Building the Next Financial System on Bitcoin | Bitcoin 2026

Thank you. Thank you everyone for the warm welcome. I appreciate it. I'm joined here on stage by participants in the network that really cover all the bases that are relevant here in Bitcoin markets. We've got an equities platform. We've got a native crypto exchange. We've got a bank that came from the world of custody. So, got every base covered to help you guys understand exactly what kind of transformation we're going through. And I want to start with Bitcoin what Bitco has achieved here to come from the world of custodying these cryptographic keys and keys are now currency and they've uh advanced so quickly since the invention of public key cryptography. I mean literally it's only been 40 years since the technology itself was invented and now it's money and you guys managed to go from that world of keys straight into a US bank charter. So you know just talking about the amount of change that's gone on. You know Bitcoin started as a system that people wondered if it could live outside of the traditional financial system. Now it's completely integrated it. they have the secure integration of the previous system into a custodian of cryptographic keys. So just you know walk us through that change of of going from pure technical precision all the way to this identity as a bank and and you know chart us through this change of infrastructure. >> Yeah, I think it's um the evolution of what's happening right. So was started in 2013 as a wallet infrastructure provider multi-ig. were the champions of that. And what we we we discovered is that everybody wants to hold their own key, self- custody, right? But institutions and when you're holding hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in a wallet, you want security and custody. So that's how that came about. So we created an institutional custody business. And then what we're seeing is particularly with Bitcoin, it's the next evolution. How do you get it into the broader markets? How do you start using it as settlement layer or collateral? And so for us it was taking that next step into a bank charter to enter into that that that next area. >> Now over at Gemini Pageant of course you guys started as a native platform for trading cryptocurrencies became a trust along the way advancing in your business model. So again, you know, just describe that change and and the evolution that you guys have gone through and how you've managed to chart the secure integration of the legacy system into what you guys have already built. >> Yeah, definitely very similarly started as a custodian as a New York trust. So setting that ground level as an institutional grade player, building on top of that this access to the asset class and being able to not only just hold in a secure platform, be able to actually take action on those assets. So have built out our custody and exchange as our bread and butter and you know much more from a trading and infrastructure play today um but with the regulatory piece and security very much being at the forefront >> and you know Robin Hood just an incredible run. I remember when it was launched. It wasn't really involved in cryptocurrencies. You saw the retail play got involved became a household name in 2020 and all the fiasco in the market that was going on back then and now becoming one of the most important players and the whole volume a lot of trading going on a lot of retail access. So just chart us through a bit of that change that you guys have experienced. Yeah, one thing that we realized it people actually want to have access to cryptocurrency but also their traditional markets. Um, for a long time Robin was just equities and options and in 2018 actually during the winter we decided to launch crypto. Um and that was a pretty powerful moment because we gave access to million of customers without having the knowledge of private keys without understanding what is a wallet what is transaction they were able to get exposure to crypto and at the beginning just bitcoin and e and then we we started to add more and more currencies um but right now it's like 27 million customer they can hold uh cryptocurrency on the platform or directly switch to equities or something else so I think for us it's very important that we can give access to people without having necessarily the all the knowledge that you need to handle a wallet. >> But even you know Robin Hood as an entity that started as this retail platform of course saw Bitcoin originally and the attraction as the asset. People were interested in getting exposure to the assets with the GameStop story and that whole narrative. You guys started to really realize the infrastructure game and how important it was. So just seeing that infrastructure and asset piece where you guys really straddle it you know when when did you guys really realize what we were dealing with here the cryptographic keys and the sovereignty platform you know just describe where we are today in that path. >> Yeah it was a pretty long journey for us. So initially we started with our own custody um and then we started to also think about how do we evolve from that. Um so for a lot of our customer we want to give them the choice. uh not everybody want to hold their assets on the platform