WEBVTT NOTE Open Interest — drake-evans-agora. Draft: automatic transcript (faster-whisper small.en) of the released edit, automatic speaker assignment (resemblyzer, 2 speakers), corrections applied from the editorial glossary and OCR of the burned-in captions. Not yet reviewed line by line. 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.800 Oh, welcome to Panoramic Content Suite Singapore Token2049 edition. 2 00:00:05.340 --> 00:00:08.800 We have Drake Evans, co-founder and CTO of Agora. 3 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:09.720 Welcome. 4 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:12.540 Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to be here with us. 5 00:00:13.260 --> 00:00:15.960 We got the Token2049 conference happening F1 going on. 6 00:00:16.340 --> 00:00:18.680 Nice hazy backdrop of MBS in the back. 7 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:19.480 Yeah. 8 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:21.160 Welcome on. 9 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:21.900 Thank you. 10 00:00:22.300 --> 00:00:22.620 Yeah, cool. 11 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:23.420 Excited to be here. 12 00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:24.280 Likewise. 13 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:29.800 Yeah, wanted to kick off the podcast with kind of a self introduction from yourself. 14 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:33.600 Wanted to learn more about how did you end up where you're today and with Agora? 15 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:39.760 Yeah, I mean, the story is kind of an interesting one, but also one that's normal for crypto. 16 00:00:39.900 --> 00:00:41.080 I started off working in finance. 17 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:44.180 I was working in private equity, special situations fund, 18 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:49.900 Decided I wanted to do software, went to ADP, was working there for a few years. 19 00:00:51.020 --> 00:00:55.100 Had a really good friend who sort of was saying to me, you got to get into crypto, got to help build. 20 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:58.540 We started a small blockchain company 2019. 21 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:00.620 And then after that, it was at Frax. 22 00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:06.520 And while I was at Frax, a really good friend of mine came and said, you got to meet Nick. 23 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:08.680 He's, you know, wants to start a stablecoin company. 24 00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:10.880 I told him you were the best one to do it with. 25 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.000 So yeah, I got lunch with Nick. 26 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:19.120 And probably four or five months later, we were raising and the rest is history. 27 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:19.860 Nice. 28 00:01:20.380 --> 00:01:22.620 It's a crypto is a super fast moving space. 29 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:26.620 So I'm sure this is this timeline is a matter of months or yeah. 30 00:01:26.720 --> 00:01:28.080 Yeah, it's it's funny. 31 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:32.560 So Agora, technically, we incorporated October 13th of 2023. 32 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:34.080 So we're coming up on three years. 33 00:01:34.880 --> 00:01:35.100 Congratulations. 34 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:35.980 Thank you. 35 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:39.600 It feels like a both a lifetime and just a few weeks. 36 00:01:39.800 --> 00:01:40.040 Gotcha. 37 00:01:40.220 --> 00:01:40.600 Gotcha. 38 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:43.520 And you guys are live now. 39 00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:47.060 You can use AUSD on multiple chains. 40 00:01:48.160 --> 00:01:55.180 But maybe before we get into the details there, if we can get a brief introduction about Agora, AUSD or any other products that 41 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:56.060 You guys might have. 42 00:01:56.160 --> 00:02:03.900 Yeah, so really, AUSD and the Agora platform is really meant to be a single and sort of final entry point for internet native 43 00:02:03.900 --> 00:02:04.120 Month. 44 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:04.820 Right. 45 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:10.480 So whether you want access to earning on your float with AUSD, white-label issuance, 46 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:12.480 Wallets, 47 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:19.820 And soon with the OCC charter custody, US dollar bank accounts, you know, third party payments, other fiduciary activities. 48 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:26.040 So the whole idea is that, you know, whether you started your business yesterday, or you're doing, you know, 100 million dollars a month in 49 00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:28.760 Revenue, like Agora has the tools that you need. 50 00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:31.440 Yeah, so congratulations on the OCC charter. 