WEBVTT
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00:00:05.759This episode is brought to you by Apple Pay, a payment brand of OBOC Holdings with Nasdaq ticker OWLS.
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00:00:10.800Apple Pay provides cross-border payment infrastructure for businesses moving funds across global markets.
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00:00:12.640More at Applepay.com.
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00:00:24.879Stablecoin issue of debut right here at the Venecta Debut.
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00:00:27.839Welcome to Stable Pulse.
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00:00:32.320With us here today, we have Darren Wang, founder and CEO of Apple Ting.
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00:00:38.560This is a conversation that I am very, very excited about for a number of reasons that we're going to dive into in a second.
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00:00:43.759But as always, for listeners, you know that we start off with a section that we call Braggadocious.
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00:00:53.759This is an opportunity, Darren, for you to brag, for you to introduce yourself, introduce Owl Tang, brag a little bit about uh, you know, what you have built and everything like that.
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00:00:56.399So, with that being said, Darren, I want to hear more about you.
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00:00:58.159I want to hear more about Owl Tang.
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00:01:02.240And as usual, please, please, please leave humility at the door.
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00:01:02.960Okay.
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00:01:03.920Hi, Tante.
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00:01:05.840Pleasure, everyone.
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00:01:07.599So I'm my name is Darren.
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00:01:10.560I'm the founder and CEO for Owlting Group.
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00:01:33.439So our company's vision uh starting a long time ago is actually to build a platform globally and using stablecoin to do the cross-border payment for uh business enterprise, and particularly for you know online travel agencies like Airbnb, Booking.com to send the money globally to their BB owners or hotel owners.
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00:01:40.400Yeah, so we actually started to build out the platform by applying the license globally.
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00:01:48.799So uh back to 2022, 2023, uh we started to apply for the license in the state.
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00:01:53.920So until today, we have more than 41 money transmitter licenses in the state.
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00:02:02.560And the other states are still in the process of uh getting more states' uh MPLs, and not just the United States.
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00:02:10.800Um we started by uh going to uh Japan and other corridors, Hong Kong, Singapore, Latin America.
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00:02:21.520Yeah, so I think the most challenging part is actually to build a regulated platform before the you know regulation was born.
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00:02:33.439So for example, we waited for uh a couple of years for the Japanese uh regulation authority to you know pass the stable coin uh regulation.
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00:02:41.520So for example, uh Japan needs free license in order to operate the stablecoin on ramp off-ramp business.
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00:02:47.360And we started uh oh you know before uh 2024.
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00:02:53.919I think we started from uh 2023 and until today is more than three years.
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00:02:59.680So uh we have made some very good process during the uh progress.
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00:03:06.080And in the meantime, uh we also need to partner with uh banks in different regions, right?
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00:03:16.800So you know, for example, in the United States we work with Cross River Bank, uh that's the same bank that uh Elon Musk uh X Money is also using.
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00:03:28.960Yeah, so uh because we are uh building a platform that's enables uh enterprise to connect with our API, switching from fiat currency to stablecoin.
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00:03:33.280So the bank also need to be upgraded from their infrastructure.
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00:03:42.240So that's all the lengthy process for us uh to invest before the business was even born for the industry.
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00:03:52.719So I think uh the company uh we started from Asia and going to global by you know from the United States, you know, and go to go to other regions.
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00:03:58.400But the most exciting thing is we really see the traction in the past couple of months.
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00:04:05.599You know, we have a lot of fintech client, uh, even banks want to be you know on board to become our customer.
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00:04:10.400So uh you know every month the transaction value increases a lot.
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00:04:18.879So that's something that really excites us because uh we spent more than six years to achieve what we have visioned before.
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00:04:19.439Yeah.
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00:04:20.319I love that.
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00:04:29.519And Sean or Darren, I actually have the stats in front of us for our audience because I think it's really helpful to visualize the scale that you guys are operating at.
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00:04:32.160So your first half stats.
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00:04:32.560Right?
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00:04:46.480So the annualized payment volume on Owl Pay Harbor, and we can go through the different product offerings in a second, but the annualized payment volume on Owl Harbor reached approximately $160 million based on trailing 30 days as of August 20th.
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00:04:55.519Uh, across the entire Owl Pay platform, spanning both Fiat and stablecoins, the cumulative asset process payment volume has passed more than $700 million.
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00:05:01.120And you guys have a target to exceed a billion by the end of 2026, and you're you're on course for that.
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00:05:11.360The first half revenue is about 3.87 million, which is up almost an entire percent year over year, and have made about a quarter of a million dollars in gross profit.
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00:05:16.240And so you guys are just absolutely killing it on the growth side of things.
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00:05:26.560Before we dive into why that growth is occurring and what has caused this mass acceleration for Owl Ting, I always like to take sort of the story chronologically.
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00:05:32.639And so I want to get a better understanding of how Owlting got into the business of global money movement.
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00:05:38.639Because you guys did not start as most stablecoin companies do, as crypto traders or in the crypto space.
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00:05:46.639Tell tell us a little bit more about the origins of OWL Ting and how you guys got to where you're at now.
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00:05:48.160Yeah, sure, Dante.
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00:05:49.519That's very good.
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00:05:58.000So uh my background in cryptocurrency has actually been uh more than 12 or 13 years.
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00:06:18.160Uh so uh back to 2012, 2013, I am one of the earliest uh you know people that invest in the Bitcoin and not just invest in the Bitcoin, I also put in my own money to invest in one of the earliest crypto exchanges uh from Taiwan.
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00:06:19.680Uh it's called MyCoin.
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00:06:20.160Yeah.
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00:06:29.120And after I invested crypto exchange and I had the chance to know uh the founder for Ethereum.
