How crypto mass adoption is happening through Web2.5

Sa. Hey, everyone, what's up? It's Rachel Wolfson here. Thanks again for joining us. For another AMA today, I'm joined by Josh Cal. He is the founding member and head of product at Exco. Hey, Josh, how's it going?

Yeah, it's going wonderful. Thanks, Rachel.

Yeah, thanks again for being here with us, Josh. Before we start, I want to remind the audience to please send your questions in the chat. Yeah, just jump right then, Josh. So I just want to, before we get started, more about X. How do you view the crypto landscape currently?

Yes. So it's a really interesting and exciting time for crypto and blockchain. If we rewind time a bit and just think how we got. We're kind of in the fourth. So, you know, without 2009, 2010, with your cipher functions, your coders, your programmers who basically designed electronic cash, we had a market cycle and then taking it from there, we had, let's call them, who are fighting for financial freedom. So the next use case for the technology saw that come and go. And then came 2017, which I'll call the speculatory bubble, which most of our audience is probably familiar with, and the fourth wave, where we're really looking at the global stage. So institutional interest is coming in and now is the time when, you know, if there's any businesses or people who want to come in and give something to the world, this is the best opportunity to establish something that will last great to the mass audiences. So, yes, we see institutions coming in, sort of replicating traditional finance structure. Forests are, I'd say, leaving the space. They were very interested when crypto was. Prices were. It's enticing for them when they're all losing money. And I'll come on to why this is why this is a bad thing in a moment. We've seen things such as NFTs or tokens. We had defi summer, earlier year. We've seen the metaverse kind of try to be hyped, but in my opinion, in a fad, we're not really ready for that yet. So it's a very good time for outfits to build real, tangible, proper, useful solutions whilst all this is happening and that the retail interest has suffered somewhat.

Right, yeah. And Josh, how long have you been in the crypto space? Just out of curiosity, because you've seen this evolution happen for quite a while now, right?

Yeah, I'd say so. So I got started in this 2009, 2010. So really, really at the outset of things with, you know, Satoshi and the bitcoin white paper. I mean my background is in mathematics and physics, but by education so I was a math scientist. By study I was interested in computer programming and to kind of go with a stereotype, played a lot of computer games and spent a lot of time on the Internet. So it's just a matter of time before blockchain and crypto came my way. So I've been let's say invested, invested in the space but I'm also a spokesperson with the technology and in parallel to that I've had just under a decade of finance experience. So I spent close to a decade in enterprise risk. So modeling for large banks, national banks, probability of default, modeling, looking at large books, working on, working in the regulatory space and advisory as well.

Yeah, let's talk about the Ethereum merge. Can you talk a little bit about how that's impacted the crypto ecosystem lately?

Yeah, okay, so arguably the most exciting thing that's happening in about seven years and what's better is it's, it's the first step five so you can go and you know, look up Vitalik Buterino, the founder of Ethereum and you can find out what the roadmap has. It's been a great first step in terms of esg, which is another big topic in you know, the physical world where we're all at the moment. So it's reduced the energy cost by about 99% in some statistics where that's saying actually the global energy consumption has reduced by, has reduced by 0.2% purely because this, because of this. But there is a flip side to it. Moving from proof of work, the existing, the previous consensus mechanism to proof of stake potentially opens up the protocol to hyper centralization which is capital basically being able to get more power into validating power for the Ethereum network. So I hope it doesn't steer that way. But that's something we really have to watch and be wary of with Ethereum. So it's a double edged sword I'd say.

Right? Definitely. Yeah, there are definitely advantages and disadvantages and we'll just have to see how that unfolds as we move forward. I'm going to take a few questions from the chat and just audience quick reminder, send those our way. Josh is here to answer them. So Ellie Millen is asking what is Web 2.5? Josh, maybe you can answer that question before we get into the next question that I have for you which is about Web3.