and not everybody wants to own their own private key and deal with the management of that. So we give the choice to people. They can decide to transfer. They can use the Robin wallet which is self-custody as well if they want to. Um but also at the same time for a lot of customers they want the security and the peace of mind to know that Robin is managing all the the assets for themselves. And I think like giving these choices is really important. And things didn't stop here like with institution coming in with ETF coming in for example now on Rabin you can access Bitcoin through Bitcoin ETF on your retirement account or also directly the underlying asset and I think that's really important because keeping the decentralized aspect of Bitcoin is key for the asset but also being able to bring the masses to it is is going to be really important if we want to keep developing on it. Now bringing the masses is one thing obviously important but even bringing the sophisticated players and offering them the types of tooling and I think Bitco and pursued this license what what kind of applications was it for? Are you seeing the settlement layer is important? What does the banking license allow you to do to securely integrate this system and move the entire world on chain and move the entire world into our field of where we play in crypto? >> Yeah. Um, so we were doing the settlement layer prior to our bank license. Um, what the bank chart I'm getting an echo. Sorry. Um, what the bank license did is >> Well, hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on? >> We got a feedback issue here. Hold on. Let me try again. They should be able to get it. Yeah. Is that better? Okay. I think so. >> Sorry. Um, what the bank the banking license did was actually open us up to traditional financial institutions wanting to use our settlement layer. They needed that assurance through regulation and policy and the traditional finance to have that. Oh, thank you. This better. Okay. um to be able to have that um confidence to come into the digital asset space and use use Bitcoin for collateral and settlement. So while we were already doing some of that from an infrastructure standpoint >> prior to the bank charter, this gave us credibility within the rest of the market. Mhm. Now, you know, we're we're constantly seeing this division between retail and institutional and it was a much bigger bifurcation at the beginning of the industry because of course there was always this huge retail interest in Bitcoin from the be very beginning. It's one of the rare assets that begin in the retail end and start to infiltrate this institutional end and I think Bitco has been one of the amazing companies to really straddle this. So, how do you see the bank charter? Where would you see the retail play with the bank charter versus the institutional play? >> Well, BO has historically been institutional focused. Um, but we do, you know, we provide the infrastructure layer to exchanges to be able to give that to the retail masses, right? So, some of the exchanges won't need to have their own custody layer. We can do that for them and subleddger it for them. So we have >> and and and on Gemini's end of course uh very famous founders a very huge public facing company lots of amazing and very successful branding across the market. So where do you guys see that retail market right now and where do you see your own infrastructure play to securely integrate this system? Yeah, I think that's really interesting and I I agree with your point that Bitcoin as a whole is quite interesting to see the retail engagement first and where institutional plays into that. Gemini obviously started as an institutional grade custodian and so that still very much holds true to what we offer to both our institutional clients as well as our retail. Being able to check off those regulatory boxes as a qualified custodian um and and have those additional trading features available to an institutional grade customer is really important, but we've also been able to build out an amazing mobile app experience that brings a retail user in a credit card that connects directly to your Gemini account. So, there's been a lot from an experience standpoint both of the actual investment and and purchasing of this asset as well as the usability of it. Where where do you see the opportunities right now? Like what what part of the market in retail and institutional do you think is being underserved from a infrastructure point of view and just a pure product point of view? >> Yeah, I I'm happy to start with that. Um, I think it's really interesting to see, you know, there's a store value asset, right, that we all know Bitcoin as, and very much for us on a day-to-day basis, that's how we're acquiring clients, who actually wants to purchase this and use it as an investment. But the second piece is actually where do they engage? How do they now use this? Whether that be technology based or or in more of a payment structure. And I think right now, you know, we're seeing with the lightning network what Cash App is doing, right? Everyone I hopefully is experiencing that here. Those are just some of the examples of payments and and putting this actually into action. So, I think from a retail perspective, that's huge. I