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00:06:31.519He went to Taiwan a lot back then.
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00:06:50.000So we actually uh witnessed the rise for all the cryptocurrency industry, you know, from Ethereum to on the later on, you know, in I think back to 2014, I you know uh I know the founder for Tether, USDT.
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00:07:06.399Yeah, so it's actually uh you know very uh long history uh for myself to you know you know step putting my own money in the industry and see you know if the company can evolve into something that's more you know global.
00:07:06.800 -->
00:07:14.319But at the time, were you were you working in crypto or was Owlting doing something completely outside of crypto?
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00:07:17.519Yeah, we were actually doing e-commerce platform.
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00:07:25.439So we are one of the first e-commerce platforms that's accepting Bitcoin as the payment back to 2014.
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00:07:31.519Uh so back then people can use you know one Bitcoin to buy uh milk for one month.
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00:07:34.480Yeah, so looking back, it's really expensive.
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00:07:36.079Yeah, but that's awesome.
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00:07:36.800I think it's awesome.
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00:07:42.480We have the passion to test if Bitcoin becomes the new digital currency, right?
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00:07:49.120And of course, you know, later on, you know, Tether, you know, was more, and later on, you know, USDC was more.
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00:07:59.360Yeah, so I think uh uh having the right direction and some you know experimental uh spirit is very important to build a good startup companies.
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00:08:01.120Yeah, I I 100% agree.
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00:08:07.439So you started in e-commerce, you were an early investor in Bitcoin and a few other crypto projects.
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00:08:14.319How did you go from e-commerce to global payment and global money movement giant?
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00:08:14.639Right?
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00:08:16.639What did that process look like?
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00:08:22.399Yeah, so uh my academic background was focused on encryption.
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00:08:26.000Yeah, so my professor is from Russia, right?
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00:08:34.559So I always said the has the passion to you know understand something relative to uh encryption.
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00:08:56.480So when I first saw you know the white paper for Bitcoin, I was very excited because this is something that you know if that is become true, then it become the most you know um pricey, and then uh the the digital currency that can forever change the you know human world.
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00:09:02.240So I started by uh uh taking the Bitcoin as experiment.
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00:09:10.080And uh but it doesn't work out because the the the value for Bitcoin always changes every second, right?
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00:09:16.639So when you want to use Bitcoin as the uh currency like US dollar, it's impossible, right?
00:09:16.639 -->
00:09:27.440Because so uh after stablecoin was invented, I always think about you know how to put the stablecoin into the industry, right?
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00:09:40.000So we actually started by building a new hospitality platform that's enabled uh you know uh the Airbnb owners to prevent double bookings, right?
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00:09:49.279So we connect to the largest online travel platform like booking.com, Airbnb, to process their orders.
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00:09:57.279So uh by processing their orders, I actually figured the biggest opportunity is the cross-border payment.
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00:10:01.120They pay to the you know uh BMB owner every month.
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00:10:09.600So this is something that really inspired me that you know we really need to focus on B2B payment if we want to build a global company.
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00:10:26.799So starting in 2018, we scale the hospitality platform, we figure out how to do the payment for then, and then uh we invest in the regulation license for our stablecoin platform and gradually build out the platform.
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00:10:34.000So it takes us about you know seven, eight years from hospitality to what we have achieved today.
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00:10:43.200So I think uh looking back, it's a really long journey because every year we need to invest the new technology license regulation, right?
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00:10:43.919And people.
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00:10:56.399Yeah, so uh I'm very excited to see that we have seen uh what's really important for the company in the future, in the next three to five years, which is the stablecoin payment business.
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00:11:02.639We help enterprise they can settle the money from stablecoin to different local currency globally.
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00:11:03.360Yeah.
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00:11:04.639I love that.
00:11:04.639 -->
00:11:09.279And you guys have a pretty comprehensive product suite, right?
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00:11:21.279Anyone who goes to your website publicly, you they can see, oh, you know, Owlting has four different products for businesses and two different products for AI agents and three different products for individuals.
00:11:21.279 -->
00:11:39.919But the underpinning of all of this, and you've mentioned it a few times, is the fact that you guys have aggressively pursued regulatory licenses and make sure making sure that you guys are doing everything that you possibly can to operate within the bounds of every single jurisdiction that you're that you're working in.
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00:11:43.200To your point, this takes a very long time to do, right?
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00:11:45.759This took seven, eight years to build out this product.
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00:12:01.759Can you walk me through what that process looks like, right, from a regulation perspective, from a licensing perspective, to build out a payments company that does the right thing the right way, and how that's impacted your ability to go out and build all of these different products in the space?
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00:12:03.200Yeah, sure.
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00:12:11.039Yeah, so imagine uh you want to send a payment to your friend in like Mexico, right?
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00:12:14.159How do you do that without going to the banks?
00:12:14.159 -->
00:12:18.159So it's actually the first question I always ask people.
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00:12:20.159It's like impossible, right?
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00:12:23.840If you And why why do you want to avoid going to the banks, Darren?
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00:12:24.480Why not?
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00:12:29.840No, it's like uh uh you know, go to bank is actually the most convenient way, right?
00:12:29.840 -->
00:12:34.960But it's very expensive, like $30, $40 per transaction, right?
00:12:34.960 -->
00:12:43.120And uh what if the uh you know the your recipient, your friend is in Nigeria, right?
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00:12:49.200You your pro your your local bank probably will raise the price even higher, right?
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00:12:52.639So that's the probably problem people are facing.
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00:12:57.840But right now, if you are sending a message, you know, reserve quite messenger, right?
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00:12:59.200It costs you nothing.
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00:13:02.720And then the m the message just arrives instantly, right?
