mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency awareness and also from a trading point of view? Vakul Talwar: Yeah, it's the adoption is really, really growing, right? Vakul Talwar: Like, you know, end of last year, we had around 580 million consumers globally. That's a lot. Yeah, exactly, right? Like 580 million consumers is a ginormous number, right? Yeah. And this year, the number is spiking. It's like predicted to go to like around 700 million, right? So it's a huge growth that consumers are having. Vakul Talwar: And over the years, like if you see crypto themselves or crypto currencies have come a long way, right? Like. Now with the announcement of the ETFs for Bitcoin in Jan by the SEC was a huge monumental shift. Like we saw, um, great interest from consumers and that was a big one for getting just retail consumers into cryptocurrency, right? Vakul Talwar: And you know, going over a billion consumers. Basically, I think that was really the catalyst. And now we're seeing huge renowned interest and interest from consumers. Coming in to first half of the year, right? Like after the ETFs, we saw a lot of the Bitcoin price basically go up and the cryptocurrency markets really, really started coming back into the bull market there. Vakul Talwar: And now there's news like, you know, the Ethereum ETFs are also going to get approved and there'll be other coins getting approved. So I think like the ETF was huge in terms of getting normal retail adoption and you know, the number is going to keep on increasing, right? It's going to keep on getting bigger and bigger as more investment opportunities basically come in for consumers and more use cases or product sales happen. Chris Titley: Yeah, just on that note, in terms of some new developments, you mentioned staking before. I remember, uh, recently the, the, I think it was the Bitcoin halving and there's lots of terminology in and around. Cryptocurrency that some people may not understand, can you talk about some of the developments in the cryptocurrency space, I suppose, and some of the terminology at a basic level? Vakul Talwar: Yeah, look at it this way, right, like staking is in a very simplistic manner, there are lots of cryptocurrencies that basically work on different kind of algorithms of how those cryptocurrencies secure traffic. And basically process traffic, right? And staking is one of them, where basically they say, Hey, one person or one group can basically, you know, secure the traffic and process the traffic coming into the blockchain. Vakul Talwar: And for that, they have to put in as like, you know, a characteristic approach, all their coins to stake. So that if they don't do a good job, then, you know, they have a, Uh, stick approach that, you know, the money will basically go away. Right. So staking is a very simple way for anybody in the world to basically help in that, in, uh, securing the traffic and pretty much getting rewards in return, right? Vakul Talwar: So when you basically mine any blocks, you get a rewards back. And from a staking side of it, normal retail consumers can help in that staking world and get like passive income in terms of rewards coming back into the coins. Thanks. Solana, Kronos, there are a lot of chains basically that do that. Uh, and look at that, like it's like a passive income of rewards basically coming out. Vakul Talwar: Fantastic. Hopefully that explains it a bit. Chris Titley: Yeah, it does. Um, from a, from a point of view of, of paying with crypto, obviously there's a famous story about a pizza that was bought, it was purchased, it was, and houses that were, were transacted in the past that are now worth billions of dollars, et cetera. Um, from a, from a payments point of view about going down to the local coffee shop and using cryptocurrency as a mechanism to pay for your coffee, How do you think that's going versus someone going, Oh, let's buy some Bitcoin, make some money and sell some Bitcoin. Chris Titley: And it's treated a bit like a share as opposed to, you know, a use of currency. Vakul Talwar: Oh, listen, in this one, we basically made some really, uh, and especially in Australia, right? Like we made some major advancements and innovations on that last year. We launched with, um, you know, gas chain called OTR on the run. Vakul Talwar: They based out of Adelaide, but they have gas stations and, Uh, New South Wales and Queensland. We basically enable consumers to pay with the cryptocurrencies to buy gas. Right? Or over 420 stores. This is a huge, uh, milestone. And especially a thing like gas, right? Like where everybody has concerns. Oh, crypto platforms or blockchain platforms are slow. Vakul Talwar: And you know, how do you basically resolve all the, you know, settlement and money movement side of it? We made it so simple, like it was one click literally for the consumer to transact, right? Scan a QR code, see which currency you want to have, and then that's it. You basically pay. Then this year, we even took it to another level where for the first implementation in the world, we basically did it in Adelaide Oval. Vakul Talwar: Right. During the big foodie week in Adelaide. Yes. The, uh, gather round. Yep. Exactly. The gather round. Right. Where you could buy beer and chips or