think we're only going to continue to see more and more of that. >> Yeah, I'm I'm completely amazed by the Cash App roll out. I I flipped out on Jack Dorsey at one point last year and my morning show, but I completely forgave him with all the amazing products. I said, I I just can't I can't dis, you know, the the Twitter thing, I forgive everything. The product is just too incredible. and watching that happened and watching the whole retail roll out play out that way, the transaction model, the consumer model, you know, where do you guys see at Robin Hood again? Because you're straddling a lot of that same retail market. Where do you see this opportunity for you guys to continue to grow? Where's the underserved part of the market in retail for you? >> Well, we still think that there's a lot to do on the adoption side of things in the US. We are obviously in a in a good spot, you know, like we have this type of conference and a lot of people are engaged with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency overall, but there is still a pretty large part of the world that is still not really able to access it or access Bitcoin at a good price or being able to custody in correct ways. Um, but there are also like new product being developed. um perpetuals for example is something that comes from cryptocurrency world and not the traditional market per se and we see a lot more adoption and demand outside of the US and so there is this question on how do we bring this on shore um there's a lot of discussion with the CFTC happening right now even yesterday here um and I think it's really important because uh this is something that right now the the rest of the world has access to and a lot of people are using it we have our own exchange Bitstamp uh that offer Bitcoin perpetual in Europe Europe and we think that it's time to bring it back on show in the US as well. >> But the the perpetual thing was an amazing innovation and watching the entire rest of the world market pick it up is is an amazing thing. Now even you know thinking of bottlenecks opportunities are important but thinking of bottlenecks and you know in the case of bitco when I think of you know for years at these conferences it was always like the bottleneck is regulation when we have clarity we can't talk about that anymore we have so much clarity we literally have an act called clarity we've got all kinds of things happening but indeed are there still bottlenecks left because when I look at all the licenses in banking that are out there you know uh the block guys got the industrial bank license. We saw Kraken get the uh speedy license. Uh you guys got something similar to the industrial license, I think, in Bitco. But what what are we missing? Is there still a bottleneck? What what's going on in order to really just completely subsume the old system and take over? >> Well, I think it's uh I don't know that there's really a bottleneck per se, particularly around regulatory clarity. Like we've seen I think six now. um OC charters be approved in the last 6 months which is incredible. it was one in the LA or five you know so um the I think the bottleneck right now is the oper operization op I can't even say it operationalizing the the actual activities right so now that we've got the charters now we've got the license now we can actually get into the mainstream it's how do we connect into that mainstream because there are definitely places that we still need to use that traditional financial system whether that's fiat rails or settlement um you Bitcoin is the ultimate settlement. It's real time. It's not T+1. It's real time 247 that people want. And so now we can plug into the rails um whether it's through a banking license or any other licensing that we have out there. So I don't know that it's a bottleneck anymore, but it's really about how do the the the companies like Robin Hood and Gemini and BO operationalize it. Is there is there a friction point in that opera oper oper you I caught it the oper operatiz you know the word uh is there still friction there somewhere >> yeah I mean just I mean it's still friction between those traditional financial institutions right they they don't know how to hook up they didn't have they weren't spending the time building like we have been right they we spent 12 years 13 years building this system and so now I'm trying to connect into those traditional financial systems to get those rails. That's the bottleneck. That's the the challenge. >> Now, you know, I I remember the uh White House crypto meeting that the president held not long after he took office. Uh the founders of Gemini were there. And to me, the story of that meeting was who wasn't there? You know, you had Treasury there, but you didn't have the FDI, you didn't have the Federal Reserve. Those people were not invited. Is that in any way part of the friction? because I know Gemini is a big part of the conversation about this flipping of the system. Does any of the the actual Federal Reserve infrastructure needed? Is the the major trend that's happening out there with the Treasury more or less subordinating the Federal Reserve as we see the president's own signature is going to be on the dollar bill now? Um, you know, is that is that part of the story here? Is what's being