00:13:02.720 -->
00:13:13.840So I have a theory that uh the fundamental for the financial system need to be you know really rebuilt on the blockchain and stablecoin.
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00:13:20.000Yeah, so that's actually the theory that uh we have you know before we build a product.
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00:13:23.919Yeah, so uh here's the problem we need to solve.
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00:13:28.559The first one is uh you're moving money for other people.
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00:13:32.960If you don't have a license, then you don't get a trust from customer.
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00:13:33.519Right.
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00:13:39.519So we need to apply for the license before we make any sense in the business.
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00:13:41.840So that's the first difficult part.
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00:13:55.759And you know, starting from the United States is really difficult because in the US, it's like a state-owned regulation, which means that you need to go through the application process for 50 states.
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00:13:56.399Yeah.
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00:14:00.399So we actually have no idea how much it costs.
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00:14:05.440But I think as a founder, I just want to start as fast as possible.
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00:14:13.519So uh we we have a legal council in the state that's helping us to you know prepare the application.
00:14:13.519 -->
00:14:19.200And as a foreign company, it's actually more difficult because uh we started from Taiwan.
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00:14:23.840So uh it's even more difficult for us to apply for the US license.
00:14:23.840 -->
00:14:30.480Uh so in the meantime, we also need to find the technology that can support our vision, right?
00:14:30.480 -->
00:14:35.279So, you know, there's a lot of uh different blockchains, right?
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00:14:41.440Ethereum, uh Staler, Polygon, and you know Solana, etc.
00:14:41.440 -->
00:14:47.200But when you are removing the real money, which stablecoin are you using?
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00:14:47.679Right?
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00:14:54.799So we started by using USDC because they are the regulated uh stablecoin in the state, right?
00:14:54.799 -->
00:15:08.240But uh to support uh multiple blockchain, for example, if if you are sending USDC from Ethereum to Solana, you need to be uh compatible with different blockchains, right?
00:15:08.240 -->
00:15:14.799So we have an engineering team that's focused on uh solving the problem for cross-chain, right?
00:15:14.799 -->
00:15:16.639And how about liquidity?
00:15:16.639 -->
00:15:19.360Liquidity is also very important, right?
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00:15:26.240For example, if if you're sending uh $10 million to uh Japan, right?
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00:15:34.480But not any crypto exchange locally has the $10 million liquidity in the Japanese yen, right?
00:15:34.480 -->
00:15:37.360So that's also another problem you need to solve.
00:15:37.360 -->
00:15:40.799And the other one is the compliance, right?
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00:15:50.559When you are putting money from bank account to crypto wallet, you know, how do you do the KYC and then anti-money laundry cross-border, right?
00:15:50.559 -->
00:15:55.840So you also need to have a new standard for the regulation part, licensing power.
00:15:55.840 -->
00:16:01.120So all putting all those elements together, it becomes a huge company.
00:16:01.120 -->
00:16:07.519You need to have a compliance team, engineering team, legal team, licensing, etc.
00:16:07.519 -->
00:16:13.919So that's actually makes the process very um difficult.
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00:16:18.639So I think that's the the issue we have encountered during the process.
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00:16:21.200And it takes four years, right?
00:16:21.200 -->
00:16:24.960So that's actually $40 million investment for the company.
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00:16:25.440Yeah.
00:16:25.440 -->
00:16:33.360So I think that's how we figure this is something really beyond our scope because we're coming from Taiwan.
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00:16:39.360When we are building a product without making money, it's very difficult to raise the money, right?
00:16:39.360 -->
00:16:48.879So during the the process, I actually pledged my house a couple of times in order to squeeze money for the company.
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00:16:52.320Yeah, so that's really something inspired me.
00:16:52.320 -->
00:16:58.960And uh, you know, if you want to be a founder, you need to sacrifice a lot of things, right?
00:16:58.960 -->
00:17:03.679So that's the you know, all the you know, trouble we have encountered during the process.
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00:17:06.240Darren, that's awesome.
00:17:06.240 -->
00:17:08.799That's that's really, really amazing.
00:17:08.799 -->
00:17:18.079Uh I I love hearing stories like this, and I think that the best founders in the world are the ones that are willing to take it as far as you have.
00:17:18.079 -->
00:17:24.640And you know, speaking of founders, you guys have obviously put in the time and the money.
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00:17:38.000You said it took you, you know, eight years, $40 million to get you know 41 US MTLs, to get a Japan banking API, to start working with Visa Direct, to be part of all of these different networks.
00:17:38.000 -->
00:17:48.559I personally know dozens and dozens of founders that are going down this path, that are not as far as you are, but are trying to end up where you are.
00:17:48.559 -->
00:17:58.799What advice do you have for them as someone who has already done this, who has already gone out and gotten all of the licenses and been part of the networks that they need to, et cetera, et cetera?
00:17:58.799 -->
00:18:04.640What advice do you have for the rest of the stablecoin world that's going down this path now?
00:18:05.359 -->
00:18:11.920Yeah, so I think the problem we are solving is the problem we are facing ourselves.
00:18:11.920 -->
00:18:12.720Right.
00:18:12.720 -->
00:18:23.039So initially, that's how uh you know typical stablecoin company startup is doing is finding a partner, right?
00:18:23.039 -->
00:18:28.480Finding a bank using their licensing uh corridors.
00:18:28.480 -->
00:18:35.279But when you're really deep in the industry, you will understand how difficult it is, right?
00:18:35.279 -->
00:18:39.359For example, uh you have a partner in US, right?
00:18:39.359 -->
00:18:42.799But they don't have the Japanese corridor, right?
00:18:42.799 -->
00:18:53.200So even you have uh onboarding to become their client using their infra, but it's still impossible for you to send the money to Japan, right?
