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Institution Special: Onboarding Giants, w/ Sunny, Anthony & Johnny
Recorded: Aug. 11, 2025 Duration: 1:06:30Space Recording
Short Summary
VeChain is strategically positioning itself for growth in the Web3 space, with a focus on institutional partnerships and market trends. Recent discussions highlight significant collaborations, bullish sentiments around institutional investments, and the potential for new financial products like ETFs, all contributing to a positive outlook for VeChain's future.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. All right. Hello, hello, hello. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning to everybody, wherever
you are. And welcome to the VeChain Institutional Special.
This is a different voice than you guys may have heard before.
Jake is taking a well-earned day off.
He's only allowed one a year and this is the one.
And so I will be here in his space.
My name is Anthony.
I'm the Marketing Director of VeChain and I'm joined by Sonny and Johnny.
Guys, how are you doing today? Are you well?
Yeah, pretty good.
Whole day meeting in Dublin to get in Hayabusa ready.
A lot going on?
All as well.
Always a lot of guys to engage the community.
Johnny, are you all right there?
All as well, all as well, my friend.
Thank you very much, Anthony.
Such a pleasure to be here.
I always enjoy getting on.
Very good.
And thank you very much to the VFAM.
Thank you, community, for dialing in.
This is a super important topic.
And from the announcements and from the social posts from the last week or two, there's been
a huge amount of engagement, huge amount of interest in the institutional space.
As we know, a big driver of the next phase of Web3 adoption is going to come from institutions
and for the community, for you guys listening in.
We want to try and demystify some of that to you, give you an inside look at some of the partnerships, some of the collaborations
that we're doing from the VeChain side, and maybe help you understand a little bit more of the
sometimes opaque, mystical and magical world of the institutions, the world through which
Johnny navigates so perfectly and Sonny also. Sonny, just to get us started, maybe it's worth
just doing a quick current state of the empire.
Always interested to hear your view on the current state of the market, what you're seeing from conversations with institutions, with other leaders in Web3, with the other people that you get to work with in VeChain.
Where are we at the current state of the market, current state of Web3 adoption, current state of the VeChain growth cycle?
Give us an update, please, sir.
Sure.
Firstly, thank you, Anthony.
I would say that we're actually in a very interesting moment.
Even we have been talking about institutional onboarding, even starting from the last November when President Trump finally got into the White House
and leading the regulation changes, along with the Mika compliance finally launched as well,
and the Bitcoin ETF approval, all of the stars. It's just a different type of the symbols but now you know getting more and more obvious like the true word uh traditional
finance world or institutional world and the website world are actually kind of meeting the
middle ground there are there are several interesting cases for sure you know on one side
the more and more traditional companies are looking at RWAs.
Actually, we're dealing with one of the biggest logistical real estate companies.
They have like 80 billion AUM. RWA to issue some of the token representing the new recycled energy assets, and along
with many others are into the RWA as well.
On the other side, more and more web3 companies, crypto platforms, are getting to what we call DAT, digital assets treasury opportunity to get listed in the NASDAQ,
to facing, you know, broader institutional funds or traditional money to, you know,
get into the crypto market in a different way. So I feel like it's kind of like the two words
are mingled together, meeting the middle ground.
Still, for sure, there are many challenges, you know, left to sort it out, like in the regulatory
side, in, you know, the solution side, even the infrastructure or tool side or technology side.
But I would say it's just a matter of the time. And eventually, we're going to forge into a new world.
So I agree with you, what you're just saying.
You know, the crypto market in general is like the new transit from retail to institutions.
That's inevitable.
But let's try to break down a bit.
What does it mean from retail to institutions, right?
I would say there are three major changes following,
based on the conversations we had with many institutions.
One is from narrative-driven to utility-driven.
Because the institutions are caring about those fundamentals,
like what kind of utility you're creating, what kind of the value you're enabling and the number two is from
infrastructure to applications so we have been talking about like okay crypto world has been
talking about infrastructure too much where's the applications while when institutions on boarding
on board they are caring more like okay what kind of applications the user can use or, you know, the value can be realized through those applications.
And last but not least, I would say from each project, from each portfolio in the market, you know, it's from a technical delivery to eventually user growth.
You know, we have been in the crypto side for more than a decade.
And we hear about the announcement, you know, the release or updates coming from each project
majorly focused on the different type of protocol, different type of tools, different type of
technical upgrades. But more when institutions come on board, they will directly looking at the result,
which is like a user growth, which I would say not really surprised because
the internet era has been through like that. We still We kind of still remember 20 years ago,
even 25 years ago, when those internet giants,
today's internet giants getting started,
they talk about, okay, when to reach the first 1 million user,
when to reach the first 5 million, 10 million, 100 million,
and eventually to be a billion user,
like Facebook or Instagram is doing.
So from technical delivery to user growth,
actually representing the new challenge
and also the requirement coming from the institutions
when they're looking at any kind of portfolios.
So for generally speaking, for Vechain,
we're following this type of, let's say, top strategies.
All of our focus are doing is definitely
aligning this kind of the market change, also focus on the onboarding institutions,
whatever, WeChat Renaissance, it's enabled real decentralization, which is one of the
mandatory or requirement
coming from whatever the regulatory regulations
or the institutions onboarding.
And then VBetterDAO,
along in all of the X2 applications,
so far we've got a 42.
I know there are six or eight in the pipeline.
It's representing the utility,
representing the user growth.
So far, we just passed the 4 million bars.
So 4 million VBetter users starting from the beginning.
And, you know, more than 30 million actions has been generated,
has been created by the different type of the users.
It shows up great utility and user growth progress.
And last but not least is the compliance. You know, we already
get VAT and VSOAR passed through the MICA, through the Central Bank of Ireland, and we're pretty
close even, you know, about the better token as well. So getting, you know, starting from the MICA,
and also we have a plan to targeting the different type of jurisdictions after MICA compliance finished.
So all of the strategies we are focused on, we're executing, is basically for, you know, let's say this type of mass adoption as our final mission,
along with onboarding institutions.