51 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:37.460 I think that's a very unique path that you guys are taking compared to other stablecoin companies out there. 52 00:02:38.540 --> 00:02:39.780 Given that I was wondering, 53 00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:48.460 Maybe if you can provide a brief intro about explaining your core stablecoin stack, either regulatory stack, tech stack. 54 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:52.740 But basically, how do you guys differentiate yourself from other stablecoins out there? 55 00:02:53.100 --> 00:02:53.300 Yeah. 56 00:02:53.640 --> 00:02:57.000 So I think that one of the unique things that we did in the beginning was focus on the stable. 57 00:02:57.180 --> 00:03:01.340 So one of our, you know, key pitches from the very beginning was you want to be close to the metal. 58 00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:06.620 And I think that's always, you know, we started low and went sort of have grown upward. 59 00:03:07.160 --> 00:03:11.540 A lot of people start closer to the user, and they sort of need to rebuild the infrastructure as they go. 60 00:03:12.660 --> 00:03:18.080 This is actually, I think, going to be even more important as AI progresses, right? 61 00:03:18.200 --> 00:03:25.720 Because I think that the, it used to be that you take the building blocks, you organize them into a nice product that you can 62 00:03:25.720 --> 00:03:28.080 Then sell as like infrastructure, sell as a dev tool. 63 00:03:28.820 --> 00:03:32.080 But now that, you know, combining the LEGO pieces, people will do that themselves. 64 00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:34.400 The cost of doing that is just dropped a lot. 65 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:39.840 So our strategy has always been give people the LEGOs while at the same time 66 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:43.780 Having things pre-built for them so that they can do that. 67 00:03:43.880 --> 00:03:49.540 So I think for us, it's like we want to be the single and final entry point into, you know, internet-native businesses who need 68 00:03:49.540 --> 00:03:51.800 Financial products and financial services. 69 00:03:52.200 --> 00:03:52.400 Yeah. 70 00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:58.480 And so we want to be, you know, as AI sort of takes hold, I think you're going to see this sort of aggregation effect 71 00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:04.900 Where you're not competing on a slick UI, you're competing on fundamentally the things that can't be replicated. 72 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:07.860 And I think the OCC charter obviously plays into that. 73 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:12.060 Like licenses, you know, getting a license is not a token problem, right? 74 00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:13.060 Building software is a token problem. 75 00:04:13.500 --> 00:04:19.620 And so I would say that's really what differentiates us is really just starting at the lowest levels of the stack while at the same 76 00:04:19.620 --> 00:04:20.840 Time serving a little bit higher. 77 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:21.380 Right. 78 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:22.520 Well, that's great. 79 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:26.220 I think those are extremely, extremely valuable moats that you guys are building out. 80 00:04:26.760 --> 00:04:28.440 And you guys have the correct LEGO pieces. 81 00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:34.240 And now it's just about distribution, almost like through both B2C as well as B2B. 82 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:38.080 Like, I know I'm personally a user of crypto credit cards. 83 00:04:38.440 --> 00:04:38.900 I have multiple. 84 00:04:39.840 --> 00:04:44.500 I know that's really a hot trend right now, crypto rails payments. 85 00:04:45.300 --> 00:04:47.540 You mentioned agentic payments as well. 86 00:04:47.960 --> 00:04:49.800 I know that's in progress. 87 00:04:50.100 --> 00:04:54.040 I think I'm still not sure if I can trust my AI agent with payments yet. 88 00:04:54.500 --> 00:04:54.840 Well, yeah. 89 00:04:55.380 --> 00:04:57.500 Maybe give it a year or two and we'll. 90 00:04:57.520 --> 00:04:57.760 Absolutely. 91 00:04:58.000 --> 00:04:59.240 I think the models are only getting better, right? 92 00:04:59.240 --> 00:04:59.440 Yeah. 93 00:05:00.580 --> 00:05:05.500 So you guys are are you guys more focused on the AI agents or what's what's the future that you're betting? 94 00:05:06.020 --> 00:05:08.560 I think we're betting on two things. 95 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:15.780 One, that tokenization and stablecoins will eat an ever increasing portion of global financial. 96 00:05:16.460 --> 00:05:21.140 And it's actually we're at like one one hundredth of a percentage of penetration. 97 00:05:21.460 --> 00:05:23.720 You look at all global money and especially around payments. 