00:18:53.200 -->
00:19:04.960So I think uh from uh my thought and logic is we need to solve the largest problem in the industry, which is licensing, right?
00:19:04.960 -->
00:19:16.960So we open up our license for third party, they can use our KYC anti-money laundry protocols, and then the most important thing is we build a rail for them.
00:19:16.960 -->
00:19:22.240So they don't need to connect to uh so many countries like us, right?
00:19:22.240 -->
00:19:36.000So I don't think every company can go through the process to apply for the money transmitted license in US 450 State and then Japan and other regions, it's too much money to spend.
00:19:36.000 -->
00:19:44.799So we want to open up our platform and infrastructure for staller companies so they just can focus on getting the customer.
00:19:44.799 -->
00:19:58.480For example, uh for most of the payment companies using stablecoin, they are very regional, which means you know, if you are coming from Mexico, you focus on solving the problem between US and Mexico.
00:19:58.480 -->
00:20:06.960If you are coming from Brazil, Nigeria, you know, you focus on those regional payment activities.
00:20:06.960 -->
00:20:10.960So we actually open up our corridors.
00:20:10.960 -->
00:20:23.920So we have more than uh, I would say 60 countries that can use stablecoin to offer them, and more than 100 countries that can settle with the local currency with fiat.
00:20:23.920 -->
00:20:47.599Yeah, and then with the new corridor we are building in uh India, you know, Japan, Hong Kong, China, even the Middle East, I believe the most uh difficult problem to solve is the liquidity in different uh corridors and then the licensing, you know, because uh union, you know, moving money for other people is a serious business.
00:20:47.599 -->
00:20:56.240So I don't think people will have so much capital to invest if you want to focus on certain corridors, right?
00:20:56.240 -->
00:21:01.440So we are helping those different companies to solve the largest problem for them.
00:21:01.440 -->
00:21:10.400So they can easily focus on the business, forget about licensing, you know, technology, you know, MLKYC compliance issues.
00:21:10.400 -->
00:21:20.079So it's why the logic and it's very similar to uh how TSMC was succeeded in the semiconductor industry.
00:21:20.079 -->
00:21:26.720So uh the logic for TSMC is they don't want to compete with their client.
00:21:26.720 -->
00:21:34.880So uh if you don't have any factory to manufacture the fab, right, um you just go to TSMC.
00:21:34.880 -->
00:21:38.559And you know that TSMC will not steal your IC design.
00:21:38.559 -->
00:21:44.400They just focus on you know helping the customer to deliver the chip, you know, right?
00:21:44.400 -->
00:21:48.480So everyone becomes TSMC's customer, Nvidia, Apple.
00:21:48.480 -->
00:21:55.200They don't need to worry about uh their patent guns stolen by the um you know by TSMC.
00:21:55.200 -->
00:22:00.720Because they know TSMC focuses on helping them to just you know manufacturing the The chip.
00:22:00.720 -->
00:22:02.960So I think that's the logic we have.
00:22:02.960 -->
00:22:07.599We want to become, you know, a company that's building the infra.
00:22:07.599 -->
00:22:12.480So people just give us their volume and we help them to move the money globally.
00:22:13.680 -->
00:22:14.079I love it.
00:22:14.079 -->
00:22:18.559So your advice to founders is don't go down the path that you did in getting all these licenses.
00:22:18.559 -->
00:22:23.119Just use the licenses and the rails that that Owlting has already created.
00:22:23.119 -->
00:22:24.319I love that.
00:22:24.319 -->
00:22:32.000I want to start diving into who your customers actually are and what they're using you for, right?
00:22:32.000 -->
00:22:38.000A lot of people describe themselves as global payment companies or global stablecoin companies or whatever it might be.
00:22:38.000 -->
00:22:40.400But you guys look a little bit different than most.
00:22:40.400 -->
00:22:44.160And I mean that as the highest form of compliment.
00:22:44.160 -->
00:22:51.039Tell me a little bit about who is using Owl Ting and what they are using OWLTing for.
00:22:51.759 -->
00:22:52.640Yes, sure.
00:22:52.640 -->
00:23:06.160So we have a lot of uh trading company, fintech startup, that's helping money, that's moving money between US, Nigeria, and you know, Middle East to China.
00:23:06.160 -->
00:23:15.119And you know, I think once we open up Japan, you know, we'll be a lot more fintech, you know, that's using our rails to move the money.
00:23:15.119 -->
00:23:35.440So I would say uh exchange, uh, wallet company from Latin American and uh fintech startup that's helping to uh using stablecoin to move the money between US and Africa, you know, and uh of course uh I think bank is actually catching up.
00:23:35.440 -->
00:23:40.640The global banks uh they want to embrace stablecoin technology, right?
00:23:40.640 -->
00:23:52.880So I think uh another analogy that people can imagine is right now in US, you can send money with Zale, right, to your friend with you know zero dollars.
00:23:52.880 -->
00:24:09.200But in the in the future, if uh Zale is built on our infrastructure, they can actually send the money through blockchain to any of the you know country in the world with almost zero dollars, and the money will be arriving within two minutes.
00:24:09.200 -->
00:24:20.720So right now I'm seeing a lot of people, uh company you know sending millions of dollars from you know US to Africa and Africa to Europe.
00:24:20.720 -->
00:24:25.599The money literally just arrived within you know two, three minutes.
00:24:25.599 -->
00:24:27.200That's really amazing.
00:24:27.200 -->
00:24:27.759Yeah.
00:24:27.759 -->
00:24:37.200So I think uh the vision for the company is to help other fintech companies to become more successful using stablecoin rails.
00:24:37.200 -->
00:24:42.240So I think uh for stablecoin, right, we have circle, we have tether, right?