you could buy your burger and chips by your crypto currencies. Yeah. Right. And this was another big announcement. And, you know, it's early stages, but it was really exciting to see these advancements and consumers are more and more receptive to, you know, uh, basically use crypto payments and, you know, be with goods using the crypto. Chris Titley: And, and if we repeat this podcast in 12 months time, as as the GM of Australia, um, where would you like to see the Australian business, uh, go and, and in terms of, um, flourish and, and, and also I suppose some sort of like medium to long-term goals? Vakul Talwar: Yeah. I'll say like, you know, for us the key is like we keep on solving consumer problems and creating products for consumers, right? Vakul Talwar: Uh, we will keep on innovating in that front, right? Like basically in the global market, we launched a product called Prime, which is for a high net worth individuals. This is an amazing trading platform. We created special specifically for high net worth individuals. We're looking at how do we bring that into Australia? Vakul Talwar: We are going to keep on bringing more and more new products like we have a huge product pipeline Over the next one year of creating amazing products and investment opportunities and payment opportunities globally Right and in australia for our consumers And then, you know, basically, you know, solving consumer problems will help us getting more consumers and more partners into the platform. Vakul Talwar: So that's basically the simple goal here. Chris Titley: And Vaku, before we go on to a little bit of a fun part about yourself, um, I'm interested to know that, uh, crypto. com does sponsor a number of, uh, Um, sporting teams and, and stadiums and events, et cetera. How, how have you gone about, uh, sort of gallivanting around the country to all the crypto.com sponsorship events? Chris Titley: Uh, are you a footy fan or a, or a basketball fan in the us Vakul Talwar: I, I love footy. Uh, I played for a couple of years in my local team out here in Fitzroy. Um, and, you know, I'm a DS fan of Melbourne Demons. Uh, but. But, you know, like, uh, I love foodie and we go to the foodie often and, you know, everybody likes it. Vakul Talwar: Even our partners basically like it and the foodie teams are amazing, right? Like we sponsor amazing teams. We love our partnership with the AFL, um, and, you know, it's a very exciting partnership. One of our most, uh, strongest partnership globally also. And you know, like roaming around, around the world, yes. Vakul Talwar: Enjoy it. It's sometimes, uh, you know, going through airports and getting through the late flights and stuff is fun. It's really nice meeting everyone. Chris Titley: I don't know if it's fun or not. Sometimes it's a little bit stressful, but, um, Bakul, uh, for those listeners out there that don't know, don't know you, or don't know much about you, is there. Chris Titley: When you're sort of not talking about cryptocurrency, when you're not talking about staking and growing the business here in Australia and products on the trading side of things. What, uh, what do you, do you get to, to wind down? What's a secret hobby that some people might not know about you? Vakul Talwar: Man, I have a seven year old daughter. Vakul Talwar: She keeps me busy. She has a bigger social calendar than I do. Right? So, uh, right. Like, you know, like my social calendar will be like half or one fourth of what her social calendar Chris Titley: is. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yep. Uh, and what about the, uh, the TV shows? Do you, does she get into some, uh, some bluey or something, some shows that you know, some movies? Vakul Talwar: I've already, I've seen all Bluey. I've seen My Little Pony, I've seen all Bluey, uh, right? Like, I remember the, the episodes by heart, right? I even know the characters by heart right now. Chris Titley: All right, let's, let's go for a test then. What's your favorite episode then? Come on, come on, what's your favorite episode? Vakul Talwar: Oh man, The favorite episode for me will be the latest one where you know, they were basically trying to sell the house And there was a whole basic. Chris Titley: Yes, the sign it was called a sign. Yep. I really enjoyed that one. That was really good Vakul Talwar: fun Chris Titley: Yeah, that was about that was the extended episodes went for 27 minutes My kids informed me, but I'm a big fan of the cricket episode Yeah, which is which is fantastic and then also early days early days the takeaway where? Chris Titley: Uh, yeah, Bluey's dad gets stuck with the two girls, uh, ordering some spring rolls. Um, but, uh, yeah, Brizzy, which is, which is good where I'm from and a Lions fan here. Um, but, uh, Vakul, thank you so much for, for giving us an understanding about what Crypto. com is doing here in Australia. Uh, the different types of products that you have, uh, the adoption, uh, of cryptocurrency here locally, and some of the products, as you mentioned, about paying for, uh, the footy using cryptocurrency, which I think is very, very innovative. Chris Titley: I really look forward to catching up and thank you again for the podcast. Vakul Talwar: Thank you so much, Chris. Really nice to be here.