World’s Leading Crypto Exchange Makes Big impact in Australia

Transcript

Nick Abrahams:

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I have joining me Leigh Travers, who is the CEO of Binance Australia. Leigh, welcome to the show.

Leigh Travers:

Thank you, Nick. Great to be here.

Nick Abrahams:

Well, now, I’m surprised you made it back, Leigh, because we just had the Australian Crypto Convention at the Gold Coast on the weekend, and you were faded like a rockstar up there with truly the crypto believers really loving everything that Binance had to offer. It was a great conference.

Leigh Travers:

It was. It was. It tells you how much of a brand Binance Australia has built up over here. Yeah. There was one stage about five-people deep queuing up, wanting to meet the team here, and see how Binance could get involved with their projects, to hear what new products we had coming out, and hear our view on the market. To see over 3,000 people there in the Gold Coast to talk about Web3 and crypto in what could hardly be described as a bullish market I think surprised everyone.

Nick Abrahams:

I think that’s right. It was remarkable. I think the fact that people are so committed to this, it was great to see. So thank you very much for making the time. Now, obviously, Binance is one of the best known brands in crypto in the world, but for those listeners who may not be super familiar with Binance, could you just give us a little bit of background? What does Binance do?

Leigh Travers:

Well, Binance has built the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem, which is headlined with our product suite that includes the world’s largest digital asset exchange. So, on many metrics, the Binance digital currency exchange is the largest in the world, and that’s been built up since 2017 and has been available to Australians since 2020. So, in a very short period of time, in Australia, Binance Australia has built up nearly a million customers.

Nick Abrahams:

Wow.

Leigh Travers:

So potentially one of the fastest growing tech or FinTech companies within the region. Since the last year that I’ve been here, the team’s grown 3X, and I think just beyond the digital asset exchange, the mission here is to become the infrastructure service provider in Web3. So far, so good.

Nick Abrahams:

That’s fantastic. God, those metrics are insane, aren’t they? So a million customers. Do you have a sense of the demographics behind that customer base?

Leigh Travers:

In Australia, yeah, it’s broad. So there is certainly a higher representation amongst the younger demographics, millennials and so forth, but we are seeing pretty strong growth in some of the older demographics too. It’s been, yeah, really interesting to see that. We have built some additional checks, some additional education in for what we’d consider is more of our vulnerable users, those that live in remote areas, disabilities, older age, et cetera, to make sure they know exactly what they’re doing. They’re not operating the account on behalf of somebody else, et cetera, and really trying to educate them, introduce them into the market quite sustainably.

Leigh Travers:

I think that has seen the move from crypto as being more of a fringe idea from technologists into something that’s becoming more mainstream, whether that’s part of a diversified investment portfolio or with the recent interest across NFTs, and then broadening that interest group for Web3. Yeah. Finance is really supporting all of that as the largest exchange.

Leigh Travers:

We’ve also got… We started, I should say, a blockchain that’s similar to Ethereum in the sense that it also offer offers a proof-of-stake network and has a smart contracting layer so that you’ve got applications being built on top of it. There’s mobile wallet that is somewhat similar to MetaMask, which is one of the largest Web3 products out there. Indeed, on the NFT side, it’s the largest centralized NFT marketplace. Most people are aware of OpenSea. Binance is arguably easy-to-use competitor to OpenSea.

Nick Abrahams:

So there are a lot of things that Binance offers. Maybe just to, I guess, clarify for some folks. So I guess a core proposition where I guess the business started if people wanted to buy some crypto, and they would come to Binance and just go through the normal AML/KYC process, and then they could just buy some crypto, and they could leave it on the Binance platform for custody or they could take it off?

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. Exactly. So the main business that I’m interested in, and I’m involved in and CEO of is Binance Australia. So we offer the conversion of Spot Crypto trading. So you deposit AUD instantly. No fees. Trade crypto with the lowest fees in the marketplace. You can store that crypto, your Bitcoin, Ether, BNB, et cetera on the platform or withdraw it all, and manage that or utilize that in the marketplace.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

So that’s something that we are registered with AUSTRAC for reporting and have recently broadened that in July of this year to include Derivatives. That’s Binance Australia Derivatives. I’m a director there of that business, and that’s really targeting that trader, the investor marketplace. I’m seeing that that market size over the next few years is around four and a half million in Australia.

Nick Abrahams:

Wow.