00:24:42.240 -->
00:24:46.960So you don't need to compete with them to have another like stablecoin.
00:24:46.960 -->
00:24:56.000Most important thing is there should be some company solving the licensing problem, solving the liquidity problem in different corridors.
00:24:56.000 -->
00:25:01.119So it's really difficult, particularly the liquidity part, right?
00:25:01.119 -->
00:25:03.759Because you know, there's over 100 currencies in the world.
00:25:03.759 -->
00:25:09.119So how do you offer from US dollar stablecoin to those different currencies?
00:25:09.119 -->
00:25:16.160So that requires a lot of uh you know business debt partnership in different regions and corridors.
00:25:16.160 -->
00:25:17.839Uh so that's really difficult.
00:25:17.839 -->
00:25:21.440And we want to solve the most difficult problem in the industry.
00:25:22.400 -->
00:25:22.720Okay.
00:25:22.720 -->
00:25:25.279There's a lot to unpack there.
00:25:25.279 -->
00:25:27.839Uh, and we're gonna we're gonna unpack it bit by bit.
00:25:27.839 -->
00:25:33.599The first thing is you mentioned that you work with a lot of you know trading companies, import-export companies.
00:25:33.599 -->
00:25:36.160Tell me a little bit more about that.
00:25:36.160 -->
00:25:39.359Like why do they come to Owl Tang?
00:25:39.359 -->
00:25:44.480What is broken about the system that they're using, and why can you guys do it better?
00:25:44.480 -->
00:25:46.160Yeah, sure.
00:25:47.440 -->
00:26:09.279So in the past, when they are sending money from, for example, uh Brazil to uh China, usually the money needs to be uh confirmed after 48 or 72 hours before you can you know confirm the money is arriving or refunded, right?
00:26:09.279 -->
00:26:17.440So if the money hasn't arrived, another like a refunding process take another, I would say, two weeks.
00:26:17.440 -->
00:26:28.960So if so we have a really customer case that's sending almost 200k US dollars, the money was disappeared for you know 14 days, right?
00:26:28.960 -->
00:26:42.880So the customer didn't receive the money, and you know the refunding process for Swift is super lengthy because they don't even know which intermediate bank they're using during the process, right?
00:26:42.880 -->
00:26:47.519So I think that's the problem for the traditional uh Swift network.
00:26:47.519 -->
00:26:50.880But for blockchain, you know, it's very easy, transparent.
00:26:50.880 -->
00:27:00.400Every transaction you can find uh when does that happen and which local uh partner you are using to settle the money.
00:27:00.400 -->
00:27:04.960So I think this is actually uh much faster than before.
00:27:04.960 -->
00:27:08.960So I think uh we are partnered with Circle.
00:27:08.960 -->
00:27:13.359Uh so Circle is actually pushing the Circle Payment Network globally.
00:27:13.359 -->
00:27:26.000So during the last 12 months, I would say it's a super fast uh progress because I I believe in the future uh Swift network will still be existing, right?
00:27:26.000 -->
00:27:30.319But it's actually a more uh expensive option for people, right?
00:27:30.319 -->
00:27:42.799So imagine if you go to the bank and you want to send the money, the bank will ask you you know, you want to spend $40 or you want to spend zero dollars, you know, and the money will be arriving in two minutes, right?
00:27:42.799 -->
00:27:51.759So I think this is the new option that for every bank in the world uh they can have in the near future.
00:27:51.759 -->
00:27:55.279Uh it's it's global, it's license regulated.
00:27:55.279 -->
00:28:01.599So uh stablecoin is actually a digital currency during the process, right?
00:28:01.599 -->
00:28:11.440But when the money arrives in different corridors, they can actually become either in the digital format or the local currency sitting in your bank account or debit card.
00:28:11.440 -->
00:28:21.839So this is actually the thing we have actually uh fulfilled by partner with different, you know, partners like Circle, Payment Network, Visa Direct.
00:28:21.839 -->
00:28:23.680So everything is real right now.
00:28:23.680 -->
00:28:31.920So right now our job is actually to bring more fintech companies to use the rail to you know accelerate the process.
00:28:33.359 -->
00:28:34.000I love it.
00:28:34.000 -->
00:28:36.240You've mentioned banks a few times.
00:28:36.240 -->
00:28:46.720Talk to me about your relationship with banks, how banks are starting to think about stable coins, what you've noticed in the eight plus years you've been building this out, and everything like that.
00:28:47.119 -->
00:28:48.319Yeah, sure.
00:28:48.319 -->
00:28:49.599Yeah.
00:28:49.599 -->
00:29:06.799So in the in the in the very beginning, uh you know, the company has gone through a very difficult time where all the crypto-friendly bank, so there's Silvergate and uh signature bank, you know, they all went bankrupt.
00:29:06.799 -->
00:29:16.480So uh I think for bank, uh they need to have a, for example, sub-account, you know, for company like us, right?
00:29:16.480 -->
00:29:29.039So we have, let's say our customer is a fintech company, and those fintech companies have, for example, the wallet company has you know one million users or 20 million users, right?
00:29:29.039 -->
00:29:44.160So it's like the bank has needs to need to have the capabilities to open up MASA account for company like us, and then we will be open up the sub ledger, you know, either bank account or wallet.
00:29:44.160 -->
00:29:47.200And the money really needs to move very fast.
00:29:47.200 -->
00:29:50.559For example, we receive $10 million, right?
00:29:50.559 -->
00:29:54.960And we well we want to send the money immediately with stablecoin.
00:29:54.960 -->
00:30:01.920So the bank needs to have a capability to instantly switch the sphere to stablecoin, right?
00:30:01.920 -->
00:30:11.440And once the counterparty, for example, in Japan, they receive the stablecoin, they need to offer it to the local Japanese yen.