So, yeah, that's a general overlook.
Really helpful start, Sonny, thank you.
And if you didn't already know,
clearly VeChain is well positioned for the next phase of Web3.
Clearly, the strategies are working,
and we're going to see a lot more in the coming days. An important distinction, I think, also from an institutional side,
which is institutions looking as investors into Web3 projects,
into blockchains, into crypto.
So those institutional investors, and Johnny can take us through
a little bit more detail as to those next,
looking at Web3 from the outside, saying there's an opportunity
for returns there, but also the project you mentioned
at the beginning in terms of RWA, which is institutions actually making use of blockchain technology of crypto of tokenization
of smart contracts for their business models for the way that they create existing products or the
way that they generate new products and so i think there's also an interesting and important
distinction saying are we talking about institutions that are investors or are we also talking about
institutions that are users of the technology and And again, VeChain positioned very well there for
both. A final thought from you, Sunny, before I go to Johnny, to do the deeper institutional dive,
because I think if you fast forward six months, maybe 12 months from now, and you see a greater
amount of institutional capital driving Web3, you see a greater amount of institutional focus towards evaluating which
projects are successful or not, or allocating capital towards projects to help them grow and
succeed versus maybe those that don't, a greater proportion of institutional capital versus retail
capital being able to fund the market. Is that a positive thing for you? Are you excited about that
prospect? Because that's going to be very different to the markets that we've lived in over the last six, seven, eight years.
Well, I would say it's a million percent bullish and a million percent positive. Because when we
think about the institutions, firstly, there are some difference comparing with retail market in
general. Firstly, we're talking about a significant amount of new funds, right, coming to generally like crypto market and also the portfolio.
And also there are more or less, let's say, how do I say, short game focus, but long term value focus.
You know, we see those names, whatever, like Keyrock, the Bitwise, Franken-Tempton,
BlackRock, A16Z, they definitely looking for the long term, they're betting long term gain,
not just short term gains. So it definitely provide not only the fund liquidity to the market,
not only the fund liquidity to the market,
but also a strong confidence about what you do
as a startup or as a project team like VeChain.
And we gain more interest about the market.
And also, I feel like it's kind of like the traditional finance market,
like a stock market, right? The institution kind of like the traditional finance market, like a stock market, right?
The institution kind of leading the way
because they have more sophisticated
and a professional capability
to evaluate any kind of portfolio,
any kind of projects.
So basically, they're looking at the fundamentals.
They could reveal what we are really doing and showing the potential,
showing the value, showing the future. So simply to say, whatever, like investing in the stock
market or investing in the crypto, it's like you buying for the future. And the institution
basically, setting up the good example, leading the ways with the insights, with the analysis, with the professional mechanism.
And it kind of, you know, make the job much easier for everyone.
So I would say it's definitely showing clear bullish signs for the entire crypto market and for sure for V-Chain as well.
Again, really helpful summary, Sonny.
Bullish, positive.
It's going to be a shakeup in some cases, right?
Seeing the difference between institutional investing reports versus YouTubers sharing their O-face on thumbnails across Twitter.
But it's going to be a good thing
overall. So I think I would agree with you. It's a positive. It is going to be a structural shift.
Yeah. But there we go. I want to pass to Johnny next. And before I do so, just for those listening
in, there will be Q&A towards the end of this spaces. So if you have questions for Sonny,
if you have questions for Johnny, if you want to learn more about what we're doing in the
institutional space, hang on till the end. We are going to get to Q&A after
we go through. So stick with us and there'll definitely be chances for questions and we'll
do the best we can to answer those within our ability and within anything we're clear to talk
about. With that in mind, Johnny, for those people who don't know Johnny, he is our head of
institutional strategy. Johnny is responsible for facing daily against our institutional partners, the markets, Wall Street, technical partners, and a whole bunch more.
If you don't know Johnny, get to know.
Johnny, for those people who don't know, what does engaging with institutions mean from a Web3 perspective?
Could you just start off with a little bit of like five minute introduction to what do you do for a day job? I know it's very diverse and it's very, you know, goes from very
many different corners of our world, but just maybe to help the audience understand a little bit,
what do you get up to on a day-to-day basis? Coffee all the time in the Wall Street.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a little bit of that. And sometimes off Wall Street too.
I think most of the time, preferably to be off Wall Street. But, you know, therein lies part of the issue is that, you know, gravity tends to have a direction towards the center of the object. So therefore, I do unfortunately spend an insurmountable time in New York City. But Anthony, thanks. Thanks. Thanks for the intro. I feel like there are a number of folks that I've certainly, I see some familiar faces here, if you want to call it that, but handles, I'll go with that.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Johnny Garcia. I lead our institutional strategy, if you will, and capital markets efforts here for the VeChain Foundation.
So what does that mean? This may be a bit repetitive for some of the
folks in the audience, but so I will be brief and then we can sort of get into the meat and potatoes
of what we're here to discuss here. On one side of the mandate, if you will,
right, on one side of the things that I primarily focus on, it's like markets and trading,
right? So we have a renowned established team, honestly, that does a lot of the face forward exchanges and
interactions directly with centralized exchanges, right? Where do I come into the mix? There is a
whole host of folks that provide a certain type of value there. We refer to them as liquidity
providers and market makers, right? So these are the folks that are, when in doubt, these are the folks that are when in doubt.
And these are the folks that are standing in to fill the gap. Right.
And so what do I mean by that? So when spread starts to to to to widen, when volatility starts to starts to ban out, these are the folks that are they're they're actively engaged in contract, if you will, to to in the middle, to stand the gap, right, to be a ballast to a certain extent from allowing volatility in that like to run amok on exchanges.