Leigh Travers:

which looking at who owns equities in Australia, close to 10 million, about a bit over nine. So 50% of that market size, investors, the traders, I think, would be interested across the Binance Australia, Spot Crypto, as well as Derivatives, but there’s a lot more products that we’ll be adding over the medium term, which will increase the utility of crypto. So that will be things like a Binance card where you can pay for goods and services with your card, zero cost foreign exchange when you go traveling, and rewards for using that card. It won’t be frequent flyer points that you can never use. There’ll actually be rewards in crypto, which is what our users want.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

So, yeah, increasing the market effectively for Binance Australia from just Spot Crypto into Derivatives, and then the utility of crypto is coming through with Binance card, Binance Pay as crypto become more ubiquitous throughout Australia and throughout payments. The other interesting product that we launched over the weekend at the Australian Crypto Convention was the Earn product, and that enables users to earn a return in crypto on their holdings.

Leigh Travers:

So rather than leaving your crypto held in your Spot Wallet, transfer it to the Earn Wallet, which means Binance can utilize that. For example, offering that to users that would like to margin trade globally, or for us to go earn a return on that through staking, and then in consideration to that, users will receive a return in crypto on their holdings. So it’s a great way to increase your crypto holdings in this current market without having to trade.

Nick Abrahams:

Great, and just on the Earn product, I mean, what’s the current interest rate and so forth that is being offered on Earn?

Leigh Travers:

So there’s a range of interest rates, particularly for the Australian launch that generally what I would call low to mid single-digit style returns in crypto.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

So commensurate with some of the staking returns that you’ve seen in the marketplace as well as some of the margin lending returns you may have seen globally. Certainly, none of the double-digit plus returns that you may have seen hit the market before other than, for example, maybe the first $2,000 as a user acquisition tool.

Nick Abrahams:

Right.

Leigh Travers:

I think much more sustainable.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

I feel that with Binance, it’s a platforms trusted by tens of millions globally, and there’s a genuine reason why users would be looking to get those where we’re able to utilize those assets to generate returns and can compensate users as well for that.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. No. It’s fantastic to see crypto turn the corner from being that asset that can’t generate income to now being able to generate income in ways that are more trustworthy. I guess I was always somewhat concerned around the idea of staking for 15% to 20% returns. That seemed difficult to understand the economic, so that sounds like a great opportunity.

Nick Abrahams:

One of the big issues that’s always come up and part of the problem or the overhang on crypto as it goes mainstream has been it’s a relatively clunky user experience to buy crypto in terms of… You had to figure out where to get it, which we now know. Obviously, Binance. You can get it there. But then, there was always that question as to, should you leave it on the exchange, or should you take it off and put it in some cold wallet, which obviously has… You have to have a certain degree of technical capability as well as a cold wallet, and then there’s always the risk that you could lose that wallet or lose your relevant password and so forth. What’s the situation, do you think, these days? What are you saying to customers in terms of leaving their crypto on your exchange? What’s the level of comfort that they can have with that?

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. So that’s something that has been a big consideration, as you mentioned. I’ve been in the market since 2014 and initially offering Bitcoin liquidity from a mining operation to exchanges. I’ve been in the position of Mt. Gox exchange when you lose access to your Bitcoin.

Nick Abrahams:

Okay. Right.

Leigh Travers:

Been in a position of lending coins to early startup style exchanges that hit financial difficulties and weren’t able to pay it back, and then had, within Australia, a product that was effectively ensured Bitcoin holdings for those that really wanted to delegate not having to hold their keys personally and manage the challenges with that, and they’re not wanting to use an exchange. Now, I’m in the position of operating as Australia’s largest crypto exchange over here.

Leigh Travers:

I think one of the benefits of seeing that transition and seeing all those different avenues is just that the strongest financial platforms have the most amount of experience with managing these assets, and the amount that this marketplace has learned over the last 10 years has been extraordinary. So the way in which the technology of custodying assets is now used at Binance is very different from what the early stage exchanges were doing, and that means that users can feel a lot more confident that their coins are safe. Binance has actually put aside, I think, originally around a billion dollars as a fund to protect users from exchange malfunctions, et cetera. That’s on the website.

Nick Abrahams:

Right.

Leigh Travers:

There’s also an institutional custody offering that’s licensed out of the European Region, European Union, and I think that’s another example where institutional players that would like to look at something which has that insurance offering can now come to Binance and secure that. But even with this market downturn, I can tell you Binance is financially strong. The way in which we’re able to custody with our technology is very, very strong, and I feel very comfortable advocating for users to hold their digital assets on Binance.