00:30:11.440 -->
00:30:11.759Right?
00:30:11.759 -->
00:30:24.079So that's a very good example to tell people how difficult it is to have a local liquidity using stablecoin to offer on frame in different corridors.
00:30:24.079 -->
00:30:32.880And we are solving the problem for countries, uh, almost 100 countries already, uh, and keep expanding the network.
00:30:32.880 -->
00:30:49.599So I think in the future the real winner will be uh people who really control uh the infrastructure and willing to open up the license for other fintech companies because uh you know license means responsibility, right?
00:30:49.599 -->
00:31:01.680So if you have uh one million users, whenever they are making transactions, we need to do the instant KYC anti-money laundry for your customer as well.
00:31:01.680 -->
00:31:02.480Yeah.
00:31:02.480 -->
00:31:05.839So they really need a lot of like engineering effort.
00:31:05.839 -->
00:31:11.839For example, how do you uh utilize the usage for AI, right?
00:31:11.839 -->
00:31:19.440So using AI can shorten the path, you know, the time you do the KYC anti-money laundry for your customers.
00:31:19.440 -->
00:31:24.400And if there's you know transactions that's billion dollars per month, right?
00:31:24.400 -->
00:31:28.480You need to do this back and forth, back and forth every second.
00:31:28.480 -->
00:31:34.640So I think that's actually what have hasn't happened in the fin tank industry.
00:31:34.640 -->
00:31:40.240For example, PayPal didn't have the you know technology yet, right?
00:31:40.240 -->
00:31:49.599So it's gotta be a new company that has the right vision and execute the vision and build a product for uh you know fintech startup.
00:31:49.599 -->
00:31:52.720So that's something that we're building for the world.
00:31:52.720 -->
00:31:53.519Yeah.
00:31:53.920 -->
00:31:54.240Yeah.
00:31:54.240 -->
00:32:07.440Like I said, I've talked to a lot of founders on this podcast, and it seems to me that every single person who is building a fintech company sets out to build a fintech company or a payments company.
00:32:07.440 -->
00:32:15.839But at the end of the day, everyone ends up building a compliance company because it's so deeply ingrained in how payments operate globally.
00:32:15.839 -->
00:32:16.720So I love that.
00:32:16.720 -->
00:32:19.200And Darren, you're gonna have to remind me after this podcast.
00:32:19.200 -->
00:32:23.839I have a lot of folks who I think are gonna benefit from using Owl Ting Rails that I want to send over to you.
00:32:23.839 -->
00:32:27.839And I think that there's some banking introductions that I can make for you as well.
00:32:27.839 -->
00:32:30.160But uh we'll we'll take that off air.
00:32:30.160 -->
00:32:43.759Um, tell me a little bit more about how Owlting has evolved from you know getting your first uh getting your first licenses to today in terms of the services that you're able to offer.
00:32:43.759 -->
00:32:49.759Like I said, you have a variety of different services for businesses, you have different services for agents, you have different services for individuals.
00:32:49.759 -->
00:32:53.359Tell me about what it's like building out that entire product suite.
00:32:54.079 -->
00:32:55.119Yeah, sure.
00:32:55.119 -->
00:33:01.680So I think that's actually uh uh very simple logic, right?
00:33:01.680 -->
00:33:08.240For example, uh there's a company like Circle that's issuing stablecoin, right?
00:33:08.240 -->
00:33:21.200But what you really need is uh you need to onboard a platform, instantly uh you know, have API to support your fiat transaction to stablecoin.
00:33:21.200 -->
00:33:34.160And then when the money flows between different wallets, right, or to different bank accounts, uh the platform also needs to provide the anti-money laundry KYC process.
00:33:34.160 -->
00:33:37.519Otherwise, the money is not moving legally, right?
00:33:37.519 -->
00:33:46.720So if you go out to the market, uh take a look for who's providing the service, there's actually very few companies that's doing this, right?
00:33:46.720 -->
00:33:57.440So uh so that's why you know we designed the platform to fulfill the gap between, for example, uh USDC and banks.
00:33:57.440 -->
00:34:02.160So I think that's actually the most important part we are solving, right?
00:34:02.160 -->
00:34:06.720For example, if right now, if you go to like a Bank of America, right?
00:34:06.720 -->
00:34:12.079Tell them I want to have a you know stablecoin account, it's like impossible.
00:34:12.079 -->
00:34:15.920So that's the thing we want to solve.
00:34:15.920 -->
00:34:40.000So you can imagine in the future, uh, when you open up your banking uh wallet app, right, you need to have uh you will have a fiat account like usual, but when you are transferring money through all the corridors, so you don't need to enter the Swift number, bank account, blah blah blah, address, you know, those different columns.
00:34:40.000 -->
00:34:58.079All you need is actually to put a contact and you know fulfill the wallet address, you know, in your banking app and click send, the money will you know instantly arrive to the other countries, bank account or crypto, you know, wallet address.
00:34:58.079 -->
00:35:00.480So that's the thing we are building.
00:35:00.480 -->
00:35:06.960So for uh banks, they need a wallet infrastructure, right?
00:35:06.960 -->
00:35:13.440But they also need anti-money laundry, KYC between for the money movement.
00:35:13.440 -->
00:35:19.519Because right now, the bank, the banking system, they can only scan the fiat movement, right?
00:35:19.519 -->
00:35:22.239So the fiat movement becomes stable coin.
00:35:22.239 -->
00:35:25.119They have no idea where the money goes, right?
00:35:25.119 -->
00:35:29.840So you need to have everything to complete the bigger platform.