So these are folks that I spend quite a bit of time getting up to speed on what they're seeing, what's the latest deal activity, how are they engaging with other potential foundations or labs who are supporting other projects and the like, and just trying to stay top of mind for what they're seeing and how they're thinking about market dynamics. Now,
why is that important from our perspective? One, we constantly want to make sure that we're
maintaining a pulse in the market, right? So when we think about institutional capital,
I think about institutional capital, and I do refer to these specifically as qualified buyers,
right? So these are codified, and as much as I know we may dislike this, but this is codified in regulation and various jurisdictions, right? So here in the U.S., where I live, we tend to refer to these as accredited investors, if you will, right? So folks who meet a certain set of criteria to satisfy more what regulators have historically referred to as more speculative
investing, if you will. So that's where I spend a lot of my time. And time horizon is the one
thing that really distinguishes these two folks. So folks who are looking to trade,
I'd categorize those in very short-term form capital, right? Looking for trading opportunities, whether it's arbitrage or look, well, said differently, looking for low risk, I wouldn't call them riskless opportunities
that exist in the market to trade that out, to make money, right? And then the other one, which,
you know, this is where I spend the majority of my time, Sonny and Anthony's alluded to,
is more long-term strategic capital. And when I think about these folks, these are folks who their primary role is to manage risk. We talk about money, the value of
money, what is money, what is value. Their job, whether it's fiduciary or proprietary,
managing their own balance sheet or managing on behalf of others, their own capital or managing on behalf of others, is largely focused on the following. How do I take a long-term view
on a particular opportunity and then manage the risk throughout that opportunity until it
materializes? So I'm constantly evangelizing, if you will, about all the things that are happening
on VeChain, Visa Visa, Be Better DAO, for instance, V-World, all the activity and obviously like most perhaps
unique is the historical track record that we have, right? Like this is not a group of folks
who have gone about this willy-nilly looking for short-term opportunities. This is a group of folks
who have been deliberate about the steps that we take and the way in which we deploy the foundation's resources.
And the more and more that you continue to spend time with these folks, the more and more that you endear yourself and engender yourself to these individuals to where they understand, oh, I fundamentally get the long-term view here.
I fundamentally get the value proposition the unique selling by position
here and why it is different from insert name here um then that trust but that trust
ultimately um belies uh unique strategic opportunities so that was a lot to say but i
think if i were to sort of like just reduce it to a couple of things, it's markets and trading.
So looking for ways in which we can support that VTHO better on existing exchanges or new exchanges, partnering with the right liquidity providers and market makers who are good actors and establish best practices in this space.
And on the second item is looking for financial services partners who are actively looking for unique opportunities in the market.
Right. And that's where I think we stand out. So I'll pause there. Hopefully, Anthony, that was on
point and not to, hopefully, somewhat de-jargonized, if you will.
Always on point, Johnny. And hopefully that's a helpful introduction to those listening in. Sonny,
I might bring you back for a second here to talk about the longer term story, not just in terms of enabling trading and being present in
markets, but as we go through the Renaissance, as we go past Stargate and with the higher boost of
vote coming soon, we're actually seeing partners, institutional partners coming to VeChain for the
long term to become validators.
You know, talk to me a little bit about the conversations that you're having or help allude to the community that actually we're not just having transactional relationships
with these giant institutions.
It's much bigger than that, right?
Yeah, of course.
I mean, when we think about institutions, they care or when they're looking at the portfolio,
looking at the opportunity of investment, they look, or when they're looking at the portfolio, looking at the opportunity
of investment, they look at the different things.
Generally speaking, for sure, as we said, long term, right?
They look at the long term value creation.
They understand when you try to build something, when you try to, you know, do with any kind
of new technology, going to take time and effort to build the emperor.
And so they're looking at the different type of, let's say, fundamentals, more than just
liquidity, more than just trading volume, the market cap, those type of, let's say,
fundamentals, but also they're looking at, they're asking the question like, what kind of problem
fundamentals. But also they're looking at, they're asking the question like,
you want to solve? And why it's you? What's your edge? What's your capability? What's your unique
part, you know, could make it successful eventually to take it? And also they also study, I feel like,
you know, when we're talking to those institutions, I feel like I'm back to a few years ago where we start like the fundraising.
So starting always like, OK, what's your opportunity statement?
Like what kind of the opportunity you're looking at?
Like how big of the market of the future?
And then follow up like what kind of the problem?
What's your problem statement?
What kind of problem you want's your problem statement what kind
of problem you want to solve you want to address and then follow up okay tell me your solution
your solution statement right why your solution can address this kind of a problem and the last
but not least is the capability statement like why is you so basically you know i feel like it's more
So basically, you know, I feel like it's more sophisticated.
It's more professional.
Basically, they're looking at the investment to, they want it to be part of your growth journey.
They want to be not just, I mean, yeah, every investor is, whatever is retail institutions,
always looking for the profits. But I would say the differences
between the long-term and short-term
is the institutions are carrying
more than just financial returns.
But simply to say,
they also want to be proud of this type of investment
once you achieve something.
you achieve something once let's say the project taking this kind of uh let's say um the the funds
Once, let's say, the project taking this kind of,
injecting into the market and eventually lead us to somewhere so they are more than just wanting
to invest the money into the project but also you know giving the whatever they can do to support
the ecosystem growth so i i would consider it's more than just an investor,
but also some kind of this builder as well.
I like that.
That's where we go from investors into partners, right?
Sorry, Johnny, go ahead.
I was going to say, if I could just add in,
weigh in really quickly.
Sorry, Anthony.
I know we've got a set objective,
but I really want to sort of like push home this point, which is to be abundantly clear.
I mean, there are like to Sonny's point, right?
There's a number of folks out here who are fundamentally, again, looking for a trade.
And I think it's important for us to continue to have a pulse in the market to where you can sess that out, because oftentimes what's presented to you as in gold wrapping is you know what once unraveled. So I think oftentimes it's having those direct
relationships, having multiple conversations, understanding when folks are asking the right
questions around what are our fundamentals, what's user growth, what is the end state here,
what is the pathway to monetization, how are you all thinking about VBetterDAO, vis-a-vis the lens of this enterprise plus consumer application lens?