Yeah, fantastic. I mean a good question given the title of the talk. So hopefully what I over the next half now is, well, Web 2.5 should be XCO. The world isn't ready for Web 3. I won't go too much into what Web 3 is, but there's certain problems, there's certain rough edges with web3. The user experience, the barrier to entry, the knowledge a user has to have. There's a lot of responsibility on the end user, a lot of education. There needs to be a stepping stone. So a stepping stone from Web two, from traditional finance, that sits between that world and the Web3, fully decentralized world. So that involves a whole suite of solutions, products, a helping hand, essentially. And that's what you'll see with xco. We're bringing that to the world.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, Josh, we're hearing a lot of lot about Web3 right now. I mean, I was just at the Web3 Expo in Vegas yesterday, actually. I mean, do you think that Web3 is really just hype right now or do you see actual use cases evolving? You know, with this stepping stone being in place of web actually evolving?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the use cases do already exist. I mean, let's look at it from two perspectives, both from the builders and the end users from the builders. There are good projects out there. We have decentralized finance applications, we have logistics, supply chain, even looking at the ownership of things in games and profile pictures. Some will argue there's not much use case there. But these things are. They have web2 analogies and they really do have a large following behind them. The problem is, and linking back to an earlier question with what's the landscape like now? All these fantastic projects and protocols are afraid to release their offerings to the world with this bear market because. Because you could have the best product, the best offering, and no one will adopt it, so they're scared to release it. So I think we need a few more parallels from the Web2 universe. First, before Web3 will be truly adopted, a bit of a dip your toe in water and see things are safe enough before everyone gets fully enveloped in the space. But from the end user, we need more transparency, we need more protection. There are rug pulls, there are. You know, people don't know what they are signing when they interact with web3. They lose their assets that they get lost in interfaces. There are, you know, phishing scams all over the place, which we have in Web2 as well. It's just unfortunate that a lot of newcomers to the space do trip.

Yeah, definitely. I also think it's interesting that given the market being where it is today, there's still a lot of, it seems like there's a lot of investor interest in Web3 even though, you know, the prices of crypto are down. I mean Josh, what are your thoughts? Why do you think we're seeing Investor interest in Web3 given market conditions?

Here's the thing that now is the, now is the perfect time to build because when there is hype and interest in the market, users are demanding, you know, rapid product after product, everything has to work seamlessly. A lull in the storm. You know, if you think of the bull market in crypto it is hyper accelerated compared to traditional market. There really isn't much time down and build during those periods. I think, you know, the VCs are aware of this. There's a lot of lessons that have been learned in the previous waves. So the main set that's been sat on the side is ready to learn these lessons, build the products properly.

Definitely. Okay, on that note, I see that we've got some questions coming in about XCO and the platform. So I know that we have a clip before we start speaking about Exco. So how about we go ahead and roll that clip and then Josh will get into. Excellent.

Cool.

I love that clip. That's awesome. So Josh, let's follow up that. Yeah, let's talk about xco. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about the platform?

Yeah, sure. I want to speak a bit about the people first in terms of platform and products. A lot of the bread and butter has existed for a long time. Any team can go out there and partner with various businesses and out to put something together but really you need the right people at the helm. Up until today crypto's been a speculatory asset. We've just created a new asset class which people are trading. And nowhere in Satoshi's vision or the original ethos or principles of crypto was that there was supposed to use it as a system. So our founder is a founder and co founder of multiple large businesses you would know, held multiple C suite positions also in various crypto companies and he's had multiple exits and he really wanted to get back to the basics of this crypto ethos ahead of staking and yield. You know he worked at a large Neo bank where he spearheaded staking products, you know, offerings to millions of customers over Europe. And he led the go to market at a popular cold wallet business. And for millions of users to delegate their assets from a community background. I mean myself, I've been in this for 12 years. We have another Excellent gentleman I'm very privileged to work with who has a large background anti fraud data analytics which led to a curiosity and an engagement in this space six years ago. And he covers all aspects of tokenomics. DNFT has a bit four years of cryptocurrency community management experience and then from the operations and customer experience perspective we have a few people from large neo investment platforms as well as leading Tradfi financial service companies who have come together to basically stitch these building blocks. So there's a lot of companies out there. It's a very fragmented landscape. The bricks are available but no one's really acting as the mortar to join them together and have a complete solution that is consumable by the mass audience. And you know XCO is here to onboard the next hundred million users into crypto. That doesn't mean a spot margin futures, you know, a leveraged trading platform where people will become millionaires overnight or lose their money. They we need to go back to the principles go hey, what's your crypto identity? How do you exist in, in web 3, web 2.5 on the blockchain and then get your crypto then move your assets from, from web2, from TradFi, from fiat currencies. There's a step everyone's missing and we have three platforms coming out which offer something for different people because again the question of what's happening in the space if we revert to that question. Adoption is the biggest problem. It's not regulation, it's not mica, it's not scamming. Before you get any of that, you need people today. The current crypto adoption population is so small. If we as crypto businesses rely on that, we won't be here in five years, we won't be here in 10 years. And that may sound selfish, but let's think about it a step further. Crypto will also not exist if that happens. So it's in the best interest of crypto business. It's in the best interest of anyone who's on board with crypto and new financial system that you know, she had the vision for. We need to fix this. We need new users, we need them to understand the benefits and it's not becoming millionaire overnight. So what you'll see from from XCO is the joining of, of these piecemeal services. And, and I'll say another thing, you know, we're not overly proud that we have to build everything ourselves. We, we will and we do partner with experts in the space and, and we will build and have built the small pieces that we think are missing to join this stuff together. So what is xco? Well, who is XCO for? If you wear Nike trainers, if you use Amazon in the future, when you think of crypto, you will be using XCO or you should be using xco. Some people criticize it. If you're going after everyone in terms of target demographics, it's crazy. Well, that's not a strategy at all. But I mean, hear me out on this. With Nike trainers, you've got three types of users. You've got A, the users who have never run before, B, the users who have done some running and they want to upgrade, do it better. And then three, you have the experts, you have the pro athletes. Nike has something for everyone. Different tools for different people. So that's what we have. We have xco, XGO and xco. XGO is a mobile experience, XCO is a desktop experience that enhances a few more features, a bit more security over the mobile experience. And then Xcode plus is, if you're a true crypto native already or an absolute degen, that's where you'll go. And what people will have seen to date in our beta platform is XCO. You'll see in Q4 of this year is us taking a step back. Everyone's focused on NFTs, Web3, the newcomers, the masses, they're not ready for that. They can't use it. So we're bringing the bread and butter back to crypto with XCO and xco and that's what we'll bring to the masses.