00:35:29.840 -->
00:35:43.119So I think that's why uh when we go to the market, uh, get the banking infra ready, stablecoin infra ready, a lot of fintech companies come to us because we solve the problem for them.
00:35:43.119 -->
00:35:43.920Right.
00:35:43.920 -->
00:35:52.880So I think uh the the reason is uh we are actually in the industry for a very long time.
00:35:52.880 -->
00:35:59.519So we understand what's you know what's the most difficult problem that people are facing, right?
00:35:59.519 -->
00:36:06.079So when you want to build a company, say, you know, I have a lot of customers from my hometown, you know, Nigeria, right?
00:36:06.079 -->
00:36:12.719I want to send the money back to my uh hometown people, but you don't have a license in the state, right?
00:36:12.719 -->
00:36:17.840So it's like if you start, then you immediately become illegal in the state.
00:36:17.840 -->
00:36:25.519So that's why we want to uh be a platform that's supporting those fintech companies to be succeeded.
00:36:25.519 -->
00:36:30.880Yeah, and that we don't have the capability to go to every market ourselves, right?
00:36:30.880 -->
00:36:37.280So I think uh the the story for TSMC really inspired me, right?
00:36:37.280 -->
00:36:47.039So uh I I don't think most people understand TSMC a couple years ago, right?
00:36:47.039 -->
00:36:53.760Because uh when they are not a trillion-dollar company, I don't think many people heard about TSMC, right?
00:36:53.760 -->
00:37:02.079But everyone knows Apple, everyone has iPhone, Android phone, but everything is actually coming from TSMC, right?
00:37:02.079 -->
00:37:10.480So that's something that that's the company we want to build to help the fintech company to be succeeded in the industry.
00:37:10.480 -->
00:37:11.280Yeah.
00:37:12.719 -->
00:37:13.440I love that.
00:37:13.440 -->
00:37:14.079I love that.
00:37:14.079 -->
00:37:18.000So you guys have gone out and built all these different relationships with different providers, right?
00:37:18.000 -->
00:37:26.159You have, you know, to your point, licensing everywhere, you might have a banking partner over here, and you're partnering with a RTP solution over there.
00:37:26.159 -->
00:37:34.400I know a lot of founders right now, to your point, that are analyzing what providers to use in various different geographies.
00:37:34.400 -->
00:37:44.239How do you go about analyzing what a good partner and what a good provider looks like as someone who has done this for almost a decade?
00:37:44.719 -->
00:37:53.360Yeah, so I think the the most important thing is uh you really have the capability to deliver the money.
00:37:53.360 -->
00:37:55.840You know, that that's actually very important.
00:37:55.840 -->
00:37:59.360It sounds very simple, stupid, but important.
00:37:59.360 -->
00:38:00.159Right.
00:38:00.159 -->
00:38:19.199So uh so when you are looking for you know solution in the market, you will actually find it's very difficult to find a company that can actually help you to settle the money from stablecoin to as many corridors as possible.
00:38:19.199 -->
00:38:19.760Right.
00:38:19.760 -->
00:38:28.639So let's say if you want to send the money to Singapore, you don't want to sign out another problem in Singapore, right?
00:38:28.639 -->
00:38:32.559So there's over you know 100 countries in the world.
00:38:32.559 -->
00:38:40.000So you you it's impossible for you to connect to 100 um companies locally to build out a network.
00:38:40.000 -->
00:38:40.559Yeah.
00:38:40.559 -->
00:38:46.639So uh so it's very similar like the concept for Visa, right?
00:38:46.639 -->
00:38:56.000Visa is a global brand, and once you connect to Visa, then you have capability to uh you know solve the problem for settlement.
00:38:56.000 -->
00:38:59.280But Visa itself doesn't have the license, right?
00:38:59.280 -->
00:39:05.920So uh when you want to work with Visa, yourself need to be a licensed player to be partnered with Visa.
00:39:05.920 -->
00:39:07.440That's something very important.
00:39:07.440 -->
00:39:17.840Yeah, so we want to become the platform that's you know, first is we are licensed, so we open up the license for you.
00:39:17.840 -->
00:39:24.800And second is we got all the settlement corridors, so you don't need to connect to 100 companies globally.
00:39:24.800 -->
00:39:34.400You can connect to one API to our platform, and whenever you're sending the money, uh you don't need to have two options, you know, as a partner.
00:39:34.400 -->
00:39:40.880You can just connect to one partner like us, and then we'll help you to settle the money globally.
00:39:40.880 -->
00:39:44.159So that's the thing we are building for the industry.
00:39:45.440 -->
00:39:46.000Love it.
00:39:46.000 -->
00:39:50.719And I I want to look to the future now.
00:39:50.719 -->
00:39:59.920Tell me a little bit about what you're building for not payments as it is today, but payments as it will be tomorrow, right?
00:39:59.920 -->
00:40:03.679You guys have come out with agentic payment solutions.
00:40:03.679 -->
00:40:09.440You guys have sort of been on the forefront of again, not just building for where payments are today, but where payments are tomorrow.
00:40:09.440 -->
00:40:10.960How do you think about this?
00:40:10.960 -->
00:40:14.079What are some predictions that you have and how are you building for that?
00:40:14.480 -->
00:40:23.280Yeah, so right now, uh, for example, you know, PayPal, Stripe, they are winning in the credit card era, right?
00:40:23.280 -->
00:40:30.400So I know stablecoin uh Stripe is also moving very fast into the stablecoin space.
00:40:30.400 -->
00:40:37.360So which means that we are actually seeing the same vision, like uh, you know, big company like Stripe, right?
00:40:37.360 -->
00:40:48.000But I think as I mentioned, uh the most important uh problem we need to solve is the capability to settle stablecoin to different currencies.