Those are the kind of questions that we would expect for someone who's actually looking to
potentially have a long-term commitment. One. Two is the obvious one. When you think about risk here,
Two is the obvious one. When you think about risk here, I don't want to belabor this point too much because I feel like it's getting way too much. It's probably getting more airtime than it needs to, but I think it is justified.
progress being made on the regulatory front from clarity around memes to
clarity around staking,
to clarity around liquid staking to the,
from the sec's division of finance to where things should be sitting as it
relates to commodity versus security.
But it has happened at a speed that I don't think anyone could have possibly
fathomed. That's one. Just because it's happened though,
does not mean immediately folks can just turn a switch on and then opportunities just start, you know, coming out, flooding, flooding from the heavens.
That's, that's, that's not exactly how this happens. Right. I mean, take, take just in my
prior life, take no, no further look than looking at spot Bitcoin ETPs available in the U S right.
Launched in January, one of the most successful January last year, one of the most successful, January last year, one of the most successful launches by both volume, by both capital attraction, all that jazz.
But when you really started to look at, oh, when are the Morgan Stanley's wealth manager, wealth management team starting to actually make it available on a unsolicited basis on their platform?
We're talking about three quarters, a full year later. So there's
a lot that needs to happen well above and beyond just, oh, well, you know what? We've got clarity
now. Let's move. No, there's a lot of outfits that now have to reconfigure how they have their
internal SOPs, right? Center operating procedures before they can actually start listing new products.
For us, I keep going back to regulatory clarities here.
That's great.
Now we've got to get the trading in size right.
Now we've got to get the return requirements right.
Now we have to fully commit to engaging this audience in a way that they fundamentally appreciate being engaged,
because they have a requirement
to offer up differentiated streams of return.
What does that mean?
They need to look different from the rest of the market.
Otherwise, it's a crowded trade.
Their return and risk profile goes down.
And that means they're not offering something that's differentiated.
So we have to continue to look to those partners
as not only an opportunity to evangelize V-Chain,
but then also, more importantly, to articulate why we think that we're a differentiated source
of return.
And so that's the only thing I wanted to add to what Sonny was sharing.
Sorry, Anthony.
I'll pass the mic back over.
That's a really helpful build.
And again, institutions are still storefronts.
They still have to sell product to customer. We'll use more sophisticated wording, or it'll
sound a little bit more razzle dazzle when you describe trades or products or structured or
synthetics or whatever word that they tend to use. And I'm not from this world, so it confuses me
oftentimes also. But ultimately, they still want to have differentiation. They've still got to have
a differentiated product. And that's where we look to work together. So let's go a level deeper. Johnny, Sonny, last week, or week before
last rather, we went through an announcement of three institutions that we're working with at
Bchain, BitGo, Keyrock, Franklin, Templeton. I want to go one by one. And obviously, we will only
go as far as to talk to things that we've been clear to say.
These are institutions, so there are strict requirements around compliance, strict requirements around what we are able to talk about is happening now versus what the longer term roadmap is.
So for those listening in who want all the alpha, who want the inside view, this is the institutional world now.
Some of the alpha is restricted by confidentiality agreements,
but we'll try and get to as much as we can share.
Suffice it to say, those three are definitely
institutions we're working with.
Johnny, which one do you wanna pick first?
You know what?
Why don't we go with the,
I'll just go in the order that you mentioned it.
Why don't we do that?
And I was gonna caveat here with, you know,
oftentimes obfuscation is actually is the objective on occasion.
And what we're trying to do is remove that level of the lack of transparency.
Right.
But yeah, I mean, we can go in the order that you shared.
We could start with BitGo, which I think is a major unlock for VeChain.
lock for VeChain. And I think to a certain extent, this may not be as relevant or what's the word,
as broadly appreciated, I think, outside of the institutional landscape, if you will.
So first and foremost, when we think about how tokens are custodied, when you're engaging directly with someone who is, again, managing prop or managing on behalf of others, they have to account for the ownership of an asset through the entire life of that asset, whether it's from origination to distribution to trading to to subsequent redemption, right? So if you at any point in time are playing a role,
particularly in a fiduciary capacity, right?
So on behalf of someone else, you have to account for that.
We have that in traditional markets, if you will, right?
Traditional securities like bonds and, excuse me, inequities, right?
ETP, things that trade on exchanges,
the same is effectively a requirement for tokens.
And so BitGo allows us to do that in a way that is not only compliant, but it's modernized our
ability to engage with an audience that historically likes to do a couple of things. One, they want to
stay out of the hairs of regulators, right?
They don't want anyone coming
and knocking on their doors, that's one.
But then two, there's downstream effects
in the form of now that you've got network effects,
cause you're on one of the largest and oldest
and most reputable token or digital asset,
custodial providers or service providers in the space,
there's ways in which you can now
think about how can I be much more capital efficient with my existing tokens, with my
existing fiat, with my existing stables. And so this is a major unlock, right? It's consistent
with how we've operated historically, right? Which is prioritizing being compliant,
it historically, right? Which is prioritizing being compliant, prioritizing being a reputable
and good actor in the space, and then partnering with those who also have equal status is how I
see sort of this big go unlock. So I'll pause there and I'm happy to sort of float directly
to the other ones, but I just, I really want to just hit home that custody is important, right?
Like, I mean, historically, well, we know
the mantra here, right? Not your keys, not your wallet. But there are a number of folks who don't
want to have to go through the process that you and I go through when we have to remember mnemonic
phrases. And, you know, it's comfortable for them to just be able to say, hey, you know what,
I know that this is safeguarded in a format that is familiar to me. Why do I need to dedicate another second, let alone another week, month,
stand up an entire team to figure out this process, right? Like why would I do that when
I can say, hey, you know what? Now the risk is appropriately accounted for, one. And then two,
it's also insured. So what you do have is for assets that are in these qualified custodies,
they also have fidelity insurance, right?
So they have insurances up to, you know,
billions of dollars for assets under custody. Um, so I, I, again, I want to,
I just want to just pause there for a second,
cause I do think that it's,
it's worth taking a moment to applaud everyone that's been involved to
getting that across the line, one.