created possible because the friction's removed or do we still need to integrate FDIC and and and the Federal Reserve into it? >> Yeah, I think that's very fair. Um, and Gemini is definitely taking a large role. It's a little bit of an in between. So, answer non-answer. Um, I I think it's important to have the regulatory piece. I again don't feel as though it's necessarily the bottleneck that we've continued to focus on for all of these years. We've obviously seen that shift because of President Trump and and many other cabinet members um who are making those decisions. So I think it's less so on the regulatory front and I wouldn't go so far to say that we don't need it. It's something that's very important to the business that we do. It's very important to getting that institutional grade approval. And I think as Jod was speaking to, it's very important in terms of how are we going to actually align more closely with the traditional financial systems that quite frankly we all know and are used to and we don't typically question. But now when we're looking to integrate Bitcoin and crypto and builds into these systems, we're starting to question it a lot. And so I think things like FDIC and so on do need to be considered maybe is is where I'll put it. um and are important for the client set that we're looking to integrate into the space. >> Now, you know, assuming things go as scheduled in May, we have a peaceful transfer of power at the Federal Reserve and uh all that stuff happens, everyone's anticipating this wall of cash being created, interest rates going way down, and the sideways market that the industry has been in for much of the last few years. a lot of people feeling the anticipation, feeling the the the new era, the golden age some people say happening. Uh where do you all and I would like everyone's opinion on this. Where do you really see the players? Is it going to be the custodians? Is it going to be these denovo banks? What is going to be the major plank that goes through? Is it going to be the institutional level, the retail level? Where are you guys most bullish in the stack for what's about to happen? and I'll go with Robin Hood first. >> Yeah, I mean I think you know institution and retail goes hand in hand together. You you won't see institution just coming in into crypto if there is not retail and vice versa. Um I I think to your question before around regulatory clarity um it's still very important. I think the reason you're starting to see more and more player getting into crypto is because of this clarity coming in and we still don't have the the active at this point and so we're still waiting on this. Um and if you compare the US to other part of the world, it's still something where we are very far behind. U we don't have perpetual, we don't have tokenized assets yet. Um and Robin Hood for example has been able to launch uh or tokenized stock tokens in the EU. We've been able to launch perpetuals but not on shore. So so I think you know the clarity that is supposed to come with the act is still very important. Um and that's how we are going to bring more and more institution into the the play as well. until we get there, uh, it's going to be very hard for an institution to the crypto on their balance sheet or to be able to use Bitcoin as collateral or to use it as a settlement layer. And so I I think we just need a lot more work. Uh, but so far, you know, a lot of things that we've heard at Robin Hood a few years ago when the crates rate were going up is that, you know, Robin will actually lose on uh transaction revenue and all these things. And now what we're hearing is the opposite where people are worried about uh interest rate for for NE for some of the businesses. And so I think what's very important for us is to create a diverse business. Um and at Robin Hood we have 11 different business line that are making at least nine figures. And you know that way we can make sure that when the market changes we're able to kind of adapt to the to where the market is going. >> So the the the picture you're painting for me is you know you've got the financial user in the middle. They can save money, they can invest money, they can trade money, uh they can invest money. It's sort of the full financial spectrum that you can organize your entire financial life around. So again, the the similar frame for Bitco where where do you see these four pillars? Which one do you think is going to grow quickest? You guys are involved in saving, you're involved in investing, uh, a little bit of trading, but it's, you know, mostly a lot of hold. But where do you see this growing fastest? >> Yeah. Um, so I'll I'll lean a little bit on the institutional side here. Um, I do think the the era of buy and hold is, you know, evolving into I want to make money on my Bitcoin that I'm holding. So I think trade um and particularly for institutionals that's it's using it as collateral and going out and doing other investments in different assets um while still having your Bitcoin in your treasury. So that's really the the piece I see is going to really grow. >> Very good. Now I I'm wondering you know what would be a sign to you that the secure integration you know from a Gemini perspective let's say what would be a sign to you that the