00:40:48.000 -->
00:40:56.079That's that's that's something uh I believe the most difficult part to solve uh for the industry.
00:40:56.079 -->
00:41:00.639And uh talking about payment gateway, right?
00:41:00.639 -->
00:41:10.400In the future, uh AI agent will actually helping people to you know find a hotel, book an airline ticket, etc.
00:41:10.400 -->
00:41:23.280So I think uh every website, either booking uh airline ticket, airline company, ish, you know, e-commerce site, will be redesigned to fulfill the needs for AI agent.
00:41:23.280 -->
00:41:33.039This is something that completely different from uh Stripe is building successfully in the last you know 10 years.
00:41:33.039 -->
00:41:44.639So I think the thing we're building for future is uh we have an AI agent checkout with AI agent for consumers, right?
00:41:44.639 -->
00:41:59.599So AI agent checkout is for an e-commerce company that's using X402 standard, and A agent will you know using the standard to you know find a hotel in the shortest time and finish the checking out process.
00:41:59.599 -->
00:42:03.840And the most important thing is the cost structure is totally different.
00:42:03.840 -->
00:42:13.199For example, in the payment gateway industry, uh, they charge you for you know 4 to 5% for each of the transactions.
00:42:13.199 -->
00:42:17.440So it's actually is not the margin for small business, right?
00:42:17.440 -->
00:42:29.360But if you are settled with stablecoin, we only charge less than 1%, which means the margin for business owner is much higher compared to the past.
00:42:29.360 -->
00:42:36.880Uh so the thing will happen in Shopify, Booking.com, Airbnb, etc.
00:42:36.880 -->
00:42:43.199Uh, BNB owner, e-commerce side will make more money because they reduce the cost for payment gateway.
00:42:43.199 -->
00:42:54.000So this is something that in the future, uh, you know, it's actually a longer future, but when you look when we build a company, we vision everything, right?
00:42:54.000 -->
00:43:14.480The cross-border payment will be much cheaper instantly, and checkout prices will uh be smooth using AI agent, and e-commerce company will have much fewer uh payment costs because they are switching to X402 stablecoin industry uh standard.
00:43:14.480 -->
00:43:14.880Right?
00:43:14.880 -->
00:43:17.599So that's the bigger picture we are building.
00:43:17.599 -->
00:43:28.719But everything is actually under the same infrastructure that is licensing anti-money laundry, KYC, it's open up to you know the new tools.
00:43:28.719 -->
00:43:38.719Yeah, so I think it's actually one company, one product we're building, but it's a global scale uh product that we are building for the industry.
00:43:39.599 -->
00:43:40.320I love that.
00:43:40.320 -->
00:43:44.639And tell me more about what still needs to be built.
00:43:44.639 -->
00:43:52.159I think there's always a gap between what marketing says and what products are actually capable of today.
00:43:52.159 -->
00:43:55.920And a lot of people go out and say, oh, we've solved payments, right?
00:43:55.920 -->
00:43:56.880We've done it.
00:43:56.880 -->
00:43:58.719I don't think that's that's the case.
00:43:58.719 -->
00:44:04.079You guys are certainly you know building for for the future of payments, like I mentioned before.
00:44:04.079 -->
00:44:12.880What still needs to be built in this industry for you know payments to become truly global, for a genetic payment to have all the infrastructure that it needs?
00:44:12.880 -->
00:44:17.360Where do you spend all of your days from a building perspective?
00:44:17.760 -->
00:44:28.239Yeah, so I think uh as a company, we have actually built uh the basic infra for the future.
00:44:28.239 -->
00:44:33.119So right now we just need more uh clients to use the platform.
00:44:33.119 -->
00:44:42.480And I have a theory that you know once you reach 100 client scale, then you're gonna be becoming you know a rolling snowball.
00:44:42.480 -->
00:44:45.119You know, everything will start to accelerate.
00:44:45.119 -->
00:45:08.960So uh right now we are close to 100 clients uh for enterprise clients, which means that we actually will have the same, you know, a much better experience to quickly unboard the client and push the product to uh so initially in the last you know uh starting this year, we start to focus on uh B2B enterprise fintech companies.
00:45:08.960 -->
00:45:16.880But right now we have started onboarding uh you know B2B2C companies, like a wallet company.
00:45:16.880 -->
00:45:24.719So they have uh you know millions of users that can use the Visa direct product to unramp and off-ramp globally.
00:45:24.719 -->
00:45:38.239So that's something really excites that uh we find a growth momentum for the platform, and then we gradually expand the momentum to other categories of the clients.
00:45:38.239 -->
00:45:40.320So that's something really exciting us.
00:45:40.320 -->
00:45:41.920We find the right path to growth.
00:45:42.239 -->
00:45:42.719That's amazing.
00:45:42.719 -->
00:45:46.159Darren, I I really appreciated this conversation.
00:45:46.159 -->
00:45:53.360I love all of your historical analogies that you take in terms of, oh, TSMC did this and checkout.com did that.
00:45:53.360 -->
00:45:56.719I think that that mental model resonates with a lot of people.
00:45:56.719 -->
00:46:03.760I am certainly a much larger fan of Apple Ting than I was 45 minutes ago, and I think that our audience will be as well.
00:46:03.760 -->
00:46:05.679So I appreciate you coming onto the show.
00:46:05.679 -->
00:46:15.760For our listeners, I highly recommend if you are building a fintech, if you are building any type of company that needs to move money around the world, please, please, please go check out Ableting.
00:46:15.760 -->
00:46:17.280Their team is incredibly responsive.
00:46:17.280 -->
00:46:21.519You can find out everything that you need to know just on their website, Ableting.com.
00:46:21.519 -->
00:46:24.079Um, and as always, stay stable.