And then I think, two, understanding that this is a modernization and it's one that's for better.
Yeah, Johnny, actually, I can elaborate a little bit for the VFAM guys.
Actually, what does it mean for a custodian, especially a regulatory custodian,
it kind of build up the new infrastructure for any new investors coming on board,
especially for institutions.
I mean, it's not like, let's say, retail guys, where you think about,
oh, I want to invest in VET.
I want to set up the V-chain validator.
So basically, I just find a technical
guy, set up the nodes and prepare for 25 million of that, and then I can run it. And I receive the
rewards from the protocol every week and then try to liquidate or whatever. So that's a retail
operation. But for any institution, for any company wants to do that,
they need to have a regulatory infrastructure provider like BitGo. So basically, they will
sign up the deal and, you know, leaving the money, the funds to the service provider and
run that for the institutions. Not mentioning about even the way you try to build up
the platform like for RWA
or you want to play any kind of,
any applications in the crypto side.
It's not just getting a finance guy
from the financial department or technical department,
try to do it, run it in your company organization? No.
You got to go through the custodian providers to do that for you. So that's the difference
in the institutional world. So which means BigGo is our bridge to more investors. Actually,
I already got several, you got several institutions coming from Europe,
coming from Switzerland, asking like, oh, when we can set up the validators, when we can do this,
when we can do that. So it's a different word. So that's I wanted to elaborate a bit for the
VFAM guys. Sonny, it's a great distinction. Yeah. Being certified and regulated is the
distinction here. Yeah. Not just providing custody or self-custody, right? The distinction
here is, do some of these folks have ledgers? Sure. But again, being able to account for it
in a regulated way requires you, it precipitates you to be listed and integrated onto a platform
that has the bank charters trust certifications
and are regulated in certain jurisdictions.
So, yeah, so that's totally, it's a great distinction.
It's like, let's say, when you are trying to send some money
to somebody else for something,
and as an individual, you can just do it, right? You go to the bank, you send the money to somebody else for something and as an individual you can just do it
right you you go to the bank you send the money to someone and you just do it but in the company
when the company try to send the money to another company um then you gotta have a cashier you gotta
have a content you gotta have a cfo for approval um then you gotta do to do it in the system with professional process.
That's just a different approach.
Yeah.
As I said, it may not be the most exciting one, but I wanted to start with that because
I do think that it's a material unlock for us, both in terms of being in a venue where
there are lots of institutions doing really interesting things,
but then also naturally where they custody and feel like they have safe harbor.
But then secondly, one of the things that you did touch on, Sunny, is the validator side of things, right?
So many of you I'm sure are familiar with also validators as a service.
Like to be able to do that from the position of having your assets co-located on a platform where it's custody in a code manner, but you can have read access that points to that for the purposes of facilitating trading or for the purposes of standing up validator operations is important.
And that's also something that you know the baker relationships
brings to the table uh why do i bring that up that like yes you could do this with others yes
perhaps you can run it on your own pc uh but again doing it on a platform that is certified it has it
it has a constant connectivity with regulators is important to make sure that you know you don't risk
your business uh the second the second the second one that you don't risk your business. The second one that
you brought up here, Anthony, I want to touch on as well is KeyRock. Look, KeyRock has been
one of the darling up and coming, if you want, I would say financial service proxies within
crypto. That's how I would articulate it. I know one of the visions that they articulate
quite heavily is that they wanna be
the Goldman Sachs of crypto.
But while I'm not here to opine specifically
on like their vision or the way they sort of characterize
that in their vision statement,
they've, these are partners who first and foremost,
they bought into the vision.
These are partners who said, hey, you know what?
We do this wholesale.
We're not just looking to come in, make markets, trade, and get out.
We want to make sure that we're appropriately exposed to VeChain in a way that makes us benefit from what we see from a fundamental lens as
being a really active and burgeoning ecosystem that's providing something that's unique and
different from the others that we see in this space.
And also, we'd love to be able to participate in that in the form of being a client, right?
Being a validator client. And so we see Keyrock as another opportunity to do
a couple of things, right? On the options and perp side, right? We're going to have a much
more active market in the form of bringing someone who's institutional, who's qualified,
who's done this across multiple other platforms and places, who's one of the largest, I think,
is the largest DB Deutsche Bank client on the crypto side.
This is a really, this is a really, really unique partnership and a really interesting opportunity for us to partner with someone that wanted to take a long, sort of long-term
perspective and view on VeChain.
So this is what I think of as like, when we think about how do we equip VeChain to be
qualified for institutional, not only trading and services, but then also for holding, for expressing a view.
This was another sort of tool in the toolkit that we're excited to sort of bring in.
And then the last one I'll touch on here really quickly and then I'll sort of open the floor is Franklin Templeton.
So like the foundation itself has been a client
of the Franklin Templeton Benji platform.
I, pardon me, I do not have the dates written down
on my legal form here, but legal pad,
excuse me, not form legal pad.
But look, we've been in conversation with the team
around how can we potentially leverage
and spotlight Benji in a really interesting use case above and beyond what we've seen so far with tokenized money markets
and tokenized treasury funds, right? And historically, if you look, I mean, you could
take a look at RWA, you can take a look at other platforms. It's quite interesting seeing what happens with
these sort of tokenized treasury offerings once they're introduced to a new network.
Essentially, it's not like you're seeing a ton of growth. Maybe you're seeing a lot in the form,
I mean, certainly not in the form of size, certainly not above and beyond market appreciation, right? So like we
need to also appreciate that that's happening, but you're not seeing new accounts that are coming on.
You're not seeing a lot of vibrant ecosystems that are actually deploying this in a way that
we think is really interesting. So we have proposed or came up with the idea of, hey,
you know what? And maybe Sonny, you can allude to this a little bit better than I can,
articulate this a little bit better than I can.
But we have existing partnerships and relationships
that we think we can bring to the ecosystem
to help with business-to-business transfers,
to satisfy existing expenses and liabilities
that we have on the foundation side.