98 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:26.940 So I'd say we're betting certainly on that. 99 00:05:26.940 --> 00:05:33.480 The other one is that you're going to have more the barriers to starting a business and to innovating are just lower. 100 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:37.380 So there's going to be more people entering the market, like top of funnel, right? 101 00:05:37.460 --> 00:05:39.380 There's going to be just more entrance in every space. 102 00:05:39.540 --> 00:05:40.400 Competition will increase. 103 00:05:40.980 --> 00:05:43.880 And also, and so you need to be able to serve. 104 00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:47.120 There's a lot of power in horizontal scaling, right? 105 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:52.420 Where in the same way that if you have an e-commerce site, you can go to Shopify on day one. 106 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:58.200 You can stay there until, you know, they both offer the like ease. 107 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:01.700 There's a very low effort to value in the very beginning. 108 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:03.840 And that's super valuable when you're first starting out. 109 00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:07.440 And as you grow and you want to own more of the stack, they offer more of that. 110 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:12.800 And I think that's very much aligned with our strategy because we just believe that there will be more new entrants. 111 00:06:13.020 --> 00:06:19.120 And at the same time, there will be more people building their own custom versions of what used to be SaaS. 112 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:20.080 Right. 113 00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:21.980 Shopify, I like how you mentioned Shopify. 114 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:23.640 I really like the CEO there. 115 00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:25.600 He's been on top of emerging technologies. 116 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:26.900 He's great. 117 00:06:27.260 --> 00:06:28.820 I read his takes on AI. 118 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:29.720 Yeah, yeah, that's good. 119 00:06:29.860 --> 00:06:30.140 Good. 120 00:06:30.540 --> 00:06:31.000 Really solid. 121 00:06:31.980 --> 00:06:32.380 Cool. 122 00:06:32.760 --> 00:06:33.440 That's really cool. 123 00:06:33.740 --> 00:06:36.500 And given that it's, you know, Token2049. 124 00:06:36.820 --> 00:06:38.360 I don't know if you're at Korea Blockchain Week. 125 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:39.600 No, I wasn't. 126 00:06:40.620 --> 00:06:47.240 With curious what you guys are looking to do here or looking with your major milestone coming up. 127 00:06:47.420 --> 00:06:49.880 What's the next exciting thing for Agora? 128 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:56.640 Yeah, I mean, here is just like to get access to all the people that we don't get to see normally that are all over 129 00:06:56.640 --> 00:06:56.900 Asia. 130 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:59.300 I'd say that's like the biggest thing. 131 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:05.980 I also have an opportunity to speak on a few panels and talk about what we're doing and how the OCC charter really unlocks a 132 00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:09.320 Ton of products, not just for US people, but for our global customers. 133 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:10.240 Right. 134 00:07:10.200 --> 00:07:15.260 So US dollar bank accounts, crypto custody, all those things are now available globally. 135 00:07:15.440 --> 00:07:20.220 So a little bit of that, a little bit of just seeing everyone face to face, which we don't always get to. 136 00:07:20.300 --> 00:07:23.680 Before we dive deeper into Agora, there's been some exciting announcements. 137 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:29.720 A couple of weeks ago, I think you guys just announced or actually the OCC charter. 138 00:07:30.280 --> 00:07:30.680 Yeah. 139 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.760 Was announced by the US regulatory. 140 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:34.360 Yeah, yeah. 141 00:07:34.440 --> 00:07:34.680 The OCC. 142 00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:35.600 Oh, the OCC. 143 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:36.200 Yes. 144 00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:36.460 Yeah, yeah. 145 00:07:36.460 --> 00:07:36.960 For you guys. 146 00:07:37.740 --> 00:07:40.420 I think some of the audience might not know what that exactly means. 147 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:41.000 Yeah. 148 00:07:41.380 --> 00:07:45.600 And for you guys or the stablecoin industry, maybe you can explain. 149 00:07:45.960 --> 00:07:46.160 Absolutely. 150 00:07:46.460 --> 00:07:46.660 Yeah. 151 00:07:46.760 --> 00:07:50.440 So the OCC is the federal banking regulator for the United States. 