Got it. Okay. Yeah, great explanation. Let's take some questions from the audience. Slymug is asking what are some of the incentives to traders for using this platform as opposed to more liquid exchanges?

Yeah, fantastic. I mean, straight away, look, I mean the focus is on how can we trade, what's the benefit for traders. XCO can do that. We have a trading platform, xco. The, the three of the, of the three products we have, that is the only product where you will see a bar chart, where you will see an order book that the previous two products that the more simple ones, they, they don't have that. And I mean in terms of liquidity won't be an issue. What people have seen in our beta stage has, has been, you know, to, to bootstrap our testing incentives. Well, our mission is to bring the benefits that institutions have in terms of rates, in terms of liquidity to retail traders. If we're focusing on traders, we will bring that to them. And then in Terms of tools, you'll have your spot, you'll have your margin, you'll have your futures. We're thinking about more sophisticated things, tailored portfolios that you can Invest in with one click. DeFi NFTs but we'll have all of that. Got it.

Okay, cool. I'm also going to take another question from Tom too. They're asking if I want to integrate, how can I get listed, etc. On XCO.

If you want to get integrated in terms of you have some technology, some service to provide for to people you know, reach out to relationsxco.com and we can have a conversation. We've got a fantastic tech team behind us who are helping us build all of these things. If you're talking about crypto tokens and projects, go to xcodo.com add token. There's a simple form you can reach out there. We just ask, are you a new layer one? Are you on an existing layer one? What's your project about? Are you listed anywhere else? A few simple questions. Our listings team will get back to you and we'll have a video conversation. So yeah, we want to bring a bit of human interaction and less automation to the process. You know, crypto can be a very alienating experience to some. You know, it's all don't trust, verify. XCO has some great people. We want to have a face to face conversation for, for any type of project.

Yeah, cool. Josh, I wanted to get your thoughts on the regulatory landscape of crypto and how EXCO views regulations. Maybe just chat a little bit about that and why regulations are important in your opinion or if they're not important.

Yeah, I mean, so crypto is intended to be this decentralized solution. I think the reality is if regulators want to come in and regulate and stop things from happening, they can do. There's not really much that can stop that. So companies like ourselves, we like to have open conversations with regulators and work with them, help them to understand this, you know, this space that in some sense is still in its infancy. I know we've been talking about this for 12 years. In terms of mass adoption, it hasn't really happened. I think Mica and Europe is going to hinder a lot of innovation in the space. The builders will move away from Europe. It's too much, too soon. I think it's been a bit too strong. But regulation does need to happen in a certain capacity, a certain level to protect end users. I mean, we've seen, I don't like to name names. We've had Various investment platforms and staking offerings where the yields were unobtainable and things fell apart. End users weren't protected. They need to understand with complete transparency what they're getting themselves into. People need to understand that the risk to reward once they understand that if they're still game, fine, go ahead. But if people are offered things with a false sense of safety and the regulation isn't there, things will go wrong.