And why not use this as a
really interesting opportunity to spotlight it in a way that's fundamentally different than,
hey, you know what, we've packaged it and put it on our balance sheet just to say we've done that.
Yeah, definitely. Johnny, you're right. Actually, the institutions, especially like
Frank and Tempton, they're not just looking for a customer or just looking for a user.
They're actually looking for, also looking for the opportunity to innovate with the crypto, with the Web3 technologies.
So I cannot say much as well.
Otherwise, you know, let's say the following those kind of the PR policy, but we're working on that.
The only thing I can say is our advisor, official advisor,
Dana Wai actually really make a great help to support us,
you know, to explore more opportunity, not only for VeChain,
but also for Franklin Temptate, for Benji token.
Love it.
Love it.
Uh-oh, did we lose Anthony?
We did not.
Oh, okay.
Just making sure that the steady stream of alpha and the steady stream of learnings
for the non-institutionally
educated has filtered through. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate you taking time to deep dive
on those. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have seen some of the announcements coming out a couple
of weeks ago. And another interesting challenge around communicating in Web3 in an institutional
world is the time it takes to go from signing deals, establishing partnerships, integrating technology to our ability to communicate that with the rest of the world.
So Johnny, on a regular basis, is facing off against compliance departments, is regularly trying to get approvals for press releases, for commentary, for being able to talk to you guys about what it is that we're doing so you can get excited so you can start taking the journey with us.
what it is that we're doing so you can get excited so you can start taking the journey with us so
sunny johnny thank you very much for taking time to deep dive into what we're currently working on
from the institutional side i hope those listening in have found this educational if you haven't or
if you want to hear more ask us we'll do this again as we get new partners as we get new
collaborations in the institutional space we want to talk about it more we want everybody to level up
as web3 starts moving more into that professionalized institutional space or as we start seeing more institutional participants and big names and brands in our space.
Not just the JP Morgans, not just the Black Rocks, but the others that you should get to know.
The Big Goes, the Key Rocks, the Franklin Templetons. These are names that we want you to hear regularly.
And we want you to understand, like we do, why they're valuable to us, why they're part of our ecosystem and our community as well.
We've reached that part of the show where it's time to open it up to questions.
So, VFAM, if you have any questions for Sonny or Johnny, please do request to speak.
Please do hit that button now.
We'll do our best to answer those questions based on what we have approved to be able to respond to.
Some things we can't talk about,
some forward-looking information
or things that haven't happened yet
is harder to talk about necessarily
than things that are happening today,
but we will do our best.
And if we're not able to speak on those things,
we will say so.
So I have a vet for Ireland.
Let's bring you up as a speaker
and you can have first shout.
Connecting now.
Vet4Island, are you with us? Can you hear us? Are you able to get your question across?
You hear us? Are you able to get your question across?
Or are we still connecting?
I'm seeing the wheel going round, but I'm not seeing any motion just yet.
So hold your horses.
Let's get Flame up here. Flame, you're going to come in next.
So Flame, can you connect? Are you able to get in?
Flame is a speaker.
And Flame, don't talk about your tattoo, please.
Sonny, you bring it up more than me, man.
GM, GM.
Hey, guys, is it my turn to ask a question,
or is it Vet4Island first?
You go, you go.
You jump in.
Vet4Island is still connecting, so we're working on it.
Okay, great.
Well, first off, awesome space.
I really like having Johnny on here.
Sonny's awesome, but having another person who gives us insight is awesome.
I'm part of the VFAM that you guys are trying to communicate the institutional side of things to. So it's like, I think this space underlines the importance of
translating that to us, right? I really appreciate that. And I look forward to these spaces happening
more often so we can all learn as a community and then we can kind of translate our social media
presence to those focus points, right? Like I never heard of Franklin Templeton until a week ago. So
this is awesome. I appreciate it.
My question is for Sonny Liu, and it is the thoughts on the new UFC announcement.
They're stepping away from pay-per-view and signed a deal with Paramount.
I know that it's one of VeChain's bigger sponsorship-type brand deals.
Dana White's an ambassador for VeChain.
We have VBetterDAO ads on the Jumbotron in the arenas. My question to you is, Sonny, a year or two out now, how are you looking at the
value of that partnership? And what are your thoughts on the new pay-per-view announcement,
if you have any? Thanks. Well, actually, I just got the message from Dana himself this morning to learn about this news.
He got pumped up for sure.
It's a huge, let's say, progress.
Dana pulled this deal.
I think it's about seven years,
more than a billion dollars deal with Paramount.
And simply to say, you're going to amplify the exposure of the UFC and also good to all of the, let's say, the UFC partners like VeChain.
And for sure, we're sitting in the front row about that.
As a matter of fact, the next milestone event in New York,
it's going to be named as a V-Chain UFC.
It's not just like UFC 3 something.
It's going to be V-Chain UFC as a title.
So I would say it's great channel expansion
for exposure, for our branding,
for our, you know, outreaching more users.
We're looking for, I'm really excited about that.
Yeah, Dan, I was excited about that.
I say congrats.
He say thank you, my brother.
We're going to have a lot of shit, great shit to be coming up.
VeChain, Johnny, Sonny, thank you guys for having me up, man.
Awesome space.
Really proud to be VFAM. Loving the wallet loving the partnerships keep it up guys thanks
thank you sir appreciate that we're gonna get up paid xpo from the crypto breakfast club
let's see if we can get you up onto the space paid xpo can you hear us
oh i can hear you, baby.
You just letting anyone on stage down up here.
What's up?
All right.
What's your question, sir?
How can we help?
Yep.
Sonny, first of all, Johnny, it's a pleasure, Anthony.
Sonny, absolutely ecstatic.
Thank you for the tickets for the giveaway for our show, Crypto Breakfast Club.
Best show of the morning.
Can't wait to have you back, Sonny.
We love you.
I got to give myself a small plug here.
Listen, I want another VeChain space.
Make it happen, Sonny.