Nick Abrahams:

Great, great. No, that’s very helpful. You mentioned institutional services and so forth. So for those organizations that might be listening where they’re starting to think about crypto holdings, whether it’s balance sheet and so forth, I guess, A, what are you seeing in terms of the level of interest from institutions? Not necessarily born crypto institutions, but rather those that are more mainstream organizations. Is there more interest in how they might utilize crypto in their business or to hold on their balance sheet?

Leigh Travers:

I think the narrative around holding Bitcoin on balance sheet has somewhat subsided with the current market of increasing interest rates and moving away from effectively higher risk assets. So seeing less interest in major institutions coming to the Binance Australia team, for example, for that purpose. I would say though the account services that are available to institutions, whether that’s large institution, whether that’s corporate entities that are managed by individuals, self-managed super funds, that sort of administration service has increased marketedly from where it used to be.

Leigh Travers:

So we’re seeing a broad range of self-managed super funds with corporate entities that are onboarding on a daily basis with Binance Australia, and that is from a corporate account perspective. Australia is one of the top few countries globally, which is pretty interesting, and I think that’s because of… That self-managed Superfund system means that Australians can invest with their retirement accounts into Bitcoin, into crypto where it’s not so much possible overseas.

Leigh Travers:

I think the custody solution that’s available, that will be broadening out I think the fact that we’ve got a regulated derivatives offering that’s available for corporate institutions as well as self-managed super funds… sorry, as well as sophisticated investors. It gives it a very much broad appeal and is seen as something that is far more favorable, for example, than trading with an offshore derivatives platform that wouldn’t have those same requirements, hasn’t been through the considerations of offering products to Australians under that model, and just, yeah, broader of products that will appeal to more institutional investors are coming down the pipe as well.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So maybe talk a little bit about Binance Labs, and obviously, it’s been a very successful investment arm of Binance over the years investing in Axie Infinity, Sandbox, and even the Australian move-to-earn success story, StepN. Recently, closed a half a billion US dollar fund in June. So well into, I guess, this current market cycle. So still a lot of money and a lot of interest from other institutional investors to come in to that fund. Can you tell us a little bit about, I guess, how Binance Labs works? Also, what may be of interest to some listeners is what are they looking for, and how could an Australian company potentially pitch to Binance Labs?

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. For sure. So that $500 million fund that was closed early this year was fantastic, and Binance has begun deploying capital. It has been around, that, the lab’s business unit, for around three years. So it has a lot of experienced traditional management consultants, investment advisors, portfolio managers within that team as well as the obviously unique crypto expertise and experience.

Leigh Travers:

I met with the Labs Team just before the Australian Crypto Convention to see where there was a need for projects, and it’s clear that they are targeting those that bridge traditional finance with Web3 or traditional centralized platforms with decentralized ones. So whether that’s across metaverse or decentralized finance, that’s fine. As long as it’s bringing in mainstream into the marketplace, growing the overall size of the Web3 market, Binance is very much interested in investing into that space.

Leigh Travers:

I would say even hardware opportunities that support the metaverse, they’re open to and has made a lot of investments in that play-to-earn space following the success of Axie, but wallet security, digital identity. It’s a very, very broad focus. Happy to invest in both startups, scale-ups, and later stage opportunities. Yeah. It’s still early days, but yeah, a very active fund. Following the ACC, I’ll be putting together just a bit of a one-pager for how Australian founders can either get access to mentorship, partnership opportunities, or investment. So I think that was the number one thing that I heard coming from that conference.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. Fantastic. Now, you mentioned your NFT business and so forth. Just interested in a little bit more because NFTs have been curiously in my experience of… I’ve been trying to talk to big corporates about blockchain for several years now, and they’ve always really come from the same place which is, “Well, blockchain is really a solution in search of a problem,” and so very few organizations, big organizations at the enterprise level rolled any blockchain solutions.

Nick Abrahams:

Weirdly, now, it seems like NFTs are the beachhead within a number of big organizations or their first experience of blockchain as they roll out NFTs for loyalty or marketing and so forth. Just interested in your view more generally. It obviously come from a highly speculative basis with apes and so forth, but now we are seeing, literally, hundreds of the world’s biggest brands embrace NFT. So what’s your thoughts around the future of the NFT market?