Yeah, no, that's a great answer. I think I just wanted to get your take on it because we want mainstream adoption to happen and I think regulations are important in order for that to happen. Especially what we've seen recently with some exchanges going bankrupt. I think it can really turn turn people off, especially in the mainstream.

I mean. Yeah, that brings me on to another point about what the ecosystem will look like. We see a lot of other platforms where there's a bit of, I use the word gatekeeping happening, where it's a customer grab and a cash grab all in one. People want to bolt on every single product under the into one system in one interface. A. It's confusing as hell to any user coming into that. You know, newcomers to crypto don't know traditional finance trading screens, let alone, let alone crypto some crypto natives. We really need to take a step back in that sense.

Yeah, definitely. Thanks again for sending us your questions audience. I'll take another one from Sly Mug. They're asking are NFTs the best way for mainstream adoption?

I'll take my ex girl hat off for a second and bring back the Degen Persona which I do have. I live two parallel lives here. NFTs have been great. It's been a great use case to show and explain how non fungible tokens work in the fiat world. You have a coin that's minted. There are all the of sorts same but then banknotes all have a unique, a unique number on them. With, with NFTs you can say well with that unique serial number it could be any data whether it's a picture, it's your car's service record history, it's the supply chain of of your burger. We haven't really seen that be adopted in the way it was intended. I think art has its place but it'll be a fractional, a small fraction of the NFT use case. What I'm very excited about about is to see GameFi come back in a very big way. So there are a few people from from the web to gaming world who are putting the game first rather than the NFT First, I mean we've seen very successful NFT products. You know the bored apes that, the Azukis, all of these, you have your profile pictures, you have your NFT and I feel like the games and utility is being bolted on. They've been successful, they've raised a lot of money from the sales of the NFT themselves and from external funding but they're not game builders. So now we've got these, these web two people coming in, building the game. First there's new models in terms of the tokenomics of how the NFTs are used, you know, staking, burning, creating new ones, factory models. This is going to be very exciting. I mean let's not ignore gaming as a vehicle for any industry, let alone crypto to get exposure. You know, the next generation of our leaders probably played a lot more computer games than the current ones. So let's see what happens there. NFTs will be around.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. That's such a great answer. We've got time for maybe a few more questions. So MW is asking, do you offer a fiat on off ramp?

Yeah, important question. The answer is yes. You'll see that pretty soon. And what's important for us is to make the Fiat on ramp as accessible to as many people around the world. So you know what a lot of businesses will be doing is hey look, we have an on ramp but without getting too deep into it. In the world of payments, a lot of them are cross border payments. If you send fiat currency from one country to another is very expensive. So Exco has the, you know, the globe is our vision. We want to set up local, local banking, local regulation everywhere we can so that customers get onboarded to, you know, regulated safe environments from where they're from and they get the fiat on ramp rates from the local banking and that will all be stitched together under xco, one place where it's very simple to do. So we're removing a lot of the overhead that exists for these kind of systems. There's a lot of work that goes into this stuff. You don't just build a product, you don't just build a website. There's a lot of operations, there's a lot of work to be done in the background and we've been doing it for a long time and many of the people who have formed Exco have been doing this for close to a decade. So you're going to see a lot of this rollout very, very quickly once we put our foot on the gas pedal over the next quarter and the next year. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, that's exciting. It looks like we're about out of time. So, Josh, any final thoughts? But before we end our AMA today.

Just say, yeah, we do have a promotion on if you want to come and try xco, please do come give feedback. As good or bad as it may be. We want to take all the feedback on board. You can come and sign up and get a reward. Basically, we just want to make it beneficial for you to test our platform. We don't really want any cost on the end user. And yeah, don't be afraid to say hi. Reach out on social media, reach out to the EXCO team. SupportXgo.com if you need any help, RelationsXco.com, if you want to talk about partnerships or meet any members of the team. We're a friendly bunch. We're excited about what we're doing. We want to meet you all, come be part of the family.

Awesome. That's great. Josh, thanks so much again for your insights. Thanks again to the audience for sending us your questions. You guys have been great. Just want to remind everyone to please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We do these AMAs all the time with great people like Josh. Josh, thanks again. And yeah, I guess we are out of time. So we're going to sign off now and I'll see everyone next time.

Yep, have a great day. Goodbye, everyone.