152 00:07:51.260 --> 00:07:52.660 There's really two types of charters. 153 00:07:52.820 --> 00:07:55.460 There is a national trust bank charter, which is what we have. 154 00:07:55.920 --> 00:07:59.520 And then there is the full charter with depository institutions. 155 00:07:59.940 --> 00:08:03.100 I think our focus has always been B2B. 156 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:05.340 And as a result of that, 157 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:10.920 Having gone for the full charter, which is B2C and comes with a little bit of extra stuff. 158 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:16.360 But what this really unlocks for us is a few really important things that we've been hearing again and again from our customers. 159 00:08:17.140 --> 00:08:19.140 One, US dollar bank accounts, 160 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:25.400 Named US dollar bank accounts that sit side by side with your crypto accounts. 161 00:08:25.540 --> 00:08:30.300 They want the experience of, I log in, I say, send my money here and it happens. 162 00:08:30.440 --> 00:08:31.660 I don't have to think about the chain. 163 00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:33.620 I don't have to think about this or that or whatever. 164 00:08:35.340 --> 00:08:38.340 And then there's also some other fiduciary activities that it allows us to do. 165 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:43.920 So to the extent that people want to get access to treasury management, they've got a bunch of float. 166 00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:51.100 Obviously, if they use AUSD or their own stablecoin that we issue, they're earning intraday, while in motion and at rest by default. 167 00:08:51.700 --> 00:08:55.180 But if they want to go for something more than just the stablecoin revenue and yield, 168 00:08:56.040 --> 00:09:00.060 We can now offer them additional financial products to push that even a little bit higher. 169 00:09:00.540 --> 00:09:05.100 So it really unlocks the things that we've been hearing from our customers that they want. 170 00:09:05.820 --> 00:09:07.020 Also, third party payments. 171 00:09:07.900 --> 00:09:08.900 And we can always, 172 00:09:10.140 --> 00:09:15.060 It's interesting because there's certain services that there's multiple regulators in the United States. 173 00:09:15.260 --> 00:09:19.220 So the OCC is kind of like the core banking license, but then there's also the Federal Reserve. 174 00:09:19.600 --> 00:09:23.600 So if you want access to SWIFT and ACH, you actually have to go to them and ask for it. 175 00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:30.440 And so we'll probably offer that through a clearinghouse or a correspondent bank, which is pretty normal. 176 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:32.700 But over time, we can, you know, 177 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:35.480 We walk and then run. 178 00:09:35.700 --> 00:09:35.920 Wow. 179 00:09:36.180 --> 00:09:36.660 Oh, that's incredible. 180 00:09:36.880 --> 00:09:41.900 You guys would be the one of the first or the first stablecoin company to offer a U.S. 181 00:09:41.980 --> 00:09:42.660 Banking infrastructure. 182 00:09:43.180 --> 00:09:44.220 I think that's right. 183 00:09:44.420 --> 00:09:44.960 I think that's right. 184 00:09:45.380 --> 00:09:55.780 You know, we did believe always that starting with a stablecoin was more difficult, but worth it, and that ultimately yields would compress around stablecoins. 185 00:09:56.220 --> 00:09:57.160 It would be commoditized. 186 00:09:57.480 --> 00:10:02.900 And so over time, you use the stablecoin as a wedge to get distribution and to start. 187 00:10:03.380 --> 00:10:07.580 And then ultimately, it has to be synergistic with the rest of the products. 188 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:10.400 And I think that's what we're hoping to build. 189 00:10:10.900 --> 00:10:11.100 Nice. 190 00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:11.620 Super exciting. 191 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:12.300 Yeah. 192 00:10:12.500 --> 00:10:17.960 I think these are the core LEGO blocks, building blocks needed to make truly adoption truly happen. 193 00:10:18.420 --> 00:10:18.620 Yeah. 194 00:10:18.420 --> 00:10:19.020 Yeah, we're excited. 195 00:10:19.760 --> 00:10:27.420 So if the audience wants to learn more about Agora, if businesses want to integrate Agora, how can they learn more or get in touch 196 00:10:27.420 --> 00:10:27.860 With you? 197 00:10:27.860 --> 00:10:33.180 Follow us on Twitter @withAUSD and our website is agora.finance. 198 00:10:33.180 --> 00:10:35.360 We have a ton of information there and you can reach out to the sales team. 199 00:10:36.360 --> 00:10:37.600 [unclear] exclusive, so how to start it? 200 00:10:39.820 --> 00:10:42.580 We also have our doc site, which you can look at for our API and stuff. 201 00:10:42.780 --> 00:10:44.020 We will add the links below. 202 00:10:44.220 --> 00:10:44.420 Excellent. 203 00:10:44.880 --> 00:10:45.080 Love it. 204 00:10:45.340 --> 00:10:46.200 Well, thank you for hopping on. 205 00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:47.020 Thank you for having me.