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. I think, yeah, as you touched on just recently, we’ve seen Shopify and Starbucks look at NFTs to how they could offer them unique products, and experiences, and perks, get closer to the consumer, reward the consumer for working with them. We’ve seen some big brands, Adidas, Balenciaga, TAG Heuer, all looking at NFTs, looking at crypto payments. So I think, yeah, mainstream brands adopting NFTs blockchain. My personal perspective is I see the digital property rights that you’re able to get with NFTs as this major building block for Web3, and I think Australian creatives, artists, et cetera can then look to commercialize some of that that they’re building digitally on a global basis.

Leigh Travers:

Yes. We’ve seen OpenSea volumes, et cetera fall over 90%, and that speculative frenzy that we had in the market is over. So I think people should go back to building rather than trying to flip NFTs for a profit to the next person. So, hopefully, we see an increase in the quality and the use cases around NFTs. For Binance, the focus of the NFT marketplace is aggregating some of those high-quality projects across the BNB Chain and the F Chain, and showcasing what the world’s most popular NFTs are as well as making it easier for creatives to launch their products in the marketplace. So I think, yeah, both of those things are happening at the moment.

Leigh Travers:

On the building side, we’ve got brands that are very much interested. Consumers are still looking to support those brands that they support in Web2 or in the traditional marketplace, and I think it’s got a long wave to go. I also think that NFTs have really brought out another wave of consumers that previously didn’t really gravitate towards the investment side or the technology side of crypto, and I think it just, yeah, says that it’s such a unique, interesting industry that, yeah, I only expected to get larger and bring in more populations and industries going forward.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s such a profound opportunity, I think, the idea of owning a digital asset, which we just couldn’t do before. So the technology really does open up a lot of amazing opportunities, and we’ve had people from Penfolds talking about their wine NFT, and the good people from Australia Zoo talking about their NFT for its philanthropic endeavors and so forth. So it seems to be permeating. What’s interesting is that there’s a real pushback, I think, on that term “NFT” and that concept of digital collectible and is starting to take over. So I think we may well see that term fade into the background as people really start to focus more on, I guess, what is the utility of that digital asset rather than the “NFT” term.

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. I think that’s either the tokenization side if you’re looking at NFTs around investments or digital collectibles if they are those. I’m sure gaming will certainly come up with theirs. There’s been two sides to that, those within gaming that love NFTs and those that are immediately against them.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

So maybe each industry will have its own different lexicon for what digital assets on a blockchain look like.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s been interesting to watch gaming almost rip itself apart with the level of anxiety that both sides seem to have around that. Anyway, we’ll see all that come to fruition. I’m very interested. You mentioned your wallet offering, and MetaMask obviously has good market share in terms of being that NFT wallet. Just interested in talking about wallets more generally because what I’m seeing with clients, particularly from marketing departments, is this proposition that the NFT wallet represents this great new marketing potential. So we saw Clinique basically just airdrop a whole bunch of NFTs to a bunch of wallets that had another NFT, the non-fungible people NFTs. Clinique just airdropped some other NFTs to those people, and so do you see this world where your NFT wallet that will be your social passport a little bit, like what’s in your NFT wallet is as important as what’s in your Instagram account, and it will be as public?

Leigh Travers:

That’s a great question. I actually had a call with the founder this morning that was in that affiliate marketing space for wallet holders.

Nick Abrahams:

Right.

Leigh Travers:

So able to leverage those, wanting to incentivize those individuals behind wallets that had really interesting NFTs were more active. It’s a bit like if you reverse it, thinking about how you can work with some of the most popular influences based on what their images and videos are like on their accounts. So I would say there’s definitely a section of the marketplace that’s thinking exactly like that right now. We know there are tremendously high-value users, and then we know that NFTs, particularly some of those, have built up very strong communities. The ape follow ape example, where you’ll literally see people following others because of the way they hold a different NFT as much in the same way as you’ll see people that wear the same clothing will do similar things too.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. I can see that happening, but at the moment, how big is that marketplace? Maybe it’s only in the hundreds of thousands.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

So, yeah, focusing more on the really higher value users as a business case, but yeah, this market can move pretty quickly. So, yeah. Next adoption cycle, it might be what’s happening on your LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and your wallet.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

I don’t know.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. It throws up all sorts of interesting legal issues because, obviously, we’ve got a bunch of laws against direct marketing or not against, but covering direct marketing, and opt-in, and so forth. Once you flip that into thinking, what does it mean to market directly to a wallet that’s de-identified? There’s lots of interesting opportunities there, I think, for marketers, so.