secure integration of this new system and the old system is not going as we all can clearly see what would be a sign that it's not happening the right way >> that it's not happening the right way I mean I think you would start to see continued delays on the institutional side. I think as everyone's touching on, there's a a massive importance of having both simultaneously. Um, you're not going to get that retail flow without the institutional and we're not going to get that institutional flow without the regulatory piece and without the rails um kind of getting integrated in the right way. So I think all in all, right, you want to we at Gemini, at Robin Hood, at at BCO, right, and so many others want to provide this access point for both the retail and institutional investor to come in and buy and buy and sell, trade those assets, to stake those assets, to hold them, to maybe take out some leverage, to do so much more, and actually have that opportunity from an investment standpoint to have almost a one-stop shop traditional kind of what you think and know of when it comes to holding and investing in an asset class. I think if we continue to see single operations, right, where you can't do all of that, where you don't have access to another player, I think that's definitely going to continue to slow things down. Um, but I would say we definitely need the institutional piece to come in. >> Now, if we're we are a sign that America is successful, I think, will be that the rest of the world ends up following. And Robin Hood, I I think out of the three here, has the largest international profile. So, how much do you see the rest of the world waiting for a cue from America that it's either working or not working before they jump into feet first? >> Well, I actually think for a long time it was the opposite. >> It sure was. >> It sure was. We were backwater. >> In the EU, for example, you know, they launched their Mika framework. You saw a lot of innovation coming from Singapore or from Hong Kong or um and for a long time, you will see crypto startup actually moving away from the US. And so it's been good to see that the US is starting to catch up again and actually re reclaim the the place of of number one. And so um you know I think right now people are waiting a bit to understand how the clarity act is going to to work. There's also the question on the stable coin act uh with with genius and how it's going to be changed for for the yield portion. Um and you will see like all the regulator kind of matching this in my opinion but it's going to be really interesting in the next few months. Yeah, I'm uh you know, it's it's outside of the Bitcoin question, but watching this stable coin revolution happen and watching what's happening, you know, even with the no yield in America, you know, I'm very curious because yield can be given abroad and I think of this as the weaponization of the US dollar in ways that we haven't seen before. Now, I don't want to get political about it, but do you guys see the opportunity to really move out of America without moving out of America in the sense that the American suite and the American stack of products just becoming interesting for the rest of the world? >> Yeah, absolutely. I can take that. Um, BCO has been working on global licensing for a long time because we see this this trend happening. Um, while it has been some of this stuff particularly, you know, the interest on yield has been a challenging point here in America, I do think what we're building here will go outside of the US. Um, regardless of the regulation and and clarity that we might may or may not get. >> Yeah, we we heard the swap line possibly with UAE today. We've already got the successful Argentine version. Um, I don't see why the stable coin conversation won't just continue in this way. So, uh, last question for the Gemini folks. Uh, Padet, you know, what what do you guys think about this focus on America and becoming so attractive to the rest of the world? >> Yeah, I, as you mentioned, we've become really focused on the American market. I think, you know, we've seen so much originally come out of APAC and and so on and America's almost there, right? And I think, you know, as we're speaking to all these regulatory acts and so much coming into place, we really want Gemini to stand kind of strong in in the brand that we have built here. And so being able to give everyone in the US this access point to crypto that they can trust, that they know well, that they recognize is really important to us. And I think, you know, maybe not for the audience that's here today, but through our research, only 22% of Americans hold any sort of crypto. That's not even just Bitcoin, which of course Bitcoin at this point has become the gateway. In some sense, it's synonymous with crypto as a whole. And so Gemini's mission is to really expand that. Um hopefully we see those numbers increase. And and we think we can do that in the US. >> Well, we we we love expanding access. We love that you share information, but unfortunately we have to restrict access to your uh great advice because we're out of time. Everyone, please a warm round of applause for this great panel. Thanks everyone. Thanks for your time. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.