If y'all didn't know, Sonny and I are best friends.
We have pictures of us hugging and, you know, holding hands and sitting in Toronto.
So listen, we're best friends, me and Sonny.
But listen, on a serious note, a serious question, real quick.
For institutions that are trying to get into VeChain, let me get serious.
Paydex bill is not serious, but I want to be serious for a second.
For institutions trying to get into VeChain and partner up with you guys, what are some of the risks that they are assessing when they reach out to you guys to talk about this?
Like, what's something they're looking at?
Like, oh, like, I'm not sure about this.
What's going on here?
You mentioned earlier about compliance.
What's some of that stuff? What do you got? Sonnyny you want me to go first well you can go all right i'm happy i'm
happy to take this one paid exp i'm loving the energy man uh i'm here baby yo listen johnny i
want you on the crypto breakfast club they're in the room come to our show come hang out sonny was
there sonny dunzo dunzo get over here i'll dm you or you dm me figure it out
he only turns up if there's muffins by the way so you better put on a spread
listen i'll bring some fucking muffins bro you like blueberry i got you bro i got you
uh consider it consider it done consider it done yeah i mean look here here's here's what i can
share right i will say per conversation is different, but there tends to be some commonality, right? And first and foremost, the very first one tends to be around portfolio position in trading, right? So what's the size? What's the opportunity? How can I potentially manage my risk all the all the sort of traditional things you would you would contemplate uh or that you
could potentially sort of like explore here is exactly the the list of questions that i have
right what's the size on exchanges how much can they potentially take down um you know is there
is where's the perps market where's the funding rate like if i start potentially holding a position
for too long you know then then we're looking at a funding rate that's roughly i think it was at i can't remember if it was like seven or anyways the short of it is is it it starts out with tell me how can i manage
this trade over some time horizon and each of them are different right um so i i liked i have
to at least lead off with that because if it's a look if it's a two-month opportunity if it's a
six-month opportunity if it's a one-year if it's a long term uh which they're not you know it's less expressive or it's
less um it's less codified right in terms of a commercial arrangement uh but then then we start
we start having to figure out okay look like is this is this the size that i can actively
potentially manage that's one two like is this is this a differentiated stream of return
to my portfolio right if it's something that has a beta of one to eat to sold to like then why would
i why would i potentially take on an added risk uh with little to no additional contribution to
return right so like again all the sort of traditional portfolio construction position
sizing trading and and and risk management questions
start off on the front end. That's one particular cohort, right? The other cohort is asking about,
okay, I love this VBetterDAO idea. I love the milestones that you have set. It looks like you
guys are making tremendous progress. What I can see on chain is impressive yes i think it's about time it's great that you all are doing this
modernization to the tokenomics i think it's great that you're shifting to delegated stake
all that's great but tell me how are you going to shift from top 50 to top 30. how are you going to
shift it up to that next to that to that next um how are you going to shift it up a delta of another 10 spots on the market cap adjust it for you know your stables and your
memes right and that's and that's and that's a question that you know usually this is when i
tend to sort of weave in sunny or antonio or some other folks from from from that side of the house
but um you know those are two those are the two main cords that i deal with and as you can see
the the sets of questions are very different.
Sonny, I'll let you weigh in here.
I see you come off of a speaker.
Well, actually, I just wanted to use two live case with the conversations,
like for the conversation with different type of institutions.
One is I remember we had a meeting with, it was a Nasdaq team or, yeah, maybe it's a Nasdaq team or some index company in BCG office.
I was asking the CEO, right?
Oh, yeah.
S&P.
S&P, S&P.
And I was asking like, okay, other than Bitcoin, if you wanted to invest any portfolio, what do you look at?
What kind of the, you know, risk you are carrying?
The first answer was surprise me.
He asked like, OK, I can ask for the longevity because whatever your story is good, your delivery now is impressive.
But how long you have been doing this?
How can you prove you have, you know, devotion, you have consistency to continue to run for
long term?
And, you know, VT got the best answer.
We have been here for seven, eight years and never went out, you know, 100% availability
and keep doing, keep upgrading.
We released three times
white paper to keep iterating ourselves in the second case second example is actually um you know
from one of our um institutional partner potential institutional partner actually johnny you were in
the call it was like like farthest conversation ever.
They asked for us, you know, they asked a couple of questions,
and we started to respond like, oh, we just passed the MECA compliance.
They say, which token?
We say VAT and VESO together through the Central Bank of Ireland.
Then the next thing we hear is, oh, okay, we're going to send you the term sheet. Let's walk from there. No more questions. So what I'm saying, like the
compliance, be compliance, be regulatory, be regulated is actually answer lots of the risk
concerns from the institutional investors.
Nice, guys.
Thank you, Sonny.
Thank you, Johnny, for weighing in on that one.
Thank you for the Crypto Breakfast Club guys for tuning in and for bringing that breakfast energy with them.
Johnny probably has to dip in about four minutes, so we might go into the quickfire round if
that's possible.
So we've got a couple of requests.
Crypto X, I've seen you've been hanging around for a little while waiting to ask your question.
So what would you like to cover, please, sir?
All right. Can you hear us? Crypto X, what's your question?
Hey, good afternoon. Good evening, everyone.
So this question is for the panel, maybe Sonny can answer it. First of all, I've been a bag holder for a long time with VeChain. I love
the product, the sustainability. I love what you guys are doing with the VBetter DAO, all
the new features on the wallet, the new staking protocol. My question is, I am a visually impaired person. I have
retinitis pigmentosa. I'm losing my vision. What is anyone in the blockchain industry
working on this issue for people that are visually impaired, which is like 1.2 million
in the US and I think like 23 million worldwide. Is anybody working on any kind of extension or application that would allow
visually impaired people to participate in this, uh, epic, uh,
industry and, uh, the rollover of technology.
Wow. Thank you very much.
I really appreciate everything you guys are doing.