Leigh Travers:

Yeah.

Nick Abrahams:

On the ID side of things, I know you’ve got a digital ID proposition as well. Maybe just hear a little bit more about that.

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. I think, firstly, digital ID is a way of de-anonymizing digital wallets.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

That’s huge. That’s something that regulators obviously want. That’s something that some brands, some businesses, some financial services companies that are in Web3 really want to get to. They want to understand that that wallet and that user has been through KYC/AML procedures and can do so on an ongoing basis. Something that I worked on in 2015 to 2017 around digital identity and financial identity, how you can take your financial identity with your cross-borders.

Leigh Travers:

Just in September this year, Binance has launched the BAB token, Binance Account Bound token, which is only available to users that are at Binance and have gone through a verified plus account. So it’s the KYC/AML plus your address verification. That means you’re able to participate into Web3 products that require those. It’s permission DeFi for those who have heard that term before.

Leigh Travers:

It’s certainly something that Binance has thought long and hard about. There is probably around a hundred million Binance users globally. It’s a pretty substantial marketplace that is on offer, and I think, yeah, digital IDs, wallets, et cetera are going to play a huge part in this marketplace. We’re trying to get rid of things like bots and really obviously trying to put as much effort as we can into stopping the bad actors operate in this market, and digital identity is really one of those. Interesting to see Binance release our first product into that market just this month.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. No, fantastic, and I was… In one of the sessions I was speaking at on the weekend at the conference, there was a lot of focus on the idea of anonymity, and I think lots of… well, a number of folks incorrectly assume that they can behave in a truly anonymous way on blockchains. There’s probably a small percentage of developers who are good enough to actually completely mask their IDs. But for most of the time, the ID can be discovered ultimately, particularly if you off ramp into Fiat at any stage.

Nick Abrahams:

I came up with a proposition which wasn’t super well-regarded, and I said, “I think if you’ve got a business model that is around attempting to subvert what governments want in terms of knowledge of who owns accounts and so forth, if you’ve got a business model that’s running up against that, I think it’s going to be a difficult business to be in long-term because I think governments have shown that they are very, very concerned from a public policy point of view around things being able to operate in a truly anonymous way.” So that’s why we see Binance and other exchanges are subject to AUSTRAC and so forth. Do you see a world where anonymity can exist, or is it effectively… Do you think the regulators are going to just make it too hard for those folks to operate?

Leigh Travers:

Well, I think, first and foremost, Binance Australia, particularly Derivatives is a regulated institution, and we cooperate with regulators. We work with regulators. We don’t offer any privacy tokens in Australia.

Nick Abrahams:

Right.

Leigh Travers:

So that’s something we have a hard and fast rule of is complying with that. I think from a privacy perspective, I think not having… Well, the ability to have private transactions from personal point of view I think is important. I do think as well that central bank digital currency will pose some challenges around that, around restrictions. I’ve seen things like, say, for example, you’re receiving government welfare, there’s only certain products you can then buy.

Nick Abrahams:

Yep.

Leigh Travers:

So it just shows that if there is too much control around that, there is a dystopian future that could potentially be an offer based on what the government thinks you’re able to buy and not buy at any given time. It’s a really hard balance to get, right? We obviously don’t want criminals operating, and building their enterprises, and operating on our platforms. That’s what we don’t want, but we also need to have some privacy for people and not to have a say in everything that people do and want to buy. So it’s a fine line. I don’t have the answer there.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. We certainly are compliant with all the requirements from regulators on that front.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah, and just on that. Obviously, there’s been a lot of talk over the last year, 18 months in Australia around specific, potentially specific regulation of cryptocurrencies, and exchanges, and tokens, and so forth. What’s your views on where that’s at and I guess where the current government is headed?

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. I think there’s two main things there. One is consumers would love to see more regulation so they can feel more protected and they could understand which exchanges are safer to use. Exchanges, particularly the ones that are looking to do the right thing like Binance Australia also want to be regulated. That’s because we’d love to get access to things like financial services with insurance that’s at a reasonable cost with high quality banking services, which are a real challenge at the moment. So we’re happy to get regulated, but we do need to see a regulation model that’s fit for purpose.