Well, sorry to hear that, um feel for you um but honestly i think uh there were lots of the use cases actually one of the initiative i am driving personally is to leveraging a
potential partner again also thanks to dna why as an official advisor, set up the connection,
you know, to, let's say, not specifically on a blockchain, but let's say putting together with
AI, with variable devices to allow the user, you know, with any kind of, let's say, challenge in any kind of way to still be participate,
participate the applications. Let's say you can use your voice command to do something,
you know, and leveraging with AI power to be to really into the applications to be,
you know, feel like normal. So actually just be a patient a bit.
We are working on the second version of white paper of VBetterDAO. You know, VBetterDAO has been,
let's say, taking on more than a year. And I would say we did quite a good job from zero to one,
that kind of phase.
We're getting something started.
And like I mentioned, you know, 40 something applications,
4 million users so far.
But for sure, we're never satisfied with that.
And we're going to have a new roadmap of vBetterDAO
and also with VeChain, you know,
to leveraging and integrating heavily
with AI, but not just like, you know, narrative. We have a real roadmap to identify how we're
going to integrate AI in a different way, in a different stage to bring more accessibility and
utility to anybody to be part of the DAO,
to be part of the sustainability ecosystem,
and be part of the game, just feel normal.
So yeah, be patient.
We're going to deliver something very soon.
Nice one, Sunny. Really nice response.
And again, the closer Web3 gets to the app ecosystem,
the way that people engage with Web3 through applications, the closer we get to being able to enable accessibility in all of the ways that we do today with the modern web.
Web3 shouldn't be different.
We should be experiencing it.
We should be meeting users where they are.
There shouldn't necessarily be a special Web3 user experience or user interface.
We want it to be seamless.
And so that's going to be a big part of the journey.
So thank you, Sunny, for that. we'll do maybe one more quick question maybe we can get to if
they can do one line answers but vr 007 you're up as a speaker what was your question please
uh hi there um yeah just basically um i work in london i work in finance i work for technology
vendors that do portfolio management systems um so we work with various like institutional clients
and asset managers um i'm just wondering in terms of like what's the possibility of like sort of
increasing the chance of sort of getting that sort of maybe like an etf uh sort of based on vechain
and especially as you have that unique selling point in terms of their esg narrative which is
very important here in europe in terms of like
what that's what most asset managers now i see because i speak to these guys every day i speak
to the distribution people i speak to portfolio portfolio managers i speak to chief investment
officers and they're very much focused in these funds releasing funds and etfs on this esg based
narrative i think that's where vechain has a really good unique selling point trying to introduce and trying to get a sort of um more presence as trying to get that etf more on boarded
in terms in europe and also in the us as well well uh short answer is everything is possible
yeah um let's put this way um actually the uh you different type of the products, or let's call it as channel,
to VeChain is more like expanded to more investors, expanded to more funds, more money
from the market. So, ETP, ETF, even the DAT, like Digital Assets Treasury Company Opportunity,
I would just say everything is possible. But you are being
on the finance side for a long time, I guess. You understand the rules of how to,
following the PR rules, following the policy, don't touch the nerves of the regulators,
that kind of stuff. But simply to say, you know the previous job of johnny before he joined v chain i know
johnny has to go to another meeting but johnny was the product manager product director for
bitcoin etf for bitwise it says a lot so you got experience you I've got skills, I've got capability, I've got connections. So everything is possible.
But fundamentally, I would say still building our stuff, building our products,
focusing on the user growth will, you know, let's say leading to any kind of possibility,
any kind of opportunities.
And, you know, then just waiting for when market is ready when you know the inquiries
or requests is enough and then you know we just pull the trigger yeah okay yeah no basically i'm
just saying that in just terms and it's important to start forming those relationships because you
have that good narrative you have that yes esg narrative it's very big here in europe and
especially trying to get in more in contact with maybe some of the London asset managers
or UK asset managers,
which is like the second financial district after New York.
So I'm just sort of saying it from my experience
and from my work knowledge.
I know there's a big demand in terms of this ESG narrative ETFs
that are going to come out,
especially with regulations
and more sort
of asset managers need to comply with this ESG narrative.
And that's where I think VeChain has really good sort of fundamental sort of advantage
in terms of trying to get maybe ESG narrative ETF based on VeChain and stuff like this.
You got it right.
You got it right.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
Guys, we've come to the hour mark.
We've already lost Johnny. He's had to go
back into the market or back onto Wall Street or wherever it is that he's gone to. I want to say
a huge thank you to Johnny for taking as much of the time to join the VFAM today as he did. Sonny,
as always, your commitment to the cause is unwavering. And thank you for being generous
with your time as well. Thank you, everybody who joined in. Thank you, everybody. Thank you,
Anthony. And thank you to myself. And for anybody, if you if you enjoyed this, if you want more content, if you want more institutional deep dives, you want to learn more about this particular side of Web3.
It isn't intuitive for many. It is interesting and fascinating when you get under the skin of it.
If you want more of this, please do tweet us. Please do reply to this particular spaces and do ask your questions for Sonny and Johnny
if you didn't get those asked today,
at the guys in the comments
and we'll try and get back to you guys as best we can.
Thanks everybody and have a great rest of your day
wherever you are.
Thank you guys.
And as a final thought,
don't forget the Hayabusa vote is coming.
Oh yeah.
Next week, get onto vvote.vchain.org. Go check out the proposal. We do want the VFAM
to be participating and actively involved in the voting process. So as a final thought,
as a final action to you guys, please do make sure you check it out. Check the link out. Check
the proposal out on X, on our official page, and go to vvote.vchain.org and vote.
And also, if anyone is close by to Wyoming, Jackson Hole,
I will be in the thought conference to have a panel over there,
talk about the uniqueness of any blockchain utility,
blockchain applications.
So for sure, also with loads of the meeting arranged by Johnny
to talk to the different institutional investors as well.
So keep our work going. And if you close by, nearby, you want to say hello, come over, we hang out.
Now there's an invitation. All right, everybody, we'll call it there.
Thanks for a great spaces and have a great rest of your day.
Thank you. Bye.