Leigh Travers:

So if we’re offering financial products like the Derivatives side, then the exchanges need to be operated and under financial services license. Where they’re not, I think there needs to be a fit-for-purpose regime. If you’re offering NFTs, my view is I don’t think they need to sit under the same financial services licenses, CommSec or an ASX platform, et cetera. So it’s pretty unique in the way that crypto assets operate, and I think that’s why it’s important to have the token mapping exercise so we understand which tokens or digital assets are offered, and then we can regulate the exchanges accordingly to which assets that they are operating.

Leigh Travers:

It has seen Australia miss out on some opportunities. I think, for example, when CommBank went to launch their pilot around crypto trading, they used Gemini Custody out of the US. The reason they did that is because the US has a license custody regime and Australia does not. So we’d obviously like to get an exchange licensing regime and a custody licensing regime, but I can see why the government would like to go first with the token mapping exercise that will include the industry, and that’s something that Binance Australia and myself were participating in. I think there’s even some meetings on that next week. So it’s moving ahead, and I think, yeah, over the medium term, having this process that is more drawn out, but has more consultation with industry is going to give a better outcome for both exchanges and consumers alike.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s a very measured approach. I think we’re all in agreement that some specific regulation would be quite helpful because we are definitely missing out on opportunities, and I certainly see it a lot when promoters and so forth come in with projects, and we talk about, “Well, there are other jurisdictions that might be more favorable.” So we see those projects just go offshore. So it would be good to have some certainty. I agree.

Nick Abrahams:

You’ve been very generous with your time. Just one final question. It really gets back to… So I think in this when talking about, well, cryptocurrency particularly, but Web3 to a degree and NFTs, it can be quite polarizing. There’s still a lot of uncertainty, and fear, and skepticism in the market, in the mainstream world around what digital assets actually mean, and their value, and so forth.

Nick Abrahams:

Now, I’ve told people that either you believe that in five years’ time, they will be worth nothing. In fact, they’re going to disappear, or you believe that in five years’ time, digital assets will be part of our landscape. That must dictate how you think about it. I’m just interested in your views. What does the world look like in digital assets in five years’ time?

Leigh Travers:

I think over the next few years, particularly with, say, the roadmap for some of the major blockchains, adding a lot more scalability, meaning a lot more transactions they’re capable of being an internet settlement layer and hosting internet native transactions is very, very positive for the growth of crypto and the growth of Web3 businesses. I think we’ve seen that problem statement come to fruition around the control of Web2 platforms like Facebook, and Instagram, and Google wooing too much control, too much insights into data that users being able to own that themselves over blockchains and transact on a global level is an inevitability.

Leigh Travers:

I think everything we’re seeing from a technology perspective is meeting those expectations. So we just need to ensure that the regulations don’t hit Australia in a way that we can’t compete on this global level. There’s certainly going to be a lot more utility for crypto coming with effectively having that as a payment means over Australia in the next 12 months, let alone the next three to five years. So I think we’re going to see a lot more growth. I think we’re going to see applications being able to build sustainably.

Leigh Travers:

I think some of those carbon concerns, carbon intensity of blockchains that put some Web3 companies off previously, they’ll be disappearing as well. So, yeah. I think we’re slowly ticking off the issues, the misconceptions, the technology risk that it’s, yeah, moving forward quite nicely. So I’m pretty happy with how Australia is looking in from a global perspective. I think we’re on a really good track towards Web3 integration, but the prices at the moment may not reflect that. So, yeah. Maybe there’s an opportunity there. I don’t know.

Nick Abrahams:

No, not providing any financial advice, but it is…

Leigh Travers:

Absolutely not.

Nick Abrahams:

Leigh, I mean, you’ve been around this space for almost a decade. You’re one of Australia’s leading lights in this world. Thank you very much for spending the time with us today. Thank you very much, Leigh Travers.

Leigh Travers:

Thank you, Nick. It’s been great to be here and talk everything crypto and Web3. Yeah, great to be at the conference over the weekend too. Just showing what those levels of interests are outside the internet.

Nick Abrahams:

It’s true. It’s true. Yeah, that’s true. It was slightly weird meeting all those people who you’d converse with on crypto Twitter, or LinkedIn, or wherever, and actually meeting them in person. It’s like, “Whoa. Hello.” So, yeah, not bad.

Leigh Travers:

Yeah. We’re going to do that more often, I think.

Nick Abrahams:

Exactly. Well, thank you very much, Leigh.

Leigh Travers:

Thanks, Nick.